UNIVERSITY OP CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO BALZAC'S NOVELS. Translated by Miss K. P. Wormeley. Already Publiahed: PÈRE GORIOT. DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS. RISE AND FALL OF CÉSAR BIROTTEAU. EUGÉNIE GRANDET. COUSIN PONS. THE COUNTRY DOCTOR. THE TMTO BROTHERS. THE ALKAHEST (La Recherche de l'Absolu). MODESTE MIGNON. THE MAGIC SKIN (La Peau de Chagrin). COUSIN BETTE. LOUIS LAMBERT. BUREAUCRACY (Les Employés). SERAPHITA. SONS OP THE SOIL (Les Paysans). FAME AND SORROW (Chat-qui-pelote). THE LILY OF 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 OF CONSOLATION. THE VILLAGE RECTOR. MEMOIRS OF TWO YOUNG MARRIED WOMEN. CATHERINE DE' MEDICI. LUCIEN DE RUBEMPRÉ. FERRAGUS, CHIEF OP THE DÉVORANTS. A START IN LIFE. THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT. BEATRIX. DAUGHTER OP EVE. THE GALLERY OF ANTIQUITIES. ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, Boston. HONORÉ DE BALZAC TRANSLATED BY KATHARINE PRESCOTT WORMELEY URSULA ROBERTS BROTHERS 3 SOMERSET STREET BOSTON 1896 Copyright, 1891, By Roberts Brothers. All rights reserved. ®nt6etaitg Ipress: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. The Frightened Heiks 2 IL The Rich Uncle 21 III. The Doctor's Friends 39 IV. ZÉLIE 57 V. Ursula 74 VI. A Treatise on Mesmerism .... 90 VII. A Two-Fold Conversion Ill VIII. The Conference 123 IX. A First Confidence 137 X. The Family of Portenduère . . . 153 XL Savinien Saved 169 XII. Obstacles to Young Love .... 191 XIII. Betrothal of Hearts 205 XIV. Ursula again Orphaned .... 227 XV. The Doctor's Will 240 XVI. The Two Adversaries 261 XVII. The Malignity of Provincial Minds 273 XVIII. A Two-Fold Vengeance 293 XIX. Apparitions 311 XX. Remorse 333 XXI. Showing how Difficult it is to Steal that which seems very EASILY Stolen 344 URSULA. To Mademoiselle Sophie Sdrville : It is a true pleasure, my clear niece, to dedicate to you this book, the subject and details of which have won the approbation, so difficult to win, of a 3'oung girl to whom the world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of the loft}' principles of a saintl}' education. Young girls are indeed a formida- ble public, for the}' ought not to be allowed to read books less pure than the purity of their souls ; they are forbidden certain reading, just as the}' are carefully prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has pleased you."* God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell ? — the future ; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps. Your uncle, De Balzac. Ursula. I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS. Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields and of pictur- esque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little town. Since 1830 several houses have unfor- tunately been built on the farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place will lose its present aspect of gi'aceful originality. In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty 3'ears of age, sitting one fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at a glance the whole of what is called in his business a " ruban de queue." The month of September was displaying its treasures ; the atmosphere glowed above the grass and tlie pebbles ; no cloud dimmed the blue of the sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret- Levrault (for that was the post master's name) was obliged to shade his ej'es with one hand to keep them from being dazzled. With the air of a man who Ursula. 3 was tired of waiting, he looked first to the charming n:>'iadows which lay to the right of the road where the aftei'math was springing up, then to the hill-slopes covered with copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours to Bouron. He could hear in the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on the road were echoed back from the hills, the trot of his own horses and the crack of his postilion's whip. None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such meadows, filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath a Raffaelle sk}', and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema. Whoever knows Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art, whose mission it is to spiritualize it ; there, the landscape has ideas and creates thought. But, on catch- ing sight of Minoret-Levrault an artist would veiy likely have left the view to sketch the man, so original was his in his native commonness. Unite in a human being all the conditions of the brute and ^'ou have a Caliban, who is certainly a great thing. AYherever form rules, sentiment disappears. The post master, a living proof of that axiom, presented a physiognomy in which an observer could with difficulty trace, beneath the vivid carnation of its coarsely developed flesh, the semblance of a soul. His cap of blue cloth, with a small peak, and sides fluted like a melon, outlined a head of vast dimensions, showing that Gall's science has not yet 4 Ursula. produced its chapter of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny hair which appeared below the cap showed that other causes than mental toil or grief had whitened it. Large ears stood out from the head, their edges scarred with the eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which seemed ready to gush at the least exertion. His skin was crimson under an outside layer of brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun. The roving gray eyes, deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows, were like those of the Kalmucks who entered France in 1815 ; if they ever sparkled it was onl}- under the in- fluence of a covetous thought. His broad pug nose was flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping with a repulsive double chin, the beard of which, rarel}' cleaned more than once a week, was encircled with a dirt}^ silk handkerchief twisted to a cord ; a short neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of brute force which sculptors give to their caryatides. Minoret-Levrault was like those statues, with this difference, that whereas they sup- port an edifice, he had more than he could well do to support himself. You will meet manj^ such Atlases in the world. The man's torso was a block ; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His vig- orous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork ; hands which his postilions never attempted Ursula. 5 to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a rare thing with him, but it was terrible, apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though violent and quite incapable of reflection, the man had never done anything that justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence. To all those who felt afraid of hira his postilions would reply, "Oh ! he's not bad." The master of Nemours, to use the common abbrevia- tion of the country, wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green linen with green stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of a monstrous snuff-box. A snuflT-box to a pug nose is a law without exception. A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault did not meddle with poli- tics ; as to his religious opinions, he had never set foot in a church except to be married ; as to his private principles, he kept them within the civil code ; all that the law did not forbid or could not prevent he consid- ered right. He never read anything but the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed instructions relating to his business. He was consid- ered a clever agriculturist ; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral being did not belie the 6 Ursula. physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking he always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas, but words. If he had been a talker j-ou would have felt that he was out of keeping with him- self. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet and without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to agree with Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes ridicule and some- times foretell characters. In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last thirtA'-six 3'ears (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirt}' thousand francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If Minoret, being master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the Gâtinais to Paris, still worked at his business, it was less from habit than for the sake of an onlj- son, to whom he was anxious to give a fine career. This son, who was now (to use an expression of the peasantry) a monsieur, had just completed his legal studies and was about to take his degree as licentiate, preparatory to being called to the bar. Monsieur and Madame Minoret-Levrault — for behind our colossus everj' one will perceive a woman without whom this signal good- fortune would have been impossible — left their son free to choose liis own career ; he might be a notary in Paris, king's-attorney in some district, collector of customs no matter where, broker, or post master, as Ursula. 7 he pleased. "What fancy of his could they ever refuse hiiu ? to what position in life might he not aspire as the son of a man about whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in the habit of saying, " Père Minoret does n't even know how rich he is "? This sa^'ing had obtained fresh force about four j-ears before this history begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and a splendid dwelling, and re- moved the post-house from the Grand' Rue to the wharf. The new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs, which the gossip of thirty miles in circum- ference more than doubled. The Nemours mail- coach service requires a large number of horses. It goes to Fontainebleau on the road to Paris, and from there diverges to Montargis and also to Montereau. The relays are long, and the sandy soil of the Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, alwaj's paid for and never seen. A man of Minoret's build, and Min- oret's wealth, at the head of such an establishment might well be called, without contradiction, the master of Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being a practical materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a practical egoist, and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of unmixed happiness, — if we can call pure materialism happiness. A physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered the last vertebrae and pressed upon the giant's cerebellum, 8 Ursula. and, above all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice which contrasted so absurdly with his huge bod}', would have understood why this ponderous, coarse being adored his only son, and why he had so long expected him, — a fact proved by the name, Desire, which was given to the child. The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivalled the father in spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his mother's coffer and dipped into his father's purse, mak- ing each author of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire, who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince ro3'al in his father's capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had gratified them in his native town ; he had therefore spent a yearly sum of not less than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal studies. But for that money he had certainly acquired ideas that never would have come to him in Nemours ; he had stripped off the provincial skin, learned the power of mone}' and seen in the magistracy a means of advancement which he fancied. During the last j-ear he had spent an extra sum of ten thousand francs in the company' of artists, journalists, and their mistresses. A confidential and rather disquieting letter from his son, asking for his consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the Ursula. 9 post master was now keeping on the bridge ; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a sumptuous break- fast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate, had sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and ride out if he saw nothing of the dili- gence. The coach which was conveying the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning, and it was now nine ! What could be the meaning of such delay ? Was the coach overturned? Could Desire be dead? Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg ? Three distinct volle3's of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge of musketrj" ; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten horses neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waA'ed it ; he was seen. The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray carriage-liorses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the five stout diligence horses and the three other cai-riage-horses, and soon reached his master. " Have 3'ou seen the ' Dueler ' ? " On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the different coaches ; such, for instance, as the "Gaillard," the "Dueler" (the coach between Nemours and Paris), the "Grand Bureau." Every new enterprise is called the " Competition." In the days of the Lecompte company their coaches were called the " Countess." — " ' Caillard ' could not overtake the 'Countess'; but ' Grand Bureau ' caught up with her 10 Ursula. finely," 3"OU will hear the men saj'. If you see a postil- ion pressing his horses and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he will tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space, " The ' Competi- tion ' is ahead." — "We can't get in sight of her," cries the postilion ; " the vixen ! she would n't stop to let her passengers dine." — " The question is, has she got an}' ? " responds the conductor. " Give it to Polignac ! " All laz}' and bad horses are called Polignac. Such are the jokes and the basis of conversation between postil- ions and conductors on the roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each calling in France has its slang. " Have 3'ou seen the ' Dueler ' ? " asked Minoret. " Monsieur Desire ? " said the postilion, interrupting his master. " He}" ! you must have heard us, did n't our whips tell you? we felt 30U were somewhere along the road." " Wh}' is the diligence four hours late?" " The tire of one of the rear wheels got loose between Essonne and Ponthierry. But there was no accident ; luckil}', CabiroUe saw what had happened in time." Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes, — for the bells were pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass, — a woman about thirt^^-six years of age came up to the post master. "Well, cousin," she said, " 3'ou wouldn't believe me — Uncle is with Ursula in the Grand'Rue, and the}' are going to mass." Ursula. 11 In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought from the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault ; his shrill voice grew sibilant, and his face took on the appear- ance of what people oddl3' enough call a sunstroke. "Is that true?" he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was over. The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed him, but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for his son, Minoret- Levrault hurried up the Grand'Rue with his cousin. "Didn't I always tell you so?" she resumed. " When Doctor Minoret goes out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into religion ; whoever la3S hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and she '11 have our inheritance." ' ' But, Madame Massin — " said the post master, dumbfounded. "There new!" exclaimed Madame Massin, inter- rupting her cousin. " You are going to sa}-, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen can't invent such plans and carr}' them out, or make an old man of eight}'- three, who has never set foot in a church except to be married, change his opinions, — now don't tell me he has such a horror of priests that he 12 Ursula. would n't even go with the girl to the parish church when she made her first communion. I 'd like to know why, if Doctor Minoret hates priests, he has spent nearly every evening for the last fifteen years of his life with the Abbé Chaperon. The old hypocrite never fails to give Ursula twenty francs for wax tapers every time she takes the sacrament. Have 30U forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to the curé for preparing her for her first communion ? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men ! j'ou don't pay attention to things. When I heard that, I said to mj'self, ' Farewell baskets, the vintage is done ! ' A rich uncle does n't behave that wa}' to a little brat picked up in the streets without some good reason." " Pooh, cousin ; I dare saj* the goodman is only taking her to the door of the church," replied the post master. " It is a fine da^^ and he is out for a walk." "I tell you he is holdmg a praj'er-book, and looks sanctimonious — you '11 see him." " The}- hide their game pretty well," said Minoret, " La Bougival told me there was never an}' talk of religion between the doctor and the abbé. Besides, the abbé is one of the most honest men on the face of the globe ; he 'd give the shirt oflT his back to a poor man ; he is incapable of a base action, and to cheat a famil}' out of their inheritance is — " Ursula. 13 "Theft," said Madame Massin. " Worse ! " cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his gossipping neighbor. " Of course I know," said Madame Massin, " that the Abbé Chaperon is an honest man ; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted ! A man who never be- lieved in anything, and had principles of his own ! Well ! we 're done for. My husband is absolutely beside himself." Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and to the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way to mass. She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the postmaster. Nemours is commanded on the Gâtinais side by a hill, at the foot of which runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the stones of which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was re- built in the fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised to a peerage-duch^-), stands at the end of the little town close to a great arch which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position docs everything. Shaded by a few trees, and thrown 14 Ursula. into relief by a neatly kept square, this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect. As the post master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his uncle with the young girl called Ursula on his ai-m, both carrying prayer-books and just entering the church. The old man took off his hat in the porch, and his head, which was white as a hill-top covered with snow, shone among the shadows of the portal. "Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?" cried the tax-collector of Nemours, named Crémière. "What do 3'ou expect me to say?" replied the post master, offering him a pinch of snuff. " Well answered, Père Levrault. You can't say what 3'ou think, if it is true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his words befoi^e he speaks his thought," cried a 3'oung man standing near, who played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town. This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clei'k to Monsieur Crémière-Dionis, the Nemours no- tary. Notwithstanding a past conduct that was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office when a career in Paris — where the clerk had wasted all the money he inherited from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him fora notary — was brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere sight Ursula. 15 of Goupil told an observer that he had made haste to enjo}^ life, and had paid dear for his enjoyments. Though ver}' short, his chest and shoulders were de- veloped at' twenty-seven years of age like those of a man of fort}'. Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion like the sky before a storm, surmounted b}' a bald forehead, brought out still further tlie oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularité' of that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible gibbositj' ; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of dividing it down the middle. The mouth, contracted at the cor- ners, like that of a Sardinian, was alwa^'s on the qui vive of iron}-. His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots onl}- fit for the dust- heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black ; his coat and trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful waistcoat with half the button- moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which served as a cravat — in short, all his clothing revealed the C3"nical poverty to which his passions had reduced 16 Ursula. him. This combination of disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly. No one in Nemours was more feared nor, in a wa3', more deferred to than Goupil. Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license, and he used it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical couplets sung during the carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master so dis- trusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to let him live in his house, held him at arm's length, and never confided any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk fawned upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and watching Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge there. Gifted with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work eas}'. "You ! " exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his hands, " making game of our mis- fortunes already'?" As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis' Ursula. 17 passions for the last five years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting the hoard of ill-feel- ings he was piling up in Goupil's heart with every fresh insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to him than it was to others, and know- ing himself superior in mind to the whole bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret's son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or other of three town offices, — that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame Minoret-Levrault, and plaj-ed a contemptible part towards Desire, consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each vacation, — de- vouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded. " If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given God to me for a co-heir," retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which exhibited his teeth — few, black, and menacing. Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his wife, bringing with him Madame Cré- mière, the wife of the tax-collector of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had the physical characteristics of a Tartar : ej'es small and round as sloes beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without any rim, a mouth 2 18 Ursula. almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal notices. Madame Crémière was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by red blotches, always too tightl}'- laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of preten- sions to wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle's money to " take a certain stand," decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles the notar^^'s wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who caught up and retailed her ' ' slap- suslinquies " as she called them. One day Madame Dionis chanced to ask what " Eau" she thought best for the teeth. "Tr}' opium," she replied. Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled in the square ; the importance of the event which brought them was so generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so picturesque on Sunday's and fête-da3"s, stood b}-, with their eyes fixed on the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between large vil- lages and cities those who do not go to mass stand Ursula. 19 about in the square or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of church service was a weekl}' exchange, to which the owners of propert}' scat- tered over a radius of some miles resorted. " "Well, how would you have prevented it?" said the post master to Goupil in repl}' to his remark. "I should have made m^'self as important to him as the air he bi'eathes. But from the ver}- first 30U failed to get hold of him. The inheritance of a rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman — for want of proper care they'll both escape 3-ou. If Ma- dame Dionis were here she could tell yon how true that comparison is." " But Monsieur Bongi-and has just told me there is nothing to worry about," said Massin. " Oh ! there are plenty of wa3s of saying that ! " cried Goupil, laughing. " I would like to have heard your si}' justice of the peace say it. If there is nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with ^our uncle, knows that all is lost, the proper thing for him to sa\' to you is, 'Don't be worried.'" As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin had let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as mucli of a cipher as a clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his 20 Ursula. co-heir, Massin, with the words: — "Did n't I tell 3'ou so ? " Trick}' people alwaj'S attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, who was at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du Rouvre, a former client. " If I were sure of it ! " he said. "You could neutralize the protection he is now giv- ing to the Marquis du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don't j'ou see how Bongrand is sprinkling him with advice ? " said Goupil, slipping an idea of retalia- tion into Massin's mind. " But 3'ou had better go easy with your chief ; he 's a clever old fellow ; he might use his influence with your uncle and persuade him not to leave everything to the church." "Pooh! we sha'n't die of it," said Minoret-Levrault, opening his enormous snuflT-box. "You won't live of it, either," said Goupil, making the two women tremble. More quick-witted than their husbands, the}' saw the privations this loss of inherit- ance (so long counted on for man}' comforts) would be to them. " However," added Goupil, "we'll drown this little grief in floods of champagne in honor of Desire — sha'n't we, old fellow? " he cried, tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting himself to the feast for fear he should be left out. Ursula. 21 II. THE RICH UNCLE. Before proceeding further, persons of an exact tilm of mind may like to read a species of family inventor}-, so as to understand the degrees of relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted to religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the subject of many instruc- tive reflections. There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours ; among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but nobles who possessed lands or châteaus in the neighborhood ; of the latter we may mention the d'Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate of Saint- Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by mortgages, was closely watched b}' the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the town had no money. Madame de Portenduère's sole possessions were a farm which brought a rental of fortj'-seven hundred francs, and her town house. 22 Ursula. In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a group of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former merchants ; in short a miniature bourgeoisie ; below which, again, lived and moved the retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry. The bourgeoisie presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other small countries) the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain autoch- thonous families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who rule a whole region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants are cousins. Under Louis XI,, an epoch at which the commons first made real names of their surnames (some of which are united with those of feudalism) the bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets, Massins, Levraults and Crémières. Under Louis XIII. these four families had already produced the Massin-Crémières, the Levrault-Massins, the Mas- sin-Minorets, the Minore t-Minorets, the Crémière- Levraults, the Levrault-Minoret-Massins, Massin-Lev- raults, Minoret-Massins, Massin-Massins, and Crémière- Massins, — all these varied with juniors and diversified with the names of eldest sons, as for instance, Crémière- François, Le vrault- Jacques, Jean-Minoret — enough to drive a Père Anselme of the People frantic, — if the people should ever want a genealogist. The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so complicated by births and mar- Ursula. 23 liages that the genealogical tree of the bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the bénédictines of the Almanach of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they arrange those zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the Minorets occupied the tanneries, the Crémières kept the mills, the Massins were in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the neighborhood these four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending only on their tap-roots ; the}' scattered cuttings by the expatriation of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere ; for instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers at Melun ; Levraults at Mon- targis ; Massins at Orléans ; and Crémières of some importance in Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from the parent hive. Rich Massins employ, of course, the poor working Massins — just as Austria and Prussia take the German princes into their service. It may happen that a public office Is managed by a Minoret millionnaire and guarded by a Minoret sen- tinel. Full of the same blood and called b}' the same name (for sole likeness), these four roots had cease- lessly woven a human network of which each thread was delicate or strong, fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same blood was in the head and in the feet and in the heart, in the working hands, in the weakly lungs, in the forehead big with genius. The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, 24 Ursula. where the ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which happened under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France you may be, you will find the same thing under changed names, but without the poetic charm which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter Scott's genius reproduced so faithfully. Let us look a little higher and examine humanity as it appears in histor3^ All the noble fami- lies of the eleventh centurj', most of them (except the royal race of Capet) extinct to-day, will be found to have contributed to the birth of the Rohans, Mont- morencj's, Beauffremonts, and Mortemarts of our time, — in fact they will all be found in the blood of the last gentleman who is indeed a gentleman. In other words, every bourgeois is cousin to a bourgeois, and every noble is cousin to a noble. A splendid page of biblical genealogy shows that in one thousand years three fami- lies, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, peopled the globe. One family may become a nation ; unfortunatelj^ a nation may become one family. To prove this we need oxAy search back through our ancestors and see their accumu- lation, which time increases in a retrograde geometric progression, which multiplies of itself ; reminding us of the calculation of the wise man who, being told to choose a reward from the king of Persia for inventing chess, asked for one ear of wheat for the first move on the board, the reward to be doubled for each succeeding Ursula. 25 move ; when it was found that the kingdom was not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobiUt}-, hemmed in by the net- work of the bourgeoisie, — the antagonism of two protected races, one protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience of labor and the shrewdness of commerce, — produced the revolution of 1789. The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with collaterals without a heri- tage. What are they to do? Our political future is big with the answer. The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret was so numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose entrance into the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to seek his fortune, and seldom returned to his native town, until he came to receive his share of the inheri- tance of his grandfather. After suffering many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle for a place in the brilliant world of Paris, this sou of the Minorets reached a nobler destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the start. He devoted himself, in the first in- stance, to medicine, a profession which demands both talent and a cheerful nature, but the latter qualification even more than talent. Backed b}' Dupont de Nemours, connected by a luckj- chance with the Abbé Morellet (whom Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the Enc^'clopedists, Doctor Minoret attached himself as 26 Ursula. liegeman to the famous Doctor Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Ilelvetius, the Baron d'Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere bo}^ These men, influenced b}' Borden's example, became interested in Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with a very good practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists, materialists, or what- ever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers of that period. Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he in- vented the famous balm of Leliovre, so much extolled by the " Mercure de France," the weekly organ of the Enc3'clopedists, in whose columns it was permanently advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a stroke of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for the dispensar}-, and he loj^ally shared his profits with the doctor, who was a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine. Less than that would make a man a materialist. The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the " Nouvelle Héloise," when persons did occasion- ally marr}' for that reason. His wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouët, a celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew. Minoret knew Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental in awarding him a gold medal for a dissertation on the following subject: "What is the Ursula. 27 origin of the opinion that covers a whole famil}' with the shame attaching to the public punishment of a guilt}' member of it? Is that opinion more harmful than useful? If yes, in what way can the harm be warded off." The Royal Academ\^ of Arts and Sci- ences at Metz, to which Minoret belonged, must possess this dissertation in the original. Though, thanks to this friendship, the Doctor's wife need have had no fear, she was so in dread of going to the scaffold that her terror increased a disposition to heart disease caused by the over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all the precautions taken b}' the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunatel}' met the tumbril of victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock caused her death. Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her notliing, and had given her a life of luxur}-, found him- self after her death almost a poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as surgeon-in-charge of a hospital. Though the name of Minoret obtained during the livclv debates to which mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrit}' which occasionalh' recalled him to the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a destroyer of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of Doctor Minoret, who was induced to think of returning there to die, like the hare to its form, b}' a circumstance that was wholl}' accidental. 28 Ursula. Who has not felt in travelling through France, where the eye is often wearied by the monoton}' of plains, the charming sensation of coining suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a fresh cool vallc}', watered b}' a river, with a little town sheltering beneath a cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow? Wakened b}' the " hu ! hu ! " of the postilion as he walks beside his horses, we shake off sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream, the beautiful scene which is to the traveller what a noble passage in a book is to a reader, — a brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the sensation caused b}- a first sight of Nemours as we approach it from Burgundy. We see it encircled with bare rocks, gra}', black, white, fantastic in shape like those we find in the forest of Fontainebleau ; from them spring scattered trees, clearlj' defined agaiust the sky, which give to this particular rock formation the dilapidated look of a crumbling wall. Here ends the long wooded hill which creci)s from Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road. At the bottom of this irregular amphitheatre lie meadow-lands through which flows the Loing, form- ing sheets of water with man}' falls. This delightful landscape, which continues the whole wixy to Montargis, is like an opera scene, for its eflTects reall}' seem to have been studied. One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been sum- Ursula. 2^ moned into Burgundy by a rich patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having mentioned at the last relay the route he intended to take, he was brought without his knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more, on waking from a nap, the scenery in which his childhood had been passed. He had lately lost many of his old friends. The votary of the Encyclo- pedists had witnessed the conversion of La Harpe ; he had buried Lebrun-Pindare and Marie-Joseph de Chénier, and Morellet, and Madame Helvetius. He assisted at the quasi-fall of Voltaire when assailed by Geoffroy, the continuator of Frcron. For some time past he had thought of retiring, and so, when his post chaise stopped at the head of the Grand' Rue of Nemours, his heart prompted him to inquire for his family. Minore t-Levrault, the post master, came forward himself to see the doctor, who discov- ered him to be the son of his eldest brother. The nephew presented the doctor to his wife, the only daughter of the late Levrault-Crémière, who had died twelve 3'ears earlier, leaving him the post business and the finest inn in Nemours. "Well, nephew," said the doctor, "have I any other relatives ? " " My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin- Massin — " "• Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange." 30 Ursula. " She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a Crémière-Crémière, a fine 3'oung fellow, still without a place." "Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a bachelor, and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here am I, that ends the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal side? My mother was a Jean-Massin-Levrault." "•Of the Jean-Massin-Levraults there's only one left," answered Minoret-Levrault, "namely, Jean-Mas- sin, who married Monsieur Crémière-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on tlie scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is doing well ; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary's clerk at Mon- targis, wliere his father is a locksmith." "So I've plent}' of heirs," said the doctor gayly, immediatel}' proposing to take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew. The Loing runs tlirough the town in a wavnig line, banked b}' terraced gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that happiness must abide there sooner tlian elsewhere. When the doctor turned into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the property of LevraulL-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris wlio, he said, had just died. Ursula. 31 " The pince is for sale, nncle, and a veiy prett}' house it is ; there 's a charming garden running down to tlic river." " Let us go in," said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a small paA^ed courtyard, a house stand- ing between the walls of the two neighboring bouses which were masked by clumps of trees and climbing- plants. "■ It is built over a cellar," said the doctor, going up the steps of a high portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which geraniums were growing. Cut in two, like the majorit}- of provincial houses, by a long passage which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room to the right, a salon lighted b}' four windows, two on the courtyard and two on the garden ; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda. "Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor," said old Minoret, " I could put ni}' books there and make a very comfortable study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end." On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the dining-room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and gold flowers ; this was sep- 32 Ursula. arated from the kitchen by the well of the staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a Uttle pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the eourtjard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers on the next flooi', and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were fairh' habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and observing that it was covered with trellises fi'om top to bottom, on the side of the courtyard as well as on that to the garden, — wdiich ended in a terrace overlooking the river and adorned with potteiy vases, — the doctor remarked : — " Levrault-Levrault must have spent a good deal of money here." *'Ho! I should think so," answered Minoret- Levrault. " He liked flowers — nonsense! ' What do the}' bring in?' sa3s my wife. You saw inside there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers iu fresco in the corridor. He ]}\xi those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were all re-made with cor- nices which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room floor is in marquetiT — perfect folh' ! The house won't sell for a penny the more." "Well, nephew, buy it for me; let me know what you do about it ; here 's m}- address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?" he asked, as thov left the house. Ursula. 33 " Emigrés," answered the post master, " named Por- tend uc re." The house once bought, the iUuslrious doctor, instead of living there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levrault was therefore occupied bj the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice to Dionis, his liead-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house on the doctor's hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was being decided in the neigliborhood. The doctor's heirs, at first misled, had by this time decided tliat his thought of returning to his native place was merely' a rich man's fancj', and that probably he had some tie in Paris which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for inheritance. However, Minoret- Levrault's wife seized the occasion to write him a letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe communication established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He did, in fact, put in an appearance with two of his clients, the architect of his hos- pital and an upholsterer, who took charge of the re- pairs, the indoor arrangements, and the transportation of the furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault pro[)osud the cook of the late notary as caretaker, and the woman was accepted. When tlie heirs heard that their uncle and great- 3 34 Ursula. uncle Minoret was really- coming to live in Nemours, the}' were seized (in spite of tiie political events wliich were just then weigliing so heavily on Brie and on the Gatinais) with a devouring curiosit}-, which was not surprising. Was he rich? Economical or spend- thrift? Would he leave a fine fortune or nothing? Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out what follows, but only b^' taking infinite pains and employing much subterraneous spying. After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouët, and between the j-ears 1789 and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician to the Em- peror in 1805) must have made a good deal of money ; but no one knew how much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than a carriage by the year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no guests and dined out almost ever}' da}'. His housekeeper, furious at not being allowed to go with him to Nemours, told Zclie Levrault, the post master's .wife, that she knew the doctor had fourteen thousand francs a year on the " grand-livre." Now, after twenty years' exercise of a profession which his position as head of a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member of the Institute, rendered lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs a year showed only one hundred and sixty thousand francs laid by. To have saved only eight thousand francs a year the doctor must have had either many Ursula. 35 vices or many virtues to gratif)-. But neither his housekeeper nor Zéhe nor an}' one else could discover the reason for such moderate means. Minoret, who when he left it was much regretted in the quarter of Paris where he had lived, was one of the most benev- olent of men, and, like Larrej-, ke[)t his kind deeds a profound secret. The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle's fine furniture and large librar}- with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being now an ofticer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel — perhaps on account of his retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the architect and painter and up- holsterer had ari'anged everything in the most comfort- able manner, the doctor did not come. Madame Minoret-Levrault, who kept an ej-e on the upholsterer and architect as if her own property was concerned, found out, through the indiscretion of a young man sent to arrange the books, that the doctor was taking care of a little orphan named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire through the town. At last, however, towards the middle of the month of January, 1815, the old man actually arrived, installing himself quietly, almost slyly, with a little girl about ten months old, and a nurse. "The child can't be his daughter," said the terrified heirs ; "he is seventy-one years old." 36 Ursula. " Whoever she is," remarked Madame Massin, "she '11 give us plenty of tintouin" (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxietj-, or more lit- eralh', tingling in the ears). The doctor received his great-niece on the mother's side somewhat coldl}' ; her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court, and the pair began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither Massin nor his wife were rich. Massin's father, a locksmith at Montargis, had been obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was now, at sixty -seven j'ears of age, working like a young man, and had nothing to leave behind hnn. Madame Massin's father, Levrault-Min- orct, had just died at Montereau after the battle, in despair at seeing his farm burned, his fields ruined, his cattle slaughtered. " We shall get nothing out of your great-uncle," said Massin to his wife, now pregnant with her second child, after the interview. The doctor, however, gave them privatel}^ ten thou- sand francs, with which Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the peasantry that b}^ the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him to hold at least eighty thousand frajics on their property. As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her Ursuia. 37 husband, through his influence in Paris, the collector- ship of Nemours, and became his bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zélie, his wife, being jealous of the uncle's liberality to his two nieces, took her ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be to them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so much. The doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at the school of Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth class. Crémière, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were " rated without appeal " by the doctor within two months of his arrival in Nemours, during which time the}- courted, less their uncle than his property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage against others with ideas. The}' are quick!}- found out ; the suggestions of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a glance ; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount of intellect to discover them. After buying tlie gratitude of his heirs, and thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor made a pretext of his oc- cupations, his habits, and the care of the little Ursula to avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing his doors to them. He lilied to dine alone ; he went to bed late and he got up late ; he had returned to his native place for the very purpose of finding rest in soli- 88 Ursula. tude. These whims of an old man seemed to be natural, and his relatives contented themselves with paying him weeklj' visits on Sundays from one to four o'clock, to which, however, he tried to put a stop b}- saying : " Don't come and see me unless you want something." The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consul- tation over serious cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not serve as physician in the little hos- pital of Nemours, and declared that he no longer prac- tised his profession. " I 'vc killed enough people," he said, laughing, to the Abbé Chaperon, who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor. " He's an original ! " These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the harmless revenge of various wounded vanities ; for a doctor collects about him a society of persons who have raanj' of the characteristics of a set of heirs. Those of the bourgeoisie who thought them- selves entitled to visit this distinguished physician kept up a ferment of jealousy against the few privileged friends whom he did admit to his intimac}', which had in the long run some unfortunate results. Ursula. 39 III. THE DOCTOR'S FRIENDS. Curiously enough, though it explains the old pro- verb that "extremes meet," the materialistic doctor and the curé of Nemours were soon friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the priest- hood, and the Abbé Chaperon played it with about as much skill as he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret was charitable, and the abbé was the Fénelon of tlie Gâtinais. Both had had a wide and varied education ; the man of God was the only person in all Nemours who was fully capable of understanding the atheist. To be able to argue, men must first understand each other. What pleasure is there in saying sharp words to one who can't feel them ? The doctor and the priest had far too much taste and had seen too much of good society not to practice its precepts ; they were thus well-fitted for the little war- fare so essential to conversation. Thev' hated each other's opinions, but they valued each other's character. If such conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we must surely despair of societ}', , whicli, especially in France, requires some form of 40 Ursula. antagonism. It is from the shock of characters, and not from the struggle of opinions, tliat antipathies are generated. The Abbé Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor's chief friend. This excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty 3"ears of age, had been curate of Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of at- tachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so doing, the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered b}- his sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbé did good witliout inquiring into the religious opinions of those he bene- fited. His parsonage, with scared}' furniture enough for the common needs of life, was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice mani- fest themselves in the same way ; charity lays up a treasure in heaven which avarice la3s up on earth. The Abbé Chaperon argued with his servant over ex- penses even more shai'ply than Gobseck witli his — if indeed that famous Jew kept a servant at all. Tlie good priest often sold the buckles off his slioes and his breeclies to give their value to some poor person who appealed to him at a moment wlien he had not a penny. AVhen he was seen coming out of churcli with the straps of his breeches tied into the button- holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from. Ursula. 