LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 Mr. H. H. Kil iani
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 THE COMEDIE HUMAINE
 
 PIERRETTE AND HE HAD SKETCHED THEIR CHILDISH 
 DREAMS ON THE VEIL OF THE FUTURE.
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 THE CELIBATES 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 CLARA BELL 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE GEBBIE PUBLISHING Co., Ltd. 
 ij
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACK 
 
 PREFACE ix 
 
 THE CELIBATES: 
 
 I. PIERRETTE I 
 
 II. THE ABBE BIROTTEAU 1 59 
 
 COLONEL CHABERT 235 
 
 THE VENDETTA 307
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PIERRETTE AND HE HAD SKETCHED THEIR CHILDISH DREAMS 
 
 ON THE VEIL OF THE FUTURE (p. 52) . . . Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 " I HAVE BROUGHT YOU A COUSIN OF YOURS, AND HERE SHE 
 
 BE ;) 52 
 
 BATHILDE PUT HER PRETTY FOOT ON THE BAR OF THE 
 
 FENDER IO7 
 
 " THE MISCHIEF IS DONE, MADAME," SAID THE ABBE . . 224 
 
 LUCIEN TOOK HIS FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN BY THE ARM . . 310 
 
 Drawn by W. Boucher.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 "LES CELIBATAIRES " (The Celibates), the longest number 
 of the original " Comedie " under a single title, next to " Il- 
 lusions Perdues " (Lost Illusions), is not, like that book, con- 
 nected by any unity of story. Indeed, the general bond of 
 union is pretty weak; and though it is quite true that bache- 
 lors and old maids are the heroes and heroines of all three,* 
 it would be rather hard to establish any other bond of con- 
 nection, and it is rather unlikely that any one unprompted 
 would fix on this as a sufficient ground of partnership. 
 
 Two at least of the component parts, however, are of very 
 high excellence. I do not myself think that "Pierrette," 
 which opens the series, is quite the equal of its companions. 
 Written, as it was, for Countess Anna de Hanska, Balzac's 
 step-daughter of the future, while she was still very young, it 
 partakes necessarily of the rather elaborate artificiality of all 
 attempts to suit the young person, of French attempts in par- 
 ticular, and it may perhaps be said of Balzac's attempts most 
 of all. It belongs, in a way, to the Arcis series the series 
 which also includes the fine " Tenebreuse Affaire," and the 
 unfinished "Depute d' Arcis " but is not very closely con- 
 nected therewith. The picture of the actual "Celibates," the 
 brother and sister Rogron, with which it opens, is in one of 
 Balzac's best-known styles, and is executed with all his usual 
 mastery both of the minute and of the at least partially repul- 
 sive, showing also that strange knowledge of the bourgeois de 
 Paris which, somehow or other, he seems to have attained by 
 
 *The third part, "A Bachelor's Establishment," constitutes the title 
 story of another volume.
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 dint of unknown foregatherings in his ten years of apprentice- 
 ship. 
 
 The other and shorter constituent of the series, " The Abb6 
 Birotteau," is certainly on a higher level, and has attracted 
 the most magnificent eulogies from some of the novelist's 
 admirers. I think both Mr. Henry James and Mr. Wedmore 
 have singled out this little piece for detailed and elaborate 
 praise, and there is no doubt that it is a happy example of a 
 kind in which the author excelled. The opening, with its 
 evident but not obtruded remembrance of the old and well- 
 founded superstition derived from the universal belief in 
 some form of Nemesis that an extraordinary sense of happi- 
 ness, good-luck, or anything of the kind, is a precursor of 
 misfortune, and calls for some instant act of sacrifice or 
 humiliation, is very striking; and the working out of the ven- 
 geance of the goddess by the very ungoddess-like though 
 feminine hand of Mademoiselle Gamard has much that is 
 commendable. Nothing in its well-examplcd kind is better 
 touched off than the Listomere coterie, from the shrewdness 
 of Monsieur de Bourbonne to the selfishness of Madame de 
 Listomere. I do not know that the old maid herself cat, 
 and far worse than cat as she is is at all exaggerated, and 
 the sketch of the coveted appartement and its ill-fated mobilier 
 is about as good as it can be. And the battle between 
 Madame de Listomere and the Abbe Troubert, which has 
 served as a model for many similar things, has, if it has often 
 been equaled, not often been surpassed. 
 
 " The Abbe Birotteau " strikes some good judges as of ex- 
 ceptional character, while no one can refuse it merit in a high 
 degree. I should not, except for the opening, place it in the 
 very highest class of the "Com6die," but it is high beyond 
 all doubt in the second. 
 
 "Pierrette," which was earlier called "Pierrette Lorrain," 
 was issued in 1840, first in the Siecle, and then in volume 
 form, published by Souverain. In both issues it had nine
 
 PREFACE. xi 
 
 chapter or book divisions with headings. With the other 
 "Celibates" it entered the "Comedie" as a " Scene de la 
 Vie de Province " in 1843. 
 
 "The Abbe Birotteau" (which Balzac had at one time 
 intended to call by the name of the cure's enemy, and which 
 at first was simply called by the general title "Les Celiba- 
 taires") is much older than its companions, and appeared in 
 1832 in the " Scenes de la Vie Privee." It was soon properly 
 shifted to the "Vie de Province," and as such in due time 
 joined the "Comedie," bearing the title of "Le Cur6 de 
 Tours." 
 
 The short stories added to the volume are contemporaneous 
 in point of time, and for this reason have been placed in their 
 present position. " Colonel Chabert," which would well 
 have deserved a place in those "Scenes de la Vie Militaire," 
 so scantily represented in the "Comedie," has other attrac- 
 tions. It reminds us of Balzac's sojourn in the tents of Themis, 
 and of the knowledge that he brought therefrom ; it gives an 
 example of his affection for the idee fixe, for the man with a 
 mania ; and it is also no inconsiderable example of his nature. 
 
 "The Vendetta" ranked with the "Scenes de la Vie Pri- 
 vee " from their first edition, but had an earlier separate pub- 
 lication in part, for it is one of those stories which Balzac 
 originally divided into chapters and afterwards printed with- 
 out them. The first of these, which appeared in the Sil- 
 houette of April, 1830, was entitled "L'Atelier," and the 
 others were "La Desobeissance," " La Mariage," and "La 
 Chatiment." G. S.
 
 THE CELIBATES, 
 i. 
 
 PIERRETTE. 
 To Mademoiselle Anna de ffanska. 
 
 Dear Child : You, the joy of a whole house, you 
 whose white or rose-colored cape flutters in the 
 summer like a will-J -the-wisp through the arbors of 
 Wierzchownia, followed by the wistful eyes of your 
 father and mother how can I dedicate to you a 
 tale full of sadness ? But is it not well to tell you 
 of sorrows such as a girl so fondly loved as you are 
 will never know ? For some day your fair hands 
 may take them comfort. It is so difficult, Anna, to 
 find in the picture of our manners any incident worthy 
 to meet your eye, that an author has no choice ; but 
 perhaps you may discern how happy you are from 
 reading this tale, sent by 
 
 Your old friend, 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
 IN October, 1827, at break of day, a youth of about sixteen, 
 whose dress proclaimed him to be what modern phraseology 
 insolently calls a proletarian, was standing on a little square 
 in the lower part of the town of Provins. At this early hour 
 he could, without being observed, study the various houses 
 set round the piazza in an oblong square. The mills on the 
 streams of Provins were already at work. Their noise, 
 repeated by the echoes from the upper town, and harmonizing 
 with the sharp air and the clear freshness of the morning,
 
 2 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 bewrayed the perfect silence so complete that the clatter of 
 a diligence was audible still a league away on the high-road. 
 
 The two longer rows of houses, divided by an arched 
 avenue of lime trees, are artless in style, confessing the peace- 
 ful and circumscribed life of the townsfolk. In this part of 
 the town there are no signs of trade. At that time there was 
 hardly a carriage-gate suggesting the luxury of the rich or, 
 if there were, it rarely turned on its hinges excepting that 
 of Monsieur Martener, a doctor who was obliged to keep and 
 use a cab. Some of the fronts were graced by a long vine stem, 
 others with climbing roses growing up to the second floor, 
 and scenting the windows with their large scattered bunches 
 of flowers. One end of this square almost joins the High 
 Street of the lower town ; the other end is shut in by a street 
 parallel with the High Street, and the gardens beyond run down 
 to one of the two rivers that water the valley of Provins. 
 
 At this end, the quietest part of the piazza, the young 
 workman recognized the house that had been described to 
 him a front of white stone, scored with seams to represent 
 joints in the masonry, and windows with light iron balconies, 
 decorated with rosettes painted yellow, and closed with gray 
 Venetian shutters. Above this front a first floor and a 
 second floor only three attic windows pierce a slate-roof, and 
 on one of the gables twirls a brand-new weather-cock. This 
 modern weather-cock represents a sportsman aiming at a hare. 
 The front door is reached by three stone steps. On one side 
 of the door an end of leaden pipe spouts dirty water into a 
 little gutter, revealing the kitchen ; on the other, two windows, 
 carefully guarded by gray wooden shutters in which heart- 
 shaped holes are cut to admit a little light, seemed to our 
 youth to be those of the dining-room. In the basement 
 secured by the three steps, under each window is an air-open- 
 ing into the cellars, closed by painted iron shutters pierced 
 with holes in a pattern. Everything was then quite new. 
 An observer, looking at this house freshly repaired, its still
 
 PIERRETTE. 3 
 
 raw splendor contrasting with the antique aspect of all the 
 rest, would at once have seen in it the mean ideas and perfect 
 contentment of a retired tradesman. 
 
 The young fellow gazed at every detail with an expression 
 of pleasure mingled with sadness ; his eyes wandered from the 
 kitchen to the garret with a look that denoted meditation. 
 The pink gleams of sunshine showed in one of the attic win- 
 dows a cotton curtain which was wanting to the others. Then 
 the lad's face brightened completely ; he withdrew a few steps, 
 leaned his back against a lime tree, and sang, in the drawling 
 tones peculiar to the natives of the west, this ballad of Brit- 
 tany, published by Bruguiere, a composer to whom we owe 
 some charming airs. In Brittany the young swains of the 
 villages sing this song to newly-married couples on their 
 wedding-day : 
 
 " We come to wish you every happiness, 
 To tK maister at your side, 
 As well as to the bride. 
 
 " You, mistress bride, are bound for life and death, 
 With a bright golden chain, 
 That none may break in twain. 
 
 "Now you to fairs and junkets go no more ; 
 Nay, you must stay at home, 
 While we may dance and roam. 
 
 "And do you know how trusty you must be, 
 And faithful to your mate, 
 To love him rathe and late ? 
 
 "Then take this posy I have made for you. 
 Alack ! for happy hours 
 Must perish like these flowers" 
 
 This national air, as sweet as that arranged by Chateaubriand 
 to the words Ma sceur, te souvicnt-il encore ? sung in a little
 
 4 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 town of La Brie in Champagne, could not fail to arouse irre- 
 sistible memories in a native of Brittany, so faithfully does it 
 paint the manners, the simplicity, the scenery of that noble 
 old province. There is in it an intangible melancholy, caused 
 by the realities of life, which is deeply touching. And is not 
 this power to awaken a whole world of grave, sweet, sad 
 things by a familiar and often cheerful strain characteristic 
 of those popular airs which are the superstitions of music, if 
 we accept the word superstition as meaning what remains from 
 the ruin of nations, the flotsam left by revolutions ? 
 
 As he ended the first verse, the workman, who never took 
 his eyes off the curtain in the attic, saw no one astir. While 
 he was singing the second, it moved a little. As he sang 
 the words, "Take this posy," a young girl's face was seen. 
 A fair hand cautiously opened the window, and the girl 
 nodded to the wanderer as he ended with the melancholy 
 reflection contained in the two last lines : 
 
 " Alack ! for happy hours 
 Must perish like these flowers" 
 
 The lad suddenly took from under his jacket, and held up to 
 her, a golden-yellow spray of a flower very common in Brit- 
 tany, which he had picked no doubt in a field in La Brie, 
 where it is somewhat rare the flower of the furze. 
 
 " Why, is it you, Brigaut ? " said the girl in a low voice. 
 
 "Yes, Pierrette, yes. I am living in Paris; I am walking 
 about France ; but I might settle down here, since you are 
 here." 
 
 At this moment the window-fastening of the room on the 
 first floor, below Pierrette's, was heard to creak. The girl 
 showed the greatest alarm, and said to Brigaut, " Fly ! " 
 
 The young fellow jumped like a frog to a bend in the street, 
 round a mill, before entering the wider street that is the artery 
 of the lower town ; but in spite of his agility, his hobnailed
 
 PIERRETTE. 5 
 
 shoes, ringing on the paving-cobbles of Provins, made a noise 
 easily distinguished from the music of the mill, and heard by 
 the individual who opened the window. 
 
 This person was a woman. No man ever tears himself from 
 the delights of his morning slumbers to listen to a minstrel in a 
 round jacket. None but a maid is roused by a love song. And 
 this was a maid and an old maid. When she had thrown 
 open her shutters with the action of a bat, she looked about 
 her on all sides, and faintly heard Brigaut's steps as he made 
 his escape. Is there on earth anything more hideous than the 
 matutinal apparition of an ugly old maid at her window? Of 
 all the grotesque spectacles that are the amusement of travelers 
 as they go through little towns, is it not the most unpleasing ? 
 It is too depressing, too repulsive to be laughed at. 
 
 This particular old maid, whose ear was so keen, appeared 
 bereft of the artifices of all kinds that she used to improve 
 herself; she had no front of false hair, and no collar. Her 
 headgear was the frightful little caul of black sarsnet which 
 old women draw over their skull, showing beyond her night- 
 cap, which had been pushed aside in her sleep. This untidi- 
 ness gave her head the sinister appearance ascribed by painters 
 to witches. The temples, ears, and nape, scarcely concealed, 
 betrayed their withered leanness, the coarse wrinkles were con- 
 spicuous for a redness that did not charm the eye, and that 
 was thrown into relief by the comparative whiteness of a bed- 
 gown tied at the throat with twisted tapes. The gaps where 
 this bedgown fell open revealed a chest like that of some 
 old peasant-woman careless of her ugliness. The fleshless 
 arm might have been a stick covered with stuff. Seen at the 
 window, the lady appeared tall by reason of the strength and 
 breadth of her face, which reminded the spectator of the ex- 
 travagant size of some Swiss countenances. The chief char- 
 acteristic of the features, which presented a singular lack of 
 harmony, was a hardness of line, a harshness of coloring, and 
 a lack of feeling in the expression which would have filled a
 
 6 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 physiognomist with disgust. These peculiarities, visible now, 
 were habitually modified by a sort of business smile, and a 
 vulgar stupidity which aped good-nature so successfully that 
 the people among whom she lived might easily have supposed 
 her to be a kind woman. 
 
 She and her brother shared the ownership of this house. 
 The brother was sleeping so soundly in his room that the 
 opera-house orchestra would not have roused him ; and the 
 power of that orchestra is famous ! The old maid put her 
 head out of the window, and raised her eyes to that of the 
 attic eyes of a cold, pale blue, with short lashes set in lids 
 that were almost always swollen. She tried to see Pierrette ; 
 but recognizing the futility of the attempt, she withdrew into 
 her room with a movement not unlike that of a tortoise hiding 
 its head after putting it out of its shell. The shutters were 
 closed again, and the silence of the square was no more dis- 
 turbed but by peasants coming into the town, or early risers. 
 When there is an old maid in the house a watch-dog is not 
 needed ; not the smallest event occurs without her seeing it, 
 commenting on it, and deducing every possible consequence. 
 Thus this incident was destined to give rise to serious infer- 
 ences, and to be the opening of one of those obscure dramas 
 which are played out in the family, but which are none the 
 less terrible for being unseen if indeed the name of drama 
 may be applied to this tragedy of home-life. 
 
 Pierrette did not get into bed again. To her Brigaut's 
 arrival was an event of immense importance. During the 
 night the Eden of the wretched she escaped from the an- 
 noyances and fault-finding she had to endure all day. Like the 
 hero of some German or Russian ballad, to her sleep seemed 
 a happy life, and the day a bad dream. This morning, for 
 the first time in three years, she had had a happy waking. 
 The memories of infancy had sweetly sung their poetry to her 
 soul. She had heard the first verse in her dreams ; the sec- 
 ond had roused her with a start ; at the third she had doubted
 
 PIERRETTE. 7 
 
 the unfortunate are of the school of Saint Thomas ; at the 
 fourth verse, standing at her window, barefoot, and in her 
 shift, she had recognized Brigaut, the friend of her earlier 
 childhood. 
 
 Yes, that was indeed the short square jacket with quaint 
 little tails and pockets swinging just over the hips, the classical 
 blue-cloth jacket of the Breton ; the coarse-knit waistcoat, 
 the linen shirt buttoned with a golden heart, the wide-rolled 
 collar, the earrings, heavy shoes, trousers of blue drill, mot- 
 tled in streaks of lighter shades ; in short, all the humble and 
 durable items of a poor Breton's costume. The large white 
 horn buttons of the jacket and waistcoat had set Pierrette's 
 heart beating. At the sight of the branch of furze the tears 
 had started to her eyes ; then a spasm of terror clutched her 
 heart, crushing the flowers of remembrance that had blossomed 
 for a moment. It struck her that her cousin might have heard 
 her rise and go to the window. She knew the old woman, 
 and made the signal of alarm to Brigaut, which the poor boy 
 had hastened to obey without understanding it. Does not 
 this instinctive obedience betray one of those innocent and 
 mastering affections such as are to be seen once in an age, on 
 this earth where they bloom, like the aloe trees on Isola 
 Bella, but two or three times in a century. Any one seeing 
 Brigaut fly would have admired the artless heroism of a most 
 artless love. 
 
 Jacques Brigaut was worthy of Pierrette Lorrain, who was 
 now nearly fourteen two children ! Pierrette could not help 
 weeping as she saw him take to his heels with the terror 
 inspired by her warning gesture. 
 
 She then sat down in a rickety armchair, in front of a 
 looking-glass above a little table. On this she set her elbows, 
 and remained pensive for an hour, trying to recall Le Marais, 
 the hamlet of Pen-Hoel, the adventurous voyages on a pond 
 in a boat untied from an old willow tree by little Jacques ; 
 then the old faces her grandmother and grandfather, her
 
 8 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 mother's look of suffering, and General Brigaut's handsome 
 head ; a whole childhood of careless joy ! And this again 
 was a dream the lights of happiness against a gray back- 
 ground. 
 
 She had fine light-brown hair, all in disorder, under a little 
 nightcap tumbled in her sleep, a little cambric cap with frills 
 that she herself had made. On each side curls fell over her 
 temples, escaping from their gray papers. At the back of her 
 head a thick plait hung down to her shoulders. The exces- 
 sive pallor of her face showed that she was a victim to a girlish 
 ailment to which medical science gives the pretty name of 
 chlorosis, which robs the blood of its natural hue, disturbing 
 the appetite, and betraying much disorderment of the whole 
 system. This waxen hue was apparent in all the flesh-tints. 
 The whiteness of her neck and shoulders, the colorlessness of 
 an etiolated plant, accounted for the thinness of her arms 
 crossed in front of her. Pierrette's feet even looked weak and 
 shrunken by disease; her shift, falling only to her calf, showed 
 the relaxed sinews, blue veins, and bloodless muscles. As 
 the cold air chilled her, her lips turned purple. The mourn- 
 ful smile that parted her fairly delicate mouth showed teeth 
 of ivory whiteness, even and small, pretty transparent teeth, 
 in harmony with well-shaped ears and a nose that was elegant, 
 if a little sharp; her face, though perfectly round, was very 
 sweet. All the life of this charming countenance lay in the 
 eyes ; the iris, of a bright snuff-brown mottled with black, 
 shone with golden lights round a deep bright retina. Pier- 
 rette ought to have been gay; she was sad. Her vanished 
 gaiety lingered in the vivid modeling of her eyes, in the in- 
 genuous form of her brow, and the moulding of her short chin. 
 The long eyelashes lay like brushes on the cheeks worn by 
 debility ; the whiteness, too lavishly diffused, gave great 
 purity to the lines and features of her countenance. The ear 
 was a little masterpiece of modeling ; it might have been of 
 marble.
 
 PIERRETTE. 9 
 
 Pierrette suffered in many ways. Perhaps you would like 
 to have her story ? Here it is. 
 
 Pierrette's mother was a Demoiselle Auffray of Provins, half- 
 sister to Madame Rogron, the mother of the present owners 
 of this house. Monsieur Auffray, after marrying for the first 
 time at the age of eighteen, took a second wife at the age of 
 sixty-nine. The child of his first marriage was an only 
 daughter, ugly enough, who, when she was sixteen, married 
 an innkeeper of Provins named Rogron. By his second mar- 
 riage old Auffray had another daughter, but she was very 
 pretty. Thus the quaint result was an enormous difference in 
 age between Monsieur Auffray's two daughters. The child of 
 his first wife was fifty when the second was born. By the 
 time her father gave her a sister Madame Rogron had two 
 children of her own, both of full age. 
 
 The uxorious old man's younger child was married for 
 love, at eighteen, to a Breton officer named Lorrain, a captain 
 in the Imperial Guard. Love often begets ambition. The 
 captain, eager to get his colonelcy, exchanged into the line. 
 While the major and his wife, comfortable enough with the 
 allowance given them by Monsieur and Madame Auffray, were 
 living handsomely in Paris, or running about Germany as the 
 Emperor's wars or truces might guide them, old Auffray, a 
 retired grocer at Provins, died suddenly, before he had time 
 to make his will. The good man's estate was so cleverly 
 manipulated by the innkeeper and his wife that they absorbed 
 the larger part of it, leaving to old Auffray's widow no more 
 than the house in the little square and a few acres of land. 
 This widow, little Madame Lorrain's mother, was but eight- 
 and-thirty when her husband died. Like many other widows, 
 she had an unwholesome wish to marry again. She sold to 
 her stepdaughter, old Madame Rogron, the land and house 
 she had inherited under her marriage settlement, to marry a 
 young doctor named Neraud, who ran through her fortune, 
 and she died of grief in great poverty two years afterwards.
 
 10 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Thus Madame Lorrain's share of the Auffray property had 
 in great part disappeared, being reduced to about eight thou- 
 sand francs. 
 
 Major Lorrain died on the field of honor at Montereau, 
 leaving his widow, then one-and-twenty, burthened with a 
 little girl fourteen months old, and with no fortune but the 
 pension she could claim from the government, and whatever 
 money might come to her from Monsieur and Madame Lor- 
 rain, tradespeople at Pen-Hoel, a town of La Vendee, in the 
 district known as Le Marais. These Lorrains, the parents of 
 the deceased officer, and Pierrette's paternal grandfather and 
 grandmother, sold building-timber, slates, tiles, cornices, 
 pipes, and the like. Their business was a poor one, either 
 from their incapacity or from ill luck, and brought them in a 
 bare living. The failure of the great house of Colinet at 
 Nantes, brought about by the events of 1814, which caused a 
 sudden fall in the price of colonial produce, resulted in a loss 
 to them of eighty thousand francs they had placed on deposit. 
 Their daughter-in-law was therefore warmly received ; the 
 major's widow brought with her a pension of eight hundred 
 francs, an enormous sum at Pen-Hoel. When her half-sister 
 and brother-in-law Rogron sent her the eight thousand francs 
 due to her, after endless formalities, prolonged by distance, 
 she placed the money in the Lorrain's hands, taking a mort- 
 gage, however, on a little house they owned at Nantes, let for 
 a hundred crowns a year, and worth, perhaps, ten thousand 
 francs. 
 
 Young Madame Lorrain died there after her mother's 
 second and luckless marriage, in 1819, and almost at the same 
 time as her mother. This daughter of the old man and his 
 young wife was small, fragile, and delicate ; the damp air of Le 
 Marais did not agree with her. Her husband's family, eager 
 to keep her there, persuaded her that nowhere else in the 
 world would she find a place healthier or pleasanter than Le 
 Marais, the scene of Charette's exploits. She was so well
 
 PIERRETTE. 11 
 
 taken care of, nursed, and coaxed that her death brought 
 honor to the Lorrains. 
 
 Some persons asserted that Brigaut, an old Vendeen, one 
 of those men of iron who served under Charette, Mercier, 
 the Marquis de Montauran, and the Baron du Guenic in the 
 wars against the Republic, counted for much in young Madame 
 Lorrain's submission. If this were so, it was certainly for the 
 sake of a most loving and devoted soul. And, indeed, all 
 Pen-Hoel could see that Brigaut, respectfully designated as 
 the major having held that rank in the Royalist army 
 spent his days and his evenings in the Lorrains' sitting-room 
 by the side of the Emperor's major's widow. Towards the 
 end the cure of Pen-Hoel allowed himself to speak of this 
 matter to old Madame Lorrain ; he begged her to persuade 
 her daughter-in-law to marry Brigaut, promising to get him an 
 appointment as justice of the peace to the district of Pen- 
 Hoel, by the intervention of the Vicomte de Kergarouet. 
 But the poor woman's death made the scheme useless. 
 
 Pierrette remained with her grandparents, who owed her 
 four hundred francs a year, naturally spent on her mainte- 
 nance. The old people, now less and less fit for business, had 
 an active and pushing rival in trade, whom they could only 
 abuse, without doing anything to protect themselves. The 
 major, their friend and adviser, died six months after young 
 Madame Lorrain, perhaps of grief, or perhaps of his wounds ; 
 he had had seven-and-twenty. Their bad neighbor, as a good 
 man of business, now aimed at ruining his rivals, so as to 
 extinguish all competition. He got the Lorrains to borrow 
 on their note of hand, foreseeing that they could never pay, 
 and so forced them in their old age to become bankrupt. 
 Pierrette's mortgage was second to a mortgage held by her 
 grandmother, who clung to her rights to secure a morsel 
 of bread for her husband. The house at Nantes was sold for 
 nine thousand five hundred francs, and the costs came to 
 fifteen hundred francs. The remaining eight thousand francs
 
 12 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 came to Madame Lorrain, who invested them in a mortgage 
 in order to live at Nantes in a sort of almshouse, like that of 
 Sainte-Perine in Paris, called Saint-Jacques, where the two 
 worthy old people found food and lodging at a very moderate 
 rate. 
 
 As it was impossible that they should take with them their 
 little destitute grandchild, the old Lorrains bethought them 
 of her uncle and aunt Rogron, to whom they wrote. The 
 Rogrons of Provins were dead. Thus the letter from the 
 Lorrains to the Rogrons would seem to be lost. But if there 
 is anything here below which can take the place of Provi- 
 dence, is it not the General Postoffice ? The genius of the 
 post, immeasurably superior to that of the public, outdoes in 
 inventiveness the imagination of the most brilliant novelist. 
 As soon as the post has charge of a letter, worth, on delivery, 
 from three to ten sous, if it fails at once to find him or her 
 to whom it should be delivered, it displays a mercenary solic- 
 itude which has no parallel but in the boldest duns. The 
 post comes, goes, hunts through the eighty-six departments. 
 Difficulties incite the genius of its officials, who, not unfre- 
 quently, are men of letters, and who then throw themselves 
 into the pursuit with the ardor of the mathematicians at the 
 National Observatory ; they rummage the kingdom. At the 
 faintest gleam of hope the Paris offices are on the alert again. 
 You often sit amazed as you inspect the scrawls that meander 
 over the letter, back and front the glorious evidence of the 
 administrative perseverance that animates the postoffice. If 
 a man were to undertake what the post has accomplished, 
 he would have spent ten thousand francs in traveling, in time 
 and in money, to recover twelve sous. The post certainly 
 has more intelligence than it conveys. 
 
 The letter written by the Lorrains to Monsieur Rogron, 
 who had been dead a year, was transmitted by the post to 
 Monsieur Rogron, his son, a haberdasher in the Rue Saint- 
 Denis, Paris. This is where the genius of the postoffice
 
 PIERRETTE. 13 
 
 shines. An heir is always more or less puzzled to know 
 whether he has really scraped up the whole of his inheritance, 
 whether he has not forgotten some debt or some fragments. 
 The Revenue guesses everything; it even reads character. 
 A letter addressed to old Rogron of Provins was bound to 
 pique the curiosity of Rogron, junior, of Paris, or of Made- 
 moiselle Rogron, his heirs. So the Revenue earned its sixty 
 centimes. 
 
 The Rogron s, towards whom the Lorrains held out be- 
 seeching hands, though they were in despair at having to part 
 from their granddaughter, thus became the arbiters of Pier- 
 rette Lorrain's fate. It is indispensable, therefore, to give 
 some account of their antecedents and their character. 
 
 Old Rogron, the innkeeper at Provins, on whom Old Auf- 
 fray had bestowed the child of his first marriage, was hot- 
 faced, with a purple-veined nose, and cheeks which Bacchus 
 had overlaid with his crimson and bulbous blossoms. Though 
 stout, short, and pot-bellied, with stumpy legs and heavy 
 hands, he had all the shrewdness of the Swiss innkeeper, re- 
 sembling that race. His face remotely suggested a vast hail- 
 stricken vineyard. Certainly he was not handsome ; but his 
 wife was like him. Never were a better matched couple. 
 Rogron liked good living, and to have pretty girls to wait on 
 him. He was one of the sect of egoists whose ways are 
 brutal, and who give themselves up to their vices and do their 
 will in the face of Israel. Greedy, mercenary, and by no 
 means refined, obliged to be the purveyor to his own fancies, 
 he ate up all he earned till his teeth failed him. Then avarice 
 remained. In his old age he sold his inn, collected, as we 
 have seen, all his father-in-law's leavings, and retired to the 
 little house in the square, which he bought for a piece of 
 bread from old Auffray's widow, Pierrette's grandmother. 
 
 Rogron and his wife owned about two thousand francs a 
 year, derived from the letting of twenty-seven plots of land 
 in the neighborhood of Provins, and the interest on the price
 
 14 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 of their inn, which they had sold for twenty thousand francs. 
 Old Auffray's house, though in a very bad state, was used as 
 it was for a dwelling by the innkeepers, who avoided repair- 
 ing it as they would have shunned the plague ; old rats love 
 cracks and ruins. The retired publican, taking a fancy for 
 gardening, spent his savings in adding to his garden; he 
 extended it to the bank of the river, making a long square 
 shut in by two walls, and ending with a stone embankment, 
 below which the water plants, left to run wild, displayed their 
 abundant flowers. 
 
 Early in their married life the Rogron couple had a son 
 and a daughter, with two years between them; everything 
 degenerates ; their children were hideous. Put out to nurse 
 in the country as cheaply as possible, these unhappy little 
 ones came home with the wretched training of village life, 
 having cried long and often for their foster-mother, who went 
 to work in the fields, and who left them meanwhile shut up 
 in one of the dark, damp, low rooms which form the dwelling 
 of the French peasant. By this process the children's features 
 grew thick, and their voices harsh ; they were far from flat- 
 tering their mother's vanity, and she tried to correct them of 
 their bad habits by a severity which, by comparison with their 
 father's, seemed tenderness itself. They were left to play in 
 the yards, stables, and outhouses of the inn, or to run about 
 the town ; they were sometimes whipped ; sometimes they 
 were sent to their grandfather Auffray, who loved them little. 
 This injustice was one of the reasons that encouraged the 
 Rogrons to secure a large share of the "old rascal's" leav- 
 ings. Meanwhile, however, Rogron sent his boy to school ; 
 and he paid a man, one of his carters, to save the lad from 
 the conscription. As soon as his daughter Sylvie was twelve 
 years old, he sent her to Paris as an apprentice in a house of 
 business. Two years later, his son, Jerome-Denis, was packed 
 off by the same road. When his friends the carriers, who 
 were his allies, or the inn customers asked him what he meant
 
 PIERRETTE. 15 
 
 to do with his children, old Rogron explained his plans with 
 a brevity which had this advantage over the statements of 
 most fathers, that it was frank 
 
 " When they are of an age to understand me, I shall just 
 give them a kick you know where, saying, ' Be off and make 
 your fortune,' " he would reply, as he drank, or wiped his 
 mouth with the back of his hand. Then looking at the in- 
 quirer with a knowing wink, "Ha, ha!" he would add, 
 " they are not greater fools than I am. My father gave me 
 three kicks, I shall give them but one. He put a louis into 
 my hand, I will give them ten ; so they will be better off 
 than I was. That's the right way. And after I am gone, 
 what is left will be left ; the notaries will find them fast 
 enough. A pretty joke, indeed, if I am to keep myself short 
 for the children's sake ! They owe their being to me ; I have 
 brought them up ; I ask nothing of them ; they have not paid 
 me back, heh, neighbor? I began life as a carter, and that 
 did not hinder me from marrying that old rascal Auffray's 
 daughter." 
 
 Sylvie was placed as an apprentice, with a premium of a 
 hundred crowns for her board, with some tradespeople in the 
 Rue Saint-Denis, natives of Provins. Two years later she 
 was paying her way; though she earned no money, her 
 parents had nothing to pay for her food and lodging. This, 
 in the Rue Saint-Denis, is called being "at par." Two years 
 later Sylvie was earning a hundred crowns a year. In the 
 course of that time her mother had sent her a hundred francs 
 for pocket-money. Thus, at the age of nineteen, Mademoi- 
 selle Sylvie Rogron was independent. When she was twenty, 
 she was second " young lady " in the house of Julliard, raw- 
 silk merchants, at the sign of the Ver chinois (or Silkworm), 
 in the Rue Saint-Denis. 
 
 The history of the brother was like the sister's. Little 
 Jerome-Denis Rogron was placed with one of the largest 
 wholesale mercers in the Rue Saint-Denis, the Maison Gutpin
 
 16 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 at the Trots Quenouilles. While Sylvie, at twenty-one, was 
 forewoman with a thousand francs a year, Jerome-Denis, 
 better served by luck, was, at eighteen, head store-clerk, earn- 
 ing twelve hundred, with the Guepins, also natives of Provins. 
 The brother and sister met every Sunday and holiday, and 
 spent the day in cheap amusements. They dined outside 
 Paris ; they went to St. Cloud, Meudon, Belleville, or Vin- 
 cennes. 
 
 At the end of 1815 they united the money they had earned 
 by the sweat of their brow, and bought of Madame Guenee 
 the business and good-will of a famous house, the Soeur dc 
 famille, one of the best-known retail haberdashers. The 
 sister kept the cash, the store, and the accounts; the brother 
 was both buyer and head-clerk, as Sylvie was for some time 
 her own forewoman. In 1821, after five years' hard work, 
 competition had become so lively in the haberdashery busi- 
 ness that the brother and sister had scarcely been able to pay 
 off the purchase-money and keep up the reputation of the 
 house. 
 
 Though Sylvie Rogron was at this time but forty, her ugli- 
 ness, her constant toil, and a peculiarly crabbed expression, 
 arising as much from the shape of her features as from her 
 anxieties, made her look like a woman of fifty. Jerome- 
 Denis Rogron, at the age of thirty-eight, had the most idiotic 
 face that ever bent over a counter to a customer. His low 
 forehead, crushed by fatigue, was seamed by three arid fur- 
 rows. His scanty gray hair, cut very short, suggested the 
 unutterable stupidity of a cold-blooded animal ; in the gaze 
 of his blue-gray eyes there was neither fire nor mind. His 
 round, flat face aroused no sympathy, and did not even bring 
 a smile to the lips of those who study the varieties of Parisian 
 physiognomy ; it was depressing. And while, like his father, 
 he was short and thick, his shape, not having the coarse 
 obesity of the innkeeper, showed in every detail an absurd 
 flabbiness. His father's excessive redness gave place in him
 
 PIERRETTE. 17 
 
 to the flaccid lividness acquired by people who live in airless 
 backstores, in the barred coops that serve as counting-houses, 
 always folding and unfolding skeins of thread, paying or re- 
 ceiving money, harrying clerks, or repeating the same phrases 
 to customers. The small intelligence of this brother and 
 sister had been completely sunk in mastering their business, 
 in debit and credit, and in the study of the rules and customs 
 of the Paris market. Thread, needles, ribbon, pins, buttons, 
 tailors' trimmings, in short, the vast list of articles constitu- 
 ting Paris haberdashery, had filled up their memory. Letters 
 to write and answer, bills and stock-taking, had absorbed all 
 their capabilities. 
 
 Outside their line of business they knew absolutely noth- 
 ing ; they did not even know Paris. To them Paris was 
 something spread out round the Rue Saint-Denis. Their 
 narrow nature found its field in their store. They knew very 
 well how to nag their assistants and shop-girls and find them 
 at fault. Their joy consisted in seeing all their hands as busy 
 on the counters as mice's paws, handling the goods or fold- 
 ing up the pieces. When they heard seven or eight young 
 voices of lads and girls simpering out the time-honored 
 phrases with which shop-assistants reply to a customer's re- 
 marks, it was a fine day, nice weather. When ethereal blue 
 brought life to Paris, and Parisians out walking thought of no 
 haberdashery but what they wore, " Bad weather for busi- 
 ness," the silly master would observe. The great secret, 
 which made Rogron the object of his apprentices' admira- 
 tion was his art in tying, untying, re-tying, and making up a 
 parcel. Rogron could pack a parcel and look out at what 
 was going on in the street, or keep an eye on his store to its 
 farther depths ; he had seen everything by the time he handed 
 it to the buyer, saying, " Madame nothing more this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 But for his sister, this simpleton would have been ruined. 
 Sylvie had good sense and the spirit of trade. She advised 
 2
 
 18 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 her brother as to his purchases from the manufacturers, and 
 relentlessly sent him off to the other end of France to make a 
 sou of profit on some article. The shrewdness, of which 
 every woman possesses more or less, having no duty to do for 
 her heart, she had utilized it in speculation. Stock to be 
 paid for ! this thought was the piston that worked this 
 machine and gave it appalling energy. Rogron was never 
 more than head-assistant ; he did not understand his business 
 as a whole ; personal interest, the chief motor of the mind, 
 had not carried him forward one step. He often stood dis- 
 mayed when his sister desired him to sell some article at a 
 loss, foreseeing that it would go out of the fashion ; and 
 afterwards he guilelessly admired her. He did not reason 
 well or ill ; he was incapable of reasoning ; but he had sense 
 enough to submit to his sister, and he did so for a reason that 
 had nothing to do with business. "She is the eldest," he 
 would say. Physiologists and moralists may possibly find in 
 such a persistently solitary life, reduced to satisfy mere needs, 
 and deprived of money and pleasure in youth, an explana- 
 tion of the animal expression of face, the weak brain, and 
 idiotic manner of this haberdasher. His sister had always 
 hindered his marrying, fearing perhaps that she might lose 
 her influence in the house, and seeing a source of expense 
 and ruin in a wife certainly younger, and probably less hide- 
 ous, than herself. 
 
 Stupidity may betray itself in two ways it is talkative or 
 it is mute. Mute stupidity may be endured ; but Rogron's 
 was talkative. The tradesman had fallen into the habit of 
 scolding his assistants, of expatiating to them on the minutiae 
 of the haberdashery business and selling to "the trade," 
 ornamenting his lectures with the flat jokes that constitute 
 the bagout, the gab of the store. (This word bagout, used 
 formerly to designate the stereotyped repartee, has given way 
 before the soldier's slang word blague or humbug.) Rogron, 
 to whom his little domestic audience was bound to listen;
 
 PIERRETTE. 19 
 
 Rogron, very much pleased with himself, had finally adopted 
 a set of phrases of his own. The chatterbox believed himself 
 eloquent. The need for explaining to customers the thing 
 they want, for finding out their wishes, for making them want 
 the thing they do not want, loosens the tongue of the counter- 
 jumper. The retail dealer at last acquires the faculty of 
 pouring out sentences in which words have no meaning, but 
 which answer their purpose. Then he can explain to his cus- 
 tomers methods of manufacture unknown to them, and this 
 gives him a sort of short-lived superiority over the purchaser ; 
 but apart from the thousand and one explanations necessitated 
 by the thousand and one articles he sells, he is, so far as 
 thought is concerned, like a fish on straw in the sunshine. 
 
 Rogron and Sylvie a pair of machines illicitly baptized 
 had neither potentially nor actively the feelings which give 
 life to the heart. These two beings were utterly dry and 
 tough, hardened by toil, by privations, by the remembrance 
 of their sufferings during a long and wearisome apprentice- 
 ship. Neither he nor she had pity for any misfortune. They 
 were not implacable, but impenetrable with regard to anybody 
 in difficulties. To them virtue, honor, loyalty, every human 
 feeling was epitomized in the regular payment of their ac- 
 counts. Close-fisted, heartless, and sordidly thrifty, the 
 brother and sister had a terrible reputation among the traders 
 of the Rue Saint-Denis. 
 
 But for their visits to Provins, whither they went thrice a 
 year, at times when they could shut the store for two or three 
 days, they would never have gotten any store assistants. But 
 old Rogron packed off to his children every unhappy creature 
 intended by its parents to go into trade ; he carried on for them 
 a business in apprentices in Provins, where he vaunted with 
 much vanity his children's fortune. The parents, tempted 
 by the remote hope of having their son or daughter well 
 taught and well looked after, and the chance of seeing a 
 child some day step into Rogron junior's business, sent the
 
 20 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 youth who was in the way to the house kept by the old bach- 
 elor and old maid. But as soon as the apprentices, man or 
 maid, for whom the fee of a hundred crowns was always paid, 
 saw any way of escaping from these galleys, they fled with a 
 glee which added to the terrible notoriety of the Rogrons. 
 The indefatigable innkeeper always supplied them with fresh 
 victims. 
 
 From the age of fifteen Sylvie Rogron, accustomed to 
 grimace over the counter, had two faces the amiable mask 
 of the saleswoman and the natural expression of a shriveled 
 old maid. Her assumed countenance was a marvelous piece 
 of mimicry ; she smiled all over ; her voice turned soft and 
 insinuating, and held the customers under a commercial spell. 
 Her real face was what she had shown between the two half- 
 opened shutters. It would have scared the bravest of the 
 Cossacks of 1815, though they dearly loved every variety of 
 Frenchwomen. 
 
 When the letter came from the Lorrains, the Rogrons, in 
 mourning for their father, had come into possession of the 
 house they had almost stolen from Pierrette's grandmother, of 
 the innkeeper's acquired land, and finally of certain sums 
 derived from usurious loans in mortgages on land in the 
 hands of peasant-owners whom the old drunkard hoped to 
 dispossess. The charge on the business was paid off. The 
 Rogrons had stock to the value of about sixty thousand francs 
 in the shop, about forty thousand francs in their cash-box or 
 in assets, and the value of their good-will. Seated on the 
 bench, covered with striped-green worsted velvet, and fitted 
 into a square recess behind- the cash-desk, with just such 
 another desk opposite for the forewoman, the brother and 
 sister held council as to their plans. Every tradesman hopes 
 to retire. If they realized their whole stock and business, 
 they ought to have about a hundred and fifty thousand francs, 
 without counting their inheritance from old Rogron. Thus
 
 PIERRETTE. 21 
 
 by investing in the funds the capital at their disposal, each of 
 them would have three to four thousand francs a year, even if 
 they devoted the price of the business which would no doubt 
 be paid in installments to restoring their paternal home. So 
 they might go to Provins and live there in a house of their 
 own. 
 
 Their forewoman was the daughter of a rich farmer at Don- 
 nemarie, who was burthened with nine children ; thus he was 
 obliged to place them all in business, for his wealth, divided 
 among nine, would be little enough for each. But in five 
 years the farmer lost seven of his children, consequently the 
 forewoman had become an interesting person ; so much so, 
 that Rogron had attempted, but vainly, to make her his wife. 
 The young lady manifested an aversion for the master which 
 nullified all his manoeuvres. On the other hand, Mademoi- 
 selle Sylvie did not encourage the plan ; she even opposed 
 her brother's marriage, and wanted rather to have so clever a 
 woman as their successor. Rogron's marriage she postponed 
 till they should be settled at Provins. 
 
 No passer-by can understand the motive-power that under- 
 lies the cryptogamic lives of certain storekeepers; as we look 
 at them we wonder, " On what, and why do they live ? What 
 becomes of them ? Where did they come from ?" We lose 
 ourselves in vacancy as we try to account for them. To dis- 
 cover the little poetry that germinates in these brains and 
 vivifies these existences, we must dig into them ; but we soon 
 reach the tufa on which everything rests. The Paris store- 
 keeper feeds on hopes more or less likely to be realized, and 
 without which he would evidently perish : one dreams of build- 
 ing or managing a theatre, another struggles for the honors of 
 the Maine ; this one has a castle in the air three leagues from 
 Paris, a so-called park, where he plants colored plaster statues 
 and arranges fountains that look like an end of thread, and 
 spends immense sums ; that one longs for promotion to the 
 higher grades of the National Guard. Provins, an earthly
 
 22 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 paradise, excited in the two haberdashers the fanaticism which 
 the inhabitants of every pretty town in France feel for their 
 home. And to the glory of Champagne, it may be said that 
 this affection is amply justified. Provins, one of the most 
 charming spots in France, rivals Frangistan and the valley 
 of Cashmere ; not only has it all the poetry of Saadi, the 
 Homer of Persia, but it also has pharmaceutical treasures for 
 medical science. The crusaders brought roses from Jericho 
 to this delightful valley, where, by some chance, the flowers 
 developed new qualities without losing anything of their color. 
 And Provins is not only the Persia of France ; it might be 
 Baden, Aix, Bath ; it has mineral waters. 
 
 This is the picture seen year after year, which now and 
 again appeared in a vision to the haberdashers on the muddy 
 pavement of the Rue Saint-Denis. 
 
 After crossing the gray flats that lie between La Ferte- 
 Gaucher and Provins a desert, but a fertile one, a desert 
 of wheat you mount a hill. Suddenly, at your feet, you 
 see a town watered by two rivers ; at the bottom of the slope 
 spreads a green valley broken by graceful lines and retreating 
 distances. If you come from Paris you take .Provins length- 
 ways; you see the everlasting French high-road running along 
 the foot of the hill and close under it, owning its blindman 
 and its beggars, who throw in an accompaniment of lamentable 
 voices when you pause to gaze at this unexpectedly picturesque 
 tract of land. If you arrive from Troyes you come in from 
 the plain. The castle and the old town, with its rampart, 
 climb the shelves of the hill. The new town lies below. 
 
 There are upper and lower Provins ; above, a town in the 
 air, with steep streets and fine points of view, surrounded 
 by hollow roads like ravines between rows of walrrit trees, 
 furrowing the narrow hilltop with deep cuttings : a silent 
 town this, clean and solemn, overshadowed by the imposing 
 ruins of the stronghold ; then, below, a town of mills, watered 
 by the Voulzie and the Durtain, two rivers of Brie, narrow,
 
 PIERRETTE. 23 
 
 sluggish, and deep ; a town of inns and trade, of retired 
 tradespeople, traversed by diligences, chaises, and heavy carts. 
 These two towns or this town with its historical associa- 
 tions, with the melancholy of its ruins, the gaiety of its valley, 
 its delightful ravines full of unkempt hedgerows and wild- 
 flowers, its river terraced with gardens, has so sure a hold on 
 the love of its children that they behave like the sons of 
 Auvergne, of Savoy, of France. Though they leave Provins 
 to seek their fortune, they always come back to it. The 
 phrase, "To die in one's burrow," made for rabbits and 
 faithful souls, might be taken by the natives of Provins as 
 their motto. 
 
 And so the two Rogrons thought only of their beloved 
 Provins. As he sold thread, the brother saw the old town. 
 While packing cards covered with buttons, he was gazing at 
 the valley. He rolled and unrolled tape, but he was follow- 
 ing the gleaming course of the rivers. As he looked at his 
 pigeon-holes he was climbing the sunk roads whither of old 
 he fled to evade his father's rage, to eat walnuts, and to cram 
 on blackberries. The little square at Provins above all filled 
 his thoughts ; he would beautify the house ; he dreamed of 
 the front he would rebuild, the bedrooms, the sitting-room, 
 the billiard-room, the dining-room ; then of the kitchen gar- 
 den, which he would turn into an English garden with a lawn, 
 grottoes, fountains, statues, and what not ? 
 
 The rooms in which the brother and sister slept on the 
 third floor of the house, three windows wide and six stories 
 high there are many such in the Rue Saint-Denis had no 
 furniture beyond what was strictly necessary ; but not a soul 
 in Paris had finer furniture than this haberdasher. As he 
 walked in the streets he would stand in the attitude of an 
 ecstatic, looking at the handsome pieces on show, and examin- 
 ing hangings with which he filled his house. On coming 
 home he would say to his sister, " I saw a thing in such or 
 such a store that would just do for us!" The next day
 
 24 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 he would buy another, and invariably he gave up one month 
 the choice of the month before. The revenue would not have 
 paid for his architectural projects ; he wanted everything, and 
 always gave the preference to the newest thing. When he 
 studied the balconies of a newly built house, and the doubtful 
 attempts at exterior decoration, he thought the mouldings, 
 sculpture, and ornament quite out of place. "Ah!" he 
 would say to himself, " those fine things would look much 
 better at Provins than they do there." As he digested his 
 breakfast on his doorstep, leaning his back against the store 
 side, with a hazy eye the haberdasher saw a fantastic dwelling, 
 golden in the sunshine of his dream ; he walked in a garden, 
 listening to his fountain as it splashed in a shower of diamonds 
 on a round flag of limestone. He played billiards on his own 
 table; he planted flowers. 
 
 When his sister sat, pen in hand, lost in thought, and for- 
 getting to scold the shopmen, she was seeing herself receiving 
 the townsfolk of Provins, gazing at herself in the tall mirrors 
 of her drawing-room, and wearing astounding caps. Both 
 brother and sister were beginning to think that the atmosphere 
 of the Rue Saint-Denis was unwholesome, and the smell of 
 the mud in the market made them long for the scent of the 
 roses of Provins. They suffered alike from home-sickness and 
 monomania, both thwarted by the necessity for selling their 
 last remnants of thread, reels of silk, and buttons. The prom- 
 ised land of the valley of Provins attracted these Israelites all 
 the more strongly because they had for a long time really 
 suffered, and had crossed with gasping breath the sandy 
 deserts of haberdashery. 
 
 The letter from the Lorrains arrived in the middle of a 
 meditation on that beautiful future. The haberdashers scarcely 
 knew their cousin Pierrette Lorrain. The settlement of 
 Auffray's estate, long since, by the old innkeeper, had taken 
 place when they were going into business, and Rogron never 
 sajd much about his, money matters. Having been sent to
 
 PIERRETTE. 25 
 
 Paris so young, the brother and sister could hardly remember 
 their aunt Lorrain. It took them an hour of genealogical 
 discussion to recall their aunt, the daughter of their grand- 
 father Auffray's second wife, and their mother's half-sister. 
 They then remembered that Madame Lorrain's mother was 
 the Madame Neraud who had died of grief. They concluded 
 that their grandfather's second marriage had been a disastrous 
 thing for them, the result being the division of Auffray's 
 estate between two families. They had, indeed, heard sundry 
 recriminations from their father, who was always somewhat 
 of the grudging publican. The pair studied the Lorrains' 
 letter through the medium of these reminiscences, which 
 were not in Pierrette's favor. To take charge of an orphan, 
 a girl, a cousin, who in any case would be their heiress in the 
 event of neither of them marrying this was matter for 
 discussion. The question was regarded from every point of 
 view. In the first place, they had never seen Pierrette. 
 Then it would be very troublesome to have a young girl to 
 look after. Would they not be binding themselves to provide 
 for her ? It would be impossible to send her away if they 
 did not like her. Would they not have to find her a husband ? 
 And if, after all, Rogron could find "a. shoe to fit him" 
 among the heiresses of Provins, would it not be better to keep 
 all they had for his children ? The shoe that would fit her 
 brother, according to Sylvie, was a rich girl, stupid and ugly, 
 who would allow her sister-in-law to rule her. The couple 
 decided that they would refuse. 
 
 Sylvie undertook to reply. Business was sufficiently press- 
 ing to retard this letter, which she did not deem urgent, and 
 indeed the old maid thought no more about it when the fore- 
 woman consented to buy the business and stock-in-trade of 
 the Sceur de famille. 
 
 Sylvie Rogron and her brother had gone to settle in Provins 
 four years before the time when Brigaut's appearance brought 
 so much interest into Pierrette's life. But the doings of these
 
 26 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 two persons in the country require a description no less than 
 their life in Paris; for Provins was fated to be as evil an influ- 
 ence for Pierrette as her cousins' commercial antecedents. 
 
 When a small tradesman who has come to Paris from the 
 provinces returns to the country from Paris, he inevitably 
 brings with him some notions; presently he loses them in the 
 habits of the place where he settles down, and where his 
 fancies for innovation gradually sink. Hence come those 
 slow, small, successive changes which are gradually scratched 
 by Paris on the surface of country-town life, and which are 
 the essential stamp of the change of a retired storekeeper into 
 a confirmed provincial. This change is a real distemper. 
 No small tradesman can pass without a shock from perpetual 
 talk to utter silence, from the activity of his Paris life to the 
 stagnation of the country. When the good folks have earned 
 a little money, they spend a certain amount on the passion 
 they have so long been hatching, and work off the last spasms 
 of an energy which cannot be stopped short at will. Those 
 who have never cherished any definite plan, travel or throw 
 themselves into the political interests of the municipality. 
 Some go out shooting or fishing, and worry their farmers and 
 tenants. Some turn usurers, like old father Rogron, or spec- 
 ulate, like many obscure persons. 
 
 The dream of this brother and sister is known to you ; they 
 wanted to indulge their magnificent fancy for handling the 
 trowel, for building a delightful house. This fixed idea had 
 graced the square of lower Provins with the frontage which 
 Brigaut had just been examining, the interior arrangements 
 of the house, and its luxurious furniture. The builder drove 
 never a nail in without consulting the Rogrons, without 
 making them sign the plans and estimates, without explaining 
 in lengthy detail the structure of the object under discussion, 
 where it was made, and the various prices. As to anything 
 unusual, it had always been introduced by Monsieur Tiphaine 
 or Madame Julliard the younger, or Monsieur Garceland, the
 
 PIERRETTE. 27 
 
 mayor. Such a resemblance with some wealthy citizen of 
 Provins always carried the day in the builder's favor. 
 
 " Oh, if Monsieur Garceland has one we will have one, 
 too!" said Mademoiselle Sylvie. "It must be right; he 
 had good taste." 
 
 ' ' Sylvie, he also suggests we should have ovolos in the 
 cornice of the passage." 
 
 " You call that an ovolo ? " 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle." 
 
 "But why? What a queer name! I never heard it be- 
 fore." 
 
 " But you have seen them ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Do you know Latin ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Well, it means egg-shaped; the ovolo is egg-shaped," 
 explained the builder. 
 
 "You are a queer crew, you architects!" cried Rogron. 
 "That, no doubt, is the reason you charge so much; you 
 don't throw away your egg-shells ! " 
 
 " Shall we paint the passage ? " asked the builder. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " cried Sylvie. " Another five hundred 
 francs! " 
 
 " But the drawing-room and the stairs are so nice, it is a 
 pity not to decorate the passage," said the builder. " Little 
 Madame Lesourd had hers painted last year." 
 
 "And yet her husband, being crown prosecutor, cannot 
 stay at Provins " 
 
 " Oh ! he will be president of the courts here some day," 
 said the builder. 
 
 " And what do you think is to become of Monsieur Tiph- 
 aine then ? " 
 
 "Monsieur Tiphaine ! He has a pretty wife ; I am not 
 uneasy about him. Monsieur Tiphaine will go to Paris." 
 
 " Shall we paint the corridor ? "
 
 28 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 "Yes; the Lesourds will, at any rate, see that we are as 
 good as they are," said Rogron. 
 
 The first year of their residence in Provins was wholly 
 given up to these discussions, to the pleasure of seeing the 
 workmen busy, to the surprises and information of all kinds 
 that they got by it, and to the attempts made by the brother 
 and sister to scrape acquaintance with the most important 
 families in the town. 
 
 The Rogrons had never had any kind of society ; they 
 had never gone out of their store; they knew literally no one 
 in Paris, and they thirsted for the pleasures of visiting. On 
 their return they found first Monsieur and Madame Julliard, 
 of the Ver chinois, with their children and grandchildren ; 
 then the Guepin family, or, to be exact, the Guepin clan ; 
 the grandson still kept the shop of the Trots Quenouilles ; 
 and, finally, Madame Guenee, who had sold them the business 
 of the Sceur defamille ; her three daughters were married in 
 Provins. These three great tribes the Julliards, the Guepins, 
 and the Guenees spread over the town like couch-grass on a 
 lawn. Monsieur Garceland, the mayor, was Monsieur Gu- 
 pin's son-in-law. The cure, Monsieur 1'Abbe Peroux, was 
 own brother to Madame Julliard, who was a Peroux. The 
 president of the court, Monsieur Tiphaine, was brother to 
 Madame Gu6n6e, who signed herself "nee Tiphaine." 
 
 The queen of the town was Madame Tiphaine, jum'ar, the 
 handsome only daughter of Madame Roguin, who was the 
 wealthy wife of a notary of Paris ; but he was never mentioned. 
 Delicate, pretty, and clever, married to a provincial husband 
 by the express management of her mother, who would not 
 have her with her, and had taken her from school only a few 
 days before her marriage, Melanie felt herself an exile at 
 Provins, where she behaved admirably well. She was already 
 rich, and had great expectations. As to Monsieur Tiphaine, 
 his old father had advanced his eldest daughter, Madame 
 Guenee, so much money on account of her share of the
 
 PIERRETTE. 29 
 
 property, that an estate worth eight thousand francs a year, at 
 about five leagues from Provins, would fall to the president. 
 Thus the Tiphaines, who had married on twenty thousand 
 francs a year, exclusive of the president's salary and residence, 
 expected some day to have twenty thousand francs a year 
 more. They were not out of luck, people said. 
 
 Madame Tiphaine's great and only object in life was to 
 secure her husband's election as deputy. Once in Paris, the 
 deputy would be made judge, and from the lower court she 
 promised herself he should soon be promoted to the high 
 court of justice. Hence she humored everybody's vanity, and 
 strove to please; more difficult still, she succeeded. The 
 young woman of two-and-twenty received twice a week, in 
 her handsome house in the old town, all the citizen class of 
 Provins. She had not yet taken a single awkward step on 
 the slippery ground where she stood. She gratified every 
 conceit, patted every hobby ; grave with serious folks and a 
 girl with girls, of all things a mother with the mothers, cheer- 
 ful with the young wives, eager to oblige, polite to all; in 
 short, a pearl, a gem, the pride of Provins. She had not yet 
 said the word, but all the electors of the town awaited the 
 day when their dear president should be old enough to nomi- 
 nate him at once. Every voter, sure of his talents, made him 
 his man and his patron. Oh, yes, Monsieur Tiphaine would 
 get on ; he would be keeper of the seals, and he would pro- 
 mote the interests of Provins. 
 
 These were the means by which Madame Tiphaine had 
 been so fortunate as to obtain her ascendency over the little 
 town of Provins. Madame Guenee, Monsieur Tiphaine's sis- 
 ter, after seeing her three daughters married the eldest to 
 Monsieur Lesourd the public prosecutor, the second to Mon- 
 sieur Martener the doctor, and the third to Monsieur Auffray 
 the notary had herself married again Monsieur Galardon, 
 the collector of taxes. Mesdames Lesourd, Martener, and 
 Auffray, and their mother Madame Galardon, regarded the
 
 30 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 president as the wealthiest and cleverest man in the family. 
 The public prosecutor, Monsieur Tiphaine's nephew by mar- 
 riage, had the greatest interest in getting his uncle to Paris, 
 so as to be made president himself. Hence these four ladies 
 for Madame Galardon adored her brother formed a little 
 court about Madame Tiphaine, taking her opinion and advice 
 on every subject. 
 
 Then Monsieur Julliard's eldest son, married to the only 
 daughter of a rich farmer, was taken with a sudden passion, a 
 grande passion, secret and disinterested, for the president's 
 wife that angel dropped from the sky of Paris. Melanie, 
 very wily, incapable of burdening herself with a Julliard, but 
 perfectly capable of keeping him as an Amadis and making 
 use of his folly, advised him to start a newspaper to which 
 she was the Egeria. So for two years now Julliard, animated 
 by his romantic passion, had managed a paper and run a 
 diligence for Provins. The newspaper, entitled La Ruche 
 (The Beehive), included literary, archaeological, and medical 
 papers concocted in the family. The advertisements of the 
 district paid the expenses ; the subscriptions about two hun- 
 dred were all profit. Melancholy verses sometimes appeared 
 in it, unintelligible to the country people, and addressed "To 
 Her!!!" with the three points of exclamation. Thus the 
 young Julliard couple, singing the merits of Madame Tiphaine, 
 had allied the clan Julliard to that of the Guenees. Thence- 
 forward the president's drawing-room, of course, led the society 
 of the town. The very few aristocrats who lived at Provins 
 met in a single house in the old town, that of the old Com- 
 tesse de Breautey. 
 
 During the first six months after their transplanting, the 
 Rogrons, by favor of their old-time connection with the 
 Julliards, the Guepins, and the Guenees, and by emphasizing 
 their relationship to Monsieur Auffray the notary a great 
 grand-nephew of their grandfather were received at first by
 
 PIERRETTE. 31 
 
 Madame Julliard the elder and Madame Galardon ; then, not 
 without difficulty, they found admission to the beautiful 
 Madame Tiphaine's drawing-room. Everybody wished to 
 know something about the Rogrons before inviting them 
 to call. It was a little difficult to avoid receiving trades- 
 people of the Rue Saint-Denis, natives of Provins, who had 
 come back to spend their money there. Nevertheless, the 
 instinct of society is always to bring together persons of 
 similar fortune, education, manners, acquaintance, and char- 
 acter. 
 
 Now the Guepins, the Guenees, and the Julliards were 
 of a higher grade and of older family than the Rogrons 
 the children of a money-lending innkeeper who could not 
 be held blameless in his private life, nor with regard to the 
 Auffray inheritance. Auffray the notary, Madame Galardon's 
 son-in-law, knew all about it ; the estate had been wound up 
 in his predecessor's office. Those older merchants, who had 
 retired twelve years since, had found themselves on the level 
 of education, breeding, and manners of the circle to which 
 Madame Tiphaine imparted a certain stamp of elegance, of 
 Paris varnish. Everything was homogeneous ; they all under- 
 stood each other, and knew how to conduct themselves, and 
 talk so as to be agreeable to the rest. They knew each other's 
 characters, and were accustomed to agree. Having been once 
 received by Monsieur Garceland the mayor, the Rogrons flat- 
 tered themselves that they should soon be on intimate terms 
 with the best society of the town. Sylvie learned to play 
 boston. Rogron, far too stupid to play any game, twirled his 
 thumbs and swallowed his words when once he had talked 
 about his house. But the words acted like medicine ; they 
 seemed to torture him cruelly; he rose, he looked as if he 
 were about to speak ; he took fright and sat down again, his 
 lips comically convulsed. Sylvie unconsciously displayed 
 her nature at games. Fractious and complaining whenever 
 she lost, insolently triumphant when she won, contentious
 
 32 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 and fretful, she irritated her adversaries and her partners, and 
 was a nuisance to everybody. 
 
 Eaten up with silly and undisguised envy, Rogron and his 
 sister tried to play a part in a town where a dozen families 
 had formed a net of close meshes ; all their interests, all their 
 vanities made, as it were, a slippery floor on which newcomers 
 had to tread very cautiously to avoid running up against some- 
 thing or getting a fall. Allowing that the rebuilding of their 
 house might cost thirty thousand francs, the brother and sister 
 between them would still have ten thousand francs a year. 
 They fancied themselves very rich, bored their acquaintance 
 to death with their talk of future splendor, and so gave the 
 measure of their meanness, their crass ignorance, and their 
 idiotic jealousy. The evening they were introduced to 
 Madame Tiphaine the beauty who had already watched 
 them at Madame Garceland's, at her sister-in-law's, Madame 
 Galardon's, and at the elder Madame Julliard's the queen 
 of Provins said in a confidential tone to Julliard, junior, who 
 remained alone with her and the president a few minutes 
 after every one was gone 
 
 "You all seem to be much smitten with these Rogrons? " 
 
 " I ! " said the Amadis of Provins ; " they bore my mother; 
 they overpower my wife ; and when Mademoiselle Sylvie was 
 sent, thirty years ago, as an apprentice to my father, even 
 then he could not endure her." 
 
 " But I have a very great mind," said the pretty lady, put- 
 ing a little foot on the bar of the fender, "to give them to 
 understand that my drawing-room is not an inn-parlor." 
 
 Julliard cast up his eyes to the ceiling as much as to say 
 
 " Dear heaven, what wit, what subtlety ! " 
 
 " I wish my company to be select, and if I admit the Ro- 
 grons it will certainly not be that." 
 
 "They have no heart, no brain, no manners," said the 
 president. " When after having sold thread for twenty years, 
 as my sister did, for instance "
 
 PIERRETTE. 33 
 
 " My dear, your sister would not be out of place in any 
 drawing-room," said Madame Tiphaine, in a parenthesis. 
 
 "If people are so stupid as to remain haberdashers to the 
 end," the president went on ; "if they do not cast their 
 skin ; if they think that ' Comtes de Champagne ' means ' ac- 
 counts for wine,' as the Rogrons did this evening, they should 
 stay at home." 
 
 "They are noisome ! " said Julliard. "You might think 
 there was only one house in Provins. They want to crush us, 
 and, after all, they have hardly enough to live on." 
 
 "If it were only the brother," said Madame Tiphaine, "we 
 might put up with him. He is not offensive. Give him a 
 Chinese puzzle, and he would sit quietly in a corner. It 
 would take him the whole winter to put up one pattern. But 
 Mademoiselle Sylvie ! What a voice like a hyena with a 
 cold ! What lobster's claws ! Do not repeat anything of 
 this Julliard." 
 
 When Julliard was gone, the little lady said to her hus- 
 band 
 
 " My dear, there are enough of the natives that I am obliged 
 to receive ; these two more will be the death of me ; and with 
 your permission, we will deprive ourselves of the pleasure." 
 
 "You are the mistress in your own house," said the presi- 
 dent, " but we shall make many enemies. The Rogrons will 
 join the Opposition, which hitherto has had no solidity in 
 Provins. That Rogron is already hanging on to Baron Gou- 
 raud and Vinet the lawyer." 
 
 " Heh ! " said Melanie, with a smile, "they will do you 
 service then. Where there are no enemies, there is no tri- 
 umph. A Liberal conspiracy, an illegal society, a fight of 
 some kind, would bring you into the foreground." 
 
 The president looked at his young wife with a sort of 
 alarmed admiration. 
 
 Next day every one at Madame Garceland's said in every 
 one else's ear that the Rogrons had not had a success at 
 3
 
 34 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Madame Tiphaine's, and her remark about the inn-parlor was 
 much applauded. Madame Tiphaine took a month before re- 
 turning Mademoiselle Sylvie's visit. This rudeness is much 
 remarked on in the country. Then, at Madame Tiphaine's 
 when playing boston with the elder Madame Julliard, Sylvie 
 made a most unpleasant scene about a splendid misere hand, 
 on which her erewhile mistress caused her to lose maliciously 
 and on purpose, she declared. Sylvie, who loved to play 
 nasty tricks on others, could never accept a return in kind. 
 Madame Tiphaine, therefore, set the example of making up 
 the card-parties before the Rogrons arrived, so that Sylvie was 
 reduced to wandering from table to table, watching others 
 play, while they looked askance at her with meaning glances. 
 At old Madame Julliard's whist was now the game, and Sylvie 
 could not play it. The old maid at last understood that she 
 was an outlaw, but without understanding the reason. She 
 believed herself to be an object of jealousy to everybody. 
 
 Ere long the Rogrons were asked nowhere ; but they per- 
 sistently spent their evenings at various houses. Clever people 
 made game of them, without venom, quite mildly, leading 
 them to talk utter nonsense about the ovolos in their house, 
 and about a certain cellaret for liqueurs, matchless in Provins. 
 Meanwhile they gave themselves the final blow. Of course, 
 they gave a few sumptuous dinners, as much in return for the 
 civilities they had received as to show off their splendor. 
 The guests came solely out of curiosity. The first dinner was 
 given to Monsieur and Madame Tiphaine, with whom the 
 Rogrons had not once dined ; to Messieurs and Mesdames 
 Julliard, father and son, mother and daughter-in-law; to 
 Monsieur Lesourd, Monsieur the cure, Monsieur and Madame 
 Galardon. It was one of those provincial spreads, where the 
 guests sit at table from five o'clock till nine. Madame 
 Tiphaine had introduced the grand Paris style to Provins, the 
 well-bred guests going away as soon as coffee had been served. 
 She had some friends that evening at home, and tried to steal
 
 PIERRETTE. 35 
 
 away, but the Rogrons escorted the couple to the very street ; 
 and when they returned, bewildered at having failed to keep 
 the president and his wife, the other guests explained Madame 
 Tiphaine's good taste, and imitated it with a promptitude that 
 was cruel in a country-town. 
 
 "They will not see our drawing-room lighted up! " cried 
 Sylvie, " and candle-light is like rouge to it." 
 
 The Rogrons had hoped to give their guests a surprise. No 
 one hitherto had been admitted to see this much-talked-of 
 house. And all the frequenters of Madame Tiphaine's draw- 
 ing-room impatiently awaited her verdict as to the marvels of 
 the "Palais Rogron." 
 
 " Well," said little Madame Martener, " you have seen the 
 Louvre ? Tell us all about it." 
 
 " But all like the dinner will not amount to much." 
 
 "What is it like?" 
 
 "Well, the front door, of which we were, of course, re- 
 quired to admire the gilt-iron window-frames that you all 
 know, opens into a long passage through the house, dividing 
 it unequally, since there is but one window to the street on 
 the right, and two on the left. At the garden end this pas- 
 sage has a glass door to steps leading down to the lawn, a 
 lawn with a decorative pedestal supporting a plaster cast of 
 the Spartacus, painted to imitate bronze. Behind the kitchen 
 the architect has contrived a little pantry under the staircase, 
 which we were not spared seeing. The stair, painted through- 
 out like yellow-veined marble, is a hollow spiral, just like the 
 stairs that in a cafe lead from the ground floor to the entresol. 
 This trumpery structure of walnut-wood, really dangerously 
 light, and with banisters picked out with brass, was displayed 
 to us as one of the seven new wonders of the world. The way 
 to the cellars is beneath. 
 
 "On the other side of the passage, looking on the street, 
 is the dining-room, opening by folding doors into the draw- 
 ing-room, of the same size, but looking on to the garden."
 
 36 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " So there is no hall? " said Madame Auffray. 
 
 "The hall, no doubt, is the long passage where you stand 
 in a draught," replied Madame Tiphaine. " We have had the 
 eminently national, liberal, constitutional, and patriotic no- 
 tion," she went on, " of making use only of wood grown in 
 France ! In the dining-room, the floor, laid in a neat pattern, 
 is of walnut-wood. The sideboards, table, and chairs are also 
 in walnut. The window-curtains are of white cotton with red 
 borders, looped back with vulgar ropes over enormous pegs 
 with elaborate dull-gilt rosettes, the mushroom-like object 
 standing out against a reddish paper. These magnificent 
 curtains run on rods ending in huge scrolls, and are held up 
 by lions' claws in stamped brass, one at the top of each 
 pleat. 
 
 " Over one of the sideboards is a regular cafe clock, draped, 
 as it were, with a sort of napkin in bronze gilt, an idea that 
 quite enchants the Rogrons. They tried to make me admire 
 this device ; and I could find nothing better to say than that 
 if it could ever be proper to hang a napkin round a clock 
 face, it was, no doubt, in a dining-room. On this sideboard 
 are two large lamps, like those which grace the counters of 
 grand restaurants. Over the other is a highly decorative 
 barometer, which seems to play an important part in their 
 existence ; Rogron gazes at it as he might gaze at his bride- 
 elect. Between the windows the builder has placed a white 
 earthenware stove in a hideously ornate niche. The walls 
 blaze with a splendid paper in red and gold, such as you will 
 see in these same restaurants, and Rogron chose it there no 
 doubt on the spot. 
 
 "Dinner was served in a set of white-and-gold china ; the 
 dessert service is bright blue with green sprigs ; but they 
 opened the china closet to show us that they had another 
 service of stoneware for every-day use. The linen is in large 
 cupboards facing the sideboards. Everything is varnished, 
 shining, new, and harsh in color. Still, I could accept the
 
 PIERRETTE. 37 
 
 dining-room ; it has a character of its own which, though not 
 pleasing, is fairly representative of that of the owners ; but 
 there is no enduring the five engravings those black-and- 
 white things against which the minister of the interior ought 
 really to get a decree ; they represent Poniatowski leaping 
 into the Elster ; the Defense of the Barriere de Clichy, Napo- 
 leon himself pointing a gun ; and two prints of Mazeppa, all 
 in gilt frames of a vulgar pattern suitable to the prints, which 
 are enough to make one loathe popularity. Oh ! how much 
 I prefer Madame Julliard's pastels representing fruits, those 
 capital pastels which were done in the time of Louis XV., 
 and which harmonize with the nice old dining-room and its 
 dark, rather worm-eaten panels, which are at least character- 
 istic of the country, and suit the heavy family silver, the 
 antique china, and all our habits. The country is provincial ; 
 it becomes ridiculous when it tries to ape Paris. You may 
 perhaps retort, ' Vous ttes orfevre, Monsieur fosse ! ' ' You 
 are to the manner born.' But I prefer this old room of my 
 father-in-law Tiphaine's, with its heavy curtains of green-and- 
 white damask, its Louis XV. chimney-piece, its scroll pattern 
 pier glass, its old beaded mirrors and time-honored card- 
 tables; my jars of old Sevres, old blue, mounted in old 
 gilding ; my clock with its impossible flowers, my out-of-date 
 chandelier, and my tapestried furniture, to all the splendor 
 of their drawing-room." 
 
 " What is it like ? " said Monsieur Martener, delighted with 
 the praise of the country so ingeniously brought in by the 
 pretty Parisienne. 
 
 " The drawing-room is a fine red as red as Mademoiselle 
 Sylvie when she is angry at losing a mis ere." 
 
 " Sylvie-red," said the president, and the word took its 
 place in the vocabulary of the district. 
 
 "The window-curtains red! the furniture red! the 
 chimney-piece red marble veined with yellow ! the cande- 
 labra and clock red marble veined with yellow, and mounted
 
 38 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 in a heavy vulgar style ; Roman lamp-brackets supported on 
 Greek foliage ! From the top of the clock a lion stares down 
 on you, stupidly, as the Rogrons stare ; a great good-natured 
 lion, the ornamental lion so-called, which will long continue 
 to dethrone real lions; he spends his life clutching a black 
 ball exactly like a deputy of the left. Perhaps it is a consti- 
 tutional allegory. The dial of this clock is an extraordinary 
 piece of work. 
 
 "The chimney glass is framed with applique ornaments, 
 which look poor and cheap, though they are a novelty. But 
 the upholsterer's genius shines most in a panel of red stuff of 
 which the radiating folds all centre in a rosette in the middle 
 of the chimney-board a romantic poem composed expressly 
 for the Rogrons, who display it with ecstasy. From the ceil- 
 ing hangs a chandelier, carefully wrapped in a green cotton 
 shroud, and with reason ; it is in the very worst taste, raw-toned 
 bronze, with even more detestable tendrils of brown gold. 
 Under it a round tea-table of marble, with more yellow than 
 ever in the red, displays a shining metal tray, on which glit- 
 ter cups of painted china such painting ! arranged round a 
 cut-glass sugar-basin, so bold in style that our grandchildren 
 will open their eyes in amazement at the gilt rings round the 
 edge and the diamond pattern on the sides, like a mediaeval 
 quilted doublet, and at the tongs for taking the sugar, which 
 probably no one will ever use. 
 
 "This room is papered with red flock-paper imitating vel- 
 vet, divided into panels by a beading of gilt brass, finished 
 at the corners with enormous palms. A chromo-lithograph 
 hangs on each panel, framed most elaborately in plaster cast- 
 ing of garlands to imitate fine wood-carving. The furniture 
 of elm-root, upholstered with satin-cloth, classically consists 
 of two sofas, two large easy-chairs, six armchairs, and six 
 light chairs. The console is graced by an alabaster vase, 
 called a la Medicis, under a glass shade, and by the much- 
 talked-of liqueur-case. We were told often enough that ' there
 
 PIERRETTE. 39 
 
 is not such another in Provins.' In each window bay, hung 
 with splendid red silk curtains and lace curtains besides, 
 stands a card-table. The carpet is Aubusson ; the Rogrons 
 have not failed to get hold of the crimson ground with medal- 
 lions of flowers, the vulgarest of all the common patterns. 
 
 " The room looks uninhabited ; there are no books or 
 prints none of the little things that furnish a table," and 
 she looked at her own table covered with fashionable trifles, 
 albums, and the pretty toys that were given her. "There 
 are no flowers, none of the little nothings that fade and are 
 renewed. It is all as cold and dry as Mademoiselle Sylvie. 
 Buftbn is right in saying that the style is the man, and cer- 
 tainly drawing-rooms have a style ! " 
 
 Pretty Madame Tiphaine went on with her description by 
 epigrams ; and from this specimen, it is easy to imagine the 
 rooms in which the brother and sister really lived on the first- 
 floor, which they also displayed to their guests. Still, no one 
 could conceive of the foolish expenses into which the cunning 
 builder had dragged the Rogrons ; the moulding of the 
 doors, the elaborate inside shutters, the plaster ornaments on 
 the cornices, the fancy painting, the brass-gilt knobs and 
 bells, the ingenious smoke-consuming fireplaces, the con- 
 trivance for the prevention of damp, the sham inlaid wood on 
 the staircase, the elaborate glass and smith's work in short, 
 all the fancy-work which adds to the cost of building, and 
 delights the common mind, had been lavished without stint. 
 
 No one would go to the Rogrons' evenings ; their preten- 
 sions were still-born. There were abundant reasons for refus- 
 ing ; every day was taken up by Madame Garceland, Madame 
 Galardon, the two Julliard ladies, Madame Tiphaine, the 
 sous-prefet, etc. The Rogrons thought that giving dinners 
 was all that was needed to get into society ; they secured 
 some young people who laughed at them, and some diners- 
 out, such as are to be found in every part of the world ; but 
 serious people quite gave them up. Sylvie, alarmed at the
 
 40 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 clear loss of forty thousand francs swallowed up without any 
 return in the house she called her dear house, wanted to re- 
 cover the sum by economy. So she soon ceased to give din- 
 ners that cost from thirty to forty francs, without the wine, as 
 they failed to realize her hope of forming a circle a thing as 
 difficult to create in the country as it is in Paris. Sylvie dis- 
 missed her cook, and hired a country girl for the coarser 
 work. She herself cooked " to amuse herself." 
 
 Thus, fourteen months after their return home, the brother 
 and sister had drifted into a life of isolation and idleness. 
 Her banishment from " the world " had roused in Sylvie's 
 soul an intense hatred of the Tiphaines, Julliards, Auffrays, 
 and Garcelands in short, of everybody in Provins society, 
 which she stigmatized as a " clique," with which she was on 
 the most distant terms. She would gladly have set up a rival 
 circle ; but the second-rate citizen class was composed entirely 
 of small trades-people, never free but on Sundays and holi- 
 days ; or of persons in ill-odor, like Vinet the lawyer and 
 Doctor Neraud; or of rank Bonapartists, like General Gou- 
 raud ; and Rogron very rashly made friends with these, though 
 the upper set had vainly warned him against them. The 
 brother and sister were obliged to sit together by the fire of 
 their dining-room stove, talking over their business, the faces 
 of their customers, and other equally amusing matters. 
 
 The second winter did not come to an end without their 
 being almost crushed by its weight of dullness. They had the 
 greatest difficulty in spending the hours of their day. As they 
 went to bed at night, they thought, " One more over !" They 
 spun out the morning by getting up late and dressing slowly. 
 Rogron shaved himself every morning ; he examined his face 
 and described to his sister the changes he fancied he noted in 
 it; he squabbled with the maid over the temperature of the 
 hot water; he wandered into the garden to see if the flowers 
 were sprouting; he ventured down to the river-bank, where
 
 PIERRETTE. 41 
 
 he had built a summer-house ; he examined the woodwork of 
 the house. Had it warped? Had the settling split any of 
 the panels? Was the paint wearing well? Then he came in 
 to discuss his anxieties as to a sick hen, or some spot where 
 the damp had left stains, talking to his sister, who affected 
 hurry in laying the table while she scolded the maid. The 
 barometer was the most useful article in the house to Rogron ; 
 he consulted it for no reason, tapped it familiarly like a friend, 
 and then said, "Vile weather!" to which his sister would 
 reply, "Pooh, the weather is quite seasonable." If anybody 
 called, he would boast of the excellence of this instrument. 
 
 Their breakfast took up some little time. How slowly did 
 these two beings masticate each mouthful. And their diges- 
 tion was perfect : they had no cause to fear catarrh of the 
 stomach. By reading the Ruche and the Constiiutionncl they 
 got on to noon. They paid a third of the subscription to 
 the Paris paper with Vinet and Colonel Gouraud. Rogron 
 himself carried the paper to the colonel, who lived in the 
 square, lodging with Monsieur Martener; the soldier's long 
 stories were an immense delight to him. Rogron could only 
 wonder why the colonel was considered dangerous. He was 
 such an idiot as to speak to him of the ostracism under which 
 he lived, and retail the sayings of the "clique." God only 
 knows what the colonel who feared no one, and was as re- 
 doubtable with the pistol as with the sword had to say of 
 "la Tiphaine " and "her Julliard," of the ministerial offi- 
 cials of the upper town " men brought over by foreigners, 
 capable of anything to stick in their places, cooking the lists 
 of votes at the elections to suit themselves," and the like. 
 
 At about two o'clock Rogron sallied forth for a little walk. 
 He was quite happy when a storekeeper, standing at his door, 
 stopped him with a "How d'ye do, Pere Rogron?" He 
 gossiped, and asked, "What news in the town?" heard and 
 repeated scandal, or the tittle-tattle of Provins. He walked 
 to the upper town, or in the sunk roads, according to the
 
 42 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 weather. Sometimes he met other old men airing themselves 
 in like manner. Such meetings were happy events in the 
 course of such a retired life. 
 
 There were at Provins certain men who were out of conceit 
 with the life of Paris, learned and modest men, living with 
 their books. Imagine Rogron's frame of mind when he lis- 
 tened to a supernumerary judge named Desfondrilles, more of an 
 archaeologist than a lawyer, saying to a man of education, old 
 Monsieur Martener, the doctor's father, as he pointed to the 
 valley 
 
 " Will you tell me why the idlers of all Europe flock to 
 Spa rather than to Provins, when the waters of Provins are 
 acknowledged to be superior by the whole French faculty of 
 medicine, and to have effects and an energy worthy of the 
 medicinal properties of our roses?" 
 
 "What do you expect?" replied the man of the world, 
 " it is one of the caprices of caprice, and just as inexplicable. 
 The wines of Bordeaux were unknown a hundred years ago. 
 Marechal Richelieu, one of the grandest figures of the last 
 century, the Alcibiades of France, was made governor of 
 Guyenne. His chest was delicate the world knew why 
 the wine of the country strengthened and restored him to 
 health. Bordeaux at once made a hundred millions of francs 
 a year, and the Marshal extended the Bordeaux district as 
 far as Angoulgme and as far as Cahors ; in short, to forty 
 leagues in every direction ! Who knows where the vineyards 
 of Bordeaux end ? And there is no equestrian statue of the 
 Marshal at Bordeaux ! ' ' 
 
 " Ah ! if such an event should take place at Provins in this 
 century or the next," Monsieur Desfondrilles went on, " I hope 
 that either on the little square in the lower town, or on the 
 castle, or somewhere in the upper town, some bas-relief would 
 be seen representing the head of Monsieur Opoix, the redis- 
 coverer of the mineral waters of Provins ! " 
 
 "But, my dear sir, it would perhaps be impossible to re ha-
 
 PIERRETTE. 43 
 
 bilitate Provins," said old Monsieur Martener. "The town 
 is bankrupt." 
 
 At this Rogron opened his eyes wide, and exclaimed 
 "What!" 
 
 " Provins was formerly a capital which, in the twelfth 
 century, held its own as a rival to Paris, when the counts of 
 Champagne held their court here as King Rene held his in 
 Provence," replied the man of learning. "In those days 
 civilization, pleasure, poetry, elegance, women in short, all 
 the splendor of social life was not exclusively restricted to 
 Paris. Towns find it as hard as houses of business to rise 
 again from ruin. Nothing is left to Provins but the fragrance 
 of its historic past and that of its roses and a sous-pre- 
 fecture." 
 
 " Oh ! to think what France might be if she still had all 
 her feudal capitals!" said Desfondrilles. "Can our sous- 
 prefets fill the place of the poetic, gallant, and warlike race 
 of Thibault, who made Provins what Ferrara was in Italy, 
 what Weimar was in Germany, and Munich would like to be 
 in our day?" 
 
 " Provins was a capital? " asked Rogron. 
 
 " Why, where have you dropped from? " said Desfondrilles 
 the archaeologist. 
 
 The lawyer struck the pavement of the upper town where 
 they were standing with his stick: "Do you not know," he 
 cried, " that all this part of Provins is built on crypts? " 
 
 " Crypts?" 
 
 "Yes, to be sure, crypts of unaccountable loftiness and 
 extent. They are like cathedral aisles, full of pillars." 
 
 "Monsieur Desfondrilles is writing a great antiquarian 
 work in which he intends to describe these singular struc- 
 tures," said old Martener, seeing the lawyer mount his 
 hobby. 
 
 Rogron came home enchanted to think that his house stood 
 in this valley. The crypts of Provins kept him occupied for
 
 44 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 five or six days in exploring them, and for several evenings 
 afforded a subject of conversation to the old couple. Thus 
 Rogron generally picked up something about old Provins, 
 about the intermarriages of the families, or some stale political 
 news which he retailed to his sister. And a hundred times 
 over in the course of his walk several times even of the 
 same person he would ask, " Well, what is the news ? What 
 has happened lately? " When he came in he threw himself 
 on a sofa in the drawing-room as if he were tired out, but 
 really he was only weary of his own weight. 
 
 He got on to dinner-time by going twenty times to and fro 
 between the drawing-room and the kitchen, looking at the 
 clock, opening and shutting doors. So long as the brother 
 and sister spent the evenings in other houses they got through 
 the hours till bedtime, but after they were reduced to staying 
 at home the evening was a desert to traverse. Sometimes 
 people on their way home, after spending the evening out, as 
 they crossed the little piazza, heard sounds in the Rogrons' 
 house as if the brother were murdering the sister ; they recog- 
 nized them as the terrific yawns of a haberdasher driven to 
 bay. The two machines had nothing to grind with their 
 rusty wheels, so they creaked. 
 
