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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2008 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/batrixOObalzrich 
 
THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE 
 By H. DE BALZAC 
 
 SCENES FROM PRIVATE LIFE 
 
 BEATRIX 
 
BALZAC'S NOVELS. 
 
 Translated by Miss K. P. Wormeley. 
 
 Already Published: 
 PERE GORIOT. 
 DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS. 
 RISE AND PALL OF CESAR BIROTTEAU. 
 EUGENIE GRANDET. 
 COUSIN PONS. 
 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. 
 THE TAATO BROTHERS. 
 THE ALKAHEST (La Recherche deTAbsolu). 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 THE MAGIC SKIN (La Peau de Chagrin). 
 COUSIN BETTE. 
 LOUIS LAMBERT. 
 BUREAUCRACY (Les Employes). 
 SERAPHITA. 
 
 SONS OP THE SOIL (Les Paysans). 
 FAME AND SORROW (Chat-qui-pelote). 
 THE LILY OP THE VALLEY. 
 URSULA. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL MYSTERY. 
 ALBERT SAVARUS. 
 BALZAC : A MEMOIR. 
 PIERRETTE. 
 THE CHOUANS. 
 LOST ILLUSIONS. 
 A GREAT MAN OP THE PROVINCES IN 
 
 PARIS. 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OP CONSOLATION. 
 THE VILLAGE RECTOR. 
 MEMOIRS OP T'WO YOUNG MARRIED 
 
 WOMEN. 
 CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. 
 LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRB. 
 PERRAGUS, CHIEP OP THE DEVORANTS. 
 A START IN LIPB. 
 THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. 
 BEATRIX. 
 
 DAUGHTER OP EVE. 
 < 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 BOSTON. 
 
HON ORE DE BALZAC 
 
 TRANSLATEr LY 
 
 KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY 
 
 BEATRIX 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 3 SOMERSET STREET 
 
 BOSTON 
 1895 
 

 GIFT Of 
 
 Copyright, 1895, 
 By Roberts Brothers. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 ®ntt)cr0ita PrM0: 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 It is somewhat remarkable that Balzac, dealing as he did 
 with traits of character and the minute and daily circum- 
 stances of life, has never been accused of representing actual 
 persons in the two or three thousand portraits which he 
 painted of human nature. 
 
 In '' The Great Man of the Provinces in Paris " some like- 
 nesses were imagined : Jules Janin in Etienne Lousteau, 
 Armand Carrel in Michel Chrestien, and, possibly, Berryer in 
 Daniel d' Arthez. But in the present volume, " Beatrix," hcN 
 used the characteristics of certain persons, which were recog- 
 nized and admitted at the time of publication. Mademoiselle 
 des Touches (Camille Maupin) is George Sand in character, 
 and the personal description of her, though applied by some to 
 the famous Mademoiselle Georges, is easily recognized from 
 Couture's drawing. Beatrix, Conti, and Claude Vignon are 
 sketches of the Comtesse d'Agoult, Liszt, and the well-known 
 critic Gustave Blanche. 
 
 The opening scene of this volume, representing the manners 
 and customs of the old Breton family, a social state existing no 
 longer except in history, and the transition period of the 
 vieille roche as it passed into the customs and ideas of the pres- 
 ent century, is one of Balzac's remarkable and most famous 
 pictures in the " Comedy of Human Life." 
 
 K. P. W. 
 
 796230 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 I. A Breton Town and Mansion .... 1 
 
 II. The Baron, his Wife, and Sister ... 18 
 
 III. Three Breton Silhouettes 36 
 
 IV. A Normal Evening 47 
 
 V. Calyste 61 
 
 VI. Biography of Camille Maupin .... 74 
 
 VII. Les Touches 97 
 
 VIII. La Marquise Beatrix Ill 
 
 IX. A First Meeting 142 
 
 X. Drama 156 
 
 XI. Female Diplomacy 181 
 
 XII. Correspondence 200 
 
 XIIT. Duel between Women 220 
 
 XIV. An Excursion to Croisic 235 
 
 XV. CoNTi 260 
 
 XVI. Sickness unto Death 272 
 
 XVII. A Death: a Marriage 288 
 
TO SARAH. 
 
 In cloudless weather, on the shores of the Mediterranean, 
 where lay in former times the noble empire of your name, 
 sometimes the sea reveals beneath the shimmer of its waters 
 an ocean flower, a masterpiece of Nature ; but the lace of its 
 petals, rose, purple, bistre, violet, or gold, the freshness of its 
 living filagree, the velvet of its tissue, wither instantly if 
 thoughtless curiosity lays hold of it and brings it to the shore. 
 Jn like manner the sunshine of publicity would hurt your pious 
 modesty. Therefore, in dedicating to you this book, I must 
 conceal a name which would otherwise be its pride. But, if I 
 keep this semi-silence, your beautiful hands may bless it, your 
 noble brow may dreamily bend over it, your eyes, filled with 
 maternal love, may smile upon its pages, for you yourself are 
 in them, in bodily presence, veiled. Like that pearl of the 
 ocean flora, you shall stay upon the white untrodden sand 
 where your fair life unfolds, diaphanous, to some discreet and 
 friendly eyes, though hidden from all others by the wave. 
 
 Would that I could lay at your feet a work in harmony with 
 your perfection; but, since that is a thing impossible, I here 
 appeal to one of your highest instincts, and offer you, to con- 
 sole me, something you can protect, 
 
 De Balzac. 
 
BEATRIX. 
 
 I. 
 
 A BRETON TOWN AND MANSION. 
 
 France, especially in Brittany, still possesses certain 
 towns completely outside of the movement which gives 
 to the nineteenth century its peculiar characteristics. 
 For lack of quick and regular communication with 
 Paris, scarcely connected by wretched roads with the 
 sub-prefecture, or the chief city of their own province, 
 these towns regard the new civilization as a spectacle 
 to be gazed at; it amazes them, but they never applaud 
 it ; and, whether they fear it or scoff at it, they continue 
 faithful to the old manners and customs which have 
 come down to them. Whoso would travel as a moral 
 archaeologist, observing men instead of stones, would 
 find images of the time of Louis XV. in many a village 
 of Provence, of the time of Louis XIV. in the depths of 
 Poitou, and of still more ancient times in the towns 
 of Brittany. Most of these towns have fallen from 
 states of splendor never mentioned by historians, who 
 are always more concerned with facts and dates than 
 with the truer history of manners and customs. The 
 tradition of this splendor still lives in the memory of 
 
 1 
 
2 Beatrix, 
 
 the people, — as in Brittany, where the native character 
 'allows np foFget^u)ness of things which concern its 
 own land. Many of these towns were once the capi- 
 tals of a IJttle feudal State, — a county or duchy con- 
 quered by the crown' or divided among many heirs, if 
 the male line failed. Disinherited from active life, 
 these heads became arms ; and arms deprived of nour- 
 ishment, wither and barely vegetate. 
 
 For the last thirty years, however, these pictures of 
 ancient times are beginning to fade and disappear. 
 Modern industry, working for the masses, goes on de- 
 stroying the creations of ancient art, the works of 
 which were once as personal to the consumer as to the 
 artisan. Nowadays we have products, we no longer 
 have works. Public buildings, monuments of the past, 
 count for much in the phenomena of retrospection ; but 
 the monuments of modern industry are freestone 
 quarries, saltpetre mines, cotton factories. A few 
 more years and even these old cities will be trans- 
 formed and seen no more except in the pages of this 
 iconography. 
 
 One of the towns in which may be found the most 
 correct likeness of the feudal ages is Guerande. The 
 name alone awakens a thousand memories in the 
 minds of painters, artists, thinkers who have visited 
 the slopes on which this splendid jewel of feudality 
 lies proudly posed to command the flux and reflux of 
 the tides and the dunes, — the summit, as it were, of a 
 triangle, at the corners of which are two other jewels not 
 less curious : Croisic, and the village of Batz. There 
 are no towns after Guerande except Vitre in the centre 
 of Brittany, and Avignon in the south of France, which 
 
Beatrix, 3 
 
 preserve so intact, to the very middle of our epoch, the 
 type and form of the middle ages. 
 
 Guerande is still encircled with its doughty walls ; 
 its moats are full of water, its battlements entire, its 
 loopholes unincumbered with vegetation ; even ivy has 
 never cast its mantle over the towers, square or round. 
 The town has three gates, where may be seen the rings 
 of the portcullises ; it is entered by a drawbridge of 
 iron-clamped wood, no longer raised but which could 
 be raised at will. The mayoralty was blamed for hav- 
 ing, in 1820, planted poplars along the banks of the 
 moat to shade the promenade. It excused itself on 
 the ground that the long and beautiful esplanade of the 
 fortifications facing the dunes had been converted one 
 hundred years earlier into a mall where the inhabitants 
 took their pleasure beneath the elms. 
 
 The houses of the old town have suffered no change ; 
 and they have neither increased nor diminished. None 
 have suffered upon their frontage from the hammer of 
 the architect, the brush of the plasterer, nor have they 
 staggered under the weight of added stories. All 
 retain their primitive characteristics. Some rest on 
 wooden columns which form arcades under which foot- 
 passengers circulate, the floor planks bending beneath 
 them, but never breaking. The houses of the merchants 
 are small and low ; their fronts are veneered with slate. 
 Wood, now decaying, counts for much in the carved 
 material of the window-casings and the pillars, above 
 which grotesque faces look down, while shapes of 
 fantastic beasts climb up the angles, animated by 
 that great thought of Art, which in those old days 
 gave life to inanimate nature. These relics, resisting 
 
4 Beatrix, 
 
 change, present to the eye of painters those dusky 
 tones and half-blurred features in which the artistic 
 brush delights. 
 
 The streets are what they were four hundred years 
 ago, — with one exception : population no longer 
 swarms there ; the social movement is now so dead 
 that a traveller wishing to examine the town (as beau- 
 tiful as a suit of antique armor) may walk alone, not 
 without sadness, through a deserted street, where the 
 mullioned windows are plastered up to avoid the win- 
 dow-tax. This street ends at a postern, flanked with 
 a wall of masonry, beyond which rises a bouquet of 
 trees planted by the hands of Breton nature, one of the 
 most luxuriant and fertile vegetations in France. A 
 painter, a poet would sit there silently, to taste the 
 quietude which reigns beneath the well-preserved arch 
 of the postern, where no voice comes from the life of 
 the peaceful city, and where the landscape is seen in its 
 rich magnificence through the loop holes of the case- 
 mates once occupied by halberdiers and archers, which 
 are not unlike the sashes of some belvedere arranged 
 for a point of view. 
 
 It is impossible to walk about the place without 
 thinking at every step of the habits and usages of 
 long-past times ; the very stones tell of them ; the 
 ideas of the middle ages are still there with all their 
 ancient superstitions. If, by chance, a gendarme 
 passes you, with his silver-laced hat, his presence is an 
 anachronism against which your sense of fitness pro- 
 tests ; but nothing is so rare as to meet a being or an 
 object of the present time. There is even very little 
 of the clothing of the day ; and that little the inhabi- 
 
Beatrix, 5 
 
 tants adapt in a way to their immutable customs, their 
 unchangeable physiognomies. The public square is 
 filled with Breton costumes, which artists flock to 
 draw; these stand out in wonderful relief upon the 
 scene around them. The whiteness of the linen worn 
 by the paludiers (the name given to men who gather 
 salt in the salt-marshes) contrasts vigorously with the 
 blues and browns of the peasantry and the original and 
 sacredly preserved jewelry of the women. These two 
 classes, and that of the sailors in their jerkins and 
 varnished leather caps are as distinct from one another 
 as the castes of India, and still recognize the distance 
 that parts them from the bourgeoisie, the nobility, and 
 the clergy. AU lines are clearly marked ; there the 
 revolutionary level found the masses too rugged and too 
 hard to plane ; its instrument would have been notched, 
 if not broken. The character of immutability which 
 science gives to zoological species is found in Breton 
 human nature. Even now, after the Revolution of 
 1830, Guerande is still a town apart, essentially 
 Breton, fervently Catholic, silent, self-contained, — a 
 place where modern ideas have little access. 
 
 Its geographical position explains this phenomenon. 
 The pretty town overlooks a salt-marsh, the product of 
 which is called throughout Brittany the Guerande salt, 
 to which many Bretons attribute the excellence of their 
 butter and their sardines. It is connected with the 
 rest of France by two roads only : that coming from 
 Savenay, the arrondissement to which it belongs, 
 which stops at Saint-Nazaire ; and a second road, 
 loading from Vannes, which connects it with the Morbi- 
 hiin. The arrondissement road establishes communi- 
 
6 Beatrix, 
 
 cation by land, and from Saint-Nazaire by water, with 
 Nantes. The land road is used only by government ; 
 the more rapid and more frequented way being by 
 water from Saint-Nazaire. Now, between this village 
 and Guerande is a distance of eighteen miles, which the 
 mail-coach does not serve, and for good reason ; not 
 three coach passengers a year would pass over it. 
 
 These, and other obstacles, little fitted to encourage 
 travellers, still exist. In the first place, government is 
 slow in its proceedings ; and next, the inhabitants of the 
 region put up readily enough with diflaculties which 
 separate them from the rest of France. Guerande, 
 therefore, being at the extreme end of the continent, 
 leads nowhere, and no one comes there. Glad to be 
 ignored, she thinks and cares about herself only. The 
 immense product of her salt-marshes, which pays a 
 tax of not less than a million to the Treasury, is 
 chiefly managed at Croisic, a peninsular village which 
 communicates with Guerande over quicksands which 
 efface during the night the tracks made by day, and 
 also by boats which cross the arm of the sea that 
 makes the port of Croisic. 
 
 This fascinating little town is therefore the Hercula- 
 neum of feudality, less its winding sheet of lava. It 
 is afoot, but not living ; it has no other ground of ex- 
 istence except that it has not been demolished. If you 
 reach Guerande from Croisic, after crossing a dreary 
 landscape of salt-marshes, you will experience a strong 
 sensation at sight of that vast fortification, which is 
 still as good as ever. If you come to it by Saint- 
 Nazaire, the picturesqueness of its position and the 
 naive grace of its environs will please you no less. 
 
BSatrix* 7 
 
 The country immediately surrounding it is ravishing ; 
 the hedges are full of flowers, honeysuckles, roses, 
 box, and many enchanting plants. It is like an 
 English garden, designed by some great architect. 
 This rich, coy nature, so untrodden, with all the grace 
 of a bunch of violets or a lily of the valley in the glade 
 of a forest, is framed by an African desert banked by 
 the ocean, — a desert without a tree, an herb, a bird ; 
 where, on sunny days, the laboring paludiers^ clothed 
 in white and scattered among those melancholy 
 swamps where the salt is made, remind us of Arabs m 
 their burrows. 
 
 Thus Guerande bears no resemblance to any other 
 place in France. The town produces somewhat the 
 same effect upon the mind as a sleeping-draught upon 
 the body. It is silent as Venice. There is no other 
 public conveyance than the springless wagon of a car- 
 rier who carries travellers, merchandise, and occasion- 
 ally letters from Saint-Nazaire to Guerande and vice 
 versa, Bernus, the carrier, was, in 1829, the factotum 
 of this large community. He went and came when he 
 pleased ; all the country knew him ; and he did the er- 
 rands of all. The arrival of a carriage in Guerande, 
 that of a lady or some' invalid going to Croisic for sea- 
 bathing (thought to have greater virtue among those 
 rocks than at Boulogne or Dieppe) is still %n immense 
 event. The peasants come in on horseback, most of 
 them with commodities for barter in sacks. They are 
 induced to do so (and so are the paludiers) by the 
 necessity of purchasing the jewels distinctive of their 
 caste which are given to all Breton brides, and the 
 white linen, or cloth for their clothing. 
 
8 Beatrix. 
 
 For a circuit ten miles round, Guerande is always 
 GuERANDE, — the illustrious town where the famous 
 treaty was signed in 1365, the key of the coast, w^hich 
 may boast, not less than the village of Batz, of a 
 splendor now lost in the night of time. The jewels, 
 linen, cloth, ribbon, and hats are made elsewhere, but 
 to those who buy them they are from Guerande and 
 nowhere else. All artists, and even certain bourgeois, 
 who come to Guerande feel, as they do at Venice, a 
 desire (soon forgotten) to end their days amid its 
 peace and silence, walking in fine weather along the 
 beautiful mall which surrounds tlie town from gate to 
 gate on the side toward the sea. Sometimes the image 
 of this town arises, in the temple of memory; she 
 enters, crowned with her towers, clasped with her 
 girdle ; her flower-strewn robe floats onward, the golden 
 mantle of her dunes enfolds her, the fragrant breath 
 of her briony paths, filled with the flowers of each 
 passing season, exhales at every step; she fills your 
 mind, she calls to you like some enchanting woman 
 whom you have met in other climes and whose presence 
 still lingers in a fold of your heart. 
 
 Near the church of Guerande stands a mansion which 
 is to the town what the town is to the region, an exact 
 image of the past, the symbol of a grand thing de- 
 stroyed, — a poem, in short. This mansion belongs to 
 the noblest family of the province ; to the du Guaisnics, 
 who, in the times of the du Guesclins, were as superior 
 to the latter in antiquity and fortune as the Trojans 
 were to the Romans. The Guaisqlains (the name is 
 also spelled in the olden timedu Glaicquin), from which 
 comes du Guesclin, issued from the Guaisnics. 
 
BSatrix, 9 
 
 Old as the granite of Brittany, the Guaisnics are 
 neither Frenchmen nor Gauls, — they are Bretons ; or, to 
 be more exact, they are Celts. Formerly, they must 
 have been Druids, gathering mistletoe in the sacred 
 forests and sacrificing men upon their dolmens. Use- 
 less to say what they were ! To-day this race, equal to 
 the Rohans without having deigned to make themselves 
 princes, a race which was powerful before the ancestors 
 of Ungues Capet were ever heard of, this family, pure 
 of all alloy, possesses two thousand francs a year, its 
 mansion in Guerande, and the little castle of Guaisnic. 
 All the lands belonging to the barony of Guaisnic, the 
 first in Brittany, are pledged to farmers, and bring in 
 sixty thousand francs a year, in spite of ignorant cul- 
 ture. The du Guaisnics remain the owners of these 
 lands although they receive none of the revenues, for 
 the reason that for the last two hundred years they 
 have been unable to pay off the money advanced upon 
 them. They are in the position of the crown of 
 France towards its engagistes (tenants of crown-lands) 
 before the year 1789. Where and when could the 
 barons obtain the million their farmers have advanced 
 to them? Before 1789 the tenure of the fiefs subject 
 to the castle of Guaisnic was still worth fifty thousand 
 francs a year ; but a vote of the National Assembly 
 suppressed the seigneurs' dues levied on inheritance. 
 
 In such a situation this family — of absolutely no 
 account in France, and which would be a subject of 
 laughter in Paris, were it known there — is to Gudrande 
 the whole of Brittany. In Guerande the Baron du 
 Guaisnic is one of the great barons of France, a man 
 above whom there is but one man, — tlie King of 
 
10 'Beatrix, 
 
 France, once elected ruler. To-day the name of da 
 Guaisnic, full of Breton significances (the roots of 
 which will be found explained in " The Chouans") has 
 been subjected to the same alteration which disfigures 
 that of du Guaisqlain. The tax-gatherer now writes 
 the name, as do the rest of the world, du Guenic. 
 
 At the end of a silent, damp, and gloomy lane may 
 be seen the arch of a door, or rather gate, high enough 
 and wide enough to admit a man on horseback, — a cir- 
 cumstance which proves of itself that when this build- 
 ing was erected carriages did not exist. The arch, 
 supported by two jambs, is of granite. The gate, of 
 oak, rugged as the bark of the tree itself, is studded 
 with enormous nails placed in geometric figures. The 
 arch is semicircular. On it are carved the arms of the 
 Guaisnics as clean-cut and clear as though the sculp- 
 tor had just laid down his chisel. This escutcheon 
 would delight a lover of the heraldic art by a simplicity 
 which proves the pride and the antiquity of the family. 
 It is as it was in the days when the crusaders of the 
 Christian world invented these symbols by which to 
 recognize each other ; the Guaisnics have never had it 
 quartered ; it is always itself, like that of the house of 
 France, which connoisseurs find inescutcheoned in the 
 shields of many of the old families. Here it is, such 
 as you may see it still at Guerande : Gules, a hand 
 proper gonfaloned ermine, with a sword argent in pale, 
 and the terrible motto, Fac. Is not that a grand and 
 noble thing? The circlet of a baronial coronet sur- 
 mounts this simple escutcheon, the vertical lines of 
 which, used in carving to represent gnles, are clear 
 as ever. The artist has given I know not what 
 
Biatrix. 11 
 
 proud, chivalrous turn to the hand. With what vigor 
 it holds the sword which served but recently the 
 present family ! 
 
 If you go to Guerande after reading this history you 
 cannot fail to quiver when you see that blazon. Yes, 
 the most confirmed republican would be moved by the 
 fidelity, the nobleness, the grandeur hidden in the 
 depths of that dark lane. The du Guaisnics did well 
 yesterday, and they are ready to do well to-morrow. 
 To DO is the motto of chivalry. '' You did well in the 
 battle " was the praise of the Connetable par excel- 
 lence^ the great du Guesclin who drove the English for 
 a time from France. The depth of this carving, which 
 has been protected from the weather by the projecting 
 edges of the arch, is in keeping with the moral depth 
 of the motto in the soul of this family. To those who 
 know the Guaisnics this fact is touching. 
 
 The gate when open gives a vista into a somewhat 
 vast court-yard, on the right of which are the stables, 
 on the left the kitchen and oflSces. The house is built 
 of freestone from cellar to garret. The faqade on the 
 court-yard has a portico with a double range of steps, 
 the wall of which is covered with vestiges of carvings 
 now effaced by time, but in which the eye of an anti- 
 quary can still make out in the centre of the principal 
 mass the Hand bearing the sword. The granite steps 
 are now disjointed, grasses have forced their way with 
 little flowers and mosses through the fissures between 
 the stones which centuries have displaced without how- 
 ever lessening their solidity. The door of the house 
 must have had a charming character. As far as the 
 relics of the old designs allow us to judge, it was done 
 
12 Beatrix. 
 
 by an artist of the great Venetian school of the thir- 
 teenth century. Here is a mixture, still visible, of 
 the Byzantine and the Saracenic. It is crowned with 
 a circular pediment, now wreathed with vegetation, — a 
 bouquet, rose, brown, yellow, or blue, according to the 
 season. The door, of oak, nail-studded, gives entrance 
 to a noble hall, at the end of which is another door, 
 opening upon another portico which leads to the 
 garden. 
 
 This hall is marvellously well preserved. The pan- 
 elled wainscot, about three feet high, is of chestnut. A 
 magnificent Spanish leather with figures in relief, the 
 gilding now peeled off or reddened, covers the walls. 
 The ceiling is of wooden boards artistically joined and 
 painted and gilded. The gold is scarcely noticeable ; 
 it is in the same condition as that of the Cordova 
 leather, but a few red flowers and the green foliage can 
 still be distinguished. Perhaps a thorough cleaning 
 might bring out paintings like those discovered on the 
 plank ceilings of Tristan's house at Tours. If so, it 
 would prove that those planks were placed or restored 
 in the reign of Louis XI. The chimney-piece is enor- 
 mous, of carved stone, and within it are gigantic and- 
 irons in wrought-iron of precious workmanship. It 
 could hold a cart-load of wood. The furniture of this 
 hall is wholly of oak, each article bearing upon it 
 the arms of the family. Three English guns equally 
 suitable for chase or war, three sabres, two game-bags, 
 the utensils of a huntsman and a fisherman hang from 
 nails upon the wall. 
 
 On one side is a dining-room, which connects with 
 the kitchen by a door cut through a corner tower. 
 
Beatrix. ' 13 
 
 This tower corresponds in the design of the fagade 
 toward the court-yard with another tower at the oppo- 
 site corner, in which is a spiral staircase leading to the 
 two upper stories. 
 
 The dining-room is hung with tapestries of the 
 fourteenth century ; the style and the orthography of 
 the inscription on the banderols beneath each figure 
 prove their age, but being, as they are, in the naive 
 language of the fabliaux^ it is impossible to transcribe 
 them here. These tapestries, w^ell preserved in those 
 parts where light has scarcely penetrated, are framed 
 in bands of oak now black as ebony. The ceiling has 
 projecting rafters enriched with foliage which is varied 
 for each rafter ; the space between them is filled with 
 planks painted blue, on which twine garlands of golden 
 flowers. Two old buffets face each other; on their 
 shelves, rubbed with Breton persistency by Mariotte 
 the cook, can be seen, as in the days when kings were 
 as poor in 1200 as the du Guaisnics are in 1830, four 
 old goblets, an ancient embossed soup-tureen, and two 
 salt-cellars, all of silver ; also many pewter plates and 
 many pitchers of gray and blue pottery, bearing ara- 
 besque designs and the arms of the da Guaisnics, 
 covered by hinged pewter lids. The chimney-piece is 
 modernized. Its condition proves that the family has 
 lived in this room for the last century. It is of carved 
 stone in the style of the Louis XV. period, and is orna- 
 mented with a mirror, let in to the back with a gilt 
 beaded moulding. This anachronism, to which the 
 family is indifferent, would grieve a poet. On the 
 mantel-shelf, covered with red velvet, is a tall clock of 
 tortoise-shell inlaid with brass, flanked on each side 
 
14 Beatrix, 
 
 with a silver candelabrum of singular design. A 
 large square table, with solid legs, tills the centre of 
 this room ; the chairs are of turned wood covered with 
 tapestry. On a round table supported by a single leg 
 made in the shape of a vine-shoot, which stands before 
 a window looking into the garden, is a lamp of an odd 
 kind. This lamp has a common glass globe, about the 
 size of an ostrich egg, which is fastened into a candle- 
 stick by a glass tube. Through a hole at the top of 
 the globe issues a wick which passes through a sort of 
 reed of brass, drawing the nut-oil held in the globe 
 through its own length coiled like, a tape-worm in a 
 surgeon's phial. The windows which look into the 
 garden, like those that look upon the court-yard, are 
 mullioned in stone with hexagonal leaded panes, and 
 are draped by curtains, with heavy valances and 
 stout cords, of an ancient stuff of crimson silk with 
 gold reflections, called in former days either brocatelle 
 or small brocade. 
 
 On each of the two upper stories of the house there 
 are but two rooms. The first is the bedroom of the 
 head of the family, the second is that of the children. 
 Guests were lodged in chambers beneath the roof. 
 The servants slept above the kitchens and stables. 
 The pointed roof, protected with lead at its angles and 
 edges, has a noble pointed window on each side, one 
 looking down upon the court-yard, the other on the 
 garden. These windows, rising almost to the level of the 
 roof, have slender, delicate casings, the carvings of which 
 have crumbled under the salty vapors of the atmosphere. 
 Above the arch of each window with its crossbars of 
 stone, still grinds, as it turns, the vane of a noble. 
 
Beatrix, 15 
 
 Let us not forget a precious detail, full of na'ivetd, 
 whicli will be of value in the eyes of an archaeologist. 
 The tower in which tlie spiral staircase goes up is placed 
 at the corner of a great gable wall in which there is no 
 window. The staircase comes down to a little arched 
 door, opening upon a gravelled yard which separates 
 the house from the stables. This tower is repeated on 
 the garden side by another of five sides, ending in a 
 cupola in which is a bell-turret, instead of being 
 roofed, like the sister- tower, with a pepper-pot. This 
 is how those charming architects varied the symmetry 
 of their sky-lines. These towers are connected on 
 the level of the first upper floor by a stone gallery, 
 supported by what we must call brackets, each ending 
 in a grotesque human head. This gallery has a balus- 
 trade of exquisite workmanship. From the gable 
 above depends a stone dais like those that crown the 
 statues of saints at the portal of churches. Can you 
 not see a woman walking in the morning along this 
 balcony and gazing over Guerande at the sunshine, 
 wliere it gilds the sands and shimmers on the breast of 
 Ocean? Do you not admire that gable wall flanked 
 at its angles with those varied towers ? The opposite 
 gable of the Guaisnic mansion adjoins the next house. 
 The harmony so carefully sought by the architects of 
 those days is maintained in the faqade looking on the 
 court-yard by the tower which communicates between 
 the dining-room and the kitchen, and is the same as 
 the staircase tower, except that it stops at the first upper 
 story and its summit is a small open dome, beneath which 
 stands a now blackened statue of Saint Calyste. 
 
 The garden is magnificent for so old a place. It 
 
16 Beatrix* 
 
 covers half an acre of ground, its walls are all espa- 
 liered, and the space within is divided into squares 
 for vegetables, bordered with cordons of fruit-trees, 
 which the man-of-all-work, named Gasselin, takes care 
 of in the intervals of grooming the horses. At the 
 farther end of the garden is a grotto with a seat in it ; in 
 the middle, a sun-dial ; the paths are gravelled. The 
 fagade on the garden side has no towers corresponding 
 to those on the court-yard ; but a slender spiral column 
 rises from the ground to the roof, which must in former 
 days have borne the banner of the family, for at its 
 summit may still be seen an iron socket, from which a 
 few weak plants are straggling. This detail, in har- 
 mony with the vestiges of sculpture, proves to a prac- 
 tised eye that the mansion was built by a Venetian 
 architect. The graceful staff is like a signature re- 
 vealing Venice, chivalry, and the exquisite delicacy of 
 the thirteenth century. If any doubts remained on this 
 point, a feature of the ornamentation would di:;'sipate 
 them. The trefoils of the hotel du Guaisnic have four 
 leaves instead of three. This difference plainly indi- 
 cates the Venetian school depraved by its commerce 
 with the East, where the semi-Saracenic architects, 
 careless of the great catholic thought, give four leaves 
 to clover, while Christian art is faithful to the Trinity. 
 In this respect Venetian art became heretical. 
 
 If this ancient dwelling attracts your imagination, 
 you may perhaps ask yourself why such miracles of art 
 are not renewed in the present day. Because to-day 
 mansions are sold, pulled down, and the ground they 
 stood on turned into streets. No one can be sure that 
 4;he next generation will possess the paternal dwelling ; 
 
Beatrix, 17 
 
 homes are no more than inns ; whereas in former times 
 when a dwelling was built men worked, or thought 
 they worked, for a family in perpetuity. Hence the 
 grandeur of these houses. Faith in self, as well as 
 faitii in God, did prodigies. 
 
 As for the arrangement of the upper rooms they 
 may be imagined after this description of the ground- 
 floor, and after reading an account of the manners, cus- 
 toms, and physiognomy of the family. For the last 
 fifty years the du Guainics have received their friends 
 in the two rooms just described, in which, as in the 
 court-yard and the external accessories of the building, 
 the spirit, grace, and candor of the old and noble Brit- 
 tany still survives. Without the topography and de- 
 scription of the town, and without this minute depicting 
 of the house, the surprising figures of the family might 
 be less understood. Therefore the frames have preceded 
 the portraits. Every one is aware that things influence 
 beings. There are public buildings whose effect is 
 visible upon the persons living in their neighborhood. 
 It would be difficult indeed to be irreligious in the 
 shadow of a cathedral like that of Bourges. When 
 the soul is everywhere reminded of its destiny by sur-' 
 rounding images, it is less easy to fail of it. Such 
 was the thought of our immediate grandfathers, aban- 
 doned by a generation which was soon to have no 
 signs and no distinctions, and whose manners and 
 morals were to change every decade. If you do not 
 now expect to find the Baron du Guaisnic sword in 
 hand, all here written would be falsehood. 
 
 2 
 
18 Beatrix, 
 
 11. 
 
 THE BARON, HIS WIFE, AND SISTER. 
 
 Early in the month of May, in the year 1836, the 
 period when this scene opens, the family of Guenic 
 (we follow henceforth the modern spelling) consisted of 
 Monsieur and Madame du Guenic, Mademoiselle du 
 Guenic the baron's elder sister, and an only son, aged 
 twenty-one, named, after an ancient family usage, 
 Gaudebert-Calyste-Louis. The father's name was 
 Gaudebert-Calyste-Charles. Only the last name was 
 ever varied. Saint Gaudebert and Saint Calyste were 
 forever bound to protect the Guenics. 
 
 The Baron du Guenic had started from Guerande 
 the moment that La Vendee and Brittany took arms ; 
 he fought through the war with Charette, with Cathe- 
 lineau. La Rochejaquelein, d'Elbee, Bonchamps, and 
 the Prince de Loudon. Before starting he had, with 
 a prudence unique in revolutionary annals, sold his 
 whole property of every kind to his elder and only 
 sister. Mademoiselle Zephirine du Guenic. After the 
 death of all those heroes of the West, the baron, pre- 
 served by a miracle from ending as they did, refused 
 to submit to Napoleon. He fought on till 1802, when 
 being at last defeated and almost captured, he returned 
 to Guerande, and from Guerande went to Croisic, 
 whence he crossed to Ireland, faithful to the ancient 
 Breton hatred for England. 
 
Beatrix, 19 
 
 The people of Gudrande feigned utter ignorance of 
 the baron's existence. In tlie whole course of twenty 
 years not a single indiscreet word was ever uttered. 
 Mademoiselle du Guenic received the rents and sent 
 them to her brother by fishermen. Monsieur du 
 Guenic returned to Guerande in 1813, as quietly and 
 simply as if he had merely passed a season at Nantes. 
 During his stay in Dublin the old Breton, despite his 
 fifty years, had fallen in love with a charming Irish 
 woman, daughter of one of the noblest and poorest 
 families of that unhappy kingdom. Fanny O'Brien 
 was then twenty-one years old. The Baron du Guenic 
 came over to France to obtain the documents necessary 
 for his marriage, returned to Ireland, and, after about 
 ten months (at the beginning of 1814), brought his 
 wife to Guerande, where she gave him Calyste on the 
 very day that Louis XVIII. landed at Calais, — a cir- 
 cumstance which explains the young man's final name 
 of Louis. 
 
 The old and loyal Breton was now a man of seventy- 
 three ; but his long-continued guerilla warfare with 
 the Republic, his exile, the perils of his five crossings 
 through a turbulent sea in open boats, had weighed 
 upon his head, and he looked a hundred ; therefore, at 
 no period had the chief of the house of Guenic been 
 more in keeping with the worn-out grandeur of their 
 dwelling, built in the days when a court reigned at 
 Guerande. 
 
 Monsieur de Guenic was a tall, straight, wiry, lean 
 old man. His oval face was lined with innumerable 
 wrinkles, which formed a net-work over his cheek-bones 
 and above his eyebrows, giving to his face a resem- 
 
20 Beatrix. 
 
 blance to those choice old men whom Van Ostade, 
 Rembrandt, Mieris, and Gerard Dow so loved to paint, 
 in pictures which need a microscope to be fully appre- 
 ciated. His countenance might be said to be sunken 
 out of sight beneath those innumerable wrinkles, pro- 
 duced by a life in the open air and by the habit of 
 watching the country in the full light of the sun from 
 the rising of that luminary to the sinking of it. Never- 
 theless, to an observer enough remained of the im- 
 perishable forms of the human face which appealed to 
 the soul, even though the eye could see no more than 
 a lifeless head. The firm outline of the face, the shape 
 of the brow, the solemnity of the lines, the rigidity of 
 the nose, the form of the bony structure which wounds 
 alone had slightly altered, — all were signs of intre- 
 pidity without calculation, faith without reserve, obedi- 
 ence without discussion, fidelity without compromise, 
 love without inconstancy. In him, the Breton granite 
 was made man. 
 
 The baron had no longer any teeth. His lips, once 
 red, now violet, and backed by hard gums only (with 
 which he ate the bread his wife took care to soften by 
 folding it daily in a damp napkin), drew inward to the 
 mouth with a sort of grin, which gave him an expres- 
 sion both threatening and proud. His chin seemed to 
 seek his nose ; but in that nose, humped in the middle, 
 lay the signs of his energy and his Breton resistance. 
 His skin, marbled with red blotches appearing through 
 his wrinkles, showed a powerfully sanguine tempera- 
 ment, fitted to resist fatigue and to preserve him, as no 
 doubt it did, from apoplexy. The head was crowned 
 with abundant hair, as white as silver, which fell in 
 
BSatrix. 21 
 
 curls upon his shoulders. The face, extinguished, as 
 we have said, in part, lived through the glitter of the 
 black eyes in their brown orbits, casting thence the last 
 flames of a generous and loyal soul. The eyebrows 
 and lashes had disappeared ; the skin, grown hard, 
 could not unwrinkle. The difficulty of shaving had 
 obliged the old man to let his beard grow, and the cut 
 of it was fan-shaped. An artist would have admired 
 beyond all else in this old lion of Brittany with his 
 powerful shoulders and vigorous chest, the splendid 
 hands of the soldier, — hands like those du Guesclin 
 must have had, large, broad, hairy ; hands that once 
 had clasped the sword never, like Joan of Arc, to relin- 
 quish it until the royal standard floated in the cathe- 
 dral of Rheims ; hands that were often bloody from 
 the thorns and furze of the Socage ; hands which had 
 pulled an oar in the Marais to surprise the Blues, or in 
 the offing to signal Georges ; the hands of a gue- 
 rilla, a cannoneer, a common soldier, a leader ; hands 
 still white though the Bourbons of the Elder branch 
 were again in exile. Looking at those hands atten- 
 tively, one might have seen some recent marks attest- 
 ing the fact that the Baron had recently joined 
 Madame in La Vend^^e. To-day that fact may be 
 admitted. These hands were a living commentary on 
 the noble motto to which no Guenic had proved 
 recreant: Fad 
 
 Ilis forehead attracted attention by the golden tones 
 of the temples, contrasting with the brown tints of the 
 hard and narrow brow, which the falling off of the hair 
 had somewhat broadened, giving still more majesty to 
 that noble ruin. The countenance — a little material, 
 
22 Beatrix. 
 
 perhaps, but how could it be otherwise? — presented, 
 like all the Breton faces grouped about the baron, a 
 certain savagery, a stolid calm which resembled the 
 impassibility of the Huguenots ; something, one might 
 say, stupid, due perhaps to the utter repose which fol- 
 lows extreme fatigue, in which the animal nature alone 
 is visible. Thought was rare. It seemed to be an 
 effort ; its seat was in the heart more than in the head ; 
 it led to acts rather than ideas. But, examining that 
 grand old man with sustained observation, one could 
 penetrate the mystery of this strange contradiction to 
 the spirit of the century. He had faiths, sentiments, 
 inborn so to speak, which allowed him to dispense 
 with thought. His duty, life had taught him. Institu- 
 tions and religion thought for him. He reserved his 
 mind, he and his kind, for action, not dissipating it on 
 useless things which occupied the minds of other per- 
 sons. He drew his thought from his heart like his 
 sword from its scabbard, holding it aloft in his ermined 
 hand, as on his scutcheon, shining with sincerity. 
 That secret once penetrated, all is clear. We can 
 comprehend the depth of convictions that are not 
 thoughts, but living principles, — clear, distinct, down- 
 right, and as immaculate as the ermine itself. We 
 understand that sale made to his sister before the war ; 
 which provided for all, and faced all, death, confisca- 
 tion, exile. The beauty of the character of these two 
 old people (for the sister lived only for and by the 
 brother) cannot be understood to its full extent by the 
 light of the selfish morals, the uncertain aims, and the 
 inconstancy of this our epoch. An archangel, charged 
 with the duty of penetrating to the inmost recesses of 
 
Biatrix. 23 
 
 their hearts could not have found one thought of per- 
 sonal interest. In 1814, when the rector of Guerande 
 suggested to the baron that he should go to Paris and 
 claim his recompense from the triumphant Bourbons, 
 the old sister, so saving and miserly for the household, 
 cried out : — 
 
 '* Oh, fy ! does my brother need to hold out his hand 
 like a beggar? " 
 
 ' ' It would be thought I served the king from inter- 
 est," said the old man. ''Besides, it is for him to 
 remember. Poor king ! he must be weary indeed of 
 those who harass him. If he gave them all France in 
 bits, they still would ask." 
 
 This loyal servant, who had spent his life and means 
 on Louis XVIII., received the rank of colonel, the 
 cross of Saint-Louis, and a stipend of two thousand 
 francs a year. 
 
 '' The king did remember! " he said when the news 
 reached him. 
 
 No one undeceived him. The gift was really made 
 by the Due de Feltre. But, as an act of gratitude to 
 the king, the baron sustained a siege at Guerande 
 against the forces of General Travot. He refused to 
 surrender the fortress, and when it was absolutely 
 necessary to evacuate it he escaped into the woods 
 with a band of Chouans, who continued armed until the 
 second restoration of the Bourbons. Guerande still 
 treasures the memory of that siege. 
 
 We must admit that the Baron du Guenic was illit- 
 erate as a peasant. He could read, write, and do some 
 little ciphering ; he knew the military art and heraldry, 
 but, excepting always his prayer-book, he had not read 
 
24 Beatrix. 
 
 three volumes in the course of his life. His cloihing, 
 which is not an insignificant point, was invariably the 
 same ; it consisted of stout shoes, ribbed stockings, 
 breeches of greenish velveteen, a cloth waistcoat, and a 
 loose coat with a collar, from which hung the cross of 
 Saint-Louis. A noble serenity now reigned upon that 
 face where, for the last year or so, sleep, the forerunner 
 of death, seemed to be preparing him for rest eternal. 
 This constant somnolence, becoming daily more and 
 more frequent, did not alarm either his wife, his blind 
 sister, or his friends, whose medical knowledge was of 
 the slightest. To them these solemn pauses of a life 
 without reproach, but very weary, were naturally ex- 
 plained : the baron had done his duty, that was all. 
 
 In this ancient mansion the absorbing interests were 
 the fortunes of the dispossessed Elder branch. The 
 future of the exiled Bourbons, that of the Catholic 
 religion, the influence of political innovations on 
 Brittany were the exclusive topics of conversation in 
 the baron's family. There was but one personal inter- 
 est mingled with these most absorbing ones ; the at- 
 tachment of all for the only son, for Calyste, the heir, 
 the sole hope of the great name of the du Guenics. 
 
 The old Vendean, the old Chouan, had, some years 
 previously, a return of his own youth in order to train 
 his son to those manly exercises which were proper for 
 a gentleman liable to be summoned at any moment to 
 take arms. No sooner was Calyste sixteen years of 
 age than his father accompanied him to the marshes 
 and the forest, teaching him through the pleasures of 
 the chase the rudiments of war, preaching by example, 
 indifferent to fatigue, firm in his saddle, sure of his 
 
BSatrix. 25 
 
 shot whatever the game might be, — deer, hare, or a 
 bird on tlie wing, — intrepid in face of obstacles, bidding 
 his son follow him into danger as though he had ten 
 other sons to take Calyste's place. 
 
 So, when the Duchesse de Berry landed in France to 
 conquer back the kingdom for her son, the father 
 judged it right to take his boy to join her, and put in 
 practice the motto of their ancestors. The baron 
 started in the dead of night, saying no word to his 
 wife, who might perhaps have weakened him ; taking 
 his son under fire as if to a fete, and Gasselin, his only 
 vassal, who followed him joyfully. The three men of 
 the family were absent six months without sending 
 news of their whereabouts to the baroness, who never 
 read the '' Quotidienne " without trembling from line 
 to line, nor to his old blind sister, heroically erect, 
 whose nerve never faltered for an instant as she heard 
 that paper read. The three guns hanging to the walls 
 had therefore seen service recently. The baron, who 
 considered the enterprise useless, left the region before 
 the affair of La Penissi^re, or the house of Guenic 
 would probably have ended in that hecatomb. 
 
 When, on a stormy night after parting from Madame, 
 the father, son, and servant returned to the house in 
 Gue'rande, they took their friends and the baroness 
 and old Mademoiselle de Guenic by surprise, although 
 tlie latter, by the exercise of senses with which the 
 blind are gifted, recognized the steps of the three men 
 in the little lane leading to the house. The baron 
 looked round upon the circle of his anxious friends, 
 who were seated beside the little table lighted by the 
 antique lamp, and said in a tremulous voice, while 
 
26 BeaU 
 
 IX. 
 
 Gasselin replaced the three guns and the sabres in 
 their places, these words of feudal simplicity : — 
 
 '' The barons did not all do their duty." 
 
 Then, having kissed his wife and sister, he sat down 
 in his old arm-chair and ordered supper to be brought for 
 his son, for Gasselin, and for himself. Gasselin had 
 thrown himself before Calyste on one occasion, to pro- 
 tect him, and received the cut of a sabre on his 
 shoulder ; but so simple a matter did it seem that even 
 the women scarcely thanked him. The baron and his 
 guests uttered neither curses nor complaints of their 
 conquerors. Such silence is a trait of Breton charac- 
 ter. In forty years no one ever heard a word of con- 
 tumely from the baron's lips about his adversaries. It 
 was for them to do their duty as he did his. This 
 utter silence is the surest indication of an unalterable 
 will. 
 
 This last effort, the flash of an energy now waning, 
 had caused the present weakness and somnolence of 
 the old man. The fresh defeat and exile of the Bour- 
 bons, as miraculously driven out as miraculously re- 
 established, were to him a source of bitter sadness. 
 
 About six o'clock in the evening of the day on 
 which this history begins, the baron, who, according to 
 ancient custom, had finished dining by four o'clock, 
 fell asleep as usual while his wife was reading to him 
 the " Quotidienne." His head rested against the back 
 of the arm-chair which stood beside the fireplace on the 
 garden side. ' | 
 
 Near this gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, and in * 
 front of the fireplace, the baroness, seated on one of 
 the antique chairs, presented the type of those adorable 
 
Beatrix. 27 
 
 women who exist in P^ngland, Scotland, or Ireland 
 only. There alone are born those milk-white creatures 
 with golden hair the curls of which are wound by the 
 hands of angels, for the light of heaven seems to rip- 
 ple in their silken spirals swaying to the breeze. 
 Fanny O'Brien was one of those sylphs, — strong in 
 tenderness, invincible under misfortune, soft as the 
 music of her voice, pure as the azure of her eyes, of a 
 delicate, refined beauty, blessed with a skin that was 
 silken to the touch and caressing to the eye, which 
 neither painter's brush nor written word can picture. 
 Beautiful still at forty-two years of age, many a man 
 would have thought it happiness to marry her as he 
 looked at the splendors of that autumn coloring, redun- 
 dant in flowers and fruit, refreshed and refreshing with 
 the dews of heaven. 
 
 The baroness held the paper in a dimpled hand, the 
 fingers of which curved slightly backward, their nails 
 cut square like those of an antique statue. Half 
 lying, without ill-grace or affectation, in her chair, her 
 feet stretched out to warm them, she was dressed in a 
 gown of black velvet, for the weather was now becom- 
 ing chilly. The corsage, rising to the throat, moulded 
 the splendid contour of the shoulders and the rich 
 bosom which the suckling of her son had not deformed. 
 Her hair was worn in ringlets^ after the English 
 fashion, down her cheeks ; the rest was simply twisted 
 to the crown of her head and lield there with a tortoise- 
 shell comb. The color, not undecided in tone as other 
 blond hair, sparkled to the light like a filagree of bur- 
 nished gold. The baroness always braided the short 
 locks curling on the nape of her neck — which are a 
 
28 Beatrix. 
 
 sign of race. This tiny braid, concealed in the mass of 
 hair always carefully put up, allowed the eye to follow 
 with delight the undulating line by which her neck was 
 set upon her shoulders. This little detail will show the 
 care which she gave to her person; it was her pride 
 to rejoice the eyes of the old baron. What a charming, 
 delicate attention ! When you see a woman display- 
 ing in her own home the coquetry which most women 
 spend on a single sentiment, believe me, that woman is 
 as noble a mother as she is a wife ; she is the joy and 
 the flower of the home ; she knows her obligations as 
 a woman ; in her soul, in her tenderness, you will find 
 her outward graces ; she is doing good in secret ; she 
 worships, she adores without a calculation of return ; 
 she loves her fellows, as she loves God, — for their, 
 own sakes. And so one might fancy that the Virgin of 
 paradise, under whose care she lived, had rewarded 
 the chaste girlhood and the sacred life of the old man*s 
 wife by surrounding her with a sort of halo which pre- 
 served her beauty from the wrongs of time. The 
 alterations of that beauty Plato would have glorified as 
 the coming of new graces. Her skin, so milk-white 
 once, had taken the warm and pearly tones which 
 painters adore. Her broad and finely modelled brow 
 caught lovingly the light which played on its polished 
 surface. Her eyes, of a turquoise blue, shone with 
 unequalled sweetness ; the soft lashes, and the slightly 
 sunken temples inspired the spectator with I know not 
 what mute melancholy. The nose, which was aquiline 
 and thin, recalled the royal origin of the high-born 
 woman. The pure lips, finely cut, wore happy smiles, 
 brought there by loving-kindness inexhaustible. Her 
 
BSatrix, 29 
 
 teeth were small and white ; she had gained of late a 
 slight embonpoint, but her delicate hips and slender 
 waist were none the worse for it. The autumn of her 
 beauty presented a few perennial flowers of her spring- 
 tide among the richer blooms of summer. Her arms be- 
 came more nobly rounded, her lustrous skin took a finer 
 grain ; the outlines of her form gained plenitude. Lastly 
 and best of all, her open countenance, serene and slightly 
 rosy, the purity of her blue eyes, that a look too eager 
 might have wounded, expressed illimitable sympathy, 
 the tenderness of angels. 
 
 At the other chimney-corner, in an arm-chair, the 
 octogenarian sister, like in all points save clothes to her 
 brother, sat listening to the reading of the newspaper 
 and knitting stockings, a work for which sight is 
 -needless. Both eyes had cataracts ; but she obsti- 
 nately refused to submit to an operation, in spite of the 
 entreaties of her sister-in-law. The secret reason of 
 that obstinacy was known to herself only ; she de- 
 clared it was want of courage ; but the truth was that 
 she would not let her brother spend twenty-five louis 
 for her benefit. That sum would have been so much 
 the less for the good of the household. 
 
 These two old persons brought out in fine relief the 
 beauty of the baroness. Mademoiselle Zephirine, be- 
 ing deprived of sight, was not aware of the changes 
 which eighty years had wrought in her features. Her 
 pale, hollow face, to which the fixedness of the white 
 and sightless eyes gave almost the appearance of 
 death, and three or four solitary and projecting teeth 
 made menacing, was framed by a little hood of brown 
 printed cotton, quilted like a petticoat, trimmed with a 
 
30 Beatrix. 
 
 cotton ruche, and tied beneath the chin by strings which 
 were always a little rusty. She wore a cotillon^ or 
 short skirt of coarse cloth, over a quilted petticoat 
 (a positive mattress, in which were secreted double 
 louis-d'ors), and pockets sewn to a belt which she un- 
 fastened every night and put on every morning like a 
 garment. Her body was encased in the casaquiii of 
 Brittany, a species of spencer made of the same cloth 
 as the cotillon^ adorned with a collarette of many 
 pleats, the washing of which caused the only dispute 
 she ever had with her sister-in-law, — her habit being to 
 change it only once a week. From the large wadded 
 sleeves of the casaquin issued two withered but still 
 vigorous arms, at the ends of which flourished her 
 hands, their brownish-red color making the white 
 arms look like poplar-wood. These hands, hooked or 
 contracted from the habit of knitting, might be called a 
 stocking-machine incessantly at work ; the phenomenon 
 would have been had they stopped. From time to 
 time Mademoiselle du Guenic took a long knitting- 
 needle which she kept in the bosom of her gown, and 
 passed it between her hood and her hair to poke or 
 scratch her white locks. A stranger would have 
 laughed to see the careless manner in which she thrust 
 back the needle without the slightest fear of wounding 
 herself. She was straight as a steeple. Her erect 
 and imposing carriage might pass for one of those 
 coquetries of old age which prove that pride is a neces- 
 sary passion of life. Her smile was gay. She, too, 
 had done her duty. 
 
 As soon as the baroness saw that her husband was 
 asleep she stopped reading. A ray of sunshine. 
 
BSatrix. 81 
 
 stretcliing from one window to the other, divided by a 
 Ijfoklen band the atniospliere of that old room and bur- 
 nished the now black furniture. The light touched the 
 carvings of the ceiling, danced on the time-worn 
 chests, spread its shining cloth on the old oak table, 
 enlivening the still, brown room, as Fanny's voice cast 
 into the heart of her octogenarian blind sister a music 
 Ik as luminous and as cheerful as that ray of sunlight. 
 P Soon the ray took on the ruddy colors which, by in- 
 P sensible gradations, sank into the melancholy tones of 
 twilight. The baroness also sank into a deep medita- 
 tion, one of those total silences which her sister-in-law 
 had noticed for the last two weeks, trying to explain 
 them to herself, but making no inquiry. The old woman 
 studied the causes of this unusual pre-occupation, as 
 blind persons, in whose soul sound lingers like a divin- 
 ing echo, read books in which the pages are black and 
 the letters white. Mademoiselle Zephirine, to whom 
 the dark hour now meant nothing, continued to knit, 
 and the silence at last became so deep that the clicking 
 of her knitting-needles was plainly heard. 
 
 " You have dropped the paper, sister, but you are 
 not asleep," said the old woman, slyly. 
 
 At this moment Mariotte came in to light the lamp, 
 wliich she placed on a square table in front of the fire ; 
 then she fetched her distaff, her ball of thread, and a 
 small stool, on which she seated herself in the recess of 
 a window and began as usual to spin. Gasselin was 
 still busy about the offices ; he looked to the horses 
 of the baron and Calyste, saw that the stable was in 
 order for the night, and gave the two fine hunting- 
 dogs their daily meal. The joyful barking of the 
 
32 Beatrix. 
 
 animals was the last noise that awakened the echoes 
 slumbering among the darksome walls of the ancient 
 house. The two dogs and the two horses were the 
 only remaining vestiges of the splendors of its chivalry. 
 An imaginative man seated on the steps of the portico 
 and letting himself fall into the poesy of the still 
 living images of that dwelling, might have quivered as 
 he heard the baying of the hounds and the trampling 
 of the neighing horses. 
 
 Gasselin was one of those short, thick, squat little 
 Bretons, with black hair and sun-browned faces, silent, 
 slow, and obstinate as mules, but always following 
 steadily the path marked out for them. He was forty- 
 two years old, and had been twenty-five years in the 
 household. Mademoiselle had hired him when he was 
 fifteen, on hearing of the marriage and probable return 
 of the baron. This retainer considered himself as 
 part of the family; he had played with Calyste, he 
 loved the horses and dogs of the house, and talked to 
 them and petted them as though they were his own. 
 He wore a blue linen jacket with little pockets flapping 
 about his hips, waistcoat and trousers of the same 
 material at all seasons, blue stockings, and stout hob- 
 nailed shoes. When it was cold or rainy he put on 
 a goat's-skin, after the fashion of his country. 
 
 Mario tte, who was also over forty, was as a woman 
 what Gasselin was as a man. No team could be bet- 
 ter matched, — same complexion, same figure, same 
 little eyes that were lively and black. It is difficult to 
 understand why Gasselin and Mariotte had never mar- 
 ried ; possibly it might have seemed immoral, they 
 were so like brother and sister. Mariotte's wages 
 
Beatrix, 33 
 
 were ninety francs a year ; Gasselin's, three hundred. 
 But thousands of francs offered to them elsewhere 
 would not have induced either to leave the Guenic 
 household. Both were under the orders of Made- 
 moiselle, who, from the time of the war in La Vendee 
 to tlie period of her brother's return, had ruled the 
 house. When she learned that the baron was about to 
 bring home a mistress, she had been moved to great 
 emotion, believing that she must yield the seep- • 
 tre of the household and abdicate in favor of the 
 Baronne de Guenic, whose subject she was now com- 
 pelled to be. 
 
 Mademoiselle Zephirine was therefore agreeably 
 surprised to find in Fanny O'Brien a young woman 
 born to the highest rank, to whom the petty cares of a 
 poor household were extremely distasteful, — one who, 
 like other fine souls, would far have preferred to eat 
 plain bread rather than the choicest food if she had 
 to prepare it for herself ; a woman capable of accom- 
 plishing all the duties, even the most painful, of 
 humanity, strong under necessary privations, but with- 
 out courage for commonplace avocations. When the 
 baron begged his sister in his wife's name to continue 
 in charge of the household, the old maid kissed the 
 baroness like a sister ; she made a daughter of her, she 
 adored her, overjoyed to be left in control of the 
 liousehold, which she managed rigorously on a system 
 of almost inconceivable economy, which was never 
 relaxed except for some great occasion, such as the 
 lying-in of her sister, and her nourishment, and all 
 that concerned Calyste, the worshipped son of the 
 wliole household. 
 
 3 
 
34 Beatrix. 
 
 Though the two servants were accustomed to this 
 stern regime, and no orders need ever have been given 
 to them, for the interests of their masters were greater 
 to their minds than their own, — were their own in 
 fact, — Mademoiselle Zephirine insisted on looking 
 after everything. Her attention being never dis- 
 tracted, she knew, without going up to verify her 
 knowledge, how large was the heap of nuts in the 
 barn ; and how many oats remained in the bin without 
 plunging her sinewy arm into the depths of it. She 
 carried at the end of a string fastened to the belt of 
 her casaquin, a boatswain's whistle, with which she w as 
 wont to summon Mariotte by one, and Gasselin by 
 two notes. 
 
 Gasselin's greatest happiness was to cultivate the 
 garden and produce fine fruits and vegetables. He 
 had so little work to do that without this occupation he 
 would certainly have felt lost. After he had groomed 
 his horses in the morning, he polished the floors and 
 cleaned the rooms on the ground-floor, then he went 
 to his garden, where weed or damaging insect was 
 never seen. Sometimes Gasselin was observed motion- 
 less, bare-headed, under a burning sun, watching for a 
 field-mouse or the terrible grub of the cockchafer; 
 then, as soon as it was caught, he would rush with the 
 joy of a child to show his masters the noxious beast 
 that had occupied his mind for a week. He took 
 pleasure in going to Croisic on fast-days, to purchase a 
 fish to be had for less money there than at Guerande. 
 