41 the clock-maker and jeweller of the town and return them to their pastor with a lecture. He never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduère, and other good souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clolhes with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbé did not always find out the difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons. When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solem- nity (an expense obligatorv on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver from his friend the atheist. " M3' silver is his salvation," the doctor would say. These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were done with a beautiful naïveté. Such a life was all the more meritorious because the abbé was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable accompannnents of simpli- city, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the exquisite savor of all that is most spiritual, most sincere in tlie human mind. A lover of gayety, he was never priest in a salon. Until Doctor IVÏinoret's arrival, tlie good man kept his light under a bushel without regret. Owning 42 Ursula. a rather fine library and an income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours, he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish priest, nearly the whole of which he gave away during the year. The giver of excellent counsel in delicate mat- ters or in great misfortunes, many persons who never went to church to obtain consolation went to the par- sonage to get advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete his portrait. Sometimes the peasants, — rarely, it is true, but occasionall}-, — unprincipled men, would tell him they were sued for debt, or would get themselves threatened fictitioush' to stimulate the abbe's benevolence. They would even deceive their wives, who, believing their -chattels were threatened with an execution and their cows seized, deceived in their turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He would then manage with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs demanded of him — with which the peasant bought himself a morsel of land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging the abbé to consult them in future before lending himself to such cupidity, he would sa}': — "But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land? Isn't it doing good when we prevent evil? " Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the fact that science and literature had Ursula. 43 filled the heart and passed through the strong head without corrupting either. At sixty 3-ears of age the abbe's hair was white as snow, so keenl}' did he feel the sorrows of others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed on him. Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as he used to say, uttered his In manns. He was of medium height, neither stout nor thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite colorless, attracted immediate at- tention by the absolute tranquillit3' expressed in its shape, and b}" the purit}' of its outline, which seemed to be edged with light. The face of a chaste man has an unspeakable radiance. Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the irregular features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead. His glance wielded a power which came of a gentleness that was not de- void of strength. The arches of his brow foi-med caverns shaded by huge graj* e3'ebrows which alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone his mouth had lost its shape and his cheeks had fallen in ; but this physical destruction was not without charm ; even the wi'inkles, full of pleasantness, seemed to smile on others. Without being gouty his feet were tender ; and he walked with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of calfs skin all the 3ear round. He thought the fashion of trousers unsuitable for priests, and he alwaj's appeared in stockings of coarse black 44 Ursula. 'yarn, knit by his housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He never went out in his cassoclv, but wore a brown OA'cr- coat, and still retained the three-cornered hat he had worn so courageous^ in times of danger. This noble and beautiful old man, whose face was glorified b}^ the serenity of a soul above reproach, will be found to have so great an influence upon the men and things of this historj', tliat it was proper to show the sources of his authoi'ity and power. Minoret took three newspapers, — one liberal, one ministerial, one ultra, — a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals, the accumulation of which swelled his library'. The newspapers, encj'clopîedias, and books were an attraction to a retired captain of the Royal- Swedish regiment, named Monsieur de Jord}', a Vol- tairean nobleman and an old bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of pension and annuity com- bined. Having read the gazettes for several da3'S, by favor of the abbé. Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to call and thank the doctor in person. At this first visit the old captain, formerly a professor at the Mihtarj' Academy, won the doctor's heart, who returned the call with alacrity. Monsieur de Jordy, a spare little man much troubled by his blood, though his face was very pale, attracted attention by the resemblance of his handsome brow to that of Charles XII. ; above it he kept his hair cropped short, Ursula. 45 like that of the soldier-king. His blue eyes seemed to sa}' that " Love had passed that wa}^" so mourn- ful were they ; revealing memories about whicli he kept such utter silence that his old friends never detected even an allusion to his past life, nor a single exclama- tion drawn forth by similarity of circumstances. He hid the painful mj'stery of his past beneath a phil- osophic gayety, but when he thought himself alone his motions, stiffened b}' a slowness which was more a matter of choice than the result of old age, betrayed the constant pi'esence of distressful thoughts. The Abbé Chaperon called him a Christian ignorant of his Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather rigid demeanor and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military discipline. His sweet and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His beautiful hands and the general cut of his figure, recalling that of the Comte d'Artois, showed how charming he must have been in his 3'outh, and made the mystery of his life still more mysterious. An observer asked involuntarilj' what misfortune had blighted such beauty, courage, grace, accomplishment, and all the precious qualities of the heart once united in his person. Monsieur de Jordy shuddered if Robes- pierre's name were uttered before him. He took much snuff, but, strange to say, he gave up the habit to please little Ursula, who at first showed a dislike to him on that account. As soon as he saw the little girl the 46 Ursula. captain fastened bis e^'es upon her with a look that was almost passionate. He loved her play so extrava- gantl}' and took such interest in all she did that the tie between himself and the doctor grew closer every day, though the latter never dared to say to him, " You, too, have j'ou lost children? " There are beings, kind and patient as old Jord}-, who pass through life with a bitter thought in their heart and a tender but sorrowful smile on their lips, carrying with them to the grave the secret of their lives ; letting no one guess it, — through pride, through disdain, possiblj- through revenge ; confiding in none but God, without other consolation than his. Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he knew no one except the abbé, who was alwaj's at the beck and call of his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduère, who went to bed at nine o'clock. So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed earl}-, in spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore a great piece of good- fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went to bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbé Chaperon, and Minoret had passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that the priest and soldier returned every Ursula, 47 night regularly at nine o'clock, the hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was free. All three would then sit up till midnight or one o'clock. After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer, the indulgence, knowl- edge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for conversa- tion which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their practical dealings with the souls, diseases, and educa- tion of men, was added to the number. Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor's societ}'. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases, according to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers. He became a widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still too active to lead an idle life ; he therefore sought and obtained the position of justice of peace at Ne- mours, which became vacant a few months before the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived modestly on his salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he might devote his private income to his son, who was studying law in Paris under the famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired chief of a civil service office ; he had the peculiar face of a bureaucrat, less sallow than pallid, on which public busi- 48 Ursula. ness, vexations, and disgust leave their imprint, — a face lined by thought, and also by the continual restraints familiar to those who are trained not to speak their minds freely. It was often illumined by smiles charac- teristic of men who alternatel}^ believe all and believe nothing, who are accustomed to see and hear all without being startled, and to fathom the abj'sses which self- interest hollows in the depths of the human heart. Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn flattened to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow tones of which harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His face, with the features set close together, bore some likeness to that of a fox, all the more because his nose was short and pointed. In speaking, he spluttered at the mouth, which was broad like those of most great talkers, — a habit which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly, " An umbrella would be useful when listening to him," or, " The justice rains verdicts." His eyes looked keen behind his spectacles, but if he took the glasses off his dulled glance seemed almost vacant. Though he was naturall}' gay, even jovial, he was apt to give himself too important and pompous an air. He usually kept his hands in the pockets of his trousers, and only took them out to settle his eye-glasses on his nose, with a movement that was half comic, and which announced tlio coming of a keen ol)scrvation or some victorious aro-ument. His Ursula. 49 gestures, his loquacity-, his innocent self-assertion, pro- claimed the provincial lawj'er. These slight defects were, however, superficial ; he redeemed them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist might call the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like a fox, and he was thought to be ver}- wil}', but never false or dishonest. His wiliness was perspi- cacity' ; and consisted in foreseeing results and pro- tecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbé learned to play in a ver}' short time. This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Minoret's salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor to the pro- fession, came there sometimes ; but his duties and also his fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed earl}' and to be up early) prevented his being as assiduously pres- ent as the three other friends. This intercoiu'se of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who had suffi- ciently wide knowledge to understand each other, ex- plains old Minoret's aversion to his relatives ; if he were compelled to leave them his mone}', at least he need not admit them to his society. Whether the post master, the sheriff, and the collector understood this distinction, or whether they were reassured by the evi- 4 60 Ursula. dent lo3'alty and the benefactions of their uncle, certain it is that they ceased, to his great satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about eight months after the arrival of the doctor these four players of whist and back- gammon made a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a fraternal aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures of which were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits closed round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his individual tendencies ; the abbé thought of her soul, the judge imagined himself her guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher, and as for Minoret, he was father, mother, and physician, all in one. After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On Ursula's account he re- ceived no visitors in the morning, and never gave din- ners ; but his friends were at liberty to conic to his house at six o'clock and stay till midnight. The first- comers found the newspapers on the table and read them while awaiting the rest ; or they sometimes sallied forth to meet the doctor if he were out for a walk. This tranquil life was not a mere necessit}' of old age, it was the wise and careful scheme of a man of the world to keep his happiness untroubled by the curiosity of his heirs and the gossip of a litlle town. He yielded notli- iiig to tliat capricious goddess, public o[)iniou, wliose Ursula. 51 tyranny (one of the present great evils of France) was just beginning to establish its power and to make the whole nation a mere province. So, as soon as the child was weaned and could walk alone, the doctor sent awa^' the housekeeper whom his niece, Madame Minoret- Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered that she told her patroness everything that happened in his household. Ursula's nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but a baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child, aged six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and hon- est creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris (her maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached herself naturally to Ur- sula, as wetnurses do to their nurslings. This blind maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household devotion. Told of the doctor's intention to send away his housekeeper. La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became neat and handj', and discovered the old man's waj-s. She took the utmost care of the house and furniture ; in short she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor wish to keep his private life within four walls, as the saying is, but he also had cer- tain reasons for hiding a knowledge of his business af- fairs from his relatives. At the end of tlie second year after his arrival La Bougival was the onl^- servant in 52 Ursula. the house ; on her discretion he knew he could count, and he disguised his real purposes by the all-powerful open reason of a necessary econoni}'. To the great sat- isfaction of his heirs he became a miser. Without fawning or wheedling, solel}' hy the influence of her de- votion and solicitude, La Bougival, who was forty-three 3-ears old at the time this tale begins, was the house- keeper of the doctor and his protegee, the pivot on which the whole house turned, in short, the confidential servant. She was called La Bougival from the admitted impossibilit}" of appl3ing to her person the name that actuallj' belonged to her, Antoinette — for names and forms do obe^' the laws of harmon}'. The doctor's miserliness was not mere talk ; it was real, and it had an object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours could estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a 3'ear. Like most old men his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were ver}' few. Every six months he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his income. In fifteen 3'ears he never said a single word to any o\w. in relation to his affairs. His confidence in Bongiand was of slow growth ; it was not until after the révolu ■ tion of 1830 that he told him of his projects. Nothing further was known of the doctor's life either b}' tlie bourgeoisie at large or by his heirs. As for his political Ursula. 53 opinions, lie did not meddle in public matters seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year in taxes, and refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or liberal demands. His known horror for the priest- hood, and his deism were so little obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner sent by his great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the " Curé Meslier " and the. " Discours du General F03'." Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the liberals of Nemours. The doctor's three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife. Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior. Monsieur and Madame Crémière-Crémière — whom we shall in future call simply Crémière, Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homo- n3'ms is quite unnecessary out of the Gâtinais — met together as people do in little towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son's birthday, a ball during the carnival, another on the anniversary' of his marriage, to all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of Ne- mours. The collector received his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the court, too poor, he said, to fling himself into such extravagance, lived in a small wa}- in a house standing half-wa}' down the Grand'Rue, the ground -floor of which was let to his sister, the letter- postmistress of Nemours, a situation she owed to tlie doctor's kind offices. Nevertheless, in the course of 54 Ursula. the year these three families did meet together fre- quently, in the houses of friends, in the public prome- nades, at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a Sunday in the square, as on this occasion ; so that one way and another they met nearly every da}-. For the last three years the doctor's age, his economies, and his probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank remarks, among the townspeople as to the disposition of his property, a topic which made the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the little town. For the last six months not a daj' passed that friends and neighbors did not speak to the heirs, with secret env}-, of the day the good man's e3'es would shut and the coffers open. " Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death, but none but God is eternal," said one. "Pooh, he'll bur}' us all; his health is better than ours," replied an heir, hypocritically. "Well, if j'ou don't get the mone}' 3-ourselves, 3'our children will, unless that little Ursula — " " He won't leave it all to her." Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the relations, their sword of Damocles ; and Madame Crémière's favorite saying, "Well, who- ever lives will know," shows that they wished at an}- rate more harm to her than good. The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in Ursula. 55 comparison with the post master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor's propert}'. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or along the road they would look at each other piteousl}^ " He must have got hold of some elixir of life," said one. " He has made a bargain with the devil," replied the other. "He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret does n't need anything," said Massin. "Ah! but Minoret has a son who'll waste his substance," answered Crémière. " How much do you really think the doctor has? " "At the end of twelve j^ears, saj' twelve thousand francs saved each 3'ear, that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and the interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he must, if he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of business, and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per cent from the State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand francs, without counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year from the five per cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving anything to Ursula we should get at least seven or eight hundred thousand francs, besides the house and furniture." 56 Ursula. "Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand apiece to you and m(!, that would be fair." "Ha, that would make lis comfortable!" "If he did that," said Massin, "I should sell my situation in court and buy an estate ; I 'd tr^^ to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get myself elected deputy." " As for me I should buy a brokerage business," said the collector. " Unluckilj-, that girl he has on his arm and the abbé have got round him. I don't believe we can do anything with him." " Still, we know very well he will never leave anj'thing to the Church." Ursula. 57 IV. ZÉLIE. The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass will now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enougli to foresee a danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind of the peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that gi'ound the stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal reasoning, "If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her godfather into the pale of the Church she will certainlj' have enough to make him leave her his property," was now stamped in letters of fire on the brains of the most obtuse heir. The post master had forgotten about his son in his hurr}' to reach the square ; for if the doctor were really in the church hearmg mass it was a ques- tion of losing two hundred and fift}' thousand francs. It must be admitted that the fears of these relations came from the strongest and most legitimate of social feelings, family interests. " Well, Monsieur Minore t," said the mayor (formerly a miller who had now become royalist, named Levrault- 58 Ursula. Crémière), " when the devil gets old the devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us." " Better late than never, cousin," responded the post master, trying to conceal his anno3'ance. "How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of marrying his son to that damned girl — may the devil get her ! " cried Crémière, shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch. " "What's Crémière grumbling about? " said the butcher of the town, a Levrault-Levrault the elder. "Isn't he pleased to see his uncle on the road to Paradise ? " "Who would ever have believed it!" ejaculated Massin. "Ha! one should never sa3% 'Fountain, I'll not drink of your water,' " remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his wife to go to church without him. " Come, Monsieur Dionis," said Crémière, taking the notary by the arm, " what do you advise us to do under the circumstances ? " " I advise 3'ou," said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively, "to go to bed and get up at your usual hour ; to eat 3-our soup before it gets cold ; to put your feet in jour shoes and 3'our hats on jour heads ; in short, to continue j'our ways of life precisely as if nQthing had happened." Ursula. 59 " You are not consoling," said Massin. In spite of his squat, dumpj' figure and heavy face, Crémière-Dionis was reall}' as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could be bought for a song The two men were in a position to choose their opportunities ; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent, the acquirement of the soil b}' the peas- antr}'. So Dionis tooii a lively interest in the doctor's inheritance, not so much for the post master ancj the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court ; sooner or later Massin's share in the doctor's mone}' would swell the capital with which these secret asso- ciates worked the canton. " "We must tr}- to find out through Monsieur Bon- grand where the influence comes from," said the notary ni a low voice, with a sign to Massin to keep quiet. "What are j'ou about, Minoret? " cried a little woman, suddenly descending upon the group in the middle of which stood the post master, as tall and round as a tower. " You don't know where Désiré is and there you are, planted on your two legs, gossipping about nothing, when I thought you on horseback ! — > Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames." 60 Ursula. This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white cotton with a pattern of large, chocolate- colored flowers, a cap trimmed with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl on her flat shoulders, was Minoret's wife, the terror of postilions, servants, and carters ; who kept the accounts and man- aged the establishment " with finger and eye " as they say in those parts. Like the true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery ; she held to the solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sunda3's, a black apron, in the pocket of which she jingled her household kej's. Her screeching voice was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with the soft blue of her ej-es, was in visible harmony with the thin lips of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead. Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture and speech. " Zélie being obliged to have a will for two, had it for three," said Goupil, who pointed out the successive reigns of three 3'oung postilions, of neat appearance, who had been set up in life by Zélie, each after seven years' service. The malicious clerk named them Post- ilion I., Postilion II., Postilion III. But the little influence these young men had in the establishment, and their perfect obedience proved that Zélie was merely interested in worthy helpers. Ursula. 61 This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of her son (nursed b}- her without any evidence of how it was possible for her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family fortune and was wholly given up to the manage- ment of their immense establishment. ïo steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the better of Zélie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing im- possible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a walk except to look at tlie hay, the oats, or the second crops. She sent '•'- her man " to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales, telling them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should bear. Though she was the soul of that great body called Minoret-Levrault and led him about by his pug nose, she was made to feel the fears which occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild beasts. She therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did ; tlie postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarrelhng with him, for his anger ricochetted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she was grasping ; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, " Where would Minoret- Levrault be witliout his wife?" " When you know what has happened!," replied the post master, ' *■ you '11 be over the traces 3'ourself." 62 Ursula. "What is it?" " Ursula has taken the doctor to mass." Zelie's pupils dilated ; she stood for a moment j'ellow with anger, then, crjing out, "I '11 see it before I believe it ! " she rushed into the church. The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of the wor- shippers enabled her to look along each row of chairs and benches as she went up the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula's place, where she saw old Minoret standing with bared head. If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boiss}'' d'Anglas, Morellet, Helvétius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated per- sonages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile, cold tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the features, shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely aris- tocratic — less perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the ideas than in the character. All men of this stamp have high brows retreating at the summit, the sigh of a tendencj' to materialism. You will find these leading characteristics of the head and these points of the face in all the Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde, in the men of a period when religious ideas were almost dead, men who called them- Ursula. 63 selves deists and were atheists. The deist is an atheist lucky in classification. Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles, which recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the manner in which the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman when making her toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of his coat. He persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk stockings, shoes with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie, and a black coat, adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly characterized, the cold whiteness of which was softened by the j-ellowing tones of old age, happened to be, just then, in the full light of a window. As Madame Mino- ret came in sight of him the doctor's blue ejes with their reddened lids were raised to heaven ; a new con- viction had given them a new expression. His specta- cles lay in his prayer-book and marked the place where he had ceased to pray. The tall and spare old man, his arms crossed on his breast, stood erect in an attitude which bespoke the full strength of his faculties and the unshakable assurance of his faith. He gazed at the altar humbly with a look of renewed hope, and took no notice of his nephew's wife, who planted herself almost in front of him as if to reproach him for coming back to God. Zélie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to 64 Ursula. leave the church and returned to the square less hur- riedly than she had left it. She had reckoned on the doctor's money, and possession was becoming prob- lematical. She found the clerk of the court, the col- lector, and their wives in greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking pleasure in tormenting them. " It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we ought to talk of our affairs," said Zelie ; " come home with me. You, too, Monsieur Dionis," she added to the notary ; " 3'ou '11 not be in the wa}'." Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Crémière, and the post master was the news of the da}'. Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the post house the noise of the dili- gence rattling up to the office, which was onl}- a few steps from the church, at tlie top of the Grand'Rue, made its usual racket. "Goodness! I'm like j'ou, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire," said Zehe. " Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer ; and his interests are mixed up in this matter." The arrival of the diligence is alwa^'S an amusement, but when it comes in late some unusual event is ex- pected. The crowd now moved toward the '• Dueler." " Here 's Desire ! " was the general cry. The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put the town in a ferment when he came. Ursula. 65 Loved by the young men, with whom he was invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence. But his methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that more than one famil}' was very thankful to have him complete his studies and study law in Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth, slender and fair like his mother, from whom he obtained his blue e\'es and pale skin, smiled from the window on the crowd, and jumped lightly down to kiss his mother. A short sketch of the young fellow will show how proud Zélie felt when she saw him. He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held under his feet by straps of var- nished leather, a rich cravat, admirably put on and still more admirably fastened, a prett}' fancy waistcoat, in the pocket of the said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of which hung down ; and, finally, a short frock coat of blue cloth, and a gra}' hat, — but his lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt buttons of the waistcoat and the ring worn outside of his purple kid glove. He carried a cane with a chased gold head. "You are losing ^our watch," said his mother, kissing him. " No, it is worn that wa}'," he replied, letting his father hug him. "Well, cousin, so we shall soon see j'ou a lawyer?" said Massin. 66 Ursula. " I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term," said Desire, returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides. "Now we shall have some fun," said Goupil, shak- ing him by the hand. "Ha ! my old wag, so here you are ! " replied Desire. " You take your law license for all license," said Goupil, affronted by being treated so cavalierly' in presence of others. " You know my luggage, Cabirolle,' cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of the diligence ; " have it taken to the house." " The sweat is rolling off your horses," said Zelie sharply to the conductor; "you haven't common- sense to drive them in that way. You are stupider than your own beasts." " But Monsieur Desire was in a hurrj' to get here to save 3'ou from anxiety," explained Cabirolle. " But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?" she retorted. The greetings of friends and acquaintance, the crowding of the young men around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journe}- took enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to issue from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things) Desire saw Ursula in the porch as he passed along, and he stopped short amazed at Ursula. 67 her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the relations who accompanied him. In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her pra^'er-book in one band and her parasol in the other ; and this she did with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward or difficult things of their charming craft of woman- hood. If mind does trul}" reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to sa^- that Ursula's attitude and bearing expressed divine simplicity. She was dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and there with knots of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same ribbon run through a broad hem and tied with bows like those on the dress, showed the great beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure white, was charming in tone against the blue, — the right color for a fair skin. A long blue sash with floating ends defined a slender waist which seemed flexible, — a most seductive charm in women. She wore a rice-straw bonnet, modestly trimmed with ribbons like those of the gown, the strings of which were tied under her chin, setting off the whiteness of the straw and doing no despite to tliat of her beautiful complexion. Ursula dressed her own hair naturall}^ (à la Berthe, as it was then called) in heavy braids of fine, fair hair, laid flat on either side of the head, each little strand reflecting the 68 ' Ursula. light as she walked. Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the same time, were in harmony' with a finely modelled brow. A rosj' tinge, suffusing her cheeks like a cloud, brightened a face which was regular without being Insipid ; for nature had given her, by some rare privilege, extreme purity- of form combined with strength of countenance. The nobilit}' of her life was manifest in the general expression of her person, which might have served as a model for a t^pe of trustfulness, or of modesty. Her health, though brilliant, was not coarsely apparent ; in fact, her whole air was distinguished. Beneath the little gloves of a light color it was eas}' to imagine her pretty hands. The arched and slender feet were delicatel}' shod in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a brown silk fringe. Her blue sash holding at the waist a small flat watch" and a blue purse with gilt tassels attracted the eA-es of every woman she met. "He has given her a new watch!" said Madame Crémière, pinching her husband's arm. "Heavens! is that Ursula?" cried Désiré; "I did n't recognize her." " "Well, my dear uncle," said the post master, ad- dressing the doctor and pointing to tlie whole popula- tion drawn up in parallel hedges to let the doctor pass, " eveiybody wants to see you." " Was it the Abbé Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula. 69 Ursula who converted 3'ou, uncle," said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with Jesuitical humility. " Ursula," replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if annoyed. The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula, the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, " I intend to go to church to-morrow." "Then," said Bongrand, "your heirs won't get another night's rest." The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by the expression of their faces. Zélie's irruption into the church, her glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant ones in the public square, and the expression of their eyes as the}' turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly awakened, and their sordid fears. "It is a feather in 3-our cap. Mademoiselle," said Madame Crémière, putting in her word with a humble bow, — "a miracle which will not cost 3'ou much." " It is God's doing, madame," replied Ursula. " God !" exclaimed Minoret-Levrault ; " m}' father- in law used to saj- he served to blanket many horses." " Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockc}'," said the doctor severely. 70 Ursula. " Come," saîtl Minoret to his wife and sou, " why don't you bow to my uncle ? " " I should n't be mistress of myself before that little hj'poerite," cried Zélie, carrying off her son. " I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap," said Madame Massin ; " the church is very damp." "Pooh, niece," said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, " the sooner I'm put Lo bed the sooner you'll flourish." He walked on quicklj', drawing Ursula with him, and seemed hi such a hurry that the others dropped behind. " Why do 3'ou say such harsh things to them ? it is n't right," said Ursula, shaking his arm in a coaxing way. " I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude ; but not one of my rela- tives sent }ou a flower on your birthday, which they know is the only day I celebrate.'' At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de Portenduère, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the last century. They wear puce-colored gowns with fiat sleeves, the cut of which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun ; they all have black lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow Ursula. 71 and dignified deportment ; one might almost fancy that they still wore paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving. The}- swathe their heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefullj* about their cheeks. Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard ej^es and faded brows, are not without a cer- tain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts with flattened curls to which they cling, — and yet these ruins are all subordinate to an unspeakable dignit}' of look and manner. The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainl}' that she had been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble, seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduère looking behind her was reallj' as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret. " Who can Madame de Portenduère be looking for? " said Madame Massin, rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the doctor's answer. " For the curé," said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead as if some forgotten thought or memor}' had occurred to him. '' I have an idea ! I 'II save 3-our inheritance ! Let us go and breakfast gayly with Madame Minoret." We can well imagine the alacritv with which the heirs 72 Ursula. followed the notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire, locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth's ear with an odious smile. " What do I care?" answered the son of the house, slirugging his slioulders. "I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature in the world." " Florine ! and who may she be ? " demanded Goupil. " I 'm too fond of 3'ou to let 3'ou make a goose of your- self with such creatures." " Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan ; my pas- sion is wasted, I know that. She has positivelj' refused to marry me." " Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise witli their heads," responded Goupil. "If you could but see her — only once," said Desire, lackadaisically, " you wouldn't sa}- such things." " If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than a fanc}'," said Goupil, with a warmth which miglit even have deceived his master, " I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in ' Kenil- worth.' Your wife must be a d'Aiglemont or a Made- moiselle du Rouvre, and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I sha'n't let you commit any follies." " I am rich enough to care only for happiness," replied Desire. Urmia. 73 " What are you two plotting together? " cried Zélie, beckoning to the two friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtjard, to come into the house. The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeoig with the activity of a young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had lately taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds of the whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to make this history and the notary's remark to the heirs perfectly intelligible to the reader. 74 Ursula. V. URSULA. The fiither-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous bavpsichordist and maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age, whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and composer, having made his début at the Italian opera under a feigned name, ran away with a 3'oung lady in German}'. The dj'ing father commended the 30ung man, who was rcall}" full of talent, to his son-in-law, proving to him, at the same time, that he had refused to marry the mother that he might not injure Madame Minoret. The doctor promised to give the unfortunate Joseph half of whatever his wife inherited from her father, whose business was purchased b}' the Erards. He made due search for his illegitimate brother-in-law ; but Grimm informed him one day that after enhsting in a Prussian regiment Joseph had deserted and taken a false name and that all efforts to find hira would be frustrated. Ursula. 75 Joseph Mirouët, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine figure, a handsome face, and being more- over a composer of great taste and much brillianc}', led for over fifteen 3-ears the Bohemian life which Hoffmann has so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he was reduced to such depths of poverty that he took advantage of the events of 1806 to make himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell in love with the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose to devote her life to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph Mirouët was unable to bear prosperity ; he was naturally a spendthrift, and though kind to his wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years. The household must have dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph Mirouët reached the point of enlisting as a musician in a French regiment. In 1813 the surgeon- major of the regiment, by the merest chance, heard the name of Mirouët, was struck by it, and wrote to Doctor Minoret, to whom he was under obligations. The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the allied occupation, Joseph Mirouët had a home in Paris, where his wife died giving birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should be called Ursula after his wife. The father did not long survive the mother, worn out, as she was, by hardship and 76 Ursula. poverty. When dying the unfortunate musician be- queathed his daughter to the doctor, who was ah-eady her godfather, in spite of his repugnance for what he called the mummeries of the Church. Having seen his own children die in succession either in dangerous con- finements or during the first year of their lives, the doctor had awaited with anxiety the result of a last hope. When a nervous, delicate, and sickly woman begins with a miscarriage it is not unusual to see her go through a series of such pregnancies as Ursula Minoret did, in spite of the care and watchfulness and science of her husband. The poor man often blamed himself for their mutual persistence in desiring chil- dren. The last child, born after a rest of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim of its mother's nervous condition — if we listen to physiologists, who tell us that in the inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child derives from the father by blood and from the mother in its nervous system. Compelled to renounce the jo3's of a feeling all power- ful withm him, the doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied paternity. During his mar- ried life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had longed more especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring joy to the house ; he therefore gladlj' accepted Joseph Mirouët's legacj', and gave to the orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams. For two years he took part. Ursula. 77 as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute particulars of Ursula's life ; he would not allow the nurse to suckle her or to take her up or put her to bed without him. His medical science and his experience were all put to use in her service. After going through many trials, alternations of hope and fear, and the joys and labors of a mother, he had the happiness of seeing this child of the fair German woman and the French singer a creature of vigorous health and profound sensibilit}'. With all the eager feelings of a mother the happ}- old man watched the growth of the prett}' hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine and soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed the little naked i'eet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle through which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful blue eyes upon some object with that serious, reflective look which seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would stay by her for hours, seeking, with Jordy's help, to understand the reasons (which most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena of this delicious phase of life, when childhood is both flower and fruit, a confused intelligence, a perpetual move- ment, a powerful desire. Ursula's beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he would have liked to change the laws 78 Ursula. of nature in her behalf. He declared to old Jord}^ that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting hers. When old men love children there is no limit to their passion — they worship them. For these little beings they si- lence their own manias or recall a whole past in their service. Experience, patience, sympathy, the acquisi- tions of life, treasures laboriousl}- amassed, all are spent upon that young life in which they live again ; their intelligence does actually take the place of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to the intui- tion of a mother ; they remember the delicate percep- tions which in their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of a compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds b\' a sense of the child's unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes the place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in the children, life is reduced to its simplest expression ; if maternal sentiment makes the mother a slave, the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote himself utterly. For these reasons it is not unusual to see children in close intimac}' with old persons. The old soldier, the old abbé, the old doctor, happ3' in the kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were never weary of answering her talk and playing with her. Far from making them impatient her petulances charmed them; and thc}-" gratified all her wishes, making each the ground of some little training. Ursula. 79 The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally' attentive and provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula's soul developed in a sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil ; it breathed the elements of its true life and assim- ilated the sun rays that belonged to it. " In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one ? " asked the abbé of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old. "In yours," answered Minoret. An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the " Nouvelle Héloise " he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered by the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe's hand on his. " Yes, abbé, ever}' time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her friend ' Shapron,' " he said, imitat- ing Ursula's infant speech, " I wish to see whether reli- gious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do nothing either for or against' the tendencies of that young soul ; but in my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian." "God will reward you, I hope," rephed the abbé, gently joining his hands and raising them toward heaven as if he were making a brief mental pra^'er. 80 Ursula, So, from the time she was six j'ears old the little orphan lived under the religious influence of the abbé, just as she had alread}' come under the educational training of lier friend Jordy. The captain, formerly- a professor in a military acad- emy', having a taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had studied the problem of a single universal tongue. This learned man, patient as most old scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read and write. He taught her also the French language and all she needed to know of arithmetic. The doctor's library afforded a choice of booivs which could be read by a child for amusement as well as instruction. The abbé and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with the freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to tlie bodj'. Ursula learned as she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left to follow the divine training of a nature that was led into regions of purity by these judicious educators, Ursula inchned more to sentiment than to dut}* ; she took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own conscience rather than the demands of social law. In her, nobility of feeling and action would ever be spon- taneous ; her judgment would confirm the impulse of her heart. She was destined to do right as a pleasure before doing it as an obligation. This distinction is the peculiar sign of Christian education. These prin- Ursula. 