 The brother talked of marrying, but with a sense of despair. 
 He felt himself old and worn; a wife terrified him. Sylvie, 
 who understood the need for a third person in the house, 
 then remembered their poor cousin, for whom no one in 
 Provins had ever inquired, for everybody supposed that little 
 Madame Lorrain and her daughter were both dead. Sylvie 
 Rogron never lost anything ; she was too thoroughly an old 
 maid to mislay anything, whatever it might be. She affected 
 to have found the letter from the Lorrains so as to make it 
 natural that she should mention Pierrette to her brother, and 
 he was almost happy at the possibility of having a little girl 
 about the house. Sylvie wrote to the old Lorrains in a half- 
 business-like, half-affectionate tone, attributing the delay in
 
 PIERRETTE. 46 
 
 her answer to the winding up of their affairs, to their move 
 back to Provins, and settling there. She affected to be anx- 
 ious to have her little cousin with her, allowing it to be un- 
 derstood that if Monsieur Rogron should not marry, Pierrette 
 would some day inherit twelve thousand francs a year. It 
 would be needful to have been, like Nebuchadnezzar, to some 
 extent a wild beast, shut up in a cage in a beast-garden with 
 nothing to prey on but butcher's meat brought in by the 
 keeper, or else a retired tradesman with no shop-clerks to 
 nag, to imagine the impatience with which the brother and 
 sister awaited their cousin Lorrain. Three days after the 
 despatch of the letter they were already wondering when the 
 child would arrive. 
 
 Sylvie discerned in her so-called generosity to her penniless 
 cousin a means of changing the views of Provins society with 
 regard to herself. She called on Madame Tiphaine, who had 
 stricken them with her disapproval, and who aimed at creat- 
 ing an upper class at Provins, like that at Geneva, and blew 
 the trumpet to announce the advent of her cousin Pierrette, 
 the child of Colonel Lorrain, pitying her woes, and con- 
 gratulating herself as a lucky woman on having a pretty young 
 heiress to introduce in society. 
 
 "You have been a long time discovering her," remarked 
 Madame Tiphaine, who sat enthroned on a sofa by her fire- 
 side. 
 
 Madame Garceland, in a few words spoken in an under- 
 tone during a deal, revived the story of the Auffray property. 
 The notary related the innkeeper's iniquities. 
 
 "Where is the poor little thing?" asked the president 
 politely. 
 
 "In Brittany," said Rogron. 
 
 " But Brittany is a wide word ! " remarked Monsieur Le- 
 sourd, the public prosecutor. 
 
 " Her grandfather and grandmother wrote to us. When 
 was it, my dear?" asked Rogron.
 
 46 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Sylvie, absorbed in asking Madame Garceland where she 
 had bought the stuff for her dress, did not foresee the effect 
 of her answer, and said, " Before we sold our business." 
 
 " And you answered three days ago, Mademoiselle Sylvie?" 
 exclaimed the notary. 
 
 Sylvie turned as red as the hottest coals in the fire. 
 
 "We wrote to the Institution of Saint- Jacques," replied 
 Rogron. 
 
 "There is a sort of asylum there for old people," said a 
 lawyer, who had been supernumerary judge at Nantes. " But 
 she cannot be there, for they only take in persons who are 
 past sixty." 
 
 " She is there with her grandmother Lorrain," said Rogron. 
 
 " She had a little money, the eight thousand francs left her 
 by your father no, I mean your grandfather," said the 
 notary, blundering intentionally. 
 
 "Indeed!" said Rogron, looking stupid, and not under- 
 standing this sarcasm. 
 
 " Then you knew nothing of your first cousin's fortune or 
 position ? " asked the president. 
 
 "If Monsieur Rogron had known it, he would not have 
 left her in a place which is no more than a respectable work- 
 house," said the judge severely. "I remember now that a 
 house belonging to Monsieur and Madame Lorrain was sold 
 at Nantes under an execution ; and Mademoiselle Lorrain lost 
 her claims, for I was the commissioner in charge." 
 
 The notary spoke of Colonel Lorrain, who, if he were 
 alive, would indeed be astonished to think of his child being 
 in an institution like that of Saint-Jacques. The Rogrons 
 presently withdrew, thinking the world very spiteful. Sylvie 
 perceived that her news had had no success ; she had ruined 
 herself in everybody's opinion ; henceforth she had no hope 
 of making her way in the higher society of Provins. 
 
 From that day the Rogrons no longer dissembled their 
 hatred of the great citizen-families of Provins, and of all
 
 PIERRETTE. 47 
 
 their adherents. The brother now repeated all the Liberal 
 fables which Lawyer Vinet and Colonel Gouraud had crammed 
 him with about the Tiphaines, the Guenees, the Garcelands, 
 the Guepins, and the Julliards. 
 
 "I tell you what, Sylvie, I don't see why Madame Tiph- 
 aine should turn a cold shoulder on the Rue Saint-Denis : the 
 best of her beauty was made there. Madame Roguin, her 
 mother, is a cousin of the Guillaumes of the Cat and Racket, 
 who gave over their business to their son-in-law Joseph Lebas. 
 Her father is that notary, that Roguin, who failed in 1819, 
 and ruined the Birotteaus. So Madame Tiphaine's money is 
 stolen wealth ; for what is a notary's wife who takes her own 
 settlement out of the fire and allows her husband to become a 
 fraudulent bankrupt ? A pretty thing indeed ! Ah ! I under- 
 stand ! She got her daughter married to live here at Provins 
 through her connection with the banker du Tillet. And 
 these people are proud ! Well ! However, that is what the 
 world is! " 
 
 On the day when Denis Rogron and his sister Sylvie thus 
 broke out in abuse of the clique, they had without knowing 
 it become persons of importance, and were on the high-road 
 to having some society ; their drawing-room was on the point 
 of becoming a centre of interests which only needed a stage. 
 The retired haberdasher assumed historical and political dig- 
 nity, for, still without knowing it, he gave strength and unity 
 to the hitherto unstable elements of the Liberal party at 
 Provins. And this was the way of it : The early career of the 
 Rogrons had been anxiously observed by Colonel Gouraud 
 and the advocate Vinet, who had been thrown together by 
 their isolation and their agreement of ideas. These two men 
 professed equal patriotism, and for the same reasons they 
 wanted to acquire importance. But though they were anxious 
 to be leaders, they lacked followers. The Liberals of Provins 
 comprised an old soldier who sold lemonade; an innkeeper; 
 Monsieur Cournant, a notary, Monsieur Auffray's rival; Mon-
 
 48 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 sieur N6raud, a physician, Doctor Martener's rival ; and some 
 independent persons, farmers scattered about the neighbor- 
 hood, and holders of national stock. The colonel and the 
 lawyer, glad to attract an idiot whose money might help them 
 in their manoeuvres, who would support their subscriptions, 
 who, in some cases, would take the bull by the horns, and 
 whose house would be useful as a town-hall for the party, took 
 advantage of the Rogrons' hostility towards the aristocrats of 
 the place. The colonel, the lawyer, and Rogron had a slight 
 bond in their joint subscription to the Constitutionnel ; it 
 would not be difficult for the colonel to make a Liberal of the 
 ex-haberdasher, though Rogron knew so little of political 
 history that he had not heard of the exploits of Sergeant 
 Mercier ; he thought he was a friend and brother. 
 
 The impending arrival of Pierrette hastened the hatching 
 of certain covetous dreams to which the ignorance and folly 
 of the old bachelor and old maid had given rise. The 
 colonel, seeing that Sylvie had lost all chance of getting her 
 foot into the circle of the Tiphaines, had an idea. Old 
 soldiers have seen so many horrors in so many lands, so many 
 naked corpses grimacing hideously on so many battlefields, 
 that an ugly face has no terror for them, so the colonel took 
 steady aim at the old maid's fortune. This officer, a short, 
 fat man, wore rings in his ears, which were already graced by 
 bushy tufts of hair. His floating gray whiskers were such as 
 in 1799 had been called "fins." His large, good-natured, 
 red face was somewhat frost-bitten, as were those of all who 
 escaped at the Beresina. His huge, prominent stomach had 
 the flattened angle below, characteristic of an old cavalry 
 officer j Gouraud had commanded the second regiment of 
 Hussars. His gray mustache covered a huge mouth a per- 
 fect trap the only word to describe that abyss ; he did not 
 eat, he devoured ! A sword-cut had shortened his nose. His 
 speech was in consequence thick and deeply nasal, like that 
 ascribed to Capuchin friars. His hands, which were small,
 
 PIERRETTE. 49 
 
 short, and broad, were such as make a woman say, " You 
 have the hands of a thorough scamp." His legs, below such 
 a huge body, looked frail. Within this active but clumsy 
 body lay a cunning spirit, entire experience of life and things, 
 hidden under the apparent carelessness of a soldier, and utter 
 contempt for the conventionalities of society. Colonel Gou- 
 raud had the pension of the cross of the Legion of Honor, 
 and two thousand four hundred francs a year as half-pay a 
 thousand crowns a year in all for his whole income. 
 
 The lawyer, tall and lean, had no talent but his political 
 opinions, and no income but the meagre profits of his busi- 
 ness. At Provins attorneys plead their own cases. In view of 
 his opinions, the court listened with small favor to Maitre 
 Vinet ; and the most Liberal farmers, when entangled in law- 
 suits, would rely on an attorney in favor with the bench 
 rather than employ Vinet. This man was said to have led 
 astray a rich girl living near Coulommiers, and to have com- 
 pelled her parents to let her marry him. His wife was one 
 of the Chargeboeufs, an old family of nobles in La Brie, who 
 took their name from the exploit of a squire in Saint Louis' 
 expedition to Egypt. She had incurred her parents' displeas- 
 ure, and they, to Vinet's knowledge, had arranged to leave 
 their whole fortune to their eldest son, charged, no doubt, 
 with a reversion in favor of his sister's children. Thus this 
 man's first ambitious scheme came to nothing. The lawyer, 
 soon haunted by poverty, and ashamed of not having enough 
 to enable his wife to keep up appearances, had made vain 
 efforts to get his foot into a ministerial career ; but the rich 
 branch of the Chargeboeufs refused to assist him. These 
 Royalists were strictly moral, and disapproved of a compul- 
 sory marriage ; besides, their would-be relation's name was 
 Vinet ; how could they favor any one so common ? So the 
 lawyer was handed on from one branch to another when he 
 tried to utilize his wife's interest with her relations. Madame 
 Vinet found no assistance but from one of the family, a 
 4
 
 50 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 widowed Madame Chargeboeuf, with a daughter, quite poor, 
 who lived at Troyes. And a day came when Vinet remem- 
 bered the kind reception his wife met with from this lady. 
 
 Rejected by the whole world, full of hatred of his wife's 
 family, of the government which refused him an appoint- 
 ment, and of the society of Provins, which would have noth- 
 ing to say to him, Vinet accepted his poverty. His venom 
 fermented and gave him energy to endure. He became a 
 Liberal on perceiving that his fortune was bound up with the 
 triumph of the Opposition, and vegetated in a wretched little 
 house in the upper town, which his wife seldom quitted. This 
 girl, born to a better fate, lived absolutely alone in her home 
 with her one child. There are cases of poverty nobly met 
 and cheerfully endured; but Vinet, eaten up by ambition, 
 and feeling that he had wronged a young creature, cherished 
 a dark indignation ; his conscience expanded to admit every 
 means to success. His face, still young, changed for the 
 worse. People were sometimes terrified in court at the sight 
 of his flat viperine head, with its wide mouth, and eyes that 
 glittered through his spectacles; at hearing his sharp, shrill, 
 rasping voice, that wrung their nerves. His muddy com- 
 plexion, patchy with sickly hues of yellow and green, re- 
 vealed his suppressed ambitions, his perpetual mortifications 
 and hidden penury. He could argue and harangue ; he had 
 no lack of point and imagery ; he was learned and crafty. 
 Accustomed to indulge his imagination for the sake of rising 
 by hook or by crook, he might have made a politician. A 
 man who hesitates at nothing so long as it is legal is a strong 
 man, and in this lay Vinet's strength. 
 
 This coming athlete of parliamentary debate one of the 
 men who were to proclaim the supremacy of the House of 
 Orleans had a disastrous influence over Pierrette's fate. At 
 present he wanted to provide himself with a weapon by found- 
 ing a newspaper at Provins. After having studied the Rogrons 
 from afar, with the assistance of the colonel, he ended by
 
 PIERRETTE. 51 
 
 reckoning on the brother. And this time he reckoned with 
 his host ; his poverty was to come to an end after seven dolor- 
 ous years, during which more than one day had come round 
 without bread. On the day when Gouraud announced to 
 Vinet, on the little square, that the Rogrons had broken with 
 the citizen aristocracy and official circles of the old town, the 
 lawyer nudged him significantly in the ribs. 
 
 "This wife or that, ugly or handsome, it must be all the 
 same to you," said he. "You should marry Mademoiselle 
 Rogron, and then we could get something done here " 
 
 " I was thinking of it. But they have sent for the daughter 
 of poor Colonel Lorrain their heiress," said Gouraud. 
 
 "You could make them leave you their money by will. 
 You would have a very nicely fitted house." 
 
 " And the child, after all ! Well, we shall see," said the 
 colonel, with a jocose and deeply villainous leer, which showed 
 a man of Vinet's temper how small a thing a little girl was in 
 the eyes of this old soldier. 
 
 Since her grandparents had gone into the asylum where 
 they were forlornly ending their days, Pierrette, young and 
 full of pride, was so dreadfully miserable at living there on 
 charity, that she was happy to learn that she had some rich 
 connections. On hearing that she was leaving, Brigaut, the 
 major's son, the companion of her childhood, who was now 
 a joiner's apprentice at Nantes, came to give her the money 
 needful for her journey by coach sixty francs, all the savings 
 of his odd earnings painfully hoarded ; Pierrette accepted it 
 with the sublime indifference of true friendship, showing that 
 she in similar circumstances would have been hurt by thanks. 
 Brigaut had gone every Sunday to Saint-Jacques to play with 
 Pierrette, and to comfort her. The sturdy young workman 
 had already gone through his delightful apprenticeship to the 
 perfect and devoted care that we give to the object of our in- 
 voluntary choice and affection. More than once ere now,
 
 52 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Pierrette and he, on a Sunday, sitting in a corner of the 
 garden, had sketched their childish dreams on the veil of the 
 future ; the young craftsman, mounted on his plane, traveled 
 round the world, making a fortune for Pierrette, who waited 
 for him. 
 
 So, in the month of October, 1824, when Pierrette had 
 almost completed her eleventh year, she was placed in the 
 care of the guard of the diligence from Nantes to Paris by 
 the two old people and the young apprentice, all three dread- 
 fully sad. The guard was requested to put her into the coach 
 for Provins, and to take great care of her. Poor Brigaut ! he 
 ran after the diligence like a dog, looking at his dear Pierrette 
 as long as he could. In spite of the child's signals, he ran 
 on for a league beyond the town, and when he was exhausted 
 his eyes sent a last tearful glance at Pierrette, who cried when 
 she could see him no more. Pierrette put her head out of the 
 window, and discerned her friend standing squarely and 
 watching the heavy vehicle that left him behind. 
 
 The Lorrains and Brigaut had so little knowledge of life 
 that the little Bretonne had not a sou left when she arrived in 
 Paris. The guard, to whom the child prattled of rich rela- 
 tions, paid her expenses at an inn in Paris, made the guard 
 of the Troyes coach repay him, and desired him to deliver 
 Pierrette to her family and collect the debt, exactly as if she 
 were a parcel by carrier. 
 
 Four days after leaving Nantes, at about nine o'clock one 
 Monday evening, a kind, burly old guard of the Messageries 
 Royales took Pierrette by the hand, and, while the coach was 
 unloading in the High Street such passengers and parcels as 
 were to be deposited at Provins, he led her, with no luggage 
 but two frocks, two pairs of stockings, and two shifts, to the 
 house pointed out to him by the office clerk as that of 
 Mademoiselle Rogron. 
 
 "Good-morning, mademoiselle, and gents all," said the 
 guard. " I have brought you a cousin of yours, and here she
 
 HAVE BROUGHT YOU A COUSIN OF YOURS, AND 
 HERE SHE BE."
 
 PIERRETTE. 53 
 
 be, and a pretty dear, too. You have forty-seven francs to 
 pay. Though your little girl has no weight of baggage, please 
 to sign my way-book." 
 
 Mademoiselle Sylvie and her brother gave way to their 
 delight and astonishment. 
 
 "Begging your pardon," said the guard, "my coach is 
 waiting sign my sheet and give me forty-seven francs and 
 sixty centimes, and what you please for me and the guard 
 from Nantes, for we have taken as much care of her as if she 
 were our own. We have paid out for her bed and food, her 
 place in the coach here, and other little things." 
 
 "Forty-seven francs and twelve sous?" exclaimed Sylvie. 
 
 " You're never going to beat me down ? " cried the guard. 
 
 " But where is the invoice? " said Rogron. 
 
 " The invoice ! Here is my way-bill." 
 
 "You can talk afterwards, pay now! " said Sylvie to her 
 brother; "you see, you cannot help paying." 
 
 Rogron went to fetch forty-seven francs twelve sous. 
 
 "And nothing for us for my pal and me?" said the 
 guard. 
 
 Sylvia produced a two-franc piece from the depths of her 
 old velvet bag, where her keys lurked in bunches. 
 
 "Thank you keep it," said the man. " We would rather 
 have looked after the little girl for her own sake." He took 
 up his sheet and went out, saying to the servant-girl : "A 
 nice place this is ! There are crocodiles of that sort without 
 going to Egypt for 'em." 
 
 "Those people are horribly coarse ! " said Sylvie, who had 
 heard his speech. 
 
 " Dame ! they took care of the child," replied Adele, with 
 her hands on her hips. 
 
 " We are not obliged to live with him," said Rogron. 
 
 " Where is she to sleep? " asked the maid. 
 
 Such was the reception that met Pierrette Lorrain on her 
 arrival at her cousins' house, while they looked at her with a
 
 54 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 bewildered air. She was flung on their hands like a parcel, 
 with no transition between the wretched room in which she 
 had lived with her grandparents and her cousins' dining- 
 room, which struck her as palatial. She stood there mute 
 and shy. To any one but these retired haberdashers the little 
 Bretonne would have been adorable in her frock of coarse blue 
 serge, a pink cotton apron, her blue stockings, thick shoes, 
 and white kerchief; her little red hands were covered by 
 knitted mittens of red wool edged with white that the guard 
 had bought for her. Her little Brittany cap, which had been 
 washed in Paris it had gotten tumbled in the course of the 
 journey from Nantes really looked like a glory round her 
 bright face. This native cap, made of fine cambric, with a 
 stiff lace border ironed into flat pleats, deserves a description, 
 it is so smart and so simple. The light, filtered through the 
 muslin and lace, casts a half-shadow, a twilight softness, on 
 the face ; it gives it the virginal grace which painters try to 
 find on their palettes, and which Leopold Robert has suc- 
 ceeded in lending to the Raphael-like face of the woman 
 holding a child in his picture of "The Reapers." Within 
 this setting of broken lights shone an artless rose and white 
 face, beaming with vigorous health. The heat of the room 
 brought the blood to her head, and it suffused the edge of her 
 tiny ears with fire, tinging her lips and the tip of a finely cut 
 nose, while by contrast it made her bright complexion look 
 whiter than before. 
 
 "Well, have you nothing to say to us?" said Sylvie. "I 
 am your cousin Sylvie, and that is your cousin Denis." 
 
 " Are you hungry? " asked Rogron. 
 
 "When did you leave Nantes?" asked Sylvie. 
 
 " She is dumb," said Rogron. 
 
 " Poor child, she has very few clothes to her back ! " ob- 
 served sturdy Adele, as she untied the bundle wrapped in a 
 handkerchief belonging to old Lorrain. 
 
 " Kiss your cousin," said Sylvie. Pierrette kissed Rogron.
 
 PIERRETTE. 65 
 
 "Yes, kiss your cousin," said Rogron. Pierrette kissed 
 Sylvie. 
 
 ' ' She is scared by the journey, poor little thing ; perhaps 
 she is sleepy," said Adele. 
 
 Pierrette felt a sudden and invincible aversion for her two 
 relations, a feeling she had never before known. Sylvie and 
 the maid went to put the little girl to bed in the room on the 
 second floor where Brigaut was to see the cotton curtain. 
 There were in this attic a small bed with a pole painted blue, 
 from which hung a cotton curtain, a chest of drawers of 
 walnut-wood, with no marble top, a smaller table of the same 
 wood, a looking-glass, a common bed-table, and three wretched 
 chairs. The walls and sloping roof to the front were covered 
 with a cheap blue paper flowered with black. The floor was 
 painted and waxed, and struck cold to the feet. There was 
 no carpet but a thin bedside rug made of selvages. The 
 chimney-shelf, of cheap marble, was graced with a mirror, 
 two candlesticks of copper gilt, and a vulgar alabaster vase 
 with two pigeons drinking to serve as handles ; this Sylvie 
 had had in her room in Paris. 
 
 " Shall you be comfortable here, child ? " asked Sylvie. 
 
 " Oh ! it is beautiful? " replied the little girl in her silvery 
 treble. 
 
 " She is not hard to please," muttered the sturdy peasant- 
 woman to herself. " I had better warm the bed, I suppose ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 "Yes," said Sylvie, " the sheets may be damp." 
 
 Adele brought a headkerchief of her own when she came 
 up with the warming-pan ; and Pierrette, who had hitherto 
 slept in sheets of coarse Brittany linen, was amazed at the 
 fine, soft cotton sheets. When the little girl was settled and 
 in bed, Adele, as she went downstairs, could not help ex- 
 claiming, " All her things put together are not worth three 
 francs, mademoiselle ! " 
 
 Since adopting her system of strict economy, Sylvie always
 
 56 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 made the servant sit in the dining-room, so as to have but one 
 lamp and one fire. When Colonel Gouraud and Vinet came, 
 Adele withdrew to her kitchen. Pierrette's arrival kept 
 them talking for the rest of the evening. 
 
 "We must get her some clothes to-morrow," said Sylvie. 
 " She has hardly a stitch." 
 
 " She has no shoes but those thick ones she had on, and 
 they weigh a pound," said Adele. 
 
 ''They wear them so in those parts," said Rogron. 
 
 " How she looked at the room, which is none too fine 
 either, for a cousin of yours, mademoiselle ! " 
 
 " So much the better ; hold your tongue. You see she is 
 delighted with it." 
 
 " Lord above us ! what shifts ! They must rub her skin 
 raw. But none of these things are of any use," said Adele, 
 turning out the contents of Pierrette's bundle. 
 
 Till ten o'clock master, mistress, and maid were busy de- 
 ciding of what stuff and at what price the shifts should be 
 made, how many pairs of stockings and of what quality, and 
 how many under-petticoats would be needed, and calculating 
 the cost of Pierrette's wardrobe. 
 
 " You will not get off for less than three hundred francs," 
 said Rogron to his sister, as he carried the price of each 
 article in his head from long practice, and added up the 
 total from memory. 
 
 "Three hundred francs ! " exclaimed Sylvie. 
 
 " Yes, three hundred ; work it out yourself." 
 
 The brother and sister began again, and made it three hun- 
 dred francs without the sewing. 
 
 "Three hundred francs at one cast of the net!" cried 
 Sylvie, who went to bed on the idea so ingeniously expressed 
 by this proverbial figure of speech. 
 
 Pierrette was one of those children of love whom love has 
 blessed with tenderness, cheerfulness, brightness, generosity, 
 and devotedness ; nothing had as yet chilled or crushed her
 
 PIERRETTE. 57 
 
 heart ; it was almost wildly sensitive, and the way she was re- 
 ceived by her relations weighed on it painfully. Though 
 Brittany had to her been a home of poverty, it had also been 
 a home of affection. Though the old Lorrains were the most 
 unskillful traders, they were the simplest, most loving, most 
 caressing souls in the world, as all disinterested people are. 
 At Pen-Hocl their little granddaughter had had no teaching 
 but that of nature. Pierrette went as she would in a boat on 
 the pools, she ran about the village or the fields with her 
 companion Jacques Brigaut, exactly like Paul and Virginia. 
 Both the children, spoiled and petted by every one, and as 
 free as the air, ran after the thousand joys of childhood ; in 
 summer they went to watch the fishermen, they caught in- 
 sects, plucked flowers, and gardened ; in winter they made 
 slides, built smart snow-palaces and snow-men, or made 
 snowballs to pelt each other They were everywhere wel- 
 come ; everybody smiled on them. 
 
 When it was time that they should learn something, mis- 
 fortunes came. Jacques, left destitute by his father's death, 
 was apprenticed by his relations to a cabinetmaker, and main- 
 tained by charity, as Pierrette was soon after in the asylum of 
 Saint-Jacques. But even in this almshouse, pretty little Pier- 
 rette had been made much of, loved, and kindly treated by 
 all. The child, thus accustomed to so much affection, no 
 longer found, in the home of these longed-for and wealthy re- 
 lations, the look, the tone, the words, the manner which she 
 had hitherto met with in every one, even in the guards of 
 the diligences. Thus her amazement, already great, was 
 complicated by the changed moral atmosphere into which she 
 had been plunged. The heart can turn suddenly cold and 
 hot as the body can. The poor child longed to cry without 
 knowing what for. She was tired, and she fell asleep. 
 
 Accustomed to rise very early, like all country-bred chil- 
 dren, Pierrette awoke next morning two hours before the cook. 
 She dressed, trotted about her room over her cousin's head.
 
 58 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 looked out on the little square, and was going downstairs ; 
 she was astonished at the splendor of the staircase ; she exam- 
 ined every detail the rosettes, the brass-work, the mouldings, 
 the painting, etc. Then she went down ; she could not open 
 the garden door, so she came up again ; went down once 
 more when Adele was about, and sprang into the garden. 
 She took possession of it, ran to the river, was amazed by 
 the summer-house, went into the summer-house; she had 
 enough to see and wonder at in all she saw till her cousin 
 Sylvie was up. During breakfast Sylvie said to her 
 
 " So it was you, little bird, who was trotting up and down- 
 stairs at daybreak, and making such a noise ? You woke me 
 so completely that I could not get to sleep again. You must 
 be very quiet, very good, and learn to play without making a 
 sound. Your cousin does not like noise ? " 
 
 "And you must take care about your feet," said Rogron. 
 "You went into the summer-house with muddy shoes, and 
 left your footsteps printed on the floor. Your cousin likes 
 everything to be clean. A great girl like you ought to be 
 cleanly. Were you not taught to be clean in Brittany? To 
 be sure, when I went there to buy flax it was dreadful to see 
 what savages they were ! She has a fine appetite at any rate," 
 said Rogron, turning to his sister; "you might think she 
 had not seen food these three days." 
 
 And so, from the very first, Pierrette felt hurt by her 
 cousins' remarks, hurt without knowing why. Her frank and 
 upright nature, hitherto left to itself, had never been used to 
 reflect ; incapable, therefore, of understanding wherein her 
 cousins were wrong, she was doomed to tardy enlightenment 
 through suffering. 
 
 After breakfast, the couple, delighted by Pierrette's aston- 
 ishment, and eager to enjoy it, showed her their fine drawing- 
 room, to teach her to respect its splendor. Unmarried people, 
 as a result of their isolation, and prompted by the craving for 
 something to interest them, are led to supply the place of
 
 PIERRETTE. 59 
 
 natural affections by artificial affections the love of dogs, 
 cats, or canary birds, or their servant or their spiritual 
 director. Thus Rogron and Sylvie had an immoderate affec- 
 tion for the house and furniture that had cost them so much. 
 Sylvie had taken to helping Adele every morning, being of 
 opinion that the woman did not know how to wipe furniture, 
 to brush it, and make it look like new. This cleaning was 
 soon her constant occupation. Thus, far from diminishing 
 in value, the furniture was improved. Then the problem was 
 to use it without wearing it out, without staining it, without 
 scratching the wood or chilling the polish. This idea ere 
 long became an old maid's monomania. Sylvie kept in a 
 closet woolen rags, wax, varnish, and brushes; she learned 
 to use them as skillfully as a polisher ; she had feather brooms 
 and dusters, and she could rub without fear of hurting herself, 
 she was so strong ! Her clear, blue eye, as cold and hard as 
 steel, constantly peered under the furniture, and you were 
 more likely to find a tender chord in her heart than a speck 
 of flue under a chair. 
 
 After what had passed at Madame Tiphaine's, Sylvie could 
 not possibly shirk the outlay of three hundred francs. Dur- 
 ing the first week Sylvie was wholly occupied, and Pierrette 
 constantly amused, by the frocks to be ordered and tried on, 
 the shifts and petticoats to be cut out and made by needle- 
 women working by the day. Pierrette did not know how to 
 sew. 
 
 " She has been nicely brought up ! " cried Rogron. " Do 
 you know nothing, child?" 
 
 Pierrette, who only knew how to love, answered but by a 
 pretty childish shrug. 
 
 "What did you do all daylong in Brittany?" asked her 
 cousin Rogron. 
 
 "I played," she replied guilelessly. " Everybody played 
 with me. Grandmamma and grandpapa and everybody told 
 me stories. Oh ! they were very fond of me."
 
 60 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Indeed ! " replied Rogron, " and so you lived like a 
 lady." 
 
 Pierrette did not understand this tradesman's wit. She 
 opened her eyes wide. 
 
 " She is as stupid as a wooden stool," said Sylvie to Made- 
 moiselle Borain, the best workwoman in Provins. 
 
 " So young ! " said the needlewoman, looking at Pierrette, 
 whose delicate little face looked up at her with a knowing 
 expression. 
 
 Pierrette liked the workwomen better than her cousins ; 
 she put on pretty airs for them, watched them sewing, said 
 quaint things the flowers of childhood, such as Rogron and 
 Sylvie had already silenced by fear, for they liked to impress 
 all dependents with a wholesome alarm. The sewing-women 
 were charmed with Pierrette. The outfit, however, was not 
 achieved without some terrible interjections. 
 
 "That child will cost us the eyes in our heads!" said 
 Sylvie to Rogron. 
 
 " Hold yourself up, child, do. The deuce is in it ! the 
 clothes are for you, not for me," said she to Pierrette, when 
 she was being measured or fitted. 
 
 " Come, let Mademoiselle Borain do her work ; you won't 
 pay her day's wages ! " she exclaimed, seeing the child ask 
 the head needlewoman to do something for her. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," asked Mademoiselle Borain, " must this 
 seam be back-stitched ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes; make everything strongly; I do not want to have 
 such a piece of work again in a hurry." 
 
 But it was the same with the little cousin as with the house. 
 Pierrette was to be as well dressed as Madame Garceland's 
 little girl. She had fashionable little boots of bronze kid, 
 like the little Tiphaine girl. She had very fine cotton stock- 
 ings, stays by the best maker, a frock of blue reps, a pretty 
 cape lined with white silk, all in rivalry with young Madame 
 Julliard's little girl. And the underclothes were as good as
 
 PIERRETTE. 61 
 
 the outside show, Sylvie was so much afraid of the keen and 
 scrutinizing eye of the mothers of children. Pierrette had 
 pretty shifts of fine calico. Mademoiselle Borain said that 
 madame the sous-prefet's little girls wore cambric drawers 
 with embroidery and frilling the latest thing, in short ; Pier- 
 rette had frilled drawers. A charming drawn bonnet was 
 ordered for her of blue velvet lined with white satin, like the 
 little Martener girl's. Thus Pierrette was the smartest little 
 person in Provins. On Sunday, on coming out from church, 
 all the ladies kissed her. Mesdames Tipbaine, Garceland, 
 Galardon, Auffray, Lesourd, Martener, Guepin, and Julliard 
 doted on the sweet little Bretonne. This excitement flattered 
 old Sylvie's vanity, and in her lavishness she thought less of 
 Pierrette than of gratified pride. 
 
 However, Sylvie was fated to find offense in her little 
 cousin's success, and this was how it came about : Pierrette 
 was asked out, and, still to triumph over her neighbors, Sylvie 
 allowed her to go. Pierrette was called for to play games and 
 have dolls' dinner-parties with these ladies' children. Pier- 
 rette was a much greater success than the Rogrons ; Made- 
 moiselle Sylvie was aggrieved that Pierrette was in demand at 
 other houses, but that no one came to see Pierrette at home. 
 The artless child made no secret of her enjoyment at the houses 
 of the Tiphaines, the Marteners, the Galardons, the Julliards, 
 the Lesourds, the Auffrays, and the Garcelands, whose kind- 
 ness contrasted strangely with the vexatiousness of her cousins. 
 A mother would have been glad of her child's happiness; but 
 the Rogrons had taken Pierrette to please themselves, not to 
 please her ; their feelings, far from being paternal, were tainted 
 with egoism and a sort of commercial interest. 
 
 The beautiful outfit, the fine Sunday clothes, and the every- 
 day frocks began Pierrette's misfortunes. Like all children 
 free to amuse themselves and accustomed to follow the dictates 
 of fancy, she wore out her shoes, boots, and frocks with fright- 
 ful rapidity, and, above all, her frilled drawers. A mother
 
 62 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 when she scolds her child thinks of the child only ; she is 
 only hard when driven to extremities, and when the child is 
 in the wrong ; but in this great clothes question, the cousins' 
 money was the first consideration ; that was the real point, 
 and not Pierrette. Children have a dog-like instinct for dis- 
 cerning injustice in those who rule them ; they feel without 
 fail whether they are tolerated or loved. Innocent hearts are 
 more alive to shades than to contrasts ; a child that does not 
 yet understand evil knows when you offend the sense of beauty 
 bestowed on it by nature. The lessons that Pierrette brought 
 upon herself as to the behavior of a well-bred young lady, as 
 to modesty and economy, were the corollary of this main 
 idea "Pierrette is ruining us." 
 
 These scoldings, which had a fatal issue for Pierrette, led 
 the old couple back into the familiar commercial ruts from 
 which their home-life at Provins had led them to wander, and 
 in which their nature could expand and blossom. After being 
 used to domineer, to make remarks, to give orders, to scold 
 their clerks sharply, Rogron and his sister were perishing for 
 lack of victims. Small natures require despotism to exer- 
 cise their sinews, as great souls thirst for equality to give 
 play to their heart. Now narrow minds can develop as well 
 through persecution as through benevolence ; they can assure 
 themselves of their power by tyrannizing cruelly or benefi- 
 cently over others ; they go the way their nature guides them. 
 Add to this the guidance of interest, and you will have the 
 key to most social riddles. Pierrette now became very neces- 
 sary to her cousins' existence. Since her arrival the Rogrons 
 had been absorbed in her outfit, and then attracted by the 
 novelty of companionship. Every new thing, a feeling, or 
 even a tyranny, must form its set, its creases. Sylvie began 
 by calling Pierrette " my child ; " she gave up " my child " 
 for "Pierrette" unqualified. Her reproofs, at first sourly 
 gentle, became hard and sharp. As soon as they had started 
 on this road, the brother and sister made rapid progress.
 
 PIERRETTE. 63 
 
 They were no longer dull. It was not a deliberate scheme 
 of malice and cruelty; it was the instinct of unreasoning 
 tyranny. They believed that they were doing good to Pier- 
 rette, as of old to their apprentices. 
 
 Pierrette, whose sensitiveness was genuine, noble, and over- 
 strung, the very antipodes of the Rogrons' aridity, had a horror 
 of being blamed ; it struck her so cruelly that tears rose at 
 once to her large, clear eyes. She had a hard struggle to sup- 
 press her engaging liveliness, which charmed every one out of 
 the house. She might indulge it before the mothers of her 
 little friends; but at her home, by the end of the first month, 
 she began to sit silent, and Rogron asked her if she were ill. 
 At this strange question she flew off to the bottom of the 
 garden to cry by the river, into which her tears fell, as she 
 was one day to fall in the torrent of society. 
 
 One day, in spite of her care, the little girl tore her best 
 reps frock at Madame Tiphaine's where she had gone to play 
 one fine day. She at once burst into tears, foreseeing the 
 scolding that awaited her at home. On being questioned, 
 she let fall a few words about her terrible cousin Sylvie in the 
 midst of her tears. Pretty Madame Tiphaine had some stuff 
 to match, and she herself put in a new front breadth. Made- 
 moiselle Rogron heard of the trick, as she called it, played on 
 her by that limb of a little girl. From that day she would 
 never let Pierrette visit any of the ladies. 
 
 The new life which Pierrette was to lead at Provins was 
 fated to fall into three very distinct phases. The first lasted 
 three months, during which she enjoyed a kind of happiness, 
 divided between the old people's cold caresses and the scold- 
 ings, which she found scorching. The prohibition that kept 
 her from seeing her little friends, emphasizing the necessity 
 for beginning to learn everything that a well-brought-up girl 
 should know, put an end to the first phase of Pierrette's life 
 at Provins, the only period when she found existence en- 
 durable.
 
 C4 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 The domestic changes produced at the Rogrons' house by 
 Pierrette's residence there were studied by Vinet and the 
 colonel with the cunning of a fox bent on getting into a fowl- 
 house, and uneasy at discovering a new creature on the scene. 
 They both paid calls at long intervals, so as not to scare 
 Mademoiselle Sylvie ; they found various excuses for chatting 
 with Rogron, and made themselves masters of the situation 
 with an air of reserve and dignity that the great Tartufe 
 might have admired. The colonel and the lawyer spent at 
 the Rogrons the evening of the very day when Sylvie had 
 refused, in very harsh terms, to let Pierrette go to Madame 
 Tiphaine's. On hearing of her refusal, the colonel and the 
 lawyer looked at each other as folks who knew their Provins. 
 
 "She positively tried to make a fool of you?" said the 
 lawyer. " We warned Rogron long ago of what has now 
 happened. There is no good to be gotten out of those 
 people." 
 
 " What can you expect of the anti-national party?" cried 
 the colonel, curling up his mustache and interrupting Vinet. 
 "If we had tried to get you away from them, you might have 
 thought that we had some malicious motive for speaking to 
 you so. But why, mademoiselle, if you are fond of a little 
 game, should you not play boston in the evenings at home in 
 your own house?. Is it impossible to find any one in the 
 place of such idiots as the Julliards ? Vinet and I play bos- 
 ton ; we will find a fourth. Vinet might introduce his wife 
 to you ; she is very nice, and she is one of the Chargebceufs. 
 You will not be like those apes in the upper town ; you will 
 not expect a good little housewife, who is compelled by her 
 family's disgraceful conduct to do all her own housework, to 
 dress like a duchess and she has the courage of a lion and 
 the gentleness of a lamb." 
 
 Sylvie Rogron displayed her long yellow teeth in a smile at 
 the colonel, who endured the horrible phenomenon very well, 
 and even assumed a flattering air.
 
 PIERRETTE. 65 
 
 " If there are but four of us, we cannot play boston every 
 evening," replied she. 
 
 " Why, where else have I to go an old soldier like me 
 who has nothing to do, and lives on his pensions ? The law- 
 yer is free every evening. Besides, you will have company, I 
 promise you," he added, with a mysterious air. 
 
 "You have only to declare yourselves frankly opposed to 
 the ministerial party in Provins, and hold your own against 
 them," said Vinet. " You would see how popular you would 
 be in Provins ; you would have a great many people on your 
 side. You would make the Tiphaines furious by having an 
 opposition salon. Well, then, let us laugh at others, if others 
 laugh at us. The ' clique ' do not spare you, I can tell you." 
 
 " What do they say? " asked Sylvie. 
 
 In country towns there is always more than one safety- 
 valve by which gossip finds a vent from one set into another. 
 Vinet had heard all that had been said about the Rogrons in 
 the drawing-rooms from which the haberdashers had been 
 definitively banished. The supernumerary judge Desfon- 
 drilles, the archaeologist, was of neither party. This man, 
 like some other independent members of society, repeated 
 everything he heard, out of provincial habit, and Vinet had 
 had the benefit of his chit-chat. The malicious lawyer re- 
 peated Madame Tiphaine's pleasantries with added venom. 
 As he revealed the practical jokes of which Sylvie and 
 Rogron had been the unconscious victims, he stirred the 
 rage and aroused the revengeful spirit of these two arid souls, 
 craving some aliment for their mean passions. 
 
 A few days later Vinet brought his wife, a well-bred woman, 
 shy, neither plain nor pretty, very meek, and very conscious 
 of her misfortune. Madame Vinet was fair, rather worn by 
 the cares of her penurious housekeeping, and very simply 
 dressed. No woman could have better pleased Sylvie. 
 Madame Vinet put up with Sylvie's airs, and gave way to her 
 like a woman accustomed to give way. On her round fore- 
 5
 
 G6 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 head, her rose-pink cheeks, in her slow, gentle eyes, there 
 were traces of those deep reflections, that clear-sighted thought- 
 fulness, which women who are used to suffering bury under 
 perfect silence. The influence of the colonel, displaying for 
 Sylvie's behoof courtiercsque graces that seemed wrung from 
 his soldierly roughness, with that of the wily Vinet, soon 
 made itself felt by Pierrette. The child, the pretty squirrel, 
 shut up in the house, or going out only with old Sylvie, was 
 every instant checked by a " Don't touch that, Pierrette ! " 
 and by incessant sermons on holding herself up. Pierrette 
 stooped and held her shoulders high ; her cousin wanted her 
 to be as straight as herself, and she was like a soldier present- 
 ing arms to his colonel ; she would sometimes give her little 
 slaps on her back to make her hold herself up. The free and 
 light-hearted child of the Marais learned to measure her 
 movements and imitate an automaton. 
 
 One evening, which marked the beginning of the second 
 period, Pierrette, whom the three visitors had not seen in the 
 drawing-room during the evening, came to kiss her cousins 
 and curtsey to the company before going to bed. Sylvie 
 coldly offered her cheek to the pretty little thing, as if to be 
 kissed and have done with it. The action was so cruelly 
 significant that tears started from Pierrette's eyes. 
 
 "Have you pricked yourself, my little Pierrette," said the 
 abominable Vinet. 
 
 " What is the matter with you? " asked Sylvie severely. 
 
 " Nothing," said the poor child, going to kiss Rogron. 
 
 "Nothing?" repeated Sylvie. "You cannot be crying 
 for nothing ! " 
 
 "What is it, my little pet ?" asked Madame Vinet. 
 
 "My rich cousin Sylvie does not treat me so well as my 
 poor grandmother ! " 
 
 " Your grandmother stole your money," said Sylvie, " and 
 your cousin will leave you hers." 
 
 The colonel and Vinet exchanged covert glances.
 
 PIERRETTE. 67 
 
 "I would rather be robbed and loved," meekly replied 
 Pierrette in return. 
 
 "Very well, you shall be sent back to the place you came 
 from." 
 
 "But what has the dear child done?" asked Madame 
 Vinet. 
 
 Vinet fixed his eye on his wife, with that terrible cold, 
 fixed stare that belongs to those who rule despotically. The 
 poor lonely woman, unceasingly punished for not having the 
 one thing required of her namely, a fortune took up her 
 cards again. 
 
 " What has she done ? " cried Sylvie, raising her head with 
 a jerk so sudden that the yellow wallflowers in her cap were 
 shaken. " She does not know what to do next to annoy us. 
 She opened my watch to examine the works, and touched the 
 wheel, and broke the mainspring. Mademoiselle listens to 
 nothing. All day long I am telling her to take care what she 
 is about, and I might as well talk to the lamp." 
 
 Pierrette, ashamed of being reprimanded in the presence of 
 strangers, went out of the room very gently. 
 
 "I cannot think how to quell that child's turbulence," 
 said Rogron. 
 
 "Why, she is old enough to go to school," said Madame 
 Vinet. 
 
 Another look from Vinet silenced his wife, to whom he 
 had been careful not to confide his plans and the colonel's 
 with regard to the bachelor couple. 
 
 " That is what comes of taking charge of other people's 
 children," cried Gouraud. " You might have some of your 
 own yet, you or your brother; why do you not both marry?" 
 
 Sylvie looked very sweetly at the colonel ; for the first time 
 in her life she beheld a man to whom the idea that she might 
 marry did not seem absurd. 
 
 "Madame Vinet is right!" cried Rogron, "that would 
 keep Pierrette quiet. A master would not cost much."
 
 68 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 The colonel's speech so entirely occupied Sylvie that she 
 did not answer her brother. 
 
 "If only you would stand the money for the opposition 
 paper we were talking about, you might find a tutor for your 
 little cousin in the responsible editor. We could get that 
 poor schoolmaster who was victimized by the encroachments 
 of the priests. My wife is right ; Pierrette is a rough dia- 
 mond that needs polishing," said Vinet to Rogron. 
 
 "I fancied that you were a baron," said Sylvie to the 
 colonel, after a long pause, while each player seemed medi- 
 tative. 
 
 "Yes. But having won the title in 1814, after the battle 
 of Nangis, where my regiment did wonders, how could I find 
 the money or the assistance needed to get it duly registered ? 
 The barony, like the rank of general, which I won in 1815, 
 must wait for a revolution to secure them to me." 
 
 "If you could give a mortgage as your guarantee for the 
 money," said Rogron presently, " I could do it." 
 
 "That could be arranged with Cournant," replied Vinet. 
 " The newspaper would lead to the colonel's triumph, and 
 make your drawing-room more powerful than those of Ti- 
 phaine and Co." 
 
 " How is that ? " asked Sylvie. 
 
 At this moment, while Madame Vinet was dealing, and the 
 lawyer explaining all the importance that the publication of 
 an independent paper for the district of Provins must confer 
 on Rogron, the colonel, and himself, Pierrette was bathed in 
 tears. Her heart and brain were agreed ; she thought Sylvie 
 far more to blame than herself. The little Bretonne instinc- 
 tively perceived how unfailing charity and benevolence should 
 be. She hated her fine frocks and all that was done for her. 
 She paid too dear for these benefits. She cried with rage at 
 having given her cousins a hold over her, and determined to 
 behave in such a way as to reduce them to silence, poor child ! 
 Then she saw how noble Brigaut had been to give her his
 
 PIERRETTE. 69 
 
 savings. She thought her woes had reached a climax, not 
 knowing that at that moment new misfortunes were being 
 plotted in the drawing-room. 
 
 A few days later Pierrette had a writing-master. She was 
 to learn to read, write, and do sums. Pierrette's education 
 involved the house of Rogron in fearful disaster. There was 
 ink on the tables, on the furniture, and on her clothes ; writ- 
 ing-books and pens strewn everywhere, powder on the uphol- 
 stery, books torn and dog's-eared while she was learning her 
 lessons. They already spoke to her and in what a way ! 
 of the necessity for earning her living and being a burden on 
 no one. As she heard these dreadful warnings, Pierrette felt 
 a burning in her throat ; she was choking, her heart beat 
 painfully fast. She was obliged to swallow down her tears; 
 for each one was reckoned with an offense against her mag- 
 nanimous relations. Rogron had found the occupation that 
 suited him. He scolded Pierrette as he had formerly scolded 
 his shopmen ; he would fetch her in from the midst of her 
 play to compel her to study ; he heard her repeat her lessons ; 
 he was the poor child's fierce tutor. Sylvie, on her part, 
 thought it her duty to teach Pierrette the little she knew of 
 womanly accomplishments. 
 
 Neither Rogron nor his sister had any gentleness of nature. 
 These narrow souls, finding a real pleasure in bullying the 
 poor little thing, changed unconsciously from mildness to the 
 greatest severity. This severity was, they said, the con- 
 sequence of the child's obstinacy ; she had begun too late to 
 learn, and was dull of comprehension. Her teachers did not 
 understand the art of giving lessons in a form suited to the 
 pupil's intelligence, which is what should distinguish private 
 from public education. The fault lay far less with Pierrette 
 than with her cousins. It took her an immensely long time 
 to learn the beginnings. For the merest trifle she was called 
 stupid and silly, foolish and awkward. Incessantly ill used 
 by hard words, Pierrette never met any but cold looks from
 
 70 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 the two old people. She fell into the stolid dullness of a 
 sheep ; she dared do nothing when she found her actions mis. 
 judged, misunderstood, misinterpreted. In everything she 
 awaited Sylvie's orders and the expression of her cousin's 
 will, keeping her thoughts to herself and shutting herself up 
 in passive obedience. Her bright color began to fade. 
 Sometimes she complained of aches and pains. When Sylvie 
 asked her where? the poor child, who felt generally ailing, 
 replied, " All over." 
 
 " Was there ever such a thing heard of as aching all over? 
 If you were ill all over, you would certainly be dead ! " re- 
 torted Sylvie. 
 
 "You may have a pain in your chest," said Rogron the 
 expositor, "or in your teeth, or your head, or your feet, or 
 your stomach, but no one ever had pains everywhere. What 
 do you mean by ' all over ? ' Pain all over is pain nowhere. 
 Do you know what you are doing ? You are talking for talk- 
 ing's sake." 
 
 Pierrette at last never spoke, finding that her artless girlish 
 remarks, the flowers of her opening mind, were met with 
 commonplace retorts which her good sense told her were 
 ridiculous. 
 
 " You are always complaining, and you eat like a fasting 
 friar ! " said Rogron. 
 
 The only person who never distressed this sweet fragile 
 flower was the sturdy servant Adele. Adele always warmed 
 the little girl's bed, but in secret, since one evening when, 
 being discovered in the act of thus "spoiling" her master's 
 heiress, she was scolded by Sylvie. 
 
 " Children must be hardened ; that is the way to give 
 them strong constitutions. Have we been any the worse for 
 it, my brother and I?" said Sylvie. " You will make Pier- 
 rette a peeky coddle ! " une picheline, a word of the Rogron 
 vocabulary used by them to designate weakly and complaining 
 persons.
 
 PIERRETTE. 71 
 
 The little angel's caressing expressions were regarded as 
 mere acting. The roses of affection that budded so fresh 
 and lovely in this young soul, and longed to open to the day, 
 were mercilessly crushed. Pierrette felt the hardest blows on 
 the tenderest spots of her heart. If she tried to soften these 
 two savage natures by her pretty ways, she was accused of ex- 
 pressing her tenderness out of self-interest. " Tell me plainly 
 what you want," Rogron would exclaim roughly; "you are 
 certainly not coaxing me for nothing." 
 
 Neither the sister nor the brother recognized affection, and 
 Pierrette was all affection. 
 
 Colonel Gouraud, anxious to please Mademoiselle Rogron, 
 declared her right in all that concerned Pierrette. Vinet no 
 less supported the old cousins in their abuse of Pierrette ; he 
 ascribed all the reported misdeeds of this angel to the obsti- 
 nacy of the Breton character, and said that no power, no 
 strength of will, could ever conquer it. Rogron and his 
 sister were flattered with the utmost skill by these two cour- 
 tiers, who had at last succeeded in extracting from Rogron 
 the surety money for the newspaper, the Provins Courtier, 
 and from Sylvie five thousand francs, as a shareholder. The 
 colonel and Vinet now took the field. They disposed of a 
 hundred shares at five hundred francs each to the electors who 
 held state securities, and whom the Liberal journals filled 
 with alarms, to farmers, and to persons who were called in- 
 dependent. They even extended their ramifications over the 
 whole department, and beyond it, to some adjacent townships. 
 Each shareholder subscribed for the paper, of course. Then 
 the legal and other advertisements were divided between the 
 Ruche and the Courrier. The first number contained a 
 grandiloquent column in praise of Rogron, who was repre- 
 sented as the Lafiitte of Provins. 
 
 As soon as the public mind found a leader, it became easy 
 to perceive that the coming elections would be hotly con- 
 tested. Madame Tiphaine was in despair.
 
 72 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Unfortunately," said she, as she read an article attacking 
 her and Monsieur Julliard, " unfortunately, I forgot that there 
 is always a rogue not very far away from a dupe, and that 
 folly always attracts a clever man of the fox species." 
 
 As soon as the newspaper was to be seen for twenty leagues 
 round, Vinet had a new coat and boots, and a decent waist- 
 coat and trousers. He displayed the famous white hat affected 
 by Liberals, and showed his collar and cuffs. His wife en- 
 gaged a servant, and appeared dressed as became the wife of 
 an influential man ; she wore pretty caps. 
 
 Vinet, out of self-interest, was grateful. He and his friend, 
 Cournant, notary to the Liberal side, and Auffray's opponent, 
 became the Rogrons' advisers, and did them two great ser- 
 vices. The leases granted by old Rogron, their father, in 
 1815, under unfortunate circumstances, were about to fall in. 
 Horticulture and market gardening had lately developed 
 enormously in the Provins district. The pleader and the 
 notary made it their business to effect an increase of fourteen 
 hundred francs a year on granting the new leases. Vinet 
 also won for them two lawsuits against two villages, relating 
 to plantations of trees, in which the loss of five hundred 
 poplars was involved. The money for the poplars, with the 
 Rogrons' savings, which for the last three years had amounted 
 to six thousand francs deposited at compound interest, was 
 skillfully laid out in the purchase of several plots of land. 
 Finally, Vinet proposed and carried out the eviction of certain 
 peasant proprietors, to whom Rogron the elder had loaned 
 money, and who had killed themselves with cultivating and 
 manuring their land to enable them to repay it, but in vain. 
 
 Thus the damage done to the Rogrons' capital by the 
 reconstruction of their house was to a great extent remedied. 
 Their estates in the immediate neighborhood of the town, 
 chosen by their father as innkeepers know how to choose, cut 
 up into small holdings of which the largest was less than five 
 acres, and let to perfectly solvent tenants, themselves owners
 
 PIERRETTE. 73 
 
 of some plots of land mortgaged to secure the farm rents, 
 brought in at Martinmas, in November, 1826, five thousand 
 francs. The taxes were paid by the tenants, and there were 
 no buildings to repair or insure against fire. 
 
 The brother and sister each possessed four thousand six 
 hundred francs in the five per cents; and, as their selling 
 value was above par, Vinet exhorted them to invest the money 
 in laud, promising them seconded by the notary that they 
 should not lose a farthing of interest by the transfer. 
 
 By the end of this second period life was so intolerable 
 to Pierrette the indifference of all about her, the senseless 
 fault-finding and lack of affection in her cousins became so 
 virulent, she felt so plainly the cold chill of the tomb blowing 
 upon her, that she entertained the daring project of going 
 away, on foot, with no money, to Brittany to rejoin her grand- 
 father and grandmother. Two events prevented this : Old 
 Lorrain died, and Rogron was appointed Pierrette's guardian 
 by a family council held at Provins. If her old grandmother 
 had died first, it is probable that Rogron, advised by Vinet, 
 would have called upon the grandfather to repay the child's 
 eight thousand francs, and have reduced him to beggary. 
 
 " Why, you may inherit Pierrette's money," said Vinet 
 with a hideous smile. "You never can tell who will live or 
 who will die." 
 
 Enlightened by this speech, Rogron left the widow Lorrain 
 no peace as Pierrette's debtor till he had made her secure to 
 the little girl the capital of the eight thousand francs by a 
 deed of gift, of which he paid the cost. 
 
 Pierrette was strangely affected by this loss. Just as the 
 blow fell on her she was to be prepared for her first com- 
 munion, the other event which by its obligations tied her to 
 Provins. This necessary and simple ceremony was to bring 
 about great changes for the Rogrons. Sylvie learned that the 
 cure, Monsieur Peroux, was instructing the little Julliards,
 
 74 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 the Lesourds, Garcelands, and others. She made it therefore 
 a point of honor to put Pierrette under the guidance of the 
 Abbe Peroux's superior, Monsieur Habert, a man who was 
 said to belong to the Jesuit congregation very zealous for 
 the interests of the church, much dreaded in Provins, and 
 hiding immense ambition under the strictest severity of prin- 
 ciple. This priest's sister, an unmarried woman of about 
 thirty, had a school for girls in the town. The brother and 
 sister were much alike ; both lean, sallow, atrabilious, with 
 black hair. 
 
 Pierrette, a Bretonne nurtured in the practice and poetry 
 of the Catholic faith, opened her heart and ears to the teach- 
 ing of this imposing priest. Suffering predisposes the mind 
 to devoutness ; and most young girls, prompted by instinctive 
 tenderness, lean towards mysticism, the obscurer side of 
 religion. So the priest sowed the seed of the gospel and the 
 dogmas of the church in good ground. He completely 
 changed Pierrette's frame of mind. Pierrette loved Jesus 
 Christ, as presented to girls in the sacrament, as a celestial 
 bridegroom ; her moral and physical sufferings now had their 
 meaning ; she was taught to see the hand of God in every- 
 thing. Her soul, so cruelly stricken in this house, while she 
 could not accuse her cousins, took refuge in the sphere 
 whither fly all who are wretched, borne on the wings of the 
 three Christian virtues. She gave up the idea of flight. 
 Sylvie, amazed at the alteration produced in Pierrette by 
 Monsieur Habert, became curious. And so, while preparing 
 the child for her first communion, Monsieur Habert won to 
 God the hitherto wandering soul of Mademoiselle Sylvie. 
 Sylvie became a bigot. 
 
 Denis Rogron, over whom the supposed Jesuit could get no 
 hold for at that time the spirit of his late lamented majesty, 
 Constitution the First, was in some simpletons supreme above 
 that of the church Denis remained faithful to Colonel 
 Gouraud, Vinet, and Liberalism.
 
 PIERRETTE. 75 
 
 Mademoiselle Rogron, of course, made acquaintance with 
 Mademoiselle Habert, with whom she was in perfect sympathy. 
 The two old maids loved each other like two loving sisters. 
 Mademoiselle Habert proposed to take Pierrette under her 
 care, and spare Sylvie the trouble and vexations of educating 
 a child ; but the brother and sister replied that Pierrette's 
 absence would make the house feel too empty. The Rogrons' 
 attachment to their little cousin seemed from this expression 
 to be quite excessive. 
 
 On seeing Mademoiselle Habert in possession, Colonel 
 Gouraud and Vinet ascribed to the ambitious priest, on his 
 sister's behalf, the matrimonial scheme imagined by the 
 colonel. 
 
 "Your sister wants to see you married," said the lawyer to 
 the ex-haberdasher. 
 
 " And to whom ? " said Rogron. 
 
 " To that old sibyl of a schoolmistress," cried the colonel, 
 curling his mustache. 
 
 "She has said nothing to me about it," said Rogron 
 blankly. 
 
 A woman so determined as Sylvie was sure to make great 
 progress in the ways of salvation. The priest's influence 
 soon grew in the house, supported as it was by Sylvie, who 
 managed her brother. The two Liberals, very legitimately 
 alarmed, understood that if the priest had determined to get 
 Rogron for his sister's husband a far more suitable match 
 than that of Sylvie and the colonel he would urge Sylvie to 
 the excessive practice of religion, and make Pierrette go into 
 a convent. They would thus lose the reward of eighteen 
 months of efforts, meanness, and flattery. They took a ter- 
 ribly dumb hatred of the priest and his sister, and yet, if they 
 were to keep up with them step for step, they felt the neces- 
 sity of remaining on good terms with them. 
 
 Monsieur and Mademoiselle Habert, who played both whist 
 and boston, came every evening. Their assiduity excited
 
 76 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 that of the others. The lawyer and the soldier felt that they 
 were pitted against adversaries stronger than themselves, a 
 preconception which Monsieur Habert and his sister fully 
 shared. This situation was in itself a battle. Just as the 
 colonel gave to Sylvie a foretaste of the unhoped-for joys of 
 an offer of marriage for she had brought herself to regard 
 Gouraud as a man worthy of her so Mademoiselle Habert 
 wrapped the retired haberdasher in the cotton wool of her 
 attentions, her speeches, and her looks. Neither party could 
 say to itself the great word of great politicians, " Divide the 
 spoil ! " each insisted on the whole prize. 
 
 Besides, the two wily foxes of the Opposition at Provins 
 an opposition that was growing in strength were rash enough 
 to believe themselves stronger than the priesthood ; they were 
 the first to fire. Vinet, whose gratitude was stirred up by 
 the claw-fingers of self-interest, went to fetch Mademoiselle 
 de Chargeboeuf and her mother. The two women, who had 
 about two thousand francs a year, lived very narrowly at 
 Troyes. Mademoiselle Bathilde de Chargeboeuf was one of 
 those splendid women who believe in marrying for love, and 
 change their minds towards their five-and-twentieth year on 
 finding themselves still unwedded. Vinet succeeded in per- 
 suading Madame de Chargeboeuf to combine her two thou- 
 sand francs with the thousand crowns he was making now that 
 the newspaper was started, and to come and live with him at 
 Provins, where Bathilde, he said, might marry a simpleton 
 named Rogron, and, so clever as she was, rival handsome 
 Madame Tiphaine. 
 
 The reinforcement of Vinet's household and ideas by the 
 arrival of Madame and Mademoiselle de Chargebosuf gave 
 the utmost cohesion to the Liberal party. This coalition 
 brought consternation to the aristocracy of Provins and the 
 Tiphaine party. Madame de Breautey, in dismay at seeing 
 two women of family so misled, begged them to come to see 
 her. She bewailed the blunders committed by the Royalists,
 
 PIERRETTE. 77 
 
 and was furious with those of Troyes on learning the poverty 
 of this mother and daughter. 
 
 "What! was there no old country gentleman who would 
 marry that dear girl, born to rule a chateau?" cried she. 
 " They have let her run to seed, and now she will throw her- 
 self at the head of a Rogron 1 " 
 
 She hunted the department through, and failed to find one 
 gentleman who would marry a girl whose mother had but two 
 thousand francs a year. Then the " clique " of the Tiphaines 
 and the sous-prefet also set to work, but too late, to discover 
 such a man. Madame de Breautey inveighed loudly against 
 the selfishness that was eating up France, the result of materi- 
 alism and of the power conferred on money by the laws ; the 
 nobility was nothing in these days ! Beauty was nothing ! 
 Rogrons and Vinets were defying the King of France ! 
 
 Bathilde had the indisputable advantage over her rival not 
 merely of beauty, but of dress. She was dazzlingly fair. 
 At five-and-twenty her fully-developed shoulders and splendid 
 modeling were exquisitely full. The roundness of her throat, 
 the slenderness of her articulations, the splendor of her fine 
 fair hair, the charm of her smile, the elegant shape of her 
 head, the dignity and outline of her face, her fine eyes under 
 a well-moulded brow, her calm and well-bred movements, and 
 her still girlish figure, all were in harmony. She had a fine 
 hand and a narrow foot. Her robust health gave her, 
 perhaps, the look of a handsome inn-servant; "but that 
 should be no fault in a Rogron's eyes," said pretty Madame 
 Tiphaine. 
 
 The first time Mademoiselle de Chargebosuf was seen she 
 was dressed simply enough. Her dress of brown merino, 
 edged with green embroidery, was cut low ; but a kerchief of 
 tulle, neatly drawn down by invisible strings, covered her 
 shoulders, back, and bust, a little open at the throat, though 
 fastened by a brooch and chain. Under this fine network 
 Bathilde's beauty was even more attractive, more suggestive.
 
 78 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 She took off her velvet bonnet and her shawl on entering, 
 and showed pretty ears with gold eardrops. She had a little 
 cross and heart on black velvet round her neck, which con- 
 trasted with its whiteness like the black that fantastic nature 
 sets round the tail of a white Angora cat. She was expert in 
 all the arts of girls on their promotion : twisting her fingers 
 to arrange curls that are not out of place, displaying her wrists 
 by begging Rogron to button her cuff, which the hapless man, 
 quite dazzled, bluntly refused to do, hiding his agitation under 
 assumed indifference. The bashfulness of the only passion 
 our haberdasher was ever to know in his life always gave it 
 the demeanor of hatred. Sylvie, as well as Celeste Habert, 
 misunderstood it ; not so the lawyer, the superior man of this 
 company of simpletons, whose only enemy was the priest, for 
 the colonel had long been his ally. 
 
 Gouraud, on his part, thenceforth behaved to Sylvie as 
 Bathilde did to Rogron. He appeared in clean linen every 
 evening ; he wore velvet collars, which gave effect to his mar- 
 tial countenance, set off by the corners of his white shirt 
 collars ; he adopted white drill waistcoats, and had a new frock- 
 coat made of blue cloth, on which his red rosette was con- 
 spicuous, and all under pretense of doing honor to the fair 
 Bathilde. He never smoked after two o'clock. His grizzled 
 hair was brushed down in a wave over his ochre-colored skull. 
 In short, he assumed the appearance and attitude of a party 
 chief, of a man who was prepared to rout the enemies of 
 France in one word, the Bourbons with tuck of dram. 
 
 The satanical pleader and the cunning colonel played a still 
 more cruel trick on Monsieur and Mademoiselle Habert than 
 that of introducing the beautiful Mademoiselle de Charge- 
 bceuf, who was pronounced by the Liberal party and by the 
 Breauteys to be ten times handsomer than the beautiful 
 Madame Tiphaine. These two great country-town politi- 
 cians had it rumored from one to another that Monsieur 
 Habert had agreed with them on all points. Provins before
 
 PIERRETTE. 79 
 
 long spoke of him as a " Liberal priest." Called up before 
 the bishop, Monsieur Habert was obliged to give up his even- 
 ings with the Rogrons, but his sister still went there. Thence- 
 forth the Rogron drawing-room was a fact and a power. 
 
 And so, by the middle of that year, political intrigues were 
 not less eager than matrimonial intrigues in the Rogrons' 
 rooms. While covert interests, buried out of sight, were 
 fighting wildly for the upper hand, the public struggle won 
 disastrous notoriety. Everybody knows that the Villele min- 
 istry was overthrown by the elections of 1826. In the Pro- 
 vins constituency, Vinet, the Liberal candidate for whom 
 Monsieur Cournant had obtained his qualification by the pur- 
 chase of some land of which the price remained unpaid 
 came very near beating Monsieur Tiphaine. The president 
 had a majority of only two. 
 
 Mesdames Vinet and de Chargeboeuf, Vinet and the colonel 
 were sometimes joined by Monsieur Cournant and his wife ; 
 then by Neraud the doctor, a man whose youth had been very 
 "stormy," but who now took serious views of life; he had 
 devoted himself to science, it was said, and, if the Liberals 
 were to be believed, was a far cleverer man than Monsieur 
 Martener. To the Rogrons their triumph was as inexplicable 
 as their ostracism had been. 
 
 The handsome Bathilde de Chargeboeuf, to whom Vinet 
 spoke of Pierrette as an enemy, was horribly disdainful to the 
 child. The humiliation of this poor victim was necessary to 
 the interest of all. Madame Vinet could do nothing for the 
 little girl who was being brayed in the mortar of the pitiless 
 egotisms which the lady at last understood. But for her 
 husband's imperative desire she would never have come to 
 the Rogrons ; it grieved her too much to see their ill-usage of 
 the pretty little thing who clung to her, understanding her 
 secret good-will, and begged her to teach her such or such a 
 stitch or embroidery pattern. Pierrette had shown that when 
 she was thus treated she understood and succeeded to admira-
 
 80 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 tion. But Madame Vinet was no longer of any use, so she 
 came no more. 
 
 Sylvie, who still cherished the notion of marriage, now 
 regarded Pierrette as an obstacle. Pierrette was nearly four- 
 teen ; her sickly fairness, a symptom that was quite over- 
 looked by the ignorant old maid, made her lovely. Then 
 Sylvie had the bright idea of indemnifying herself for the 
 expenses caused by Pierrette by making a servant of her. 
 Vinet, as representing the interests of the Chargeboeufs, 
 Mademoiselle Habert, Gouraud, all the influential visitors, 
 advised Sylvie by all means to dismiss Adele. Could not 
 Pierrette cook and keep the house in order ? When there 
 was too much to be done, she need only engage the colonel's 
 housekeeper, a very accomplished person, and one of the best 
 cooks in Provins. Pierrette ought to learn to cook and to 
 polish the floors, said the baleful lawyer, to sweep, keep the 
 house neat, go to market, and know the price of things. The 
 poor little girl, whose unselfishness was as great as her gener- 
 osity, offered it herself, glad to pay thus for the hard bread 
 she ate under that roof. 
 
 Adele went. Thus Pierrette lost the only person who 
 might perhaps have protected her. Strong as she was, from 
 that hour she was crushed body and soul. The old people 
 had less mercy on her than on a servant ; she was their prop- 
 erty ! She was scolded for mere nothings, for a little dust 
 left on the corner of a chimney-shelf or a glass shade. These 
 objects of luxury that she had so much admired became odious 
 to her. In spite of her anxiety to do right, her relentless 
 cousin Sylvie always found some fault with everything she 
 did. In two years Pierrette never heard a word of praise or 
 of affection. Her whole happiness consisted in not being 
 scolded. She submitted with angelic patience to the dark 
 moods of these two unmarried beings, to whom the gentler 
 feelings were unknown, and who made her suffer every day 
 for her dependency. This life in which the young girl was
 
 PIERRETTE. 81 
 
 gripped, as it were, between the two haberdashers as in the 
 jaws of a vise, increased her malady. She had such violent 
 fits of inexplicable distress, such sudden bursts of secret grief, 
 that her physical development was irremediably checked. 
 And thus, by slow degrees, through terrible though concealed 
 sufferings, Pierrette had come to the state in which the friend 
 of her childhood had seen her as he stood on the little square 
 and greeted her with his Breton ballad. 
 
 Before entering on the story of the domestic drama in the 
 Rogrons' house, to which Brigaut's arrival gave rise, it will be 
 necessary, to avoid digressions, to account for the lad's set- 
 tling at Provins, since he is in some sort a silent personage 
 on the stage. 
 
 Brigaut, as he fled, was alarmed not merely by Pierrette's 
 signal, but also by the change in his little friend ; hardly 
 could he recognize her, but for the voice, eyes, and move- 
 ments which recalled his lively little playfellow, at once so 
 gay and so loving. When he had gotten far away from the 
 house, his legs quaked under him, his spine felt on fire ! He 
 had seen the shadow of Pierrette, and not Pierrette herself. 
 He made his way up to the old town, thoughtful and uneasy, 
 till he found a spot whence he could see the place and the 
 house where Pierrette lived ; he gazed at it sadly, lost in 
 thought as infinite as the troubles into which we plunge with- 
 out knowing where they may end. Pierrette was ill ; she was 
 unhappy ; she regretted Brittany ! What ailed her ? All 
 these questions passed again and again through Brigaut's 
 mind, and racked his breast, revealing to him the extent of 
 his affection for his little adopted sister. 
 
 It is very rarely that a passion between two children of dif- 
 ferent sexes remains permanent. The charming romance of 
 Paul and Virginia no more solves the problem of this strange 
 moral fact than does that of Brigaut and Pierrette. Modern 
 history offers the single illustrious exception of the sublime 
 6
 
 82 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Marchesa di Pescara and her husband, who, destined for each 
 other by their parents at the age of fourteen, adored each 
 other, and were married. Their union gave to the sixteenth 
 century the spectacle of boundless conjugal affection, never 
 clouded. The Marchesa, a widow at four-and-thirty, beauti- 
 ful, witty, universally beloved, refused monarchs, and buried 
 herself in a convent, where she never saw, never heard, any 
 one but nuns. 
 
 Such perfect love as this blossomed suddenly in the heart 
 of the poor Breton artisan. Pierrette and he had so often 
 been each other's protectors, he had been so happy in giving 
 her the money for her journey, he had almost died of running 
 after the diligence, and Pierrette had not known it ! The 
 memory of it had often warmed him during the chill hours of 
 his toilsome life these three years past. He had improved 
 himself for Pierrette ; he had learned his craft for Pierrette ; 
 he had come to Paris for Pierrette, intending to make a for- 
 tune for her. After being there a fortnight, he could no 
 longer control his longing to see her ; he had walked from 
 Saturday evening till Monday morning. He had intended to 
 return to Paris, but the pathetic appearance of his little friend 
 held him fast to Provins. A wonderful magnetism still dis- 
 puted, it is true, in spite of so many instances acted on him 
 without his knowing it ; and tears filled his eyes, while they 
 also dimmed Pierrette's sight. If to her he was Brittany and 
 all her happy childhood, to him Pierrette was life ! At six- 
 teen Brigaut had not yet learned to draw or give the section 
 of a moulding ; there were many things he did not know ; 
 but at piecework he had earned from four to five francs a day. 
 So he could live at Provins ; he would be within reach of 
 Pierrette ; he would finish learning his business by working 
 under the best cabinetmaker in the town, and watch over the 
 little girl. 
 
 Brigaut made up his mind at once. He flew back to Paris, 
 settled his accounts, collected his pass, his luggage, and his
 
 PIERRETTE. 83 
 
 tools. Three days later he was working for Monsieur Frap- 
 pier, the best carpenter in Provins. Energetic workmen, 
 steady, and averse to turbulency and taverns, are rare enough 
 to make a master glad to get a young fellow like Brigaut. 
 To conclude his story on that score, by the end of a fortnight 
 he was foreman, lodging and boarding with Frappier, who 
 taught him arithmetic and linear drawing. The carpenter 
 lived in the High Street, about a hundred yards from the little 
 oblong piazza, at the end of which stood the Rogrons' house. 
 
 Brigaut buried his love in his heart, and was not guilty of 
 the smallest indiscretion. He got Madame Frappier to tell 
 him the history of the Rogrons; from her he learned how 
 the old innkeeper had set to work to get the money left by 
 old Auffray. Brigaut was fully informed as to the character 
 of the haberdasher and his sister. One morning he met 
 Pierrette at market with Mademoiselle Sylvie, and shuddered 
 to see her with a basket on her arm full of provisions. He 
 went to see Pierrette again at church on Sunday, where the 
 girl appeared in all her best ; there, for the first time, Brigaut 
 understood that Pierrette was Mademoiselle Lorrain. 
 
 Pierrette saw her friend, but she made him a mysterious 
 signal to keep himself out of sight. There was a world of 
 meaning in this gesture, as in that by which, a fortnight since, 
 she had bidden him vanish. What a fortune he would have 
 to make in ten years to enable him to marry the companion 
 of his childhood, to whom the Rogrons would leave a house, 
 a hundred acres of land, and twelve thousand francs a year, 
 not to mention their savings ! The persevering Breton would 
 not tempt fortune till he had acquired the knowledge he still 
 lacked. So long as it was theory alone, it was all the same 
 whether he learned in Paris or at Provins, and he preferred 
 to remain near Pierrette, to whom he also proposed to explain 
 his plans and the sort of help she might count on. Finally, 
 he would certainly not leave her till he understood the secret 
 of the pallor which had already dimmed the life of the feature
 
 64 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 which generally retains it longest the eyes; till he knew 
 what caused the sufferings that gave her the look of a girl 
 bowing before the scythe of death, and about to be cut down. 
 Her two pathetic signals, which were not false to their 
 friendship, but which enjoined the greatest caution, struck 
 terror into the lad's heart. Evidently Pierrette desired him 
 to wait, and not to try to see her, or there would be danger 
 and peril for her. As she came out of church she gave him a 
 look, and Brigaut saw that her eyes were full of tears. The 
 Breton would more easily have squared the circle than have 
 guessed what had happened in the Rogrons' house since his 
 arrival. 
 
 It was not without lively apprehensions that Pierrette came 
 down from her room that day when Brigaut had plunged into 
 her morning dream like another dream. Having risen and 
 opened her window, Mademoiselle Rogron must have heard 
 the song and its words compromising, no doubt, in the ears 
 of an old maid ; but Pierrette knew nothing of the causes 
 that made her cousin so alert. Sylvie had good reasons for 
 getting up and running to the window. For about a week 
 past strange secret events and cruel pangs of feeling had 
 agitated the principal figures in the Rogron salon. These 
 unknown events, carefully concealed by all concerned, were 
 to fall on Pierrette like an icy avalanche. 
 
 The realm of mysteries, which ought perhaps to be called 
 the foul places of the human heart, lies at the bottom of the 
 greatest revolutions, political, social, or domestic; but in 
 speaking of them it may be extremely useful to explain that 
 their algebraical expression, though accurate, is not faithful 
 so far as form is concerned. These deep calculations do not 
 express themselves so brutally as history reports them. Any 
 attempt to relate the circumlocutions, the rhetorical involu- 
 tions, the long colloquies, in which the mind designedly 
 darkens the light it casts, the honeyed words diluting the
 
 PIERRETTE. 85 
 
 venom of certain insinuations, would mean writing a book as 
 long as the noble poem called " Clarissa Harlowe." 
 
 Mademoiselle Habert and Mademoiselle Rogron were 
 equally desirous of marrying ; but one was ten years younger 
 than the other, and probability allowed Celeste Habert to 
 think that her children would inherit the Rogrons' whole 
 fortune. Sylvie was almost forty-two, an age at which 
 marriage has its risks. In confiding their ideas to each other 
 to secure mutual approbation, Celeste Habert, on a hint from 
 the vindictive abbe, had enlightened Sylvie as to the possibil- 
 ities of the position. The colonel, a violent man, with the 
 health of a soldier, a burly bachelor of forty-five, would no 
 doubt act on the moral of all fairy tales : they lived happy, 
 and had many children. This form of happiness alarmed 
 Sylvie; she was afraid of dying a fear which tortures 
 unmarried women to the utmost. 
 
 But the Martignac ministry was now established the 
 second victory which upset the Villele administration. Vi- 
 net's party held their head high in Provins. Vinet, now the 
 leading advocate of La Brie, carried all before him, to use a 
 colloquialism. Vinet was a personage ; the Liberals prophe- 
 sied his advancement ; he would certainly be a deputy or 
 public prosecutor. As to the colonel, he would be mayor of 
 Provins. Oh ! to reign as Madame Garceland reigned, to be 
 the mayoress ! Sylvie could not resist this hope ; she deter- 
 mined to consult a doctor, though it might cover her with 
 ridicule. The two women, one triumphant, and the other 
 sure of having her in leading-strings, invented one of those 
 stratagems which women advised by a priest are so clever in 
 planning. To consult Monsieur Neraud, the Liberal physi- 
 cian, Monsieur Martener's rival, would be a blunder. Celeste 
 Habert proposed to Sylvie to hide her in a dressing-closet 
 while she, Mademoiselle Habert, consulted Monsieur Mar- 
 tener, who attended the school, on her own account. Whether 
 he were Celeste's accomplice or not, Martener told his client
 
 86 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 that there was some, though very little, danger for a woman 
 of thirty. "But with your constitution," he added, "you 
 have nothing to fear." 
 
 "And if a woman is past forty?" asked Mademoiselle 
 Celeste Habert. 
 
 " A woman of forty who has been married and had children 
 need fear nothing." 
 
 " But an unmarried woman, perfectly well conducted for 
 example, Mademoiselle Rogron?" 
 
 " Well conducted ! There can be no doubt," said Mon- 
 sieur Martener. " In such a case the safe birth of a child is 
 a miracle which God certainly works sometimes, but rarely." 
 
 "And why? " asked Celeste Habert. 
 
 Whereupon the doctor replied in a terrific pathological 
 description, explaining that the elasticity bestowed by nature 
 on the muscles and joints in youth ceased to exist at a certain 
 age, particularly in women whose occupations had made them 
 sedentary for some years, like Mademoiselle Rogron. 
 
 "And so, after forty, no respectable woman ought to 
 marry? " 
 
 "Or she should wait," replied the doctor. "But then it 
 is hardly a marriage ; it is a partnership. What else could it 
 be?" 
 
 In short, it was proved by this consultation, clearly, scien- 
 tifically, seriously, and rationally, that after the age of forty 
 a virtuous maiden should not rush into matrimony. 
 
 When Monsieur Martener had left, Mademoiselle Celeste 
 Habert found Mademoiselle Rogron green and yellow, her 
 eyes dilated in fact, in a frightful state. 
 
 "Then you truly love the colonel?" said she. 
 
 " I still hoped," said the old maid. 
 
 "Well, then, wait," said Mademoiselle Habert, who knew 
 that time would be avenged on the colonel. 
 
 The morality of this marriage was also doubtful. Sylvie 
 went to sound her conscience in the confessional. The stern
 
 PIERRETTE. 87 
 
 director expounded the views of the church, which regards 
 marriage only as a means of propagating the race, reprobates 
 second marriages, and scorns passions that have no social aim. 
 Sylvie Rogron's perplexity was great. These mental struggles 
 gave strange force to her passion, and lent it the unaccount- 
 able charm which forbidden joys have always had for women 
 since the time of Eve. 
 
 Mademoiselle Rogron's disturbed state could not escape the 
 lawyer's keen eye. One evening, after cards, Vinet went up 
 to his dear friend Sylvie, took her hand, and led her to sit 
 down with him on one of the sofas. 
 
 " Something ails you," he said in her ear. 
 
 She gloomily bent her head. The pleader let Rogron leave 
 the room, sat alone with the old maid, and got her to make a 
 clean breast of it. 
 
 " Well played, abbe 1 But you have played my game for 
 me," he said to himself after hearing of all the private consul- 
 tations Sylvie had held, of which the last was the most alarm- 
 ing. 
 
 This sly legal fox was even more terrible in his explanations 
 than the doctor had been ; he advised the marriage, but only 
 ten years hence for greater safety. The lawyer vowed that all 
 the Rogron fortune should be Bathilde's. He rubbed his 
 hands and his very face grew sharper as he ran after Madame 
 and Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, whom he had left to start 
 homewards with their servant armed with a lantern. 
 
 The influence exerted by Monsieur Habert, the physician 
 of the soul, was entirely counteracted by Vinet, the physician 
 of the purse. Rogron was by no means devout, so the man 
 of the church and the man of the law, the two black gowns, 
 pulled him opposite ways. When he heard of the victory 
 carried off by Mademoiselle Habert, who hoped to marry 
 Rogron, over Sylvie, hanging between the fear of death and 
 the joy of becoming a baroness, Vinet perceived the possi- 
 bility of removing the colonel from the scene of battle. He
 
 88 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 knew Rogron well enough to find some means of making him 
 marry the fair Bathilde. Rogron had not been able to resist 
 the blandishments of Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf; Vinet 
 knew that the first time Rogron should be alone with Bathilde 
 and himself their engagement would be settled. Rogron had 
 come to the point of staring at Mademoiselle Habert, so shy 
 was he of looking at Bathilde. 
 
 Vinet had just seen how much Sylvie was in love with the 
 colonel. He understood the depth of such a passion in an 
 old maid, no less eaten up by bigotry, and he soon hit on a 
 plan for ruining at one blow both Pierrette and the colonel, 
 getting rid of one by means of the other. 
 
 Next morning, on coming out of court, he met the colonel 
 and Rogron walking together, their daily habit. 
 
 When these three men were seen together, their conjunc- 
 tion always made the town talk. This triumvirate, held in 
 horror by the sous-prefet, the bench, and the Tiphaine parti- 
 sans, made a triad of which the Liberals of Provins were 
 proud. Vinet edited the Courrier single-handed \ he was the 
 head of the party ; the colonel, the responsible manager of 
 the paper, was its arm; Rogron, with his money, formed the 
 sinews ; he was considered as the link between the managing 
 committee at Provins and the managing committee in Paris. 
 To hear the Tiphaines, these three men were always plotting 
 something against the government, while the Liberals admired 
 them as defenders of the people. When the lawyer saw Ro- 
 gron returning to the square, brought homewards by the din- 
 ner-hour, he took the colonel's arm and hindered him from 
 accompanying the ex-haberdasher. 
 
 "Look here, colonel," said he, " I am going to take a great 
 weight off your shoulders. You can do better than marry 
 Sylvie ; if you go to work the right way, in two years' time 
 you may marry little Pierrette Lorrain." 
 
 And he told him the results of the Jesuit's skillful manoeu- 
 vring in the interest of his sister Celeste.
 
 PIERRETTE. 89 
 
 "What a clever stroke and reaching so far!" said the 
 colonel. 
 
 "Colonel," said Vinet gravely, "Pierrette is a charming 
 creature ; you may be happy for the rest of your days. You 
 have such splendid health, that such a match would not, for 
 you, have the usual drawbacks of an ill-assorted marriage ; 
 still, do not imagine that this exchange of a terrible life for 
 a pleasant one will be easy to effect. To convert your lady- 
 love into your confidante is a manoeuvre as dangerous as, 
 in your profession, it is to cross a river under the enemy's 
 fire. Keen as you are as a cavalry officer, you must study the 
 position, and carry out your tactics with the superior skill 
 which has won us our present position. If I should one day 
 be public prosecutor, you may command the department. 
 Ah ! if only you had a vote, we should be farther on our 
 way. I might have bought the votes of those two officials by 
 indemnifying them for the loss of their places, and we should 
 have had a majority. I should be sitting by Dupin, Casimir 
 Perier, and " 
 
 The colonel had for some time past been thinking of Pier- 
 rette, but he hid the thought with deep dissimulation ; his 
 roughness to Pierrette was only on the surface. The child could 
 not imagine why the man who called himself her father's old 
 comrade treated her so ill, when, if he met her alone, he put 
 his hand under her chin and gave her a fatherly caress. Ever 
 since Vinet had confided to him Mademoiselle Sylvie's terror 
 of marriage, Gouraud had sought opportunities of seeing 
 Pierrette alone, and then the rough officer was as mild as a 
 cat ; he would tell her how brave her father was, and say 
 what a misfortune for her his death had been. 
 
 A few days before Brigaut's arrival, Sylvie had found Gou- 
 raud and Pierrette together. Jealousy had then entered into 
 her soul with monastic vehemence. Jealousy, which is above 
 all passions credulous and suspicious, is also that in which 
 fancy has most power ; but it does not lend wit, it takes if
 
 90 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 away ; and in Sylvie jealousy gave birth to very strange ideas. 
 She conceived that the man who had sung the words " Mis- 
 tress Bride "to Pierrette must be the colonel; and Sylvie 
 thought she had reason to ascribe this serenade to the colonel, 
 because during the last week Gouraud's manner seemed to 
 have undergone a change. This soldier was the only man 
 who, in the solitude in which she had lived, had ever troubled 
 himself about her ; hence she watched him with all her eyes, 
 all her understanding; and by dint of indulging in hopes 
 alternately flourishing and blighted, she had given them so 
 much scope that they produced the effect on her of a moral 
 mirage. To use a fine but vulgar expression, by dint of 
 looking she often saw nothing. By turns she rejected and 
 struggled victoriously against the notion of this chimerical 
 rivalry. She instituted comparisons between herself and 
 Pierrette ; she was forty and her hair was gray ; Pierrette was 
 a deliciously white little girl, with eyes tender enough to 
 bring warmth to a dead heart. She had heard it said that 
 men of fifty were fond of little girls like Pierrette. 
 
 Before the colonel had sown his wild oats and frequented 
 the Rogrons 1 drawing-room, Sylvie had heard at the Tiph- 
 aines' parties strange reports of Gouraud and his doings. 
 Old maids in love have the exaggerated Platonic notions 
 which girls of twenty are apt to profess ; they have never lost 
 the hard-and-fast ideas which cling to all who have no expe- 
 rience of life, nor learned how social forces modify, erode, 
 and coerce such fine and lofty notions. To Sylvie the idea 
 of being deceived by her colonel was a thought that hammered 
 at her brain. 
 
 So from the hour, that morning, which every celibate 
 spends in bed between waking and rising, the old maid had 
 thought of nothing but herself and Pierrette, and the song 
 which had roused her by the words, " Mistress Bride." Like 
 a simpleton, instead of peeping at the lover through the 
 Venetian shutters, she had opened her window, without
 
 PIERRETTE. 91 
 
 reflecting that Pierrette would hear her. If she had but had 
 the common wit of a spy, she would have seen Brigaut, and 
 the fateful drama then begun would not have taken place. 
 
 Pierrette, weak as she was, removed the wooden bars 
 which fastened the kitchen shutters, opened the shutters, and 
 hooked them back, then she opened the passage door leading 
 into the garden. She took the various brooms needed for 
 sweeping the carpet, the dining-room floor, the passage, the 
 stairs, in short, for cleaning everything with such care and 
 exactitude as no servant, not even a Dutch one, would give to 
 her work ; she hated the least reproof. To her, happiness 
 consisted in seeing Sylvie's little blue eyes, colorless and cold, 
 with a look not indeed of satisfaction, that they never wore 
 only calm when she had examined everything with the 
 owner's eye, the inscrutable glance which sees what escapes 
 the keenest observer. 
 