 Thus no household was ever more truly one, more 
 united in interests, more bound together than this 
 noble family sacredly devoted to its duty. Masters 
 
Beatrix, 35 
 
 and servants seemed made for one another. For twenty- 
 five years there had been neither trouble nor discord. 
 The only griefs were the petty aihnents of the little 
 boy, the only terrors were caused by the events of 
 1814 and those of 1830. If the same things were in- 
 variably done at the same hours, if the food was sub- 
 jected to the regularity of times and seasons, this 
 monotony, like that of Nature varied only by altera- 
 tions of cloud and rain and sunshine, was sustained by 
 the affection existing in the hearts of all, — the more 
 fruitful, the more beneficent because it emanated from 
 natural causes. 
 
36 Beatrix, 
 
 ill. 
 
 THREE BRETON SILHOUETTES. 
 
 When night had fairly fallen, Gasselin came into 
 the hall and asked his master respectfully if he had 
 further need of him. 
 
 " You can go out, or go to bed, after prayers," re- 
 plied the baron, waking up, " unless Madame or my 
 sister — " 
 
 The two ladies here made a sign of consent. 
 Gasselin then knelt down, seeing that his masters rose 
 to kneel upon their chairs ; Mariotte also knelt before 
 her stool. Mademoiselle du Guenic then said the 
 prayer aloud. After it was over, some one rapped at 
 the door on the lane. Gasselin went to open it. 
 
 " I dare say it is Monsieur le cure ; he usually 6omes 
 first," said Mariotte. 
 
 Every one now recognized the rector's foot on the 
 resounding steps of the portico. He bowed respect- 
 fully to the three occupants of the room, and addressed 
 them in phrases of that unctuous civility which priests 
 are accustomed to use. To the rather absent-minded 
 greeting of the mistress of the house, he replied by an 
 ecclesiastically inquisitive look. 
 
 " Are you anxious or ill, Madame la baronne? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " Thank you, no," she replied. 
 
BSatrix, 37 
 
 Monsieur Grimont, a man of fifty, of middle height, 
 lost in hi8 cassock, from which issued two stout shoes 
 with silver buckles, exhibited above his bands a plump 
 visage, and a generally white skin though yellow in 
 spots. His hands were dimpled. His abbatial face 
 had something of the Dutch burgomaster in the placid- 
 ity of its complexion and its flesh tones, and of the 
 Breton peasant in the straight black hair and the 
 vivacity of the brown eyes, which preserved, neverthe- 
 less, a priestly decorum. His gayety, that of a man 
 whose conscience was calm and pure, admitted a joke. 
 His manner had nothing uneasy or dogged about it, 
 like that of many poor rectors whose existence or 
 whose power is contested by their parishioners, and who 
 instead of being, as Napoleon sublimely said, the 
 moral leaders of the population and the natural justices 
 of peace, are treated as enemies. Obser^^ng Monsieur 
 Grimont as he marched through Guerande, the most 
 irreligious of travellers would have recognized the 
 sovereign of that Catholic town ; but this same sove- 
 reign lowered his spiritual superiority before the 
 feudal supremacy of the du Guenics. In their salon 
 he was as a chaplain in his seigneur's house. In 
 church, when he gave the benediction, his hand was 
 always first stretched out toward the chapel belonging 
 to the Gunnies, where their mailed hand and their 
 device were carved upon the key-stone of the arch. 
 
 '' I thought that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had 
 already arrived," said the rector, sitting down, and 
 taking the hand of the baroness to kiss it. " She is 
 fretting unpunctual. Can it be that the fashion of 
 dissipation is contagious? I see that Monsieur lo 
 ciiovalier is again at Les Touches this evening." 
 
38 Beatrix. 
 
 *' Don't say anythiug about those visits before 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel," cried the old maid, 
 eagerly. 
 
 ''Ah! mademoiselle," remarked Mariotte, "you 
 can't prevent the town from gossiping." 
 
 " What do they say? " asked the baroness. 
 
 " The young girls and the old women all say that he 
 is in love with Mademoiselle des Touches." 
 
 " A lad of Calyste's make is playing his proper part 
 in making the women love him," said the baron. 
 
 "Here comes Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel," said 
 Mariotte. 
 
 The gravel in the court-yard crackled under the dis- 
 creet footsteps of the coming lady, who was accom- 
 panied by a page supplied with a lantern. Seeing this 
 lad, Mariotte removed her stool to the great hall for the 
 purpose of talking with him by the gleam of his rush- 
 light, which was burned at the cost of his rich and 
 miserly mistress, thus economizing those of her own 
 masters. 
 
 This elderly demoiselle was a thin, dried-up old 
 maid, yellow as the parchment of a Parliament record, 
 wrinkled as a lake ruffled by the wind, with gray eyes, 
 large prominent teeth, and the hands of a man. She 
 was rather short, a little crooked, possibly hump- 
 backed ; but no one had ever been inquisitive enough 
 to ascertain the nature of her perfections or her im- 
 perfections. Dressed in the same style as Mademoi- 
 selle du Guenic, she stirred an enormous quantity of 
 petticoats and linen whenever she wanted to find one 
 or other of the two apertures of her gown through 
 which she reached her pockets. The strangest jingling 
 
Beatrix, 39 
 
 of keys and money then echoed among her garments. 
 She always wore, dangling from one side, the bunch of 
 keys of a good housekeeper, and from the other her 
 silver snuff-box, thimble, knitting-needles, and other 
 implements that were also resonant. Instead of Made- 
 moiselle Zephirine's wadded hood, she wore a green 
 bonnet, in which she may have visited her melons, 
 for it had passed, like them, from green to yellowish; 
 as for its shape, our present fashions are just now 
 bringing it back to Paris, after twenty years absence, 
 under the name of Bibi. This bonnet was constructed 
 under her own eye and by the hands of her nieces, out 
 of green Florence silk bought at Guerande, and an old 
 bonnet-shape, renewed every five years at Nantes, — 
 for Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel allowed her bonnets the 
 longevity of a legislature. Her nieces also made her 
 gowns, cut by an immutable pattern. The old lady 
 still used the cane with the short hook that all women 
 carried in the early days of Marie-Antoinette. She 
 belonged to the very highest nobility of Brittany. 
 Her arms bore the ermine of its ancient dukes. In 
 her and in her sister the illustrious Breton house of the 
 Pen-Hoels ended. Her younger sister had married a 
 Kergarouet, who, in spite of the deep disapproval of 
 the whole region, added the name of Pen-Hoel to his 
 own and called himself the Vicomte de Kergarouet- 
 Pen-Hoel. 
 
 " Heaven has punished him," said the old lady ; '* he 
 has nothing but daughters, and the Kergarouet-Pen- 
 Iloiil name will be wiped out." 
 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoiil possessed about seven 
 thousand francs a year from the rental of lauds. 
 
40 Beatrix. 
 
 She had come into her property at thirty-six years of 
 age, and managed it herself, inspecting it on horse- 
 back, and displaying on all points the firmness of 
 character which is noticeable in most deformed per- 
 sons. Her avarice was admired by the whole country 
 round, never meeting with the slightest disapproval. 
 She kept one woman-servant and the page. Her 
 yearly expenses, not including taxes, did not amount 
 to over a thousand francs. Consequently, she was the 
 object of the cajoleries of the Kergarouet-Pen-Hoels, 
 who passed the winters at Nantes, and the summers at 
 their estate on the banks of the Loire below I'lndret. 
 She was supposed to be ready to leave her fortune and 
 her savings to whichever of her nieces pleased her 
 best. Every three months one or other of the four 
 demoiselles de Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel, (the youngest of 
 whom was twelve, and the eldest twenty years of age) 
 came to spend a few days with her. 
 
 A friend of Zephirine du Guenic, Jacqueline de 
 Pen-Hoel, brought up to adore the Breton grandeur of 
 the du Guenics, had formed, ever since the birth of 
 Calyste, the plan of transmitting her property to the 
 chevalier by marrying him to whichever of her nieces 
 the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet-Pen-Hoel, their mother, 
 would bestow upon him. She dreamed of buying back 
 some of the best of the Guenic property from the 
 farmer engagistes. When avarice has an object it 
 ceases to be a vice ; it becomes a means of virtue ; its 
 privations are a perpetual offering ; it has the grandeur 
 of an intention beneath its meannesses. Perhaps 
 Zephirine was in the secret of Jacqueline's intention. 
 Perhaps even the baroness, whose whole soul was 
 
Beatrix. 41 
 
 occupied by love for her son and tenderness for bis 
 father, may have guessed it as she saw with what 
 wily perseverance Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel brought 
 with her her favorite niece, Charlotte de Kergarouet, 
 now sixteen years of age. The rector. Monsieur Gri- 
 mont, was certainly in her confidence ; it was he who 
 helped the old maid to invest her savings. 
 
 But Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel might have had three 
 hundred thousand francs in gold, she might have had 
 ten times the landed property she actually possessed, 
 and the du Guenics would never have allowed them- 
 selves to pay her the slightest attention that the old 
 woman could construe as looking to her fortune. 
 From a feeling of truly Breton pride, Jacqueline de 
 Pen-Hoel, glad of the supremacy accorded to her old 
 friend Zephirine and the du Guenics, always showed 
 herself honored by her relations with Madame du 
 Guenic and her sister-in-law. She even went so far 
 as to conceal the sort of sacrifice to which she con- 
 sented every evening in allowing lier page to burn in 
 the Guenic hall that singular gingerbread-colored 
 candle called an oribus which is still used in certain 
 parts of western France. 
 
 Thus this rich old maid was nobility, pride, and 
 grandeur personified. At the moment when you are 
 reading this portrait of her, the Abbe Grimont has 
 just indiscreetly revealed that on the evening when the 
 old baron, the young chevalier, and Gasselin secretly 
 departed to join Madame (to the terror of the baron- 
 ess and the great joy of all Bretons) Mademoiselle de 
 lV'n-Ho91 had given the baron ten thousand francs in 
 gold, — an immense sacrifice, to which the abbe added 
 
42 Beatrix, 
 
 another ten thousand, a tithe collected by him,— 
 charging the old hero to offer the whole, in the name of 
 the Pen-Hoels and of the parish of Guerande, to the 
 mother of Henri V. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel treated Calyste as if she 
 felt that her intentions gave her certain rights over 
 him ; her plans seemed to authorize a supervision. 
 Not that her ideas were strict in the matter of gallantry, 
 for she had, in fact, the usual indulgence of the old 
 women of the old school, but she held in horror the 
 modern ways of revolutionary morals. Calyste, who 
 might have gained in her estimation by a few ad- 
 ventures with Breton girls, would have lost it 
 considerably had she seen him entangled in what 
 she called innovations. She might have disinterred 
 a little gold to pay for the results of a love-affair, 
 but if Calyste had driven a tilbury or talked of 
 a visit to Paris she would have thought him dis- 
 sipated, and declared him a spendthrift. Impossi- 
 ble to say what she might not have done had she 
 found him reading novels or an impious newspaper. 
 To her, novel ideas meant the overthrow of succession 
 of crops, ruin under the name of improvements and 
 methods ; in short, mortgaged lands as the inevitable 
 result of experiments. To her, prudence was the true 
 method of making your fortune ; good management 
 consisted in filling your granaries with wheat, rye, and 
 flax, and waiting for a rise at the risk of being called a 
 monopolist, and clinging to those grain-sacks obsti- 
 nately. By singular chance she had often made lucky 
 sales which confirmed her principles. She was thought 
 to be maliciously clever, but in fact she was not 
 
BSatrix. 43 
 
 f 
 
 quick willed ; on the other hfind, being as methodical 
 :is ii Dutcliman, prudent as a cat, and persistent as a 
 priest, those qualities in a region of routine like 
 Brittany were, practically, the equivalent of intellect. 
 
 '*Will Monsieur du Halga join us this evening?" 
 asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, taking off her knitted 
 mittens after the usual exchange of greetings. 
 
 *' Yes, mademoiselle; I met him taking his dog to 
 walk on the mall," replied the rector. 
 
 *' Ha ! then our mouche will be lively to-night. 
 Last evening we were only four." 
 
 At the word mouche the rector rose and took from a 
 drawer in one of the tall chests a small round basket 
 made of fine osier, a pile of ivory counters yellow as a 
 Turkish pipe after twenty years' usage, and a pack of 
 cards as greasy as those of the custom-house officers at 
 Saint-Nazaire, who change them only once in two 
 weeks. These the abbe brought to the table, arrang- 
 ing the proper number of counters before each player, 
 and putting the basket in the centre of the table beside 
 the lamp, with infantine eagerness, and the manner of 
 a man accustomed to perform this little service. 
 
 A knock at the outer gate given firmly in military 
 fashion echoed through the stillness of the ancient 
 mansion. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoiirs page went 
 gravely to open the door, and presently the long, lean, 
 methodically clothed person of the Chevalier du Halga, 
 former flag-captain to Admiral de Kergarouet, defined 
 itself in black on the penumbra of the portico. 
 
 *' Welcome, chevalier ! " cried Mademoiselle de Peii- 
 Hoel. 
 
 " The altar is raised," said the abb^. 
 
44 Beatrix. 
 
 The chevalier was a man in poor health, who wore 
 flannel for his rheumatism, a black-silk skull-cap to 
 protect his head from fog, and a spencer to guard ■ his 
 precious chest from the sudden gusts which freshen 
 the atmosphere of Guerande. He always went armed 
 with a gold-headed cane to drive away the dogs who 
 paid untimely court to a favorite little bitch who 
 usually accompanied him. This man, fussy as a fine 
 lady, worried by the slightest contretemps^ speaking low 
 to spare his voice, had been in his early days one of the 
 most intrepid and most competent officers of the old 
 navy. He had won the confidence of de Suffren in the 
 Indian Ocean, and the friendship of the Comte de Por- 
 tenduere. His splendid conduct while flag-captain to 
 Admiral Kergarouet was written in visible letters on 
 his scarred face. To see him now no one would have 
 imagined the voice that ruled the storm, the eye that 
 compassed the sea, the courage, indomitable, of the 
 Breton sailor. 
 
 The chevalier never smoked, never swore ; he was 
 gentle and tranquil as a girl, as much concerned about 
 his little dog Thisbe and her caprices as though he 
 were an elderly dowager. In this way he gave a high 
 idea of his departed gallantry, but he never so much as 
 alluded to the deeds of surpassing bravery which had 
 astonished the doughty old admiral, Comte d'Estaing. 
 Tliough his manner was that of an invalid, and he 
 walked as if stepping on eggs and complained about 
 the sharpness of the wind or the heat of the sun, or the 
 dampness of the misty atmosphere, he exhibited a set 
 of the whitest teeth in the reddest of gums, — a fact 
 reassuring as to his maladies, which were, however, 
 
BSatrix. 45 
 
 rather expensive, consisting as they did of four daily 
 meals of monastic amplitude. His bodily frame, like 
 that of the baron, was bony, and indestructibly 
 strong, and covered with a parchment glued to his 
 bones as the skin of an Arab horse on the muscles which 
 shine in the sun. His skin retained the tawny color 
 it received in India, whence, however, he did not bring 
 back either facts or ideas. He had emigrated with the 
 rest of his friends, lost his property, and was now end- 
 ing his days with the cross of Saint-Louis and a pen- 
 sion of two thousand francs, as the legal reward of his 
 services, paid from the fund of the Invalides de la 
 Marine. The slight hypochondria which made him 
 invent his imaginary ills is easily explained by his 
 actual sufferings during the emigration. He served in 
 the Russian navy until the day when the Emperor 
 Alexander ordered him to be employed against France ; 
 he then resigned and went to live at Odessa, near the 
 Due de Richelieu, with whom he returned to France. 
 It was the duke who obtained for this glorious relic of 
 the old Breton navy the pension which enabled him 
 to live. On the death of Louis XVIII. he returned 
 to Guerande, and became, after a while, mayor of the 
 city. 
 
 The rector, tha chevalier, and Mademoiselle de Pen- 
 Hoel had regularly passed their evenings for the last 
 fifteen years at the hotel du Guunic, where the other 
 noble personages of the town and neighborhood also 
 came. It will readily be understood that the du 
 Gu(5nic8 were at the head of the faubourg Saint-Ger- 
 main of the old Breton province, where no member of 
 
46 Beatrix. 
 
 the new administration sent down by the new govern- 
 ment was ever allowed to penetrate. For the last six 
 years the rector coughed when he came to the crucial 
 words, Domine, salvum fac regem. Politics were still 
 at that point in Guerande. 
 
Beatrix, 47 
 
 IV. 
 
 A NORMAL EVENING. 
 
 Mouche i8 a game played with five cards dealt to 
 each player, and one turned over. The turned-over 
 card is trumps. At each round the player is at 
 liberty to run his chances or to abstain from playing 
 his card. If he abstains he loses nothing but his own 
 stake, for as long as there are no forfeits in the basket 
 each player puts in a trifling sum. If he plays and 
 wins a trick he is paid pro rata to the stake; that is, 
 if there are five sous in the basket, he wins one sou. 
 The player who fails to win a trick is made mouche; 
 he has to pay the whole stake, which swells the basket 
 for the next game. Those who decline to play throw 
 down their cards during the game; but their play is 
 held to be null. The players can exchange their cards 
 with the remainder of the pack, as in ecarte, but only 
 by order of sequence, so that the first and second 
 holders may, and sometimes do, absorb the remainder 
 of the pack between them. The turned-over trump 
 card belongs to the dealer, who is always the last; he 
 has the right to exchange it for any card in his own 
 hand. One powerful card is of more importance than 
 all the rest; 4t is called Mistigris. Mistigris is the 
 knave of clubs. 
 
48 Beatrix, 
 
 This game, simple as it is, is not lacking in inter- 
 est. The cupidity natural to mankind develops in it; 
 so does diplomatic wiliness ; also play of countenance. 
 At the hotel du Guenic, each of the players took 
 twenty counters, representing five sous ; which made 
 the sum total of the stake for each game five far- 
 things, a large amount in the eyes of this company. 
 Supposing some extraordinary luck, fifty sous might 
 be won, — more capital than any person in Gueraude 
 spent in the course of any one day. Consequently 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel put into this game (the 
 innocence of which is only surpassed in the nomen- 
 clature of the Academy by that of La Bataille) a pas- 
 sion corresponding to that of the hunters after big 
 game. Mademoiselle Zephirine, who went shares in 
 the game with the baroness, attached no less impor- 
 tance to it. To put up one farthing for the chance 
 of winning five, game after game, was to this con- 
 firmed hoarder a mighty financial operation, into 
 which she put as much mental action as the most 
 eager speculator at the Bourse expends during the 
 rise and fall of consols. 
 
 By a certain diplomatic convention, dating from 
 September, 1825, when Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel 
 lost thirty-five sous, the game was to cease as soon as 
 a person losing ten sous should express the wish to 
 retire. Politeness did not allow the rest to give the 
 retiring player the pain of seeing the game go on 
 without him. But, as all passions have their Jesuit- 
 ism, the chevalier and the baron, those wily politi- 
 cians, had found a -means of eluding this charter. 
 When all the players but one were anxious to continue 
 
Beatrix, 49 
 
 an exciting game, the daring sailor, du Halga, one of 
 those rich fellows prodigal of costs they ^o not pay, 
 would offer ten counters to Mademoiselle Zephirine or 
 Mademoiselle Jacqueline, when either of them, or 
 both of them, had lost their five sous, on condition of 
 reimbursement in case they won. An old bachelor 
 could allow himself such gallantries to the sex. The 
 baron also offered ten counters to the old maids, but 
 under the honest pretext of continuing the game. The 
 miserly maidens accepted, not, however, without some 
 pressing, as is the use and wont of maidens. But, 
 before giving way to this vast prodigality the baron 
 and the chevalier were required to have won; other- 
 wise the offer would have been taken as an insult. 
 
 Monche became a brilliant affair when a Demoiselle 
 de Kergarouet was in transit with her aunt. We use 
 the single name, for the Kergarouets had never been 
 able to Induce any one to call them Kergarouet-Pen- 
 Hoel, — not even their servants, although the latter had 
 strict orders so to do. At these times the aunt held 
 out to the niece as a signal treat the mouche at the du 
 Guenics. The girl was ordered to look amiable, an 
 easy thing to do in presence of the beautiful Calyste, 
 whom the four Kergarouet young ladies all adored. 
 Brought up in the midst of modern civilization, these 
 young persons cared little for five sous a game, and 
 on such occasions the stakes went higher. Those 
 were evenings of great emotion to the old blind sister. 
 The baroness would give her sundry hints by pressing 
 her foot a certain number of times, according to the 
 size of the stake it was safe to play. To play or not 
 to play, if the basket were full, involved an inward 
 
 4 
 
50 Beatrix, 
 
 struggle, where cupidity fought with fear. If Charlotte 
 de Kergarouet, who was usually called giddy, was 
 lucky in her bold throws, her aunt on their return 
 home (if she had not won herself), would be cold and 
 disapproving, and lecture the girl: she had too much 
 decision in her character ; a young person should never 
 assert herself in presence of her betters ; her manner 
 of taking the basket and beginning to play was 
 really insolent ; the proper behavior of a young girl de- 
 manded much more reserve and greater modesty; etc. 
 It can easily be imagined that these games, carried 
 on nightly for twenty years, were interrupted now 
 and then by narratives of events in the town, or by 
 discussions on public events. Sometimes the players 
 would sit for half an hour, their cards held fan-shape 
 on their stomachs, engaged in talking. If, as a result 
 of these inattentions, a counter was missing from the 
 basket, every one eagerly declared that he or she had 
 put in their proper number. Usually the chevalier 
 made up the deficiency, being accused by the rest of 
 thinking so much of his buzzing ears, his chilly chest, 
 and other symptoms of invalidism that he must have 
 forgotten his stake. But no sooner did he supply the 
 missing counter than Zephirine and Jacqueline were 
 seized with remorse ; they imagined that, possibly, they 
 themselves had forgotten their stake; they believed 
 — they doubted — but, after all, the chevalier was 
 rich enough to bear such a trifling misfortune. These 
 dignified and noble personages had the delightful pet- 
 tiness of suspecting each other. Mademoiselle do 
 Pen-Hoel would almost invariably accuse the rector 
 of cheating when he won the basket. 
 
Beatrix, 51 
 
 *'It is singular," he would reply, ^Hhat I never cheat 
 except when I win the trick." 
 
 Often the baron would forget where he was when 
 the talk fell on the misfortunes of the royal house. 
 Sometimes the evening ended in a manner that was 
 quite unexpected to the players, who all counted on a 
 certain gain. After a certain number of games and 
 when the hour grew late, these excellent people would be 
 forced to separate without either loss or gain, but not 
 without emotion. On these sad evenings complaints 
 were made of mouche itself; it was dull, it was long; 
 the players accused their mouche as negroes stone the 
 moon in the water when the weather is bad. On one 
 occasion, after an arrival of the Vicomte and Vicom- 
 tesse de Kergarouet, there was talk of whist and bos- 
 ton being games of more interest than mouche. The 
 baroness, who was bored by mouche^ encouraged the 
 innovation, and all the company — but not without 
 reluctance — adopted it. But it proved impossible to 
 make them really understand the new games, which, 
 on the departure of the Kergarouets, were voted head- 
 splitters, algebraic problems, and intolerably difficult 
 to play. All preferred their mouche^ their dear, 
 agreeable vicuche. Mouche accordingly triumphed 
 over modern games, as all ancient things have ever 
 triumphed in Brittany oyer novelties. 
 
 While the rector was dealing the cards the baroness 
 was asking the Chevalier du Halga the same questions 
 which she had asked him the evening before about his 
 health. The chevalier made it a point of honor to 
 have new ailments. Inquiries might be alike, but the 
 nautical hero had singular advantages in the way of 
 
52 Beatrix. 
 
 replies. To-day it chanced that his ribs troubled 
 him. But here's a remarkable thiug! never did the 
 worthy chevalier complain of his wounds. The ills 
 that were really the matter with him he expected, he 
 knew them and he bore them ; but his fancied ailments, 
 his headaches, the gnawings in his stomach, the 
 buzzing in his ears, and a thousand other fads and 
 symptoms made him horribly uneasy; he posed as 
 incurable, — and not without reason, for doctors up 
 to the present time have found no remedy for dis- 
 eases that don't exist. 
 
 ''Yesterday the trouble was, I believe, in your 
 legs," said the rector. 
 
 "It moves about," replied the chevalier. 
 
 "Legs to ribs? " asked Mademoiselle Zephirine. 
 
 ''Without stopping on the way?" said Mademoiselle 
 de Pen-Hoel, smiling. 
 
 The chevalier bowed gravely, making a negative 
 gesture which was not a little droll, and proved to an 
 observer that in his youth the sailor had been witty 
 and loving and beloved. Perhaps his fossil life at 
 Guerande hid many memories. When he stood, 
 solemnly planted on his two heron-legs in the sun- 
 shine on the mall, gazing at the sea or watching the 
 gambols of his little dog, perhaps he was living again 
 in some terrestrial paradise of a past that was rich in 
 recollections. 
 
 "So the old Due de Lenoncourt is dead," said the 
 baron, remembering the paragraph of the "Quoti- 
 dienne," where his wife had stopped reading. "Well, 
 the first gentleman of the Bedchamber followed his 
 master soon. I shall go next." 
 
Beatrix, 53 
 
 *'My dear, my dear! " said his wife, gently tapping 
 the bony calloused hand of her husband. 
 
 ''Let him say what he likes, sister," said Zephirine; 
 "as long as I am above ground he can't be under it; 
 I am the elder." 
 
 A gay smile played on the old woman's lips. 
 Whenever the baron made reflections of that kind, the 
 players and the visitors present looked at each other 
 with emotion, distressed by the sadness of the king 
 of Guerande; and after they had left the house they 
 would say, as they walked home: "Monsieur duGuenic 
 was sad to-night. Did you notice how he slept?** 
 And the next day the whole town would talk of the 
 matter. "The Baron du Guenic fails," was a phrase 
 that opened the conversation in many houses. 
 
 "How is Thisbe? " asked Mademoiselle de Pen- 
 Hoel of the chevalier, as soon as the cards were dealt. 
 
 "The poor little thing is like her master," replied 
 the chevalier; "she has some nervous trouble, she goes 
 on three legs constantly. See, like this." 
 
 In raising and crooking his arm to imitate the 
 dog, the chevalier exposed his hand to his cunning 
 neighbor, who wanted to see if he had Mistigris or the 
 trump, — a first wile to which he succumbed. 
 
 "Oh! " said the baroness, "the end of Monsieur le 
 curd's nose is turning white; he has Mistigris." 
 
 The pleasure of having Mistigris was so great to the 
 rector — as it was to the other pla^^ers — that the poor 
 piiest could not conceal it. In all human faces there 
 is a spot where the secret emotions of the heart betray 
 tlicmselves; and these companions, accustomed for 
 years to observe each other, had ended by Iniding out 
 
54 Beatrix, 
 
 that spot on the rector's face: when he had Mistigris 
 the tip of his nose grew pale. 
 
 "You had company to-day," said the chevalier to 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. 
 
 ''Yes, a cousin of my brother-in-law. He surprised 
 me by announcing the marriage of the Comtesse de 
 KergarouSt, a Demoiselle de Fontaine." 
 
 *'The daughter of ' Grand- Jacques, ' " cried the 
 chevalier, who had lived with his admiral during his 
 stay in Paris. 
 
 "The countess is his heir; she has married an old 
 ambassador. My visitor told me the strangest things 
 about our neighbor. Mademoiselle des Touches, — so 
 strange that I can't believe them. If they were true, 
 Calyste would never be so constantly with her; he 
 has too much good sense not to perceive such mon- 
 strosities — " 
 
 "Monstrosities?" said the baron, waked up by the 
 word. 
 
 The baroness and the rector exchanged looks. The 
 cards were dealt; Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had 
 Mistigris! Impossible to continue the conversation! 
 But she was glad to hide her joy under the excitement 
 caused by her last word. 
 
 "Your play, monsieur le baron," she said, with an 
 air of importance. 
 
 "My nephew is not one of those youths who like 
 monstrosities," remarked Zephirine, taking out her 
 knitting-needle and scratching her head. 
 
 " Mistigris ! " cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, mak- 
 ing no reply to her friend. 
 
 The rector, who appeared to be well-informed in the 
 
Beatrix, 55 
 
 matter of Calyste and Mademoiselle des Touches, did 
 not enter the lists. 
 
 '* What does she do that is so extraordinary, Made- 
 moiselle des Touches ? " asked the baron. 
 
 *'She smokes," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Ho3l. 
 
 "That's very wholesome," said the chevalier. 
 
 "About her property? " asked the baron. 
 
 "Her property?" continued the old maid. "Oh, 
 she is running through it." 
 
 "The game is mine! " said the baroness. "See, I 
 have king, queen, knave of trumps, Mistigris, and a 
 king. We win the basket, sister." 
 
 This victory, gained at one stroke, without playing a 
 card, horrified Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who ceased 
 to concern herself about Calyste and Mademoiselle des 
 Touches. By nine o'clock no one remained in the 
 salon but the baroness and the rector. The four old 
 people had gone to their beds. The chevalier, accord- 
 ing to his usual custom, accompanied Mademoiselle 
 de Pen-Hosl to her house in the Place de Guerande, 
 making remarks as they went along on the cleverness 
 of the last play, on the pleasures, more or less great, 
 of the evening, on the joy with which Mademoiselle 
 Zephirine engulfed her gains in those capacious 
 pockets of hers, — for the old blind woman no longer 
 repressed upon her face the visible signs of her feel- 
 ings. Madame du Gudnic's evident preoccupation 
 was the chief topic of conversation, however. The 
 chevalier had remarked the abstraction of the beauti- 
 ful Iiish woman. When they reached Mademoiselle 
 de Pen-Hoel's door-step, and her page had gone in, 
 the old lady answered, confidentially, the remarks of 
 
56 BSatrix. 
 
 the chevalier on the strangely abstracted air of the 
 baroness : — 
 
 ''I know the cause. Calyste is lost unless we marry 
 him promptly. He loves Mademoiselle des Touches, 
 an actress ! " 
 
 "In that case, send for Charlotte." 
 
 *'I have sent; my sister will receive my letter to- 
 morrow," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, bowing 
 to the chevalier. 
 
 Imagine from this sketch of a normal evening the 
 hubbub excited in Guerande homes by the arrival, the 
 stay, the departure, or even the mere passage through 
 the town, of a stranger. 
 
 When no sounds echoed from the baron's chamber 
 nor from that of his sister, the baroness looked at the 
 rector, who was playing pensively with the counters. 
 
 "I see that you begin to share my anxiety about 
 Calyste," she said to him. 
 
 "Did you notice Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's dis- 
 pleased looks to-night? " asked the rector. 
 
 "Yes," replied the baroness. 
 
 "She has, as I know, the best intentions about our 
 dear Calyste; she loves him as though he were her 
 son; his conduct in Vendee beside his father, the 
 praises that Madame bestowed upon his devotion, 
 have only increased her affection for him. She in- 
 tends to execute a deed of gift by which she gives her 
 whole property at her death to whichever of her nieces 
 Calyste marries. I know that you have another and 
 much richer marriage in Ireland for your dear Calyste ; 
 but it is well to have two strings to your bow. In 
 case your family will not take charge of Calyste 's 
 
Beatrix, 57 
 
 establishment, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's fortune is 
 not to be despised. You can always find a match of 
 seven thousand a year for the dear boy, but it is not 
 often that you could come across the savings of forty 
 years and landed property as well managed, built 
 up, and kept in repair as that of Mademoiselle de 
 I^en-HoSl. That ungodly woman, Mademoiselle des 
 Touches, has come here to ruin many excellent things. 
 Her life is now known." 
 
 *'And what is it?" asked the mother. 
 
 ''Oh! that of a trollop," replied the rector, — "a 
 woman of questionable morals ; a writer for the stage ; 
 frequenting theatres and actors ; squandering her for- 
 tune among pamphleteers, painters, musicians, a devil- 
 ish society, in short. She writes books herself, and 
 has taken a false name by which she is better known, 
 they tell me, than by her own. She seems to be a 
 sort of circus woman who never enters a church except- 
 to look at the pictures. She has spent quite a fortune 
 in decorating Les Touches in a most improper fashion, 
 making it a Mohammedan paradise where the houris 
 are not women. There is more wine drunk there, they 
 say, during the few weeks of her stay than the whole 
 year round in Guerande. The Demoiselles Bougniol 
 let their lodgings last year to men with beards, who 
 were suspected of being Blues; they sang wicked 
 songs which made those virtuous women blush and 
 weep, and spent their time mostly at Les Touches. 
 And this is the woman our dear Calyste adores! If 
 that creature wanted to-night one of the infamous 
 books in which the atheists of the present day scoff 
 at holy things, Calyste would saddle his horse him- 
 
58 Beatrix. 
 
 self and gallop to Nantes for it. I am not sure that 
 be would do as much for the Church. Moreover, this 
 Breton woman is not a ro^^alist! If Calyste were 
 again called upon to strike a blow for the cause, and 
 Mademoiselle des Touches — the Sieur Camille Mau- 
 pin, that is her other name, as I have just remembered 
 — if she wanted to keep him with her the chevalier 
 would let his old father go to the field without him." 
 
 *'0h, no! " said the baroness. 
 
 "I should not like to put him to the proof; you 
 would suffer too much," replied the rector. ''All 
 Guerande is turned upside down about Calyste' s pas- 
 sion for this amphibious creature, who is neither man 
 nor woman, who smokes like an hussar, writes like a 
 journalist, and has at this very moment in her house the 
 most venomous of all writers, — so the postmaster says, 
 and he 's a juste-milieu man who reads the papers. 
 They are even talking about her at Nantes. This 
 morning the Kergarouet cousin, who wants to marry 
 Charlotte to a man with sixty thousand francs a year, 
 went to see Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, and filled her 
 mind with tales about Mademoiselle des Touches 
 which lasted seven hours. It is now striking a quar- 
 ter to ten, and Calyste not home; he is at Les 
 Touches, — perhaps he won't come in all night." 
 
 The baroness listened to the rector, who was substi- 
 tuting monologue for dialogue unconsciously as he 
 looked at this lamb of his fold, on whose face could 
 be read her anxiety. She colored and trembled. 
 When the worthy man saw the tears in the beau- 
 tiful eyes of the terrified mother, lie was moved to 
 compassion. 
 
I BSatrix. 59 
 
 *'I will see Mademoiselle de Pen-Ho3i to-morrow," be 
 said. " Don't be too uneasy. The harm may not be 
 as great as they say it is. I will find out the truth. 
 Mademoiselle Jacqueline has confidence in me. Be- 
 sides, Calyste is our child, our pupil, — he will never 
 let the devil inveigle him; neither will he trouble 
 the peace of his family or destroy the plans we have 
 made for his future. Therefore, don't weep; all is 
 not lost, madame; one fault is not vice." 
 
 **You are only informing me of details," said the 
 baroness. "Was not I the first to notice the change 
 in my Calyste? A mother keenly feels the shock of 
 finding herself second in the heart of her son. She 
 (•:umot be deceived. This crisis in a man's life is 
 one of the trials of motherhood. I have prepared my- 
 self for it, but I did not think it would come so soon. 
 I hoped, at least, that Calyste would take into his 
 heart some noble and beautiful being, — not a stage- 
 player, a masquerader, a theatre woman, an author 
 whose business it is to feign sentiments, a creature 
 who will deceive him and make him unhappy! She 
 has had adventures — " 
 
 "With several men," said the rector. "And yet 
 this impious creature was born in Brittany! She 
 dishonors her land. I shall preach a sermon upon 
 lii!r next Sunday." 
 
 "Don't do that! " cried the baroness. "The peas- 
 ants and the paludiers would be capable of rushing to 
 I.es Touches. Calyste is worthy of his name; he is 
 Breton; some dreadful thing might happen to him, for 
 he would surely defend her as he would the Blessed 
 Virgin." 
 
60 Beatrix. 
 
 ''It is now ten o'clock; I must bid you good-night,'* 
 said the abbe, lighting the wick of his lantern, the 
 glass of which was clear and the metal shining, which 
 testified to the care his housekeeper bestowed on the 
 household property. "Who could ever have told me, 
 madame," he added, "that a young man brought up 
 by you, trained by me to Christian ideas, a fervent 
 Catholic, a child who has lived as a lamb without 
 spot, would plunge into such mire?" 
 
 "But is it certain?" said the mother. "How could 
 any woman help loving Calyste ? " 
 
 "What other proof is needed than her staying on at 
 Les Touches. In all the twenty-four years since she 
 came of age she has never stayed there so long as 
 now; her visits to these parts, happily for us, were 
 few and short." 
 
 "A woman over forty years old!" exclaimed the 
 baroness. "I have heard say in Ireland that a woman 
 of this description is the most dangerous mistress a 
 young man can have." 
 
 "As to that, I have no knowledge," replied the 
 rector, "and I shall die in my ignorance." 
 
 "And I, too, alas! " said the baroness, naively. "I 
 wish now that I had loved with love, so as to under- 
 stand and counsel and comfort Calyste." 
 
 The rector did not cross the clean little court-yard 
 alone; the baroness accompanied him to the gate, 
 hoping to hear Calyste' s step coming through the 
 town. But she heard nothing except the heavy tread 
 of the rector's cautious feet, which grew fainter in 
 the distance, and finally ceased when the closing of 
 the door of the parsonage echoed behind him. 
 
Biatrix, 61 
 
 V. 
 
 CALYSTE. 
 
 The poor mother returned to the salon deeply dis- 
 tressed at finding that the whole town was aware of 
 what she thought was known to her alone. She sat 
 down, trimmed the wick of the lamp by cutting it 
 with a pair of old scissors, took up once more the 
 worsted-work she was doing, and awaited Calyste. 
 The baroness fondly hoped to induce her son by this 
 means to come home earlier and spend less time with 
 Mademoiselle des Touches. Such calculations of 
 maternal jealousy were wasted. Day after day, 
 Calyste' s visits to Les Touches became more fre- 
 quent, and every night he came in later. The night 
 before the day of which we speak it was midnight 
 when he returned. 
 
 The baroness, lost in maternal meditation, was set- 
 ting her stitches with the rapidity of one absorbed in 
 thought while engaged in manual labor. Whoever 
 had seen her bending to the light of the lamp beneath 
 the quadruply centennial hangings of that ancient 
 room would have admired the sublimity of the pic- 
 ture. Fanny's skin was so transparent that it was 
 possible to read the thoughts that crossed her brow 
 beneath it. Piqued with a curiosity that often comes 
 to a pure woman, slie asked herself what devilish 
 
62 ^ Beatrix. 
 
 secrets these daughters of Baal possessed to so charm 
 men as to make them forgetful of mother, family," 
 country, and self-interests. Sometimes she longed to 
 meet this woman and judge her soberly for herself. 
 Her mind measured to its full extent the evils which 
 the innovating spirit of the age — described to her as 
 so dangerous for young souls by the rector — would 
 have upon her only child, until then so guileless ; as 
 pure as an innocent girl, and beautiful with the same 
 fresh beauty. 
 
 Calyste, that splendid offspring of the oldest Breton 
 race and the noblest Irish blood, had been nurtured by 
 his mother with the utmost care. Until the moment 
 when the baroness made over the training of him to 
 the rector of Guerande, she was certain that no impure 
 word, no evil thought had sullied the ears or entered 
 the mind of her precious son. After nursing him at 
 her bosom, giving him her own life twice, as it were, 
 after guiding his footsteps as a little child, the mother 
 had put him with all his virgin innocence into the 
 hands of the pastor, who^ out of true reverence for 
 the family, had promised to give him a thorough and 
 Christian education. Calyste thenceforth received the 
 instruction which the abbe himself had received at 
 the Seminary. The baroness taught him English, and 
 a teacher of mathematics was found, not without diffi= 
 culty, among the employes at Saint-Nazaire. Calyste 
 was therefore necessarily ignorant of modern litera- 
 ture, and the advance and present progress of the 
 sciences. His education had been limited to geog- 
 raphy and the circumspect history of a young ladies* 
 boarding-school, the Latin and Greek of seminaries. 
 
Beatrix. ' 63 
 
 the literature of the dead languages, and to a very 
 restricted choice of French writers. When, at six- 
 teen, he began what the Abbe Grimont called his 
 philosophy, he was neither more nor less than what he 
 was when Fanny placed him in the abbe's hands. The 
 Church had proved as maternal as the mother. With- 
 out being over-pious or ridiculous, the idolized young 
 lad was a fervent Catholic. 
 
 For this son, so noble, so innocent, the baroness 
 desired to provide a happy life in obscurity. She 
 expected to inherit some property, two or three thou- 
 sand pounds sterling, from an aunt. This sum, joined 
 to the small present fortune of the Guenics, might 
 enable her to find a wife for Calyste, who would bring 
 him twelve or even fifteen thousand francs a year. 
 Charlotte de Kergarouet, with her aunt's fortune, a 
 rich Irish girl, or any other good heiress would have 
 suited the baroness, who seemed indifferent as to 
 choice. She was ignorant of love, having never known 
 it, and, like all the other persons grouped about her, 
 she saw nothing in marriage but a means of fortune. 
 Passion was an unknown thing to these Catholic souls, 
 these old people exclusively concerned about salva- 
 tion, God, the king, and their property. No one 
 should be surprised, therefore, at the foreboding 
 thoughts which accompanied the wounded feelings of 
 the mother, who lived as much for the future interests 
 of her son as by her love for him. If the young 
 household would only listen to wisdom, she thought, 
 the coming generation of the du Gut^nics, by endur- 
 ing privations, and saving, as people do save in the 
 provinces, would be able to buy back their estates 
 
64 * ■ Beatrix. 
 
 and recover, in the end, the lustre of wealth. The 
 baroness prayed for a long old age that she might see 
 the dawn of this prosperous era. Mademoiselle du 
 Guenic had understood and fully adopted this hope 
 which Mademoiselle des Touches now threatened to 
 overthrow. 
 
 The baroness heard midnight strike, with tears ; her 
 mind conceived of many horrors during the next hour, 
 for the clock struck one, and Calyste was still not 
 at home. 
 
 '*Will he stay there ? " she thought. ''It would be 
 the first time. Poor child ! " 
 
 At that moment Calyste' s step resounded in the 
 lane. The poor mother, in whose heart rejoicing 
 drove out anxiety, flew from the house to the gate 
 and opened it for her boy. 
 
 "Oh! " cried Calyste, in a grieved voice, "my dar- 
 ling mother, why did you sit up for me? I have a 
 pass-key and the tinder-box." 
 
 "You know very well, my child, that I cannot sleep 
 when you are out," she said, kissing him. 
 
 When the baroness reached the salon, she looked at 
 her son to discover, if possible, from the expression 
 of his face the events of the evening. But he caused 
 her, as usual, an emotion that frequency never weak- 
 ened, — an emotion which all loving mothers feel at 
 sight of a human masterpiece made by them; this 
 sentiment blurs their sight and supersedes all others 
 for the moment. 
 
 Except for the black eyes, full of energy and the 
 heat of the sun, which he derived from his father, 
 Calyste in other respects resembled his mother; he 
 
BSatrix. 65 
 
 had her beautiful golden hair, her lovable mouth, the 
 same curving fingers, the same soft, delicate, and 
 purely white skin. Though slightly resembling a girl 
 disguised as a man, his physical strength was hercu- 
 lean. His muscles had the suppleness and vigor of 
 steel springs, and the singularity of his black eyes 
 and fair complexion was by no means without charm. 
 His beard had not yet sprouted; this delay, it is said, 
 is a promise of longevity. The chevalier was dressed 
 in a short coat of black velvet like that of his mother's 
 gown, trimmed with silver buttons, a blue foulard 
 necktie, trousers of gray jean, and a becoming pair 
 of gaiters. His white brow bore the signs of great 
 fatigue, caused, to an observer's eye, by the weight of 
 painful thoughts; but his mother, incapable of sup- 
 posing that troubles could wring his heart, attributed 
 his evident weariness to passing excitement. Calyste 
 was as handsome as a Greek god, and handsome with- 
 out conceit; in the first place, he had his mother's 
 beauty constantly before him, and next, he cared 
 very little for personal advantages which he found 
 useless. 
 
 ** Those beautiful pure cheeks," thought his mother, 
 *' where the rich young blood is flowing, belong to 
 another woman! she is the mistress of that innocent 
 brow! Ah! passion will lead to many evils; it will 
 tarnish the look of those eyes, moist as the eyes of 
 an infant! '* 
 
 This bitter thought wrung Fanny's heart and 
 destroyed her pleasure. 
 
 It may seem strange to those who calculate expenses 
 tliat in a family of six persons compelled to live on 
 
 5 
 
66 Beatrix, 
 
 three thousand francs a year the son should have a 
 coat and the mother a gown of velvet; but Fanny 
 O'Brien had aunts and rich relations in London who 
 recalled themselves to her remembrance by many 
 presents. Several of her sisters, married to great 
 wealth, took enough Interest in Calyste to wish to 
 find him an heiress, knowing that he, like Fanny their 
 exiled favorite, was noble and handsome. 
 
 ''You stayed at Les Touches later than you did last 
 night, my dear one," said the mother at last, in an 
 agitated tone. 
 
 "Yes, dear mother," he answered, offering no 
 explanation. 
 
 The curtness of this answer brought clouds to his 
 mother's brow, and she resolved to postpone the ex- 
 planation till the morrow. When mothers admit the 
 anxieties which were now torturing the baroness, they 
 tremble before their sons ; they feel instinctively the 
 effect of the great emancipation that comes with love ; 
 they perceive what that sentiment is about to take 
 from them ; but they have, at the same time, a sense 
 of joy in knowing that their sons are happy; con- 
 flicting feelings battle in their hearts. Though the 
 result may be the development of their sons into 
 superior men, true mothers do not like this forced 
 abdication; they would rather keep their children 
 small and still requiring protection. Perhaps that is 
 the secret of their predilection for feeble, deformed, 
 or weak-minded offspring. 
 
 "You are tired, dear child; go to bed," she said, 
 repressing her tears. 
 
 A mother who does not know all that her son is 
 
Beatrix. 67 
 
 doing thinks the worst; that is, if a mother loves as 
 niiich and is as much beloved as Fanny. But perhaps 
 all other mothers would have trembled now as she 
 (lid. The patient care of twenty years might be ren- 
 dered worthless. This human masterpiece of virtuous 
 and noble and religious education, Calyste, might be 
 destroyed; the happiness of his life, so long and 
 carefully prepared for, might be forever ruined by this 
 woman. 
 
 The next day Calyste slept till mid-day, for his 
 mother would not have him wakened. Mariotte served 
 the spoiled child's breakfast in his bed. The inflex- 
 ible and semi-conventual rules which regulated the 
 hours for meals yielded to the caprices of the cheva- 
 lier. If it became desirable to extract from Made- 
 moiselle du Guenic her array of keys in order to 
 obtain some necessary article of food outside of the 
 meal hours, there was no other means of doing it 
 than to make the pretext of its serving some fancy of 
 Calyste. 
 
 About one o'clock the baron, his wife, and Made- 
 moiselle were seated in the salon, for they dined at 
 three o'clock. The baroness was again reading the 
 "Quotidienne" to her husband, who was always more 
 awake before the dinner hour. As she finished a 
 paragraph she heard the steps of her son on the upper 
 floor, and she dropped the paper, saying: — 
 
 ''Calyste must be going to dine again at Les 
 Touches; he has dressed himself." 
 
 ''He amuses himself, the dear boy," said the old 
 sister, taking a silver whistle from her pocket and . 
 whistling once. 
 
68 Beatrix. 
 
 Mariotte came through the tower and appeared at 
 the door of communication which was hidden by a 
 silken curtain like the other doors of the room. 
 
 "What is it? " she said; ''anything wanted? " 
 
 *' The chevalier dines at Les Touches; don't cook 
 the fish." 
 
 "But we are not sure as yet," said the baroness. 
 
 "You seem annoyed, sister; I know it by the tone 
 of your voice." 
 
 "Monsieur Grimont has heard some very grave 
 charges against Mademoiselle des Touches, who for 
 the last year has so changed our dear Calyste." 
 
 "Changed him, how? " asked the baron. 
 
 "He reads all sorts of books." 
 
 "Ah! ah! " exclaimed the baron, " so that 's why he 
 has given up hunting and riding." 
 
 "Her morals are very reprehensible, and she has 
 taken a man's name," added Madame du Guenic. 
 
 "A war name, I suppose," said the old man. "I 
 was called 'I'lntime,' the Comte de Fontaine * Grand- 
 Jacques,' the Marquis de Montauran the 'Gars.' I 
 was the friend of Ferdinand, who never submitted, 
 any more than I did. Ah ! those were the good times ; 
 people shot each other, but what of that? we amused 
 ourselves all the same, here and there." 
 
 This war memory, pushing aside paternal anxiety, 
 saddened Fanny for a moment. The rector's revela- 
 tions, the want of confidence shown to her by Calyste, 
 had kept her from sleeping. 
 
 "Suppose Monsieur le chevalier does love Made- 
 moiselle des Touches, where 's the harm?" said 
 Mariotte. "She has thirty thousand francs a year and 
 she is very handsome." 
 
Biatrix, 69 
 
 "What is that you say, Mariotte?" exclaimed the 
 old baron. *'A Guenic marry a des Touches! The 
 des Touches were not even grooms in the days when 
 du Guesclin considered our alliance a signal honor." 
 
 " A woman who takes a man's name, ^ Camille 
 Maupin!" said the baroness. 
 
 *'The Maupins are an old family," said the baron; 
 "they bear: gules, three — " He stopped. "But she 
 cannot be a Maupin and a des Touches both," he 
 added. 
 
 "She is called Maupin on the stage." 
 
 "A des Touches could hardly be an actress," said 
 the old man. "Really, Fanny, if I did not know you, 
 I should think you were out of your head." 
 
 "She writes plays, and books," continued the 
 baroness. 
 
 "Books? " said the baron, looking at his wife with 
 an air of as much surprise as though she were tell- 
 ing of a miracle. "I have heard that Mademoiselle 
 Scud^ry and Madame de Sevigne wrote books, but it 
 was not the best thing they did." 
 
 "Are you going to dine at Les Touches, monsieur? " 
 said Mariotte, when Calyste entered. 
 
 "Probably," replied the young man. 
 
 Mariotte was not inquisitive; she was part of the 
 family ; and she left the room without waiting to hear 
 what the baroness would say to her son. 
 
 "Are you going again to Les Touches, my Calyste? " 
 The baroness emphasized the my. " Les Touches is 
 not a respectable or decent house. Its mistress 
 leads an irregular life; she will corrupt our Calyste. 
 Already Camille Maupin has made him read many 
 
70 Beatrix. 
 
 books; she has had adventures — You knew all 
 that, my naughty child, and you never said one word 
 to your best friends! " 
 
 "The chevalier is discreet," said his father, — "a 
 virtue of the olden time." 
 
 "Too discreet," said the jealous mother, observing 
 the red flush on her son's forehead. 
 
 "My dear mother," said Calyste, kneeling down 
 beside the baroness, " I did n't think it necessary to 
 publish my defeat. Mademoiselle des Touches, or, if 
 you choose to call her so, Camille Maupin, rejected 
 my love more than eighteen months ago, during her 
 last stay at Les Touches. She laughed at me, gently; 
 saying she might very well be my mother; that a 
 woman of forty committed a sort of crime against 
 nature in loving a minor, and that she herself was 
 incapable of such depravity. She made a thousand 
 little jokes, which hurt me — for she is witty as an 
 angel; but when she saw me weep hot tears she 
 tried to comfort me, and offered me her friendship in 
 the noblest manner. She has more heart than even 
 talent; she is as generous as you are yourself. I am 
 now her child. On her return here lately, hearing 
 from her that she loves another, I have resigned my- 
 self. Do not repeat the calumnies that have been said 
 of her. Camille is an artist, she has genius, she leads 
 one of those exceptional existences which cannot be 
 judged like ordinary lives." 
 
 "My child," said the religious Fanny, "nothing can 
 excuse a woman for not conducting herself as the 
 Church requires. She fails in her duty to God and 
 to society by abjuring the gentle tenets of her sex. 
 
Beatrix, 7 1 
 
 A woman commits a sin in even going to a theatre; 
 but to write the impieties that actors repeat, to roam 
 about the world, first with an enemy to the Pope, and 
 then with a musician, ah ! Calyste, you can never per- 
 suade me that such actions are deeds of faith, hope, 
 or charity. Her fortune was given her by God to do 
 good, and what good does she do with hers? " 
 
 Calyste sprang up suddenly and looked at his 
 mother. 
 
 "Mother,'* he said, "Camille is my friend; I can- 
 not hear her spoken of in this way ; I would give my 
 very life for her." 
 
 *'Your life! " said the baroness, looking at her son, 
 with startled eyes. " Your life is our life, the life of 
 all of us." 
 
 *'My nephew has just said many things I do not 
 understand," said the old blind woman, turning toward 
 him. ^' 
 
 "Where did he learn them? " said the mother; "at 
 Les Touches?'' 
 
 "Yes, my darling mother; she found me ignorant 
 as a carp, and she has taught me." 
 
 "You knew the essential things when you learned 
 the duties taught us by religion," replied the baroness. 
 "Ah! this woman is fated to destroy your noble and 
 sacred beliefs." 
 
 The old maid rose, and solemnly stretched forth her 
 hands toward her brother, who was dozing in his 
 chair. 
 
 "Calyste," she said, in a voice that came from her 
 heart, "your father has never opened books, he speaks 
 Breton, he fought for God and for the king. Educated 
 
72 Beatrix. 
 
 people did the evil, educated noblemen deserted their 
 land, — be educated if you choose!" 
 
 So saying, she sat down and began to knit with a 
 rapidity which betrayed her inward emotion. 
 
 ''My angel," said the mother, weeping, ''I foresee 
 some evil coming down upon you in that house." 
 
 "Who is making Fanny weep?" cried the old man, 
 waking with a start at the sound of his wife's voice. 
 He looked round upon his sister, his son, and the 
 baroness. ''What is the matter?" he asked. 
 
 "Nothing, my friend," replied his wife. 
 
 "Mamma," said Calyste, whispering in his mother's 
 ear, "it is impossible for me to explain myself just 
 now ; but to-night you and I will talk of this. When 
 you know all, you will bless Mademoiselle des 
 Touches." 
 
 "Mothers do not like to curse," replied the baroness. 
 "I could not curse a woman who truly loved my 
 Calyste." 
 
 The young man bade adieu to his father and went 
 out. The baron and his wife rose to see him pass 
 through the court-yard, open the gate, and disappear. 
 The baroness did not again take up the newspaper; 
 she was too agitated. In this tranquil, untroubled 
 life such a discussion was the equivalent of a quar- 
 rel in other homes. Though somewhat calmed, her 
 motherly uneasiness was not dispersed. Whither 
 would such a friendship, which might claim the life 
 of Calyste and destroy it, lead her boy? Bless Made- 
 moiselle des Touches? how could that be? These 
 questions were as momentous to her simple soul as 
 the fury of revolutions to a statesman. Camille 
 
Beatrix. 73 
 
 Maupin was Revolution itself in that calm and placid 
 home. 
 
 ''I fear that woman will ruin him," she said, pick- 
 ing up the paper. 
 
 "My dear Faliny," said the old baron, with a jaunty 
 air, ''you are too much of an angel to understand these 
 things. Mademoiselle des Touches is, they say, as 
 black as a crow, as strong as a Turk, and forty years 
 old. Our dear Calyste was certain to fall in love with 
 her. Of course he will tell certain honorable little 
 lies to conceal his happiness. Let him alone to amuse 
 himself with his first illusions." 
 
 ''If it had been any other woman — " began the 
 baroness. 
 
 "But, my dear Fanny, if the woman were a saint 
 she would not accept your son." The baroness again 
 picked up the paper. "I will go and see her myself," 
 added the baron, "and tell you all about her." 
 
 This speech has no savor at the present moment. 
 But after reading the biography of Camille Maupin 
 you can then imagine the old baron entering the lists 
 against that illustrious woman. 
 
74 Beatrix. 
 
 VI. 
 
 BIOGRAPHY OF CAMILLE MAUPIN. 
 
 The town of Guerande, which for two months past 
 had seen Calyste, its flower and pride, going, morning 
 or evening, often morning and evening, to Les Touches, 
 concluded that Mademoiselle Felicite des Touches was 
 passionately in love with the beautiful youth, and that 
 she practised upon him all kinds of sorceries. More 
 than one young girl and young wife asked herself by 
 what right an old woman exercised so absolute an 
 empire over that angel. When Calyste passed along 
 the Grand' Rue to the Croisie gate many a regretful 
 eye was fastened on him. 
 
 It now becomes necessary to explain the rumors 
 which hovered about the person whom Calyste was on 
 his w^ay to see. These rumors, swelled by Breton 
 gossip, envenomed by public ignorance, had reached 
 the rector. The receiver of taxes, the juge de paix, 
 the head of the Saint-Nazaire custom-house and other 
 lettered persons had not reassured the abbe by relat- 
 ing to him the strange and fantastic life of the female 
 writer who concealed herself under the masculine name 
 of Camille Maupin. She did not as yet eat little chil- 
 dren, nor kill her slaves like Cleopatra, nor throw men 
 into the river as the heroine of the Tour de Nesle was 
 falsely accused of doing; but to the Abbe Grimont 
 
Beatrix. 75 
 
 this monstrous creature, a cross between a siren and 
 an atheist, was an immoral combination of woman 
 and philosopher who violated every social law in- 
 vented to restrain or utilize the infirmities of woman- 
 kind. 
 