81 ciples, altogether different from those that are taught to men, were suitable for a woman, — the spirit and con- science of the home, the beautifier of domestic Ufe, the queen of her household. All three of these old precept- ors followed the same method with Ursula. Instead of recoiling before the bold questions of innocence, they ex- plained to her the reasons of things and the best means of action, taking care to give her none but correct ideas. When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade of grass, her thoughts went straight to God, the doctor and the pro- fessor told her that the priest alone could answer her. None of them intruded on the territory of the others ; the doctor took charge of her material well-being and the things of life ; Jordy's department was instruction ; moral and spiritual questions and the ideas appertaining to the higher life belonged to the abbé. This noble edu- cation was not, as it often is, counteracted by injudicious servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject, and being, moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did nothing to injure the work of these great minds. Ursula, a privileged being, grew up with good geniuses round her ; and her naturally fine disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy one. Such manly tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such libert}' without danger, such perpetual care of soul and bod}' made little Ursula, when nine years of ago, a well-trained child and delightful to behold. 6 82 Ursula. Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died the following year, leaving the abbé and the doctor to finish his work, of which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part. Flowers will bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus pre- pared. The old gentleman had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a year, that he might leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep a place in her memory during her whole Hfe. In his will, the wording of which was ver}- touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five hundred francs that came of her little capital exclusively on her dress. When the justice of peace applied the seals to the effects of his old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had allowed no one to enter, a quantity of tojs, many of them broken, while all had been used, — toys of a past generation, reverently preserved, which Mon- sieur Bongrand was, according to the captain's last wishes, to burn with his own hands. About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbé employed one whole 3ear in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another, needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into the pious and mistical young girl whose character rose above all Ursula. 83 vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the 3'oung girl full of faith, — long unsuspected by her who incited it, — the result of which had now stirred tlie whole town, and was destined to have great influence on Ursula's future by rousing against her the antagonism of the doctor's heirs. During the first six months of the 3'ear 1824 Ursula spent all her mornings at the parsonage. The old doc- tor guessed the abbe's secret hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him. The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor ; he could not fail to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both flowers and fruit, always fragrant, alwa3-s fertile. A beautiful life is more powei'ful than the strongest argu- ment. It is impossible to resist the charm of certain sights. The doctor's ej'es were wet, he knew not how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for the church, wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin ; her hair bound with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white ribbon, and rippling upon her shoulders ; her eyes lighted by the star of a first hope ; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and 84 Ursula, loving her godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When the doctor perceived that the thought of immortality' was nourishing that spirit (until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun gives life to the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he remained at home alone. Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his e^'es fixed on the iron railing of the gate through which his child had disappeared, saying as she left him: "Why won't you come, godfather? how can I be happy with- out 3'ou ? " Though shaken to his very centre, the pride of the Enc^^clopedist did not as yet give way. He walked slowl}' in a direction from which he could see the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an inspired look, which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on the corner closed to God. But still the old deist held firm. He said to himself: "Mummeries! if there be a maker of worlds, imagine the organizer of infinitude concerning himself with such trifles ! " He laughed as he continued his walk along the heights which look down upon the road to the Gâtinais, where the bells were ringing a jo^'ous peal that told of the jo}' of families. The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the game, which is reallv one of the most difficult that was ever invented. Not to annov Ursula. 85 his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the exclamations she did not know the mean- ing of, the abbé, old Jordy wiiile living, and the doctor always waited till their child was in bed before the}' began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on when she returned ; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and took her seat at the win- dow with her work. She had a repugnance to the game, which is really in the beginning ver}' hard and uncon- querable to some minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost impossible to take it up in after life. The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before him. " Whose throw shall it be?" she asked. "Ursula," said the doctor, "isn't it a sin to make fun of 3'our godfather the day of 3'our first com- munion ? " "I am not making fun of 30U," she said, sitting down. " I want to give you some pleasure — you who are alwa^'s on the look-out for mine. When Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon, and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to beat you — you shall not 86 Ursula. deprive yourself any longer for me. I have conquered all difficulties, and now I like the noise of the game." Ursula won. The abbé had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next day Minoret, who had always re- fused to let Ursula learn music, sent to Paris for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher, and submitted to the annoyance that her con- stant practising was to him. One of poor Jordy's pre- dictions was fulfilled, — the girl became an excellent musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately sent to Paris for a master, an old German named Schmucke, a distinguished professor who came once a week ; the doctor willingly paying for an art which he had formerly declared to be useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like music — a celestial language, developed by Catholicism, which has taken the names of the seven notes from one of the church h^'mns ; ever}' note being the first syllable of the seven first lines in the h^'mn to Saint John. The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula's first communion though keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which prayer and the exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had not their due influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or repentance himself, he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own benefactions without hope of a celestial harvest, he thought liimself on a Ursula. 87 nobler plane than religious men whom he alwajs ac- cused for making, as he called it, terms with God. "But," the abbé would say to him, "if all men would do so, you must admit that society would be regenerated ; there would be no more miser}'. To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great philosopher; you rise to your pi'inciples through reason, 3'ou are a social exception ; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us benevolent in ours. With you, it is an effort ; with us, it comes naturall}'." " In other words, abbé, I think, and you feel, — that's the whole of it." However, at twelve 3'ears of age, Ursula, whose quick- ness and natural feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions b}' the innocent creature, the doctor was un- able to hide the fatal seci'et. Ursula's artless conster- nation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he felt how deep an affection her sadness re- vealed. Absolute devotion has a horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas which it does not share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling's reasonings 88 Ursula. as he would her kisses, said as they were in the sweet- est of voices with the purest and most fervent feeling. Believers and unbelievers speak different languages and cannot understand each other. The j'oung girl plead- ing God's cause was unreasonable with the old man, as a spoilt child sometimes maltreats its mother. The abbé rebuked her gentl}', telling her that God had power to humiliate proud spirits. Ursula replied that David had overcome Goliath. This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to drag her godfather to God, were the onl}' troubles of this happy life, so peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive eyes of the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time the modest and religiously trained j-oung woman whom Desire admired as she left the church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her music, the pleasures of her godfather, and all the little cares she was able to give him (for she had eased La Bougival's labors b}' doing everything for hun), — these things filled the hours, the days, the months of her calm life. Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had felt uneasy about his Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost care. Sagacious and profoundly practical observer that he was, he thought he perceived some commotion in her moral being. He watched her like a mother, but seeing Ursula. 89 no one about her who was worthy of inspiring love, his uneasiness on the subject at length passed awa}'. At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins, the doctor's intellectual life was invaded b}' one of those events which plough to the ver^' depth of a man's convictions and turn them over. But this event needs a succinct narrative of certain circumstances in his medical career, which will give, perhaps, fresh interest to the story. 90 Ursula. VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM. Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as widel}' by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck. After re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recog- nition for their discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense the clarion of the world. "If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved," said Hahnemann, recentlj'. " Go to France," said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, " and if they laugh at your bumps 3' ou will be famous." Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific France was stirred to its centre ; a solemn conclave was opened. Before judgment was rendered, the medical facult}' proscribed, in a body, Mesmer's so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and his theory. But let us at once admit that the German, unfortunateh', compro- Ursula. 91 mised his splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims. Mesmer was defeated b}' the doubtfulness of facts, b}' universal ignorance of the part played in na- ture by imponderable fluids then unobserved, and by his own inability to stud}' on all sides a science possess- ing a triple front. Magnetism has many applications ; in Mesmer's bands it was, in its relation to the future, merely what cause is to effect. But, if the discoverer lacked genius, it is a sad thing both for France and for human reason to have to say that a science con- temporaneous with civilization, cultivated by Egypt and Chaldea, by Greece and India, met in Paris in the eighteenth centur}' the fate that Truth in the person of Galileo found in the sixteenth ; and that magnetism was rejected and cast out by the combined attacks of science and religion, alarmed for their own positions. Magnetism, the favorite science of Jesus Christ and one of the divine powers which he gave to his disciples, was no better apprehended by the Church than b}' the disciples of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire, Locke, and Condillac. The Encyclopedists and the clergy were equally averse to the old human power which they took to be new. The miracles of the convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and smothered b}' the in- différence of scientific men (in spite of the precious writings of the Councillor, Carré de Montgeron) were the first summons to make experiments with those 92 Ursula. human fluids which give power to emplo}' certain in- ward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward agents. But to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids intangible, invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the sci- ence of that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern philosophy there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles awa}- ! To ma- terialists especially the world is full, all tilings hang together, are linked, related, organized. "The world as the result of chance," said Diderot, "is more ex- plicable than God. The multiplicity of causes, the incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance, explain creation. Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it ; if 3'ou allow me time and space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters, arrive at last at the Eneid combination." These foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil before the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of imponderable forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty j-ears the immense pro- gress which natural science is now making under the great principle of unity due to Geoff'roy de Saint- Hilaire. Some intelligent persons, without an}' S3'stem, convinced b}'^ facts conscientiousl}' studied, still hold ta Mesmer's doctrine, which recognizes the existence of a penetrative influence acting from man to man, put in Ursula. 93 motion by the will, curative by the abundance of the fluid, the working of which is in fact a duel between two forces, between an ill to be cured and the will to cure it. The phenomena of somnambulism, hardl}- perceived by Mesmer, were revealed hy de Puységur and Deleuze ; but the Revolution put a stop to their discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and scoffers. Among the small number of believers were a few phy- sicians. They were persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The respectable bod}' of Parisian doctors displa3-ed all the bitterness of religious warfare against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their hatred as it was possible to be in those days of Vol- tairean tolerance. The orthodox ph3-sicians refused to consult with those who adopted the Mesmerian heres}'. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The miser- ies and sorrows of the Eevolutiou had not quenched the scientific hatred. It is only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate in that wa}'. The official robe is terrible ! But ideas are even more implacable than things. Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret's friends, believed in the new faith, and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief bêtes noires of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter of the 94 Ursula. Enc3'clopedists, and a formidable adversary of Deslon, Mesmer's assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarrelled with his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His conduct to Bouvard must have caused him the only remorse which troubled the serenity of his declining years. Since his retire- ment to Nemours the science of imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for magnetism, which, by the nature of its phenomena, is closel}' allied to light and electricity) had made immense progress, in spite of the ridicule of Parisian scientists. Phrenology and phj'si- ognomy, the departments of Gall and Lavater (which are in fact twins, for one is to the other as cause is to effect) , proved to the minds of more than one physiolo- gist the existence of an intangible fluid which is the basis of the phenomena of the human will, and from which result passions, habits, the shape of faces and of skulls. Magnetic facts, the miracles of somnambu- lism, those of divination and ecstas3-, which open a way to the spiritual world, were fast accumulating. The strange tale of the apparitions of the farmer Martin, so clearly proved, and his interview with Louis XVIII. ; a knowledge of the intercourse of Swedenborg with the departed, carefully investigated in Germany ; the tales of Walter Scott on the effects of '' second sight ; " the extraordinary faculties of some fortune-tellers, who prac- tise as a single science chiromancy, cartomancy, and the Ursula. 95 lioroscope ; the facts of catalepsj', and those of the ac- tion of certain niorhid affections on the properties of the diaphragm, — all such phenomena, curious, to say the least, each emanating from the same source, were now undermining many scepticisms and leading even the most indifferent minds to the plane of experiments. Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of this movement of minds, strong in the north of Europe but still weak in France where, however, man}' facts called marvellous b}' superficial observers, were happen- ing, but falling, alas ! like stones to the bottom of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian excitements. At the beginning of the present 3'ear the doctor's tranquillit}^ was shaken b}' the following letter : — My old comrade, — All fripndship, even if lost, has rights which it is difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I remember far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my heart to prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the most important of the sciences — if indeed all science is not one. I can overcome your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity the happiness of taking you once more by the hand — as in the days before Mesmer. Always yours, Bouvard. Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the 96 Ursula. Rue Férou near Saint-Sulpice. Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written " To-morrow ; nine o'clock, Rue Saint-Honoré, opposite the Assumption." Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his ^outh, could not sleep. He went to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school, if the four faculties an}- longer existed. The doctors reassured him, declaring that the old spirit of opposi- tion was as strong as ever, onh', instead of persecut- ing as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and of Sciences rang with laughter as the}' classed magnetic facts with the tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco, with juggler}' and prestidigitation and all that now went by the name of " amusing physics." This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of fort3'-four j'cars the two antago- nists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint- Honoré. Frenchmen have too manj' distractions of mind to hate each other long. In Paris especiall}', pol- itics, literature, and science render life so vast that ever}' man can find new woi'lds to conquer whei'c all pretensions may live at ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but public bodies can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton would have fallen into each other's arms at the end of Ursula. 97 forty-four 3'ears. However, the two doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it. Bouvard spoke first : — " You seena wonderful! v well." " Yes, I am — and you? " said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now broken. " As you see." "Does magnetism prevent people from d^'ing?" asked Minoret in a joking tone, but without sharpness. " No, but it almost prevented me from living." " Then j'ou are not rich? " exclaimed Minoret. " Pooh 1 " said Bouvard. " But I am ! " cried the other. "It is not your mone^' but your convictions that I want. Come," replied Bouvard. " Oh ! you obstinate fellow ! " said Minoret. The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy staircase to the fourth floor. At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris, endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic forces in all their appli- cations. Not only did this great unknown (who still lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveter- ate diseases, suddenly and radically, as the Saviour of men did formerly-, but he was also able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable phenomena of somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The countenance of this mysterious being, who claims 7 98 Ursula. to be responsible to God alone and to commnnicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles that of a lion ; concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His features, singularly contorted, have a terrible and even blasting aspect. His voice, which comes from the depths of his being, seems charged with some magnetic fluid ; it penetrates the hearer at every pore. Dis- gusted by the ingratitude of the public after his many cures, he has now returned to an impenetrable solitude, a voluntary nothingness. His all-powerful hand, which has restored a dying daughter to her mother, fathers to their grief-stricken children, adored mistresses to lovers frenzied with love, cured the sick given over by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the dymg when life became impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in synagogues, temples, and churches from the lips of priests recalled to the one God by the same miracle, — that sovereign hand, a sun of life dazzling the closed eyes of the somnambulist, has never been raised again even to save the heir- apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his past mercies as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and lives for heaven. But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man, whose generosity equalled his power, allowed a few interested persons to witness his miracles. The fame of his work, which was miglity, and could Ursula. 99 easily be revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then on the verge of the grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last enabled to witness the startling phenomena of a science he had long treasured in his heart. The sacrifices of the old man touched the heart of the mysterious stranger, who accorded him certain privileges. As Bouvard now went up the staircase he listened to the twittings of his old antagonist with ma- licious delight, answering onl}', " You shall see, you shall see ! " with the emphatic little nods of a man who is sui'e of his facts. The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than modest. Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon where he left Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened ; but Bouvard returned at once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw the mysterious Swedenborgian, and also a woman sit- ting in an armchair. The woman did not rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the two old men. "What! no tub?" cried Minoret, smiling. "Nothing but the power of God," answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age. The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain and the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who thought he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, how- 100 Ursula. ever, to question his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently to be talking time to examine him. " You have come here solely from curiosity, mon- sieur," he said at last. " It is not ray habit to prosti- tute a power which, according to my conviction, ema- nates from God ; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use of it, it would be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope, Monsieur Bouvard tells me, of changing the opinions of one who has opposed us, of enlightening a scientific man whose mind is candid ; I have therefore determined to satisfy 3-ou. That woman whom yon see there," he continued, pointing to her, '' is now in a somnambulic sleep. The statements and manifestations of somnambulists declare that this state is a delightful other life, during which the inner being, freed from the trammels laid upon the exercise of our faculties by the visible world, moves in a world which we mistakenly term invisible. Sight and hearing are then exercised in a manner far more perfect than any we know of here, possibly without the help of the organs we now employ, which are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight and hearing. To a person in that state, distance and material obstacles do not exist, or they can be traversed b}- a life within us for which our body is a mere receptacle, a necessar}' shelter, a casing. Terms fail to describe effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the words imponderable, intangible, invisible Ursula. 101 have no mcfining in relation to the fluid whose action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable b}' its heat, which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume ; and certainly electricitj' is only too tangible. We have condemned things themselves instead of blam- ing the imperfection of our instruments." " She sleeps," said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to belong to an inferior class. " Her body is for the time being in abeyance," said the Swedenborgian. " Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will prove to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind when there does not obej' the laws of this material universe. I will send her wherever you wish her to go, — a hundred miles from here or to China, as you will. She will tell you what is happening there." " Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bour- geois ; that will do," said Minoret. He took Minoret's hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for a moment seeming to collect him- self; then with his other hand he took that of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doc- tor in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus united by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvellous in its effects, was ver}' simply done. 102 Ursula. " Obe}' him," said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the head of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life from him, " and remember that what 3'ou do for him will please me. — You can now speak to her," he added, addressing Minore t. " Go to Nemours, to my house. Rue des Bourgeois," said the doctor. " Give her time ; put 3-our hand in hers until she proves to you b}' what she tells you tliat she is where you wish her to be," said Bouvard to his old friend, " I see a river," said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look within herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed eyelids. "I see a pretty garden — " " Why do 3'OU enter by the river and the garden ? " said Minoret. " Because they are there." "Who?" " The 30ung girl and her nurse, whom 30U are think- ing of." " What is the garden like?" said Minoret. " Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is to the right, a long brick galleiy, in which I see books ; it ends in a singular building, — there are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the left, the wall is covered with climbing plants, wild grapes. Ursula, 103 Virginia jessamine. In ttie middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots. Your child is loolving at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse — she is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The nurse is raking the path. The 3'oung girl is pure as an angel, but the beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn — " "Love for whom?" asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all jugglery. " You know nothing — though 3'ou have latel}' been uneas}- about her health," answered the woman. " Her heart has followed the dictates of nature." "A woman of the people to talk like this!" cried the doctor. " In the state she is in all persons speak with ex- traordinary perception," said Bouvard. " But who is it that Ursula loves ? " "Ursula does not know that she loves," said the woman with a shake of the head; " she is too angelic to know what love is ; but her mind is occupied hy him ; she thinks of him ; she tries to escape the thought ; but she returns to it in spite of her will to abstain. — She is at the piano — " "But who is he?" " The son of a lad} who lives opposite." "■ Madame de Portenduère?" 104 Ursula. " Portenduère, did yo\x saj'?" replied the sleeper. " Perhaps so. But there 's no danger ; he is not in the neighborhood." " Plave they spoken to each other?" asked the doctor. " Never. The}- have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He is, in fact, a fine man ; he has a good heart. She sees him from her window ; they see each other in church. But the young man no longer thinks of her." " His name?" " Ah ! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named Savinien ; she has just spoken his name ; she thinks it sweet to sa^' ; she has looked in the almanac for his fète-day and marked a red dot against it, — child's play, that. Ah ! she will love well, with as much strength as purity ; she is not a girl to love twice ; love will so dye her soul and fill it that she will reject' all other sentiments." " Where do 3'ou see that? " " In her. She will know how to suffer ; she inherits that ; her father and her mother suffered much." The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than surprised. It is proper to state that be- tween her sentences the woman paused for several minutes, during which time her attention became more and more concentrated. She was seen to see ; her Ursula. 105 forehead had a singular aspect ; an inward effort ap- peared there ; it seemed to clear or cloud by some m3'sterious power, the effects of which Minoret had seen in dying persons at moments when they appeared to have the gift of prophecy. Several times she made gestures which resembled those of Ursula. "Question her," said the mysterious stranger, to Minoi'et, " she will tell you secrets yon alone can know." " Does Ursula love me? " asked IMinoret. " Almost as much as she loves God," was the answer. " But she is very unhapp}' at 3'our unbelief. You do not believe in God ; as if 3'ou could prevent his exis- tence ! His word fills the universe. You are the cause of her onl}' sorrow. — Hear ! she is playing scales ; she longs to be a better musician than she is ; she is provoked with herself. She is thinking, ' If I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his ear when he is with his mother.' " Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour. " Tell me what seeds she planted ? " "Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams — " " And what else? " " Larkspur." " Where is my money ? " " With your notary ; but j^ou invest it so as not to lose the interest of a single day." 106 Ursula. " Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthl}' expenses ? " " You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled 'Pandects of Justinian, Vol. II.' between the last two leaves ; the book is on the shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them. Your money is in the last volume next to the salon — See ! Vol. III. is before Vol. II. — but you have no money, it is all in — " ' ' — thousand-franc notes," said the doctor. " I cannot see, they are folded. Xo, there are two notes of five hundred francs." " You see them? " " Yes." " How do they look? " ''One is old and yellow, the other white and new." This last phase of the inquiry petrified tiie doctor. He looked at Bouvard with a bewildered air ; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who were accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together iu a low voice and appeared not to notice him. Mino- ret begged them to allow him to return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to compose his mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new test, to subject it to more decisive experi- ments and obtain answers to certain questions, the truth of whicli should do away with every sort of doubt. Ursula. 107 " Be here at nine o'clock this evening," said the stranger. " I will return to meet you." Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room without bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind, "Well, what do you say? what do you say ? " " I think I am mad, Bouvard," answered Minoret from the steps of the porte-cochere. " If that woman tells the truth about Ursula, — and none but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me, — I shall say that you are right. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this minute and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten o'clock to-night. Ah ! am I losing ni}' senses ? " " What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed in a moment ; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents from an berj^etic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk? ' " Come and dine, Bouvard ; sta^- with me till nine o'clock. I must find some decisive, undeniable test ! " " So be it, old comrade," answered the other. The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him : — " If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihi- lating or of traversing space, if j'ou obtain a certainty 108 , Ursula. that here, in Paris, she sees and hears what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic facts ; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one proof which you know will satisfy you — for you might suppose that we obtained informa- tion to deceive you ; but we cannot know, for instance, what will happen at nine o'clock in jour goddaughter's bedroom. Remember, or write down, what the sleeper w-ill see and hear, and then go home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice, and if she tells you that she has said and done what you have written down — lower thy head, proud Hun ! " The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gentl}' before the hand of the Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. " What is Ursula doing?" he said. " 3he is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on her prie-Dieu, before an ivory cru- cifix fastened to a red velvet background." "' What is she saying? " Ursula. 109 " Her evening pra3'ers ; she is commending lierself to God ; she implores him to save her soul from evil thoughts ; she examines her conscience and recalls what she has done during the day ; that she may know if she has failed to obey his commands and those of the church — poor dear little soul, she lays bare her breast ! " Tears were in the sleeper's eyes, " She has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too much of Savinien, She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris ; she prajs to God to make him happy. She speaks of you ; she is praying aloud." "Tell me her words." Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe Chaperon. "My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships thee and pra^-s to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion, who strives not to wander from th3' sacred paths, who would gladly die as thy Son died to glorif)' thy name, who desires to live in the shadow of thy will — O God, who knoweth the heart, open the eyes of my godfather, lead him in the waj' of salvation, grant him thy Divine grace, that he ma}' live for thee in his last days ; save him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula, dear protectress, and 3'ou, Mother of God, queen of heaven, archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me ! join your intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us." 110 Ursula. The sleeper imitated so perfeetl}' the artless gestures and the inspired manner of his child that Doctor Minoret's e3es were filled with tears, " Does she saj' more?" he asked. "Yes." "Eepeatit." '' ' My dear godfather ; I wonder who plan's back- gammon with him in Paris.' She has blown out the light — her head is on the pillow — she turns to sleep ! Ah, she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap." Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bou- vard b}' the hand, ran downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d'Alger. There he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who seemed to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and started. According to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at Essonne, but arrived at Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to Nemours, on which he secured a seat, and dismissed his coachman. He reached home at five in the morning and went to bed, with his life-long ideas of physiologv, nature, and metaphysics in ruins about him, and slept till nine o'clock, so wearied was he with the events of his journey. Ursula. Ill VIT. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION. On rising, the cloctoi-, sure that no one had crossed the thresliold of his house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not witliout extreme trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplace- ment of the Pandect vohimes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La Rougival. " Tell Ursula to come and speak to me," he said, seating himself in the centre of his library-. The girl came ; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her on his knee, where she sat con- tentedly, mingliug her soft fair curls with the white hair of her old friend. "Do 3-ou want something, godfather?" " Yes ; but promise me, on your salvation, to an- swer frankly, without evasion, the questions that I sliall put to you." Ursula colored to the temples. "Oil! I'll ask notliing tliat you cannot speak of," he said, noticing how the bashfuhiess of J'oung love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of the girl's blue eyes. 112 Ursula. "Ask me, godfather." " What thought was in 5-our mind whsn j-ou ended your prayers last evening, and what time was it when you said them." " It was a quarter-past or half-past nine." " "Well, repeat your last prayer." The girl fancied that her voice might conve}' her faith to the sceptic ; she slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently ; a brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and said : — " What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I shall ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it." Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful expression. To her great astonishment her godfather took the last words from her mouth and finished the prajer. "Good, Ursula," said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. '' When you laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did 3-ou think to yourself, 'That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing back- gammon with him in Paris'?" Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She gave a cr^- of terror ; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with awful fixity. " Who are yon, godiather? From whom do j-ou get such power?" she asked, imagining that in his Ursula. 113 desire to deny God he had made some compact with the devil. " What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden? " "Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams — " " And the last w^ere larkspur? " She fell on her knees. " Do not terrify me ! " she exclaimed. " Oh you must have been here — you were here, were you not ? " "Am I not always with you?" replied the doctor, evading her question, to save the strain on the young girl's mind. " Let us go to your room." " Your legs are trembling," she said. " Yes, I am confounded, as it were." "Can it be that you believe in God?" she cried, with artless joy, letting fall the tears that gathered in her eyes. The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had given to his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very inexpensive, which she herself kept exquisitely clean ; the walls were hung with a gray paper strewn with roses and green leaves ; at the windows, which looked to the court, were calico curtains edged with a band of some pink material; between the windows and beneath a tall mirror was a pier-table topped with marble, on which stood a Sèvres vase in which she put her nosegays ; opposite the chimney was a little bureau-desk of charming 114 Ursula. marquetiy. The bed, of chintz, with chintz curtains lined with pink, was one of those duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, which had a tuft of carved featliers at tlie top of eacli of the four posts, which were fluted on the sides. An old clock, inclosed in a sort of monument made of tortoise-shell inlaid with arabesques of Ivor}", decorated the mantel- piece, the marble shelf of which, with the candlesticks and the mirror in a frame painted in cameo on a gray ground, presented a remarkable harmony of color, tone and stj'le. A large wardrobe, the doors of which were inlaid with landscapes in different woods (some having a green tint which are no longer to be found for sale) contained, no doubt, her linen and her dresses. The air of the room was redolent of heaven. The precise arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a feeling for harmon}-, which would certainly have influenced an}^ one, even a Minoret- Levrault. It was plain that the things about her were dear to Ursula, and that she loved a room wliich contained, as it were, her childhood and the wliole of her girlish life. Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for his visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those of Madame de Porten- duere. During the night he had meditated as to the course he ought to pursue with Ursula about his discov- Ursula. 115 ery of this dawning passion. To question her now would commit him to some course. He must either ap- prove or disapprove of her love ; in either case his posi- tion would be a false one. He therefore resolved to watch and examine into the state of things between the two young people, and learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was irre- sistible. None but an old man could have shown such deliberate wisdom. Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these magnetic facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little things around the room ; he wished to examine the almanac which was hanging at a corner of the chimne}' -piece. "These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands," he said, taking up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather. He weighed them in his hand ; then he looked at the almanac and took it, saying, " This is ugly too. Why do 3'ou keep such a common thing in j'our pretty room ? " " Oh, please let me have it, godfather." " No, no, you shall have another to-morrow." So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut him- self up in his study, looked for Saint Savinlen and found, as the somnambulist had told him, a little red dot at the 19th of October ; he also saw another before his own saint's da}'. Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, 116 Ursula. the abbe's patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin's head, had been seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles ! The old man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence. A strong wall, as it were, crumbled within him ; for his life had rested on two bases, — indifference in mat- ters of rehgion and a firm disbelief in magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses — faculties purely physical, organs, the effects of which could be explained — attained to some of the attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it seemed to him to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite and the infinite, two incompatible elements ac- cording to that remarkable man, were here united, the one in the other. No matter what power he gave to the divisibility and mobilit}' of matter he could not help recognizing that it possessed qualities that were almost divine. He was too old now to connect these phenomena to a S3'stem, and compare them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific belief, based on the asser- tions of the school of LocIvC and Condillac, was in ruins. Seeing his hollow idols in pieces, his scepticism stag- gered. Tlius the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula's side. In the dismantled fortress, above these Ursula. 117 ruins, shone a light ; from the centre of these ashes issued the path of prayer ! Nevertheless, the obstinate old scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would not decide, he struggled on against God. But he was no longer the same man ; his mind showed its vacillation. He became unnaturally- dreamy ; he read Pascal, and Bossuet's sublime " History- of Spe- cies ; " he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine ; he determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late Saint-Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The edifice within him was crackmg on all sides ; it needed but one more shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall into the celestial vinej-ard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening, when playing with the abbé, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest, who was ignorant of the inward workings b}- which God was remaking that fine conscience. "Do you believe in apparitions?" asked the sceptic of the pastor, stopping short in the game. " Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth centur\- said he had seen some," replied the abbé. " I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread Plotinus. I am questioning \o\x as a Catholic might, and I ask you if j'ou think that dead men can return to the living." 118 Ursula. " Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death," said the abbé. " The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of tlie Saviour, As for miracles, they are not lacking," he continued, smiling. " Shall I tell you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century." ' ' Pooh ! " said the doctor. " Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Liguori, being very far from Rome, knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father expired ; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who ])rouglit the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours later." "Jesuit!" exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, " I did not ask you for proofs ; I asked you if 3'ou believed in apparitions." •' I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it," said the abbé, still fencing with his sceptic. " My friend," said the doctor, serioush', " I am not setting a trap for you. What do you really believe about it? " " I believe that the power of God is infinite," replied the abbé. " When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask him to let me appear to you," said the doctor, smiling. Ursula. 119 "That's exactl}' the agreement Cardan made with his friend," answered the priest. "Ursula," said Minoret, "if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I will come." " You have put into one sentence that beautiful eleg}- of ' Néère ' by André Chénier," said the abbé. " Poets are sublime because they clothe both facts and feelings with ever-living images." " Why do you speak of 3-our death, dear godfather?" said Ursula in a grieved tone. " We Christians do not die ; the grave is the cradle of our souls." "Well," said the doctor, smiling, "we must go out of the world, and when I am no longer here you will be astonished at 3'our fortune." "When you are here no longer, m}' kind friend, my onl}' consolation will be to consecrate my life to you." "To me, dead?" " Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to redeem your sins. I will praj- God every dav for his infinite mercy, that he ma}' not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon among the righteous a soul so i^ure, so beauti- ful, as yours." That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certaint}', confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul. A ray of inward light overawed him ; the knowledge of this 120 Ursula. tenderness, covering his 3'ears to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden effect of grace had something that seemed electrical about it. The abbé clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl, astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had called him, looking into space as though his eyes beheld the dawn ; then he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground as one humiliated. " My God," he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, " if any one can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child presents to thee ! " He lifted his soul to God ; mentall}^ praying for the light of divine knowledge after the gift of divine grace ; then he turned to the abbé and held out his hand. " My dear pastor," he said, " I am become as a little child. I belong to you ; I give my soul to your care." Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took her on his knee and called her gayl}' his godmother. The abbé, deeply moved, recited the Veni Creator in a species of religious ecstasy. The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling together for the first time. " What has happened? " asked La Bougival, amazed at the sisht. Ursula. 121 " My godfather believes iu God at last ! " replied Ursula. " Ah ! so much the better ; he only needed that to make him perfect," cried the old woman, crossing her- self with artless gravity. " Dear doctor," said the good priest, " you will soon comprehend the grandeur of religion and the value of its practices ; you will find its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest sceptics." The abbé, who showed a joy that was almost infan- tine, agreed to catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation, was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbé, who for fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart, though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula's evening prayers had been said in common with her god- father. Day after day the old man grew more con- scious of the peace within him that succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the responsible editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at case. His dear child told him that he might know by that how far he had advanced already* in Gods kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him attend, he had read the prayers and applied his own intelligence 122 Ursula, to them ; from the first, he had risen to the divine idea of the communion of the faithful. The old neoph3-te understood the eternal s3'mbol attached to that sacred nourishment, which faith renders needful to the soul after conveying to it her own profound and radiant essence. When on leaving the church he had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was mereh' that he might once more thank his dear child for having led him to "enter religion," — the beautiful expression of former days. He was holding her on his knee in the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly- at the very moment when his relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their shameless fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula, His haste to return home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies as he left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the hatred Ursula had excited against them in the old man's mind. Ursula. 