 By the time Pierrette returned to the kitchen her skin was 
 moist ; then she put everything in order, lighted the stove so 
 as to have live charcoal, made the fire in her cousins' rooms, 
 and put hot water for their toilet, though she had none for 
 hers. She laid the table for breakfast and lighted the dining- 
 room stove. For all these various tasks she had to go to the 
 cellar to fetch brushwood, leaving a cool place to go to a hot 
 one, or a hot place to go into the cold and damp. These 
 sudden changes, made with the reckless haste of youth, merely 
 to avoid a hard word, or to obey some order, aggravated the 
 state of her health beyond remedy. Pierrette did not know 
 that she was ill. Still she felt the beginnings of sufferings ; 
 she had strange longings, and hid them ; a passion for raw 
 salad, which she devoured in secret. The innocent child had 
 no idea that this state meant serious disease, and needed the 
 greatest care. Before Brigaut's arrival, if Neraud, who might 
 accuse himself of her grandmother's death, had revealed this 
 mortal peril to the little girl, she would have smiled ; she 
 found life too bitter not to smile at death. But within these
 
 92 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 last few minutes, she, who added to her physical ailments the 
 Breton home-sickness a moral sickness so well known, that 
 colonels of regiments reckon on it in the Bretons who serve 
 in their regiments she loved Provins. The sight of that 
 gold-colored flower, that song, the presence of the friend of 
 her childhood, had revived her as a plant long deprived of 
 water recovers after hours of rain. She wanted to live ; she 
 did not believe that she had suffered ! 
 
 She timidly stole into Sylvie's room, lighted the fire, left 
 the hot-water pot, spoke a few words, went to awake her 
 guardian, and then ran downstairs to take in the milk, the 
 bread, and the other provisions supplied by the tradesmen. 
 She stood for some time on the doorstep, hoping that Brigaut 
 would have the wit to return ; but Brigaut was already on the 
 road to Paris. She had dusted the drawing-room and was 
 busy in the kitchen, when she heard her cousin Sylvie com- 
 ing downstairs. Mademoiselle Rogron made her appearance 
 in a Carmelite-gray silk dressing-gown ; on her head a tulle 
 cap decorated with bows, her false curls put on askew, her 
 nightdress showing above the wrapper, her feet slipshod in her 
 slippers. She inspected everything, and came to her little 
 cousin, who was waiting to know what they would have for 
 breakfast. 
 
 "So there you are, Miss Ladylove ! " said Sylvie to Pier- 
 rette, in a half-merry, half-mocking tone. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, cousin ? " 
 
 " You crept into my room like a sneak and out again in the 
 same way; but you must have known that I should have 
 something to say to you." 
 
 "Tome?" 
 
 " You have had a serenade this morning like a princess, 
 neither more nor less." 
 
 " A serenade? " exclaimed Pierrette. 
 
 "A serenade!" echoed Sylvie, mimicking her. "And 
 you have a lover."
 
 PIERRETTE. 93 
 
 " Cousin, what do you mean by a lover?" Sylvie evaded 
 the question, and said 
 
 " Do you dare to say, mademoiselle, that a man did not 
 come under our windows and talk to you of marriage ? " 
 
 Persecution had taught Pierrette the cunning indispens- 
 able to slaves ; she boldly replied, " I do not know what you 
 mean ' ' 
 
 " Dog " added the old maid, in vinegar tones. 
 
 " Cousin," said Pierrette humbly. 
 
 " And you did not get up, I suppose, and did not go bare- 
 foot to your window? Enough to give you some bad illness. 
 Well, catch it, and serve you right ! And I suppose you did 
 not talk to your lover ? " 
 
 " No, cousin." 
 
 " I knew you had a great many faults, but I did not know 
 you told lies. Think of what you are about, mademoiselle. 
 You will have to tell your cousin Denis and me all about the 
 scene of this morning, and explain it, too; otherwise your 
 guardian will have to take strong measures." 
 
 The old maid, devoured by jealousy and curiosity, was 
 trying intimidation. Pierrette did as all people must who 
 are enduring beyond their strength she kept silent. Silence 
 is to all creatures thus attacked the only means of salvation ; 
 it fatigues the Cossack charges of the envious, the enemy's 
 savage rushes ; it results in a crushing and complete victory. 
 What is more complete than silence ? It is final. Is it not 
 one of the modes of the Infinite ? 
 
 Sylvie looked stealthily at Pierrette. The child colored ; 
 but instead of flushing all over, the red lay in patches on her 
 cheeks, in burning spots of symptomatic hue. On seeing 
 these signals of ill-health, a mother would at once have 
 changed her note ; she would have taken the child on her 
 knee, have questioned her, have acquired long since a thou- 
 sand proofs of Pierrette's perfect and beautiful innocence, 
 have suspected her weakness, and understood that the blood
 
 94 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 and humors diverted from their course were thrown back on 
 the lungs after disturbing the digestive functions. Those 
 eloquent scarlet patches would have warned her of imminent 
 and mortal danger. But an old maid to whom the feelings 
 that guard the family, the needs of childhood, the care re- 
 quired in early womanhood were all unknown could have 
 none of the indulgence and the pity that are inspired by the 
 thousand incidents of married and maternal life. The suffer- 
 ings of misery, instead of softening her heart, had made it 
 callous. 
 
 "She blushes she has done wrong!" thought Sylvie. 
 So Pierrette's silence received the worst construction. 
 
 "Pierrette," said she, "before your cousin Denis comes 
 down we will have a little talk. Come," she went on in a 
 milder tone. " Shut the door to the street. If any one 
 comes, they will ring ; we shall hear. ' ' 
 
 In spite of the damp fog rising from the river, Sylvie led 
 Pierrette along the graveled path that zigzagged between the 
 grass-plots, to the edge of the terrace built in a so-called 
 picturesque style of broken rock-work planted with flags and 
 other water-plants. The old cousin now changed her tactics ; 
 she would try to catch Pierrette by gentleness. The hyena 
 would play the cat. 
 
 "Pierrette," said she, "you are no longer a child; you 
 will soon set foot in your fifteenth year, and it would not be 
 at all astonishing if you had a lover." 
 
 " But, cousin," said Pierrette, raising her eyes of angelic 
 sweetness to her cousin's cold, sour face, for Sylvie had put 
 on her saleswoman expression, " what is a lover? " 
 
 It was impossible to Sylvie to define to her brother's ward 
 with accuracy and decency what she meant by a lover ; instead 
 of regarding the question as the result of adorable innocence, 
 she treated it as mendacious. 
 
 " A lover, Pierrette, is a man who loves you and wishes to 
 marry you."
 
 PIERRETTE. 95 
 
 "Ah!" said Pierrette. "In Brittany when two persons 
 are agreed, we call the young man a suitor." 
 
 "Well, understand that there is not the smallest harm in 
 confessing your feeling for a man, my child. The harm is 
 in secrecy. Have you, do you think, taken the fancy of any 
 man who comes here ? " 
 
 "I do not think so." 
 
 " You do not love one of them ? " 
 
 "No one." 
 
 " Quite sure?" 
 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 " Look me in the face, Pierrette." 
 
 Pierrette looked at her cousin. 
 
 " And yet a man spoke to you from the square this morn- 
 ing?" 
 
 Pierrette looked down. 
 
 "You went to your window, you opened it, and spoke to 
 him." 
 
 " No, cousin ; I wanted to see what the weather was like, 
 and I saw a countryman on the square." 
 
 " Pierrette, since your first communion you have improved 
 greatly, you are obedient and pious, you love your relations 
 and God ; I am pleased with you, but I have never told you 
 so for fear of inflaming your pride." 
 
 The horrible woman mistook the dejection, the submission, 
 the silence of wretchedness for virtues ! One of the sweetest 
 things that brings comfort to the sufferer, to martyrs, to artists, 
 in the midst of the Divine wrath roused in them by envy and 
 hatred, is to meet with praise from some quarter whence they 
 have always had blame and bad faith. So Pierrette looked up 
 at her cousin with attentive eyes, and felt ready to forgive her 
 all the pain she had caused her. 
 
 " But if it is all mere hypocrisy, if I am to find in you a 
 serpent I have cherished in my bosom, you would be an in- 
 famous, a horrible creature ! "
 
 96 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " I do not think I have anything to blame myself for," 
 said Pierrette, feeling a dreadful pang at her heart on this 
 sudden transition from unexpected praise to the terrible accent 
 of the hyena. 
 
 " You know that lying is a mortal sin ? " 
 
 "Yes, cousin." 
 
 " Well, then, you stand before God ! " said the old maid, 
 pointing with a solemn gesture to the gardens and the sky. 
 " Swear to me that you do not know that countryman." 
 
 " I will not swear," said Pierrette. 
 
 " Ah ! he was not a countryman ! Little viper ! " 
 
 Pierrette fled across the garden like a startled fawn, appalled 
 by this moral dilemma. Her cousin called to her in an awful 
 voice. 
 
 " The bell," she replied. 
 
 " What a sly little wretch ! " said Sylvie to herself. " She 
 has a perverse nature, and I am sure now that the little ser- 
 pent has twisted herself round the colonel. She has heard us 
 say that he is a baron. A baroness, indeed ! Little fool ! 
 Oh ! I will be rid of her by placing her as an apprentice, and 
 pretty soon too ! " 
 
 Sylvie was so lost in thought that she did not see her brother 
 coming down the walk and contemplating the mischief done 
 by the frost to his dahlias. 
 
 "Well, Sylvie, what are you thinking about there? I 
 thought you were looking at the fishes ; sometimes they jump 
 out of the water." 
 
 "No," said she. 
 
 " Well, how did you sleep ? " and he proceeded to tell her 
 his dreams of the past night. " Do you not think that my 
 face looks patchy?" a favorite word with the Rogrcns. Since 
 Rogron had loved nay, we will not profane the word had 
 desired Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf, he had been very anx- 
 ious about his appearance and himself. 
 
 At this moment Pierrette came down the steps and called
 
 PIERRETTE. 97 
 
 to them that breakfast was ready. On seeing her little cousin, 
 Sylvie's complexion turned green and yellow ; all her bile 
 rose. She examined the passage, and said that Pierrette 
 ought to have polished it with foot-brushes. 
 
 " I will polish it if you wish," replied the angel, not know- 
 ing how injurious this form of labor is to a young girl. 
 
 The dining-room was above blame. Sylvie sat down, and 
 all through breakfast affected to want things that she never 
 would have thought of in a calmer frame of mind, seeking for 
 them simply to make Pierrette rise to fetch them, and always 
 just as the poor child was beginning to eat. But mere nag- 
 ging was not enough ; she sought some subject for fault-find- 
 ing, and fumed with internal rage at finding none. If they 
 had been eating eggs, she would certainly have complained 
 of the boiling of hers. She hardly replied to her brother's 
 silly talk, and yet she looked only at him ; her eyes avoided 
 Pierrette, who was keenly aware of this behavior. 
 
 Pierrette brought in the coffee for her cousins in a large 
 silver cup, which served to heat the milk in, mixed with 
 cream, in a saucepan of hot water. The brother and sister 
 then added, to their taste, the black coffee which was made 
 by Sylvie. When she had carefully prepared this dainty, 
 Sylvie detected in it a faint cloud of coffee dust; she carefully 
 skimmed it off the tawny mixture and looked at it, leaning 
 over to examine it more minutely. Then the storm burst. 
 
 "What is the matter? " asked Rogron. 
 
 " The matter ! Miss, here, has put ashes in my coffee. 
 Ashes in coffee are so nice ! Well, well ! It is not astonish- 
 ing ; no one can do two things at once. Much she was 
 thinking of the coffee ! A blackbird might have flown 
 through the kitchen, and she would not have heeded it this 
 morning ! How should she see the ashes flying ? And then 
 only her cousin's ! Much she cares about it ! " 
 
 She went on in this way, while she elaborately laid on the 
 edge of her plate some fine coffee that had passed through 
 7
 
 98 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 the filter, mixed with some grains of sugar that had not 
 melted. 
 
 " But, cousin, that is coffee," said Pierrette. 
 
 "So I am a liar now?" exclaimed Sylvie, looking at Pier- 
 rette, and scorching her by a fearful flash that her eyes could 
 dart when she was angry. 
 
 These temperaments, which passion has never exhausted, 
 have at command a great supply of the vital fluid. This 
 phenomenon of extreme brightness in her eye under the influ- 
 ence of rage was all the more confirmed in Mademoiselle 
 Rogron because formerly, in her shop, she had had occasion 
 to try the power of her gaze by opening her eyes enormously 
 wide, always to fill her dependents with salutary terror. 
 
 " I will teach you to give me the lie," she went on ; " you, 
 who deserve to be sent away from table to feed by yourself in 
 the kitchen." 
 
 "What is the matter with you both?" cried Rogron. 
 "You are as cross as two sticks this morning." 
 
 " Oh, my lady knows what I mean ! I am giving her time 
 to make up her mind before speaking to you about it, for I 
 am much kinder to her than she deserves." 
 
 Pierrette looked through the window out on to the square, 
 so as not to meet her cousin's eyes, which frightened her. 
 
 " She pays no more heed than if I were talking to this 
 sugar-basin ! And she has sharp ears, too ; she can speak 
 from the top of the house to answer some one below. She is 
 that perverse ! Your ward is aggravating beyond words, and 
 you need look for nothing good from her ; do you hear me, 
 Rogron?" 
 
 "What has she done that is so wicked ? " asked Rogron. 
 
 "At her age too ! It is beginning young ! " cried the old 
 maid in a fury. 
 
 Pierrette rose to clear away, just to keep herself in counte- 
 nance ; she did not know which way to look. Though such 
 language was nothing new to her, she never could get used to
 
 PIERRETTE. 99 
 
 it. Her cousin's rage made her feel as though she had com- 
 mitted some crime. She wondered what her rage would be 
 if she knew of Brigaut's escapade. Perhaps they would keep 
 Brigaut away. All the thousand ideas of a slave crowded on 
 her at once, thoughts swift and deep, and she resolved to 
 resist by absolute silence as to an incident in which her con- 
 science could see no evil. 
 
 She had to endure words so cruel, so harsh, insinuations so 
 insulting, that on her return to the kitchen she was seized 
 with cramp in the stomach and a violent attack of sickness. 
 She dared not complain ; she was not sure of getting any 
 care. She turned pale and faint, said that she felt ill, and 
 went up to bed, clinging to the banisters at every step, and 
 believing that her last hour had come. "Poor Brigaut!" 
 thought she. 
 
 "She is ill," said Rogron. 
 
 "She ill! It is all megrims," said Sylvie, loud enough 
 to be overheard. " She was not ill this morning, I can 
 tell you!" 
 
 This last shot was too much for Pierrette, who crept to bed 
 in tears, praying to God to remove her from this world. 
 
 For a month past Rogron had no longer carried the Con- 
 stitutionnel to Gouraud ; the colonel obsequiously came to 
 fetch the newspaper, to make talk, and take Rogron out when 
 the weather was fine. Sylvie, sure of seeing the colonel, and 
 being able to question him, dressed herself coquettishly. The 
 old maid thought she achieved this by putting on a green 
 gown, a little yellow cashmere shawl bordered with red, and 
 a white bonnet with meagre gray feathers. At the hour when 
 the colonel was due, she settled herself in the drawing-room 
 with her brother, making him keep on his dressing-gown and 
 slippers. 
 
 "It is a fine morning, colonel," said Rogron, hearing 
 Gouraud's heavy step; " but I am not dressed, my sister perhaps
 
 100 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 wanted to go out, she left me to mind the house ; wait 
 forme." 
 
 Rogron went off, leaving Sylvie with the colonel. 
 
 "Where are you going? you are dressed like a goddess," 
 observed Gouraud, seeing a certain solemnity of expression 
 on the old maid's battered face. 
 
 " Yes, I was going out ; but as the child is not well, I must 
 stay at home." 
 
 " What is the matter with her? " 
 
 " I do not know ; she asked to go to bed." 
 
 Gouraud's cautiousness, not to say his distrust, was con- 
 stantly on the alert as a result of his collusion with Vinet. 
 The lawyer evidently had the best of it. He edited the 
 paper, he ruled it as a master, and applied the profits to the 
 editing ; whereas the colonel, the responsible stalking-horse, 
 got little enough. Who was to be the depute ? Vinet. Who 
 the great electioneer ? Vinet. Who was always consulted ? 
 Vinet. 
 
 Then he knew, at least as well as Vinet, the extent and 
 depth of the passion consuming Rogron for the fair Bathilde 
 de Chargebceuf. This passion was becoming a mania, as all 
 the lowest passions of men do. Bathilde's voice made the 
 old bachelor thrill. Rogron, thinking only of his desire, 
 concealed it ; he dared not hope for such a match. The 
 colonel, to sound him, had told Rogron that he was about to 
 propose for Bathilde's hand ; Rogron had turned pale at the 
 mere thought of such a formidable rival ; he had become 
 cold to Gouraud, almost hostile. Thus Vinet in every way 
 ruled the roost, while he, the colonel, was tied to the house 
 only by the doubtful bond of a love which, on his part, was 
 but feigned, and on Sylvie's as yet unconfessed. When the 
 lawyer had divulged the priest's manoeuvre and advised him 
 to throw over Sylvie and pay his addresses to Pierrette, Vinet 
 had humored his inclinations ; still, as the colonel analyzed 
 the true purport of this suggestion, and examined the ground
 
 PIERRETTE. 101 
 
 on which he stood, he fancied he could discern in his ally 
 some hope of making mischief between him and Sylvie, and 
 taking advantage of the old maid's fears to make the whole 
 of Rogron's fortune fall into Mademoiselle de Chargebceufs 
 hands. 
 
 Hence, when Rogron left him alone with Sylvie, the col- 
 onel's acumen seized on the slight indications which betrayed 
 some uneasiness in Sylvie. He saw that she had planned to 
 be under arms and alone with him for a minute. Gouraud, 
 who already vehemently suspected Vinet of playing him some 
 malignant trick, ascribed this conference to a secret sugges- 
 tion of this legal ape ; he put himself on guard, as when he 
 had been making a reconnoissance in the enemy's country, 
 keeping an eye on the whole prospect, listening for the least 
 sound, his mind alert, his hand on his weapon. It was the 
 colonel's weakness never to believe a word said by a woman; 
 and when the old maid spoke of Pierrette, and said she was in 
 bed at midday, he concluded that Sylvie had simply put her 
 in disgrace in her room out of jealousy. 
 
 " The child is growing very pretty," said he, in an indiffer- 
 ent tone. 
 
 "Yes, she will be pretty," replied Mademoiselle Rogron. 
 
 " You ought now to send her to a shop in Paris," added the 
 colonel. " She would make a fortune. They look out for 
 very pretty girls now in the milliners' shops." 
 
 "Is that really your advice?" asked Sylvie, in an anxious 
 voice. 
 
 "Good! I have hit it!" thought the colonel. "Vinet's 
 advice that Pierrette and I should marry by-and-by was only 
 intended to place me in this old witch's black-books. Why," 
 he said aloud, " what do you expect to do with her? Do you 
 not see a perfectly lovely girl, Bathilde de Chargeboeuf, of 
 noble birth, well connected, and left to become an old maid. 
 No one will have anything to say to her. Pierrette has noth- 
 ing ; she will never marry. Do you suppose that youth and
 
 102 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 beauty have any attraction for me, for instance? for me, 
 who, as captain of artillery in the Imperial Guard from the 
 first day when the Emperor had a guard, have had my feet 
 in every capital in Europe, and known the prettiest women in 
 them all ? Youth and beauty they are deuced common and 
 silly. Don't talk of them to me ! 
 
 "At eight-and-forty," he went on, adding to his age, "when 
 a man has gone through the retreat from Moscow and the 
 dreadful campaign in France, his loins are a bit weary ; I am 
 an old fellow. Now, a wife like you would cosset me and take 
 care of me ; her fortune, added to my few thousand francs of 
 pension, would secure me suitable comfort for my old age, 
 and I should like her a thousand times better than a minx 
 who would give me no end of trouble, who would be thirty 
 and have her passions when I should be sixty and have the 
 rheumatism. At my time of life we think of these things. 
 And, between you and me, I may add that if I marry, I should 
 hope to have no children." 
 
 Sylvie's face was transparent to the colonel all through this 
 speech, and her reply was enough to assure him of Vinet's 
 perfidy. 
 
 " So you are not in love with Pierrette? " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Bless me! Are you crazy, my dear Sylvie?" cried he. 
 " When we have lost all our teeth, is it time to crack nuts ? 
 Thank God, I still have my wits, and know myself." 
 
 Sylvie would not then say more about herself; she thought 
 herself very wily in using her brother's name. 
 
 "My brother," said she, "had thought of your marrying 
 her." 
 
 "Your brother can never have had such a preposterous 
 notion. A few days ago, to find out his secret, I told 
 him that I was in love with Bathilde ; he turned as white as 
 your collar." 
 
 "Is he in love with Bathilde?" said Sylvie. 
 
 " Madly ! And Bathilde certainly loves only his money."
 
 PIERRETTE. 103 
 
 (" One for you, Vinet," thought Gouraud.) " What should 
 have made him speak of Pierrette? No, Sylvie," he went 
 on, taking her hand and pressing it with meaning, " since 
 you have led to the subject " he went close to her " well " 
 he kissed her hand ; he was a cavalry colonel, and had 
 given proofs of courage "know this: I want no wife but 
 you. Though the marriage will look like a marriage for 
 money, I feel true affection for you." 
 
 '' But it was I who wished that you should marry Pier- 
 rette ; and if I were to give her my money what then, 
 colonel?" 
 
 " But I do not want to have a wretched home, or to 
 see, ten years hence, some young whippersnapper, such as 
 Julliard, hovering around my wife, and writing verses to 
 her in the newspaper. I am too much a man on that 
 score; I will never marry a woman out of all proportion, 
 too young." 
 
 "Well, colonel, we will talk that over seriously," said 
 Sylvie, with a glance she thought amorous, and which was 
 very like that of an ogress. Her cold, raw purple lips 
 parted over her yellow teeth, and she fancied she was 
 smiling. 
 
 "Here I am," said Rogron, and he led away the colonel, 
 who bowed courteously to the old maid. 
 
 Gouraud was determined to hasten his marriage with Sylvie 
 and so become master of the house; promising himself that, 
 through the influence he would acquire over Sylvie during the 
 honeymoon, he would get rid both of Bathilde and of Celeste 
 Habert. So, as they walked, he told Rogron that he had 
 been making fun of him the other day ; that he had no 
 intentions of winning Bathilde's heart, not being rich enough 
 to take a wife who had no money. Then he confided his 
 projects ; he had long since chosen Sylvie for her admirable 
 qualities ; in short, he aspired to the honor of becoming his 
 brother-in-law.
 
 104 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 "Oh, colonel! Oh, Baron! If only my consent were 
 needed, it would be done as soon as legal delays should 
 allow! " cried Rogron, delighted to find himself relieved of 
 this terrible rival. 
 
 Sylvie spent the whole morning examining her own rooms 
 to see if there were accommodation for a couple. She deter- 
 mined on building another story for her brother, and having 
 the second floor for herself and her husband ; but she also prom- 
 ised herself, in accordance with the notions of every old maid, 
 to put the colonel to some tests, so as to judge of his heart 
 and habits before making up her mind. She still had doubts, 
 and wanted to make sure that Pierrette had no intimacy with 
 the colonel. 
 
 At dinner-time the girl came down to lay the cloth. Sylvie 
 had been obliged to do the cooking, and had spotted her 
 gown, exclaiming, " Curse Pierrette ! " For it was evident, 
 indeed, that if Pierrette had cooked the dinner, Sylvie would 
 not have had a grease-stain on her silk dress. 
 
 " So here you are, you little coddle. You are like the 
 blacksmith's dog that sleeps under the forge and wakes at the 
 sound of a saucepan. So you want me to believe that you 
 are ill, you little story-teller! " 
 
 The one idea, "You did not confess the truth as to what 
 took place this morning, therefore everything you say is a 
 lie," was like a hammer with which Sylvie was prepared to 
 hit incessantly on Pierrette's head and heart. 
 
 To Pierrette's great astonishment, Sylvie sent her after 
 dinner to dress for the evening. The liveliest imagination is 
 no match for the energy which suspicion gives to the mind 
 of an old maid. In such a case, the old maid beats politi- 
 cians, attorneys, and notaries, bill-brokers and misers. Sylvie 
 promised herself that she would consult Vinet after looking 
 well about her. She meant to keep Pierrette in the room, so 
 as to judge for herself by the child's face whether the colonel 
 had told the truth.
 
 PIERRETTE. 105 
 
 The first to come were Madame de Chargeboeuf and her 
 daughter. By her cousin Vinet's advice, Bathilde had 
 dressed with twice her usual elegance. She wore a most 
 becoming blue cotton-velvet gown, the clear kerchief as 
 before, bunches of grapes in garnets and gold for earrings, 
 her hair in ringlets, the artful necklet, little black satin shoes, 
 gray silk stockings, and Suede gloves, and then queenly airs 
 and girlish coquettishness enough to catch every Rogron in 
 the river. Her mother, calm and dignified, had preserved, 
 as had Bathilde, a certain aristocratic impertinence by which 
 these two women redeemed everything, betraying the spirit 
 of their caste. Bathilde was gifted with superior intelligence, 
 though Vinet alone had been able to discern it after the two 
 months that these ladies had spent in his house. When he 
 had sounded the depths of this girl, depressed by the useless- 
 ness of her youth and beauty, but enlightened by the con- 
 tempt she felt for the men of a period when money was their 
 sole idol, Vinet exclaimed in surprise 
 
 " If I had but married you, Bathilde, by this time I should 
 have been keeper of the seals ; I would have called myself 
 Vinet de Chargeboeuf, and have sat on the right." 
 
 Bathilde had no vulgar aims in her wish to be married ; 
 she would not marry for motherhood, nor for the sake of hav- 
 ing a husband; she would marry to be free, to have a "re- 
 sponsible publisher," as it were to be called madame, and to 
 act as men act. Rogron to her was a name ; she thought she 
 could make something of this imbecile creature a depute, 
 who might vote while she pulled the wires ; she wanted to be 
 revenged on her family, who had paid little heed to a penni- 
 less girl. Vinet, admiring and encouraging her ideas, had 
 greatly extended and strengthened them. 
 
 " My dear cousin," said he, explaining to her the influence 
 exerted by women, and pointing out the sphere of action 
 proper to them, " do you suppose that Tiphaine, a profoundly 
 mediocre man. can by his own merits rise to sit on the lower
 
 106 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 bench in Paris? It is Madame Tiphaine who got him re- 
 turned as deputy ; it is she who will carry him to Paris. Her 
 mother, Madame Roguin, is a cunning body, who does what 
 she pleases with du Tillet the banker, one of Nucingen's 
 chief allies, both of them close friends of Keller's ; and these 
 three houses do great services to the government or its most 
 devoted adherents ; the offices are on the best possible terms 
 with these lynxes of the financial world, and men like those 
 know all Paris. There is nothing to hinder Tiphaine from 
 rising to be the presiding judge of one of the higher courts. 
 Marry Rogron ; we will make him deputy for Provins as soon 
 as I have secured for myself some other constituency in Seine- 
 et-Marne. Then you will have a receivership one of those 
 places where Rogron will have nothing to do but sign his 
 name. We will stick to the Opposition if it triumphs ; but if 
 the Bourbons remain in power, O how gently we will incline 
 towards the centre ! Besides, Rogron will not live for ever, 
 and you can marry a title by-and-by. And then, if you are 
 in a good position, the Chargeboeufs will help us. Your 
 poverty like mine has, no doubt, enabled you to estimate 
 what men are worth ; they are to be made use of only as 
 post-horses. A man or a woman can take us from one stage 
 to the next! " 
 
 Vinet had made a little Catherine de Medici of Bathilde. 
 He left his wife at home, happy with her two children, and 
 always attended Madame de Chargeboeuf and Bathilde to the 
 Rogrons. He appeared in all his glory as the tribune of 
 Champagne. He wore neat gold spectacles, a silk waistcoat, 
 a white cravat, black trousers, thin boots, a black coat made 
 in Paris, a gold watch and chain. Instead of the Vinet of 
 old pale, lean, haggard, and gloomy he exhibited the 
 Vinet of the day, in all the bravery of a political personage ; 
 sure of his luck, he trod with the decision peculiar to a busy 
 advocate familiar with the caverns of justice. His small,
 
 DATH1LDE PUT HER PRETTV FOOT ON THE BAFl OF 
 
 THE FENDER.
 
 PIERRETTE. 107 
 
 cunning head was so smartly brushed, and his clean-shaven 
 chin gave him such a finished though cold appearance, that he 
 looked quite pleasing, in the style of Robespierre. He might 
 certainly become a delightful public prosecutor, with an elas- 
 tic, dangerous, and deadly flow of eloquence, or an orator, 
 with all the subtlety of Benjamin Constant. The acrimony 
 and hatred which had formerly animated him had turned to 
 perfidious softness. The poison had become medicine. 
 
 "Good-evening, my dear, how are you?" said Madame 
 de Chargeboeuf to Sylvie. 
 
 Bathilde went straight to the fireplace, took off her hat, 
 looked at herself in the glass, and put her pretty foot on the 
 bar of the fender to display it to Rogron. 
 
 "What ails you, monsieur?" said she, looking at him. 
 " You give me no greeting ? Well, indeed ! I may put on a 
 velvet frock for your benefit " 
 
 She stopped Pierrette, bidding her put her hat on a chair, 
 and the girl took it from her, Bathilde resigning it to her as 
 though Pierrette had been the housemaid. 
 
 Men are thought very fierce, and so are tigers ; but neither 
 tigers, nor vipers, nor diplomats, nor men of law, nor execu- 
 tioners, nor kings, can in their utmost atrocities come near 
 the gentle cruelty, the poisoned sweetness, the savage scorn 
 of young ladies to each other when certain of them think 
 themselves superior to others in birth, fortune, or grace, and 
 when marriage is in question, or precedence, or, in short, any 
 feminine rivalry. The "Thank you, mademoiselle," spoken 
 by Bathilde to Pierrette, was a poem in twelve cantos. 
 
 Her name was Bathilde, the other's was Pierrette ; she was a 
 Chargeboeuf, the other a Lorrain ! Pierrette was undersized 
 and fragile, Bathilde was tall and full of vitality! Pierrette 
 was fed by charity, Bathilde and her mother lived on their 
 own money ! Pierrette wore a stuff frock with a deep tucker, 
 Bathilde dragged the serpentine folds of her blue velvet ; 
 Bathilde had the finest shoulders in the department and an
 
 108 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 arm like a queen's, Pierrette's shoulder-blades and arms were 
 skinny ; Pierrette was Cinderella, Bathilde the fairy ; Bathilde 
 would get married, Pierrette would die a maid ! Bathilde was 
 worshiped, Pierrette had no one to love her ! Bathilde had 
 her hair dressed she had taste; Pierrette hid her hair under 
 a little cap, and knew nothing of the fashions ! Epilogue 
 Bathilde was everything, Pierrette was nothing. The proud 
 little Bretonne perfectly understood this cruel poem. 
 
 " Good-evening, child," said Madame de Chargeboeuf from 
 the summit of her grandeur, and with an accent given by her 
 narrow-pinched nose. 
 
 Vinet put the crowning touch to these insulting civilities by 
 looking at Pierrette and saying, on three notes, "Oh, oh, 
 oh ! How fine we are this evening, Pierrette ! " 
 
 " I ! " said the poor child. "You should say that to your 
 cousin, not to me. She is beautiful ! " 
 
 "Oh, my cousin is always beautiful," replied the lawyer. 
 " Do you not say so, Pere Rogron?" he added, turning to 
 the master of the house, and shaking hands with him. 
 
 "Yes," said Rogron. 
 
 "Why force him to say what he does not think? I never 
 was to his taste," replied Bathilde, placing herself in front of 
 Rogron. " Is not that the truth ? Look at me." 
 
 Rogron looked at her from head to foot, and gently closed 
 his eyes, like a cat when its poll is scratched. 
 
 "You are too beautiful," said he, "too dangerous to look 
 at." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 Rogron gazed at the fire-logs and said nothing. 
 
 At this moment Mademoiselle Habert came, followed by 
 the colonel. Celeste Habert, everybody's enemy now, had 
 none but Sylvie on her side ; but each one showed her all the 
 greater consideration, politeness, and amiable attention be- 
 cause all were undermining her, so that she doubted between 
 this display of civil interest and the distrust which her brother
 
 PIERRETTE. 109 
 
 had implanted in her. The priest, though standing apart 
 from the theatre of war, guessed everything; and so, when 
 he perceived that his sister's hopes were at an end, he became 
 one of the Rogrons' most formidable antagonists. 
 
 The reader can at once imagine what Mademoiselle Habert 
 was like on being told that even if she had not been mistress 
 arch-mistress of a school, she would still always have 
 looked like a governess. Governesses have a particular way 
 of putting on their caps. Just as elderly Englishwomen have 
 monopolized the fashion of turbans, so governesses have the 
 monopoly of these caps ; the crown of the cap towers above 
 the flowers, the flowers are more than artificial ; stored care- 
 fully in a wardrobe, this cap is always new and always old, 
 even on the first day. These old maids make it a point of 
 honor to be like a painter's lay-figure ; they sit on their 
 haunches, not on their chairs. When they are spoken to they 
 turn their whole body ; and when their gowns creak, we are 
 tempted to believe that the springs of the machinery are out 
 of order. Mademoiselle Habert, a type of her kind, had a 
 hard eye, a set mouth, and under her chin, furrowed with 
 wrinkles, the limp and crumpled cap-strings wagged and 
 frisked as she moved. She had an added charm in two 
 moles, rather large and rather brown, with hairs that she left 
 to grow like untied clematis. Finally, she took snuff, and 
 without grace. 
 
 They sat down to the toil of boston. Sylvie had opposite 
 to her Mademoiselle Habert, and the colonel sat on one side, 
 opposite Madame de Chargeboeuf. Bathilde placed herself 
 near her mother and Rogron. Sylvie put Pierrette between 
 herself and the colonel. Rogron opened another card-table 
 in case Monsieur Neraud should come, and Monsieur Cour- 
 nant and his wife. Vinet and Bathilde could both play 
 whist, which was Monsieur and Madame Cournant's game. 
 Ever since the Chargebceuf ladies as they say in Provins 
 had been in the habit of coming to the Rogrons, the two
 
 110 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 lamps blazed on the chimney-piece between the candelabra 
 and the clock, and the tables were lighted by wax-lights at 
 two francs a pound, which, however, were paid for by win- 
 nings at cards. 
 
 " Now, Pierrette, my child, take your sewing," said Sylvie 
 with treacherous gentleness, seeing her watch the colonel's 
 play. 
 
 In public she always pretended to treat Pierrette very 
 kindly. This mean deceit irritated the honest Bretonne, 
 and made her despise her cousin. Pierrette fetched her 
 embrodiery ; but as she set the stitches, she looked now and 
 then at the colonel's game. Gouraud seemed not to know 
 that there was a little girl at his side. Sylvie began to think 
 this indifference extremely suspicious. At a certain moment 
 in the game the old maid declared misere in hearts ; the pool 
 was full of counters, and there were twenty-seven sous in it 
 besides. The Cournants and Neraud had come. The old 
 supernumerary judge, Desfondrilles a man in whom the 
 minister of justice had discerned the qualifications for a judge 
 when appointing him examining magistrate, but who was 
 never thought clever enough for a superior position had for 
 the last two months forsaken the Tiphaines and shown a 
 leaning towards Vinet's party. He was now standing in 
 front of the fire, holding up his coat-tails, and gazing at the 
 gorgeous drawing-room in which Mademoiselle de Charge- 
 boeuf shone ; for the setting of crimson looked as if it had 
 been contrived on purpose to show off the beauty of this 
 magnificent young woman. Silence reigned ; Pierrette 
 watched the play, and Sylvie's attention was diverted by the 
 excitement of the game. 
 
 " Play that," said Pierrette to the colonel, pointing to a 
 heart. 
 
 The colonel led from a sequence in hearts ; the hearts lay 
 between him and Sylvie ; the colonel forced the ace, though 
 it was guarded in Sylvie's hand by five small cards.
 
 PIERRETTE. Ill 
 
 "It is not fair play ! Pierrette saw my hand, and the 
 colonel allowed her to advise him ! " 
 
 "But, mademoiselle," said Celeste, " it was the colonel's 
 game to lead hearts since he found that you had one ! " 
 
 The speech made Desfondrilles smile ; he was a keen ob- 
 server, who amused himself with watching all the interests at 
 stake in Provins, where he played the part of " Rigaudin " in 
 Picard's play of " La Maison en Loterie." 
 
 "It was the colonel's game," Cournant put in, without 
 knowing anything about it. 
 
 Sylvie shot at MademoiseUe Habert a look of old maid 
 against old maid, villainous but honeyed. 
 
 " Pierrette, you saw my hand," said Sylvie, fixing her eyes 
 on the girl. 
 
 " No, cousin." 
 
 "I was watching you all," said the archaeological judge; 
 " I can bear witness that the little girl saw no one's hand but 
 the colonel's." 
 
 "Pooh! these little girls know very well how to steal a 
 glance with their sweet eyes," said Gouraud in alarm. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said Sylvie. 
 
 "Yes," replied Gouraud; "she may have looked over 
 your hand to play you a trick. Was it not so, my beauty?" 
 
 "No," said the honest Bretonne. "I am incapable of 
 such a thing ! In that case I should have followed my cousin's 
 game." 
 
 "You know very well that you are a story-teller and a little 
 fool into the bargain," said Sylvie. " Since what took place 
 this morning, who can believe a word you may say? You 
 area " 
 
 Pierrette did not wait to hear her cousin end the sentence 
 in her presence. Anticipating a torrent of abuse, she rose, 
 went out of the room without a light, and up to her room. 
 Sylvie turned pale with rage, and muttered between her teeth, 
 "I will pay her out ! "
 
 112 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Will you pay your losses ? " said Madame de Chargeboeuf. 
 
 At this moment poor Pierrette hit her head against the 
 passage door which the judge had left open. 
 
 " Good! That serves her right ! " cried Sylvie. 
 
 " What has happened? " asked Desfondrilles. 
 
 " Nothing that she does not deserve," replied Sylvie. 
 
 " She has given herself some severe blow," said Mademoi- 
 selle Habert. 
 
 Sylvie tried to evade paying her stakes by rising to see 
 what Pierrette had done ; but Madame de Chargebceuf stopped 
 her. 
 
 "Pay us first," said she, laughing; "by the time you re- 
 turn you will have forgotten all about it." 
 
 This suggestion, based on the bad faith the ex-haberdasher 
 showed in the matter of her gambling debts, met with general 
 approval. Sylvie sat down and thought no more of Pierrette; 
 and no one was surprised at her indifference. All the evening 
 Sylvie was absent-minded. When cards were over, at about 
 half-past nine, she sank into an easy-chair by the fire, and 
 only rose to take leave of her guests. The colonel tortured 
 her ; she did not know what to think about him. 
 
 " Men are so false ! " said she to herself as she fell asleep. 
 
 Pierrette had given herself a frightful blow against the edge 
 of the door, just over her ear, where girls part their hair to 
 put the forepart into curl-papers. Next morning there was a 
 bad purple-veined bruise. 
 
 " God has punished you," said Sylvie at breakfast; " you 
 disobeyed me, you showed a great want of respect in not 
 listening to me, and in going away in the middle of my sen- 
 tence. You have received no more than you have justly 
 deserved. ' ' 
 
 " Still," said Rogron, " you should put on a rag dipped in 
 salt and water." 
 
 " Pooh ! It is nothing ! " said Sylvie.
 
 PIERRETTE. 113 
 
 The poor child had come to the point when she thought 
 her guardian's remark a proof of interest. 
 
 The week ended as it had begun, in constant torment. 
 Sylvie became ingenious, and carried her refinement of 
 tyranny to an extreme pitch. The Iroquois, Cherokees, and 
 Mohicans might have learned of her. Pierrette dared not 
 complain of her misery and the intense pain she suffered 
 in her head. At the bottom of Sylvie's displeasure lay the 
 girl's refusal to tell anything about Brigaut ; and Pierrette, 
 with Breton obstinacy, was determined to keep a very natural 
 silence. Every one can imagine what a glance she gave 
 Brigaut, who, as she believed, would be lost to her if he were 
 discovered, and whom she instinctively longed to keep near 
 her, happy in knowing that he was at Provins. What a de- 
 light to her to see Brigaut again ! The sight of the com- 
 panion of her childhood was to her like the view an exile 
 gets from afar of his native land ; she looked on him as a 
 martyr gazes at the sky when, during his torments, his eyes, 
 blessed with double sight, see through to heaven. 
 
 Pierrette's parting glance had been so perfectly intelligible 
 to the major's son that, while he planed his boards, opened 
 his compasses, took his measurements, and fitted his pieces, 
 he racked his brains for some means of corresponding with 
 Pierrette. Brigaut at last hit on this extremely simple plan. 
 At a certain hour at night Pierrette must let down a string, 
 and he would tie a letter to the end of it. In the midst of 
 her terrible sufferings from two maladies, an abscess which 
 was forming in her head, and her general disorderment, Pier- 
 rette was sustained by the idea of corresponding with Brigaut. 
 The same desire agitated both hearts; though apart, they 
 understood each other ! At every pang that made her heart 
 flutter, at every pain that shot through her brain, Pierrette 
 said to herself, "Brigaut is at hand ! " and then she could 
 suffer without complaining. 
 
 On the next market-day after their first meeting in the 
 8
 
 114 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 church, Brigaut looked out for his little friend. Though he 
 saw that she was pale, and trembling like a November leaf 
 about to drop from the bough, without losing his head he 
 went to bargain for some fruit at the stall where the terrible 
 Sylvie was beating down the price of her purchases. Brigaut 
 contrived to slip a note into Pierrette's hand, and he did it 
 naturally, while jesting with the market-woman, and with all 
 the dexterity of a rake, as if he had never done anything else, 
 so coolly did he manage it, in spite of the hot blood that 
 sang in his ears and surged boiling from his heart, almost 
 bursting the veins and arteries. On the surface he had the 
 determination of an old housebreaker, and within the quaking 
 heart of innocence, like mothers sometimes in their mortal 
 anguish, when they are gripped between two dangers, between 
 two precipices. Pierrette felt Brigaut's dizziness; she crushed 
 the paper into her apron pocket; the pallor of her cheeks 
 changed to the cherry redness of a fierce fire. These two 
 children each unconsciously went through sensations enough 
 for ten commonplace love-affairs. That instant left in their 
 souls a wellspring of emotions. Sylvie, who did not recog- 
 nize the Breton accent, could not suspect a lover in Brigaut, 
 and Pierrette came home with her treasure. 
 
 The letters of these two poor children were destined to serve 
 as documents in a horrible legal squabble; for, but for that 
 fatal circumstance, they never would have been seen. This 
 is what Pierrette read that evening in the quiet seclusion of 
 her attic room : 
 
 " MY DEAR PIERRETTE: At midnight, when everybody is 
 asleep, but when I shall be awake for your sake, I will come 
 every night under the kitchen window. You can let down 
 out of your window a string long enough to reach me, which 
 will make no noise, and tie to the end of it whatever you 
 want to write to me. I will answer you in the same way. I 
 knew that you had been taught to read and write by those
 
 PIERRETTE. 115 
 
 wretched relations who were to do you so much good, and 
 who are doing you so much harm ! You, Pierrette, the daugh- 
 ter of a colonel who died for France, are compelled by these 
 monsters to cook for them ! That is how your pretty color 
 and your fane health have vanished. What has become of 
 my Pierrette? What have they done to her? I can see 
 plainly that you are not happy. 
 
 "Oh! Pierrette, let us go back to Brittany. I can earn 
 enough to give you everything you need ; you may have three 
 francs a day, for I earn from four to five, and thirty sous are 
 plenty for me. Oh ! Pierrette, how I have prayed to God for 
 you since seeing you again. I have asked Him to give me all 
 your pain, and to grant you all the pleasures. 
 
 "What have you to do with them that they keep you? 
 Your grandmother is more to you than they are. These 
 Rogrons are venomous; they have spoiled all your gaiety. 
 You do not even walk at Provins as you used to move in 
 Brittany. Let us go home to Brittany. In short, here I am 
 to serve you, to do your bidding ; and you must tell me what 
 you wish. If you want money, I have sixty crowns of ours, 
 and I shall have the grief of sending them to you by the 
 string instead of kissing your dear hands respectfully when I 
 give you the money. Ah ! my dear Pierrette, the blue sky 
 has now for a long time been dark to me. I have not had 
 two hours of joy since I put you into that ill-starred diligence ; 
 and when I saw you again, like a shade, that witch of a cousin 
 disturbed our happiness. However, we shall have the comfort 
 of praying to God together every Sunday ; He will perhaps 
 hear us the better. Not good-by, dear Pierrette, only till 
 to-night." 
 
 This letter agitated her so greatly that she sat for above an 
 hour reading and re-reading it ; but she reflected, not without 
 pain, that she had nothing to write with. So she made up 
 her mind to the difficult expedition from her attic to the
 
 116 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 dining-room, where she could find ink, pen, and paper ; and 
 she accomplished it without waking Sylvie. A few minutes 
 before midnight she had finished this letter, which was also 
 produced in court : 
 
 " MY FRIEND : Oh, yes, my friend ! For there is no one 
 but you, Jacques, and my grandmother, who loves me. God 
 forgive me, but you are the only two persons I love, one as 
 much as the other, neither more nor less. I was too little 
 to remember my mother ; but you, Jacques, and my grand- 
 mother, and my grandfather too, God rest his soul, for he 
 suffered much from his ruin, which was mine too in short, 
 you are the only two remaining, and I love you as much as I 
 am wretched ! So to know how much I love you, you would 
 have to know how much I suffer ; but I do not wish that it 
 would make you too unhappy. I am spoken to as you would 
 not speak to a dog ; I am treated as if I were dirt ; and in 
 vain I examine myself as if I were before God, I cannot see 
 that I am in fault towards them. Before you sang the bride's 
 song to me I saw that God was good in my misery ; for I 
 prayed to Him to take me out of this world, and as I felt 
 very ill, I said to myself, ' God has heard me ! ' 
 
 " But since you have come, Brigaut, I want to go away 
 with you to Brittany to see my grandmamma, who loves me, 
 though they tell me she has robbed me of eight thousand 
 francs. Brigaut, if they are really mine, can you get them ? 
 But it is all a lie ; if we had eight thousand francs, grand- 
 mamma would not be at Saint- Jacques. I would not trouble 
 that good saintly woman's last days by telling her of my 
 miseries ; it would be enough to kill her. Ah ! if she could 
 know that they make her grandchild wash the pots and pans 
 she who would say to me, 'Leave that alone, my darling,' 
 when I tried to help her in her troubles ; ' leave it, leave it, 
 my pet; you will spoil your pretty little hands.' Well, my 
 nails are clean at any rate ! Many times I cannot carry the
 
 PIERRETTE. 117 
 
 market basket, and the handle saws my arm as I come home 
 from market. 
 
 " At the same time, I do not think that my cousins are 
 cruel ; but it is their way always to be scolding, and it would 
 seem that I can never get away from them. My cousin 
 Rogron is my guardian. One day when I meant to run away, 
 as I was too miserable, and I told them so, my cousin Sylvie 
 answered that the police would go after me, that the law was 
 on my guardian's side ; and I saw very clearly that cousins 
 can no more take the place of our father and mother than the 
 saints can take the place of God. My poor Jacques, what 
 use could I make of your money ? Keep it for our journey. 
 Oh ! how I have thought of you and Pen-Hoel and the large 
 pool. We ate our cake first, out there. I think that I am 
 getting worse. I am very ill, Jacques. I have such pains in 
 my head that I could scream, and in my back and my bones ; 
 something round my loins that half kills me; and I have no 
 appetite but for nasty things, leaves and roots, and I like the 
 smell of printed paper. There are times when I should cry 
 if I were alone, for I may not do anything as I wish ; I am 
 not even allowed to cry. I have to hide myself to offer up 
 my tears to Him from whom we receive those mercies which 
 we call our afflictions. Was it not He who inspired you with 
 the good idea of coming to sing the bride's song under my 
 window? Oh! Jacques, cousin Sylvie,, who heard you, told 
 me I had a lover. If you will be my lover, love me very 
 much ; I promise always to love you, as in the past, and to be 
 your faithful servant, 
 
 " PIERRETTE LORRAIN. 
 
 " You will always love me, won't you? " 
 
 The girl had taken a crust of bread from the kitchen, in 
 which she made a hole to stick her letter in, so as to weight 
 the thread. At midnight, after opening her window with
 
 118 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 excessive caution, she let down her note with the bread, 
 which could make no noise by tapping against the wall or the 
 shutters. She felt the thread pulled by Brigaut, who broke 
 it, and then went stealthily away. When he was in the mid- 
 dle of the square she could see him, though indistinctly, in 
 the starlight ; but he could gaze at her in the luminous band 
 projected by the candle. The two young things remained 
 there for an hour, Pierrette signaling to him to go away, he 
 going and she remaining, and he returning to his post, while 
 Pierrette again waved to him to be gone. This was several 
 times repeated, till the girl shut her window, got into bed, 
 and blew out her light. 
 
 Once in bed, she went to sleep, happy though suffering; 
 she had Brigaut's letter under her pillow. She slept the sleep 
 of the persecuted, a sleep blessed by the angels, the sleep of 
 golden and far-away glories full of the arabesques of heaven, 
 which Raphael dreamed of and drew. 
 
 Her delicate physical nature was so responsive to her moral 
 nature that Pierrette rose next morning as glad and light as a 
 lark, beaming and gay. Such a change could not escape 
 Sylvie's eye ; this time, instead of scolding her, she pro- 
 ceeded to watch her with the cunning of a raven. 
 
 "What makes her so happy? " was suggested by jealousy, 
 and not by tyranny. If Sylvie had not been possessed by 
 the idea of the colonel, she would certainly have said as 
 usual, " Pierrette, you are very turbulent, or very heedless of 
 what is said to you." The old maid determined to spy on 
 Pierrette, as only old maids can spy. The day passed in 
 gloom and silence, like the hour before a storm. 
 
 "So you are no longer so ailing, miss?" said Sylvie at 
 dinner. " Did I not tell you that she shams it all to worry 
 us?" she exclaimed, turning to her brother, without waiting 
 for Pierrette's reply. 
 
 " On the contrary, cousin, I have a sort of fever," said the 
 distressed child.
 
 PIERRETTE. 119 
 
 "What sort of fever. You are as gay as a linnet. You 
 have seen someone again, perhaps?" 
 
 Pierrette shuddered, and kept her eyes on her plate. 
 
 "Tartu/e/" cried Sylvie. "At fourteen ! Already! What 
 a nature ! Why, you will be a wretch indeed ! " 
 
 " I do not know what you mean," replied Pierrette, raising 
 her fine luminous hazel eyes to her cousin's face. 
 
 "This evening," said Sylvie, "you will remain in the 
 dining-room to sew by a candle. You are in the way in the 
 drawing-room, and I will not have you looking over my hand 
 to advise your favorites." 
 
 Pierrette did not flinch. 
 
 " Hypocrite ! " exclaimed Sylvie as she left the room. 
 
 Rogron, who could not understand what his sister was 
 talking about, said to Pierrette, " What is the matter between 
 you two ? Try, Pierrette, to please your cousin ; she is most 
 indulgent, most kind ; and if she is put out with you, cer- 
 tainly you must be wrong. Why do you squabble ? For tny 
 part, I like a quiet life. Look at Mademoiselle Bathilde ; you 
 should try to copy her." 
 
 Pierrette could bear it all ; Brigaut would come, beyond 
 doubt, at midnight to bring his answer, and this hope was 
 her viaticum for the day. But she was exhausting her last 
 strength. She did not go to sleep ; she sat up listening to 
 the clocks strike the hours, and fearing to make a sound. At 
 last twelve struck ; she softly opened her window, and this 
 time she used a string she had made long enough by tying 
 several bits together. She heard Brigaut's step, and when she 
 drew up the string she read the following letter, which filled 
 her with joy : 
 
 " MY DEAR PIERRETTE: If you are in such pain, you must 
 not tire yourself by sitting up for me. You will be sure to 
 hear me call like a ' Chouan.' My father luckily taught me 
 to imitate their cry. So I shall repeat it three times, and
 
 120 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 you will know that I have come, and that you must let down 
 the string, but I shall not come again for some few days. I hope 
 then to have good news for you. Oh ! Pierrette, not death ! 
 What are you thinking of? All my heart quaked; I thought 
 I was dead myself at the mere idea. No, my Pierrette, you 
 shall not die ; you shall live happy, and soon be rescued from 
 your persecutors. If I should not succeed in what I am 
 attempting, to save you, I would go to the lawyers and declare 
 in the face of heaven and earth how you are treated by your 
 cruel relations. 
 
 "I am certain that you have only to endure a few days 
 more ; have patience. Pierrette, Brigaut is watching over 
 you, as he did in the days when we went to slide on the pond, 
 and I pulled you out of the deep hole where we were so 
 nearly lost together. Good-by, my dear Pierrette ; in a few 
 days we shall be happy, please God. Alas ! I dare not tell 
 you of the only thing that may hinder our meeting. But 
 God loves us ! So in a few days I shall be able to see my 
 dear Pierrette in liberty, without a care, without any one 
 hindering my looking at you, for I am very hungry to see 
 you, Oh Pierrette ! Pierrette, who condescends to love me 
 and to tell me so. Yes, Pierrette, I will be your lover, but 
 only when I have earned the grand fortune you deserve, and 
 till then I will be no more to you than a devoted servant 
 whom you may command. Adieu. 
 
 ' ' JACQUES BRIGAUT. ' ' 
 
 This was what the young fellow did not tell Pierrette. He 
 had written the following letter to Madame Lorrain at Nantes : 
 
 " MADAME LORRAIN : Your granddaughter will die, killed 
 by ill-usage, if you do not come to claim her back. I hardly 
 knew her again ; and to enable you to judge for yourself of 
 the state of things, I enclose in this letter one from Pierrette 
 to me. You are reported here to have your grandchild's 
 fortune, and you ought to justify yourself on this point. In
 
 PIERRETTE. 121 
 
 short, if you can, come quickly ; we may yet be happy, or 
 later you will find Pierrette dead. 
 
 " I remain, with respect, your humble servant, 
 
 "JACQUES BRIGAUT. 
 
 " At Monsieur Frappier's, master joiner, Grand' Rue, 
 Provins." 
 
 Brigaut only feared lest Pierrette's grandmother might be 
 dead. 
 
 Though this letter from him, whom in her innocence she 
 called her lover, was almost inexplicable to Pierrette, she 
 accepted it with virgin faith. Her heart experienced the 
 feeling which travelers in the desert know when they see 
 from afar the palm grove round a well. In a few days her 
 miseries would be ended, Brigaut said it; she slept on the 
 promise of her childhood's friend ; and yet, as she laid this 
 letter with the former one, a dreadful thought found dreadful 
 expression 
 
 "Poor Brigaut," said she to herself, "he does not know 
 the hole I have my feet in ! " 
 
 Sylvie had heard Pierrette ; she had also heard Brigaut 
 below the window ; she sprang up, rushed to look out on the 
 square through the shutter slats, and saw a man going away 
 towards the house where the colonel lived. In front of that 
 Brigaut stopped. The old maid gently opened her door, 
 went upstairs, was amazed at seeing a light in Pierrette's 
 room, peeped through the keyhole, and could see nothing. 
 
 "Pierrette," said she, "are you ill?" 
 
 "No, cousin," said Pierrette, startled. 
 
 " Then why have you a light in your room at midnight ? 
 Open your door. I must know what you are about." 
 
 Pierrette, barefoot, opened the door, and Sylvie saw the 
 skein of twine which Pierrette, never dreaming of being 
 caught, had neglected to put away. Sylvie pounced upon it. 
 
 " What do you use that for?" .-
 
 122 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 "Nothing, cousin." 
 
 " Nothing ! " said she. " Very good. Lies again ! You 
 will not find that the way to heaven. Go to bed ; you are 
 cold." 
 
 She asked no more, but disappeared, leaving Pierrette 
 terror-stricken by such leniency. Instead of an outbreak, 
 Sylvie had suddenly made up her mind to steal a march on 
 the colonel and Pierrette, to possess herself of the letters, and 
 confound the couple who were deceiving her. Pierrette, in- 
 spired by danger, put the two letters inside her stays and 
 covered them with calico. 
 
 This was the end of the loves of Pierrette and Brigaut. 
 
 Pierrette was glad of her friend's decision, for Sylvie's 
 suspicions would be disconcerted by having nothing to feed 
 on. And, in fact, Sylvie spent three nights out of her bed 
 and three evenings in watching the innocent colonel, without 
 discovering anything in Pierrette's room, or in the house or 
 out of it, that hinted at their having any understanding. 
 She sent Pierrette to confession, and took advantage of her 
 absence to hunt through everything in the child's room as 
 dexterously and as keenly as the spies and searchers at the 
 gates of Paris. She found nothing. Her rage rose to the 
 climax of human passion. If Pierrette had been present, she 
 would certainly have beaten her without ruth. To a woman 
 of this temper, jealousy was not so much a feeling as a pos- 
 session ; she breathed, she felt her heart beat, she had emo- 
 tions in a way hitherto completely unknown to her ; at the 
 least movement she was on the alert, she listened to the 
 faintest sounds, she watched Pierrette with gloomy concen- 
 tration. 
 
 "That little wretch will be the death of me ! " she would 
 say. 
 
 Sylvie's severity to the child became at last the most refined 
 cruelty, and aggravated the miserable state in which Pierrette
 
 PIERRETTE. 12 3 
 
 lived. The poor little thing was constantly in a fever, and 
 the pain in her head became intolerable. By the end of a 
 week she displayed to the frequenters of the Rogrons' house 
 a face of suffering which must certainly have softened any less 
 cruel egotism ; but Doctor Neraud, advised perhaps by Vinet, 
 did not call for more than a week. The colonel, suspected 
 by Sylvie, was afraid she might break off their marriage if 
 he showed the smallest anxiety about Pierrette; Bathilde 
 accounted for her indisposition by simple causes, in no way 
 dangerous. 
 
 At last, one Sunday evening, when the drawing-room was 
 full of company, Pierrette could not endure the pain ; she 
 fainted completely away ; and the colonel, who was the first 
 to observe that she had lost consciousness, lifted her up and 
 carried her to a sofa. 
 
 "She did it on purpose," said Sylvie, looking at Made- 
 moiselle Habert and the other players. 
 
 "Your cousin is very ill, I assure you," said the colonel. 
 "She was very well in your arms," retorted Sylvie, with a 
 hideous smile. 
 
 "The colonel is right," said Madame de Chargeboeuf; 
 " you ought to send for a doctor. This morning in church 
 every one was talking of Mademoiselle Lorrain's state as they 
 came out it is obvious." 
 
 " I am dying," said Pierrette. 
 
 Desfondrilles called to Sylvie to unfasten the girl's frock. 
 Sylvie complied, saying, " It is all a sham ! " 
 
 She undid the dress, and was going to loosen the stays. 
 Then Pierrette found superhuman strength ; she sat up, and 
 exclaimed, " No, no ; I will go to bed." 
 
 Sylvie had touched her stays, and had felt the papers. She 
 allowed Pierrette to escape, saying to everybody, "Well, do 
 you think she is so very ill ? It is all put on ; you could 
 never imagine the naughtiness of that child." 
 
 She detained Vinet at the end of the evening ; she was
 
 124 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 furious, she was bent on revenge ; she was rough with the 
 colonel as he bid her good-night. Gouraud shot a glance at 
 Vinet that seemed to pierce him to the very bowels, and 
 mark the spot for a bullet. Sylvie begged Vinet to remain. 
 When they were alone, the old maid began 
 
 "Never in my life, nor in all my days, will I marry the 
 colonel ! " 
 
 " Now that you have made up your mind, I may speak. 
 The colonel is my friend ; still, I am yours rather than his. 
 Rogron has done me services I can never forget. I am as 
 firm a friend as I am an implacable enemy. Certainly, when 
 once I am in the Chamber you will see how I shall rise, and 
 I will make Rogron a receiver-general. Well, swear to me 
 never to repeat a word of our conversation ! " Sylvie nodded 
 assent. "In the first place, our gallant colonel is an invet- 
 erate gambler." 
 
 "Indeed !" said Sylvie. 
 
 "But for the difficulties this passion has gotten him into, 
 he might perhaps have been a marshal of France," the lawyer 
 went on. " So he might squander all your fortune. But he 
 is a deep customer. Do not believe that married people have 
 or have not children, and you know what will happen to you. 
 No. If you wish to marry, wait till I am in the Chamber, 
 and then you can marry old Desfondrilles, who will be presi- 
 dent of the court here. To revenge yourself, make your 
 brother marry Mademoiselle de Chargebceuf ; I will undertake 
 to get her consent ; she will have two thousand francs a year, 
 and you will be as nearly connected with the Chargebceufs as 
 I am. Take my word for it, the Chargeboeufs will call us 
 cousins some day." 
 
 "Gouraud is in love with Pierrette," replied Sylvie. 
 
 " He is quite capable of it," said Vinet ; " and quite capa- 
 ble of marrying her after your death." 
 
 " A pretty little scheme ! " said she. 
 
 "I tell you, he is as cunning as the devil. Make your
 
 PIERRETTE. 125 
 
 brother marry, and announce that you intend to remain un- 
 married and leave your money to your nephews or nieces ; 
 you will thus hit Pierrette and Gouraud by the same blow, 
 and you will see how foolish he will look." 
 
 "To be sure," cried the old maid; "I can catch them. 
 She shall go into a store, and will have nothing. She has not 
 a penny. Let her do as we did, and work." 
 
 Vinet having got his idea into Sylvie's head, and knowing 
 her obstinacy, left the house. The old maid ended by think- 
 ing that the plan was her own. 
 
 Vinet found the colonel outside, smoking a cigar while he 
 waited for him. 
 
 " Hold hard ! " said the colonel. " You have pulled me to 
 pieces, but there are stones enough in the ruins to bury you." 
 
 "Colonel!" 
 
 "There is no 'colonel' in the case. I am going to lead 
 you a dance. In the first place, you will never be deputy " 
 
 "Colonel!" 
 
 " I can surely command ten votes, and the election depends 
 on " 
 
 " Colonel, just listen to me. Is there no one in the world 
 but old Sylvie ? I have just been trying to clear you. You 
 are accused and proved guilty of writing to Pierrette; she 
 has seen you coming out of your house at midnight to stand 
 below the girl's window " 
 
 " Well imagined !" 
 
 " She means her brother to marry Bathilde, and will keep 
 her fortune for their children." 
 
 "Will Rogron have any?" 
 
 "Yes," said Vinet. "But I promise to find you a young 
 and agreeable woman with a hundred and fifty thousand francs. 
 Are you mad? Can you and I afford to quarrel? Things 
 have turned against you in spite of me; but you do not 
 know me." 
 
 "Well, we must learn to know each other," replied the
 
 126 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 colonel. " Get me a wife with fifty thousand crowns before 
 the elections otherwise, your servant. I do not like awk- 
 ward bed-fellows, and you have pulled all the blankets to your 
 side. Good-night. ' ' 
 
 "You will see," said Vinet, shaking hands affectionately 
 with the colonel. 
 
 At about one in the morning three clear, low hoots, like 
 those of an owl, admirably mimicked, sounded in the piazza ; 
 Pierrette heard them in her fevered sleep. She got up, quite 
 damp, opened her window, saw Brigaut, and threw out a ball 
 of silk, to which he tied a letter. 
 
 Sylvie, excited by the events of the evening and her own 
 deliberations, was not asleep ; she was taken in by the owl's cry. 
 
 "Ah! what a bird of ill-omen. But, hark! Pierrette is 
 out of bed. What does she want? " 
 
 On hearing the attic window open, Sylvie rushed to her 
 own window and heard Brigaut's paper rustle against the shut- 
 ters. She tied her jacket strings, and nimbly mounted the 
 stairs to Pierrette's room ; she found her untying the silk from 
 round the letter. 
 
 " So I have caught you ! " cried the old maid, going to the 
 window, whence she saw Brigaut take to his heels. "Give 
 me that letter." 
 
 "No, cousin," said the girl, who, by one of the stupen- 
 dous inspirations of youth, and sustained by her spirit, rose 
 to the dignity of resistance which we admire in the history of 
 some nations reduced to desperation. 
 
 "What, you will not?" cried Sylvie, advancing on her 
 cousin, and showing her a hideous face full of hatred and 
 distorted by rage. 
 
 Pierrette drew back a step or two to have time to clutch 
 her letter in her hand, which she kept shut with invincible 
 strength. On seeing this, Sylvie seized Pierrette's delicate 
 white hand in her lobster's claws, and tried to wrench it 
 open. It was a fearful struggle, an infamous struggle, as
 
 PIERRETTE. 127 
 
 everything is that dares to attack thought, the only treasure 
 that God has set beyond the reach of power, and keeps as a 
 secret bond between the wretched and Himself. 
 
 The two women, one dying, the other full of vigor, looked 
 steadfastly at each other. Pierrette's eyes flashed at her tor- 
 turer such a look as the Templar's who received on his breast 
 the blows from a mace in the presence of Philippe le Bel. 
 The King could not endure that fearful gleam, and retired 
 appalled by it; Sylvie, a woman, and a jealous woman, 
 answered that magnetic glance by an ominous glare. Awful 
 silence reigned. The Bretonne's clenched fingers resisted 
 her cousin's efforts with the tenacity of a steel vise. Sylvie 
 wrung Pierrette's arm, and tried to open her hand ; as this 
 had no effect, she vainly set her nails in the flesh. Finally, 
 madness reinforced her anger ; she raised Pierrette's fist to 
 her teeth to bite her fingers and subdue her by pain. Pier- 
 rette still defied her with the terrifying gaze of innocence. 
 The old maid's fury was roused to such a pitch that she was 
 blind to all else ; gripping Pierrette's arm, she beat the girl's 
 fist on the window-sill, and on the marble chimney-piece, as 
 we beat a nut to crack it and get at the kernel. 
 
 " Help, help ! " cried Pierrette ; " I am being killed." 
 
 " So you scream, do you, when I find you with a lover in 
 the middle of the night ? " 
 
 And she hit again and again without mercy. 
 
 " Help, help ! " cried Pierrette, whose fist was bleeding. 
 
 At this moment there were violent blows on the street-door. 
 Both equally exhausted, the two women ceased. 
 
 Rogron, aroused and anxious, not knowing what was hap- 
 pening, had gotten out of bed, gone to his sister's room, and 
 not finding her he was alarmed, went down and opened the 
 door, and was almost upset by Brigaut, followed by what 
 seemed a phantom. 
 
 At the same instant Sylvie's eyes fell on Pierrette's stays ; 
 she remembered having felt the papers in them ; she threw
 
 128 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 herself on them like a tiger on his prey, twisted the stays 
 round her hand, and held them up with a smile, as an Iroquois 
 smiles at his foe before scalping him. 
 
 "I am dying " said Pierrette, dropping on her knees. 
 
 " Who will save me? " 
 
 " I will," cried a woman with white hair, turning on Pier- 
 rette an aged, parchment face in which a pair of gray eyes 
 sparkled. 
 
 "Ah, grandmother, you have come too late ! " cried the 
 poor child, melting into tears. 
 
 Pierrette went to fall on her bed, bereft of all her strength, 
 and half-killed by the reaction, which in a sick girl was inevi- 
 table after such a violent struggle. The tall, withered appari- 
 tion took her in her arms as a nurse takes a child, and went 
 out, followed by Brigaut, without saying a word to Sylvie, at 
 whom, by a tragic glance, she hurled majestic accusation. 
 The sight of this dignified old woman in her Breton costume, 
 shrouded in her coiffe, which is a sort of long cloak made of 
 black cloth, and accompanied by the terrible Brigaut, appalled 
 Sylvie ; she felt as if she had seen death. 
 
 She went downstairs, heard the door shut, and found her- 
 self face to face with her brother, who said to her. "They 
 have not killed you then?" 
 
 " Go to bed," said Sylvie. " To-morrow morning we will 
 see what is to be done." 
 
 She got into bed again, unpicked the stays, and read Bri- 
 gaut's two letters, which utterly confounded her. She went 
 to sleep in the strangest perplexity, never dreaming of the 
 terrible legal action to which her conduct was to give rise. 
 
 Brigaut's letter to the widow Lorrain had found her in the 
 greatest joy, which was checked when she read it. The poor 
 old woman, now past seventy, had been dying of grief at 
 having to live without Pierrette at her side ; she only com- 
 forted herself for her loss by the belief that she had sacrificed
 
 PIERRETTE. 129 
 
 herself to her grandchild's interests. She had one of those 
 ever-young hearts to which self-sacrifice gives strength and 
 vitality. Her old husband, whose only joy Pierrette had 
 been, had grieved for the child ; day after day he had looked 
 for her and missed her. It was an old man's sorrow; the 
 sorrow old men live on, and die of at last. 
 
 Everybody can therefore imagine the joy felt by this poor 
 woman, shut up in an almshouse, on hearing of one of those 
 actions which, though rare, are still heard of in France. 
 
 After his failure Francois Joseph Collinet, the head of the 
 house of Collinet, sailed for America with his children. He 
 was a man of too much good feeling to sit down at Nantes, 
 ruined and bereft of credit, in the midst of the disasters 
 caused by his bankruptcy. From 1814 till 1824 this brave 
 merchant, helped by his children and by his cashier, who 
 remained faithful to him and loaned him the money to start 
 again, valiantly worked to make a second fortune. After in- 
 credible efforts, that were crowned by success, by the eleventh 
 year he was able to return to Nantes and rehabilitate himself, 
 leaving his eldest son at the head of the American house. He 
 found Madame Lorrain of Pen-Hoel at Saint-Jacques, and 
 beheld the resignation with which the most hapless of his fel- 
 low-victims endured her penury. 
 
 " God forgive you ! " said the old woman, "since you give 
 me on the brink of the grave the means of securing my grand- 
 child's happiness. I, alas ! can never see my poor old man's 
 credit re-established." 
 
 Monsieur Collinet had brought to his creditor her capital 
 and interest at trade rates, altogether about forty-two thousand 
 francs. His other creditors, active, wealthy, and capable men, 
 had kept themselves above water, while the Lorrains' over- 
 throw had seemed to old Collinet irremediable ; he had now 
 promised the widow that he would rehabilitate her husband's 
 good name, finding that it would involve an expenditure of 
 only about forty thousand francs more. When this act of 
 9
 
 130 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 generous restitution became known on 'change at Nantes, the 
 authorities were eager to reopen its doors to Collinet before 
 he had surrendered to the court at Rennes ; but the merchant 
 declined the honor, and submitted to all the rigor of the com- 
 mercial code. 
 
 Madame Lorrain, then, had received forty-two thousand 
 francs the day before the post brought her Brigaut's letters. 
 As she signed her receipt, her first words were 
 
 " Now I can live with my Pierrette, and let her marry 
 poor Brigaut, who will then be able to make a fortune out of 
 my money ! " 
 
 She could not sit still ; she fussed and fidgeted, and wanted 
 to set out for Provins. And when she had read the fatal 
 letters, she rushed out into the town like a mad thing, asking 
 how she could get to Provins with the swiftness of lightning. 
 She set out by mail when she heard of the governmental 
 rapidity of that conveyance. From Paris she took the Troyes 
 coach; she had arrived at eleven that evening at Frappier's, 
 where Brigaut, seeing the old Bretonne's deep despair, at 
 once promised to fetch her granddaughter, after describing 
 Pierrette's state in a few words. Those few words so alarmed 
 the old woman that she could not control her impatience ; she 
 ran out to the square. When Pierrette screamed, her grand- 
 mother's heart was pierced by the cry as keenly as was Brigaut's. 
 The two together would no doubt have roused all the inhab- 
 itants, if Rogron, in sheer terror, had not opened the door. 
 This cry of a girl in her extremity filled the old woman with 
 strength as great as her horror ; she carried her dear Pier- 
 rette all the way to Frappier's, where his wife had hastily 
 arranged Brigaut's room for Pierrette's grandmother. So in 
 this miserable lodging, on a bed scarcely made, they laid the 
 poor child ; she fainted away, still keeping her hand closed, 
 bruised and bleeding as it was, her nails set in the flesh. Bri- 
 gaut, Frappier, his wife, and the old woman contemplated 
 Pierrette in silence, all lost in unutterable astonishment.
 
 PIERRETTE. 131 
 
 "Why is her hand covered with blood?" was the grand- 
 mother's first question. 
 
 Pierrette, overcome by the sleep which follows such an 
 extreme exertion of strength, and knowing that she was safe 
 from any violence, relaxed her fingers. Brigaut's letter fell 
 out as an answer. 
 
 "They wanted to get my letter," said Brigaut, falling on 
 his knees and picking up the note he had written, desiring his 
 little friend to steal softly out of the Rogrons' house. He 
 piously kissed the little martyr's hand. 
 
 Then there was a thing which made the joiners shudder : 
 it was the sight of old Madame Lorrain, a sublime spectre, 
 standing by the child's bedside. Horror and vengeance fired 
 with fierce expression the myriad wrinkles that furrowed her 
 skin of ivory yellow ; on her brow, shaded by thin, gray 
 locks, sat divine wrath. With the powerful intuition granted 
 to the aged as they approach the tomb, she read all Pierrette's 
 life, of which indeed she had been thinking all the way she 
 had come. 
 
 She understood the malady that threatened the life of her 
 darling. Two large tears gathered painfully in her gray-and- 
 white eyes, which sorrow had robbed of lashes and eyebrows ; 
 two beads of grief that gave a fearful moisture to those eyes, 
 and swelled and rolled over those withered cheeks without 
 wetting them. 
 
 "They have killed her!" she exclaimed at last, clasping 
 her hands. 
 
 She dropped on her knees, which hit two sharp blows on 
 the floor; she was making a vow, no doubt, to Sainte-Anne 
 d'Auray, the most powerful Madonna of Brittany. 
 
 "A doctor from Paris," she next said to Brigaut. "Fly 
 there, Brigaut. Go!" 
 
 She took the artisan by the shoulders and turned him round 
 with a despotic gesture. 
 
 "I was coming at any rate, my good Brigaut," she said,
 
 132 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 calling him back. " I am rich. Here ! " She untied the 
 ribbon that fastened her bodice across her bosom, took out a 
 paper, in which were wrapped forty-two bank-notes, and said, 
 " Take as much as you need ; bring back the greatest doctor 
 in Paris." 
 
 " Keep that," said Frappier ; "he could not change a bank- 
 note at this hour. I have money; the diligence will pass 
 presently, he will be sure to find a place in it. But would it 
 not be better first to consult Monsieur Martener, who will 
 give us the name of a Paris physician ? The diligence is not 
 due for an hour; we have plenty of time." 
 
 Brigaut went off to rouse Monsieur Martener. He brought 
 the doctor back with him, not a little surprised to find Made- 
 moiselle Lorrain at Frappier's. Brigaut described to him the 
 scene that had just taken place at the Rogrons. The loqua- 
 city of a despairing lover threw light on this domestic drama, 
 though the doctor could not suspect its horrors or its extent. 
 Martener gave Brigaut the address of the famous Horace 
 Bianchon, and Jacques and his master left the room on hear- 
 ing the approach of the diligence. 
 
 Monsieur Martener sat down, and began by examining the 
 bruises and wounds on the girl's hand, which hung out of bed. 
 
 " She did not hurt herself in such a way," said he. 
 
 "No, the dreadful creature I was so unhappy as to trust 
 her with was torturing her," said the grandmother. "My 
 poor Pierrette was crying out, ' Help ! Murder ! ' It was 
 enough to touch the heart of an executioner." 
 
 "But why?" said the doctor, feeling Pierrette's pulse. 
 " She is very ill," he went on, bringing the light close to the 
 bed. " We shall hardly save her," said he, after looking at 
 her face. " She must have suffered terribly, and I cannot 
 understand their having left her without care." 
 
 " It is my intention," said the old woman, " to appeal to 
 justice. Had these people, who wrote to ask me for my 
 granddaughter, saying that they had twelve thousand francs a
 
 PIERRETTE, 133 
 
 year, any right to make her their cook and give her work far 
 beyond her strength? " 
 
 "They did not choose to see that she was obviously suffer- 
 ing from one of the ailments to which young girls are some- 
 times subject, and needed the greatest care ! " cried Monsieur 
 Martener. 
 
 Pierrette was roused, partly by the light held by Madame 
 Frappier so as to show her face more clearly, and partly by 
 the dreadful pain in her head, caused by reactionary collapse 
 after her struggle. 
 
 "Oh, Monsieur Martener, I am very ill," said she, in her 
 pretty voice. 
 
 "Where is the pain, my child? " said the doctor. 
 
 "There," she replied, pointing to a spot on her head 
 above the left ear. 
 
 "There is an abscess!" cried the doctor, after feeling 
 Pierrette's head for some time, and questioning her as to the 
 pain. "You must tell us everything, my dear, to enable us 
 to cure you. Why is your hand in this state ? You did not 
 injure it like this yourself." 
 
 Pierrette artlessly told the tale of her struggle with her 
 cousin Sylvie. 
 
 " Make her talk to you," said the doctor to her grand- 
 mother, " and learn all about it. I will wait till the surgeon 
 arrives from Paris, and we will call in the head surgeon of the 
 hospital for a consultation. It seems to me very serious. I 
 will send a soothing draught to give mademoiselle some 
 sleep. She needs rest." 
 
 The old Bretonne, left alone with her grandchild, made 
 her tell everything, by exerting her influence over her, and 
 explaining to her that she was rich enough for all three, so 
 that Brigaut need never leave them. The poor child con- 
 fessed all her sufferings, never dreaming of the lawsuit she 
 was leading up to. The monstrous conduct of these two 
 loveless beings, who knew nothing of family affection,
 
 134 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 revealed to the old woman worlds of torment, as far from her 
 conception as the manners of the savage tribes must have 
 been to the first travelers who penetrated the savannahs of 
 America. 
 
 Her grandmother's presence, and the certainty of living 
 with her for the future in perfect ease, lulled Pierrette's mind 
 as the draught lulled her body. The old woman watched by 
 her, kissing her brow, hair, and hands, as the holy women 
 may have kissed Jesus while laying Him in the sepulchre. 
 
 By nine in the morning Monsieur Martener went to the 
 president of the courts, and related to him the scene of the 
 past night between Sylvie and Pierrette, the moral and phys- 
 ical torture, the cruelty of every kind inflicted by the Rogrons 
 on their ward, and the two fatal maladies which had been 
 developed by this ill-usage. The president sent for the notary, 
 Monsieur Auffray, a connection of Pierrette's on her mother's 
 side. 
 
 At this moment the war between the Vinet party and the 
 Tiphaine party was at its height. The gossip circulated in 
 Provins by the Rogrons and their adherents as to the well- 
 known liaison between Madame Roguin and du Tillet the 
 banker, and the circumstances of Monsieur Roguin's bank- 
 ruptcy Madame Tiphaine' s father was said to have com- 
 mitted forgery hit all the more surely because, though it 
 was scandal, it was not calumny. Such wounds pierced to 
 the bottom of things ; they attacked self-interest in its most 
 vital part. These statements, repeated to the partisans of 
 Tiphaine by the same speakers who also reported to the 
 Rogrons all the sarcasms uttered by the " beautiful Madame 
 Tiphaine" and her friends, added fuel to their hatred, com- 
 plicated as it was with political feeling. 
 
 The irritation caused in France at that time by party spirit, 
 which had waxed excessively violent, was everywhere bound 
 up, as it was at Provins, with imperiled interests and offended
 
 PIERRETTE. 135 
 
 and antagonistic private feelings. Each coterie eagerly 
 pounced on anything that might damage its rival. Party 
 animosity was not less implicated than personal conceit in 
 even trivial questions, which were often carried to great 
 lengths. A whole town threw itself into some dispute, rais- 
 ing it to the dignity of a political contest. And so the 
 president discerned, in the action between Pierrette and the 
 Rogrons, a means of confuting, discrediting, and humiliating 
 the owners of that drawing-room where plots were hatched 
 against the monarchy, and where the opposition newspaper 
 had had its birth. 
 
 He sent for the public prosecutor. Then Monsieur Lesourd, 
 Monsieur Auffray the notary appointed the legal guardian 
 of Pierrette and the president of the court discussed in the 
 greatest privacy, with Monsieur Martener, what steps could 
 be taken. The legal guardian was to call a family council (a 
 formality of French law), and, armed with the evidence of 
 the three medical men, would demand the dismissal of Rogron 
 from his guardianship. The case thus formulated would be 
 brought before the tribunal, and then Monsieur Lesourd 
 would get it carried into the criminal court by demanding an 
 inquiry. 
 
 By mid-day all Provins was in a stir over the strange re- 
 ports of what had taken place at the Rogrons in the course 
 of the past night. Pierrette's screams had been remotely 
 heard in the square, but they had not lasted long ; no one had 
 gotten up; but everybody had asked in the morning, "Did 
 you hear the noise and screaming at about one o'clock? 
 What was it?" Gossip and comment had given such magni- 
 tude to the horrible drama that a crowd collected in front of 
 Frappier's shop, everybody cross-questioning the honest 
 joiner, who described the girl's arrival at his house with her 
 hand bleeding and her fingers mangled. 
 
 At about one in the afternoon a post-chaise, containing 
 Doctor Bianchon, by whom sat Brigaut, stopped at Frappier's
 
 136 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 door, and Madame Frappier went off to the hospital to fetch 
 Monsieur Martener and the head surgeon. Thus the reports 
 heard in the town received confirmation. 
 
 The Rogrons were accused of having intentionally mal- 
 treated their young cousin, and endangered her life. The 
 news reached Vinet at the law courts; he left his business and 
 hurried to the Rogrons. Rogron and his sister had just 
 finished breakfast. Sylvie had avoided telling her brother of 
 her defeat during the night ; she allowed him to question 
 her, making no reply but : " It does not concern you." And 
 she bustled to and fro between the kitchen and dining-room 
 to avoid all discussion. 
 
 She was alone when Vinet walked in. 
 
 " Do you know nothing of what is going on? " asked the 
 lawyer. 
 
 "No," said Sylvie. 
 
 "You are going to have a criminal action brought against 
 you for the way in which matters stand with Pierrette," the 
 lawyer informed her. 
 
 "A criminal action ! " said Rogron, coming in. " Why ? 
 What for?" 
 
 "In the first place," said Vinet, looking at Sylvie, "tell 
 me exactly, without subterfuge, all that took place last night, 
 as though you were before God, for there is some talk of cut- 
 ting off Pierrette's hand." 
 
 Sylvie turned ashy pale and shivered. 
 
 " Then there was something?" said the lawyer. 
 
 Mademoiselle Rogron told the story, trying to justify her- 
 self; but, on being cross-questioned, related all the details of 
 the horrible conflict. 
 
 " If you have only broken her fingers, you will only appear 
 in the police court ; but if her hand has to be amputated, you 
 will find yourself brought up at the assizes. The Tiphaines 
 will do anything to get you there." 
 
 Sylvie, more dead than alive, confessed her jealousy, and,
 
 PIERRETTE. 137 
 
 which was even harder to bring out, how her suspicions had 
 blundered. 
 
 "What a case for trial! " exclaimed Vinet. "You and 
 your brother may be ruined by it ; you will be thrown over 
 by many of your friends even if you gain it. If you do not 
 come out clear, you will have to leave Provins." 
 
 " Oh ! my dear Monsieur Vinet you who are such an able 
 lawyer," cried Rogron, horrified, " advise us, save us ! " 
 
 Vinet dexterously fomented the fears of these two fools to 
 the utmost, and declared positively that Madame and Made- 
 moiselle de Chargebceuf would hesitate to go to their house 
 again. To be forsaken by these two ladies would be a fatal 
 condemnation. In short, after an hour of magnificent ma- 
 noeuvring, it was agreed that in order to induce Vinet to save 
 the Rogrons he must have an interest at stake in defending 
 them in the eyes of all Provins. In the course of the evening 
 Rogron's engagement to marry Mademoiselle de Chargebceuf 
 was to be announced. The banns were to be published on 
 Sunday. The marriage-contract would at once be drawn up 
 by Cournant, and Mademoiselle Rogron would figure in it as 
 abandoning, in consideration of this alliance, the capital of 
 her share of the estate by a deed of gift to her brother, reserv- 
 ing only a life-interest. Vinet impressed on Rogron and his 
 sister the necessity of having a draft of this deed drawn up 
 two or three days before that event, so as to put Madame and 
 Mademoiselle de Chargebreuf under the necessity, in public 
 opinion, of continuing their visits to the Rogrons. 
 
 " Sign that contract, and I will undertake to get you out of 
 the scrape," said the lawyer. "It will no doubt be a hard 
 fight, but I will go into it body and soul, and you will owe 
 me a very handsome taper." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," said Rogron. 
 
 By half-past eleven the lawyer was empowered to act for 
 them, alike as to the contract and as to the management of 
 the case. At noon the president was informed that a sum-
 
 138 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 mons was applied for by Vinet against Brigaut and the widow 
 Lorrain for abducting Pierrette Lorrain, a minor, from the 
 domicile of her guardian. Thus the audacious Vinet took up 
 the offensive, putting Rogron in the position of a man having 
 the law on his side. This, indeed, was the tone in which the 
 matter was commented on in the law courts. The president 
 postponed hearing the parties till four o'clock. The excite- 
 ment of the town over all these events need not be described. 
 The president knew that the medical consultation would be 
 ended by three o'clock; he wished that the legal guardian 
 should appear armed with the physician's verdict. 
 
 The announcement of Rogron's engagement to the fair 
 Bathilde de Chargebceuf, and of the deed of gift added by 
 Sylvie to the contract, promptly made the Rogrons two 
 enemies Mademoiselle Habert and the colonel, who thus 
 saw all their hopes dashed. Celeste Habert and the colonel 
 remained ostensibly friends to the Rogrons, but only to 
 damage them more effectually. So, as soon as Monsieur 
 Martener spoke of the existence of an abscess on the brain in 
 the haberdashers' hapless victim, Celeste and the colonel 
 mentioned the blow Pierrette had given herself that evening 
 when Sylvie had driven her out of the room, and remembered 
 Mademoiselle Rogron's cruel and barbarous remarks. They 
 related various instances of the old maid's utter indifference 
 to her ward's sufferings. Thus these friends of the couple 
 admitted serious wrong, while affecting to defend Sylvie and 
 her brother. 
 
 Vinet had foreseen this storm ; but Mademoiselle de Charge- 
 bceuf was about to acquire the whole of the Rogrons' fortune, 
 and he promised himself that in a few weeks he should see her 
 living in the nice house on the piazza, and reign conjointly 
 with her over Provins ; for he was already scheming for a 
 coalition with the Breauteys to serve his own ambitions. 
 