 Just as Clara Gazul is the female pseudonym of a 
 distinguished male writer, George Sand the masculine 
 pseudonym of a woman of genius, so Camille Maupin 
 was the mask behind which was long hidden a charm- 
 ing young woman, very well-born, a Breton, named 
 Felicite des Touches, the person who was now causing 
 such lively anxiety to the Baronne du Guenic and the 
 excellent rector of Guerande. The Breton des Touches 
 family has no connection with the family of the same 
 name in Touraine, to which belongs the ambassador 
 of the Regent, even more famous to-day for his 
 writings than for his diplomatic talents. 
 
 Camille Maupin, one of the few celebrated women 
 of the nineteenth century, was long supposed to be a 
 man, on account of the virility of her first writings. 
 All the world now knows the two volumes of plays, 
 not intended for representation on the stage, written 
 after the manner of Shakespeare or Lopez de Vega, 
 published in 1822, which made a sort of literary rev- 
 olution when the great question of the classics and 
 the romanticists palpitated on all sides, — in the news- 
 papers, at the clubs, at the Academy, everywhere. 
 Since then, Camille Maupin has written several plays 
 and a novel, which have not belied the success obtained 
 by her first publication — now, perhaps, too much for- 
 gotten. To explain by what net-work of circum- 
 stances the masculine incarnation of a young girl 
 
76 Beatrix. 
 
 was brought about, why Felicity des Touches became 
 a man and an author, and why, more fortunate than 
 Madame de Stael, she kept her freedom and was thus 
 more excusable for her celebrity, would be to satisfy 
 many curiosities and do justice to one of those abnor- 
 mal beings who rise in humanity like monuments, and 
 whose fame is promoted by its rarity, — for in twenty 
 centuries we can count, at most, twenty famous women. 
 Therefore, although in these pages she stands as a sec- 
 ondary character, in consideration of the fact that she 
 plays a great part in the literary history of our epoch, 
 and that her influence over Calyste was great, no one, 
 we think, will regret being made to pause before that 
 figure rather longer than modern art permits. 
 
 Mademoiselle Felicite des Touches became an orphan 
 in 1793. Her property escaped confiscation by reason 
 of the deaths of her father and brother. The first was 
 killed on the 10th of August, at the threshold of the 
 palace, among the defenders of the king, near whose 
 person his rank as major of the guards of the gate 
 had placed him. Her brother, one of the body-guard, 
 was massacred at Les Carmes. Mademoiselle des 
 Touches was two years old when her mother died, 
 killed by grief, a few days after this second catas- 
 trophe. When dying, Madame des Touches confided 
 her daughter to her sister, a nun of Chelles. Madame 
 de Faucombe, the nun, prudently took the orphan to 
 Faucombe, a good-sized estate near Nantes, belong- 
 ing to Madame des Touches, and there she settled 
 with the little girl and three sisters of her convent. 
 The populace of Nantes, during the last days of the 
 Terror, tore down the chateau, seized the nuns and 
 
Beatrix, 77 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, and threw them into prison 
 on a false charge of receiving emissaries of Pitt and 
 Coburg. The 9th Thermidor released them. Felicite's 
 aunt died of fear. Two of the sisters left France, 
 and the third confided the little girl to her nearest 
 relation, Monsieur de Faucombe, her maternal great- 
 uncle, who lived in Nantes. 
 
 Monsieur de Faucombe, an old man sixty years of 
 age, had married a young woman to whom he left the 
 management of his affairs. He busied himself .in 
 archaeology, — a passion, or to speak more correctly, 
 one of those manias which enable old men to fancy 
 themselves still living. The education of his ward was 
 therefore left to chance. Little cared-for by her uncle's 
 wife, a young woman given over to the social pleasures 
 of the imperial epoch, Felicite brought herself up as a 
 boy. She kept company with Monsieur de Faucombe 
 in his library; where she read everything it pleased her 
 to read. She thus obtained a knowledge of life in 
 theory, and had no innocence of mind, though virgin 
 personally. Her intellect floated on the impurities of 
 knowledge while her heart was pure. Her learning 
 became extraordinary, the result of a passion for read- 
 ing, sustained by a powerful memory. At eighteen 
 years of age she was as well-informed on all topics 
 as a young man entering a literary career has need to 
 be in our day. Her prodigious reading controlled 
 her passions far more than conventual life would have 
 done; for there the imaginations of young girls run 
 riot. A brain crammed with knowledge that was 
 neither digested nor classed governed the heart and 
 soul of the child. This depravity of the intellect, 
 
78 Beatrix, 
 
 without action upon the chastity of the body, would 
 have amazed philosophers and observers, had any one 
 in Nantes even suspected the powers of Mademoiselle 
 des Touches. 
 
 The result of all this was in a contrary direction to 
 the cause. Felicite had no inclinations toward evil ; 
 she conceived everything by thought, but abstained 
 from deed. Old Faucombe was enchanted with her, 
 and she helped him in his work, — writing three of his 
 books, which the worthy old gentleman believed were 
 his own; for his spiritual paternity was blind. Such 
 mental labor, not agreeing with the developments of 
 girlhood, had its effect. Felicite fell ill; her blood 
 was overheated, and her chest seemed threatened with 
 inflammation. The doctors ordered horseback exer- 
 cise and the amusements of society. Mademoiselle 
 des Touches became, in consequence, an admirable 
 horsewoman, and recovered her health in a few 
 months. 
 
 At the age of eighteen she appeared in the world, 
 where she produced so great a sensation that no one 
 in Nantes called her anything else than "the beautiful 
 Mademoiselle des Touches." Led to enter society 
 by one of the imperishable sentiments in the heart of 
 a woman, however superior she may be, the worship 
 she inspired found her cold and unresponsive. Hurt 
 by her aunt and her cousins, who ridiculed her studies 
 and teased her about her unwillingness for society, 
 which they attributed to a lack of the power of pleas- 
 ing, Felicite resolved on making herself coquettish, 
 gay, volatile, — a woman, in short. But she expected 
 in return an exchange of ideas, seductions, and pleas- 
 
BSatrix. 79 
 
 ures in harmony with the elevation of her own mind 
 and the extent of its knowledge. Instead of that, she 
 was filled with disgust for the commonplaces of conver- 
 sation, the silliness of gallantry; and more especially 
 was she shocked by the supremacy of military men, 
 to whom society made obeisance at that period. She 
 had, not unnaturally, neglected the minor accomplish- 
 ments. Finding herself inferior to the pretty dolls 
 who played on the piano and made themselves agree- 
 able by singing ballads, she determined to be a musi- 
 cian. Retiring into her former solitude she set to 
 work resolvedly, under the direction of the best mas- 
 ter in the town. She was rich, and she sent for 
 Steibelt when the time came to perfect herself. The 
 astonished town still talks of this princely conduct. 
 The stay of that master cost her twelve thousand 
 francs. Later, when she went to Paris, she studied 
 harmony and thorough-bass, and composed the music 
 of two operas which have had great success, though 
 the public has never been admitted to the secret of 
 their authorship. Ostensibly these operas are by 
 Conti, one of the most eminent musicians of our day ; 
 but this circumstance belongs to the history of her 
 heart, and will be mentioned later on. 
 
 The mediocrity of the society of a provincial town 
 wearied her so excessively, her imagination was so 
 filled with grandiose ideas that although she returned 
 to the salons to eclipse other women once more by her 
 beauty, and enjoy her new triumph as a musician, she 
 again deserted them ; and having proved her power to 
 her cousins, and driven two lovers to despair, she re- 
 turned to her books, her piano, the works of Beethoven, 
 
80 Beatrix, 
 
 and her old friend Faucombe. In 1812, when she was 
 twenty-one years of age, the old archaeologist handed 
 over to her his guardianship accounts. From that 
 year, she took control of her fortune, which consisted 
 of fifteen thousand francs a year, derived from Les 
 Touches, the property of her father; twelve thousand 
 a year from Faucombe (which, however, she increased 
 one-third on renewing the leases); and a capital of 
 three hundred thousand francs laid by during her 
 minority by her guardian. 
 
 Felicite acquired from her experience of provincial 
 life, an understanding of money, and that strong ten- 
 dency to administrative wisdom which enables the 
 provinces to hold their own under the ascensional move- 
 ment of capital toward Paris. She drew her three 
 hundred thousand francs from the house of business 
 where her guardian had placed them, and invested 
 them on the Grand-livre at the very moment of the 
 disasters of the retreat from Moscow. In this way, 
 she increased her income by thirty thousand francs. 
 All expenses paid, she found herself with fifty thou- 
 sand francs a year to invest. At twenty-one years of 
 age a girl with such force of will is the equal of a 
 man of thirty. Her mind had taken a wide range; 
 habits of criticism enabled her to judge soberly of 
 men, and art, and things, and public questions. 
 Henceforth she resolved to leave Nantes; but old 
 Faucombe falling ill with his last illness, she, who 
 had been both wife and daughter to him, remained to 
 nurse him, with the devotion of an angel, for eighteen 
 months, closing his eyes at the moment when Napo- 
 leon was struggling with all Europe on the corpse of 
 
BUtrix, 81 
 
 France. Her removal to Paris was therefore still 
 further postponed until the close of that crisis. 
 
 As a Royalist, she hastened to be present at the 
 return of the Bourbons to Paris. There the Grand- 
 lieus, to whom she was related, received her as their 
 guest; but the catastrophes of March 20 intervened, 
 and her future was vague and uncertain. She was 
 thus enabled to see with her own eyes that last image 
 of the Empire, and behold the Grand Army when it 
 came to the Champ de Mars, as to a Roman circus, 
 to salute its Caesar before it went to its death at 
 Waterloo. The great and noble soul of Fe'licite was 
 stirred by that magic spectacle. The political com- 
 motions, the glamour of that theatrical play of three 
 months which history has called the Hundred Days, 
 occupied her mind and preserved her from all personal 
 emotions in the midst of a convulsion which dispersed 
 the royalist society among whom she had intended to 
 reside. The Grandlieus followed the Bourbons to 
 Ghent, leaving their house to Mademoiselle des 
 Touches. Felicite, who did not choose to take a sub- 
 ordinate position, purchased for one hundred and 
 thirty thousand francs one of the finest houses in the 
 rue Mont Blanc, where she installed herself on the 
 return of the Bourbons in 1815. The garden of t^is 
 house is to-day worth two millions. 
 
 Accustomed to control her own life. Felicity soon 
 familiarized herself with ways of thought and action 
 which are held to be exclusively the province of man. 
 In 181 G she was twenty-five years old. She knew 
 nothing of marriage; her conception of it was wholly 
 that of thought; she judged it in its causes instead of 
 
 6 
 
82 Beatrix. 
 
 its effects, and saw only its objectionable side. Her 
 superior mind refused to make the abdication by which 
 a married woman begins tliat life ; she keenly felt the 
 value of independence, and was conscious of disgust 
 for the duties of maternity. 
 
 It is necessary to give these details to explain the 
 anomalies presented by the life of Camille Maupin. 
 She had known neither father nor mother; she had 
 been her own mistress from childhood ; her guardian 
 was an old archaeologist. Chance had flung her into 
 the regions of knowledge and of imagination, into the 
 world of literature, instead of holding her within the 
 rigid circle defined by the futile education given to 
 women, and by maternal instructions as to dress, 
 hypocritical propriety, and the hunting graces of their 
 sex. Thus, long before she became celebrated, a 
 glance might have told an observer that she had never 
 played with dolls. 
 
 Toward the close of the year 1817 Fe'licite des 
 Touches began to perceive, not the fading of her 
 beauty, but the beginning of a certain lassitude of 
 body. She saw that a change would presently take 
 place in her person as the result of her obstinate 
 celibacy. She wanted to retain her youth and beauty, 
 to which at that time she clung. Science warned her 
 of the sentence pronounced by Nature upon all her 
 creations, which perish as much by the misconception 
 of her laws as by the abuse of them. The macerated 
 face of her aunt returned to her memory and made 
 her shudder. Placed between marriage and love, her 
 desire was to keep her freedom; but she was now no 
 longer indifferent to homage and the admiration that 
 
Beatrix. 83 
 
 surrounded her. She was, at the moment when this 
 history begins, almost exactly what she was in 1817. 
 Eighteen years had passed over her head and respected 
 it. At forty she might have thought no more than 
 twenty-five. 
 
 Therefore to describe her in 1836 is to picture her 
 as she was in 1817. Women who know the conditions 
 of temperament and happiness in which a woman 
 should live to resist the ravages of time will under- 
 stand how and why Felicite des Touches enjoyed this 
 great privilege as they study a portrait for which were 
 reserved the brightest tints of Nature's palette, and 
 the richest setting. 
 
 Brittany presents a curious problem to be solved 
 in the predominance of dark hair, brown eyes, and 
 swarthy complexions in a region so near England that 
 the atmospheric effects are almost identical. Does 
 this problem belong to the great question of races ? 
 to hitherto unobserved physical influences? Science 
 may some day find the reason of this peculiarity, 
 which ceases in the adjoining province of Normandy. 
 Waiting its solution, this odd fact is there before 
 our eyes ; fair complexions are rare in Brittany, where 
 the women's eyes are as black and lively as those of 
 Southern women; but instead of possessing the tall 
 figures and swaying lines of Italy and Spain, they 
 are usually short, close-knit, well set-up and firm, 
 except in the higher classes which are crossed by their 
 alliances. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, a true Breton, is of 
 medium height, though she looks taller than she really 
 is. This effect is produced by the character of her 
 
84 Beatrix, 
 
 face, which gives height to her form. She has that 
 skin, olive by day and dazzling by candlelight, which 
 distinguishes a beautiful Italian; you might, if you 
 pleased, call it animated ivory. The light glides 
 along a skin of that texture as on a polished surface ; 
 it shines ; a violent emotion is necessary to bring the 
 faintest color to the centre of the cheeks, where it dies 
 away almost immediately. This peculiarity gives to 
 her face the calm impassibility of the savage. The 
 face, more long than oval, resembles that of some 
 beautiful Isis in the Egyptian bas-reliefs; it has the 
 purity of the heads of sphinxes, polished by the fire 
 of the desert, kissed by a Coptic sun. The tones of 
 the skin are in harmony with the faultless modelling 
 of the head. The black and abundant hair descends 
 in heavy masses beside the throat, like the coif of the 
 statues at Memphis, and carries out magnificently the 
 general severity of form. The forehead is full, broad, 
 and swelling about the temples, illuminated by sur- 
 faces which catch the light, and modelled like the 
 brow of the hunting Diana, a powerful and determined 
 brow, silent and self-contained. The arch of the eye- 
 brows, vigorously drawn, surmounts a pair of eyes 
 whose flame scintillates at times like that of a fixed 
 star. The white of the eye is neither bluish, nor 
 strewn with scarlet threads, nor is it purely white; it 
 has the texture of horn, but the tone is warm. The 
 pupil is surrounded by an orange circle; it is of 
 bronze set in gold, but vivid gold and animated 
 bronze. This pupil has depth; it is not underlaid, 
 as in certain eyes, by a species of foil, which sends 
 back the light and makes such eyes resemble those of 
 
Beatrix, 85 
 
 cats or tigers; it has not that terrible inflexibility 
 which makes a sensitive person shudder; but this 
 depth has in it something of the infinite, just as the 
 external radiance of the eyes suggests the absolute. 
 The glance of an observer may be lost in that soul, 
 which gathers itself up and retires with as much 
 rapidity as it gushed for a second into those velvet 
 eyes. In moments of passion the eyes of Camille Mau- 
 pin are sublime; the gold of her glance illuminates 
 them and they flame. But in repose they are dull; 
 the torpor of meditation often lends them an appear- 
 ance of stupidity;^ in like manner, when the glow of 
 the soul is absent the lines of the face are sad. 
 
 The lashes of the eyelids are short, but thick and 
 black as the tip of an ermine's tail; the eyelids are 
 brown and strewn with red fibrils, which give them 
 grace and strength, — two qualities which are seldom 
 united in a woman. The circle round the eyes shows 
 not the slightest blemish nor the smallest wrinkle. 
 There, again, we find the granite of an Egyptian statue 
 softened by the ages. But the line of the cheek-bones, 
 though soft, is more pronounced than in other women 
 and completes the character of strength which the 
 face expresses. The nose, thin and straight, parts 
 into two oblique nostrils, passionately dilated at 
 times, and showing the transparent pink of their deli- 
 cate lining. This nose is an admirable continuation 
 of the forehead, with which it blends in a most deli- 
 
 1 George Sand says of herself, in " L'Histoire de Ma Vie," pub- 
 lished long after the above was written : " The habit of meditation 
 gave me fair bete (a stupid air). I say the word frankly, for all my 
 life I liave been told this, and therefore it must be true." — Tr. 
 
86 Beatrix. 
 
 cious line. It is perfectly white from its spring to 
 its tip, and the tip is endowed with a sort of mobility 
 which does marvels if Camille is indignant, or an^ry, 
 or rebellious. There, above all, as Talma once re- 
 marked, is seen depicted the anger or the irony of 
 great minds. The immobility of the human nostril 
 indicates a certain barrenness of soul; never did the 
 nose of a miser oscillate; it contracts like the lips; 
 he locks up his face as he does his money. 
 
 Camille's mouth, arching at the corners, is of a vivid 
 red; blood abounds there, and supplies the living, 
 thinking oxide which gives such seduction to the lips, 
 reassuring the lover whom the gravity of that majes- 
 tic face may have dismayed. The upper lip is thin, 
 the furrow which unites it with the nose comes low, 
 giving it a centre curve which emphasizes its natural 
 disdain. Camille has little to do to express anger. 
 This beautiful lip is supported by the strong red 
 breadth of its lower mate, adorable in kindness, swell- 
 ing with love, a lip like the outer petal of a pome- 
 granate such as Phidias might have carved, and the 
 color of which it has. The chin is firm and rather 
 full; but it expresses resolution and fitly ends this 
 profile, royal if not divine. It is necessary to add 
 that the upper lip beneath the nose is lightly shaded 
 by a chainning down. Nature would have made a 
 blunder had she not cast that tender mist upon the 
 face. The ears are delicately convoluted, — a sign of 
 secret refinement. The bust is large, the waist slim 
 and sufficiently rounded. The hips are not promi- 
 nent, but very graceful; the line of the thighs is 
 magnificent, recalling Bacchus rather than the Venus 
 
BSatrix, 87 
 
 Callipyge. There we may see the shadowy line of 
 demarcation which separates nearly every woman of 
 genius from her sex ; there such women are found to 
 have a certain vague similitude to man; they have 
 neither the suppleness nor the soft abandonment of 
 those whom Nature destines for maternity; their 
 gait is not broken by faltering motions. This obser- 
 vation may be called bi-lateral; it has its counterpart 
 in men, whose thighs are those of women when they 
 are sly, cunning, false, and cowardly. Camille's 
 neck, instead of curving inward at the nape, curves 
 out in a line that unites the head to the shoulders 
 without sinuosity, a most signal characteristic of 
 force. The neck itself presents at certain moments 
 an athletic magnificence. The spring of the arms 
 from the shoulders, superb in outline, seems to be- 
 long to a colossal woman. The arms are vigorously 
 modelled, ending in wrists of English delicacy and 
 charming hands, plump, dimpled, and adorned with 
 rosy, almond-shaped nails ; these hands are of a white- 
 ness which reveals that the body, so round, so firm, so 
 well set-up, is of another complexion altogether than 
 the face. The firm, cold carriage of the head is cor- 
 rected by the mobility of the lips, their changing 
 expression, and the artistic play of the nostrils. 
 
 And yet, in spite of all these promises — hidden, 
 perhaps, from the profane — the calm of that counte- 
 nance has something, I know not what, that is vexa- 
 tious. More sad, more serious than gracious, that 
 face is marked by the melancholy of constant medi- 
 tation. For this reason INIademoiselle des Touches 
 listens more than she talks. She startles by her 
 
88 Beatrix, 
 
 silence and by that deep-reaching glance of intense 
 fixity. No educated person could see her without 
 thinking of Cleopatra, that dark little woman who 
 almost changed the face of the world. But in Camille 
 the natural animal is so complete, so self-sufficing, of 
 a nature so leonine, that a man, however little of a 
 Turk he may be, regrets the presence of so great a 
 mind in such a body, and could wish that she were 
 wholly woman. He fears to find the strange distor- 
 tions of an abnormal soul. Do not cold analysis and 
 matter-of-fact theory point to passions in such a 
 woman? Does she judge, and not feel? Or, phe- 
 nomenon still more terrible, does she not feel and 
 judge at one and the same time? Able for all things 
 through her brain, ought her course to be circumscribed 
 by the limitations of other women? Has that intel- 
 lectual strength weakened her heart? Has she no 
 charm? Can she descend to those tender nothings by 
 which a woman occupies, and soothes and interests 
 the man she loves? Will she not cast aside a senti- 
 ment when it no longer responds to some vision of 
 infinitude which she grasps and contemplates in her 
 soul? Who can scale the heights to which her eyes 
 have risen? Yes, a man fears to find in such a 
 woman something unattainable, unpossessable, uncon- 
 querable. The woman of strong mind should remain 
 a symbol; as a reality she must be feared. Camille 
 Maupin is in some ways the living image of Schiller's 
 Isis, seated in the darkness of the temple, at whose 
 feet her priests find the dead bodies of the daring men 
 who have consulted her. 
 
 The adventures of her life declared to be true bv 
 
Biatrix. 89 
 
 the world, and which Camille has never disavowed, 
 enforce the questions suggested by her personal ap- 
 pearance. Perhaps she likes those calumnies. 
 
 The nature of her beauty has not been without its 
 influence on her fame; it has served it, just as her 
 fortune and position have maintained her in society. 
 If a sculptor desires to make a statue of Brittany let 
 him take Mademoiselle des Touches for his model. 
 That full-blooded, powerful temperament is the only 
 nature capable of repelling the action of time. The 
 constant nourishment of the pulp, so to speak, of that 
 polished skin is an arm given to women by Nature to 
 resist the invasion of wrinkles; in Camille's case it 
 was aided by the calm impassibility of her features. 
 
 In 1817 this charming young woman opened her 
 house to artists, authors of renown, learned and scien- 
 tiiic men, and publicists, — a society toward which her 
 tastes led her. Her salon resembled that of Baron 
 Gerard, where men of rank mingled with men of dis- 
 tinction of all kinds, and the elite of Parisian women 
 came. The parentage of Mademoiselle des Touches, 
 and her fortune, increased by that of her aunt the nun, 
 protected her in the attempt, always very difficult in 
 Paris, to create a society. Her worldly independence 
 was one reason of her success. Various ambitious 
 mothers indulged the hope of inducing her to marry 
 their sons, whose fortunes were out of proportion to 
 the age of their escutcheons. Several peers of France, 
 allured by the prospect of eighty thousand francs a 
 year and a house magnificently appointed, took their 
 womenkind, even the most fastidious and intractable, 
 to visit her. The diplomatic world, always in search 
 
90 Beatrix, 
 
 of amusements of the intellect, came there and found 
 enjoyment. Thus Mademoiselle des Touches, sur- 
 rounded by so many forms of individual interests, 
 was able to study the different comedies which pas- 
 sion, covetousness, and ambition make the generality 
 of men perform, — even those who are highest in the 
 social scale. She saw, early in life, the world as it 
 is; and she was fortunate enough not to fall early 
 into absorbing love, which warps the mind and facul- 
 ties of a woman and prevents her from judging 
 soberly. 
 
 Ordinarily a woman feels, enjoys, and judges, suc- 
 cessively ; hence three distinct ages, the last of which 
 coincides with the mournful period of old age. In 
 Mademoiselle des Touches this order was reversed. 
 Her youth was wrapped in the snows of knowledge 
 and the ice of reflection. This transposition is, in 
 truth, an additional explanation of the strangeness 
 of her life and the nature of her talent. She observed 
 men at an age when most women can see only one 
 man; she despised what other women admired; she 
 detected falsehood in the flatteries they accept as 
 truths ; she laughed at things that made them serious. 
 This contradiction of her life with that of others lasted 
 long ; but it came to a terrible end ; she was destined 
 to find in her soul a first love, young and fresh, at an 
 age when women are summoned by Nature to renounce 
 all love. 
 
 Meantime, a first affair in which she was involved 
 has always remained a secret from the world. Felicite, 
 like other women, was induced to believe that beauty 
 of body was that of soul. She fell in love with a 
 
Beatrix. 91 
 
 face, and learned, to her cost, the folly of a man of 
 gallantry, who saw nothing in her but a mere woman. 
 It was some time before she recovered from the dis- 
 gust she felt at this episode. Her distress was per- 
 ceived by a friend, a man, who consoled her without 
 personal after-thought, or, at any rate, he concealed 
 any such motive if he had it. In him Felicite be- 
 lieved she found the heart and mind which were lack- 
 ing to her former lover. He did, in truth, possess 
 one of the most original minds of our age. He, too, 
 wrote under a pseudonym, and his first publications 
 were those of an adorer of Italy. Travel was the one 
 form of education which Felicite lacked. A man of 
 genius, a poet and a critic, he took Felicity to Italy 
 in order to make known to her that country of all Art. 
 This celebrated man, who is nameless, may be re- 
 garded as the master and maker of ''Camille Maupin." 
 He brought into order and shape the vast amount of 
 knowledge already acquired by Felicite; increased it 
 by study of the masterpieces with which Italy teems; 
 gave her the frankness, freedom, and grace, epigram- 
 matic, and intense, which is the character of his own 
 talent (always rather fanciful as to form) which 
 Camille Maupin modified by delicacy of sentiment 
 and the softer terms of thought that are natural to a 
 woman. He also roused in her a taste for German 
 and English literature and made her learn both lan- 
 guages while travelling. In Rome, in 1820, Felicity 
 was deserted for an Italian. Without that misery she 
 might never have been celebrated. Napoleon called 
 misfortune the midwife of genius. This event filled 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, and forever, with that con- 
 
92 Beatrix. 
 
 tempt for men which later was to make her so strong. 
 Felicite died, Camille Maupin was born. 
 
 She returned to Paris with Conti, the great musi- 
 cian, for whom she wrote the librettos of two operas. 
 But she had no more illusions, and she became, at 
 heart, unknown to the world, a sort of female Don 
 Juan, without debts and without conquests. Encour- 
 aged by success, she published the two volumes of 
 plays which at once placed the name of Camille 
 Maupin in the list of illustrious anonymas. Next, 
 she related her betrayed and deluded love in a short 
 novel, one of the masterpieces of that period. This 
 book, of a dangerous example, was classed with 
 "Adolphe,"a dreadful lamentation, the counterpart of 
 which is found in Camille 's work. The true secret of 
 her literary metamorphosis and pseudonym has never 
 been fully understood. Some delicate minds have 
 thought it lay in a feminine desire to escape fame 
 and remain obscure, while offering a man's name and 
 work to criticism. 
 
 In spite of any such desire, if she had it, her celeb- 
 rity increased daily, partly through the influence of 
 her salon, partly from her own wit, the correctness of 
 her judgments, and the solid worth of her aq§uire- 
 ments. She became an authority; her sayings were 
 quoted ; she could no longer lay aside at will the func- 
 tions with which Parisian society invested her. She 
 came to be an acknowledged exception. The world 
 bowed before the genius and position of this strange 
 woman; it recognized and sanctioned her indepen- 
 dence; women admired her mind, men her beauty. 
 Iler conduct was regulated by all social conventions. 
 
Beatrix. 93 
 
 Her friendships seemed purely platonic. There was, 
 moreover, nothing of the female author about her. 
 Mademoiselle des Touches is charming as a woman 
 of the world, — languid when she pleases, indolent, 
 coquettish, concerned about her toilet, pleased with 
 the airy nothings so seductive to women and to poets. 
 She understands very well that after Madame de Stael 
 there is no place in this century for a Sappho, and 
 that Ninon could not exist in Pairs without grands 
 seigneurs and a voluptuous court. She is the Ninon 
 of the intellect ; she adores Art and artists ; she goes 
 from the poet to the musician, from the sculptor to 
 the prose-writer. Her heart is noble, endowed with a 
 generosity that makes her a dupe ; so filled is she with 
 pity for sorrow, — filled also with contempt for the 
 prosperous. She has lived since 1830, the centre of 
 a choice circle, surrounded by tried friends who love 
 her tenderly and esteem each other. Far from the 
 noisy fuss of Madame de Stael, far from political 
 strifes, she jokes about Camille Maupin, that junior 
 of George Sand (whom she calls her brother Cain), 
 whose recent fame has now eclipsed her own. Made- 
 moiselle des Touches admires her fortunate rival with 
 angelic composure, feeling no jealousy and no secret 
 vexation. 
 
 Until the period when this history begins, she had 
 led as happy a life as a woman strong enough to 
 l)rotect herself can be supposed to live. From 1817 
 to 1834 she had come some five or six times to Les 
 Touches. Her first stay was after her first disillusion 
 in 1818. The house was uninhabitable, and she sent 
 her man of business to Gudrande and took a lodging 
 
94 Beatrix, 
 
 for herself in the village. At that time she had no 
 suspicion of her coming fame; she was sad, she saw 
 no one; she, wanted, as it were, to contemplate herself 
 after her great disaster. She wrote to Paris to have 
 the furniture necessary for a residence at Les Touches 
 sent down to her. It came by a vessel to Nantes, 
 thence by small boats to Croisic, from which little 
 place it was transported, not without difficulty, over 
 the sands to Les Touches. Workmen came down 
 from Paris, and before long she occupied Les Touches, 
 which pleased her immensely. She wanted to medi- 
 tate over the events of her life, like a cloistered nun. 
 
 At the beginning of the winter she returned to 
 Paris. The little town of Guerande was by this time 
 roused to diabolical curiosity ; its whole talk was of 
 the Asiatic luxury displayed at Les Touches. Her 
 man of business gave orders after her departure that 
 visitors should be admitted to view the house. They 
 flocked from the village of Batz, from Croisic, and 
 from Savenay, as well as from Guerande. This pub- 
 lic curiosity brought in an enormous sum to the family 
 of the porter and gardener, not less, in two years, 
 than seventeen francs. 
 
 After this, Mademoiselle des Touches did not revisit 
 Les Touches for two years, not until her return from 
 Italy. On that occasion she came by way of Croisic 
 and was accompanied by Conti. It was some time 
 before Guerande becan^e aware of her presence. Her 
 subsequent apparitions at Les Touches excited com- 
 paratively little interest. Her Parisian fame did not 
 precede her; her man of business alone knew the 
 secret of her writings and of her connection with the 
 
Beatrix. 95 
 
 celebrity of Camille Maupin. But ^,t the period of 
 which we are now writing the contagion of the new 
 ideas had made some progress in Guerande, and sev- 
 eral persons knew of the dual form of Mademoiselle 
 des Touches* existence. Letters came to the post- 
 office, directed to Camille Maupin at Les Touches. 
 In short, the veil was rent away. In a region so 
 essentially Catholic, archaic, and full of prejudice, the 
 singular life of this illustrious woman would of course 
 cause rumors, some of which, as we have seen, had 
 reached the ears of the Abb^ Grimont and alarmed 
 him; such a life could never be comprehended in 
 Guerande ; in fact, to every mind, it seemed unnatural 
 and improper. 
 
 Felicite, during her present stay, was not alone at 
 Les Touches. She had a guest. That guest was 
 Claude Vignon, a scornful and powerful writer who, 
 though doing criticism only, has found means to give 
 the public and literature the impression of a certain 
 superiority. Mademoiselle des Touches had received 
 this writer for the last seven years, as she had so many 
 other authors, "journalists, artists, and men of the 
 world. She knew his nerveless nature, his laziness, 
 his utter penury, his indifference and disgust for all 
 things, and yet by the way she was now conducting 
 herself she seemed inclined to marry him. She ex- 
 plained her conduct, incomprehensible to her friends, 
 in various ways, — by ambition, by the dread she felt 
 of a lonely old age ; she wanted to confide her future 
 to a superior man, to whom her fortune would be a 
 Htepping-stone, and thus increase her own importance 
 in the literary world. 
 
 k- 
 
96 Beatrix. 
 
 With these apparent intentions she had brought 
 Claude Vignon from Paris to Les Touches, as an eagle 
 bears away a kid in its talons, — to study him, and 
 decide upon some positive course. But, in truth, 
 she was misleading both Calyste and Claude ; she was 
 not even thinking of marriage ; her heart was in the 
 throes of the most violent convulsion that could agi- 
 tate a soul as strong as hers. She found herself the 
 dupe of her own mind; too late she saw life lighted 
 by the sun of love, shining as love shines in a heart 
 of twenty. 
 
 Let us now see Camille's convent where this was 
 happening. 
 
Beatrix. 97 
 
 VII. 
 
 LES TOUCHES. 
 
 A FEW hundred yards from Guerande the soil of 
 Brittany comes to an end ; the salt-marshes and the 
 sandy dunes begin. We descend into a desert of sand, 
 which the sea has left for a margin between herself and 
 earth, by a rugged road through a ravine that has never 
 seen a carriage. This desert contains waste tracts, 
 ponds of unequal size, round the shores of which the 
 salt is made on muddy banks, and a little arm of the 
 sea which separates the mainland from the island of 
 Croisic. Geographically, Croisic is really a peninsula ; 
 but as it holds to Brittany only by the beaches which 
 connect it with the village of Batz (barren quick- 
 sands very difficult to cross), it may be more correct to 
 call it an island. 
 
 At the point where the road from Croisic to 
 Guerande turns off from the main road of terra firma^ 
 stands a country-house, surrounded by a large garden, 
 icmarkable for its trimmed and twisted pine-trees, 
 some being trained to the shape of sun-shades, others, 
 stripped of their branches, showing their reddened 
 trunks in spots where the bark has peeled. These 
 trees, victims of hurricanes, growing against wind and 
 tide (for them the saying is literally true), prepare the 
 mind for the strange and depressing sight of the 
 
 7 
 
98 Beatrix. 
 
 marshes and the dunes, which resemble a stiffened ocean. 
 The house, fairly well built of a species of slaty stone 
 with granite courses, has no architecture ; it presents to 
 the eye a plain wall with windows at regular intervals. 
 These windows have small leaded panes on the ground- 
 floor and large panes on the upper floor. Above are 
 the attics, which stretch the whole length of an enor- 
 mously high pointed roof, with two gables and two 
 large dormer windows on each side of it. Under the 
 triangular point of each gable a circular window opens 
 its cyclopic eye, westerly to the sea, easterly on 
 Guerande. One facade of the house looks on the road 
 to Guerande, the other on the desert at the end of 
 which is Croisic ; beyond that little town is the open 
 sea. A brook escapes through an opening in the park 
 wall which skirts the road to Croisic, crosses the road, 
 and is lost in the sands beyond it. 
 
 The grayish tones of the house harmonize admirably 
 with the scene it overlooks. The park is an oasis in 
 the surrounding desert, at the entrance of which the 
 traveller comes upon a mud-hut, where the custom- 
 house oflicials lie in wait for him. This house without 
 land (for the bulk of the estate is really in Guerande) 
 derives an income from the marshes and a few outlying 
 farms of over ten thousand francs a year. Such is the 
 fief of Les Touches, from which the Revolution lopped 
 its feudal rights. The paludiers, however, continue to 
 call it "the chateau," and they would still say 
 " seigneur " if the fief were not now in the female line. 
 When Felicite set about restoring Les Touches, she 
 was careful, artist that she is, not to change the deso- 
 late exterior which gives the look of a prison to the 
 
Beatrix. 99 
 
 isolated structure. The sole change was at the gate, 
 which she enlivened by two brick columns supporting an 
 arch, beneath which carriages pass into the court-yard 
 where she planted trees. 
 
 The arrangement of the ground-floor is that of nearly 
 all country houses built a hundred years ago. It was, 
 evidently, erected on the ruins of some old castle 
 formerly perched there. A large panelled entrance- 
 hall has been turned by Felicite into a billiard-room ; 
 from it opens an immense salon with six windows, and 
 the dining-room. Tiie kitchen communicates with the 
 dining-room through an office. Camille has displayed 
 a noble simplicity in the arrangement of this floor, 
 carefully avoiding all splendid decoration. The salon, 
 painted gray, is furnished in old mahogany with green 
 silk coverings. The furniture of the dining-room 
 comprises four great buffets, also of mahogany, chairs 
 covered with horsehair, and superb engravings by 
 Audran in mahogany frames. The old staircase, of 
 wood with heavy balusters, is covered all over with 
 a green carpet. 
 
 On the floor above are two suites of rooms separated 
 by the staircase. Mademoiselle des Touches has taken 
 for herself the one that looks toward the sea and the 
 marshes, and arranged it with a small salon, a large 
 chamber, and two cabinets, one for a dressing room, the 
 other for a study and writing-room. The other suite, 
 she has made into two separate apartments for guests, 
 each with a bedroom, an antechamber, and a cabinet. 
 The servants have rooms in the attic. The rooms for 
 guests are furnished with what is strictly necessary, 
 and no more. A certain fantastic luxury has been 
 
100 Beatrix. 
 
 reserved for her own apartment. In that sombre and 
 melancholy habitation, looking out upon the sombre 
 and melancholy landscape, she wanted the most fantas- 
 tic creations of art that she could find. The little salon 
 is hung with Gobelin tapestry, framed in marvellously 
 carved oak. The windows are draped with the heavy 
 silken hangings of a past age, a brocade shot with 
 crimson and gold against green and yellow, gathered 
 into mighty pleats and trimmed with fringes and cords 
 and tassels worthy of a church. This salon contains a 
 chest or cabinet, worth in these days seven or eight 
 thousand francs, a carved ebony table, a secretary 
 with many drawers, Inlaid with arabesques of ivory and 
 bought in Venice, with other noble Gothic furniture. 
 Here too are pictures and articles of choice workman- 
 ship bought in 1818, at a time when no one suspected 
 the ultimate value of such treasures. Her bedroom is 
 of the period of Louis XV. and strictly exact to it. 
 Here we see the carved wooden bedstead painted 
 white, with the arched head-board surmounted by 
 Cupids scattering flowers, and the canopy above it 
 adorned with plumes ; the hangings of blue silk ; the 
 Pompadour dressing-table with its laces and mirror ; 
 together with bits of furniture of singular shape, — a 
 '' duchesse," a chaise-longue, a stiff little sofa, — with 
 window-curtains of silk, like that of the furniture, 
 lined with pink satin, and caught back with silken 
 ropes, and a carpet of Savonnerie; in short, we find 
 here all those elegant, rich, sumptuous, and dainty 
 things in the midst of which the women of the eigh- 
 teenth century lived and made love. 
 
 The study, entirely of the present day, presents, in 
 
Beatrix, 101 
 
 contrast with the Louis XV. gallantrieR;, « chAtfi^Ji^g^ 
 collection of mahogany furniture; it te^en^bles d, 
 boudoir ; the bookshelves are full, but the fascinating 
 trivialities of a woman's existence encumber it ; in the 
 midst of which an inquisitive eye perceives with uneasy 
 surprise pistols, a narghile, a riding-whip, a hammock, a 
 rifle, a man's blouse, tobacco, pipes, a knapsack, — a 
 bizarre combination which paints Felicite. 
 
 Every great soul, entering that room, would be 
 struck with the peculiar beauty of the landscape 
 which spreads its broad savanna beyond the park, the 
 last vegetation on the continent. The melancholy 
 squares of water, divided by little paths of white salt 
 crust, along which the salt-makers pass (dressed in 
 white) to rake up and gather the salt into mulons ; a 
 space which the saline exhalations prevent all birds 
 from crossing, stifling thus the efforts of botanic 
 nature ; those sands where the eye is soothed only by 
 one little hardy persistent plant bearing rosy flowers 
 and the Chartreux pansy ; that lake of salt water, the 
 sandy dunes, the view of Croisic, a miniature town 
 afloat like Venice on the sea ; and, finally the mighty 
 ocean tossing its foaming fringe upon the granite rocks 
 as if the better to bring out their wierd formations — that 
 sight uplifts the mind although it saddens it ; an effect 
 produced at last by all that is sublime, creating a re- 
 gretful yearning for things unknown and yet perceived 
 by the soul on far-off heights. These wild and savage 
 harmonies are for great spirits and great sorrows 
 only. 
 
 This desert scene, where at times the sun rays, 
 reflected by the water, by the sands, whitened the 
 
102 Beatrix, 
 
 yillage of Batz and rippled on the roofs of Croisic 
 with pitiless brilliancy, filled Camille's dreaming mind 
 for days together. She seldom looked to the cool, 
 refreshing scenes, the groves, the flowery meadows 
 around Guerande. Her soul was struggling to endure 
 a horrible inward anguish.^ 
 
 No sooner did Calyste see the vanes of the two 
 gables shooting up beyond the furze of the roadside 
 and the distorted heads of the pines, than the air 
 seemed lighter; Guerande was a prison to him; his 
 life was at Les Touches. Who will not understand 
 the attraction it presented to a youth in his position. 
 A love like that of Cherubin, had flung him at the 
 feet of a person who was a great and grand thing to 
 him before he thought of her as a woman, and it had 
 survived the repeated and inexplicable refusals of 
 Felicite. This sentiment, which w^as more the need 
 of loving than love itself, had not escaped the terrible 
 power of Camille for analysis; hence, possibly, her 
 rejection, — a generosity unperceived, of course, by 
 Calyste. 
 
 At Les Touches were displayed to the ravished eyes 
 of the ignorant young countryman, the riches of a 
 new world; he heard, as it were, another language, 
 hitherto unknown to him and sonorous. He listened 
 to the poetic sounds of the finest music, that surpass- 
 ing music of the nineteenth century, in which melody 
 and harmony blend or struggle on equal terms, — a 
 music in which song and instrumentation have reached 
 a hitherto unknown perfection. He saw before his 
 eyes the works of modern painters, those of the French 
 school, to-day the heir of Italy, Spain, and Flanders, 
 
Beatrix. 103 
 
 in which talent has become so common that hearts, 
 weary of talent, are calling aloud for genius. He 
 read there those works of imagination, those amazing 
 creations of modern literature which produced their 
 full effect upon his unused heart. In short, the great 
 Nineteenth Century appeared to him, in all its collec- 
 tive magnificence, its criticising spirit, its desires for 
 renovation in all directions, and its vast efforts, nearly 
 all of them on the scale of the giant who cradled the 
 infancy of the century in his banners and sang to it 
 hymns with a lullaby of cannon. 
 
 Initiated by Felicite into the grandeur of all these 
 things, which may, perhaps, escape the eyes of those 
 who work them, Calyste gratified at Les Touches the 
 taste for the glorious, powerful at his age, and that 
 artless admiration, the first love of adolescence, which 
 is always irritated by criticism. It is so natural that 
 flame should rise! He listened to that charming 
 Parisian raillery, that graceful satire which revealed 
 to him French wit and the qualities of the French 
 mind, and awakened in him a thousand ideas, which 
 might have slumbered forever in the soft torpor of his 
 family life. For him. Mademoiselle des Touches was 
 the mother of his intellect. She was so kind to him; 
 a woman is always adorable to a man in whom she 
 inspires love, even when she seems not to share it. 
 
 At the present time Felicite was giving him music- 
 lessons. To him the grand apartments on the lower 
 floor, and her private rooms above, so coquettish, so 
 artistic, were vivified, were animated by a light, a 
 spirit, a supernatural atmosphere, strange and unde- 
 finable. The modern world with its poesy was sharply 
 
104 Beatrix, 
 
 coDtrasted with the dull and patriarchal world of 
 Guerande, in the two systems brought face to face 
 before him. On one side all the thousand develop- 
 ments of Art, on the other the sameness of uncivilized 
 Brittany. No one will therefore ask why the poor lad, 
 bored like his mother with the pleasures of mouche^ 
 quivered as he approached the house, and rang the 
 bell, and crossed the court-yard. Such emotions, we 
 may remark, do not assail a mature man, trained to 
 the ups and downs of life, whom nothing surprises, 
 being prepared for all. 
 
 As the door opened, Calyste, hearing the sound of 
 the piano, supposed that Camille was in the salon ; 
 but when he entered the billiard-hall he no longer 
 heard it. Camille, he thought, must be playing on a 
 small upright piano brought by Conti from England 
 and placed by her in her own little salon. He 
 began to run up the stairs, where the thick carpet 
 smothered the sound of his steps ; but he went more 
 slowly as he neared the top, perceiving something 
 unusual and extraordinary about the music. Felicite 
 was playing for herself only; she was communing 
 with her own being. 
 
 Instead of entering the room, the young man sat 
 down upon a Gothic seat covered with green velvet, 
 which stood on the landing beneath a window artisti- 
 cally framed in carved woods stained and varnished. 
 Nothing was ever more mysteriously melancholy than 
 Camille's improvisation; it seemed like the cry of a 
 soul de profundis to God — from the depths of a 
 grave! The heart of the young lover recognized the 
 cry of despairing love, the prayer of a hidden plaint, 
 
BSatrix. 105 
 
 the groan of repressed affliction. Camille had varied, 
 modified, and lengthened the introduction to the cava- 
 tina: *'Mercy for thee, mercy for me! " which is nearly 
 the whole of the fourth act of '^ Robert le Diable." 
 She now suddenly sang the words in a heart-rending 
 manner, and then as suddenly interrupted herself. 
 Calyste entered, and saw the reason. Poor Camille 
 Maupin! poor Felicite! She turned to him a face 
 bathed with tears, took out her handkerchief and dried 
 them, and said, simply, without affectation, ''Good- 
 morning.'* She was beautiful as she sat there in her 
 morning gown. On her head was one of those red 
 chenille nets, much worn in those days, through which 
 the coils of her black hair shone, escaping here and 
 there. A short upper garment made like a Greek 
 peplum gave to view a pair of cambric trousers with 
 embroidered frills, and the prettiest of Turkish slip- 
 pers, red and gold. 
 
 ''What is the matter?" cried Calyste. 
 
 "He has not returned," she replied, going to a win- 
 dow and looking out upon the sands, the sea and the 
 marshes. 
 
 This answer explained all. Camille was awaiting 
 Claude Vignon. 
 
 "You are anxious about him?" asked Calyste. 
 
 "Yes," she answered with a sadness the lad was too 
 ignorant to analyze. 
 
 He started to leave the room. 
 
 "Where are you going?" she asked. 
 
 "To find him," he replied. 
 
 "Dear child! " she said, taking his hand and draw- 
 ing him toward her with one of those moist glances 
 
 k 
 
106 Beatrix, 
 
 which are to a youthful soul the best of recompenses. 
 ''You are distracted! Where could you find him on 
 that wide shore ? " 
 
 "I will find him." 
 
 "Your mother would be in mortal terror. Stay. 
 Besides, I choose it," she said, making him sit down 
 upon the sofa. "Don't pity me. The tears you see 
 are the tears a woman likes to shed. We have a 
 faculty that is not in man, — that of abandoning our- 
 selves to our nervous nature and driving our feelings 
 to an extreme. By imagining certain situations and 
 encouraging the imagination we end in tears, and 
 sometimes in serious states of illness or disorder. 
 The fancies of women are not the action of the mind ; 
 they are of the heart. You have come just in time; 
 solitude is bad for me. I am not the dupe of his 
 professed desire to go to Croisic and see the rocks 
 and the dunes and the salt-marshes without me. He 
 meant to leave us alone together; he is jealous, or, 
 rather, he pretends jealousy, and you are young, you 
 are handsome." 
 
 "Why not have told me this before? What must I 
 do? must I stay away?" asked Calyste, with difficulty 
 restraining his tears, one of which rolled down his 
 cheek and touched Felicite deeply. 
 
 "You are an angel!" she cried. Then she gayly 
 sang the "Stay! stay!" of Matilde in "Guillaume 
 Tell," taking all gravity from that magnificent answer 
 of the princess to her subject. "He only wants to 
 make me think he loves me better than he really does," 
 she said. "He knows how much I desire his happi- 
 ness," she went on, looking attentively at Calyste. 
 
Beatrix. 107 
 
 *' Perhaps he feels humiliated to be inferior to me 
 there. Perhaps he has suspicions about you and 
 means to surprise us. But even if his only crime is 
 to take his pleasure without me, and not to associate 
 me with the ideas this new place gives him, is not 
 that enough? Ah! I am no more loved by that great 
 brain than I was by the musician, by the poet, by the 
 soldier! Sterne is right; names signify much; mine 
 is a bitter sarcasm. I shall die without finding in 
 any man the love which fills my heart, the poesy that 
 I have in my soul — " 
 
 She stopped, her arms pendent, her head lying 
 back on the cushions, her eyes, stupid with thought, 
 fixed on a pattern of the carpet. The pain of great 
 minds has something grandiose and imposing about 
 it; it reveals a vast extent of soul which the thought 
 of the spectator extends still farther. Such souls 
 share the privileges of royalty whose affections belong 
 to a people and so affect a world. 
 
 '*Why did you reject my — " said Calyste; but he 
 could not end his sentence. Camille's beautiful hand 
 laid upon his eloquently interrupted him. 
 
 *' Nature changed her laws in granting me a dozen 
 years of youth beyond my due," she said. "I rejected 
 your love from egotism. Sooner or later the differ- 
 ence in our ages must have parted us. T am thirteen 
 years older than he^ and even that is too much." 
 
 *'You will be beautiful at sixty," cried Calyste, 
 heroically. 
 
 "God grant it," she answered, smiling. "Besides, 
 dear child, I ivant to love. In spite of his cold heart, 
 his lack of imagination, his cowardly indifference, and 
 
108 Beatr 
 
 cX. 
 
 the envy which consumes him, I believe there is 
 greatness behind those tatters ; I hope to galvanize 
 that heart, to save him from himself, to attach him 
 tome. Alas! alas! I have a clear-seeing mind, but 
 a blind heart." 
 
 She was terrible in her knowledge of herself. She 
 suffered and analyzed her sufferings as Cuvier and 
 Dapuytren explained to friends the fatal advance of 
 their disease and the progress that death was making 
 in their bodies. Camille Maupin knew the passion 
 within her as those men of science knew their own 
 anatomy. 
 
 "I have brought him here to judge him, and he is 
 already bored," she continued. "He pines for Paris, 
 I tell him; the nostalgia of criticism is on him; he 
 has no author to pluck, no system to undermine, no 
 poet to drive to despair, and he dares not commit 
 some debauch in this house which might lift for a 
 moment the burden of his ennui. Alas I my love is 
 not real enough, perhaps, to soothe his brain; I don't 
 intoxicate him! Make him drunk at dinner to-night 
 and I shall know if I am right. I will say I am ill, 
 and stay in my own room." 
 
 Calyste turned scarlet from his neck to his fore- 
 head; even his ears were on fire. 
 
 "Oh ! forgive me," she cried. "How can I heed- 
 lessly deprave your girlish innocence! Forgive me, 
 Calyste — " She paused. " There are some superb, 
 consistent natures who say at a certain age: 'If 1 had 
 my life to live over again, I would do the same things. ' 
 I who do not think myself weak, I say, 'I would 
 be a woman like your mother, Calyste.' To have 
 
Beatrix. 109 
 
 a Calyste, oh! what happiness! I could be a humble 
 and submissive woman — And yet, I have done no 
 harm except to myself. But alas! dear child, a 
 woman cannot stand alone in society except it be in 
 what is called a primitive state. Affections which 
 are not in harmony with social or with natural laws, 
 affections that are not obligatory, in short, escape us. 
 Suffering for suffering, as well be useful where we 
 can. What care I for those children of my cousin 
 Faucombe? I have not seen them these twenty years, 
 and they are married to merchants. You are my son, 
 who have never cost me the miseries of motherhood; 
 I shall eave you my fortune and make you happy — 
 at least, so far as money can do so, dear treasure 
 of beauty and grace that nothing should ever change 
 or blast." 
 
 **You would not take my love," said Calyste, "and 
 I shall return your fortune to your heirs." 
 
 '*Child!" answered Camille, in a guttural voice, 
 letting the tears roll down her cheeks. ''Will noth- 
 ing save me from myself? " she added, presently. 
 
 ''You said you had a history to tell me, and a letter 
 to — " said the generous youth, wishing to divert her 
 thoughts from her grief; but she did not let him 
 finish. 
 
 "You are right to remind me of that. I will be 
 an honest woman before all else. I will sacrifice no 
 one — Yes, it was too late yesterday, but to-day we 
 have time," she said, in a cheerful tone. "I will 
 keep my promise; and while I tell you that history 
 I will sit by the window and watch the road to the 
 marshes." 
 
110 Beatrix. 
 
 Calyste arranged a great Gothic chair for her near 
 the window, and opened one of the sashes. Camille 
 Maupin, who shared the oriental taste of her illus- 
 trious sister-author, took a magnificent Persian nar- 
 ghile, given to her by an ambassador. She filled the 
 nipple with patchouli, cleaned the hochettino^ per- 
 fumed the goose- quill, which she attached to the 
 mouthpiece and used only once, set fire to the yellow 
 leaves, placing the vase with its long neck enamelled 
 in blue and gold at some distance from her, and 
 rang the bell for tea. 
 
 "Will you have cigarettes? — Ah! I am always 
 forgetting that you do not smoke. Purity such as 
 yours is so rare ! The hand of Eve herself, fresh from 
 the hand of her Maker, is alone innocent enough to 
 stroke your cheek." 
 
 Calyste colored ; sitting down on a stool at Camille's 
 feet, he did not see the deep emotion that seemed for 
 a moment to overcome her. 
 
Beatrix, 111 
 
 VIII. 
 
 LA MARQUISE BEATRIX. 
 
 " I PROMISED you this tale of the past, and here it 
 is," said Camilie: ''The person from whom I received 
 that letter yesterday, and who may be here to-morrow, 
 is the Marquise de Rochefide. The old marquis 
 (whose family is not as old as yours), after marrying 
 his eldest daughter to a Portuguese grandee, was 
 anxious to find an alliance among the higher nobility 
 for his son, in order to obtain for him the peerage 
 he had never been able to get for himself. The 
 Comtesse de Montcornet told him of a young lady 
 in the department of the Orne, a Mademoiselle 
 Beatrix-Maximilienne-Rose de Casteran, the young- 
 est daughter of the Marquis de Casteran, who 
 wished to marry his two daughters without dow- 
 ries in order to reserve his whole fortune for the 
 Comte de Casteran, his son. The Casterans are, 
 it seems, of the bluest blood. Beatrix, born and 
 brought up at the chateau de Casteran, was twenty 
 years old at the time of her marriage in 1828. She 
 was remarkable for what you provincials call origi- 
 nality, which is simply independence of ideas, enthu- 
 siasm, a feeling for the beautiful, and a certain impulse 
 and ardor toward the things of Art. You may be- 
 lieve a poor woman who has allowed herself to bo 
 
112 Beatrix. 
 
 drawn along the same lines, there is nothing more 
 dangerous for a woman. If she follows them, they 
 lead her where you see me, and where the marquise 
 came, — to the verge of abysses. Men alone have the 
 staff on which to lean as they skirt those precipices, — 
 a force which is lacking to most women, but which, 
 if we do possess it, makes abnormal beings of us. 
 Her old grandmother, the dowager de Casteran, was 
 well pleased to see her marry a man to whom she was 
 superior in every way. The Rochefides were equally 
 satisfied with the Casterans, who connected them with 
 the Verneuils, the d'Esgrignons, the Troisvilles, and 
 gave them a peerage for their son in that last big 
 batch of peers made by Charles X,, but revoked by the 
 revolution of July. The first days of marriage are 
 perilous for little minds as well as for great loves. 
 Rochefide, being a fool, mistook his wife's ignorance 
 for coldness ; he classed her among frigid, lymphatic 
 women, and made that an excuse to return to his 
 bachelor life, relying on the coldness of the marquise, 
 her pride, and the thousand barriers that the life of a 
 great lady sets up about a woman in Paris. You 'U 
 know what I mean when you go there. People said 
 to Rochefide : ' You are very lucky to possess a cold 
 wife who will never have any but head passions. She 
 will always be content if she can shine; her fancies 
 are purely artistic, her desires will be satisfied if she 
 can make a salon, and collect about her distinguished 
 minds ; her debauches will be in music and her orgies 
 literary.' Rochefide, however, is not an ordinary 
 fool ; he has as much conceit and vanity as a clever 
 man, which gives him a mean and squinting jealousy. 
 