123 VIII. THE CONFERENCE. While Ursula was pla3'ing variations on Weber's " Last Thought " to her godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults' dining-room which was des- tined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama. The breakfast, noisy as all provincial break- fasts are, and enlivened by excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgund}" or Tou- raine, lasted more than two hours. Zélie had sent for oysters, salt-water fish, and other gastronomical deli- cacies to do honor to Desire's return. The dining- room, in the centre of which a round table offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zélie had built a pavilion for the family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Ever3'thing about the premises was solid and plain. The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to the town. Zélie forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The dining-room was, therefore, hung with varnished paper and fur- nished with walnut chairs and sideboards, a porcelain 124 Ursula. stove, a tall clock, and a barometer. Though the plates and dishes were of common white china, the table shone with handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zélie had served the coffee, going and coming herself like shot in a decanter, — for she kept but one servant, — and when Desire, the budding lawyer, had been told of the event of the morning and its probable consequences, the door was closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon to speak. By the silence in the room and the looks that were cast on that authori- tative face, it was easy to see the power that such men exercise over families. " My dear children," said he, " 3'our uncle having been born in 1746, is eighty-three 3'ears old at the pres- ent time ; now, old men are given to foil}', and that little — " " Viper I " cried Madame Massin. " Hussy ! " said Zélie. " Let us call her by her own name," said Dionis. " Well, she 's a thief," said Madame Crémière. " A prett}' thief," remarked Desire. " That little Ursula," went on Dionis, " has man- aged to get hold of his heart. I have been thinking of 3'Our interests, and I did 'not wait until now before making certain inquiries ; now this is what I have discovered about that 3'oung — ' " Marauder," said the collector. Ursula. 125 " Inveigler," said the clerk of the court. "Hold your tongue, friends," said the notary, "or I '11 take my hat and be off." " Come, come, papa," cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and offering it to the notary ; " here, drink this, it comes from Home itself; and now go on." " Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouët ; but her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouët, your uncle's father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, anj' will the doctor might make in her favor could probabl}' be contested ; and if he leaves her his fortune in that wa}' you could bring a suit against Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring about a compromise — " " The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children," said the newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, " that by a judgment of the court of appeals dated Jul^' 7, 1817, a natural child can claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance. So 3'ou see the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground that benefactions done to grandchildren reacn 126 ' Ursula, the natural son through that medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil Code. The ro3-al court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of last 3'ear, cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural son by the grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural grand- son as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula." "All that," said Goupil, "seems to me to relate only to the bequests made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared that after tlie decease of a natural child his descendants could no longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula's father is dead." Goupil's argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of legislative assemblies are wont to call " profound sensation." "What does that signif}-?" cried Dionis. "The actual case of the bequest of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for trial ; but when it is, the sternness of Fi'ench law against such children will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when religion is honored. I '11 answer for it that out of such a suit as I propose j-ou could get a compromise, — especially if the}' see you are deter- mined to cany Ursula to a court of appeals." Ursula. 127 Here the joy of the heii's ah-eady fingering their gold was made manifest in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all notice of Goupil's dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his, next word, a terrible " But ! " As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all ej'es turned on him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose. " But no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula," he continued. " As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would, I think, have equity on your side. The ro3al courts never trifle with questions of adoption ; you would get a hearing there. It is true the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerl}' surgeon to the ex-emperor ; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of it. More- over, you would have due warning in case of adoption — but how about marriage ? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marrj' her after a 3-ear's domicile and give her a million b}' the marriage con- tract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts 3'our propert}' in danger is your uncle's marriage with the girl." Here the notar}' paused. " There 's another danger," said Goupil, with a 128 Ursula. knowing air, — "that of a will made in favor of a tliird person, old Bongrand for instance, who will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula — " " If 3-ou tease 3-our uncle," continued Dionls, cutting short his head-clerk, " if 3'ou are not all of you very polite to Ursula, 3'ou will drive him either into a mar- riage or into making that private trust which Goupil speaks of, — though I don't think him capable of that ; it is a dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is eas3' to prevent. Desire there has only got to hold out a finger to the girl ; she 's sure to prefer a handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one." "Mother," said Desire in Zélie's ear, as much allured b3' the millions as by Ursula's beaut3', " If I married her we should get the whole propert3'." "Are 3'ou craz3'? — you, who'll some da3' have fift3' thousand francs a year and be made a deputy ! As long as I live you never shall cut 3'our throat b3- a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed ! Why, the mayor's only daughter will have fifty thousand a 3^ear, and the3- have aliead3' proposed her to me — " This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him, extinguished in Desire's breast all desire for a marriage with the beautiful Ursula ; for his father and he never got the better of an3- decision once wi'itten in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret. Ursula. 129 " Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis," cried Cré- mière, whose wife had been nudging him, " if the good- man took the thing seriously and married his god- daughter to Desire, giving lier the reversion of all the property, good-by to our share of it ; if he lives five years longer uncle may be worth a million." "Never!" cried Zelie, "never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son will represent the Minore ts after the death of his uncle, and the Minorets have five hundred ^ears of good bourgeoisie behind them. That 's equal to the nobility. Don't be uneas}', an}' of you ; Desire will marr^' when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies." This lofty declaration was backed b^- Goupil, who said : — " Desire, with an allowance of twentj'-four thousand francs a 3'ear, will be president of a royal court or solicitor-general ; either office leads to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him." The heirs were now all talking at once ; but they suddenly held their tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence for the notary. "Your uncle is a worthy man," continued Dionis. " He believes he 's immortal ; and, like most clever men, he '11 let death overtake him before he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest 9 130 Ursula. his capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you, and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere is in Saint-Pélagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand francs' worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison ; she is crying like a Magdalen. The abbé is to dine with her : no doubt she wants to talk to him about her troubles. Well, 1 '11 go and see your uncle to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent consols, which are now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm at Bordières and her house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal son. I have a right as notary to speak to him in behalf of young Portenduere ; and it is quite natural that I should wish to make him change his investments ; I get deeds and commissions out of the business. If I become his adviser I '11 propose to him other land investments for his surplus capital ; I have some excel- lent ones now in m}' office. If his fortune were once invested in landed estate or in mortgage notes in this neighborhood, it could not take wings to itself very easily. It is eas}' to make difficulties between the wish to realize and the realization." The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much clevei-er than that of Monsieur Josse), mur- mured approval. " You must be cai-eful," said the notary- in conclu- Ursula. 131 sion, " to keep 3'our uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where 3'ou can watch him. Find him a lover for the girl and you '11 prevent his marrying her himself." "Suppose she married the lover?" said Goupil, seized by an ambitious idea. "That wouldn't be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss ; the old man would have to say how much he gives her," replied the notary. " But if ^-ou set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade." "The shortest way," said Goupil, " if the doctor is likely to live much longer, is to marr}- her to some worthy young man who will get her out of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orléans with a hun- dred thousand francs in hand." Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelli- gent heads in the compan}', exchanged four thoughtful smiles. " He'd be a worm at the core," whispered Zelie to Massin. " How did he get here? " returned the clerk. " That will just suit 3'ou ! " cried Desire to Goupil. " But do you think you can behave decentl}' enough to satisfy the old man and the girl ? " " In these da3-s," whispered Zelie again in Massin's ear, " notaries look out for no interests but their own. 132 Ursula. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula just to get the old man's business ? " " I am sure of him," said the clerk of the court, giv- ing her a sh' look out of his spiteful little ej'es. He was just going to add, " because I hold somethmg over him," but he withheld the words. " I am quite of Dionis's opinion," he said aloud, " So am I," cried Zélie, who now suspected the no- tary of collusion with the clerk. " My wife has voted ! " said the post master, sipping his brand^', though his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a notable quantity of liquids. " And verj' properlj'." remarked the collector. " I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,"' said Dionis. " If Monsieur Dionis's advice is good," said Madame Crémière to Madame Massin, " we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every Sunda}- even- ing, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us." "Yes, and be received as he received us!" cried Zélie. " Minoret and I have more than fort}- thousand francs a 3'ear, and yet he refused our invitations ! We are quite his equals. If I don't know how to write pre- scriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he — I can tell him that ! " Ursula. 133 " As I am far from having forty thousand francs a j-ear," said Madame Massin, rather piqued, " I don't want to lose ten thousand." " We are his nieces ; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we shall see how things are going," said Madame Crémière ; " you 'II thank us some day, cousin." "Treat Ursula kindl}'," said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to the level of his lips ; " remember old Jord}' left her his savings." " You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in Paris, could have done," said Goupil to his patron as they left the post-house. " And now the}' are quarrelling over my fee," re- plied the notaiy, smiling bitterly. The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the square, with faces rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers were over. As the no- tary predicted, the Abbé Chaperon had Madame de Portendiière on his arm. " She dragged him to vespers, see ! " cried Madame Massin to Madame Crémière, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the church. " Let us go and speak to him," said Madame Cré- mière, approaching the old man. The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference) did not escape Doctor Minoret. He 134 Ursula. tried to guess the reason of this sudden amiabihty, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated affection and forced smiles. " Uncle, will you permit us to come and see y on to-night?" said Madame Crémière. " We feared some- times we were in your way — but it is such a long time since our children have paid you their respects ; our girls are old enough now to make dear Ursula's ac- quaintance." "Ursula is a little bear, like her name," replied the doctor. " Let us tame her," said Madame Massin. " And besides, uncle/' added the good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy, " they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are very anxious to hear her. Madame Crémière and I are inclined to take her music-master for our children. If there w^ere six or eight scholars in a class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means." "Certainly," said tlie old man, "and it will be all the better for me because I want to give Ursula a singing-master." " Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Désiré to see you ; he is now a lawyer." " Yes, to-night," echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these pett}' souls. Ursula. 135 The two nieces pressed Ursula's band, saying, with affected eagerness, " Au revoir." " Oil, godfather, ^'ou have read my heart ! " ci-ied Ursula, giving him a grateful look. " You are going to have a voice," he said ; " and I shall give you masters of drawing and Italian also. A woman," added the doctor, looking at Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, " ought to be edu- cated to the height of every position in which her marriage ma}' place her." Ursula grew as red as a cherry ; her godfather's thoughts evidentl}' turned in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to think about Savinien and to centre all her ideas of affection upon him, she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing plants, on the dark back- ground of which she looked at a distance like a blue and white flower. "Now you see, godfather, that 3'our nieces were ver}' kind to me ; yes, the}' were ver}' kind," she re- peated as he approached her, to change the thoughts that made him pensive. "■ Poor little girl ! " cried the old man. He laid Ursula's hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to the terrace beside the river, where no one could hear them 136 Ursula. " Why do you say, ' Poor little girl '?" " Don't you see how they fear you? " " Fear me, — why ? " " My next of kin are very uneas}' about my con- version. The}' no doubt attribute it to your influence over me ; they fanc}' I shall deprive them of their inheritance to enrich you." "But you won't do that?" said Ursula naivel}', looking up at him. " Oh, divine consolation of my old age ! " said the doctor, taking his godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. " It was for her and not for m3-self, oh God ! that I besought thee just now to let me live until the da}' I give her to some good being who is worthy of her ! — You will see comedies, ray little angel, comedies which the Minorets and Crémières and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and prolong my life ; they are longing for m}- death." "God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is — Ah, I despise them?*' exclaimed Ursula. " Dinner is read}' ! " called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the garden side, was at the end of the corridor. Ursula. 137 IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE. Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the prett}- dining-room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer (the foil}- of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The doctor offered ' him (and this was a great mark of intimac)') a cup of his coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Mar- tinique, roasted, ground, and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal. " Well," said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the old man, "the town is in commo- tion ; your appearance in church has put 3'our relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and the}' are bestirring themselves. Ha ! ha ! I saw their first irruption into the square ; the}' were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs." "What did I tell you, Ursula?" cried the doctor. "At the risk of grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you on your guard against undeserved enmity." 138 Ursula. " I should like to sa}- a word to 3'ou on this subject," said Bongrand, seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula's future. The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of peace wore bis hat to protect him from the night air, and the}' walked up and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her godfather intended to bequeath to her. Bongrand knew Dionis's opinion as to the invalidit}' of a will made b}' the doctor in favor of Ursula ; for Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter had been much discussed among the law3'ers of the little town. Bongrand considered that Ursula Mirouèt was not a relative of Doctor Minoret, but he felt that the whole spirit of legislation was against the foisting into families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of the Code had foreseen only the weakness of fathers and mothers for their natural children, without considering that uncles and aunts might have a like tenderness and a desire to provide for such children. Evidenth' there was a gap in the law. " In all other countries," he said, ending an explana- tion of the legal points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the heirs, " Ursula would have nothing to fear ; she is a legitimate child, and the disabilit}' of her father ought onl}' to affect tlie inheri- tance from Valentint Miroiict, her grandfather. But in Ursula. 139 France the magistracy is unfortunatel}'' overwise and v&ry consequential ; it inquires into the spirit of the law. Some lawyers talk moralit}', and might try to show that this hiatus in the Code came from the simple- mindedness of the legislators, who did not foresee the case, though, none the less, the}' established a princi- ple. To bring a suit would be long and expensive. Zelie would carr}' it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive when the case was tried." "The best of cases is often worthless," cried the doctor. " Here 's the question the lawyers will put, ' To what degrees of relationship ought the disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to extend? ' and the credit of a good lawj'er will lie in gaining a bad cause." "Faith!" said Bongrand, "I dare not take upon myself to affirm that the judges would n't interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society." Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the surest means of securing his property- to her, he exclaimed, " Poor little girl ! I might live fifteen years ; what a fate for her ! " " Well, wliat will you do, then? " asked Bongrand. " We '11 think about it — T '11 see," said the old man, evidently at a loss for a reply. 140 Ursula. Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the doctor. "Alread}'!" cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. " Yes," he said to Ursula, " send him here." " I '11 bet m}' spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the advance-guard of yoxxv heirs," said Bongrand. " They breakfasted together at the post house, and something is being engineered." The notary, conducted b}^ Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden. After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked for a private interview ; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon. The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is ver}' remarkable. The latter den}' them the lesser powers while recognizing their possession of the higher. It is, perhaps, a tribute to them. Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are mistaken ! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued by the doctor's silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula's interests which he thought en- dangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs. He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old man and Dionis. Ursula. 141 " No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be," he thought as he looked at her, "there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and their own morality. I'll test her. The Minore t-Levraults," he began, settling his spectacles, " might possibly ask you in marriage for their son." The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle ; but after a moment's inward deliberation, she thought she might show her- self, and then, if she was in the way, her godfatlier would let her know it. The Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to the glass -doors ; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged Monsieur Bongrand's pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he smiled at her and said, "Go! go!" Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at the foot 'of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer which reached the pagoda where she was. " M}' heirs would be delighted to see me invest my propert}' in real estate or mortgages ; they imagine it "would be safer there. I know exactly what they are 142 Urmia. saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell 30U, my good sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs will have the capital I brought here with me ; I wish them to know that, and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to inter- fere with what I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall come back from the other world and torment him. 80, Monsieur Savinien de Portenduère will staj' in prison if they count on me to get him out. I shall not sell my property in the Funds." Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head against the blind • to steady herself. " Good God, what is the matter with her? " thought the old doctor. "She has no color ; such an emotion after dinner might kill her." He went to her with open arms and she fell into them almost fainting. " Adieu, Monsieur," he said to the notary-, " please leave us." He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies and made her inhale it. " Take my place," said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified ; " I must be alone with her." Ursula. 143 The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but without showing an}' eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula. " I don't know," replied Dionis. " She was stand- ing by the pagoda, listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend some money at my request to 3'oung de Portendu^re who is in prison for debt, — for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Mon- sieur Bongrand to defend him, — she turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is there anything between them ? " " At fifteen ^-ears of age? pooh ! " replied Bongrand. " She was born in February, 1813 ; she '11 be sixteen in four months." " I don't believe she ever saw him," said the judge. " No, it is only a nervous attack." "Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notaiy. Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage in extremis which the}' dreaded, — the onl}' sure means by which the doctor could de- fraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished ; he had long thought of marrying his son to Ursula. "If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a mis- fortune for her," replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduère is a Breton and infatuated with her noble blood." 144 Ursula. "Luckily — I mean for the honor of the Porten- duères," replied the notary, on the point of betraying himself. Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make ! His Eugène was so loyal and charming a fellow ! Per- haps he had praised his Eugène too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful. " I shall have to come down to the mayor's daugh- ter," he thought. " But LTrsula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Crémière with a million. However, the thing to be done is to ma- nœuvre the marriage with this little Portenduère — if she reall}' loves him." The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river. " What ails you, my child?" he said. " Your life is my life. Without your smiles what would become of me?" " Savinien in prison ! "' she said. Ursula. 145 With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to sob. " Saved ! " thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great anxiet}-. " Alas ! she has all the sen- sitiveness of my poor wife," he thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart, applying his ear to it. " Ah, that 's all right," he said to him- self. " I did not know, my darling, that you loved any one as 3'et," he added, looking at her ; " but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all that has passed between 3'ou." "I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other," she answered, sobbing. "But to hear he is in prison, and to know that you — harshly — refused to get him out — you, so good ! " " Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about ^our little love-affair." Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was silence between them. " Surely j'ou are not afraid of your father, 3'our friend, mother, doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been." " No, no, dear godfather," she said. " I will open my heart to you. Last May, Monsieur Savinien came 10 146 Ursula. to see his mother. Until then I had never taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child, and I did not see any difference between him and — all of you — except perhaps that 1 loved you, and never thought of loving an}' one else. Mon- sieur Savinien came b}' the mail-post the night before his mother's fête-day ; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I had said m}' praj^ers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the win- dows in Monsieur Savinien's room open ; and Monsieur Savinien was there, in a dressing-gown, arranging his beard ; in all his movements there was such grace — I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white throat — so round ! — must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and face and that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when I watch you arranging your beard. There came — I don't know how — a sort of glow into nay heart, and up into m}- throat, ni}- head ; it came so violently that I sat down — I could n't stand, I trembled so. But I longed to see him again, and presently I got up ; he saw me then, and, just for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and — " "And?" " And then," she continued, " I hid mj'self — I was ashamed, but happj^ — why should I be ashamed of Ursula. 147 being happy ? That feehng — it dazzled my soul and gave it some power, but I don't know what — it came again each time I saw within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as it was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur Savinien with his mother on his arm ; his walk, his clothes, even the tap of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little thing about him — his hand with the delicate glove — acted like a spell upon me ; and 3'et I had strength enough not to think of him during mass. When the service was over I sta^'ed in the church to let Madame de Portenduère go first, and then I walked behind liim. I could n't tell you how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round to fasten the iron gate — " " Where was La Bougival? " asked the doctor. " Oh, I let her go to the kitchen," said Ursula sim- ply. " Then I saw Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh ! godfather, I was so pj-oud, for I thought I saw a look in his e3'es of surprise and admiration — I don't know what I would not do to make him look at me again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for an}' good I do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of myself Monsieur Savinien 148 Ursula. went back to Paris that evening, and I have not seen him since. The street seems empt}- ; he took my heart awa}^ with him — but he does not know it." " Is that all? " asked the old man. " All, dear godfather," she said, with a sigh of regret that there was not more to tell. "My little girl," said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between 30ur blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which will make your life a tumultuous one ; for you have a nervous system of exquisite sensibility-. What has happened to you, my child, is love," said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness, — " love in its hoi}' simplicity ; love as it ought to be ; involuntaiy, sudden, coming like a thief who takes all — 3-es, all! I expected it. I have studied women ; man}- need proofs and miracles of affection before love conquers them ; but others there are, under the influence of sym- pathies explainable to-day b}' magnetic fluids, who are possessed b}' it ir an instant. To you I can now tell all — as soon as 1 saw the charming woman whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her forever, solel}- and faitlifull}', without knowing whether our characters or our persons suited each other. Is there a second-sight in love ? What answer can I give to that, I who have seen so man}' unions formed under celestial Ursula. 149 auspices only to be ruptured later, giving rise to hatreds that are well-nigh eternal, to repugnances that are un- conquerable. The senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance ; and some persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is also true ; often minds agree and persons displease. These phenomena, the varying and secret cause of many sor- rows, show the wisdom of laws which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their children ; for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel, the rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon your heart and upon yonv mind, the happiness with which you think of Sa- vinien, are all natural. But, my darling child, societ}' demands, as our good abbé has told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations. The destinies of men and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula Mirouët for m}^ wife ; I could go to her and sa}' that I loved her ; but a young girl is false to herself if she asks the love of the man she loves. A woman has not the right which men have to seek the accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modest}' is to her — above all to you, my Ursula, — the insurmountable barrier which protects the secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me these first emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than admit to Savinien — " 150 Ursula. " Oh, yes ! " she said. " But, m}^ child, you must do more. You must re- press these feelings ; you must forget them." "Why?" " Because, my darling, you must love onl}- the man you many ; and, even if Monsieur Savinien de Porten- duère loved you — " " I never thought of it." " But listen : even if he loved 30U, even if his mother asked me to give huu jour hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had subjected him to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been such as to make families distrust him and to put obstacles between himself and heiresses which cannot be easily overcome." A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula's sweet face as she said, "Then poverty is good sometimes." The doctor could find no answer to such innocence. " What has he done, godfather?" she asked. " In two jears, mj' treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty thousand francs of debt. He has had the foil}' to get himself locked up in Sainte- Pélagie, the debtor's prison ; an impropriety which will always be, in these daj^s, a discredit to him. A spend- thrift who is willing to plunge his poor mother into povert}- and distress might cause his wife, as your poor father did, to die of despair." " Don't you think he will do better? " she asked. Ursula. 151 " If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don't know a worse punisliment than to be a nobleman without means." This answer made Ursula thoughtful ; she dried her tears, and said : — " If you can save him, save him, godfather ; that service will give you a right to advise him ; you can remonstrate — " " Yes," said the doctor, imitating, her, " and then he can come here, and the old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and — " " I was thinking only of him," said Ursula, blushing. " Don't think of him, m}' child ; it would be folly," said the doctor gravel}'. " Madame de Portenduère, who was a Kergarouët, would never consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a 3'ear, to the mar- riage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduère, with whom? — with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment, without mone}', and whose father — alas ! I must now tell 3*ou all — was the bas- tard son of an organist, my father-in-law." "O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I will not think of hnn again — ex- cept in my pra3-ers," she said, amid the sobs which this painful revelation excited. " Give him what you meant to give me — what can a poor girl like me want? — ah, in prison, he ! — " 152 Ursula. " Offer to God yonv disappointments, and perhaps he will help us." There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not dare to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeplj' moved to see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks. The teai's of old men are as terrible as those of children are natural. "Oh what is it?" cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and kissing his hands. " Are you not sure of me?" " I, who longed to gratif}' all ^our wishes, it is I who am obliged to cause the first great sorrow of ^our life ! " he said. " I suffer as much as you. 1 never wept be- fore, except when I lost my children — and, Ursula — Yes," he cried suddenly-, " I will do all you desire ! " Ursula gave him, through her tears, a look that was vivid as lightning. She smiled. " Let us go into the salon, darling," said the doctor. " Try to keep the secret of all this to yourself," he added, leaving her alone for a moment in his study. He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he might say a word of hope and thus mislead her. Ursula. 153 X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUÈRE. Madame d:. Portenduère was at this moment alone with the abbé in her frigid little salon on the ground- floor, having finished the recital of her troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her hand some letters which he had just returned to her after reading them ; these letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside a square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lad}- was looking at the abbé, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up in his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests, — a sign of profound med- itation on a problem that was difficult to solve. This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished with a wainscot painted gra}-, was so damp that the lower panels showed the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it. The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lad^-'s one servant, required, for comfort's sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on one of which the abbé was now resting his feet. The old damask cur- 154 Ursula. tains of light green with green flowers were drawn, and the outside blinds had been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table, leaving the rest of the room in semi- obscurit3\ Is it necessary to say that between the two windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing the famous Admiral de Portenduère, the rival of the Suff- ren, Guichen, Kergarouet and Simeuse naval heroes? On the panelled wall opposite to the fireplace were por- traits of the Vicomte de Portenduère and of the mother of the old lad}', a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien's great- uncle was therefore the Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the Comte de Portenduère, grandson of the admiral, — both of them very rich. The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de Portenduère at the château of that name in Dauphiné. The count represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the younger. The count, who was over forty years of age and married to a rich wife, had three children. His fortune, increased by various legacies, amounted, it was said, to sixt}' thousand francs a year. As deputy from the Isère he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought the hotel de Portenduère with the indemnities he obtained under the Villèle law. The vice-adnn'ral had recently' married his niece by marriage, Mademoiselle de Fon- tauie, for the sole purpose of securing his money to her. The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely Ursula. 155 to cost him the favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the nav^-, young and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed b}' the influence of an admiral and a deput}', he might, at t went}'- three years of age, have been a lieutenant ; but his mother, unwilling that her only son should go into either naval or military service, had kept him at Ne- mours under the tutelage of one of the Abbé Chaperon's assistants, hoping that she could keep him near her until her death. She meant to marr}- him to a demoi- selle d'Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year ; to whose hand the name of Portenduere and the farm at Bordiëres enal)led him to pretend. This narrow but judicious plan, which would have car- ried the family to the second generation, was already balked by events. The d'Aiglemonts were ruined, and one of the daughters, Hélène, had disappeared, and the mystery of her disappearance was never solved. The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his mother, so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as they were, and swore that he would never live in the provinces — compreliending, rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the Rue des Bourgeois. At twenty-one years of age he left his mother's house to make ac- quaintance with his relations, and tiy his luck in Paris. 156 Ursula. The contrast between life in Paris and life in Nemours was likely to be fatal to a 3'oung man of twenty-one, free, with no one to sa}' him nay, naturally eager for pleasure, and for whom his name and his connections opened the doors of all the salons. Quite convinced that his mother had the savings of man}' years in her strong-box, Savinien soon spent the six thousand francs which she had given him to see Paris. That sum did not defray his expenses for six months, and he soon owed double that sum to his hotel, his tailor, his boot- maker, to the man from whom he hired his carriages and horses, to a jeweller, — in short, to all those traders and shopkeepers who contribute to the luxury of young men. He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely learned how to converse, how to pre- sent himself in a salon, how to wear his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his cravat, before he found himself in debt for over thirt}' thousand francs, while still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his love for the sister of the Marquis de Ron- querolles, the elegant Madame de Sériz}, whose youth had been at its climax during the Empire. " How is that you all manage? " asked Savinien one da}', at the end of a gay breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate as the young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all Ursula. 157 aiming for the same thing und all claiming an impos- sible equality. " You were no richer than I and yet 3-ou get along without anxietj' ; you contrive to main- tain 3'ourselves, while as for me I make nothing but debts." " We all began that waj," answered Rastignac, laugh- ing, and the laugh was echoed by Lucien de Rubempré, ■ Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet, and others of the fashionable young men of the da}'. " Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an exception," said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming intimate with these 3'oung men. "Any one but he," added Finot bowing to that personage, " would have been ruined b}- it." " A true remark," said Maxime de Trailles. " And a true idea," added Rastignac. " Mj" dear fellow," said de Marsaj', gravely, to Sa- vinien ; " debts are the capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors for all branches, who don't teach you anything, costs sixt}' thousand francs. If the education of the world does cost double, at least it teaches you to understand life, politics, men, — and sometimes women." Blondet concluded the lesson b}' a paraphrase from La Fontaine : ' ' The world sells dearly what we think it gives." Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which 158 Ursula. the cleverest pilots of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a joke. " Take care, my dear fellow," said de Marsay one da}-. " You have a great name ; if you dont obtain the fortune that name requires you'll end your days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. ' We have seen the fall of nobler heads,'" he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he took Savinien's arm. " About six years ago," he continued, "a young Comte d'Esgrignon came among us ; but he did not staj' two 3'ears in the paradise of the great world. Alas ! he lived and moved like a rocket. He rose to the Duchesse de Maufrig- neuse and fell to his native town, where he is now expiating bis faults with a wheezy old father and a game of whist at two sous a point. Tell Madame de Sérizy your situation, candidl}', without shame ; she wall understand it and be very useful to you. Whereas, if you play the charade of first love with her she will pose as a Raffaelle Madonna, ^)ractise all the little games of innocence upon 30U, and take 3'ou journeying at enormous cost through the Land of Sentiment." Savinien, still too 3'oung and too pure in honor, dared not confess his position as to money to Madame de Sérizy. At a moment when he knew not which wa}' to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to which she replied by sending him the sum of twenty Ursula. 159 thousand francs, which was all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close of the first year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot of Madame de Sériz^", who was serious!}' taken with him, and who was, as the saying is, forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient of borrowing. One of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his cousin the Comte de Portenduère, advised him in his distress to go to Gobseck or Gigonnet or Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother's means, would give him an easy discount. Usur}^ and the deceptive help of re- newals enabled him to lead a hapi')y life for nearh' eighteen months. Without daring to leave Madame de Sériz}- the poor bo}' had fallen raadl}' in love with the beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet, a prude after the fashion of young women who are awaiting the death of an old husband and making capital of their virtue in the interests of a second marriage. Quite incapable of understanding that calculating virtue is invulnerable, Savinien paid court to Emilie de Kergarouet in all the splendor of a rich man. He never missed either ball or theatre at which she was present. " You have n't powder enough, m}' boy, to blow up that rock," said de Marsn\'. laughing. That young king of fashion who did, out of commis- eration for the lad, endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merci}' wasted his words; 160 Ursula. the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a prison were needed to convince Savinien. A note, iraprudentl^y given to a jeweller in collusion with the money-lenders, who did not wash to have the odium of arresting the young man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portend uère, in default of one hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of his friends, to the debtor's prison at Sainte-Pélagie. So soon as the fact was known Ras- tignac, de Marsa}', and Lucien de Rubempré went to see him, and each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when thej' found how really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him had been seized except the clothes and the few jewels that he wore. The three ^oung men (who brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed Savinien's situation while drink- ing de Marsay's wine, ostensibly to arrange for his future but really, no doubt, to judge of him. " When a man is named Savinien de Portenduère," cried Rastignac, " and has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be put in Sainte-Pélagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there, my good fellow." "Why didn't you tell me?" cried de Marsay. " You could I'.ave had m\- travelling-carriage, ten thou- sand francs, and letters of introduction for Germany. Ursula. 161 We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other croco- diles ; we could have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what ass ever led you to drink of that cursed spring." " Des Lupeaulx." The three 3'oung men looked at each other with one and the same thought and suspicion, but they did not utter it. " Explain all your resources ; show us 3-our hand," said de Marsay. When Savinien had told of his mother and her old- fashioned ways, and the little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without other grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood ; wlien he had valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed \n reddish cement, and put a price on the farm at Bor- dières, the three dandies looked at each other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of the abbé in Alfred de Musset's "Marrons du feu" (which had then just appeared), — " Sad ! " " Your mother will pav if you write a clever letter," said Rastignac. " Yes, but afterwards? " cried de Marsay. " If you had mereh' been put in the fiacre," said Lucien, "the government would find you a place in diplomac}', but Sainte-Pélagie is n't the antechamber of an embass}'." I 11 162 Ursula. " You are not strong enough for Parisian life," said Rastignae. " Let us consider the matter," said de Marsa}', look- ing Savinien over as a jockey examines a horse. " You have fine blue e^-es, well opened, a white forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure ; a'ou 've a foot that tells race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. You are what I call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of the style Louis XII., hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have the thing that pleases women, a something, I don't know what it is, which men take no account of themselves ; it is in the air, the manner, the tone of the voice, the dart of the eye, the gesture, — in short, in a number of little things which women see and to which they attach a meaning which escapes us. You don't know yowY merits, my dear fellow. Take a certain tone and st3ie and in six months 3'ou '11 captivate an English- woman with a hundred thousand pounds ; but 30U must call yourself viscount, a title which belongs to 3-ou. M}' charming step-mother, Lady Dudley*, who has not her equal for matching two hearts, will find j'ou some such woman in the fens of Great Britain. What you must now do is to get the payment of your debts post- poned for ninety daj's. Whj' did n't you tell us about them ? The money-lenders at Baden would have spared Ursula. 163 j'ou — served you perhaps ; but now, after 3'ou have once been in prison, they '11 despise you. A money- lender is, like society, like the masses, down on his knees before the man who is strong enough to trick him, and pitiless to the lambs. To the ej^es of some persons Sainte-Pélagie is a she-devil who burns the souls of 3'oung men. Do you want my candid advice ? I shall tell you as 1 told that little d'Esgrignon : ' Ar- range to pay 3'our debts leisurel}' ; keep enough to live on for three jears, and marry some girl in the prov- inces who can bring 30U an income of thirt}- thousand francs.' In the course of three jears you can surcl}' find some virtuous heiress who is willing to call her- self Madame la Vicomtesse de Portenduère, Such is virtue, — let's drink to it. I give 3'ou a toast: 'The girl with money ! ' " The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to each other: "He 'snot strong enough!" "He's quite crushed." "1 don't believe he'll pull through it?" The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twentj'-two pages. Madame de Portenduère, after weeping for one whole da^', wrote first to her son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the Comte de Portenduère and to Admiral Kergarouet. The letters the abbé had just read and which the 1G4 Ursula. poor mother was holding in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her appeal, which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her heart. Paris, September, 1829. To Madame de Portenduère : Madame, — You cannot doubt the interest which the ad- miral and I both feel in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de Kergarouet grieves me all the more because our house was a home to your son; we were proud of him. If Savinien had had more confidence in the admiral we could have taken him to live with us and he would already have obtained some good situation. But, unfortunately, he told us nothing ; he ran into debt of his own accord, and even •involved himself for me, who knew nothing of his pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because Savinien has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the authori- ties to arrest him. If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed our relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him to travel in Germany while his affairs were being settled here. Monsieur de Kergarouet intended to get him a place in the War office ; but this imprisonment for debt will paralyze such efforts. You must pay his debts; let him enter the navy ; he will make his way like the true Por- tenduère that he is ; he has the fire of the family in his beau- tiful black eyes, and we will all help him. Do not be di.slieartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom I beg you to consider me as one of the most sincere ; I send you our best wishes, with the respects of Your very affectionate servant, Emilie de Kergarouet. Ursula. 1G5 The second letter was as follows : — PORTENDUÈRE, AugUSt, 1889. To Madame de Portenduèke : My dear Aunt, — I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien's pranks. As I am married and the father of two sons and one daughter, my fortune, already too small for my position and prospects, cannot be lessened to ransom a Por- tenduere from the hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his debts, and come and live with us at Portenduère. You shall receive the welcome we owe you, even though our views may not be entirely in accordance with yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to marry Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is nothing ; do not make yourself unhappy ; it will never be known in this part of the country, where there are a number of rich girls who would be delighted to enter our family. My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give us, and I beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this plan, together with my affectionate respects. Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduère. " What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!" cried the old Breton lad}', wnping her ej^es. "The admiial does not know his nephew is in prison," said the Abbé Chaperon at last ; " the countess alone read your letter, and has answered it for him. But 3'ou must decide at once on some course," he added after a pause, " and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do not sell your farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four years ; in a few months 3-011 1G6 Ursula. can raise the rent to six thousand francs and get a premium for double that amount. Borrow what you need of some honest man, — not from the townspeople who make a business of mortgages. Your neighbor here is a most worthy man ; a man of good society, who knew it as it was before the Revolution, who was once an atheist, and is now an earnest Catholic. Do not let your feelings debar 3'ou from going to his house this very evening ; he will fully understand the step 3'Ou take ; forget for a moment that you are a Kergarouet." " Never ! " said the old mother, in a sharp voice. " Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet ; come when he is alone. He will lend you the mone}- at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three per cent, and will do 3'ou this service delicately ; 3'ou will be pleased with him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself, — for he will have to go there to sell out his funds, — and he can bring the lad back to 30U." " Are you speaking of that little Minoret? " " That little Minoret is eighty-three years old," said the abbé, smiling. ''My dear ladj-, do have a little Christian charit}- ; don't wound him, — he might be useful to you in other ways." "What ways?" " He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl-" Ursula. 167 " Oh ! that little Ursula. What of that? " The pool" abbé did not dare pursue the subject after these significant words, the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he was about to make. " I think Doctor Minoret is very rich," he said. " So much the better for him." " You have indirectly caused your son's misfortunes by refusing to give him a profession ; beware for the future," said the abbé sternlj'. "Am I to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming ? " " Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him? " she replied. "Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pa}' him three per cent ; if he comes to you 3'ou will pa}' him five," said the abbé, inventing this reason to influ- ence the old lady. " And if you are forced to sell your farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse to lend you the money, know- ing it was more their interest to buy), you would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your farm and know that your son is in prison." "They know it! oh, do they know it?" she ex- claimed, throwing up her arms. "There! my poor abbé, you have let your coflTee get cold ! Tiennette, Tiennette ! " 168 Ursnla. Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe's coffee to warm it. " Let be, Monsieur le recteur," she said, seeing that the abbé meant to drink it, "I'll just put it into the bain-marie, it won't spoil it." "Well," said the abbé to Madame de Portenduère in his most insinuating voice, " I shall go and tell the doctor of A^our visit, and you will come — " The old mother did not yield till after an hour's dis- cussion, during which the abbé was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times. And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the words, " Savinien would go.'' " It is better that I should go than he," she said. Ursula. 169 XI. SAVINIEN SAVED. The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large door of Madame de Portenduère's house closed on the abbé, who immediately crossed the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor's gate. He fell from Tiennette to La Bougival ; the one said to him, "Why do you come so late, Monsieur l'abbé?" as the other had said, " Why do you leave Madame so earl}' when she is in trouble ? " The abbé found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown salon ; for Dionis had stopped at Massin's on his wa}' home to re-assure the heirs by repeating their uncle's words. " I believe Ursula has a love-affair," said he, " which will be nothing but pain and trouble to her ; she seems romantic " (extreme sensibility is so called by notaries), "and, 3'ou'll see, she won't marry soon. Therefore, don't show her any distrust ; be very attentive to her and very respectful to 3'our uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils," added the notary — without being aware that Goupil is a corruption of the word viilpes, a fox. 170 Ursula. So Mesdames Massin and Crémière with their hus- bands, the post master and Désiré, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual and noisy part}' in the doctor's salon. As the abbé entered he heard the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of Beetlioven's. With girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music, which must be studied to be understood, for the purpose of dis- gusting these women with the thing the}- coveted. The finer the music tlie less ignorant persons like it. So, when the door opened and the abbe's venerable head appeared they all cried out: "Ah! here's Monsieur l'abbé ! " in a tone of relief, delighted to jump up and put an end to their torture. The exclamation was echoed at the caid-table, where Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and old Miuoret were victims to the presumption with which the collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had proposed to take the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. Tlie doctor rose as if to receive the abbé, but really to put an end to the game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency of his god- daughter, the heirs made their bow and retired. " Good-niglit, m}' friends," cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged. "■Ah! that's where the mone}' goes," said Madame Crémière to Madame Massin, as they walked on. Ursula, 171 " God forbid that I should spend money to teach m}^ little Aline to make such a diu as that ! " cried Madame Massin. " She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be a fine musician," said the collector; "he has quite a reputation." " Not in Nemours, I'm sure of that," said Madame Crémière. " I believe uncle made her play it expressly' to drive us away," said Massin ; " for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the music-book." "If that's the sort of charivari they like," said the post master, " the}' are quite right to keep to themselves.'' " Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful racket," said Madame Crémière. " I shall never be able to play before persons who don't understand music," Ursula was sa3ing as she sat down beside the whist-table. "In natures richl}' organized," said the abbé, " sen- timents can be developed onl}' in a congenial atmos- phere. Just as a priest is unable to give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree dies in a cla^' soil, so a musician's genius has a mental eclipse when he is surrounded bj* ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from the souls who make the (Mivironnient of our souls as much intensity as we 172 Ursula. convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made into proverbs : ' Howl with the wolve? ; ' ' Like meets like.' But the suffering 30U felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures onlv." " And so, friends," said the doctor, " a thing which would merely give pain to most women might kill my little Ursula. Ah ! when I am no longer here, I charge 3'ou to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke, — Ut flos^ etc., — a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and the world." " And 3'et those ladies flattered you, Ursula," said Monsieur Bongrand, smiling. " Flattered her grosslj^," remarked the Nemours doctor. " I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is," said old Minoret. " Why is that? " "A true thought has its own delicacy," said the abbé. "Did you dine with Madame de Portenduère?" asked Ursula, with a look of anxious curiosit}'. "Yes; the poor lad}^ is terribly distressed. It is possible she may come to see you this evening, Mon- sieur Minoret." Ursula pressed lier godfather's hand under the table, " Her son," said Bongrand, " was rather too simple- minded to live in Paris without a mentor. When I heard that mquiries were being made here about the Ursula. 173 propert}' of the old lad}' I feared he was discounting her death." "Is it possible yo\x think him capable of it?" said Ursula, with such a terrible glance at Monsieur Bon- grand that he said to himself rather sadl}-, ' ' Alas ! 3'es, she loves him." " Yes and no," said the Nemours doctor, repl3-ing to Ursula's question. " There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is wh}- he is now in prison ; a scamp wouldn't have got there." "Don't let us talk about it an}- more," said old Minoret. " The poor mother must not be allowed to weep if there 's a way to dr}' her tears." The four friends rose and went out ; Ursula accom- panied them to the gate, saw her godfather and the abbé knock at the opposite door, and as soon as Tien- nette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with La Bougival beside her. " Madame la vicomtesse," said the abbé, who entered first into the little salon, " Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you should have the trouble of coming to him — " " I am too much of the old school, madame," inter- rupted the doctor, " not to know what a man owes to a woman of 3-our rank, and I am ver}- glad to be able, as Monsieur l'abbé tells me, to be of service to you." Madame de Portenduère, who disliked the step the 174 Ursula. abbé had advised so much that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the notary instead, was surprised by Minoret's attention to such a degree that she rose to receive him and signed to him to take a- chair. "■Be seated, monsieur," she said with a regal air. " Our dear abbé has told you that the viscount is in prison on account of some 3'outhful debts, — a hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him I would secure you on my farm at Bordieres." " We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to 3'ou — if you will allow me to be your emissar}' in the matter." " Very good, monsieur," she said, bowing her head, and looking at the abbè as if to say, " You were right ; he really is a man of good society." " You see, madame," said the abbé, " that my friend the doctor is full of devotion to 3'our family." " We shall be grateful, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduère, making a visible effort; "a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a prodigal, is — " " Madame, I had the honor to meet, in '65, the illus- trious Admiral de Portenduère in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes, and also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to question him on some curious results of his vo^'ages. Possiblv Monsieur de Portenduère, your late husband. Ursula. 175 was present. Those were the glorious days of the French navy ; it bore comparison with that of Great Britain, and its officers had their full quota of courage. With what impatience we awaited in '83 and '84 the news from St. Roch. I came very near serving as sur- geon in the king's service. Your great-uncle, who is still living. Admiral Kergarouet, fought his splendid battle at that time in the ' Belle-Poule.' " " Ah ! if he did but know his great- nephew is in prison ! " " He would not leave him there a day," said old Minoret, rising. He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed him to do ; then he kissed it respect- full}-, bowed profoundly', and left the room ; but returned immediately to say : — " My dear abbé, may I ask 3'ou to engage a place in the diligence for me to-morrow ? " The abbé stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his friend, who meant to win and had suc- ceeded in winning the good graces of the old lad}'. "He is an astonishing man for his age," she said. " He talks of going to Paris and attending to my son's affairs as if he were only twenty-five. He has certainly seen good societj'." " The very best, madame ; and to-day more than one son of a peer of France would be glad to marry his 176 Ursula. goddaugbter with a million. Ab ! if that idea should come into Savinien's bead ! — times are so changed that the objections would not come from j'our side, especially after bis late conduct — " The amazement into which the speech threw the old lad^' alone enabled him to finish it, " You have lost your senses," she said at last. " Think it over, madame; God grant that 3-our son may conduct himself in future in a manner to win that old man's respect." " If it were not you, Monsieur 1' abbé," said Madame de Portenduère, "if it were an}' one else who spoke to me in that wa}- — " " You would not see him again," said the abbé, smil- ing. " Let us hope that your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in these da3-s as to mar- riages. You will think only of Savinien's good ; and as 3'ou really have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in the wa}^ of his making himself another position." " And it is 3-ou who say that to me? " " If I did not sa}- it to j-ou, who would?" cried the abbé rising and making a hast}' retreat. As he left the house be saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a Ursula. Vil thousand reasons. He called to the abbé and begged him to engage the whole coupé for him that very even- ing if the booking-office were still open. The next day at half-past six o'clock the old man and the 3'oung girl reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary-. Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongraud had re- marked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a fool to keep a penn^' in the public funds so long as the quarrel between the press and the court was not made up. Minoret's notary now indi- recth" approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his journe}- to sell out his manufact- uring stocks and his shares in the Funds, all of which were then at a high value, depositing the proceeds in the Bank of France. The notar}- also advised his client to sell the stocks left to Ursula b^' Monsieur de Jord}'. He promised to employ an extremeh- clever and wil}' broker to treat with Savinien's ci'editors ; but said that in order to succeed it would be necessary for the 30ung man to stay several da3S longer in prison. " Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per cent," said the notary. " Besides, you can't get ^-our money under seven or eight days." When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to stay at least a week longer in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only once. Old Minoret refused. 12 178 Ursula. The uncle and niece were staying in a hotel in the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a ver^' suitable apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriet}' of his goddaughter he made her promise not to go out while he was away ; at other times he tooli her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards ; but nothing seemed to amuse or interest her. " What do 30U want to do? " asked the old man. " See Sainte-Pélagie," she answered obstinately. Minoret called a hackne^'-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef, where the carriage drew up before the shabby front of the old convent then transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gra}' walls, with everj^ window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter without stooping (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloom}' structure in a quarter full of wretched- ness, where it rises amid squalid streets like a supreme miserj', — this assemblage of dismal things so oppressed Ursula's heart that she burst into tears. "Oh! " she said, "to imprison young men in this dreadful place for money ! How can a debt to a mone3'-lender have a power the king has not? He there!" she cried. "Where, godfather?" she added, looking from window to window. " Ursula," said the old man, "you arc making me commit great follies. This is not foi'getting him as you promised." Ursula. * 179 *' But," she argued, " if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel an interest in him ? I can love him and not marr}' at all." " Ah! " cried tlie doctor, "there is so much reason in 3-our unreasonableness that I am sorr}' I brought you." Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the legal papers read}' for Savinien's release. The pa3'ments, including the notaries' fees, amounted to eight}' thousand francs. The doctor went himself to see Savinien released on Saturday at two o'clock. The young viscount, already informed of what had hap- pened by his mother, thanked his liberator with sincere warmth of heart. " You must return at once to see your mother," the old doctor said to him. Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted certain debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his friends. " I suspected there was some personal debt," cried the doctor, smiling. " Your mother borrowed a hun- dred thousand francs of me, but I have paid out only eighty thousand. Here is the rest ; be careful how you spend it, monsieur ; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the green cloth of fortune." During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the present conditions of life. Competi- 180 Urmia. tion in everything necessitated hard work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and under- hand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of ùixy. Success in society, far from giving a man position, w^asted his time and required an immense deal of mone}-. The name of Portenduère, which his mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in Paris. His cousin the deput\', Comte de Portenduère, cut a very poor figure in the Elective Chamber in pres- ence of the peerage and the court ; and had none too much credit personally. Admiral Keigarouët existed on!}- as the husband of his wife. Savinien admitted to himself that he had seen orators, men from the middle classes, or lesser noblemen, become influential person- ages. Monc}' was the pivot, the sole means, the onlj- mechanism of a societ}' which Louis XVIII. had tried to create in the likeness of that of England. On his wa}' from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs the young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which were certainly- in keeping with de Marsay's advice) to the old doctor. " I ought," lie said, " to go into oblivion for three or four years and seek a career. Pcrhai)s I could make myself a name by writing a book on statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions of the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady who could make me eligible to Ursula'. 181 the Chamber, I will work hard in silence and in obscurit}'." Studying the j'oung fellow's face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself. He therefore cor- diallj' approved of the scheme. " M}' friend," he said, " if 3'ou strip off the skin of the old nobilit}' (which is no longer worn in these days) I will undertake, after you have lived for three or four j^ears in a steady and industrious manner, to find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and pos- sessing from seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make you happy and of whom you will have every reason to be proud, — one whose onl}- nobility is that of the heart." " Ah, doctor! " cried the \'oung man, " there is no longer a nobilit}' in these days, — nothing but an aristocracy." " Go and pay ^-our debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the coupé of the diligence, for n\v niece is with me,"' said the old man. That evening, at six o'clock, the three travellers started from the Rue Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not sa}' a word. Savinien, who once, in a moment of superficial gallantr}', had sent her that kiss which invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely forgotten the young girl in the hell of 182 Ursula. his Parisian debts ; moreover his hopeless love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing a thought on a few glances exchanged with a little coun- try girl. He did not recognize her when the doctor handed her into the coach and then sat down beside her to separate her from the 3'oung viscount. " I have some bills to give 3'ou," said the doctor to the 3'oung man. " I have brought all your papers and documents." " I came very near not getting off," said Savinien, " for I had to order linen and clothes ; the Philistines took all ; I return like a true prodigal." However interesting were the subjects of conversa- tion between the young man and the old one, and how- ever witty and clever were certain remarks of the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after dusk, her green veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl. '* Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much," said Savinien at last, somewhat piqued. " I am glad to return to Nemours," she answered in a trembling voice raising her veil. Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recog- nized her by the heav}' braids of her hair and the bril- liancy of her blue e^-es. " I, too, leave Paris to bury m3'self in Nemours without regret now that I meet mv charmino- neighbor Ursula. 183 • again/' he said; "I hope, Monsieur le docteur that you will receive me in jour house ; I love music, and I remember to have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula's piano." "I do not know," replied the doctor gravel}', " whether your mother would approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care for this dear child with all the solicitude of a mother." This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came ; the heat was great. Savinien and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was full of projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap, dropped upon her uncle's shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn, Savi- nien awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally caused b}' the jolting of the vehicle ; her cap was rumpled and half off; the hair, unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed from the heat of the night ; in this situation, dreadful for women to whom dress is a necessary auxiliary, j-outh and beauty tri- umphed. The sleep of innocence is always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the pretty teeth ; the shawl, un- fastened, gave to view, beneath the folds of her muslin gown and without offence to her mqdest}', the graceful- ness of her figure. The purity of the virgin spirit shone 184 Ursula. on the sleeping countenance all the more plainly because no other expression was there to interfere with it. Old Minoret, who presently woke up, placed his child's head in the corner of the carriage that she might be more at ease ; and she let him do it unconsciously, so deep was her sleep after the many wakeful nights she had spent in thinking of Savinien's trouble. "Poor little girl! " said the doctor to his neighbor, "she sleeps like the child she is." " You must be proud of her," replied Savinien ; " for she seems as good as she is beautiful." " Ah ! she is the jo}' of the house. I could not love her better if she were mj- own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th of next February. God grant that I may live long enough to marr}- her to a man who will make her happy. I wanted to take her to the theatre in Paris, where she was for the first time, but she refused ; the Abbé Chaperon had forbidden it. 'But,' I said, ' when you are married ^our husband will want you to go there.' 'I shall do what m}' husband wants,' she answered. ' If he asks me to do evil and I am weak enough to yield, he will be responsible before God — and so I shall have strength to refuse him, for his own sake.' " As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morn- ing, Ursula woke up, ashamed at her I'umpled condi- tion, and confused by the look of admiration wliich she • Urmia. 185 encountered from Savinien. During the hour it liad taken the diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had fallen in love with Ursula ; he had studied the pure candor of that soul, the beauty of that bod}', the whiteness of the skin, the delicac}' of the features ; he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A presenti- ment seemed suddenly to take hold of him ; he saw in Ursula the woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold b}- the magic words, " Seven or eight hundred thousand francs." " In three or four 3'ears she will be twent}', and I shall be twenty-seven," he thought. " The good doctor talked of probation, work, good conduct ! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth." The three neighbors parted in the street in front of their respective homes, and Savinien put a little court- ing into his eyes as he gave Ursula a parting glance. Madame de Portenduère let her son sleep till mid- day ; but the doctor and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journe}', went to high mass. Savinien's release and his return in compan}' witli the doctor had explained tlie reason of the latter's absence to the news- mongers of the town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended 186 Ursula. his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de Portenduère, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered her his arm and took her home. .The old ladj' asked him to dinner that evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the abbé would be the onlj'^ other guest. " He must have wished Ursula to see Paris," said Minore t-Levrault. "Pest!" cried Crémière; "he can't take a step without that girl ! " " Something must have happened to make old Por- tenduère accept his arm," said Massin. " So none of 50U have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and released that little Savinien ? " cried Goupil. "He refused Dionis, but he didn't refuse Madame de Portenduère — Ha, ha ! 3'ou are all done for. The viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and the doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he has now paid to secure the alliance." "It is not a bad thing to marr}' Ursula to Savinien," said the butcher. " The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came earlj' for a filet." "Well, Dionis, here 's a fine to-do!" said Massin, rushing up to the notary, who was entering the square. "What is? It's all going right," returned the Ursula. 187 notary. " Your uncle has sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduère has sent for me to witness the signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thou- sand francs, lent to her by your uncle." "Yes, but suppose the 3'oung people should marr}'? " "That's as if you said Goupil was to be my suc- cessor." " The two things are not so impossible," said Goupil. On returning from mass Madame de Portenduère told Tiennette to inform her son that she wished to see him. The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame de Portenduère and that of her late husband were separated by a large dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other room, occupied b}- Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room for a little study lighted bj' a small round window opening on the court. Madame de Portenduère's bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked into the court ; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the ground-floor, which com- municated b}' a passage with the kitchen built at the end of the court, so that this salon was made to answer the double purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined. 188 Ursula. The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduère remained as he had left it on the day of his death ; there was no change except that he was absent. Madame de Portenduère had made the bed herself; laj-ing upon it the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The gold snufF-box from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last time was on the table, with his pra3'er-book, his watch, and the cup from which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed, hung above a crucifix and the hoi}' water in the alcove. AH the little ornaments he had worn, his journals, his furni- ture, his Dutch spittoon, his spj'-glass hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of the clock at the hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room still smelt of the pow- der and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was as he left it. To her, entering there, he was again visible in the many articles which told of his daily habits. His tall cane with its gold head was where he had last placed it, with his buckskin gloves close by. On a table against the wall stood a gold vase, of coarse work- manship but worth three thousand francs, a gift from Havana, which city, at the time of the American War of Independence, he had protected from an attack by the British, bringing his convoy safe into port after an engagement with superior forces. To recompense this Ursula. 189 service the King of Spain had made him a kniglit of his order ; the same event gave him a riglit to the next promotion to the rank of vice-admiral, and he also received the red ribbon. He then married his wife, Avho had a fortune of about two hundred thousand francs. But the Revolution hindered his promotion, and Mon- sieur de Portenduère emigrated. " Where is my mother? " said Savinien to Tiennette. " She is waiting for you in your father's room," said the old Breton woman. Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother's rigid principles, her worship of honor, her loyalt}', her faith in nobility, and he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart beating and his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered through the blinds he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air of solemnity in keeping with that funereal room. " Monsieur le vicomte," she said when she saw him, rising and taking his hand to lead him to his father's bed, '•' there died your father, — a man of honor ; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His spirit is there. Surel}' he groaned in heaven when he saw his son degraded hy imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain could have been spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and shutting you up for a few daj's in a military prison. — But you are here ; 190 Ursula. you. stand before yonr father, who hears j'ou. You know all that you did before 3011 were sent to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to me before 3-our father's shade, and in presence of God who sees all, that 3'ou have done no dishonorable act ; that your debts are the result of youthful foil}-, and that 3'our honor is untarnished? If 3'our blameless father were there, sitting in that armchair, and asking an explana- tion of your conduct, could he embrace you after having beard it?" " Yes, mother,'' replied the young man, with grave respect. She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few tears. " Let us forget it all, mj' son," she said ; " it is only a little less mone}'. I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy of your name, kiss me — . for I have suffered much." " I swear, mother," he said, laying his hand upon the bed, " to give 3'ou no further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair tliese first faults." " Come and breakfast, my child," she said, turning to leave the room. Ursula. 191 XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE. In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs somethnig of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover, the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates to matri- monial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied to the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours, where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible marriage of her son with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social laws have their exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother's pride before the inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once. As soon as they were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible letters, as she called them, which the Kerga- rouets and the Portendueres had written her. " There is no such thing as famil}' in these days, mother," replied Savinien, "nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a statesman ; all the}' ask now-a-daj's is, 'What taxes does he pay ? ' " 192 Ursula. " But the king ?" asked the okl lady. " The kuig is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without regard to famil}', — the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is sufRcientlj- well brought-up — that is to sa}', if she has been taught in school." "Oh ! there 's no need to talk of that," said the old lady. Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called Breton obstinac}', that distin- guished his mother, and he resolved to know at once her opinion on this delicate matter. " So," he went on, " if I loved a 3oung girl, — take for instance your neighbor's godchild, little Ursula, — would you oppose my marriage ? " " Yes, as long as I live," she replied ; " and after my death you would be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the Portendueres." " Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobilit}', which has no reality to-da}' unless it has the lustre of great wealth ? " " You could serve Fi-ance and put faith in God." " Would 30U postpone my happiness till after 30ur death?" " It would be horrible if you took it then, — that is all I have to say." Ursula. 193 " Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu." " Mazarin himself opposed it." " Remember the widow Scarron." " She was a d'Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very old, my son," she said, shaking her head. " When I am no more you can, as you sa}', marrj- whom you please." Savinien both loved and respected his mother ; but he instantly, though silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal to her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of a forbidden thing. When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her con- fession to the doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her eyes, and the old ladj' herself the social value which a duchess of the Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated the Vicomte de Portenduère from the daughter of a regimental musician, a former opera-singer and the natural son of an organist. 13 194 Ursula. " What is the matter, m}^ dear?" said the old lad}', making the girl sit down by her. "Madame, 1 am confused by the honor you have done me — " " M}' little girl," said Madame de Portenduère, in her sharpest tone. " I know how fond 50ur uncle is of 3'ou, and I wished to be agreeable to him, for he has brought back m}^ prodigal son." " But, my dear mother." said Savinien, cut to the heart by seeing the color fly into Ursula's face as she struggled to keep back her tears, " even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret, I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle has given us b}' accepting your invitation." The 3'oung man pressed the doctor's hand in a sig- nificant manner, adding: "I see 30U wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order in France, and one which confers nobilit}'." Ursula's extreme beauty, to which her almost hope- less love gave a depth which great painters have some- times conveyed in pictures where the soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduère suddenly', and made her suspect that the doctor's appar- ent generosity masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien replied with the in- tention of wounding the doctor in that which was dearest Ursula. 195 to him ; and she succeeded, though the old man could hardly restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a " chevalier," amused to observe how the eagerness of a lover did not shrink from absurdit^^ " The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to obtain," he said, " has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the wa}- of other privileges ! It is given onl}' to doctors and poor artists. The kings have done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for man}- of us, s3-rabolic." After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned, which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when there was a rap at the door. " There is our dear abbé," said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula alone, and advancing to meet the Abbé Chaperon, — an honor she had not paid to the doctor and his niece. The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to Savinien. To show offence or to com- plain of Madame de Portenduère's manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid it. He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was then running bv confidinsc 196 Ursula. the affairs of the nation to the Prince de Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady, in an easy, jesting waj', a packet of legal papers and receipted bills, together with the account of his notary. " Has mj- son verified them ? " she said, giving Savi- nien a look, to which he replied by bending his head. "Well, then the rest is my notary's business," she added, pushing awaj' the papers and treating the affair with the disdain she wished to show for money. To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Por- tenduere's ideas, to elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance. A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for the accounts of the transaction be- tween the doctor and Savinien. " Why do you want them ? " said the old lady. " To put the matter in legal form ; there have been no cash payments." Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time ex- changed a glance with this offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name in an}' language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of the inward Ursula. 197 being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble ; but she controlled herself, con- scious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her emotion. " He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis," said Savinien, when Goupil had closed the door. " What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly ? " said Madame de Portenduère. " I don't complain of his ugliness," said the abbé, "but I do of his wickedness, which passes all bounds ; he is a villain." The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the kindly good-humor of the abbé, whose gentle gayet^' enlivened the dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been almost intolerable At dessert, seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to her : — " If you don't feel well, dear child, we have only the street to cross." "What Is the matter, my dear?" said tlie old lady to the girl. "Madame," said the doctor severely, "her soul is chilled, accustomed as she is to be met b}' smiles." " A ver^' bad education, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduère. " Is is not. Monsieur l'abbé?" 198 Ursula. "Yes," answered Minoret, with a look at the abbé, who knew not how to reply. '• I have, it is true, ren- dered life unbearable to an angelic spirit if she has to pass it in the world ; but I trust I shall not die until I place her in securit}', safe from coldness, indifference, and hatred — " "Oh, godfather — I beg of you — sa}' no more. There is nothing the matter with me," cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduère's e^es rather than give too much meaning to her words b}- looking at Savinien. " I cannot know, madame," said Savinien to his mother, " whether Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that 3'ou are torturing me." Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man b}' his mother's treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de Portenduère to excuse her ; then she took her uncle's arm, bowed, left the room, and returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and sat down to the piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears. " AVhy dfm't you leave the management of 3'our affairs to m}' old experience, cruel child ? " cried the doc- tor in despair. " Nobles never think themselves under an}' obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we do them a service they consider that we do our dut}', and that 's all. Besides, the old lady saw that you looked favor- ably on Savinien ; she is afraid he will love you." Ursula. 199 "At am' rate, he is saved!" said Ursula. "But ah ! to tr}' to humiliate a man like you ! " " Wait till I return, my child," said the old man leaving her. ^ When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduère's salon he found Dionis tlie notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the raa3or of Xemours, wit- nesses required by law for the validit}' of deeds in all communes where there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis aside and said a word in his ear, after which the notary read the deeds aloud officially ; from which it appeared that Madame de Portenduère gave a mortgage on all her property to secure paj-ment of the hundred thousand francs, the interest on which was fixed at five per cent. At the reading of this last clause the abbé looked at Minoret, who answered with an approving nod. The poor priest whispered some- thing in the old lady's ear to which she replied, — " I will owe nothing to such persons." " My mother leaves me the nobler part," said Savi- nien to the doctor; "she will repa}' the money and charges me to show^ our gratitude." " But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to meet the interest and the legal costs," said the abb*'-. "Monsieur," said Minoret to Dionis, " as Monsieur and Madame de Portenduère are not in a condition to 200 Ursula. pay those costs, add them to the amount of the mort- gage and I will pa}' them." Dionis made the change and the sura borrowed was fixed at one hundred and seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret made his fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the notary and witnesses. "Madame," said the abbé, "why did you affront that excellent Monsieur Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son for his debts of honor? " " Your Minoret is sly," she said, taking a pinch of snuff. " He knows what he is about." " My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by getting hold of our farm," said Savinien ; "as if a Portenduere, son of a Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will." An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor's house, where all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of the young vis- count produced a lively sensation, all the more because its effect was different on each person present. Mes- demoiselles Crémière and Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed. The mothers said to Désiré that Goupil perhaps was right about the mar- riage. The eyes of all present turned towards the Ursula. 201 doctor, who did not rise to receive the young nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box, for he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The doctor's cold manner surprised ever}- one. " Ursula, my child," he said, " give us a little music." While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to Iceep her in countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them, so eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and the Porteudueres. It sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when played by a 3'oung girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of tlie performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both meaning and poetry- to passages which are in themselves of no great value. Cliopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the truth of this fact, already proved b}' Paganini on the vioUn. That fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt, and communicates itself through all species of music, even simple chords. Ursula, by 202 Ursula. her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged to this rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came ever}- Saturday and who, during Ursula's stay in Paris was with her every da}', had brought his pupil's talent to its full perfection. " Rousseau's Dream," the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Hérold in his 3'oung da^'s, is not without a certain depth which is capable of being developed b}- execution. Ursula threw into it the feelings which were agitating her being, and justified the term " caprice " given by Hérold to the fragment. With soft and dream}^ touch her soul spoke to the young man's soul and wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that were almost visible. Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the coN'er and his head on his left hand, Savinien ad- mired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed on the panelling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning another world. Man}- a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less reason. Genuine feelings haA-e a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was willing to show her soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien en- tered that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness of lieart have the same power over a man that child- hood has ; the same charm, the same irresistible seduc- Ursula. 203 tions. Ursula was never more honest and candid than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life. The abbé came to tear Savinien from his dream, re- questing him to take a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing ; the heirs departed, all except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle and the viscount and Ursula. " You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle," he said, when the young girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. " Who is your master? " " A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti," said the doctor. " If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay in Paris he would have been here to-day." " He is not onl}' a great musician," said Ursula, "but a man of adorable simplicit}' of nature." " Those lessons must cost a great deal," remarked Desire. The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air of a man who fulfils a duty. "Monsieur," he said, "lam grateful for the feel- ing which leads 30U to make me this earlj' visit ; but 3'our mother attributes unworth}- and underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the risht to 204 Ursula. call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here, in spite of tlie honor 3'our visits are to me, and the pleasure I should otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell 3'our mother that if I do not beg her, in m}^ niece's name and my own, to do us the honor of dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would find herself indisposed on that da}'." The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it respectfully, saying : — " You are quite right, monsieur." He then withdrew ; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was more of sadness than dis- appointment. Desire left the house at the same time ; but he found it impossible to exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own house precipitately. Ursula. 205 XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS. This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk among the heirs for a week ; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and regarded their inheritance as rescued. So, in an age when ranks are levelled, when the mania for equality puts everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even military subor- dination, — that last refuge of power in France, where passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal antipathies, or differences of fortune, — the obstinacy of an old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles often do, not in destroying, but in strengthening love. To an ardent man a woman's value is that which she costs him ; Savinien foresaw a struggle, great efforts, many uncertainties, and alread}' the young girl was rendered dearer to him ; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps our feelings obey the laws of nature as to the lasting- ness of her creations ; to a long life a long childhood. The next morning, when thej' woke, Ursula and Savi- nien had the same thought. An intimate understanding 206 Ursvla. of this kind would create love if it were not already its most precious proof. When the 3'oung girl parted her curtains just far enough to let her eyes take m Savi- nien's window, she saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects on the unmense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural and right that a tax should be levied on them. Hav- ing thus protested against her godfather's harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened her window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the da}' she went up to her room, always to find the 3'onng viscount writing, tearing up what he had written, and then writing again — to her, no doubt ! The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following letter : — To Mademoiselle Ursula . Mademoiselle, — I do not conceal from myself the dis- trust a young man inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which your godfather's kindness released me. I know tliat I must in future give greater guarantees of good conduct than other men ; therefore, mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place myself at your feet and ask you to consider my love. This declaration is not dic- tated by passion, it comes from an inward certainty which in- volves the whole of life. A foolish infatuation for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was the cause of my going to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my sincere love the total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now Ursula. 207 effaced from ray heart by yours ? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my soul as a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no other wife than you. You have every qualification I desire in her who is to bear my name. The education you have received and the dignity of your own mind, place you on the level of the highest positions. But I doubt myself too much to dare describe you to your- self ; I can only love you. After listening to you yesterday I recalled certain words which seem as though written for you ; suffer me to transcribe them : — " IVIade to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and intelligent, spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she had passed her life at court, simple as the hermit who has never known the world, the fire of her soul is tempered in her eyes by sacred modesty." I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even the most trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage to ask you, provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you by my conduct and my devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It concerns my very life; you cannot doubt that all my powers will be employed, not only in trying to please you, but in deserving your esteem, which is more precious to me than any other upon earth. With this hope, Ursula — if you will suffer me so to call you in my heart — Nemours will be to me a paradise, the hardest tasks will bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is derived from God. Tell me that I may call myself Your Savixien. Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to hor uncle. 