 From twelve o'clock till four all the ladies of the Tiphaine 
 faction the Garcelands, the Guepins, the Julliards, Mesdames
 
 PIERRETTE. 139 
 
 Galardon, Guenee, and the sous-prefet's wife all sent to in- 
 quire after Mademoiselle Lorrain. Pierrette knew nothing 
 whatever of this commotion in the town on her behalf. In 
 the midst of acute suffering she felt ineffably happy at finding 
 herself between her grandmother and Brigaut, the objects of 
 her affection. Brigaut's eyes were constantly full of tears, 
 and the old woman petted her beloved grandchild. 
 
 God knows the grandmother spared the three men of science 
 none of the details she had heard from Pierrette about her life 
 with the Rogrons ! Horace Bianchon expressed his indigna- 
 tion in unmeasured terms. Horrified by such barbarity, he 
 insisted that the other doctors of the town should be called 
 in ; so Monsieur Neraud was present, and was requested, as 
 being Rogron's friend, to contradict if he could the terrible 
 inferences derived from the consultation, which, unfortunately 
 for Rogron, were unanimously subscribed to. Neraud, who 
 was already credited with having made Pierrette's maternal 
 grandmother die of grief, was in a false position, of which 
 Martener adroitly took advantage, delighted to overwhelm 
 the Rogrons, and also to compromise Monsieur Neraud, his 
 antagonist. It is needless to give the text of this document, 
 which also was produced at the trial. If the medical terms 
 of Moliere's age were barbarous, those of modern medicine 
 have the advantage of such extreme plain speaking that an 
 account of Pierrette's maladies, though natural, and unfortu- 
 nately common, would shock the ear. The verdict was indis- 
 putably final, attested by so famous a name as that of Horace 
 Bianchon. 
 
 After the court sitting was over, the president remained in 
 his place, while Pierrette's grandmother came in with Mon- 
 sieur Auffray, Brigaut, and a considerable crowd. Vinet 
 appeared alone. This contrast struck the spectators, includ- 
 ing a vast number of merely inquisitive persons. Vinet, who 
 had kept his gown on, raised his hard face to the president, 
 settling his spectacles as he began in his harsh, sawing tones
 
 140 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 to set forth that certain strangers had made their way into the 
 house of Monsieur and Mademoiselle Rogron by night, and 
 had carried away the girl Lorrain, a minor. Her guardian 
 claimed the protection of the court to recover his ward. 
 
 Monsieur Auffray, as the guardian appointed by the court, 
 rose to speak. 
 
 "If Monsieur le President," said he, "will take into his 
 consideration this consultation, signed by one of the most 
 eminent Paris physicians, and by all the doctors and surgeons 
 of Provins, he will perceive how unreasonable is Monsieur 
 Rogron' s claim, and that sufficient reasons induced the minor's 
 grandmother to release her at once from her tormentors. The 
 facts are these : A deliberate consultation, signed unanimously 
 by a celebrated Paris doctor, sent for in great haste, and by 
 all the medical authorities of the town, ascribe the almost 
 dying state of the ward to the ill-treatment she had received 
 at the hands of the said Rogron and his sister. As a legal 
 formality a family council will he held, with the least possible 
 delay, and consulted on the question whether the guardian 
 ought not to be held disqualified for his office. We petition 
 that the minor shall not be sent back to her guardian's house, 
 but shall be placed in the hands of any other member of the 
 family whom Monsieur le President may see fit to designate." 
 
 Vinet wanted to reply, saying that the document of the 
 consultation ought to be communicated to him that he might 
 contravene it. 
 
 "Certainly not to Vinet's side," said the president 
 severely, "but perhaps to the public prosecutor. The case is 
 closed." 
 
 At the foot of the petition the president wrote the follow- 
 ing injunction : 
 
 "Inasmuch as that by a consultation unanimously signed 
 by the medical faculty of this town and by Doctor Bianchon 
 of the medical faculty of Paris, it is proved that the girl 
 Lorrain, a minor, claimed by her guardian Rogron, is in a
 
 PIERRETTE, 141 
 
 very serious state of sickness brought on by the ill-usage and 
 cruelty inflicted on her in the house of her guardian and his 
 sister. 
 
 " We, president of the lower court of justice at Provins, 
 
 " Decree on the petition and enjoin that until the family 
 council shall have been held, which, as the provisional guardian 
 appointed by the law declares, is at once to be convened, the 
 said minor shall not re-enter her guardian's residence, but 
 shall be transferred to that of the guardian appointed by 
 the law. 
 
 " And in the second place, in consideration of the minor's 
 present state of health, and the traces of violence which, 
 in the opinion of the medical men, are to be seen on her 
 person, we commission the chief physician and chief surgeon 
 of the hospital of Provins to attend her ; and in the event of 
 the cruelty being proved to have been constant, we reserve 
 all the rights and powers of the law, without prejudice to 
 the civil action taken by Auffray, the legalized temporary 
 guardian." 
 
 This terrible injunction was pronounced by Monsieur le 
 President Tiphaine with a loud voice and distinct utterance. 
 
 "Why not the hulks at once?" said Vinet. "And all 
 this fuss about a little girl who carried on an intrigue with a 
 carpenter's apprentice ! If this is the way the case is con- 
 ducted," he added insolently, " we shall apply for other 
 judgment on the plea of legitimate suspicions." 
 
 Vinet left the court, and went to the chief leaders of his 
 party to explain the position of Rogron, who had never given 
 his little cousin a finger-flip and whom the tribunal had 
 treated, he declared, less as Pierrette's guardian than as the 
 chief voter in Provins. 
 
 To hear him, the Tiphaines were making much ado about 
 nothing. The mountain would bring forth a mouse. Sylvie, 
 an eminently religious and well-conducted person, had detected 
 an intrigue between her brother's ward and a carpenter's boy,
 
 142 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 a Breton named Brigaut. The young rascal knew very well 
 that the girl would have a fortune from her grandmother, and 
 
 wanted to tamper with her Vinet to talk of tampering ! 
 
 Mademoiselle Rogron, who had kept the letters in 
 
 which this little wench's wickedness was made clear, was not 
 so much to blame as the Tiphaines tried to make her seem. 
 Even if she had been betrayed into violence to obtain a letter, 
 which could easily be accounted for by the irritation produced 
 in her by Breton obstinacy, in what was Rogron to blame ? 
 
 The lawyer thus made the action a party matter, and con- 
 trived to give it political color. And so, from that evening, 
 there were differences of opinion on the question. 
 
 "If you hear but one bell, you hear but one note," said 
 the wise-heads. "Have you heard what Vinet has to say? 
 He explains the case very well." 
 
 Frappier's house was regarded as unsuitable for Pierrette 
 on account of the noise, which would cause her much pain in 
 the head. Her removal from there to her appointed guar- 
 dian's house was as desirable from a medical as from a legal 
 point of view. This business was effected with the utmost 
 care, and calculated to make a great sensation. Pierrette was 
 placed on a stretcher with many mattresses, carried by two 
 men, escorted by a gray sister holding in her hand a bottle of 
 ether, followed by her grandmother, Brigaut, Madame Auffray, 
 and her maid. The people stood at the windows and in the 
 doors to see the little procession pass. No doubt the state in 
 which Pierrette was seen and her death-like pallor gave im- 
 mense support to the party adverse to the Rogrons. The 
 Auffrays were bent on showing to all the town how right the 
 president had been in pronouncing his injunction. Pierrette 
 and her grandmother were established on the second floor of 
 Monsieur Auffray's house. The notary and his wife lavished 
 on them the generosity of the amplest hospitality ; they made 
 a display of it. Pierrette was nursed by her grandmother,
 
 PIERRETTE. 143 
 
 and Monsieur Martener came to see her again the same even- 
 ing, with the surgeon. 
 
 From that evening dated much exaggeration on both sides. 
 The Rogrons' room was crowded. Vinet had worked up the 
 Liberal faction in the matter. The two Chargeboeuf ladies 
 dined with the Rogrons, for the marriage contract was to be 
 signed forthwith. Vinet had had the banns put up at the 
 Mairie that morning. He treated the business of Pierrette as 
 a mere trifle. If the court of Provins could not judge it dis- 
 passionately, the superior court would judge of the facts, 
 said he, and the Auffrays would think twice before rushing 
 into such an action. Then the connection between the Ro- 
 grons and the Chargebceufs was of immense weight with cer- 
 tain people. To them the Rogrons were as white as snow, 
 and Pierrette an excessively wicked little girl whom they 
 had cherished in their bosom. 
 
 In Madame Tiphaine's drawing-room vengeance was taken 
 on the horrible scandals the Vinet party had promulgated for 
 the last two years. The Rogrons were monsters, and the 
 guardian would find himself in the criminal court. In the 
 square, Pierrette was perfectly well ; in the upper town, she 
 must infallibly die ; at the Rogrons, she had a few scratches 
 on her hand; at Madame Tiphaine's, she had her fingers 
 smashed ; one would have to be cut off. 
 
 Next day the Courrier de Provins had an extremely clever 
 article, well written, a masterpiece of innuendo mixed up 
 with legal demurs, which placed the Rogrons above suspicion. 
 The Ruche, which came out two days later, could not reply 
 without risk of libel ; but it said that in a case like the pres- 
 sent, the best thing was to leave justice to take its course. 
 
 The family council was constituted by the justice of the 
 peace of the Provins district, as the legal president, in the 
 first place, of Rogron and the two Auffrays, Pierrette's next- 
 of-kin ; then of Monsieur Ciprey, a nephew of Pierrette's 
 maternal grandmother. He added to these Monsieur Habert,
 
 144 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 the young girl's director, and Colonel Gouraud, who had 
 always given himself out to be a comrade of her father, 
 Colonel Lorrain. The justice's impartiality \vas highly ap- 
 plauded in including in this family council Monsieur Habert 
 and the colonel, whom all the town regarded as great friends 
 of the Rogrons. In the difficult position in which he found 
 himself, Rogron begged to be allowed the support of Maitre 
 Vinet on the occasion. By this manoeuvre, evidently sug- 
 gested by Vinet, he succeeded in postponing the meeting of 
 the family council till the end of December. 
 
 At that date the president and his wife were in Paris, living 
 with Madame Roguin, in consequence of the sitting of the 
 Chambers. Thus the ministerial party at Provins was bereft 
 of its head. Vinet had already quietly made friends with the 
 worthy examining judge, Monsieur Desfondrilles, in case the 
 business should assume the penal or criminal aspect that 
 Tiphaine had endeavored to give it. 
 
 For three hours Vinet addressed the family council ; he 
 proved an intrigue between Brigaut and Pierrette, to justify 
 Mademoiselle Rogron's severity; he pointed out how natural 
 it was that the guardian should have left his ward under the 
 control of a woman ; he dwelt on his client's non-interference 
 in the mode of Pierrette's education as conducted by Sylvie. 
 But in spite of Vinet's efforts, the meeting unanimously de- 
 cided on abolishing Rogron's guardianship. Monsieur Auf- 
 fray was appointed Pierrette's guardian, and Monsieur Ciprey 
 her legal guardian. 
 
 They heard the evidence given by Adele the maid, who 
 incriminated her former master and mistress ; by Mademoi- 
 selle Habert, who repeated Sylvie's cruel remarks the evening 
 when Pierrette had given herself the dreadful blow that every- 
 body had heard; and the comments on Pierrette's health made 
 by Madame de Chargebceuf. Brigaut produced the letter he 
 had received from Pierrette, which established their inno- 
 cence. It was proved that the deplorable state in which the
 
 PIERRETTE. 145 
 
 minor now was resulted from the neglect of her guardian, 
 who was responsible in all that related to his ward. Pierrette's 
 illness had struck everybody, even persons in the town who 
 did not know the family. Thus the charge of cruelty against 
 Rogron was fully sustained. The matter would be made 
 public. 
 
 By Vinet's advice Rogron put in a protest against the con- 
 firmation by the court of the decision of the family council. 
 The minister of justice now intervened, in consequence of 
 the increasingly critical condition of Pierrette Lorrain. This 
 singular case, though put on the lists forthwith, did not 
 come up for trial till near the month of March, 1828. 
 
 By that time the marriage of Rogron to Mademoiselle de 
 Chargeboeuf was an accomplished fact. Sylvie was living on 
 the second floor of the house, which had been arranged to 
 accommodate her and Madame de Chargeboeuf; for the first 
 floor was entirely given up to Madame Rogron. The beau- 
 tiful Madame Rogron now succeeded to the beautiful Madame 
 Tiphaine. The effect of this marriage was enormous. The 
 town no longer came to Mademoiselle Sylvie's salon, but to 
 the beautiful Madame Rogron's. 
 
 Monsieur Tiphaine, the president of the Provins court, 
 pushed by his mother-in-law and supported by du Tillet and by 
 Nucingen, the Royalist bankers, found an opportunity of being 
 useful to the ministry. He was one of the most highly re- 
 spected speakers of the Centre, was made a judge of the lower 
 court in the Seine district, and got his nephew, Lesourd, 
 nominated president in his place at Provins. This appoint- 
 ment greatly annoyed Monsieur Desfondrilles, still an archae- 
 ologist, and more supernumerary than ever. The keeper of 
 the seals sent a protegS of his own to fill Lesourd's place. 
 Thus Monsieur Tiphaine's promotion did not lead to any 
 advancement in the legal forces at Provins. 
 
 Vinet took advantage of these circumstances very cleverly. 
 He had always told the good folks of Provins that they were 
 10
 
 146 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 only serving as a step-ladder to Madame Tiphaine's cunning 
 and ambition. The president laughed in his sleeve at his 
 friends. Madame Tiphaine secretly disdained the town of 
 Provins j she would never come back to it. 
 
 Monsieur Tiphaine pere presently died ; his son inherited 
 the estate of Le Fay, and sold his handsome house in the 
 upper town to Monsieur Julliard. This sale showed how little 
 he intended to come back to Provins. Vinet was right ! 
 Vinet had been a true prophet ! These facts had no little 
 influence on the action relating to Rogron's guardianship. 
 
 The horrible martyrdom so brutally inflicted on Pierrette 
 by two imbecile tyrants which led, medically speaking, to 
 her being subjected by Monsieur Martener, with Bianchon's 
 approval, to the terrible operation of trepanning ; the whole 
 dreadful drama, reduced to judicial statements, was left among 
 the foul medley known to lawyers as outstanding cases. The 
 action dragged on through the delays and inextricable intri- 
 cacies of "proceedings," constantly checked by the quibbles 
 of a contemptible lawyer, while the calumniated Pierrette 
 languished in suffering from the most terrible pains known to 
 medical science. We could not avoid these details as to the 
 strange variations in public opinion and the slow march of 
 justice before returning to the room where she was living 
 where she was dying. 
 
 Monsieur Martener and the whole of the Auffray family 
 were in a very few days completely won by Pierrette's adorable 
 temper, and by the old Bretonne, whose, feelings, ideas, and 
 manners bore the stamp of an antique Roman type. This 
 matron of the Marais was like one of Plutarch's women. 
 
 The doctor desired to contend with death, at least, for his 
 prey ; for from the first the Paris and the provincial physi- 
 cians had agreed in regarding Pierrette as past saving. Then 
 began between the disease and the doctor, aided by Pierrette's 
 youth, one of those struggles which medical men alone know;
 
 PIERRETTE. 147 
 
 the reward, in the event of success, is neither in the pecuni- 
 ary profit nor even in the rescued sufferer ; it lies in sweet 
 satisfaction of conscience, and in a sort of ideal and invisible 
 palm of victory gathered by every true artist from the joyful 
 certainty of having achieved a fine work. The physician 
 makes for healing as the artist makes for the beautiful, urged 
 on by a noble sentiment which we call virtue. This daily 
 recurring battle had extinguished in this man, though a pro- 
 vincial, the squalid irritation of the warfare going on between 
 the Vinet party and that of the Tiphaines, as happens with 
 men who have to fight it out with great suffering. 
 
 Monsieur Martener had at first wished to practice his profes- 
 sion in Paris; but the activity of the great city, the callous- 
 ness produced at last in a doctor's mind by the terrific number 
 of sick people and a multitude of serious cases, had appalled 
 his gentle soul, which was made for a country life. He was 
 in bondage, too, to his pretty birihplace. So he had come 
 back to Provins to marry and settle there, and take almost 
 tender care of a population he could think of as a large family. 
 All the time Pierrette was ill he could not bear to speak of 
 her illness. His aversion to reply when any one asked for 
 news of the poor child was so evident, that at last nobody 
 questioned him about her. Pierrette was to him what she 
 could not help being one of those deep, mysterious poems, 
 immense in its misery, such as occur in the terrible life of a 
 physician. He had for this frail girl an admiration of which 
 he would betray the secret to no one. 
 
 This feeling for his patient was infectious, as all true senti- 
 ments are ; Monsieur and Madame Auffray's house, so long as 
 Pierrette lived in it, was peaceful and still. Even the chil- 
 dren, who of old had such famous games with Pierrette, un- 
 derstood, with childlike grace, that they were not to be noisy 
 or troublesome. They made it a point of honor to be good 
 because Pierrette was ill. 
 
 Monsieur Auffray's house is in the upper town, below the
 
 148 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 ruined castle; built, indeed, on one of the cliff-like knolls 
 formed by the overthrow of the old ramparts. From there 
 the residents have a view over the valley as they walk in a 
 little orchard supported by the thick walls rising straight up 
 from the lower town. The roofs of the houses rise to the 
 level of the wall that upholds this garden. Along this terrace 
 is a walk ending at the glass-door of Monsieur Auffray's study. 
 At the other end are a vine-covered arbor and a fig-tree shel- 
 tering a round table, a bench, and some chairs, all painted 
 green. 
 
 Pierrette had a room over that of her new guardian. 
 Madame Lorrain slept there on a camp-bed by her grand- 
 child's side. From her window Pierrette could see the 
 beautiful valley of Provins, which she hardly knew she had 
 so rarely been out of the Rogrons' sinister dwelling. When- 
 ever it was fine, she liked to drag herself, on her grand- 
 mother's arm, as far as this arbor. Brigaut, who now did no 
 work, came three times a day to see his little friend ; he was 
 absorbed in grief, which made him indifferent to life ; he 
 watched for Monsieur Martener with the eagerness of a 
 spaniel, always went in with him and came out with him. 
 
 It would be difficult to imagine all the follies every one was 
 ready to commit for the dear little invalid. Her grand- 
 mother, drunk with grief, hid her despair; she showed the 
 child the same smiling face as at Pen-Hoel. In her wish to 
 delude herself, she made her a Breton cap such as Pierrette 
 had worn when she came to Provins, and put it on her ; the 
 girl then looked to her more like herself; she was sweet to 
 behold, with her face framed in the aureola of cambric edged 
 with starched lace. Her face, as white as fine white porce- 
 lain, her forehead on which suffering set a semblance of deep 
 thought fulness, the purity of outline refined by sickness, the 
 slowness and occasional fixity of her gaze, all made Pierrette 
 a master-work of melancholy. 
 
 The child was waited on with fanatical devotion ; she was
 
 PIERRETTE. 149 
 
 so tender, so loving. Madame Martener had sent her piano 
 to Madame Auffray, her sister, thinking it might amuse Pier- 
 rette, to whom music was rapture. It was a poem to watch 
 her listening to a piece by Weber, Beethoven, or Herold, her 
 eyes raised to heaven in silence, regretting, no doubt, the life 
 she felt slipping from her. Monsieur Peroux the cure and 
 Monsieur Habert, her two priestly comforters, admired her 
 pious resignation. 
 
 Is it not a strange fact, worthy of the attention alike of 
 philosophers and of mere observers, that a sort of seraphic 
 perfection is characteristic of youths and maidens marked 
 amid the crowd with the red cross of death, like saplings in 
 a forest ? He who has witnessed such a death can never re- 
 main or become an infidel. These beings exhale, as it were, 
 a heavenly fragrance, their looks speak of God, their voice is 
 eloquent in the most trivial speech, and often sounds like a 
 divine instrument, expressing the secrets of futurity. When 
 Monsieur Martener congratulated Pierrette on having carried 
 out some disagreeable prescription, this angel would say in the 
 presence of all, and with what a look ! 
 
 "I wish to live, dear Monsieur Martener, less for my own 
 sake than for my grandmother's, for my poor Brigaut's, and 
 for you all, who will be sorry when I die." 
 
 The first time she took a walk, in the month of November, 
 under a bright Martinmas sun, escorted by all the family, 
 Madame Auffray asked her if she were tired. 
 
 "Now that I have nothing to bear but the pain God sends 
 me, I can endure it. I find strength to bear suffering in the 
 joy of being loved." 
 
 This was the only time she ever alluded, even so remotely, 
 to her horrible martyrdom at the Rogrons ; she never spoke 
 of them ; and as the remembrance could not fail to be pain- 
 ful, no one mentioned their name. 
 
 " Dear Madame Auffray," said she one day at noon on the 
 terrace, while gazing at the valley lighted up by brilliant sun-
 
 150 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 shine and dressed in the russet tints of autumn, " my dying 
 days in your house will have brought me more happiness than 
 all the three years before." 
 
 Madame Auffray looked at her sister, Madame Martener, 
 and said to her in a whisper : 
 
 " How she would have loved ! " 
 
 And, indeed, Pierrette's tone and look gave her words 
 unutterable meaning. 
 
 Monsieur Martener kept up a correspondence with Doctor 
 Bianchon, and tried no serious treatment without his approba- 
 tion. He hoped first to restore the girl to normal health, 
 and then to enable the abscess to discharge itself through the 
 ear. The more acute her pain was, the more hopeful he felt. 
 With regard to the first point he had some success, and that 
 was a great triumph. For some days Pierrette recovered her 
 appetite, and could satisfy it with substantial food, for which 
 her unhealthy state had hitherto given her great aversion ; her 
 color improved, but the pain in her head was terrible. The 
 doctor now begged the great physician, his consultee, to come 
 to Provins. Bianchon came, stayed two days, and advised 
 an operation ; he threw himself into all poor Martener's 
 anxiety, and went himself to fetch the famous Desplein. So 
 the operation was performed by the greatest surgeon of an- 
 cient or modern times ; but this terrible augur said to Mar- 
 tener as he went away with Bianchon, his best-beloved pupil : 
 
 " You can save her only by a miracle. As Horace has told 
 you, necrosis has set in. At that age the bones are still so 
 tender." 
 
 The operation was performed early in March, 1828. All 
 that month Monsieur Martener, alarmed by the fearful tor- 
 ments Pierrette endured, made several journeys to Paris ; he 
 consulted Desplein and Bianchon, to whom he even suggested 
 a treatment resembling that known as lithotrity the insertion 
 of a tubular instrument into the skull, by which a heroic 
 remedy might be introduced to arrest the progress of decay
 
 PIERRETTE. 151 
 
 The daring Desplein dared not attempt this surgical feat, 
 which only despair had suggested to Martener as a last resort 
 to save Pierrette. 
 
 When the doctor returned from his last journey to Paris, 
 his friends thought him crestfallen and gloomy. One fatal 
 evening he was compelled to announce to the Auffray family, 
 to Madame Lorrain, to the confessor, and to Brigaut, who 
 were all present, that science could do no more for Pierrette, 
 that her life was in the hands of God alone. Her grand- 
 mother took a vow and begged the cure to say, every morn- 
 ing at daybreak, before Pierrette rose, a mass which she and 
 Brigaut would attend. 
 
 The case came up for trial. While the Rogrons' victim 
 lay dying, Vinet was calumniating her to the court. The 
 court ratified the decision of the family council, and the 
 lawyer immediately appealed. The newly appointed public 
 prosecutor delivered an address which led to an inquiry. 
 Rogron and his sister were obliged to find sureties to avoid 
 being sent to prison. The inquiry necessitated the examina- 
 tion of Pierrette herself. When Monsieur Desfondrilles went 
 to the Auffrays' house, Pierrette, was actually dying ; the 
 priest was at her bedside, and she was about to take the last 
 sacrament. At that moment she was entreating all the assem- 
 bled family to forgive her cousins as she herself forgave them, 
 saying, with excellent good-sense, that judgment in such cases 
 belonged to God alone. 
 
 "Grandmother," said she, "leave all you possess to Bri- 
 gaut" Brigaut melted into tears "and," Pierrette went 
 on, " give a thousand francs to good Adele, who used to 
 warm my bed on the sly. If she had stayed with my cou- 
 sins, I should be alive " 
 
 It was at three o'clock on Easter Tuesday, on a beautiful 
 day, that this little angel ceased to suffer. Her heroical 
 grandmother insisted on sitting by her all night with the 
 priests and on sewing the winding-sheet on her with her old
 
 152 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 hands. Towards evening Brigaut left the house and went 
 back to Frappier's. 
 
 "I need not ask you the news, my poor boy," said the 
 carpenter. 
 
 " Pere Frappier yes ; it is all over with her, and not with 
 me ! " 
 
 The apprentice looked round the workshop at all the wood 
 store with gloomy but keen eyes. 
 
 " I understand, Brigaut," said the worthy Frappier. "There, 
 that is what you want," and he pointed to some two-inch oak 
 planks. 
 
 "Do not help me, Monsieur Frappier," said the Breton. 
 "I will do it all myself." 
 
 Brigaut spent the night in planing and joining Pierrette's 
 coffin, and more than once he ripped off with one stroke a 
 long shaving wet with his tears. His friend Frappier smoked 
 and watched him. He said nothing to him but these few 
 words when his man put the four sides together 
 
 " Make the lid to slide in a groove, then her poor friends 
 will not hear you nail it down." 
 
 At daybreak Brigaut went for lead to line the coffin. By a 
 singular coincidence the sheets of lead cost exactly the sum 
 he had given to Pierrette for her journey from Nantes to 
 Provins. The brave Breton, who had borne up under the 
 dreadful pain of making a coffin for the beloved companion 
 of his childhood, overlaying each funereal board with all his 
 memories, could not endure this coincidence ; he turned faint 
 and could not carry the lead ; the plumber accompanied him, 
 and offered to go with him and solder down the top sheet as 
 soon as the body should be laid in the coffin. 
 
 The Breton burned his plane and all the tools he had used 
 for the work, he wound up his accounts with Frappier, and 
 bade him good-by. 
 
 The heroism which enabled the poor fellow, like the grand-
 
 PIERRETTE. 153 
 
 mother, to busy himself with doing the last services to the 
 dead, led to his intervening in the crowning scene which put 
 a climax to the Rogrons' tyranny. 
 
 Brigaut and the plumber arrived at Monsieur Auffray's just 
 in time to decide by brute force a horrible and shameful legal 
 question. The chamber of the dead was full of people, and 
 presented a strange scene to the two workmen. The Rogrons 
 stood hideous by the victim's corpse to torture it even in 
 death. The body of the poor girl, sublime in its beauty, lay 
 on her grandmother's camp-bed. Pierrette's eyes were closed, 
 her hair smoothly braided, her body sewn into a winding-sheet 
 of coarse cotton. 
 
 By this bed, her hair in disorder, on her knees, with out- 
 stretched hands and a flaming face, old Madame Lorrain was 
 crying out 
 
 " No, no ; it shall never be ! " 
 
 At the foot of the bed were the guardian Monsieur Auffray, 
 the Cure Monsieur Peroux, and Monsieur Habert. Tapers 
 were still burning. Opposite the grandmother stood the hos- 
 pital surgeon, and Monsieur Neraud, supported by the smooth- 
 tongued and formidable Vinet. A registrar was present. The 
 surgeon had on his dissecting apron ; one of his assistants 
 had opened his roll of instruments and was handing him a 
 scalpel. 
 
 This scene was disturbed by the noise made by the fall of 
 the coffin, which Brigaut and the plumber dropped; and by 
 Brigaut himself, who, entering first, was seized with horror 
 on seeing old Madame Lorrain in tears and the significant 
 actions of the intruders. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Brigaut, placing himself by 
 her side, and convulsively clutching a chisel he had brought 
 with him. 
 
 "The matter!" said the old woman. "They want to 
 open my grandchild's body, to split her skull to rend her 
 heart after her death as they did in her lifetime ! "
 
 154 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 "Who?" said Brigaut, in a voice to crack the drum of 
 the lawyer's ears. 
 
 "The Rogrons." 
 
 " By the God above us ! " 
 
 " One moment, Brigaut," said Monsieur Auffray, seeing the 
 Breton brandish his chisel. 
 
 " Monsieur Auffray," said Brigaut, as pale as the dead 
 girl, " I listen to you because you are Monsieur Auffray. But 
 at this moment I would not listen to " 
 
 " Justice ! " Auffray put in. 
 
 "Is there such a thing as justice?" cried Brigaut in a 
 quick and excited tone. 
 
 "That that is justice!" he went on, threatening the 
 lawyer, the surgeon, and the clerk with his chisel that flashed 
 in the sunlight. 
 
 "My good fellow," said the cure, "Monsieur Rogron's 
 lawyer has appealed to justice. His client lies under a serious 
 accusation, and it is impossible to refuse a suspected person 
 the means of clearing himself. According to Monsieur 
 Rogron's advocate, if this poor child died of the abscess on 
 the brain, her former guardian must be regarded as guiltless ; 
 for it is proved that Pierrette for a long time concealed the 
 blow she had given herself " 
 
 " That will do ! " said Brigaut. 
 
 " My client " Vinet began. 
 
 "Your client," cried the Breton, " shall go to hell, and I 
 to the scaffold ; for if one of you makes an attempt to touch 
 her whom your client killed if that sawbones does not put 
 his knife away, I will strike him dead." 
 
 "This is overt resistance," said Vinet; "we shall lay it 
 before the court." 
 
 The five strangers withdrew. 
 
 "Oh, my son!" said the old woman, starting up and 
 throwing her arms round Brigaut's neck, " let us bury her at 
 once; they will come back."
 
 PIERRETTE. 155 
 
 " When once the lead is soldered," said the plumber, 
 "perhaps they will not dare." 
 
 Monsieur Auffray hurried off to his brother-in-law, Mon- 
 sieur Lesourd, to try to get this matter settled. Vinet wished 
 for nothing better. Pierrette once dead, the action as to the 
 guardianship, which was not yet decided, must die a natural 
 death, without any possibility of argument either for or 
 against the Rogrons ; the question remained an open one. 
 So the shrewd lawyer had perfectly foreseen the effect his 
 demand would produce. 
 
 At noon Monsieur Desfondrilles reported to the bench on 
 the inquiry relating to the Rogrons, and the court pronounced 
 a verdict of no case, on self-evident grounds. 
 
 Rogron dared not show his face at Pierrette's funeral, 
 though all the town was present. Vinet tried to drag him 
 there ; but the ex-haberdasher feared the excitement of uni- 
 versal reprobation. 
 
 Brigaut, after seeing the grave filled up in which Pierrette 
 was laid, left Provins and went on foot to Paris. He addressed 
 a petition to the Dauphiness to be allowed, in consideration 
 of his father's name, to enlist in the Royal Guard, and was soon 
 afterwards enrolled. When an expedition was fitted out for 
 Algiers, he again wrote to the Dauphiness, begging to be 
 ordered on active service. He was then sergeant ; Marshal 
 Bourmount made him sub-lieutenant of the line. The major's 
 son behaved like a man seeking death. But death has hitherto 
 respected Jacques Brigaut, who has distinguished himself in 
 all the recent expeditions without being once wounded. He 
 is now at the head of a battalion in the line. There is not a 
 more taciturn or a better officer. Off duty he is speechless, 
 walks alone, and lives like a machine. Every one under- 
 stands and respects some secret sorrow. He has forty-six 
 thousand francs, left him by old Madame Lorrain, who died 
 in Paris in 1829. 
 
 Vinet was elected deputy in 1830, and the services he has
 
 156 THE CEI^IBATES. 
 
 rendered to the new government have earned him the place 
 of prosecutor-general. His influence is now so great that he 
 will always be returned as deputy. Rogron is receiver-general 
 in the town where Vinet exercises his high functions, and by 
 a singular coincidence Monsieur Tiphaine is the chief presi- 
 dent of the supreme court there ; for the judge unhesitatingly 
 attached himself to the new dynasty of July. The ex-beau- 
 tiful Madame Tiphaine lives on very good terms with the 
 beautiful Madame Rogron. Vinet and President Tiphaine 
 agree perfectly. 
 
 As to Rogron, utterly stupid, he says such things as this : 
 
 " Louis Philippe will never be really king till he can create 
 nobles." 
 
 This speech is obviously not his own. 
 
 His failing health allows Madame Rogron to hope that ere 
 long she may be free to marry General the Marquis de Mon- 
 triveau, a peer of France, who is governor of the depart- 
 ment, and attentive to her. Vinet is always in a hurry to 
 condemn a man to death ; he never believes in the innocence 
 of the accused. This man, born to be a public prosecutor, 
 is considered one of the most amiable men of his district, 
 and is not less successful in Paris and in the Chamber ; at 
 court he is the exquisite courtier. 
 
 General Baron Gouraud, that noble relic of our glorious 
 armies, has married as Vinet promised that he should a 
 Demoiselle Matifat, five-and-twenty years of age, the daugh- 
 ter of a druggist in the Rue des Lombards, who had a for- 
 tune of fifty thousand crowns. He is governor as Vinet 
 prophesied of a department close to Paris. He was made 
 a peer of France as the reward of his conduct in the riots 
 under Casimir Perier's ministry. Baron Gouraud was one of 
 the generals who took the church of Saint-Merry, delighted 
 to " rap the knuckles " of the civilians who had bullied them 
 for fifteen years ; and his zeal won him the grand cordon of 
 the Legion of Honor.
 
 PIERRETTE. 157 
 
 None of those who were implicated in Pierrette's death 
 have any remorse. Monsieur Desfondrilles is still an archae- 
 ologist ; but, to promote his own election, Attorney-General 
 Vinet took care to have him appointed president of the 
 court. Sylvie holds a little court and manages her brother's 
 affairs ; she lends at high interest, and does not spend more 
 than twelve hundred francs a year. 
 
 From time to time, in the little square, when some son of 
 Provins comes home from Paris to settle there, and is seen 
 coming out of Mademoiselle Rogron's house, some former 
 partisan of the Tiphaines will say, " The Rogrons had a very 
 sad affair once about a ward " 
 
 "A mere party question," President Desfondrilles replies. 
 "Monstrous tales were given out. Out of kindness of heart 
 they took this little Pierrette to live with them, a nice child 
 enough, without a penny ; just as she was growing up she had 
 some intrigue with a joiner's apprentice, and would come to 
 her window barefoot to talk to the lad, who used to stand just 
 there, do you see ? The lovers sent each other notes by 
 means of a string. As you may suppose, in her state, and in 
 the months of October and November, that was quite enough 
 to upset a little pale-faced girl. The Rogrons behaved admir- 
 ably; they never claimed their share of the child's inher- 
 itance ; they gave everything to the grandmother. The 
 moral of it all, my friends, is that the devil always punishes 
 us for a good action." 
 
 "Oh ! this is quite another story; old Frappier told it in 
 a very different way ! " 
 
 " Old Frappier consults his cellar more than his memory," 
 remarked a frequenter of Mademoiselle Rogron's drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " But then old Monsieur Habert " 
 
 " Oh ! you know about his share in the matter? " rejoined 
 Desfondrilles. 
 
 "No."
 
 158 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Why, he wanted to get his sister married to Monsieur 
 Rogron, the receiver-general." 
 
 Two men daily think of Pierrette Doctor Martener and 
 Major Brigaut, who alone know the terrible truth. 
 
 To give that truth immense proportions, it is enough to re- 
 call the fact that if we change the scene to the middle ages, 
 and to the vast theatre of Rome, a sublime girl, Beatrice 
 Cenci, was dragged to the scaffold for reasons and by in- 
 trigues almost the same as those which brought Pierrette to 
 the tomb. Beatrice Cenci found none to defend her but an 
 artist a painter. And to-day history and living people, on 
 the evidence of Guido Reni's portrait, condemn the pope, 
 and regard Beatrice as one of the most pathetic victims of 
 infamous passions and factions. 
 
 And we may agree that the law would be a fine thing for 
 social roguery, if there were no God. 
 
 November, 1830.
 
 n. 
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 
 (Le Curt de Tours.} 
 To David, Sculptor. 
 
 The duration of the work on which I write your 
 name doubly illustrious in our age is most uncer- 
 tain, while you inscribe mine on bronze, which outlives 
 nations even when stamped only by the vulgar die of 
 the coiner. Will not numismatists be puzzled by the 
 many croivned heads in your studio, when they find 
 among the ashes of Paris these lives, prolonged by you 
 beyond the life of nations, in which they will fancy 
 they discover dynasties ? Yours is this divine preroga- 
 tive mine be the gratitude. 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
 In the early autumn of 1826 the Abbe Birotteau, the prin- 
 cipal personage of this story, was caught in a shower on his 
 way home from the house where he had spent the evening. 
 He was just crossing, as fast as his burly weight permitted, a 
 little deserted square known as the Close, lying behind the 
 apse of Saint-Gatien at Tours. 
 
 The Abbe Birotteau, a short man of apoplectic build, and 
 now sixty years of age, had already had several attacks of 
 gout. Hence, of all the minor miseries of human life, that 
 which the worthy man held in most horror was the sudden 
 wetting of his shoes with their large silver buckles, and the 
 immersion of their soles. In fact, notwithstanding the flan- 
 nel lining in which he packed his feet in all weathers, with 
 
 (159)
 
 160 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 the care a priest always takes of himself, they often got a little 
 damp ; then, next day, the gout unfailingly gave him proof 
 of its constancy. 
 
 However, as the cobbles in the Close are always dry, and 
 as the abbe had won three francs and ten sous at whist from 
 Madame de Listomere, he submitted to the rain with resigna- 
 tion from the middle of the Place de 1'Archeveche, where it 
 had begun to fall heavily. Moreover, at this moment he was 
 brooding over his chimera, a longing already twelve years old, 
 a priest's day-dream ! A dream which, recurring every even- 
 ing, now seemed likely to find fulfillment ; in short, he was 
 too well wrapped in the fur sleeves of a canon's robes to be 
 sensitive to the severities of the weather. In the course of 
 this evening the accustomed guests who met at Madame de 
 Listomere's had as good as promised him a nomination to the 
 canon's stall at present vacant in the metropolitan chapter of 
 Saint-Gatien, by proving to him that no one better deserved 
 it than he, whose claims were indisputable, though so long 
 ignored. If he had lost at cards, if he had heard that the 
 canonry was given to the Abbe Poirel, his rival, the good man 
 would have found the rain very cold ; he might have abused 
 life. But he was in one of those rare moments when delight- 
 ful sensations make us forget everything. Though he hastened 
 his pace, it was in obedience to a mechanical impulse, and 
 truth so indispensable in a tale of domestic life requires us 
 to say that he was thinking neither of the shower nor of the 
 gout. 
 
 There were formerly round this Close, on the side by the 
 Grand' Rue, a number of houses standing within a wall, and 
 belonging to the cathedral, inhabited by certain dignitaries 
 of the chapter. Since the sequestration of ecclesiastical prop- 
 erty, the town has taken the alley dividing these houses as a 
 public way, by the name of Rue de la Psalette, leading from 
 the Close to the High Street. The name itself shows that
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 161 
 
 here formerly dwelt the precentor with his schools and those 
 who were within his jurisdiction. The left side of the street 
 is formed of one large house, its garden walls being bridged 
 by the flying buttresses of Saint-Gatien, which spring from the 
 ground of its strip of garden, making it doubtful whether the 
 cathedral was built before or after that ancient dwelling. 
 But by examining the mouldings and the shape of the win- 
 dows, the arch of the doorway, and the external architecture 
 of the house, darkened by time, an archaeologist detects that 
 it had always been part and parcel of the magnificent church 
 to which it is wedded. An antiquarian if there were one at 
 Tours, one of the least literary towns of France might even 
 discern at the entrance to the passage from the Close some 
 traces of the covered archway which of old served as an entry 
 to these priestly dwellings, and which must have harmonized 
 in character with the main edifice. 
 
 This house, being to the north of Saint-Gatien, lies always 
 in the shadow of this vast cathedral, on which time has cast 
 its gloomy mantle, stamped wrinkles, and set its damp chill, 
 its mosses, and straggling weeds. And it is perennially 
 wrapped in the deepest silence, broken only by the tolling of 
 the bells, the chanted service heard through the cathedral 
 walls, or the cawing of jackdaws nesting at the top of the bel- 
 fries. The spot is a desert of masonry, a solitude full of in- 
 dividuality, in which none could dwell but beings absolutely 
 mindless, or gifted with immense strength of soul. 
 
 The house in question had always been the home of abbes, 
 and belonged to an old maid named Mademoiselle Gamard. 
 Although during the Terror the property had been bought 
 from the nation by Mademoiselle Gamard's father, as the 
 worthy maiden had for twenty years past let the rooms to 
 priests, no one, at the Restoration, could take it ill that a bigot 
 should not surrender a piece of national property ; religious 
 persons may have supposed that she meant to bequeath it to 
 the chapter, and the worldly saw no change in its uses. 
 11
 
 162 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 It was to this house, then, that the Abbe Birotteau was 
 making his way ; he had lived in it for two years. His rooms 
 there had been till then, as the canonry was now, the object 
 of his desires, and his hoc erat in votis for a dozen years before. 
 To board with Mademoiselle Gamard and to be made a canon 
 were the two great aims of his life ; and perhaps they com- 
 pletely sum up the ambitions of a priest who, regarding him- 
 self as a pilgrim to eternity, can in this world wish for no 
 more than a good room, a good table, clean clothes, shoes 
 with silver buckles all-sufficient for his animal needs and a 
 canonry to satisfy his pride, the indefinable feeling which 
 will accompany us, no doubt, into the presence of God, since 
 there are grades of rank among the saints in the heavenly 
 mansions. 
 
 But the Abbe Birotteau's desire for the rooms he now 
 occupied, so trivial a feeling in the eyes of the worldly wise, 
 had been to him a perfect passion, a passion full of obstacles, 
 and, like the most criminal passions, full of hopes, joys, and 
 remorse. 
 
 The arrangements and space in her house did not allow 
 Mademoiselle Gamard to take more than two resident board- 
 ers. Now, about twelve years before the day when Birotteau 
 went to lodge with this maiden lady, she had undertaken to 
 preserve in health and contentment Monsieur l'Abb6 Troubert 
 and Monsieur 1'Abbe Chapeloud. The Abbe Troubert still 
 lived, the Abb6 Chapeloud was dead, and Birotteau had been 
 his immediate successor. 
 
 The late Abb Chapeloud, in his lifetime canon of Saint- 
 Gatien, had been the Abbe Birotteau's intimate friend. 
 Every time the priest had gone into the canon's rooms he 
 had unfailingly admired them, the furniture, and the books. 
 This admiration one day gave birth to a desire to possess 
 these fine things. The Abbe Birotteau had found it impos- 
 sible to smother this desire, which often made him dreadfully 
 unhappy when he reflected that only the death of his best
 
 THE A BIROTTEAU. 163 
 
 friend could satisfy this hidden covetousness, which never- 
 theless constantly increased. 
 
 The Abb6 Chapeloud and his friend Birotteau were not 
 rich. Both sons of peasants, they had nothing but the poor 
 emolument doled out to priests, and their small savings had 
 been spent in tiding over the evil days of the Revolution. 
 When Napoleon re-established Catholic worship, the Abbe 
 Chapeloud was made canon of Saint-Gatien, and the Abbe 
 Birotteau became vicar, or mass-priest, of the cathedral. 
 It was then that Chapeloud went to board with Mademoiselle 
 Gamard. When Birotteau first called on the canon in his 
 new residence, he thought the rooms delightfully arranged, 
 but that was all. The beginnings of this concupiscence for 
 furniture were like those of a real passion in a young man, 
 which often at first is no more than cold admiration of the 
 woman he subsequently loves for ever. 
 
 These rooms, reached by a stone staircase, were on the side 
 of the house looking south. The Abbe Troubert inhabited 
 the first floor, and Mademoiselle Gamard the second floor of 
 the main front to the street. When Chapeloud went in, the 
 rooms were bare and the ceilings blackened by smoke. The 
 chimney fronts, clumsily carved in stone, had never been 
 painted. All the furniture the poor canon could at first put 
 in consisted of a bed, a table, some chairs, and his few books. 
 The apartment was like a fine woman in rags. 
 
 But two or three years later, an old lady having left the 
 Abbe Chapeloud two thousand francs, he laid out the money 
 in the purchase of an oak bookcase, saved from the destruc- 
 tion of an old chateau pulled down by the Black Band (a 
 company who bought old buildings to demolish), and re- 
 markable for carvings worthy of the admiration of artists. 
 The abbe made the purchase, fascinated less by its cheapness 
 than by its exact correspondence in size with the dimensions 
 of his corridor. His savings then allowed him completely to 
 restore this corridor, until now abandoned to neglect. The
 
 164 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 floor was carefully waxed, the ceiling white-washed, the wood- 
 work painted and grained to imitate the tone and knots of 
 oak. A marble chimney-shelf replaced the old one. The 
 canon had taste enough to hunt up and find some old arm- 
 chairs of carved walnut-wood. Then a long ebony table and 
 two little Boulle cabinets gave this library a finish full of 
 character. 
 
 Within two years, the liberality of various devout persons, 
 and the bequests of pious penitents, though small, had filled 
 the shelves of the bookcase hitherto vacant. Finally, an 
 uncle of Chapeloud's, an old oratorian, left him his collec- 
 tion in folio of the "Fathers of the Church," and several 
 other large works of value to an ecclesiastic. 
 
 Birotteau, more and more surprised by the successive trans- 
 formations in this formerly bare corridor, by degrees became 
 involuntarily covetous. He longed to possess this study, so 
 perfectly adapted to the gravity of priestly habits. This 
 passion grew day by day. Spending whole days, as he often 
 did, in working in this snuggery, he could appreciate the 
 silence and peace of it, after having at first admired its com- 
 fortable arrangement. For the next few years the Abbe 
 Chapeloud used this retreat as an oratory which his lady 
 friends delighted to embellish. Later, again, a lady pre- 
 sented to the canon a piece of furniture in worsted-work for 
 his bedroom, at which she had long been stitching under the 
 amiable priest's eyes without his suspecting its purpose. Then 
 Birotteau was as much dazzled by the bedroom as by the 
 library. 
 
 Finally, three years before his death, the Abbe Chapeloud 
 had completed the comfort of his rooms by decorating the 
 drawing-room. Though simply furnished with red Utrecht 
 velvet, this had been too much for Birotteau. From the day 
 when the canon's friend first saw the red silk curtains, the 
 mahogany furniture, the Aubusson carpet that graced this 
 large room, freshly painted, Chapeloud's apartment became
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 165 
 
 to him the object of a secret monomania. To live there, to 
 sleep in the great bed with silk curtains in which the canon 
 slept, and have all his comforts about him as Chapeloud had, 
 seemed to Birotteau perfect happiness ; he looked for nothing 
 beyond. Every feeling which envy and ambition arouse in 
 the souls of other men was, in that of the Abbe Birotteau, 
 centred in the deep and secret longing with which he wished 
 for a home like that created for himself by the Abbe Chape- 
 loud. When his friend fell ill, it was no doubt sincere affec- 
 tion that brought Birotteau to see him ; but on first hearing 
 of the canon's sickness, and while sitting with him, there rose 
 from the depths of his soul a thousand thoughts, of which the 
 simplest formula was always this, " If Chapeloud dies, I can 
 have his rooms." Still, as Birotteau had a good heart, strict 
 principles, and a narrow intellect, he never went so far as to 
 conceive of means for getting his friend to leave him his 
 library and furniture. 
 
 The Abbe Chapeloud, an amiable and indulgent egoist, 
 guessed his friend's mania which it was not difficult to do, 
 and forgave it which for a priest would seem less easy. 
 Still, Birotteau, whose friendship remained unaltered, never 
 ceased to walk day after day with the canon up and down the 
 same path in the mall at Tours without curtailing by a single 
 minute the time devoted to this exercise for the last twenty 
 years. Birotteau thought of his involuntary wishes as sins, 
 and would have been capable, in sheer contrition, of the 
 utmost devotion for Chapeloud's sake. 
 
 The canon paid his debt to this sincere and artless brother- 
 liness by saying, a few days before his death, to the priest, 
 who was reading to him from the Quotidienne, " You will get 
 the rooms this time. I feel that it is all over with me." 
 
 In fact, by his will, the Abbe Chapeloud left his library 
 and furniture to Birotteau. The possession of these much- 
 longed-for things, and the prospect of being taken as a boarder 
 by Mademoiselle Gamard, greatly softened Birotteau's grief
 
 166 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 at the loss of his friend the canon. He would not perhaps 
 have called him to life again, but he wept for him. For sev- 
 eral days he was like Gargantua, whose wife died in giving 
 birth to Pantagruel, and who knew not whether to rejoice 
 over his son's birth or to lament at having buried his good 
 Badebec, and made the mistake of rejoicing at his wife's death 
 and deploring the birth of Pantagruel. 
 
 The Abb6 Birotteau spent the first days of his grief in veri- 
 fying the volumes of his library and enjoying the use of his 
 furniture, examining them, and saying in a tone which, un- 
 fortunately, could not be recorded, " Poor Chapeloud ! " In 
 short, his joy and his grief were so absorbing that he felt no 
 distress at seeing the canonry bestowed on another, though 
 the lamented Chapeloud had always hoped that Birotteau 
 might be his successor. Mademoiselle Gamard received the 
 abbe with pleasure as a boarder, and he thus enjoyed thence- 
 forth all the delights of material existence that the deceased 
 canon had so highly praised. 
 
 Incalculable advantages! For, to hear the late departed 
 Canon Chapeloud, not one of the priests who dwelt in the 
 town of Tours, not even the archbishop himself, could be the 
 object of care so delicate or so precise as that lavished by 
 Mademoiselle Gamard on her two boarders. The first words 
 spoken by the canon to his friend as they walked in the mall 
 had almost always referred to the excellent dinner he had just 
 eaten; and it was a rare thing if, in the course of the seven 
 walks they took in the week, he did not happen to say at least 
 fourteen times, " That good woman has certainly a vocation 
 for taking charge of the priesthood." 
 
 "Only think," said the canon to Birotteau, "for twelve 
 successive years clean linen, albs, surplices, bands nothing 
 has ever been missing. I always find everything in its place 
 and in sufficient numbers, all smelling of orris-root. My 
 furniture is constantly polished and so well wiped that for a 
 long time past I have not known what dust means. Did you
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 167 
 
 ever see a speck in my rooms ? Then the fire-logs are well 
 chosen, the smallest things are all good ; in short, it is as if 
 Mademoiselle Gamard always had an eye on my room. I 
 cannot recollect in ten years ever having had to ring twice for 
 anything whatever. That I call living ! never to have to look 
 for a thing, not even for one's slippers ; always to find a good 
 fire and a good table. Once my bellows put me out, the 
 nozzle had gotten burnt ; I had not to complain twice. The 
 very next day mademoiselle had bought me a nice pair of 
 bellows and the pair of tongs you see me use to put the fire 
 together." 
 
 Birotteau's only reply was, " Smelling of orris-root ! " That 
 smelling of orris-root always struck him. The canon's words 
 painted a really ideal state of happiness to the poor priest 
 whose bands and albs nearly turned his brain ; for he had no 
 sense of order, and not unfrequently forgot to bespeak his din- 
 ner. And so, whenever he caught sight of Mademoiselle Ga- 
 mard at Saint-Gatien, either while going round for the offertory 
 or while reading mass, he never failed to give her a gentle and 
 kindly glance such as Saint Theresa may have raised to heaven. 
 
 Though the comfort which every creature desires, and of 
 which he had so often dreamed, had now fallen to his lot, as 
 it is difficult for any man, even for a priest, to live without a 
 hobby, for the last eighteen months the Abbe Birotteau had sub- 
 stituted for his two gratified passions a craving for a canonry. 
 The title of canon had become to him what that of a peer 
 must be to a plebeian minister. And the probability of a 
 nomination, the hopes he had just been encouraged in at 
 Madame de Listomere's, had so effectually turned his brain 
 that it was only on reaching home that he discovered that he 
 had left his umbrella at her house. Perhaps, indeed, but for the 
 rain that fell in torrents, he would not have remembered it then, 
 so completely was he absorbed in repeating to himself all that 
 had been said on the subject of his preferment by the mem-
 
 168 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 bers of the party at Madame de Listomere's an old lady with 
 whom he spent every Wednesday evening. 
 
 The abbe rang sharply as a hint to the maid not to keep 
 him waiting. Then he shrank into the corner by the door so 
 as to be splashed as little as possible ; but the water from the 
 roof ran off precisely on the toes of his shoes, and the gusts 
 of wind blew on to him squalls of rain not unlike a repeated 
 shower-bath. After calculating the time necessary for coming 
 from the kitchen to pull the latch-string under the door, he 
 rang again, a very significant peal. "They cannot have 
 gone out," thought he, hearing not a sound within. And for 
 the third time he rang, again and again, a peal that sounded 
 so sharply through the house, and was so loudly repeated by 
 every echo in the cathedral, that it was impossible not to be 
 roused by this assertive jangle. And a few moments after it 
 was not without satisfaction, mingled with annoyance, that he 
 heard the maid's wooden shoes clattering over the pebbly 
 stone floor. Still, the gouty priest's troubles were not over so 
 soon as he thought. Instead of pulling the latch, Marianne 
 was obliged to unlock the door with the huge key, and draw 
 back the bolts. 
 
 "How can you leave me to ring three times in such 
 weather? " said he to Marianne. 
 
 " Why, sir, as you see, the house was locked up. Every- 
 body has been in bed a long time ; it has struck a quarter to 
 ten. Mademoiselle must have thought you had not gone 
 out." 
 
 "But you yourself saw me go out. Besides, mademoiselle 
 knows very well that I go to Madame de Listomere's every 
 Wednesday." 
 
 "Well, sir, I only did as mademoiselle told me," replied 
 Marianne, locking the door again. 
 
 These words were a blow to the abbe, which he felt all the 
 more keenly for the intense bliss of his day-dream. He said 
 nothing, but followed Marianne to the kitchen, to fetch his
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 169 
 
 bedroom candle, which he supposed would have been brought 
 down there. But instead of going to the kitchen, Marianne 
 lighted the abbe up to his rooms, where he found the candle- 
 stick on a table outside the door of the red drawing-room, in 
 a sort of anteroom, formed of the stair-landing, which the 
 canon had shut in for the purpose by a large glass partition. 
 Dumb with surprise, he hurried into his bedroom, found no 
 fire on the hearth, and called Marianne, who had not yet had 
 time to go downstairs. 
 
 " You have not lighted my fire ? " said he. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir; it must have gone out again." 
 
 Birotteau looked again at the hearth, and saw plainly that 
 the ashes had been piled there since the morning. 
 
 "I want to dry my feet," he went on; "make up the 
 fire." 
 
 Marianne obeyed with the haste of a woman who wants to 
 go to sleep, while the abbe himself hunted for his slippers ; 
 failing to see them in the middle of his bed-rug, as usual, he 
 made certain observations as to the way Marianne was dressed, 
 which proved to a demonstration that she had not just gotten 
 out of bed, as she had asserted. And he then remembered 
 that for about a fortnight past he had been weaned from all 
 the little attentions that had made life so endurable for the 
 last eighteen months. Now, as it is in the nature of narrow 
 minds to argue from minute things, he at once gave himself 
 up to deep reflections on these four incidents, imperceptible 
 to anybody else, but to him nothing less than four catastrophes. 
 The oversight as to his slippers, Marianne's falsehood with 
 regard to the fire, the unaccustomed removal of his candle- 
 stick to the table in the anteroom, and the long waiting so 
 ingeniously inflicted on him, on the threshold in the rain, were 
 ominous of a complete wreck of his happiness. 
 
 When the fire was blazing on the dogs, when his night- 
 lamp was lighted, and Marianne had left him without inquir- 
 ing as usual, "Does monsieur need anything further?" the
 
 170 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 abbe sank gently into his departed friend's roomy and hand- 
 some easy-chair ; still his action as he dropped into it was 
 somewhat melancholy. The worthy man was oppressed by 
 the presentiment of terrible disaster. His eyes fell in succes- 
 sion on the handsome timepiece, the chest of drawers, the 
 chairs, curtains, and rugs, the four-post bed, the holy-water 
 shell and the crucifix, on a Virgin by Le Valentin, on a Christ 
 by Lebrun in short, on all the details of the room ; the ex- 
 pression of his face betrayed the pangs of the tenderest fare- 
 well that a lover ever looked at his first mistress, or an old 
 man at his latest plantation. The abbe had just detected a 
 little late, it is true the symptoms of a covert persecution to 
 which he had for about three months been subjected by Made- 
 moiselle Gamard, whose ill-will would no doubt have been 
 suspected sooner by a man of keener intelligence. 
 
 Have not all old maids a certain talent for emphasizing the 
 acts and words suggested to them by hatred ? They scratch 
 as cats do. And not only do they hurt, but they take pleas- 
 ure in hurting, and in making their victim see that they can 
 hurt. While a man of the world would not have allowed him- 
 self to be clawed a second time, the worthy Birotteau had 
 taken several scratches in the face before he had conceived of 
 malignant purpose. 
 
 Immediately, with the inquisitorial shrewdness acquired by 
 priests, accustomed as they are to direct consciences and to 
 investigate trifles from the shades of the confessional, the Abbe 
 Birotteau set to work to formulate the following proposition 
 as though it were the basis of a religious controversy. Grant- 
 ing that Mademoiselle Gamard may have forgotten Madame 
 de Listomere's evening that Marianne had neglected to light 
 my fire that they thought I was at home ; as it is certain that 
 I, myself, must have taken my candlestick downstairs this 
 morning ! ! ! it is impossible that Mademoiselle Gamard, 
 seeing it in her sitting-room, could have supposed I had gone 
 to bed. Ergo, Mademoiselle Gamard left me at the door in
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 171 
 
 the rain on purpose ; and by having the candlestick carried 
 up to my rooms she meant me to know it. "What does it 
 mean?" he said aloud, carried away by the gravity of the 
 case, as he rose to take off his wet clothes and put on his 
 dressing-gown and his nightcap. Then he went from the bed 
 to the fire, gesticulating and jerking out such comments as 
 these, in various tones of voice, all ended in a falsetto pitch 
 as though to represent points of interrogation : 
 
 " What the deuce have I done ? Why does she owe me a 
 grudge ? Marianne cannot have forgotten my fire ; made- 
 moiselle must have told her not to light it ! I should be 
 childish not to see from the tone and manner she assumes 
 towards me that I have been so unfortunate as to displease 
 her. Nothing of the kind ever happened to Chapeloud ! It 
 will be impossible for me to live in the midst of the annoy- 
 ances that At my age too ! " 
 
 He went to bed, hoping to clear up on the morrow the 
 cause of the hatred which was destroying for ever the happi- 
 ness he had enjoyed for two years after wishing for it so long. 
 Alas ! the secret motives of Mademoiselle Gamard's feeling 
 against him were destined to remain for ever unknown to him ; 
 not because they were difficult to guess, but because the poor 
 man had not the simple candor which enables great minds 
 and thorough scoundrels to recognize and judge themselves. 
 Only a man of genius or a master of intrigue ever says to him- 
 self, " I was to blame." Interest and talent are the only con- 
 scientious and lucid counselors. 
 
 Now, the Abbe Birotteau, whose kindliness went to the 
 pitch of silliness, whose knowledge was a sort of veneer laid 
 on by patient work, who had no experience whatever of the 
 world and its ways, and who lived between the altar and the 
 confessional, chiefly engaged in deciding trivial cases of con- 
 science in his capacity of confessor to the schools of the 
 town, and to some noble souls who appreciated him the 
 Abbe 1 Birotteau was, in short, to be regarded as a big baby to
 
 172 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 whom the greater part of social customs were absolutely un- 
 known. At the same time, the selfishness natural to all human 
 beings, reinforced by the egoism peculiar to a priest, and by 
 that of the narrow life of a provincial town, had insensibly 
 grown strong in him without his suspecting it. If any one 
 had taken enough interest in searching the good man's soul to 
 show him that, in the infinitely small details of his existence 
 and the trivial duties of his private life, he failed essentially 
 in the self-sacrifice he professed, he would have punished and 
 mortified himself in all sincerity. 
 
 But those whom we offend, even unwittingly, reck not of 
 our innocence ; they desire and achieve revenge. Thus Bi- 
 rotteau, weak as he was, was doomed to suffer under the hand 
 of that great distributive justice which always trusts the world 
 to carry out its sentences, known to many simpletons as the 
 misfortunes of life. 
 
 There was this difference between Canon Chapeloud and 
 the abbe : one was a witty and ingenious egoist, the other an 
 honest and clumsy one. When Monsieur Chapeloud had 
 come to board with Mademoiselle Gamard, he could perfectly 
 well gauge his landlady's character. The confessional had 
 enlightened him as to the bitterness infused into an old 
 maid's heart by the misfortune of finding herself outside 
 society ; his behavior to Mademoiselle Gamard was shrewdly 
 calculated. The lady being no more than eight-and-thirty, 
 still had those little pretensions which, in such discreet 
 persons, turn in later years into a high opinion of them- 
 selves. 
 
 The canon understood that, to live comfortably with Made- 
 moiselle Gamard, he must always show her the same respect 
 and attention, and be more infallible than the pope. To 
 obtain this end he established no points of contact between 
 himself and her beyond what the strictest politeness required, 
 and those necessarily subsisting between two persons living 
 under the same roof. Thus, though he and the Abb6 Trou-
 
 THE ABBE BIROJ^TEAU. 173 
 
 bert regularly took their three meals a day, he had never 
 appeared at breakfast, but had accustomed Mademoiselle 
 Gamard to send up to him, in his bed, a cup of coffee with 
 milk. Then he had avoided the boredom of supper by 
 always taking tea at some house where he spent the evening. 
 Thus he rarely saw his landlady at any time of the day ex- 
 cepting at dinner, but he always came into the room a few 
 minutes before the hour. During this polite little visit, 
 every day of the twelve years he had spent under her roof he 
 had asked her the same questions and received the same 
 answers. How Mademoiselle Gamard had slept during the 
 night, the breakfast, little domestic events, the appearance 
 of her face, the health of her person, the weather, the length 
 of the church services, the incidents of the morning's mass, 
 the health of this or that priest, constituted the themes of 
 this daily dialogue. 
 
 During dinner he always indulged her with indirect flattery, 
 going on from the quality of the fish, the excellence of some 
 seasoning, or the merits of a sauce, to those of Mademoiselle 
 Gamard and her virtues as a housekeeper. He was sure of 
 soothing all the old maid's conceits when he praised the art 
 with which her preserves were made, her gherkins pickled, 
 and the excellence of her jam, her pies, and other gastronom- 
 ical inventions. Finally, the wily canon never quitted her 
 yellow drawing-room without remarking that there was not 
 another house in Tours where the coffee was so good as that 
 he had just been drinking. 
 
 Thanks to this perfect comprehension of Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's character, and this science of life as practiced by 
 the canon for those twelve years, no grounds had ever occurred 
 for a discussion on any matter of domestic discipline. The 
 Abbe Chapeloud had from the first discerned every angle, 
 every rasping edge, every asperity in this old maid, and had 
 so regulated the effect of the tangents where they inevitably 
 met as to secure from her every concession needed for peace
 
 174 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 and happiness in life. And Mademoiselle Gamard would 
 always say that Canon Chapeloud was a most amiable man, 
 very easy to live with, and full of wit. 
 
 As to the Abbe Troubert, the bigot never by any chance 
 spoke of him. Troubert had so completely fallen into the 
 routine of her life, like a satellite in the orbit of its planet, 
 that he had become to her a sort of mongrel creature between 
 those of the human and those of the canine species ; he filled 
 a place in her mind exactly below that occupied by her friends 
 and that filled by a fat asthmatic pug-dog to which she was 
 tenderly devoted ; she managed him completely, and their 
 interests became so inextricably knit that many persons of 
 Mademoiselle Gamard's circle supposed that the Abbe Troubert 
 had an eye to the old maid's fortune, and was attaching her 
 to him by his constant patience, guiding her all the more 
 effectually because he affected to obey her, never allowing her 
 to see in him the faintest wish to rule her. 
 
 When the canon died, the old maid, anxious to have 
 a boarder of quiet habits, naturally thought of this priest. 
 The canon's will had not yet been opened when Made- 
 moiselle Gamard was already meditating giving the de- 
 parted canon's upper rooms to her worthy Abbe Troubert, 
 whom she thought but poorly lodged on the ground floor. 
 But when the Abb6 Birotteau came to discuss with her the 
 written conditions of her terms, she found that he was so 
 much in love with the lodgings for which he had long 
 cherished a passion he might now avow, that she did not 
 venture to propose an exchange, and affection gave way 
 before the pressure of interest. To console her favorite 
 abbe, mademoiselle substituted a parquet flooring in a neat 
 pattern for the white Chateau-Renaud tiles in the ground- 
 floor rooms, and rebuilt a chimney that smoked. 
 
 The Abbe Birotteau had seen his friend Chapeloud con- 
 stantly for twelve years without it ever having occurred to 
 him to wonder why he was so excessively circumspect in his
 
 THE ABB BIROTTEAU. 175 
 
 intercourse with the old maid. When he came to live under 
 tliis saintly damsel's roof he felt like a lover on the verge of 
 happiness. Even if he had not been blinded by natural 
 stupidity, his eyes were too much dazzled by contentment for 
 him to be capable of gauging Mademoiselle Gamard or of 
 considering the due measure of his daily relations with her. 
 Mademoiselle Gamard, seen from afar, through the prism of 
 the material enjoyment the abbe dreamed of finding with her, 
 appeared to him an admirable creature, a perfect Christian, 
 an essentially charitable soul, the woman of the gospel, the 
 wise virgin graced with the humble and modest virtues which 
 shed celestial fragrance over life. And thus, with all the 
 enthusiasm of a man who has reached a long-wished-for goal, 
 with the simplicity of a child and the silly heedlessness of an 
 old man devoid of worldly experience, he came into Made- 
 moiselle Gamard's life as a fly is caught in a spider's web. 
 
 So the first day he was to dine and sleep in the old maid's 
 house he lingered in her drawing-room, as much in the wish 
 to make acquaintance with her as in the inexplicable embar- 
 rassment that often troubles shy people and makes them fear 
 lest they should be rude if they break off a conversation to 
 leave the room. So there he remained all the evening. 
 Another old maid, a friend of Birotteau's, Mademoiselle Sal- 
 omon de Villenoix, came in the evening. Then Mademoi- 
 selle Gamard had the joy of arranging a game of boston. 
 The abbe, as he went to bed, thought he had had a very 
 pleasant evening. 
 
 As yet he knew Mademoiselle Gamard and the Abbe 
 Troubert but very little, and saw only the surface. Few 
 persons show their faults unveiled at first. Generally every- 
 body tries to assume an attractive exterior. So Birotteau 
 conceived the delightful purpose of devoting his evenings to 
 Mademoiselle Gamard instead of spending them elsewhere. 
 The lady had some few years since conceived a desire which 
 revived more strongly every day. This desire, common to
 
 176 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 old men, and even to pretty women, had become in her a 
 passion like that of Birotteau for his friend Chapeloud's 
 rooms, and was rooted in the old maid's heart by the feelings 
 of pride, egoism, envy, and vanity which are innate in the 
 worldly-minded. This story repeats itself in every age. You 
 have but slightly to enlarge the circle at the bottom of which 
 these personages are about to move to find the coefficient 
 motive of events which happen in the highest ranks of society. 
 
 Mademoiselle Gamard spent her evenings at six or eight 
 different houses by turns. Whether it was that she was an- 
 noyed at having to seek company, and thought that at her 
 age she had a right to expect some return ; whether her con- 
 ceit was affronted by her having no circle of her own; or 
 whether it was that her vanity craved the compliments and 
 amusements she saw her friends enjoying all her ambition 
 was to make her salon a centre of union towards which a 
 certain number of persons would tend every evening with 
 pleasure. When Birotteau and his friend Mademoiselle 
 Salomon had spent a few evenings in her room with the 
 faithful and patient Abbe Troubert, one night, as she came 
 out of Saint-Gatien, Mademoiselle Gamard said to the kind 
 friends of whom she had hitherto considered herself the slave, 
 that those who cared to see her might very well come once 
 a week to her house, where a sufficient party met already to 
 make up a game of boston; that she could not leave her new 
 boarder, the Abbe Birotteau, alone ; that Mademoiselle Salo- 
 mon had not yet missed a single evening of the week; that 
 she belonged to her boarders ; and that, etc., etc. 
 
 Her speech was all the more humbly haughty and volubly 
 sweet because Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix belonged 
 to the most aristocratic circle in Tours. Though Mademoi- 
 selle Salomon came solely for the abbe's sake, Mademoiselle 
 Gamard triumphed in having her in her drawing-room. 
 Thanks to the Abbe" Birotteau, she found herself on the eve 
 of succeeding in her great scheme of forming a circle which
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 177 
 
 might become as numerous and as agreeable as were those of 
 Madame de Listomere, of Mademoiselle Merlin de la Blot- 
 tiere, and other devout persons in a position to receive the 
 pious society of Tours. But, alas ! the Abbe Birotteau brought 
 Mademoiselle Gamard's hopes to an overthrow. 
 
 Now, if any persons, who have attained in life the enjoy- 
 ment of a long-wished-for happiness, have entered into the 
 gladness the abbe must have felt in lying down to rest in 
 Chapeloud's bed, they must also form a slight notion of 
 Mademoiselle Gamard's chagrin at the ruin of her cherished 
 scheme. After accepting his good fortune patiently enough 
 for six months, Birotteau deserted his home, carrying with 
 him Mademoiselle Salomon. 
 
 In spite of unheard-of efforts, the ambitious Gamard had 
 secured no more than five or six recruits, whose fidelity was 
 very problematical, and at least four unfailing visitors were 
 needed for regular boston. She was consequently obliged to 
 make honorable amends and return to her old friends, for old 
 maids are too poor company to themselves not to crave the 
 doubtful pleasures of society. 
 
 The causes of this defection are easily imagined. Though 
 the abbe was one of those to whom paradise shall one day 
 be opened in virtue of the words, " Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit," he, like many fools, could not endure the weariness 
 inflicted on him by other fools. Unintelligent persons are 
 like weeds that thrive in good ground; they love to be amused 
 in proportion to the degree in which they weary themselves. 
 Being the incarnation of the dullness they suffer from, the 
 craving they perpetually feel to be divorced from themselves 
 produces the mania for excitement, the need to be where they 
 are not, which characterizes them as it does other creatures 
 who lack feeling, or whose lot is a failure, or who suffer by 
 their own fault. Without understanding too clearly the 
 vacuity and nullity of Mademoiselle Gamard, or discerning 
 the smallness of her mind, poor Birotteau discovered, too 
 12
 
 178 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 late for happiness, the faults she had in common with all old 
 maids, as well as those personal to herself. 
 
 What is evil, in other people, contrasts so strongly with 
 what is good, that it generally strikes the eye before inflicting 
 a wound. This moral phenomenon might at need justify the 
 tendency that leads us all more or less to evil speaking. So- 
 cially speaking, it is so natural to satirize the faults of others 
 that we ought to forgive the severe gossip to which our own 
 absurdities give rise, and wonder at nothing but calumny. 
 
 But the good abbe's eyes were never at the precise fccus 
 which enables the worldly wise to see and at once evade their 
 neighbors' sharp tongues ; to discover his landlady's fault, he 
 was obliged to endure the warning given by nature to all its 
 creatures, that of suffering. 
 
 Old maids, having never bent their temper or their lives to 
 other lives and other tempers, as woman's destiny requires, 
 have for the most part a mania for making everything about 
 them bend to them. In Mademoiselle Gamard this feeling 
 had degenerated into despotism, but this despotism could 
 only be exerted in small things. For instance out of a 
 thousand cases the basket of counters and fish placed on the 
 boston table for the Abbe Birotteau must be left on the spot 
 where she had put it, and the abbe irritated her extremely by 
 moving it, as he did almost every evening. What was the 
 cause of this touchiness foolishly provoked by mere trifles, 
 and what was its object ? No one could say ; Mademoiselle 
 Gamard herself did not know. 
 
 Though very lamblike by nature, the new boarder did not 
 like to feel the crook too often, any more than a sheep, espe- 
 cially a crook set with nails. Without understanding Canon 
 Troubert's amazing patience, Birotteau was anxious to escape 
 the bliss which Mademoiselle Gamard was bent on seasoning 
 to her own taste, for she thought she could compound happi- 
 ness as she could preserves ; but the luckless priest set to work 
 very clumsily, as a result of his perfectly artless nature. So
 
 THE ABB& BIROTTEAU. 179 
 
 the separation was not effected without some clawing and 
 pricking, to which the Abbe Birotteau tried to seem insensible. 
 
 By the end of the first year of his life under Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's roof the abbe had fallen into his old habits, spend- 
 ing two evenings a week at Madame de Listomere's, three 
 with Mademoiselle Salomon, and the other two with Made- 
 moiselle Merlin de la Blottiere. These ladies moved in the 
 aristocratic sphere of Tours society, to which Mademoiselle 
 Gamard was not admitted. So the landlady was excessively 
 indignant at the abbe's defection, which made her aware of 
 her small importance : any kind of selection implying some 
 contempt for the rejected object. 
 
 "Monsieur Birotteau did not find us good enough com- 
 pany," the Abbe Troubert would say to Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's friends when she was obliged to give up her "even- 
 ings." " He is a wit, a gourmet ! He must have fashion, 
 luxury, brilliant conversation, the tittle-tattle of the town." 
 
 And such words always prompted Mademoiselle Gamard to 
 praise the canon's excellent temper at the expense of Birot- 
 teau's. 
 
 "He is not so clever when all is said," she remarked. 
 "But for Canon Chapeloud he would never have been re- 
 ceived by Madame de Listomere. Oh, I lost a great deal 
 when the Abbe Chapeloud died. What an amiable man ! 
 and so easy to live with ! Indeed, in twelve years we never 
 had the smallest difficulty or disagreement." 
 
 Mademoiselle Gamard painted so unflattering a portrait of 
 Monsieur Birotteau that her innocent boarder was regarded 
 by this citizen circle, secretly hostile to the aristocratic class, 
 as an essentially fractious man, very difficult to get on with. 
 Then for a few weeks the old maid had the satisfaction of 
 hearing herself pitied by her female friends, who, without be- 
 lieving a word of what they said, repeated again and again, 
 " How can you, who are so gentle and so kind, have inspired
 
 180 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 him with such dislike? " or, " Be comforted, dear Made- 
 moiselle Gamard, every one knows you too well " and so 
 
 forth. 
 
 Delighted, nevertheless, to escape spending an evening 
 each week in the Close the most deserted and gloomy spot 
 in all Tours, and the most remote from the centre of life 
 they all blessed the abbe. 
 
 Love or hatred must constantly increase between two per- 
 sons who are always together ; every moment fresh reasons 
 are found for loving or hating better. Thus to Mademoiselle 
 Gamard the Abbe Birotteau became unendurable. Eighteen 
 months after taking him as a boarder, just when the good 
 man believed he had found the peace of contentment in the 
 silence of aversion, and prided himself on having come so 
 comfortably to terms with the old woman, to use his expres- 
 sion, he was to her the object of covert persecution and 
 calmly planned animosity. 
 
 The four capital facts of the closed door, the forgotten 
 slippers, the lack of fire, the candlestick taken to his rooms, 
 alone could betray the terrible enmity of which the last 
 effects were not to fall on him till the moment when they 
 would be irremediable. As he went to sleep, the good abbe 
 racked his brain, but vainly and, indeed, he must soon have 
 come to the bottom of it to account for Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's singularly uncivil behavior. In point of fact, as 
 he had originally acted very logically, obeying the natural 
 law of his egoism, he could not possibly form a guess as to 
 how he had offended his landlady. While great things are 
 simple to understand and easy to express, the mean things of 
 life need much detail. The incidents which constitute the 
 prologue, as it were, to this parochial drama, in which the 
 passions will be seen not less violent than if they had been 
 excited by important interests, necessitated this long intro- 
 duction, and any exact historian would have found it difficult 
 to abridge the trivial tale.
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU, 181 
 
 When he awoke next morning, the abbe's thoughts were so 
 much set on the canonry that he forgot the four circum- 
 stances, which, the evening before, had appeared to him to be 
 sinister prognostics of a future full of disaster. Birotteau was 
 not the man to get up without a fire ; he rang to announce to 
 Marianne that he was awake, and wanted her ; then, as he was 
 wont, he lay lost in a somnolent, half-dreamy state, during 
 which, as a rule, the woman made the fire, and dragged him 
 gently from his last doze by a hum of inquiry and quiet 
 bustle a sort of music that he liked. 
 
 Half an hour went by, and Marianne had not appeared. 
 The abbe, already half a canon, was about to ring again, 
 when he stayed his hand on hearing a man's step on the 
 stairs. In fact, the Abbe Troubert, after discreetly tapping 
 at the door, at Birotteau's bidding came in. This call did 
 not surprise him ; the priests were in the habit of paying each 
 other a visit once a month. The canon was at once amazed 
 that Marianne should not yet have lighted his quasi-colleague's 
 fire. He opened a window, called Marianne in a rough tone, 
 and bid her come up at once ; then, turning to his brother 
 priest, he said, "If mademoiselle should hear that you have 
 no fire, she would give Marianne a good scolding." 
 
 After this speech he inquired for Birotteau's health, and 
 asked him, in an insinuating voice, whether he had any 
 recent news that could encourage his hope of being made a 
 canon. The abbe explained to him what was being done, 
 and guilelessly told him who the personages were that Mad- 
 ame de Listomere was canvassing, not knowing that Troubert 
 had never forgiven that lady for not inviting him to her 
 house him Canon Troubert, twice designated to be made 
 vicar-general of the diocese. 
 
 It would be impossible to meet with two figures offering so 
 many points of contrast as those of these two priests. Trou- 
 bert, tall and lean, had a bilious-yellow hue, while Birotteau 
 was what is familiarly called crummy. His face, round and
 
 182 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 florid, spoke of good-nature devoid of ideas; while Trou- 
 bert's, long and furrowed by deep wrinkles, wore at times an 
 expression of irony and scorn; still, attentive examination 
 was needed to discover these feelings. The canon was habit- 
 ually and absolutely placid, his eyelids almost always lowered 
 over a pair of orange-hazel eyes, whose glance was at will 
 very clear and piercing. Red hair completed this coun- 
 tenance, which was constantly clouded under the shroud cast 
 over his features by serious meditations. Several persons had 
 at first supposed him to be absorbed in high and rooted am- 
 bition ; but those who thought they knew him best had ended 
 by demolishing this opinion, representing him as stultified by 
 Mademoiselle Gamard's tyranny, or worn by long fasting. 
 He rarely spoke, and never laughed. When he happened to 
 be pleasurably moved, a faint smile appeared and lost itself 
 in the furrows on his cheeks. 
 
 Birotteau, on the other hand, was all expansiveness, all 
 openness ; he liked titbits, and could be amused by a trifle 
 with the artlessness of a man free from gall and malice. The 
 Abbe Troubert at first sight inspired an involuntary feeling of 
 dread, while the vicar made every one who looked at him 
 smile kindly. When the tall canon stalked solemnly along 
 the cloisters and aisles of Saint-Gatien, his brow bent, his eye 
 stern, he commanded respect ; his bowed figure harmonized 
 with the yellow vaulting of the cathedral ; there was some- 
 thing monumental in the folds of his gown, and worthy of 
 the sculptor's art. But the good little abbe moved without 
 dignity, trotted and pattered, looking as if he rolled along. 
 
 And yet the two men had one point of resemblance. 
 While Troubert's ambitious looks, by making the world afraid 
 of him, had perhaps contributed to condemn him to the 
 modest dignity of a mere canon, Birotteau's character and 
 appearance seemed to stamp him forever as no more than a 
 vicar of the cathedral. The Abb6 Troubert meanwhile, at 
 the age of fifty, by the moderation of his conduct, by the
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 183 
 
 apparently total absence of any ambition in his aims, and by 
 his saintly life, had dispelled the fears his superiors had con- 
 ceived of his supposed cleverness and his alarming exterior. 
 Indeed, for a year past, his health had been seriously im- 
 paired, so that his early promotion to the dignity of vicar- 
 general by the archbishop seemed probable. His rivals even 
 hoped for his appointment, to enable them the more effectually 
 to prepare for their own, during the short span of life that 
 might yet be granted him by a malady that had become 
 chronic. Birotteau's triple chin, far from suggesting the 
 same hopes, displayed to the candidates who were struggling 
 for the canonry all the symptoms of vigorous health, and his 
 gout seemed to them the proverbial assurance of a long life. 
 
 The Abbe Chapeloud, a man of great good sense, whose 
 amiability had secured him the friendship of persons in good 
 society and of the various heads of the diocese, had always 
 opposed the elevation of the Abbe Troubert, secretly and 
 with much address ; he had even hindered his admission to 
 any of the salons where the best set in Tours were wont to 
 meet, though during his lifetime Troubert always treated 
 him with great respect, and on all occasions showed him the 
 utmost deference. This persistent submissiveness had not 
 availed to change the deceased canon's opinion ; during his 
 last walk with Birotteau, he had said to him once more 
 
 " Do not trust that dry pole Troubert ! He is Sixtus V. 
 reduced to the scale of a bishopric." 
 
 This was Mademoiselle Gamard's friend and messmate, 
 who, the very day after that on which she had, so to speak, 
 declared war with poor Birotteau, had come to call on him 
 with every mark of friendliness. 
 
 "You must excuse Marianne," said Troubert, as she came 
 in. "I fancy she did my room first. My place is very 
 damp, and I coughed a great deal during the night. You are 
 very healthily situated here," he added, looking up at the 
 mouldings.
 
 184 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Oh, I am lodged like a canon ! " replied Birotteau with 
 a smile. 
 
 " And I like a curate," replied Abbe Troubert the humble 
 priest. 
 
 " Yes, but before very long you will be lodged in the arch- 
 bishop's palace," said the good abbe, who only wanted that 
 everybody should be happy. 
 
 "Oh! or in the graveyard. God's will be done!" and 
 Troubert looked up to heaven with a resigned air. " I came," 
 he went on, " to beg you to lend me the ' General Clergy 
 List.' No one but you has the book at Tours." 
 
 " Take it out of the bookcase," replied Birotteau, re- 
 minded by the canon's last words of all the joys of his 
 life. 
 
 The tall priest went into the library, and remained there 
 all the time the abb was dressing. Presently the breakfast- 
 bell rang, and Birotteau, reflecting that but for Troubert's 
 visit here he would have had no fire to get up by, said to 
 himself, " He is a good man ! " 
 
 The two priests went down together, each armed with an 
 enormous folio, which they laid on one of the consoles in the 
 dining-room. 
 
 "What in the world is that?" asked Mademoiselle Ga- 
 mard in sharp tones, addressing Birotteau. "You are not 
 going to lumber up my dining-room with old books I 
 hope ! " 
 
 "They are some books I wanted," said the Abbe Troubert. 
 "Monsieur is kind enough to lend them to me." 
 
 "I might have guessed that," said she with a scornful 
 smile. " Monsieur Birotteau does not often study such big 
 books." 
 
 " And how are you, mademoiselle ? " asked the abbe* in a 
 piping voice. 
 
 "Why, not at all well," she replied curtly. "You were 
 the cause of my being roused from my first sleep, and I felt
 
 THE ABB& BIROTTEAU. 185 
 
 the effects all night." And as she seated herself, Mademoi- 
 selle Gamard added, "Gentlemen, the milk will get cold." 
 
 Astounded at being so sourly received by his hostess when 
 he expected her to apologize, but frightened, as timid people 
 are, by the prospect of a discussion, especially when they 
 themselves are the subject of it, the poor abbe took his place 
 in silence. Then, recognizing in Mademoiselle Gamard's 
 face the obvious symptoms of a bad temper, he sat warring 
 with his common sense, which advised him not to submit to 
 her want of manners, while his nature prompted him to avoid 
 a quarrel. Birotteau, a prey to this internal struggle, began 
 by seriously studying the broad-green stripes painted on the 
 oilcloth cover, which, from immemorial habit, Mademoiselle 
 Gamard always left on the table during breakfast, heedless of 
 the frayed edges and scars innumerable that covered this 
 cloth. The two boarders were seated opposite each 
 other, in cane armchairs at each end of the table, a royal 
 square ; the place between them being occupied by the land- 
 lady, who towered above the table from a chair mounted on 
 runners, padded with cushions, and backing on the dining- 
 room stove. This room and the common sitting-room were 
 on the ground floor, under the Abbe Birotteau's bedroom 
 and drawing-room. When the abbe had received from Made- 
 moiselle Gama-d his cup of sweetened coffee, he felt chilled 
 by the utter silence in which he was doomed to perform the 
 usually cheerful function of breakfast. He dared not look 
 either at Troubert's expressionless face or at the old maid's 
 threatening countenance ; so, to do something, he turned to 
 the pug-dog, overburdened with fat, lying near the stove on a 
 cushion whence it never stirred, finding always on the left a 
 little plate of dainties, and on the right a saucer of clean 
 water. 
 
 " Well, my pet," said he, "so you want your coffee ! " 
 This personage, one of the most important members of the 
 household, but not a troublesome one, since he never barked
 
 186 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 now, and left the conversation to his mistress, looked up at 
 Birotteau with little eyes buried in the folds of fat that 
 wrinkled his face. Then he cunningly shut them again. 
 
 To give the measure of the priest's discomfiture, it must 
 be explained that, being gifted with a voice and volubility as 
 resonant and meaningless as the sound of an India-rubber ball, 
 he asserted, without being able to give the faculty any reason 
 for his opinion, that speech favored digestion. Mademoiselle 
 Gamard, who shared this theory of hygiene, had never 
 hitherto failed to converse during meals, notwithstanding 
 their misunderstanding ; but now for some few days the abbe 
 had racked his wits in vain to ask her insidious questions 
 which might loosen her tongue. If the narrow limits to which 
 this story is restricted would allow of a report in full of one 
 of these conversations which always provoked the Abbe 
 Troubert's bitter and sardonic smiles, it would give a perfect 
 picture of the Boeotian existence of provincials. Some clever 
 men might perhaps be even pleased to know the extraordinary 
 amplitude given by the Abbe Birotteau and Mademoiselle 
 Gamard to their personal opinions on politics, religion, and 
 literature. There would certainly be some very funny things 
 to tell : such as their reasons, in 1820, for doubting the death 
 of Napoleon, or the conjectures which led them to believe in 
 the survival of Louis XVII. , smuggled away in a hollow log 
 of wood. Who would not have laughed to hear them assert- 
 ing, with arguments peculiarly their own, that the King of 
 France alone spent the money collected in taxes ; that the 
 Chambers met to destroy the clergy ; that more than thirteen 
 hundred thousand persons had perished on the scaffold during 
 the Revolution ? Then they discussed the press, knowing 
 nothing of how many newspapers were issued, having not the 
 smallest idea of what this modern power is. Finally, Mon- 
 sieur Birotteau listened respectfully to Mademoiselle Gamard 
 when she asserted that a man fed on an egg every morning 
 would infallibly die at the end of a year, and that it had
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 187 
 
 been known that a soft roll eaten without drinking for a few 
 days would cure sciatica ; that all the workmen who had been 
 employed in the destruction of the Abbey of Saint-Martin 
 had died within six months ; that a certain prefet had done his 
 utmost in Bonaparte's time to ruin the towers of Saint-Gatien, 
 and a thousand other absurd stories. 
 