Beatrix. 113 
 
 brutal when it comes to the surface, lurking and 
 cowardly for six months, and murderous the seventh. 
 He thought he was deceiving his wife, and yet he 
 feared her, — two causes for tyranny when the day 
 came on which the marquise let him see that she was 
 charitably assuming indifference to his unfaithfulness. 
 I analyze all this in order to explain her conduct. 
 Beatrix had the keenest admiration for me; there is 
 but one step, however, from admiration to jealousy. 
 I have one of the most remarkable salons in Paris; 
 she wished to make herself another; and in order to 
 do so she attempted to draw away my circle. I don't 
 know how to keep those who wish to leave me. She 
 obtained the superficial people who are friends with 
 every one from mere want of occupation, and whose 
 object is to get out of a salon as soon as they have 
 entered it ; but she did not have time to make herself 
 a real society. In those days I thought her consumed 
 with a desire for celebrity of one kind or another. 
 Nevertheless, she has really much grandeur of soul, 
 a regal pride, distinct ideas, and a marvellous facility 
 for apprehending and understanding all things; she 
 can talk metaphysics and music, theology and paint- 
 ing. You will see her, as a'mature woman, what the 
 rest of us saw her as a bride. And yet there is 
 something of affectation about her in all this. She 
 has too much the air of knowing abstruse things, — 
 Chinese, Hebrew, hieroglyphics perhaps, or the papy- 
 rus that they wrapped round mummies. Personally, 
 Btiatrix is one of those blondes beside whom Eve 
 the fair would seem a negress. She is slender and 
 straight and white as a church taper ; her face is long 
 
 8 
 
114 Beatrix, 
 
 and pointed; the skin is capricious, to-day like cam- 
 bric, to-morrow darkened with little speckles beneath 
 its surface, as if her blood had left a deposit of dust 
 there during the night. Her forehead is magnificent, 
 though rather daring. The pupils of her eyes are pale 
 sea-green, floating on their white balls under thin lashes 
 and lazy eyelids. Her eyes have dark rings around 
 them often ; her nose, which describes one-quarter of 
 a circle, is pinched about the nostrils; very shrewd 
 and clever, but supercilious. She has an Austrian 
 mouth; the upper lip has more character than the 
 lower, which drops disdainfully. Her pale cheeks 
 have no color unless some very keen emotion moves 
 her. Her chin is rather fat; mine is not thin, and 
 perhaps I do wrong to tell you that women with fat 
 chins are exacting in love. She has one of the most 
 exquisite waists I ever saw; the shoulders are beauti- 
 ful, but the bust has not developed as well, and the 
 arms are thin. She has, however, an easy carriage 
 and manner, which redeems all such defects and sets 
 her beauties in full relief. Nature has given her that 
 princess air which can never be acquired ; it becomes 
 her, and reveals at sudden moments the woman of 
 high birth. Without being faultlessly beautiful, or 
 prettily pretty, she produces, when she chooses, in- 
 effaceable impressions. She has only to put on a 
 gown of cherry velvet with clouds of lace, and wreathe 
 with roses that angelic hair of hers, which resembles 
 floods of light, and she becomes divine. If, on some 
 excuse or other, she could wear the costume of the 
 time when women ha(i long, pointed bodices, rising, 
 slim and slender, from voluminous brocaded skirts 
 
Biatrix. 115 
 
 with folds so heavy that they stood alone, and could 
 hide her arms in those wadded sleeves with ruffles, 
 from which the hand comes out like a pistil from a 
 calyx, and could fling back the curls of her hair into 
 the jewelled knot behind her head, Beatrix would hold 
 her own victoriously with ideal beauties like that — " 
 
 And Felicite showed Calyste a fine copy of a pic- 
 ture by Mieris, in which was a woman robed in white 
 satin, standing with a paper in her hand, and singing 
 with a Brabangon seigneur, while a negro beside them 
 poured golden Spanish wine into a goblet, and the 
 old housekeeper in the background arranged some 
 biscuits. 
 
 *'Fair women, blondes," said Camille, ''have the 
 advantage over us poor brown things of a precious 
 diversity; there are a hundred ways for a blonde to 
 charm, and only one for a brunette. Besides, blondes 
 are more womanly; we are too like men, we French 
 brunettes — Well, well! " she cried, "pray don't fall 
 in love with Beatrix from the portrait I am making 
 of her, like that prince, I forget his name, in the 
 Arabian Nights. You would be too late, my dear 
 boy." 
 
 These words were said pointedly. The admiration 
 depicted on the young man's face was more for the 
 picture than for the painter whose faire was failing of 
 its purpose. As she spoke. Felicity was employing 
 all the resources of her eloquent physiognomy. 
 
 "Blond as she is, however," she went on, "Beatrix 
 has not the grace of her color; her lines are severe; 
 she is elegant, but hard ; her face has a harsh contour, 
 though at times it reveals a soul with Southern pas- 
 
116 Beatrix, 
 
 sions; an angel flashes out and then expires. Her 
 eyes are thirsty. She looks best when seen full face; 
 the profile has an air of being squeezed between two 
 doors. You will see if 1 am mistaken. I will tell 
 you now what made us intimate friends. For three 
 years, from 1828 to 1831, Beatrix, while enjoying the 
 last fetes of the Restoration, making the round of the 
 salons, going to court, taking part in the fancy-balls 
 of the filysee-Bourbon, was all the while judging men, 
 and things, events, and life itself, from the height of 
 her own thought. Her mind was busy. These first 
 years of the bewilderment the world caused her pre- 
 vented her heart from waking up. From 1830 to 1831 
 she spent the time of the revolutionary disturbance at 
 her husband's country place, where she was bored 
 like a saint in paradise. On her return to Pa'fis she 
 became convinced, perhaps justly, that the revo^tion 
 of July, in the minds of some persons purely political, 
 would prove to be a moral revolution. The social 
 class to which she belonged, not being able, during 
 its unhoped-for triumph in the fifteen years of the 
 Restoration to reconstruct itself, was about to go 
 to pieces, bit by bit, under the battering-ram of the 
 bourgeoisie. She heard the famous words of Mon- 
 sieur Laine: 'Kings are departing! ' This convic- 
 tion, I believe, was not without its influence on her 
 conduct. She took an intellectual part in the new 
 doctrines, which swarmed, during the three years suc- 
 ceeding July, 1830, like gnats in the sunshine, and 
 turned some female heads. But, like all nobles, 
 Beatrix, while thinking these novel ideas superb, 
 wanted always to protect the nobility. Finding be- 
 
Beatrix. 117 
 
 fore long that there was no place in this new regime 
 for individual superiority, seeing thai the higher 
 nobility were beginning once more the mute opposi- 
 tion it had formerly made to Napoleon, — which was, 
 in truth, its wisest course under an empire of deeds 
 and facts, but which in an epoch of moral causes was 
 equivalent to abdication, — she chose personal happi- 
 ness rather than such eclipse. About the time we 
 were all beginning to breathe again, Beatrix met at 
 my house a man with whom I had expected to end 
 my days, — Gennaro Conti, the great composer, a man 
 of Neapolitan origin, though born in Marseilles. 
 Conti has a brilliant mind; as a composer he has 
 talent, though he will never attain to the first rank. 
 Without Rossini, without Meyerbeer, he might perhaps 
 have been taken for a man of genius. He has one 
 advantage over those men, — he is in vocal music 
 what Paganini is on the violin, Liszt on the piano, 
 Taglioni in the ballet, and what the famous Garat 
 was; at any rate he recalls that great singer to those 
 who knew him. His is not a voice, my friend, it is 
 a soul. When its song replies to certain ideas, cer- 
 tain states of feeling difficult to describe in which a 
 woman sometimes finds herself, that woman is lost. 
 The marquise conceived the maddest passion for him, 
 and took him from me. The act was provincial, I 
 allow, but it was all fair play. She won my esteem 
 and friendship by the way she behaved to me. She 
 thought me a woman who was likely to defend her 
 own; she did not know that to imc the most ridiculous 
 thing in the world is such a struggle. She came to 
 see me. That woman, proud as she is, was so in love 
 
118 Beatrix. 
 
 that she told me her secret and made me the arbiter 
 of her destiny. She was really adorable, and she kept 
 her place as woman and as marquise in my eyes. I 
 must tell you, dear friend, that while women are some- 
 times bad, they have hidden grandeurs in their souls 
 that men can never appreciate. Well, as I seem to be 
 making my last will and testament like a woman on 
 the verge of old age, I shall tell you that I was ever 
 faithful to Conti, and should have been till death, and 
 yet I know him. His nature is charming, apparently, 
 and detestable beneath its surface. He is a charlatan 
 in matters of the heart. There are some men, like 
 Nathan, of whom I have already spoken to you, who 
 are charlatans externally, and yet honest. Such men 
 lie to themselves. Mounted on their stilts they think 
 they are on their feet, and perform their jugglery with 
 a sort of innocence; their humbuggery is in their 
 blood; they are born comedians, braggarts; extrava- 
 gant in form as a Chinese vase; perhaps they even 
 laugh at themselves. Their personality is generous; 
 like Murat's kingly garments, it attracts danger. But 
 Conti's duplicity will be known only to the women 
 who love him. In his art he has that deep Italian 
 jealousy which led the Carlone to murder Piola, and 
 stuck a stiletto into Paesiello. That terrible envy 
 lurks beneath the warmest comradeship. Conti has 
 not the courage of his vice; he smiles at Meyerbeer 
 and flatters him, when he fain would tear him to bits. 
 He knows his weakness, and cultivates an appear- 
 ance of sincerity; his vanity still further leads him 
 to play at sentiments which are far indeed from his 
 real heart. He represents himself as an artist who 
 
Beatrix, 119 
 
 receives his inspirations from heaven; Art is some- 
 thing saintly and sacred to him; he is fanatic; he is 
 sublime in his contempt for worldliness; his eloquence 
 seems to come from the deepest convictions. He is 
 a seer, a demon, a god, an angel. Calyste, although 
 I warn you about him, you will be his dupe. That 
 Southern nature, that impassioned artist is cold as a 
 well-rope. Listen to him: the artist is a missionary. 
 Art is a religion, which has its priests and ought to have 
 its martyrs. Once started on that theme, Gennaro 
 reaches the most dishevelled pathos that any German 
 professor of philosophy ever spluttered to his audi- 
 ence. You admire his convictions, but he has n*t any. 
 Bearing his hearers to heaven on a song which seems 
 a mysterious fluid shedding love, he casts an ecstatic 
 glance upon them ; he is examining their enthusiasm ; 
 he is asking himself: 'Am I really a god to them? ' 
 and he is also thinking: *I ate too much maccaroni 
 to-day.' He is insatiable of applause, and he wins it. 
 He delights, he is beloved; he is admired whensoever 
 he will. He owes his success more to his voice than 
 to his talent as a composer, though he would rather be 
 a man of genius like Rossini than a performer like 
 Rubini. I had committed the folly of attaching my- 
 self to him, and I was determined and resigned to 
 deck this idol to the end. Conti, like a great many 
 artists, is dainty in all his ways; he likes his ease, 
 his enjoyments; he is always carefully, even ele- 
 gantly dressed. I do respect his courage; he is 
 brave ; bravery, they say, is the only virtue into which 
 hypocrisy cannot enter. While we were travelling I 
 saw his courage tested; he risked the life he loved; 
 
120 Beatrix. 
 
 and yet, strange contradiction! I have seen him, in 
 Paris, commit what I call the cowardice of thought. 
 My friend, all this was known to me. I said to the 
 poor marquise: 'You don't know into what a gulf 
 you are plunging. You are the Perseus of a poor 
 Andromeda; you release me from my rock. If he 
 loves you, so much the better! but I doubt it; he 
 loves no one but himself.* Gennaro was transported 
 to the seventh heaven of pride. I was not a mar- 
 quise, I was not born a Casterau, and he forgot me 
 in a day. I then gave myself the savage pleasure 
 of probing that nature to the bottom. Certain of the 
 result, I wanted to see the twistings and turnings 
 Conti would perform. My dear child, I saw in one 
 week actual horrors of sham sentiment, infamous 
 buffooneries of feeling. I will not tell you about 
 them; you shall see the man here in a day or two. 
 He now knows that I know him, and he hates me 
 accordingly. If he could stab me with safety to him- 
 self I should n't be alive two seconds. I have never 
 said one word of all this to Beatrix. The last and 
 constant insult which Gennaro offers me is to suppose 
 that I am capable of communicating my sad knowl- 
 edge of him to her ; but he has no belief in the good 
 feeling of any human being. Even now he is play- 
 ing a part with me ; he is posing as a man who is 
 wretched at having left me. You will find what I 
 may call the most penetrating cordiality about him; 
 he is winning ; he is chivalrous. To him, all women 
 are madonnas. One must live with him long before 
 we get behind the veil of this false chivalry and learn 
 the invisible signs of his humbug. His tone of con- 
 
Beatrix. 121 
 
 viction about himself might almost deceive the Deity. 
 You will be entrapped, my dear child, by his catlike 
 manners, and you will never believe in the profound 
 and rapid arithmetic of his inmost thought. But 
 enough ; let us leave him. I pushed indifference so far 
 as to receive them together in my house. This cir- 
 cumstance kept that most perspicacious of all socie- 
 ties, the great world of Paris, ignorant of the affair. 
 Though intoxicated with pride, Gennaro was compelled 
 to dissimulate; and he did it admirably. But violent 
 passions will have their freedom at any cost. Before 
 the end of the year, Beatrix whispered in my ear one 
 evening: 'My dear Felicity, I start to-morrow for 
 Italy with Conti.' I was not surprised; she regarded 
 herself as united for life to Gennaro, and she suffered 
 from the restraints imposed upon her; she escaped one 
 evil by rushing into a greater. Conti was wild with 
 happiness, — the happiness of vanity alone. ' That 's 
 what it is to love truly,' he said to me. * How many 
 women are there who could sacrifice their lives, their 
 fortune, their reputation?' — * Yes, she loves you,' I 
 replied, * but you do not love her.' He was furious, 
 and made me a scene; he stormed, he declaimed, he 
 depicted his love, declaring that he had never supposed 
 it possible to love as much. I remained impassible, 
 and lent him money for his journey, which, being 
 unexpected, found him unprepared. Beatrix left a 
 letter for her husband and started the next day for 
 Italy. There she has remained two years; she has 
 written to me several times, and her letters are enchant- 
 ing. The poor child attaches herself to me as the 
 only woman who will comprehend her. She says she 
 
122 Beatrix. 
 
 adores me. Want of money has compelled Gennaro 
 to accept an offer to write a French opera ; he does not 
 find in Italy the pecuniary gains which composers 
 obtain in Paris. Here 's the letter I received yester- 
 day from Beatrix. Take it and read it; you can now 
 understand it, — that is, if it is possible, at your age, 
 to analyze the things of the heart." 
 
 So saying, she held out the letter to him. 
 
 At this moment Claude Vignon entered the room. 
 At his unexpected apparition Calyste and Felicite were 
 both silent for a moment, — she from surprise, he from 
 a vague uneasiness. The vast forehead, broad and 
 high, of the new-comer, who was bald at the age of 
 thirty-seven, now seemed darkened by annoyance. 
 His firm, judicial mouth expressed a habit of chilling 
 sarcasm. Claude Vignon is imposing, in spite of the 
 precocious deteriorations of a face once magnificent, 
 and now grown haggard. Between the ages of eigh- 
 teen and twenty-five he strongly resembled the divine 
 Raffaelle. But his nose, that feature of the human 
 face that changes most, is growing to a point; the 
 countenance is sinking into mysterious depressions, 
 the outlines are thickening ; leaden tones predominate 
 in the complexion, giving tokens of w^eariness, al- 
 though the fatigues of this young man are not appar- 
 ent; perhaps some bitter solitude has aged him, or the 
 abuse of his gift of comprehension. He scrutinizes 
 the thought of every one, yet without definite aim or 
 system. The pickaxe of his criticism demolishes, it 
 never constructs. Thus his lassitude is that of a 
 mechanic, not of an architect. The eyes, of a pale 
 blue, once very brilliant, are clouded now by some 
 
Beatrix. 123 
 
 hidden pain, or dulled by gloomy sadness. Excesses 
 have laid dark tints above the eyelids; the temples 
 have lost their freshness. The chin, of incomparable 
 destinction, is getting doubled, but without dignity. 
 His voice, never sonorous, is weakening; without 
 being either hbarse or extinct, it touches the confines 
 of hoarseness and extinction. The impassibility of 
 that fine head, the fixity of that glance, cover irresolu- 
 tion and weakness, which the keenly intelligent and 
 sarcastic smile belies. The weakness lies wholly in 
 action, not in thought; there are traces of an ency- 
 clopedic comprehension on that brow, and in the 
 habitual movement of a face that is childlike and 
 splendid both. The man is tall, slightly bent already, 
 like all those who bear the weight of a world of 
 thought. Such long, tall bodies are never remarkable 
 for continuous effort or creative activity. Charlemagne, 
 Belisarius, and Constantine are noted exceptions to 
 this rule. 
 
 Certainly Claude Vignon presents a variety of mys- 
 teries to be solved. In the first place, he is very 
 simple and very wily. Though he falls into ex- 
 cesses with the readiness of a courtesan, his powers of 
 thought remain untouched. Yet his intellect, which 
 is competent to criticise art, science, literature, and 
 politics, is incompetent to guide his external life. 
 Claude contemplates himself within the domain of his 
 intellectual kingdom, and abandons his outer man with 
 Diogenic indifference. Satisfied to penetrate all, to 
 comprehend all by thought, he despises materialities; 
 and yet, if it becomes a question of creating, doubt 
 assails him; he sees obstacles, he is not inspired by 
 
124 Beatrix. 
 
 beauties, and while he is debating means, he sits with 
 his arms pendent, accomplishing nothing. He is the 
 Turk of the intellect made somnolent by meditation. 
 Criticism is his opium; his harem of books to read 
 disgusts him with real work. Indifferent to small 
 things as well as great things, he is sometimes com- 
 pelled, by the very weight of his head, to fall into a 
 debauch, and abdicate for a few hours the fatal power 
 of omnipotent analysis. He is far too preoccupied 
 with the wrong side of genius, and Camille Maupin's 
 desire to put him back on the right side is easily con- 
 ceivable. The task was an attractive one. Claude 
 Vignon thinks himself a great politician as well as a 
 great writer; but this unpublished Macchiavelli laughs 
 within himself at all ambitions; he knows what he 
 can do; he has instinctively taken the measure of his 
 future on his faculties; he sees his greatness, but he 
 also sees obstacles, grows alarmed or disgusted, lets 
 the time roll by, and does not go to work. Like 
 Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, like Nathan the 
 dramatic author, like Blondet, another journalist, he 
 came from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, to which we 
 owe the greater number of our writers. 
 
 "Which way did you come?" asked Mademoiselle 
 des Touches, coloring with either pleasure or surprise. 
 
 "By the door," replied Claude Vignon, dryly. 
 
 *'0h," she cried, shrugging her shoulders, "I am 
 aware that you are not a man to climb in by a 
 window." 
 
 "Scaling a window is a badge of honor for a 
 beloved woman." 
 
 "Enough!" said Felicite. 
 
BSatrix. 125 
 
 "Am I in the way?" asked Claude. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Calyste, artlessly, "this letter — " 
 
 "Pray keep it; I ask no questions; at our age we 
 understand such affairs," he answered, interrupting 
 Calyste with a sardonic air. 
 
 "But, monsieur," began Calyste, much provoked. 
 
 "Calm yourself, young man; I have the utmost 
 indulgence for sentiments." 
 
 "My dear Calyste," said Camille, wishing to speak. 
 
 "* Dear'?" said Vignon, interrupting her. 
 
 "Claude is joking," said Camille, continuing her 
 remarks to Calyste. "He is wrong to do it with you, 
 who know nothing of Parisian ways." 
 
 "I did not know that I was joking," said Claude 
 Vignon, very gravely. 
 
 "Which way did you come?" asked F^licite again. 
 "I have been watching the road to Croisic for the 
 last two hours." 
 
 "Not all the time," replied Vignon. 
 
 "You are too bad to jest in this way." 
 
 "Am I jesting?" 
 
 Calyste rose. 
 
 "Why should you go so soon? You are certainly 
 at your ease here," said Vignon. 
 
 "Quite the contrary," replied the angry young 
 Breton, to whom Camille Maupin stretched out a hand, 
 which he took and kissed, dropping a tear upon it, 
 after which he took his leave. 
 
 "I should like to be that little young man," said the 
 critic, sitting down, and taking one end of the hookah. 
 "How he will love!" 
 
 "Too much ; for then he will not be loved in return," 
 
126 Beatrix. 
 
 replied Mademoiselle des Touches. >' Madame de 
 Rochefide is coming here," she added. 
 
 ''You don't say so! " exclaimed Claude. "With 
 Conti?" 
 
 "She will stay here alone, but he accompanies her." 
 
 "Have they quarrelled?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Play me a sonata of Beethoven's; I know nothing 
 of the music he wrote for the piano." 
 
 Claude began to fill the tube of the hookah with 
 Turkish tobacco, all the while examining Camille 
 much more attentively than she observed. A dreadful 
 thought oppressed him ; he fancied he was being used 
 for a blind by this woman. The situation was a novel 
 one. 
 
 Calyste went home thinking no longer of Beatrix de 
 Rochefide and her letter; he was furious against Claude 
 Vignon for what he considered the utmost indelicacy, 
 and he pitied poor Felicite. How was it possible to 
 be beloved by that sublime creature and not adore her 
 on his knees, not believe her on the faith of a glance 
 or a smile? He felt a desire to turn and rend that 
 cold, pale spectre of a man. Ignorant he might be, 
 as Felicite had told him, of the tricks of thought of 
 the jesters of the press, but one thing he knew — Love 
 was the human religion. 
 
 When his mother saw him entering the court-yard she 
 uttered an exclamation of joy, and Zephirine whistled 
 for Mariotte. 
 
 "Mariotte, the boy is coming! cook the fish!" 
 
 "I see him, mademoiselle," replied the woman. 
 
 Fanny, uneasy at the sadness she saw on her son's 
 
Beatrix. 127 
 
 brow, picked up her worsted- work ; the old aunt took 
 out her knitting. The baron gave his arm-chair to 
 his son and walked about the room, as if to stretch his 
 legs before going out to take a turn in the garden. 
 No Flemish or Dutch picture ever presented an interior 
 in tones more mellow, peopled with faces and forms 
 so harmoniously blending. The handsome young man 
 in his black velvet coat, the mother, still so beautiful, 
 and the aged brother and sister framed by that ancient 
 hall, were a moving domestic harmony. 
 
 Fanny would fain have questioned Calyste, but he 
 had already pulled a letter from his pocket, — that 
 letter of the Marquise Beatrix, which was, perhaps, 
 destined to destroy the happiness of this noble family. 
 As he unfolded it, Calyste's awakened imagination 
 showed him the marquise dressed as Camille Maupiu 
 had fancifully depicted her. 
 
 From the Marquise de Rochefide to Mademoiselle des 
 Touches, 
 
 Genoa, July 2. 
 
 I have not written to you since our stay in Florence, 
 my dear friend, for Venice and Rome have absorbed 
 my time, and, as you know, happiness occupies a large 
 part of life; so far, we have neither of us dropped 
 from its first level. I am a little fatigued; for when 
 one has a soul not easy to blaser, the constant succes- 
 sion of enjoyments naturally causes lassitude. 
 
 Our friend has had magnificent triumphs at the Scala 
 and the Fenice, and now at the San Carlo. Three 
 Italian operas in two years ! You cannot say that love 
 
128 Beatrix. 
 
 has made him idle. We have been warmly received 
 everywhere, — though I myself would have preferred 
 solitude and silence. Surely that is the only suitable 
 manner of life for women who have placed themselves 
 in direct opposition to society ? I expected such a life ; 
 but love, my dear friend, is a more exacting master 
 than marriage, — however, it is sweet to obey him ; 
 though I did ,not think I should have to see the world 
 again, even by snatches, and the attentions I receive 
 are so many stabs. I am no longer on a footing of 
 equality with the highest rank of women ; and the more 
 attentions are paid to me, the more my inferiority is 
 made apparent. 
 
 Gennaro could not comprehend this sensitiveness; 
 but he has been so happy that it would ill become me 
 not to have sacrificed my petty vanity to that great 
 and noble thing, — the life of an artist. We women 
 live by love, whereas men live by love and action; 
 otherwise they would not be men. Still, there are great 
 disadvantages for a woman in the position in which 
 I have put myself. You have escaped them ; you con- 
 tinue to be a person in the eyes of the world, which 
 has no rights over you; you have your own free will, 
 and I have lost mine. I am speaking now of the things 
 of the heart, not those of social life, which I have 
 utterly renounced. You can be coquettish and self- 
 willed, and have all the graces of a woman who loves, 
 a woman who can give or refuse her love as she pleases ; 
 you have kept the right to have caprices, in the in- 
 tei'ests even of your love. In short, to-day you still 
 possess your right of feeling, while I, I have no longer 
 any liberty of heart, which I think precious to exer- 
 
Beatrix. 129 
 
 cise in love, even though the love itself may be eternal. 
 I have no right now to that privilege of quarrelling in 
 jest to which so many women cling, and justly; for 
 is it not the plummet line with which to sound the 
 hearts of men? I have no threat at my command. I 
 must draw my power henceforth from obedience, from 
 unlimited gentleness; I must make myself imposing 
 by the greatness of my love. I would rather die than 
 leave Gennaro, and my pardon lies in the sanctity of 
 my love. Between social dignity and my petty per- 
 sonal dignity, I did right not to hesitate. If at times 
 I have a few melancholy feelings, like clouds that pass 
 through a clear blue sky, and to which all women like 
 to yield themselves, I keep silence about them ; they 
 might seem like regrets. Ah me! I have so fully 
 understood the obligations of my position that I have 
 armed myself with the utmost indulgence ; but so far, 
 Gennaro has not alarmed my susceptible jealousy. I 
 don't as yet see where that dear great genius may 
 fail. 
 
 Dear angel, I am like those pious souls who argue 
 with their God, for are not you my Providence? do I 
 not owe my happiness to you? You must never doubt, 
 therefore, that you are constantly in my thoughts. 
 
 I have seen Italy at last; seen it as you saw it, and 
 as it ought to be seen, — lighted to our souls by love, 
 as it is by its own bright sun and its masterpieces. I 
 pity those w^ho, being moved to adoration at every 
 step, have no hand to press, no heart in which to shed 
 the exuberance of emotions which calm themselves 
 when shared. These two years have been to me a 
 lifetime, in which my memory has stored rich harvests. 
 
 9 
 
130 Beatrix, 
 
 Have you made plans, as I do, to stay forever at 
 Chiavari, to buy a palazzo in Venice, a summer-house 
 at Sorrento, a villa in Florence? All loving women 
 dread society; but I, who am cast forever outside of 
 it, ought I not to bury myself in some beautiful land- 
 scape, on flowery slopes, facing the sea, or in a valley 
 that equals a sea, like that of Fiesole? 
 
 But alas! we are only poor artists, and want of 
 money is bringing these two bohemians back to Paris. 
 Gennaro does not want me to feel that I have lost my 
 luxury, and he wishes to put his new work, a grand 
 opera, into rehearsal at once. You will understand, 
 of course, my dearest, that I cannot set foot in Paris. 
 I could not, I would not, even if it costs me my love, 
 meet one of those glances of women, or of men, which 
 would make me think of murder or suicide. Yes, I 
 could hack in pieces whoever insulted me with pity ; 
 like Chateauneuf, who, in the time of Henri HI., I 
 think, rode his horse at the Provost of Paris for a 
 wrong of that kind, and trampled him under hoof. 
 
 I write, therefore, to say that I shall soor pay you 
 a visit at Les Touches. I want to stay there, in that 
 Chartreuse, while awaiting the success of our Gen- 
 naro' s opera. You see that I am bold with my bene- 
 factress, my sister; but I prove, at any rate, that the 
 greatest of obligations laid upon me has not led me, 
 as it does so many people, to ingratitude. You have 
 told me so much of the diflficulties of the land journey 
 that I shall go to Croisic by water. This idea came 
 to me on finding that there is a little Danish vessel 
 now here, laden with marble, which is to touch at 
 Croisic for a cargo of salt on its way back to the Bal- 
 
Beatrix. 131 
 
 tic. I shall thus escape the fatigue and the cost of 
 the land journey. Dear Felicite, you are the only per- 
 son with whom I could be alone without Conti. Will 
 it not be some pleasure to have a woman with you who 
 understands your heart as fully as you do hers? 
 
 Adieu, a hlentot. The wind is favorable, and I set 
 sail, wafting you a kiss. 
 
 Beatrix. 
 
 "Ah! she loves, too!" thought Calyste, folding the 
 letter sadly. 
 
 That sadness flowed to the heart of the mother as if 
 some gleam had lighted up a gulf to her. The baron 
 had gone out; Fanny went to the door of the tower 
 and pushed the bolt, then she returned, and leaned 
 upon the back of her boy's chair, like the sister of 
 Dido in Guerin's picture, and said, — 
 
 *'What is it, my Calyste? what makes you so sad? 
 You promised to explain to me these visits to Les 
 Touches ; I am to bless its mistress, — at least, you 
 said so." 
 
 *'Yes, indeed you will, dear mother," he replied. 
 "She has shown me the insufTiciency of my education 
 at an epoch when the nobles ought to possess a per- 
 sonal value in order to give life to their rank. I was 
 as far from the age we live in as Guerande is from 
 Paris. She has been, as it were, the mother of my 
 intellect." 
 
 "I cannot bless her for that," said the baroness, with 
 tears in her eyes. 
 
 "Mamma! " cried Calyste, on whose forehead those 
 hot tears fell, two pearls of sorrowful motherhood, 
 
132 Beatrix 
 
 "mamma, don't weep! Just now, when I wanted to 
 do her a service, and search the country round, she 
 said, ' It will make your mother so uneasy. ' " 
 
 ''Did she say that? Then I can forgive her many 
 things," replied Fanny. 
 
 ''Felicite thinks only of my good," continued 
 Calyste. "She often checks the lively, venturesome 
 language of artists so as not to shake in me a faith 
 which is, though she knows it not, unshakable. She 
 has told me of the life in Paris of several young men 
 of the highest nobility coming from their provinces, as 
 I might do,— leaving families without fortune, but 
 obtaining in Paris, by the power of their will and their 
 intellect, a great career. I can do what the Baron de 
 Rastignac, now a minister of State, has done. Felicite 
 has taught me; I read with her; she gives me lessons 
 on the piano; she is teaching me Italian; she has 
 initiated me into a thousand social secrets, about 
 which no one in Guerande knows anything at all. 
 She could not give me the treasures of her love, but 
 she has given me those of her vast intellect, her 
 mind, her genius. She does not want to be a pleas- 
 ure, but a light to me; she lessens not one of my 
 faiths ; she herself has faith in the nobility, she loves 
 Brittany, she — " 
 
 "She has changed our Calyste," said his blind old 
 aunt, interrupting him. "I do not understand one 
 word he has been saying. You have a solid roof over 
 your head, my good nephew; you have parents and 
 relations who adore you, and faithful servants; you 
 can marry some good little Breton girl, religious and 
 accomplished, who will make you happy. Reserve 
 
Beatrix. 133 
 
 your ambitions for your eldest son, who may be four 
 times as rich as you, if you choose to live tranquilly, 
 thriftily, in obscurity, — but in the peace of God, — in 
 order to release the burdens on your estate. It is all 
 as simple as a Breton heart. You will be, not so rap- 
 idly perhaps, but more solidly, a rich nobleman." 
 
 *'Your aunt is right, my darling; she plans for your 
 happiness with as much anxiety as I do myself. If I 
 do not succeed in marrying you to my niece, Margaret, 
 the daughter of your uncle. Lord Fitzwilliam, it is 
 almost certain that Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel will 
 leave her fortune to whichever of her nieces you may 
 choose." 
 
 **And besides, there 's a little gold to be found 
 here," added the old aunt in a low voice, with a myste- 
 rious glance about her. 
 
 ''Marry ! at my age ! " he said, casting on his mother 
 one of those looks which melt the arguments of 
 mothers. ''Am I to live without my beautiful fond 
 loves ? Must I never tremble or throb or fear or gasp, 
 or lie beneath implacable looks and soften them ? Am 
 I never to know beauty in its freedom, the fantasy of 
 the soul, the clouds that course through the azure of 
 happiness, which the breath of pleasure dissipates? 
 Ah! shall I never wander in those sweet by-paths 
 moist with dew; never stand beneath the drenching 
 of a gutter and not know it rains, like those lovers 
 seen by Diderot; never take, like the Due de Lorraine, 
 a live coal in my hand? Are there no silken ladders 
 for me, no rotten trellises to cling to and not fall? 
 Shall I know nothing of woman but conjugal submis- 
 sion ; nothing of love but the flame of its lamp-wick ? 
 
134 Beatrix. 
 
 Are my longings to be satisfied before they are roused? 
 Must I live out my days deprived of that madness of 
 the heart that makes a man and his power? Would 
 you make me a married monk? No! I have eaten 
 of the fruit of Parisian civilization. Do you not see 
 that you have, by the ignorant morals of this family, 
 prepared the fire that consumes me, that will consume 
 me utterly, unless I can adore the divineness I see 
 everywhere, — in those sands gleaming in the sun, in 
 the green foliage, in all the women, beautiful, noble, 
 elegant, pictured in the books and in the poems I 
 have read with Camille ? Alas ! there is but one such 
 woman in Guerande, and it is you, my mother! The 
 birds of my beautiful dream, they come from Paris, 
 they fly from the pages of Scott, of Byron, — Parisina, 
 EflSe, Minna! yes, and that royal duchess, whom I 
 saw on the moors among the furze and the ferns, 
 whose very aspect sent the blood to my heart." 
 
 The baroness saw these thoughts flaming in the eyes 
 of her son, clearer, more beautiful, more living than 
 art can tell to those who read them. She grasped 
 them rapidly, flung to her as they were in glances 
 like arrows from an upset quiver. Without having 
 read Beaumarchais, she felt, as other women would 
 have felt, that it would be a crime to marry Calyste. 
 
 "Oh! my child! " she said, taking him in her arms, 
 and kissing the beautiful hair that was still hers, 
 "marry whom you will, and when you will, but be 
 happy! My part in life is not to hamper you." 
 
 Mariotte came to lay the table. Gasselin was out 
 exercising Calyste' s horse, which the youth had not 
 mounted for two months.. The three women, mother, 
 
BSatrlz: 135 
 
 aunt, and Mariotte, shared in the tender feminine wili- 
 uess, which taught them to make much of Calyste 
 when he dined at home. Breton plainness fought 
 against Parisian luxury, now brought to the very 
 doors of Guerande. Mariotte endeavored to wean her 
 young master from the accomplished service of Camille 
 Maupin's kitchen, just as his mother and aunt strove 
 to hold him in the net of their tenderness and render 
 all comparison impossible. 
 
 ** There 's a salmon- trout for dinner. Monsieur 
 Calyste, and snipe, and pancakes such as I know 
 you can't get anywhere but here," said Mariotte, with 
 a sly, triumphant 4ook as she smoothed the cloth, a 
 cascade of snow. 
 
 After dinner, when the old aunt had taken up her 
 knitting, and the rector and Monsieur du Halga had 
 arrived, allured by their precious mouche, Calyste 
 went back to Les Touches on the pretext of returning 
 the letter. 
 
 Claude Vignon and Felicite were still at table. The 
 great critic was something of a gourmand, and Felicite 
 {)ampered the vice, knowing how indispensable a 
 woman makes herself by such compliance. The 
 dinner-table presented that rich and brilliant aspect 
 which modern luxury, aided by the perfecting of han- 
 dicrafts, now gives to its service. The poor and noble 
 house of Guenic little knew with what an adversary it 
 was endeavoring to compete, or what amount of for- 
 tune was necessary to enter the lists against the silver- 
 ware, the delicate porcelains, the beautiful linen, the 
 silver-gilt service brought from Paris by Mademoiselle 
 des Touches, and the science of her cook. Calyste 
 
136 Beatrix, 
 
 declined the liqueurs contained in one of those superb 
 cases of precious woods, which are something like 
 tabernacles. 
 
 ''Here 's the letter," he said, with innocent ostenta- 
 tion, looking at Claude, who was slowly sipping a glass 
 of liqueur-des-iles, 
 
 ''Well, what did you think of it?" asked Mademoi- 
 selle des Touches, throwing the letter across the table 
 to Vignon, who began to read it, taking up and put- 
 ting down at intervals his little glass. 
 
 "I thought — well, that Parisian women were very 
 fortunate to have men of genius to adore who adore 
 them." 
 
 "Ah! you are still in your village," said Felicite, 
 laughing. "What! you did not see that she loves him 
 less, and — " 
 
 "That is evident," said Claude Vignon, who had 
 only read the first page. "Do people reason on their 
 situation when they really love ; are they as shrewd as 
 the marquise, as observing, as discriminating? Your 
 dear Beatrix is held to Conti now by pride only ; she 
 is condemned to love him quand meme." 
 
 "Poor woman! " said Camille. 
 
 Calyste's eyes were fixed on the table; he saw noth- 
 ing about him. The beautiful woman in the fanciful 
 dress described that morning by Felicite appeared to 
 him crowned with light; she smiled to him, she waved 
 her fan; the other hand, issuing from its ruflfle of 
 lace, fell white and pure on the heavy folds of her 
 crimson velvet robe. 
 
 "She is just the thing for you," said Claude Vignon, 
 smiling sardonically at Calyste. 
 
Beatrix, 137 
 
 The young man was deeply wounded by the words, 
 and by the manner in which they were said. 
 
 ** Don't put such ideas into Calyste's mind; you 
 don't know how dangerous such jokes may prove to 
 be," said Mademoiselle des Touches, hastily. *'I know 
 Beatrix, and there is something too grandiose in her 
 nature to allow her to change. Besides, Conti will be 
 here." 
 
 "Ha!" said Claude Vignon, satirically, "a slight 
 touch of jealousy, hey?" 
 
 ''Can you really think so? " said Camille, haughtily. 
 
 ''You are more perspicacious than a mother," replied 
 Claude Vignon, still sarcastically. 
 
 "But it would be impossible," said Camille, looking 
 at Calyste. 
 
 "They are very well matched," remarked Vignon. 
 "She is ten years older than he; and it is he who 
 appears to be the girl — " 
 
 "A girl, monsieur," said Calyste, waking from his 
 revery, "who has been twice under fire in La Vendee! 
 If the Cause had had twenty thousand more such 
 girls — " 
 
 "I was giving you some well-deserved praise, and 
 that is easier than to give you a beard," remarked 
 Vignon. 
 
 "1 have a sword for those who wear their beards too 
 long," cried Calyste. 
 
 "And I am very good at an epigram," said the 
 other, smiling. "We are Frenchmen; the affair can 
 easily be arranged." 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches cast a supplicating look 
 on Calyste, which calmed him instantly. 
 
1B8 Beatrix. 
 
 "Why," said Felicite, as if to break up the discus- 
 sion, "do young men like my Calyste, begin by loving 
 women of a certain age? " 
 
 "I don't know any sentiment more artless or more 
 generous," replied Vignon. "It is the natural conse- 
 quence of the adorable qualities of youth. Besides, 
 how would old women end if it were not for such love ? 
 You are young and beautiful, and will be for twenty 
 years to come, so I can speak of this matter before 
 you," he added, with a keen look at Mademoiselle des 
 Touches. "In the first place the semi-dowagers, to 
 whom young men pay their fij-st court, know much 
 better how to make love than younger wom-en. An 
 adolescent youth is too like a young woman himself 
 for a young woman to please him. Such a passion 
 trenches on the fable of Narcissus. Besides that feel- 
 ing of repugnance, there is, as I think, a mutual sense 
 of inexperience which separates them. The reason 
 why the hearts of young women are only understood by 
 mature men, who conceal their cleverness under a 
 passion real or feigned, is precisely the same (allow- 
 ing for the difference of minds) as that which renders 
 a woman of a certain age more adroit in attracting 
 youth. A young man feels that he is sure to succeed 
 with her, and the vanities of the woman are flattered 
 by his suit. Besides, is n't it natural for youth to 
 fling itself on fruits? The autumn of a woman's life 
 offers many that are very toothsome, — those looks, 
 for instance, bold, and yet reserved, bathed with the 
 last rays of love, so warm, so sweet; that all-wise 
 elegance of speech, those magnificent shoulders, so 
 nobly developed, the full and undulating outline, the 
 
Beatrix. 139 
 
 dimpled hands, the hair so well arranged, so cared for, 
 tliiit charming nape of the neck, where all the resources 
 of art are displayed to exhibit the contrast between 
 the hair and the flesh-tones, and to set in full relief 
 the exuberance of life and love. Brunettes themselves 
 are fair at such times, with the amber colors of matur- 
 ity. Besides, such women reveal in their smiles and 
 display in their words a knowledge of the world ; they 
 know how to converse; they can call up the whole of 
 social life to make a lover laugh; their dignity and 
 their pride are stupendous ; or, in other moods, they 
 can utter despairing cries which touch his soul, fare- 
 wells of love which they take care to render useless, 
 and only make to intensify his passion. Their devo- 
 tions are absolute ; they listen to us ; they love us ; they 
 catch, they cling to love as a man condemned to death 
 clings to the veriest trifles of existence, — in short, 
 love, absolute love, is known only through them. I 
 think such women can never be forgotten by a man, 
 any more than he can forget what is grand and sub- 
 lime. A young woman has a thousand distractions; 
 these women have none. No longer have they self- 
 love, pettiness, or vanity ; their love — it is the Loire 
 at its mouth, it is vast, it is swelled by all the illu- 
 sions, all the affluents of life, and this is why — but 
 my muse is dumb," he added, observing the ecstatic 
 attitude of Mademoiselle des Touches, who was press- 
 ing Calyste's hand with all her strength, perhaps to 
 thank him for having been the occasion of such a 
 moment, of such an eulogy, so lofty that she did not 
 see the trap that it laid for her. 
 
 During the rest of the evening Claude Vignon and 
 
140 Beatrix. 
 
 Felicite sparkled with wit and happy sayings; they 
 told anecdotes, and described Parisian life to Calyste, 
 who was charmed with Claude, for mind has immense 
 seductions for persons who are all heart. 
 
 ''I should n't be surprised to see the Marquise de 
 Rochefide and Conti, who, of course, will accompany 
 her, at the lanjcling-place to-morrow," said Claude 
 Vignon, as the evening ended. "When I was at 
 Croisic this afternoon, the fishermen were saying 
 that they had seen a little vessel, Danish, Swedish, 
 or Norwegian, in the offing." 
 
 This speech brought a flush to the cheeks of the im- 
 passible Camille. 
 
 Again Madame du Guenic sat up till one o'clock 
 that night, waiting for her son, unable to imagine why 
 he should stay so late if Mademoiselle des Touches 
 did not love him. 
 
 "He must be in their way," said this adorable 
 mother. "What were you talking about? " she asked, 
 when at last he came in. 
 
 "Oh, mother, I have never before spent such a 
 delightful evening. Genius is a great, a sublime 
 thing! Why didn't you: give me genius? With 
 genius we can make our lives, we can choose among 
 all women the woman to love, and she must be ours." 
 
 "How handsome you are, my Calyste! " 
 
 "Claude Vignon is handsome. Men of genius have 
 luminous foreheads and eyes, through which the light- 
 nings flash — but I, alas ! I know nothing — only to 
 love." 
 
 "They say that suffices, my angel," she said, kiss- 
 ing him on the forehead. 
 
Beatrix, 141 
 
 "Do you believe it? " 
 
 "They say so, but I have never known it." 
 
 Calyste kissed his mother's hand as if it was a 
 Sacred thing. 
 
 "I will love you for all those that would have adored 
 you," he said. 
 
 "Dear child! perhaps it is a little bit your duty to 
 do so, for you inherit my nature. But, Calyste, do not 
 be unwise, imprudent ; try to love only noble women, 
 if love you must." 
 
142 Beatrix. 
 
 IX. 
 
 A FIRST MEETING. 
 
 What young man full of abounding but restrained 
 life and emotion would not have had the glorious idea 
 of going to Croisic to see Madame de Rochefide land, 
 and examine her incognito? Calyste greatly surprised 
 his father and mother by going off in the morning 
 without waiting for the mid-day breakfast. Heaven 
 knows with what agility the young Breton's feet sped 
 along. Some unknown vigor seemed lent to him ; he 
 walked on air, gliding along by the walls of Les 
 Touches that he might not be seen from the house. 
 The adorable boy was ashamed of his ardor, and afraid 
 of being laughed at ; Felicite and Vignon were so per- 
 spicacious ! besides, in such cases young fellows fancy 
 that their foreheads are transparent. 
 
 He reached the shore, strengthened by a stone em- 
 bankment, at the foot of which is a house where 
 travellers can take shelter in storms of wind or rain. 
 It is not always possible to cross the little arm of the 
 sea which separates the landing-place of Guerande 
 from Croisic ; the weather may be bad, or the boats not 
 ready ; and during this time of waiting, it is necessary 
 to put not only the passengers but their horses, 
 donkeys,, baggage, and merchandise under cover. 
 
 Calyste presently saw two boats coming over from 
 
Beatrix, 143 
 
 Croisic, laden with baggage, — trunks, packages, bags, 
 and chests, — the shape and appearance of which proved 
 to a native of these parts that such extraordinary articles 
 must belong to travellers of distinction. In one of the 
 boats was a young woman in a straw bonnet with a 
 green veil, accompanied by a man. This boat was the 
 first to arrive. Calyste trembled until on closer view 
 he saw they were a maid and a man-servant. 
 
 *' Are you going over to Croisic, Monsieur Calyste? " 
 said one of the boatmen ; to whom he replied with a 
 shake of the head, annoyed at being called by his name. 
 
 He was captivated by the sight of a chest covered 
 with tarred cloth on which were painted the words, 
 Mme. la Marquise de Rochefide. The name shone 
 before him like a talisman ; he fancied there was some- 
 thing fateful in it. He knew in some mysterious way, 
 which he could not doubt, that he should love that 
 woman. Why? In the burning desert of his new and 
 infinite desires, still vague and without an object, his 
 fancy fastened with all its strength on the first woman 
 that presented herself. Beatrix necessarily inherited 
 the love which Camille had rejected. 
 
 Calyste watched the landing of the luggage, casting 
 from time to time a glance at Croisic, from which he 
 hoped to see another boat put out to cross to the little 
 promontory, and show him Beatrix, already to his 
 thoughts what lieatrice was to Dante, a marble statue 
 on which to hang his garlands and his flowers. He 
 stood with arms folded, lost in meditation. Here is a 
 fact worthy of remark, which, nevertheless, has never 
 been remarked : we often subject ourselves to senti- 
 ments by our own volition, — deliberately bind our- 
 
144 Beatrix, 
 
 selves, and create our own fate; chance has not as 
 much to do with it as we believe. 
 
 " 1 don't see any horses," said the maid sitting on a 
 trunk. 
 
 '•'- And I don't see any road," said the footman. 
 
 ■ ''Horses have been here, though," replied the 
 woman, pointing to the proofs of their presence. 
 "Monsieur," she said, addressing Calyste, ''is this 
 really the way to Guerande ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " are you expecting some one to 
 meet you ? " 
 
 " We were told that they would fetch us from Les 
 Touches. If the}^ don't come," she added to the foot- 
 man, " I don't know how Madame la marquise will 
 manage to dress for dinner. You had better go and 
 find Mademoiselle des Touches. Oh ! what a land of 
 savages ! " 
 
 Calyste had a vague idea of having blundered. 
 
 "Is your mistress going to Les Touches?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 * ' She is there ; Mademoiselle came for her this 
 morning at seven o'clock. Ah! here come the 
 horses." 
 
 Calyste started toward Guerande with the lightness 
 and agility of a chamois, doubling like a hare that he 
 might not return upon his tracks or meet any of the 
 servants of Les Touches. He did, however, meet two 
 of them on the narrow causeway of the marsh along 
 which he went. 
 
 " Shall I go in, or shall I not? " he thought when 
 the pines of Les Touches came in sight. He was 
 afraid ; and continued his way rather sulkily to 
 
Beatrix, 145 
 
 Guerande, where he finished his excursion on the mall 
 and continued his reflections. 
 
 '' She has no idea of my agitation," he said to himself. 
 
 His capricious thoughts were so many grapnels 
 which fastened his heart to the marquise. He had 
 known none of these mysterious terrors and joys in his 
 intercourse with Camille. Such vague emotions rise 
 like poems in the untutored soul. Warmed by the first 
 fires of imagination, souls like his have been known to 
 pass through all phases of preparation and to reach in 
 silence and solitude the very heights of love, without 
 having met the object of so many efforts. 
 
 Presently Calyste saw, coming toward him, the 
 Chevalier du Halga and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, 
 who were walking together on the mall. He heard 
 them say his name, and he slipped aside out of sight, 
 but not out of hearing. The chevalier and the old 
 maid, believing themselves alone, were talking aloud. 
 
 "If Charlotte de Kergarouet comes," said the 
 chevalier, '' keep her four or five months. How can 
 you expect her to coquette with Calyste? She is never 
 here long enough to undertake it. Whereas, if they 
 see each other every day, those two children will fall 
 in love, and you can marry them next winter. If you 
 say two words about it to Charlotte she'll say four to 
 Calyste, and a girl of sixteen can certainly carry off 
 the prize from a woman of forty." 
 
 Here the old people turned to retrace their steps and 
 Calyste heard no more. But remembering what his 
 mother had told him, he saw Mademoiselle de Pen- 
 Hoel's intention, and, in the mood in which he then was, 
 nothing could have been more fatal. The mere idea of a 
 
 10 
 
146 Beatrix. 
 
 girl thus imposed upon him sent him with greater ardor 
 into his imaginary love. He had never had a fancy 
 for Charlotte de Kergarouet, and he now felt repug- 
 nance at the very thought of her. Calyste was quite 
 unaffected by questions of fortune ; from infancy he 
 had accustomed his life to the poverty and the restricted 
 means of his father's house. A young man brought up 
 as he had been, and now partially emancipated, was 
 likely to consider sentiments only, and all his senti- 
 ments, all his thought now belonged to the marquise. 
 In presence of the portrait which Camille had drawn 
 for him of her friend, what was that little Charlotte ? 
 the companion of his childhood, whom he thought of as 
 a sister. 
 
 He did not go home till five in the afternoon. As he 
 entered the hall his mother gave him, with a rather sad 
 smile, the following letter from Mademoiselle des 
 Touches : — 
 
 My dear Calyste, — The beautiful marquise has 
 come ; we count on you to help us celebrate her 
 arrival. Claude, always sarcastic, declares that you 
 will play Bice and that she will be Dante. It is for our 
 honor as Bretons, and yours as a du Guenic to wel- 
 come a Casteran. Come soon. 
 
 Your friend, Camille Maupin. 
 
 Come as you are, without ceremony ; otherwise you 
 will put us to the blush. 
 
 Calyste gave the letter to his mother and departed. 
 "Who are the Casterans? " said Fanny to the baron. 
 '' An old Norman family, allied to William the Con- 
 
Beatrix. 147 
 
 (]ueror," he replied. *' They hear on a shield tiered 
 fessed azure, gules and sable, a horse rearing argent, 
 shod with gold. That beautiful creature for whom the 
 Gars was killed at Fougeres in 1800 was the daughter 
 of a Casteran who made herself a nun, and became an 
 abbess after tiie Due de Verneuil deserted her." 
 
 ''And the Rochefides?" 
 
 ''I don't know that name. I should have to see 
 their blazon," he replied. 
 
 The baroness was somewhat reassured on hearing 
 that the Marquise de Rochefide was born of a noble 
 family, but she felt that her son was now exposed to 
 new seductions. 
 
 Calyste as he walked along felt all sorts of violent 
 and yet soft inward movements ; his throat was tight, 
 his heart swelled, his brain was full, a fever possessed 
 him. He tried to walk slowly, but some superior 
 power hurried him. This impetuosity of the several 
 senses excited by vague expectation is known to all 
 young men. A subtile fire flames within their breasts 
 and darts outwardly about them, like the rays of a 
 nimbus around the heads of divine personages in works 
 of religious art ; through it they see all Nature glorious, 
 and woman radiant. Are they not then like those 
 haloed saints, full of faith, hope, ardor, purity? 
 
 The young Breton found the company assembled in 
 the little salon of Camille's suite of rooms. It was 
 then about six o'clock ; the sun, in setting, cast through 
 the windows its ruddy light chequered by the trees ; the 
 air was still ; twilight, beloved of women, was spread- 
 ing through the room. 
 
 " Here comes the future deputy of Brittany," said 
 
148 Beatrix, 
 
 Camille Maupin, smiling, as Calyste raised the tapestry 
 portiere, — '' punctual as a king." 
 
 "You recognized his step just now," said Claude to 
 Felicite in a low voice. 
 
 Calyste bowed low to the marquise, who returned the 
 salutation with an inclination of her head ; he did not 
 look at her; but he took the hand Claude Vignon held 
 out to him and pressed it. 
 
 "This is the celebrated man of whom we have 
 talked so much, Gennaro Conti," said Camille, not re- 
 plying to Claude Vignon's remark. 
 
 She presented to Calyste a man of medium height, 
 thin and slender, with chestnut hair, eyes that were al- 
 most red, and a white skin, freckled here and there, 
 whose head was so precisely the well-known head of 
 Lord Byron (though rather better carried on his 
 shoulders) that description is superfluous. Conti was 
 rather proud of this resemblance. 
 
 "lam fortunate," he said, "to meet Monsieur du 
 Guenic during the one day that I spend at Les 
 Touches." 
 
 " It was for me to say that to you," replied Calyste, 
 with a certain ease. 
 
 " He is handsome as an angel," said the marquise in 
 an under tone to Felicite. 
 
 Standing between the sofa and the two ladies, 
 Calyste heard the words confusedly. He seated him- 
 self in an arm-chair and looked furtively toward the 
 marquise. In the soft half-light he saw, reclining on a 
 divan, as if a sculptor had placed it there, a white and 
 serpentine shape which thrilled him. Without being 
 aware of it, Felicite had done her friend a service; 
 
Biatrix, 149 
 
 the marquise was much superior to the unflattered 
 portrait Camille had drawn of her the night before. 
 Was it to do honor to the guest that Beatrix had wound 
 into her hair those tufts of blue-bells that gave value to 
 the pale tints of her creped curls, so arranged as to 
 fall around her face and play upon the cheeks? The 
 circle of her eyes, which showed fatigue, was of the 
 purest mother-of-pearl, her skin was as dazzling as 
 the eyes, and beneath its whiteness, delicate as the 
 satiny lining of an egg, life abounded in the beautiful 
 blue veins. The delicacy of the features was extreme ; 
 the forehead seemed diaphanous. The head, so sweet 
 and fragrant, admirably joined to a long neck of ex- 
 quisite moulding, lent itself to many and most diverse 
 expressions. The waist, which could be spanned by 
 the hands, had a charming willowy ease ; the bare 
 shoulders sparkled in the twilight like a white camellia. 
 The throat, visible to the eye though covered with a 
 transparent fichu, allowed the graceful outlines of the 
 bosom to be seen with charming roguishness. A gown 
 of white muslin, strewn with blue flowers, made with 
 very large sleeves, a pointed body and no belt, shoes 
 with strings crossed on the instep over Scotch thread 
 stockings, showed a charming knowledge of the art of 
 dress. Ear-rings of silver filagree, miracles of Genoese 
 jewelry, destined no doubt to become the fashion, were 
 in perfect harmony with the delightful flow of the soft 
 curls starred with blue-bells. 
 
 Calyste's eager eye took in these beauties at a 
 glance, and carved them on his soul. The fair 
 Beatrix and the dark Felicitd might have sat for those 
 contrasting portraits in ^'keepsakes" which English 
 
150 Beatrix, 
 
 designers and engravers seek so persistently. Here 
 were the force and the feebleness of womanhood in 
 full development, a perfect antithesis. These two 
 women could never be rivals; each had her own 
 empire. Here was the delicate campanula, or the lily, 
 beside the scarlet poppy; a turquoise near a ruby. 
 In a moment, as it were, — at first sight, as the saying 
 is, — Calyste was seized with a love which crowned the 
 secret work of his hopes, his fears, his uncertainties. 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had awakened his nature; 
 Beatrix inflamed both his heart and thoughts. The 
 young Breton suddenly felt within him a power to 
 conquer all things, and yield to nothing that stood in 
 his way. He looked at Conti with an envious, 
 gloomy, savage rivalry he had never felt for Claude 
 Vignon. He employed all his strength to control 
 himself; but the inward tempest went down as soon 
 as the eyes of Beatrix turned to him, and her soft 
 voice sounded in his ear. Dinner was announced. 
 
 "Calyste, give your arm to the marquise," said 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, taking Conti with her 
 right hand, and Claude Vignon with her left, and 
 drawing back to let the marquise pass. 
 
 The descent of that ancient staircase was to Calyste 
 like the moment of going into battle for the first time. 
 His heart failed him, he had nothing to say; a slight 
 sweat pearled upon his forehead and wet his back; 
 his arm trembled so much that as they reached the 
 lowest step the marquise said to him: "Is anything 
 the matter?" 
 
 "Oh! " he replied, in a muffled tone, "I have never 
 seen any woman so beautiful as you, except my 
 mother, and I am not master of my emotions." 
 
Beatrix, 151 
 
 **But you have Camille Maupin before your eyes." 
 
 "Ah! what a difference!" said Calyste, ingenu- 
 ously. 
 
 "Calyste," whispered Felicite, who was just behind 
 him, "did I not tell you that you would forget me as 
 if I had never existed? Sit there," she said aloud, 
 "beside the marquise, on her right, and you, Claude, 
 on her left. As for you, Gennaro, I retain you by me; 
 we will keep a mutual eye on their coquetries." 
 
 The peculiar accent which Camille gave to the last 
 word struck Claude Vignon's ear, and he cast that sly 
 but half-abstracted look upon Camille which always 
 denoted in him the closest obseiTation. He never 
 ceased to examine Mademoiselle des Touches through- 
 out the dinner. 
 
 ^'Coquetries! " replied the marquise, taking off her 
 gloves, and showing her beautiful hands ; " the oppor- 
 tunity is good, with a poet," and she motioned to 
 Claude, "on one side, and poesy the other." 
 
 At these words Conti turned and gave Calyste a look 
 that was full of flattery. 
 
 By artificial light, Beatrix seemed more beautiful 
 than before. The white gleam of the candles laid a 
 satiny lustre on her forehead, lighted the spangles of 
 her eyes, and ran through her swaying curls, touching 
 them here and there into gold. She threw back the 
 thin gauze scarf she was wearing and disclosed her 
 neck. Calyste then saw its beautiful nape, white as 
 milk, and hollowed near the head, until its lines were 
 lost toward the shoulders with soft and flowing sym- 
 metry. This neck, so dissimilar to that of Camille, 
 was the sign of a totally different character in Beatrix. 
 
1 52 Beatrix. 
 
 Calyste found much trouble in pretending to eat; 
 nervous motions within him deprived him of appetite. 
 Like other young men, his nature was in the throes 
 and convulsions which precede love, and carve it 
 indelibly on the soul. At his age, the ardor of the 
 heart, restrained by moral ardor, leads to an inward 
 conflict, which explains the long and respectful hesi- 
 tations, the tender debatings, the absence of all calcu- 
 lation, characteristic of young men whose hearts and 
 lives are pure. Studying, though furtively, so as 
 not to attract the notice of Conti, the various details 
 which made the marquise so purely beautiful, Calyste 
 became, before long, oppressed by a sense of her 
 majesty; he felt himself dwarfed by the hauteur of 
 certain of her glances, by the imposing expression of 
 a face that was wholly aristocratic, by a sort of pride 
 which women know how to express in slight motions, 
 turns of the head, and slow gestures, effects less plastic 
 and less studied than we think. The false situation in 
 which Beatrix had placed herself compelled her to 
 watch her own behavior, and to keep herself imposing 
 without being ridiculously so. Women of the great 
 world know how to succeed in this, which proves a 
 fatal reef to vulgar women. 
 