208 Ursula. " Ah, my God ! I nearl}' forgot to say my prayers ! " she exclaimed, turning back to kneel on her prie-Dieu. A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her godfather and made hmi read the letter. They both sat down on a bench under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda. Ursula awaited the old man's words, and the old man reflected long, too long for the impatient ^oung girl. At last, the result of their secret interview appeared in the following answer, part of which the doctor undoubtedl}' dictated. To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduère ■ Monsieur, — I cannot be otherwise than greatly lionored by the letter in whicli you offer me your hand; hut, at my age, and according to the rules of my education, I have felt bound to communicate it to my godfather, who is all I have, and whom I love as a father and also as a friend. I must now tell you the painful objections which he has made to me, and which must be to you my answer. Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune de- pends entirely, not only on' my godfather's good-will, but also on tlie doubtful success of the measures he may take to elude the schemes of his relatives against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet, band master of the 45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my god- father's natural lialf-brother; and therefore these relatives may, though without reason, bi'ing a suit against a young girl who would be defenceless. You see, monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not my greatest misfortune. I have many things to make me humble. It is for your sake, Ursula. 209 and not for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which to loving and devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg you to consider, monsieur, that if I did not submit them to you, I might be suspected of leading your tenderness to overlook obstacles which the world, and more especially your mother, regard as insuperable. I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we are both too young and too inexperienced to under- stand the miseries of a life entered upon without other for- tune than that I received from the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My godfather desires, moreover, not to marry me until I am twenty. Who knows what fate may have in store for you in four years, the finest years of your life? do not sacrifice them to a poor girl. Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear godfather, who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to contribute to it in every way, and earnestly desires that his protection, which must soon fail me, may be replaced by a tenderness equal to his own ; there remains only to tell you how touched I am by your offer and by the compliments which accompany it. The prudence which dictates my letter is that of an old man to whom life is well-known ; but the gratitude I express is that of a yoimg girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has arisen. Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity, Your servant, Ursula Mirouët. Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this letter put an end to his love? Man}' such questions, all insoluble, tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who suf- 14 210 Ursula. fered from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often to her chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usuall3' found sitting pensively before his table with his e^-es turned towards her window. At the end of the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him ; the delay was explained by his increasing love. To Mademoiselle Ursula Mikodët : Dear Ursula, — I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up nothing can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to us, is right ; but does it follow that I am wrong in loving you ? Thei'efore, all I want to know from you is whether you could love me. Tell me this, if only by a sign, and then the next four years will be the finest of my life. A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice- admiral Kergarouet, a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy. The kind old man, grieved at my misfor- tunes, replies that even the king's favor would be thwarted by the rules of the service in case I wanted a certain rank. Nevertheless, if I study three months at Toulon, the minister of war can send me to sea as master's mate ; then after a cruise against the Algerines, with whom we are now at war, I can go through an examination and become a midshipman. Moreover, if I distinguish myself in an expedition they are fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly be made ensign — but how soon ? that no one can tell. Only, they will make the rules as elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduère again in the navy. I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your godfather ; and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me. Before replying to the admiral, I must have Ursula. 211 an interview with the doctor; on his reply my whole future will depend. Whatever comes of it, know this, that rich or poor, the daughter of a band master or the daughter of a king, you are the woman whom the voice of my heart points out to me. Dear Ursula, we live in times when prejudices which might once have separated us have no power to pre- vent our marriage. To you, then, I offer the feelings of my heart, to your uncle the guarantees which secure to him your happiness. He has not seen that I, in a few hours, came to love you more than he has loved you in fifteen years. Until this evening. Savinien. " Here, godfather," said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a proud gesture. " Ah, mj' child ! " cried the doctor when he had read it, " I am happier than even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution." After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking with Ursula b}* the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river. The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as though he were still striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl clung to her uncle's arm as though she were saving herself from a fall over a precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which made him shudder. 212 Ursula. " Leave us, m}' child," he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and sat upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss it respectfully. ' ' Monsieur, will 3'ou give this dear hand to a naval captain ? " he said to the doctor in a low voice. "No," said Minoret, smiling; "we might have to wait too long, but — I will give her to a lieutenant." Tears of joy filled the 3'oung man's eyes as he pressed the doctor's hand affectionately. "I am about to leave," he said, "to stud^y hard and try to learn in six months what the pupils of the [Naval School take six years to acquire." "You are going?" said Ursula, springing towards them from the pavilion. " Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to go, the more I prove to 3'Ou my affection." " This is the 3d of October," she said, looking at him with infinite tenderness ; " do not go till after the 19th." " Y'es," said the old man, " we will celebrate Saint- Savinien's da}-." " Good-b}-, then," cried the 3'oung man. " I must spend this week in Paris,, to take the preliminary steps, bu}^ books and mathematical instruments, and try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms that I can for myself." Ursula. 213 Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after he entered his mother's house they saw him come out agam, followed by Tiennette canying his valise. " If ^'ou are so rich," said Ursula to her uncle, " why do you make him serve in the navj'? " " Presently it will be I who incurred his debts," said the doctor, smiling. " I don't oblige him to do any- thing ; but the uniform, my dear, and the cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out many stains. Before six 3'ears are over he may be in com- mand of a ship, and that's all I ask of him." " But he may be killed," she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor. " Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own," he said, laughhig. That night the poor child, with La Bougival's help, cut off a sufficient quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a chain ; and the next daj' she persuaded old Scihmucko, the music-master, to take it to Paris and have the chain made and returned b}' the following Sunday. When Savinien got back he informed the doctor and Ursula tliat he had signed his articles and was to be at Brest on the 25th. The doctor açked him to dinner on the 18th, and he passed near!}- two whole daj's in the old man's house. Notwithstanding much sage advice and man\' resolutions, the lovers could not 214 Ursula. help betra3'ing their secret understanding to the watch- ful eyes of the abbé, Monsieur Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival. " Children," said the old man, " 30U are risking your happiness by not keeping it to 3'ourselves." On the fête-day, after mass, during which scA'eral glances had been exchanged, Savinien, watched b}' Ursula, crossed the road and entered the little garden where the pair were practicall}' alone ; for the kind old man, by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the pagoda. "Dear Ursula," said Savinien; "will you make a gift greater than m^' mother could make me even if — " " I know what you wish to ask me," she said, inter- rupting him. " See, here is my answer," she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the box containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with a nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable hap- piness. " Wear it," she said, " for love of me. Ma}* it shield you from all dangers hy reminding 3-ou that my life depends on yours." "Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair," said the doctor to himself. "How did she manage to get it? what a pit}' to cut those beautiful fair tresses ; she will be giving him my life's blood next." " You will not blame me if I ask j-ou to give me, now that I am leaving you, a formal promise to liave no Ursula. 215 other liusband than me," said Savinien, kissing the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his eyes. "Have I not said so too often — J who went to see the walls of Sainte-Pélagie when you were behind them? — " she replied, blushing. "I repeat it, Savi- nien ; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be yours alone." Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden hy the creepers, the 3'oung man could not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and kissing her forehead ; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the bench, and when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the doctor standing before them. " My friend," said the old man, " Ursula is a born sensitive ; too rough a word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm of your love — Ah ! if 3'ou had loved her for sixteen 3'ears as I Jiave, you would have been satisfied with her word of prom- ise," he added, to revenge himself for the last sentence in Savinien's second letter. Two da3's later the 3'oung man departed. In spite of the letters which he wrote regularl3' to Ursula, she fell a pre3' to an illness without apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first time her godfather asked her what she felt, she replied : — 216 Ursula. " I want to see the ocean." "It is difficult to take 3-ou to a sea-port in the depth of winter," answered the old man. " Shall I really go? " she said. If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite of the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbé, that Savinien was being tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur- Bongrand made her happy for days with the gift of an engraving representing a mid- shipman in uniform. She read the newspapers, imagin- ing that the}' would give news of the cruiser on which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper's sea-tales and learned to use sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration of feeling, often assumed by other women, were so genu- ine in Ursula that she saw in dreams the coming of Savinien's letters, and never failed to announce them, relating the dream as a forerunner. "Now," she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, "I am easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it instantly." The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbé and Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his face. "What pains you?" they said, when Ursula had left them. " Will she live?" replied the doctor. " Can so ten- der and delicate a flower endure the trials of the heart ? " Ursula. 217 Nevertheless, the " little dreamer," as the abbé called her, was working hard. She understood the impor- tance of a fine education to a woman of the world, and all the time she did not giA^e to her singing and to the study of harmony and composition she spent in read- ing the books chosen for her by the abbé from her god- father's rich library. And yet while leading this busy life she suffered, tliough without complaint. Sometimes she would sit for hours looking at Savinien's window. On Sundays she would leave the church behind Madame de Portenduère and watch her tended}' ; for, in spite of the old ladj's harshness, she loved her as Savinien's mother. Her piet}' increased ; she went to mass every morning, for she firmly believed that her dreams were the gift of God. At last her godfather, frightened b}- the effects pro- duced b}' this nostalgia of love, promised on her birth- da}' to take her to Toulon to see the departure of the fleet for Algiei's. Savinien's ship formed part of it, but he was not to be informed beforehand of their inten- tion. The abbé and Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of this journey, said to be for Ursula's health, which disturbed and greatly puzzled the relations. After beholding Savinieu in his naval uniform, and going on board the fine flag-ship of the admiral, to whom the minister had given 3'oung Portenduère a special recommendation, Ursula, at her lover's entreaty, 218 Ursula. went with her godfather to Nice, and along the shores of the Mediterranean to Genoa, where she heard of the safe arrival of the fleet at Algiers and the landing of the troops. The doctor would have liked to continue the journey through Ital}', as much to distract Ursula's mind as to finish, in some sense, her education, b^- enlarging her ideas through comparison with other man- ners and customs and countries, and by the fascina- tions of a land where the masterpieces of art can still be seen, and where so many civilizations have left their brilliant traces. But the tidings of the opposition by the throne to the newh' elected Chamber of 1830 obliged the doctor to return to France, bringing back his treasure in a flourishing state of health and pos- sessed of a charming little model of the ship on which Savinien was serving. The elections of 1830 united into an active bod}' the various Minoret relations, — Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours by whose eflîbrts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at Fontaine- bleau. Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous influence over the country electors. Five of the post master's farmers were electors. Dionis repre- sented eleven votes. After a few meetings at the notary's, Crémière, Massin, the post master, and their adherents took a habit of assembling there. B>' the tniie the doctor returned, Dionis's office and salon were Ursula. 219 the camp of his heirs. The justice of peace and the ma^or, who had formed an alliance, backed by the nobilitj' in the neighboring castles, to resist the liberals of Nemours, now worsted in their efforts, were more closely united than ever by their defeat. B3' the time Bongrand and the Abbé Chaperon were able to tell the doctor by word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was defined for the first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving incident- ally such importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left Rambouillet for Cherbourg. Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, sent for fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil and mounted on horses from his father's stable, who arrived in Paris on the night of the 28th. With this troop Goupil and Desire took part in the capture of the Hôtel-de-Ville. Desire was decorated with the Legion of honor and appointed deput}^ procureur du roi at Fontainebleau. Goupil received the July cross. Dionis was elected mayor of Nemours, and the city council was composed of the post master (now assistant-ma3or), Massin, Cré- mière, and all the adherents of the family faction. Bon- grand retained his place onlj- through the influence of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose marriage with Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis. Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by post for Paris, and invested five hun- 220 Ursula. dred and forty thousand francs in shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about two hun- dred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in the same funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand francs a 3ear. He made the same disposition of Ursula's little capital bequeathed to her by de Jord}', together with the accrued interest thereon, which gave her about fourteen hundred francs a year in her own right. La Bougival, who had laid by some five thousand francs of her savings, did the same b}^ the doctor's advice, receiving in future three hundred and fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious trans- actions, agreed on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were carried out in perfect secrec}^ thanks to the political troubles of the time. When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and stables on its site. To employ a capital which would have given him a thousand francs a j'ear on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new era in the doctor's exist- ence, for he now (at a period when horses and carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine horses and a calèche. When, in the early part of November, 18.30, the old man came to church on a rainy da}' in the new carriage, Ursula. 221 and gave his hand to Ursula to help her out, all the in- habitants flocked to the square, — as much to see the calèche and question the coachman, as to criticise the goddaughter, to whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Crémière, the post master, and their wives at- tributed this extravagant foil}' of the old man. " A calèche ! Hey, Massin ! " cried Goupil. "Your inheritance will go at top speed now ! " " You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle," said the post master to the son of one of his conductors, who stood b}' the horses ; " for it is to be supposed an old man of eighty -four won't use up many horse-shoes. What did those horses cost?" " Four thousand francs. The calèche, though second- hand, was two thousand ; but it 's a fine one, the wheels are patent." "Yes, it's a good carriage," said Crémière; "and a man must be rich to buy that style of thing." "Ursula means to go at a good pace," said Goupil. "She's right; she is showing you how to enjoy life. Why don't you have fine carriages and horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn't let myself be humiliated if I were you — I 'd bu}' a carriage fit for a prince." "Come Cabirolle, tell us," said Massin, "is it the girl who drives our uncle into such luxury? " " I don't know," said Cabirolle ; " but she is almost mistress of the house. There are masters upon masters 222 Ursula. down from Paris. They say now she is going to study painting." " Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn," said Madame Crémière. In the pi'ovinces they always say a picture is drawn^ not painted. "The old German is not dismissed, is he?" said Madame Massin. " He was there j-esterda}'," replied CabiroUe. "Now," said Goupil, "you may as well give up counting on your inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than ever. Travel forms 3^oung people, and the little minx has got your uncle in the toils. Five or six parcels come down for her by the diligence ever}' week, and the dressmakers and milliners come too, to tr}* on her gowns and all the rest of it. Madame Dionis is furious. Watch for Ursula as she comes out of church and look at the little scarf she is wearing round her neck, — real cashmere, and it cost six hundred francs ! " If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would have been less than that of Goupil's last VA'ords ; the mischief-maker stood b}' rubbing his hands. The doctor's old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian upholsterer. Judged by the luxury dis- played, he was sometimes accused of hoarding immense Ursula. 223 wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on Ursula. The heirs called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but the saying, " He 's an old fool ! " summed up, on the whole, the verdict of the neighborhood. These mis- taken judgments of the little town had the one advan- tage of misleading the heirs, who never suspected the love between Savinien and Ursula, which was the secret reason of the doctor's expenditure. The old man took the greatest delight in accustoming his god(îhild to her future station in the world. Possessing an income of over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave him pleasure to adorn his idol. In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her eyes beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from her window when she rose in the morning. " Why did n't I know he was coming?" she said to herself. After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distin- guished himself b}' an act of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was serving was many months at sea without his being able to communi- cate witli the doctor ; and he did not wish to leave the service without consulting him. Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already illustrious in its service, the new government had profited by a general change of officers to make Savinien an ensign. Havino; obtained 224 Ursula. leave of absence for fifteen daj'S, the new officer arrived from Toulon b}' tlie mail, in time for Ursula's fête, in- tending to consult the doctor at the same time. " He has come ! " cried Ursula rushing into her god- father's bedroom. "Very good," he answered; "I can guess what brings him, and he may now stay in Nemours." " Ah ! that 's m}' birthday present — it is all in that sentence," she said, kissing him. On a sign, which she ran up tp make from her win- dow, Savinien came over at once ; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so changed for the better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain grave de- cision to the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an ei-ect bearing which enables the most superficial observer to recognize a military man even in plain clothes. The habit of command produces this result. Ursula loved Savinien the better for it, and took a childlike pleasure in walking round the garden with him, taking his arm, and hearing him relate the part he pla3'ed (as midshipman) in the taking of Algiers. Evi- dently' Savinien had taken the city. The doctor, who had been watching them from his window as he dressed, aoon came down. Witliout telling the viscount ever}'- thing, he did say tliat, in case Madame de Portenduère consented to his marriage with Ursula, the fortune of his godchild would make his naval pa}' superfluous. Ursula. 225 " Alas ! " said Savinien. " It will take a great deal of time to overcome ray mother's opposition. Before I left her to enter the nav}' she was placed between two alternatives, — either to consent to my marrying Ursula or else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the dangers of the profession ; and you see she chose to let me go." "But, Savinien, we shall be together/' said Ursula, taking his hand and shaking it with a sort of impatience. To see each other and not to part, — that was the all of love to her ; she saw nothing beyond it ; and her prett}' gesture and the petulant tone of her voice ex- pressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were both much moved b}' it. The resignation was written and despatched, and Ursula's fête received full glory from the presence of her betrothed. A few months later, towards the month of Maj-, the home- life of the doctor's household had resumed the quiet tenor of its way but with one welcome visitor the more. The attentions of the 30ung viscount were soon inter- preted in the town as those of a future husband, — all the more because his manners and those of Ursula, whether in church, or on the promenade, though dig- nified and reserved, betra3-ed the understanding of their hearts. Dionis pointed out to the heirs that the doctor had never asked Madame de Portenduère for 15 226 Ursula. the interest of his money, three years of which was now due. " She '11 be forced to yield, and consent to this deroga- tory marriage of her son," said the notary. " If such a misfortune happens it is probable that the greater part of your uncle's fortune will serve for what Basile calls * an irresistible argument.' " Ursula. 227 XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED. The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved Ursula too well not to secure her happi- ness at their expense, became as underhand as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis's salon (as they had done every evening since the revolution of 1830) the}- in- veighed against the lovers, and seldom separated with- out discussing some way of circumventing the old man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the fall in the Funds, as the doctor had done, to invest some, at least, of her enormous gains, was bitterest of them all against tlie orphan girl and the Portenduères. One evening, when Goupil, who usually avoided the dulness of these meetings, had come in to learn something of the affairs of the town which were under discussion, ZéUe's hatred was freshly excited ; she had seen the doctor, Ursula, and Savinien returning in the calèche from a coiintr}- drive, with an air of intimacy that told all. " I'd give thirt}' thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself before the marriage of young Por- tenduère with that affected minx can take place," she said. 228 Ursula. Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to ttie middle of their great court3'ard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite alone : ' ' Will you give me the means of buying Dionis's practice? If you will, I will break off the marriage between Portenduère and Ursula." " How?" asked the colossus. " Do 3"0u think I am such a fool as to tell 3'ou my plan?" said the notar^-'s head clerk. "Well, my lad, separate them, and we'll see what we can do," said Zélie. "I don't embark in any such business on a 'we'll see.' The young man is a fire-eater M'ho might kill me ; I ought to be rough shod and as good a hand with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business, and I '11 keep ni}' word." "Prevent the marriage and I will set 3'OU up," said the post master. " It is nine months since 3'oa have been thinking of lending me a paltr3' fifteen thousand francs to buv Lecœur's pi'actice, and you ex[)ect me to trust you now ! Nonsense ; you '11 lose 3-our uncle's propert3', and serve you right." "If it were onl3' a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecœur's practice, that might be managed," said Zélie ; " but to give securit3' for you in a hundred and fift3' thousand is another thing." Ursula. 229 " But I '11 do m}' part," said Goupil flinging a seduc- tive look at Zëlie, whicli encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress. The effect was that of venom on steel. " We can wait," said Zélie. " The devil's own spirit is in you," thought Goupil. *' If I ever catch that pair in ra^' power," he said to himself as he left the yard, "I'll squeeze them like lemons." By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbé, and Monsieur Bongrand, Savinien proved the excel- lence of his character. The love of this 3'oung man for Ursula, so devoid of all self-interest, and so persistent, interested the tliree friends deeph-, and thej' now never separated the lovers m their thoughts. Soon the mon- otony of this patriarchal life, and the certainty' of a future before them, gave to their affection a fraternal character. The doctor often left the pair alone together. He judged the ^oung man riglitly ; he saw him kiss her hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no kiss when alone with her, so deeply did the lover respect the innocence, the fi-ankness of the young girl, whose excessive sensibilité', often tried, taught him tliat a harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of gentle- ness and roughness might kill her. The onl}' freedoms between the two took place before the eyes of the old man in the evenings. 230 Ursula. Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus, — without other events than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from his mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for hours together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties, other than by Breton silence or a positive denial. At nineteen 3'ears of age Ursula, elegant in appear- ance, a fine musician, and well brought up, had nothing more to learn ; she was perfected. The fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far. The doc- tor was called upon to decline the overtures of Madame d'Aigiemont, wh'o was thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months later, in spite of the secrec}' the doc- tor and Ursula maintained on this subject, Savinien heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he made use of the incident in another attempt to vanquish his mother's obstinac}' ; but she merelj' replied : — " If the d'Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason why we should do so?" In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then eighty-eight 3'ears old, declined visiljlj*. When seen out of doors, his face pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his approaching death. "You'll soon know results," said the com- munit}' to the heirs. In truth the old man's death had all the attraction of a problem. But the doctor himself Ursula. 231 did not know he was ill ; he had his illusions, and neither poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongraud nor the abbé were willing to enlighten him as to his condi- tion. The Nemours doctor who came to see him ever}- evening did not venture to prescribe. Old Minoret felt no pain ; his lamp of life was gently going out. His mind continued Arm and clear and powerful. In old men thus constituted the soul governs the body, and gives it strength to die erect. The abbé, anxious not to hasten the fatal end, released his parishioner from the dut}' of hearing mass in church, and allowed him to read the services at home, for the doctor faithfully' attended to all his religious duties. The nearer he came to the grave the more he loved God ; the lights eternal shone upon all difficulties and explained them more and more clearly to his mind. Early in the 3'ear Ursula persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses and dismiss Cabirolle. Monsieur Bongraud, whose un- easiness about Ursula's future was far from quieted by the doctor's half-confidence, boldlj' opened the subject one evening and showed his old friend the importance of making Ursula legall}' of age. Still the old man, though he had often consulted the justice of peace, would not reveal to him the secret of his provision for Ursula, though he agreed to the necessity of securing her independence by majority. The more Monsieur Bongraud persisted in his efforts to discover the means 232 Ursula. selected by his old friend to provide for his darling the more war}- the doctor became. " Wh}' not secure the thing," said Bougrand, " why run an}- risks ? " " When y on are between two risks," replied the doctor, " avoid the most risk}-." Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so promptly that the papers were ready by the da}- she was twenty. That anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited all the young people in the families of Diouis, Crémière, Minoret, and Massin. Savinien, Bongrantl, the abbé and his two assistant priests, the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zélie Minoret, Massin, and Cié- mière, together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which preceded the ball. " I feel I am going," said the old man to the notav}- towards the close of the evening. " I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up m}' guardianship account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my own property after my death. Thank God ! I have not withdrawn one penny from ni}' heirs, — I have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Crémière, Massin, and Minoret my nephew are members of the famil}' council ap- pointed for Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering of my account." Urmla. 233 These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families, who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were disinherited. When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbé, the old doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress: "To you, my friends, I confide her ! A few days more, and'I shall be here no longer to protect her. Put your- selves between her and the world until she is married, — I fear for her." The words made a painful impression. The guard- ian's account, rendered a day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital of gifts made hy the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen years, on birthdays and other anniversaries. This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of the peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of Doctor Minoret's death. The following da}' the old man was seized with a weakness which compelled him to keep his bed. In 234 Ursula. spite of the reserve which always surrounded the doc- tor's house and kept it from observation, the news of his approaching death spread through the town, and the heirs began to run hither and thither through the streets, like the pearls of a chaplet when the string is broken. Massin called at the house to learn the truth, and was told by Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed. The Nemours doctor had remarked that whenever old Mino- ret took to his bed he would die ; and therefore in spite of the cold, the heirs took their stand in the street, on the square, at their own doorsteps, talking of the event so long looked for, and watchnig for the moment when the priests should appear, bearing the sacrament, with all the paraphernalia customar}^ in the i)rovinces, to the dying man. Accordingly, two days later, when the Abbé Chaperon, with an assistant and the choir-boj's, preceded by the sacristan bearing the cross, passed along the Grand'Rue, all the heirs joined the proces- sion, to get an entrance to the house and see that noth- ing was abstracted, and laj' their eager hands upon its coveted treasures at the earliest moment. When the doctor saw, behind the clerg}', the row of kneeling heirs, who instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter than the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbé turned round, saw them, and continued to say the prayers slowl}'. The post master was the first to abandon the kneeling Ursula. 235 posture ; his wife followed him. Massin, fearing that Zélie and her husband might lay hands on some orna- ment, joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently assembled one by one. " He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction," said Crémière ; " we may be sure of his death now." " Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year," replied Madame Massin. " I have an idea," said Zélie, " that for the last three years he has n't invested anything — he grew fond of hoarding." "Perhaps the money is in the cellar," whispered Massin to Crémière. " I hope we shall be able to find it," said Minoret- Levrault. " But after what he said at the ball we can't have any doubt," cried Madame Massin. " In any case," began Crémière, " how shall we manage ? Shall we divide ; shall we go to law ; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know — " A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method of procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices, Zélie's screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in the court- yard and even in the street. The noise reached the doctor's ears ; he heard the words, "The house — the house is worth thirty thou- 286 Ursula. sand francs. I '11 take it at that," said, or rather bellowed b}' Crémière. "Well, we'll take what it's worth," said Zélie, sharply. ''Monsieur l'abbé," said the old man to the priest, who remained beside his friend after administering the communion, "■ help me to die in peace. My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging the house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive me. Go and tell them I will have none of them in my house." The priest and the doctor of the town went down- stairs and repeated the message of the dying man, add- ing, in their indignation, strong words of their own. " Madame Bougival," said the doctor, " close the iron gate and allow no one to enter ; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur's feet." " Your uncle is not dead," said the abbé, " and he ma}' live some time longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and yours ! " "Old hypocrite!" exclaimed Crémière. "I shall keep watch of him. It is possible he 's plotting some- thing against our interests." The post master had already disappeared into the Ursula. 237 garden, intending to watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an assistant. He now returned to it very softly-, his boots making no noise, for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able to reach the door of his uncle's room without being heard. The abbé and the doctor hud left the house ; La Bougival was making the poultice. "Are we quite alone?" said the old man to his godchild. Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the court- yard. "Yes," she said; "the abbé has just closed the gate after him." " M}' darling child," said the dying man, " my hours, my minutes even, are counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing ; I shall not last till evening. Do not cry, m}' Ursula," he said, fearing to be interrupted by his godchild's weeping, " but listen to me carefully ; it concerns your marriage to Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back go down to the pagoda, — here is the key, — lift the marble top of the Boule buffet and 3'ou will find a letter beneath it, sealed and addressed to you ; take it and come back here, for I cannot die easy unless 1 see it in your hands. When I am dead do not let any one know of it immediatel}-, but send for IMonsieur de Portenduère ; read the letter together ; swear to me now, in his name and your own, that you 238 Ursula. will carry out my last wishes. When Savinien has obeyed me, then announce m}' death, hut not till then. The comedy of the heirs will begin. God grant those monsters may not ill-treat you." " Yes, godfather." The post master did not listen to the end of this scene ; he slijjped away on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the libraiy side of the door. He had been present in former days at an argu- ment between the architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring that if the pagoda were entered by the win- dow on the river it would be much safer to put the lock of the door opening into the library on the librar}' side. Dazzled by his hopes, and his ears flushed with blood, Minoret sprang the lock with the point of his knife as rapidl}' as a burglar could have done it. He entered the study, followed the doctor's directions, took the package of papers without opening it, relocked the door, put everything in order, and went into the dining-room and sat down, waiting till La Bougival had gone upstairs with the poultice before he ventured to leave the house. He then made his escape, — all the more easilj' because poor Ursula lingered to see that La Bougival applied the poultice properl}'.' "The letter! the letter!" cried the old man, in a dying voice. "Obey me; take the ke3\ I must see 3-ou with that letter in your hand." Ursula. 239 The -words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to Ursula : — " Do what he asks at once or you will kill him." She kissed his forehead, took the ke}- and went down. A moment after, recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked at her eagerl}'. Seeing her hands empt}', he rose in his bed, tried to speak, and died with a horrible gasp, liis eyes haggard with fear. The poor girl, who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and burst into tears. La Bou- gival closed the old man's eyes and straightened him on the bed ; then she ran to call Savinien ; but the heirs, who stood at the corner of the street, like crows watch- ing till a horse is buried before the}' scratch at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked in with the celerity of birds of prey. 240 Ursula, XV. THE DOCTOR'S WILL. While these events were taking place the post mas- ter had hurried home to open the mysterious package and know its contents. To MY DEAR Ursula Mirooet, daughter op my natural HALF-BROTHER, JoSEPH MiROUET, AND DiNAH GrOLLMAN : My dear Angel, — The fatherly affection I bear you — and which you have so fully justified — came not only from the promise I gave your father to take his place, but also from your resemblance to my wife, Ursula jNIirouët, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and charm you constantly re- call to my mind. Your position as the daughter of a natural son of my father-in-law might invalidate all testamentary bequests made by me in your favor — " The old rascal ! " cried the post master. Had I adopted you the result might also have been a law- suit, and I shrank from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by marriage, for 1 might live years and thus interfere with your happiness, which is now delayed only by Madame de Portenduère. Having weighed these difficulties carefully, and wishing to leave you enough money to secure to you a prosperous existence — " The scoundrel, he has thought of everything I " — without injuring my heirs — Ursula. 241 " The Jesuit ! as if he did not owe us ever}' penny of his mone}' ! " — I intend you to have the savings f rona my income which I have for the last eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my notary, seeking to make you thereby as happy as any one can be made by riches. Without means, your edu- cation and your lofty ideas would cause you unhappiness. Besides, you ought to bring a liberal dowry to the fine young man who loves you. You will therefore find in the middle of the third volume of Pandects, folio, bound in red morocco (the last volume on the first shelf above the little table in the library, on the side of the room next the salon), three certifi- cates of Funds in the three-per-cents, made out to bearer, each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year — " What depths of wickedness! " screamed the post master. " Ah ! God would not permit me to be so defrauded." Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this date, which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my darling child, that you must obey a wish that has made the happiness of my whole life; a wish that will force me to ask the intervention of God should you disobey me. But, to guard against all scruples in your dear conscience — for I well know how ready it is to torture you — you will find herewith a will in due form bequeathing these certifi- cates to Monsieur Savinien de Portenduère. So, whetlier you possess them in your own name, or whether they come to you from him you love, they will be, in every sense, your legitimate property. Your godfather, Denis Minoret. 16 242 Ursula. To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of stamped paper. This is my will : I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in Nemours, being of sound mind and body, as the date of this document will show, do bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to pardon my errors in view of my sincere repentance. Next, having found in Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduère a true and honest affec- tion for me, I bequeath to him the sum of thirty-six thou- sand francs a year from the Funds, at three per cent, the said bequest to take precedence of all inheritance accruing to my heirs. Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831. Denis Minoret. Without an instant's hesitation the post master, who had locked himself into his wife's bedroom to insure being alone, looked about for the tinder-box, and re- ceived two warnings from heaven b}^ the extinction of two matches w^hich obstinately refused to light. The third took fire. He burned the letter and the will on the hearth and buried the vestiges of paper and sealing-wax in the ashes by wa}' of superfluous caution. Then, allured by the thought of possessing thirty-six thousand francs a year of which his wife knew nothing, he returned at full speed to his uncle's house, spurred by the only idea, a clear-cut, simple idea, which was able to pierce and penetrate his dull brain. Finding Ursula. 243 the house invaded by the three famiUes, now masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to ac- complish a project to which he gave no reflection what- ever, except so far as to fear the obstacles. " What are 3'ou doing here? " he said to Massin and Crémière. " We can't leave the house and the prop- ert}' to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but we can't camp here. You, Crémière, go to Dioms at once and tell him to come and certify to the death ; I can't draw up the mortuary certificate for an uncle, though I am assistant-ma^'or. You, Massin, go and ask old Bon- gi-and to attach the seals. As for you, ladies," he added, turning to his wife and Mesdames Crémière and Massin, " go and look after Ursula ; then nothing can be stolen. Above all, close the iron gate and don't let any one leave the house." The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula's bedroom, where thej- found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her knees before God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting that the women would not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the library, found the volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and found in the other volume about thirty bank notes. In si)ite of his brutal nature the colossus felt as though a peal of bells were ringing in each ear. Tiie blood whistled in his temples as he committed the theft ; cold as the weather was, his shirt 244 Ursula. was wet on his back ; his legs gave wa}' under him and he fell into a chair in the salon as if an axe had fallen on his head. " How the inheritance of money loosens a man's tongue! Did 3-ou hear Minoret?" said Massin to Crémière as they hurried through the town. " ' Go here, go there,' just as if he knew everything." " Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of — " " Stop ! " said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. " His wife is there ; the}' 've got some plan ! Do you do both errands ; I '11 go back." Just as the post master fell into tlie chair he saw at the gate the heated face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of death with the céleri tj- of a- weasel. " Well, what is it now?" asked the post master, un- locking the gate for his co-heir. "Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing," answered Massin, giving him a savage look. " I wish those seals were alread}' on, so that we could go home," said Minoret. "We shall have to put a watcher over them," said Massin. " La Bougival is capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We '11 put Goupil there." " Goupil ! " said the post master ; " put a rat in the meal ! " Ursula. 245 " Well, let 's consider," returned Massin. "To-night they '11 watch the body ; the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after them. To-morrow we '11 have the funeral at twelve o'clock. But the In- ventory can't be made under a week." "Let's get rid of that girl at once," said the colossus; " then we can safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and the seals." " Good," cried Massin. " You must manage it; you. are the head of the Minoret family." " Ladies," said Minoret, " be good enough to sta}' in the salon ; we can't think of dinner to-day ; the seals must be put on at once for the security of all interests." He took his wife apart and told her Massin's propo- sal about Ursula. The women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as they called her, hailed tlie idea of turning her out. Bongi'and arrived with his assistants to apply the seals, and was indig- nant when the request was made to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend of the deceased, to tell Ursula to leave the house. " Go and turn her out of her father's house, her bene- factor's house yourselves," he cried. "Go! you who owe 3'our inlieritance to the generosity of her soul ; take her by the shoulders and fling her into the street before the eyes of the whole town 1 You think her capable of robbing you? Well, appoint a watcher of 246 Ursula. the seals ; )'ou have a right to do that. But I tell j'ou at once I shall put no seals on Ursula's room ; she has a right to that room, and everything in it is her own property. I shall tell her what her rights are, and tell her too to put everything that belongs to her in this house in that room — Oh ! in your presence," he said, bearing a growl of dissatisfaction among the heirs " What do 3'ou think of that? " said the collector to the post master and the women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand. " Call him a magistrate ! " cried the post master. Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every now and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids swollen ; she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical prostra- tion which might have softened the hardest hearts — except those of the heirs. " Ah ! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and mourning," she said, wilh the poetry natural to her. " You know, you., what he was. In twent}' years he never said an impatient word to me. I believed he would live a hundred years. He has been my mother," she cried, " my good, kind mother." These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes, interrupted by sobs ; then she fell back exhausted. Ursula. 247 " M3' child," said tlie justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the staircase. " You have a lifetime before 3*ou in which to weep, but 3'ou have now onh' a moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything that belongs to 3'ou in this house and put it into j'our own room at once. The heirs insist on my affixing the seals." " Ah ! his heirs may take everything if the}' choose," cried Ursula, sitting upright under an impulse of savage indignation. " I have something here," she added, striking her breast, " which is far more precious — " " What is it? " said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now showed his brutal face. "The remembrance of his virtues, of his hfe, of his words — an image of his celestial soul," she said, hei eyes and face glowing as she raised her hand with a glorious gesture. " And a kej' ! " cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a key which fell from the bosom of lier dress in her sudden movement. "Yes," she said, blushing, "that is the key of his study ; he sent me there at the moment he was dying." The two men glanced at each otlier with horrid smiles, and then at Monsieur Bongrand, with a mean- ing look of degrading suspicion. Ursula who inter- cepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her bod}-. Her eyes sent forth the lightnings tliat per- 248 Ursula. haps can issue onl}' at some cost of life, as slie said in a cholcing voice : — " Monsieur Bongrand, every tiling in this room is mine through the kindness of my godfather ; they may take it all ; I have nothing on me but the clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to it." She went to her godfather's room, and no entreaties could make her leave it, — the heirs, who now began to "be slightly ashamed of their conduct, endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand to engage two room.s for her at the "Vieille Poste" inn until she could find some lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She returned to her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night, with the abbé, his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and pray- ing beside her uncle's body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt, without a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him sadly, and thanked him for coming faithfully to share her troubles. " My child," said Monsieur Bongiand, bringing her a large package, "one of your uncle's heirs has taken these necessary articles from your drawers, for the seals cannot be opened for several days ; after that you will recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for 3'our own sake, placed the seals on your room." "Thank you," she replied, pressing his hand. " Look at him again, — he seems to sleep, does he not? " Ursula. 