 But at the present juncture Birotteau felt his tongue dead 
 within him ; so he resigned himself to eating without trying 
 to converse. He soon thought that such silence was perilous 
 to his digestion, and boldly said, " This is excellent coffee ! " 
 But the courageous act fell flat. 
 
 After looking at the narrow strip of sky above the garden, 
 between the two black buttresses of Saint-Gatien, the abbe 
 again was brave enough to remark, "It will be finer to-day 
 than it was yesterday." 
 
 At this Mademoiselle Gamard did no more than cast one of 
 her most ingratiating glances at Monsieur Troubert, and then 
 turn her eyes full of terrible severity on Birotteau, who was 
 happily looking down. 
 
 No being of the female sex was better able to assume the 
 elegiac attitude of an old maid than Mademoiselle Sophie 
 Gamard ; but to do justice in describing a person whose char- 
 acter will give the greatest interest to the trivial events of this 
 drama, and to the antecedent lives of the figures playing a part 
 in it, it will be well here to epitomize the ideas of which the 
 old maid is the outcome. The habits of life form the soul, and 
 the soul forms the countenance. If in society, as in the uni- 
 verse, everything must have a purpose, there yet are on this 
 earth some existences of which the use and purpose are undis- 
 coverable ; morality and political economy alike reject the in- 
 dividual that consumes without producing, that fills a place on 
 earth without diffusing either good or evil for evil, no doubt, 
 is a form of good of which the results are not immediately 
 manifest. Very rarely does an old maid fail to place herself 
 by her own act in this class of unproductive creatures. Now
 
 188 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 if the consciousness of work done gives productive beings a 
 sense of satisfaction which helps them to endure life, the 
 knowledge that they are a burthen on others, or even merely 
 useless, must produce the contrary effect, and give to the inert 
 a contempt for themselves as great as that they provoke in 
 others. This stern social reprobation is one of the causes 
 which, unknown to themselves, contribute to implant in their 
 soul the grievance which is stamped on their faces. 
 
 A prejudice, not perhaps without a basis of truth, every- 
 where gives rise and in France more than elsewhere to 
 marked disfavor being felt towards a woman with whom no 
 man has chosen to share his fortunes or to endure the woes 
 of life. And an age comes to unmarried women when the 
 world, rightly or wrongly, condemns them on the strength 
 of the disdain to which they are victims. If ugly, the amia- 
 bility of their nature ought to have redeemed the imperfec- 
 tions of their persons ; if pretty, their loneliness must have its 
 cause in serious reasons. It is hard to decide which of the 
 two classes is most to be contemned. If their single life is 
 deliberately chosen, if it is a determination to be independ- 
 ent, neither men nor mothers can forgive them for having 
 shirked the sacrifice of woman by refusing to know the pas- 
 sions that make her sex pathetic. To reject its sufferings is to 
 forego its poetry, to cease to deserve the sweet consolations to 
 which a mother has always uncontested rights. Then the 
 generous feelings, the exquisite qualities of woman, can only 
 be developed by constant exercise. When she remains un- 
 married, a creature of the female sex is a self-contradiction : 
 egoistical and cold, she fills us with horror. 
 
 This pitiless verdict is unfortunately too just for old maids 
 to misinterpret its motives. These ideas germinate in their 
 heart as naturally as the effects of their desolate life are im- 
 printed on their features. Thus they wither, because the 
 constant expansion, or the happiness that blooms in a woman's 
 face and lends softness to her movements, has never existed
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 189 
 
 in them. Then they grow harsh and discontented, because a 
 creature that fails of its purpose is unhappy, it suffers, and 
 suffering brings forth viciousness. In fact, before an un- 
 married woman spites herself for her loneliness, she accuses 
 the whole world, and from accusation there is but one step to 
 the desire for revenge. 
 
 Again, the ill grace that disfigures their persons is an 
 inevitable outcome of their life. Never having felt the neces- 
 sity to please, elegance and good taste are unknown to them. 
 This feeling gradually leads them to choose everything to 
 suit their own convenience at the cost of what might be 
 agreeable to others. Without quite understanding their dis- 
 similarity to other women, at last they observe it and suffer 
 from it. Jealousy is an indelible passion in the female 
 heart. Old maids are jealous for nothing, and know only the 
 woes of the single passion which men can forgive in women 
 because it flatters them. Thus tormented on every side, and 
 compelled to reject the development of their nature, old 
 maids are always conscious of a moral uneasiness to which 
 they never become accustomed. Is it not hard at any age, 
 especially for a woman, to read a feeling of repugnance on 
 every face, when it ought to have been her fate to inspire 
 none but sensations of kindliness in the hearts of those about 
 her ? Hence an old maid's glance is always askance, not so 
 much from modesty as from fear and shame. 
 
 Now, it is impossible that a person perpetually at war with 
 herself, or at loggerheads with life, should leave others in 
 peace and never envy their happiness. This world of gloomy 
 ideas lay complete in Mademoiselle Gamard's dull gray eyes ; 
 and the broad, dark circle in which they were set spoke of 
 the long struggle of her solitary life. All the wrinkles on her 
 face were straight lines. The form of her brow, head, and 
 cheeks was characterized by rigidity and hardness. Without 
 heeding them, she left the hairs, once brown, of two or three 
 moles on her chin to grow as they would. Her thin lips
 
 190 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 scarcely covered her long but sufficiently white teeth. She 
 was dark, and her hair had once been black, but terrible 
 headaches had turned it white. This disaster led her to wear 
 a front ; but not knowing how to put it on so as to conceal 
 the junction, there often was a small gap between her cap- 
 border and the black ribbon that fastened this half-wig, very 
 carelessly curled. Her gown, of thin silk in summer, of 
 merinos in winter, and always of Carmelite brown, fitted her 
 ungraceful figure and thin arms rather too closely. Her 
 collar, always limp, betrayed a throat whose reddish skin was 
 as finely lined as an oak leaf looked at in the light. 
 
 Her parentage accounted for the faults of her figure. She 
 was the daughter of a dealer in fire-logs, a peasant who had 
 risen in the world. At eighteen she might have been fresh 
 and plump, but not a trace was now left either of the white 
 skin or the fine color she boasted of having then had. The 
 hues of her complexion had acquired the dull pallor common 
 enough in very devout persons. An aquiline nose was of all 
 her features that which most strongly expressed the despotism 
 of her ideas, just as the flatness of her forehead revealed her 
 narrowness of mind. Her movements had an odd abruptness 
 bereft of all grace ; and only to see her pull her handkerchief 
 out of her bag and loudly blow her nose would have told you 
 what her character and habits were. Fairly tall, she held her- 
 self very upright, justifying the remark of a naturalist, who 
 explains the stiffness of old maids physiologically by declar- 
 ing that all their joints anchylose. She walked so that the 
 motion did not distribute itself equally over her whole person, 
 or produce the graceful undulations that are so attractive in a 
 woman ; she moved all of a piece, so to speak, seeming to 
 lift herself at every step, like the statue of the Commenda- 
 tore. 
 
 In her few moments of good-humor she would give it out, 
 as all old maids do, that she could have been married, but 
 that, happily, she had found out her lover's faithlessness in
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 191 
 
 time, and she thus, without knowing it, passed judgment on 
 her heart in favor of her sense of self-interest. 
 
 This typical figure of an old maid was suitably set against 
 a background of the grotesque pattern, representing Turkish 
 landscapes, of a satin wall-paper with which the dining-room 
 was hung. Mademoiselle Gamard habitually occupied this 
 room, ornamented by two consoles and a barometer. In the 
 place occupied by each priest was a little footstool in worsted 
 work of faded hues. 
 
 The public sitting-room, where she received company, was 
 worthy of her. The room will be at once familiar when it is 
 known that it went by the name of the yellow drawing-room ; 
 the hangings were yellow, the furniture and wall-paper yellow ; 
 on the chimney-shelf, in front of a mirror with a gilt frame, 
 candlesticks and a clock in cut-glass reflected a hard glitter to 
 the eye. As to Mademoiselle Gamard's private sanctum, no 
 one had ever been allowed to enter it. It could only be con- 
 jectured that it was full of the odds and ends, the shabby 
 furniture, the rags and tatters, so to speak, which all old maids 
 collect and cling to so fondly. 
 
 This was the woman who was destined to exert the greatest 
 influence over the Abbe Birotteau's latter days. Having failed 
 to exercise the energies bestowed on woman in the way in- 
 tended by nature, and urged by the need of expending them, 
 this old maid had thrown them into the sordid intrigue, the 
 petty tittle-tattle of provincial life, and the selfish scheming 
 which at last exclusively absorbs all old maids. 
 
 Birotteau, for his woe, had developed in Sophie Gamard 
 the only feelings this unhappy creature could possibly know, 
 those of hatred ; these, till now latent, as a result of the calm 
 monotony of a country-town life, whose horizon was to her 
 more especially narrow, were presently to become all the more 
 intense for being wreaked on small things, and in a narrow 
 sphere of activity. Birotteau was one of those men who are 
 predestined to suffer everything, because, as they never foresee
 
 192 THE CELI&ATES. 
 
 anything, they can avoid nothing ; everything seems to fall 
 on them. 
 
 "Yes, it will be fine," the canon replied after a pause, 
 seeming to come out of his meditations and to wish to fulfill 
 the laws of good manners. 
 
 Birotteau, frightened at the time that had elapsed between 
 the remark and the reply, since he, for the first time in his 
 life, had swallowed his coffee without speaking, left the dining- 
 room, where his heart was held as in a vise. Feeling his cup 
 of coffee lie heavy on his stomach, he went to walk, sadly 
 enough, up and down the narrow box-edged paths which 
 marked out a star in the garden. But as he turned after his 
 first round, he saw the Abbe Troubert and Mademoiselle 
 Gamard standing at the glass door of the drawing-room ; he 
 with his arms crossed, as motionless as the statue on a tomb, 
 she leaning against the shutter-door. Both, as they watched 
 him, seemed to be counting the number of his steps. 
 
 To a timid person there is nothing so distressing as being 
 the object of inquisitive inspection ; when it is made by the 
 eyes of hatred, the sort of suffering it inflicts becomes an in- 
 tolerable martyrdom. Presently the abbe fancied that he was 
 hindering Mademoiselle Gamard and the canon from taking 
 their walk. This notion, inspired alike by fear and by good- 
 nature, acquired such proportions, that he abandoned the 
 place. He went away, already thinking no more of his can- 
 onry, so greatly was he worried by the woman's maddening 
 tyranny. 
 
 By chance, and happily for him, he was kept very busy at 
 Saint-Gatien, where there were several funerals, a marriage, 
 and two baptisms. This enabled him to forget his troubles. 
 When his appetite warned him of the dinner hour, he took 
 out his watch in some alarm, seeing that it was some minutes 
 past four. He knew Mademoiselle Gamard's punctuality, so 
 he hurried home. 
 
 He saw the first course brought down again as he passed the
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 193 
 
 kitchen. Then on going into the dining-room, the old maid 
 said to him in a tone of voice which betrayed alike the harsh- 
 ness of a reproof and the glee of finding her boarder in fault, 
 " It is half-past four, Monsieur Birotteau ; you knew we should 
 not wait for you." 
 
 The priest looked at the dining-room clock, and the arrange- 
 ment of the gauze wrapper, intended to protect it from dust, 
 showed him that his landlady had wound it in the course of 
 the morning, and had allowed herself the pleasure of setting 
 it faster than the clock of Saint-Gatien's. There was nothing 
 to be said. The least word of the suspicion he had conceived 
 would have sprung the most terrible and plausible of those 
 explosions of eloquence which Mademoiselle Gamard, like all 
 women of her class, could give vent to in such cases. 
 
 The thousand-and-one vexations that a maidservant can 
 inflict on her master, or a wife on her husband, in the daily 
 course of private life, were imagined by Mademoiselle Gamard, 
 who heaped them on her boarder. The way in which she 
 plotted her conspiracies against the poor abbe's domestic 
 comfort bore the stamp of deeply malignant genius. She 
 contrived never to be in the wrong. 
 
 By the end of a week after the opening of this tale, his life 
 in the house, and his position towards Mademoiselle Gamard, 
 revealed to him a plot, hatching for six months past. So long 
 as the old maid had been covert in her revenge, and the priest 
 could voluntarily keep up his self-deceit, refusing to believe 
 in her malevolent purpose, the moral effects had made no 
 great progress in him. But since the incidents of the dis- 
 placement of the candlestick and the clock put too fast, Birot- 
 teau could no longer doubt that he was living under the rule 
 of an aversion that kept an ever-watchful eye on him. From 
 this he rapidly sank into despair, forever seeing Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's lean and talon-like fingers ready to claw his heart. 
 
 The old maid, happy in living on a sentiment so teeming 
 with excitement as revenge is, delighted in hovering and 
 13
 
 194 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 wheeling above the abbe as a bird of prey hovers and circles 
 over a field-mouse before seizing it. She had long plotted a 
 scheme which the bewildered priest could not possibly guess, 
 and which she soon began to unfold, showing the genius that 
 can be displayed in small things by isolated beings whose soul, 
 incapable of apprehending the grandeur of true piety, has lost 
 itself in the trivialities of devotion. The last and most frightful 
 aggravation of his torments was that the nature of them pro- 
 hibited Birotteau, an effusive man who loved to be pitied and 
 comforted, from enjoying the little solace of relating them to 
 his friends. The small amount of tact he owed to his shyness 
 made him dread appearing ridiculous by troubling himself 
 about such silly trifles. At the same time, these silly trifles 
 made up his whole life, the life he loved, full of busy vacuity 
 and vacuous business, a dull, gray life, in which too strong a 
 feeling was a misfortune, and the absence of all excitement is 
 happiness. Thus the poor abbe's paradise had suddenly be- 
 come a hell. In short, his torments were intolerable. 
 
 The terror with which he contemplated an explanation with 
 Mademoiselle Gamard grew daily, and the secret misfortunes 
 which blighted every hour of his old age injured his health. 
 One morning, as he put on his speckled blue stockings, he 
 observed that the circumference of his calf had shrunk by 
 eight lines. Appalled at such a terribly unmistakable symp- 
 tom, he determined to make an effort to persuade the Abbe 
 Troubert to intervene officially between himself and Made- 
 moiselle Gamard. 
 
 When he found himself in the presence of the imposing 
 canon, who came out of a study crammed with papers, where 
 he was always at work, admitting nobody, to receive him in a 
 bare room, the abb6 was almost ashamed to speak of Made- 
 moiselle Gamard's petty aggravations to a man who seemed so 
 seriously occupied. But after having suffered all the misery 
 of mental deliberation which humble, weak, or irresolute per- 
 sons go through, even with regard to trifles, he made up his
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 195 
 
 mind to explain the position to the canon, not without feeling 
 his heart swollen by extraordinary throbs. Troubert listened 
 with a cold, grave air, trying, but in vain, to control some 
 smiles, which, to intelligent eyes, might have betrayed the 
 satisfaction of a secret desire. A flash sparkled in his eye 
 when Birotteau described to him, with the eloquence inspired 
 by true emotion, the bitterness that was incessantly poured 
 out for him ; but Troubert at once covered his eyes with his 
 hand, a gesture common to great thinkers, and preserved his 
 habitually dignified attitude. 
 
 When the abbe ceased speaking, he would have been puzzled 
 indeed if he had tried to read any sign of the feelings he 
 imagined he should excite in this mysterious priest, on his 
 face, mottled now with yellow patches yellower than even 
 his usual bilious complexion. After a moment's silence, the 
 canon made one of those replies of which every word must 
 have been carefully studied to give them their full bearing, 
 but which subsequently showed to capable persons the amaz- 
 ing depth of his mind and the power of his intellect. 
 
 He finally crushed Birotteau by saying that all these things 
 surprised him the more, because, but for his brother's explana- 
 tion, he would never have discerned them. He ascribed this 
 dullness of perception to his important occupations, to his 
 work, and to the supremacy of certain lofty thoughts, which 
 did not allow of his heeding the trivialities of life. He 
 pointed out, but without assuming the airs of wishing to cen- 
 sure the conduct of a man whose years and learning com- 
 manded his respect, that " the hermits of old rarely thought 
 about their food, or their dwelling in the deserts, where they 
 gave themselves up to holy contemplation," and that " in our 
 days the priest could, in mind, make a desert for himself in 
 every place." Then, returning to Birotteau, he remarked 
 that such squabbles were quite a new thing to him. During 
 twelve years nothing of the kind had ever arisen between 
 Mademoiselle Gamard and the venerated Abbe Chapeloud.
 
 196 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 As for himself he could, no doubt, act as moderator between 
 the priest and their landlady, since his friendship for her did 
 not overstep the limits imposed by the laws of the church on 
 its faithful ministers ; but then justice would require that he 
 should also hear Mademoiselle Gamard. At the same time, 
 he discerned no change in her ; he had always seen her thus ; 
 he had willingly yielded to some of her vagaries, knowing 
 that the excellent woman was kindness and sweetness itself; 
 these little caprices of temper were to be ascribed to the suf- 
 ferings caused by a pulmonary trouble, of which she never 
 spoke, resigning herself to it as a true Christian." He ended 
 by saying that " when he should have lived a few years longer 
 with mademoiselle, he would appreciate her better and recog- 
 nize the beauties of her admirable character." 
 
 The Abbe Birotteau came away bewildered. Under the 
 absolute necessity of taking counsel with himself alone, he 
 gauged Mademoiselle Gamard by himself. The poor man 
 thought that by absenting himself for a few days this woman's 
 hatred would burn itself out for lack of fuel. So he deter- 
 mined to go, as he had done before now, to spend some time 
 at a country place where Madame de Listomere always went 
 at the end of the autumn, a season when, in Touraine, the 
 sky is usually clear and mild. Poor man ! He was thus 
 carrying out the secret wishes of his terrible enemy, whose 
 schemes could not be thwarted by anything short of monk- 
 like endurance ; while he, guessing nothing and not knowing 
 his own business even, was doomed to fall like a lamb under 
 the first blow from the butcher. 
 
 Lying on the slope between the town of Tours and the 
 heights of Saint-Georges, facing the south, and sheltered by 
 cliffs, Madame de Listomere' s estate combined all the charms 
 of the country with the pleasures of the town. It was not 
 more than a ten-minutes' drive from the Bridge of Tours to 
 the gate of this house, known as " L'Alouette " (The Lark)
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 197 
 
 an immense convenience in a place where no one will disturb 
 himself for any earthly thing, not even in quest of pleasure. 
 
 The poor Abbe Birotteau had been about ten days at 
 "L'Alouette," when one morning, at the breakfast hour, the 
 lodgekeeper came to tell him that Monsieur Caron wished to 
 speak with him. Monsieur Caron was a lawyer employed by 
 Mademoiselle Gamard. Birotteau, not remembering this, 
 and conscious of no litigious difficulty to be settled with 
 anybody in the world, left the table, not without some 
 anxiety, to meet the lawyer ; he found him sitting modestly 
 on the parapet of a terrace. 
 
 " Your intention of remaining no longer as a resident 
 under Mademoiselle Gamard's roof being now quite evident 
 she " the man of business began. 
 
 " Dear me, monsieur ! " cried Birotteau, interrupting him, 
 " I never thought of leaving her." 
 
 " And yet, monsieur," the lawyer went on, " you must 
 certainly have expressed yourself to that effect to made- 
 moiselle, since she has sent me to inquire whether you intend 
 remaining long in the country. The event of a prolonged 
 absence not having been provided for in your agreement 
 might give rise to some discussion. Now, as Mademoiselle 
 Gamard understands it, your board " 
 
 " Monsieur," said Birotteau in surprise, and again inter- 
 rupting the lawyer, " I did not think it could be necessary 
 to take steps, almost legal in their nature, to " 
 
 " Mademoiselle Gamard, wishing to preclude any difficulty," 
 said Monsieur Caron, " has sent me to come to an under- 
 standing with you." 
 
 " Very well, if you will be so obliging as to call again 
 to-morrow, I, on my part, will have taken advice." 
 
 " So be it," said Caron with a bow. 
 
 The scrivener withdrew. The hapless priest, appalled by 
 the pertinacity of Mademoiselle Gamard's persecution, went 
 back to Madame de Listomere's dining-room looking quite
 
 198 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 upset. At his mere appearance every one asked him, " Why, 
 Monsieur Birotteau, what is the matter?" 
 
 The abbe, greatly distressed, sat down without answering, 
 so overwhelmed was he by the vague vision of his misfortune. 
 But after breakfast, when several of his friends had gathered 
 round a good fire in the drawing-room, Birotteau artlessly told 
 them the tale of his catastrophe. The hearers, who were 
 just beginning to be bored by their stay in the country, were 
 deeply interested in an intrigue so completely in keeping 
 with provincial life. Everybody took the abbe's part against 
 the old maid. 
 
 "Why!" cried Madame de Listomere, "do you not 
 plainly see that the Abbe Troubert wants your rooms ? " 
 
 In this place the historian would have a right to sketch this 
 lady's portrait ; but it occurs to him that even those persons 
 to whom Sterne's cognomology is unknown could surely not 
 utter the three words MADAME DE LISTOMERE without seeing 
 her noble and dignified, tempering the austerity of piety 
 by the antique elegance of monarchical and classic manners 
 and polite distinction ; kind, but a little formal ; speaking 
 slightly through her nose; allowing herself to read "La 
 Nouvelle Helo'ise," and to go to the play; still wearing her 
 own hair. 
 
 " The Abb Birotteau must certainly not yield to that 
 nagging old woman ! " cried Monsieur de Listomere, a lieu- 
 tenant in the navy, spending a holiday with his aunt. " If 
 the abbe has any courage, and will follow my advice, he will 
 soon have recovered his peace of mind." 
 
 In short, everybody began to analyze Mademoiselle Gamard's 
 proceedings with the acumen peculiar to provincials, who, it 
 certainly cannot be denied, possess the talent of laying bare 
 the most secret human actions. 
 
 "You have not hit the mark," said an old landowner who 
 knew the country. " There is something v"ery serious under 
 this which I have not yet mastered. The Abbe Troubert is
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 199 
 
 far too deep to be so easily seen through. Our good friend 
 Birotteau is only at the beginning of his troubles. In the first 
 place, would he be happy and left in peace even if he gave 
 up his rooms to Troubert ? I doubt it. If Caron came to 
 tell you," he went on, turning to the puzzled abbe, "that 
 you had intended to leave Mademoiselle Gamard, with the 
 
 object of getting you out of her house Well, you will 
 
 have to go, willy nilly. That kind of man never risks a 
 chance; they only play when they hold the trumps." 
 
 This old gentleman, a certain Monsieur de Bourbonne, 
 epitomized provincial ideas as completely as Voltaire epito- 
 mized the spirit of his time. This withered, little old man 
 professed in matters of dress all the indifference of a propri- 
 etor whose estate has a quotable value in the department. 
 His countenance, tanned by the sun of Touraine, was shrewd 
 rather than clever. He was accustomed to weigh his words, 
 to consider his actions, and he concealed his deep caution 
 under a delusive bluntness. The very least observation was 
 enough to discover that, like a Norman peasant, he would get 
 the advantage in every stroke of business. He was great in 
 cenology the favorite science of the Tourangeaux. He had 
 managed to extend the circle of one of his estates by taking 
 in the alluvial land of the Loire without getting into a law- 
 suit with the state. This achievement had established his 
 reputation as a clever man. If, charmed by Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne's conversation, you had asked his biography of 
 one of his fellow-provincials, " Oh ! he is a cunning old fox," 
 would have been the proverbial reply of all who envied him, 
 and they were many. In Touraine, as in most provinces, 
 jealousy lies at the base of the tongue. 
 
 Monsieur de Bourbonne's remark caused a brief silence, 
 during which the members of this little committee seemed lost 
 in thought. 
 
 At this juncture Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix was 
 announced. She had just come from Tours, prompted by her
 
 200 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 wish to be of service to Birotteau, and the news she brought 
 completely changed the aspect of affairs. At the moment 
 when she came in, every one but the landowner was advising 
 Birotteau to hold his own against Troubert and Gamard, 
 under the auspices of the aristocratic party, who would sup- 
 port him. 
 
 "The vicar-general," said Mademoiselle Salomon, "who 
 has all the promotions in his hands, has just been taken ill, 
 and the archbishop has commissioned Canon Troubert to act 
 in his place. The nomination to the canonry now depends en- 
 tirely on him. Now yesterday, at Mademoiselle delaBlottiere's, 
 the Abbe Poirel was speaking of the annoyances Monsieur 
 Birotteau occasioned to Mademoiselle Gamard, in such a 
 way as to seem to justify the neglect which will certainly fall 
 on our good abbe. ' The Abbe Birotteau is a man who badly 
 needed the Abbe Chapeloud,' said he, 'and since that vir- 
 tuous canon's death it has been proved that ' Then came 
 
 a series of suppositions and calumnies. You understand?" 
 
 "Troubert will be made vicar-general," said Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne solemnly. 
 
 "Come now," cried Madame de Listomere, looking at 
 Birotteau, "which would you prefer to be made canon or to 
 remain with Mademoiselle Gamard?" 
 
 "To be made canon," was the general outcry. 
 
 "Well, then," Madame de Listomere went on, " the Abb6 
 Troubert and Mademoiselle Gamard must be allowed to have 
 their way. Have they not conveyed to you indirectly by 
 Caron's visit that, provided you consented to leave your 
 rooms, you shall be made canon. One good turn for an- 
 other." 
 
 Every one exclaimed at Madame de Listomere's acumen 
 and sagacity ; but her nephew, the Baron de Listomere, said 
 in a comical tone to Monsieur de Bourbonne 
 
 " I should have liked to see the battle between the Gamard 
 and the Birottcau"
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 201 
 
 But, for the abbe's worse luck, the forces were not equal, 
 with the worldly-wise on one side, and the old maid upheld 
 by the Abbe Troubert on the other. The time was at hand 
 when the struggle would become more decisive and assume a 
 greater scope and immense proportions. 
 
 By the advice of Madame de Listomere and most of her 
 adherents, who were beginning to take a passionate interest 
 in this intrigue flung into the vacuity of their country life, a 
 footman was despatched for Monsieur Caron. The lawyer 
 returned with amazing promptitude, a fact that alarmed no 
 one but Monsieur de Bourbonne. 
 
 " Let us adjourn any decision till we have fuller informa- 
 tion," was the advice of this Fabius in a dressing-gown, whose 
 deep reflections revealed to him some abstruse plan of battle 
 on the Tours chessboard. 
 
 He tried to enlighten Birotteau as to the perils of his 
 position. But the "old fox's" shrewdness did not subserve 
 the frenzy of the moment ; he was scarcely listened to. 
 
 The meeting between the lawyer and Birotteau was brief. 
 The abbe came in looking quite scared, and saying, " He re- 
 quires me to sign a paper declaring my decession." 
 
 "What barbarous word is that?" said the navy lieutenant. 
 
 "And what does it mean?" cried Madame de Listomere. 
 
 " It simply means that the abbe is to declare his readiness 
 to leave Mademoiselle Gamard's house," replied Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne, taking a pinch of snuff. 
 
 "Is that all? Sign it!" said Madame de Listomere to 
 Birotteau. "If you have really made up your mind to quit 
 her house, there can be no harm done by declaring your 
 will. The will of Birotteau ! " 
 
 "That is true," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, shutting his 
 snuff-box with a dry snap, of which it is impossible to render 
 the full meaning, for it was a language by itself. "But 
 writing is always dangerous," he added, placing the snuff-box 
 on the chimney-shelf with a look that terrified the abb.
 
 202 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Birotteau was so bewildered by the upheaval of all his ideas, 
 by the swiftness of events which had come on him and found 
 him defenseless, and by the lightness with which his friends 
 treated the most cherished circumstances of his lonely life, 
 that he remained motionless, as if lost in the moon, not think- 
 ing of anything, but listening and trying to catch the sense of 
 the hasty words everybody else was so ready with. He took 
 up Monsieur Caron's document, and read it as though the 
 lawyer's deed was in fact the object of his attention ; but it 
 was merely mechanical, and he signed the paper by which he 
 declared himself ready and willing to give up his residence 
 with Mademoiselle Gamard as well as his board, as provided 
 by the agreement between them. When Birotteau had signed 
 the deed Caron took it, and asked him where his client was 
 to bestow the goods and chattels belonging to him. Birotteau 
 mentioned Madame de Listomere's house, and the lady by a 
 nod consented to receive the abbe for some days, never 
 doubting but that he would ere long be a canon. The old 
 landowner wished to see this sort of act of renunciation, and 
 Monsieur Caron handed it to him. 
 
 "Why," said he to the abbe, after having read it, "is 
 there any written agreement between you and Mademoiselle 
 Gamard? Where is it? What are the conditions ? " 
 
 "The paper is in my rooms," said Birotteau. 
 
 "Do you know its contents?" the old gentleman asked 
 the lawyer. 
 
 " No, monsieur," said Monsieur Caron, holding out his 
 hand for the ominous document. 
 
 "Ah, ha!" said Monsieur de Bourbonne to himself, 
 " you, master lawyer, are no doubt informed of what that 
 agreement contains, but you are not paid to tell us." And 
 he returned the deed of " decession " to the lawyer. 
 
 " Where am I to put all my furniture? " cried Birotteau, 
 " and my books, my beautiful library, my nice pictures, my 
 red drawing-room all my things, in short ! "
 
 THE ABBE B1ROTTEAU. 203 
 
 And the poor man's despair at finding himself thus uprooted 
 was so guileless, it so perfectly showed the purity of his life, 
 and his ignorance of the world, that Madame de Listomere 
 and Mademoiselle Salomon said, to comfort him, and in the 
 tone that mothers use when they promise a child a plaything : 
 
 " There, there, do not worry yourself about such silly 
 trifles. We shall easily find you a home less cold and gloomy 
 than Mademoiselle Gamard's house. If no lodging is to be 
 found to suit you well, one of us will take you as a boarder. 
 Come, play a hit at backgammon. You can call on the 
 Abbe Troubert to-morrow to ask his support, and you will see 
 how well he will receive you." 
 
 Weak-minded persons are reassured as easily as they are 
 frightened. So poor Birotteau, dazzled by the prospect of 
 living with Madame de Listomere, forgot the ruin, now irre- 
 mediably complete, of the happiness he had so long sighed for 
 and so thoroughly reveled in. Still, at night, before falling 
 asleep, with the anguish of a man to whom a removal and 
 the formation of new habits were as the end of the world, 
 he tortured his mind to imagine where he could find as con- 
 venient a home for his library as that corridor. As he 
 pictured his books astray, his furniture dispersed, and his 
 home broken up, he wondered a thousand times why his first 
 year at Mademoiselle Gamard's had been so delightful, and 
 the second so wretched. And again and again this disaster 
 was a bottomless pit in which his mind was lost. 
 
 The canonry no longer seemed to him a sufficient compen- 
 sation for so many misfortunes ; he compared his life to a 
 stocking in which one dropped stitch leads to a ladder all the 
 way down the web. Mademoiselle Salomon was left to him. 
 But, losing all his old illusions, the poor priest no longer 
 dared believe in a new friend. 
 
 In the doleful city of old maids there are several, especially 
 in France, whose life is a sacrifice nobly renewed day by day to
 
 204 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 noble feeling. Some remain proudly faithful to a heart which 
 death untimely snatched from them ; martyrs to love, they 
 learn the secret of womanliness of soul. Others succumb to 
 a family pride which, to our shame, is daily waxing less ; 
 they have devoted themselves to make the fortune of a 
 brother, or to the care of orphan nephews ; such women are 
 mothers though remaining maids. These old maids rise to 
 the highest heroism of their sex, by consecrating every 
 womanly feeling to the worship of misfortune. They idealize 
 the concept of woman by renouncing all the rewards of her 
 natural destiny and accepting only its penalties. They live 
 enshrined in the beauty of their self-sacrifice, and men rever- 
 ently bow their heads before their faded forms. Mademoiselle 
 de Sombreuil is neither wife nor maid ; she was, and always 
 will be, an embodied poem. 
 
 Mademoiselle Salomon was one of these heroic creatures. 
 Her sacrifice was religiously sublime, inasmuch as it would 
 remain inglorious after having been a daily anguish. Young 
 and handsome, she was loved ; her lover lost his reason. 
 For five years she had devoted herself with the courage of 
 love to the mechanical joys of the unhappy man ; she was 
 so fully wedded to his madness that she did not think 
 him mad. 
 
 She was a woman of simple manners, frank in speech, with 
 a pale face not devoid of character, though the features were 
 regular. She never spoke of the experiences of her life. 
 Only, now and then, the sudden shudder with which she 
 heard the narrative of some dreadful or melancholy incident 
 betrayed in her the fine qualities evolved by great sorrows. 
 She had come to live at Tours after the death of her com- 
 panion in life. There she could not be appreciated at her 
 true value; she was regarded as a "good creature." She 
 was very charitable, and attached herself by preference to the 
 weak and helpless. For this reason she had, of course, the 
 deepest interest in the unhappy priest.
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 205 
 
 Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix, driving into town 
 early next morning, took Birotteau with her, set him down 
 on the cathedral quay, and left him making his way towards 
 the Close, where he was in great haste to arrive, to save the 
 canonry, at any rate, from the shipwreck, and to superintend 
 the removal of his furniture. He rang, not without violent 
 palpitations, at the door of the house, whither for fourteen 
 years he had been in the habit of coming, in which he had 
 dwelt, and whence he was now to be forever exiled after 
 dreaming that he might die there in peace like his friend 
 Chapeloud. 
 
 Marianne was surprised to see him. He told her he had 
 come to speak to Monsieur Troubert, and turned towards the 
 ground-floor rooms in which the canon lodged ; but Marianne 
 called out to him 
 
 " The Abbe Troubert is not there, Monsieur le Vicaire ; he 
 is in your old rooms." 
 
 These words were a fearful shock to Birotteau, who at last 
 understood Troubert's character, and the unfathomable depth 
 of revenge so slowly worked out, when he saw him quite at 
 home in Chapeloud's library, seated in Chapeloud's fine 
 Gothic chair sleeping, no doubt, in Chapeloud's bed, using 
 Chapeloud's furniture, contravening Chapeloud's will, in 
 short, disinheriting Chapeloud's friend ; that very Chape- 
 loud who had for so long penned him in at Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's, hindered his advancement, and kept him out of 
 the drawing-rooms at Tours. By what magic wand had this 
 transformation been effected ? Were these things no longer 
 Birotteau's? 
 
 Indeed, as he noted the sardonic expression with which 
 Troubert looked round on this library, Birotteau inferred 
 that the future vicar-general was secure of possessing for ever 
 the plunder of the two men he had so bitterly hated Chape- 
 loud as an enemy, and Birotteau because in him he still saw 
 Chapeloud. At the sight a thousand ideas surged up in the
 
 206 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 worthy man's heart and wrapped him in a sort of trance. He 
 stood motionless, and, as it were, fascinated by Troubert's 
 eye, which was fixed on him. 
 
 " I cannot suppose, monsieur," said Birotteau at last, 
 " that you would wish to deprive me of the things that are 
 mine. Though Mademoiselle Gamard may have been impa- 
 tient to move you, she must surely be just enough to allow me 
 time to identify my books and remove my furniture." 
 
 " Monsieur," said the canon coldly, and betraying no sort 
 of feeling in his face, " Mademoiselle Gamard told me yester- 
 day that you were leaving ; of the cause of it I know nothing. 
 If she moved me up here, it was because she was obliged to do 
 so. Monsieur 1'Abbe Poirel has taken my rooms. Whether 
 the furniture in these rooms belongs to mademoiselle, I know 
 not. If it is yours, you know her perfect honesty ; the saint- 
 liness of her life is a guarantee for it. 
 
 " As to myself, you know how plainly I live. For fifteen 
 years I slept in a bare room, never heeding the damp, which 
 is killing me by inches. At the same time, if you wish to 
 return to these rooms, I am ready to give them up to you." 
 
 As he listened to this terrible speech, Birotteau forgot the 
 matter of the canonry ; he went downstairs as briskly as a 
 young man to find Mademoiselle Gamard, and met her at the 
 bottom of the stairs in the large paved passage which joined 
 the two parts of the house. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said he, bowing, and not heeding the 
 sour, sardonic smile that curled her lips, or the extraordinary 
 fire that gave her eyes a glare like a tiger's, " I cannot under- 
 stand why you did not wait till I had removed my furniture 
 before " 
 
 "What !" she exclaimed, interrupting him, "have not all 
 your things been taken to Madame de Listomdre's?" 
 
 "But my furniture?" 
 
 " Did you never read your agreement ?" cried she, in tones 
 which ought to be expressed in musical notation to show how
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 207 
 
 many shades hatred could infuse into the accentuation of every 
 word. 
 
 And Mademoiselle Gamard seemed to swell, her eyes flashed 
 once more, and her face beamed ; her whole person thrilled 
 with satisfaction. 
 
 The Abbe Troubert opened a window to see better to read 
 a folio volume. 
 
 Birotteau stood as if thunder-stricken. 
 
 Mademoiselle Gamard trumpeted at him, in a voice as shrill 
 as a clarion, the following words : 
 
 "Was it not agreed that, in the event of your leaving my 
 house, your furniture was to become mine to indemnify me 
 for the difference between what you paid me for your board 
 and what I received from the late respectable Abbe Chape- 
 loud? Now, as Monsieur 1'Abbe Poirel has been made 
 canon " 
 
 At these last words Birotteau bowed slightly as if to take 
 leave ; then he rushed out of the house. He was afraid lest, 
 if he stayed any longer, he should faint, and so give his 
 relentless foes too great a triumph. Walking like a drunken 
 man, he got back to Madame de Listomere's town house, 
 where, in a lower room, he found his linen, clothes, and 
 papers all packed into a trunk. At the sight of those relics 
 of his property, the unhappy priest sat down and hid his face 
 in his hands to hide his tears from the sight of men. The 
 Abbe Poirel was canon ! He, Birotteau, found himself home- 
 less, bereft of fortune and furniture. 
 
 Happily, Mademoiselle Salomon happened to drive past. 
 The doorkeeper, understanding the poor man's despair, 
 signaled to the coachman. After a few words of explanation 
 between the lady and the porter, the abbe allowed himself to 
 be led to his faithful friend, though he could only answer her 
 in incoherent words. Mademoiselle Salomon, alarmed by the 
 temporary derangement of a brain already so feeble, carried 
 him at once to " L'Alouette," ascribing these symptoms of
 
 208 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 mental disturbance to the effect naturally produced on him 
 by the Abbe Poirel's promotion. She knew nothing of the 
 hapless priest's agreement with Mademoiselle Gamard, for 
 the excellent reason that he himself did not know its full 
 bearing. And as it is in the nature of things that comedy 
 is often mixed up with the most pathetic incidents, Birot- 
 teau's bewildered answers almost made Mademoiselle Salomon 
 laugh. 
 
 " Chapeloud was right," said he ; " he is a monster." 
 
 "Who?" said she. 
 
 " Chapeloud. He has robbed me of everything." 
 
 "Then you mean Poirel?" 
 
 "No, Troubert." 
 
 At length they reached "L'Alouette," where the priest's 
 friends lavished on him such effusive kindness, that by the 
 evening he grew calmer, and they could extract from him 
 an account of all that had occurred that morning. 
 
 Monsieur de Bourbonne, always phlegmatic, naturally asked 
 to see the agreement which ever since the day before had 
 seemed to him to contain the key to the riddle. Birotteau 
 brought the fatal document out of his pocket, and held it out 
 to the landowner, who read it hastily, presently coming to a 
 sentence in these terms : 
 
 " Whereas there is a difference of eight hundred francs a 
 year between the price paid by the late Monsieur Chapeloud 
 and the sum for which the aforenamed Sophie Gamard agrees 
 to lodge and board, on the terms hereinbefore stated, the said 
 Francois Birotteau ; whereas the said Francois Birotteau fully 
 acknowledges that it is out of his power for some years to 
 come to pay the full price paid by Mademoiselle Gamard's 
 boarders, and more especially by the Abbe Troubert ; and, 
 finally, whereas the said Sophie Gamard has advanced certain 
 sums of money, the said Birotteau hereby pledges himself to 
 bequeath to her, as an indemnity, the furniture of which he 
 may be possessed at the time of his decease ; or in the event
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 209 
 
 of his voluntarily departing, for whatever cause or reason, 
 and quitting the premises at present let to him, and no longer 
 availing himself of the benefits contracted for in the agree- 
 ment made by Mademoiselle Gamard hereinbefore " 
 
 " Heaven above us ! What impudence ! " exclaimed Mon- 
 sieur de Bourbonne. "And what claws the said Sophie 
 Gamard has ! " 
 
 Poor Birotteau, never conceiving in his childish brain of 
 any cause which could ever separate him from Mademoiselle 
 Gamard, had counted on dying under her roof. He had not 
 the least recollection of this clause, of which the terms had 
 not even been discussed at the time when, in his eagerness to 
 lodge with the old maid, he would have signed all the docu- 
 ments she might have chosen to lay before him. His inno- 
 cence was so creditable, and Mademoiselle Gamard's conduct 
 so atrocious ; there was something so deplorable in the fate 
 of this hapless sexagenarian, and his weakness made him so 
 pitiable, that in a first impulse of indignation Madame de 
 Listomere exclaimed, " I am the cause of your having signed 
 the act that has ruined you ; I ought to make up to you for 
 the comfort you have lost." 
 
 "But," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, "such proceedings 
 constitute a fraud ; there are grounds for an action " 
 
 " Good, Birotteau shall bring an action. If he loses it 
 at Tours, he will win it at Orleans ; if he loses it at Orleans, 
 he will win it at Paris ! " cried the Baron de Listomere. 
 
 "If he means to bring an action, I should advise him first 
 to resign his benefice in the cathedral," said Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne calmly. 
 
 "We will take legal advice," replied Madame de Listo- 
 mere; "and we will bring an action if we ought. But this 
 business is so disgraceful for Mademoiselle Gamard, and may 
 prove so damaging to the Abbe Troubert, that we can surely 
 effect a compromise." 
 
 After mature deliberation, everybody promised to assist the 
 14
 
 210 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Abbe Birotteau in the struggle that must ensue between him, 
 his enemies, and their allies. A confident presentiment, an 
 indescribable provincial instinct prompted every one to com- 
 bine the names of Troubert and Gamard. But not a soul of 
 those then assembled at Madame de Listomere's, excepting 
 the " old fox," had any accurate notion of the importance of 
 such a conflict. 
 
 Monsieur de Bourbonne took the poor priest into a corner. 
 
 "Of all the fourteen persons present," said he in a low 
 voice, " not one will be still on your side within a fortnight. 
 If you then want to call in help, you will perhaps find no one 
 but myself bold enough to undertake your defense, because I 
 know the country, men, and things, and, better still, their 
 interests. All your friends here, though full of good inten- 
 tions, are starting on the wrong road, which you can never 
 get out of. Listen to my advice. If you want to live in 
 peace, give up your office in Saint-Gatien and leave Tours. 
 Tell no one where you go, but seek a cure of souls far from 
 here, where this man Troubert can never again come across 
 you." 
 
 " Leave Tours ! " cried the abbe, with unspeakable dismay. 
 
 It was to him a form of death. Was it not tearing up all 
 the roots by which he held to the world ? Celibates make 
 habits take the place of feelings. And when to this system 
 of ideas, by which they go through life rather than live, they 
 add a weak nature, external things have an astonishing do- 
 minion over them. Birotteau had really become a sort of 
 vegetable ; to transplant it was to endanger its guileless func- 
 tions. Just as a tree, in order to live, must always find the 
 same juices at hand, and always send its filaments into the 
 same soil, so Birotteau must always patter round Saint-Gatien, 
 always trot up and down the spot on the mall where he was 
 wont to walk, always go through the same familiar streets, 
 and constantly frequent the three drawing-rooms where even- 
 ing after evening he played whist or backgammon.
 
 THE ABB& BIROTTEAU. 211 
 
 "To be sure I was not thinking," replied Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne, looking compassionately at the priest. 
 
 Before long all Tours knew that Madame la Baronne de 
 Listomere, widow of a lieutenant-general, had given a home 
 to the Abbe Birotteau, vicar of Saint-Gatien. This fact, on 
 which several persons threw doubts, cut short all questions 
 and gave definiteness to party divisions, especially when 
 Mademoiselle Salomon was the first to dare speak of fraud 
 and an action at law. 
 
 Mademoiselle Gamard, with the subtle vanity and the 
 fanatical sense of personal importance that are characteristic 
 of old maids, considered herself greatly aggrieved by the line 
 of conduct taken by Madame de Listomere. The Baroness 
 was a woman of high rank, elegant in her habits, whose good 
 taste, polished manners, and genuine piety were beyond 
 dispute. By sheltering Birotteau she formally gave the lie to 
 all Mademoiselle Gamard's asseverations, indirectly censured 
 her conduct, and seemed to sanction the abbe's complaints of 
 his former landlady. 
 
 For the better comprehension of this story, it is necessary 
 here to explain how much power Mademoiselle Gamard de- 
 rived from the discernment and analytical spirit with which 
 old women can account to themselves for the actions of 
 others, and to set forth the resources of her faction. Escorted 
 by the always taciturn Abbe Troubert, she spent her evenings 
 in four or five houses where a dozen persons were wont to 
 meet, allied by common tastes and analogous circumstances. 
 There were two or three old men, wedded to the whims and 
 tittle-tattle of their cooks ; five or six old maids, who spent 
 their days in sifting the words and scrutinizing the proceed- 
 ings of their neighbors and those a little below them in the 
 social scale ; and, finally, several old women wholly occupied 
 in distilling scandal, in keeping an exact register of every- 
 body's fortune, and a check on everybody's actions. They
 
 212 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 foretold marriages, and blamed their friends' conduct quite as 
 harshly as their enemies'. These persons, filling in the town 
 a position analogous to the capillary vessels of a plant, imbibed 
 news with the thirst of a leaf for the dew, picked up the secrets 
 of every household, discharged them and transmitted them 
 mechanically to Monsieur Troubert, as leaves communicate 
 to the plant the moisture they have absorbed. Thus, every 
 evening of the week, these worthy bigots, prompted by the 
 craving for excitement which exists in every one, struck an 
 accurate balance of the position of the town with a sagacity 
 worthy of the council of ten, and made an armed police out 
 of the unerring espionage to which our passions give rise. 
 Then, as soon as they had found the secret motive of any 
 event, their conceit led them to appropriate, severally, the 
 wisdom of their Sanhedrim, and to give importance to their 
 gossip in their respective circles. 
 
 This idle and busybody assembly, invisible though omnis- 
 cient, speechless but for ever talking, had at that time an 
 influence which was apparently harmless in view of its con- 
 temptibility, but which nevertheless could be terrible when it 
 was animated by a strong motive. Now it was a very long 
 time since any event had occurred within range of their lives 
 to compare in general importance to each and all with the 
 contest between Birotteau, supported by Madame de Listo- 
 mere, and the Abbe Troubert with Mademoiselle Gamard. 
 In fact, the three drawing-rooms of Madame de Listomere, 
 Mademoiselle Merlin de la Blottiere, and Mademoiselle de 
 Villenoix, being regarded as a hostile camp by those where 
 Mademoiselle Gamard visited, there lay behind this quarrel a 
 strong party spirit with all its vanities. It was the struggle 
 of the Roman senate and people in a molehill, or a tempest 
 in a glass of water, as Montesquieu said in speaking of the 
 republic of San Marino, where public officials held their 
 places but a day, so easy was it to seize despotic power. 
 
 But this storm in a teacup evolved as many passions in the
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 213 
 
 actors as would have sufficed to direct the largest social inter- 
 ests. Is it not a mistake to suppose that time flies swiftly 
 only to those whose hearts are a prey to such vast projects as 
 trouble life and make it boil ? The Abbe Troubert's hours 
 were spent as busily, flew loaded with thoughts as anxious, 
 and marked by despair and hopes as deep as could the rack- 
 ing hours of the man of ambition, the gamester, or the lover. 
 God alone knows the secret of the energy we put forth to 
 win the occult triumphs we achieve over men, or things, or 
 ourselves. Though we do not always know whither we are 
 going, we know full well the fatigues of the voyage. Still, if 
 the historian may be allowed to digress from the drama he is 
 narrating, to assume for a moment the functions of the critic 
 if he may invite you to glance at the lives of these old 
 maids and of these two priests, to investigate the causes of the 
 misfortune which vitiated their inmost core you will perhaps 
 find it proved to a demonstration that man must necessarily 
 experience certain passions if he is to evolve those qualities 
 which give nobleness to life, which expand its limits and 
 silence the selfishness natural to all beings. 
 
 Madame de Listomere returned to town, not knowing that 
 for five or six days past several of her friends had been obliged 
 to dispute a rumor concerning herself, and accepted by some, 
 though she would have laughed at it had she heard of it, 
 which attributed her affection for her nephew to almost crim- 
 inal causes. 
 
 She took the abbe to see her lawyer, who did not think 
 an action an easy matter. The abbe's friends, confident in 
 the feeling that comes of the justice of a good case, or else 
 dilatory about proceedings which did not concern them 
 personally, had postponed the preliminary inquiry till the 
 day when they should return to Tours. Thus Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's allies had been able to make the first move, and 
 had told the story in a way unfavorable to the Abbe Birotteau. 
 Hence the man of law, whose clients consisted exclusively of
 
 214 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 the pious folks of the town, very much astonished Madame 
 de Listomere by urging her on no account to be mixed up in 
 such proceedings ; and he closed the interview by saying that 
 " he, at any rate, would not undertake the case, because, by 
 the terms of the agreement, Mademoiselle Gamard was right 
 in the eye of the law ; that in equity, that is to say, out of 
 the jurisdiction of the court, Monsieur Birotteau would appear 
 in the eyes of the bench and of all honest folks to have fallen 
 away from the meek, peace-loving, and conciliatory character 
 he had hitherto enjoyed ; that Mademoiselle Gamard, regarded 
 as a gentle person and easy to live with, had accommodated 
 Birotteau by lending the money needed to pay the succession 
 duties arising from Chapeloud's bequest, without demanding 
 any receipt ; that Birotteau was not of an age, nor of a na- 
 ture, to sign a document without knowing what it contained 
 and recognizing its importance; and that as he had ceased to 
 live at Mademoiselle Gamard's after only two years' residence, 
 whereas his friend Chapeloud had been with her for twelve 
 years and Troubert for fifteen, it would only be in accordance 
 with some plan best known to himself. That, consequently, 
 the action would be generally considered as an act of ingrati- 
 tude," etc. 
 
 After seeing Birotteau to the head of the stairs, the lawyer 
 detained Madame de Listomere a moment as he showed her 
 out, and besought her, as she loved her peace of mind, to 
 have nothing to do with the affair. 
 
 In the evening, however, the hapless abbe, as miserable as 
 a criminal in the condemned cell at Bicetre while awaiting 
 the result of his petition to the court of appeal, could not 
 keep himself from telling his friends of the result of his visit 
 to the lawyer, at the hour before the card-parties were made 
 up, when the little circle was assembling round Madame de 
 Listomere's fire. 
 
 " I know no lawyer in Tours, excepting the solicitor for 
 the Liberal party, who would undertake the case, unless he
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEACT. 215 
 
 meant to lose it," exclaimed Monsieur de Bourbonne, "and 
 I do not advise you to embark on it." 
 
 " Well, it is a rascally shame ! " said the navy lieutenant. 
 " I myself will take the abbe to see that lawyer ! " 
 
 "Then go after dark," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, inter- 
 rupting him. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I have just heard that the Abbe Troubert is appointed 
 vicar-general in the place of him who died the day before 
 yesterday." 
 
 "Much I care for the Abbe Troubert ! " 
 
 Unluckily, the Baron de Listomere, a man of six-and- 
 thirty, did not see the sign made to him by Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne warning him to weigh his words, and pointing 
 significantly at a town councilor who was known to be a 
 friend of Troubert's. So the officer went on with his denun- 
 ciations of the abbe's treatment : 
 
 " If Monsieur Troubert is a rogue " 
 
 "Dear me," said Monsieur de Bourbonne, "why bring 
 the Abbe Troubert's name into a matter with which he has 
 no concern whatever?" 
 
 "Nay," said the lieutenant, "is he not in the enjoyment 
 of the Abbe Birotteau's furniture? I remember having 
 called on Monsieur Chapeloud and seeing two valuable pic- 
 tures. Suppose they are worth ten thousand francs ? Can 
 you believe that Monsieur Birotteau ever intended to give, in 
 return for two years' board with this Gamard woman, ten 
 thousand francs, when the library and furniture are worth 
 almost as much more ? " 
 
 The abbe opened his eyes very wide on hearing that he 
 had ever owned such an enormous fortune. And the Baron 
 went on vehemently to the end. 
 
 "By Jove! Monsieur Salmon, an expert from the Paris 
 gallery, happens to be here on a visit to his mother-in-law. 
 I will go to him this very evening with Monsieur l'Abb, and
 
 216 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 beg him to value the pictures. From there I will take him to 
 that lawyer." 
 
 Two days after this conversation the action had taken 
 shape. The solicitor to the Liberal party, now Birotteau's 
 attorney, cast some obloquy on the abbe's case. The opposi- 
 tion to the government, and some persons known to love 
 neither priests nor religion two things which many people 
 fail to distinguish took up the matter, and the whole town 
 was talking of it. The expert from Paris had valued "The 
 Virgin," by Le Valentin, and "The Christ," by Lebrun, at 
 eleven thousand francs ; they were both choice examples. As 
 to the bookcase and the Gothic furniture, the fashionable 
 taste, daily growing in Paris, for that style of work gave them 
 an immediate value of twelve thousand francs. In short, 
 the expert, on examination, estimated the contents of the 
 rooms at ten thousand crowns. 
 
 Now, it was obvious that as Birotteau had never intended 
 to give Mademoiselle Gamard this immense sum in payment 
 of the little money he might owe her in virtue of the stipu- 
 lated indemnity, there were grounds, legally speaking, for a 
 new contract, otherwise the old maid would be guilty of un- 
 intentional fraud. So the lawyer on Birotteau's behalf began 
 by serving a writ on Mademoiselle Gamard, formulating the 
 abbe's case. This statement, though exceedingly severe, and 
 supported by quotations from leading judgments, and con- 
 firmed by certain articles of the code, was at the same time a 
 masterpiece of legal logic, and so evidently condemned the 
 old maid, that thirty or forty copies were maliciously circu- 
 lated in the town by the opposite party. 
 
 A few days after this commencement of hostilities between 
 the old maid and Birotteau, the Baron de Listomere, who, as 
 commander of a corvette, hoped to be included in the next 
 list of promotions, which had been expected for some time at 
 the navy board, received a letter, in which a friend informed
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 217 
 
 him that there was, on the contrary, some idea in the office 
 of placing him on the retired list. Greatly amazed by this 
 news, he at once set out for Paris, and appeared at the minis- 
 ter's next reception. This official himself seemed no less sur- 
 prised, and even laughed at the fears expressed by the Baron 
 de Listomere. 
 
 Next day, in spite of the minister's words, the Baron in- 
 quired at the office. With an indiscretion, such as is not 
 unfrequently committed by heads of departments for their 
 friends, a secretary showed him a minute confirming the fatal 
 news, ready drawn up, but which had not yet been submitted 
 to the minister, in consequence of the illness of a head clerk. 
 The Baron at once went to call on an uncle, who, being a 
 deputy, could without delay meet the minister at the chamber, 
 and begged him to sound his excellency as to his views, since 
 to him this meant the sacrifice of his whole career. He 
 awaited the closing of the sitting in his uncle's carriage in the 
 greatest anxiety. 
 
 Long before the end his uncle came out, and as they drove 
 home to his house he asked the Baron 
 
 "What the devil led you to make war against the priest- 
 hood ? The minister told me at once that you had put your- 
 self at the head of the Liberal party at Tours. Your opinions 
 are detestable, you do not follow the line laid down by the 
 government, and what not ! His phrases were as confused as 
 if he were still addressing the chamber. So then I said to 
 him, * Come, let us understand each other.' And his excel- 
 lency ended by confessing that you were in a scrape with the 
 lord high almoner. In short, by making some inquiries 
 among my colleagues, I learned that you had spoken with 
 much levity of a certain Abbe Troubert, who, though but a 
 vicar-general, is the most important personage of the province, 
 where he represents the ecclesiastical power. I answered for 
 you to the minister in person. My noble nephew, if you want 
 to get on in the world, maUe no enemies in the church.
 
 218 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Now, go back to Tours, and make your peace with this 
 devil of a vicar-general. Remember that vicars-general are 
 men with whom you must always live in peace. Deuce take 
 it ! When we are all trying to re-establish the church, to 
 cast discredit on the priests is a blunder in a ship's lieuten- 
 ant who wants his promotion. If you do not make it up with 
 this Abbe Troubert, you need not look to me ; I shall cast 
 you off. The minister for church affairs spoke to me of the 
 man just now as certain to be a bishop. If Troubert took an 
 aversion for our family, he might hinder my name from appear- 
 ing in the next batch of peers. Do you understand ? " 
 
 This speech explained to the navy lieutenant what Trou- 
 bert's secret occupations were, when Birotteau so stupidly 
 remarked, " I cannot think what good he gains by sitting up 
 all night!" 
 
 The canon's position, in the midst of the feminine senate 
 which so craftily kept a surveillance over the province, as 
 well as his personal capabilities, had led to his being chosen 
 by the church authorities from among all the priests in the 
 town to be the unacknowledged proconsul of Touraine. Arch- 
 bishop, general, prefet high and low were under his occult 
 domain. 
 
 The Baron de Listomere had soon made up his mind. 
 
 "I have no notion," said he to his uncle, "of receiving 
 another ecclesiastical broadside below the water-line." 
 
 Three days after this diplomatic interview between the 
 uncle and nephew, the sailor, who had suddenly returned to 
 Tours by the mail-coach, explained to his aunt, the very 
 evening of his arrival, all the danger that would be incurred 
 by the Listomere family if they persisted in defending that 
 idiot Birotteau. The Baron had caught Monsieur de Bour- 
 bonne at the moment when the old gentleman was taking up 
 his stick and hat to leave after his rubber. The " old fox's " 
 intelligence was indispensable to throw a light on the reefs 
 among which the Listomeres had been entangled ; he rose so
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 219 
 
 early to seek his hat and stick, only to be stopped by a word 
 in his ear 
 
 " Wait ; we want to talk." 
 
 The young Baron's prompt return, and his air of satisfac- 
 tion, though contrasting with the gravity his face assumed 
 now and then, had vaguely hinted to Monsieur de Bourbonne 
 of some checks the lieutenant might have received in his cruise 
 against Gamard and Troubert. He manifested no surprise on 
 hearing the Baron proclaim the secret power possessed by the 
 vicar-general. 
 
 "I knew that," said he. 
 
 "Well, then," exclaimed the Baroness, "why did you not 
 warn us?" 
 
 "Madame," he hastily replied, "if you will forget that I 
 guessed this priest's occult influence, I will forget that you 
 know it as well as I. If we should fail to keep the secret, we 
 might be taken for his accomplices ; we should be feared and 
 hated. Do as I do. Pretend to be a dupe ; but look carefully 
 where you set your feet. I said quite enough ; you did not 
 understand me. I coulS not compromise myself." 
 
 "What must we do now?" said the Baron. 
 
 The desertion of Birotteau was not a matter of question ; it 
 was the primary condition, and so understood by this council 
 of three. 
 
 "To effect a retreat with all the honors of war has always 
 been the greatest achievement of the most skillful generals," 
 said Monsieur de Bourbonne. "Yield to Troubert; if his 
 hatred is less than his vanity, you will gain an ally ; but if 
 you yield too much, he will trample on your body, for, as 
 Boileau says, ' Destruction is by choice the spirit of the 
 church.' Make as though you were quitting the service, and 
 you will escape him, Monsieur le Baron. Dismiss Birotteau, 
 madame, and you will gain Gamard her lawsuit. When you 
 meet the Abbe Troubert at the archbishop's, ask him if he 
 plays whist ; he will answer ' Yes. ' Invite him to play a rubber
 
 220 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 in this drawing-room, where he longs to be admitted ; he will 
 certainly come. You are a woman ; try to enlist this priest in 
 your interest. When the Baron is a ship's captain, his uncle 
 a peer of France, and Troubert a bishop, you can make Birot- 
 teau a canon at your leisure. Till then yield ; but yield grace- 
 fully, and with a threat. Your family can give Troubert quite 
 as much assistance as he can give you; you will meet half-way 
 to admiration. And take soundings constantly as you go, 
 sailor ! " 
 
 " Poor Birotteau ! " said the Baroness. 
 
 " Oh ! begin at once," said the old man as he took leave. 
 " If some clever Liberal should get hold of that vacuous 
 brain, he would get you into trouble. After all, the law 
 would pronounce in his favor, and Troubert must be afraid 
 of the verdict. As yet he may forgive you for having begun 
 the action, but after a defeat he would be implacable. I have 
 spoken." 
 
 He snapped his snuff-box lid, went to put on his thick 
 shoes, and departed. 
 
 The next morning, after breakfast, the Baroness remained 
 alone with Birotteau, and said to him, not without visible em- 
 barrassment 
 
 " My dear Monsieur Birotteau, I am going to make a re- 
 quest that you will think very unjust and inconsistent ; but 
 both for your sake and for ours you must, in the first place, 
 put an end to your action against Mademoiselle Gamard by 
 renouncing your claims, and also quit my house." 
 
 As he heard these words the poor priest turned pale. 
 
 "I am the innocent cause of your misfortunes," she went 
 on ; " and I know that but for my nephew you would never 
 have begun the proceedings which now are working woe for 
 you and for us. Listen to me." 
 
 And she briefly set forth the immense scope of this affair, 
 explaining the seriousness of its consequences. Her medita- 
 tions during the night had enabled her to form an idea of
 
 THE ABB& BIROTTEAU. 221 
 
 what the Abbe Troubert's former life had been. Thus she 
 could unerringly point out to Birotteau the web in which he 
 had been involved by this skillfully-plotted vengeance, could 
 show him the superior cleverness and power of the enemy, 
 revealing his hatred and explaining its causes ; she pictured 
 him as crouching for twelve years to Chapeloud, and now 
 devouring and persecuting Chapeloud in the person of his 
 friend. 
 
 The guileless Birotteau clasped his hands as if to pray, and 
 wept with grief at this vision of human wickedness which his 
 innocent soul had never conceived of. Terrified, as though 
 he was standing on the verge of an abyss, he listened to his 
 benefactress with moist and staring eyes, but without express- 
 ing a single idea. She said in conclusion 
 
 " I know how vile it is to desert you ; but, my dear abbe, 
 family duties must supersede those of friendship. Bend 
 before this storm, as I must, and I will prove my gratitude. 
 I say nothing of your personal concerns ; I undertake them ; 
 you shall be released from money difficulties for the rest of 
 your life. By the intervention of Monsieur de Bourbonne, 
 who will know how to save appearances, I will see that you 
 lack nothing. My friend, give me the right to throw you 
 over. I shall remain your friend while conforming to the re- 
 quirements of the world. Decide." 
 
 The hapless abbe, quite bewildered, exclaimed 
 
 " Ah ! then Chapeloud was right when he said that if Trou- 
 bert could drag him out of his grave by the heels, he would 
 do it ! He sleeps in Chapeloud's bed ! " 
 
 "It is no time for lamentations," said Madame de Listo- 
 mere. "We have no time to spare. Come " 
 
 Birotteau was too kind-hearted not to submit in any great 
 crisis to the impulsive self-sacrifice of the first moment. But, 
 in any case, his life already was but one long martyrdom. 
 
 He answered with a heart-broken look at his protectress, 
 which wrung her soul
 
 222 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 "I am in your hands. I am no more than a straw in the 
 street ! " 
 
 The local word he used, bourrier, is peculiar to Touraine, 
 and its only literal rendering is a straw. But there are pretty 
 little straws, yellow, shiny, and smart, the delight of chil- 
 dren ; while a bourrier is a dirty, colorless, miry straw, left in 
 the gutter, driven by the wind, crushed by the foot of every 
 passer-by. 
 
 " But, madame," he went on, " I should not wish to leave 
 the portrait of Chapeloud for the Abbe Troubert. It was 
 done for me, and belongs to me ; get that back for me, and 
 I will give up everything else." 
 
 "Well," said Madame de Listomere, " I will go to Made- 
 moiselle Gamard." She spoke in a tone which showed what 
 extraordinary effort the Baroness de Listomere was making in 
 stooping to flatter the old maid's conceit. "And I will try 
 to settle everything," she went on. " I hardly dare hope it. 
 Go and see Monsieur de Bourbonne. Get him to draw up 
 your act of renunciation in due form, and bring it to me 
 signed and witnessed. With the help of the archbishop, I 
 may perhaps get the thing settled." 
 
 Birotteau went away overpowered. Troubert had assumed 
 in his eyes the proportions of an Egyptian pyramid. The 
 man's hands were in Paris, and his elbows in the Close of 
 Saint-Gatien. 
 
 " He," said he to himself, " to hinder Monsieur le Marquis 
 de Listomere being made a peer of France ! And then, 
 ' With the help of the archbishop, perhaps get the thing 
 settled ! ' " 
 
 In comparison with such high interests, Birotteau felt him- 
 self a grasshopper ; he was honest to himself. 
 
 The news of Birotteau's removal was all the more astound- 
 ing because the reason was undiscoverable. Madame de 
 Listomere gave out that as her nephew wished to marry and 
 retire from the service, she needed the abbe's room to add to
 
 THE A3 BE BIROTTEAU. 223 
 
 her own. No one as yet had heard that Birotteau had with- 
 drawn the action. Monsieur de Bourbonne's instructions 
 were thus judiciously carried out. 
 
 These two pieces of news, when they should reach the ears 
 of the vicar-general, must certainly flatter his vanity, by 
 showing him that, though the Listomere family would not 
 capitulate, it would at least remain neutral, tacitly recognizing 
 the secret power of the church council ; and was not recogni- 
 tion submission ? Still, the action remained sub judice. Was 
 not this to yield and to threaten ? 
 
 Thus the Listomeres had assumed an attitude precisely 
 similar to that of the Abbe Troubert in this contest ; they 
 stood aside and could direct their forces as circumstances 
 might dictate. 
 
 But a serious event now occurred, and added to their diffi- 
 culties, hindering the success of the means by which Monsieur 
 de Bourbonne and the Listomeres hoped to mollify the 
 Gamard and Troubert faction. On the previous day Made- 
 moiselle Gamard had taken a chill on coming out of the ca- 
 thedral, had gone to bed, and was reported to be seriously ill. 
 The whole town rang with lamentations, excited by spurious 
 commiseration. " Mademoiselle Gamard's highly strung sen- 
 sibilities had succumbed to the scandal of this lawsuit. 
 Though she was undoubtedly in the right, she was dying of 
 grief. Birotteau had killed his benefactress." This was the 
 sum and substance of the phrases fired off through the capil- 
 lary ducts of the great feminine synod, and readily repeated 
 by the town of Tours. 
 
 Madame de Listomere suffered the humiliation of calling 
 on the old woman without gaining anything by her visit. 
 She very politely requested to be allowed to speak to the 
 vicar-general. Flattered, perhaps, at receiving a woman who 
 had slighted him, in Chapeloud's library, by the fireplace 
 over which the two famous pictures in dispute were hanging,
 
 224 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 Troubert kept the Baroness waiting a minute, then he con- 
 sented to see her. 
 
 No courtier, no diplomat, ever threw into the discussion 
 of private interests or national negotiations greater skill, 
 dissimulation, and depth of purpose than the Baroness and 
 the abbe displayed when they found themselves face to face. 
 
 Old Bourbonne, like the sponsor, in the middle ages, who 
 armed the champion, and fortified his courage by good 
 counsel as he entered the lists, had instructed the Baroness 
 
 " Do not forget your part ; you are a peacemaker, and not 
 an interested party. Troubert likewise is a mediator. Weigh 
 your words. Study the tones of the vicar-general's voice. 
 If he strokes his chin, you have won him." 
 
 Some caricaturists have amused themselves by representing 
 the contrast that so frequently exists between what we say and 
 what we think. In this place, to represent fully the interesting 
 points of the duel of words that took place between the priest 
 and the fine lady, it is necessary to disclose the thoughts they 
 each kept concealed under apparently trivial speech. 
 
 Madame de Listomere began by expressing the regret she 
 felt about this lawsuit of Birotteau's, and she went on to speak 
 of her desire of seeing the affair settled to the satisfaction of 
 both parties. 
 
 " The mischief is done, madame," said the abbe. "The 
 admirable Mademoiselle Gamard is dying." (" / care no 
 more for that stupid creature than for Prester John" thought 
 he, " but I sJiould like to lay her death at your door, and bur- 
 then your conscience, if you are silly enough to care."} 
 
 " On hearing of her illness," said the Baroness, " I desired 
 the abb6 to sign a withdrawal, which I have brought to that 
 saintly person." ("I see through you" thought she, "you old 
 rascal; but we are no longer at the mercy of your vagaries. 
 As for you, if you accept the deed, you will have put your foot 
 in it ; it will be a confession of complicity"} 
 
 There was a brief silence.
 
 "THE MISCHIEF /s DONE, MADAME," SAID THE ABBE.
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 225 
 
 " Mademoiselle Gamard's temporal affairs are no concern 
 of mine," said the priest at length, closing the deep lids over 
 his eagle eyes to conceal his excitement. ("Ah, ha, you will 
 not catch me tripping ! But God be praised, those cursed 
 lawyers will not fight out a case that might bespatter me ! But 
 what on earth can the Listonieres want that they are so hum- 
 ble?"} 
 
 " Monsieur," replied the Baroness, " the concerns of Mon- 
 sieur 1'Abbe Birotteau interest me no more than those of 
 Mademoiselle Gamard do you. But, unluckily, religion 
 might suffer from their quarrels, and in you I see but a medi- 
 ator, while I myself come forward as a peacemaker " 
 
 (" We can neither of us throw dust in the other 1 s eyes, Mon- 
 sieur Troubert, 11 thought she. " Do you appreciate the epi- 
 gram in that reply ? ") 
 
 11 Religion! " said the vicar-general. " Madame, religion 
 stands too high for man to touch it." (^'Religion means 
 me, 1 ' thought he.) "God will judge us unerringly, mad- 
 ame," he coolly added, "and I can recognize no other 
 tribunal." 
 
 "Well, then, monsieur," replied she, "let us try to make 
 man's judgments agree with God's." ("Yes, religion means 
 you."} 
 
 The Abbe Troubert changed his tone. 
 
 "Has not monsieur your nephew just been to Paris?" 
 (" You heard of me there, I fancy," thought he; "/ can 
 crush you you who scorned me ! You have come to sur- 
 render: 1 } 
 
 "Yes, monsieur, thank you for taking so much interest in 
 him. He is returning to Paris to-night, ordered there by the 
 minister, who is kindness itself to us, and does not wish him 
 to retire from the service." {"No, Jesuit, you will not crush 
 us,' 1 thought she; ( 'we understand your little game. 11 } A 
 pause. " I have not approved of his conduct in this affair," 
 she went on, " but a sailor may be forgiven for not under- 
 15
 
 226 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 standing the law." ("Come, let us be allies,'" thought she; 
 " we shall gain nothing by squabbling."} 
 
 A faint smile dawned, and was lost, in the furrows of the 
 abbess face. 
 
 " He has done us some service by informing us of the 
 value of those two pictures," said he, looking at them; 
 "they will be a worthy ornament to the lady chapel." 
 (" You fired an epigram at me, madame," thought he ; " there 
 are two for you and we are quits. 11 ) 
 
 " If you present them to Saint-Gatien, I would beg you to 
 allow me to offer to the church two frames worthy of the place 
 and of the gift." (" I should like to make you confess that you 
 coveted Birotteau 1 s property" thought she.) 
 
 "They do not belong to me," said the priest, well on his 
 guard. 
 
 "Well, here is the deed that puts an end to all dispute," 
 said Madame de Listomere, " and restores them to Mademoi- 
 selle Gamard." She laid the document on the table. ("You 
 see, monsieur, how much I trust you 11 thought she.) "It is 
 worthy of you, monsieur, worthy of your fine character, to 
 reconcile two Christians, though I have ceased to take much 
 interest in Monsieur Birotteau." 
 
 " But he is your pensioner," said he, interrupting her. 
 
 "No, monsieur, he is no longer under my roof." ("My 
 brother-in-law 1 s peerage and my nephew* 's promotion are leading 
 me into very mean actions,' 1 thought she.) 
 
 The abb6 remained unmoved, but his calm aspect was a 
 symptom of violent agitation. Only Monsieur de Bourbonne 
 had divined the secret of that superficial calm. The priest 
 was triumphant. 
 
 "Why, then, did you take charge of his act of renuncia- 
 tion?" he asked, moved by a feeling similar to that which 
 makes a woman fish for compliments. 
 
 " I could not help feeling some pity for him. Birotteau, 
 whose feeble character must be well known to you, entreated
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 227 
 
 me to see Mademoiselle Gamard in order to obtain from her, 
 as the price of the surrender of" the abbe frowned "of 
 his rights, as recognized by many distinguished lawyers, the 
 portrait " the priest looked hard at Madame de Listomere 
 "of Chapeloud," she said. " I leave it to you to judge of 
 
 his claim to it ' ' (" You would lose if you fought the case, ' ' 
 
 thought she.) 
 
 The tone in which the Baroness uttered the words "dis- 
 tinguished lawyers ' ' showed the priest that she knew the 
 enemy's strength and weakness. Madame de Listomere dis- 
 played so much skill to this experienced connoisseur that at 
 the end of this conversation, which was carried on for some 
 time in the same key, he went down to see Mademoiselle 
 Gamard to bring her answer as to the proposed bargain. 
 
 Troubert soon returned. 
 
 "Madame," said he, "I can but repeat the poor dying 
 woman's words, ' Monsieur 1'Abbe Chapeloud showed me too 
 much kindness,' said she, 'for me to part from his portrait.' 
 As for myself, if it were mine, I would not give it up to any 
 one. I was too faithfully attached to my poor dead friend 
 not to feel that I have a right to claim his likeness against 
 anybody in the world." 
 
 "Well, monsieur, do not let us fall out over a bad picture." 
 (" 1 'care for it no more than you do," thought she.) "Keep 
 it ; we will have it copied. I am proud to have brought this 
 sad and deplorable lawsuit to an end, and I have personally 
 gained the pleasure of making your acquaintance. I have 
 heard that you are a fine whist player. You will forgive a 
 woman for being curious," she added with a smile. " If you 
 will come and play occasionally at my house, you cannot 
 doubt that you will be heartily welcomed." 
 
 The Abbe Troubert stroked his chin. ("He is caught ; 
 Bourbonne was right" thought she, "he has his share of 
 vanity"} 
 
 In fact, the vicar-general was at this moment enjoying the
 
 228 THE CELIBATES: 
 
 delicious sensation which Mirabeau found irresistible when, 
 in the day of his power, he saw the gates of some mansion 
 which formerly had been closed against him opened to admit 
 his carriage. 
 
 "Madame," replied he, "my occupations are too impor- 
 tant to allow of my going into society; but for you what 
 would not a man do?" ("// is all over with the old girl; 
 I will make up to the Listomeres, and do them a good turn if 
 they do me one," thought he. "// is better to have them for 
 friends than for enemies"} 
 
 Madame de Listomere went home, hoping that the arch- 
 bishop would complete a pacification so happily begun. But 
 Birotteau was to gain nothing even by his renunciation. 
 Madame de Listomere heard next day that Mademoiselle 
 Gamard was dead. The old maid's will being opened, no 
 one was surprised to learn that she had constituted the Abbe 
 Troubert her universal legatee. Her property was estimated 
 at a hundred thousand crowns. The vicar-general sent two 
 invitations to the service and burial to Madame de Listomere's 
 house one for herself and the other for her nephew. 
 
 "We must go," said she. 
 
 "That is just what it means!" exclaimed Monsieur de 
 Bourbonne. "It is a test by which Monseigneur Troubert 
 meant to try you. Baron, you must go all the way to the 
 grave," he added to the navy lieutenant, who, for his sins, 
 had not yet left Tours. 
 
 The service was held, and was marked by ecclesiastical 
 magnificence. One person only shed tears. That was Birot- 
 teau, who, alone in a side chapel where he was not seen, 
 believed himself guilty of this death, and prayed fervently for 
 the soul of the departed, bitterly bewailing himself because 
 he had not obtained her forgiveness for having wronged her. 
 
 The Abbe Troubert followed his friend's body to the grave 
 in which she was to be laid. Standing on its brink, he de- 
 livered an address, and, thanks to his eloquence, gave monu-
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. S29 
 
 mental dignity to his picture of the narrow life led by the 
 testatrix. The bystanders particularly noted these words in 
 the peroration : 
 
 " This life, full of days devoted to God and to religion 
 this life, adorned by so many beautiful actions performed in 
 silence, so many modest and unrecognized virtues, was 
 blighted by a sorrow which we would call unmerited if, here, 
 on the verge of eternity, we could forget that all our afflic- 
 tions are sent us by God. This holy woman's many friends, 
 knowing how noble was her guileless soul, foresaw that she 
 could endure anything excepting only such detraction as 
 would affect her whole existence. And so perhaps Providence 
 has taken her to rest in God only to rescue her from our petty 
 griefs. Happy are they who here on earth can live at peace 
 with themselves, as Sophie now reposes in the realms of the 
 blest, in her robe of innocence ! " 
 
 "And when he had ended this grandiloquent discourse," 
 said Monsieur de Bourbonne, who reported all the details of 
 the funeral to Madame de Listomere that evening when, the 
 rubbers ended and the doors closed, they were left alone with 
 the Baron, " imagine, if you can, that Louis XI. in a priest's 
 gown giving the holy-water sprinkler a final flourish in this 
 style" and Monsieur de Bourbonne took up the tongs and 
 imitated the Abbe Troubert's movement so exactly that the 
 Baron and his aunt could not help smiling. " In this alone," 
 added the old man, "did he betray himself. Till then his 
 reserve had been perfect ; but now, when he had packed away 
 for ever the old maid he so utterly despised and hated, almost 
 as much perhaps as he had detested Chapeloud, he, no doubt, 
 found it impossible to hinder his satisfaction from betraying 
 itself in a gesture." 
 
 Next morning Mademoiselle Salomon came to breakfast 
 with Madame de Listomere, and as soon as she came in she 
 said quite sadly ,
 
 230 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 " Our poor Abbe Birotteau has just been dealt a dreadful 
 blow which reveals the most elaborately studied hatred. He 
 is made cure of Saint-Symphorien." 
 
 Saint-Symphorien is a suburb of Tours lying beyond the 
 bridge. This bridge, one of the finest works of French 
 architecture, is nearly two thousand feet long, and the open 
 squares at each end are exactly alike. 
 
 "Do you understand?" she added, after a pause, amazed 
 at the coolness with which Madame de Listomere heard this 
 news. " The Abbe Birotteau will there be a hundred leagues 
 from Tours, from his friends, from everything. Is it not 
 exile, and all the more terrible because he will be torn from 
 the town that his eyes will behold every day, while he can 
 hardly ever come to it? He who, since his troubles, has 
 hardly been able to walk, will be obliged to come a league to 
 see us. At the present moment the poor man is in bed with 
 a feverish attack. The priest's residence at Saint-Symphorien 
 is cold and damp, and the parish is too poor to restore it. 
 The poor old man will be buried alive in a real tomb. What 
 a villainous plot ! " 
 
 It will now, perhaps, suffice in conclusion of this story to 
 report briefly a few subsequent events, and to sketch a last 
 picture. 
 
 Five months later the vicar-general was a bishop ; Madame 
 de Listomere was dead, leaving fifteen hundred francs a year 
 to the Abbe Birotteau. On the day when the Baroness' will 
 was read, Monseigneur Hyacinthe, bishop of Troyes, was 
 about to leave Tours and take up his residence in his diocese ; 
 but he postponed his departure. Furious at having been de- 
 ceived by a woman to whom he had offered a hand, while 
 she was secretly holding out hers to the man whom he chose 
 to regard as an enemy, Troubert again threatened to mar 
 the Baron's career and hinder the Marquis de Listomere from 
 receiving his peerage. In full council, at the archbishop's
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 231 
 
 palace, he uttered one of those priestly speeches, big with 
 revenge, though smooth with honeyed mildness. 
 
 The ambitious lieutenant came to see this ruthless prelate, 
 who dictated hard terms no doubt, for the Baron's conduct 
 showed absolute subservience to the terrible Jesuit's will. 
 
 The new bishop, by a deed of gift, bestowed Mademoiselle 
 Gamard's house on the cathedral chapter ; he gave Chape- 
 loud's bookcase and books to the little seminary ; he dedi- 
 cated the two disputed pictures to the lady chapel ; but he 
 kept the portrait of Chapeloud. No one could understand 
 this almost complete surrender of all Mademoiselle Gamard's 
 property. Monsieur de Bourbonne imagined that he secretly 
 kept all the actual money to enable him to maintain his rank 
 in Paris, if he should be called to sit on the bench of bishops 
 in the upper chamber. 
 
 At last, on the very day before Monseigneur Troubert left 
 Tours, the " old fox" detected the last plot which these gifts 
 had covered, a coup de grace dealt by the most relentless 
 vengeance to the most helpless of victims. The Baron de 
 Listomere disputed Madame de Listomere's bequest to Birot- 
 teau on the ground of undue influence ! Within a few days 
 of the first steps being taken in this action, the Baron was 
 appointed to a ship with the rank of captain ; the cure of 
 Saint-Symphorien was, by an act of discipline, placed under 
 an interdict. His ecclesiastical superiors condemned him by 
 anticipation ; so the assassin of the late Sophie Gamard was 
 a rogue as well ! Now, if Monseigneur Troubert had kept 
 the old maid's property, he could hardly have secured Birot- 
 teau's disgrace. 
 
 At the moment, when Monseigneur Hyacinthe, bishop of 
 Troyes, was passing in a post-chaise, along the quay of Saint- 
 Symphorien, on his way to Paris, poor Birotteau had just been 
 brought out in an armchair to sit in the sun on a terrace. 
 The unhappy priest, stricken by his archbishop, was pale and 
 haggard. Grief, stamped on every feature, had completely
 
 232 THE CELIBATES. 
 
 altered the face, which of old had been so blandly cheerful. 
 Ill-health had cast a dimness that simulated thought over his 
 eyes, which had been bright once with the pleasures of good 
 living, and devoid of any weight of ideas. This was but the 
 skeleton of that Birotteau who, only a year ago, vacuous but 
 happy, had waddled across the Close. The bishop shot a glance 
 of contempt and pity at his victim ; then he vouchsafed to 
 forget him, and passed on. 
 
 In other times Troubert would certainly have been a Hilde- 
 brand or an Alexander VI. Nowadays the church is no longer 
 a political force, and does not absorb all the powers of isolated 
 men. Hence celibacy has this crying evil, that by concentra- 
 ting the powers of a man on one single passion, namely, egoism, 
 it makes the unwedded soul mischievous or useless. 
 
 We live in a time when the fault of most governments is 
 that they make man for society rather than society for man. 
 A perpetual struggle is going on between the individual and 
 the system that tries to turn him to account, while he tries to 
 turn it to account for his own advantage ; formerly, man hav- 
 ing really more liberty, showed greater generosity for the 
 public weal. The circle in which men move has insensibly 
 widened; the soul that can apprehend it synthetically will 
 never be anything but a grand exception, since, constantly, 
 in moral as in physical force, what is gained in extent is lost 
 in intensity. Society cannot be based on exceptions. 
 
 Originally, man was simply and solely a father ; his heart 
 beat warmly, concentrated within the radius of the family. 
 Later on he lived for the clan or for a small republic ; hence 
 the grand historical heroism of Greece and Rome. Next, he 
 became the member of a caste, or of a religion, and often was 
 truly sublime in his devotion to its greatness ; but then the 
 field of his interests was increased by the addition of every 
 intellectual realm. In these days his life is bound up with 
 that of a vast fatherland ; ere long his family will be the whole 
 human race.
 
 THE ABBE BIROTTEAU. 233 
 
 Will not this moral cosmopolitanism, the thing the Roman 
 church hopes for, be a sublime mistake ? It is so natural to 
 believe in that noble chimera the brotherhood of men. But, 
 alas ! the human machine has not such godlike proportions. 
 The souls that are vast enough to wed a sentiment that is the 
 prerogative of a great man will never be those of plain citizens, 
 of fathers of families. 
 
 Certain physiologists opine that if the brain expands, the 
 heart must necessarily shrink. That is a mistake. Is not 
 what looks like egoism in the men who bear in their breast a 
 science, a nation, or its laws, the noblest of passions ? Is it 
 not, in a way, a motherhood of the people ? To bring forth 
 new races or new ideas, must they not combine in their 
 powerful brain the breast of the mother with the force of 
 God? The history of an Innocent III., of a Peter the Great, 
 of all who have guided an epoch or a nation, would at need 
 prove to be, in the highest order of minds, the immense idea 
 represented by Troubert in the depths of the Close of Saint- 
 Gat ien. 
 
 SAINT-FIRMIN, April, 1832.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 To Madame la Comtesse Ida de Bocarme ne'e 
 du Chasteler. 
 
 " HULLO ! There is that old box-coat again ! " 
 
 This exclamation was made by a lawyer's clerk of the class 
 called in French offices a gutter-jumper a messenger in fact 
 who at this moment was eating a piece of dry bread with a 
 hearty appetite. He pulled off a morsel of crumb to make 
 into a bullet, and fired it gleefully through the open pane of 
 the window against which he was leaning. The pellet, well 
 aimed, rebounded almost as high as the window, after hitting 
 the hat of a stranger who was crossing the courtyard of a 
 house in the Rue Vivienne, where dwelt Maitre Derville, 
 attorney-at-law. 
 
 " Come, Simonnin, don't pli.y tricks on people, or I will 
 turn you out of doors. However poor a client may be, he is 
 still a man, hang it all ! " said the head clerk, pausing in the 
 addition of a bill of costs. 
 
 The lawyer's messenger is commonly, as was Simonnin, a 
 lad of thirteen or fourteen, who, in every office, is under the 
 special jurisdiction of the managing clerk, whose errands and 
 billets-doux keep him employed on his way to carry writs to 
 the bailiffs and petitions to the courts. He is akin to the 
 street boy in his habits and to the pettifogger by fate. The 
 boy is almost always ruthless, unbroken, unmanageable, a 
 ribald rhymester, impudent, greedy, and idle. And yet 
 almost all these clerklings have an old mother lodging on 
 some fifth floor with whom they share their pittance of thirty 
 or forty francs a month. 
 
 "If he is a man, why do you call him old box-coat?" 
 
 (235)
 
 236 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 asked Simon nin, with the air of a schoolboy who has caught 
 out his master. 
 
 And he went on eating his bread and cheese, leaning his 
 shoulder against the window jamb ; for he rested standing 
 like a cab-horse, one of his legs raised and propped against 
 the other, on the toe of his shoe. 
 
 "What trick can we play that chap?" said the third 
 clerk, whose name was Godeschal, in a low voice, pausing in 
 the middle of a discourse he was extemporizing in an appeal 
 engrossed by the fourth clerk, of which copies were being 
 made by two neophytes from the provinces. 
 