 The expression of Felicite's eyes made Beatrix 
 aware of the inward adoration she inspired in the 
 youth beside her, and also that it would be most 
 unworthy on her part to encourage it. She therefore 
 took occasion now and then to give him a few repres- 
 sive glances, which fell upon his heart like an avalanche 
 of snow. The unfortunate young fellow turned on 
 Felicite a look in which she could read the tears he was 
 
Beatrix, 153 
 
 suppressing by superhuman efforts. She asked him in 
 a friendly tone why he was eating nothing. The ques- 
 tion piqued him, and he began to force himself to eat 
 and to take part in the conversation. 
 
 But whatever he did, Madame de Rochefide paid 
 little attention to him. Mademoiselle des Touches 
 having started the topic of her journey to Italy she re- 
 lated, very wittily, many of its incidents, which made 
 Claude Vignon, Conti, and Felicite laugh. 
 
 " Ah ! " thought Calyste, ** how far such a woman is 
 from me ! Will she ever deign to notice me?" 
 
 MademoiBcUe des Touches was struck with the ex- 
 pression she now saw on Calyste's face, and tried to con- 
 sole him with a look of sympathy. Claude Vignon 
 intercepted that look. From that moment the great 
 critic expanded into gayety that overflowed in sarcasm. 
 He maintained to Beatrix that love existed only by 
 desire ; that most women deceived themselves in loving ; 
 that they loved for reasons often unknown to men and 
 to themselves ; that they wanted to deceive themselves, 
 and that the best among them were artful. 
 
 " Keep to books, and don't criticise our lives," said 
 Camille, glancing at him imperiously. 
 
 The dinner ceased to be gay. Claude Vignon's sar- 
 casm had made the two women pensive. Calyste was 
 conscious of pain in the midst of the happiness he 
 found in looking at Beatrix. Conti looked into the 
 eyes of the marquise to guess her thoughts. When 
 dinner was over Mademoiselle des Touches took 
 t^alyste's arm, gave the other two men to the mar- 
 quise, and let them pass before her, that she might 
 be alone with the young Breton for a moment. 
 
154 Beatrix. 
 
 " My dear Calyste," she said, '' you are acting in a 
 manner that embarrasses the marquise ; she may be 
 delighted with your admiration, but she cannot accept 
 it. Pray control yourself." 
 
 " She was hard to me, she will never care for me," 
 said Calyste, " and if she does not I shall die." 
 
 ''Die! you! My dear Calyste, you are a child. 
 Would you have died for me ? " 
 
 "You have made yourself my friend," he answered. 
 
 After the talk that follows coffee, Vignon asked 
 Conti to sing something. Mademoiselle des Touches 
 sat^down to the piano. Together she and Gennaro 
 sang the Dunque il mio bene tu mia sarai, the last duet 
 of Zingarelli's " Romeo e Giulietta," one of the most 
 pathetic pages of modern music. The passage Di tantl 
 palpiti expresses love in all its grandeur. Calyste, 
 sitting in the same arm-chair in which Felicite had 
 told him the history of the marquise, listened in rapt 
 devotion. Beatrix and Vignon were on either side of the 
 piano. Conti's sublime voice knew well how to blend 
 with that of Felicite. Both had often sung this piece ; 
 they knew its resources, and they put their whole mar- 
 vellous gift into bringing them out. The music was 
 at this moment what its creator intended, a poem of 
 divine melancholy, the farewell of two swans to life. 
 When it was over, all present were under the influence 
 of feelings such as cannot express themselves by vulgar 
 applause. 
 
 "Ah! music is the first of arts!" exclaimed the 
 marquise. 
 
 " Camille thinks youth and beauty the first of 
 poesies," said Claude Vignon. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Claude with 
 
Beatrix. 155 
 
 vague uneasiness. Beatrix, not seeing Calyste, turned 
 her head as if to know what effect the music had pro- 
 duced upon him, less by way of interest in him 
 than for the gratification of Conti ; she saw a white 
 face bathed in tears. At the sight, and as if some 
 sudden pain had seized her, she turned back quickly 
 and looked at Gennaro. Not only had Music arisen 
 before the eyes of Calyste, touching him with her 
 divine wand until he stood in presence of Creation 
 from which she rent the veil, but he was dumfounded 
 by Conti's genius. In spite of what Camille had told 
 him of the musician's character, he now believed in the 
 beauty of the soul, in the heart that expressed such 
 love. How could he, Calyste, rival such an artist? 
 What woman would ever cease to adore such genius ? 
 That voice entered the soul like another soul. The 
 poor lad was overwhelmed by its poesy, and his own 
 despair. He felt himself of no account. This ingen- 
 uous admission of his nothingness could be read upon 
 his face mingled with his admiration. He did not 
 observe the gesture with which Beatrix, attracted to 
 Calyste by the contagion of a true feeling, called 
 Felicite's attention to him. 
 
 " Oh ! the adorable heart ! " cried Camille. " Conti, 
 you will never obtain applause of one-half the value of 
 that child's homage. Let us sing this trio. Beatrix, 
 my dear, come." 
 
 When the marquise, Camille, and Conti had arranged 
 themselves at the piano, Calyste rose softly, without at- 
 tracting their attention, and flung himself on one of the 
 sofas in the bedroom, the door of which stood open, where 
 he sat with liis lieiid in his IkiiuIb, plunged in meditation. 
 
156 Beatrix, 
 
 DRAMA. 
 
 "What is it, my child?" said Claude Vignon, who 
 had slipped silently into the bedroom after Calyste, 
 and now took him by the hand. *' You love ; you think 
 you are disdained ; but it is not so. The field will be 
 free to you in a few days and you will reign — beloved 
 by more than one." 
 
 '•'• Loved ! " cried Calyste, springing up, and beckon- 
 ing Claude into the library, '' Who loves me here? " 
 
 " Camille," replied Claude. 
 
 '^ Camille loves me ? And you ! — what of you ? " 
 
 •'I ? " answered Claude, ''I — " He stopped ; sat 
 down on a sofa and rested his head with weary sadness 
 on a cushion. " I am tired of life, but I have not the 
 courage to quit it," he went on, after a short silence. 
 '' I wish I were mistaken in what I have just told you ; 
 but for the last few days more than one vivid light has 
 come into my mind. I did not wander about the 
 marshes for my pleasure ; no, upon my soul I did not ! 
 The bitterness of my words when I returned and found 
 you with Camille were the result of wounded feeling. 
 I intend to have an explanation with her soon. Two 
 minds as clear-sighted as hers and mine cannot deceive 
 each other. Between two such professional duellists 
 the combat cannot last long. Therefore I may as well 
 
Beatrix, 157 
 
 tell you now that I shall leave Les Touches ; yes, to- 
 morrow perhaps, with Conti. After we are gone 
 strange things will happen here. I shall regret not 
 witnessing conflicts of passion of a kind so rare in 
 France, and so dramatic. You are very young to 
 enter such dangerous lists ; you interest me ; were it 
 not for the profound disgust I feel for women, I would 
 stay and help you play this game. It is difficult ; you 
 may lose it ; you have to do with two extraordinary 
 women, and you feel too much for one to use the other 
 judiciously. Beatrix is dogged by nature ; Camille has 
 grandeur. Probably you will be wrecked between 
 those reefs, drawn upon them by the waves of passion. 
 Beware ! *' 
 
 Calyste's stupefaction on hearing these words en- 
 abled Claude to say them without interruption and 
 leave the young Breton, who remained like a traveller 
 among the Alps to whom a guide has shown the depth 
 of some abyss by flinging a stone into it. To hear 
 from the lips of Claude himself that Camille loved him, 
 at the very moment when he felt that he loved Beatrix 
 for life, was a weight too heavy for his untried 
 soul to bear. Goaded by an immense regret which 
 now filled all the past, overwhelmed with a sight of his 
 position between Beatrix whom he loved and Camille 
 whom he had ceased to love, the poor boy sat despair- 
 ing and undecided, lost in thought. He sought in 
 vain for the reasons which had made F^licite reject his 
 love and bring Claude Vignon from Paris to oppose it. 
 Every now and then the voice of Beatrix came fresh 
 and pure to his ears from the little salon ; a savage 
 desire to rush in and carry her off seized him at such 
 
158 Beatrix, 
 
 moments. What would become of him ? What must he 
 do? Could he come to Les Touches? If Camille loved 
 him how could he come there to adore Beatrix? He 
 saw no solution to these difficulties. 
 
 Insensibly to him silence now reigned in the house ; 
 he heard, but without noticing, the opening and shut- 
 ting of doors. Then suddenly midnight sounded on 
 the clock of the adjoining bedroom, and the voices of 
 Claude and Camille roused him fully from his torpid 
 contemplation of the future. Before he could rise and 
 show himself, he heard the following terrible words in 
 the voice of Claude Vignon. 
 
 ' * You came to Paris last year desperately in love 
 with Calyste," Claude was saying to Felicite, "but you 
 were horrified at the thought of the consequences of 
 such a passion at your age ; it would lead you to a 
 gulf, to hell, to suicide perhaps. Love cannot exist 
 unless it thinks itself eternal, and you saw not far 
 before you a horrible parting ; old age you knew 
 would end the glorious poem soon. You thought of 
 "Adolphe," that dreadful finale of the loves of 
 Madame de Stael and Benjamin Constant, who, how- 
 ever, were nearer of an age than you and Calyste. 
 Then you took me, as soldiers use fascines to build 
 entrenchments between the enemy and themselves. 
 You brought me to Les Touches to mask your real feel- 
 ings and leave you safe to follow your own secret adora- 
 tion. The scheme was grand and ignoble both ; but 
 to carry it out you should have chosen either a common 
 man or one so preoccupied by noble thoughts that you 
 could easily deceive him. You thought me simple and 
 easy to mislead as a man of genius. I am not a man 
 
Beatrix, 159 
 
 of genius, I am a man of talent, and as such I have 
 divined you. When I made that eulogy yesterday on 
 women of your age, explaining to you why Calyste 
 had ioved you, do you suppose I took to myself your 
 ravished, fascinated, dazzling glance? Had I not 
 read into your soul? The eyes were turned on me, 
 but the heart was throbbing for Calyste. You have 
 never been loved, my poor Maupin, and you never 
 will be after rejecting the beautiful fruit which chance 
 has offered to you at the portals of that hell of woman, 
 the lock of which is the numeral 50 ! " 
 
 '* Why has love fled me? " she said in a low voice. 
 '' Tell me, you who know all." 
 
 '' Because you are not lovable," he answered. 
 '' You do not bend to love ; love must bend to you. 
 You may perhaps have yielded to some follies of 
 youth, but there was no youth in your heart; your 
 mind has too much depth ; you have never been naive 
 and artless, and you cannot begin to be so now. Your 
 charm comes from mystery ; it is abstract, not active. 
 Your strength repulses men of strength who fear a 
 struggle. Your power may please young souls, like 
 that of Calyste, which like to be protected ; though, 
 even them it wearies in the long run. You are grand, 
 and you are sublime ; bear with the consequence of 
 those two qualities — they fatigue." 
 
 '' What a sentence ! " cried Camille. *' Am I not a 
 woman? Do you think me an anomaly? " 
 
 ** Possibly," said Claude. 
 
 "We will see!" said the woman, stung to the 
 quick. 
 
 "Farewell, my dear Camille; I leave to-morrow. 
 
160 Beatrix. 
 
 I am not angry with you, my dear; I think you the 
 greatest of women, but if I continued to serve you as 
 a screen, or a shield," said Claude, with two signifi- 
 cant inflections of his voice, ''you would despise me. 
 We can part now without pain or remorse ; we have 
 neither happiness to regret nor hopes betrayed. To 
 you, as with some few but rare men of genius, love 
 is not what Nature made it, — an imperious need, to 
 the satisfaction of which she attaches great and 
 passing joys, which die. You see love such as Chris- 
 tianity has created it, — an ideal kingdom, full of noble 
 sentiments, of grand weaknesses, poesies, spiritual 
 sensations, devotions of moral fragrance, entrancing 
 harmonies, placed high above all vulgar coarseness, 
 to which two creatures as one angel fly on the wings 
 of pleasure. This is what I hoped to share; I 
 thought I held in you a key to that door, closed to 
 so many, by which we may advance toward the 
 infinite. You were there already. In this you have 
 misled me. I return to my misery, — to my vast 
 prison of Paris. Such a deception as this, had it 
 come to me earlier in life, would have made me flee 
 from existence; to-day it puts into my soul a disen- 
 chantment which will plunge me forever into an awful 
 solitude. I am without the faith which helped the 
 Fathers to people theirs with sacred images. It is 
 to this, my dear Camille, to this that the superiority 
 of our mind has brought us; we may, both of us, 
 sing that dreadful hymn which a poet has put into the 
 mouth of Moses speaking to the Almighty : ' Lord 
 God, Thou hast made me powerful and solitary. ' " 
 At this moment Calyste appeared. 
 
Beatrix, 161 
 
 "I ought not to leave you ignorant that I am here," 
 he said. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches showed the utmost fear; 
 a sudden flush colored her impassible face with tints 
 of fire. During this strange scene she was more 
 beautiful than at any other moment of her life. 
 
 *'We thought you gone, Calyste," said Claude. 
 *'But this involuntary indiscretion on both sides will 
 do no harm; perhaps, indeed, you may be more at 
 your ease at Les Touches by knowing Felicite as she 
 is. Her silence shows me I am not mistaken as to 
 the part she meant me to play. As I told you before, 
 she loves you, but it is for yourself, not for herself, — 
 a sentiment that few women are able to conceive and 
 practise; few among them know the voluptuous pleas- 
 ure of sufferings born of longing, — that is one of the 
 magnificent passions reserved for man. But she is in 
 some sense a man," he added, sardonically. "Your 
 love for Beatrix will make her suffer and make her 
 happy too." 
 
 Tears were in the eyes of Mademoiselle des Touches, 
 who was unable to look either at the terrible Vignon 
 or the ingenuous Calyste. She was frightened at 
 being understood; she had supposed it impossible for 
 a man, however keen his perception, to perceive a 
 delicacy so self-immolating, a heroism so lofty as 
 her own. Her evident humiliation at this unveilinp: 
 of her grandeur made Calyste share the emotion of 
 the woman he had held so high, and now beheld so 
 stricken down. He threw himself, from an irresistible 
 impulse, at her feet, and kissed her hands, laying 
 liis face, covered with tears, upon them. > 
 
 11 
 
162 Beatrix. 
 
 ''Claude," she said, "do not abandon me, or what 
 will become of me? " 
 
 "What have you to fear?" replied the critic. 
 "Calyste has fallen in love at first sight with the 
 marquise; you cannot find a better barrier between 
 you than that. This passion of his is worth more to 
 you than I. Yesterday there might have been some 
 danger for you and for him; to-day you can take a 
 maternal interest in him," he said, with a mocking 
 smile, "and be proud of his triumphs." 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches looked at Calyste, who 
 had raised his head abruptly at these words. Claude 
 Vignon enjoyed, for his sole vengeance, the sight of 
 their confusion. 
 
 "You yourself have driven him to Madame de 
 Rochefide," continued Claude, "and he is now under 
 the spell. You have dug your own grave. Had you 
 confided in me, you would have escaped the sufferings 
 that await you." 
 
 "Sufferings!" cried Camille Maupin, taking Ca- 
 lyste' s head in her hands, and kissing his hair, on 
 which her tears fell plentifully. "No, Calyste; forget 
 what you have heard; I count for nothing in all this." 
 
 She rose and stood erect before the two men, subdu- 
 ing both with the lightning of her eyes, from which 
 her soul shone out. 
 
 "While Claude was speaking," she said, "I con- 
 ceived the beauty and the grandeur of love without 
 hope; it is the sentiment that brings us,nearest God. 
 Do not love me, Calyste; but I will love you as no 
 woman will ! " 
 
 It was the cry of a wounded eagle seeking its eyry. 
 
Beatrix. 163 
 
 Claude himself knelt down, took Camille's hand, and 
 kissed it. 
 
 *' Leave us now, Calyste," she said; *'it is late, and 
 your mother will be uneasy." 
 
 Calyste returned to Guerande with lagging steps, 
 turning again and again, to see the light from the 
 windows of the room in which was Beatrix. He was 
 surprised himself to find how little pity he felt for 
 Camille. But presently he felt once more the agita- 
 tions of that scene, the tears she had left upon his hair; 
 he suffered with her suffering ; he fancied he heard the 
 moans of that noble woman, so beloved, so desired 
 but a few short days before. 
 
 When he opened the door of his paternal home, where 
 total silence reigned, he saw his mother through the 
 window, as she sat sewing by the light of the curiously 
 constructed lamp while she awaited him. Tears 
 moistened the lad*s eyes as he looked at her. 
 
 *'What has happened?" cried Fanny, seeing his 
 emotion, which filled her with horrible anxiety. 
 
 For all answer, Calyste took his mother in his arms, 
 and kissed her on her cheeks, her forehead and hair, 
 with one of those passionate effusions of feeling that 
 comfort mothers, and fill them with the subtle "flames 
 of the life they have given. 
 
 *'It is you I love, you! " cried Calyste, — *'you, who 
 live for me; you, whom I long to render happy! '' 
 
 "But you are not yourself, my child," said the 
 baroness, looking at him attentively. *'What has 
 happened to you?" 
 
 ''Camilla loves me, but I love her no longer," he 
 answered. 
 
164 Beatrix. 
 
 The next day, Calyste told Gasselin to watch the 
 road to Saint-Nazaire, and let him know if the car- 
 riage of Mademoiselle des Touches passed over it. 
 Gasselin brought word that the carriage had passed. 
 
 "How many persons were in it?" asked Calyste. 
 
 ''Four, — two ladies and two gentlemen." 
 
 "Then saddle my horse and my father's." 
 
 Gasselin departed. 
 
 ''Why, nephew, what mischief is in you now? " said 
 his Aunt Zephirine. 
 
 "Let the boy amuse himself, sister," cried the 
 baron. "Yesterday he was dull as an owl; to-day he 
 is gay as a lark." 
 
 " Did you tell him that our dear Charlotte was to 
 arrive to-day ? " said Zephirine, turning to her sis- 
 ter-in-law. 
 
 "No," replied the baroness. 
 
 "I thought xDcrhaps he was going to meet her," said 
 Mademoiselle du Guenic, slyly. 
 
 "If Charlotte is to stay three months with her aunt, 
 he will have plenty of opportunities to see her," said 
 his mother. 
 
 "Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel wants me to marry 
 Charlotte, to save me from perdition," said Calyste, 
 laughing. "I was on the mall when she and the 
 Chevalier du Halga were talking about it. She can't 
 see that it would be greater perdition for me to marry 
 at my age — " 
 
 "It is written above," said the old maid, interrupt- 
 ing Calyste, "that I shall not die tranquil or happy. 
 I wanted to see our family continued, and some, at 
 least, of the estates bought back ; but it is not to be. 
 
Beatrix, 1 65 
 
 Whnt can you, my fine nephew, put in the scale 
 against such duties? Is it that actress at Les 
 Touches?'* 
 
 ''What?" said the baron; "how can Mademoiselle 
 des Touches hinder Calyste's marriage, when it be- 
 comes necessary for us to make it? I shall go and 
 see her." 
 
 ''I assure you, father," said Calyste, ''that Felicite 
 will never be an obstacle to my marriage." 
 
 Gasselin appeared with the horses. 
 
 "Where are you going, chevalier?" said his father. 
 
 "To Saint-Nazaire." 
 
 "Ha, ha! and when is the marriage to be?" said 
 the baron, believing that Calyste was really in a hurry 
 to see Charlotte de Kergarouet. "It is high time I 
 was a grandfather. Spare the horses," he continued, 
 as he went on the portico with Fanny to see Calyste 
 mount; "remember that they have more than thirty 
 miles to go." 
 
 Calyste started with a tender farewell to his 
 mother. 
 
 "Dear treasure!" she said, as she saw him lower 
 his head to ride through the gateway. 
 
 "God keep him!" replied the baron; "for we 
 cannot replace him." 
 
 The words made the baroness shudder. 
 • "My nephew does not love Charlotte enough to ride 
 to Saint-Nazaire after her," said the old blind woman 
 to Mariotte, who was clearing the breakfast-table. 
 
 "No; but a fine lady, a marquise, has come to Les 
 Touches, and I '11 warrant he *8 after her; that 's the 
 way at his age," said Mariotte. 
 
166 Beatrix, 
 
 "They '11 kill him," said Mademoiselle du Guenic. 
 
 "That won't kill him, mademoiselle; quite the 
 contrary," replied Mariotte, who seemed to be pleased 
 with Calyste's behavior. 
 
 The young fellow started at a great pace, until 
 Gasselin asked him if he was trying to catch the boat, 
 which, of course, was not at all his desire. He had 
 no wish to see either Conti or Claude again ; but he 
 did expect to be invited to drive back with the ladies, 
 leaving Gasselin to lead his horse. He was gay as a 
 bird, thinking to himself, — 
 
 ^'' She has just passed here; her eyes saw those 
 trees ! — What a lovely road ! " he said to Gasselin. 
 
 "Ah! monsieur, Brittany is the most beautiful 
 country in all the world," replied the Breton. "Where 
 could you find such flowers in the hedges, and nice 
 cool roads that wind about like these ? " 
 
 "Nowhere, Gasselin." 
 
 ^' Tiensf here comes the coach from Nazaire," cried 
 Gasselin presently. 
 
 "Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel and her niece will be 
 in it. Let us hide," said Calyste. 
 
 "Hide! are you crazy, monsieur? Why, we are on 
 the moor ! " 
 
 The coach, which was coming up the sandy hill 
 above Saint-Nazaire, was full, and, much to the 
 astonishment of Calyste, there were no signs of 
 Charlotte. 
 
 "We had to leave Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, her 
 sister and niece; they are dreadfully worried; but all 
 my seats were engaged by the custom-house," said the 
 conductor to Gasselin. 
 
Beatrix, 167 
 
 ''I am lost! " thought Calyste; *'they will meet me 
 down there." 
 
 When Calyste reached the little esplanade which 
 surrounds the church of Saint-Nazaire, and from 
 which is seen Paimboeuf and the magnificent Mouthy 
 of the Loire as they struggle with the sea, he found 
 Camille and the marquise waving their handkerchiefs 
 as a last adieu to two passengers on the deck of the 
 departing steamer. Beati-ix was charming as she 
 stood there, her features softened by the shadow of 
 a rice-straw hat, on which were tufts and knots of 
 scarlet ribbon. She wore a muslin gown with a pat- 
 tern of flowers, and was leaning with one well-gloved 
 hand on a slender parasol. Nothing is finer to the 
 eye than a woman poised on a rock like a statue on 
 its pedestal. Conti could see Calyste from the vessel 
 as he approached Camille. 
 
 *'l thought," said the young man, 'Hhat you would 
 probably come back alone." 
 
 '*You have done right, Calyste," she replied, press- 
 ing his hand. 
 
 Beatrix turned round, saw her young lover, and 
 gave him the most imperious look in her repertory. 
 A smile, which the marquise detected on the elo- 
 quent lips of Mademoiselle des Touches, made her 
 aware of the vulgarity of such conduct, worthy 
 only of a bourgeoise. She then said to Calyste, 
 smiling, — 
 
 ''Are you not guilty of a slight impertinence in 
 supposing that I should bore Camille, if left alone 
 with her?" 
 
 *'My dear, one man to two widows is none too 
 
168 Beatrix, 
 
 much," said Mademoiselle des Touches, taking 
 Calyste's arm, and leaving Beatrix to watch the vessel 
 till it disappeared. 
 
 At this moment Calyste heard the approaching 
 voices of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, the Vicomtesse 
 de Kergarouet, Charlotte, and Gasselin, who were all 
 talking at once, like so many magpies. The old maid 
 was questioning Gasselin as to what had brought him 
 and his master to Saint-Nazaire; the carriage of 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had already caught her eye. 
 Before the young Breton could get out of sight, Char- 
 lotte had seen him. 
 
 ''Why, there's Calyste!" she exclaimed eagerly. 
 
 "Go and offer them seats in my carriage," said 
 Camille to Calyste; "the maid can sit with the coach- 
 man. I saw those ladies lose their places in the mail- 
 coach." 
 
 Calyste, who could not help himself, carried the 
 message. As soon as Madame de Kergarouet learned 
 that the offer came from the celebrated Camille 
 Maupin, and that the Marquise de Rochefide was of 
 the party, she was much surprised at the objections 
 raised by her elder sister, who refused positively to 
 profit by what she called the devil's carryall. At 
 Nantes, which boasted of more civilization than 
 Guerande, Camille was read and admired; she was 
 thought to be the muse of Brittany and an honor to 
 the region. The absolution granted to her in Paris 
 by society, by fashion, was there justified by her 
 great fortune and her early successes in Nantes, 
 which claimed the honor of having been, if not her 
 birthplace, at least her cradle. The viscountess, 
 
Beatrix. 169 
 
 therefore, eager to see her, dragged her old sister for- 
 ward, paying no attention to her jeremiads. 
 
 ''Good-morning, Calyste," said Charlotte. 
 
 *'0h! good-morning, Charlotte," replied Calyste, 
 not offering his arm. 
 
 Both were confused ; she by his coldness, he by his 
 cruelty, as they walked up the sort of ravine, which 
 is called in Saint-Nazaire a street, following the two 
 sisters in silence. In a moment the little girl of six- 
 teen saw her castle in Spain, built and furnished with 
 romantic hopes, a heap of ruins. She and Calyste 
 had played together so much in childhood, she was so 
 bound up with him, as it were, that she had quietly 
 supposed her future unassailable; she arrived now, 
 swept along by thoughtless happiness, like a circling 
 bird darting down upon a wheat-field, and lo! she was 
 stopped in her flight, unable to imagine the obstacle. 
 
 ''What is the matter, Calyste?" she said, taking 
 his hand. 
 
 "Nothing," replied the young man,- releasing him- 
 self with cruel haste as he remembered the projects 
 of his aunt and her friend. 
 
 Tears came into Charlotte's eyes. She looked at 
 the handsome Calyste without ill-humor; but a first 
 spasm of jealousy seized her, and she felt the dreadful 
 madness of rivalry when she came in sight of the two 
 Parisian women, and suspected the cause of his 
 coldness- 
 Charlotte de Kergarouet was a girl of ordinary 
 height, and commonplace coloring; she had a little 
 round face, made lively by a pair of black eyes which 
 sparkled with cleverness, abundant brown hair, a 
 
170 Beatrix. 
 
 round waist, a flat back, thin arms, and the curt, 
 decided manner of a provincial girl, who did not want 
 to be taken for a little goose. She was the petted 
 child of the family on account of the preference her 
 aunt showed for her. At this moment she was 
 wrapped in a mantle of Scotch merino in large plaids, 
 lined with green silk, which she had worn on the boat. 
 Her travelling-dress, of some common stuff, chastely 
 made with a chemisette body and a pleated collar, was 
 fated to appear, even to her own eyes, horrible in 
 comparison with the fresh toilets of Beatrix and 
 Camille. She was painfully aware of stockings soiled 
 among the rocks as she jumped from the boat, of 
 shabby leather shoes, chosen for the purpose of not 
 spoiling better ones on the journey, — a fixed principle 
 in the manners and customs of provincials. 
 
 As for the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, she might 
 stand as the type of a provincial woman. Tall, hard, 
 withered, full of pretensions, which did not show 
 themselves until they were mortified, talking much, 
 and catching, by dint of talking (as one cannons at 
 billiards), a few ideas, which gave her the reputation 
 of wit, endeavoring to humiliate Parisians, whenever 
 she met them, with an assumption of country wisdom 
 and patronage, humbling herself to be exalted and 
 furious at being left upon her knees; fishing, as the 
 English say, for compliments, which she never caught; 
 dressed in clothes that were exaggerated in style, and 
 yet ill cared for; mistaking want of good manners for 
 dignity, and trying to embarrass others by paying no 
 attention to them ; refusing what she desired in order 
 to have it offered again, and to seem to yield only to 
 
BUtrix, 171 
 
 entreaty; concerned about matters that others have 
 done with, and surprised at not being in the fashion ; 
 and finally, unable to get through an hour without 
 reference to Nantes, the tigers of Nantes, matters of 
 social life in Nantes, complaints of Nantes, criticism 
 of Nantes, and taking as personalities the remarks 
 she forced out of absent-minded or wearied listeners. 
 
 Her manners, language, and ideas had, more or less, 
 descended to her four daughters. To know Camille 
 Maupin and Madame de Rochefide would be for her a 
 future, and the topic of a hundred conversations. 
 Consequently, she advanced toward the church as if 
 she meant to take it by assault, waving her handker- 
 chief, unfolded for the purpose of displaying the 
 heavy corners of domestic embroidery, and trimmed 
 with flimsy lace. Her gait was tolerably bold and 
 cavalier, which, however, was of no consequence in a 
 woman forty-seven years of age. 
 
 *' Monsieur le chevalier," she said to Camille and 
 Beatrix, pointing to Calyste, who was mournfully 
 following with Charlotte, ''has conveyed to me your 
 friendly proposal, but we fear — my sister, my daugh- 
 ter, and myself — to inconvenience you." 
 
 ''Sister, I shall not put these ladies to inconven- 
 ience," said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, sharply; "I 
 can very well find a horse in Saint-Nazaire to take 
 me home." 
 
 Camille and Beatrix exchanged an oblique glance, 
 which Calyste intercepted, and that glance sufficed to 
 annihilate all the memories of his childhood, all his 
 beliefs in the Kergarouets and Pen-Hoels, and to put 
 an end forever to the projects of the three families. 
 
172 Beatrix. 
 
 •■'We can very well put five in the carriage," replied 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, on whom Jaqueline turned 
 her back, "even if we were inconvenienced, which 
 cannot be the case, with your slender figures. Be- 
 sides, I should enjoy the pleasure of doing a little 
 service to Calyste's friends. Your maid, madame, 
 will find a seat by the coachman, and your luggage, 
 if you have any, can go behind the carriage ; I have 
 no footman with me." 
 
 The viscountess was overwhelming in thanks, and 
 complained that her sister Jacqueline had been in such 
 a hurry to see her niece that she would not give her 
 time to come properly in her own carriage with post- 
 horses, though, to be sure, the post-road was not only 
 longer, but more expensive; she herself was obliged 
 to return almost immediately to Nantes, where she had 
 left three other little kittens, who were anxiously 
 awaiting her. Here she put her arm round Charlotte's 
 neck. Charlotte, in reply, raised her eyes to »her 
 mother with the air of a little victim, which gave an 
 impression to onlookers that the viscountess bored 
 her four daughters prodigiously by dragging them on 
 the scene very much as Corporal Trim produces his 
 cap in "Tristram Shandy." 
 
 ''You are a fortunate mother and — " began 
 Camille, stopping short as she remembered that 
 Beatrix must have parted from her son when she left 
 her husband's house. 
 
 "Oh, yes! " said the viscountess; "if I have the mis- 
 fortune of spending my life in the country, and, above 
 ail, at Nantes, I have at least the consolation of being 
 adored by my children. Have you children?" she 
 said to Camille. 
 
Biatrix, 173 
 
 "I am Mademoiselle des Touches," replied Camille. 
 "Madame i^ the Marquise de Roehefide." 
 
 "Then I must pity you for not knowing the greatest 
 happiness that there is for us poor, simple women — 
 is not that so, madame? " said the viscountess, turning 
 to Beatrix. "But you, mademoiselle, have so many 
 compensations." 
 
 The tears came into Madame de Rochefide*s eyes, 
 iuid she turned away toward the parapet to hide them. 
 Calyste followed her. 
 
 "Madame," said Camille, in a low voice to the 
 viscountess, "are you not aware that the marquise is 
 separated from her husband ? She has not seen her son 
 for two years, and does not know when she will see 
 him." 
 
 "You don't say so! " said Madame de Kergarouet. 
 "Poor lady! is she legally separated?" 
 
 "No, by mutual consent," replied Camille. 
 
 "Ah, well! I understand that," said the viscountess 
 boldly. 
 
 Old Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, furious at being 
 thus dragged into the enemy's camp, had retreated to 
 a short distance with her dear Charlotte. Calyste, 
 after looking about him to make sure that no one 
 could see him, seized the hand of the marquise, kissed 
 it, and left a tear upon it. Beatrix turned round, her 
 tears dried by anger; she was about to utter some 
 terrible word, but it died upon her lips as she saw 
 the grief on the angelic face of the youth, as deeply 
 touched by her present sorrow as she was herself. 
 
 "Good heavens, Calyste!" said Camille in his ear, 
 as he returned with Madame de Roehefide, "are you 
 
174 Beatrix. 
 
 to have that for a mother-in-law, and the little one 
 for a wife ? " 
 
 "Because her aunt is rich," replied Calyste, sarcas- 
 tically. 
 
 The whole party now moved toward the inn, and 
 the viscountess felt herself obliged to make Camille 
 a speech on the savages of Saint-Nazaire. 
 
 ''I love Brittany, madame," replied Camille, 
 gravely. ''I was born at Guerande." 
 
 Calyste could not help admiring Mademoiselle des 
 Touches, who, by the tone of her voice, the tran- 
 quillity of her look, and her quiet manner, put him at 
 his ease, in spite of the terrible declarations of the 
 preceding night. She seemed, however, a little 
 fatigued; her eyes were enlarged by dark circles 
 round them, showing that she had not slept; but 
 the brow dominated the inward storm with cold 
 placidity. 
 
 "What queens!" he said to Charlotte, calling her 
 attentioij to the marquise and Camille as he gave the 
 girl his arm, to Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoers great 
 satisfaction. 
 
 "What an idea your mother has had," said the old 
 maid, taking her niece's other arm, "to put herself in 
 the company of that reprobate woman ! " 
 
 "Oh, aunt, a woman who is the glory of Brittany! '* 
 
 "The shame, my dear. Mind that you don't fawn 
 upon her in that way. " 
 
 "Mademoiselle Charlotte is right," said Calyste; 
 "you are not just." 
 
 "Oh, you!" replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, 
 "she has bewitched you." 
 
Beatrix, 175 
 
 (( 
 
 I regard her," said Calyste, ''with the same 
 friendship that I feel for you." 
 
 ''Since when have the du Guenics taken to telling 
 lies?" asked the old maid. 
 
 "Since the Pen-Hoels have grown deaf," replied 
 Calyste. 
 
 "Are not you in love with her? " demanded the old 
 maid. 
 
 "I have been, but I am so no longer," he said. 
 
 "Bad boy! then why have you given us such anx- 
 iety ? I know very well that love is only foolishness ; 
 there is nothing solid but marriage," she remarked, 
 looking at Charlotte. 
 
 Charlotte, somewhat reassured, hoped to recover" 
 her advantages by recalling the memories of child- 
 hood. She leaned affectionately on Calyste's arm, who 
 resolved in his own mind to have a clear explanation 
 wijth the little heiress. 
 
 "Ah! what fun we shall have at mouche^ Calyste! " 
 she said ; "what good laughs we used to have over it! " 
 
 The horses were now put in ; Camille placed Madame 
 de Kergarouet and Charlotte on the back seat. 
 Jacqueline having disappeared, she herself, with the 
 marquise, sat forward. Calyste was, of course, 
 obliged to relinquish the pleasure on which he had 
 counted, of driving back with Camille and Beatrix, 
 but he rode beside the carriage all the way ; the horses, 
 being tired with the journey, went slowly enough to 
 allow him to keep his eyes on Beatrix. 
 
 History must lose the curious conversation that 
 went on between these four persons whom accident 
 had so strangely united in this carriage, for it is im- 
 
176 Beatrix, 
 
 possible to report the hundred and more versions which 
 went the round of Nantes on the remarks, replies, 
 and witticisms which the viscountess heard from the 
 lips of the celebrated Camille Maupin herself. She 
 was, however, very careful not to repeat, not even to 
 comprehend, the actual replies made by Mademoiselle 
 des Touches to her absurd questions about Camille' s 
 authorship, — a penance to which all authors are sub- 
 jected, and which often make them expiate the few 
 and rare pleasures that they win. 
 
 "How do you write your books? " she began. 
 
 "Much as you do your worsted- work or knitting," 
 replied Camille. 
 
 "But where do you find those deep reflections, 
 those seductive pictures ? " 
 
 "Where you find the witty things you say, madame; 
 there is nothing so easy as to write books, provided 
 you will — " 
 
 "Ah! does it depend wholly on the will? I 
 should n't have thought it. Which of your composi- 
 tions do you prefer ? " 
 
 "I find it difficult to prefer any of my little kittens." 
 
 "I see you are blasee on compliments; there is really 
 nothing new that one can say." 
 
 "I assure you, madame, that I am very sensible to 
 the form which you give to yours." 
 
 The viscountess, anxious not to seem to neglect the 
 marquise, remarked, looking at Beatrix with a 
 meaning air, — 
 
 "I shall never forget this journey made between 
 Wit and Beauty." 
 
 "You flatter me, madame," said the marquise. 
 
Beatrix. 177 
 
 laughing. *'I assure you that my wit is but a smaK 
 matter, not to be mentioned by the side of genius; 
 l>esides, I think I have not said much as yet." 
 
 Charlotte, who keenly felt her mother's absurdity, 
 looked at her, endeavoring to stop its course; but 
 Madame de Kergarouet went bravely on in her tilt 
 with the satirical Parisians. 
 
 Calyste, who was trotting slowly beside the car- 
 riage, could only see the faces of the two ladies on 
 the front seat, and his eyes expressed, from time to 
 time, rather painful thoughts. Forced, by her posi- 
 tion, to let herself be looked at, Beatrix constantly 
 avoided meeting the young man's eyes, and practised 
 a manoeuvre most exasperating to lovers ; she held her 
 shawl crossed and her hands crossed over it, appar- 
 ently plunged in the deepest meditation. 
 
 At a part of the road which is shaded, dewy, and 
 verdant as a forest glade, where the wheels of the 
 carriage scarcely sounded, and the breeze brought 
 down balsamic odors and waved the branches above 
 their heads, Camille called Madame de Rochefide's 
 attention to the harmonies of the place, and pressed 
 her knee to make her look at Calyste. 
 
 "How well he rides! " she said. 
 
 '*0h! Calyste does everything well," said Charlotte. 
 
 *'He rides like an Englishman," said the marquise, 
 indifferently. 
 
 ''His mother is Irish, — an O'Brien," continued 
 Charlotte, who thought herself insulted by such in- 
 difference. 
 
 Camille and the marquise drove through Gudrande 
 with the viscountess and her daughter, to the great 
 
 12 
 
178 Beatrix, 
 
 astonishment of the inhabitants of the town. They 
 left the mother and daughter at the end of the lane 
 leading to the Guenic mansion, where a crowd came 
 near gathering, attracted by so unusual a sight. 
 Calyste had ridden on to announce the arrival of the 
 company to his mother and aunt, who expected them 
 to dinner, that meal having been postponed till four 
 o'clock. Then he returned to the gate to give his 
 arm to the two ladies, and bid Camille and Beatrix 
 adieu. 
 
 He kissed the hand of Felicite, hoping thereby to 
 be able to do the same to that of the marquise ; but 
 she still kept her arms crossed resolutely, and he cast 
 moist glances of entreaty at her uselessly. 
 
 ''You little ninny! " whispered Camille, lightly 
 touching his ear with a kiss that was full of 
 friendship. 
 
 "Quite true," thought Calyste to himself as the 
 carriage drove away. "I am forgetting her advice 
 — but I shall always forget it, I 'm afraid." 
 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel (who had intrepidly 
 returned to Guerande on the back of a hired horse), 
 the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, and Charlotte found 
 dinner ready, and were treated with the utmost cor- 
 diality, if luxury were lacking, by the du Guenics. 
 Mademoiselle Zephirine had ordered the best wine to 
 be brought from the cellar, and Mariotte had sur- 
 passed herself in her Breton dishes. 
 
 The viscountess, proud of her trip with the illus- 
 trious Camille Maupin, endeavored to explain to the 
 assembled company the present condition of modern 
 literature, and Camille's place in it. But the literary 
 
Beatrix, 179 
 
 topic met the fate of whist; neither the du Gunnies, 
 nor the abbe, nor the Chevalier du Halga understood 
 one word of it. The rector and the chevalier had 
 arrived in time for the liqueurs at dessert. 
 
 As soon as Mariotte, assisted by Gasselin and 
 Madame de Kergarouet's maid, had cleared the table, 
 there was a general and enthusiastic cry for mouche, 
 Joy appeared to reign in the household. All sup- 
 posed Calyste to be free of his late entanglement, and 
 almost as good as man-ied to the little Charlotte. 
 The young man alone kept silence. For the first time 
 in his life he had instituted comparisons between his 
 life-long friends and the two elegant women, witty, 
 accomplished, and tasteful, who, at the present mo- 
 ment, must be laughing heartily at the provincial 
 mother and daughter, judging by the look he inter- 
 cepted between them. 
 
 He was seeking in vain for some excuse to leave 
 liis family on this occasion, and go up as usual to Les 
 Touches, when Madame de Kergarouet mentioned that 
 she regretted not having accepted Mademoiselle des 
 Touches' offer of her carriage for the return journey 
 to Saint-Nazaire, which, for the sake of her three 
 other "dear kittens," she felt compelled to make on 
 the following day. 
 
 Fanny, who alone saw her son's uneasiness, and the 
 little hold which Charlotte's coquetries and her 
 mother's attentions were gaining on him, came to his 
 aid. 
 
 *' Madame," she said to the viscountess, **you will, 
 I think, be very uncomfortable in the carrier's vehicle, 
 and especially at having to start so early in the morn- 
 
180 Beatrix. 
 
 ing. You would certainly have done better to take 
 the offer made to you by Mademoiselle des Touches. 
 But it is not too late to do so now. Calyste, go up 
 to Les Touches and arrange the matter; but don't be 
 long; return to us soon." 
 
 "It won't take me ten minutes," cried Calyste, 
 kissing his mother violently as she followed him to 
 the door. 
 
Beatrix. 181 
 
 XI. 
 
 FEMALE DIPLOMACY. 
 
 Calyste ran with the lightness of a young fawn to 
 Les Touches and reached the portico just as Camille 
 and Beatrix were leaving the grand salon after their 
 dinner. He had the sense to offer his arm to 
 Felicite. 
 
 '' So you have abandoned your viscountess and her 
 daughter for us," she said, pressing his arm ; ''we are 
 able now to understand the full mer^t of that 
 sacrifice." 
 
 ' ' Are these Kergarouets related to the Portendueres, 
 and to old Admiral de Kergarouet, whose widow 
 married Charles de Vandenesse?" asked Madame de 
 Rochefide, 
 
 " The viscountess is the admiral's great*niece," re- 
 plied Camille. 
 
 '' Well, she 's a charming girl," said Beatrix, placing 
 herself gracefully in a Gothic chair. " She will just do 
 for you. Monsieur du Guenic." 
 
 ''The marriage will never take place," said Camille 
 hastily. 
 
 Mortified by the cold, calm air with which the mar- 
 quise seemed to consider the Breton girl as the only 
 creature fit to mate him, Calyste remained speechless 
 and even mindless. 
 
182 Beatrix, 
 
 '' Why so, Camille? " asked Madame de Kochefide. 
 
 " Really, my dear," said Camille, seeing Calyste's 
 despair, '' you are not generous ; did I advise Conti to 
 marry ? " 
 
 Beatrix looked at her friend with a surprise that 
 was mingled with indefinable suspicions. 
 
 Calyste, unable to understand Camille's motive, but 
 feeling that she came to his assistance and seeing in 
 her cheeks that faint spot of color which he knew to 
 mean the presence of some violent emotion, went up to 
 her rather awkwardly and took her hand. But she 
 left him and seated herself carelessly at the piano, like 
 a woman so sure of her friend and lover that she can 
 afford to leave him with another woman. She played 
 variations, improvising them as she played, on certain 
 themes chosen, unconsciously to herself, by the impulse 
 of her mind ; they were melancholy in the extreme. 
 
 Beatrix seemed to listen to the music, but she was 
 really observing Calyste, who, much too young and 
 artless for the part which Camille was intending him to 
 play, remained in rapt adoration before his real idol. 
 
 After about an hour, during which time Camille con- 
 tinued to play, Beatrix rose and retired to her apart- 
 ments. Camille at once took Calyste into her chamber 
 and closed the door, fearing to be overheard ; for 
 women have an amazing instinct of distrust. 
 
 *'My child," she said, ''if you want to succeed 
 with Beatrix, you must seem to love me still, or you 
 will fail. You are a child ; you know nothing of 
 women ; all you know is how to love. Now loving and 
 making one's self beloved are two very different things. 
 If you go your own way you will fall into horrible suf- 
 
Beatrix. 183 
 
 fering, and I wish to see you happy. If you rouse, 
 not the pride, but the self-will, the obstinacy which is 
 a strong feature in her character, she is capable of 
 going off at any moment to Paris and rejoining Conti ; 
 and what will you do then? " 
 
 *'I shall love her." 
 
 " You won't see her again." 
 
 ''Oh! yes, I shall," he said. 
 
 *'How?" 
 
 " I shall follow her." 
 
 *' Why, you are as poor as Job, my dear boy." 
 
 *' My father, Gasselin, and I lived for three months 
 in Vendue on one hundred and fifty francs, marching 
 night and day." 
 
 ''Calyste," said Mademoiselle des Touches, "now 
 listen to me. I know that you have too much candor 
 to play a part, too much honesty to deceive ; and I 
 don't want to corrupt such a nature as yours. Yet 
 deception is the only way by which you can win 
 Beatrix ; I take it therefore upon myself. In a week 
 from now she shall love you." 
 
 "Is it possible? " he said clasping his hands. 
 
 *' Yes," replied Camille, " but it will be necessary to 
 overcome certain pledges which she has made to her- 
 self. I will do that for you. You must not interfere 
 in the rather arduouiB task I shall undertake. The 
 marquise has a true aristocratic delicacy of perception ; 
 she is keenly distrustful ; no hunter could meet with 
 game more wary or more difficult to capture. You are 
 wholly unable to cope with her ; will you promise me a 
 blind obedience?" 
 
 *' What must I do? " replied the youth. 
 
184 Beatrix. 
 
 "Very little," said Camille. *'Come here every 
 day and devote yourself to me. Come to ray rooms ; 
 avoid Beatrix if you meet her. We will stay together 
 till four o'clock ; you shall employ the time in study, 
 and I in smoking. It will be hard for you not to see 
 her, but I will find you a number of interesting books. 
 You have read nothing as yet of George Sand. I will 
 send one of my people this very evening to Nantes to 
 buy her works and those of other authors whom you 
 ought to know. The evenings we will all spend to- 
 gether, and I permit you to make love to me if you can 
 — it will be for the best." 
 
 ''I know, Camille, that your affection for me is 
 great and so rare that it makes me wish I had never 
 met Beatrix," he replied with simple good faith ; " but 
 I don't see what you hope from all this." 
 
 " I hope to make her love you." 
 
 " Good heavens ! it cannot be possible! " he cried, 
 again clasping his hands toward Camille, who was 
 greatly moved on seeing the joy that she gave him at 
 her own expense. 
 
 ''Now listen to me carefully," she said. "If you 
 break the agreement between us, if you have — not a 
 long conversation — but a mere exchange of words 
 with the marquise in private, if you let her question 
 you, if you fail in the silent part I ask you to play, 
 which is certainly not a very difficult one, I do assure 
 you," she said in a serious tone, "you will lose her 
 forever. " 
 
 " I don't understand the meaning of what you are 
 saying to me," cried Calyste, looking at Camille with 
 ad6rable naivete. 
 
Beatrix. 185 
 
 *' If you did understand it, you would n't be the 
 noble and beautiful Calyste that you are," she replied, 
 taking his hand and kissing it. 
 
 Calyste then did what he had never before done ; he 
 took Camille round the waist and kissed her gently, 
 not with love but with tenderness, as he kissed his 
 mother. Mademoiselle des Touches did not restrain 
 her tears. 
 
 *' Go now," she said, '* my child ; and tell your vis- 
 countess that my carriage is at her command." 
 
 Calyste wanted to stay longer, but he was forced to 
 obey her imperious and imperative gesture. 
 
 He went home gayly ; he believed that in a week the 
 beautiful Beatrix would love him. The players at 
 mouche found him once more the Calyste they had 
 missed for the last two months. Charlotte attributed 
 this change to herself. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel 
 was charming to him. The Abbe Grimont endeavored 
 to make out what was passing in the mother's mind. 
 The Chevalier du Halga rubbed his hands. The two 
 old maids were as lively as lizards. The viscountess 
 lost one hundred sous by accumulated moiiches^ which 
 so excited the cupidity of Zephirine that she regretted 
 not being able to see the cards, and even spoke sharply 
 to her sister-in-law, who acted as the proxy of her 
 eyes. 
 
 The party lasted till eleven o'clock. There were 
 two defections, the barou and the chevalier, who went 
 to sleep in their respective chairs. Mariotte had made 
 galettes of buckwheat, the baroness produced a tea- 
 caddy. The illustrious house of du Guenic served a 
 little supper before the departure of its guests, consist- 
 
1 86 Beatrix, 
 
 ing of fresh butter, fruits, and cream, in addition to 
 Mariotte's cakes ; for which festal event issued from 
 their wrappings a silver teapot and some beautiful old 
 English china sent to the baroness by her aunts. 
 This appearance of modern splendor in the ancient 
 hall, together with the exquisite grace of its mistress, 
 brought up like a true Irish lady to make and pour out 
 tea (that mighty affair to Englishwomen), had some- 
 thing charming about them. The most exquisite 
 luxury could never have attained to the simple, 
 modest, noble effect produced by this sentiment of 
 joyful hospitality. 
 
 A few moments after Calyste's departure from Les 
 Touches, Beatrix, who had heard him go, returned to 
 Camille, whom she found with humid eyes lying back 
 on her sofa. 
 
 "What is it, Felicite?" asked the marquise. 
 
 "I am forty years old, and I love him!" said 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, with dreadful tones of 
 anguish in her voice, her eyes becoming hard and 
 brilliant. "If you knew, Beatrix, the tears I have 
 shed over the lost years of my youth! To be loved 
 out of pity! to know that one owes one's happiness 
 only to perpetual care, to the slyness of cats, to traps 
 laid for innocence and all the youthful virtues — 
 oh, it is infamous! If it were not that one finds 
 absolution in the magnitude of love, in the power of 
 happiness, in the certainty of being forever above 
 all other women in his memory, the first to carve on 
 that young heart the ineffaceble happiness of an abso- 
 lute devotion, I would :— yes, if he asked it, — I would 
 fling myself into the sea. Sometimes I find myself 
 
Beatrix, 187 
 
 wishing that he would ask it; it would then be an 
 oblation, not a suicide. Ah, Beatrix, by coming 
 here you have, unconsciously, set me a hard task. 
 I know it will be difficult to keep him against you ; 
 but you love Conti, you are noble and generous, you 
 will not deceive me; on the contrary, you will help me 
 to retain my Calyste's love. I expected the impres- 
 sion you would make upon him, but I have not com- 
 mitted the mistake of seeming jealous; that would 
 only have added fuel to the flame. On the contrary, 
 before you came, I described you in such glowing 
 colors that you hardly realize the portrait, although 
 you are, it seems to me, more beautiful than ever." 
 
 This vehement elegy, in which truth was mingled 
 with deception, completely duped the marquise. 
 Claude Vignon had told Conti ,the reasons for his 
 departure, and Beatrix was, of course, informed of 
 them. She determined therefore to behave with gen- 
 erosity and give the cold shoulder to Calyste ; but at 
 the same instant there came into her soul that quiver 
 of joy which vibrates in the heart of every woman 
 when she finds herself beloved. The love a woman 
 inspires in any man's heart is flattery without hypoc- 
 risy, and it is impossible for some women to forego 
 it; but when that man belongs to a friend, his homage 
 gives more than pleasure, — it gives delight. Beatrix 
 sat down beside her friend and began to coax her 
 prettily. 
 
 ''You have not a white hair," she said; ''you 
 have n't even a wrinkle; your temples are just as fresh 
 as ever; whereas I know more than one woman of 
 thirty who is obliged to cover hers. Look, dear," 
 
188 Beatrix, 
 
 she added, lifting her curls, "see what that journey 
 to Italy has cost me." 
 
 H^er temples showed an almost imperceptible with- 
 ering of the texture of the delicate skin. She raised 
 her sleeves and showed Camille the same slight with- 
 ering of the wrists, where the transparent tissue suf- 
 fered the blue network of swollen veins to be visible, 
 and three deep lines made a bracelet of wrinkles. 
 
 " There, my dear, are two spots which — as a certain 
 writer ferreting for the miseries of women, has said 
 — never lie," she continued. "One must needs have 
 suffered to know the truth of his observation. Hap- 
 pily for us, most men know nothing about it; they 
 don't read us like that dreadful author." 
 
 "Your letter told me all," replied Camille; "happi- 
 ness ignores everything but itself. You boasted too 
 much of yours to be really happy. Truth is deaf, 
 dumb, and blind where love really is. Consequently, 
 seeing very plainly that you have your reasons for 
 abandoning Conti, I have feared to have you here. 
 My dear, Calyste is an angel ; he is as good as he is 
 beautiful; his innocent heart will not resist your 
 eyes; already he admires you too much not to love 
 you at the first encouragment ; your coldness can alone 
 preserve him to me. I confess to you, with the 
 cowardice of true passion, that if he were taken from 
 me I should die. That dreadful book of Benjamin 
 Constant, 'Adolphe,' tells us only of Adolphe's sor- 
 rows; but what about those of the woman, hey? The 
 man did not observe them enough to describe them ; 
 and what woman would dare to reveal them? They 
 would dishonor her sex, humiliate its virtues, and 
 
Beatrix. 189 
 
 pass into vice. Ah! I measure the abyss before me 
 by my fears, by these sufferings that are those of hell. 
 But, Beatrix, I will tell you this: in case I am 
 abandoned, my choice is made." 
 
 '* What is it? " cried Beatrix, with an eagerness that 
 made Camille shudder. 
 
 The two friends looked at each other with the keen 
 attention of Venetian inquisitors; their souls clashed 
 in that rapid glance, and struck fire like flints. The 
 marquise lowered her eyes. 
 
 ** After man, there is nought but God," said the 
 celebrated woman. "God is the Unknown. I shall 
 fling myself into that as into some vast abyss. 
 Calyste has sworn to me that he admires you only as 
 he would a picture; but alas! you are but twenty- 
 eight, in the full magnificence of your beauty. The 
 struggle thus begins between him and me by false- 
 hood. But I have one support; happily I know a 
 means to keep him true to me, and I shall triumph." 
 
 '*What means? " 
 
 *' That is my secret, dear. Let me have the benefits 
 of my age. If Claude Vignon, as Conti has doubtless 
 told you, flings me back into the gulf, 1, who had 
 climbed to a rock which I thought inaccessible, — I 
 will at least gather the pale and fragile, but delight- 
 ful flowers that grow in its depths." 
 
 Madame de Rochefide was moulded like wax in 
 those able hands. Camille felt an almost savage 
 pleasure in thus entrapping her rival in her toils. She 
 sent her to bed that night piqued by curiosity, floating 
 between jealousy and generosity, but most assuredly 
 with her mind full of the beautiful Calyste. 
 
190 Beatrix. 
 
 ' "She will be enchanted to deceive me," thought 
 Camille, as she kissed her good-night. 
 
 Then, when she was alone, the author, the con- 
 structor of dramas, gave place to the woman, and she 
 burst into tears. Filling her hookah with tobacco 
 soaked in opium, she spent the greater part of the 
 night in smoking, dulling thus the sufferings of her 
 soul, and seeing through the clouds about her the 
 beautiful young head of her late lover. 
 
 "What a glorious book to write, if I were only to 
 express my pain!" she said to herself. "But it is 
 written already; Sappho lived before me. And 
 Sappho was young. A fine and touching heroine 
 truly, a woman of forty! Ah! my poor Camille, 
 smoke your hookah; you haven't even the resource of 
 making a poem of your misery — that's the last drop 
 of anguish in your cup! " 
 
 The next morning Calyste came before mid-day and 
 slipped upstairs, as he was told, into Camille's own 
 room, where he found the books. Felicite sat before 
 the window, smoking, contemplating in turn the 
 marshes, the sea, and Calyste, to whom she now and 
 then said a few words about Beatrix. At one time, 
 seeing the marquise strolling about the garden, she 
 raised a curtain in a way to attract her attention, and 
 also to throw a band of light across Calyste*s book. 
 
 "To-day, my child, I shall ask you to stay to din° 
 ner; but you must refuse, with a glance at the mar- 
 quise, which will show her how much you regret not 
 staying." 
 
 When the three actors met in the salon, and this 
 comedy was played, Calyste felt for a moment his 
 
BUtrix, 191 
 
 equivocal position, and the glance that he cast on 
 Beatrix was far more expressive than Felicite ex- 
 pected. Beatrix had dressed herself charmingly. 
 
 ''What a bewitching toilet, my dearest! " said 
 Camille, when Calyste had departed. 
 