249 The old man's face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests upon the features of the dead who die a painless death ; light appeared to radiate from it. " Did he give you anything secretly before he died?" whispered M. Bongrand. " Nothing," she said ; "he spoke only of a letter." "Good! it will certainly be found," said Bongrand. " How fortunate for you that the heirs demanded the sealing." At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house whei-e her happ3^ 30uth was passed ; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love began. So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief tears of regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven. With one last glance at Savinien's windows she left the room and the house, and went to the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the package, b^' Monsieur Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien, her true protector. Thus it happened that in spite of all his etforts and cautions the worst fears of the justice of peace were realized ; he was now to see Ursula without means and at the mercy of her benefactor's heirs. The next afternoon the whole town attended the doc- tor's funeral. When the conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly kno\Yn, a vast majority of the people thought it natural and necessaiy. An 250 Ursula. inheritance was involved ; the goodraan was known to have hoarded ; Ursula might think she had rights ; the heirs were only defending their property ; she had humbled them enough during their uncle's lifetime, for he had treated them like dogs and sent them about their business. Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those who envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable to be present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly by the insults of the heirs and parti}' hy her heavy affliction. " Look at that h^'pocrite weeping," said some of the heirs, pointing to Savinien, who was deepl}' affected by the doctor's death. " The question is," said Goupil, " has he any good grounds for weeping. Don't laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed." "Pooh!" said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, " 30U are always frightening us about nothing." As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery, a bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take Desire's arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his former comrade in presence of all Nemours. ''I won't be angry, or I couldn't get revenge," Ursula. 251 thought the notary's clerk, whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge. Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time for the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to commission Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done the settlement of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked of in the town for ten da3's) began with all the legal formalities. Dionis had his pickings ; Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making ; and as the business was profitable the sessions were man3^ After the first of these sessions all parties breakfasted together ; no- tary, clerk, heirs, and witnesses drank the best wines in the doctor's cellar. In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging. When a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost always in- cluded in the purchase Monsieur Bongrand saw no other wa}' of removin'g Ursula from the village inn than to bu}' a small house on the Grand'Rue at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little building had a front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the ground floor with two windows on the street ; behind this came the kitchen, with a glass door opening to an inner courtyard about thirt}' feet square. A small staircase, lighted on the side towards the river by small windows, 252 Ursula. led to the first floor where there were three chambers, and above these were two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand borrowed two thousand francs from La Bougival's sav- ings to pay the first instalment of the price, — six thou- sand francs, — and obtained good terms for pa^'ment of the rest. As Ursula wished to buy her uncle's books, Bongrand knocked down the partition between two rooms on the bedroom floor, finding that their united length was the same as that of the doctor's librarj', and gave room for his bookshelves. Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning, painting, and otherwise renewing the tin}' place, so that before the end of March Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in the ugly house ; where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the one she had left ; for it was filled with all her furniture, claimed b}' the justice of peace when the seals were removed. La Bougival, sleeping in the attic, could be summoned by a bell placed near the head of the 3'oung girl's bed. The room intended for the books, the salon on the ground-floor and the kitchen, though still unfurnished, had been hung with fresh papers and re- painted, and only awaited the purchases which the young girl hoped to make when her godfather's effects were sold. Though the strength of Ursula's character was well known to the abbé and Monsieur Bongrand, they both Ursula. 253 feared the sudden change from the comforts and ele- gancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this barren and denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in fact, make priA'ate paj-ments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so that Ursula should perceive no difference between the new chamber and the old one. But the 3'oung girl herself, whose happi- ness now la}' in Savinien's own eyes, showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared her more and more to her two old friends, and proved to them for the hundredth time that no troubles but those of the heart could make her suffer. The grief she felt for the loss of her god- father was far too deep to let her even feel the bitter- ness of her change of fortune, though it added fresh obstacles to her marriage. Savinien's distress in seeing her thus reduced did her so much harm that she whis- pered to him, as they came from mass on the morning of the da}' when she first went to live in her new house : "Love could not exist without patience; let us wait." As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to the post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduère to pay off the mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest accruing thereon. The old ladv was bewildered at a summons to pay one hundred and 254 Ursula. twent3^-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs within twenty-four hours under paui of an execution in her house. It was impossible for her to borrow the nione}'. Savinien went to Fontainebleau to consult a lawyer. " You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise," was the lawj-er's opinion. "They intend to sue in the matter and get 3'our farm at Bor- dières. The best way for you would be to make a vol- untary sale of it and so escape costs." This dreadful news broke down the old lad}'. Her son very gentl}' pointed out to her that had she con- sented to his marriage in Minoret's life-time, the doctor would have left his propert}' to Ursula's husband and they would to-da}' have been opulent instead of being, as they now were, in the depths of povert}'. Though said without reproach, this argument annihilated the poor woman even more than the thought of her coming ejectment. When Ursula heard of this catastrophe she was stupefied with grief, having scarcel}' I'ecovered from her fever, and the blow which the heirs had alread}' dealt her. To love and be unable to succor the man she loves, — that is one of the most dreadful of all sufferings to the soul of a noble and sensitive woman. " I wished to bu}' my uncle's house," she said, " now I will buy your mother's." " Can yon? " said Savinien. " You are a minor, and Ursula. t 255 you cannot sell out your Funds without formalities to which the procureur da roi, now your legal guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town will be glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like hounds after a quarr}-. Fortunately, I still have ten thousand francs left, on which I can support m}' mother till this deplorable matter is settled. Besides, the inventor}- of your godfather's property- is not yet finished ; Monsieur Bon- grand still thinks he shall find something for yon. He is as much astonished as I am that you seem to be left without fortune. The doctor so often spoke both to him and to me of tlie future he had prepared for you that neither of us can understand this conclusion." " Pooh ! " she said ; " so long as I can buy my god- father's books and furniture and prevent their being dispersed, I am content." " But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything 3-ou want ? " Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontaine- bleau but the million for which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search made in every^ corner of the house after the seals were removed, brought no discover}'. The one hundred and twenty- nine thousand francs of the Portenduere debt, the capi- tal of the fifteen thousand a year in the three per cents (then quoted at 7G),the house, valued at forty thousand 256 Ursula. francs, and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about six hundred thousand francs, which to most per- sons seemed a comforting sum. But what had become of the money the doctor must have saved? Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bou- gival and Savinien, who persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence of a will, came every day at the close of each session to find out from Bongrand the results of the day's search. The latter would sometimes exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairl}' out of hearing, " I can't understand the thing ! " Bongrand, Savinien, and the abbé often declared to each other that the doctor, who received no interest from the Portenduère loan, could not have kept his house as he did on fifteen thousand francs a j'ear. This opinion, openl}' expressed, made the post master turn livid more than once. " Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere," said Bongrand, — " they to find money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduère. The}' have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers, bored into the wood- work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped up the quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch of paper piece b}- piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor — and I have urged on their devastations." " What do you think about it? " said the abbé. Ursula. 257 " The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs." " But Where's the propert}'?" " We may whistle for it ! " " Perhaps the will is hidden in the library," said Savinien. " Yes, and for that reason I don't dissuade Ursula from buying it. If it were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of her ready money into books she will never open." At first the whole town believed the doctor's niece had got possession of the unfound capital ; but when it was known positively that fourteen hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the search of the doctor's house and furniture excited a more wide-spread curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank bills hidden awa}' in the furniture, others that the old man had slipped them into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a spectacle of the most extraordinary precautions on the part of the heirs. Dionis, who was doing duty as auctioneer, declared, as each lot was cried out, that the heirs sold only the article (whatever it was) and not what it might contain ; then, before allowing it to be taken awa}' it was subjected to a final investigation, being thumped and sounded ; and when at last it left the house the sellers followed with the looks a father might cast upon a son who was starting for India. 17 258 Ursula. "Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival, returning from the first session in despair, " I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right, you could never bear the sight. Everj-thing is ticketed. All the town is coming and going just as in the street ; the handsome furni- ture is being ruined, they even stand upon it ; tlie whole place is such a muddle that a hen could n't find her chicks. You 'd think there had been a fire. Lots of things are in the court3ard ; the closets are all open, and nothing in them. Oh ! the poor dear man, it 's well he died, the sight w^ould have killed him." Bongrand, who bought in for Ursula certain articles which her uncle cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not appear at the sale of the librar}'. Shrewder than the heirs, whose cupidity might have run up the price of the books had the}- known he was buying them for Ursula, he commis- sioned a dealer in old books living in Melun to bu}' them for him. As a result of the heirs' anxietj' the whole library was sold book by book. Three thousand volumes were examined, one b\' one, held by the two sides of the binding and shaken so that loose papers would infallibly fall out. The whole amount of the purchases on Ursula's account amounted to six thousand five hundred francs or thereabouts. The book-cases were not allowed to leave the premises until carefull3' examined by a cabinet-maker, brought down from Paris Ursula. 259 to search for secret drawers. When at last Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the books and the book- cases to Mademoiselle Mirouet's house the heirs were tortured with vague fears, not dissipated until in course of time they saw how poorl}^ she lived. Minoret bought his uncle's house, the value of which his co-heirs ran up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master expected to find a treasure in the walls ; in fact the house was sold with a reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed of his post establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son of a rich farmer, and went to live in his uncle's house, where he speut considerable sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. B}' making this move he thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within sight of Ursula. " I hope," he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduère was summoned to pay her debt, " that we shall soon be rid of those nobles ; after the}' are gone we '11 drive out the rest.'' " That old woman with fourteen quarterings," said Goupil, "-won't want to witness her own disaster; she'll go and die in Brittany, where she can manage to find a wife for her son." " No," said the notary", who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale at Bongrand's request. '' Ursula has just bought the house she is living in." 260 Ursula. " That cursed fool docs everything she can to annoy me ! " cried the post master imprudently. *' What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?" asked Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrajed. " Don't 3'ou know," answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppj", " that my son is fool enough to be in love with her ? I 'd give five hundred francs if I could get Ursula out of this town." Ursula. 261 XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES. Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of an estate, the sale of the propertj-, the going and coming necessitated b}' such unusual business, his dis- cussions with his wife about the most trifling details, the purchase of the doctoi''s house, where Zélie wished to live in bourgeois st3'le to advance her son's interests^ — all this hurl3--burl\', contrasting with his usually' tran- quil life hindered the huge Minoret from thinking of his victim. But about the middle of May, a few days after his installation in the doctor's house, as he was coming home from a walk, he heard the sound of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting at a window, like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly became aware of an impor- tunate voice within him. To explain why to a man of Minoret's nature the sight of Ursula, who had no suspicion of the theft com- mitted upon her, now became intolerable ; why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune im- 262 Ursula. pelled him to a desire to drive the girl out of the town ; and how and why it was that this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole treatise on moral philosoph3^ Perhaps he felt he was not the real possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom they really belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied some mere chance might betray his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of. Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and whose owner up to that time had never done anything illegal, the presence of Ursula awakened remorse. Possiblj' this remorse goaded him the more because he had received his share of the property legiti- matel}' acquired. In his own mind he no doubt attrib- uted these stirrings of his conscience to the fact of Ursula's presence, imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable feelings would disappear with her. But still, after all, perhaps crime has its own doctrine of perfection. A beginning of evil demands its end ; a first stab must be followed by the blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is doomed to lead to murder. Minoret had committed the crime without the slightest reflec- tion, so rapidly had the events taken place ; reflection came later. Now, if 3'on have thorouglil}- possessed 3'ourself of this man's nature and bodil}' presence 3'ou will understand the mighty effect produced upon him b^' a thought. Remorse is more than a thought ; it comes Ursula. 263 from a feeling which can no more be hidden than love ; like love, it has its own tyrann}'. But, just as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest reflection, so he now bhndl}' longed to drive her from Nemours when he felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence. Being, in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences ; he went from danger to danger, driven b}' a selfish instinct, like a wild animal which does not foresee the hunts- man's skill, and relics on its own rapidity or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in Dionis' salon, noticed a great change in the manners and be- havior of the man who had hitherto been so free of care. " I don't know what has come to Minoret, he is all no hoio" said his wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed. Everybody' explained his condition as being, neither moi'e nor less, ennui (in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui), caused, they said, by tlie sudden cessation of business and the change fz'om an active life to one of well-to-do leisure. While Minoret was thinking onl}' of destroying Ur- sula's life in Nemours, La Bougival never let a da}' go b}' without torturing her foster child with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without com- paring her miserable lot with the prospects tlie doctor 264 Urmia. had promised, and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bongival. " It is not for m3'self I speak," she said, " but is it hkel}^ that monsieur, good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me the merest trifle? — " "Am I not here?" rephed Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another word on the subject. She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that surrounded that noble head — a sketch of which in black and white hung in her little salon — with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her see her godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more because surrounded with the thuigs he loved and used, — his large duchess-sofa, the furni- ture from his study, his backgammon-table, and the piano he had chosen for her. The two old friends who still remained to her, the Abbé Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only visitors whom she received, were, in the midst of these inanimate objects representative of the past, like two living memories of her former life to which she attached her present b}' the love her god- father had blessed. After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an indefinable harmony, expressed bj' the exquisite neatness, the exact symmetry of her Ursula. 265 room, tlie few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty nothings of a young girl's life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and practised ; then she took her embroidery and sat at the window looking on the street. At four o'clock Savinien, re- turning from a walk (which he took in all weathers), finding the window open, would sit upon the outer casing and talk with her for half an hour. In the even- ing the abbé and Monsieur Bongrand came to see her, but she never allowed Savinien to accompany them. Neither did she accept Madame de Portenduère's proposition, which Savinien had induced his mother to make, that she should visit there. Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy ; the}^ did not spend, counting ever}'- thing, more than sixty francs a month. The old nurse was indefatigable ; she washed and ironed ; cooked only twice a week, — mistress and maid eating their food cold on other days ; for Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still due on the purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with her modest}' and her resignation to a life of povert}' after the enjo3-ment of luxury and the fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply impressed certain persons. Ursula won the respect of others, and no voice was raised 2G6 Ursula. against her. Even tlio heirs, once satisfied, «Tul her justice. Savinien admired the strenj^lh of clianielrr of so young a girl. Fiuni lime to time Machimc do l'or- tendut're, when thev iiu-t in eluneh, would address a I'vw kind words to hrr, and twice she insisted on her coming to dinner and fetched her herself. If all this was not happiness it was at least tranquillity. Hut a benefit which came to Ursula through tlie U-gal care and ability of liongrand started the smouldering pcnsecu- ti(^n wliich up to lli'is time had lain in Minoret's breast as a dumb desire. As soon as the legal settlement of tlie doctor's estate was fMushcd, the justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the I'ortcnduires in hand and [irom- ised her to get them out of their troulile. In dealing with the old lady, whose oi)position to Ursula's happi- ness made him furious, he did not allow her to be ignorant of the fact that his devotion to her service was solely to give pleasure to Mademoiselle MirouOt. He chose one of his former clerks to act for the I'orten- dubres at Fontainebleau, and himself put in a mo- tion for a stay of proceedings. He intended to profit by the interval which must elapse between the stoppage of the present suit and some new step on the part of Massin to renew the lease at six thousand francs, get a premium from the present tenants and the payment in full of the rent of the current vear. Ursula. 267 At this time, when these matters had to be dis- cussed, the former whist-purtics were again organized in Madame de Portenduère's salon, between himself, the abbé, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbé and he escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded in quashing the proceedings ; whereupon the new lease was signed ; he obtained a premium of thirt3'-two thousand francs from the farmer and a rent of six thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day on whieh this was finally settled he went to see Zélie, whom he knew to be puzzled as to how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her the farm at Bordières for two hundred and twenty thousand francs. " I 'd buy it at once," said Minoret, " if 1 were sure the Portendueres would go and live somewhere else." " Wh}-? " said the justice of peace. " We want to get rid of nobles in Nemours." " I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her atfuirs she should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough left to live here. She is thinking of selling her house." " Well, sell it to me," said Minoret. " To you? " said Zélie. " You talk as if you were master of everytliing. What do you want with two houses in Nemours?'' " If I don't settle this matter of the farm with vou 268 Ursula. to-night," said Bongrand, " our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim, and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make. So if you don't take ray offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some farmers I know are ready to bu}" the farm with their eyes shut." " Why did you come to us, then? " asked Zélie. "Because you can pa}' me in cash, and m\' other clients would make me wait some time for the moncj'. I don't want difficulties." " Get her out of Nemours and I '11 pay it," exclaimed Minoret. "You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduère's actions," said Bongrand. " I can only repeat what I heard her say, but I feel certain they will not remain in Nemours." On this assurance, enforced b}' a nudge from Zélie, Minoret agreed to the purchase, and furnished the funds to pa}' off the mortgage due to the doctor's estate. The deed of sale was immediatel}' drawn up b}' Dionis. Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the purchase money to Madame de Portenduère, advising her to invest it in the Funds, where, joined to Savinien's ten thousand, it would give her, at five per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far from losing her resources, the old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she did not leave Nemours. Ursula. 269 Minoret thought he had been tricked, — as though Bon- grand had had an idea that Ursula's presence was intol- erable to him ; and he felt a keen resentment which em- bittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a secret drama which was terrible in its effects, — the struggle of two determinations ; one which impelled Minoret to drive his victim from Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to bear persecution, the cause of which was for a certain length of time undiscoverable. The situation was a strange and even unnatural one, and yet it was led up to by all the preceding events, which served as a preface to what was now to occur. Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver service costing twent}- thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner every Sunday, the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came from Fon- tainebleau, bringing with him certain of his friends. On these occasions Zélie sent to Paris for delicacies — obliging Dionis the notary to emulate her displa}'. Goupil, whom the Miuorets endeavored to ignore as a questionable person who might tarnish their splendor, was not invited until the end of Jul}'. The clerk, who was fully aware of this intended neglect, was forced to be respectful to Désiré, who, since his entrance into office, had assumed a haught}' and dignified air, even in his own family. "■ You must have forgotten Esther," Goupil said to 270 Ursula. him, "as yon are so imioh in love with Mademoiselle Mironet." " Jn the fust place, Esther is dead, monsieni ; and in the next I have never even thought of Ursula," said the new magistrate. " Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?" cried Goupil, insolently. Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whf)in he feared, would have lost countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, wliich was, in fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner, — INIinoret having remem- bered the proposition the clerk had once made to pre- vent the marriage between S:ivinien and Ursula For all answer, he led Goupil hurriedly to the end of the garden. "You'll soon be twenty-eight yeara old, my good fellow," he said, " and I don't see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for after all you were once my son's companion. Listen to me. If you can persuade that little Mirouët, who possesses in her own right forty thousand francs, to marry you, I will give 3'ou, as true as my name is Mirouët, the means to buy a notary's practice at Orléans." " No," said Goupil, " that's too far out of the way ; but Montargis — " " No," said Minoret ; "Sens." "Very good, — Sens," replied the hideous clerk. Ursula. 271 " There 's an archbishop at Sens, and I don't object to devotion ; a little hypocris}' and there 3'ou are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she '11 succeed at Sens." "It is to be fully understood," continued Minoret, " that I shall not pay the luoiioy till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide, out of consideration for my deceased uncle." " Why not for me too?" said Goupil maliciously, in- stantly suspecting a secret motive in Minoret's conduct. " Is n't it through information you got from me that you make twenty- four thousand a year from tliat land, without a single enclosure, round the Château du Kouvre? The fields and the mill the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more. Come, old fellow, do you mean to play fair with me? " " Yes." " If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber — " " You 'd better think twice before you do that," said Zélie, suddenl}' intervening. " If I choose," said Goupil, giving her a vipensh look ; '' Massin would buy the whole for two hundred thousand francs." " Leave us, wife," said the colossus, taking Zélie by the arm, and shoving her away; " I understand him. 272 Ursula. We have been so veiy bus3%" he continued, returning to Goupil, ' ' that we have had no time to think of 30U ; but I rely on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me." "It is a ver}' ancient marquisate," said Goupil, maliciously ; " which will soon be worth in 3'our hands fifty thousand francs a year ; that means a capital of more than two millions as money is now." "My son could then many the daughter of a mar- shal of France, or the heiress of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place under the govern- ment in Paris," said Minoret, opening his huge snufl"- box and offering a pinch to Goupil. " Ver}' good ; but will you play fair? " cried Goupil, shaking his fingers. Minoret pressed the clerk's hands replying : — " On my word of honor." Ursula, 273 XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS. Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunatel}' for Minoret, believed that the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part of the colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was opposing them with Massin. "It isn't he," thought Goupil, "who has invented this scheme ; I know m}^ Zelie, — she taught him his part. Bah ! I '11 let Massin go. In three years time I '11 be deputy from Sens." Just then he saw Bon- grand on his way to the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastil}^ after liim. " You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouët, my dear Monsieur Bongrand," he said. " 1 know you will not be inditferent to her future. Her relations are considering it, and here is the programme ; she ought to marry a notary whose practice should be in the chiof town of an arrondissement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy in three years, should settle a dower of a hundred thousand francs on her." ' ' She can do better than that," said Bongrand coldl}'. " Madame de Portenduère is greatly changed since her 18 274 Ursula. misfortunes ; trouble is killing her. Savinicn will have six thousand francs a 3'ear, and Ursula has a capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it à la Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune." " Savinien will do a foolish thing," said Goupil; " he can marry Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes, — an only daughter to whom the uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine propert}'." " Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fon- taine sa3's — By the bye, who is your notar}' ? " added Bongrand from curiosit}'. " Suppose it were I?" answered Goupil. "You!" exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust. "Well, well! — Adieu, monsieur," replied Goupil, with a parting glance of gall and hatred and defiance. " Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred thousand francs on 3'ou?" cried Bon grand entering Madame de Portenduère's little salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old lady. Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other, — she smiling, he not daring to show his un- easiness. "I am not mistress of myself," said Ursula, hold- ing out her hand to Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture. Ursula. 275 " Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you." " Wh}' did 30U do that?" said Madame de Por- tenduère. "I think the position of a notary is a very good one." " I prefer m}* peaceful poverty," said Ursula, " which is really wealth compared with what ni}' station m life might have given me. Besides, ray old nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the present, which I like, for an unknown fate." A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of anonymous letters, — one addressed to Madame de Portenduère, the other to Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady : — " You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable with the name he bears ; and yet you encourage his fancy for an ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental band-master, by inviting her to yom' house. You ought to marry him to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de Ronque- rolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would settle a hand.some sum rather than leave it to that old fool the Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Sérizy, aunt of Clémentine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted." The letter to Ursula was as follows : — 276 Ursula. Dear Ursula, — There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove to him that his love will last through life. This young man is gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and one of the first ladies in the land As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put a pot of La Bougival's pinks in your window and he will understand from that that he has your permission to present himself. Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two dajs later she received another letter in the following language : — " You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you better than life itself. You think you will maiTy Savinien — you are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame de Portenduère went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of Mademoiselle Clémentine for her son. Savinien will yield in the end. What objection can he make ? The uncles of the young lady are willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over sixty thousand francs a year." This letter agonized Ursula's heart and afflicted her with the tortures of jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto Ursula. 277 unknown to her, but which to this fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall over the present and over the future, and even over the past. From the moment when she received this fatal paper she la}' on the doctor's sofa, her eyes fixed on space, lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant the chill of death had come upon her warm joung life. Alas, worse than that ! it was like the awful awakening of the dead to the sense that there was no God, — the masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean Paul. Four times La Bougival called her to breakfast. "When the faithful creature tried to remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and answered in one harsh word, "Hush!" said des- potically, in strange contrast to her usual gentle manner. La Bougival, watching her mistress through the glass door, saw her alternately red with a consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of cold had succeeded that unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and worse up to four o'clock ; then she rose to see if Saviuien were coming, but he did not come. Jealous^" and dis- trust tear all reserves from love. Ursula, who till then had never made one gesture b^- which her love could be guessed, now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if to go and meet him. But an after- thought of modesty sent her back to her little salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbé arrived in the evening La Bougival met him at the door. 278 Ursula. " Ah, monsieur ! " she cried ; " I don't know what 's the matter with mademoiselle ; she is — " "I know," said the abbé sadly, stoppnig the words of the poor nurse. He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de Portenduère had gone to dine at Rouvre. " And Saviuieu too? " she asked. "Yes." Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbé quiver as though a whole Lejxlen jar had been discharged at him ; he felt moreover a lasting commotion in his heart. "So we shall not go there to-night," he said as gently as he could ; " and, my child, it would be better if you did not go there again. The old lady will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur Bon- grand and 1, who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your marriage, have no idea from what quar- ter this new influence has come to change her, as it were in a moment." " I expect the worst ; nothing can surprise me now," said Ursula in a pained voice. "In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we have done nothing to displease God." " Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of Providence," said the abbé. Ursula. 279 " I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Mon- sieur de Portenduère — " " Why do 3'ou no longer call him Savinien," asked the priest, who detected a slight bitterness in Ursula's tone. ''Of my dear Savinien," cried the girl, bursting into tears. " Yes, my good friend," she said, sobbing, " a voice tells me he is as noble in heart as he is in race. He has not onl}- told me that he loves me alone, but he has proved it in a hundred delicate wa3-s, and by restraining heroically his ardent feelings. Latel}- when he took the hand I held out to him, that evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed to me a husband, it was the first time, I swear to you, that I had ever given it. He began with a jest when he blew me a kiss across the street, but since then our affection has never out- wardly passed, as j'ou well know, the narrowest limits. But I will tell you, — you who read mv soul except in this one region where none but the angels see, — well, I will tell you, this love has been in me the secret spring of manj' seeming merits ; it made me accept my povert}' ; it softened the bitterness of my irreparable loss, for my mourning is more perhaps in m^' clothes now than in m}- heart — Oh, was I wrong? can it be that love was stronger in me than my gratitude to my benefactor, and God has punished me for it? But how could it be otherwise? I respected in mj-self 280 Ursula. Savinien's future wife ; j-es, perhaps I was too proud, perhaps it is that pride which God has humbled. God alone, as yoxx have often told me, should be the end and object of all our actions." The abbé was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her pallid face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she was now to fall. "But," she said, continuing, "if I return to my orphaned condition» I shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a mill-stone round the neck of him I love ? What can he do here ? "Who am I to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave, and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady's death. If Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no more be two loves in a woman's heart than there can be two masters in heaven, and the life of a religious is attractive to me." " He could "not let his mother go alone to Rouvre," said the abbé, gently. " Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend," she answered. " I will write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the windows of this room," Ursula. 281 she continued, telling her old friend of the anoi\yraous letters, but declaring that she would not allow any in- quiries to be made as to who her unknown lover might be. "Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduère to Rouvre," cried the abbé. " You are annoyed for some object by evil-minded persons." "How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured an}^ one ; and I am no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others." " Well, well, my child," said the abbé, quietl}-, " let us profit by this tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them in order ; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God, and remember also that in our good Bon- grand and in me 3'ou have two devoted friends." " That is much, very much," she said, going with him to the threshold of the door, wdiere she stretched out her neck like a Inrd looking over its nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien. Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows, stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula. "Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not? You seem changed." 282 Ursula. Goupil looked so ardenth' at Ursula that she was frightened, and went back into the house without replying. " She is cross," said Minoret to the abbé. " Mademoiselle Mirouët is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold of her door," said the abbé ; "she is too 3'oung — " "Oh ! '' said Goupil. " I am told she does n't lack lovers." The abbé bowed hurriedl}' and went as fast as he could to the Rue des Bourgeois. " Well," said Goupil to Minoret, " the thing is work- ing. Did 3'ou notice how pale she was. Within a fortnight she '11 have left the town — j-ou '11 see^." " Better have you for a friend than an eneni}-," cried Minoret, frightened at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil's face the diabolical expression of the Mephis- topheles of Joseph Brideau. "I should think so!" returned Goupil. "If she does n't marr}- me I '11 make her die of grief." ' ' Do it, mj' bo3^ and I '11 give you the mone}^ to buy a practice in Paris. You can then marry a rich woman — " "Poor Ursula! what makes 3'ou so bitter against her ? what has she done to you ? " asked the clerk in surprise. " She anno^'s me," said Minoret, gruffly. Ursula. 283 "Well, wait till Monda}- and you shall see how I 'II rasp her," said Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master's face. The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien. " I don't know what the dear child has written to 3'ou," she said, " but she is almost dead this morning." Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night? My dear Savinien, — Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du Rouvre, and perhaps she is riglit. You are placed between a life that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence ; between the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the demands of the world ; between obedience to your mother and the fulfilment of your own choice — for I still believe that you have chosen me. Savi- nien, if you have now to make your decision I wish you to do so in absolute freedom ; I give you back the promise you made to yourself — not to me — in a moment which can never fade from my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst of our privatioiis — which we have hitherto accepted so gayly — you might re- flect, too late, that life would have been to you a better thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were a man to express that thought, it would be to me 284 Ursula. the sentence of an agonizing death ; if you did not express it, I should watch suspiciously every cloud upon your brow. Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was right to do so, for my godf athei', though jealous of you, used to say to me, " Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each other one of these days." "When I went to Paris I loved you hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this moment ? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never blame you — but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then ! "Wait ! " cried the 3'oung man. Signing to La Bou- gival to sit down, he scratched off hastily the following reply : — My dear Ursula, — Your letter cuts me to the heart, in- asmuch as you have needlessly felt such jiain ; and also because our hearts, for the first time, have failed to under- stand each other. If you are not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my mother's consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty cottage on the Loing, why, that 's a fortune, is it not ? You know we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle's garden, to consider you mine ; you cannot now of yourself break those ties which are common to both of us. — Ursula, need I tell you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I were free I could not receive a Ursula. 285 fortune from a young person whom I did not know? My mother refuses to see you again ; I must therefore lose the happiness of our evenings ; but surely you will not deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window ? This evening, then — Nothing can separate us. " Take this to her, my old woman ; she must not be unhappy one moment longer." That afternoon at four o'clock, returnhig from the walk which he always took expressly to pass before Ursula's house, Savinien found his mistress waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these sudden changes and excitements. " It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of seeing you is," she said to him. " You once said to me," replied Savinien, smiling, — "for I remember all your words, — 'Love hves by patience ; we will wait ! ' Dear, 3'ou have separated love from faith. Ah ! this shall be the end of our quarrels ; we will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I love you, but — did I ever doubt you?" he said, offering her a bouquet of wild- flowers arranged to express his thoughts. " You have never had an}' reason to doubt me," she replied ; " and, besides, you don't know all," she added, in a troubled voice. Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon, without being able even to guess at 286 Ursula. the nature of the trick, she had found, a few moments before Savinien's arrival, a letter tossed on her sofa which contained the words: "Tremble! a rejected lover can become a tiger." Withstanding Savinien's entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again, after she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her recover from the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite evil is torture to ever}- one ; suffering assumes the propor- tions of the unknown, and the unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the pain was exquisite. Something within her bounded at the slightest noise ; yet she was afraid of silence, and suspected even the walls of col- lusion. Even her sleep was restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of her nature, delicate as tliat of a flower, had found, with the instinct of evil, the poison that could wither and destroy her. The next da}' passed without a shock. Ursula sat pla3'ing on her piano till very late ; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleep3\ About midnight she was awakened b}' the music of a band composed of a clarinet, hautboy, flute, cornet à piston, trombone, bas- soon, flageolet, and triangle. All the neighbors were at their windows. The poor girl, already- frightened at seeing the people in the street, received a dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a man Ursula. 287 proclaiming în loud tones : "For the beautiful Ursula Mirouët, from her lover." The next day, Sunday, the wliole town had heard of it ; and as Ursula entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their horrible curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were rife on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive, determined not to leave the house again, — the abbé having advised her to say vespers in her own room. As she entered the house she saw l3'ing in the passage, which was floored with brick, a letter that had evidently been slipped under the door. She picked it up and read it, under the idea that it would contain an explanation. It was as follows : — " Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am resolved. If you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To your refusal you may attribute not only your own misfortunes, but those which will fall on others. *' He who loves you, and whose wife you will be." Curiousl}' enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this plot was drooping like a cut flower, Mes- demoiselles Massin, Dionis, and Crémière were envying her lot. "She is a lucky girl," the}- were saying; "people talk of her, and court her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming ; there was a cornet-à-pistou." 288 Ursula. " What's a piston?" "A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!" replied Angélique , Crémière to Pamela Massin. Earl}' that morning Savinien had gone to Fontaine- bleau to endeavor to find out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in garrison. But as there were two men to each instrument it was impossi- ble to find out wliich of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel forbade the band to play for any private person in future without his permission. Savinien had an interview with the procureur du roi, Ursula's legal guardian, and explained to him the injury these scenes would do to a young girl naturally so delicate and sen- sitive, begging him to take some action to discover the author of such wrong. Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy began another serenade. This time the musicians fled toward Montargis, where there liappened then to be a company of comic actors. A loud and ringing voice called out as they left: "To the daugh- ter of the regimental bandsman Mirouet." By this means all Nemours came to know the profession of Ursula's father, a secret the old doctor had sedulously kept. Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day an anonymous letter containing a prophec}' : — Ursula. 