 Then he went on improvising : 
 
 " But, in his noble and beneficent wisdom, his majesty, Louis 
 the Eighteenth (write it at full length, heh ! Desroches the 
 learned you, as you engross it) when he resumed the reins 
 of government, understood (what did that old nincompoop 
 ever understand ?) the high mission to which he had been 
 called by Divine Providence ! (a note of exclamation and six 
 stops. They are pious enough at the courts to let us put six) 
 and his first thought, as is proved by the date of the order 
 hereinafter designated, was to repair the misfortunes caused by 
 the terrible and sad disasters of the revolutionary times, by restor- 
 ing to his numerous and faithful adherents ('numerous' is 
 flattering, and ought to please the bench) all their unsold 
 estates, whether within our realm or in conquered or acquired ter- 
 ritory, or in the endowments of public institutions, for we are, 
 and proclaim ourselves competent to declare, that this is the spirit 
 and meaning of the famous, truly loyal order given in Stop," 
 said Godeschal to the three copying clerks, "that rascally 
 sentence brings me to the end of my page. Well," he went 
 on, wetting the back fold of the sheet with his tongue, so as 
 to be able to fold back the page of thick stamped paper, 
 " well, if you want to play him a trick, tell him that the 
 master can only see his clients between two and three in the 
 morning ; we shall see if he comes, the old ruffian ! "
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 237 
 
 And Godeschal took up the sentence he was dictating 
 " given in Are you ready? " 
 
 " Yes," cried the three writers. 
 
 It all went on together, the appeal, the gossip, and the 
 conspiracy. 
 
 " Given in Here, Daddy Boucard, what is the date of 
 the order ? We must dot our i's and cross our /'s, by Jingo ! 
 It helps to fill the pages. ' ' 
 
 " By Jingo ! ' ' repeated one of the copying clerks before 
 Boucard, the head clerk, could reply. 
 
 "What! have you written by Jingo?" cried Godeschal, 
 looking at one of the novices, with an expression at once 
 stern and humorous. 
 
 "Why, yes," said Desroches, the fourth clerk, leaning 
 across his neighbor's copy, "he has written ' We must 
 dot our i'j and cross our t's, by GingoJ and spells it 
 G-i-n-g-o!" 
 
 All the clerks shouted with laughter. 
 
 " Why ! Monsieur Hure, you take ' By Jingo ' for a law 
 term, and you say you come from Mortagne ! " exclaimed 
 Simonnin. 
 
 "Scratch it cleanly out," said the head clerk. "If the 
 judge, whose business it is to tax the bill, were to see such 
 things, he would say you were laughing at the whole boiling. 
 You would hear of it from the chief ! Come, no more of 
 this nonsense, Monsieur Hure ! A Norman ought not to 
 write out an appeal without thought. It is the ' Shoulder 
 arms ! ' of the law." 
 
 " 'Given in in?" asked Godeschal. "Tell me when, 
 Boucard." 
 
 " June, 1814," replied the head clerk, without looking up 
 from his work. 
 
 A knock at the office door interrupted the circumlocutions 
 of the prolix document. Five clerks with rows of hungry 
 teeth, bright, mocking eyes, and curly heads, lifted their
 
 238 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 noses towards the door, after crying all together in a singing 
 tone, "Come in ! " 
 
 Boucard kept his face buried in a pile of papers broutillcs 
 (odds and ends) in French law jargon and went on drawing 
 out the bill of costs on which he was busy. 
 
 The office was a large room furnished with the traditional 
 stool which is to be seen in all these dens of law-quibbling. 
 The stovepipe crossed the room diagonally to the chimney of 
 a bricked-up fireplace ; on the marble chimney-piece were 
 several chunks of bread, triangles of Brie cheese, pork cutlets, 
 glasses, bottles, and the head-clerk's cup of chocolate. The 
 smell of these dainties blended so completely with that of 
 the immoderately overheated stove and the odor peculiar to 
 offices and old papers, that the trail of a fox would not have 
 been perceptible. The floor was covered with mud and snow, 
 brought in by the clerks. Near the window stood the desk 
 with a revolving lid, where the head clerk worked, and against 
 the back of it was the second clerk's table. The second clerk 
 was at this moment in court. It was between eight and nine 
 in the morning. 
 
 The only decoration of the office consisted in huge yellow 
 posters, announcing seizures of real estate, sales, settlements 
 under trust, final or interim judgments all the glory of a 
 lawyer's office. Behind the head clerk was an enormous stack 
 of pigeon-holes from the top to the bottom of the room, of 
 which each division was crammed with bundles of papers 
 with an infinite number of tickets hanging from them at the 
 ends of red tape, which give a peculiar physiognomy to law- 
 papers. The lower rows were filled with cardboard boxes, 
 yellow with use, on which might be read the names of the 
 more important clients whose cases were juicily stewing at 
 this present time. The dirty window-panes admitted but 
 little daylight. Indeed, there are very few offices in Paris 
 where it is possible to write without lamplight before ten in 
 the morning in the month of February, for they are all left
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 239 
 
 to very natural neglect ; every one comes and no one stays ; 
 no one has any personal interest in a scene of mere routine 
 neither the attorney, nor the counsel, nor the clerks trouble 
 themselves about the appearance of a place which, to the 
 youths, is a schoolroom ; to the clients, a passage ; to the 
 chief, a laboratory. The greasy furniture is handed down to 
 successive owners with such scrupulous care that in some 
 offices may still be seen boxes of remainders, machines for 
 twisting parchment gut, and bags left by the prosecuting 
 parties of the chatelet (abbreviated to chief) a court which, 
 under the old order of things, represented the present court 
 of first instance (or county court). 
 
 So in this dark office, thick with dust, there was, as in all 
 its fellows, something repulsive to the clients something 
 which made it one of the most hideous monstrosities of Paris. 
 Nay, were it not for the mouldy sacristies where prayers are 
 weighed out and paid for like groceries and for the old-clothes 
 shops, where flutter the rags that blight all the illusions of 
 life by showing us the last end of all our festivities an 
 attorney's office would be, of all social marts, the most loath- 
 some. But we might say the same of the gambling-hell, of the 
 law court, of the lottery office, of the brothel. 
 
 But why ? In these places, perhaps, the drama being played 
 in a man's soul makes him indifferent to accessories, which 
 would also account for the single-mindedness of great 
 thinkers and men of great ambitions. 
 
 " Where is my penknife ?" 
 
 " I am eating my breakfast." 
 
 " You go and be hanged ! here is a blot on the copy." 
 
 " Silence, gentlemen ! " 
 
 These various exclamations were uttered simultaneously at 
 the moment when the old client shut the door with the sort 
 of humility which disfigures the movements of a man down 
 on his luck. The stranger tried to smile, but the muscles of 
 his face relaxed as he vainly looked for some symptoms of
 
 240 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 amenity on the inexorably indifferent faces of the six clerks. 
 Accustomed, no doubt, to gauge men, he very politely ad- 
 dressed the gutter-jumper, hoping to get a civil answer from 
 this boy of all work. 
 
 " Monsieur, is your master at home? " 
 
 The pert messenger made no reply, but patted his ear w'th 
 the fingers of his left hand, as much as to say, "I am deaf." 
 
 "What do you want, sir?" asked Godeschal, swallowing 
 as he spoke a mouthful of bread big enough to charge a four- 
 pounder, flourishing his knife and crossing his legs, throwing 
 up one foot in the air to the level of his eyes. 
 
 "This is the fifth time I have called," replied the victim. 
 " I wish to speak to Monsieur Derville." 
 
 " On business? " 
 
 " Yes, but I can explain it to no one but " 
 
 " M. Derville is in bed; if you want to consult him on 
 some difficulty, he does no serious work till midnight. But 
 if you will lay the case before us, we could help you just as 
 well as he can to " 
 
 The stranger was unmoved ; he looked timidly about him, 
 like a dog who has gotten into a strange kitchen and expects 
 a kick. By grace of their profession, lawyers' clerks have no 
 fear of thieves ; they did not suspect the owner of the box- 
 coat, and left him to study the place, where he looked in vain 
 for a chair to sit on, for he was evidently tired. Attorneys, 
 on principle, do not have many chairs in their offices. The 
 inferior client, being kept waiting on his feet, goes away 
 grumbling, but then he does not waste time, which, as an old 
 lawyer once said, is not allowed for when the bill is taxed. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the old man, " as I have already told 
 you, I cannot explain my business to any one but M. Derville. 
 I will wait till he is up." 
 
 Boucard had finished his bill. He smelt the fragrance of 
 his chocolate, rose from his cane armchair, went to the 
 chimney-piece, looked the old man from head to foot, stared
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 241 
 
 at his coat, and made an indescribable grimace. He probably 
 reflected that whichever way this client might be wrung, it 
 would be impossible to squeeze out a centime, so he put in a 
 few brief words to rid the office of a bad customer. 
 
 "It is the truth, monsieur. The chief only works at night. 
 If your business is important, I recommend you to return at 
 one in the morning." The stranger looked at the head clerk 
 with a bewildered expression, and remained motionless for a 
 moment. The clerks, accustomed to every change of counte- 
 nance, and the odd whimsicalities to which indecision or 
 absence of mind gives rise in "parties," went on eating, 
 making as much noise with their jaws as horses over a manger, 
 and paying no further heed to the old man. 
 
 "I will come again to-night," said the stranger at length, 
 with the tenacious desire, peculiar to the unfortunate, to catch 
 humanity at fault. 
 
 The only irony allowed to poverty is to drive justice and 
 benevolence to unjust denials. When a poor wretch has 
 once convicted society of falsehood, he throws himself more 
 eagerly on the mercy of God. 
 
 "What do you think of that for a cracked pot?" said 
 Simonnin, without waiting till the old man had shut the door. 
 
 "He looks as if he had been buried and dug up again," 
 said a clerk. 
 
 "He is some colonel who wants his arrears of pay," said 
 the head clerk. 
 
 "No, he is a retired concierge," said Godeschal. 
 
 " I bet you he is a nobleman," cried Boucard. 
 
 "I bet you he has been a porter," retorted Godeschal. 
 " Only porters are gifted by nature with shabby box-coats ; as 
 worn and greasy and frayed as that old body's. And did you 
 see his trodden-down boots that let the water in, and his stock 
 which serves for a shirt ? He has slept in a dry arch." 
 
 " He may be of noble birth, and yet have pulled the door- 
 latch," cried Desroches. "It has been known ! " 
 16
 
 242 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 "No," Boucard insisted, in the midst of laughter, "I 
 maintain that he was a brewer in 1789 and a colonel in the 
 time of the Republic." 
 
 "I bet theatre tickets round that he never was a soldier," 
 said Godeschal. 
 
 " Done with you," answered Boucard. 
 
 "Monsieur! monsieur!" shouted the little messenger, 
 opening the window. 
 
 "What are you at now, Simonnin?" asked Boucard. 
 
 "I am calling him that you may ask him whether he is a 
 colonel or a porter; he must know." 
 
 All the clerks laughed. As to the old man, he was already 
 coming upstairs again. 
 
 " What can we say to him ! " cried Godeschal. 
 
 "Leave it to me," replied Boucard. 
 
 The poor man came in nervously, his eyes cast down, per- 
 haps not to betray how hungry he was by looking too greedily 
 at the eatables. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Boucard, "will you have the kindness to 
 leave your name, so that M. Derville may know " 
 
 "Chabert." 
 
 "The colonel who was killed at Eylau?" asked Hure, 
 who, having so far said nothing, was jealous of adding a jest 
 to all the others. 
 
 "The same, monsieur," replied the good man, with antique 
 simplicity. And he went away. 
 
 "Whew!" 
 
 "Done brown!" 
 
 "Poof!" 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 "Bourn!" 
 
 " The old rogue ! " 
 
 " Ting-a-ring-ting ! " 
 
 " Sold again ! "
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 243 
 
 " Monsieur Desroches, you are going to the play without 
 paying," said Hure to the fourth clerk, giving him a slap on 
 the shoulder that might have killed a rhinoceros. 
 
 There was a storm of cat-calls, cries, and exclamations, 
 which all the onomatopeia of the language would fail to 
 represent. 
 
 " Which theatre shall we go to ?" 
 
 " To the opera," cried the head clerk. 
 
 "In the first place," said Godeschal, "I never mentioned 
 which theatre. I might, if I chose, take you to see Madame 
 Saqui." 
 
 " Madame Saqui is not the play." 
 
 "What is a play? " replied Godeschal. "First, we must 
 define the point of fact. What did I bet, gentlemen? A 
 play. What is a play ? A spectacle. What is a spectacle ? 
 Something to be seen " 
 
 " But on that principle you would pay your bet by taking 
 us to see the water run under the Pont Neuf ! " cried Simon- 
 inn, interrupting him. 
 
 " To be seen for money," Godeschal added. 
 
 " But a great many things are to be seen for money that 
 are not plays. The definition is defective," said Desroches. 
 
 "But do listen to me ! " 
 
 "You are talking nonsense, my dear boy," said Boucard. 
 
 " Is ' Curtius ' a play ? " asked Godeschal. 
 
 " No," said the head clerk, " it is a collection of figures 
 but it is a spectacle." 
 
 " I bet you a hundred francs to a sou," Godeschal resumed, 
 " that Curtius' Waxworks form such a show as might be 
 called a play or theatre. It contains a thing to be seen at 
 various prices, according to the place you choose to occupy." 
 
 "And so on, and so forth ! " said Simonnin. 
 
 "You mind I don't box your ears ! " said Godeschal. 
 
 The clerks shrugged their shoulders. 
 
 " Besides, it is not proved that that old ape was not making
 
 244 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 game of us," he said, dropping his argument, which was 
 drowned in the laughter of the other clerks. " On my honor, 
 Colonel Chabert is really and truly dead. His wife is married 
 again to Comte Ferraud, councilor of state. Madame Ferraud 
 is one of our clients." 
 
 "Come, the case is remanded till to-morrow," said Bou- 
 card. "To work, gentlemen. The deuce is in it; we get 
 nothing done here. Finish copying that appeal ; it must be 
 handed in before the sitting of the fourth chamber, judgment 
 is to be given to-day. Come, on you go ! " 
 
 "If he really were Colonel Chabert, would not that impu- 
 dent rascal Simonnin have felt the leather of his boot in the 
 right place when he pretended to be deaf? " said Desroches, 
 regarding this timely remark as certainly more conclusive than 
 Godeschal's. 
 
 " Since nothing is settled," said Boucard, " let us all agree 
 to go to the upper boxes of the Frangais and see Talma in 
 ' Nero.' Simonnin may go to the pit." 
 
 And thereupon the head clerk sat down at his table, and 
 the others followed his example. 
 
 " Given in June eighteen hundred and fourteen (in words)," 
 said Godeschal. ' ' Ready ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes," replied the two copying clerks and the engrosser, 
 whose pens forthwith began to creak over the stamped paper, 
 making as much noise in the office as a hundred cockchafers 
 imprisoned by schoolboys in paper cages. 
 
 " And we hope that my lords on the bench" the extempor- 
 izing clerk went on. " Stop ! I must read my sentence 
 through again. I do not understand it myself." 
 
 " Forty-six (that must often happen) and three forty-nines," 
 said Boucard. 
 
 " We hope" Godeschal began again, after reading all 
 through the document, "that my lords on the bench will not 
 be less magnanimous than the august author of the decree, and 
 that they will do justice against the miserable claims of the acting
 
 COLOXEL CHABERT. 245 
 
 committee of the chief board of the Legion of Honor by inter- 
 preting the law in the wide sense we have here set forth " 
 
 " Monsieur Godeschal, wouldn't you like a glass of water?" 
 said the little messenger. 
 
 "That imp of a boy!" said Boucard. "Here, get on 
 your double-soled shanks-mare, take this packet, and spin off 
 to the Invalides." 
 
 "Here set forth," Godeschal went on. "Add in the interest 
 of Madame la Vicomtesse (at full length) de Grandlieu" 
 
 " What ! " cried the chief, " are you thinking of drawing 
 up an appeal in the case of Vicomtesse de Grandlieu against 
 the Legion of Honor a case for the office to stand or fall 
 by ? You are something like an ass ! Have the goodness to 
 put aside your copies and your notes ; you may keep all that 
 for the case of Navarreins against the Hospitals. It is late; 
 I will draw up a little petition myself, with a due allowance 
 of ' inasmuch,' and go to the courts myself." 
 
 This scene is typical of the thousand delights which, when 
 we look back on our youth, make us say, " Those were good 
 times." 
 
 At about one in the morning Colonel Chabert, self-styled, 
 knocked at the door of Maitre Derville, attorney to the court 
 of first instance in the department of the Seine. The porter 
 told him that Monsieur Derville had not yet come in. The 
 old man said he had an appointment, and was shown upstairs 
 to the rooms occupied by the famous lawyer, who, notwith- 
 standing his youth, was considered to have one of the longest 
 heads in Paris. 
 
 Having rung, the distrustful applicant was not a little 
 astonished at finding the head clerk busily arranging in con- 
 venient order on his master's dining-room table the papers 
 relating to the cases to be tried on the morrow. The clerk, 
 not less astonished, bowed to the colonel and begged him to 
 take a seat, which the client did.
 
 246 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 "On my word, monsieur, I thought you were joking yes- 
 terday when you named such an hour for an interview," said 
 the old man, with the forced mirth of a ruined man, who 
 does his best to smile. 
 
 "The clerks were joking, but they were speaking the truth 
 too," replied the man, going on with his work. " M. Der- 
 ville chooses this hour for studying his cases, taking stock of 
 their possibilities, arranging how to conduct them, deciding 
 on the line of defense. His prodigious intellect is freer at 
 this hour the only time when he can have the silence 
 and quiet needed for the conception of good ideas. Since 
 he entered the profession, you are the third person to come 
 to him for a consultation at this midnight hour. After com- 
 ing in, the chief will discuss each case, read everything, 
 spend four or five hours perhaps over the business, then he 
 will ring for me and explain to me his intentions. In the 
 morning, from ten till two, he hears what his clients have to 
 say, then he spends the rest of his day in appointments. In 
 the evening he goes into society to keep up his connections. 
 So he has only the night for undermining his cases, ransack- 
 ing the arsenal of the code, and laying his plan of battle. 
 He is determined never to lose a case ; he loves his art. 
 He will not undertake every case, as his brethren do. That 
 is his life, an exceptionally active one. And he makes a great 
 deal of money." 
 
 As he listened to this explanation the old man sat silent, 
 and his strange face assumed an expression so bereft of intel- 
 ligence that the clerk, after looking at him, thought no more 
 about him. 
 
 A few minutes later Derville came in, in evening dress ; his 
 head clerk opened the door to him, and went back to finish 
 arranging the papers. The young lawyer paused for a mo- 
 ment in amazement on seeing in the dim light the strange 
 client who awaited him. Colonel Chabert was as absolutely 
 immovable as one of the wax figures in Curtius' collection to
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 247 
 
 which Godeschal had proposed to treat his fellow-clerks. This 
 quiescence would not have been a subject for astonishment if 
 it had not completed the supernatural aspect of the man's 
 whole person. The old soldier was dry and lean. His fore- 
 head, intentionally hidden under a smoothly combed wig, 
 gave him a look of mystery. His eyes seemed shrouded in a 
 transparent film ; you would have compared them to dingy 
 mother-of-pearl with a blue iridescence changing in the gleam 
 of the wax-lights. His face, pale, livid, and as thin as a 
 knife, if I may use such a vulgar expression, was the face of 
 the dead. Round his neck was a tight black silk stock. 
 
 Below the dark line of this rag the body was so completely 
 hidden in shadow that a man of imagination might have sup- 
 posed the old head was due to some chance play of light and 
 shade, or have taken it for a portrait by Rembrandt, without 
 a frame. The brim of the hat which covered the old man's 
 brow cast a black line of shadow on the upper part of the 
 face. This grotesque effect, though natural, threw into relief 
 by contrast the white furrows, the cold wrinkles, the colorless 
 tone of the corpse-like countenance. And the absence of all 
 movement in the figure, of all fire in the eye, were in harmony 
 with a certain look of melancholy madness and the deteriorat- 
 ing symptoms characteristic of senility, giving the face an 
 indescribably ill-starred look which no human words could 
 render. 
 
 But an observer, especially a lawyer, could also have read 
 in this stricken man the signs of deep sorrow, the traces of 
 grief which had worn into this face, as drops of water from 
 the sky falling on fine marble at last destroy its beauty. A 
 physician, an author, or a judge might have discerned a whole 
 drama at the sight of its sublime horror, while the least charm 
 was its resemblance to the grotesques which artists amuse 
 themselves by sketching on a corner of the lithographic stone 
 while chatting with a friend. 
 
 On seeing the attorney, the stranger started, with the con-
 
 248 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 vulsive thrill that comes over a poet when a sudden noise 
 rouses him from a fruitful reverie in silence and at night. 
 The old man hastily removed his hat and rose to bow to the 
 young man ; the leather lining of his hat was doubtless very 
 greasy ; his wig stuck to it without his noticing it, and left his 
 head bare, showing his skull horribly disfigured by a scar 
 beginning at the nape of the neck and ending over the right 
 eye, a prominent seam all across his head. The sudden 
 removal of the dirty wig which the poor man wore to hide 
 this gash gave the two lawyers no inclination to laugh, so 
 horrible to behold was this riven skull. The first idea sug- 
 gested by the sight of this old wound was, " His intelligence 
 must have escaped through that cut." 
 
 "If this is not Colonel Chabert, he is some thorough-going 
 trooper!" thought Boucard. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Derville, " to whom have I the honor of 
 speaking?" 
 
 "To Colonel Chabert." 
 
 "Which?" 
 
 " He who was killed at Eylau," replied the old man. 
 
 On hearing this strange speech, the lawyer and his clerk 
 glanced at each other, as much as to say, " He is mad." 
 
 "Monsieur," the colonel went on, "I wish to confide to 
 you the secret of my position." 
 
 A thing well worthy of note is the natural intrepidity of 
 lawyers. Whether from the habit of receiving a great many 
 persons, or from the deep sense of the protection conferred 
 on them by the law, or from confidence in their mission, they 
 enter everywhere, fearing nothing, like priests and physicians. 
 Derville signed to Boucard, who vanished. 
 
 "During the day, sir," said the attorney, "I am not so 
 miserly of my time, but at night every minute is precious. 
 So be brief and concise. Go to the facts without digression. 
 I will ask for any explanations I may consider necessary. 
 Speak."
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 249 
 
 Having bid his strange client to be seated, the young man 
 sat down at the table ; but while he gave his attention to the 
 deceased colonel, he turned over the bundles of papers. 
 
 "You know, perhaps," said the dead man, "that I com- 
 manded a cavalry regiment at Eylau. I was of important 
 service to the success of Murat's famous charge which decided 
 the victory. Unhappily for me, my death is a historical fact, 
 recorded in Victoires et Conquetes, where it is related in full 
 detail. We cut through the three Russian lines, which at 
 once closed up and formed again, so that we had to repeat 
 the movement back again. At the moment when we were 
 nearing the Emperor, after having scattered the Russians, I 
 came against a squadron of the enemy's cavalry. I rushed at 
 the obstinate brutes. Two Russian officers, perfect giants, 
 attacked me both at once. One of them gave me a cut 
 across the head that crashed through everything, even a black 
 silk cap I wore next my head, and cut deep into the skull. 
 I fell from my horse. Murat came up to support me ; he 
 rode over my body, he and all his men, fifteen hundred of 
 them there might have been more ! My death was announced 
 to the Emperor, who as a precaution for he was fond of me, 
 was the master wished to know if there were no hope of 
 saving the man he had to thank for such a vigorous attack. 
 He sent two surgeons to identify me and bring me into the 
 hospital, saying, perhaps too carelessly, for he was very busy, 
 ' Go and see whether by any chance poor Chabert is still 
 alive.' These rascally saw-bones, who had just seen me 
 lying under the hoofs of the horses of two regiments, no 
 doubt did not trouble themselves to feel my pulse, and re- 
 ported that I was quite dead. The certificate of death was 
 probably made out in accordance with the rules of military 
 jurisprudence." 
 
 As he heard his visitor express himself with complete 
 lucidity, and relate a story so probable though so strange, the 
 young lawyer ceased fingering the papers, rested his left elbow
 
 250 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 on the table, and with his head on his hand looked steadily 
 at the colonel. 
 
 " Do you know, monsieur, that I am lawyer to the Com- 
 tesse Ferraud," he said, interrupting the speaker, " Colonel 
 Chabert's widow?" 
 
 " My wife yes, monsieur. Therefore, after a hundred 
 fruitless attempts to interest lawyers, who have all thought me 
 mad, I made up my mind to come to you. I will tell you of 
 my misfortunes afterwards; for the present, allow me to 
 prove the facts, explaining rather how things must have fallen 
 out rather than how they did occur. Certain circumstances, 
 known, I suppose, to no one but the Almighty, compel me to 
 speak of some things as hypothetical. The wounds I had 
 received must presumably have produced tetanus, or have 
 thrown me into a state analogous to that of a disease called, I 
 believe, catalepsy. Otherwise how is it conceivable that I 
 should have been stripped, as is the custom in time of war, 
 and thrown into the common grave by the men ordered to 
 bury the dead ? 
 
 "Allow me here to refer to a detail of which I could know 
 nothing till after the event, which, after all, I must speak of as 
 my death. At Stuttgart, in 1814, I met an old quartermaster 
 of my regiment. This dear fellow, the only man who chose 
 to recognize me, and of whom I will tell you more later, 
 explained the marvel of my preservation, by telling me that 
 my horse was shot in the flank at the moment when I was 
 wounded. Man and beast went down together, like a monk 
 cut out of card-paper. As I fell, to the right or to the left, I 
 was no doubt covered by the body of my horse, which pro- 
 tected me from being trampled to death or hit by a ball. 
 
 " When I came to myself, monsieur, I was in a position 
 and an atmosphere of which I could give you no idea if I 
 talked till to-morrow. The little air there was to breathe was 
 foul. I wanted to move, and found no room. I opened my 
 eyes, and saw nothing. The most alarming circumstance was
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 251 
 
 the lack of air, and this enlightened me as to my situation. 
 I understood that no fresh air could penetrate to me, and 
 that I must die. This thought took off the sense of intoler- 
 able pain which had aroused me. There was a violent singing 
 in my ears. I heard or I thought I heard, I will assert 
 nothing groans from the world of dead among whom I was 
 lying. Some nights I still think I hear those stifled moans ; 
 though the remembrance of that time is very obscure, and 
 my memory very indistinct, in spite of my impressions of far 
 more acute suffering I was fated to go through, and which 
 have confused my ideas. 
 
 "But there was something more awful than cries; there 
 was a silence such as I have never known elsewhere literally, 
 the silence of the grave. At last, by raising my hands and 
 feeling the dead, I discerned a vacant space between my head 
 and the human carrion above. I could thus measure the 
 space, granted by a chance of which I knew not the cause. 
 It would seem that, thanks to the carelessness and the haste 
 with which we had been pitched into the trench, two dead 
 bodies had leaned across and against each other, forming an 
 angle like that made by two cards when a child is building a 
 card castle. Feeling about me at once, for there was no time 
 for play, I happily felt an arm lying detached, the arm of a 
 Hercules ! A stout bone, to which I owed my rescue. But 
 for this unhoped-for help, I must have perished. But, with a 
 fury you may imagine, I began to work my way through the 
 bodies which separated me from the layer of earth which had 
 no doubt been thrown over us I say us, as if there had been 
 others living ! I worked with a will, monsieur, for here I 
 am ! But to this day I do not know how I succeeded in 
 getting through the pile of flesh which formed a barrier 
 between me and life. You will say I had three arms. This 
 crowbar, which I used cleverly enough, opened out a little air 
 between the bodies I moved, and I economized my breath. 
 At last I saw daylight, but through snow !
 
 252 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 "At that moment I perceived that my head was cut open. 
 Happily my blood, or that of my comrades, or perhaps the 
 torn skin of my horse, who knows, had in coagulating formed 
 a sort of natural plaster. But, in spite of it, I fainted away 
 when my head came into contact with the snow. However, 
 the little warmth left in me melted the snow about me ; and 
 when I recovered consciousness, I found myself in the middle 
 of a round hole, where I stood shouting as long as I could. 
 But the sun was rising, so I had very little chance of being 
 heard. Was there any one in the fields yet ? I pulled 
 myself up, using my feet as a spring, resting on one of the 
 dead, whose ribs were firm. You may suppose that this was 
 not the moment for saying, ' Respect courage in misfortune ! ' 
 In short, monsieur, after enduring the anguish, if the word is 
 strong enough for my frenzy of seeing for a long time, yes, 
 quite a long time, those cursed Germans flying from a voice 
 they heard where they could see no one, I was dug out by a 
 woman, who was brave or curious enough to come close to my 
 head, which must have looked as though it had sprouted from 
 the ground like a mushroom. This woman went to fetch her 
 husband, and between them they got me to their poor hovel. 
 
 " It would seem that I must have again fallen into a cata- 
 lepsy allow me to use the word to describe a state of which 
 I have no idea, but which, from the account given by my 
 hosts, I suppose to have been the effect of that malady. I 
 remained for six months between life and death ; not speak- 
 ing, or, if I spoke, talking in delirium. At last, my hosts 
 got me admitted to the hospital at Heilsberg. You will 
 understand, monsieur, that I came out of the womb of the 
 grave as naked as I came from my mother's ; so that six 
 months afterwards, when I remembered, one fine morning, 
 that I had been Colonel Chabert, and when, on recovering 
 my wits, I tried to exact from my nurse rather more respect 
 than she paid to any poor devil, all my companions in the 
 ward began to laugh. Luckily for me, the surgeon, out of
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 253 
 
 professional pride, had answered for my cure, and was 
 naturally interested in his patient. When I told him coher- 
 ently about my former life, this good man, named Sparch- 
 mann, signed a deposition, drawn up in the legal form of 
 his country, giving an account of the miraculous way in 
 which I had escaped from the trench dug for the dead, the 
 day and hour when I had been found by my benefactress and 
 her husband, the nature and exact spot of my injuries, adding 
 to these documents a description of my person. 
 
 " Well, monsieur, I have neither these important pieces of 
 evidence nor the declaration I made before a notary at 
 Heilsberg, with a view of establishing my identity. From 
 the day when I was turned out of that town by the events of 
 war, I have wandered about like a vagabond, begging my 
 bread, treated as a madman when I have told my story, with- 
 out ever having found or earned a sou to enable me to recover 
 the deeds which would prove my statements and restore me 
 to society. My sufferings have often kept me for six months 
 at a time in some little town, where every care was taken of 
 the invalid Frenchman, but where he was laughed at to his 
 face as soon as he said he was Colonel Chabert. For a long 
 time that laughter, those doubts, used to put me into rages 
 which did me harm, and which even led to my being locked 
 up at Stuttgart as a madman. And, indeed, as you may judge 
 from my story, there was ample reason for shutting such a 
 man up. 
 
 "At the end of two years' detention, which I was com- 
 pelled to submit to, after hearing my keepers say a thousand 
 times, ' Here is a poor man who thinks he is Colonel Cha- 
 bert ' to people who would reply, ' Poor fellow ! ' I became 
 convinced of the impossibility of my own adventure. I grew 
 melancholy, resigned and quiet, and gave up calling myself 
 Colonel Chabert, in order to get out of my prison, and see 
 France once more. Oh, monsieur ! To see Paris again was 
 a delirium which I "
 
 254 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 Without finishing his sentence, Colonel Chabert fell into a 
 deep study, which Derville respected. 
 
 "One fine day," his visitor resumed, "one spring day, 
 they gave me the key of the fields, as we say, and ten thalers, 
 admitting that I talked quite sensibly on all subjects, and no 
 longer called myself Colonel Chabert. On my honor, at that 
 time, and even to this day, sometimes I hate my name. I 
 wish I were not myself. The sense of my rights kills me. If 
 my illness had but deprived me of all memory of my past life, 
 I could be happy. I should have entered the service again 
 under any name, no matter what, and should, perhaps, have 
 been made a field-marshal in Austria or Russia. Who knows ?" 
 
 "Monsieur," said the attorney, "you have upset all my 
 ideas. I feel as if I heard you in a dream. Pause for a 
 moment, I beg of you." 
 
 "You are the only person," said the colonel, with a melan- 
 choly look, " who ever listened to me so patiently. No 
 lawyer has been willing to lend me ten napoleons to enable 
 me to procure from Germany the necessary documents to 
 begin my lawsuit " 
 
 "What lawsuit?" said the attorney, who had forgotten his 
 client's painful position in listening to the narrative of his 
 past sufferings. 
 
 "Why, monsieur, is not the Comtesse Ferraud my wife? 
 She has thirty thousand francs a year, which belong to me, 
 and she will not give me a sou. When I tell lawyers these 
 things men of sense ; when I propose I, a beggar to 
 bring an action against a count and countess; when I a dead 
 man bring up as against a certificate of death a certificate 
 of marriage and registers of births, they show me out, either 
 with the air of cold politeness, which you all know how to 
 assume to rid yourselves of a hapless wretch, or brutally, like 
 men who think they have to deal with a swindler or a madman 
 it depends on their nature. I have been buried under the 
 dead ; but now I am buried under the living, under papers,
 
 COLONEL CtiABERT. 255 
 
 under facts, under the whole of society, which wants to shove 
 me underground again ! ' ' 
 
 "Pray resume your narrative," said Derville. 
 
 "'Pray resume it!'" cried the hapless old man, taking 
 the young lawyer's hand. "That is the first polite word I 
 have heard since " 
 
 The colonel wept. Gratitude choked his voice. The ap- 
 pealing and unutterable eloquence that lies in the eyes, in a 
 gesture, even in silence, entirely convinced Derville, and 
 touched him deeply. 
 
 "Listen, monsieur," said he; "I have this evening won 
 three hundred francs at cards. I may very well lay out half 
 that sum in making a man happy. I will begin the inquiries 
 and researches necessary to obtain the documents of which 
 you speak, and until they arrive I will give you five francs a 
 day. If you are Colonel Chabert, you will pardon the small- 
 ness of the loan as coming from a young man who has his 
 fortune to make. Proceed." 
 
 The colonel, as he called himself, sat for a moment motion- 
 less and bewildered ; the depth of his woes had no doubt 
 destroyed his powers of belief. Though he was eager in pur- 
 suit of his military distinction, of his fortune, of himself, 
 perhaps it was in obedience to the inexplicable feeling, the 
 latent germ in every man's heart, to which we owe the experi- 
 ments of alchemists, the passion for glory, the discoveries of 
 astronomy and of physics, everything which prompts man to 
 expand his being by multiplying himself through deeds or 
 ideas. In his mind the Ego was now but a secondary object, 
 just as the vanity of success or the pleasure of winning 
 become dearer to the gambler than the object he has at stake. 
 The young lawyer's words were as a miracle to this man, for 
 ten years repudiated by his wife, by justice, by the whole social 
 creation. To find in a lawyer's office the ten gold-pieces 
 which had so long been refused him by so many people, and 
 in so many ways ! The colonel was like the lady who, hav-
 
 256 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 ing been ill of a fever for fifteen years, fancied she had some 
 fresh complaint when she was cured. There are joys in 
 which we have ceased to believe ; they fall on us, it is like a 
 thunderbolt ; they burn us. The poor man's gratitude was 
 too great to find utterance. To superficial observers he 
 seemed cold, but Derville saw complete honesty under this 
 amazement. A swindler would have found his voice. 
 
 " Where was I ? " said the colonel, with the simplicity of a 
 child or of a soldier, for there is often something of the child 
 in a true soldier, and almost always something of the soldier 
 in a child, especially in France. 
 
 "At Stuttgart. You were just out of prison," said M. 
 Derville, the attorney. 
 
 " You know my wife ? " asked the colonel. 
 " Yes," said Derville, with a bow. 
 "What is she like?" 
 "Still quite charming." 
 
 The old man held up his hand, and seemed to be swallow- 
 ing down some secret anguish with the grave and solemn 
 resignation that is so characteristic of men who have stood 
 the ordeal of blood and fire on the battlefield. 
 
 " Monsieur," said he, with a sort of cheerfulness for he 
 breathed again, the poor colonel ; he had again risen from 
 the grave ; he had just melted a covering of snow less easily 
 thawed than that which had once before frozen his head ; and 
 he drew a deep breath, as if he had just escaped from a dun- 
 geon " Monsieur, if I had been a handsome young fellow, 
 none of my misfortunes would have befallen me. Women 
 believe in men when they flavor their speeches with the word 
 love. They hurry then, they come, they go, they are every- 
 where at once ; they intrigue, they assert facts, they play the 
 very devil for a man who takes their fancy. But how could 
 I interest a woman ? I had a face like a requiem. I was 
 dressed like a sans-culotte. I was more like an Esquimaux 
 than a Frenchman I, who had formerly been considered one
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 257 
 
 of the smartest of fops in 1799 ! I, Chabert, Count of the 
 Empire. 
 
 "Well, on the very day when I was turned out into the 
 streets like a dog, I met the quartermaster of whom I just now 
 spoke. This old soldier's name was Boutin. The poor devil 
 and I made the queerest pair of broken-down hacks I ever set 
 eyes on. I met him out walking; but though I recognized 
 him, he could not possibly guess who I was. We went into a 
 tavern together. In there, when I told him my name, Bou- 
 tin's mouth opened from ear to ear in a roar of laughter, like 
 the bursting of a mortar. That mirth, monsieur, was one of 
 the keenest pangs I have known. It told me without diguise 
 how great were the changes in me ! I was, then, unrecog- 
 nizable even to the humblest and most grateful of my former 
 friends ! 
 
 "I had once saved Boutin's life, but it was only the repay- 
 ment of a debt I owed him. I need not tell you how he did 
 me this service ; it was at Ravenna, in Italy. The house 
 where Boutin prevented my being stabbed was not extremely 
 respectable. At that time I was not a colonel, but, like Boutin 
 himself, a common trooper. Happily there were certain 
 details of this adventure which could be known only to us 
 two, and when I recalled them to his mind his incredulity 
 diminished. I then told him the story of my singular expe- 
 riences. Although my eyes and my voice, he told me, were 
 strangely altered, although I had neither hair, teeth, nor eye- 
 brows, and was as colorless as an Albino, he at last recognized 
 his colonel in the beggar, after a thousand questions, which I 
 answered triumphantly. 
 
 " He related his adventures ; they were not less extraordi- 
 nary than my own ; he had lately come back from the frontiers 
 of China, which he had tried to cross after escaping from 
 Siberia. He told me of the catastrophe of the Russian 
 campaign, and of Napoleon's first abdication. That news 
 was one of the things which caused me most anguish ! 
 17
 
 258 COLONEL CHASER T. 
 
 " We were two curious derelicts, having been rolled over 
 the globe as pebbles are rolled by the ocean when storms bear 
 them from shore to shore. Between us we had seen Egypt, 
 Syria, Spain, Russia, Holland, Germany, Italy and Dalmatia, 
 England, China, Tartary, Siberia ; the only thing wanting 
 was that neither of us had been to America or the Indies. 
 Finally Boutin, who still was more locomotive than I, under- 
 took to go to Paris as quickly as might be to inform my wife 
 of the predicament in which I was. I wrote a long letter full 
 of details to Madame Chabert. That, monsieur, was the 
 fourth ! If I had had any relations, perhaps nothing of all 
 this might have happened ; but, to be frank with you, I am 
 but a workhouse child, a soldier, whose sole fortune was his 
 courage, whose sole family is mankind at large, whose country 
 is France, whose only protector is the Almighty. Nay, I am 
 wrong ! I had a father the Emperor. Ah ! if he were but 
 here, the dear man ! If he could see his Chabert, as he used 
 to call me, in the state in which I am now, he would be in a 
 rage ! What is to be done ? Our sun is set, and we are all 
 out in the cold now. After all, political events might account 
 for my wife's silence ! 
 
 "Boutin set out. He was a lucky fellow! He had two 
 bears, admirably trained, which brought him in a living. I 
 could not go with him ; the pain I suffered forbade my walk- 
 ing long stages. I wept, monsieur, when we parted, after I 
 had gone as far as my state allowed in company with him and 
 his bears. At Carlsruhe I had an attack of neuralgia in the 
 head, and lay for six weeks on straw in an inn. I should 
 never have ended if I were to tell you all the distresses of my 
 life as a beggar. Moral suffering, before which physical 
 suffering pales, nevertheless excites less pity, because it is not 
 seen. I remember shedding tears, as I stood in front of a fine 
 house in Strassburg where I once had given an entertainment, 
 and where nothing was given me, not even a piece of bread. 
 Having agreed with Boutin on the road I was to take, I went
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 259 
 
 to every postoffice to ask if there were a letter or some money 
 for me. I arrived at Paris without having found either. What 
 despair I had been forced to endure ! ' Boutin must be dead 1 ' 
 I told myself, and in fact the poor fellow was killed at Water- 
 loo. I heard of his death later, and by mere chance. His 
 errand to my wife had, of course, been fruitless. 
 
 " At last I entered Paris with the Cossacks. To me this 
 was grief on grief. On seeing the Russians in France, I 
 quite forgot that I had no shoes on my feet nor money in my 
 pocket. Yes, monsieur, my clothes were in tatters. The 
 evening before I reached Paris I was obliged to bivouac in the 
 woods of Claye. The chill of the night air no doubt brought 
 on an attack of some nameless complaint which seized me as 
 I was crossing the Faubourg Saint-Martin. I dropped almost 
 senseless at the door of an ironmonger's shop. When I re- 
 covered I was in a bed in the Hotel-Dieu. There I stayed 
 very contentedly for about a month. I was then turned out ; 
 I had no money, but I was well, and my feet were on the 
 good stones of Paris. With what delight and haste did I 
 make my way to the Rue du Mont-Blanc, where my wife 
 should be living in a house belonging to me ! Bah ! the Rue 
 du Mont-Blanc was now the Rue de la Chaussee d'Antin; I 
 could not find my house ; it had been sold and pulled down. 
 Speculators had built several houses over my gardens. Not 
 knowing that my wife had married M. Ferraud, I could obtain 
 no information. 
 
 " At last I went to the house of an old lawyer who had 
 been in charge of my affairs. This worthy man was dead, 
 after selling his connections to a younger man. This gentle- 
 man informed me, to my great surprise, of the administration 
 of my estate, the settlement of the moneys, of my wife's 
 marriage, and the birth of her two children. When I told 
 him that I was Colonel Chabert, he laughed so heartily that I 
 left him without saying another word. My detention at 
 Stuttgart had suggested possibilities of Charenton, and I de-
 
 260 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 termined to act with caution. Then, monsieur, knowing 
 where my wife lived, I went to her house, my heart high with 
 hope. Well," said the colonel, with a gesture of concen- 
 trated fury, " when I called under an assumed name I was not 
 admitted, and on the day when I used my own I was turned 
 out of doors. 
 
 " To see the Countess come home from a ball or the play 
 in the early morning, I have sat whole nights through, crouch- 
 ing close to the wall of her gateway. My eyes pierced the 
 depths of the carriage, which flashed past me with the swift- 
 ness of lightning, and I caught a glimpse of the woman who 
 is my wife and no longer mine. Oh, from that day I have 
 lived for vengeance ! " cried the old man in a hollow voice, 
 and suddenly standing up in front of Derville. " She knows 
 that I am alive ; since my return she has had two letters writ- 
 ten with my own hand. She loves me no more ! I I know 
 not whether I love or hate her. I long for her and curse her 
 by turns. To me she owes all her fortune, all her happiness ; 
 well, she has not sent me the very smallest pittance. Some- 
 times I do not know what will become of me ! " 
 
 With these words the veteran dropped on to his chair again 
 and remained motionless. Derville sat in silence, studying 
 his client. 
 
 "It is a serious business," he said at length, mechanically. 
 " Even granting the genuineness of the documents to be pro- 
 cured from Heilsberg, it is not proved to me that we can at 
 once win our case. It must go before three tribunals in suc- 
 cession. I must think such a matter over with a clear head ; 
 it is quite exceptional." 
 
 " Oh," said the colonel, coldly, with a haughty jerk of his 
 head, "if I fail, I can die but not alone." 
 
 The feeble old man had vanished. The eyes now were those 
 of a man of energy, lighted up with the spark of desire and 
 revenge. 
 
 "We must perhaps compromise," said the lawyer.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 261 
 
 " Compromise ! " echoed Colonel Chabert. " Am I dead, 
 or am I alive? " 
 
 "I hope, monsieur," the attorney went on, " that you will 
 follow my advice. Your cause is mine. You will soon per- 
 ceive the interest I take in your situation, almost unexampled 
 in judicial records. For the moment I will give you a letter 
 to my notary, who will pay you to your order fifty francs 
 every ten days. It would be unbecoming for you to come 
 here to receive alms. If you are Colonel Chabert, you ought 
 to be at no man's mercy. I shall regard these advances as a 
 loan ; you have estates to recover; you are rich." 
 
 This delicate compassion brought tears to the old man's 
 eyes. Derville rose hastily, for it was perhaps not correct for 
 a lawyer to show emotion ; he went into the adjoining room, 
 and came back with an unsealed letter, which he gave to the 
 colonel. When the poor man held it in his hand he felt 
 through the paper two gold-pieces. 
 
 "Will you be good enough to describe the documents, and 
 tell me the name of the town, and in what kingdom?" said 
 the lawyer. 
 
 The colonel dictated the information, and verified the 
 spelling of the names of places ; then he took his hat in one 
 hand, looked at Derville, and held out the other a horny 
 hand, saying with much simplicity 
 
 "On my honor, sir, after the Emperor, you are the man 
 to whom I shall owe the most. You are, indeed, a splendid 
 fellow!" 
 
 The attorney clapped his hand into the colonel's, saw him 
 to the stairs, and held a light for him. 
 
 " Boucard," said Derville to his head clerk, " I have just 
 listened to a tale that may cost me five-and-twenty louis. If 
 I am robbed, I shall not regret the money, for I shall have 
 seen the most consummate actor of the day." 
 
 When the colonel was in the street and close to a lamp, he 
 took the two twenty-franc pieces out of the letter and looked
 
 262 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 at them for a moment under the light. It was the first gold 
 he had seen for nine years. 
 
 " I may smoke cigars ! " he said to himself. 
 
 About three months after this interview, at night, in Der- 
 ville's room, the notary commissioned to advance the half- 
 pay on Derville's account to his eccentric client came to 
 consult the attorney on a serious matter, and began by beg- 
 ging him to refund the six hundred francs that the old soldier 
 had received. 
 
 " Are you amusing yourself with pensioning the old 
 army ? ' ' said the notary, laughing a young man named 
 Crottat, who had just bought up the office in which he had 
 been head clerk, his chief having fled in consequence of a 
 disastrous bankruptcy. 
 
 " I have to thank you, my dear sir, for reminding me of 
 that affair," replied Derville. "My philanthropy will not 
 carry me beyond twenty-five louis; I have, I fear, already 
 been the dupe of my patriotism." 
 
 As Derville finished the sentence, he saw on his desk the 
 papers his head clerk had laid out for him. His eye was 
 struck by the appearance of the stamps long, square, and 
 triangular, in red and blue ink, which distinguished a letter 
 that had come through the Prussian, Austrian, Bavarian, and 
 French postoffices. 
 
 "Ah, ha! " said he with a laugh, "here is the last act of 
 the comedy; now we shall see if I have been taken in ! " 
 
 He took up the letter and opened it ; but he could not 
 read it ; it was written in German. 
 
 " Boucard, go yourself and have this letter translated, and 
 bring it back immediately," said Derville, half opening his 
 study door, and giving the letter to the head clerk. 
 
 The notary at Berlin, to whom the lawyer had written, in- 
 formed him that the documents he had been requested to 
 forward would arrive within a few days of this note announc-
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 263 
 
 ing them. They were, he said, all perfectly regular and duly 
 witnessed, and legally stamped to serve as evidence in law. 
 He also informed him that almost all the witnesses to the 
 facts recorded under these affidavits were still to be found at 
 Eylau, in Prussia, and that the woman to whom M. le Comte 
 Chabert owed his life was still living in a suburb of Heilsberg. 
 
 "This looks like business," cried Derville, when Boucard 
 had given him the substance of the letter. " But look here, 
 my boy," he went on, addressing the notary, "I shall want 
 some information which ought to exist in your office. Was it 
 not that old rascal Roguin ? " 
 
 "We will say that unfortunate, that ill-used Roguin," 
 interrupted Alexandre Crottat with a laugh. 
 
 " Well, was it not that ill-used man who has just carried 
 off eight hundred thousand francs of his clients' money, and 
 reduced several families to despair, who effected the settlement 
 of Chabert 's estate ? I fancy I have seen that in the docu- 
 ments in our case of Ferraud." 
 
 "Yes," said Crottat. "It was when I was third clerk; I 
 copied the papers and studied them thoroughly. Rose Cha- 
 potel, wife and widow of Hyacinthe, called Chabert, Count 
 of the Empire, grand officer of the Legion of Honor. They 
 had married without settlement ; thus they held all the prop- 
 erty in common. To the best of my recollection, the per- 
 sonalty was about six hundred thousand francs. Before his 
 marriage, Comte Chabert had made a will in favor of the 
 hospitals of Paris, by which he left them one-quarter of the 
 fortune he might possess at the time of his decease, the state 
 to take the other quarter. The will was contested, there was 
 a forced sale, and then a division, for the attorneys went at a 
 pace. At the time of the settlement the monster who was 
 then governing France handed over to the widow, by special 
 decree, the portion bequeathed to the treasury." 
 
 "So that Comte Chabert's personal fortune was no more 
 than three hundred thousand francs?"
 
 264 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 "Consequently so it was, old fellow!" said Crottat. 
 " You lawyers sometimes are very clear-headed, though you 
 are accused of false practices in pleading for one side or the 
 other." 
 
 Colonel Chabert, whose address was written at the bottom 
 of the first receipt he had given the notary, was lodging in 
 the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, Rue du Petit-Banquier, with an 
 old quartermaster of the Imperial Guard, now a cow-keeper, 
 named Vergniaud. Having reached the spot, Derville was 
 obliged to go on foot in search of his client, for his coach- 
 man declined to drive along an unpaved street, where the 
 ruts were rather too deep for cab-wheels. Looking about 
 him on all sides, the lawyer at last discovered at the end of 
 the street nearest to the boulevard, between two walls built of 
 stones and mud, two shabby stone gate-posts, much knocked 
 about by carts, in spite of two wooden stumps that served as 
 blocks. These posts supported a cross-beam with a pent- 
 house coping of tiles, and on the beam, in red letters, were 
 the words, "Vergniaud, dairyman." To the right of this 
 inscription were some eggs, to the left a cow, all painted in 
 white. The gate was open, and no doubt remained open all 
 day. Beyond a good-sized yard there was a house facing the 
 gate, if indeed the name of house may be applied to one of 
 the hovels built in the neighborhood of Paris, which are like 
 nothing else, not even the most wretched dwellings in the 
 country, of which they have all the poverty without their 
 poetry. 
 
 Indeed, in the midst of fields, even a hovel may have a 
 certain grace derived from the pure air, the verdure, the open 
 country a hill, a serpentine road, vineyards, quick-set 
 hedges, moss-grown thatch and rural implements ; but pov- 
 erty in Paris gains dignity only by horror. Though recently 
 built, this house seemed ready to fall into ruins. None of its 
 materials had found a legitimate use ; they had been collected 
 from the various demolitions which are going on every day in
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 265 
 
 Paris. On a shutter made of the boards of a shop-sign Der- 
 ville read the words, "Fancy Goods." The windows were 
 all mismatched and grotesquely placed. The ground floor, 
 which seemed to be the habitable part, was on one side raised 
 above the soil, and on the other sunk in the rising ground. 
 Between the gate and the house lay a puddle full of stable 
 litter, into which flowed the rain-water and house-waste. 
 The back wall of this frail construction, which seemed rather 
 more solidly built than the rest, supported a row of barred 
 hutches, where rabbits bred their numerous families. To the 
 right of the gate was the cow-house, with a loft above for fod- 
 der ; it communicated with the house through the dairy. To 
 the left was a poultry-yard, with a stable and pig-styes, the 
 roofs finished, like that of the house, with rough deal boards 
 nailed so as to overlap, and shabbily thatched with rushes. 
 
 Like most of the places where the elements of the huge 
 meal daily devoured by Paris are every day prepared, the yard 
 Derville now entered showed traces of the hurry that comes 
 of the necessity for being ready at a fixed hour. The large 
 pot-bellied tin cans in which milk is carrried, and the little 
 pots for cream, were flung pell-mell at the dairy door, with 
 their linen-covered stoppers. The rags that were used to 
 clean them fluttered in the sunshine, riddled with holes, 
 hanging to strings fastened to poles. The placid horse, of a 
 breed known only to milk-women, had gone a few steps from 
 the cart, and was standing in front of the stable, the door 
 being shut. A goat was munching the shoots of a starved 
 and dusty vine that clung to the cracked yellow wall of the 
 house. A cat, squatting on the cream jars, was licking them 
 over. The fowls, scared by Derville's approach, scuttered 
 away screaming, and the watch-dog barked. 
 
 "And the man who decided the victory at Eylau is to be 
 found here ! " said Derville to himself, as his eyes took in at 
 a glance the general effect of the squalid scene. 
 
 The house had been left in charge of three little boys.
 
 266 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 One, who had climbed to the top of a cart loaded with hay, 
 was pitching stones into the chimney of a neighboring house, 
 in the hope that they might fall into a saucepan ; another was 
 trying to get a pig into a cart by the back board, which rested 
 on the ground ; while the third, hanging on in front, was 
 waiting till the pig had gotten into the cart, to hoist it by 
 making the whole thing tilt. When Derville asked them if 
 M. Chabert lived there, neither of them replied, but all three 
 looked at him with a sort of bright stupidity, if I may com- 
 bine these two words. Derville repeated his questions, but 
 without success. Provoked by the saucy cunning of these 
 three imps, he abused them with the sort of pleasantry which 
 young men think they have a right to address to little boys, 
 and they broke the silence with a horse-laugh. Then Derville 
 was angry. 
 
 The colonel, hearing him, now came out of a little low 
 room, close to the dairy, and stood on the threshold of his 
 doorway with indescribable military coolness. He had in 
 his mouth a very finely colored pipe a technical phrase to a 
 smoker a humble, short clay pipe of the kind called " briile- 
 gueulc." He lifted the peak of a dreadfully greasy cloth cap, 
 saw Derville, and came straight across the midden to join his 
 benefactor the sooner, calling out in friendly tones to the 
 boys 
 
 " Silence in the ranks ! " 
 
 The children at once kept a respectful silence, which 
 showed the power the old soldier had over them. 
 
 "Why did you not write me?" he said to Derville. 
 "Go along by the cow-house! There the path is paved 
 there," he exclaimed, seeing the lawyer's hesitancy, for he 
 did not wish to wet his feet in the manure heap. 
 
 Jumping from one dry spot to another, Derville reached 
 the door by which the colonel had come out. Chabert seemed 
 but ill pleased at having to receive him in the bedroom he 
 occupied ; and, in fact, Derville found but one chair there.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 267 
 
 The colonel's bed consisted of some trusses of straw, over 
 which his hostess had spread two or three of those old frag- 
 ments of carpet, picked up heaven knows where, which milk- 
 women use to cover the seats of their carts. The floor was 
 simply the trodden earth. The walls, sweating saltpetre, 
 green with mold, and full of cracks, were so excessively 
 damp that on the side where the colonel's bed was a reed mat 
 had been nailed. The famous box-coat hung on a nail. Two 
 pairs of old boots lay in a corner. There was not a sign of 
 linen. On the worm-eaten table the Bulletins de la Grande 
 Armee, reprinted by Plancher, lay open, and seemed to be 
 the colonel's reading ; his countenance was calm and serene 
 in the midst of this squalor. His visit to Derville seemed to 
 have altered his features ; the lawyer perceived in them traces 
 of a happy feeling, a particular gleam set there by hope. 
 
 "Does the smell of a pipe annoy you? " he said, placing 
 the dilapidated straw-bottom chair for his lawyer. 
 
 "But, colonel, you are dreadfully uncomfortable here!" 
 remarked Derville. 
 
 The speech was wrung from Derville by the distrust natural 
 to lawyers, and the deplorable experience which they derive 
 early in life from the appalling and obscure tragedies at which 
 they look on. 
 
 " Here," said he to himself, " is a man who has of course 
 spent my money in satisfying a trooper's three theological 
 virtues play, wine, and women ! " 
 
 " To be sure, monsieur, we are not distinguished for luxury 
 
 here. It is a camp lodging, tempered by friendship, but " 
 
 And the soldier shot a deep glance at the man of law " I 
 have done no one wrong, I have never turned my back on 
 anybody, and I sleep in peace." 
 
 Derville reflected that there would be some want of deli- 
 cacy in asking his client to account for the sums of money he 
 had advanced, so he merely said 
 
 " But why would you not come to Paris, where you might
 
 268 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 have lived as cheaply as you do here, but where you would 
 have been better lodged? " 
 
 "Why," replied the colonel, " the good folks with whom 
 I am living had taken me in and fed me gratis for a year. 
 How could I leave them just when I had a little money. Be- 
 sides, the father of those three pickles is an old Egyptian ' ' 
 
 "An Egyptian ! " 
 
 " We give that name to the troopers who came back from 
 the expedition into Egypt, of which I was one. Not merely 
 are all who get back brothers ; Vergniaud was in my regi- 
 ment. We have shared a draught of water in the desert ; 
 and, besides, I have not yet finished teaching his brats to 
 read." 
 
 " He might have lodged you better for your money," said 
 Derville. 
 
 "Bah!" said the colonel, "his children sleep on the 
 straw as I do. He and his wife have no better bed ; they are 
 very poor, you see. They have taken a bigger business than 
 they can manage. But if I recover my fortune How- 
 ever, it does very well. ' ' 
 
 " Colonel, to-morrow or next day I shall receive your 
 papers from Heilsberg. The woman who dug you out is still 
 alive!" 
 
 "Curse the money! To think I haven't got any ! " he 
 cried, flinging his pipe on the ground. 
 
 Now, a well-colored pipe is to a smoker a precious pos- 
 session ; but the impulse was so natural, the emotion so gen- 
 erous, that every smoker, and the excise office itself, would 
 have pardoned this crime of treason to tobacco. Perhaps the 
 angels may have picked up the pieces. 
 
 " Colonel, it is an exceedingly complicated business," said 
 Derville as they left the room to walk up and down in the 
 sunshine. 
 
 " To me," said the soldier, " it appears exceedingly simple. 
 I was thought to be dead, and here I am ! Give me back my
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 269 
 
 wife and my fortune ; give me the rank of general, to which I 
 have a right, for I was made colonel of the Imperial Guard 
 the day before the battle of Eylau." 
 
 "Things are not done so in the legal world," said Derville. 
 " Listen to me. You are Colonel Chabert, I am glad to 
 think it ; but it has to be proved judicially to persons whose 
 interest it will be to deny it. Hence, your papers will be 
 disputed. That contention will give rise to ten or twelve 
 preliminary inquiries. Every question will be sent under con- 
 tradiction up to the supreme court, and give rise to so many 
 costly suits, which will hang on for a long time, however 
 eagerly I may push them. Your opponents will demand an 
 inquiry, which we cannot refuse, and which may necessitate 
 the sending of a commission of investigation to Prussia. But 
 even if we hope for the best ; supposing that justice should at 
 once recognize you as Colonel Chabert can we know how 
 the questions will be settled that will arise out of the very 
 innocent bigamy committed by the Comtesse Ferraud ? 
 
 " In y mr case, the point of law is unknown to the code, 
 and can only be decided as a point in equity, as a jury de- 
 cides in the delicate cases presented by the social eccentricities 
 of some criminal prosecutions. Now, you had no children 
 by your marriage ; M. le Comte Ferraud has two. The judges 
 might pronounce against the marriage where the family ties 
 are weakest, to the confirmation of that where they are 
 stronger, since it was contracted in perfect good faith. 
 Would you be in a very becoming moral position if you in- 
 sisted, at your age and in your present circumstances, in 
 resuming your rights over a woman who no longer loves you ? 
 You will have both your wife and her husband against you, 
 two important persons who might influence the bench. Thus 
 there are many elements which would prolong the case; you 
 will have time to grow old in the bitterest regrets." 
 
 " And my fortune?" 
 
 " Do you suppose you had a fine fortune ? "
 
 270 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 " Had I not thirty thousand francs a year?" 
 
 "My dear colonel, in 1799 you made a will before your 
 marriage, leaving one quarter of your property to hospitals." 
 
 "That is true." 
 
 " Well, when you were reported dead, it was necessary to 
 make a valuation, and have a sale, to give this quarter away. 
 Your wife was not particular about honesty to the poor. The 
 valuation, in which she no doubt took care not to include the 
 ready money or jewelry, or too much of the plate, and in 
 which the furniture would be estimated at two-thirds of its 
 actual cost, either to benefit her or to lighten the succession 
 duty, and also because a valuer can be held responsible for 
 the declared value the valuation thus made stood at six hun- 
 dred thousand francs. Your wife had a right to half for her 
 share. Everything was sold and bought in by her ; she got 
 something out of it all, and the hospitals got their seventy- 
 five thousand francs. Then, as the remainder went to the 
 state, since you had made no mention of your wife in your 
 will, the Emperor restored to your widow by decree the residue 
 which would have reverted to the exchequer. So, now, what 
 can you claim ? Three hundred thousand francs, no more, 
 and minus the costs." 
 
 "And you call that justice ! " said the colonel, in dismay. 
 
 "Why, certainly " 
 
 "A pretty kind of justice ! " 
 
 " So it is, my dear colonel. You see that what you thought 
 so easy is not so. Madame Ferraud might even choose to keep 
 the sum given to her by the Emperor." 
 
 " But she was not a widow. The decree is utterly void " 
 
 "I agree with you. But every case can get a hearing. 
 Listen to me. I think that under these circumstances a com- 
 promise would be both for her and for you the best solution 
 of the question. You will gain by it a more considerable 
 sum than you can prove a right to." 
 
 " That would be to sell my wife ! "
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 271 
 
 " With twenty-four thousand francs a year you could find a 
 woman who, in the position in which you are, would suit you 
 better than your own wife, and make you happier. I propose 
 going this very day to see the Comtesse Ferraud and sound- 
 ing the ground ; but I would not take such a step without 
 giving you due notice." 
 
 " Let us go together." 
 
 " What, just as you are ? " said the lawyer. " No, my dear 
 colonel, no. You might lose your case on the spot." 
 
 "Can I possibly gain it?" 
 
 " On every count," replied Derville. " But, my dear Col- 
 onel Chabert, you overlook one thing. I am not rich ; the 
 price of my connection is. not wholly paid up. If the bench 
 should allow you a maintenance, that is to say, a sum advanced 
 on your prospects, they will not do so till you have proved 
 that you are Comte Chabert, grand officer of the Legion of 
 Honor." 
 
 ' ' To be sure, I am a grand officer of the Legion of Honor; 
 I had forgotten that," said he simply. 
 
 "Well, until then," Derville went on, " will you not have 
 to engage pleaders, to have documents copied, to keep the 
 underlings of the law going, and to support yourself? The 
 expenses of the preliminary inquiries will, at a rough guess, 
 amount to ten or twelve thousand francs. I have not so much 
 to lend you I am crushed as it is by the enormous interest I 
 have to pay on the money I borrowed to buy my business ; 
 and you? Where can you find it?" 
 
 Large tears gathered in the poor veteran's faded eyes, and 
 rolled down his withered cheeks. This outlook of difficulties 
 discouraged him. The social and the legal world weighed on 
 his breast like a nightmare. 
 
 " I will go to the foot of the Vendome column ! " he cried. 
 " I will call out : ' I am Colonel Chabert who rode through 
 the Russian square at Eylau ! ' The statue he he will 
 know me."
 
 272 COLONEL CHABEKT. 
 
 "And you will find yourself in Charenton." 
 
 At this terrible name the soldier's transports collapsed. 
 
 " And will there be no hope for me at the ministry of war ? " 
 
 "The war office!" said Derville. "Well, go there; but 
 take a formal legal opinion with you, nullifying the certificate 
 of your death. The government offices would be only too 
 glad if they could annihilate the men of the Empire." 
 
 The colonel stood for a while speechless, motionless, his 
 eyes fixed, but seeing nothing, sunk in bottomless despair. 
 Military justice is ready and swift ; it decides with Turk-like 
 finality, and almost always rightly. This was the only justice 
 known to Chabert. As he saw the labyrinth of difficulties 
 into which he must plunge, and how much money would be 
 required for the journey, the poor old soldier was mortally hit 
 in that power peculiar to man, and called the will. He 
 thought it would be impossible to live as party to a lawsuit; it 
 seemed a thousand times simpler to remain poor and a beggar, 
 or to enlist as a trooper if any regiment would pass him. 
 
 His physical and mental sufferings had already impaired his 
 bodily health in some of the most important organs. He 
 was on the verge of one of those maladies for which medicine 
 has no name, and of which the seat is in some degree vari- 
 able, like the nervous system itself, the part most frequently 
 attacked of the whole human machine a malady which may 
 be designated as the heart-sickness of the unfortunate. How- 
 ever serious this invisible but real disorder might already be, 
 it could still be cured by a happy issue. But a fresh obstacle, 
 an unexpected incident, would be enough to wreck this vigor- 
 ous constitution, to break the weakened springs, and produce 
 the hesitancy, the aimless, unfinished movements, which physi- 
 ologists know well in men undermined by grief. 
 
 Derville, detecting in his client the symptoms of extreme 
 dejection, said to him : 
 
 " Take courage ; the end of the business cannot fail to be 
 in your favor. Only consider whether you can give me your
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 273 
 
 whole confidence and blindly accept the result I may think 
 best for your interests." 
 
 " Do what you will," said Chabert. 
 
 " Yes, but you surrender yourself to me like a man march- 
 ing to his death." 
 
 " Must I not be left to live without a position, without a 
 name ? Is that endurable ? ' ' 
 
 " That is not my view of it," said the lawyer. " We will 
 try a friendly suit, to annul both your death certificate and 
 your marriage, so as to put you in possession of your rights. 
 You may even, by Comte Ferraud's intervention, have your 
 name replaced on the army-list as general, and no doubt you 
 will get a pension." 
 
 "Well, proceed then," said Chabert. "I put myself 
 entirely in your hands." 
 
 "I will send you a power of attorney to sign," said Der- 
 ville. " Good-by. Keep up your courage. If you want 
 money, rely on me." 
 
 Chabert warmly wrung the lawyer's hand, and remained 
 standing with his back against the wall, not having the 
 energy to follow him excepting with his eyes. Like all men 
 who know but little of legal matters, he was frightened by 
 this unforeseen struggle. 
 
 During their interview, several times, the figure of a man 
 posted in the street had come forward from behind one of the 
 gate-pillars, watching for Derville to depart, and he now 
 accosted the lawyer. He was an old man, wearing a blue 
 waistcoat and a white-pleated kilt, like a brewer's ; on his 
 head was an otter-skin cap. His face was tanned, hollow- 
 cheeked, and wrinkled, but ruddy on the cheek-bones by 
 hard work and exposure to the open air. 
 
 " Asking your pardon, sir," said he, taking Derville by the 
 arm, " if I take the liberty of speaking to you. But I 
 fancied, from the look of you, that you were a friend of our 
 general." 
 18
 
 274 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 "And what then?" replied Derville. "What concern 
 have you with him ? But who are you ? ' ' said the cautious 
 lawyer. 
 
 "I am Louis Vergniaud," he at once replied. "I have 
 two words to say to you." 
 
 " So you are the man who has lodged Comte Chabert as I 
 have found him ? " 
 
 " Asking your pardon, sir, he has the best room. I would 
 have given him mine if I had had but one; I could have 
 slept in the stable. A man who has suffered as he has, who 
 teaches my kids to read, a general, an Egyptian, the first 
 lieutenant I ever served under What do you think ? Of us 
 all, he is best served. I shared what I had with him. Unfor- 
 tunately, it is not much to boast of bread, milk, eggs. Well, 
 well; it's neighbors' fare, sir. And he is heartily welcome. 
 But he has hurt our feelings." 
 
 "He?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, hurt our feelings. To be plain with you, I have 
 taken a larger business than I can manage, and he saw it. 
 Well, it worried him ; he must needs mind the horse ! I says 
 
 to him, ' Really, general ' ' Bah ! ' says he, ' I am not 
 
 going to eat my head off doing nothing. I learned to rub a 
 horse down many a year ago.' I had some bills out for the 
 purchase money of my dairy a fellow named Grados Do 
 you know him, sir ? " 
 
 "But, my good man, I have not time to listen to your 
 story. Only tell me how the colonel offended you." 
 
 " He hurt our feelings, sir, as sure as my name is Louis 
 Vergniaud, and my wife cried about it. He heard from our 
 neighbors that we had not a sou to begin to meet the bills 
 with. The old soldier, as he is, he saved up all you gave 
 him, he watched for the bill to come in, and he paid it. 
 Such a trick ! While my wife and me, we knew he had no 
 tobacco, poor old boy, and went without. Oh ! now yes, 
 he has his cigar every morning ! I would sell my soul for it
 
 COLONEL CHASER T. 275 
 
 No, we are hurt. Well, so I wanted to ask you for he 
 said you were a good sort to lend us a hundred crowns on 
 the stock, so that we may get him some clothes, and furnish 
 his room. He thought he was getting us out of debt, you 
 see. Well, it's just the other way; the old man is running 
 us into debt and hurt our feelings ! He ought not to have 
 stolen a march on us like that. And we his friends, too ! 
 On my word as an honest man, as sure as my name is Louis 
 Vergniaud, I would sooner sell out and enlist than fail to pay 
 you back your money " 
 
 Derville looked at the dairyman, and stepped back a few 
 paces to glance at the house, the yard, the manure-pool, the 
 cow-house, the rabbits, the children. 
 
 " On my honor, I believe it is characteristic of virtue to 
 have nothing to do with riches ! " thought he. 
 
 "All right, you shall have your hundred crowns, and 
 more. But I shall not give them to you ; the colonel will be 
 rich enough to help, and I will not deprive him of the 
 pleasure. ' ' 
 
 " And will that be soon ? " 
 
 "Why, yes." 
 
 " Ah, dear God ! how glad my wife will be ! " and the 
 cow-keeper's tanned face seemed to expand. 
 
 " Now," said Derville to himself, as he got into his cab 
 again, " let us call on our opponent. We must not show 
 our hand, but try to see hers, and win the game at one 
 stroke. She must be frightened. She is a woman. Now 
 what frightens women most ? A woman is afraid of nothing 
 but " 
 
 And he set to work to study the Countess' position, falling 
 into one of those brown studies to which great politicians 
 give themselves up when concocting their own plans and 
 trying to guess the secrets of a hostile cabinet. Are not 
 attorneys, in a way, statesmen in charge of private affairs? 
 
 But a brief survey of the situation in which the Comte
 
 276 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 Ferraud and his wife now found themselves is necessary for a 
 comprehension of the lawyer's cleverness. 
 
 Monsieur le Comte Ferraud was the only son of a former 
 councilor in the old Parlement of Paris, who had emigrated 
 during the Reign of Terror, and so, though he saved his head, 
 lost his fortune. He came back under the Consulate, and 
 remained persistently faithful to the cause of Louis XVIII., 
 in whose circle his father had moved before the Revolution. 
 He thus was one of the party in the Faubourg Saint-Germain 
 which nobly stood out against Napoleon's blandishments. 
 The reputation for capacity gained by the young Count then 
 simply called Monsieur Ferraud made him the object of the 
 Emperor's advances, for he was often as well pleased at his 
 conquests among the aristocracy as at gaining a battle. The 
 Count was promised the restitution of his title, of such of his 
 estates as had not been sold, and he was shown in perspective ' 
 a place in the ministry or as senator. 
 
 The Emperor fell. 
 
 At the time of Comte Chabert's death M. Ferraud was a 
 young man of six-and-twenty, without fortune, of pleasing 
 appearance, who had had his successes, and whom the Fau- 
 bourg Saint-Germain had adopted as doing it credit ; but 
 Madame la Comtesse Chabert had managed to turn her share 
 of her husband's fortune to such good account that, after 
 eighteen months of widowhood, she had about forty thousand 
 francs a year. Her marriage to the young Count was not 
 regarded as news in the circles of the Faubourg Saint-Ger- 
 main. Napoleon, approving of this union, which carried out 
 his idea of fusion, restored to Madame Chabert the money 
 falling to the exchequer under her husband's will ; but Napo- 
 leon's hopes were again disappointed. Madame Ferraud was 
 not only in love with her lover ; she had also been fascinated 
 by the notion of getting into the haughty society which, in 
 spite of its humiliation, was still predominant at the imperial 
 court. By this marriage all her vanities were as much grat-
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 277 
 
 ified as her passions. She was to become a real fine lady. 
 When the Faubourg Saint-Germain understood that the young 
 Count's marriage did not mean desertion, its drawing-rooms 
 were thrown open to his wife. 
 
 Then came the Restoration. The Count's political ad- 
 vancement was not rapid. He understood the exigencies of 
 the situation in which Louis XVIII. found himself; he was 
 one of the inner circle, who waited till the "Gulf of Revolu- 
 tion should be closed " for this phrase of the King's, at 
 which the Liberals laughed so heartily, had a political sense. 
 The order quoted in the lawyer's long preamble at the begin- 
 ning of this story had, however, put him in possession of two 
 tracts of forest, and of an estate which had considerably in- 
 creased in value during its sequestration. At the present 
 moment, though Comte Ferraud was a councilor of state and 
 a director-general, he regarded his position as merely the first 
 step of his political career. 
 
 Wholly occupied as he was by the anxieties of consuming 
 ambition, he had attached to himself, as secretary, a ruined 
 attorney named Delbecq, a more than clever man, versed in 
 all the resources of the law, to whom he left the conduct of 
 his private affairs. This shrewd practitioner had so well un- 
 derstood his position with the Count as to be honest in his 
 own interest. He hoped to get some place by his master's 
 influence, and he made the Count's fortune his first care. 
 His conduct so effectually gave the lie to his former life that 
 he was regarded as a slandered man. The Countess, with the 
 tact and shrewdness of which most women have a share more 
 or less, understood the man's motives, watched him quietly, 
 and managed him so well, that she had made good use of 
 him for the augmentation of her private fortune. She had 
 contrived to make Delbecq believe that she ruled her hus- 
 band, and had promised to get him appointed president of 
 an inferior court in some important provincial town, if he 
 devoted himself entirely to her interests.
 
 278 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 The promise of a place, not dependent on changes of 
 ministry, which would allow of his marrying advantageously, 
 and rising subsequently to a high political position, by being 
 chosen deputy, made Delbecq the Countess' abject slave. He 
 had never allowed her to miss one of those favorable chances 
 which the fluctuations of the Bourse and the increased value 
 of property afforded to clever financiers in Paris during the 
 first three years after the Restoration. He had trebled his 
 protectress* capital, and all the more easily because the 
 Countess had no scruples as to the means which might make 
 her an enormous fortune as quickly as possible. The emolu- 
 ments derived by the Count from the places he held she spent 
 on the housekeeping, so as to reinvest her dividends ; and 
 Delbecq lent himself to these calculations of avarice without 
 trying to account for her motives. People of that sort never 
 trouble themselves about any secrets of which the discovery 
 is not necessary to their own interests. And, indeed, he 
 naturally found the reason in the thirst for money, which 
 taints almost every Parisian woman ; and as a fine fortune 
 was needed to support the pretensions of Comte Ferraud, the 
 secretary sometimes fancied that he saw in the Countess' greed 
 a consequence of her devotion to a husband with whom she 
 still was in love. The Countess buried the secrets of her 
 conduct at the bottom of her heart. There lay the secrets of 
 life and death to her, there lay the turning-point of this 
 history. 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1818 the Restoration was set- 
 tled on an apparently immovable foundation ; its doctrines of 
 government, as understood by lofty minds, seemed calculated 
 to bring to France an era of renewed prosperity, and Parisian 
 society changed its aspect. Madame la Comtessee Ferraud 
 found that by chance she had achieved for love a marriage 
 that had brought her fortune and gratified ambition. Still 
 young and handsome, Madame Ferraud played the part of a 
 woman of fashion, and lived in the atmosphere of the court.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 279 
 
 Rich herself, with a rich husband who was cried up as one of 
 the ablest men of the Royalist party, and, as a friend of the 
 King, certain to be made minister, she belonged to the aris- 
 tocracy, and shared its magnificence. In the midst of this 
 triumph she was attacked by a moral canker. There are feel- 
 ings which women guess in spite of the care men take to bury 
 them. On the first return of the King, Comte Ferraud had 
 begun to regret his marriage. Colonel Chabert's widow had 
 not been the means of allying him to anybody ; he was alone 
 and unsupported in steering his way in a course full of shoals 
 and beset by enemies. Also, perhaps, when he came to judge 
 his wife coolly, he may have discerned in her certain vices of 
 education which made her unfit to second him in his schemes. 
 A speech he made, a propos of Talleyrand's marriage, en- 
 lightened the Countess, to whom it proved that if he had still 
 been a free man she would never have been Madame Ferraud. 
 What woman could forgive this repentance? Does it not 
 include the germs of every insult, every crime, every form of 
 repudiation ? But what a wound must it have left in the 
 Countess" heart, supposing that she lived in the dread of her 
 first husband's return ? She had known that he still lived, 
 and she had ignored him. Then during the time when she 
 had heard no more of him, she had chosen to believe that 
 he had fallen at Waterloo with the Imperial Eagle, at the 
 same time as Boutin. She resolved, nevertheless, to bind the 
 Count to her by the strongest of all ties, by a chain of gold, 
 and vowed to be so rich that her fortune might make her 
 second marriage indissoluble, if by chance Colonel Chabert 
 should ever reappear. And he had reappeared ; and she could 
 not explain to herself why the struggle she dreaded had not 
 already begun. Suffering, sickness, had perhaps delivered 
 her from that man. Perhaps he was half-mad, and Charenton 
 might yet do her justice. She had not chosen to take either 
 Delbecq or the police into her confidnce, for fear of putting 
 herself in their power, or of hastening the catastrophe. There
 
 280 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 are in Paris many women who, like the Countess Ferraud, 
 live with an unknown moral monster, or on the brink of an 
 abyss ; a callus forms over the spot that tortures them, and 
 they can still laugh and enjoy themselves. 
 
 " There is something very strange in Comte Ferraud's posi- 
 tion," said Derville to himself, on emerging from his long 
 reverie, as his cab stopped at the door of the Hotel Ferraud 
 in the Rue de Varennes. " How is it that he, so rich as he 
 is, and such a favorite with the King, is not yet a peer of 
 France ? It may, to be sure, be true that the King, as Mme. 
 de Grandlieu was telling me, desires to keep up the value of 
 the peerage by not bestowing it right and left. And, after all, 
 the son of a councilor of the Parlement is not a Crillon nor a 
 Rohan. A Comte Ferraud can only get into the Upper 
 Chamber surreptitiously. But if his marriage were annulled, 
 could he not get the dignity of some old peer who has only 
 daughters transferred to himself, to the King's great satisfac- 
 tion ? At any rate this will be a good bogey to put forward 
 and frighten the Countess," thought he as he went up the 
 steps. 
 
 Derville had without knowing it laid his finger on the 
 hidden wound, put his hand on the canker that consumed 
 Madame Ferraud. 
 
 She received him in a pretty, winter dining-room, where 
 she was at breakfast, while playing with a monkey tethered by 
 a chain to a little pole with climbing-bars of iron. The 
 Countess was in an elegant wrapper ; the curls of her hair, care- 
 lessly pinned up, escaped from a cap, giving her an arch look. 
 She was fresh and smiling. Silver, gilding, and mother-of- 
 pearl shone on the table, and all about the room were rare 
 plants growing in magnificent china jars. As he saw Colonel 
 Chabert's wife, rich with his spoil, in the lap of luxury and 
 the height of fashion, while he, poor wretch, was living with 
 a poor dairymen among the beasts, the lawyer said to himself 
 
 " The moral of all this is that a pretty woman will never
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 281 
 
 acknowledge as her husband, nor even as a lover, a man in 
 an old box-coat, a tow wig, and boots with holes in them." 
 
 A mischievous and bitter smile expressed the feelings, half- 
 philosophical and half-satirical, which such a man was 
 certain to experience a man well situated to know the truth 
 of things in spite of the lies behind which most families in 
 Paris hide their mode of life. 
 
 " Good-morning, Monsieur Derville," said she, giving the 
 monkey some coffee to drink. 
 
 "Madame," said he, a little sharply, for the light tone in 
 which she spoke jarred on him, " I have come to speak to you 
 on a very serious matter." 
 
 " I am so grieved, M. le Comte is away " 
 
 "I, madame, am delighted. It would be grievous if he 
 could be present at our interview. Besides, I am informed 
 through M. Delbecq that you like to manage your own busi- 
 ness without troubling the Count." 
 
 " Then I will send for Delbecq," said she. 
 
 " He would be of no use to you, clever as he is," replied 
 Derville. " Listen to me, madame ; one word will be enough 
 to make you grave. Colonel Chabert is alive ! " 
 
 "Is it by telling me such nonsense as that that you think 
 you can make me grave ? ' ' said she with a shout of laughter. 
 But she was suddenly quelled by the singular penetration of 
 the fixed gaze which Derville turned on her, seeming to read 
 to the bottom of her soul. 
 
 "Madame," he said, with cold and piercing solemnity, 
 " you know not the extent of the danger which threatens 
 you. I need say nothing of the indisputable authenticity of 
 the evidence nor of the fullness of proof which testifies to the 
 identity of Comte Chabert. I am not, as you know, the man 
 to take up a bad cause. If you resist our proceedings to show 
 that the certificate of death was false, you will lose that first 
 case, and that matter once settled, we shall gain every point." 
 
 " What, then, do you wish to discuss with me?"
 
 282 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 " Neither the colonel nor yourself. Nor need I allude to 
 the briefs which clever advocates may draw up when armed 
 with the curious facts of this case, or the advantage they may 
 derive from the letters you received from your first husband 
 before your marriage to your second." 
 
 "It is false," she cried, with the violence of a spoilt 
 woman. " I never had a letter from Comte Chabert ; and if 
 some one is pretending to be the colonel, it is some swindler, 
 some returned convict, like Coignard perhaps. It makes me 
 shudder only to think of it. Can the colonel rise from the 
 dead, monsieur ? Bonaparte sent an aide-de-camp to inquire 
 for me on his death, and to this day I draw the pension of 
 three thousand francs granted to his widow by the govern- 
 ment. I have been perfectly in the right to turn away all the 
 Chaberts who have ever come, as I shall all who may come." 
 
 " Happily we are alone, madame. We can tell lies at our 
 ease," said he coolly, and finding it amusing to lash up the 
 Countess' rage so as to lead her to betray herself, by tactics 
 familiar to lawyers, who are accustomed to keep cool when 
 their opponents or their clients are in a passion. " Well, 
 then, we must fight it out," thought he, instantly hitting on 
 a plan to entrap her and show her her weakness. 
 
 "The proof that you received the first letter, madame, is 
 that it contained some securities " 
 
 " Oh, as to securities that it certainly did not." 
 
 "Then you received the letter," said Derville, smiling. 
 " You are caught, madame, in the first snare laid for you by 
 an attorney, and you fancy you could fight against jus- 
 tice " 
 
 The Countess colored, and then turned pale, hiding her 
 face in her hands. Then she shook off her shame, and re- 
 torted with the natural impertinence of such women, " Since 
 
 you are the so-called Chabert's attorney, be so good as 
 *. >i 
 
 " Madam*," said Derville, " I am at this moment as much
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 283 
 
 your lawyer as I am Colonel Chabert's. Do you suppose I 
 want to lose so valuable a client as you are ? But you are not 
 listening." 
 
 " Nay, speak on, monsieur," said she graciously. 
 
 " Your fortune came to you from M. le Comte Chabert, 
 and you cast him off. Your fortune is immense, and you 
 leave him to beg. An advocate can be very eloquent when a 
 cause is eloquent in itself; there are here circumstances which 
 might turn public opinion strongly against you." 
 
 "But, monsieur," said the Comtesse, provoked by the 
 way in which Derville turned and laid her on the gridiron, 
 " even if I grant that your M. Chabert is living, the law will 
 uphold my second marriage on account of the children, and 
 I shall get off with the restitution of two hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand francs to M. Chabert." 
 
 "It is impossible to foresee what view the bench may take 
 of the question. If on one side we have a mother and chil- 
 dren, on the other we have an old man crushed by sorrows, 
 made old by your refusals to know him. Where is he to find 
 a wife ? Can the judges contravene the law? Your marriage 
 with Colonel Chabert has priority on its side and every legal 
 right. But if you appear under disgraceful colors, you might 
 have an unlooked-for adversary. That, madame, is the 
 danger against which I would warn you." 
 
 "And who is he?" 
 
 "Comte Ferraud." 
 
 " Monsieur Fearaud has too great an affection for me, too 
 much respect for the mother of his children " 
 
 " Do not talk of such absurd things," interrupted Der- 
 ville, " to lawyers, who are accustomed to read hearts to the 
 bottom. At this instant Monsieur Ferraud has not the slight- 
 est wish to annul your union, and I am quite sure that he 
 adores you ; but if some one were to tell him that his mar- 
 riage is void, that his wife will be called before the bar of 
 public opinion as a criminal "
 
 284 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 " He would defend me, monsieur." 
 
 "No, madame." 
 
 " What reason could he have for deserting me, monsieur?" 
 
 "That he would be free to marry the only daughter of a 
 peer of France, whose title would be conferred on him by 
 patent from the King." 
 
 The Countess turned pale. 
 
 "A hit! " said Derville to himself. "I have you on the 
 hip; the poor colonel's case is won. Besides, madame," 
 he went on aloud, " he would feel all the less remorse because 
 a man covered with glory a general, count, grand cross of 
 the Legion of Honor is not such a bad alternative ; and if 
 that man insisted on his wife's returning to him " 
 
 ' ' Enough, enough, monsieur!" she exclaimed. "I will 
 never have any lawyer but you. What is to be done? " 
 
 " Compromise ! " said Derville. 
 
 " Does he still love me ? " she said. 
 
 " Well, I do not think he can do otherwise." 
 
 The Countess raised her head at these words. A flash of 
 hope shone in her eyes ; she thought perhaps that she could 
 speculate on her first husband's affection to gain her cause by 
 some feminine cunning. 
 
 "I shall await your orders, madame, to know whether I 
 am to report our proceedings to you, or if you will come to 
 my office to agree to the terms of a compromise," said Der- 
 ville, taking leave. 
 
 A week after Derville had paid these two visits, on a fine 
 morning in June, the husband and wife, who had been sep- 
 arated by an almost supernatural chance, started from the 
 opposite ends of Paris to meet in the office of the lawyer who 
 was engaged by both. The supplies liberally advanced by 
 Derville to Colonel Chabert had enabled him to dress as 
 suited his position in life, and the dead man arrived in a very 
 decent cab. He wore a wig suited to his face, was dressed in
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 285 
 
 blue cloth with white linen, and wore upon his waistcoat the 
 broad red ribbon of the higher grade of the Legion of Honor. 
 In resuming the habits of wealth he had recovered his sol- 
 dierly style. He held himself up ; his face, grave and mys- 
 terious-looking, reflected his happiness and all his hopes, and 
 seemed to have acquired youth and empasto, to borrow a 
 picturesque word from the painter's art. He was no more 
 like the Chabert of the old box-coat than a cart-wheel double 
 sou is like a newly coined forty-franc piece. The passer-by, 
 only to see him, would have recognized at once one of the 
 noble wrecks of our old army, one of the heroic men on 
 whom our national glory is reflected, as a splinter of ice on 
 which the sun shines seems to reflect every beam. These 
 veterans are at once a picture and a book. 
 