 These manoeuvres lasted six days, during which 
 time many conversations, into which Camille Maupin 
 put all her ability, took place, unknown to Calyste, 
 between herself and the marquise. They were like the 
 preliminaries of a duel between the two women, — a 
 duel without truce, in which the assault was made on 
 both sides with snares, feints, false generosities,. de- 
 ceitful confessions, crafty confidences, by which one 
 hid and the other bared her love; and in which the 
 sharp steel of Camille' s treacherous words entered the 
 heart of her friend, and left its poison there. Beatrix 
 at last took offence at what she thought Camille's 
 distrust; she considered it out of place between 
 them. At the same time she was enchanted to find 
 the great writer a victim to the pettiness of her sex, 
 and she resolved to enjoy the pleasure of showing her 
 where her greatness ended, and how even she could be 
 humiliated. 
 
 " My dear, what is to be the excuse to-day for Mon- 
 sieur du Gu^uic's not dining with us?" she asked, 
 looking maliciously at her friend. ''Monday you said 
 we had engagements; Tuesday the dinner was poor; 
 Wednesday you were afraid his mother would be 
 angry; Thursday you wanted to take a walk with me; 
 and yesterday you simply dismissed him without a 
 reason. To-day I shall have my way, and 1 mean 
 that he shall stay." 
 
i92 Beatrix. 
 
 "Already, my dear! " said Camille, with cutting 
 irony. The marquise blushed. "Stay, Monsieur du 
 Guenic," said Camille, in the tone of a queen. 
 
 Beatrix became cold and hard, contradictory in 
 tone, epigrammatic, and almost rude to Calyste, whom 
 Felicite sent home to play mouche with Charlotte de 
 Kergarouet. 
 
 ^''She is not dangerous at any rate," said Beatrix, 
 sarcastically. 
 
 Young lovers are like hungry men; kitchen odors 
 will not appease their hunger; they think too much 
 of what is coming to care for the means that bring 
 it. As Calyste walked back to Guerande, his soul 
 was full of Beatrix ; he paid no heed to the profound 
 feminine cleverness which Felicite was displaying on 
 his behalf. During this week the marquise had only 
 written once to Conti, a symptom of indifference which 
 had not escaped the watchful eyes of Camille, who 
 imparted it to Calyste. All Calyste 's life was concen- 
 trated in the short moment of the day during which 
 he was allowed to see the marquise. This drop of 
 water, far from allaying his thirst, only redoubled it. 
 The magic promise, "Beatrix shall love you," made 
 by Camille, was the talisman with which he strove to 
 restrain the fiery ardor of his passion. But he knew 
 not how to consume the time; he could not sleep, and 
 spent the hours of the night in reading; every even- 
 ing he brought back with him, as Mariotte remarked, 
 cartloads of books. 
 
 His aunt called down maledictions on the head of 
 Mademoiselle des Touches ; bUt his mother, who had 
 gone on several occasions to his room on seeing his 
 
Biatrix. 193 
 
 light burning far into the night, knew by this time 
 the secret of his conduct. Though for her love was 
 a sealed book, and she was even unaware of her own 
 ignorance, Fanny rose through maternal tenderness 
 into certain ideas of it; but the depths of such senti- 
 ment being dark and obscured by clouds to her mind, 
 she was shocked at the state in which she saw him ; 
 the solitary uncomprehended desire of his soul, which 
 was evidently consuming him, simply terrified her. 
 Calyste had but one thought; Beatrix was always 
 before him. In the evenings, while cards were being 
 played, his abstraction resembled his father's somno- 
 lence. Finding him so different from what he was 
 w^en he loved Camille, the baroness became aware, 
 with a sort of horror, of the symptoms of real love, — 
 a species of possession which had seized upon her 
 son, — a love unknown within the walls of that old 
 mansion. 
 
 Feverish irritability, a constant absorption in 
 thought, made Calyste almost doltish. Often he 
 would sit for hours with his eyes fixed on some figure 
 in the tapestry. One morning his mother implored 
 him to give up Les Touches, and leave the two women 
 forever. 
 
 "Not go to Les Touches! " he cried. 
 
 "Oh! yes, yes, go! do not look so, my darling!" 
 she cried, kissing him on the eyes that had flashed 
 such flames. 
 
 Under these circumstances Calyste often came near 
 losing the fruit of Camille's plot through the Breton 
 fury of his love, of which he was ceasing to be the 
 master. Finally, he swore to himself, in spite of his 
 
 13 
 
194 Beatrix. 
 
 promise to Felicite, to see Beatrix, and speak to her. 
 He wanted to read lier eyes, to bathe in their light, to 
 examine every detail of her dress, breathe its per- 
 fume, listen to the music of her voice, watch the 
 graceful composition of her movements, embrace at a 
 glance the whole figure, and study her as a general 
 studies the field where he means to win a decisive 
 battle. He willed as lovers will ; he was grasped by 
 desires which closed his ears and darkened his intel- 
 lect, and threw him into an unnatural state in which 
 he was conscious of neither obstacles, nor distances, 
 nor the existence even of his own body. 
 
 One morning he resolved to go to Les Touches at 
 an earlier hour than that agreed upon, and endeavor 
 to meet Beatrix in the garden. He knew she walked 
 there daily before breakfast. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches and the marquise had 
 gone, as it happened, to see the ?iiarshes and the little 
 bay with its margin of fine sand, where the sea 
 penetrates and lies like a lake in the midst of the 
 dunes. They had just returned, and were walking up 
 a garden path beside the lawn, conversing as they 
 walked. 
 
 "If the scenery pleases you," said Camille, "we 
 must take Calyste and make a trip to Croisic. There 
 are splendid rocks there, cascades of granite, little 
 bays with natural basins, charmingly unexpected and 
 capricious things, besides the sea itself, with its store 
 of marble fragments, — a world of amusement. Also 
 you will see women making fuel with cow-dung, which 
 they nail against the walls of their houses to dry in 
 the sun, after which they pile it up as we do peat in 
 Paris." 
 
Beatrix 195 
 
 "What! will yon really risk Calyste?" cried the 
 marquise, laughing, in a tone which proved that 
 Camille's ruse had answered its purpose. 
 
 *'Ah, my dear," she replied, ''if you did but know 
 the angelic soul of that dear child, you would under- 
 stand me. In him, mere beauty is nothing; one must 
 enter that pure heart, which is amazed at every step 
 it takes into the kingdom of love.- What faith! what 
 grace! what innocence! The ancients were right 
 enough in the worship they paid to sacred beauty. 
 Some traveller, I forget who, relates that when wild 
 horses lose their leader they choose the handsomest 
 horse in the herd for his successor. Beauty, my dear, 
 is the genius of things ; it is the ensign which Nature 
 hoists over her most precious creations^; it is the 
 truest of symbols as it is the greatest of accidents. 
 Did any one ever suppose that angels could be de- 
 formed? are they not necessarily a combination of 
 grace and strength? What is it that makes us stand 
 for hours before some picture in Italy, where genius 
 has striven through years of toil to realize but one of 
 those accidents of Nature ? Come, call up your sense 
 of the truth of things and answer me; is it not the 
 Idea of Beauty which our souls associate with moral 
 grandeur? Well, Calyste is one of those dreams, those 
 visions, realized. He has the regal power of a lion, 
 tranquilly unsuspicious of its royalty. When he 
 feels at his ease, he is witty; and I love his girlish 
 timidity. My soul rests in his heart away from all 
 corruptions, all ideas of knowledge, literature, the 
 world, society, politics, — those useless accessories 
 under which we stifle happiness. I am what I have 
 
196 Beatrix, 
 
 never been, — a child ! I am sure of him, but I like 
 to play at jealousy ; he likes it too. Besides, that is 
 part of my secret." 
 
 Beatrix walked on pensively, in silence. Camille 
 endured unspeakable martyrdom, and she cast a side- 
 long glance at her companion which looked like 
 flame. 
 
 "Ah, my dear; but yoit are happy," said Beatrix 
 presently, laying her hand on Camille's arm like a 
 woman wearied out with some inward struggle. 
 
 "Yes, happy indeed! " replied Felicite, with savage 
 bitterness. 
 
 The two women dropped upon a bench from a sense 
 of exhaustion. No creature of her sex was ever 
 played upon like an instrument with more Macchia- 
 vellian penetration than the marquise throughout this 
 week. 
 
 "Yes, you are happy, but II " she said, — "to know 
 of Conti's infidelities, and have to bear them ! " 
 
 "Why not leave him?" said Camille, seeing the 
 hour had come to strike a decisive blow. 
 
 "Can I?" 
 
 "Oh! poor boy!" 
 
 Both were gazing into a clump of trees with a stupe- 
 fied air. 
 
 Camille rose. 
 
 "I will go and hasten breakfast; my walk has given 
 me an appetite," she said. 
 
 "Our conversation has taken away mine," remarked 
 Beatrix. 
 
 The marquise in her morning dress was outlined in 
 white against the dark greens of the foliage. Calyste, 
 
Beatrix, 197 
 
 who had slipped through the salon into the garden, 
 took a path, along which he sauntered as though he 
 were meeting her by accident. Beatrix could not 
 restrain a slight quiver as he approached her. 
 
 "Madame, in what way did I displease you yester- 
 day?" he said, after the first commonplace sentences 
 had been exchanged. 
 
 **But you have neither pleased me nor displeased 
 me," she said, in a gentle voice. 
 
 The tone, air, and manner in which the marquise 
 said these words encouraged Calyste. 
 
 ''Am I so indifferent to you? " he said in a troubled 
 voice, as the tears came into his eyes. 
 
 ''Ought we not to be indifferent to each other?" 
 replied the marquise. "Have we not, each of us, 
 another, and a binding attachment?" 
 
 "Oh! " cried Calyste, "if you mean Camille, I did 
 love her, but I love her no longer." 
 
 "Then why are you shut up together every morn- 
 ing?" she said, with a treacherous smile. "I don't 
 suppose that Camille, in spite of her passion for 
 tobacco, prefers her cigar to you, or that you, in 
 your admiration for female authors, spend four hours 
 a day in reading their romances." 
 
 "So then you know — " began the guileless young 
 Breton, his face glowing with the happiness of being 
 face to face alone with his idol. 
 
 "Calyste!" cried Camille, angrily, suddenly ap- 
 pearing and interrupting him. She took his arm and 
 drew him away to some distance. "Calyste, is this 
 what you promised me ? " 
 
 Beatrix heard these words of reproach as Made- 
 
198 Beatrix, 
 
 moiselle des Touches disappeared toward the house, 
 taking Calyste with her. She was stupefied by the 
 young man's assertion, and could not comprehend it; 
 she was not as strong as Claude Vignon. In truth, 
 the part being played by Camille Maupin, as shocking 
 as it was grand, is one of those wicked grandeurs 
 which women only practise when driven to extremity. 
 By it their hearts are broken; in it the feelings of 
 their sex are lost to them; it begins an abnegation 
 which ends by either plunging them to hell, or lifting 
 them to heaven. 
 
 During breakfast, which Calyste was invited to 
 share, the marquise, whose sentiments could be noble 
 and generous, made a sudden return upon herself, 
 resolving to stifle the germs of love which were rising 
 in her heart. She was neither cold nor hard to 
 Calyste, but gently indifferent, — a course which tor- 
 tured him. Felicite brought forward a proposition 
 that they should make, on the next day but one, an 
 excursion into the curious and interesting country 
 lying between Les Touches, Croisic, and the village 
 of Batz. She begged Calyste to employ himself on 
 the morrow in hiring a boat and sailors to take them 
 across the little bay, undertaking herself to provide 
 horses and provisions, and all else that was necessary 
 for a party of pleasure, in which there was to be no 
 fatigue. Beatrix stopped the matter short, however, 
 by saying that she did not wish to make excursions 
 round the country. Calyste' s face, which had beamed 
 with delight at the prospect, was suddenly over- 
 clouded. 
 
 "What are you afraid of, my dear? " asked Camille. 
 
Beatrix, 199 
 
 "My position is so delicate I do not wish to com- 
 promise — I will not say my reputation, but my hap- 
 piness," she said, meaningly, with a glance at the 
 young Breton. '*You know very well how suspicious 
 Conti can be; if he knew — " 
 
 ''Who will tell him?" 
 
 ''He is coming back here to fetch me," said 
 Beatrix. 
 
 Calyste turned pale. In spite of all that Camille 
 could urge, in spite of Calyste' s entreaties, Madame 
 de Rochefide remained inflexible, and showed what 
 Camille had called her obstinacy. Calyste left Les 
 Touches the victim of one of those depressions of love 
 which threaten, in certain men, to turn into madness. 
 He began to revolve in his njind some decided means 
 of coming to an explanation with Beatrix. 
 
200 Beatrix, 
 
 XII. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 When Calyste reached home, he did not leave his 
 room until dinner time ; and after dinner he went back 
 to it. At ten o'clock his mother, uneasy at his ab- 
 sence, went to look for him, and found him writing in 
 the midst of a pile of blotted and half-torn paper. 
 He was writing to Beatrix, for distrust of Camille had 
 come into his mind. The air and manner of the mar- 
 quise during their brief interview in the garden had 
 singularly encouraged him. 
 
 No first love-letter ever was or ever will be, as may 
 readily be supposed, a brilliant effort of the mind. In 
 all young men not tainted by corruption such a letter 
 is written. with gushings from the heart, too overflow- 
 ing, too multifarious not to be the essence, the elixir 
 of many other letters begun, rejected, and rewritten. 
 
 Here is the one that Calyste finally composed and 
 which he read aloud to his poor, astonished mother. 
 To her the old mansion seemed to have taken fire; 
 this love of her son flamed up in it like the glare of 
 a conflagration. 
 
 Calyste to Madame la Marquise de Rochefide. 
 Madame, — I loved you when you were to me but a 
 dream; judge, therefore, of the force my love ac- 
 
Beatrix. 201 
 
 quired when I saw you. The dream was far surpassed 
 by the reality. It is my grief and my misfortune to 
 have nothing to say to you that you do not know 
 already of your beauty and your charm; and yet, 
 perhaps, they have awakened in no other heart so 
 deep a sentiment as they have in me. 
 
 In so many ways you are beautiful ; I have studied 
 you so much while thinking of you day and night 
 that I have penetrated the mysteries of your being, 
 the secrets of your heart, and your delicacy, so little 
 appreciated. Have you ever been loved, understood, 
 adored as you deserve to be ? 
 
 Let me tell you now that there is not a trait in your 
 nature which my heart does not interpret ; your pride 
 is understood by mine ; the grandeur of your glance, 
 the grace of your bearing, the distinction of your 
 movements, — all things about your person are in har- 
 mony with the thoughts, the hopes, the desires hidden 
 in the depths of your soul ; it is because I have divined 
 them all that I think myself worthy o^ your notice. 
 If I had not become, within the last few days, 
 another yourself, I could not speak to you of myself ; 
 this letter, indeed, relates far more to you than it does 
 to me. 
 
 Beatrix, in order to write to you, I have silenced 
 my youth, I have laid aside myself, I have aged my 
 thoughts, — or, rather, it is you who have aged them, 
 by this week of dreadful sufferings caused, innocently 
 indeed, by you. 
 
 Do not think me one of those common lovers at 
 whom I have heard you laugh so justly. What merit 
 is there in loving a young and beautiful and wise 
 
 k 
 
202 BSatrix, 
 
 and noble woman Alas! I have no merit! What 
 can I be to you? A child, attracted by effulgence of 
 beauty and by moral grandeur, as the insects are 
 attracted to the light. You cannot do otherwise 
 than tread upon the flowers of my soul; they are 
 there at your feet, and all my happiness consists in 
 your stepping on them. 
 
 Absolute devotion, unbounded faith, love unquench- 
 able, — all these treasures of a true and tender heart 
 are nothing, nothing! they serve only to love with, 
 they cannot win the love we crave. Sometimes I do 
 not understand why a worship so ardent does not 
 warm its idol ; and when I meet your eye, so cold, so 
 stern, I turn to ice within me. Your disdain, that is 
 the acting force between us, not my worship. Why? 
 You cannot hate me as much as I love you ; why, then, 
 does the weaker feeling rule the stronger? I loved 
 Felicite with all the powers of my heart ; yet I forgot 
 her in a day, in a moment, when I saw you. She 
 was my error ; you are my truth. 
 
 You have, unknowingly, destroyed my happiness, 
 and yet you owe me nothing in return. I loved 
 Camille without hope, and I have no hope from you ; 
 nothing is changed but my divinity. I was a pagan ; 
 I am now a Christian, that is all — 
 
 Except this: you have taught me that to love is 
 the greatest of all joys ; the joy of being loved comes 
 later. According to Camille, it is not loving to love 
 for a short time only; the love that does not grow 
 from day to day, from hour to hour, is a mere 
 wretched passion. In order to grow, love must not 
 see its end; and she saw the end of ours, the setting of 
 
Beatrix, 203 
 
 our sun of love. When I beheld you, I understood her 
 words, which, until then, I had disputed with all my 
 youth, with all the ardor of my desires, with the des- 
 potic sternness of twenty years. That grand and 
 noble Camille mingled her tears with mine, and yet 
 she firmly rejected the love she saw must end. 
 Therefore I am free to love you here on earth and in 
 the heaven above us, as we love God. If you loved 
 me, you would have no such arguments as Camille 
 used to overthrow my love. We are both young ; we 
 could fly on equal wing across our sunny heaven, not 
 fearing storms as that grand eagle feared them. 
 
 But ah! what am I saying? my thoughts have car- 
 ried me beyond the humility of my real hopes. Be- 
 lieve, believe in the submission, the patience, the 
 mute adoration which I only ask you not to wound 
 uselessly. I know, Beatrix, that you cannot love me 
 without the loss of your self-esteem ; therefore I ask 
 for no return. Camille once said there was some 
 hidden fatality in names, a propos of hers. That 
 fatality I felt for myself on the jetty of Guerande, 
 when I read on the shores of the ocean your name. 
 Yes, you will pass through my life as Beatrice passed 
 through that of Dante. My heart will be a pedestal 
 for that white statue, cold, distant, jealous, and 
 oppressive. 
 
 It is forbidden to you to love me; I know that. 
 You will suffer a thousand deaths, you will be betrayed, 
 humiliated, unhappy; but you have in you a devil's 
 pride, which binds you to that column you have once 
 embraced, — you are like Samson, you will perish by 
 holding to it. But this I have not divined ; my love 
 
204 Beatrix, 
 
 is too blind for that; Camille has told it to me. It 
 is not my mind that speaks to you of this, it is hers. 
 I have no mind with which to reason when I think of 
 you; blood gushes from my heart, and its hot wave 
 darkens my intellect, weakens my strength, paralyzes 
 my tongue, and bends my knees. I can only adore 
 you, whatever you may do to me. 
 
 Camille calls your resolution obstinacy; I defend 
 you, and I call it virtue. You are only the more 
 beautiful because of it. I know my destiny, and the 
 pride of a Breton can rise to the height of the woman 
 who makes her pride a virtue. 
 
 Therefore, dear Beatrix, be kind, be consoling to 
 me. When victims were selected, they crowned them 
 with flowers ; so do you to me ; you owe me the flowers 
 of pity, the music of my sacrifice. Am I not a proof 
 of your grandeur? Will you not rise to the level of 
 my disdained love, — disdained in spite of its sin- 
 cerity, in spite of its immortal passion? 
 
 Ask Camille how I behaved to her after the day 
 she told me, on her return to Les Touches, that 
 she loved Claude Vignon. I was mute ; I suffered in 
 silence. Well, for you I will show even greater 
 strength, — I will bury my feelings in my heart, if 
 you will not drive me to despair, if you will only 
 understand my heroism. A single word of praise 
 from you is enough to make me bear the pains of 
 martyrdom. 
 
 But if you persist in this cold silence, this deadly 
 disdain, you will make me think you fear me. Ah, 
 Beatrix, be with me what you are, — charming, witty, 
 gay, and tender. Talk to me of Conti, as Camille has 
 
Beatrix. 205 
 
 talked to me of Claude. I have no other spirit in my 
 soul, no other genius but that of love; nothing is 
 there that can make you fear me; I will be in your 
 presence as if I loved you not. 
 
 Can you reject so humble a prayer? — the prayer of 
 a child who only asks that his Light shall lighten 
 him, that his Sun may warm him. 
 
 He whom you love can be with you at all times, but 
 I, poor Calyste! have so few days in which to see 
 you; you will soon be freed from me. Therefore I 
 may return to Les Touches to-morrow, may I not? 
 You will not refuse my arm for that excursion ? We 
 shall go together to Croisic and to Batz ? If you do 
 not go I shall take it for an answer, — Calyste will 
 understand it! 
 
 There were four more pages of the same sort in 
 close, fine writing, wherein Calyste explained the sort 
 of threat conveyed in the last words, and related 
 his youth and life ; but the tale was chiefly told in 
 exclamatory phrases, with many of those points and 
 dashes of which modern literature is so prodigal when 
 it comes to crucial passages, — as though they were 
 planks offered to the reader's imagination, to help him' 
 across crevasses. The rest of this artless letter was 
 merely repetition. But if it was not likely to touch 
 Madame de Rochefide, and would very slightly interest 
 the admirers of strong emotions, it made the mother 
 weep, as she said to her son, in her tender voice, — 
 
 **My child, you are not happy." 
 
 This tumultuous poem of sentiments which had 
 arisen like a storm in Calyste's heart, terrified the 
 
206 Beatrix, 
 
 baroness; for the first time in her life she read a 
 love-letter. 
 
 Calyste was standing in deep perplexity ; how could 
 he send that letter? He followed his mother back 
 into the salon with the letter in his pocket and burn- 
 ing in his heart like fire. The Chevalier du Halga 
 was still there, and the last deal of a lively mouche 
 was going on. Charlotte de Kergarouet, in despair 
 at Calyste' s indifference, was paying attention to his 
 father as a means of promoting her marriage. Calyste 
 wandered hither and thither like a butterfly which had 
 flown into the room by mistake. At last, when 
 mouche was over, he drew the Chevalier du Halga 
 into the great salon, from which he sent away Made- 
 moiselle de Pen-Hoel's page and Mariotte. 
 
 "What does he want of the chevalier?" said old 
 Zephirine, addressing her friend Jacqueline. 
 
 "Calyste strikes me as half-crazy," replied Made- 
 moiselle de Pen-Hoel. "He pays Charlotte no more 
 attention than if she were a paludiere." 
 
 Remembering that the Chevalier du Halga had the 
 reputation of having navigated in his youth the waters 
 of gallantry, it came into Calyste' s head to consult 
 him. 
 
 "What is the best way to send a letter secretly to 
 one's mistress?" he said to the old gentleman in a 
 whisper. 
 
 "WeH, you can slip it into the hand of her maid 
 with a louis or two underneath it ; for sooner or later 
 the maid will find out the secret, and it is just as 
 well to let her into it at once," replied the chevalier, 
 on whose face was the gleam of a smile. "But, on the 
 whole, it is best to give the letter yourself." 
 
Beatrix. 207 
 
 "A louis or two! " exclaimed Calyste. 
 
 He snatched up his hat and ran to Les Touches, 
 where he appeared like an apparition in the little 
 salon, guided thither by the voices of Camille and 
 Beatrix. They were sitting on the sofa together, 
 apparently on the best of terms. Calyste, with the 
 headlong impulse of love, flung himself heedlessly 
 on the sofa beside the marquise, took her hand, and 
 slipped the letter within it. He did this so rapidly 
 that Felicity, watchful as she was, did not perceive it. 
 Calyste's heart was tingling with an emotion half 
 sweet, half painful, as he felt the hand of Beatrix 
 press his own, and saw her, without interrupting her 
 words, or seeming in the least disconcerted, slip the 
 letter into her glove. 
 
 "You fling yourself on a woman's dress without 
 mercy," she said, laughing. 
 
 "Calyste is a boy who is wanting in common- 
 sense," said Felicity, not sparing him an open 
 rebuke. 
 
 Calyste rose, took Camille's hand, and kissed it. 
 Then he went to the piano and ran his finger-nail over 
 the notes, making them all sound at once, like a rapid 
 scale. This exuberance of joy surprised Camille, and 
 made her thoughtful ; she signed to Calyste to come 
 to her. 
 
 "What is the matter with you?" she whispered in 
 his ear. 
 
 "Nothing," he replied. 
 
 "There is something between them," thought Made- 
 moiselle des Touches. 
 
 The marquise was impenetrable. Camille tried to 
 
208 Beatrix, 
 
 make Calyste talk, hoping that his artless mind would 
 betray itself; but the youth excused himself on the 
 ground that his mother expected him, and he left Les 
 Touches at eleven o'clock, — not, however, without 
 having faced the fire of a piercing glance from 
 Camille, to whom that excuse was made for the first 
 time. 
 
 After the agitations of a wakeful night filled with 
 visions of Beatrix, and after going a score of times 
 through the chief street of Guerande for the purpose 
 of meeting the answer to his letter, which did not 
 come, Calyste finally received the following reply, 
 which the marquise's waiting-woman, entering the 
 hotel du Guenic, presented to him. He carried it to 
 the garden, and there, in the grotto, he read as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 Madame de Rochefide to Calyste, 
 
 You are a noble child, but you are only a child., 
 You are bound to Camille, who adores you. You 
 would not find in me either the perfections that dis- 
 tinguish her or the happiness that she can give you. 
 Whatever you may think, she is young and I am old ; 
 her heart is full of treasures, mine is empty ; she has 
 for you a devotion you ill appreciate; she is unselfish ; 
 she lives only for and in you. I, on the other hand, 
 am full of doubts ; I should drag you down to a weari- 
 some life, without grandeur of any kind, — a life 
 ruined by my own conduct. Camille is free; she can 
 go and come as she will; I am a slave. 
 
 You forget that I love and am beloved. The situa- 
 tion in which I have placed myself forbids my accept- 
 
Beatrix, 209 
 
 ing homage. That a man should love me, or say he 
 loves me, is an insult. To turn to another would be 
 to place myself at the level of the lowest of my sex. 
 
 You, who are young and full of delicacy, how can 
 you oblige me to say these things, which rend my 
 heart as they issue from it? 
 
 I preferred the scandal of an irreparable deed to the 
 shame of constant deception ; my own loss of station 
 to a loss of honesty. In the eyes of many persons 
 whose esteem I value, I am still worthy; but if I 
 permitted another man to love me, I should fall in- 
 deed. The world is indulgent to those whose con- 
 stancy covers, as with a mantle, the irregularity of 
 their happiness ; but it is pitiless to vice. 
 
 You see I feel neither disdain nor anger; I am 
 answering your letter frankly and with simplicity. 
 You are young; you are ignorant of the world; you 
 are carried away by fancy ; you are incapable, like all 
 whose lives are pure, of making the reflections which 
 evil suggests. But I will go still further. 
 
 Were I destined to be the most humiliated of 
 women, were I forced to hide fearful sorrows, were I 
 betrayed, abandoned, — which, thank God, is wholly 
 impossible, — no one in this world would see me more. 
 Yes, I believe I should find courage to kill a man 
 who, seeing me in that situation, should talk to me of 
 love. 
 
 You now know my mind to its depths. Perhaps I 
 ought to thank you for having written to me. After 
 receiving your letter, and, above all, after making you 
 this reply, I could be at my ease with you in Camille's 
 house, I could act out my natural self, and be what 
 
 14 
 
210 Beatrix. 
 
 you ask of me ; but I hardly need speak to you of the 
 bitter ridicule that would overwhelm me if my eyes or 
 my manner ceased to express the sentiments of which 
 you complain. A second robbery from Camille would 
 be a proof of her want of power which no woman 
 could twice forgive. Even if I loved you, if I were 
 blind to all else, if I forgot all else, I should still see 
 Camille ! Her love for you is a barrier too high to be 
 overleaped by any power, even by the wings of an 
 angel; none but a devil would fail to recoil before 
 such treachery. In this, my dear Calyste, are many 
 motives which delicate and noble women keep to 
 themselves, of which you men know nothing; nor 
 could you understand them, even though you were all 
 as like our sex as you yourself appear to be at this 
 moment. 
 
 My child, you have a mother who has shown you 
 what you ought to be in life. She is pure and spot- 
 less ; she fulfils her destiny nobly ; what I have heard 
 of her has filled my eyes with tears, and in the depths 
 of my heart I envy her. I, too, might have been what 
 she is ! Calyste, that is the woman your wife should 
 be, and such should be her life. I will never send 
 you back, in jest, as I have done, to that little Char- 
 lotte, who would weary you to death ; but I do com- 
 mend you to some divine young girl who is worthy of 
 your love. 
 
 If I were yours, your life would be blighted. You 
 would have given me your whole existence, and I — 
 you see, I am frank — I should have taken it ; I should 
 have gone with you. Heaven knows where, far from the 
 world ! But I should have made you most unhappy ; 
 
BSatrix. 211 
 
 for I am jealous. I see lions lurking in the path, and 
 monsters in drops of water. I am made wretched by 
 trifles that most women put up with; inexorable 
 thoughts — from my heart, not yours — would poison 
 our existence and destroy my life. If a man, after 
 ten years' happiness, were not as respectful and as 
 delicate as he was to me at first, I should resent the 
 change ; it would abase me in my own eyes ! Such a 
 lover could not believe in the Amadis and the Cyrus 
 of my dreams. To-day true love is but a dream, not 
 a reality. I see in yours only the joy of a desire the 
 end of which is, as yet, unperceived by you. 
 
 For myself, I am not forty years old; I have not 
 bent my pride beneath the yoke of experience, — 
 in short, I am a woman, too young to be anything 
 but odious. I will not answer for my temper; my 
 grace and charm are all external. Perhaps I have 
 not yet suffered enough to have the indulgent manners 
 and the absolute tenderness which come to us from 
 cruel disappointments. Happiness has its insolence, 
 and I, I fear, am insolent. Camille will be always 
 your devoted slave; I should be an unreasonable 
 tyrant. Besides, Camille was brought to you by 
 your guardian angel, at the turning point of your 
 life, to show you the career you ought to follow, — 
 a cai-eer in which you cannot fail. 
 
 I know Felicite! her tenderness is inexhaustible; 
 she may ignore the graces of our sex, but she pos- 
 sesses that fruitful strength, that genius for constancy, 
 that noble intrepidity which makes us willing to accept 
 the rest. She will marry you to some young girl, no 
 matter what she suffers. She will find you a free 
 
212 Beatrix, 
 
 Beatrix — if it is Beatrix indeed who answers to your 
 desires in a wife, and to your dreams ; she will smooth 
 all the difficulties in your way. The sale of a single 
 acre of her ground in Paris would free your property 
 in Brittany ; she will make you her heir ; are you not 
 already her son by adoption? 
 
 Alas ! what could I do for your happiness ? Noth- 
 ing. Do not betray that infinite love which contents 
 itself with the duties of motherhood. Ah ! I think her 
 very fortunate, my Camille! she can well afford to 
 forgive your feeling for poor Beatrix ; women of her 
 age are indulgent to such fancies. When they are 
 sure of being loved, they will pardon a passing infi- 
 delity ; in fact, it is often one of their keenest pleas- 
 ures to triumph over a younger rival. Camille is 
 above such women, and that remark does not refer to 
 her; but I make it to ease your mind. 
 
 I have studied Camille closely ; she is, to my eyes, 
 one of the greatest women of our age. She has 
 mind and she has goodness, — two qualities almost 
 irreconcilable in woman; she is generous and simple, 
 — two other grandeurs seldom found together in our 
 sex. 1 have seen in the depths of her soul such treas- 
 ures that the beautiful line of Dante on eternal happi- 
 ness, which I heard her interpreting to you the other 
 day, ^^ Senza brama sicura ricchezza^" seems as if 
 made for her. She has talked to me of her career; 
 she has related her life, showing me how love, that 
 object of our prayers, our dreams, has ever eluded 
 her. I replied that she seemed to me an instance of 
 the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of uniting in 
 one person two great glories. 
 
Beatrix, 213 
 
 You, Calyste, are one of the angelic souls whose 
 mate it seems impossible to find; but Camille will 
 obtain for you, even if she dies in doing so, the hand 
 of some young girl with whom you can make a happy 
 home. 
 
 For myself, I hold out to you a friendly hand, and 
 I count, not on your heart, but on your mind, to make 
 you in future a brother to me, as I shall be a sister 
 to you ; and I desire that this letter may terminate a 
 correspondence which, between Les Touches and 
 Guerande, is rather absurd. 
 
 BiATRIX DE CaSTERAN. 
 
 The baroness, stirred to the depths of her soul by 
 the strange exhibitions and the rapid changes of her 
 boy* 8 emotions, could no longer sit quietly at her work 
 in the ancient hall. After looking at Calyste from 
 time to time, she finally rose and came to him in a 
 manner that was humble, and yet bold; she wanted 
 him to grant a favor which she felt she had a right 
 to demand. 
 
 "Well?" she said, trembling, and looking at the 
 letter, but not directly asking for it. 
 
 Calyste read it aloud to her. And these two noble 
 souls, so simple, so guileless, saw nothing in that 
 wily and ti'eacherous epistle of the malice or the 
 snares which the mai'quise had written into it. 
 
 "She is a noble woman, a grand woman! " said the 
 baroness, with moistened eyes. '*I will pray to God 
 for her. I did not know that a woman could abandon 
 her husband and child, and yet preserve a soul so 
 virtuous. She is indeed worthy of pardon." 
 
214 Beatrix. 
 
 "Have I not every reason to adore her?" cried 
 Calyste. 
 
 "But where will this love lead you?" said the 
 baroness. Ah, my child, how dangerous are women 
 with noble sentiments ! There is less to fear in those 
 who are bad! Marry Charlotte de Kergarouet and 
 release two-thirds of the estate. By selling a few 
 farms. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel can bestow that 
 grand result upon you in the marriage contract, and 
 she will also help you, with her experience, to make 
 the most of your property. You will be able to leave 
 your children a great name, and a fine estate." 
 
 "Forget Beatrix! " said Calyste, in a muffled voice, 
 with his eyes on the ground. 
 
 He left the baroness, and went up to his own room 
 to write an answer to the marquise. 
 
 Madame du Guenic, whose heart retained every 
 word of Madame de Rochefide's letter, felt the need 
 of some help in comprehending it more clearly, and 
 also the grounds of Calyste' s hope. At this hour the 
 Chevalier du Halga was always to be seen taking his 
 dog for a walk on the mall. The baroness, certain 
 of finding him there, put on her bonnet and shawl and 
 went out. 
 
 The sight of the Baronne du Guenic walking in 
 Guerande elsewhere than to church, or on the two 
 pretty roads selected as promenades on fete days, 
 accompanied by the baron and Mademoiselle de Pen- 
 Hoel, was an event so remarkable that two hours 
 later, throughout the whole town, people accosted each 
 other with the remark, — 
 
 "Madame du Guenic went out to-day; did you meet 
 her?" 
 
Beatrix. 215 
 
 As soon as this amazing news reached the ears of 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, she said to her niece, — 
 
 *' Something very extraordinary is happening at the 
 du Guenics." 
 
 "Calyste is madly in love with that beautiful 
 Marquise de Rochefide," said Charlotte. ''I ought to 
 leave Gu^rande and return to Nantes." 
 
 The Chevalier du Halga, much sui-prised at being 
 sought by the baroness, released the chain of his 
 little dog, aware that he could not divide himself 
 between the two interests. 
 
 "Chevalier," began the baroness, *'you used to 
 practise gallantry ? " 
 
 Here the Chevalier du Halga straightened himself 
 up with an air that was not a little vain. Madame 
 du Guenic, without naming her son or the marquise, 
 repeated, as nearly as possible, the love-letter, and 
 asked the chevalier to explain to her the meaning of 
 such an answer. Du Halga snuffed the air and 
 stroked his chin; he listened attentively; he made 
 grimaces; and finally, he looked fixedly at the 
 baroness with a knowing air, as he said, — 
 
 "When thoroughbred horses want to leap a bai-rier, 
 they go up to reconnoitre it, and smell it over. 
 Calyste is a lucky dog I " 
 
 *'0h, hush!" she cried. 
 
 "I'm mute. Ah! in the olden time I knew all 
 about it," said the old chevalier, striking an attitude. 
 *'The weather was fine, the breeze nor*east. TudieuJ 
 how the ' Belle-Poule * kept close to the wind that day 
 when — Oh!" he cried, interrupting himself, *'we 
 shall have a change of weather; my ears are buzzing, 
 
216 Beatrix. 
 
 and I feel the pain in my ribs! You know, don't 
 you, tliat the battle of the ' Belle-Poule ' was so famous 
 that women wore head-dresses ' a la Belle-Poule.* 
 Madame de Kergarouet was the first to come to the 
 opera in that head-dress, and I said to her : ' Madame, 
 you are dressed for conquest.' The speech was 
 repeated from box to box all through the house." 
 
 The baroness listened pleasantly to the old hero, 
 who, faithful to the laws of gallantry, escorted her to 
 the alley of her house, neglecting Thisbe. The secret 
 of Thisbe' s existence had once escaped him. Thisbe 
 was the granddaughter of a delightful Thisbe, the 
 pet of Madame I'Amirale de Kergarouet, first wife 
 of the Comte de Kergarouet, the chevalier's com- 
 manding officer. The present Thisbe was eighteen 
 years old. 
 
 The baroness ran up to Calyste's room. He was 
 absent ; she saw a letter, not sealed, but addressed to 
 Madame de Rochefide, lying on the table. An invin- 
 cible curiosity compelled the anxious mother to read 
 it. This act of indiscretion was cruelly punished. 
 The letter revealed to her the depths of the gulf into 
 which his passion was hurling Calyste. 
 
 Calyste to Madame la Marquise de Rochefide, 
 
 What care I for the race of the du Guenics in these 
 days, Beatrix? what, is their name to me? My name 
 is Beatrix; the happiness of Beatrix is my happiness; 
 her life is my life, and all my fortune is in her heart. 
 Our estates have been mortgaged these two hundred 
 years, and so they may remain for two hundred more ; 
 
Beatrix^ 217 
 
 our farmers have charge of them; no one can take 
 them from us. To see you, to love you, — that is my 
 property, my object, my religion ! 
 
 You talk to me of marrying ! the very thought con- 
 vulses my heart. Is there another Beatrix? I will 
 marry no one but you; I will wait for you twenty 
 years, if need be. I am young, and you will be ever 
 beautiful. My mother is a saint. I do not blame 
 her, but she has never loved. I know now what she 
 has lost, and what sacrifices she has made. You have 
 taught me, Beatrix, to love her better; she is in my 
 heart with you, and no other can ever be there ; she is 
 your only rival, — is not this to say that you reign in 
 that heart supreme? Therefore your arguments have 
 ao force upon my mind. 
 
 As for Camille, you need only say the word, or 
 give me a mere sign, and I will ask her to tell you 
 herself that I do not love her. She is the mother 
 of my intellect; nothing more, nothing less. From 
 the moment that I first saw you she became to me a 
 sister, a friend, a comrade, what you will of that 
 kind; but we have no rights other than those of 
 friendship upon each other. I took her for a woman 
 until I saw you. You have proved to me that 
 Camille is a man ; she swims, hunts, smokes, drinks, 
 rides on horseback, writes and analyzes hearts and 
 books ; she has no weaknesses ; she marches on in all 
 her strength; her motions even have no resemblance 
 to your graceful movements, to your step, airy as the 
 flight of a bird. Neither has she your voice of love, 
 your tender eyes, your gracious manner; she is Camille 
 Maupin; there is nothing of the woman about her, 
 
218 Beatrix. 
 
 whereas in you are all the things of womanhood that 
 I love. It has seemed to me, from the first moment 
 when I saw you, that you were mine. 
 
 You will laugh at that fancy, but it has grown and 
 is growing. It seems to me unnatural, anomalous 
 that we should be apart. You are my soul, my life ; 
 I cannot live where you are not! 
 
 Let me love you ! Let us fly ! let us go into some 
 country where you know no one, where only God and 
 I can reach your heart! My mother, who loves you, 
 might some day follow us. Ireland is full of castles ; 
 my mother's family will lend us one. Ah, Beatrix, 
 let us go ! A boat, a few sailors, and we are there, 
 before any one can know we have fled this world you 
 fear so much. 
 
 You have never been loved. I feel it as I re-read 
 your letter, in which I fancy I can see that if the 
 reasons you bring forward did not exist, you would let 
 yourself be loved by me. Beatrix, a sacred love 
 wipes out the past. Yes, I love you so truly that I 
 could wish you doubly shamed if so my love might 
 prove itself by holding you a saint! 
 
 You call my love an insult. Oh, Beatrix, you do 
 not think it so ! The love of noble youth — and you 
 have called me that — would honor a queen. There- 
 fore, to-morrow let us walk as lovers, hand in hand, 
 among the rocks and beside the sea; your step upon 
 the sands of my old Brittany will bless them anew to 
 me ! Give me this day of happiness ; and that passing 
 alms, unremembered, alas! by you, will be eternal 
 riches to your 
 
 Calyste. 
 
Beatrix. 219 
 
 The baroness let fall the letter, without reading all 
 of it. She knelt upon a chair and made a mental 
 prayer to God to save her Calyste's reason, to put his 
 madness, his error far away from him; to lead him 
 from the path in which she now beheld him. 
 
 ''What are you doing, mother?" said Calyste, 
 entering the room. 
 
 ''I am praying to God for you," she answered, sim- 
 ply, turning her tearful eyes upon him. ''I have com- 
 mitted the sin of reading that letter. My Calyste is 
 mad!" 
 
 "A sweet madness!" said the young man, kissing 
 her. 
 
 "I wish I could see that woman," she sighed. 
 
 "Mamma," said Calyste, "we shall take a boat to- 
 moiTow and cross to Croisic. If you are on the jetty 
 you can see her." 
 
 So saying, he sealed his letter and departed for Lea 
 Touches. 
 
 That which, above all, terrified the baroness was 
 to see a sentiment attaining, by the force of its own 
 Instinct, to the clear-sightedness of practised experi- 
 ence. Calyste's letter to Beatrix was such as the 
 Chevalier du Halga, with his knowledge of the world, 
 might have dictated. 
 
220 Beatrix, 
 
 xm. 
 
 DUEL BETWEEN WOMEN. 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest enjoyments that small 
 minds or inferior natures can obtain is that of deceiv- 
 ing a great soul, and laying snares for it. Beatrix 
 knew herself far beneath Camille Maupin. This infe- 
 riority lay not only in that collection of mental and 
 moral qualities which we call talent^ but in the things 
 of the heart called passion. 
 
 At the moment when Calyste was hurrying to Les 
 Touches with the impetuosity of a first love borne on 
 the wings of hope, the marquise was feeling a keen 
 delight in knowing herself the object of the first love 
 of so charming a young man. She did not go so far 
 as to wish herself a sharer in the sentiment, but she 
 thought it heroism on her part to repress the capriccio^ 
 as the Italians say. She thought she was equalling 
 Camille' s devotion, and told herself, moreover, that 
 she was sacrificing herself to her friend. The vanities 
 peculiar to Frenchwomen, which constitute the cele- 
 brated coquetry of which she was so signal an in- 
 stance, were flattered and deeply satisfied by Calyste's 
 love. Assailed by such powerful seduction, she was 
 resisting it, and her virtues sang in her soul a concert 
 of praise and self -approval. 
 
BSatrix. 221 
 
 The two women were half-sitting, half lying, in 
 apparent indolence on the divan of the little salon, 
 so filled with harmony and the fragrance of flowers. 
 The windows were open, for the north wind had ceased 
 to blow. A soothing southerly breeze was ruffling the 
 surface of the salt lake before them, and the sun was 
 glittering on the sands of the shore. Their souls were 
 as deeply agitated as the nature before them was tran- 
 quil, and the heat within was not less ardent. 
 
 Bruised by the working of the machinery which 
 she herself had set in motion, Camille was compelled 
 to keep watch for her safety, fearing the amazing 
 cleverness of the friendly enemy, or, rather, the inim- 
 ical friend she had allowed within her borders. To 
 guard her own secrets and maintain herself aloof, she 
 had taken of late to contemplations of nature; she 
 cheated the aching of her own heart by seeking a 
 meaning in the world around her, finding God in that 
 desert of heaven and earth. When an unbeliever once 
 perceives the presence of God, he flings himself unre- 
 servedly into Catholicism, which, viewed as a system, 
 is complete. 
 
 That morning Camille' s brow had worn the halo 
 of thoughts bom of these researches during a night- 
 time of painful struggle. Calyste was ever before her 
 like a celestial image. The beautiful youth, to whom 
 she had secretly devoted herself, had become to her a 
 guardian angel. Was it not he who led her into 
 those loftier regions, where suffering ceased beneath 
 the weight of incommensurable infinity? and now a 
 certain air of triumph about Beatrix disturbed her. 
 No woman gains an advantage over another without 
 
222 Biatrix. 
 
 allowing it to be felt, however much she may deny 
 having taken it. Nothing was ever more strange in 
 its course than the dumb, moral struggle which was 
 going on between these two women, each hiding from 
 the other a secret, — each believing herself generous 
 through hidden sacrifices. 
 
 Calyste arrived, holding the letter between his hand 
 and his glove, ready to slip it at some convenient 
 moment into the hand of Beatrix. Camille, whom the 
 subtle change in the manner of her friend had not 
 escaped, seemed not to watch her, but did watch her 
 in a mirror at the moment when Calyste was just enter- 
 ing the room. That is always a crucial moment for 
 women. The cleverest as well as the silliest of them, 
 the frankest as the shrewdest, are seldom able to keep 
 their secret; it bursts from them, at any rate, to the 
 eyes of another woman. Too much reserve or too 
 little ; a free and luminous look ; the mysterious lower- 
 ing of eyelids, — all betray, at that sudden moment, the 
 sentiment which is the most difficult of all to hide; 
 for real indifference has something so radically cold 
 about it that it can never be simulated. Women 
 have a genius for shades, — shades of detail, shades of 
 character; they know them all. There are times when 
 their eyes take in a rival from head to foot; they can 
 guess the slightest movement of a foot beneath a gown, 
 the almost imperceptible motion of the waist; they 
 know the significance of things which, to a man, seem 
 insignificant. Two women observing each other play 
 one of the choicest scenes of comedy that the world 
 can show. 
 
 ''Calyste has committed some folly," thought 
 
BUtrix. 223 
 
 Camille, perceiving in each of her guests that indefin- 
 able air of persons who have a mutual understanding. 
 
 There was no longer either stiffness or pretended 
 indifference on the part of Beatrix; she now regarded 
 Calyste as her own property. Calyste was even more 
 transparent; he colored, as guilty people, or happy 
 people color. He announced that he had come to make 
 arrangements for the excursion on the following day. 
 
 **Then you really intend to go, my dear?" said 
 Camille, interrogatively. 
 
 "Yes," said Beatrix. 
 
 *'How did you know it, Calyste?" asked Made- 
 moiselle des Touches. 
 
 ''I came here to find out," replied Calyste, on a look 
 flashed at him by Madame de Rochefide, who did not 
 wish Camille to gain the slightest inkling of their 
 correspondence. 
 
 ''They have an agreement together," thought 
 Camille, who caught the look in the powerful sweep 
 of her eye. 
 
 Under the pressure of that thought a hoiTible dis- 
 composure overspread her face and frightened 
 Beatrix. 
 
 "What is the matter, my dear? " she cried. 
 
 *' Nothing. Well, then, Calyste, send my horses 
 and yours across to Croisic, so that we may drive 
 home by way of Batz. We will breakfast at Croisic, 
 and get home in time for dinner. You must take 
 charge of the boat arrangements. Let us start by 
 half-past eight. You will see some fine sights, 
 Beatrix, and one very strange one; you will see 
 Cambremer, a man who does penance on a rock for 
 
224 Beatrix. 
 
 having wilfully killed his son. Oh! you are in a 
 primitive land, among a primitive race of people, 
 where men are moved by other sentiments than those 
 of ordinary mortals. Calyste shall tell you the tale ; 
 it is a drama of the seashore." 
 
 She went into her bedroom, for she was stifling. 
 Calyste gave his letter to Beatrix and followed 
 Camille. 
 
 ''Calyste, you are loved, T think; but you are hiding 
 something from me; you have done some foolish 
 thing." 
 
 "Loved! " he exclaimed, dropping into a chair. 
 
 Camille looked into the next room; Beatrix had 
 disappeared. The fact was odd. Women do not 
 usually leave a room which contains the man they 
 admire, unless they have either the certainty of seeing 
 him again, or spmething better still. Mademoiselle 
 des Touches said to herself : — 
 
 " Can he have given her a letter? " I 
 
 But she thought the innocent Breton incapable of 
 such boldness. 
 
 "If you have disobeyed me, all will be lost, through 
 your own fault," she said to him very gravely. "Go, 
 now, and make your preparations for to-morrow." 
 
 She made a gesture which Calyste did not venture to 
 resist. 
 
 As he walked toward Croisic, to engage the boat- 
 men, fears came into Calyste' s mind. Camille' s. 
 speech foreshadowed something fatal, and he believed 
 in the second sight of her maternal affection. When 
 he returned, four hours later, very tired, and expecting 
 to dine at Les Touches, he found Camille' s maid 
 
Bdatrix, 225 
 
 keeping watch over the door, to tell him that neither 
 her mistress nor the marquise could receive him that 
 evening. Calyste, much surprised, wished to ques- 
 tion her, but she bade him hastily good-night and 
 closed the door. 
 
 Six o'clock was striking on the steeple of Guerande 
 as Calyste entered his own house, where Mariotte gave 
 him his belated dinner; after which, he played mouche 
 in gloomy meditation. These alternations of joy and 
 gloom, happiness and unhappiness, the extinction of 
 hopes succeeding the apparent certainty of being 
 loved, bruised and wounded the young soul which had 
 flown so high on outstretched wings that the fall was 
 dreadful. 
 
 ''Does anything trouble you, my Calyste? " said his 
 mother. 
 
 "Nothing," he replied, looking at her with eyes 
 from which the light of the soul and the fire of love 
 were withdrawn. 
 
 It is not hope, but despair, which gives the measure 
 of our ambitions. The finest poems of hope are sung 
 in secret, but grief appears without a veil. 
 
 "Calyste, you are not nice," said Charlotte, after 
 vainly attempting upon him those little provincial 
 witcheries which degenerate usually into teasing. 
 
 "I am tired," he said, rising, and bidding the com- 
 pany good-night. 
 
 " Calyste is much changed," remarked Mademoiselle 
 de Pen-Hoel. 
 
 ''We haven't beautiful dresses trimmed with lace; 
 we don't shake our sleeves like this, or twist our 
 bodies like that; we don't know how to give sidelong 
 
 16 
 
226 Beatrix. 
 
 glances, and turn our eyes," said Charlotte, mimick- 
 ing the air, and attitude, and the glances of the mar- 
 quise. " We have n't that head voice, nor the interest- 
 ing little cough, heu I heu ! which sounds like the sigh 
 of a spook; we have the misfortune of being healthy 
 and robust, and of loving our friends without coquetry ; 
 and when we look at them, we don't pretend to stick 
 a dart into them, or to watch them slyly; we can't 
 bend our heads like a weeping willow, just to look 
 the more interesting when we raise them — this way." 
 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel could not help laughing 
 at her niece's gesture; but neither the chevalier nor 
 the baron paid any heed to this truly provincial satire 
 against Paris. 
 
 " But the Marquise de Rochefide is a very handsome 
 woman," said the old maid. 
 
 *^My dear," said the baroness to her husband, "I 
 happen to know that she is going over to Croisic to- 
 morrow. Let us walk on the jetty ; I should like to 
 see her." 
 
 While Calyste was racking his brains to imagine 
 what could have closed the doors of Les Touches to 
 him, a scene was passing between Camille and 
 Beatrix which was to have its influence on the events 
 of the morrow. 
 
 Calyste' 8 last letter had stirred in Madame de 
 Rochefide' s heart emotions hitherto unknown to it. 
 Women are not often the object of a love so young, 
 guileless, sincere, and unconditional as that of this 
 youth, this child. Beatrix had loved more than she 
 had been loved. After being all her life a slave, 
 she suddenly felt an inexplicable desire to be a tyrant 
 
Beatrix. 227 
 
 But, in the midst of her pleasure, as she read and 
 re-read the letter, she was pierced through and through 
 with a cruel idea. 
 
 What were Calyste and Camille doing together ever 
 since Claude Vignon's departure? If, as Calyste 
 said, he did not love Camille, and if Camille knew it, 
 how did they employ their mornings, and why were 
 they alone together ? Memory suddenly flashed into her 
 mind, in answer to these questions, certain speeches of 
 Camille ; a grinning devil seemed to show her, as in 
 a magic mirror, the portrait of that heroic woman, 
 with certain gestures, certain aspects, which suddenly 
 enlightened her. What! instead of being her equal, 
 was she crushed by Felicite? instead of over-reaching 
 her, was she being over-reached herself? was she only 
 a toy, a pleasure, which Camille was giving to her 
 child, whom she loved with an extraordinary passion 
 that was free from all vulgarity? 
 
 To a woman like Beatrix this thought came like a 
 thunder-clap. She went over in her mind minutely 
 the history of the past week. In a moment the part 
 which Camille was playing, and her own, unrolled 
 themselves to their fullest extent before her eyes ; she 
 felt horribly belittled. In her fury of jealous anger, 
 she fancied she could see in Camille's conduct an 
 intention of vengeance against Conti. Was the 
 hidden wrath of the past two years really acting upon 
 the present moment? 
 
 Once on the path of these doubts and suppositions, 
 Beatrix did not pause. She walked up and down her 
 room, driven to rapid motion by the impetuous move- 
 ments of her soul, sitting down now and then, and 
 
228 Beatrix. 
 
 trying to decide upon a course, but unable to do so. 
 And thus she remained, a prey to indecision until 
 the dinner hour, when she rose hastily, and went 
 downstairs without dressing. No sooner did Camille 
 see her, than she felt that a crisis had come. Beatrix, 
 in her morning gown, with a chilling air and a taci- 
 turn manner, indicated to an observer as keen as 
 Maupin the coming hostilities of an embittered heart. 
 
 Camille instantly left the room and gave the order 
 which so astonished Calyste ; she feared that he might 
 arrive in the midst of the quarrel, and she determined 
 to be alone, without witnesses, in fighting this duel of 
 deception on both sides. Beatrix, without an auxil- 
 iary, would infallibly succumb. Camille well knew 
 the barrenness of that soul, the pettiness of that pride, 
 to which she had justly applied the epithet of 
 obstinate. 
 
 The dinner was gloomy. Camille was gentle and 
 kind; she felt herself the superior being. Beatrix 
 was hard and cutting ; she felt she was being managed 
 like a child. During dinner the battle began with 
 glances, gestures, half-spoken sentences, — not enough 
 to enlighten the servants, but enough to prepare an 
 observer for the coming storm. When the time to go 
 upstairs came, Camille offered her arm maliciously 
 to Beatrix, who pretended not to see it, and sprang 
 up the stairway alone. When coffee had been served 
 Mademoiselle des Touches said to the footman, "You 
 may go,'* — a brief sentence, which served as a signal 
 for the combat. 
 
 "The novels you make, my dear, are more danger- 
 ous than those you write," said the marquise. 
 
BSatrix. 229 
 
 "They have one advantage, however," replied 
 Camille, lighting a cigarette. 
 
 *' What is that? " asked Beatrix. 
 
 "They are unpublished, my angel." 
 
 "Is the one in which you are putting me to be 
 turned into a book ? " 
 
 "I 've no fancy for the role of CEdipus; I know you 
 have the wit and beauty of a sphinx, but don't pro- 
 pound conundrums. Speak out, plainly, my dear 
 Beatrix." 
 
 "When, in order to make a man happy, amuse him, 
 please him, and save him from ennui, we allow the 
 devil to help us — " 
 
 "That man would reproach us later for our efforts 
 on his behalf, and would think them prompted by the 
 genius of depravity," said Camille, taking the cigar- 
 ette from her lips to interrupt her friend. 
 
 "He forgets the love which carried us away, and 
 is our sole justification — but that *s the way of men, 
 they are all unjust and ungrateful," continued Beatrix. 
 "Women among themselves know each other; they 
 know how proud and noble their own minds are, and, 
 let us frankly say so, how virtuous! But, Camille, I 
 have just recognized the truth of certain criticisms 
 upon your nature, of which you have sometimes com- 
 plained. My dear, you have something of the man 
 about you; you behave like a man; nothing restrains 
 you; if you haven't all a man's advantages, you have 
 a man's spirit in all your ways; and you share his 
 contempt for women. I have no reason, my dear, to 
 be satisfied with you, and I am too frank to hide my 
 dissatisfaction. No one has ever given or ever will 
 
230 BUtrix, 
 
 give, perhaps, so crael a wound to my heart as that from 
 which I am now suffering. If you are not a woman 
 in love, you are one in vengeance. It takes a woman 
 of genius to discover the most sensitive spot of all in 
 another woman's delicacy. I am talking now of 
 Calyste, and the trickery, my dear, — that is the word, 
 — trickery^ — you have employed against me. To 
 what depths have you descended, Camille Maupin! 
 and why?" 
 
 "More and more sphinx-like! " said Camille, 
 smiling. 
 
 "You want me to fling myself at Calyste' s head; 
 but I am still too young for that sort of thing. To 
 me, love is sacred ; love is love with all its emotions, 
 jealousies, and despotisms. I am not an author; it is 
 impossible for me to see ideas where the heart feels 
 sentiments." 
 
 "You think yourself capable of loving foolishly!" 
 said Camille. "Make yourself easy on that score; 
 you still have plenty of sense. My dear, you calum- 
 niate yourself ; I assure you that your nature is cold 
 enough to enable your head to judge of every action 
 of your heart." 
 
 The marquise colored high; she darted a look of 
 hatred, a venomous look, at Camille, and found, with- 
 out searching, the sharpest arrows in her quiver. 
 Camille smoked composedly as she listened to a furious 
 tirade, which rang with such cutting insults that we 
 do not reproduce it here. Beatrix, irritated by the 
 calmness of her adversary, condescended even to per- 
 sonalities on Camille' s age. 
 
 "Is that all?" said Felicity, when Beatrix paused, 
 
Biatriz, 281 
 
 hating a cloud of smoke exhale from her lips. ''Do 
 you love Calyste? " 
 
 *'No; of course not." 
 
 "So much the better," replied Camille. "I do love 
 him — far too much for my peace of mind. He may, 
 perhaps, have had a passing fancy for you; for you 
 are, you know, enchantingly fair, while I am as black 
 as a crow ; you are slim and willowy, while I have a 
 portly dignity; in short, you are young ! — that 's the 
 final word, and you have not spared it to me. You 
 have abused your advantages as a woman against me. 
 I have done my best to prevent what has now hap- 
 pened. However little of a woman you may think me, 
 I am woman enough, my dear, not to allow a rival to 
 ti'iumph over me unless I choose to help her." (This 
 remark, made in apparently the most innocent man- 
 ner, cut the marquise to the heart). ''You take me 
 for a very silly person if you believe all that Calyste 
 tries to make you think of me. I am neither so great 
 nor so small; I am a woman, and very much of a 
 woman. Come, put off your grand airs, and give me 
 your hand I " continued Camille, taking Madame de 
 Rochefide's hand. "You do not love Calyste, you 
 say; that is true, is it not? Don't be angry, there- 
 fore; be hard, and cold, and stern to him to-morrow; 
 he will end by submitting to his fate, especially after 
 certain little reproaches which I mean to make to 
 him. Still, Calyste is a Breton, and very persistent; 
 if he should continue to pay court to you, tell me 
 frankly, and I will lend you my little country house 
 near Paris, where you will find all the comforts of life, 
 and where Conti can come out and see you. You 
 
232 Beatrix. 
 
 said just now that Calyste calumniated me. Good 
 heavens! what of that? The purest love lies twenty 
 times a day; its deceptions only prove its strength." 
 
 Camille's face wore an air of such superb disdain 
 that the marquise grew fearful and anxious. She 
 knew not how to answer. Camille dealt her a last 
 blow. 
 
 "I am more confiding and less bitter than you," she 
 said. ''I don't suspect you of attempting to cover 
 by a quarrel a secret injury, which would compromise 
 my very life. You know me; I shall never survive the 
 loss of Calyste, but I must lose him sooner or later. 
 Still, Calyste loves me now ; of that I am sure. " 
 
 "Here is what he answered to a letter of mine, 
 urging him to be true to you," said Beatrix, holding 
 out Calyste 's last letter. 
 
 Camille took it and read it; but as she read it, her 
 eyes filled with tears; and presently she wept as 
 women weep in their bitterest sorrows. 
 
 "My God! " she said, "how he loves her! I shall 
 die without being understood — or loved," she added. 
 
 She sat for a few moments with her head leaning 
 against the shoulder of her companion ; her grief was 
 genuine; she felt to the very core of her being the 
 same terrible blow which the Baronne du Guenic had 
 received in reading that letter. 
 
 "Do you love him?" she said, straightening herself 
 up, and looking fixedly at Beatrix. "Have you that 
 infinite worship for him which triumphs over all pains, 
 survives contempt, betrayal, the certainty that he will 
 never love you? Do you love him for himself, and 
 for the very joy of loving him? " 
 
B6atrix 233 
 
 **Dear friend, "'said the marquise, tenderly, ''be 
 happy, be at peace; 1 will leave this place to-morrow." 
 
 "No, do not go; he loves you, I see that. Well, I 
 love him so much that I could not endure to see him 
 wretched and unhappy. Still, I had formed plans for 
 him, projects; but if he loves you, all is over." 
 
 *'And I love him, Camille," said the marquise, with 
 a sort of naivete^ and coloring. 
 
 ''You love him, and yet you cast him off! " cried 
 Camille. "Ah! that is not loving; you do not love 
 him." 
 
 "I don't know what fresh virtue he has roused in 
 me, but certainly he has made me ashamed of my 
 own self," said Beatrix. "I would I were virtuous 
 and free, that I might give him something better 
 than the dregs of a heart and the weight of my chains. 
 I do not want a hampered destiny either for him 
 or for myself." 
 
 "Cold brain!" exclaimed Camille, with a sort of 
 horror. " To love and calculate ! " 
 
 " Call it what you like," said Beatrix, "but I will not 
 spoil his life, or hang like a millstone round his neck, 
 to become an eternal regret to him. If I cannot be his 
 wife, I shall not be his mistress. He has — you will 
 laugh at me? No? Well, then, he has purified me." 
 
 Camille cast on Beatrix the most sullen, savage 
 look that female jealousy ever cast upon a rival. 
 
 "On that ground, I believed I stood alone," she 
 said. "Beatrix, those words of yours must separate 
 us forever; we are no longer friends. Here begins 
 a terrible conflict between us. I tell you now: you 
 will either succumb or fly." 
 
234 Beatrix. 
 
 So saying, Camille bounded into her room, after 
 showing her face, which was that of a maddened 
 lioness, to the astonished Beatrix. Then she raised 
 the portiere and looked in again. 
 
 *'Do you intend to go to Croisic to-morrow," she 
 asked. 
 
 *' Certainly," replied the marquise, proudly. "I 
 shall not fly, and I shall not succumb." 
 
 ''I play above board," replied Camille; "I shall 
 write to Conti." 
 
 Beatrix became as white as the gauze of her scarf. 
 
 "We are staking our lives on this game," she re- 
 plied, not knowing what to say or do. 
 
 The violent passions roused by this scene between the 
 two women calmed down during the night. Both argued 
 with their own minds and returned to those treacher- 
 ously temporizing courses which are so attractive to 
 the majority of women, — an excellent system between 
 men and women, but fatally unsafe among women 
 alone. In the midst of this tumult of their souls 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had listened to that great 
 Voice whose counsels subdue "the strongest will; 
 Beatrix heard only the promptings of worldly wis- 
 dom ; she feared the contempt of society. 
 
 Thus Felicite's last deception succeeded; Calyste's 
 blunder was repaired, but a fresh indiscretion might 
 be fatal to him. 
 
Beatrix, 235 
 
 XIV. 
 
 AN EXCURSION TO CROISIC. 
 
 It was now the end of August, and the sky was 
 magnificently clear. Near the horizon the sea had 
 taken, as it is wont to do in southern climes, a tint of 
 molten silver ; on the shore it rippled in tiny waves. 
 A sort of glowing vapor, an effect of the rays of the 
 sun falling plumb upon the sands, produced an atmos- 
 phere like that of the tropics. The salt shone up like 
 bunches of white violets on the surface of the marsh. 
 The patient paludiers, dressed in white to resist the 
 action of the sun, had been from early morning at 
 their posts, armed with long rakes. Some were lean«- 
 ing on the low mud-walls that divided the different 
 holdings, whence they watched the process of this 
 natural chemistry, known to them from childhood. 
 Others were playing with their wives and children. 
 Those green dragons, otherwise called custom-house 
 officers, were tranquilly smoking their pipes. 
 
 There was something foreign, perhaps oriental, 
 about the scene ; *at any rate a Parisian suddenly trans- 
 ported thither would never have supposed himself in 
 France. The baron and baroness, who had made a 
 pretext of coming to see how the salt harvest throve, 
 were on the jetty, admiring the silent landscape, whore 
 the sea alone soundetl the moan of her waves at regular 
 
236 ' Beatrix. 
 
 intervals, where boats and vessels tracked a vast ex- 
 panse, and the girdle of green earth richly cultivated, 
 pi-oduced an effect that was all the more charming be- 
 cause so rare on the desolate shores of ocean. 
 
 '^ Well, my friends, I wanted to see the marshes of 
 Guerande once more before I die," said the baron to 
 the paludiers^ who had gathered about the entrance of 
 the marshes to salute him. 
 
 " Can a Guenic die?" said one of them. 
 
 Just then the party from Les Touches arrived 
 through the narrow pathway. The marquise walked 
 first alone ; Calyste and Camille followed arm-in-arm. 
 Gasselin brought up the rear. 
 
 '' There are my father and mother," said the young 
 man to Camille. 
 
 The marquise stopped short. Madame du Guenic 
 felt the most violent repulsion at the appearance of 
 Beatrix, although the latter was dressed to much ad- 
 vantage. A Leghorn hat with wide brims and a 
 wreath of blue-bells, her crimped hair fluffy beneath it, 
 a gown of some gray woollen stuff, and a blue sash 
 with floating ends gave her the air of a princess dis- 
 guised as a milkmaid. 
 
 " She has no heart," thought the baroness. 
 
 '' Mademoiselle," said Calyste to Camille, '' this is 
 Madame du Guenic, and this is my father." Then he 
 said turning to the baron and baroness, " Mademoiselle 
 des Touches, and Madame la Marquise de Rochefide, 
 nee de Casteran, father." 
 
 The baron bowed to Mademoiselle des Touches, who 
 made a respectful bow, full of gratitude, to the 
 baroness. 
 
Beatrix. 237 
 
 " That one," thought Fanny, ** really loves my boy ; 
 she seems to thank me for bringing him into the world." 
 
 **I suppose you have come to see, as I have, 
 whether the harvest is a good one. But I believe you 
 have better reasons for doing so than I," said the 
 baron to Camille. *' You have property here, 1 think, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 '* Mademoiselle is the largest of all the owners," said 
 one of the paludiers who were grouped about them, 
 '* and may God preserve her to us, for she 's a good 
 lady." 
 
 The two parties bowed and separated. 
 
 ** No one would suppose Mademoiselle des Touches 
 to be more than thirty," said the baron to his wife. 
 '* She is very handsome. And Calyste prefers that 
 haggard Parisian marquise to a sound Breton girl ! " 
 
 *^I fear he does," replied the baroness. 
 
 A boat was waiting at the steps of the jetty, where 
 the party embarked without a smile. The marquise 
 was cold and dignified. Camille had lectured Calyste 
 on his disobedience, explaining to him clearly how 
 matters stood. Calyste, a prey to black despair, was 
 casting glances at Beatrix in which anger and love 
 struggled for the mastery. Not a word was said by 
 any of them during the short passage from the jetty of 
 Guerande to the extreme end of the port of Croisic, 
 the point where the boats discharge the salt, whicli the 
 peasant-women then bear away on their heads in huge 
 earthen jars after the fashion of caryatides. These 
 women go barefooted with very short petticoats. 
 Many of them let the kerchiefs which cover their 
 bosoms fly carelessly open. Some wear only shifts, 
 
238 Beatrix. 
 
 and are the more dignified ; for the less clothing a 
 woman wears, the more nobly modest is her bearing. 
 
 The little Danish vessel had just finished lading, there- 
 fore the landing of the two handsome ladies excited 
 much curiosity among the female salt-carriers ; and as 
 much to avoid their remarks as to serve Calyste, Camille 
 sprang forward toward the rocks, leaving him to follow 
 with Beatrix, while Gasselin put a distance of some 
 two hundred steps between himself and his master. 
 
 The peninsula of Croisic is flanked on the sea side 
 by granite rocks the shapes of which are so strangely 
 fantastic that they can only be appreciated by travellers 
 who are in a position to compare them with other great 
 spectacles of primeval Nature. Perhaps the rocks of 
 Croisic have the same advantage over sights of that 
 kind as that accorded to the road to the Grande 
 Chartreuse over all other narrow valleys. Neither the 
 coasts of Corsica, where the granite bulwark is split 
 into strange reefs, nor those of Sardinia, where Nature 
 is dedicated to grandiose and terrible effects, nor even 
 the basaltic rocks of .the northern seas can show a 
 character so unique and so complete. Fancy has here 
 amused itself by composing interminable arabesques 
 where the most fantastic figures wind and twine. All 
 forms are here. The imagination is at last fatigued 
 by this vast gallery of abnormal shapes, where in 
 stormy weather the sea makes rough assaults which 
 have ended in polishing all ruggedness. 
 
 You will find under a naturally vaulted roof, of a 
 boldness imitated from afar by Brunelleschi (for the 
 greatest efforts of art are always the timid copying of 
 effects of nature), a rocky hollow polished like a 
 
Beatrix. 289 
 
 marble bath-tub and floored with fine white sand, in 
 whicli is four feet of tepid water where you can bathe 
 without danger. You walk on, admiring the cool 
 little coves sheltered by great portals; roughly carved, 
 it is true, but majestic, like the Pitti palace, that 
 other imitation of the whims of Nature. Curious fea- 
 tures are innumerable; nothing is lacking that the 
 wildest imagination could invent or desire. 
 
 There even exists a thing so rare on the rocky shores 
 of ocean that this may be the solitary instance of it, — 
 a large bush of box. This bush, the greatest curiosity 
 of Croisic, where trees have never grown, is three miles 
 distant from the harbor, on the point of rocks that 
 runs out farthest into the sea. On this granite prom- 
 ontory, which rises to a height that neither the waves 
 nor the spray can touch, even in the wildest weather, 
 and faces southerly, diluvian caprice has constructed 
 a hollow basin, which projects about four feet. Into 
 this basin, or clef-t, chance, possibly man, has con- 
 veyed enough vegetable earth for the growth of a box- 
 plant, compact, well-nourished, and sown, no doubt, 
 by birds. The shape of the roots would indicate to a 
 botanist an existence of at least three hundred years. 
 Above it the rock has been broken off abruptly. The 
 natural convulsion which did this, the traces of 
 which are ineffaceably written here, must have carried 
 away the broken fragments of the granite I know not 
 where. 
 
 The sea rushes in, meeting no reefs, to the foot of 
 this cliff, which rises to a height of some four or five 
 hundred feet; at its base lie several scattered rocks, 
 just reaching the surface at high water, and describing 
 
240 Beatrix. 
 
 a semi-circle. It requires some nerve and resolution 
 to climb to the summit ^of this little Gibraltar, the 
 shape of which is nearly round, and from which a 
 sudden gust of wind might precipitate the rash gazer 
 into the sea, or, still more to be feared, upon the rocks. 
 
 This gigantic sentinel resembles the look-out towers 
 of old castles, from which the inhabitants could look 
 the country over and foresee attacks. Thence we see 
 the clock towers and the arid fields of Croisic, with 
 the sandy dunes, which injure cultivation, and stretch 
 as far as Batz. A few old men declare that in days 
 long past a fortress occupied the spot. The sardine- 
 fishers have given the rock, which can be seen far out 
 at sea, a name ; but it is useless to write it here, its 
 Breton consonants being as diflScult to pronounce as 
 to remember. 
 
 Calyste led Beatrix to this point, whence the view 
 is magnificent, and where the natural sculpture of the 
 granite is even more imposing to the spectator than 
 the mass of the huge breastwork when seen from the 
 sandy road which skirts the shore. 
 
 Is it necessary to explain why Camille had rushed 
 away alone? Like some wounded wild animal, she 
 longed for solitude, and went on and on, threading 
 her way among the fissures and caves and little peaks 
 of nature's fortress. Not to be hampered in climbing 
 by women's clothing, she wore trousers with frilled 
 edges, a short blouse, a peaked cap, and, by way 
 of staff, she carried a riding-whip, for Camille has 
 always had a certain vanity in her strength and her 
 agility. Thus arrayed, she looked far handsomer 
 than Beatrix. She wore also a little shawl of crimson 
 
Beatrix. 241 
 
 China crape, crossed on her bosom and tied behind, 
 as they dress a child. For some time Beatrix and 
 Calyste saw her flitting before them over the peaks 
 and chasms like a ghost or vision ; she was trying to 
 still her inward sufferings by confronting some imag- 
 inary peril. 
 
 She was the first to reach the rock in which the box- 
 bush grew. There she sat down in the shade of a 
 granite projection, and was lost in thought. What 
 could a woman like herself do with old age, having 
 already drunk the cup of fame which all great talents, 
 too eager to sip slowly the stupid pleasures of vanity, 
 quaff at a single draught? She has since admitted 
 that it was here — at this moment, and on this spot — 
 that one of those singular reflections suggested by a 
 mere nothing, by one of those chance accidents that 
 seem nonsense to common minds, but which, to noble 
 souls, do sometimes open vast depths of thought, 
 decided her to take the extraordinary step by which 
 she was to part forever from social life. 
 
 She drew from her pocket a little box, in which she 
 had put, in case of thirst, some strawberry lozenges ; 
 she now ate several; and as she did so, the thought 
 crossed her mind that the strawberries, which existed 
 no longer, lived nevertheless in their qualities. Was 
 it not so with ourselves? The ocean before her was 
 an image of the infinite. No great spirit can face the 
 infinite, admitting the immortality of the soul, without 
 the conviction of a future of holiness. The thought 
 filled her mind. How petty then seemed the part that 
 she was playing! there was no real greatness in giving 
 Beatrix to Calyste! So thinking, she felt the earthly 
 
 IC 
 
242 Beatrix. 
 
 woman die within her, and the true woman, the noble 
 and angelic being, veiled until now by flesh, arose in 
 her place. Her great mind, her knowledge, her attain- 
 ments, her false loves had brought her face to face 
 with what ? Ah ! who would have thought it ? — with the 
 bounteous mother, the comforter of troubled spirits, 
 with the Roman Church, ever kind to repentance, 
 poetic to poets, childlike with children, and yet so 
 profound, so full of mystery to anxious, restless 
 minds that they can burrow there and satisfy all 
 longings, all questionings, all hopjes. She cast her 
 eyes, as it were, upon the strangely devious way — 
 like the tortuous rocky path before her — over which 
 her love for Calyste had led her. Ah ! Calyste was 
 indeed a messenger from heaven, her divine conduc- 
 tor! She had stifled her earthly love, and a divine 
 love had come of it. 
 
 After walking for some distance in silence, Calyste 
 could not refrain, on a remark of Beatrix about the 
 grandeur of the ocean, so unlike the smiling beauty 
 of the Mediterranean, from comparing in depth, 
 purity, extent, unchanging and eternal duration, that 
 ocean with his love. 
 
 ''It is met by a rock! " said Beatrix, laughing. 
 
 ''When you speak thus," he answered, with a sub- 
 lime look, "I hear you, I see you, and I can summon 
 to my aid the patience of the angels; but when I am 
 alone, you would pity me if you could see me then. 
 My mother weeps for my suffering." 
 
 "Listen to me, Calyste; we must put an end to all 
 this," said the marquise, gazing down upon the sandy 
 road. "Perhaps we have now reached the only propi- 
 
Beatrix. 243 
 
 tious place to say these things, for never in my life 
 did I see nature more in keeping with my thoughts. I 
 have seen Italy, where all things tell of love ; I have 
 seen Switzerland, where all is cool and fresh, and tells 
 of happiness, — the happiness of labor; where the 
 verdure, the tranquil waters, the smiling slopes, are 
 oppressed by the snow- topped Alps ; but I have never 
 seen anything that so depicts the burning barrenness 
 of my life as that little arid plain down there, dried 
 by the salt sea winds, corroded by the spray, where a 
 fruitless agriculture tries to struggle against the will 
 of that great ocean. There, Calyste, you have an 
 image of this Beatrix. Don't cling to it. I love you, 
 but I will never be yours in any way whatever, for I 
 have the sense of my inward desolation. Ah ! you do 
 not know how cruel I am to myself in speaking thus 
 to you. No, you shall never see your idol diminished ; 
 she shall never fall from the height at which you have 
 placed her. I now have a horror of any love which 
 disregards the world and religion. I shall remain in 
 my present bonds ; I shall be that sandy plain we see 
 before us, without fruit or flowers or verdure." 
 
 " But if you are abandoned ? " said Calyste. 
 
 ''Then I should beg my pardon of the man I have 
 offended. I will never run the risk of taking a happi- 
 ness I know would quickly end." 
 
 ''End!" cried Calyste. 
 
 The marquise stopped the passionate speech into 
 which her lover was about to launch, by repeating the 
 word *'End! " in a tone that silenced him. 
 
 This opposition roused in the young man one of 
 those mute inward furies known only to those who 
 
244 Beatrix. 
 
 love without hope. They walked on several hundred 
 stej^s in total silence, looking neither at the sea, nor 
 the rocks, nor the plain of Croisic. 
 
 ''I would make you happy," said Calyste. 
 
 ''All men begin by promising that," she answered, 
 "and they end by abandonment and disgust. I have 
 no reproach to cast on him to whom I sliall be faithful. 
 He made me no promises ; I went to him ; but my only 
 means of lessening my fault is to make it eternal." 
 
 ''Say rather, madame, that you feel no love for me. 
 I, who love you, I know that love cannot argue ; it is 
 itself; it sees nothing else. There is no sacrifice I 
 will not make to you ; command it, and I will do the 
 impossible. He who despised his mistress for fling- 
 ing her glove among the lions, and ordering him to 
 bring it back to her, did not love ! He denied your 
 right to test our hearts, and to yield yourselves only 
 to our utmost devotion. I will sacrifice to you my 
 family, my name, my future." 
 
 "But what an insult in that word ' sacrifice ' ! " she 
 said, in reproachful tones, which made poor Calyste 
 feel the folly of his speech. 
 
 None but women who truly love, or inborn 
 coquettes, know how to use a word as a point from 
 which to make a spring. 
 
 "You are right," said Calyste, letting fall a tear; 
 "that word can only be said of the cruel struggles 
 which you ask of me." 
 
 "Hush!" said Beatrix, struck by an answer in 
 which, for the first time, Calyste had really made her 
 feel his love. "I have done wrong enough; tempt 
 me no more. " 
 
Beatrix. 245 
 
 At this moment they had reached the base of the 
 rock on which grew the plant of box. Calyste felt a 
 thrill of delight as he helped the marquise to climb 
 the steep ascent to the summit, which she wished to 
 reach. To the poor lad it was a precious privilege to 
 hold her up, to make her lean upon him, to feel her 
 tremble; she had need of him. This unlooked-for 
 pleasure turned his head; he saw nought else but 
 Beatrix, and he clasped her round the waist. 
 
 "What! " she said, with an imposing air. 
 
 *'Will you never be mine?" he demanded, in a 
 voice that was choked by the tumult of his blood. 
 
 "Never, my friend," she replied. "I can only be to 
 you a Beatrix, — a dream. But is not that a sweet 
 and tender thing? We shall have no bitterness, no 
 grief, no repentance." 
 
 "Will you return to Conti?" 
 
 "I must." 
 
 "You shall never belong to any man!" cried 
 Calyste, pushing her from him with frenzied violence. 
 
 He listened for her fall, intending to spring after 
 her, but he heard only a muffled sound, the tearing of 
 some stuff, and then the thud of a body falling on the 
 ground. Instead of being flung head foremost down 
 the precipice, Beatrix had only slipped some eight or 
 ten feet into the cavity where box-bush grew ; but she 
 might from there have rolled down into the sea if her 
 gown had not caught upon a point" of rock, and by 
 tearing slowly lowered the weight of her body upon 
 the bush. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches, who saw the scene, was 
 unable in her horror to cry out, but she signed to Gas- 
 
246 Beatrix. 
 
 selin to come. Calyste was leaning forward with an 
 expression of savage curiosity ; he saw the position in 
 which Beatrix lay, and he shuddered. Her lips 
 moved, — she seemed to be praying ; in fact, she 
 thought she was about to die, for she felt the bush 
 beginning to give way. With the agility which dan- 
 ger gives to youth, Calyste slid down to the ledge 
 below the bush, where he was able to grasp the mar- 
 quise and hold her, although at the risk of their both 
 sliding down into the sea. As he held her, he saw 
 that she had fainted ; but in that aerial spot he could 
 fancy her all his, and his first emotion was that of 
 pleasure. 
 
 "Open your eyes," he said, "and forgive me; we 
 will die together." 
 
 "Die?" she said, opening her eyes and unclosing 
 her pallid lips. 
 
 Calyste welcomed that word with a kiss, and felt 
 the marquise tremble under it convulsively, with pas- 
 sionate joy. At that instant Gasselin's hob-nailed 
 shoes sounded on the rock above them. The old 
 Breton was followed by Camille, and together they 
 sought for some means of saving the lovers. 
 
 "There's but one way, mademoiselle," said Gas- 
 selin. "I must slide down there, and they can climb 
 on my shoulders, and you must pull them up." 
 
 "And you?" said Camille. 
 
 The man seemed surprised that he should be con- 
 sidered in presence of the danger to his young master. 
 
 "You must go to Croisic and fetch a ladder," said 
 Camille. 
 
 Beatrix asked in a feeble voice to be laid down, and 
 
Beatrix, 247 
 
 C'lUyste placed her on the narrow space between the 
 bush and its background of rock. 
 
 *'I saw you, Calyste," said Camille from above. 
 "Whether Beatrix lives or dies, remember that this 
 must be an accident." 
 
 ''She will hate me," he said, with moistened eyes. 
 
 "She will adore you," replied Camille. *'But this 
 puts an end to our excursion. We must get her back 
 to Les Touches. Had she been killed, Calyste, what 
 would have become of you ? " 
 
 "I should have followed her." 
 
 "And your mother?" Then, after a pause, she 
 added, feebly, "and me?" 
 
 Calyste was deadly pale; he stood with his back 
 against the granite motionless and silent. Gasselin 
 soon returned from one of the little farms scattered 
 through the neighborhood, bearing a ladder which he 
 had borrowed. By this time Beatrix had recovered a 
 little strength. The ladder being placed, she was 
 able, by the help of Gasselin, who lowered Camille's 
 red shawl till she could grasp it, to reach the round 
 top of the rock, where the Breton took her in his 
 arms and carried her to the shore as though she were 
 an infant. 
 
 "I should not have said no to death — but suffer- 
 ing! " she murmured to F^licite, in a feeble voice. 
 
 The weakness, in fact the complete prostration, of 
 the marquise obliged Camille to have her taken to the 
 farmhouse from which the ladder had been borrowed. 
 Calyste, Gasselin, and Camille took off what clothes 
 they could spare and laid them on the ladder, making 
 a sort of litter on which they carried Beatrix. The 
 
248' Beatrix, 
 
 farmers gave her a bed. Gasselin then went to the 
 place where the carriage was awaiting them, and, 
 taking one of the horses, rode to Croisic to obtain a 
 doctor, telling the boatman to row to the landing-place 
 that was nearest to the farmhouse. 
 
 Calyste, sitting on a stool, answered only by 
 motions of the head, and rare monosyllables when 
 spoken to; Cam ille's uneasiness, roused for Beatrix, 
 was still further excited by Calyste' s unnatural condi- 
 tion. When the physician arrived, and Beatrix was 
 bled, she felt better, began to talk, and consented to 
 embark; so that by five o'clock they reached the jetty 
 at Guerande, whence she was carried to Les Touches. 
 The news of the accident had already spread through 
 that lonely and almost uninhabited region with in- 
 credible rapidity. 
 
 Calyste passed the night at Les Touches, sitting at 
 the foot of Beatrix's bed, in company with Camille. 
 The doctor from Guerande had assured them that on 
 the following day a little stiffness would be all that 
 remained of the accident. Across the despair of 
 Calyste 's heart there came a gleam of joy. He was 
 there, at her feet; he could watch her sleeping or 
 waking; he might study her pallid face and all its 
 expressions. Camille smiled bitterly as her keen 
 mind recognized in Calyste the symptoms of a passion 
 such as man can feel but once, — a passion which dyes 
 his soul and his faculties by mingling with the foun- 
 tain of his life at a period when neither thoughts nor 
 cares distract or oppose the inward working of this 
 emotion. She saw that Calj^ste would never, could 
 never see the real woman that was in Beatrix. 
 
Beatrix. 249 
 
 And with what guileless innocence the young Breton 
 allowed his thoughts to be read! When he saw the 
 beautiful green eyes of the sick woman turned to him, 
 expressing a mixture of love, confusion, and even 
 mischief, he colored, and turned away his head. 
 
 "Did I not say truly, Calyste, that you men prom- 
 ised happiness, and ended by flinging us dojvn a 
 precipice?" 
 
 When he heard this little jest, said in sweet, caressing 
 tones which betrayed a change of heart in Beatrix, 
 Calyste knelt down, took her moist hand which she 
 yielded to him, and kissed it humbly. 
 
 "You have the right to reject my love forever," he 
 said, '' and I, I have no right to say one word to you." 
 
 ''Ah!" cried Camille, seeing the expression on 
 Beatrix's face and comparing it with that obtained by 
 her diplomacy, '' love has a wit of its own, wiser than 
 that of all the world ! Take your composing-draught, 
 my dear friend, and go to sleep." 
 
 That night, spent by Calyste beside Mademoiselle 
 des Touches, who read a book of theological mysticism 
 while Calyste read " Indiana," — the first work of 
 Camille's celebrated rival, in which is the captivating 
 image of a young man loving with idolatry and devo- 
 tion, with mysterious tranquillity and for all his life, a 
 woman placed in the same false position as Beatrix (a 
 book which had a fatal influence upon him), — that 
 night left ineffaceable marks upon the heart of the poor 
 young fellow, whom Felicite soothed with the assurance 
 that unless a woman were a monster she must be flat- 
 tered in all her vanities by being the object of such a 
 crime. 
 
250 Beatrix, 
 
 " You would never have flung me into the water," 
 said Camille, brushing away a tear. 
 
 Toward morning, Calyste, worn-out with emotion, 
 fell asleep in his arm-chair ; and the marquise in her 
 turn, watched his charming face, paled by his feelings 
 and his vigil of love. She heard him murmur her name 
 as he slept. 
 
 *' He loves while sleeping," she said to Camille. 
 
 " We must send him home," said Felicite, waking 
 him. 
 
 No one was anxious at the hotel du Guenic, for 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had written a line to the 
 baroness telling her of the accident. 
 
 Calyste returned to dinner at Les Touches and found 
 Beatrix up and dressed, but pale, feeble, and languid. 
 No longer was there any harshness in her words or any 
 coldness in her looks. After this evening, filled with 
 music by Camille, who went to her piano to leave 
 Calyste free to take and press the hands of Beatrix 
 (though both were unable to speak), no storms occurred 
 at Les Touches. Felicite completely effaced herself. 
 
 Cold, fragile, thin, hard women like Madame de 
 Rochefide, women whose necks turn in a manner to 
 give them a vague resemblance to the feline race, have 
 souls of the same pale tint as their light eyes, green or 
 gray ; and to melt them, to fuse those blocks of stone 
 it needs a thunderbolt. To Beatrix, Calyste's fury of 
 love and his mad action came as the thunderbolt that 
 nought resists, which changes all natures, even the 
 most stubborn. She felt herself inwardly humbled ; a 
 true, pure love bathed her heart with its soft and 
 limpid warmth. She breathed a sweet and genial at- 
 
Beatrix, 251 
 
 mosphere of feelings hitherto unknown to her, by 
 which she felt herself magnified, elevated ; in fact she 
 rose into that heaven where Bretons throughout all 
 time have placed the Woman. She relished with de- 
 light the respectful adoration of the youth, whose hap- 
 piness cost her little, for a gesture, a look, a word was 
 enough to satisfy him. The value which Calyste's heart 
 gave to these trifles touched her exceedingly ; to hold 
 her gloved hand was more to that young angel than 
 the possession of her whole person to the man who 
 ought to have been faithful to her. What a contrast 
 between them ! 
 
 Few women could resist such constant deification. 
 Beatrix felt herself sure of being obeyed and under- 
 stood. She might have asked Calyste to risk his life 
 for the slightest of her caprices, and he would never 
 have reflected for a moment. This consciousness gave 
 her a certain noble and imposing air. She saw love 
 on the side of its grandeur ; and her heart sought for 
 some foothold on which she might remain forever the 
 loftiest of women in the eyes of her young lover, over 
 whom she now wished her power to be eternal. 
 
 Her coquetries became the' more persistent because 
 she felt within herself a certain weakness. She played 
 the invalid for a whole week with charming hypocrisy. 
 Again and again she walked about the velvet turf 
 which lay between the house and garden leaning on 
 Calyste's arm in languid dependence. 
 
 ** Ah ! my dear, you are taking him a long journey 
 in a small space," said Mademoiselle des Touches one 
 day. 
 
 Before the excursion to Croisic, the two women were 
 
252 Beatrix, 
 
 discoursing one evening about love, and laughing at 
 the different ways that men adopted to declare it; 
 admitting to themselves that the cleverest men, and 
 naturally the least loving, did not like to wander in the 
 labyrinths of sentimentality and went straight to the 
 point, — in which perhaps they were right ; for the re- 
 sult was that those who loved most deeply and reserv- 
 edly were, for a time at least, ill-treated. 
 
 " They go to work like La Fontaine, when he wanted 
 to enter the Academy," said Camille. 
 
 Madame de Rochefide had unbounded power to re- 
 strain Calyste within the limits where she meant to 
 keep him ; it sufficed her to remind him by a look or 
 gesture of his horrible violence on the rocks. The 
 eyes of her poor victim would fill with tears, he was 
 silent, swallowing down his prayers, his arguments, his 
 sufferings with a heroism that would certainly have 
 touched any other woman. She finally brought him by 
 her infernal coquetry to such a pass that he went one 
 day to Camille imploring her advice. 
 
 Beatrix, armed with Calyste' s own letter, quoted 
 the passage in which he said that to love was the first 
 happiness, that of being loved came later; and she 
 used that axiom to restrain his passion to the limits 
 of respectful idolatry, which pleased her well. She 
 liked to feel her soul caressed by those sweet hymns 
 of praise and adoration which nature suggests to 
 youth ; in them is so much artless art ; such innocent 
 seduction is in their cries, their prayers, their excla- 
 mations, their pledges of themselves in the promissory 
 notes which they offer on the future; to all of which 
 Beatrix was very careful to give no definite answer. 
 
Beatrix. 253 
 
 Yes, she heard him; but she doubted! Love was 
 not yet the question; what he asked of her was 
 permission to love. In fact, that was all that the poor 
 lad really asked for; his mind still clung to the 
 strongest side of love, the spiritual side. But the 
 woman who is firmest in words is often the feeblest 
 in action. It is strange that Calyste, having seen the 
 progress his suit had made by pushing Beatrix into 
 •the sea, did not continue to urge it violently. But 
 love in young men is so ecstatic and religious that 
 their inmost desire is to win its fruition through moral 
 conviction. In that is the sublimity of their love. 
 
 Nevertheless the day came when the Breton, driven 
 to desperation, complained to Camille of Beatrix's 
 conduct. 
 
 *'l meant to cure you by making you quickly under- 
 stand her," replied Mademoiselle des Touches; "but 
 you have spoiled all. Ten days ago you were her 
 master ; to-day, my poor boy, you are her slave. You 
 will never have the strength now to do as I advise." 
 
 "What ought I to do?" 
 
 "Quarrel with her on the ground of her hardness. 
 A woman is always over-excited when she discusses; 
 let her be angry and ill-treat you, and then stay away ; 
 do not return to Les Touches till she herself recalls 
 you." 
 
 In all extreme illness there is a moment when the 
 patient is willing to accept the cruellest remedy and 
 submits to the most horrible operation. Calyste had 
 reached that point. He listened to Camille's advice 
 and stayed at home two whole days ; but on the third 
 he was scratching at Beatrix's door to let her know 
 that he and Camille were waiting breakfast for her. 
 
254 Beatrix. 
 
 "Another chancie lost!" Camille said to him when 
 she saw him re-appear so weakly. 
 
 During his two days' absence, Beatrix had frequently 
 looked through the window which opens on the road 
 to Guerande. When Camille found her doing so, she 
 talked of the effect produced by the gorse along the 
 roadway, the golden blooms of which were dazzling in 
 the September sunshine. 
 
 The marquise kept Camille and Calyste waiting long 
 for breakfast ; and the delay would have been signifi- 
 cant to any eyes but those of Calyste, for when she 
 did appear, her dress showed an evident intention to 
 fascinate him and prevent another absence. After 
 breakfast she went to walk with him in the garden and 
 filled his simple heart with joy by expressing a wish 
 to go again to that rock where she had so nearly 
 perished. 
 
 *'Will you go with me alone?" asked Calyste, in a 
 troubled voice. 
 
 ''If I refused to do so," she replied, "I should 
 give you reason to suppose I thought you dangerous. 
 Alas ! as I have told you again and again I belong to 
 another, and I must be his only ; I chose him knowing 
 nothing of love. The fault was great, and bitter is 
 my punishment." 
 
 When she talked thus, her eyes moist with the 
 scanty tears shed by that class of women, Calyste 
 was filled with a compassion that reduced his fiery 
 ardor; he adored her then as he did a Madonna. We 
 have no more right to require different characters to 
 be alike in the expression of feelings than we have to 
 expect the same fruits from different trees. Beatrix 
 
Beatrix. 255 
 
 was at this moment undergoing an inward stniggle; 
 she hesitated between herself and Calyste, — between 
 the world she still hoped to re-enter, and the young 
 happiness offered to her; between a second and an 
 unpardonable love, and social rehabilitation. She 
 began, therefore, to listen, without even acted dis- 
 pleasure, to the talk of the youth's blind passion; she 
 allowed his soft pity to soothe her. Several times 
 she had been moved to tears as she listened to 
 Calyste's promises; and she suffered him to commis- 
 erate her for being bound to an evil genius, a man as 
 false as Conti. More than once she related to him the 
 misery and anguish she had gone through in Italy, 
 when she first became aware that she was not alone 
 in Conti's heart. On this subject Camille had fully 
 informed Calyste and given him several lectures on it, 
 by which he profited. 
 
 *'I," he said, "will love you only, you absolutely. 
 I have no triumphs of art, no applause of crowds 
 stirred by my genius to offer you ; my only talent is to 
 love you; my honor, my pride are in your perfections. 
 No other woman can have merit in my eyes ; you have 
 no odious rivalry to fear. You are misconceived and 
 wronged, but I know you, and for every misconcep- 
 tion, for every wrong, 1 will make you feel my com- 
 prehension day by day." 
 
 She listened to such speeches with bowed head, 
 allowing him to kiss her hands, and admitting silently 
 but gracefully that she was indeed an angel misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 *'I am too humiliated," she would say; **my past 
 has robbed the future of all security." 
 
256 Beatrix. 
 
 It was a glorious day for Calyste when, arriving at 
 Les Touches at seven in the morning, he saw from afar 
 Beatrix at a window watching for him, and wearing 
 the same straw hat she had worn on the memorable 
 day of their first excursion. For a moment he was daz- 
 zled and giddy. These little things of passion mag- 
 nify the world itself. It may be that only French- 
 women possess the art of such scenic effects; they 
 owe it to the grace of their minds ; they know how to 
 put into sentiment as much of the picturesque as the 
 particular sentiment can bear without a loss of vigor 
 or of force. 
 
 Ah ! how lightly she rested on Calyste's arm ! 
 Together they left Les Touches by the garden-gate 
 which opens on the dunes. Beatrix thought the sands 
 delightful ; she spied the hardy little plants with rose- 
 colored flowers that grew there, and she gathered a 
 quantity to mix with the Chartreux pansies which also 
 grow in that arid desert, dividing them significantly 
 with Calyste, to whom those flowers and their foliage 
 were to be henceforth an eternal and dreadful relic. 
 
 " We'll add a bit of box," she said smiling. 
 
 They sat some time together on the jetty, and Calyste, 
 while waiting for the boat to come over, told her of 
 his juvenile act on the day of her arrival. 
 
 " I knew of your little escapade," she said, '* and 
 it was the cause of my sternness to you that first 
 night." 
 
 During their walk Madame de Rochefide had the 
 lightly jesting tone of a woman who loves, together 
 with a certain tenderness and abandonment of manner. 
 Calyste had reason to think himself beloved. But 
 
Beatrix. 267 
 
 when, wandering along the shore beneath the rocks, 
 they came upon one of those charming creeks where 
 the waves deposit the most extraordinary mosaic of 
 brilliant pebbles, and they played there like children 
 gathering the prettiest, when Calyste at the summit 
 of happiness asked her plainly to fly with him to 
 Ireland, she resumed her dignified and distant air, 
 asked for his arm, and continued their walk in silence 
 to what she called her Tarpeian rock. 
 
 " My friend," she said, mounting with slow steps 
 the magnificent block of granite of which she was mak- 
 ing for herself a pedestal, '' I have not the courage to 
 conceal what you are to me. For ten years I have had 
 no happiness comparable to that which we have just 
 enjoyed together, searching for shells among those 
 rocks, exchanging pebbles of which I shall make a 
 necklace more precious far to me than if it were made 
 of the finest diamonds. I have been once more a little 
 girl, a child, such as I was at fourteen or sixteen — 
 when I was worthy of you. The love that I have had 
 the happiness to inspire in your heart has raised me in 
 my own eyes. Understand those words to their 
 magical extent. You have made me the proudest and 
 happiest of my sex, and you will live longer in my 
 remembrance, perhaps, than I in yours." 
 
 At this moment they reached the summit of the 
 rock, whence they saw the vast ocean on one side and 
 Brittany on the other, with its golden isles, its feudal 
 towers, and its gorse. Never did any woman stand on 
 a finer scene to make a great avowal. 
 
 ** But," she continued, ** I do not belong to myself; 
 I am more bound by my own will than I was by the 
 
 17 
 
258 Beatrix. 
 
 law. You must be punished for my misdeed, but be 
 satisfied to know that we suffer together. Dante 
 nev6r saw his Beatrice again ; Petrarch never possessed 
 his Laura. Such disasters fall on none but noble 
 souls. But, if I should be abandoned, if I fall lower 
 yet into shame and ignominy, if your Beatrix is cruelly 
 misjudged by the world she loathes, if indeed she is 
 the lowest of women, — then, my child, my adored 
 child," she said, taking his hand, '' to you she will 
 still be first of all ; you will know that she rises to 
 heaven as she leans on you; but then, my friend," 
 she added, giving him an intoxicating look, " then if 
 you wish to cast her down do not fail of your blow ; 
 after your love, death ! " 
 
 Calyste clasped her round the waist and pressed her 
 to his heart. As if to confirm her words Madame de 
 Rochefide laid a tender, timid kiss upon his brow. 
 Then they turned and walked slowly back ; talking 
 together like those who have a perfect comprehension 
 of each other, — she, thinking she had gained a truce, 
 he not doubting of his happiness ; and both deceived. 
 Calyste, from what Camille had told him, was confident 
 that Conti would be enchanted to find an opportunity 
 to part from Beatrix; Beatrix, yielding herself up 
 to the vagueness of her position, looked to chance to 
 arrange the future. 
 
 They reached Les Touches in the most delightful of 
 all states of mind, entering by the garden gate, the key 
 of which Calyste had taken with him. It was nearly 
 six o'clock. The luscious odors, the warm atmosphere, 
 the burnished rays of the evening sun were all in har- 
 mony with their feelings and their tender talk. Their 
 
Beatrix. 259 
 
 steps were taken in unison, — the gait of all lovers, — 
 their movements told of the union of their thoughts. 
 The silence that reigned about Les Touches was so 
 profound that the noise which Calyste made in opening 
 and shutting the gate must have echoed through the 
 garden. As the two had said all to each other that 
 could be said, and as their day's excursion, so filled 
 with emotion, had physically tired them, they walked 
 slowly, saying nothing. 
 
 Suddenly, at the turn of a path, Beatrix was seized 
 with a horrible trembling, with that contagious horror 
 which is caused by the sight of a snake, and which 
 Calyste felt before he saw the cause of it. On a bench, 
 beneath the branches of a weeping ash, sat Conti, 
 talking with Camille Maupin. 
 
260 Beatrix. 
 
 XV. 
 
 CONTI. 
 
 The inward and convulsive trembling of the mar- 
 quise was more apparent than she wished it to be ; a 
 tragic drama developed at that moment in the souls of 
 all present. 
 
 " You did not expect me so soon, I fancy," said 
 Conti, offering his arm to Beatrix. 
 
 The marquise could not avoid dropping Calyste's 
 arm and taking that of Conti. This ignoble transit, 
 imperiously demanded, so dishonoring to the new love, 
 overwhelmed Calyste who threw himself on the bench 
 beside Camille, after exchanging the coldest of saluta- 
 tions with his rival. He was torn by conflicting 
 emotions. Strong in the thought that Beatrix loved 
 him, he wanted at first to fling himself upon Conti and 
 tell him that Beatrix was his ; but the violent trembling 
 of the woman betraying how she suffered — for she had 
 really paid the penalty of her faults in that one 
 moment — affected him so deeply that he was dumb, 
 struck like her with a sense of some implacable 
 necessity. 
 
 Madame de Rochefide and Conti passed in front of 
 the seat where Calyste had dropped beside Camille, 
 and as she passed, the marquise looked at Camille, 
 giving her one of those terrible glances in which 
 
Beatrix. 261 
 
 women have the art of saying all things. She avoided 
 the eyes of Calyste and turned her attention to Conti, 
 who appeared to be jesting with her. 
 
 **What will they say to each other?" Calyste asked 
 of Camille. 
 
 ''Dear child, you don't know as yet the terrible 
 rights which an extinguished love still gives to a 
 man over a woman. Beatrix could not refuse to take 
 his arm. He is, no doubt, joking her about her new 
 love ; he must have guessed it from your attitudes and 
 the manner in which you approached us." 
 
 '* Joking her! " cried the impetuous youth, starting 
 up. 
 
 "Be calm," said Camille, "or you will lose the last 
 chances that remain to you. If he wounds her self- 
 love, she will crush him like a worm under her foot. 
 But he is too astute for that; he will manage her with 
 greater cleverness. He will seem not even to sup- 
 pose that the proud Madame de Rochefide could betray 
 him ; she could never be guilty of such depravity as 
 loving a man for the sake of his beauty. He will 
 represent you to her as a child ambitious to have a 
 marquise in love with him, and to make himself the 
 arbiter of the fate of two women. In short, he will 
 lire a broadside of malicious insinuations. Beatrix 
 will then be forced to parry with false assertions 
 and denials, which he will simply make use of to 
 become once more her master." 
 
 "Ah!" cried Calyste, "he does not love her. I 
 would leave her free. True love means a choice made 
 anew at every moment, confirmed from day to day. 
 The morrow justifies the past, and swells the treasury 
 
262 Beatrix, 
 
 of our pleasures. Ah! why did he not stay awiy a 
 little longer? A few days more and he would not 
 have found her. What brought him back ? " 
 
 ''The jest of a journalist," replied Camille. "His 
 opera, on the success of which he counted, has fallen 
 flat. Some journalist, probably Claude Vignon, re- 
 marked in the foyer: 'It is hard to lose fame and 
 mistress at the same moment, ' and the speech cut him 
 in all his vanities. Love based on petty sentiments 
 is always pitiless. I have questioned him ; but who 
 can fathom a nature so false and so deceiving? He 
 appeared to be weary of his troubles and his love, — 
 in short, disgusted with life. He regrets having allied 
 himself so publicly with the marquise, and made me, 
 in speaking of his past happiness, a melancholy poem, 
 which was somewhat too clever to be true. I think he 
 hoped to worm out of me the secret of your love, in the 
 midst of the joy he expected his flatteries to cause 
 me." 
 
 "What else?" said Calyste, watching Beatrix and 
 Conti, who were now coming towards them; but he 
 listened no longer to Camille' s words. 
 
 In talking with Conti, Camille had held herself pru- 
 dently on the defensive; she had betrayed neither 
 Calyste' s secret nor that of Beatrix. The great artist 
 was capable of treachery to every one, and Mademoi- 
 selle des Touches warned Calyste to distrust him. 
 
 "My dear friend," she said, "this is by far the most 
 critical moment for you. You need caution and a sort 
 of cleverness you do not possess ; I am afraid you will 
 let yourself be tricked by the most wily man I have 
 ever known, and I can do nothing to help you." 
 
Beatrix. 263 
 
 The bell announced dinner. Conti offered his arm 
 to Camille; Calyste gave his to Beatrix. Camille 
 drew back to let the marquise pass, but the latter had 
 found a moment in which to look at Calyste, and im- 
 press upon him, by putting her finger on her lips, the 
 absolute necessity of discretion. 
 k Conti was extremely gay during the dinner; per- 
 haps this was only one way of probing Madame de 
 Rochefide, who played her part extremely ill. If her 
 conduct had been mere coquetry, she might have 
 deceived even Conti; but her new love was real, and 
 it betrayed her. The wily musician, far from adding 
 to her embarrassment, pretended not to have per- 
 ceived it. At dessert, he brought the conversation 
 round to women, and lauded the nobility of their 
 sentiments. Many a woman, he said, who might 
 have been willing to abandon a man in prosperity, 
 would sacrifice all to him in misfortune. Women had 
 the advantage over men in constancy; nothing ever 
 detached them from their first lover, to whom they 
 clung as a matter of honor, unless he wounded them; 
 they felt that a second love was unworthy of them, 
 and so forth. His ethics were of the highest order; 
 shedding incense on the altar where he knew that one 
 heart at least, pierced by many a blow, was bleeding. 
 Camille and Beatrix alone understood the bitterness 
 of the sarcasms shot forth in the guise of eulogy. 
 At times they both flushed scarlet, but they w^ere 
 forced to control themselves. When dinner was over, 
 they took each other by the arm to return to Camille's 
 salon, and, as if by mutual consent, they turned aside 
 into the great salon, where they could be alone for an 
 instant in the darkness. 
 
264 Beatrix. 
 
 "It i8 dreadful to let Conti ride over me rough- 
 shod; and yet I can't defend myself," said Beatrix, 
 in a low voice. "The galley-slave is always a slave 
 to his chain-companion. I am lost; I must needs 
 return to my galleys! And it is you, Camille, who 
 have cast me there! Ah! you brought him back a 
 day too soon, or a day too late. I recognize your 
 infernal talent as author. Well, your revenge is 
 complete, the finale perfect ! " 
 
 "I may have told you that I would write to Conti, 
 but to do it was another matter," cried Camille. "I 
 am incapable of such baseness. But you are un- 
 happy, and I forgive the suspicion." 
 
 "What will become of Calyste? " said the marquise, 
 with naive self-conceit. 
 
 "Then Conti carries you off, does he?" asked 
 Camille. 
 
 "Ah! you think you triumph! " cried Beatrix. 
 
 Anger distorted her handsome face as she said those 
 bitter words to Camille, who was trying to hide her 
 satisfaction under a false expression of sympathy. 
 Unfortunately, the sparkle in her eyes belied the sad- 
 ness of her face, and Beatrix was learned in such 
 deceptions. When, a few moments later, the two 
 women were seated under a strong light on that divan- 
 where for the last three weeks so many comedies had 
 been played, and where the secret tragedy of many 
 thwarted passions had begun, they examined each 
 other for the last time, and felt they were forever 
 parted by an undying hatred. 
 
 "Calyste remains to you," said Beatrix, looking 
 into Camille's eyes; "but I am fixed in his heart, and 
 no woman can ever drive me out of it." 
 
Beatrix. 265 
 
 B Camille replied, with an inimitable tone of irony 
 that struck the marquise to the heart, in the famous 
 words of Mazarin's niece to Louis XIV., — 
 
 "You reign, you love, and you depart! " 
 
 Neither Camille nor Beatrix was conscious during 
 this sharp and bitter scene of the absence of Conti 
 and Calyste. The composer had remained at table 
 with his rival, begging him to keep him company in 
 finishing a bottle of champagne. 
 
 " We have something to say to each other, " added 
 Conti, to prevent all refusal on the part of Calyste. 
 
 Placed as they both were, it was impossible for the 
 young Breton to refuse this challenge. 
 
 "My dear friend," said the composer, in his most 
 caressing voice, as soon as the poor lad had drunk a 
 couple of glasses of champagne, *'we are both good 
 fellows, and we can speak to each other frankly. I 
 have not come here suspiciously. Beatrix loves me," 
 — this with a gesture of the utmost self-conceit — 
 *'but the truth is, I have ceased to love her. I am 
 not here to carry her away with me, but to break off 
 our relations, and to leave her the honors of the rup- 
 ture. You are young; you don't yet know how use- 
 ful it is to appear to be the victim when you are really 
 . the executioner. Young men spit fire and flame ; they 
 leave a woman with noise and fury; they often de- 
 spise her, and they make her hate them. But wise 
 men do as I am doing; they get themselve.s dismissed, 
 assuming a mortified air, which leav^ regret in the 
 woman's heart and also a sense of her superiority. 
 You don't yet know, luckily for^^you, how hampered 
 men often are in their careerMby the rash promises 
 
266 Beatrix. 
 
 which women are silly enough to accept when gallantry 
 obliges us to make nooses to catch our happiness. 
 We swear eternal faithfulness, and declare that we 
 desire to pass our lives with them, and seem to await 
 a husband's death . impatiently. Let him die, and 
 there are some provincial women obtuse or silly or 
 malicious enough to say: 'Here am I, free at last.' 
 The spent ball suddenly comes to life again, and 
 falls plumb in the midst of our finest triumphs or our 
 most carefully planned happiness. I have seen that 
 you love Beatrix. I leave her therefore in a position 
 where she loses nothing of her precious majesty; she 
 will certainly coquet with you, if only to tease and 
 annoy that angel of a Camille Maupin. Well, my 
 dear fellow, take her, love her, you '11 do me a great 
 service ; I want her to turn against me. I have been 
 afraid of her pride and her virtue. Perhaps, in spite 
 of my approval of the matter, it may take some time 
 to effect this chassez-croissez. On such occasions 
 the wisest plan is to take no step at all. I did, just 
 now, as we walked about the lawn, attempt to let her 
 see that I knew all, and was ready to congratulate 
 her on her new happiness. Well, she was furious! 
 At this moment I am desperately in love with the 
 youngest and handsomest of our prima-donnas, . 
 Mademoiselle Falcon of the Grand Opera. I think of 
 marrying her ; yes, I have got as far as that. When 
 you come to Paris you will see that I have changed a 
 marquise for a queen." 
 
 Calyste, whose candid face revealed his satisfac- 
 tion, admitted his love for Beatrix, which was all that 
 Conti wanted to discover. There is no man 'in the 
 
Beatrix, 267 
 
 world, however blase or depraved he may be, whose 
 love will not flame up again the moment he sees it 
 threatened by a rival. He may wish to leave a 
 woman, but he will never willingly let her leave him. 
 When a pair of lovers get to this extremity, both the 
 man and the woman strive for priority of action, so 
 deep is the wound to their vanity. Questioned by 
 the composer, Calyste related all that had happened 
 during the last three weeks at Les Touches, delighted 
 to find that Conti, who concealed his fury under an 
 appearance of charming good-humor, took it all in 
 good part. 
 
 *'Come, let us go upstairs," said the latter. 
 "Women are so distrustful; those two will wonder 
 how we can sit here together without tearing each 
 other's hair out; they are even capable of coming 
 down to listen. I '11 serve you faithfully, my dear 
 boy. You '11 see me rough and jealous with the 
 marquise; I shall seem to suspect her; there's no 
 better way to drive a woman to betray you. You 
 will be happy, and I shall be free. Seem to pity that 
 angel for belonging to a man without delicacy ; show 
 her a tear — for you can weep, you are still young. 
 I, alas! can weep no more; and that's a great advan- 
 tage lost." 
 
 Calyste and Conti went up to Camille's salon. The 
 composer, begged by his young rival to sing, gave 
 them that greatest of musical masterpieces viewed as 
 execution, the famous ''^Fria che spunti V aurora^" 
 which Rubiui himself never attempted without trem- 
 bling, and which had often been Conti's triumph. 
 Never was his singing more extraordinary than on 
 
268 BSatrix. 
 
 this occasion, when so many feelings were contending 
 in his breast. Calyste was in ecstasy. As Conti 
 sang the first words of the cavatina, he looked intently 
 at the marquise, giving to those words a cruel signifi- 
 cation which was fully understood. Camille, who 
 accompanied him, guessed the order thus conveyed, 
 which bowed the head of the luckless Beatrix. She 
 looked at Calyste, and felt sure that the youth had 
 fallen into some trap in spite of her advice. This 
 conviction became certainty when the evidently happy 
 Breton came up to bid Beatrix good-night, kissing 
 her hand, and pressing it with a little air of happy 
 confidence. 
 
 By the time Calyste had reached Guerande, the ser- 
 vants were packing Conti' s travelling-carriage, and 
 "by dawn," as the song had said, the composer was 
 carrying Beatrix away with Camille 's horses to the 
 first relay. The morning twilight enabled Madame 
 de Rochefide to see Guerande, its towers, whitened 
 by the dawn, shining out upon the still dark sky. 
 Melancholy thoughts possessed her; she was leaving 
 there one of the sweetest flowers of all her life, — a 
 pure love, such as a young girl dreams of; the only 
 true love she had ever known or was ever to conceive 
 of. The woman of the world obeyed the laws of the 
 world; she sacrificed love to their demands just as 
 many women sacrifice it to religion or to duty. Some- 
 times mere pride can rise in acts as high as virtue. 
 Read thus, this history is that of many women. 
 
 The next morning Calyste went to Les Touches 
 about mid-day. When he reached the spot from 
 which, the day before, he had seen Beatrix watching 
 
Beatrix. 269 
 
 for him at the window he saw Camille, who instantly 
 ran down to him. She met him at the foot of the 
 staircase and told the cruel truth in one word, — 
 
 ^'Gone!" 
 
 ''Beatrix?" asked Calyste, thunderstruck. 
 
 "You have been duped by Conti; you told me 
 nothing, and I could do nothing for you." 
 
 She led the poor fellow to her little salon, where he 
 flung himself on the divan where he had so often seen 
 the marquise, and burst into tears. Felicitd smoked 
 her hookah and said nothing, knowing well that no 
 words or thoughts are capable of arresting the first 
 anguish of such pain, which is always deaf and dumb. 
 Calyste, unable even to think, much less to choose a 
 course, sat there all day in a state of complete tor- 
 pidity. Just before dinner was served, Camille tried 
 to say a few words, after begging him, very earnestly, 
 to listen to her. 
 