 When the Count jumped out of his carriage to go into 
 Derville's office, he did it as lightly as a young man. Hardly 
 had his cab moved off, when a smart brougham drove up, 
 splendid with coats-of-arms. Madame la Comtesse Ferraud 
 stepped out in a dress which, though simple, was cleverly 
 designed to show how youthful her figure was. She wore a 
 pretty drawn bonnet lined with pink, which framed her face 
 to perfection, softening its outlines and making it look 
 younger. 
 
 If the clients were rejuvenescent, the office was unaltered, 
 and presented the same picture as that described at the begin- 
 ning of this story. Simonnin was eating his breakfast, his 
 shoulder leaning against the window, which was then open, 
 and he was staring up at the blue sky in the opening of the 
 courtyard enclosed by four gloomy houses. 
 
 "Ah, ha ! " cried the little clerk, " who will bet an even- 
 ing at the play that Colonel Chabert is a general, and wears a 
 red ribbon ? ' ' 
 
 " The chief is a great magician," said Godeschal. 
 
 " Then there is no trick to play on him this time? " asked 
 Desroches.
 
 286 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 " His wife has taken that in hand, the Comtesse Ferraud," 
 said Boucard. 
 
 "What next? "said Godeschal. "Is Comtesse Ferraud 
 required to belong to two men ? " 
 
 " Here she is," answered Simonnin. 
 
 At this moment the colonel came in and asked for Derville. 
 
 " He is at home, sir," said Simonnin. 
 
 "So you are not deaf, you young rogue ! " said Chabert, 
 taking the gutter-jumper by the ear and twisting it, to the de- 
 light of the other clerks, who began to laugh, looking at the 
 colonel with the curious attention due to so singular a per- 
 sonage. 
 
 Comte Chabert was in Derville's private room at the mo- 
 ment when his wife came in by the door of the office. 
 
 "I say, Boucard, there is going to be a queer scene in the 
 chiefs room. There is a woman who can spend her days alter- 
 nately, the odd with Comte Ferraud, and the even with Comte 
 Chabert." 
 
 "And in leap year," said Godeschal, " they must settle the 
 count between them.' ' 
 
 "Silence, gentlemen, you can be heard !" said Boucard 
 severely. " I never was in an office where there was so much 
 jesting as there is here over the clients." 
 
 Derville had made the colonel retire to the bedroom when 
 the Countess was admitted. 
 
 "Madame," he said, "not knowing whether it would be 
 agreeable to you to meet M. le Comte Chabert, I have placed 
 you apart. If, however, you should wish it " 
 
 "It is an attention for which I am obliged to you." 
 
 " I have drawn up the memorandum of an agreement of 
 which you and M. Chabert can discuss the conditions, here 
 and now. I will go alternately to him and to you, and explain 
 your views respectively." 
 
 "Let me see, monsieur," said the Countess impatiently. 
 
 Derville read aloud
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 287 
 
 " ' Between the undersigned : 
 
 " ' M. Hyacinthe Chabert, Count, Marechal de Camp and 
 Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor, living in Paris, Rue 
 du Petit Banquier, on the one part ; 
 
 " ' And Madame Rose Chapotel, wife of the aforesaid M. 
 le Comte Chabert, nee ' ' 
 
 "Pass over the preliminaries," said she. "Come to the 
 conditions." 
 
 "Madame," said the lawyer, "the preamble briefly sets 
 forth the position in which you stand to each other. Then, 
 by the first clause, you acknowledge, in the presence of three 
 witnesses, of whom two shall be notaries, and one the dairy- 
 man with whom your husband has been lodging, to all of 
 whom your secret is known, and who will be absolutely silent 
 you acknowledge, I say, that the individual designated in 
 the documents subjoined to the deed, and whose identity is to 
 be further proved by an act of recognition prepared by your 
 notary, Alexandre Crottat, is your first husband, Comte Cha- 
 bert. By the second clause, Comte Chabert, to secure your 
 happiness, will undertake to assert his rights only under cer- 
 tain circumstances set forth in the deed. And these," said 
 Derville, in a parenthesis, "are none other than a failure to 
 carry out the conditions of this secret agreement. M. Cha- 
 bert, on his part, agrees to accept judgment on a friendly suit, 
 by which his certificate of death shall be annulled and his 
 marriage dissolved." 
 
 " That will not suit me in the least," said the Countess with 
 surprise. " I will be a party to no suit ; you know why." 
 
 " By the third clause," Derville went on, with imperturbable 
 coolness, " you pledge yourself to secure to Hyacinthe Comte 
 Chabert an income of twenty-four thousand francs on govern- 
 ment stock held in his name, to revert to you at his death " 
 
 "But it is much too dear ! " exclaimed the Countess. 
 
 " Can you compromise the matter cheaper?" 
 
 "Possibly."
 
 288 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 " But what do you want, madame ? " 
 
 " I want I will not have a lawsuit. I want " 
 
 " You want him to remain dead? " said Derville, interrupt- 
 ing her hastily. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the Countess, "if twenty-four thousand 
 francs a year are necessary, we will go to law ' ' 
 
 "Yes, we will go to law," said the colonel in a deep 
 voice, as he opened the door and stood before his wife, with 
 one hand in his waistcoat and the other hanging by his side 
 an attitude to which the recollection of his adventure gave 
 horrible significance. 
 
 "It is he," said the Countess to herself. 
 
 " Too dear ! " the old soldier exclaimed. " I have given 
 you near on a million, and you are cheapening my misfor- 
 tunes. Very well ; now I will have you you and your 
 fortune. Our goods are in common, our marriage is not 
 dissolved ' ' 
 
 " But monsieur is not Colonel Chabert ! " cried the Coun- 
 tess, in feigned amazement. 
 
 " Indeed ! " said the old man, in a tone of intense irony. 
 " Do you want proofs? I found you in the Palais Royal ' 
 
 The Countess turned pale. Seeing her grow white under 
 her rouge, the old soldier paused, touched by the acute suffer- 
 ing he was inflicting on the woman he had once so ardently 
 loved ; but she shot such a venomous glance at him that he 
 abruptly went on 
 
 " You were with La " 
 
 " Allow me, Monsieur Derville," said the Countess to the 
 lawyer. "You must give me leave to retire. I did not come 
 here to listen to such dreadful things." 
 
 She rose and went out. Derville rushed after her ; but the 
 Countess had taken wings, and seemed to have flown from 
 the place. 
 
 On returning to his private room, he found the colonel in 
 a towering rage, striding up and down.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 289 
 
 " In those times a man took his wife where he chose," said 
 he. "But I was foolish, and chose badly; I trusted to ap- 
 pearances. She has no heart." 
 
 " Well, colonel, was I not right to beg you not to come ? 
 I am now positive of your identity ; when you came in, the 
 Countess gave a little start, of which the meaning was un- 
 equivocal. But you have lost your chances. Your wife knows 
 that you are unrecognizable." 
 
 "I will kill her!" 
 
 " Madness ! you will be caught and executed like any 
 common wretch. Besides, you might miss ! That would be 
 unpardonable. A man must not miss his shot when he wants 
 to kill his wife. Let me set things straight : you are only a 
 big child. Go now. Take care of yourself; she is capable 
 of setting some trap for you and shutting you up in Charenton. 
 I will notify her of our proceedings to protect you against a 
 surprise." 
 
 The unhappy colonel obeyed his young benefactor, and 
 went away, stammering apologies. He slowly went down the 
 dark staircase, lost in gloomy thoughts, and crushed perhaps 
 by the blow just dealt him the most cruel he could feel, the 
 thrust that could most deeply pierce his heart when he heard 
 the rustle of a woman's dress on the lowest landing, and his 
 wife stood before him. 
 
 " Come, monsieur," said she, taking his arm with a gesture 
 like those familiar to him of old. Her action and the accent 
 of her voice, which had recovered its graciousness, were 
 enough to allay the colonel's wrath, and he allowed himself 
 to be led to the carriage. 
 
 "Well, get in ! " said she, when the footman had let down 
 the step. 
 
 And as if by magic, he found himself sitting by his wife in 
 the brougham. 
 
 "Where to?" asked the servant. 
 
 " To Groslay," said she. 
 19
 
 290 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 The horses started at once, and carried them all across 
 Paris. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the Countess, in a tone of voice which 
 betrayed one of those emotions which are rare in our lives, 
 and which agitate every part of our being. At such moments 
 the heart, fibres, nerves, countenance, soul, and body, every- 
 thing, every pore even, feels a thrill. Life no longer seems 
 to be within us; it flows out, springs forth, is communicated 
 as by contagion, transmitted by a look, a tone of voice, a 
 gesture, impressing our will on others. The old soldier 
 started on hearing this single word, this first, terrible " mon- 
 sieur ! " But still it was at once a reproach and a pardon, a 
 hope and a despair, a question and an answer. This word 
 included them all; none but an actress could have thrown 
 so much eloquence, so many feelings into a single word. 
 Truth is less complete in its utterance ; it does not put every- 
 thing on the outside ; it allows us to see what is within. The 
 colonel was filled with remorse for his suspicions, his demands, 
 and his anger ; he looked down not to betray his agitation. 
 
 "Monsieur," repeated she, after an imperceptible pause, 
 "I knew you at once." 
 
 "Rosine," said the old soldier, "those words contain the 
 only balm that can help me to forget my misfortunes." 
 
 Two large hot tears rolled on to his wife's hands, which he 
 pressed to show his deeply rooted affection. 
 
 "Monsieur," she went on, "could you not have guessed 
 what it cost me to appear before a stranger in a position so 
 false as mine now is ? If I have to blush for it, at least let it 
 be in the privacy of my family. Ought not such a secret to 
 remain buried in our hearts? You will forgive me, I hope, 
 for my apparent indifference to the woes of a Chabert in whose 
 existence I could not possibly believe. I received your let- 
 ters," she hastily added, seeing in his face the objection it 
 expressed, " but they did not reach me till thirteen months 
 after the battle of Eylau. They were opened, dirty, the
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 291 
 
 writing was unrecognizable ; and after obtaining Napoleon's 
 signature to my second marriage contract, I could not help 
 believing that some clever swindler wanted to make a fool 
 of me. Therefore, to avoid disturbing Monsieur Ferraud's 
 peace of mind and disrupting family ties, I was obliged to 
 take precautions against a pretended Chabert. Was I not 
 right, I ask you?" 
 
 "Yes, you were right. It was I who was the idiot, the 
 owl, the dolt, not to have calculated better what the conse- 
 quences of such a position might be. But where are we 
 going ; " he asked, seeing that they had reached the barrier 
 of La Chapelle. 
 
 " To my country house near Groslay, in the valley of 
 Montmorency. There, monsieur, we will consider the steps 
 to be taken. I know my duties. Though I am yours by right, 
 I am no longer yours in fact. Can you wish that we should 
 become the talk of Paris? We need not inform the public 
 of a situation, which for me has its ridiculous side, and let 
 us preserve our dignity. You still love me," she said, with 
 a sad, sweet gaze at the colonel, "but have I not been au- 
 thorized to form other ties ? In so strange a position, a secret 
 voice bids me trust to your kindness, which is so well known 
 to me. Can I be wrong in taking you as the sole arbiter of 
 my fate ? Be at once judge and party to the suit. I trust in 
 your noble character ; you will be generous enough to forgive 
 me for the consequences of faults committed in innocence. 
 I may then confess to you : I love M. Ferraud. I believed 
 that I had a right to love him. I do not blush to make this 
 confession to you ; even if it offends you, it does not disgrace 
 us. I cannot conceal the facts. When fate made me a widow, 
 I was not a mother." 
 
 The colonel with a wave of his hand bid his wife be 
 silent, and for a mile and a half they sat without speaking a 
 single word. Chabert could fancy he saw the two little ones 
 before him.
 
 292 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 "Rosine." 
 
 " Monsieur." 
 
 " The dead are very wrong to come to life again." 
 
 " Oh, monsieur, no, no ! Do not think me ungrateful. 
 Only, you find me a lover, a mother, while you left me merely 
 a wife. Though it is no longer in my power to love, I know 
 how much I owe you, and I can still offer you all the affection 
 of a daughter." 
 
 "Rosine," said the old man in a softened tone, "I no 
 longer feel any resentment against you. We will forget every- 
 thing," he added, with one of those smiles which always re- 
 flect a noble soul ; "I have not so little delicacy as to de- 
 mand the mockery of love from a wife who no longer loves 
 me." 
 
 The Countess gave him a flashing look full of such deep 
 gratitude that poor Chabert would have been glad to sink 
 again into his grave at Eylau. Some men have a soul strong 
 enough for such self-devotion, of which the whole reward 
 consists in the assurance that they have made the person they 
 love happy. 
 
 " My dear friend, we will talk all this over later when our 
 hearts have rested," said the Countess. 
 
 The conversation turned to other subjects, for it was im- 
 possible to dwell very long on this one. Though the couple 
 came back again and again to their singular position, either 
 by some allusion or of serious purpose, they had a delightful 
 drive, recalling the events of their former life together and 
 the times of the Empire. The Countess knew how to lend 
 peculiar charm to her reminiscences, and gave the conversa- 
 tion the tinge of melancholy that was needed to keep it seri- 
 ous. She revived his love without awakening his desires, and 
 allowed her first husband to discern the mental wealth she 
 had acquired while trying to accustom him to moderate his 
 pleasure to that which a father may feel in the society of a 
 favorite daughter.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 293 
 
 The colonel had known the Countess of the Empire ; he 
 found her a Countess of the Restoration. 
 
 At last, by a cross-road, they arrived at the entrance to a 
 large park lying in the little valley which divides the heights 
 of Margency from the pretty village of Groslay. The Coun- 
 tess had there a delightful house, where the colonel on arriving 
 found everything in readiness for his stay there, as well as for 
 his wife's. Misfortune is a kind of talisman whose virtue con- 
 sists in its power to confirm our original nature ; in some 
 men it increases their distrust and malignancy, just as it im- 
 proves the goodness of those who have a kind heart. 
 
 Sorrow had made the colonel even more helpful and good 
 than he had always been, and he could understand some 
 secrets of womanly distress which are unrevealed to most men. 
 Nevertheless, in spite of his loyal trustfulness, he could not 
 help saying to his wife : 
 
 " Then you felt quite sure you would bring me here?" 
 
 "Yes," replied she, " if I found Colonel Chabert in Der- 
 ville's client." 
 
 The appearance of truth she contrived to give to this answer 
 dissipated the slight suspicions which the colonel was ashamed 
 to have felt. For three days the Countess was quite charm- 
 ing to her first husband. By tender attentions and unfailing 
 sweetness she seemed anxious to wipe out the memory of the 
 sufferings he had endured, and to earn forgiveness for the woes 
 which, as she confessed, she had innocently caused him. She 
 delighted in displaying for him the charms she knew he took 
 pleasure in, while at the same time she assumed a kind of 
 melancholy ; for men are more especially accessible to certain 
 ways, certain graces of the heart or of the mind which they 
 cannot resist. She aimed at interesting him in her position, 
 and appealing to his feelings so far as to take possession of his 
 mind and control him despotically. 
 
 Ready for anything to attain her ends, she did not yet 
 know what she was to do with this man ; but at any rate she
 
 294 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 meant to annihilate him socially. On the evening of the third 
 day she felt that in spite of her efforts she could not conceal 
 her uneasiness as to the results of her manoeuvres. To give 
 herself a minute's reprieve she went up to her room, sat down 
 before her writing-table, and laid aside the mask of composure 
 which she wore in Chabert's presence, like an actress who, 
 returning to her dressing-room after a fatiguing fifth act, drops 
 half-dead, leaving with the audience an image of herself which 
 she no longer resembles. She proceeded to finish a letter she 
 had begun to Delbecq, whom she desired to go in her name 
 and demand of Derville the deeds relating to Colonel Cha- 
 bert, to copy them, and to come to her at once to Groslay. 
 She had hardly finished when she heard the colonel's step in 
 the passage ; uneasy at her absence, he had come to look for 
 her. 
 
 " Alas ! " she exclaimed, " I wish I were dead ! My posi- 
 tion is intolerable ' ' 
 
 " Why, what is the matter ? " asked the colonel. 
 
 "Nothing, nothing ! " she replied. 
 
 She rose, left the colonel, and went down to speak pri- 
 vately to her maid, whom she sent off to Paris, impressing on 
 her that she was herself to deliver to Delbecq the letter just 
 written, and to bring it back to the writer as soon as he had 
 read it. Then the Countess went out to sit on a bench suffi- 
 ciently in sight for the colonel to join her as soon as he might 
 choose. The colonel, who was looking for her, hastened up 
 and sat down by her. 
 
 " Rosine," said he, " what is the matter with you ? " 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 It was one of those glorious, calm evenings in the month 
 of June, whose secret harmonies infuse such sweetness into 
 the sunset. The air was clear, the stillness perfect, so that 
 far away in the park they could hear the voices of some chil- 
 dren, which added a kind of melody to the sublimity of the 
 scene.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 293 
 
 " You do not answer me ? " the colonel said to his wife. 
 
 "My husband " said the Countess, who broke off, 
 
 started a little, and with blush stopped to ask him, " What 
 am I to say when I speak of M. Ferraud ? " 
 
 " Call him your husband, my poor child," replied the 
 colonel, in a kind voice. " Is he not the father of your chil- 
 dren?" 
 
 "Well, then," she said, "if he should ask what I came 
 here for, if he finds that I came here, alone, with a stranger, 
 what am I to say to him? Listen, monsieur," she went on, 
 assuming a dignified attitude, " decide my fate, I am resigned 
 to anything " 
 
 "My dear," said the colonel, taking possession of his 
 wife's hands, " I have made up my mind to sacrifice myself 
 entirely for your happiness " 
 
 "That is impossible!" she exclaimed, with a sudden 
 spasmodic movement. " Remember that you would have to 
 renounce your identity, and in an authenticated form." 
 
 " What ! " said the colonel. " Is not my word enough for 
 you?" 
 
 The word "authenticated" fell on the old man's heart, 
 and roused involuntary distrust. He looked at his wife in a 
 way that made her color, she cast down her eyes, and he 
 feared that he might find himself compelled to despise her. 
 The Countess was afraid lest she had scared the shy modesty, 
 the stern honesty, of a man whose generous temper and primi- 
 tive virtues were known to her. Though these feelings had 
 brought the clouds to their brow, they immediately recovered 
 their harmony. This was the way of it. A child's cry was 
 heard in the distance. 
 
 "Jules, leave your sister in peace," the Countess called 
 out. 
 
 "What, are your children here?" said Chabert. 
 
 " Yes ; but I told them not to trouble you." 
 
 The old soldier understood the delicacy, the womanly tact
 
 296 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 of so gracious a precaution, and took the Countess' hand to 
 kiss it. 
 
 "But let them come," said he. 
 
 The little girl ran up to complain of her brother. 
 
 " Mamma! " 
 
 "Mamma! " 
 
 "It was Jules " 
 
 " It was her " 
 
 Their little hands were held out to their mother, and the 
 two childish voices mingled ; it was an unexpected and 
 charming picture. 
 
 "Poor little things!" cried the Countess, no longer re- 
 straining her tears, " I shall have to leave them. To whom 
 will the law assign them ? A mother's heart cannot be di- 
 vided; I want them, I want them." 
 
 "Are you making mamma cry?" said Jules, looking 
 fiercely at the colonel. 
 
 " Silence, Jules ! " said the mother in a decided tone. 
 
 The two children stood speechless, examining their mother 
 and the stranger with a curiosity which it is impossible to 
 express in words. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" she cried. "If I am separated from the 
 Count, only leave me my children, and I will submit to any- 
 thing " 
 
 This was the decisive speech which gained all that she had 
 hoped from it. 
 
 " Yes," exclaimed the colonel, as if he were ending a 
 sentence already begun in his mind, " I must return under- 
 ground again. I had told myself so already." 
 
 " Can I accept such a sacrifice ? " replied his wife. " If 
 some men have died to save a mistress' honor, they gave 
 their life but once. But in this case you would be giving 
 your life every day. No, no. It is impossible. If it were 
 only your life, it would be nothing ; but to sign a declaration 
 that you are not Colonel Chabert, to acknowledge yourself an
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 297 
 
 impostor, to sacrifice your honor, and live a lie every hour 
 of the day ! Human devotion cannot go so far. Only 
 think ! No. But for my poor children I would have fled 
 with you by this time to the other end of the world." 
 
 "But," said Chabert, "can I not live here in your little 
 lodge as one of your relations ! I am as worn out as a 
 cracked cannon ; I want nothing but a little tobacco and the 
 ConstitutionneL ' ' 
 
 The Countess melted into tears. There was a contest 
 of generosity between the Comtesse Ferraud and Colonel 
 Chabert, and the soldier came out victorious. One evening, 
 seeing this mother with her children, the soldier was bewitched 
 by the touching grace of a family picture in the country, in 
 the shade and the silence ; he made a resolution to remain 
 dead, and, frightened no longer at the authentication of a 
 deed, he asked what he was to do to secure beyond all risk 
 the happiness of this family. 
 
 "Do exactly as you like," said the Countess. "I declare 
 to you that I will have nothing to do with this affair. I 
 ought not." 
 
 Delbecq had arrived some days before, and, in obedience to 
 the Countess' verbal instructions, the intendant had succeeded 
 in gaining the old soldier's confidence. So on the following 
 morning Colonel Chabert went with the erewhile attorney to 
 Saint-Leu-Taverny, where Delbecq had caused the attorney to 
 draw up an affidavit in such terms that, after hearing it read, 
 the colonel started up and walked out of the office. 
 
 "Turf and thunder! What a fool you must think me! 
 Why, I should make myself out a swindler ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 "Indeed, monsieur," said Delbecq, "I should advise you 
 not to sign in haste. In your place I would get at least thirty 
 thousand francs a year out of the bargain. Madame would 
 pay them." 
 
 After annihilating this scoundrel emeritus by the lightning 
 look of an honest man insulted, the colonel rushed off, carried
 
 298 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 away by a thousand contrary emotions. He was suspicious, 
 indignant, and calm again by turns. 
 
 Finally he made his way back into the park of Groslay by 
 a gap in the fence, and slowly walked on to sit down and 
 rest, and meditate at his ease, in a little room under a gazebo, 
 from which the road to Saint-Leu could be seen. The path 
 being strewn with the yellowish sand which is used instead 
 of river-gravel, the Countess, who was sitting in the upper 
 room of this little summer-house, did not hear the colonel's 
 approach, for she was too much preoccupied with the success 
 of her business to pay the smallest attention to the slight 
 noise made by her husband. Nor did the old man notice 
 that his wife was in the room over him. 
 
 "Well, Monsieur Delbecq, has he signed ?" the Countess 
 asked her secretary, whom she saw alone on the road beyond 
 the hedge of a haha. 
 
 " No, madame. I do not even know what has become of 
 our man. The old horse reared." 
 
 " Then we shall be obliged to put him into Charenton," 
 said she, " since we have gotten him." 
 
 The colonel, who recovered the elasticity of youth to leap 
 the haha, in the twinkling of an eye was standing in front of 
 Delbecq, on whom he bestowed the two finest slaps that ever 
 a scoundrel's cheeks received. 
 
 " And you may add that old horses can also kick ! " the 
 colonel added. 
 
 His rage spent, the colonel no longer felt vigorous enough 
 to leap the ditch. He had seen the truth in all its nakedness. 
 The Countess' speech and Delbecq' s reply had revealed the 
 conspiracy of which he was to be the victim. The care taken 
 of him was but a bait to entrap him in a snare. That speech 
 was like a drop of subtle poison, bringing on in the old 
 soldier a return of all his sufferings, physical and moral. He 
 came back to the summer-house through the park gate, walk- 
 ing slowly like a broken man.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 299 
 
 Then for him there was to be neither peace nor truce ! 
 From this moment he must begin the odious warfare with this 
 woman of which Derville had spoken, enter on a life of liti- 
 gation, feed on gall, drink every morning of the cup of 
 bitterness. And then fearful thought ! where was he to find 
 the money needful to pay the cost of the first proceedings ? 
 He felt such disgust of life, that if there had been any water 
 at hand he would have thrown himself into it ; that if he 
 had had a pistol, he would have blown out his brains. Then 
 he relapsed into the indecision of mind which, since his con- 
 versation with Derville at the dairyman's, had changed his 
 character. 
 
 At last, having reached the kiosque, he went up to the 
 gazebo, where little rose-windows afforded a view over each 
 lovely landscape of the valley, and where he found his wife 
 seated on a chair. The Countess was gazing at the distance, 
 and preserved a calm countenance, showing that impenetrable 
 face which women can assume when resolved to do their 
 worst. She wiped her eyes as if she had been weeping, and 
 played absently with the pink ribbons of her sash. Never- 
 theless, in spite of her apparent assurance, she could not help 
 shuddering slightly when she saw before her her venerable 
 benefactor, standing with folded arms, his face pale, his 
 brow stern. 
 
 " Madame," he said, after gazing at her fixedly for a mo- 
 ment and compelling her to blush, " Madame, I do not 
 curse you, I scorn you. I can now thank the chance that has 
 divided us. I do not feel even a desire for revenge ; I no 
 longer love you. I want nothing from you. Live in peace 
 on the strength of my word ; it is worth more than the scrawl 
 of all the notaries in Paris. I will never assert my claim to 
 the name I perhaps have made illustrious. I am henceforth 
 but a poor devil named Hyacinthe, who asks no more than 
 his share of the sunshine. Farewell ! " 
 
 The Countess threw herself at his feet; she would have
 
 300 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 detained him by taking his hands, but he pushed her away 
 with disgust, saying 
 
 " Do not touch me ! " 
 
 The Countess' expression when she heard her husband's 
 retreating steps is quite indescribable. Then, with the deep 
 perspicacity given only by utter villainy, or by fierce worldly 
 selfishness, she knew that she might live in peace on the word 
 and the contempt of this loyal veteran. 
 
 Chabert, in fact, disappeared. The dairyman failed in 
 business, and became a hackney-cab driver. The colonel, 
 perhaps, took up some similar industry for a time. Perhaps, 
 like a stone flung into a chasm, he went falling from ledge to 
 ledge, to be lost in the mire of rags that seethes through the 
 streets of Paris. 
 
 Six months after this event, Derville, hearing no more of 
 Colonel Chabert or the Comtesse Ferraud, supposed that they 
 had no doubt come to a compromise, which the Countess, out 
 of revenge, had had arranged by some other lawyer. So one 
 morning he added up the sums he had advanced to the said 
 Chabert with the costs, and begged the Comtesse Ferraud to 
 claim from M. le Comte Chabert the amount of the bill, 
 assuming that she would know where to find her first husband. 
 
 The very next day Comte Ferraud's man of business, lately 
 appointed president of the county court in a town of some 
 importance, wrote this distressing note to Derville : 
 
 " MONSIEUR : Madame la Comtesse Ferraud desires me to 
 inform you that your client took complete advantage of your 
 confidence, and that the individual calling himself Comte 
 Chabert has acknowledged that he came forward under false 
 pretenses. Yours, etc., DELBECQ." 
 
 " One comes across people who are, on my honor, too stupid 
 by half," cried Derville. " They don't deserve to be Chris- 
 tians ! Be humane, generous, philanthropical, and a lawyer,
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 301 
 
 and you are bound to be cheated ! There is a piece of busi- 
 ness that will cost me two thousand-franc notes ! " 
 
 Some time after receiving this letter, Derville went to the 
 Palais de Justice in search of a pleader to whom he wished 
 to speak, and who was employed in the police court. As 
 chance would have it, Derville went into court number 6 at 
 the moment when the presiding magistrate was sentencing one 
 Hyacinthe to two months' imprisonment as a vagabond, and 
 subsequently to be taken to the Mendicity House of Deten- 
 tion, a sentence which, by magistrate's law, is equivalent to 
 perpetual imprisonment. On hearing the name of Hyacinthe, 
 Derville looked at the delinquent, sitting between two gen- 
 darmes on the bench for the accused, and recognized in the 
 condemned man his false Colonel Chabert. 
 
 The old soldier was placid, motionless, almost absent-minded. 
 In spite of his rags, in spite of the misery stamped on his 
 countenance, it gave evidence of noble pride. His eye had 
 a stoical expression which no magistrate ought to have mis- 
 understood ; but as soon as a man has fallen into the hands 
 of justice, he is no more than a moral entity, a matter of law 
 or of fact, just as to statists he has become a zero. 
 
 When the veteran was taken back to the lock-up, to be 
 removed later with the batch of vagabonds at that moment at 
 the bar, Derville availed himself of the privilege accorded to 
 lawyers of going wherever they please in the courts, and fol- 
 lowed him to the lock-up, where he stood scrutinizing him for 
 some minutes, as well as the curious crew of beggars among 
 whom he found himself. The passage to the lock-up at that 
 moment afforded one of those spectacles which, unfortunately, 
 neither legislators, nor philanthropists, nor painters, nor 
 writers come to study. Like all the laboratories of the law, 
 this anteroom is a dark and malodorous place ; along the 
 walls runs a wooden seat, blackened by the constant presence 
 there of the wretches who come to this meeting-place of every 
 form of social squalor, where not one of them is missing.
 
 302 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 A poet might say that the day was ashamed to light up this 
 dreadful sewer through which so much misery flows ! There 
 is not a spot on that plank where some crime has not sat, in 
 embryo or matured ; not a corner where a man has never stood 
 who, driven to despair by the blight which justice has set 
 upon him after his first fault, has not there begun a career, at 
 the end of which looms the guillotine or the pistol-snap of 
 the suicide. All who fall on the pavement of Paris rebound 
 against these yellow-gray walls, on which a philanthropist, 
 who was not a speculator, might read a justification of the 
 numerous suicides complained of by hypocritical writers who 
 are incapable of taking a step to prevent them for that justi- 
 fication is written in that anteroom, like a preface to the 
 dramas of the morgue, or to those enacted on the Place de la 
 Greve. 
 
 At this moment Colonel Chabert was sitting among these 
 men men with coarse faces, clothed in the horrible livery of 
 misery, and silent at intervals, or talking in a low tone, for 
 three gendarmes on duty paced to and fro, their sabres clat- 
 tering on the floor. 
 
 "Do you recognize me?" said Derville to the old man, 
 standing in front of him. 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Chabert, rising. 
 
 " If you are an honest man," Derville went on in an under- 
 tone, " how could you remain in my debt ? " 
 
 The old soldier blushed as a young girl might when accused 
 by her mother of a clandestine love affair. 
 
 " What ! Madame Ferraud has not paid you? " cried he in 
 a loud voice. 
 
 "Paid me?" said Derville. "She wrote to me that you 
 were a swindler." 
 
 The colonel cast up his eyes in a sublime impulse of horror 
 and imprecation, as if to call heaven to witness to this fresh 
 subterfuge. 
 
 "Monsieur," said he, in a voice that was calm by sheer
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 303 
 
 huskiness, "get the gendarmes to allow me to go into the 
 lock-up, and I will sign an order which will certainly be 
 honored." 
 
 At a word from Derville to the sergeant he was allowed to 
 take his client into the room, where Hyacinthe wrote a few 
 lines, and addressed them to the Comtesse Ferraud. 
 
 "Send her that," said the soldier, " and you will be paid 
 your costs and the money you advanced. Believe me, mon- 
 sieur, if I have not shown you the gratitude I owe you for 
 your kind offices, it is not the less there," and he laid his 
 hand on his heart. "Yes, it is there, deep and sincere. 
 But what can the unfortunate do? They live, and that is all." 
 
 " What ! " said Derville. " Did you not stipulate for an 
 allowance?" 
 
 " Do not speak of it ! " cried the old man. "You cannot 
 conceive how deep my contempt is for the outside life to 
 which most men cling. I was suddenly attacked by a sick- 
 ness disgust of humanity. When I think that Napoleon is 
 at Saint Helena, everything on earth is a matter of indiffer- 
 ence to me. I can no longer be a soldier ; that is my only 
 real grief. After all," he added with a gesture of childish 
 simplicity, " it is better to enjoy luxury of feeling than of 
 dress. For my part, I fear nobody's contempt." 
 
 And the colonel sat down on his bench again. 
 
 Derville went away. On returning to his office, he sent 
 Godeschal, at that time his second clerk, to the Comtesse 
 Ferraud, who, on reading the note, at once paid the sum due 
 to Comte Chabert's lawyer. 
 
 In 1840, towards the end of June, Godeschal, now himself 
 an attorney, went to Ris with Derville, to whom he had suc- 
 ceeded. When they reached the avenue leading from the 
 high-road to Bicetre, they saw, under one of the elm-trees by 
 the wayside, one of those old, broken, and hoary paupers who 
 have earned the marshal's staff among beggars by living on at
 
 304 COLONEL CHABERT. 
 
 Bicetre as poor women live on at La Salpgtriere. This man, 
 one of the two thousand poor creatures who are lodged in the 
 infirmary for the aged, was seated on a corner-stone, and 
 seemed to have concentrated all his intelligence on an opera- 
 tion well known to these pensioners, which consists in drying 
 their snuffy pocket-handkerchiefs in the sun, perhaps to save 
 washing them. This old man had an attractive countenance. 
 He was dressed in the reddish cloth wrapper-coat which the 
 workhouse affords to its inmates, a sort of horrible livery. 
 
 "I say, Derville," said Godeschal to his traveling com- 
 panion, " look at that old fellow. Isn't he like those gro- 
 tesque carved figures we get from Germany ? And it is alive, 
 perhaps it is happy." 
 
 Derville looked at the poor man through his eyeglass, and 
 with a little exclamation of surprise he said : 
 
 "That old man, my dear fellow, is a whole poem, or, as 
 the romantics say, a drama. Did you ever meet the Com- 
 tesse Ferraud ? ' ' 
 
 "Yes; she is a clever woman, and agreeable; but rather 
 too pious," said Godeschal. 
 
 " That old Bicetre pauper is her lawful husband, Comte 
 Chabert, the old colonel. She has had him sent here, no 
 doubt. And if he is in this workhouse instead of living in a 
 mansion, it is solely because he reminded the pretty Countess 
 that he had taken her, like a hackney cab, on the street. I 
 can remember now the tiger's glare she shot at him at that 
 moment." 
 
 This opening having excited Godeschal's curiosity, Der- 
 ville related the story here told. 
 
 Two days later, on Monday morning, as they returned to 
 Paris, the two friends looked again at Bice'tre, and Derville 
 proposed that they should call on Colonel Chabert. Half- 
 way up the avenue they found the old man sitting on the 
 trunk of a felled tree. 
 
 "Good-morning, Colonel Chabert," said Derville.
 
 COLONEL CHABERT. 305 
 
 "Not Chabert ! not Chabert ! My name is Hyacinthe," 
 replied the veteran. " I am no longer a man, I am No. 164, 
 Room 7," he added, looking at Derville with timid anxiety, 
 the fear of an old man and a child. "Are you going to visit 
 the man condemned to death ? " he asked after a moment's 
 silence. " He is not married ! He is very lucky ! " 
 
 "Poor fellow " said Godeschal. " Would you like some- 
 thing to buy snuff? " 
 
 With all the simplicity of a street Arab, the colonel eagerly 
 held out his hand to the two strangers, who each gave him a 
 twenty-franc piece ; he thanked them with a puzzled look, 
 saying : 
 
 " Brave troopers ! " 
 
 He ported arms, pretended to take aim at them, and 
 shouted with a smile : 
 
 "Fire! both arms! Vive Napoleon!" And he drew a 
 flourish in the air with his stick. 
 
 "The nature of his wound has no doubt made him child- 
 ish," said Derville. 
 
 " Childish ! he ? " said another old pauper, who was look- 
 ing on. " Why, there are days when you had better not 
 tread on his corns. He is an old rogue, full of philosophy 
 and imagination. But to-day, what can you expect ! He 
 has had his Monday treat. He was here, monsieur, so long 
 ago as 1820. At that time a Prussian officer, whose chaise 
 was crawling up the hill of Villejuif, came by on foot. We 
 two were together, Hyacinthe and I, by the roadside. The 
 officer, as he walked, was talking to another, a Russian, or 
 some animal of the same species, and when the Prussian saw 
 the old boy, just to make fun, he said to him, ' Here is an 
 old cavalry man who must have been at Rossbach.' ' I was 
 too young to be there,' said Hyacinthe. ' But I was at 
 Jena.' And the Prussian made off pretty quick, without ask- 
 ing any more questions." 
 
 "What a destiny!" exclaimed Derville. "Taken out of 
 20
 
 306 COLONEL CHASE RT. 
 
 the Foundling Hospital to die in the Infirmary for the Aged, 
 after helping Napoleon between whiles to conquer Egypt and 
 Europe. Do you know, my dear fellow," Derville went on 
 after a pause, " there are in modern society three men who 
 can never think well of the world the priest, the doctor, and 
 the man of law? And they wear black robes, perhaps be- 
 cause they are in mourning for every virtue and every illu- 
 sion. The most hapless of the three is the lawyer. When a 
 man comes in search of the priest, he is prompted by repent- 
 ance, by remorse, by beliefs which make him interesting, 
 which elevate him and comfort the soul of the intercessor 
 whose task will bring him a sort of gladness ; he purifies, re- 
 pairs, and reconciles. But we lawyers, we see the same evil 
 feelings repeated again and again, nothing can correct them; 
 our offices are sewers which can never be cleansed. 
 
 " How many things have I learned in the excercise of my 
 profession ! I have seen a father die in a garret, deserted by 
 two daughters, to whom he had given forty thousand francs a 
 year ! I have known wills burnt ; I have seen mothers rob- 
 bing their children, wives killing their husbands, and work- 
 ing on the love they could inspire to make the men idiotic or 
 mad, that they might live in peace with a lover. I have seen 
 women teaching the child of their marriage such tastes as 
 must bring it to the grave in order to benefit the child of an 
 illicit affection. I could not tell you all that I have seen, for 
 I have seen crimes against which justice is impotent. In 
 short, all the horrors that romancers suppose they have in- 
 vented are still below the truth. You will know something 
 of these pretty things ; as for me, I am going to live in the 
 country with my wife. I have a horror of Paris." 
 
 "I have seen plenty of them already in Desroches* office," 
 replied Godeschal. 
 
 PARIS, February-March, 1832.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 Dedicated to Puttinati, Sculptor at Milan. 
 
 IN the year 1800, towards the end of October, a stranger, 
 having with him a woman and a little girl, made his appear- 
 ance in front of the Tuileries Palace, and stood for some little 
 time close to the ruins of a house, then recently pulled down, 
 on the spot where the wing is still unfinished which was in- 
 tended to join Catherine de Medici's Palace to the Louvre 
 built by the Valois. There he stood, his arms folded, his 
 head bent, raising it now and again to look at the Consul's 
 Palace, or at his wife, who sat on a stone by his side. 
 
 Though the stranger seemed to think only of the little girl 
 of nine or ten, whose black hair was a plaything in his fingers, 
 the woman lost none of the glances shot at her by her compan- 
 ion. A common feeling, other than love, united these two 
 beings, and a common thought animated their thoughts and 
 their actions. Misery is perhaps the strongest of all bonds. 
 
 The man had one of those broad, solemn-looking heads, 
 with a mass of hair, of which so many examples have been 
 perpetuated by the Carracci. Among the thick black locks 
 were many white hairs. His features, though fine and proud, 
 had a set hardness which spoiled them. In spite of his power- 
 ful and upright frame, he seemed to be more than sixty years 
 of age. His clothes, which were dilapidated, betrayed his 
 foreign origin. 
 
 The woman's face, formerly handsome, but now faded, bore 
 a stamp of deep melancholy, though, when her husband looked 
 at her, she forced herself to smile, and affected a calm expres- 
 sion. The little girl was standing, in spite of the fatigue that 
 was written on her small sunburnt face. She had Italian feat- 
 ures, large black eyes under well-arched eyebrows, a native 
 
 (307)
 
 308 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 dignity and genuine grace. More than one passer-by was 
 touched by the mere sight of this group, for the persons com- 
 posing it made no effort to disguise a despair evidently as 
 deep as the expression of it was simple ; but the spring of the 
 transient kindliness which distinguishes the Parisian is quickly 
 dried up. As soon as the stranger perceived that he was the 
 object of some idler's attention, he stared at him so fiercely 
 that the most intrepid lounger hastened his step, as though he 
 had trodden on a viper. 
 
 After remaining there a long time undecided, the tall man 
 suddenly passed his hand across his brow, driving away, so to 
 speak, the thoughts that had furrowed it with wrinkles, and 
 made up his mind no doubt to some desperate determination. 
 Casting a piercing look at his wife and daughter, he drew out 
 of his jerkin a long dagger, held it out to the woman, and 
 said in Italian, " I am going to see whether the Bonapartes 
 remember us." 
 
 He walked on, with a slow, confident step, towards the en- 
 trance to the palace, where, of course, he was checked by a 
 soldier on guard, with whom there could be no long discus- 
 sion. Seeing that the stranger was obstinate, the sentry 
 pointed his bayonet at him by way of ultimatum. As chance 
 would have it at this moment, a squad came round to relieve 
 guard, and the corporal very civilly informed the stranger 
 where he might find the captain of the guard. 
 
 " Let Bonaparte know that Bartolomeo di Piombo wants to 
 see him," said the Italian to the officer. 
 
 In vain did the captain explain to Bartolomeo that it was 
 not possible to see the First Consul without having written to 
 him beforehand to request an audience. The stranger insisted 
 that the officer should go to inform Bonaparte. The captain 
 urged the rules of his duty, and formally refused to yield to 
 the demands of this strange petitioner. Bartolomeo knit his 
 brows, looked at the captain with a terrible scowl, and seemed 
 to make him responsible for all the disasters his refusal might
 
 THE VENDETTA. 309 
 
 occasion ; then he remained silent, his arms tightly crossed 
 on his breast, and took his stand under the archway which 
 connects the garden and the courtyard of the Tuileries. 
 
 People who are thoroughly bent on anything are almost 
 always well served by chance. At the moment when Barto- 
 lomeo sat down on one of the curb-stones near the entrance 
 to the palace, a carriage drove up, and out of it stepped Lucien 
 Bonaparte, at that time minister of the interior. 
 
 " Ah ! Lucien, good luek for me to have met you ! " cried 
 the stranger. 
 
 These words, spoken in the Corsican dialect, made Lucien 
 stop at the instant when he was rushing into the vestibule ; he 
 looked at his fellow-countryman, and recognized him. At 
 the first word that Bartolomeo said in his ear, he took him 
 with him. Murat, Lannes, and Rapp were in the First Con- 
 sul's Cabinet. On seeing Lucien come in with so strange a 
 figure as was Piombo, the conversation ceased. Lucien took 
 his brother's hand and led him into a window recess. After 
 exchanging a few words, the First Consul raised his hand 
 with a gesture, which Murat and Lannes obeyed by retiring. 
 Rapp affected not to have seen it, and remained. Then, 
 Bonaparte having sharply called him to order, the aide-de- 
 camp went out with a sour face. The First Consul, who heard 
 the sound of Rapp's steps in the neighboring room, hastily 
 followed him, and saw him close to the wall between the 
 cabinet and the anteroom. 
 
 "You refuse to understand me?" said the First Consul. 
 " I wish to be alone with my countryman." 
 
 "A Corsican!" retorted the aide-de-camp. "I distrust 
 those creatures too much not to " 
 
 The First Consul could not help smiling, and lightly pushed 
 his faithful officer by the shoulders. 
 
 " Well, and what are you doing here, my poor Barto- 
 lomeo? " said the First Consul to Piombo.
 
 310 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 "I have come to ask for shelter and protection, if you are 
 a true Corsican," replied Bartolomeo in a rough tone. 
 
 "What misfortune has driven you from your native land? 
 You were the richest, the most " 
 
 "I have killed all the Porta," replied the Corsican, in a 
 hollow voice, with a frown. 
 
 The First Consul drew back a step or two, like a man 
 astonished. 
 
 "Are you going to betray me? " cried Bartolomeo, with a 
 gloomy look at Bonaparte. " Do you forget that there are 
 still four of the Piombo in Corsica? " 
 
 Lucien took his fellow-countryman by the arm and shook 
 him. 
 
 " Do you come here to threaten the savior of France ? " he 
 said vehemently. 
 
 Bonaparte made a sign to Lucien, who was silent. Then 
 he looked at Piombo, and said, " And why did you kill all 
 the Porta?" 
 
 "We had made friends," he replied; "theBarbanti had 
 reconciled us. The day after we had drunk together to drown 
 our quarrel I left, because I had business at Bastia, They 
 stayed at my place, and set fire to my vineyard at Longone. 
 They killed my son Gregorio ; my daughter Ginevra and my 
 wife escaped; they had taken the communion that morning; 
 the Virgin protected them. When I got home I could no 
 longer see my house ; I searched for it with my feet in the 
 ashes. Suddenly I came across Gregorio's body ; I recog- 
 nized it in the moonlight. ' Oh, the Porta have played this 
 trick ! ' said I to myself. I went off at once into the scrub ; 
 I got together a few men to whom I had done some service 
 do you hear, Bonaparte ? and we marched down on the 
 Porta's vineyard. We arrived at five in the morning, and by 
 seven they were all in the presence of God. Giacomo de- 
 clares that Elisa Vanni saved a child, little Luigi ; but I tied 
 him into bed with my own hands before setting the house on
 
 LUCIEN TOOK HIS FELLOW-COUNTRYMAN BY THE ARM.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 311 
 
 fire. Then I quitted the island with my wife and daughter 
 without being able to make sure whether Luigi Porta was 
 still alive." 
 
 Bonaparte looked at Bartolomeo with curiosity, but no 
 astonishment. 
 
 " How many were they ? " asked Lucien. 
 
 "Seven," replied Piombo. "They persecuted you in 
 their day," he added. The words aroused no signs of hatred 
 in the two brothers. "Ah ! you are no longer Corsicans ! " 
 cried Bartolomeo, with a sort of despair. " Good-by. 
 Formerly I protected you," he went on reproachfully. "But 
 for me your mother would never have reached Marseilles," 
 he said, turning to Bonaparte, who stood thoughtful, his 
 elbow resting on the chimney-piece. 
 
 " I cannot in conscience take you under my wing, Piombo," 
 replied Napoleon. "I am the head of a great nation; I 
 govern the Republic ; I must see that the laws are carried 
 out." 
 
 "Ah, ha! " said Bartolomeo. 
 
 -'But I can shut my eyes," Bonaparte went on. "The 
 tradition of the Vendetta will hinder the reign of law in 
 Corsica for a long time yet," he added, talking to himself. 
 "But it must be stamped out at any cost." 
 
 He was silent for a minute, and Lucien signed to Piombo 
 to say nothing. The Corsican shook his head from side to 
 side with a disapproving look. 
 
 " Remain here," the First Consul said, addressing Barto- 
 lomeo. " We know nothing. I will see that your estates are 
 purchased so as to give you at once the means of living. 
 Then later, some time hence, we will remember you. But no 
 more Vendetta. There is no Maquis scrub here. If you 
 play tricks with your dagger, there is no hope for you. Here 
 the law protects everybody, and we do not do justice on our 
 own account." 
 
 "He has put himself at the head of a strange people,"
 
 312 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 replied Bartolomeo, taking Lucien's hand and pressing it. 
 "But you recognize me in misfortune; it is a bond between 
 us for life and death ; and you may command every one 
 named Piombo." As he spoke his brow cleared, and he 
 looked about him approvingly. 
 
 "You are not badly off here," he said, with a smile, as if 
 he would like to lodge there. "And you are dressed all in 
 red like a cardinal." 
 
 "It rests with you to rise and have a palace in Paris," said 
 Bonaparte, looking at him from head to foot. " It may often 
 happen that I must look about me for a devoted friend to 
 whom I can trust myself." 
 
 A sigh of gladness broke from Piombo's deep chest ; he 
 held out his hand to the First Consul, saying, "There is 
 something of the Corsican in you still ! " 
 
 Bonaparte smiled. He gazed in silence at this man, who 
 had brought him as it were a breath of air from his native 
 land, from the island where he had formerly been so miracu- 
 lously saved from the hatred of the " English party," and 
 which he was fated never to see again. He made a sign to 
 his brother, who led away Bartolomeo di Piombo. 
 
 Lucien inquired with interest as to the pecuniary position 
 of the man who had once protected his family. Piombo led 
 the minister of the interior to a window and showed him his 
 wife and Ginevra, both seated on a heap of stones, awaiting 
 his return. 
 
 "We have come from Fontainebleau on foot," said he, 
 " and we have not a sou." 
 
 Lucien gave his fellow-countryman his purse, and desired 
 him to come again next morning to consult as to the means 
 of providing for his family. The income from all Piombo's 
 possessions in Corsica could hardly suffice to maintain him 
 respectably in Paris. 
 
 Fifteen years elapsed between the arrival of the Piombo
 
 THE VENDETTA. 313 
 
 family in Paris and the following incidents, which, without 
 the story of this event, would have been less intelligible. 
 
 Servin, one of our most distinguished artists, was the first 
 to conceive the idea of opening a studio for young ladies who 
 may wish to take lessons in painting. He was a man of over 
 forty, of blameless habits, and wholly given up to his art ; 
 and he had married for love the daughter of a general with- 
 out any fortune. At first mothers brought their daughters 
 themselves to the professor's studio ; but when they under- 
 stood his high principles and appreciated the care by which 
 he strove to deserve such confidence, they ended by sending 
 the girls alone. It was part of the painter's scheme to take as 
 pupils only young ladies of rich or highly respectable family, 
 that no difficulties might arise as to the society in his studio; 
 he had even refused to take young girls who intended to 
 become artists, and who must necessarily have had certain 
 kinds of training without which no mastery is possible. By 
 degrees his prudence, the superior method by which he initi- 
 ated his pupils into the secrets of his art, as well as the 
 security their mothers felt in knowing that their daughters 
 were in the company of well-bred girls, and in the artist's 
 character, manners, and marriage, won him a high reputation 
 in the world of fashion. As soon as a young girl showed any 
 desire to learn drawing or painting, and her mother asked 
 advice, " Send her to Servin," was always the answer. 
 
 Thus Servin had a specialty for teaching ladies art, as Her- 
 bault had for bonnets, Leroy for dresses, and Chevet for 
 dainties. It was acknowledged that a young woman who had 
 taken lessons of Servin could pronounce definitely on the 
 pictures in the Louvre, paint a portrait in a superior manner, 
 copy an old picture, and produce her own painting of genre. 
 Thus this artist sufficed for all the requirements of the aris- 
 tocracy. 
 
 Notwithstanding his connection with all the best houses 
 in Paris, he was independent and patriotic, preserving with
 
 314 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 all alike the light and witty tone, sometimes ironical, and 
 the freedom of opinion which characterize painters. 
 
 He had carried his scrupulous precautions into the ar- 
 rangement of the place where his scholars worked. The 
 outer entrance to the loft above his dwelling-rooms had 
 been walled up; to get into this retreat, as sacred as a 
 harem, the way was up a staircase in the centre of the 
 house. This studio, which occupied the whole of the top 
 story, was on the vast scale which always surprises inquis- 
 itive strangers when, having climbed to sixty feet above the 
 ground, they expect to find an artist lodged in the gutter. 
 It was a kind of gallery, abundantly lighted by immense 
 skylights screened with the large green blinds which artists 
 use to distribute the light. A quantity of caricatures, heads 
 sketched in outline with a brush or the point of a palette 
 knife, all over the dark gray walls, proved that, allowing 
 for a difference in the expression, fine young ladies have 
 as much whimsicality in their brain as men can have. A 
 small stove, with a huge pipe that made amazing zigzags 
 before reaching the upper region of the roof, was the in- 
 evitable decoration of this studio. There was a shelf all 
 round the room, supporting plaster casts which lay there 
 in confusion, most of them under a coating of whitish 
 dust. 
 
 Above this shelf here and there a head of Niobe hanging 
 to a nail showed its pathetic bend, a Venus smiled, a hand 
 was unexpectedly thrust out before your eyes, like a beggar 
 asking alms ; then there were anatomical tcorchcs, yellow 
 with smoke, and looking like limbs snatched from coffins ; 
 and pictures, drawings, lay figures, frames without canvas, 
 and canvasses without frames, completed the effect, giving 
 the room the characteristic aspect of a studio, a singular 
 mixture of ornamentation and bareness, of poverty and 
 splendor, of care and neglect. 
 
 This huge sort of hold, in which everything, even man,
 
 THE VENDETTA. 315 
 
 looks small, has a behind-the-scenes flavor; here are to be 
 seen old linen, gilt armor, odds and ends of stuffs, and some 
 machinery. But there is something about it as grand as 
 thought : genius and death are there ; Diana and Apollo 
 side by side with a skull or a skeleton ; beauty and disorder, 
 poetry and reality, gorgeous coloring in shadow, and often 
 a whole drama, but motionless and silent. How symbol- 
 ical of the artist brain ! 
 
 At the moment when my story begins the bright sun of 
 July lighted up the studio, and two beams of sunshine shot 
 across its depths, broad bands of diaphanous gold in which 
 the dust-motes glistened. A dozen easels raised their pointed 
 spars, looking like the masts of vessels in a harbor. Sev- 
 eral young girls gave life to the scene by the variety of 
 their countenances and attitudes, and the difference in their 
 dress. The strong shadows cast by the green baize blinds, 
 arranged to suit the position of each easel, produced a multi- 
 tude of contrasts and fascinating effects of chiaro-oscuro. 
 
 This group of girls formed the most attractive picture in 
 the gallery. A fair-haired girl, simply dressed, stood at some 
 distance from her companions, working perseveringly and 
 seeming to foresee misfortune ; no one looked at her nor spoke 
 to her ; she was the prettiest, the most modest, and the least 
 rich. Two principal groups, divided by a little space, repre- 
 sented two classes of society, two spirits, even in this studio, 
 where rank and fortune ought to have been forgotten. 
 
 These young things, sitting or standing, surrounded by their 
 paint-boxes, playing with their brushes or getting them ready, 
 handling their bright-tinted palettes, painting, chattering, 
 laughing, singing, given up to their natural impulses and reveal- 
 ing their true characters, made up a drama unknown to men ; 
 this one proud, haughty, capricious, with black hair and beauti- 
 ful hands, flashed the fire of her eyes at random ; that one light- 
 hearted and heedless, a smile on her lips, her hair chestnut, 
 with delicate white hands, virginal and French, a light nature
 
 316 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 without a thought of evil, living from hour to hour; another, 
 dreamy, melancholy, pale, her head drooping like a falling 
 blossom ; her neighbor, on the contrary, tall, indolent, with 
 Oriental manners, and long, black, melting eyes, speaking 
 little but lost in thought, and stealing a look at the head of 
 Antinous. 
 
 In the midst, like the Jocoso of a Spanish comedy, a girl, 
 full of wit and sparkling sallies, stood watching them all 
 with a single glance, and making them laugh ; raising a face 
 so full of life that it could not but be pretty. She was the 
 leader of the first group of pupils, consisting of the daughters 
 of bankers, lawyers, and merchants all rich, but exposed to 
 all the minute but stinging disdains freely poured out upon 
 them by the other young girls who belonged to the aristocracy. 
 These were governed by the daughter of a gentleman usher to 
 the King's private chamber, a vain little thing, as silly as she 
 was vain, and proud of her father having an office at court. 
 She aimed at seeming to understand the master's remarks at the 
 first word, and appearing to work by inspired grace ; she used 
 an eyeglass, came very much dressed, very late, and begged 
 her companions not to talk loud. Among this second group 
 might be observed some exquisite shapes and distinguished- 
 looking faces; but their looks expressed but little simplicity. 
 Though their attitudes were elegant and their movements 
 graceful, their faces were lacking in candor, and it was easy 
 to perceive that they belonged to a world where politeness 
 forms the character at an early age, and the abuse of social 
 pleasures kills the feelings and develops selfishness. When 
 the whole party of girl students was complete there were to 
 be seen among them child-like heads, virgin heads of en- 
 chanting purity, faces where the parted lips showed virgin 
 teeth, and where a virgin smile came and went. Then the 
 studio suggested not a seraglio, but a group of angels sitting 
 on a cloud in heaven. 
 
 It was near noon ; Servin had not yet made his appearance.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 317 
 
 For some days past he had spent most of his time at a studio 
 he had elsewhere, finishing a picture he had there for the exhi- 
 bition. Suddenly Mademoiselle Amelie Thirion, the head of 
 the aristocrats in this little assembly, spoke at some length to 
 her neighbor; there was profound silence among the patrician 
 group; the banker faction was equally silent from astonish- 
 ment, and tried to guess the subject of such a conference. But 
 the secret of the young ultras was soon known. Amelie rose, 
 took an easel that stood near her, and moved it to some dis- 
 tance from the "nobility," close to a clumsy partition which 
 divided the studio from a dark closet where broken casts were 
 kept, paintings that the professor had condemned, and, in 
 winter, the firewood. Amelie's proceedings gave rise to a 
 murmur of surprise which did not hinder her from completing 
 the removal by wheeling up to the easel a stool and paint-box, 
 in fact, everything, even a picture by Prudhon, of which a 
 pupil, who had not yet come, was making a copy. After this 
 coup d'etat the party of the right painted on in silence ; but 
 the left talked it over at great length, each one freely ex- 
 pressing themselves against the wisdom of such an act. 
 
 "What will Mademoiselle Piombo say? " asked one of the 
 girls of Mademoiselle Mathilde Roguin, the oracle of mischief 
 of her group. 
 
 "She is not a girl to say much," was the reply. "But 
 fifty years hence she will remember this insult as if she had 
 experienced it the day before, and will find some cruel means 
 of revenge. She is a person I should not like to be at war 
 with." 
 
 " The proscription to which those ladies have condemned 
 her is all the more unjust," said another young girl, " because 
 Mademoiselle Ginevra was very sad the day before yesterday ; 
 her father, they say, has just given up his appointment. This 
 will add to her troubles, while she was very good to those 
 young ladies during the Hundred Days. Did she ever say a 
 word that could hurt them? On the contrary, she avoided
 
 318 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 talking politics. But our ultras seem to be prompted by 
 jealousy rather than by party spirit." 
 
 " I have a great mind to fetch Mademoiselle Piombo's easel 
 and place it by mine," said Mathilde Roguin. She rose, but 
 on second thoughts she sat down again. " With a spirit like 
 Mademoiselle Ginevra's," said she, " it is impossible to know 
 how she would take our civility. Let us wait and see," and 
 she resumed her work at the easel. 
 
 " Eccola!" said the black-eyed girl languidly. In fact, 
 the sound of footsteps coming upstairs was heard in the studio. 
 The words, " Here she comes !" passed from mouth to mouth, 
 and then perfect silence fell. 
 
 To understand the full importance of the ostracism carried 
 into effect by Amelie Thirion, it must be told that this scene 
 took place towards the end of the month of July, 1815. The 
 second restoration of the Bourbons broke up many friendships 
 which had weathered the turmoil of the first. At this time 
 families, almost always divided among themselves, renewed 
 many of the most deplorable scenes which tarnish the history 
 of all countries at periods of civil or religious struggles. 
 Children, young girls, old men, had caught the monarchical 
 fever from which the government was suffering. Discord flew 
 in under the domestic roof, and suspicion dyed in gloomy 
 hues the most intimate conversations and actions. 
 
 Ginevra di Piombo idolized Napoleon; indeed, how could 
 she have hated him? The Emperor was her fellow-country- 
 man, and her father's benefactor. Baron di Piombo was one 
 of Napoleon's followers who had most efficiently worked to 
 bring him back from Elba. Incapable of renouncing his 
 political faith, nay, eager to proclaim it, Piombo had re- 
 mained in Paris in the midst of enemies. Hence Ginevra di 
 Piombo was ranked with the "suspicious characters," all the 
 more so because she made no secret of the regret her family 
 felt at the second restoration. The only tears she had per- 
 haps ever shed in her life were wrung from her by the twofold
 
 THE VENDETTA. 319 
 
 tidings of Bonaparte's surrender on board the Bellerophon 
 and the arrest of Labedoyere. 
 
 The young ladies forming the aristocratic party in the studio 
 belonged to the most enthusiastically Royalist families of Paris. 
 It would be difficult to give any idea of the exaggerated feel- 
 ings of the time, and of the horror felt towards Bonapartists. 
 However mean and trivial Amelie Thirion's conduct may 
 seem to-day, it was then a very natural demonstration of 
 hatred. Ginevra di Piombo, one of Servin's earliest pupils, 
 had occupied the place of which they wished to deprive her 
 ever since the first day she had come to the studio. The 
 aristocratic group had gradually settled round her; and to 
 turn her out of a place, which in a certain sense belonged to 
 her, was not merely to insult her, but to cause her some pain, 
 for all artists have a predilection for the spot where they work. 
 
 However, political hostility had perhaps not much to do 
 with the conduct of this little studio party of the right. 
 Ginevra di Piombo, the most accomplished of Servin's pupils, 
 was an object of the deepest jealousy. The master professed 
 an equal admiration for the talents and the character of this 
 favorite pupil, who served as the standard of all his compari- 
 sons; and, indeed, while it was impossible to explain the 
 ascendency this young girl exercised over all who were about 
 her, she enjoyed in this small world an influence resembling 
 that of Bonaparte over his soldiers. The aristocratic clique 
 had, some days since, resolved on the overthrow of this 
 queen ; but as no one had been bold enough to repulse the 
 Bonapartists, Mademoiselle Thirion had just struck the deci- 
 sive blow so as to make her companions the accomplices of 
 her hatred. Though Ginevra was really beloved by some of 
 the Royalist party, who at home were abundantly lectured on 
 politics, with the tact peculiar to women, they judged it best 
 not to interfere in the quarrel. 
 
 On entering, Ginevra was received in perfect silence. Of 
 all the girls who had yet appeared at Servin's studio, she was
 
 320 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 the handsomest, the tallest, and the most finely made. Her 
 gait had a stamp of dignity and grace which commanded 
 respect. Her face, full of intelligence, seemed radiant, it 
 was so transfused with the animation peculiar to Corsicans, 
 which does not exclude calmness. Her abundant hair, her 
 eyes, and their black lashes told of passion. Though the 
 corners of her mouth were softly drawn and her lips a little 
 too thick, they had the kindly expression which strong people 
 derive from the consciousness of strength. By a singular 
 freak of nature the charm of her features was in some sort 
 belied by a marble forehead stamped with an almost savage 
 pride, and the traditional habits of Corsica. That was the 
 only bond between her and her native land ; in every other 
 detail of her person the simplicity and freedom of Lombard 
 beauties were so bewitching, that only in her absence could 
 any one bear to cause her the smallest pain. She was, indeed, 
 so attractive, that her old father, out of prudence, never 
 allowed her to walk alone to the studio. 
 
 The only fault of this really poetic creature came of the 
 very power of such fully developed beauty. She had refused 
 to marry, out of affection for her father and mother, feeling 
 herself necessary to them in their old age. Her taste for 
 painting had taken the place of the passions which commonly 
 agitate women. 
 
 "You are all very silent to-day," she said, after coming 
 forward a step or two. "Good-morning, my little Laure," 
 she added in a gentle, caressing tone, as she went up to 
 the young girl who was painting apart from the rest. " That 
 head is very good. The flesh is a little too pink, but it is all 
 capitally drawn." 
 
 Laure raised her head, looked at Ginevra much touched, 
 and their faces brightened with an expression of mutual affec- 
 tion. A faint smile gave life to the Italian's lips, but she 
 seemed pensive, and went slowly to her place, carelessly glanc- 
 ing at the drawings and pictures, and saying good-morning to
 
 THE VENDETTA. 321 
 
 each of the girls of the first group, without observing the 
 unusual curiosity excited by her presence. She might have 
 been a queen amid her court. She did not observe the deep 
 silence that reigned among the aristocrats, and passed their 
 camp without saying a word. Her absence of mind was so 
 complete that she went to her easel, opened her paint-box, 
 took out her brushes, slipped on her brown linen cuffs, tied 
 her apron, examined her palette, all without thinking, as it 
 seemed, of what she was doing. All the heads of the humbler 
 group were turned to look at her. And if the young ladies 
 of the Thirion faction were less frankly impatient than their 
 companions, their side glances were nevertheless directed to 
 Ginevra. 
 
 " She notices nothing," said Mademoiselle Roguin. 
 
 At this moment Ginevra, roused from the meditative atti- 
 tude in which she had gazed at her canvas, turned her head 
 towards the aristocratic party. With one glance she measured 
 the distance that lay between them, and held her peace. 
 
 " It has not occurred to her that they meant to insult her," 
 said Mathilde. " She has neither colored nor turned pale. 
 How provoked those young ladies will be if she likes her new 
 place better than the old one ! You are quite apart there, 
 mademoiselle," she added louder, and addressing Ginevra. 
 
 The Italian girl affected not to hear, or perhaps she did not 
 hear ; she hastily rose, walked rather slowly along the parti- 
 tion which divided the dark closet from the studio, seeming 
 to examine the skylight from which the light fell ; and to this 
 she ascribed so much importance that she got upon a chair to 
 fasten the green baize which interfered with the light, a good 
 deal higher. At this elevation she was on a level with a 
 small crack in the boarding, the real object of her efforts, for 
 the look she cast through it can only be compared with that 
 of a miser discovering Aladdin's treasure. She quickly 
 descended, came back to her place, arranged her picture, 
 affected still to be dissatisfied with the light, pushed a table 
 21
 
 322 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 close to the partition, and placed a chair on it ; then she 
 nimbly mounted this scaffolding, and again peeped through 
 the crack. She gave but one look into the closet, which was 
 lighted by a window at the top of the partition, but what she 
 saw impressed her so vividly that she started. 
 
 " You will fall, Mademoiselle Ginevra ! " cried Laure. 
 
 All the girls turned to look at their imprudent companion, 
 who was tottering. The fear of seeing them gather round her 
 gave her courage ; she recovered her strength and her balance, 
 and, dancing on the chair, she turned to Laure and said with 
 some agitation : 
 
 " Bah ! It is at any rate safer than a throne ! " 
 
 She quickly arranged the baize, came down, pushed the 
 table and the chair far from the partition, returned to her 
 easel, and made a few more attempts, seeming to try for an 
 effect of light that suited her. Her picture did not really 
 trouble her at all ; her aim was to get close to the dark closet 
 by which she placed herself, as she wished, at the end near 
 the door. Then she prepared to set her palette, still in per- 
 fect silence. Where she now was she soon heard more dis- 
 tinctly a slight noise which, on the day before, had greatly 
 stirred her curiosity, and sent her young imagination wander- 
 ing over a wide field of conjecture. She easily recognized it 
 as the deep, regular breathing of the sleeping man whom she 
 had just now seen. Her curiosity was satisfied, but she found 
 herself burdened with an immense responsibility. Through 
 the crack she had caught sight of the imperial eagle, and on 
 a camp bed, in the dim light, had seen the figure of an officer 
 of the Guards. She guessed it all. Servin was sheltering a 
 refugee. 
 
 She now trembled lest one of her companions should come 
 to examine her picture, and should hear the unfortunate man 
 breathe or heave too deep a sigh, such as had fallen on her 
 ear during yesterday's lesson. She resolved to remain near 
 the door, and trust to her wits to cheat the tricks of fate.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 323 
 
 "I had better remain here," thought she, "to prevent 
 some disaster, than leave the poor prisoner at the mercy of 
 some giddy prank. ' ' 
 
 This was the secret of Ginevra's apparent indifference when 
 she found her easel transplanted ; she was secretly delighted, 
 since she had been able to satisfy her curiosity in a natural 
 manner; and, besides, she was too much absorbed at this 
 moment to inquire into the reason of her exclusion. Nothing 
 is more mortifying to young girls, or indeed to any one, than 
 to see a practical joke, an insult, or a witticism fail of its effect 
 in consequence of the victim's contempt. It would seem that 
 our hatred of an enemy is increased by the height to which 
 he can rise above us. 
 
 Ginevra's conduct remained a riddle to all her companions. 
 Her friends and her foes were alike surprised, for she was 
 allowed to have every good quality excepting forgiveness of 
 injuries. Though the opportunities for showing this vice of 
 temper had rarely been offered to Ginevra by the incidents 
 of studio life, the instances she had happened to give of her 
 vindictive spirit and determination had none the less made 
 a deep impression on her companions' minds. After many 
 guesses, Mademoiselle Roguin finally regarded the Italian's 
 silence as evidence of a magnanimity above all praise ; and 
 her party, inspired by her, conceived a plan to humiliate the 
 aristocrats of the studio. They achieved their purpose by a 
 fire of sarcasms directed at the pride and airs of the party of 
 the right. 
 
 Madame Servin's arrival put an end to this contest of self- 
 assertiveness. Amelie, with the shrewdness which is always 
 coupled with malice, had remarked, watched, and wondered 
 at the excessive absence of mind which hindered Ginevra 
 from hearing the keenly polite dispute of which she was the 
 subject. The revenge which Mademoiselle Roguin and her 
 followers were wreaking on Mademoiselle Thirion and her 
 party had thus the fatal effect of setting the young ultras to
 
 324 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 discover the cause of Ginevra's absorbed silence. The beau- 
 tiful Italian became the centre of observation, and was watched 
 by her friends as much as by her enemies. It is very difficult 
 to hide the slightest excitement, the most trifling feeling from 
 fifteen idle and inquisitive girls whose mischief and wits crave 
 only for secrets to guess and intrigues to plot or to baffle, 
 and who can ascribe to a gesture, to a glance, to a word, so 
 many meanings, that they can hardly fail to discover the true 
 one. Thus Ginevra di Piombo's secret was in great peril of 
 being found out. 
 
 At this moment Madame Servin's presence produced a di- 
 version in the drama that was being obscurely played at the 
 bottom of these young hearts ; while its sentiments, its ideas, 
 its development were expressed by almost allegorical words, 
 by significant looks, by gestures, and even by silence, often 
 more emphatic than speech. 
 
 The moment Madame Servin came into the studio her eyes 
 turned to the door by which Ginevra was standing. Under 
 the present circumstances this look was not lost. If at first 
 none of the maidens observed it, Mademoiselle Thirion remem- 
 bered it afterwards, and accounted for the suspiciousness, the 
 alarm, and mystery which gave a hunted expression to Madame 
 Servin's eyes. 
 
 " Mesdemoiselles," she said, " Monsieur Servin cannot come 
 to-day." Then she paid some little compliment to each pupil, 
 all of them welcoming her in the girlish caressing way which 
 lies as much in the voice and eyes as in actions. She imme- 
 diately went to Ginevra under an impulse of uneasiness, which 
 she vainly tried to conceal. The Italian and the painter's 
 wife exchanged friendly nods and then stood in silence, one 
 painting, the other watching her paint. The officer's breath- 
 ing was easily audible, but Madame Servin could take no 
 notice of it; and her dissimulation was so complete that 
 Ginevra was tempted to accuse her of willful deafness. At 
 this moment the stranger turned on the bed. The Italian girl
 
 THE VENDETTA. 325 
 
 looked Madame Servin steadily in the face, and, without be- 
 traying the smallest agitation, the lady said, "Your copy is as 
 fine as the original. If I had to choose, I should really be 
 puzzled. ' ' 
 
 " Monsieur Servin has not let his wife into the secret of this 
 mystery," thought Ginevra, who, after answering the young 
 wife with a gentle smile of incredulity, sang a snatch of some 
 national canzonetta to cover any sounds the prisoner might 
 make. 
 
 It was so unusual to hear the studious Italian sing that all 
 the girls looked at her in surprise. Later this incident served 
 as evidence to the charitable suppositions of hatred. Madame 
 Servin soon went away, and the hours of study ended without 
 further event. Ginevra let all her companions leave, affect- 
 ing to work on ; but she unconsciously betrayed her wish to 
 be alone, for as the pupils made ready to go she looked at 
 them with ill-disguised impatience. Mademoiselle Thirion, 
 who within these few hours had become a cruel foe to the 
 young girl who was her superior in everything, guessed by 
 the instinct of hatred that her rival's affected industry covered 
 a mystery. She had been struck more than once by the atten- 
 tion with which Ginevra seemed to be listening to a sound no 
 one else could hear. The expression she now read in the 
 Italian's eyes was as a flash of illumination. She was the last to 
 leave, and went in on her way down to see Madame Servin, with 
 whom she stayed a few minutes. Then, pretending that she 
 had forgotten her bag, she very softly went upstairs again to the 
 studio, and discovered Ginevra at the stop of a hastily-con- 
 structed scaffolding, so lost in contemplation of the unknown 
 soldier that she did not hear the light sound of her compan- 
 ion's footsteps. It is true that Amelie walked on eggs to use 
 a phrase of Walter Scott's ; she retired to the door and 
 coughed. Ginevra started, turned her head, saw her enemy, 
 and colored ; then she quickly untied the blind, to mislead 
 her as to her purpose, and came down. After putting away
 
 326 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 her paint-box, she left the studio, carrying stamped upon her 
 heart the image of a man's head as charming as the Endy- 
 mion, Girodet's masterpiece, which she had copied a few days 
 previously. 
 
 "So young a man, and proscribed! Who can he be? 
 for it is not Marshal Ney." 
 
 These two sentences are the simplest expression of all the 
 ideas which Ginevra turned over in her mind during two days. 
 The next day but one, notwithstanding her hurry to be first 
 at the painting gallery, she found that Mademoiselle Thirion 
 had already come in a carriage. Ginevra and her enemy 
 watched each other for some time, but each kept her counte- 
 nance impenetrable by the other. Amelie had seen the 
 stranger's handsome face ; but happily, and at the same time 
 unhappily, the eagles and the uniform were not within the 
 range of her eye through the crack. She lost herself in con- 
 jecture. Suddenly Servin came in, much earlier than usual. 
 
 " Mademoiselle Ginevra," said he, after casting an eye 
 round the gallery, "why have you placed yourself there ? 
 The light is bad. Come nearer to these young ladies, and 
 lower your blind a little." 
 
 Then he sat down by Laure, whose work deserved his most 
 lenient criticism. 
 
 " Well done ! " he exclaimed, "this head is capitally done. 
 You will be a second Ginevra." 
 
 The master went from easel to easel, blaming, flattering, 
 and jesting ; and making himself, as usual, more feared for 
 his jests than for his reproofs. 
 
 The Italian had not obeyed his wishes; she remained at 
 her post with the firm intention of staying there. She took 
 out a sheet of paper and began to sketch in sepia the head of 
 the unhappy refugee. A work conceived of with passion 
 always bears a particular stamp. The faculty of giving truth 
 to a rendering of nature or of a thought constitutes genius, 
 and passion can often take its place. Thus in the circum-
 
 THE VENDETTA. 327 
 
 stances in which Ginevra found herself, either the intuition 
 she owed to her memory, which had been deeply struck, or 
 perhaps necessity, the mother of greatness, lent her a super- 
 natural flash of talent. The officer's head was thrown off on 
 the paper with an inward trembling that she ascribed to fear, 
 and which a physiologist would have recognized as the fever 
 of inspiration. From time to time she stole a furtive glance 
 at her companions, so as to be able to hide the sketch in case 
 of any indiscretion on their part. But, in spite of her sharp 
 lookout, there was a moment when she failed to perceive 
 that her relentless enemy, under the shelter of a huge port- 
 folio, had turned her eyeglass on the mysterious drawing. 
 Mademoiselle Thirion, recognizing the refugee's features, 
 raised her head suddenly, and Ginevra slipped away the sheet 
 of paper. 
 
 "Why do you stay there, in spite of my opinion, Made- 
 moiselle ! " the professor gravely asked Ginevra. 
 
 The girl hastily turned her easel so that no one could see 
 her sketch, and said, in an agitated voice, as she showed it to 
 her master. 
 
 " Don't you think with me that this is a better light ? May 
 I not stay where I am ? " 
 
 Servin turned pale. As nothing can escape the keen eyes 
 of hatred, Mademoiselle Thirion threw herself, so to speak, 
 into the excited feelings that agitated the professor and his 
 pupil. 
 
 "You are right," said Servin. "But you will soon 
 know more than I do," he added, with a forced laugh. 
 There was a silence, during which the master looked at 
 the head of the officer. "This is a masterpiece, worthy 
 of Salvator Rosa!" he exclaimed, with an artist's vehe- 
 mence. 
 
 At this exclamation all the young people rose, and Made- 
 moiselle Thirion came forward with the swiftness of a tiger 
 springing on its prey. At this instant the prisoner, roused
 
 328 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 by the turmoil, woke up. Ginevra overset her stool, spoke a 
 few incoherent sentences, and began to laugh ; but she had 
 folded the portrait in half and thrown it into a portfolio 
 before her terrible enemy could see it. The girls crowded 
 round the easel ; Servin enlarged in a loud voice on the beau- 
 ties of the copy on which his favorite pupil was just now 
 engaged ; and all the party were cheated by this stratagem, 
 excepting Amelie, who placed herself behind her companions 
 and tried to open the portfolio into which she had seen the 
 sketch put. Ginevra seized it and set it in front of her 
 without a word, and the two girls gazed at each other in 
 silence. 
 
 " Come, young ladies, to your places ! " said Servin. " If 
 you want to know as much as Mademoiselle di Piombo, you 
 must not be always talking of fashions and balls, and trifling 
 so much." 
 
 When the girls had all returned to their easels, the master 
 sat down by Ginevra. 
 
 " Was it not better that this mystery should be discovered 
 by me than by any one else?" said the Italian girl in a low 
 tone. 
 
 "Yes," answered the painter. "You are patriotic; but 
 even if you had not been, you are still the person to whom 
 I should intrust it." 
 
 The master and pupil understood each other, and Ginevra 
 was not now afraid to ask, " Who is he ! " 
 
 "An intimate friend of Labedoyere's ; the man who, next 
 to the unfortunate colonel, did most to effect a junction be- 
 tween the Seventh and the Grenadiers of Elba. He was a 
 major in the Guards, and has just come back from Waterloo." 
 
 " Why have you not burnt his uniform and shako, and put 
 him into civilian dress? " asked Ginevra vehemently. 
 
 " Some clothes are to be brought for him this evening." 
 
 " You should have shut up the studio for a few days." 
 
 " He is going away."
 
 THE VENDETTA. 329 
 
 "Does he wish to die?" said the girl. "Let him stay 
 with you during these first days of the storm. Paris is the 
 only place in France where a man may be safely hidden. Is 
 he a friend of yours ? ' ' she added. 
 
 " No. He has no claim to my regard but his misfortunes. 
 This is how he fell into my hands ; my father-in-law, who 
 had rejoined his regiment during this campaign, met the poor 
 young man, and saved him very cleverly from those who have 
 arrested Labedoyere. He wanted to defend him, like a 
 madman ! " 
 
 " And do you call him so ! " cried Ginevra, with a glance 
 of surprise at the painter, who did not speak for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "My father-in-law is too closely watched to be able to 
 keep any one in his house," he went on. "He brought 
 him here by night last week. I hoped to hide him from 
 every eye by keeping him in this corner, the only place in 
 the house where he can be safe." 
 
 "If I can be of any use, command me," said Ginevra. 
 "I know Marshal Feltre." 
 
 " Well, we shall see," replied the painter. 
 
 This conversation had lasted too long not to be remarked 
 by all the other pupils. Servin left Ginevra, came back 
 to each easel, and gave such long lessons that he was still 
 upstairs when the clock struck the hour at which his pupils 
 usually left. 
 
 "You have forgotten your bag, mademoiselle," cried the 
 professor, running after the young lady, who condescended to 
 act the spy to gratify her hatred. 
 
 The inquisitive pupil came back for the bag, expressing 
 some surprise at her own carelessness ; but Servin's attention 
 was to her additional proof of the existence of a mystery 
 which was undoubtedly a serious one. She had already 
 planned what should follow, and could say, like the Abb6 
 Vertot, " I have laid my siege." She ran downstairs noisily,
 
 330 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 and violently slammed the door leading to Servin's rooms, 
 that it might be supposed she had gone out ; but she 
 softly went upstairs again, and hid behind the door of the 
 studio. 
 
 When the painter and Ginevra supposed themselves alone, 
 he tapped in a particular manner at the door of the attic, 
 which at once opened on its rusty, creaking hinges. The 
 Italian girl saw a tall and well-built youth, whose imperial 
 uniform set her heart beating. The officer carried his arm in 
 a sling, and his pale face told of acute suffering. He started 
 at seeing her, a stranger. Amelie, who could see nothing, 
 was afraid to stay any longer; but she had heard the creaking 
 of the door, and that was enough. She silently stole away. 
 
 " Fear nothing," said the painter. " Mademoiselle is the 
 daughter of the Emperor's most faithful friend, the Baron di 
 Piombo." 
 
 The young officer felt no doubt of Ginevra's loyalty when 
 once he had looked at her. 
 
 " You are wounded ! " she said. 
 
 "Oh, it is nothing, mademoiselle; the cut is healing," re- 
 plied the young officer. 
 
 At this moment the shrill and piercing tones of men in the 
 street came up to the studio, crying out, "This is the sen- 
 tence which condemns to death " All three shuddered. 
 
 The soldier was the first to hear a name at which he turned 
 pale. 
 
 " Labedoyere ! " he exclaimed, dropping on to a stool. 
 
 They looked at each other in silence. Drops of sweat gath- 
 ered on the young man's livid brow; with a gesture of despair 
 he clutched the black curls of his hair, resting his elbow on 
 Ginevra's easel. 
 
 "After all," said he, starting to his feet, " Labedoyere and 
 I knew what we were doing. We knew the fate that awaited 
 us if we triumphed or if we failed. He is dying for the 
 cause, while I am in hiding "
 
 THE VENDETTA. 331 
 
 He hurried towards the studio door; but Ginevra, more 
 nimble than he, rushed forward and stopped the way. 
 
 "Can you restore the Emperor?" she said. "Do you 
 think you can raise the giant again, when he could not keep 
 his feet?" 
 
 "What then is to become of me?" said the refugee, 
 addressing the two friends whom chance had sent him. " I 
 have not a relation in the world ; Labedoyere was my friend 
 and protector, I am now alone ; to-morrow I shall be exiled 
 or condemned ; I have never had any fortune but my pay ; I 
 spent my last crown-piece to come and snatch Labedoyere 
 from death and get him away. Death is an obvious necessity 
 to me. When a man is determined to die, he must know 
 how to sell his head to the executioner. I was thinking just 
 now that an honest man's life is well worth that of two 
 traitors, and that a dagger-thrust, judiciously placed, may give 
 one immortality. " 
 
 This passion of despair frightened the painter, and even 
 Ginevra, who fully understood the young man. The Italian 
 admired the beautiful head and the delightful voice, of which 
 the accents of rage scarcely disguised the sweetness ; then 
 she suddenly dropped balm on all the hapless man's wounds. 
 
 " Monsieur ! " said she, "as to your pecuniary difficulties, 
 allow me to offer you the money I myself have saved. My 
 father is rich ; I am his only child ; he loves me, and I am 
 quite sure he will not blame me. Have no scruples in accept- 
 ing it ; our wealth come j from the Emperor, we have nothing 
 which is not the bounty of his munificence. Is it not grati- 
 tude to help one of his faithful soldiers ? So take this money 
 with as little ceremony as I make about offering it. It is 
 only money," she added in a scornful tone. "Then, as to 
 friends you will find friends ! " And she proudly raised her 
 head, while her eyes shone with unwonted brilliancy. " The 
 head which must fall to-morrow the mark of a dozen guns 
 saves yours," she went on. "Wait till this storm is over,
 
 332 THE VEA'DETTA. 
 
 and you can take service in a foreign land if you are not for- 
 gotten, or in the French army if you are." 
 
 In the comfort offered by a woman there is a delicacy of 
 feeling which always has a touch of something motherly, 
 something far-seeing and complete ; but when such words 
 of peace and hope are seconded by grace of gesture, and 
 the eloquence which comes from the heart, above all, when 
 the comforter is beautiful, it is hard for a young man to resist. 
 The young colonel inhaled love by every sense. A faint flush 
 tinged his white cheeks, and his eyes lost a little of the 
 melancholy that dimmed them as he said, in a strange tone 
 of voice, " You are an angel of goodness ! But, Labedoyere !" 
 he added, " Labedoyere ! " 
 
 At this cry they all three looked at each other, speechless, 
 and understood each other. They were friends, not of twenty 
 minutes, but of twenty years. 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Servin, "can you save him? " 
 
 " I can avenge him." 
 
 Ginevra was thrilled. Though the stranger was handsome, 
 his appearance had not moved her. The gentle pity that 
 women find in their heart for suffering which is not ignoble 
 had, in Ginevra, stifled every other emotion ; but to hear a 
 cry of revenge, to find in this fugitive an Italian soul and 
 Corsican magnanimity ! This was too much for her ; she 
 gazed at the officer with respectful emotion, which powerfully 
 stirred her heart. It was the first time a man had ever made 
 her feel so strongly. Like all women, it pleased her to im- 
 agine that the soul of this stranger must be in harmony with 
 the remarkable beauty of his features and the fine proportions 
 of his figure, which she admired as an artist. Led by chance 
 curiosity to pity, from pity to eager interest, she now from 
 interest had reached sensations so strong and deep that she 
 thought it rash to remain there any longer. 
 
 "Till to-morrow," she said, leaving her sweetest smile 
 with the officer, to console him.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 333 
 
 As he saw that smile, which threw a new light, as it were, 
 on Ginevra's face, the stranger for a moment forgot all else. 
 
 "To-morrow," he repeated sadly. "To-morrow, Labe- 
 doyere " 
 
 Ginevra turned to him and laid a finger on her lips, looking 
 at him as though she would say, "Be calm, be prudent." 
 
 Then the young man exclaimed : " O Dio ! Chi non vorrci 
 vivere dopo aver la veduta /" (" O God ! who would not live 
 after having seen her ! ") The peculiar accent with which he 
 spoke the words startled Ginevra. 
 
 "You are a Corsican ! " she exclaimed, coming back to 
 him, her heart beating with gladness. 
 
 " I was born in Corsica," he replied ; " but I was taken to 
 Genoa when very young ; and, as soon as I was of an age to 
 enter the army, I enlisted." 
 
 The stranger's handsome person, the transcendent charm 
 he derived from his attachment to the Emperor, his wound, 
 his misfortunes, even his danger, all vanished before Ginevra's 
 eyes, or rather all were fused in one new and exquisite senti- 
 ment. This refugee was a son of Corsica, and spoke its be- 
 loved tongue. In a minute the girl stood motionless, spell- 
 bound by a magical sensation. She saw before her eyes a 
 living picture to which a combination of human feeling and 
 chance lent dazzling hues. At Servin's invitation the officer 
 had taken his seat on an ottoman, the painter had untied the 
 string which supported his guest's arm, and was now undoing 
 the bandages in order to dress the wound. Ginevra shuddered 
 as she saw the long wide gash, made by a sabre-cut, on the 
 young man's forearm, and gave a little groan. The stranger 
 looked up at her and began to smile. There was something 
 very touching that went to the soul in Servin's attentive care 
 as he removed the lint and touched the tender flesh, while 
 the wounded man's face, though pale and sickly, expressed 
 pleasure rather than suffering as he looked at the young girl. 
 