 "Friend," she said, "you caused me the bitterest 
 suffering, and I had not, like you, a beautiful young 
 life before me in which to heal myself. For me, life 
 has no longer any spring, nor my soul a love. So, to 
 find consolation, I have had to look above. Here, in 
 this room, the day before Beatrix came here, I drew 
 you her portrait; I did not do her injustice, or you 
 might have thought me jealous. T wanted you to know 
 her as she is, for that would have kept you safe. 
 Listen now to the full truth. Madame de Rochefide 
 is wholly unworthy of you. The scandal of her fall 
 was not necessary; she did the thing deliberately in 
 order to play a part in the eyes of society. She is 
 one of those women who prefer the celebrity of a 
 
270 Beatrix. 
 
 scandal to tranquil happiness ; they fly in the face of 
 society to obtain the fatal alms of a rebuke; they 
 desire to be talked about at any cost. Beatrix was 
 eaten up with vanity. Her fortune and her wit had 
 not given her the feminine royalty that she craved; 
 they had not enabled her to reign supreme over a 
 salon. She then bethought herself of seeking the 
 celebrity of the Duchesse de Langeais and the Vicom- 
 tesse de Beauseant. But the world, after all, is just; 
 it gives the homage of its interest to real feelings 
 only. Beatrix playing comedy was judged to be 
 a second-rate actress. There was no reason whatever 
 for her flight; the sword of Damocles was not sus- 
 pended over her head; she is neither sincere, nor 
 loving, nor tender; if she were, would she have gone 
 away with Conti this morning? " 
 
 Camille talked long and eloquently; but this last 
 effort to open Calyste's eyes was useless, and she said 
 no more when he expressed to her by a gesture his 
 absolute belief in Beatrix. 
 
 She forced him to come down into the dining-room 
 and sit there while she dined ; though he himself was 
 unable to swallow food. It is only during extreme 
 youth that these contractions of the bodily functions 
 occur. Later, the organs have acquired, as it were, 
 fixed habits, and are hardened. The reaction of the 
 mental and moral system upon the physical is not 
 enough to produce a mortal illness unless the physical 
 system retains its primitive purity. A man resists the 
 violent grief that kills a youth, less by the greater 
 weakness of his affections than by the greater strength 
 of his organs. 
 
Beatrix. 271 
 
 Therefore Mademoiselle des Touches was greatly 
 alarmed by the calm, resigned attitude which Calyste 
 took after his first burst of tears had subsided. Before 
 he left her, he asked permission to go into Beatrix's 
 bedroom, where he had seen her on the night of her 
 illness, and there he laid his head on the pillow where 
 hers had lain. 
 
 "I am committing follies," he. said, grasping 
 Camille's hand, and bidding her good-night in deep 
 dejection. 
 
 He returned home, found the usual company at 
 mouche^ and passed the remainder of the evening sit- 
 ting beside his mother. The rector, the Chevalier du 
 Halga, and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel all knew of 
 Madame de Roche fide* s departure, and were rejoicing 
 in it. Calyste would now return to them; and all 
 three watched him cautiously, observing his taci- 
 turnity. No one in that old manor-house was capable 
 of imagining the result of a first love, the love of 
 youth in a heart so simple and so true as that of 
 Calyste. 
 
272 Beatrix, 
 
 XVI. 
 
 SICKNESS UNTO DEATH. 
 
 For several days Calyste went regularly to Les 
 Touches. He paced round and round the lawn, where 
 he had sometimes walked with Beatrix on his arm. 
 He often went to Croisic to stand upon that fateful 
 rock, or lie for hours in the bush of box; for, by 
 studying the footholds on the sides of the fissure, he 
 had found a means of getting up and down. 
 
 These solitary trips, his silence, his gravity, made 
 his mother very anxious. After about two weeks, 
 during which time this conduct, like that of a caged 
 animal, lasted, this poor lover, caged in his despair, 
 ceased to cross the bay; he had scarcely strength 
 enough to drag himself along the road from Guerande 
 to the spot where he had seen Beatrix watching from 
 her window. The family, delighted at the departure 
 of ''those Parisians," to use a term of the provinces, 
 saw nothing fatal or diseased about the lad. The two 
 old maids and the rector, pursuing their scheme, had 
 kept Charlotte de Kergarouet, who nightly played off 
 her little coquetries on Calyste, obtaining in return 
 nothing better than advice in playing mouche. During 
 these long evenings, Calyste sat between his mother 
 and the little Breton girl, observed by the rector and 
 Charlotte's aunt, who discussed his greater or less 
 
Beatrix, 273 
 
 depression as they walked home together. Their 
 simple minds mistook the lethargic indifference of the 
 hapless youth for submission to their plans. One 
 I'vening when Calyste, wearied out, went off suddenly 
 to bed, the players dropped their cards upon the 
 table and looked at each other as the young man 
 closed the door of his chamber. One and all had 
 listened to the sound of his receding steps with 
 anxiety. 
 
 "Something is the matter with Calyste," said the 
 baroness, wiping her eyes. 
 
 '* Nothing is the matter," replied Mademoiselle de 
 Pen-Hoel; *'but you should marry him at once." 
 
 *'Do you believe that marriage would divert his 
 mind ? " asked the chevalier. 
 
 Charlotte looked reprovingly at Monsieur du Halga, 
 whom she now began to think ill-mannered, depraved, 
 immoral, without religion, and very ridiculous about 
 his dog, — opinions which her aunt, defending the old 
 sailor, combated. 
 
 ''I shall lecture Calyste to-morrow morning," said 
 the baron, whom the others had thought asleep. ''I do 
 not wish to go out of this world without seeing my 
 grandson, a little pink and white Guenic with a Breton 
 cap on his head." 
 
 '^Calyste doesn't say a word," said old Zephirine, 
 ''and there's no making out what's the matter with 
 him. He doesn't eat; I don't see what he lives on. 
 If he gets his meals at Les Touches, the devil's 
 kitchen doesn't nourish him." 
 
 **IIe is in love," said the chevalier, risking that 
 opinion very timidly. 
 
 18 
 
274 Beatrix. 
 
 "Come, come, old gray-beard, you Ve forgotten to 
 put in your stake ! " cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. 
 ''When you begin to think of your young days you 
 forget everything." 
 
 ''Come to breakfast to-morrow," said old Zephirine 
 to her friend Jacqueline; "my brother will have had 
 a talk with hie son, and we can settle the matter 
 finally, fine iiail, you know, drives out another." 
 
 "Not among Bretons," said the chevalier. 
 
 The next day Calyste saw Charlotte, as she arrived 
 dressed with unusual care, just after the baron had 
 given him, in the dining-room, a discourse on matri- 
 mony, to which he could make no answer. He now 
 knew the ignorance of his father and mother and all 
 their friends ; he had gathered the fruits of the tree of 
 knowledge, and knew himself to be as much isolated 
 as if he did not speak the family language. He merely 
 requested his father to give him a few days* grace. 
 The old baron rubbed his hands with joy, and gave 
 fresh life to the baroness by whispering in her ear 
 what he called the good news. 
 
 Breakfast was gay; Charlotte, to whom the baron 
 had given a hint, was sparkling. After the meal was 
 over, Calyste went cut upon the portico leading to the 
 garden, followed by Charlotte; he gave her his arm 
 and led her to the grotto. Their parents and friends 
 were at the window, looking at them with a species 
 of tenderness. Presently Charlotte, uneasy at her 
 suitor's silence, looked back and saw them, which 
 gave her an opportunity of beginning the conversation 
 by saying to Calyste, — 
 
 "They are watching us." 
 
Beatrix, 275 
 
 "They cannot hear us," he replied. 
 
 "True; but they see us." 
 
 "Let us sit down, Charlotte," replied Calyste, gently 
 taking her hand. 
 
 "Is it true that your banner used formerly to float 
 from that twisted column?" asked Charlotte, with a 
 sense that the house was already hers ; how comfort- 
 able she should be there! what a happy sort of life! 
 "You will make some changes inside the house, 
 won't you, Calyste?" she said. 
 
 "I shall not have time, my dear Charlotte," said 
 the young man, taking her hands and kissing them. 
 "I am going now to tell you my secret. I love too 
 well a person whom you have seen, and who loves 
 me, to be able to make the happiness of any other 
 woman; though I know that from our childhood you 
 and I have been destined for each other by our 
 friends." 
 
 "But she is married, Calyste." 
 
 "I shall wait," replied the young man. 
 
 "And I, too," said Charlotte, her eyes filling with 
 tears. "You cannot long love a woman like that, 
 who, they say, has gone off with a singer — " 
 
 "Marry, my dear Charlotte," said Calyste, interrup- 
 ting her. "With the fortune your aunt intends to 
 give you, which is enormous for Brittany, you can 
 choose some better man than I. You could marry a 
 titled man. I have brought you here, not to tell you 
 what you already knew, but to entreat you, in the 
 name of our childish friendship, to take this rupture 
 upon yourself, and say that you have rejected me. 
 Say that you do not wish to marry a man whose heart 
 
276 Beatrix. 
 
 is not free; and thus I shall be spared at least the 
 sense that I have done you public wrong. You do 
 not know, Charlotte, how heavy a burden life now is 
 to me. I cannot bear the slightest struggle; I am 
 weakened like a man whose vital spark is gone, whose 
 soul has left him. If it were not for the grief I should 
 cause my mother, I would have flung myself before 
 now into the sea; I have not returned to the rocks at 
 Croisic since the day that temptation became almost 
 irresistible. Do not speak of this to any one. Good- 
 bye, Charlotte." 
 
 He took the young girl's head and kissed her hair; 
 then he left the garden by the postern-gate and fled to 
 Les Touches, where he stayed near Camille till past 
 midnight. On returning home, at one in the morning, 
 he found his mother awaiting him with her worsted- 
 work. He entered softly, clasped her hand in his, and 
 said, — 
 
 "Is Charlotte gone?" 
 
 "She goes to-morrow, with her aunt, in despair, 
 both of them," answered the baroness. "Come to 
 Ireland with me, my Calyste." 
 
 "Many a time I have thought of flying there — " 
 
 "Ah! " cried the baroness. 
 
 "With Beatrix," he added. 
 
 Some days after Charlotte's departure, Calyste joined 
 the Chevalier du Halga in his daily promenade on the 
 mall with his little dog. They sat down in the sun- 
 shine on a bench, where the young man's eyes could 
 wander from the vanes of Les Touches to the rocks of 
 Croisic, against which the waves were playing and 
 dashing their white foam. Calyste was thin and 
 
Beatrix, 277 
 
 pale; his strength was diminishing, and he was con- 
 scious at times of little shudders at regular intervals, 
 denoting fever. His eyes, surrounded by dark circles, 
 had that singular brilliancy which a fixed idea gives 
 to the eyes of hermits and solitary souls, or the ardor 
 of contest to those of the strong fighters of our present 
 civilization. The chevalier was the only person with 
 whom he could exchange a few ideas. He had divined 
 in that old man an apostle of his own religion; he 
 recognized in his soul the vestiges of an eternal love. 
 
 *'Have you loved many women in your life?" he 
 asked him on the second occasion, when, as seamen 
 say, they sailed in company along the mall. 
 
 "Only one," replied Du Halga. 
 
 "Was she free?" 
 
 "No," exclaimed the chevalier. "Ah! how I suf- 
 fered ! She was the wife of my best friend, my pro- 
 tector, my chief — but we loved each other so ! " 
 
 "Did she love you?" said Calyste. 
 
 "Passionately," replied the chevalier, with a fer- 
 vency not usual with him. 
 
 "You were happy?" 
 
 "Until her death; she died at the age of forty- 
 nine, during the emigration, at St. Petersburg, the 
 climate of which killed her. She must be very cold 
 in her coffin. I have often thought of going there to 
 fetch her, and lay her in our dear Brittany, near to 
 me! But she lies in my heart." 
 
 The chevalier brushed away his tears. Calyste 
 took his hand and pressed it. 
 
 "I care for this little dog more than for life itself," 
 said the old man, pointing to Thisbe. "The little 
 
278 Beatrix. 
 
 darling is precisely like the one she held on her 
 knees and stroked with her beautiful hands. I 
 never look at Thisbe but what I see the hands of 
 Madame TAmirale." 
 
 "Did you see Madame de Rochefide?" asked 
 Calyste. 
 
 "No," replied the chevalier. "It is sixty-eight 
 years since I have looked at any woman with attention 
 — except your mother, who has something of Madame 
 TAmirale's complexion." 
 
 Three days later, the chevalier said to Calyste, on 
 the mall, — 
 
 "My child, I have a hundred and forty louis laid 
 by. When you know where Madame de Rochefide is, 
 come and get them and follow her." 
 
 Calyste thanked the old man, whose existence he 
 envied. But now, from day to day, he grew morose ; 
 he seemed to love no one; all things hurt him; he 
 was gentle and kind to his mother only. The baroness 
 watched with ever increasing anxiety the progress of 
 his madness ; she alone was able, by force of prayer 
 and entreaty, to make him swallow food. Toward 
 the end of October the sick lad ceased to go even to 
 the mall in search of the chevalier, who now came 
 vainly to the house to tempt him out with the coaxing 
 wisdom of an old man. 
 
 "We can talk of Madame de Rochefide," he would 
 say. "I '11 tell you my first adventure." 
 
 "Your son is very ill," he said privately to the 
 baroness, on the day he became convinced that all 
 such efforts were useless. 
 
 Calyste replied to questions about his health that he 
 
Beatrix. 279 
 
 wrs perfectly well ; but like all young victims of mel- 
 ancholy, he took pleasure in the thought of death. He 
 no longer left the house, but sat in the garden on a 
 bench, wanning himself in the pale and tepid sun- 
 shine, alone with his one thought, and avoiding all 
 companionship. 
 
 Soon after the day when Calyste ceased to go even 
 to Les Touches, Felicite requested the rector of Gue- 
 rande to come and see her. The assiduity with which 
 the Abbe Grimont called every morning at Les 
 Touches, and sometimes dined there, became the 
 great topic of the town ; it was talked of all over the 
 region, and even reached Nantes. Nevertheless, the 
 rector never missed a single evening at the hotel du 
 Gueuic, where desolation reigned. Masters and 
 servants were all afflicted at Calyste's increasing 
 weakness, though none of them thought him in dan- 
 ger; how could it ever enter the minds of these good 
 people that youth might die of love ? Even the chev- 
 alier had no example of such a death among his memo- 
 ries of life and travel. They attributed Calyste's 
 thinness to want of food. His mother implored him 
 to eat. Calyste endeavored to conquer his repugnance 
 in order to comfort her; but nourishment taken against 
 his will served only to increase the slow fever which 
 was now consuming the beautiful young life. 
 
 During the last days of October the cherished child 
 of the house could no longer mount the stairs to his 
 chamber, and his bed was placed in the lower hall, 
 where he was surrounded at all hours by his family. 
 They sent at last for the Gu^rande physician, who 
 broke the fever with quinine and reduced it in a few 
 
280 Beatrix. 
 
 days, ordering Calyste to take exercise, and find 
 something to amuse him. The baron, on this, came 
 out of his apathy and recovered a little of his old 
 strength; he grew younger as his son seemed to age. 
 AV ith Calyste, Gasselin, and his two fine dogs, he started 
 for the forest, and for some days all three hunted. 
 Calyste obeyed his father and went where he was told, 
 from forest to forest, visiting friends and acqaintances 
 in the neighboring chateaus. But the youth had no 
 spirit or gayety ; nothing brought a smile to his face ; 
 his livid and contracted features betrayed an utterly 
 passive being. The baron, worn out at last by fatigue 
 consequent on this spasm of exertion, was forced to 
 return home, bringing Calyste in a state of exhaustion 
 almost equal to his own. For several days after 
 their return both father and son were so dangerously 
 ill that the family were forced to send, at the request 
 of the Guerande physician himself, for two of the 
 best doctors in Nantes. 
 
 The baron had received a fatal shock on realizing 
 the change now so visible in Calyste. With that 
 lucidity of mind which nature gives to the dying, he 
 trembled at the thought that his race was about to 
 perish. He said no word, but he clasped his hands 
 and prayed to God as he sat in his chair, from which 
 his weakness now prevented him from rising. The 
 father's face was turned toward the bed where the 
 son lay, and he looked at him almost incessantly. At 
 the least motion Calyste made, a singular commotion 
 stirred within him, as if the flame of his own life were 
 flickering. The baroness no longer left the room 
 where Zephirine sat knitting in the chimney-corner in 
 
Beatrix. 281 
 
 horrible uneasiness. Demands were made upon the 
 old woman for wood, father and son both suffering 
 from the cold, and for supplies and provisions, so that, 
 finally, not being agile enough to supply these wants, 
 she had given her precious keys to Mariotte. But 
 she insisted on knowing everything; she questioned 
 Mariotte and her sister-in-law incessantly, asking in 
 a low voice to be told, over and over again, the state 
 of her brother and nephew. One night, when father 
 and son were dozing. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel told 
 her that she must resign herself to the death of her 
 brother, whose pallid face was now the color of wax. 
 The old woman dropped her knitting, fumbled in 
 her pocket for a while, and at length drew out an old 
 chaplet of black wood, on which she began to pray 
 with a fervor which gave to her old and withered face 
 a splendor so vigorous that the other old woman imi- 
 tated her friend, and then all present, on a sign from the 
 rector, joined in the spiritual uplifting of Mademoiselle 
 du Guenic. 
 
 "Alas! I prayed to God," said the baroness, remem- 
 bering her prayer after reading the fatal letter written 
 by Calyste, "and he did not hear me." 
 
 "Perhaps it would be well," said the rector, "if we 
 begged Mademoiselle des Touches to come and see 
 Calyste." 
 
 "She!" cried old Zephirine, "the author of all our 
 misery! she who has turned him from his family, who 
 has taken him from us, led him to read impious books, 
 taught him an heretical language ! Let her be accursed, 
 and may God never pardon her! She has destroyed 
 the du Gunnies! " 
 
 m 
 
282 Be'atrix. 
 
 "She may perhaps restore them," said the rector, in 
 a gentle voice. "Mademoiselle des Touches is a 
 saintly woman; I am her surety for that. She has 
 none but good intentions to Calyste. May she only 
 be enabled to carry them out." 
 
 " Let me know the day when she sets foot in this 
 house, that I may go out of it," cried the old woman 
 passionately. "She has killed both father and son. 
 Do you think I don't hear death in Calyste's voice? 
 he is so feeble now that he has barely strength to 
 whisper." 
 
 It was at this moment that the three doctors arrived. 
 They plied Calyste with questions; but as for his 
 father, the examination was short; they were surprised 
 that he still lived on. The Guerande doctor calmly 
 told the baroness that as to Calyste, it would probably 
 be best to take him to Paris and consult the most 
 experienced physicians, for it would cost over a hun- 
 dred louis to bring one down. 
 
 "People die of something, but not of love," said 
 Mademoiselle de Pen-HoeL 
 
 "Alas! whatever be the cause, Calyste is dying," 
 said the baroness. " I see all the symptoms of con- 
 sumption, that most horrible disease of my country, 
 about him." 
 
 "Calyste dying! " said the baron, opening his eyes, 
 from which rolled two large tears which slowly made 
 their way, delayed by wrinkles, along his cheeks, — 
 the only tears he had probably ever shed in all his 
 life. Suddenly he rose to his feet, walked the few 
 steps to his son's bedside, took his hand, and looked 
 earnestly at him. - 
 
Beatrix, 283 
 
 *'What 18 it you want, father?" said Calyste. 
 
 "That you should live! " cried the baron. 
 
 "1 cannot live without Beatrix," replied Calyste. 
 
 The old man dropped into a chair. 
 
 **0h! where could we get the hundred louis to bring 
 doctors from Paris? There is still time," cried the 
 baroness. 
 
 "A hundred louis!*' cried Zephirine; *'will that 
 save him ? " 
 
 Without waiting for her sister-in-law's reply, the 
 old maid ran her hands through the placket-holes of 
 her gown, unfastened the petticoat beneath it, which 
 gave forth a heavy sound as it dropped to the floor. 
 She knew so well the places where she had sewn in 
 her louis that she now ripped them out with the rapidity 
 of magic. The gold pieces rang as they fell, one by 
 one, into her lap. The old Pen-Hoel gazed at this 
 performance in stupefied amazement. 
 
 "But they '11 see you ! " she whispered in her friend's 
 ear. 
 
 "Thirty-seven," answered Zephirine, continuing to 
 count. 
 
 "Every one will know how much you have." 
 
 "Forty-two." 
 
 "Double louis! all new! How did you get them, 
 you who can't see clearly?" 
 
 "I felt them. Here 's one hundred and four louts,** 
 cried Zephirine. "Is that enough?" 
 
 "What is all this?" asked the Chevalier du Halga, 
 who now came in, unable to understand the attitude 
 of his old blind friend, holding out her petticoat which 
 was full of gold coins. 
 
284 Beatrix, 
 
 Mademoiselle Pen-Hoel explained. 
 
 "I knew it," said the chevalier, "and I have come 
 to bring a hundred and forty louis which I have been 
 holding at Calyste's disposition, as he knows very 
 well." 
 
 The chevalier drew the rouleaux from his pocket 
 and showed them. Mariotte, seeing such wealth, sent 
 Gasselin to lock the doors. 
 
 "Gold will not give him health," said the baroness, 
 weeping. 
 
 "But it can take him to Paris, where he can find her. 
 Come, Calyste." 
 
 "Yes," cried Calyste, springing up, "I will go." 
 
 "He will live," said the baron, in a shaking voice; 
 "and I can die — send for the rector! " 
 
 The words cast terror on all present. Calyste, 
 seeing the mortal paleness on his father's face, for the 
 old man was exhausted by the cruel emotions of the 
 scene, came to his father's side. The rector, after 
 hearing the report of the doctors, had gone to Made- 
 moiselle des Touches, intending to bring her back with 
 him to Calyste, for in proportion as the worthy man 
 had formerly detested her, he now admired her, and 
 protected her as a shepherd protects the most precious 
 of his flock. 
 
 When the news of the baron's approaching end be- 
 came known in Guerande, a crowd gathered in the 
 street and lane; the peasants, the paludiers, and the 
 servants knelt in the court-yard while the rector admin- 
 istered the last sacraments to the old Breton warrior. 
 The whole town was agitated by the news that the 
 father was dying beside his half-dying son. The 
 
Beatrix. 285 
 
 probable extinction of this old Breton race was felt to 
 be a public calamity. 
 
 The solemn ceremony affected Calyste deeply. His 
 filial sorrow silenced for a moment the anguish of his 
 love. During the last hour of the glorious old de- 
 fender of the monarchy, he knelt beside him, watch- 
 ing the coming on of death. The old man died in his 
 chair in presence of the assembled family. 
 
 *'I die faithful to God and his religion," he said. 
 "My God! as the reward of my efforts grant that 
 Calyste may live ! " 
 
 ''I shall live, father; and I will obey you," said the 
 young man. 
 
 *'If you wish to make my death as happy as Fanny 
 has made my life, swear to me to maiTy." 
 
 *'I promise it, father." 
 
 It was a touching sight to see Calyste, or rather his 
 shadow, leaning on the arm of the old Chevalier du 
 Halga — a spectre leading a shade — and following 
 the baron's coffin as chief mourner. The church 
 and the little square were crowded with the country 
 people coming in to the funeral from a circuit of thirty 
 miles. 
 
 But the baroness and Z^phirine soon saw that, in 
 spite of his intention to obey his father's wishes, 
 Calyste was falling back into a condition of fatal 
 stupor. On the day when the family put on their 
 mourning, the baroness took her son to a bench in the 
 garden and questioned him closely. Calyste answered 
 gently and submissively, but his answers only proved 
 to her the despair of his soul. 
 
 *' Mother," he said, "there is no life in me. What 
 
286 Beatrix, 
 
 I eat does not feed me ; the air that enters my lungs 
 does not refresh me; the sun feels cold; it seems to 
 you to light that front of the house, and show you the 
 old carvings bathed in its beams, but to me it is all 
 a blur, a mist. If Beatrix were here, it would be 
 dazzling. There is but one only thing left in this 
 world that keeps its shape and color to my eyes, — this 
 flower, this foliage," he added, drawing from his breast 
 the withered bunch the marquise had give him at 
 Croisic. 
 
 The baroness dared not say more. Her son's 
 answer seemed to her more indicative of madness 
 than his silence of grief. She saw no hope, no light 
 in the darkness that surrounded them. 
 
 The baron's last hours and death had prevented the 
 rector from bringing Mademoiselle des Touches to 
 Calyste, as he seemed bent on doing, for reasons 
 which he did not reveal. But on this day, while 
 mother and son still sat on the garden bench, Calyste 
 quivered all over on perceiving Felicite through the 
 opposite windows of the court-yard and garden. She 
 reminded him of Beatrix, and his life revived. It 
 was therefore to Camille that the poor stricken mother 
 owed the first motion of joy that lightened her 
 mourning. 
 
 "Well, Calyste," said Mademoiselle des Touches, 
 when they met, "I want you to go to Paris with me. 
 We will find Beatrix," she added in a low voice. 
 
 The pale, thin face of the youth flushed red, and a 
 smile brightened his features. 
 
 ''Let us go," he said. 
 
 "We shall save him," said Mademoiselle des 
 
Beatrix. 287 
 
 Touches to the mother, who pressed her hands and 
 wept for joy. 
 
 A week after the baron's funeral, Mademoiselle des 
 Touches, the Baronne du Gu^nic and Calyste started 
 for Paris, leaving the household in charge of old 
 Zephirine. 
 
288 Beatria;. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 A DEATH : A MARRIAGE. 
 
 Felicit:6's tender love was preparing for Calyste a 
 prosperous future. Being allied to the family of 
 Grandlieu, the ducal branch of which was ending in 
 five daughters for lack of a male heir, she had written 
 to the Duchesse de Grandlieu, describing Calyste and 
 giving his history, and also stating certain intentions 
 of her own, which were as follows : She had lately 
 sold her house in the rue du Mont-Blanc, for which a 
 party of speculators had given her two millions five 
 hundred thousand francs. Her man of business had 
 since purchased for her a charming new house in the rue 
 de Bourbon for seven hundred thousand francs ; one 
 million she intended to devote to the recovery of the du 
 Guenic estates, and the rest of her fortune she desired 
 to settle upon Sabine de Grandlieu. Felicite had long 
 known the plans of the duke and duchess as to the 
 settlement of their five daughters : the youngest was to 
 marry the Vicomte de Grandlieu, the heir to their ducal 
 title ; Clotilde-Frederique, the second daughter, desired 
 to remain unmarried, in memory of a man she had 
 deeply loved, Lucien de Rubempre, while, at the same 
 time, she did not wish to become a nun like her eldest 
 sister ; two of the remaining sisters were already mar- 
 ried, and the youngest but one, the pretty Sabine, just 
 twent}^ years old, was the only disposable daughter 
 
Beatrix. 289 
 
 left. It was Sabine on whom F^licite resolved to lay 
 the burden of curing Calyste's passion for Beatrix. 
 
 During the journey to Paris Mademoiselle des 
 Touches revealed to the baroness these arrangements. 
 The new house in the rue de Bourbon was being deco- 
 rated, and she intended it for tlie home of Sabine and 
 Calyste if her plans succeeded. 
 
 The party had been invited to stay at the h6tel de 
 Grandlieu, where the baroness was received with all 
 the distinction due to her rank as the wife of a du 
 Guenic and the daughter of a British peer. Mademoi- 
 selle des Touches urged Calyste to see Paris, while she 
 herself made the necessary inquiries about Beatrix 
 (who had disappeared from the world, and was travel- 
 ling abroad), and she took care to throw him into the 
 midst of diversions and amusements of all kinds. The 
 season for balls and fetes was just beginning, and the 
 duchess and her daughters did the honors of Paris to 
 the young Breton, who was insensibly diverted from his 
 own thoughts by the movement and life of the great 
 city. He found some resemblance of mind between* 
 Madame de Rochefide and Sabine de Grandlieu, who 
 was certainly one of the handsomest and most charm- 
 ing girls in Parisian society, and this fancied likeness 
 made him give to her coquetries a willing attention 
 which no other woman could possibly have obtained 
 from him. Sabine herself was greatly pleased with 
 Calyste, and matters went so well that during the 
 winter of 1837 the young Baron du Guenic, whose 
 youth and health had returned to him, listened without 
 repugnance to his mother when she reminded him of 
 the promise made to his dying father and proposed to 
 
 19 
 
290 Beatrix. 
 
 him a marriage with Sabine de Grandlieii. Still, while 
 agreeing to fulfil his promise, he concealed within his 
 soul an indifference to all things, of which the baroness 
 alone was aware, but which she trusted would be con- 
 quered by the pleasures of a happy home. 
 
 On the day when the Grandlieu family and the baron- 
 ess, accompanied by her relations who came from Eng- 
 land for this occasion, assembled in the grand salon of 
 the hotel de Grandlieu to sign the marriage contract, 
 and Leopold Hannequin, the family notary, explained 
 the preliminaries of that contract before reading it, 
 Calyste, on whose forehead every one present might 
 have noticed clouds, suddenly and curtly refused to 
 accept the benefactions offered him by Mademoiselle 
 des Touches. Did he still count on Felicite's devotion 
 to recover Beatrix? In the midst of the embarrassment 
 and stupefaction of the assembled families, Sabine de 
 Grandieu entered the room and gave him a letter, ex- 
 plaining that Mademoiselle des Touches had requested 
 her to give it to him on this occasion. 
 
 Calyste turned away, from the company to the em- 
 brasure of a window and read as follows ; — 
 
 Camille Mawpin to Calyste. 
 
 Calyste, before I enter my convent cell I am per- 
 mitted to cast a look upon the world I am now to leave 
 for a life of prayer and solitude. That look is to you, 
 who have been the whole world to me in these last 
 months. My voice will reach you, if my calculations 
 do not miscarry, at the moment of a ceremony I am 
 unable to take part in. 
 
B4atrix. 291 
 
 On the day wbeu you stand before the altar giving 
 your hand and name to a young and charming girl 
 who can love you openly before earth and heaven, 
 I shall be before another altar in a convent at Nantes 
 betrothed forever to him who will neither fail nor 
 betray me. But I do not write to sadden you, — only to 
 entreat you not to hinder by false delicacy the service 
 I have wished to do you since we first met. Do not 
 contest my rights so dearly bought. 
 
 If love is suflfering, ah ! I have loved you indeed, 
 my Calyste. But feel no remorse ; the only happiness 
 I have known in life I owe to you ; the pangs were 
 caused by my own self. Make me compensation, 
 then, for all those pangs, those sorrows, by causing 
 me an everlasting joy. Let the poor Camille, who is 
 no longer, still be something in the material comfort 
 you enjoy. Dear, let me be like the fragrance of 
 flowers in your life, mingling myself with it unseen 
 and not importunate. 
 
 To you, Calyste, I shall owe my eternal happiness; 
 will you not acoept a few paltry and fleeting benefits 
 from me ? Surely you will not be wanting in generos- 
 ity ? Do you not see in this the last message of a re- 
 nounced love? Calyste, the world without you had 
 nothing more for me ; you made it the most awful of 
 solitudes ; and you have thus brought Camille Maup?n, 
 the unbeliever, the writer of books, which I am soon to 
 repudiate solemnly — you have cast her, daring and 
 pei-verted, bound hand and foot, before God. 
 
 I am to-day what I might have been, what I was 
 born to be, — innocent, and a child. I have washed 
 my robes in the tears of repentance; I can come 
 
292 Beatrix. 
 
 before the altar whither my guardian angel, my 
 beloved Calyste, has led me. With what tender com- 
 fort I give you that name, which the step I now take 
 sanctifies. I love you without self-seeking, as a 
 mother' loves her son, as the Church loves her children. 
 I can pray for you and for yours without one thought 
 or wish except for your happiness. Ah ! if you only 
 knew the sublime tranquillity in which 1 live, now that 
 I have risen in thought above all petty earthly inter- 
 ests, and how precious is the thought of doing (as 
 your noble motto says) our duty, you would enter 
 your beautiful new life with unfaltering step and never 
 a glance behind you or about you. Above all, my 
 earnest prayer to you is that you be faithful to your- 
 self and to those belonging to you. Dear, society, in 
 which you are to live, cannot exist without the religion 
 of duty, and you will terribly mistake it, as I mistook 
 it, if you allow yourself to yield to passion and to 
 fancy, as I did. Woman is the equal of man only in 
 making her life a continual offering, as that of man is 
 a perpetual action ; my life has been, on the contrary, one 
 long egotism. It may be that God placed you, toward 
 evening, by the door of my house, as a messenger from 
 himself, bearing my punishment and my pardon. 
 
 Heed this confession of a woman to whom fame has 
 been like a pharos, warning her of the only true path. 
 Be wise, be noble ; sacrifice your fancy to your duties, 
 as head of your race, as husband, as father. Raise 
 the fallen standard of the old du Guenics; show to 
 this century of irreligion and want of principle what 
 a gentleman is in all his grandeur and his honor. 
 Dear child of my soul, let me play the part of a mother 
 
Beatrix. 293 
 
 to you ; your own mother will not be jealous of this 
 voice from a tomb, these hands uplifted to heaven, 
 imploring blessings on you. To-day, more than ever, 
 does rank and nobility need fortune. Calyste, accept 
 a part of mine, and make a worthy use of it. It is 
 not a gift; it is a trust I place in your hands. I have 
 thought more of your children and of your old Breton 
 house than of you in offering you the profits which 
 time has brought to my property in Paris. 
 
 "Let us now sign the contract," said the young 
 baron, returning to the assembled company. 
 
 The Abb^ Grimont, to whom the honor of the con- 
 version of this celebrated woman was attributed, 
 became, soon after, vicar-general of the diocese. 
 
 The following week, after the marriage ceremony, 
 which, according to the custom of many families of 
 the faubourg Saint-Germain, was celebrated at seven 
 in the morning at the church of Saint Thomas d'Aquin, 
 Calyste and Sabine got into their pretty travelling- 
 carriage, amid the tears, embraces, and congratula- 
 tions of a score of friends, collected under the awning 
 of the hotel de Grandlieu. The congratulations came 
 from the four witnesses, and the men present; the 
 tears were in the eyes of the Duchesse de Grandlieu 
 and her daughter Clotilde, who both trembled under 
 the weight of the same thought, — 
 
 '*She is launched upon the sea of life! Poor 
 Sabine ! at the mercy of a man who does not marry 
 entirely of his own free will." 
 
 Marriage is not wholly made up of pleasures, — as 
 fugitive in that relation as in all others; it Involves 
 
29J: Beatrix. 
 
 compatibility of temper, physical sympathies, har- 
 monies of character, which make of that social neces- 
 sity an eternal problem. Marriageable daughters, 
 as well as mothers, know the terms as well as the 
 dangers of this lottery ; and that is why women weep 
 at a wedding while men smile ; men believe that they 
 risk nothing, while women know, or very nearly 
 know, what they risk. 
 
 In another carriage, which preceded the married 
 pair, was the Baronne du Guenic, to whom the duchess 
 had said at parting, — 
 
 "You are a mother, though you have only had one 
 son ; try to take my place to my dear Sabine. " 
 
 On the box of the bridal carriage sat a chasseur^ 
 who acted as courier, and in the rumble were two 
 waiting-maids. The four postilions dressed in their 
 finest uniforms, for each carriage was drawn by four 
 horses, appeared with bouquets on their breasts and 
 ribbons on their hats, which the Due de Grandlieu 
 had the utmost difficulty in making them relinquish, 
 even by bribing them with money. The French pos- 
 tilion is eminently intelligent, but he likes his fun. 
 These fellows took their bribes and replaced their 
 ribbons at the barrier 
 
 "Well, good-bye, Sabine," said the duchess; "re- 
 member your promise ; write to me often. Calyste, I 
 say nothing more to you, but you understand me." 
 
 Clotilde, leaning on the youngest sister Athenais, 
 who was smiling to the Vicomte de Grandlieu, cast a 
 reflecting look through her tears at the bride, and 
 followed the carriage with her eyes as it disappeared 
 to the clacking of four whips, more noisy than the 
 
Beatrix, 295 
 
 shots of a pistol gallery. In a few minutes the gay 
 convoy had reached the esplanade of the Invalides, 
 the barrier of Passy by the quay of the Pont d'lena, 
 and were fairly on the high-road to Brittany. 
 
 Is it not a singular thing that the artisans of 
 Switzerland and Germany, and the great families of 
 France and England should, one and all, follow the 
 custom of setting out 'on a journey after the marriage 
 ceremony? The great people shut themselves in a 
 box which rolls along; the little people gayly tramp 
 the roads, sitting down in the woods, banqueting at 
 the inns, as long as their joy, or rather their money 
 lasts. A moralist is puzzled to decide on which side 
 is the finer sense of modesty, — that which hides from 
 the public eye and inaugurates the domestic hearth 
 and bed in private, as do the worthy burghers of all 
 lands, or that which withdraws from the family and 
 exhibits itself publicly on the high-roads and in face 
 of strangers. One would think that delicate souls 
 might desire solitude and seek to escape both the 
 world and their family. The love which begins a 
 marriage is a pearl, a diamond, a jewel cut by the 
 choicest of arts, a treasure to bury in the depths of 
 the soul. 
 
 Who can relate a honeymoon, unless it be the bride? 
 How many women reading this history will admit to 
 themselves that this period of uncertain duration is the 
 forecast of conjugal life? The first three letters of 
 Sabine to her mother will depict a situation not sur- 
 prising to some young brides and to many old women. 
 All those who find themselves the sick-nurses, so to 
 speak, of a husband's heart, do not, as Sabine did, 
 
296 Beatrix. 
 
 discover this at once. But young girls of the faubourg 
 Saint-Germain, if intelligent, are women in mind. 
 Before marriage, they have received from their mothers 
 and the world they live in the baptism of good man= 
 ners; though women of rank, anxious to hand down 
 their traditions, do not always see the bearing of their 
 own lessons when they say to their daughters: "That 
 is a motion that must not be made;" ''Never laugh 
 at such things;" ''No lady ever flings herself on a 
 sofa; she sits down quietly;" "Pray give up such 
 detestable ways;" "My dear, that is a thing which is 
 never done," etc. 
 
 Many bourgeois critics unjustly deny the inno- 
 cence and virtue of young girls who, like Sabine, are 
 truly virgin at heart, improved by the training of their 
 minds, by the habit of noble bearing, by natural good 
 taste, while, from the age of sixteen, they have learned 
 how to use their opera-glasses. Sabine was a girl of 
 this school, which was also that of Mademoiselle de 
 Chaulieu. This inborn sense of the fitness of things, 
 these gifts of race made Sabine de Grandlieu as inter- 
 esting a young woman as the heroine of the "Memoirs 
 of two young Married Women." Her letters to her 
 mother during the honeymoon, of which we here give 
 three or four, will show the qualities of her mind and 
 temperament. 
 
 GuERANDE, April, 1838. 
 
 To Madame la Duchesse de Grandlieu : 
 
 Dear Mamma, — You will understand why I did not 
 write to you during the journey, — our wits are then 
 like wheels. Here I am, for the last two days, in 
 
Beatrix, 207 
 
 the depths of Brittany, at the h6tel du Gu^nic, — a 
 house as covered with carving as a sandal-wood 
 box. In spite of the affectionate devotion of 
 Calyste's family, I feel a keen desire to fly to you, 
 to tell you many things which can only be trusted to 
 a mother. 
 
 Calyste married, dear mamma, with a great sorrow 
 in his heart. We all knew that, and you did not 
 hide from me the difficulties of my position; but alas! 
 they are greater than you thought. Ah! my dear 
 mother, what experience we acquire in the short 
 space of a few days — I might even say a few hours ! 
 All your counsels have proved fruitless ; you will see 
 why from one sentence : I love Calyste as if he were 
 not my husband, — that is to say, if I were man-ied 
 to another, and were travelling with Calyste, I should 
 love Calyste and hate my husband. 
 
 Now think of a man beloved so completely, invol- 
 untarily, absolutely, and all the other adverbs you 
 may choose to employ, and you will see that my ser- 
 vitude is established in spite of your good advice. 
 You told me to be grand, noble, dignified, and self- 
 respecting in order to obtain from Calyste the 
 feelings that are never subject to the chances and . 
 changes of life, — esteem, honor, and the considera- 
 tion which sanctifies a woman in the bosom of her 
 family. I remember how you blamed, I dare say 
 justly, the young women of the present day, who, under 
 pretext of living happily with their husbands, begin 
 by compliance, flattery, familiarity, an abandonment, 
 you called it, a little too wanton (a word I did not fully 
 understand), all of which, if I must believe you, are 
 
298 Beatrix, 
 
 relays that lead rapidly to indifiference and possibly 
 to contempt. ''Remember that you are a Grandlieu! ** 
 yes, I remember that yon told me all that — 
 
 But oh! that advice, filled with the maternal elo- 
 quence of a female Daedalus has had the fate of all 
 things mythological. Dear, beloved mother, could you 
 ever have supposed it possible that I should begin by 
 the catastrophe which, according to you, ends the 
 honeymoon of the young women of the present day ? 
 
 When Calyste and I were fairly alone in the travel- 
 ling carriage, we felt rather foolish in each other's 
 company, understanding the importance of the first 
 word, the first look ; and we both, bewildered by the 
 solemnity, looked out of our respective windows. It 
 became so ridiculous that when we reached the barrier 
 monsieur began, in a rather troubled tone of voice, a 
 set discourse, prepared, no doubt, like other improvi- 
 sations, to which I listened with a beating heart, and 
 which I take the liberty of here abridging. 
 
 "My dear Sabine," he said, "I want you to be 
 happy, and, above all, do I wish you to be happy in 
 your own way. Therefore, in the situation in which 
 we are, instead of deceiving ourselves mutually about 
 our characters and our feelings by noble compliances, 
 let us endeavor to be to each other at once what we 
 should be years hence. Think always that you have 
 a friend and a brother in me, as I shall feel I have a 
 sister and a friend in you." 
 
 Though it was all said with the utmost delicacy, I 
 found nothing in this first conjugal love-speech which 
 responded to the feelings in my soul, and I remained 
 pensive after replying that I was animated by the same 
 
Beatrix. . 299 
 
 sentiments. After this declaration of our rights to 
 mutual coldness, we talked of weather, relays, and 
 scenery in the most charming manner, — I with rather 
 a forced little laugh, he absent-mindedly. 
 
 At last, as we were leaving Versailles, I turned to 
 Calyste — whom I called my dear Calyste, and he 
 called me my dear Sabine — and asked him plainly to 
 tell me the events which had led him to the point of 
 death, and to which I was aware that I owed the 
 happiness of being his wife. He hesitated long. In 
 fact, my request gave rise to a little argument oetween 
 us, which lasted through three relays, — I endeavoring 
 to maintain the part of an obstinate girl, and trying 
 to sulk; he debating within himself the question which 
 the newspapers used to put to Charles X. : *'Must the 
 king yield or not?'* At last, after passing Verneuil, 
 and exchanging oaths enough to satisfy three dynas- 
 ties never to reproach him for his folly, and never to 
 treat him coldly, etc., etc., he related to me his love 
 for Madame de Rochefide. 
 
 "I do not wish," he said, in conclusion, "to have 
 any secrets between us." 
 
 Poor, dear Calyste, it seems, was ignorant that his 
 friend. Mademoiselle des Touches, and you had 
 thought it right to tell me the truth. Well, mother, 
 — for I can tell all to a mother as tender as you, — I 
 was deeply hurt by perceiving that he had yielded less 
 to my request than to his own desire to talk of that 
 strange passion. Do you blame me, darling mother, 
 for having wished to reconnoitre the extent of the 
 grief, the open wound of the heart of which you warned 
 me? " 
 
300 . Beatrix. 
 
 So, eight hours after receiving the rector's blessing 
 at Saint-Thomas d'Aquin, your Sabine was in the 
 rather false position of a young wife listening to a 
 confidence, from the very lips of her husband, of his 
 misplaced love for an unworthy rival. Yes, there I 
 was, in the drama of a young woman learning, 
 officially, as it were, that she owed her marriage to 
 the disdainful rejection of an old and faded beauty ! 
 
 Still, I gained what I sought. ''What was that?" 
 you will ask. Ah! mother dear, I have seen too much 
 of love going on around me not to know how to put a 
 little of it into practice. Well, Calyste ended the 
 poem of his miseries with the warnjest protestations of 
 an absolute forgetting of what he called his madness. 
 All kinds of affirmations have to be signed, you 
 know. The happy unhappy one took my hand, car- 
 ried it to his lips, and, after that, he kept it for a long 
 time clasped in his own. A declaration followed. 
 That one seemed to me more comformable than the 
 first to the demands of our new condition, though our 
 lips said never a word. Perhaps I owed it to the 
 vigorous indignation I felt and showed at the bad 
 taste of a woman foolish enough not to love my beau- 
 tiful, my glorious Calyste. 
 
 They are calling me to play a game of cards, which 
 I do not yet understand. I will finish my letter to- 
 morrow. To leave you at this moment to make a 
 fifth at mouche (that is the name of the game) can 
 only 1)6 done in the depths of Brittany — Adieu. 
 
 Your Sabine. 
 
Beatrix. 301 
 
 Gu6rande, May, 1838. 
 
 I TAKE up my Odyssey. On the third day your 
 children no longer used the ceremonious ''you;" they 
 thee'd and thou'd each other like lovers. My mother- 
 in-law, enchanted to see us so happy, is trying to take 
 your place to me, dear mother, and, as often happens 
 when people play a part to efface other memories, she 
 has been so charming that she is, almost^ you to me. 
 
 I think she has guessed the heroism of my conduct, 
 for at the beginning of our journey she tried to hide 
 her anxiety with such care that it was visible from 
 excessive precaution. 
 
 When I saw the towers of Guerande rising in the 
 distance, I whispered in the ear of your son-in-law, 
 "Have you really forgotten her?' My husband, now 
 become my angel^ can't know anything, I think, about 
 sincere and simple love, for the words made him wild 
 with happiness. Still, I think the desire to put Ma- 
 dame de Rochefide forever out of his mind led me 
 too far. But how could I help it? I love, and I 
 am half a Portuguese, — for I am much more like 
 you, mamma, than like my father. 
 
 Calyste accepts all from me as spoilt children accept 
 things, they think it their right; he is an only child, I 
 remember that. But, between ourselves, I will not 
 give my daughter (if I have any daughters) to an only 
 son. I see a variety of tyrants in an only son. So, 
 mamma, we have rather inverted our parts, and I am 
 the devoted half of the pair. There are dangers, I 
 know, in devotion, though we profit by it; we lose our 
 dignity, for one thing. I feel bound to tell you of 
 the wreck of that semi-virtue. Dignity, after all, is 
 
302 Beatrix. 
 
 only a screen set up before pride, behind which we 
 rage as we please; but how could I help it? you were 
 not here, and I saw a gulf opening before me. Had I 
 remained upon my dignity, I should have won only 
 the cold joys (or pains) of a sort of brotherhood which 
 would soon have drifted into indifference. What sort 
 of future might that have led to? My devotion has, I 
 know, made me Calyste's slave; but shall I regret it? 
 We shall see. 
 
 As for the present, I am delighted with it. I love 
 Calyste; I love him absolutely, with the folly of a 
 mother, who thinks that all her son may do is right, 
 even if he tyrannizes a trifle over her. 
 
 Gu^RANDE, May 15th. 
 
 Up to the present moment, dear mamma, I find mar- 
 riage a delightful affair. I can spend all my tender- 
 ness on the noblest of men whom a foolish woman 
 disdained for a fiddler, — for that woman evidently 
 was a fool, and a cold fool, the worst kind! I, in my 
 legitimate love, am charitable ; I am curing his wounds 
 while I lay my heart open to incurable ones. Yes, 
 the more I love Calyste, the more I feel that I should 
 die of grief if our present happiness ever ceased. 
 
 I must tell you how the whole family and the circle 
 which meets at the hotel du Guenic adore me. They 
 are all personages born under tapestries of the highest 
 warp ; in fact, they seem to have stepped from those 
 old tapestries as if to prove that the impossible may 
 exist. Some day, when we are alone together, I will 
 describe to you my Aunt Zephirine, Mademoiselle de 
 Pen-Hoel, the Chevalier du Halga, the Demoiselles 
 
BSatrix, 303 
 
 de Kergarouet, and others. They all, even to the two 
 servants, Gasselin and Mariotte (whom I wish they 
 would let me take to Paris), regard me as an angel sent 
 from heaven; they tremble when I speak. Dear 
 people ! they ought to be preserved under glass. 
 
 My mother-in-law has solemnly installed us in the 
 apartments formerly occupied by herself and her late 
 husband. The scene was touching. She said to 
 us, — 
 
 *'I spent my whole mamed life, a happy woman, in 
 these rooms ; may the omen be a happy one for you, 
 my children." 
 
 She has taken Calyste's fonner room for hers. 
 Saintly soul ! she seems intent on laying off her mem- 
 ories and all her conjugal dignities to invest us with 
 them. The province of Brittany, this town, this 
 family of ancient morals and ancient customs has, in 
 spite of certain absurdities which strike the eye of a 
 frivolous Parisian girl, something inexplicable, some- 
 thing grandiose even in its trifles, which can only be 
 defined by the word sacred. 
 
 All the tenants of the vast domains of the house of 
 Guenic, bought back, as you know, by Mademoiselle 
 des Touches (whom we are going to visit in her con- 
 vent), have been in a body to pay their respects to us. 
 These worthy people, in their holiday costumes, ex- 
 pressing their genuine joy in the fact that Calyste has 
 now become really and truly their master, made me 
 understand Brittany, the feudal system and old France. 
 The whole scene was a festival I can't describe to you 
 in writing, but I will tell you about it when we meet. 
 The terms of the leases have been proposed by the fjars 
 
304 Beatrix. 
 
 themselves. We shall sign them, after making a tour 
 of inspection round the estates, which have been 
 mortgaged away from us for one hundred and fifty 
 years! Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel told me that the 
 gars have reckoned up the revenues and estimated the 
 rentals with a veracity and justice Parisians would 
 never believe. 
 
 We start in three days on horseback for this trip. 
 I will write you on my return, dear mother. I shall 
 have nothing more to tell you about myself, for my 
 happiness is at its height — and how can that be 
 told ? I shall write you only what you know already, 
 and that is, how I love you. 
 
 Nantes, June, 1838. 
 Having now played the role of a chatelaine, adored 
 by her vassals as if the revolutions of 1789 and 1830 
 had lowered no banners; and after rides through for- 
 ests, and halts at farmhouses, dinners on oaken tables, 
 covered with centenary linen, bending under Homeric 
 viands served on antediluvian dishes; after drinking 
 the choicest wines in goblets to volleys of musketry, 
 accompanied by cries of " Long live the Guenics ! " 
 till I was deafened ; after balls, where the only orches- 
 tra was a bagpipe, blown by a man for ten hours ; and 
 after bouquets, and young brides who wanted us to 
 bless them, and downright weariness, which made me 
 find in my bed a sleep I never knew before, with 
 delightful awakenings when love shone radiant as the 
 sun pouring in upon me, and scintillating with a 
 million of flies, all buzzing in the Breton dialect! — 
 in short, after a most grotesque residence in the 
 
BSatrix. 305 
 
 Cbdteau du Gu^nic, where the windows are gates and 
 the cows graze peacefully on the grass in the halls 
 (which castle we have sworn to repair and to inhabit 
 for a while every year to the wild acclamations of the 
 clan du Guenic, a gars of which bore high our banner) 
 — ouf ! I am at Nantes. 
 
 But oh ! what a day was that when we arrived at 
 the old castle! The rector came out, mother, with 
 all his clergy, crowned with flowers, to receive us and 
 bless us, expressing such joy, — the tears are in my 
 eyes as I think of it. And my noble Calyste! who 
 played his part of seigneur like a personage in Walter 
 Scott! My lord received his tenants' homage as if he 
 were back in the thirteenth century. I heard the girls 
 and the women saying to each other, *' Oh, what a 
 beautiful seigneur we have!" for all the world like 
 an opera chorus. The old men talked of Calyste 's 
 resemblance to the former Guenics whom they had 
 known in their youth. Ah! noble, sublime Brittany I 
 land of belief and faith! But progress has got its 
 eye upon it; bridges are being built, roads made, 
 ideas are, coming, and then farewell to the sublime ! 
 rhe peasants will certainly not be as free and proud 
 as I have now seen them, when progress has proved to 
 them that they are Calyste*s equals — if, indeed, they 
 could ever be got to believe it. 
 
 After this poem of our pacific Restoration had been 
 sung, and the contracts and leases signed, we left 
 that ravishing land, all flowery, gay, solemn, lonely 
 by turns, and came here to kneel with our happiness 
 at the feet of her who gave it to us. 
 
 Calyste and I both felt the need of thanking the 
 20 
 
306 Beatrix. 
 
 sister of the Visitation. In memory of her he has 
 quartered his own arms with those of Des Touches, 
 which are: party couped, tranche and taille or and 
 sinople, on the latter two eagles argent. He means 
 to take one of the eagles argent for his own supporter 
 and put this motto in its beak : Souviegne-vous, 
 
 Yesterday we went to the convent of the ladies of 
 the Visitation, to which we were taken by the Abbe 
 Grimont, a friend of the du Guenic family, who told 
 us that your dear Felicite, mamma, was indeed a saint. 
 She could not very well be anything else to him, for 
 her conversion, which was thought to be his doing, 
 has led to his appointment as vicar-general of the 
 diocese. Mademoiselle des Touches declined to re- 
 ceive Calyste, and would only see me. I found her 
 slightly changed, thinner and paler; but she seemed 
 much pleased at my visit. 
 
 "Tell Calyste," she said, in a low voice, "that it is 
 a matter of conscience with me not to see him, for I 
 am permitted to do so. I prefer not to buy that hap- 
 piness by months of suffering. Ah, you do not know 
 what it costs me to reply to the question, ' Of what are 
 you thinking?' Certainly the mother of the novices 
 has no conception of the number and extent of 
 the ideas which are rushing through my mind when 
 she asks that question. Sometimes I am seeing Italy 
 or Paris, with all its sights; always thinking, how- 
 ever, of Calyste, who is " — she said this in that poetic 
 way you know and admire so much — "who is the sun 
 of memory to me. I found," she continued, "that I 
 was too old to be received among the Carmelites, and 
 I have entered the order of Saint-FranQois de Sales 
 
Beatrix, 307 
 
 solely because he said, ' I will bare your heads instead 
 of your feet/ — objecting, as he did, to austerities 
 which mortified the body only. It is, in truth, the 
 head that sins. The saintly bishop was right to make 
 his rule austere toward the intellect, and terrible 
 against the will. That is what I sought; for my 
 head was the guilty part of me. It deceived me as to 
 my heart until I reached that fatal age of forty, when, 
 for a few brief moments, we are forty times happier 
 than young women, and then, speedily, fifty times 
 more unhappy. But, my child, tell me," she asked, 
 ceasing with visible satisfaction to speak of herself, 
 '*are you happy?" 
 
 "You see me under all the enchantments of love and 
 happiness," I answered. 
 
 *'Calyste is as good and simple as he is noble and 
 beautiful," she said, gravely. *'I have made you my 
 heiress in more things than property ; you now possess 
 the double ideal of which I dreamed. I rejoice in 
 what I have done," she continued, after a pause. 
 ''But, my child, make no mistake; do yourself no 
 wrong. You have easily won happiness; you have 
 only to stretch out your hand to take it, and it is 
 yours ; but be careful to preserve it. If you had come 
 here solely to carry away with you the counsels that my 
 knowledge of your husband alone can give you, the 
 journey would be well repaid. Calyste is moved at 
 this moment by a communicated passion, but you have 
 not inspired it. To make your happiness lasting, try, 
 my dear child, to give him something of his former 
 emotions. In the interests of both of you, be capri- 
 • clous, be coquettish ; to tell you the truth, you must 
 
308 Beatrix, 
 
 be. I am not advising any odious scheming, or petty 
 tyranny; this that I tell you is the science of a 
 woman's life. Between usury and prodigality, my 
 child, is economy. Study, therefore, to acquire honor- 
 ably a certain empire over Calyste. These are the 
 last words on earthly interests that I shall ever utter, 
 and I have kept them to say as we .part; for there are 
 times when I tremble in my conscience lest to save 
 Calyste I may have sacrificed you. Bind him to you, 
 firmly, give him children, let him respect their mother 
 in you — and," she added in a low and trembling 
 voice, ''manage, if you can, that he shall never again 
 see Beatrix." 
 
 That name plunged us both into a sort of stupor; 
 we looked into each other's eyes, exchanging a vague 
 uneasiness. 
 
 " Do you return to Guerande ? " she asked me. 
 
 ''Yes," I said. 
 
 "Never go to Les Touches. I did wrong to give 
 him that property." 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 "Child!" she answered, "Les Touches for you is 
 Bluebeard's chamber. There is nothing so dangerous 
 as to wake a sleeping passion.'* 
 
 I have given you, dear mamma, the substance, or at 
 any rate, the meaning of our conversation. If Made- 
 moiselle des Touches made me talk to her freely, she 
 also gave me much to think of ; and all the more be- 
 cause, in the delight of this trip, and the charm of 
 these relations with my Calyste, I had well-nigh for- 
 gotten the serious situation of which I spoke to you 
 in my first letter. , 
 
BSatrix. 309 
 
 But oh! mother, it is impossible for me to follow 
 these counsels. I cannot put an appearance of oppo- 
 sition or caprice into my love; it would falsify it. 
 Calyste will do with me what he pleases. According 
 to your theory, the more I am a woman the more I 
 make myself his toy ; for I am, and I know it, horribly 
 weak in my happiness; I cannot resist a single glance 
 of my lord. But no ! I do not abandon myself to love ; 
 I only cling to it, as a mother presses her infant to her 
 breast, fearing some evil. 
 
 Calyste, rich and married to the most beautiful 
 woman in Paris, retains a sadness in his soul which 
 nothing dissipates, — not even the birth of a son at 
 Guerande, in 1839, to the great joy of Zephirine du 
 Guenic. Beatrix lives still in the depths of his heart, 
 and it is impossible to foresee what disasters might 
 result should he again meet with Madame de 
 Rochefide. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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