 An artist could not help admiring the antithesis of senti-
 
 334 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 ments, and the contrast of color between the whiteness of the 
 linen and the bare arm and the officer's blue and red coat. 
 Soft dusk had now fallen on the studio, but a last sunbeam 
 shone in on the spot where the refugee was sitting, in such a 
 way that his pale, noble face, his black hair, his uniform were 
 all flooded with light. This simple effect the superstitious 
 Italian took for an omen of good-luck. The stranger seemed 
 to her a celestial messenger who had spoken to her in the 
 language of her native land, and put her under the spell of 
 childish memories ; while in her heart a feeling had birth as 
 fresh and pure as her first age of innocence. In a very short 
 instant she stood pensive, lost in infinite thought ; then she 
 blushed to have betrayed her absence of mind, exchanged a 
 swift, sweet look with the officer, and made her escape, seeing 
 him still. 
 
 The next day there was no painting lesson ; Ginevra could 
 come to the studio, and the prisoner could be with his fellow- 
 countrywoman. Servin, who had a sketch to finish, allowed 
 the officer to sit there while he played guardian to the two 
 young people who frequently spoke in Corsican. The poor 
 soldier told of his sufferings during the retreat from Moscow; 
 for, at the age of nineteen, he had found himself at the 
 passage of the Beresina, alone of all his regiment, having 
 lost in his comrades the only men who could care for him, an 
 orphan. He described, in words of fire, the great disaster of 
 Waterloo. 
 
 His voice was music to the Italian girl. Brought up in 
 Corsican ways, Ginevra was, to some extent, a child of 
 nature ; falsehood was unknown to her, and she gave herself 
 up without disguise to her impressions, owning them, or 
 rather letting them be seen without the trickery, the mean 
 and calculating vanity of the Parisian girl. During this day 
 she remained more than once, her palette in one hand, a 
 brush in the other, while the brush was undipped in the colors 
 on the palette ; her eyes fixed on the officer's face, her lips
 
 THE VENDETTA. 335 
 
 slightly parted, she sat listening, ready to lay on the touch 
 which was not given. She was not surprised to find such 
 sweetness in the young man's eyes, for she felt her own soften 
 in spite of her determination to keep them severe and cold. 
 Thus, for hours, she painted with resolute attention, not rais- 
 ing her head because he was there watching her work. The 
 first time he sat down to gaze at her in silence, she said to 
 him in an agitated voice, after a long pause, " Does it amuse 
 you, then, to look on at painting?" 
 
 That day she learned that his name was Luigi. Before 
 they parted it was agreed that if any important political 
 events should occur on the days when the studio was open, 
 Ginevra was to inform him by singing in an undertone cer- 
 tain Italian airs. 
 
 On the following day Mademoiselle Thirion informed all 
 her companions, as a great secret, that Ginevra di Piombo 
 had a lover a young man who came during the hours de- 
 voted to lessons to hide in the dark closet of the studio. 
 
 "You, who take her part," said she to Mademoiselle 
 Roguin, "watch her well, and you will see how she spends 
 her time." 
 
 So Ginevra was watched with diabolical vigilance. Her 
 songs were listened to, her glances spied. At moments when 
 she believed that no one saw her, a dozen eyes were inces- 
 santly centred on her. And being forewarned, the girls 
 interpreted in their true sense the agitations which passed 
 across the Italian's radiant face, and her snatches of song, 
 and the attention with which she listened to the muffled 
 sounds which she alone could hear through the partition. 
 
 By the end of a week, only Laure, of the fifteen students, 
 had resisted the temptation to scrutinize Luigi through the 
 crack in the panel, or, by an instinct of weakness, still de- 
 fended the beautiful Corsican girl. Mademoiselle Roguin 
 wanted to make her wait on the stairs at the hour when they 
 all left, to prove to her the intimacy between Ginevra and the
 
 336 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 handsome young man by finding them together ; but she re- 
 fused to condescend to an espionage which curiosity could not 
 justify, and thus became an object of general reprobation. 
 
 Ere long the daughter of the gentleman usher thought it 
 unbecoming in her to work in the studio of a painter whose 
 opinions were tainted with patriotism or Bonapartism which 
 at that time were regarded as one and the same thing ; so she 
 came no more to Servin's. Though Amelie forgot Ginevra, 
 the evil she had sown bore fruit. Insensibly, by chance, for 
 gossip or out of prudery, the other damsels informed their 
 mothers of the strange adventure in progress at the studio. 
 One day Mathilde Roguin did not come; the next time 
 another was absent ; at last the three or four pupils, who had 
 still remained, came no more. Ginevra and her little friend, 
 Mademoiselle Laure, were for two or three days the sole occu- 
 pants of the deserted studio. 
 
 The Italian did not observe the isolation in which she was 
 left, and did not even wonder at the cause of her companions' 
 absence. Having devised the means of communicating with 
 Luigi, she lived in the studio as in a delightful retreat, secluded 
 in the midst of the world, thinking only of the officer, and of 
 the dangers which threatened him. This young creature, 
 though sincerely admiring those noble characters who would 
 not be false to their political faith, urged Luigi to submit at 
 once to royal authority, in order to keep him in France, while 
 Luigi refused to submit, that he might not have to leave his 
 hiding-place. 
 
 If, indeed, passions only have their birth and grow up under 
 the influence of romantic clauses, never had so many cir- 
 cumstances occurred to link two beings by one feeling. Gi- 
 nevra's regard for Luigi, and his for her, thus made greater 
 progress in a month than a fashionable friendship can make 
 in ten years in a drawing-room. Is not adversity the touch- 
 stone of character? Hence Ginevra could really appreciate 
 Luigi, and know him, and they soon felt a reciprocal esteem.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 337 
 
 Ginevra, who was older than Luigi, found it sweet to be courted 
 by a young man already so great, so tried by fortune, who 
 united the experience of a man with the graces of youth. 
 Luigi, on his part, felt an unspeakable delight in allowing 
 himself to be apparently protected by a girl of five-and-twenty. 
 Was it not a proof of love ? The union in Ginevra of pride 
 and sweetness, of strength and weakness, had an irresistible 
 charm ; Luigi was indeed completely her slave. In short, 
 they were already so deeply in love that they felt no need 
 either to deny it themselves nor to tell it. 
 
 One day, towards evening, Ginevra heard the signal agreed 
 on. Luigi tapped on the woodwork with a pin, so gently as to 
 make no more noise than a spider attaching its thread thus 
 asking if he might come out. She glanced round the studio, 
 did not see little Laure, and answered the summons ; but as the 
 door was opened, Luigi caught sight of the girl, and hastily 
 retreated. Ginevra, much surprised, looked about her, saw 
 Laure, and, going up to her easel, said, " You are staying very 
 late, dear. And that head seems to me finished ; there is only 
 a reflected light to put in on that lock of hair." 
 
 "It would be very kind of you," said Laure, in a tremu- 
 lous voice, " if you would correct this copy for me ; I should 
 have something of your doing to keep." 
 
 "Of course I will," said Ginevra, sure of thus dismissing 
 her. " I thought," she added, as she put in a few light 
 touches, " that you had a long way to go home from the 
 studio." 
 
 "Oh! Ginevra, I am going away for good," cried the 
 girl, sadly. 
 
 "You are leaving Monsieur Servin ? " asked the Italian, 
 not seeming affected by her words, as she would have been a 
 month since. 
 
 " Have you not noticed, Ginevra, that for some time there 
 has been nobody here but you and I ? " 
 
 "It is true," replied Ginevra, suddenly struck as by a remi- 
 22
 
 338 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 niscence. " Are they ill, or going to be married, or are all 
 their fathers employed now at the palace ? ' ' 
 
 "They have all left Monsieur Servin," said Laure. 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 "On your account, Ginevra." 
 
 " Mine ! " repeated the Corsican, rising, with a threatening 
 brow, and a proud sparkle in her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, do not be angry, dear Ginevra," Laure piteously 
 exclaimed. "But my mother wishes that I should leave too. 
 All the young ladies said that you had an intrigue; that 
 Monsieur Servin had lent himself to allowing a young man 
 who loves you to stay in the dark closet ; but I never be- 
 lieved these calumnies, and did not tell my mother. Last 
 evening Madame Roguin met my mother at a ball, and asked 
 her whether she still sent me here. When mamma said 
 'Yes,' she repeated all those girls' tales. Mamma scolded 
 me well ; she declared I must have known it all, and that I 
 had failed in the confidence of a daughter in her mother by 
 not telling her. Oh, my dear Ginevra, I, who always took 
 you for my model, how grieved I am not to be allowed to 
 stay on with you " 
 
 "We shall meet again in the world; young women get 
 married," said Ginevra. 
 
 " When they are rich," replied Laure. 
 
 " Come to see me, my father has wealth " 
 
 "Ginevra," Laure went on, much moved, "Madame Ro- 
 guin and my mother are coming to-morrow to see Monsieur 
 Servin, and complain of his conduct. At least let him be 
 prepared." 
 
 A thunderbolt falling at her feet would have astonished 
 Ginevra less than this announcement. 
 
 " What could it matter to them? " she innocently asked. 
 
 "Every one thinks it very wrong. Mamma says it is 
 quite improper." 
 
 " And you, Laure, what do you think about it?"
 
 THE VENDETTA. 339 
 
 The girl looked at Ginevra, and their hearts met. Laure 
 could no longer restrain her tears ; she threw herself on her 
 friend's neck and kissed her. At this moment Servin came 
 in. 
 
 "Mademoiselle Ginevra," he said, enthusiastically, " I have 
 finished my picture, it is being varnished. But what is the 
 matter ? All the young ladies are making holiday, it would 
 seem, or are gone into the country." 
 
 Laure wiped away her tears, took leave of Servin, and went 
 away. 
 
 "The studio has been deserted for some days," said Gi- 
 nevra, " and those young ladies will return no more." 
 
 "Pooh!" 
 
 "Nay, do not laugh," said Ginevra, "listen to me. I am 
 the involuntary cause of your loss of repute." 
 
 The artist smiled, and said, interrupting his pupil, " My 
 repute ? But in a few days my picture will be exhibited." 
 
 " It is not your talent that is in question," said the Italian 
 girl; "but your morality. The young ladies have spread a 
 report that Luigi is shut up here, ana that you lent yourself 
 to our love-making." 
 
 "There is some truth in that, mademoiselle," replied the 
 professor. "The girls' mothers are airified prudes," he went 
 on. " If they had but come to me, everything would have 
 been explained. But what do I care for such things ? Life is 
 too short ! " 
 
 And the painter snapped his fingers in the air. 
 
 Luigi, who had heard part of the conversation, came out 
 of his cupboard. 
 
 "You are losing all your pupils," he cried, "and I shall 
 have been your ruin ! " 
 
 The artist took his hand and Ginevra's and joined them. 
 " Will you marry each other, my children ? " he asked, with 
 touching bluntness. They both looked down, and their 
 silence was their first mutual confession of love. " Well,"
 
 340 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 said Servin, "and you will be happy, will you not? Can 
 anything purchase such happiness as that of two beings like 
 you?" 
 
 "I am rich," said Ginevra, "if you will allow me to 
 indemnify you " 
 
 "Indemnify ! " Servin broke in. " Why, as soon as it is 
 known that I have been the victim of a few little fools, and 
 that I have sheltered a fugitive, all the Liberals in Paris will 
 send me their daughters ! Perhaps I shall be in your debt 
 then." 
 
 Luigi grasped his protector's hand, unable to speak a 
 word ; but at last he said, in a broken voice, " To you I 
 shall owe all my happiness." 
 
 "Be happy; I unite you," said the painter with comic 
 unction, laying his hands on the heads of the lovers. 
 
 This pleasantry put an end to their emotional mood. They 
 looked at each other, and all three laughed. The Italian 
 girl wrung Luigi's hand with a passionate grasp, and with a 
 simple impulse worthy of her Corsican traditions. 
 
 "Ah, but, my dear children," said Servin, "you fancy 
 that now everything will go on swimmingly ? Well, you are 
 mistaken." They looked at him in amazement. 
 
 " Do not be alarmed ; I am the only person inconveni- 
 enced by your giddy behavior. But Madame Servin is the 
 pink of propriety, and I really do not know how we shall 
 settle matters with her." 
 
 " Heavens ! I had forgotten. To-morrow Madame Roguin 
 and Laure's mother are coming to you " 
 
 " I understand ! " said the painter, interrupting her. 
 
 " But you can justify yourself," said the girl, with a toss of 
 her head of emphatic pride. " Monsieur Luigi," and she 
 turned to him with an arch look, " has surely no longer an 
 antipathy for the King's government? Well, then," she 
 went on, after seeing him smile, " to-morrow morning I shall 
 address a petition to one of the most influential persons at
 
 THE VENDETTA. 341 
 
 the ministry of war, a man who can refuse the Baron di 
 Piombo's daughter nothing. We will obtain a tacit pardon 
 for Captain Luigi for they will not recognize your grade as 
 colonel. And you," she added, speaking to Servin, "may 
 annihilate the mammas of my charitable young companions 
 by simply telling them the truth." 
 
 " You are an angel ! " said Servin. 
 
 While this scene was going on at the studio, Ginevra's 
 father and mother were impatiently expecting her return. 
 
 "It is six o'clock, and Ginevra is not yet home," said 
 Bartolomeo. 
 
 " She was never so late before," replied his wife. 
 
 The old people looked at each other with all the signs of 
 very unusual anxiety. Bartolomeo, too much excited to sit 
 still, rose and paced the room twice, briskly enough for a 
 man of seventy-seven. Thanks to a strong constitution, he 
 had changed but little since the day of his arrival at Paris, 
 and tall as he was, he was still upright. His hair, thin and 
 white now, had left his head bald, a broad and bossy skull 
 which gave token of great strength and firmness. His face, 
 deeply furrowed, had grown full and wide, with the pale 
 complexion that inspires veneration. The fire of a passionate 
 nature still lurked in the unearthly glow of his eyes, and the 
 brows, which were not quite white, preserved their terrible 
 mobility. The aspect of the man was severe, but it could be 
 seen that Bartolomeo had the right to be so. His kindness 
 and gentleness were known only to his wife and daughter. 
 In his official position, or before strangers, he never set aside 
 the majesty which time had lent to his appearance ; and his 
 habit of knitting those thick brows, of setting every line in 
 his face, and assuming a Napoleonic fixity of gaze, made him 
 seem as cold as marble. 
 
 In the course of his political life he had been so generally 
 feared that he was thought unsociable ; but it is not difficult 
 to find the causes of such a reputation. Piombo's life, habits,
 
 342 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 and fidelity were a censure on most of the courtiers. Not- 
 withstanding the secret missions intrusted to his discretion, 
 which to any other man would have proved lucrative, he had 
 not more than thirty thousand francs a year in government 
 securities. And when we consider the low price of stock 
 under the Empire, and Napoleon's liberality to those of his 
 faithful adherents who knew how to ask, it is easy to perceive 
 that the Baron di Piombo was a man of stern honesty ; he 
 owed his Baron's plumage only to the necessity of bearing a 
 title when sent by Napoleon to a foreign court. 
 
 Bartolomeo had always professed implacable hatred of the 
 traitors whom Napoleon had gathered about him, believing 
 he could win them over by his victories. It was he so it 
 was said who took three steps towards the door of the Em- 
 peror's room, after advising him to get rid of three men then 
 in France, on the day before he set out on his famous and 
 brilliant campaign of 1814. Since the second return of the 
 Bourbons, Bartolomeo had ceased to wear the ribbon of the 
 Legion of Honor. No man ever offered a finer image of the 
 old Republicans, the incorruptible supporters of the Empire, 
 who survived as the living derelicts of the two most vigorous 
 governments the world has perhaps ever seen. If Baron di 
 Piombo had displeased some courtiers, Daru, Drouot, and Car- 
 not were his friends. And, indeed, since Waterloo, he cared 
 no more about other political figures than for the puffs of smoke 
 he blew from his cigar. 
 
 With the moderate sum which Madame, Napoleon's mother, 
 had paid him for his estates in Corsica, Bartolomeo di Piombo 
 had acquired the old Hotel de Portenduere, in which he made 
 no alterations. Living almost always in official residences at 
 the cost of the government, he had resided in this mansion 
 only since the catastrophe of Fontainebleau. Like all simple 
 folks of lofty character, the Baron and his wife cared nothing 
 for external splendor; they still used the old furniture they 
 had found in the house. The reception-rooms of this dwell-
 
 THE VENDETTA. 343 
 
 ing, lofty, gloomy, and bare, the huge mirrors set in old gilt 
 frames almost black with age, the furniture from the time of 
 Louis XIV., were in keeping with Bartolomeo and his wife 
 figures worthy of antiquity. Under the Empire, and during 
 the Hundred Days, while holding offices that brought hand- 
 some salaries, the old Corsican had kept house in grand style, 
 but rather to do honor to his position than with a view to 
 display. 
 
 His life and that of his wife and daughter were so frugal, 
 so quiet, that their modest fortune sufficed for their needs. 
 To them their child Ginevra outweighed all the riches on 
 earth. And when, in May, 1814, Baron di Piombo resigned 
 his place, dismissed his household, and locked his stable- 
 doors, Ginevra, as simple and unpretentious as her parents, 
 had not a regret. Like all great souls, she found luxury in 
 strength of feeling, as she sought happiness in solitude and 
 work. 
 
 And these three loved each other too much for the externals 
 of life to have any value in their eyes. Often and especially 
 since Napoleon's second and fearful fall Bartolomeo and his 
 wife spent evenings of pure delight in listening to Ginevra as 
 she played the piano or sang. To them there was an im- 
 mense mystery of pleasure in their daughter's presence, in her 
 lightest word ; they followed her with their eyes with tender 
 solicitude; they heard her step in the courtyard, however 
 lightly she trod. Like lovers, they would all three sit silent 
 for hours, hearing, better than in words, the eloquence of 
 each other's soul. This deep feeling, the very life of the two 
 old people, filled all their thoughts. Not three lives were 
 here, but one, which, like the flame on a hearth, burnt up in 
 three tongues of fire. 
 
 Though now and then memories of Napoleon's bounty and 
 misfortunes, or the politics of the day, took the place of their 
 constant preoccupation, they could talk of them without 
 breaking their community of thought. For did not Ginevra
 
 344 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 share their political passions ? What could be more natural 
 than the eagerness with which they withdrew into the heart 
 of their only child ? Until now the business of public life 
 had absorbed Baron di Piombo's energies; but in resigning 
 office the Corsican felt the need of throwing his energy into 
 the last feeling that was left to him ; and, besides the tie that 
 bound a father and mother to their daughter, there was, 
 perhaps, unknown to these three despotic spirits, a powerful 
 reason in the fanaticism of their reciprocal devotion ; their 
 love was undivided ; Ginevra's whole heart was given to her 
 father, as Piombo's was to her ; and certainly, if it is true 
 that we are more closely attached to one another by our 
 faults than by our good qualities, Ginevra responded wonder- 
 fully to all her father's passions. Herein lay the single defect 
 of this threefold existence. Ginevra was wholly given over 
 to her vindictive impulses, carried away by them, as Barto- 
 lomeo had been in his youth. The Corsican delighted in 
 encouraging these savage emotions in his daughter's heart, 
 exactly as a lion teaches his whelps to spring on their prey. 
 But as this apprenticeship to revenge could only be carried 
 out under the parental roof, Ginevra never forgave her father 
 anything j he always had to succumb. Piombo regarded 
 these factitious quarrels as mere childishness, but the child 
 thus acquired a habit of domineering over her parents. In 
 the midst of these tempests which Bartolomeo loved to raise, 
 a tender word, a look, was enough to soothe their angry 
 spirits, and they were never so near kissing as when threaten- 
 ing wrath. 
 
 However, from the age of about five, Ginevra, growing 
 wiser than her father, constantly avoided these scenes. Her 
 faithful nature, her devotion, the affection which governed all 
 her thoughts, and her admirable good sense, had gotten the 
 better of her rages ; still a great evil had resulted : Ginevra 
 lived with her father and mother on a footing of equality 
 which is always disastrous.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 345 
 
 To complete the picture of all the changes that had hap- 
 pened to these three persons since their arrival in Paris, 
 Piorabo and his wife, people of no education, had allowed 
 Ginevra to study as she would. Following her girlish fancy, 
 she had tried and given up everything, returning to each idea, 
 and abandoning each in turn, until painting had become her 
 ruling passion ; she would have been perfect if her mother 
 had been capable of directing her studies, of enlightening 
 and harmonizing her natural gifts. Her faults were the out- 
 come of the pernicious training that the old Corsican had 
 delighted to give her. 
 
 After making the floor creak for some minutes under his 
 feet, the old man rang the bell. A servant appeared. 
 
 "Go to meet Mademoiselle Ginevra," said the master. 
 
 " I have always been sorry that we have no longer a carriage 
 for her," said the Baroness. 
 
 " She would not have one," replied Piombo, looking at his 
 wife ; and she, accustomed for twenty years to obedience as 
 her part, cast down her eyes. 
 
 Tall, thin, pale, and wrinkled, and now past seventy, the 
 Baroness was exactly like the old woman whom Schnetz intro- 
 duces into the Italian scenes of his genre-pictures ; she com- 
 monly sat so silent that she might have been taken for a 
 second Mrs. Shandy ; but a word, a look, a gesture would 
 betray that her feelings had all the vigor and freshness of 
 youth. Her dress, devoid of smartness, was often lacking in 
 taste. She usually remained passive, sunk in an armchair, 
 like a Sultana validch, waiting for or admiring Ginevra her 
 pride and life. Her daughter's beauty, dress, and grace 
 seemed to have become her own. All was well with her if 
 Ginevra were content. Her hair had turned white, and a few 
 locks were visible above her furrowed brow and at the side 
 of her withered cheeks. 
 
 "For about a fortnight now," said she, "Ginevra has 
 been coming in late,'
 
 346 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 "Jean will not go fast enough," cried the impatient old 
 man, crossing over the breast of his blue coat ; he snatched 
 up his hat, crammed it on his head, and was off. 
 
 "You will not get far," his wife called after him. 
 
 In fact, the outer gate opened and shut, and the old mother 
 heard Ginevra's steps in the courtyard. Bartolomeo suddenly 
 reappeared, carrying his daughter in triumph, while she strug- 
 gled in his arms. 
 
 " Here she is ! La Ginevra, la Ginevrettina, la Ginevrina, 
 la Ginevrola, la Ginevretta, la Ginevra bella ! " the old 
 Baron joyfully exclaimed. 
 
 " Father ! you are hurting me ! " 
 
 Ginevra was immediately set down with a sort of respect. 
 She nodded her head with a graceful gesture to reassure her 
 mother, who was alarmed, and to convey that it had been 
 only an excuse. Then the Baroness' pale, dull face regained 
 a little color, and even a kind of cheerfulness. Piombo 
 rubbed his hands together extremely hard the most certain 
 symptom of gladness ; he had acquired the habit at court 
 when seeing Napoleon in a rage with any of his generals or 
 ministers who served him ill, or who had committed some 
 blunder. When once the muscles of his face were relaxed, 
 the smallest line in his forehead expressed benevolence. 
 These two old folks at this moment were exactly like droop- 
 ing plants, which are restored to life by a little water after a 
 long drought. 
 
 " Dinner, dinner ! " cried the Baron, holding out his hand 
 to Ginevra, whom he addressed as Signora Piombellina, 
 another token of good spirits, to which his daughter replied 
 with a smile. 
 
 "By the way," said Piombo, as they rose from table, "do 
 you know that your mother has remarked that for a month 
 past you have stayed at the studio much later than usual ? 
 Painting before parents, it would seem," 
 
 " Oh, dear father "
 
 THE VENDETTA. 847 
 
 " Ginevra is preparing some surprise for us, no doubt," 
 said the mother. 
 
 " You are going to bring me a picture of your painting," 
 cried the Corsican, clapping his hands. 
 
 " Yes, I am very busy at the studio," she replied. 
 
 "What ails you, Ginevra? you are so pale," asked her 
 mother. 
 
 " No ! " exclaimed the girl with a resolute gesture. " No ! 
 it shall never be said that Ginevra Piombo ever told a lie 
 in her life." 
 
 On hearing this strange exclamation, Piombo and his wife 
 looked at their daughter with surprise. 
 
 "I love a young man," she added in a broken voice. 
 Then, not daring to look at her parents, her heavy eyelids 
 drooped as if to veil the fire in her eyes. 
 
 "Is he a prince?" asked her father ironically; but his 
 tone of voice made both the mother and daughter tremble. 
 
 " No, father," she modestly replied, " he is a young man 
 of no fortune " 
 
 "Then is he so handsome?" 
 
 " He is unfortunate." 
 
 "What is he?" 
 
 " As a comrade of Labedoyere's he was outlawed, home- 
 less ; Servin hid him, and " 
 
 " Servin is a good fellow, and did well," cried Piombo. 
 " But you, daughter, have done ill to love any man but your 
 father " 
 
 "Love is not within my control," said Ginevra, gently. 
 
 "I had flattered myself," said her father, "that my Gi- 
 nevra would be faithful to me till my death ; that my care and 
 her mother's would be all she would have known ; that our 
 tenderness would never meet with a rival affection in her 
 heart; that " 
 
 " Did I ever reproach you for your fanatical devotion to 
 Napoleon ? " said Ginevra. " Have you never loved any one
 
 348 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 but me ? Have you not been away on embassies for months 
 at a time? Have I not borne your absence bravely? Life 
 has necessities to which we must yield." 
 
 "Ginevra! " 
 
 " No, you do not love me for my own sake, and your re- 
 proaches show intolerable selfishness. ' ' 
 
 " And you accuse your father's love ! " cried Piombo with 
 flaming looks. 
 
 "Father, I will never accuse you," replied Ginevra, more 
 gently than her trembling mother expected. " You have right 
 on the side of your egoism, as I have right on the side of my 
 love. Heaven is my witness that no daughter ever better ful- 
 filled her duty to her parents. I have never known anything 
 but love and happiness in what many daughters regard as 
 obligations. Now, for fifteen years, I have never been any- 
 where but under your protecting wing, and it has been a very 
 sweet delight to me to charm your lives. But am I then 
 ungrateful in giving myself up to the joy of loving, and in 
 wishing for a husband to protect me after you ? " 
 
 "So you balance accounts with your father, Ginevra!" 
 said the old man in ominous tones. 
 
 There was a frightful pause ; no one dared to speak. Fi- 
 nally, Bartolomeo broke the silence by exclaiming in a heart- 
 rending voice : " Oh, stay with us ; stay with your old father ! 
 I could not bear to see you love a man. Ginevra, you will 
 not have long to wait for your liberty " 
 
 " But, my dear father, consider ; we shall not leave you, 
 we shall be two to love you ; you will know the man to whose 
 care you will bequeath me. You will be doubly loved by me 
 and by him by him, being part of me, and by me who am 
 wholly he." 
 
 "Oh, Ginevra, Ginevra!" cried the Corsican, clinching 
 his fists, "why were you not married when Napoleon had 
 accustomed me to the idea, and introduced dukes and counts 
 as your suitors?"
 
 THE VENDETTA. 349 
 
 "They only loved me to order," said the young girl. 
 " Besides, I did not wish to leave you ; and they would have 
 taken me away with them." 
 
 "You do not wish to leave us alone," said Piombo, " but 
 if you marry you isolate us. I know you, my child, you will 
 love us no more. Elisa," he said, turning to his wife, who 
 sat motionless and, as it were, stupefied ; " we no longer have 
 a daughter ; she wants to be married." 
 
 The old man sat down, after raising his hands in the air as 
 though to invoke God ; then he remained bent, crushed by 
 his grief. Ginevra saw her father's agitation, and the modera- 
 tion of his wrath pierced her to the heart ; she had expected 
 a scene and furies ; she had not steeled her soul against his 
 gentleness. 
 
 "My dear father," she said in an appealing voice, "no, 
 you shall never be abandoned by your Ginevra. But love me 
 too a little for myself. If only you knew how he loves me ! 
 Ah, he could never bear to cause me pain ! " 
 
 " What, comparisons already ! " cried Piombo in a terrible 
 voice. " No," he went on, " I cannot endure the idea. If 
 he were to love you as you deserve, he would kill me ; and if 
 he were not to love you, I should stab him ! " 
 
 Piombo's hands were trembling, his lips trembled, his whole 
 frame trembled, and his eyes flashed lightnings ; Ginevra 
 alone could meet his gaze ; for then her eyes too flashed fire, 
 and the daughter was worthy of the father. 
 
 " To love you ! What man is worthy of such a life ? " he 
 went on. " To love you as a father even is it not to live in 
 paradise? Who then could be worthy to be your husband?" 
 
 " He," said Ginevra. "He of whom I feel myself un- 
 worthy." 
 
 "He," echoed Piombo mechanically. " Who ? He ? " 
 
 "The man I love." 
 
 "Can he know you well enough already to adore you?" 
 asked her father.
 
 360 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 "But, father," said Ginevra, feeling a surge of impatience, 
 " even if he did not love me so long as I love him " 
 
 "You do love him then?" cried Piombo. Ginevra gently 
 bowed her head. "You love him more than you love me?" 
 
 " The two feelings cannot be compared," she replied. 
 
 "One is stronger than the other?" said Piombo. 
 
 "Yes, I think so," said Ginevra. 
 
 *' You shall not marry him ! " cried the Corsican in a voice 
 that made the windows rattle. 
 
 " I will marry him ! " replied Ginevra calmly. 
 
 "Good God! " cried the mother, "how will this quarrel 
 end ? Santa Virgina, come between them ! ' ' 
 
 The Baron, who was striding up and down the room, came 
 and seated himself. An icy sternness darkened his face; he 
 looked steadfastly at his daughter, and said in a gentle and 
 affectionate voice, " Nay, Ginevra you will not marry him. 
 Oh, do not say you will, this evening. Let me believe that 
 you will not. Do you wish to see your father on his knees 
 before you, and his white hairs humbled. I will beseech 
 you " 
 
 " Ginevra Piombo is not accustomed to promise and not to 
 keep her word," said she ; " I am your child." 
 
 " She is right," said the Baroness, " we come into the world 
 to marry." 
 
 "And so you encourage her in disobedience," said the 
 Baron to his wife, who, stricken by the reproof, froze into a 
 statue. 
 
 "It is not disobedience to refuse to yield to an unjust com- 
 mand," replied Ginevra. 
 
 " It cannot be unjust when it emanates from your father's 
 lips, my child. Why do you rise in judgment on me ? Is 
 not the repugnance I feel a counsel from on high ? I am per- 
 haps saving you from some misfortune." 
 
 " The misfortune would be that he should not love me." 
 
 "Always he!"
 
 THE VENDETTA. 351 
 
 "Yes, always," she said. "He is my life, my joy, my 
 thought. Even if I obeyed you, he would be always in my 
 heart. If you forbid me to marry him, will it not make me 
 hate you?" 
 
 " You love us no longer ! " cried Piombo. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Ginevra, shaking her head. 
 
 "Well, then, forget him. Be faithful to us. After us 
 
 you understand " 
 
 "Father, would you make me wish that you were dead?" 
 cried Ginevra. 
 
 "I shall outlive you; children who do not honor their 
 parents die early," cried her father at the utmost pitch of 
 exasperation. 
 
 " All the more reason for marrying soon and being happy," 
 said she. 
 
 This coolness, this force of argument, brought Piombo's 
 agitation to a crisis ; the blood rushed violently to his head, 
 his face turned purple. Ginevra shuddered ; she flew like a 
 bird on to her father's knees, threw her arms round his neck, 
 stroked his hair, and exclaimed, quite overcome 
 
 "Oh, yes, let me die first! I could not survive you, my 
 dear, kind father." 
 
 "Oh, my Ginevra, my foolish Ginevretta ! " answered 
 Piombo, whose rage melted under this caress as an icicle melts 
 in the sunshine. 
 
 "It was time you should put an end to the matter," said 
 the Baroness in a broken voice. 
 
 "Poor mother! " 
 
 "Ah, Ginevretta, mia Ginevra bella ! " 
 
 And the father played with his daughter as if she were a 
 child of six ; he amused himself with undoing the waving 
 tresses of her hair and dancing her on his knee ; there was 
 dotage in his demonstrations of tenderness. Presently his 
 daughter scolded him as she kissed him, and tried, half in 
 jest, to get leave to bring Luigi to the house ; but, jesting
 
 352 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 too, her father refused. She sulked, and recovered herself, 
 and sulked again ; then, at the end of the evening, she was 
 only too glad to have impressed on her father the ideas of her 
 love for Luigi and of a marriage ere long. 
 
 Next day she said no more about it ; she went later to the 
 studio and returned early ; she was more affectionate to her 
 father than she had ever been, and showed herself grateful, as 
 if to thank him for the consent to her marriage he seemed to 
 give by silence. In the evening she played and sang for a 
 long time, and exclaimed now and then, " This nocturne 
 requires a man's voice! " She was an Italian, and that says 
 everything. 
 
 A week later her mother beckoned her ; Ginevra went, and 
 then in her ear she whispered, " I have persuaded your father 
 to receive him." 
 
 " Oh, mother ! you make me very happy." 
 
 So that afternoon, Ginevra had the joy of coming home to 
 her father's house leaning on Luigi's arm. The poor officer 
 came out of his hiding-place for the second time. Ginevra's 
 active intervention addressed to the Due de Feltre, then 
 minister of war, had been crowned with perfect success. 
 Luigi had just been reinstated as an officer on the reserve list. 
 This was a very long step towards a prosperous future. 
 
 Informed by Ginevra of all the difficulties he would meet 
 with in the Baron, the young officer dared not confess his 
 dread of failing to please him. This man, so brave in ad- 
 versity, so bold on the field of battle, quaked as he thought 
 of entering the Piombos' drawing-room. Ginevra felt him 
 tremble, and this emotion, of which their happiness was the 
 first cause, was to her a fresh proof of his love. 
 
 " How pale you are ! " said she, as they reached the gate 
 of the hotel. 
 
 "Oh, Ginevra! If my life alone were at stake " ex- 
 claimed Luigi, nervously. 
 
 Though Bartolomeo had been informed by his wife of this
 
 THE VENDETTA. 353 
 
 official introduction of his daughter's lover, he did not rise to 
 meet him, but remained in the armchair he usually occupied, 
 and the severity of his countenance was icy. 
 
 " Father," said Ginevra, "I have brought you a gentleman 
 whom you will no doubt be pleased to see. Monsieur Luigi, 
 a soldier, who fought quite close to the Emperor at Mont- 
 Saint-Jean " 
 
 The Baron rose, cast a furtive glance at Luigi, and said in 
 a sardonic tone 
 
 " Monsieur wears no orders?" 
 
 "I no longer wear the Legion of Honor," replied Luigi 
 bashfully, and he humbly remained standing. 
 
 Ginevra, hurt by her father's rudeness, brought forward a 
 chair. The officer's reply satisfied the old Republican. 
 Madame Piombo, seeing that her husband's brows were re- 
 covering their natural shape, said, to revive the conversation, 
 " Monsieur is wonderfully like Nina Porta. Do you not think 
 that he has quite the face of a Porta? " 
 
 "Nothing can be more natural," replied the young man, 
 on whom Piombo's flaming eyes were fixed. " Nina was my 
 sister." 
 
 " You are Luigi Porta ? " asked the old man. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Bartolomeo di Piombo rose, tottered, was obliged to lean 
 on a chair, and looked at his wife. Elisa Piombo came up to 
 him ; then the two old folks silently left the room, arm in arm, 
 with a look of horror at their daughter. Luigi Porta, quite 
 bewildered, gazed at Ginevra, who turned as white as a marble 
 statue, and remained with her eyes fixed on the door where 
 her father and mother had disappeared. There was some- 
 thing so solemn in her silence and their retreat that, for the 
 first time in his life perhaps, a feeling of fear came over him. 
 She clasped her hands tightly together, and said in a voice so 
 choked that it would have been inaudible to any one but a 
 lover, " How much woe in one word ! " 
 23
 
 354 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 "In the name of our love, what have I said?" asked 
 Luigi Porta. 
 
 "My father has never told me our deplorable history," 
 she replied. " And when we left Corsica I was too young to 
 know anything about it." 
 
 "Is it a Vendetta?" asked Luigi, trembling. 
 
 "Yes. By questioning my mother I learned that the 
 Porta had killed my brothers and burnt down our house. 
 My father then massacred all your family. How did you 
 survive, you whom he thought he had tied to the posts of a 
 bed before setting fire to the house? " 
 
 " I do not know," replied Luigi. " When I was six I was 
 taken to Genoa, to an old man named Colonna. No account 
 of my family was ever given to me ; I only knew that I was 
 an orphan, and penniless. Colonna was like a father to me ; 
 I bore his name till I entered the army; then, as I needed 
 papers to prove my identity, old Colonna told me that, help- 
 less as I was, and hardly more than a child, I had enemies. 
 He made me promise to take the name of Luigi only, to 
 evade them." 
 
 "Fly, fly, Luigi," cried Ginevra. "Yet, stay; I must go 
 with you. So long as you are in my father's house you are 
 safe. As soon as you quit it, take care of yourself. You 
 will go from one danger to another. My father has two 
 Corsicans in his service, and if he does not threaten your 
 life they will." 
 
 " Ginevra," he said, "and must this hatred exist between 
 us?" 
 
 She smiled sadly and bowed her head. But she soon raised 
 it again with a sort of pride, and said, "Oh, Luigi, our feel- 
 ings must be very pure and true that I should have the 
 strength to walk in the path I am entering on. But it is for 
 the sake of happiness which will last as long as life, is it 
 not?" 
 
 Luigi answered only with a smile, and pressed her hand.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 355 
 
 The girl understood that only a great love could at such a 
 moment scorn mere protestations. This calm and con- 
 scientious expression of Luigi's feelings seemed to speak for 
 their strength and permanence. The fate of the couple was 
 thus sealed. Ginevra foresaw many painful contests to be 
 fought out, but the idea of deserting Luigi an idea which 
 had perhaps floated before her mind at once vanished. 
 His, henceforth and for ever, she suddenly dragged him away 
 and out of the house with a sort of violence, and did not quit 
 him till they reached the house where Servin had taken a 
 humble lodging for him. 
 
 When she returned to her father's house she had assumed 
 the serenity which comes of a strong resolve. No change of 
 manner revealed any uneasiness. She found her parents 
 ready to sit down to dinner, and she looked at them with 
 eyes devoid of defiance and full of sweetness. She saw that 
 her old mother had been weeping ; at the sight of her red 
 eyelids for a moment her heart failed her, but she hid her 
 emotion. Piombo seemed to be a prey to anguish too keen, 
 too concentrated to be shown by ordinary means of expres- 
 sion. The servants waited on a meal which no one ate. A 
 horror of food is one of the symptoms indicative of a great 
 crisis of the soul. All three rose without any one of them 
 having spoken a word. When Ginevra was seated in the 
 great, solemn drawing-room, between her father and mother, 
 Piombo tried to speak, but he found no voice ; he tried to 
 walk about, but found no strength ; he sat down again and 
 rang the bell. 
 
 " Pietro," said he to the servant at last, "light the fire, I 
 am cold." 
 
 Ginevra was shocked, and looked anxiously at her father. 
 The struggle he was going through must be frightful ; his face 
 looked quite changed. Ginevra knew the extent of the danger 
 that threatened her, but she did not tremble; while the 
 glances that Bartolomeo cast at his daughter seemed to pro-
 
 356 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 claim that he was at this moment in fear of the character 
 whose violence was his own work. Between these two every- 
 thing must be in excess. And the certainty of the possible 
 change of feeling between the father and daughter filled the 
 Baroness* face with an expression of terror. 
 
 *' Ginevra, you love the enemy of your family," said 
 Piombo at last, not daring to look at his daughter. 
 
 "That is true," she replied. 
 
 " You must choose between him and us. Our Vendetta is 
 part of ourselves. If you do not espouse my cause, you are 
 not of my family." 
 
 " My choice is made," said Ginevra, in a steady voice. 
 
 His daughter's calmness misled Bartolomeo. 
 
 "Oh, my dear daughter!" cried the old man, whose 
 eyelids were moist with tears, the first, the only tears he ever 
 shed in his life. 
 
 "I shall be his wife," she said abruptly. 
 
 Bartolomeo could not see for a moment ; but he recovered 
 himself and replied, " This marriage shall never be so long 
 as I live. I will never consent." Ginevra kept silence. 
 " But, do you understand," the Baron went on, " that Luigi 
 is the son of the man who killed your brothers ? " 
 
 " He was six years old when the crime was committed ; he 
 must be innocent of it," she answered. 
 
 " A Porta ! " cried Bartolomeo. 
 
 " But how could I share this hatred," said the girl eagerly. 
 " Did you bring me up in the belief that a Porta was a 
 monster ? Could I imagine that even one was left of those 
 you had killed ? Is it not in nature that you should make 
 your Vendetta give way to my feelings? " 
 
 " A Porta ! " repeated Piombo. " If his father had found 
 you then in your bed, you would not be alive now. He 
 would have dealt you a hundred deaths." 
 
 "Possibly," she said. " But his son has given me more 
 than life. To see Luigi is a happiness without which I cannot
 
 THE VENDETTA. 357 
 
 live. Luigi has revealed to me the world of feeling. I have, 
 perhaps, seen even handsomer faces than his, but none ever 
 charmed me so much. I have, perhaps, heard voices no, 
 no, never one so musical ! Luigi loves me. He shall be my 
 husband." 
 
 " Never ! " said Piombo. " Ginevra, I would sooner see 
 you in your coffin ! " 
 
 The old man rose, and paced the room with hurried strides, 
 uttering fierce words, with pauses between that betrayed all 
 his indignation. 
 
 " You think, perhaps, that you can bend my will ? Unde- 
 ceive yourself. I will not have a Porta for my son-in-law. 
 That is my decision. Never speak of the matter again. I 
 am Bartolomeo di Piombo, do you hear, Ginevra? " 
 
 " Do you attach any mysterious meaning to the words?" 
 she coldly asked. 
 
 " They mean that I have a dagger, and that I do not fear 
 the justice of men. We Corsicans settle such matters with 
 God." 
 
 "Well," said the girl, "I am Ginevra di Piombo, and I 
 declare that in six months I will be Luigi Porta's wife. You 
 are a perfect tyrant, father," she spiritedly added, after an 
 ominous pause. 
 
 Bartolomeo clenched his fists, and struck the marble 
 chimney-shelf. 
 
 " Ah ! we are in Paris ! " he muttered. 
 
 He said no more, but folded his arms and bowed his head 
 on his breast ; nor did he say another word the whole even- 
 ing. Having asserted her will, the girl affected the most 
 complete indifference ; she sat down to the piano, sang, 
 played the most charming music, with a grace and feeling 
 that proclaimed her perfect freedom of mind, triumphing 
 over her father, whose brow showed no relenting. The old 
 man deeply felt this tacit insult, and at that moment gathered 
 the bitter fruits of the education he had given his daughter.
 
 358 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 Respect is a barrier which protects the parents and the children 
 alike, sparing those much sorrow, and these remorse. 
 
 The next day, as Ginevra was going out at the hour when 
 she usually went to the studio, she found the door of the 
 house closed upon her ; but she soon devised means for 
 informing Luigi Porta of her father's severity. A waiting- 
 woman, who could not read, carried to the young officer a 
 letter written by Ginevra. For five days the lovers contrived 
 to correspond, thanks to the plots that young people of twenty- 
 one can always contrive. 
 
 The father and daughter rarely spoke to each other. Both 
 had in the bottom of their hearts an element of hatred ; they 
 suffered, but in pride and silence. Knowing well how strong 
 were the bonds of love that tied them to each other, they 
 tried to wrench them asunder, but without success. No sweet 
 emotion ever came, as it had been wont, to give light to Bar- 
 tolomeo's severe features when he gazed at his Ginevra, and 
 there was something savage in her expression when she looked 
 at her father. Reproach sat on her innocent brow ; she gave 
 herself up, indeed, to thoughts of happiness, but remorse 
 sometimes dimmed her eyes. It was not, indeed, difficult to 
 divine that she would never enjoy in peace a felicity which 
 made her parents unhappy. In Bartolomeo, as in his daugh- 
 ter, all the irresolution arising from their native goodness 
 of heart was doomed to shipwreck on their fierce pride and 
 the revengeful spirit peculiar to Corsicans. They encouraged 
 each other in their wrath, and shut their eyes to the future. 
 Perhaps, too, each fancied that the other would yield. 
 
 On Ginevra's birthday, her mother, heart-broken at this 
 disunion, which was assuming a serious aspect, planned to 
 reconcile the father and daughter by an appeal to the mem- 
 ories of this anniversary. They were all three sitting in Bar- 
 tolomeo's room. Ginevra guessed her mother's purpose from 
 the hesitation written in her face, and she smiled sadly. At 
 this instant a servant announced two lawyers, accompanied
 
 TL'E VEXDE'lTA. 359 
 
 by several witnesses, who all came into the room. Bartolomeo 
 stared at the men, whose cold, set faces were in themselves an 
 insult to souls so fevered as those of the three principal actors 
 in this scene. The old man turned uneasily to his daughter, 
 and saw on her face a smile of triumph which led him to 
 suspect some catastrophe ; but he affected, as savages do, to 
 preserve a deceitful rigidity, while he looked at the two law- 
 yers with a sort of apathetic curiosity. At a gesture of invita- 
 tion from the old man the visitors took seats. 
 
 " Monsieur is no doubt Baron di Piombo ? " said the elder 
 of the two lawyers. 
 
 Bartolomeo bowed. The lawyer gave his head a little jerk, 
 looked at Ginevra with the sly expression of a bailiff nabbing a 
 debtor ; then he took out his snuff-box, opened it, and, taking 
 a pinch of snuff, absorbed it in little sniffs while considering 
 the opening words of his discourse ; and while pronouncing 
 them he made constant pauses, an oratorical effect which a 
 dash in printing represents very imperfectly. 
 
 " Monsieur," said he, " I am Monsieur Roguin, notary to 
 mademoiselle, your daughter, and we are here my colleague 
 and I to carry out the requirements of the law, and to put 
 an end to the divisions which as it would seem have arisen 
 between you and mademoiselle, your daughter on the 
 question of her marriage with Monsieur Luigi Porta." 
 This speech, made in a pedantic style, seemed, no doubt, to 
 Monsieur Roguin much top fine to be understood all in a 
 moment, and he stopped, while looking at Bartolomeo with 
 an expression peculiar to men of business, and which is half- 
 way between servility and familiarity. Lawyers are so much 
 used to feign interest in the persons to whom they speak that 
 their features at last assume a grimace which they can put on 
 and off with their official pallium. This caricature of friendli- 
 ness, so mechanical as to be easily detected, irritated Barto- 
 lomeo to such a pitch that it took all his self-control not to 
 throw Monsieur Roguin out of the window; a look of fury
 
 360 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 emphasized his wrinkles, and on seeing this the notary said to 
 himself: " I am making an effect." 
 
 "But," he went on in a honeyed voice, "Monsieur le 
 Baron, on such occasions as these, our intervention must 
 always, at first, be essentially conciliatory. Have the kind- 
 ness to listen to me. It is in evidence that Mademoiselle 
 Ginevra Piombo has to-day attained the age at which, 
 after a ' respectful summons,' she may proceed to the solemni- 
 zation of her marriage notwithstanding that her parents re- 
 fuse their consent. Now it is customary in families which 
 enjoy a certain consideration which move in society and 
 preserve their dignity people, in short, to whom it is im- 
 portant not to let the public into the secret of their differences 
 and who also do not wish to do themselves an injury by 
 blighting the future lives of a young husband and wife for 
 that is doing themselves an injury. It is the custom, I was 
 saying in such highly respectable families not to allow the 
 serving of such a summons which must be which always is 
 a record of a dispute which at last ceases to exist. For as 
 soon, monsieur, as a young lady has recourse to a ' respectful 
 summons ' she proclaims a determination so obstinate that 
 her father and her mother," he added, turning to the 
 Baroness, "can have no further hope of seeing her follow 
 their advice. Hence the parental prohibition being nullified 
 in the first place by this fact and also by the decision of 
 the law it is always the case that a wise father, after finally 
 remonstrating with his child, allows her the liberty " 
 
 Monsieur Roguin paused, perceiving that he might talk on 
 for two hours without extracting an answer ; and he also felt 
 a peculiar agitation as he looked at the man he was trying to 
 convince. An extraordinary change had come over Barto- 
 lomeo's countenance. All its lines were set, giving him an 
 expression of indescribable cruelty, and he glared at the 
 lawyer like a tiger. The Baroness sat mute and passive. 
 Ginevra, calm and resolute, was waiting ; she knew that the
 
 THE VENDETTA. 361 
 
 notary's voice was stronger than hers, and she seemed to have 
 made up her mind to keep silence. At the moment when 
 Roguin ceased speaking, the scene was so terrible that the 
 witnesses, as strangers, trembled ; never, perhaps, had such a 
 silence weighed on them. The lawyers looked at each other 
 as if in consultation, then they rose and went to the window. 
 
 " Did you ever come across clients made to this pattern ? " 
 asked Roguin of his colleague. 
 
 " There is nothing to be gotten out of him," said the younger 
 man. " In your place I should read the summons and nothing 
 more. The old man is no joke ; he is choleric, and you will 
 gain nothing by trying to discuss matters with him." 
 
 Monsieur Roguin therefore read aloud from a sheet of 
 stamped paper a summons ready drawn up, and coldly asked 
 Bartolomeo what his reply was. 
 
 " Are there laws in France then that upset a father's au- 
 thority ! " asked the Corsican. 
 
 "Monsieur - " said Roguin smoothly. 
 
 "That snatch a child from her father?" 
 
 " Monsieur - " 
 
 " That rob an old man of his last consolation ? " 
 
 " Monsieur, your daughter belongs to you only so long 
 
 "That kill her?" 
 
 "Monsieur, allow me." 
 
 There is nothing more hideous than the cold-blooded and 
 close reasoning of a lawyer in the midst of such scenes of 
 passion as they are usually mixed up with. The faces which 
 Piombo saw seemed to him to have escaped from hell ; his 
 cold and concentrated rage knew no bounds at the moment 
 when his little opponent's calm and almost piping voice 
 uttered that fatal, "Allow me." He sprang at along dagger 
 which hung from a nail over the chimney-piece, and rushed 
 at his daughter. The younger of the two lawyers and one of 
 the witnesses threw themselves between him and Ginevra, but
 
 362 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 Bartolomeo brutally knocked them over, showing them a face 
 of fire and glowing eyes which seemed more terrible than the 
 flash of the dagger. When Ginevra found herself face to face 
 with her father she looked at him steadily with a glance of 
 triumph, went slowly towards him, and knelt down. 
 
 "No, no! I cannot!" he exclaimed, flinging away the 
 weapon with such force that it stuck fast in the wainscot. 
 
 " Mercy, then, mercy ! " said she. " You hesitate to kill 
 me, but you refuse me life. Oh, father, I never loved you 
 so well but give me Luigi. I ask your consent on my 
 knees ; a daughter may humble herself to her father. My 
 Luigi, or I must die ! " 
 
 The violent excitement that choked her prevented her say- 
 ing more ; she found no voice ; her convulsive efforts plainly 
 showed that she was between life and death. Bartolomeo 
 roughly pushed her away. 
 
 "Go," he said, "the wife of Luigi Porta cannot be a 
 Piombo. I no longer have a daughter ! I cannot bring my- 
 self to curse you, but I give you up. You have now no 
 father. My Ginevra Piombo is buried then ! " he exclaimed 
 in a deep tone, as he clutched at his heart. "Go, I say, 
 wretched girl," he went on after a moment's silence. " Go, 
 and never let me see you again." 
 
 He took Ginevra by the arm, and in silence led her out of 
 the house. 
 
 "Luigi!" cried Ginevra, as she went into the humble 
 room where the officer was lodged, " my Luigi, we have no 
 fortune but our love." 
 
 " We are richer than all the kings of the earth," he replied. 
 
 "My father and mother have cast me out," said she with 
 deep melancholy. 
 
 " I will love you for them." 
 
 " Shall we be very happy ! " she cried, with a gayety that 
 had something terrible in it. 
 
 " And for ever ! " he answered, clasping her to his heart.
 
 THE VENDETTA. 363 
 
 On the day following that on which Ginevra had quitted 
 her father's house, she went to beg Madame Servin to grant 
 her protection and shelter till the time, fixed by law, when 
 she could be married to Luigi. There began her apprentice- 
 ship to the troubles which the world strews in the way of 
 those who do not obey its rules. Madame Servin, who was 
 greatly distressed at the injury that Ginevra' s adventure had 
 done the painter, received the fugitive coldly, and explained 
 to her with circumspect politeness that she was not to count 
 on her support. Too proud to insist, but amazed at such 
 selfishness, to which she was unaccustomed, the young Corsi- 
 can went to lodge in a furnished house as near as possible to 
 Luigi. The son of the Portas spent all his days at the feet 
 of his beloved ; his youthful love, and the purity of his mind, 
 dispersed the clouds which her father's reprobation had set- 
 tled on the banished daughter's brow ; and he painted the 
 future as so fair that she ended by smiling, though she could 
 not forget her parent's severity. 
 
 One morning the maid of the house brought up to her 
 several trunks containing dress-stuffs, linen, and a quantity of 
 things needful for a young woman settling for the first time. 
 In this she recognized the foreseeing kindness of a mother; 
 for as she examined these gifts she found a purse into which 
 the Baroness had put some money belonging to Ginevra, 
 adding all her own savings. With the money was a letter, in 
 which she implored her daughter to give up her fatal purpose 
 of marrying, if there were yet time. She had been obliged, 
 she said, to take unheard-of precautions to get this small 
 assistance conveyed to Ginevra ; she begged her not to accuse 
 her of hardness if henceforth she left her neglected ; she 
 feared she could do no more for her ; she blessed her, hoped 
 she might find happiness in this fatal marriage if she per- 
 sisted, and assured her that her one thought was of her be- 
 loved daughter. At this point tears had blotted out many 
 words of the letter.
 
 364 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 "Oh, mother ! " cried Ginevra, quite overcome. 
 
 She felt a longing to throw herself at her mother's feet, to 
 see her, to breathe the blessed air of home ; she was on the 
 point of rushing off when Luigi came in. She looked at him, 
 and filial affection vanished, her tears were dried, she could 
 not find it in her to leave the unhappy and loving youth. 
 To be the sole hope of a noble soul, to love and to desert it 
 such a sacrifice is treason of which no young heart is capa- 
 ble. Ginevra had the generosity to bury her grief at the 
 bottom of her soul. 
 
 At last the day of their wedding came. Ginevra found no 
 one near her. Luigi took advantage of the moment when 
 she was dressing to go in v search of the necessary witnesses to 
 their marriage act. These were very good people. One of 
 them, an ex-quartermaster of Hussars, had, when in the army, 
 found himself under such obligations to Luigi as an honest 
 man never forgets ; he had become a job-master, and had 
 several hackney carriages. The other, a builder, was the 
 proprietor of the house where the young couple were to lodge. 
 Each of these brought a friend, and all four came with Luigi 
 to fetch the bride. Unaccustomed as they were to social 
 grimacing, seeing nothing extraordinary in the service they 
 were doing to Luigi, these men were decently but quite plainly 
 dressed, and there was nothing to proclaim the gay escort of 
 a wedding. Ginevra herself was very simply clad, to be in 
 keeping with her fortune ; but, nevertheless, there was some- 
 thing so noble and impressive in her beauty that at the sight 
 of her the words died on the lips of the good folks who had 
 been prepared to pay her some compliment ; they bowed 
 respectfully, and she bowed in return ; they looked at her in 
 silence, and could only admire her. Joy can only express 
 itself among equals. So, as fate would have it, all was 
 gloomy and serious around the lovers ; there was nothing to 
 reflect their happiness. 
 
 The church and the mayor were not far away. The two
 
 THE VEXDETTA. 365 
 
 Corsicans, followed by the four witnesses required by law, 
 decided to go on foot, with a simplicity which robbed this 
 great event of social life of all parade. In the courtyard 
 of the mayor they found a crowd of carriages, which an- 
 nounced a numerous party within. They went upstairs and 
 entered a large room, where the couples who were to be made 
 happy on this particular day were awaiting the mayor of that 
 quarter of Paris with considerable impatience. Ginevra sat 
 down by Luigi on the end of a long bench, and their wit- 
 nesses remained standing for lack of seats. Two brides, 
 pompously arrayed in white, loaded with ribbons and lace 
 and pearls, and crowned with bunches of orange-blossoms of 
 which the sheeny buds quivered under their veils, were sur- 
 rounded by their families and accompanied by their mothers, 
 to whom they turned with looks at once timid and satisfied ; 
 every eye reflected their happiness, and every face seemed to 
 exhale benedictions. Fathers, witnesses, brothers and sisters 
 were coming and going like a swarm of insects playing in a 
 sunbeam which soon must vanish. Every one seemed to 
 understand the preciousness of this brief hour in life when 
 the heart stands poised between two hopes the wishes of the 
 past, the promise of the future. 
 
 At this sight Ginevra felt her heart swell, and she pressed 
 Luigi's arm. He gave her a look, and a tear rose to the 
 young man's eye ; he never saw more clearly than at that 
 moment all that his Ginevra had sacrificed for him. That 
 rare tear made the young girl forget the forlorn position in 
 which she stood. Love poured treasures of light between the 
 lovers, who from that moment saw nothing but each other in 
 the midst of the confusion. 
 
 Their witnesses, indifferent to the ceremony, were quietly 
 discussing business matters. 
 
 " Oats are very dear," said the ex-quartermaster to the 
 mason. 
 
 " They have not yet gone up so high as plaster in proper-
 
 366 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 tion," said the builder. And they walked round the large 
 room. 
 
 "What a lot of valuable time we are losing here! " im- 
 patiently exclaimed the mason, putting a huge silver watch 
 back into his pocket. 
 
 Luigi and Ginevra, clinging to each other, seemed to be 
 but one person. A poet would certainly have admired these 
 two heads, full of the same feeling, alike in coloring, melan- 
 choly and silent in the presence of the two buzzing wedding- 
 parties, of four excited families sparkling with diamonds and 
 flowers, and full of gaiety which seemed a mere effervescence. 
 All the joys of which these loud and gorgeous groups made a 
 display, Luigi and Ginevra kept buried at the bottom of their 
 hearts. On one side was the coarse clamor of pleasure ; on 
 the other the delicate silence of happy souls : earth and 
 heaven. 
 
 But Ginevra trembled, and could not altogether shake off 
 her woman's weakness. Superstitious, as Italians are, she re- 
 garded this contrast as an omen, and in the depths of her 
 heart she harbored a feeling of dread, as unconquerable as 
 her love itself. 
 
 Suddenly an official in livery threw open the double doors; 
 silence fell, and his voice sounded like a yelp as he called out 
 the names of Monsieur Luigi Porta and Mademoiselle Ginevra 
 Piombo. This incident caused the pair some embarrassment. 
 The celebrity of the name of Piombo attracted attention ; 
 the spectators looked about them for a wedding-party which 
 must surely be a splendid one. Ginevra rose ; her eyes, thun- 
 derous with pride, subdued the crowd ; she took Luigi's arm 
 and went forward with a firm step, followed by the witnesses. 
 A murmur of astonishment, which rapidly grew louder, and 
 whispering on all sides, reminded Ginevra that the world was 
 calling her to account for her parents' absence. Her father's 
 curse seemed to be pursuing her. 
 
 " Wait for the families of the bride and bridegroom," said
 
 THE VENDETTA. 367 
 
 the mayor to the clerk, who at once began to read the con- 
 tracts. 
 
 "The father and mother enter a protest," said the clerk 
 indifferently. 
 
 "On both sides?" asked the mayor. 
 
 "The man is an orphan." 
 
 " Where are the witnesses ? " 
 
 "They are here," said the clerk, pointing to the four mo- 
 tionless and silent men who stood like statues, with their arms 
 crossed. 
 
 "But if the parents protest ?" said the mayor. 
 
 "The 'respectful summons' has been presented in due 
 form," replied the man, rising to place the various documents 
 in the functionary's hands. 
 
 This discussion in an office seemed to brand them, and in 
 a few words told a whole history. The hatred of the Porta 
 and the Piombo, all these terrible passions, were thus recorded 
 on a page of a register, as the annals of a nation may be in- 
 scribed on a tombstone in a few lines, nay, even in a single 
 name : Robespierre or Napoleon. Ginevra was trembling. 
 Like the dove crossing the waters, which had no rest for her 
 foot but in the ark, her eyes could take refuge only in Luigi's, 
 for all else was cold and sad. The mayor had a stern, disap- 
 proving look, and his clerk stared at the couple with ill-natured 
 curiosity. Nothing ever had less the appearance of a festivity. 
 Like all the other events of human life when they are stripped 
 of their accessories, it was a simple thing in itself, immense in 
 its idea. 
 
 After some questions, to which they replied, the mayor 
 muttered a few words, and then, having signed their names in 
 the register, Luigi and Ginevra were man and wife. The 
 young Corsicans, whose union had all the poetry which genius 
 has consecrated in Romeo and Juliet, went away between two 
 lines of jubilant relations to whom they did not belong, and 
 who were out of patience at the delay caused by a marriage
 
 368 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 apparently so forlorn. When the girl found herself in the 
 courtyard and under the open sky, a deep sigh broke from 
 her very heart. 
 
 " Oh, will a whole life of love and devotion suffice to 
 repay my Ginevra for her courage and tenderness?" said 
 Luigi. 
 
 At these words, spoken with tears of joy, the bride forgot 
 all her suffering, for she had suffered in showing herself to 
 the world, claiming a happiness which her parents refused to 
 sanction. 
 
 "Why do men try to come between us? " she said, with a 
 simplicity of feeling that enchanted Luigi. 
 
 Gladness made them more light-hearted. They saw neither 
 the sky, nor the earth, nor the houses, and flew on wings to 
 the church. At last they found themselves in a small, dark 
 chapel, and in front of a humble altar where an old priest 
 married them. There, as at the mayor's, they were pursued 
 by the two weddings that persecuted them with their splendor. 
 The church, filled with friends and relations, rang with the 
 noise made by carriages, beadles, porters, and priests. Altars 
 glittered with ecclesiastical magnificence ; the crowns of 
 orange-blossom that decked the statues of the Virgin seemed 
 quite new. Nothing was to be seen but flowers, with per- 
 fumes, gleaming tapers, and velvet cushions embroidered with 
 gold. God seemed to have a share in this rapture of a day. 
 
 When the symbol of eternal union was to be held above 
 the heads of Luigi and Ginevra the yoke of white satin 
 which for some is so soft, so bright, so light, and for the 
 greater number is made of lead the priest looked round in 
 vain for two young boys to fill the happy office ; two of the 
 witnesses took their place. The priest gave the couple a 
 hasty discourse on the dangers of life, and on the duties they 
 must one day inculcate in their children, and he here took 
 occasion to insinuate a reflection on the absence of Ginevra's 
 parents ; then having united them in the presence of God, as
 
 THE VENDETTA. 369 
 
 the mayor had united them in the presence of the law, he 
 ended the mass, and left them. 
 
 " God bless them," said Vergniaud to the mason at the 
 church-door. "Never were two creatures better made for 
 each other. That girl's parents are wretches. I know no 
 braver soldier than Colonel Luigi ! If all the world had 
 behaved as he did, L 1 autre* would still be with us." 
 
 The soldier's blessing, the only one breathed for them this 
 day, fell like balm on Ginevra's heart. 
 
 They all parted with shaking of hands, and Luigi cordially 
 thanked his landlord. 
 
 " Good-by, old fellow," said Luigi to the quartermaster. 
 " And thank you." 
 
 "At your service, colonel, soul and body, horses and 
 chaises all that is mine is yours." 
 
 " How well he loves you ! " said Ginevra. 
 
 Luigi eagerly led his wife home to the house they were to 
 live in ; they soon reached the modest apartment, and there, 
 when the door was closed, Luigi took her in his arms, ex- 
 claiming, " Oh, my Ginevra for you are mine now here is 
 our real festival! Here," he went on, "all will smile 
 on us." 
 
 Together they went through the three rooms which com- 
 posed their dwelling. The entrance hall served as drawing- 
 room and dining-room. To the right was a bedroom, to the 
 left a sort of large closet which Luigi had arranged for his 
 beloved wife, where she found easels, her paint-box, some 
 casts, models, lay figures, pictures, portfolios ; in short, all the 
 apparatus of an artist. 
 
 " Here I shall work," said she, with childlike glee. 
 
 She looked for a long time at the paper and the furniture, 
 constantly turning to Luigi to thank him, for there was a 
 kind of magnificence in this humble retreat ; a bookcase con- 
 tained Ginevra's favorite books, and there was a piano. She 
 
 * The other : Napoleon. 
 24
 
 370 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 sat down on an ottoman, drew Luigi to her side, and clasping 
 his hand, "You have such good taste," said she, in a caress- 
 ing tone. 
 
 "Your words make me very happy," he replied. 
 
 "But come, let us see everything," said Ginevra, from 
 whom Luigi had hitherto kept the secret of this charming 
 little home. 
 
 They went into a bridal chamber that was as fresh and 
 white as a maiden. 
 
 " Oh ! come away," said Luigi, laughing. 
 
 "But I must see everything," and Ginevra imperiously 
 went on, examining all the furniture with the curiosity of an 
 antiquary studying a medal. She touched the silk stuff and 
 scrutinized everything with the childlike delight of a bride 
 turning over the treasures of the wedding basket brought her 
 by her husband. 
 
 " We have begun by ruining ourselves," she said in a half- 
 glad, half-regretful tone. 
 
 " It is true ; all my arrears of pay are there," replied Luigi. 
 " I sold it to a good fellow named Gigonnet." 
 
 "Why?" she asked, in a reproachful voice, which be- 
 trayed, however, a secret satisfaction. " Do you think I 
 should be less happy under a bare roof? Still," she went on, 
 " it is all very pretty, and it is ours ! " 
 
 Luigi looked at her with such enthusiasm that she cast down 
 her eyes, and said, "Let us see the rest." 
 
 Above these three rooms, in the attics, were a workroom 
 for Luigi, a kitchen, and a servant's room. Ginevra was 
 content with her little domain, though the view was limited 
 by the high wall of a neighboring house, and the courtyard 
 on which the rooms looked was gloomy. But the lovers were 
 so glad of heart, hope so beautified the future, that they would 
 see nothing but enchantment in their mysterious dwelling. 
 They were buried in this huge house, lost in the immensity 
 of Paris, like two pearls in their shell, in the bosom of the
 
 THE VENDETTA. 371 
 
 deep sea. For any one else it would have been a prison : to 
 them it was paradise. 
 
 The first days of their married life were given to love ; it 
 was difficult for them to devote themselves at once to work, 
 and they could not resist the fascination of their mutual pas- 
 sion. Luigi would recline for hours at his wife's feet, 
 admiring the color of her hair, the shape of her forehead, 
 the exquisite setting of her eyes, the purity and whiteness of 
 the arched brow beneath which they slowly rose or fell, ex- 
 pressing the happiness of satisfied love. Ginevra stroked her 
 Luigi's locks, never tiring of gazing at what she called, in 
 one of her own phrases, the belta folgorante of the young man, 
 and his delicately cut features ; always fascinated by the 
 dignity of his manners, while always charming him by the 
 grace of her own. They played like children with the merest 
 trifles, these trifles always brought them back to their passion, 
 and they ceased playing only to lapse into the day dreams of 
 far niente. An air sung by Ginevra would reproduce for 
 them the exquisite hues of their love. 
 
 Or, matching their steps as they had matched their souls, 
 they wandered about the country, finding their love in every- 
 thing, in the flowers, in the sky, in the heart of the fiery glow 
 of the setting sun ; they read it even in the changing clouds 
 that were tossed on the winds. No day was ever like the last, 
 their love continued to grow because it was true. In a very 
 few days they had proved each other, and had instinctively 
 perceived that their souls were of such a temper that their 
 inexhaustible riches seemed to promise ever-new joys for the 
 future. This was love in all its fresh candor, with its endless 
 prattle, its unfinished sentences, its long silences, its oriental 
 restfulness and ardor. Luigi and Ginevra had wholly under- 
 stood love. Is not love like the sea, which, seen superficially 
 or in haste, is accused of monotony by vulgar minds, while 
 certain privileged beings can spend all their life admiring it 
 and finding in it changeful phenomena which delight them ?
 
 372 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 One day, however, prudence dragged the young couple 
 from their Garden of Eden ; they must work for their 
 living. Ginevra, who had a remarkable talent for copying 
 pictures, set to work to produce copies, and formed a connec- 
 tion among dealers. Luigi, too, eagerly sought some 
 occupation ; but it was difficult for a young officer, whose 
 talents were limited to a thorough knowledge of tactics, to find 
 any employment in Paris. At last, one day when, weary of 
 his vain efforts, he felt despair in his soul at seeing that the 
 whole burthen of providing for their existence rested on Gi- 
 nevra, it occurred to him that he might earn something by 
 his handwriting, which was beautiful. With a perseverance, 
 of which his wife had set the example, he went to ask work 
 of the attorneys, the notaries, and the pleaders of Paris. 
 The frankness of his manners and his painful situation greatly 
 interested people in his favor, and he got enough copying to 
 be obliged to employ youths under him. Presently he took 
 work on a larger scale. The income derived from this office- 
 work and the price of Ginevra's paintings put the young 
 household on a footing of comfort, which they were proud of 
 as the fruit of their own industry. 
 
 This was the sunniest period of their life. The days glided 
 swiftly by between work and the happiness of love. In the 
 evening after working hard they found themselves happy in 
 Ginevra's cell. Music then consoled them for their fatigues. 
 No shade of melancholy ever clouded the young wife's feat- 
 ures, and she never allowed herself to utter a lament. She 
 could always appear to her Luigi with a smile on her lips and 
 a light in her eyes. Each cherished a ruling thought which 
 would have made them take pleasure in the hardest toil : 
 Ginevra told herself she was working for Luigi, and Luigi for 
 Ginevra. Sometimes, in her husband's absence, the young 
 wife would think of the perfect joy it would have been if this 
 life of love might have been spent in the sight of her father 
 and mother ; then she would sink into deep melancholy, and
 
 THE VENDETTA. 373 
 
 feel all the pangs of remorse ; dark pictures would pass like 
 shadows before her fancy ; she would see her old father alone, 
 or her mother weeping in the evenings, and hiding her tears 
 from the inexorable Piombo. Those two grave, white heads 
 would suddenly rise up before her, and she fancied she would 
 never see them again but in the fantastical light of memory. 
 This idea haunted her like a presentiment. 
 
 She kept the anniversary of their wedding by giving her 
 husband a portrait he had often wished for that of his Gi- 
 nevra. The young artist had never executed so remarkable a 
 work. Apart from the likeness, which was"perfect, the bril- 
 liancy of her beauty, the purity of her feelings, the happiness 
 of love, were rendered with a kind of magic. The master- 
 piece was hung up with due ceremony. 
 
 They spent another year in the midst of comfort. The his- 
 tory of their life can be told in these words: "They were 
 happy." No event occurred deserving to be related. 
 
 At the beginning of the winter of 1819 the picture-dealers 
 advised Ginevra to bring them something else than copies, as, 
 in consequence of the great competition, they could no longer 
 sell them to advantage. Madame Porta acknowledged the mis- 
 take she had made in not busying herself with genre pictures, 
 which would have won her a name ; she undertook to paint 
 portraits; but she had to contend against a crowd of artists 
 even poorer than herself. However, as Luigi and Ginevra 
 had saved some money, they did not despair of the future. 
 At the end of this same winter Luigi was working without 
 ceasing. He, too, had to compete with rivals ; the price of 
 copying had fallen so low that he could no longer employ 
 assistants, and was compelled to give up more time to his 
 labor to earn the same amount. His wife had painted several 
 pictures which were not devoid of merit, but dealers were 
 scarcely buying even those of artists of repute. Ginevra 
 offered them for almost nothing, and could not sell them. 
 
 The situation of the household was something terrible ; the
 
 374 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 souls of the husband and wife floated in happiness, love loaded 
 them with its treasures ; poverty rose up like a skeleton in the 
 midst of this harvest of joys, and they hid their alarms from 
 each other. When Ginevra felt herself on the verge of tears 
 as she saw Luigi suffering, she heaped caresses on him ; Luigi, 
 in the same way, hid the blackest care in his heart, while 
 expressing the fondest devotion to Ginevra. They sought 
 some compensation for their woes in the enthusiasm of their 
 feelings, and their words, their joys, their playfulness, were 
 marked by a kind of frenzy. They were alarmed at the future. 
 What sentiment is there to compare in strength with a passion 
 which must end to-morrow killed by death or necessity? 
 When they spoke of their poverty, they felt the need of de- 
 luding each other, and snatched at the smallest hope with 
 equal eagerness. 
 
 One night Ginevra sought in vain for Luigi at her side, 
 and got up quite frightened. A pale gleam reflected from 
 the dingy wall of the little courtyard led her to guess that 
 her husband sat up to work at night. Luigi waited till his 
 wife was asleep to go up to his workroom. The clock struck 
 four. Ginevra went back to bed and feigned sleep ; Luigi 
 came back, overwhelmed by fatigue and want of sleep, and 
 Ginevra gazed sadly at the handsome face on which labor 
 and anxiety had already traced some lines. 
 
 " And it is for me that he spends the night in writing," 
 she thought, and she wept. 
 
 An idea came to dry her tears : she would imitate Luigi. 
 That same day she went to a rich print-seller, and by the 
 help of a letter of recommendation to him that she had 
 obtained from Elie Magus, a picture-dealer, she got some 
 work in coloring prints. All day she painted and attended 
 to her household cares, then at night she colored prints. 
 These two beings, so tenderly in love, got into bed only to 
 get out of it again. Each pretended to sleep, and out of 
 Devotion to the other stole away as soon as one had deceived
 
 THE VENDETTA. 375 
 
 the other. One night Luigi, knocked over by a sort of fever 
 caused by work, of which the burthen was beginning to crush 
 him, threw open the window of his workroom to inhale the 
 fresh morning air, and shake off his pain, when, happening to 
 look down, he saw the light thrown on the wall by Ginevra's 
 lamp ; the unhappy man guessed the truth ; he went down- 
 stairs, walking softly, and discovered his wife in her studio 
 coloring prints. 
 
 " Oh, Ginevra ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 She started convulsively in her chair, and turned scarlet. 
 
 " Could I sleep while you were wearing yourself out with 
 work ? " said she. 
 
 " But I alone have a right to work so hard." 
 
 "And can I sit idle?" replied the young wife, whose 
 eyes filled with tears, "when I know that every morsel of 
 bread almost costs us a drop of your blood ? I should die if 
 I did not add my efforts to yours. Ought we not to have 
 everything in common, pleasures and pains?" 
 
 "She is cold!" cried Luigi, in despair. "Wrap your 
 shawl closer over your chest, my Ginevra, the night is damp 
 and chilly." 
 
 They went to the window, the young wife leaning her head 
 on her beloved husband's shoulder, he with his arm round 
 her, sunk in deep silence, and watching the sky which dawn 
 was slowly lighting up. 
 
 Gray clouds swept across in quick succession, and the east 
 grew brighter by degrees. 
 
 "See," said Ginevra, "it is a promise we shall be 
 happy." 
 
 "Yes, in heaven!" replied Luigi, with a bitter smile. 
 " Oh, Ginevra ! you who deserved all the riches of earth " 
 
 " I have your heart ! " said she in a glad tone. 
 
 "Ah, and I do not complain," he went on, clasping her 
 closely to him. And he covered the delicate face with kisses; 
 it was already beginning to lose the freshness of youth, but
 
 376 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 the expression was so tender and sweet that he could never 
 look at it without feeling comforted. 
 
 "How still!" said Ginevra. "I enjoy sitting late, my 
 dearest. The majesty of night is really contagious; it is im- 
 pressive, inspiring ; there is something strangely solemn in 
 the thought : all sleeps, but I am awake." 
 
 "Oh, my Ginevra, I feel, not for the first time, the refined 
 grace of your soul but, see, this is daybreak, come and 
 sleep." 
 
 "Yes," said she, "if I am not the only one to sleep. I 
 was miserable indeed the night when I discovered that my 
 Luigi was awake and at work without me." 
 
 The valor with which the young people defied misfortune 
 for some time found a reward. But the event which usually 
 crowns the joys of a household was destined to be fatal to 
 them. Ginevra gave birth to a boy, who, to use a common 
 phrase, was as beautiful as the day. The feeling of mother- 
 hood doubled the young creature's strength. Luigi borrowed 
 money to defray the expenses of her confinement. Thus, just 
 at first, she did not feel all the painfulness of their situation, 
 and the young parents gave themselves up to the joy of rear- 
 ing a child. This was their last gleam of happiness. Like 
 two swimmers who unite their forces to stem a current, the 
 Corsicans at first struggled bravely ; but sometimes they gave 
 themselves up to an apathy resembling the torpor that precedes 
 death, and they were soon obliged to sell their little treasures. 
 
 Poverty suddenly stood before them, not hideous, but 
 humbly attired, almost pleasant to endure ; there was noth- 
 ing appalling in her voice ; she did not bring despair with 
 her, nor spectres, nor squalor, but she made them forget the 
 traditions and the habit of comfort ; she broke the mainsprings 
 of pride. Then came misery in all its horror, reckless of her 
 rags, and trampling every human feeling under foot. Seven 
 or eight months after the birth of little Bartolomeo it would 
 have been difficult to recognize the original of the beautiful
 
 THE VENDETTA. 377 
 
 portrait, the sole adornment of their bare room, in the mother 
 who was suckling a sickly baby. Without any fire in bitter 
 winter weather, Ginevra saw the soft outlines of her face 
 gradually disappear, her cheeks became as white as porcelain, 
 her eyes colorless, as though the springs of life were drying 
 up in her. And watching her starved and pallid infant, she 
 suffered only in his young misery, while Luigi had not the 
 heart even to smile at his boy. 
 
 "I have scoured Paris," he said in a hollow voice. "I 
 know no one, and how can I dare beg of strangers? Verg- 
 niaud, the horse-breeder, my old comrade in Egypt, is impli- 
 cated in some conspiracy, and has been sent to prison ; besides, 
 he had loaned me all he had to lend. As to the landlord, he 
 has not asked me for any rent for more than a year." 
 
 "But we do not want for anything," Ginevra gently an- 
 swered, with an affectation of calmness. 
 
 "Each day brings some fresh difficulty," replied Luigi, 
 with horror. 
 
 Luigi took all Ginevra's paintings, the portrait, some furni- 
 ture which they yet could dispense with, and sold them all 
 for a mere trifle ; the money thus obtained prolonged their 
 sufferings for a little while. During these dreadful days 
 Ginevra showed the sublime heights of her character, and the 
 extent of her resignation. She bore the inroads of suffering 
 with stoical firmness. Her vigorous soul upheld her under all 
 ills ; with a weak hand she worked on by her dying child, ful- 
 filled her household duties with miraculous activity, and was 
 equal to everything. She was even happy when she saw on 
 Luigi's lips a smile of surprise at the look of neatness she 
 contrived to give to the one room to which they had been 
 reduced. 
 
 "I have kept you a piece of bread, dear," she said one 
 evening when he came in tired. 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 "I have dined, dear Luigi; I want nothing." And the
 
 378 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 sweet expression of her face, even more than her words, urged 
 him to accept the food of which she had deprived herself. 
 Luigi embraced her with one of the despairing kisses which 
 friends gave each other in 1 793 as they mounted the scaffold 
 together. In such moments as these two human creatures see 
 each other heart to heart. Thus the unhappy Luigi, under- 
 standing at once that his wife was fasting, felt the fever that 
 was undermining her ; he shivered, and went out on the pre- 
 text of pressing business, for he would rather have taken the 
 most insidious poison than escape death by eating the last 
 morsel of bread in the house. 
 
 He wandered about Paris among the smart carriages, in the 
 midst of the insulting luxury that is everywhere flaunted ; he 
 hurried past the shops of the money-changers where gold 
 glitters in the window ; finally, he determined to sell himself, 
 to offer himself as a substitute for the conscription, hoping by 
 this sacrifice to save Ginevra, and that during his absence she 
 might be taken into favor again by Bartolomeo. So he went 
 in search of one of the men who deal in these white slaves, 
 and felt a gleam of happiness at recognizing in him an old 
 officer of the Imperial Guard. 
 
 "For two days I have eaten nothing," he said, in a slow, 
 weak voice. " My wife is dying of hunger, and never utters 
 a complaint ; she will die, I believe, with a smile on her lips. 
 For pity's sake, old comrade," he added, with a forlorn 
 smile, "pay for me in advance; I am strong, I have left the 
 service, and I " 
 
 The officer gave Luigi something on account of the sum he 
 promised to get for him. The unhappy man laughed con- 
 vulsively when he grasped a handful of gold-pieces, and ran 
 home as fast as he could go, panting, and exclaiming as he 
 went, " Oh, my Ginevra Ginevra ! " 
 
 It was growing dark by the time he reached home. He 
 went in softly, fearing to overexcite his wife, whom he had 
 left so weak ; the last pale rays of sunshine, coming in at the
 
 THE VENDETTA. 379 
 
 dormer window, fell on Ginevra's face. She was asleep in 
 her chair with her baby at her breast. 
 
 "Wake up, my darling," said he, without noticing the 
 attitude of the child, which seemed at this moment to have a 
 supernatural glory. 
 
 On hearing his voice, the poor mother opened her eyes, 
 met Luigi's look, and smiled ; but Luigi gave a cry of terror. 
 He hardly recognized his half-crazed wife, to whom he showed 
 the gold, with a gesture of savage vehemence. 
 
 Ginevra began to laugh mechanically, but suddenly she 
 cried in a terrible voice, " Luigi, the child is cold ! " 
 
 She looked at the infant and fainted. Little Bartolomeo 
 was dead. 
 
 Luigi took his wife in his arms, without depriving her of 
 the child, which she clutched to her with incomprehensible 
 strength, and after laying her on the bed he went out to call 
 for help. 
 
 "Great heaven ! " he exclaimed to his landlord, whom he 
 met on the stairs, "I have money, and my child is dead of 
 hunger, and my wife is dying. Help us." 
 
 In despair he went back to his wife, leaving the worthy 
 builder and various neighbors to procure whatever might 
 relieve the misery of which till now they had known nothing, 
 so carefully had the Corsicans concealed it out of a feeling of 
 pride. Luigi had tossed the gold-pieces on the floor, and 
 was kneeling by the bed where his wife lay. 
 
 " Father, take charge of my son, who bears your name ! " 
 cried Ginevra in her delirium. 
 
 " Oh, my angel, be calm," said Luigi, kissing her, " better 
 days await us ! " His voice and embrace restored her to 
 some composure. 
 
 "Oh, my Luigi," she went on, looking at him with extra- 
 ordinary fixity, " listen to me. I feet that I am dying. My 
 death is quite natural. I have been suffering too much ; and 
 then happiness so great as mine had to be paid for. Yes, my
 
 380 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 Luigi, be comforted. I have been so happy that if I had to 
 begin life again, I would again accept our lot. I am a bad 
 mother; I weep for you even more than for my child. My 
 child ! " she repeated in a full, deep voice. Two tears 
 dropped from her dying eyes, and she suddenly clasped yet 
 closer the little body she could not warm. " Give my hair 
 to my father in memory of his Ginevra," she added. " Tell 
 him that I never, never, accused him " 
 
 Her head fell back on her husband's arm. 
 
 "No, no, you cannot die ! " cried Luigi. "A doctor is 
 coming. We have food. Your father will receive you into 
 favor. Prosperity is dawning on us. Stay with us, angel of 
 beauty ! " 
 
 But that faithful and loving heart was growing cold. Gi- 
 nevra instinctively turned her eyes on the man she adored, 
 though she was no longer conscious of anything ; confused 
 images rose before her mind, fast losing all memories of earth. 
 She knew that Luigi was there, for she clung more and more 
 tightly to his ice-cold hand, as if to hold herself up above a 
 gulf into which she feared to fall. 
 
 "You are cold, dear," she said presently; "I will warm 
 you.'* 
 
 She tried to lay her husband's hand over her heart, but she 
 was dead. Two doctors, a priest, and some neighbors came 
 in at this moment, bringing everything that was needful to 
 save the lives of the young couple and to soothe their despair. 
 At first these intruders made a good deal of noise, but when 
 they were all in the room an appalling silence fell. 
 
 While this scene was taking place Bartolomeo and his wife 
 were sitting in their old armchairs, each at one corner of the 
 immense fireplace that warmed the great drawing-room of 
 their mansion. The clock marked midnight. It was long 
 since the old couple had slept well. At this moment they 
 were silent, like two old folks in their second childhood, who
 
 THE VENDETTA. 381 
 
 look at everything and see nothing. The deserted room, to 
 them full of memories, was feebly lighted by a single lamp 
 fast dying out. But for the dancing flames on the hearth they 
 would have been in total darkness. One of their friends had 
 just left them, and the chair on which he had sat during his 
 visit stood between the old people. Piombo had already cast 
 more than one glance at this chair, and these glances, fraught 
 with thoughts, followed each other like pangs of remorse, for 
 the empty chair was Ginevra's. Elisa Piombo watched the 
 expressions that passed across her old husband's pale face. 
 Though she was accustomed to guess the Corsican's feelings 
 from the violent changes in his features, they were to-night 
 by turns so threatening and so sad that she failed to read this 
 inscrutable soul. 
 
 Was Bartolomeo yielding to the overwhelming memories 
 aroused by that chair ? Was he pained at perceiving that it 
 had been used by a stranger for the first time since his 
 daughter's departure? Had the hour of mercy, the hour so 
 long and vainly hoped for, struck at last ? 
 
 These reflections agitated the heart of Elisa Piombo. For 
 a moment her husband's face was so terrible that she quaked 
 at having ventured on so innocent a device to give her an 
 opportunity of speaking of Ginevra. At this instant the 
 northerly blast flung the snowflakes against the shutters with 
 such violence that the old people could hear their soft pelting. 
 Ginevra's mother bent her head to hide her tears from her 
 husband. Suddenly a sigh broke from the old man's heart ; 
 his wife looked at him ; he was downcast. For the second 
 time in three years she ventured to speak to him of his 
 daughter. 
 
 " Supposing Ginevra were cold ! " she exclaimed in an 
 undertone. " Or perhaps she is hungry," she went on. The 
 Corsican shed a tear. " She has a child, and cannot suckle 
 it, her milk is dried up," the mother added vehemently, with 
 an accent of despair.
 
 382 THE VENDETTA. 
 
 " Let her come ; oh, let her come ! " cried Piombo. " Oh, 
 my darling child, you have conquered me." 
 
 The mother hastily rose, as if to go fetch her daughter. At 
 this instant the door was flung open, and a man, whose face 
 had lost all semblance of humanity, suddenly stood before 
 them. 
 
 " Dead ! Our families were doomed to exterminate each 
 other ; for this is all that remains of her," he said, laying on 
 the table Ginevra's long, black hair. 
 
 The two old people started, as though they had been struck 
 by a thunderbolt ; they could not see Luigi. 
 
 " He has spared us a pistol-shot, for he is dead," said 
 Bartolomeo deliberately, as he looked on the ground. 
 
 PARIS, January, 1830.
 
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