289 *' You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would rather see her dead than let her be your wife." The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr ; she said nothing, but lifted her eyes to heaven, and wept no more ; she seemed awaiting other blows, and prayed fervently. " I am glad I cannot go down into the salon," she said to Monsieur Bongrand and the abbé, who left her as little as possible ; " Ae would come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which he blessed me. Do you think he will suspect me? " "If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to get the assistance of the Paris police," said Bongrand. " Whoever it is will know I am d^'ing," said Ursula; " and will cease to trouble me." The abbé, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in con- jectures and suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on whom the abbé could rel}', they kept the closest watch and were on their guard night and day for a week ; but no indiscretion 19 290 Ursula. could betray Goupil; whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no more serenades and no letters, and little by little the watch relaxed. Bon- grand thought the author of the wrong was frightened ; Savinien believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an end to the persecution. The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed these manoeuvres to the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held his notes to a large amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his daughter to Savinien would save the Chateau du Rouvre from his creditoi*s ; and Madame de Portenduère, the gossips added, would approve of anything that would discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her son. Ursula. 291 So far from this being true, the old lady was well- nigh vanquished by the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbé was so painfully overcome by this act of in- fernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbé, which was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as follows : — . My child, — Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your enemies. Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien's life. I will tell you more when I am able to go to you. Your devoted friend, Chaperon. "When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried this letter to the abbé, the poor priest read it and re-read it ; so amazed and horror- stricken was he to see the perfection with which his own handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition into which this last atrocit}' threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once more to the procureur du roi with the forged letter. " A murder is being committed b}' means that the law cannot touch," he said, " upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal guardian. What is to be done ? " "If you can find an}- means of repression," said the official, "I will adopt them ; but I know of none. 292 Ursiila. That infamous wretch gives the best advice. Mademoi- selle Mirouët must be sent to the sisters of the Adora- tion of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at Fontainebleau shall at my request author- ize you to carry arms in your own defence. I have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du Rouvre justly indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people have put upon him. Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treat}' for the purchase of the estate. Mademoiselle du Rouvre is to marry a rich Polish count ; and Monsieur du Rouvre himself left the neighborhood the day I saw him, to avoid arrest for debt." Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his thought. He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only man capable of carrying a persecution to the ver}' verge of the penal code with- out infringing a hair's-breadth upon it. Ursula. 293 XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE. Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil's audacit3% He made Massin, who was completel}- his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for his notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens, and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant to imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to Minoret, to Massin, and to Crémière, and the protection of Dionis and the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this last throw in the game he thought it best to have an explanation with Minoret, and he chose his opportunity^ at Rouvre, where he went with his patron for the first time after the deeds were signed. Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son asking him for information as to 294 Ursula. what was happening in connection with Ursula ; infor- mation that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours witli the procureur da roi to place her under shelter from these atrocities in the convent of the Ador- ation. Desire exhorted his father, in case this perse- cution should be the work of any of their friends, to give to whoever it might be warning and good advice ; for even if the law could hot punish this crime it would certainly discover the truth and hold it over the delin- quent's head. Minoret had now attained a great object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest es- tates in the Gâtinais, he had also a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs a year from the rich domains which surrounded the park. He could well afford to snap his fingers at Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on the estate, where the sight of Ursula would no longer trouble him. " My boy," he said to Goupil, as i\\Qy walked along the terrace, " let my young cousin alone, now." "Pooh!" said the clerk, unable to imagine what such capricious conduct meant. " Oh ! I 'm not ungrateful ; yon have enabled me to get this fine brick château with the stone copings (which could n't be built now for two hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No, I'm not ungrateful; I'll give Ursula. 295 you ten per cent, twent}- thousand francs, for j'our ser- vices, and 30U can bu}' a sheriff's practice in Nemours. I '11 guarantee you a marriage with one of Crémière's daughters, the eldest." " The one who talks piston ! " cried Goupil. " She '11 have thirty tliousand francs," replied Mino- ret. " Don't you see, xnj dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a post master? People should keep to their vocation." "Very well, then," said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes; "here's a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs ; I want the mone}^ in hand at once." Minoret had eighteen thousand francs b}' him at that moment of which his wife knew nothing. He thought the best wa}' to get rid of Goupil was to sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seignorial fever on the face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an "au revoir," b}" way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent château built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his shoes. "Are not yon going to wait for me?" he cried, observing that Goupil was going away on foot. "You'll find me on your path, never fear, papa Minoret," replied Goupil, alhirst for vengeance and re- 296 Ursula. solved to know the meaning of the zigzags of INIinoret's strange conduct. Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a pre}' to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words ; everything about her, her glance of gentle in- difference, even the expression of her forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was thinking how the ideal wreath of chastit}', with which throughout all ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow. She heard in the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the malicious comments, the laughter of the little town. The trial was too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow her to survive the murderous blow. She com- plained no more ; a sorrowful smile was on her lips ; her ej'es appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against man's injustice. When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her chamber to the ground floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor. A great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduère became reallj- aware that the girl was d3àng like an ermine, though less injured in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and Ursula. 297 comfort her. The sight of her son's anguish, who dur- ing the whole preceding night had seemed beside him- self, made the Breton soul of the old woman 3ield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignit}- to revive the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise to all the evil done by the little town. Her opinion, surel}' more powerful than that of the crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought, the in- fluence of race. This step, which the abbé came to announce, made so great a change in Ursula that tlie doctor, who was about to ask for a consultation of Parisian doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on her uncle's sofa, and such was the character of her beauty that as she lay there in her mourning garments, pale from suffering, she was more exquisitel}- lovely than in the happiest hours of her life. When Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the room she colored vivid!}-. " Do not rise, m}' child," said the old lad}- impera- tiveh" ; " weak and ill as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excel- lent girl in the Gâtinais ; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a gentleman." At first poor Ursula was unable to answer ; she took the withered hands of Savinien's mother and kissed them. " Ah, madame," she said in a faltering voice, " 1 should 208 Ursula. never have had the boldness to think of rising above m}- condition if 1 had not been encouraged by promises ; mv onl}' claim was that of an affection without bounds ; but now thcv have found the means to sei)arate nic from him I love, — they have made me unworthy of him. Never ! " she cried, with a ring in her voice which painfully affected those about her, " never will I con- sent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I loved too well, — yes, I can admit it in my present condition, — I love a creature almost as I love God, and God — " " Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, 9711/ daur/hter" said the old lady, making an effort, '' do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous joke in which no one believes. I give you mv word, you will live and you shall be happy." " We shall be happy ! " cried Savinien, kneeling be- side Ursula and kissing her hand; "my mother has called you her daurjhter." " P^nough, enough," said the doctor feeling his patient's pulse; "do not kill her with joy." At tliat moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along. " Monsieur de Portenduère," he said, in a voice like the hissing of a viper forced from its hole. Ursula. 299 "What do j-ou want?" said Savinien, rising from his knees. " I have a word to saj to j'ou." Saxinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little court3'ard. " Swear to me b}' Ursula's life, by 30ur honor as a gentleman, to do by me as if I had never told 3'ou what I am about to tell. Do this, and I will reveal to 3'OU the cause of the persecutions directed against Made- moiselle Mirouet." " Can I put a stop to them? " " Yes." *' Can I avenge them ? " " On their author, yes — on his tool, no." "AVliynot?" " Because — I am the tool." Savinien turned pale. *' I have just seen Ursula — " said Goupil. "Ursula?" said tlie lover, looking fixedly at the clerk. " Mademoiselle Mirouet," continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinion's tone ; " and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done ; I repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison you." The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feel- 300 Ursula. iug of eager curiosity, calmed Savinien's anger. He fixed his ej'es on Goupil with a look which made that moral deformity writhe. " Who set you at this work? " said the young man. " Will you swear? " " What, — to do you no harm?" " I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouët should forgive me." " She will forgive 3'ou, — I, never ! " " But at least you will forget?" What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces, standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to talk together and united hy a single sentiment. " I will forgive you, but I shall not forget." " The agreement is off," said Goupil coldl}'. Savi- nien lost patience. He applied a blow upon the man's face which echoed through the courtj-ard and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger. "It is onl}' what I deserve," said Goupil, "for committing such a folly. I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I gave you. You are in my power now," he added with a look of hatred. " You are a murderer ! " said Savinien. " No more than a dagger is a murderer." Ursula. 301 " I beg j'our pardon," said Savinien. "Are you revenged enough?" said Goupil, with ferocious irony; "will j'ou stop here?" " Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness," replied Savinien. " Give me your hand," said the clerk, holding out his own. "It is 3'ours," said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula's sake. "Now speak; who made you do this thing?" Goupil looked into the scales as it were ; on one side was Savinien's blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was undecided ; then a voice said to him: "You will be notary!" and he answered : — "Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur — " " Who is persecuting Ursula?" persisted Savinien. " Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can't tell 30U that ; but we might find out the reason. Don't mix me up in all this ; I could do nojth- ing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of annoying Ursula I will defend her ; instead of serving Minoret I will trj' to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him — I'll crush him under foot, I '11 dance on his carcass, I '11 make his bones into dominoes ! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and 302 Ursula. Fontainebleau and Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, Minoret is a thief/ Yes, I '11 burst him like a gun — There ! we 're allies now b}' the imprudence of that out- break ! If you choose I '11 beg Mademoiselle Mirouët's pardon and tell her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her good ; the abbé and the justice are both there ; but Monsieur Bongrand must promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now." " Wait a minute ; " said Savinien, bewildered b}' the revelation. " Ursula, my child," he said, returning to the salon, " the author of all your troubles is ashamed of his work ; he repents and wishes to ask your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be forgotten." "What! Goupil?" cried the abbé, the justice, and the doctor, all together. "Keep his secret," said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips. Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched- " Mademoiselle," he said in a troubled voice, " I wish that all Nemours could hear me tell 3"ou that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and led me to commit a crime punishable b}' the blame of honest men. What I say now I would be willing to say everywhere, Ursula. 303 deploring the harm done by such miserable tricks — which may have hastened your happiness," he added, rather maliciously, " for I see that Madame de Porten- duère is with 3'ou." "That is all very well, Goupil," said the abbé. " Mademoiselle forgives you ; but 3'ou must not forget that you came near being her murderer." "Monsieur Bongrand," said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. " I shall negotiate to-night for Le- cœur's practice ; I hope the reparation I have now made will not injure me with 3'ou, and that you will back my petition to the bar and the ministiy." Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head ; and Goupil left the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff's practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore the peace and tranquillit}' of her mind, already much relieved by Goupil's confession. " You see, my child, that God was not against you," said the abbé. Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o'clock he was sitting in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom he was making plans for Desire's future. Désiré had become very sedate since entering the magistrac}^ ; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely that he would succeed the ^res- Qut procureur du roi at Fontainebleau, who, they said, 304 Cfrsula. was to be advanced to Meliin. His parents felt that the}' must find him a wife, — some poor girl belonging to an old and noble family ; he would then malce his wa}' to the magistrac}' of Paris, Perhaps the}' could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zélie was proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer season. Minoret, inwardh' congratu- lating himself for having managed his affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula, at the very moment when the drama so heedlessl}^ begun by him was closing down upon him in a terrible manner. " Monsieur de Portenduère is here and wishes to speak to you," said CabiroUe. " Show him in," answered Zélie. The twilight shadows pi'evented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien's boots on the floor of the galler}', where the doctor's librar}- used to be. A vague presentiment of danger ran through the robber's veins. Savinien entered and remained standing, with his hat on Iiis head, his cane in his hand, and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband and wife, " I have come to ascertain. Monsieur and Madame Minoret," he said, "3'our reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a 3'oung lady who, as the whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have 3'ou endeavored Ursula. 305 to tarnish her honor ? why have j'ou wished to kill her ? wh}' did 3-0U deliver her over to Goupil's insults ? — Answer ! " " How absurd 3'ou are, Monsieur Savinien," said Zelie, " to come and ask us the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Min- oret died I 've not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I 've never said one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I would n't think of consulting about even a dog. Wh}' don't you speak up, Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in that waj' and accuse you of wickedness that 's beneath you ? As if a man with forty-eight thousand francs a 3*ear from landed prop- ert}', and a castle fit for a prince, would stoop to such things ! Get up, and don't sit there like a wet rag ! " " I don't know what monsieur means," said Minoret in his squeaking voice, the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice was clear. '• What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. Mj' son Desire fell in love with her, and I didn't want him to marr3' her, that 's all." " Goupil has confessed ever3'thing, Monsieur Minoret." There was a moment's silence, but it was ten'ible, 20 306 Ursula. when all three per'sons examined one another. Zélie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy face of her colossus. " Though 3'ou are onl}^ insects," said the young noble- man, " I will make you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a man sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouët. The first time he sets his foot ni Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me ; he will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have satisfaction. It shall never be said that 3'ou were tamel}' allowed to dishonor a defenceless young girl — " " But the calumnies of a Goupil — are — not — " be- gan Minoret. " Do you wish me to bring him face to face with 3'ou? Believe me, 3'ou had better hush up this afll'air ; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave it as it is ; God will decide between us when I meet 30ur son." "But this sha'n't go on!" cried Zélie. "Do vou suppose I '11 stand by and let Desire fight 30U, — a sailor whose business it is to handle swords and guns? If 3-ou 've got an3^ cause of complaint against Minoret, there 's Minoret ; take Minoret, fight Minoret ! But do 3^ou think m3' boy, who, b3' 3our own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman ! somebody's teeth will pin 3'our Ursula. 307 legs first ! Come, Mînoret, clou't stand staring there like a big canary ; 3'ou are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before your wife ! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off I a man's house is his castle. I don't know what you mean with your nonsense, but show me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you '11 have to answer to me, — you and your minx Ursula." She rang the bell violenth' and called to the servants. " Remember what I have said to you," repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying no attention to Zrlie's tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over their heads, he left the room. "Now, then, Minoret," said Zélie, "j-ouwill explain to me what all this means. A young man does n't rush into a house and make an uproar like that and demand the blood of a family for nothing." " It's some mischief of that vile Goupil," said the colossus. " I promised to help him bu}' a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap. I gave him ten [3er cent on the cost, twent}' thousand francs in a note, and I suppose he isn't satisfied." " Yes, but wh}' did he get up those serenades and the scandals against Ursula?" " He wanted to marry her." " A girl without a penn}' ! the sly thing ! Now Minoret, you are telling me lies, and j'ou are too much 308 Ursula. of a fool, ID}' son, to make me believe them. There is something under all this, and yo\x are going to tell me what it is." " There 's nothing." " Nothing? I tell j'ou you lie, and I shall find it out." " Do let me alone ! " " I '11 turn the faucet of that fountain of venom. Gou- pil — whom you *re afraid of — and we '11 see who gets the best of it then." " Just as you choose." " I know very well it will be as I choose ! and what I choose first and foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If an3'thing happens to him, mark you, 1 '11 do something that ma}- send me to the scaffold — and you, you have n't any feeling about him — " A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to end without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against himself and against Ursula revived bj' his own fault, and compli- cated with a new and terrible adversar}'. The next day, when he left the house earl}' to find Goupil and trj- to appease him with additional money, the walls were alread}' placarded with the words: "Minoret is a thief." All those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of the anonymous pla- Ursula. 309 card. Fortunately for him, everybqdy made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stu- pidity ; fools get more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength. The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose all. Why? Because men Hke to feel superior in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of genius. A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened air. Zélie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever they were found ; but the effect of them on Minoret's conscience still remained. The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though Goupil had concluded his bar- gain with the sheriff the night before, he now impu- dently refused to fulfil it. " My dear Lecœur," he said, " I am unexpectedly enabled to bu}- up Monsieur Dionis's practice ; I am therefore in a position to help you to sell to others. Tear up the agreement ; it 's only the loss of two stamps', — here are sevent}- centimes." Lecœur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil to buy his practice. 310 Ursula. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him well in future ; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his leg at the first otTence. The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription ; but the quarrel between Minoret and his wife went on ; and Savinien maintained a threatening silence. Ten daj's after these events the marriage of Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowr}' of eighty thousand francs and her own peculiar ugliness ; Goupil had his deformities and his practice ; the union seemed therefore suitable and probable. One evenmg, towards midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving Massin's house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notar}' kept the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman who saw the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him. These great little events were careful!}' studied by Bongrand, who became convinced that Goupil held some mj'sterious power over Minoret, and he determined to find out its cause. Ursula. 811 XIX. APPARITIONS. Though the public opinion of the little town recog- nized Ursula's perfect innocence, she recovered slowl}-. While in a state of bodily exhaustion, which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium of phe- nomena the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to challenge science, if science had been brought into contact with them. Ten days after Madame de Portenduère's visit Ursula had a dream, with all the characteristics of supernatural vision, as much in its moral aspects as in the, so to speak, ph3'sical circumstances. Her god- father appeared to her and made a sign that she should come with him. She dressed herself and followed him through the darkness to their former house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found everything preciseh' as it was on the da}' of her godfather's death. The old man wore the clothes that were on him the evening before his death. His face was pale, his movements caused no sound ; nevertheless, Ursula heard his voice distinctl}', though it was feeble and as if repeated b}- a distant echo. The doctor conducted his child as for as 312 Ursula. the Chinese pagoda, where he made her lift the marble top of the little Boule cabinet just as she had raised it on the day of his death ; but instead of finding nothing there she saw the letter her godfather had told her to fetch. She opened it and read both the letter addressed to herself and the will in favor of Savinien. Tlie writ- ing, as she afterwards told the abbé, shone as if traced by sunbeams — '' it burned my eyes," she said. When she looked at her uncle to thank him she saw the old benevolent smile upon his discolored lips. Tlien, m a feeble voice, but still clearly, he told her to look at Minoret, who was listening in the corridor to what he said to her ; and next, slipping the lock of tliu libraiy door with his knife, and taking the papers from the stud}-. "With his right hand the old man seized his god- daughter and obliged her to walk at the i)ace of death and follow Minoret to his own house. Ursula crossed the town, entered the post house and went into Zélie's old room, where the spectre showed her Minoret unfold- ing the letters, reading them and burning them. " He could not," said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbé, " light the first two matches, but the third took fire ; he burned the papers and buri-ed their remains in the ashes. Then m}- godfather brought me back to our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where he took from the third volume of Pan- dects three certificates of twelve thousand francs each ; Ursula. 313 also, from the preceding volume, a number of bank- notes. ' He is,' said my godfather, ' the cause of all the trouble which has brought you to the verge of the tomb ; but God wills that you shall yet be happy. You will not die now ; you will marry Savinien. If 30U love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your fortune from my nephew. Swear it.' " Resplendent, as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an influence on Ursula's soul that she prom- ised all her uncle asked, hoping to put an end to the niglitmare. She woke suddenl}* and found herself standing in the middle of her bedroom, facnig her god- father's portrait, which had been placed there during her illness. She went back to bed and fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remeniburcd all the particulars of this singular vision ; but she dared not speak of it. lier judgment and lier delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the end and object of ^vhich was her pecuniar}' benefit. She attributed the vision, not unnaturall}-, to remarks made b}' La Bou- gival the preceding evening, when the old woman talked of the doctor's intended liberality and of her own con- victions on that subject. But the dream returned, with aggravated circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl. On the second occasion the ic}' hand of her godfather was laid upon her shoulder, causing her the most horrible distress, an indefinable sensation- 314 Ursula. " You must obey the dead," he said, in a sepulchral voice. " Tears," said Ursula, relating her dreams, " fell from his white, wide-open eyes." The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon. "Monsieur l'abbé," she said, "do you beUeve that the dead reappear?" "My child, sacred histor}', profane history, and modern history, have much testimonj' to that effect ; but the Church has never made it an article of faith ; and as for science, in France science laughs at the idea." " What do you believe? " " That the power of God is infinite." " Did my godfather ever speak to 3'ou of such matters ? " " Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His conversion, as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot 3-ou made against Saint-Savinien's daj- in j-our almanac." Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered the scene when, on returning Ursula. 315 to Nemours, her godfather read her soul, and took awa}' the almanac. " If that is so," she said, " then my visions are pos- sibly true. My godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was wrapped in yellow light ; he spoke to me. I beg you to saj^ a mass for the repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these visions may cease, for the}- are destro3-ing me." She then related the three dreams with all their de- tails, insisting on the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the somnambulism of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from her bod}' at the bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect ease. The thing that most surprised the abbé, to whom Ursula's veracity was known, was the exact description which she gave of the bedroom formerly occupied b}' Zelie at the post bouse, where Ursula had never entered and about which no one had ever spoken to her. " By what means can these singular apparitions take place?" asked Ursula. "What did my godfather think?" " Your godfather, my dear child, argued by hypothe- sis. He recognized the possibilit}' of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are of man's creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must have forms which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are 316 Ursula. perceptible to our inward senses wlien brouglit under certain conditions. Thus your godfather's ideas might so enfold you that 3'ou would clothe them with his bodil}' presence. Then, if Minoret really committed those actions, they too resolve themselves into ideas ; for all action is the result of man}- ideas. Now, if ideas live and move in a spiritual world, your spirit must be able to perceive them if it penetrates that world. These phenomena are not more extraordinary than those of memory ; and those of memory are quite as amazing and inexplicable as those of the perfume of plants — which are perhaps the ideas of the plants." " How you enlarge and magnif\' the world ! " ex- claimed Ursula. "But to hear the dead speak, to see them walk, act — do you think it possible ? " " In Sweden," replied the abbé, " Swedenborg has proved by evidence that he communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and you shall read in the life of the famous Due de Montmorency, beheaded at Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales, an adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier at Cardan." Ursula and the abbé went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the " History of Henri de Montmorcnc}'," written by a priest of that period who had known the prince. Ursula. 317 " Read it," said the abbé, giving Ursula the volume, which he had opened at the 175th page. " Your god- father often re-read that passage, — and see ! here 's a little of his snuff in it.' " And he not here ! " said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage. " The siege of Privât was remarkable for the loss of a great number of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there' — namely, the Marquis d'Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Due de Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he felt for a friend so near to him made him attribute the ilhision of this dream to the force of his own imagination ; and owing to the fatigues of the night, which he had spent, ac- cording to his custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any sense of dread. But the same voice dis- turbed him again, and the phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other. On which, not beiijg able to restrain his fears as to the truth of this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis's quarters, which were distant fi'om his. But before the man could get back, the king sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the great loss he had sustained. 318 Ursula. " I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I have frequently heard the Due de Montmorency relate ; I think that the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded and preserved." "' If all this is so," said Ursula, " what ought I to do?" " M}" child," said the abbé, "it concerns matters so important, and which may prove so profitable to 30U, that 3'ou ought to keejD absolutely silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these ap- paritions perhaps the}' may not return. Besides, you are now strong enough to come to church ; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and pray to him for the repose of your godfather's soul. Feel quite sure that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands." " If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep, — what glances m}' godfather gives me ! The last time he caught hold of m}- dress — I awoke with my face all covered with tears." "Be at peace; he will not come again," said the priest. Without losing a moment the Abbé Chaperon went straight to Minoret and asked for a few moments niter- view in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that they might be entirelj' alone. " Can any one hear us? " he asked. " No one," replied Minoret. Ursula. 319 " Monsieur, m}' character must be known to you," said the abbé, fastening a gentle but attentive look on Minoret's face. "I have to speak to \o\x of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern yon, and about which you ma}- be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy ; but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While j'our uncle lived, there stood there," said the priest, pointing to a certain spot in the room, "• a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble top " (Minoret turned livid), " and beneath the marble your uncle placed a letter for Ursula — " The abbé then went on to relate, without omitting the smallest circumstance, Minoret's conduct to Minoret himself. When the late post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to light he felt his hair begin to writhe upon his skull. " Who invented such nonsense? " he said, in a stran- gled voice, when the tale ended. " The dead man himself." This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the doctor. " God is very good, Monsieur l'abbé, to do miracles for me," he said, danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life. '* All that God does is natural," replied the priest. "Your phantoms don't frighten me," said the co- lossus, recovering his coolness. 320 Ursula. " I did not come to frighten 3'ou, for I shall never speak of this to an^' one in the world," said the abbe. " You alone know the truth. The matter is between you and God." " Come now, Monsieur l'abbé, do you reall}' think me capable of such a horrible abuse of confidence ? " " I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the sinner repents," said the priest, in an apostolic tone. ' ' Crime ? " cried Minoret. " A crime frightful in its consequences." " What consequences? " "In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself avenges innocence." " Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?" " If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as 3-ou take a landscape into your e^e, he would not be God." "Monsieur l'abbé, will 3'Ou give me 3'our word of honor that you have had these facts from my uncle ? " " Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to me privately ; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will never Ursula. 321 speak of them. You ma}' make 3'ourself easy on that point." " I am eas}' on all points, Monsieur Chaperon." " I hope you are," said the old priest. " Even if I considered these warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them, considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man, and 3'ou have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish to add to it b}' theft. Besides, 3'ou are an almost primitive man, and 3'Ou would be tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or civil- ized, the sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to enjo}' in peace ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the societj' in which we live, — for well- constituted societies are modelled on the system God has ordained for the universe. In this respect societies have a divine origin. Man does not originate ideas, he invents no form ; he answers to the eternal relations that surround him on all sides. Therefore, see what happens ! Criminals going to the scaffold, and having it in their power to carry their secret with them, are im- pelled by the force of some mysterious power to make confessions before their heads are taken off. There- fore, Monsieur Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I go my way satisfied." Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbé to find his own wa}- out. When he thought himself alone 21 322 Ursula. he flew into the fury of a choleric man ; the strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula's name was mingled with odious language. " Wh}-, what has she done to you? " cried Zélie, who had slipped in on tiptoe after seeing the abbé out of the house. For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and driven to extremities b}- his wife's reiterated questions, turned upon her and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell half-dead on the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed himself, ashamed of his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him twice ; when he again appeared in the streets everybody noticed a great change in him. He walked alone, and often roamed the town as though uneas}^ When an}' one addressed him he seemed pre- occupied in mind, he who had never before had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he went up to Monsieur Bongrand in the Grand'Rue, the latter be- ing on his way to take Ursula to Madame de Porten- duere's, where the whist parties had begun again. " Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to saj' to m}' cousin," he said, taking the justice b}' the arm, "and I am very glad 3'ou should be present, for you can advise her." Thej' found Ursula studying ; she rose, with a cold and dignified air, as soon as she saw Mmoret. Ursula. 323 " M}' child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to yow on a matter of business," said Bongrand. " By the bye, don't forget to give me your certificates ; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your dividend and La Bougival's." " Cousin," said Minoret, " our uncle accustomed 3'ou to more luxury than you have now," "We can be very happy with very little mone}-," she replied. " I thought money might help your happiness," con- tinued Minoret, " and I have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my uncle." " You had a natural way of showing respect for him," said Ursula, sternl}- ; " you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to buy it ; instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find some hidden treas- ure in it." " But," said Minoret, evidently troubled, " if you had twelve thousand francs a year 3-ou would be in a posi- tion to marr\' well." " I have not got theai." " But suppose I give them to 3-ou, on condition of your buying an estate in Brittany near Madame de Portenduère, — you could then marr}' her son." " Monsieur Minoret," said Ursula, " I have no claim to that money, and I cannot accept it from ^-ou. We are scarcely relations, still less are we friends. I have 324 Ursula. suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that mone^? "What reason have 3'ou to make me such a present ? These questions, which I have a right to ask, persons will answer as they see fit ; some would con- sider your gift the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I do not choose to accept it. Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing except from friends, and I have no friendship for 30U." "Then j'ou refuse?" cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had never entered that a fortune could be rejected. " I refuse," said Ursula. " But what grounds have 3'Ou for offering Mademoi- selle Ursula such a fortune? " asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. "You have an idea — have y on an idea ? — " " Well, 3'es, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son may leave me in peace ; he is in love with her and wants to marr}- her." " Well, we 'U see about it," said Bongrand, settling his spectacles. " Give us time to think it over." He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solici- tude shown by the father for his son's interests, and slightl}' blaming Ursula for her hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate Bongrand went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, Ursula. 325 and started for Fontainebleau, where be went to see the deputy procureur., and was told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect. Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was pla^'ing whist with the wife of the procureur du roi., the wife of the sub- prefect, and the colonel of the regiment ni garrison. " I come to bring 3'ou some good news," said Bon- grand to Desire; "you love your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged." "I love Ursula Mirouét ! " cried Desire, laughing. '' Where did 3'ou get that idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret's ; she cer- tainly is a beauty ; but she is dreadfull}' pious. I certainly took notice of her charms, but I must sa}' I never troubled my head seriously for that rather insipid little blonde," he added, smiling at the sub-prefect's wife (who was a piquante brunette — to use a term of the last century). "You are dreaming, mj' dear Mon- sieur Bongrand ; I thought every one knew that mj- father was lord of a manor, with a rent roll of fort}'- eight thousand francs a year from lands around his château at Rouvre, — good reasons wh}' I should not love the goddaughter of ni}' late great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl without a penu}' these ladies would consider me a fool." "Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula ? " 326 Ursula. " Never." "You hear that, monsieur?" said the justice to the procureur du roi, who had been listening to the con- versation, leading hiin aside into the recess of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter of an hour. An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula's house, whence he sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus came at once. " Mademoiselle — " began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the room. " Accepts? " cried Minoret, interrupting him. " No, not yet," replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. "I had scruples as to your son's feelings; for Ursula has been much tried lately about a supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity. Can 3"ou swear to me that your son truly loves her and that you have no other intention than to preserve our dear Ursula from any further Goupilisms ? " " Oh, I '11 swear to that," cried Minoret. " Stop, papa Minoret," said the justice, taking one hand from the pocket of his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus trembled) ; " Don't swear falsely." " Swear falsely? " " Yes, either you or jour son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in presence of four persons and the Ursula. 327 procureur du roi, that he has never even thought of liis cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering this fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to Fontainebleau to question your son." Minoret was dumbfounded at his own foil}*. " But Where's the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in pro- posing to a 3'oung relative to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness, and to invent pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money." Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration. " You know the cause of my refusal," said Ursula; " and I request 30U never to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduère has not told me his reason, I know that he feels such contempt for 30U, such dislike even, that I cannot receive you in m}- house. M3' hap- piness is m}' onl}' fortune, — I do not blush to sa}- so ; I shall not risk it. Monsieur de Portenduère is onlj* waiting for mj' majority to marr}' me." " Then the old saw that ' Money does all' is a lie," said Minoret, looking at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him much. He rose and left the house but, once outside, he found the air as oppressive as in the little salon. " There must be an end put to this," he said to him- self as he re-entered liis own home. 328 Ursula. When Ursula came clown, bringing her certificates and those of La Bougival, she found Monsieur Bon- grand walking up and down the salon with great strides. " Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?" he said. " None that I can tell," she replied. Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise. "Then we have the same idea," he said. "Here, keep the number of your certificates, in case I lose them ; yon should alwa3-s take that precaution." Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two cer- tificates, hers and that of La Bougival, and gave them to her. " Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but 3'ou will see me on the third." That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle's grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a piercing cr}', but the doctoi-'s spectre slowl}' rose. First she saw his yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if sur- rounded b}' a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the e3'es were like two gleams of light ; the dead man rose as if impelled b}' some superior force or will. Ursula's Ursula. 329 body trembled ; her flesh was like a burning garment, and there was (as she subsequently said) another self moving within her bodily presence. "Mere}'!" slie cried, " mere}', godfather!" "It is too late," he said, in the voice of death, — to use the poor girl's own expression when she related this new dream to the abbé. ' ' He has been warned ; he has paid no heed to the warning. The days of his son are numbered. If he does not confess all and restore what he has taken within a certain time he must lose his son, who will die a violent and horrible death. Let him know this." The spectre pointed to a line of figures which gleamed upon the side of the tomb as if written with fire, and said, " There is his doom." When her uncle la}' down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of the stone fall- ing back into its place, and immediatel}' after, in the dis- tance, a strange sound of horses and the cries of men. The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had the dream overcome her. She begged her nnrse to find the Abbé Chaperon and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass, but he was not surprised at Ursula's revela- tion. He believed the robbery had been committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself the abnormal condition of his "little dreamer." He left Ursula at once and went directl}- to Minoret's. " Monsieur l'abbé," said Zélie, " my husband's 330 Ursula. temper is so soured I don't know what he mightn't do. Until now he 's been a child ; but for the last two months he 's not the same man. To get angr}' enough to strike me — me, so gentle ! There must be some- thing dreadful the matter to change him like that. You '11 find him among the rocks ; he spends all his time there, — doing what, I 'd like to know? " In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbé crossed the canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks, where he saw Minoret. "You are greatl}- troubled, Monsieur Minoret," said the priest going up to him. " You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to increase your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle lifted the stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great disaster in A'our famil}-. I certainly am not here to frighten you ; but 3'ou ought to know what he said — " " I can't be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these rocks, and I 'm sure I don't want to know anything that is going on in another world." "Then I will leave 3'ou, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for pleasure," said the abbé, mopping his forehead. " Well, what do you want to say? " demanded Minoret. "You are threatened with the loss of your son. If Ursula. 331 the dead man told things that 3'ou alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells things that no one can know till the}' happen. Make restitution, I sa^', make restitution. Don't damn your soul for a little mone}'." " Restitution of what? " " The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three certificates — I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl, and 3'ou end by offering her a fortune ; 3'ou have stumbled into lies, you have tangled yourself up in this net, and yo\i are taking false steps ever}' day. You are very clumsy and un- skilful ; 3-our accomphce Goupil has served you ill ; he simply laughs at 30U. Make haste and clear 3'our mind, for you are watched bj' intelligent and penetrating eyes, — those of Ursula's friends. Make restitution ! and if you do not save 3'Our son (who ma}^ not really be threatened), you will save j'our soul, and you will save your honor. Do 3'ou believe that in a societ}- like ours, in a little town like this, where ever3-body's e3'es are everywhere and all things are guessed and all things are known, 3'ou can long hide a stolen fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man would n't have let me talk so long." " Go to the devil ! " cried Minoret. " I don't know what you all mean b3' persecuting me. I prefer these stones — the3' leave me in peace." 332 Ursula. " Farewell, then ; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have said a single word about this to an}- living person. But take care — there is a man who has his e3'e upon 3-ou. May God have pity upon you ! " The abbé departed ; presentl}' he turned back to look at Minoret. The man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him ; he was, in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three certifi- cates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed ; he did not wish to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of transferring the certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of acknowledging all to his wife and getting her advice. Zclie, who always managed matters for him so well, she could get him out of his troubles. The three-per-cent Funds were now selling at eight}'. Restitution ! why, that meant, with arrearages, giving up a million ! Give up a million, when there was no one who could know that he had taken it ! — So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the little town he Ursula. 333 XX. REMORSE. An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was inclined to make to Zelie ; the sword of Damocles began to move above their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret received from their son Désiré the following letter : — My dear Mother, — If I have not been to see you since vacation, it is partly because T have been on duty during the absence of my chief ; but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduère was waiting my arrival at Nemours, to j^ick a quarrel with ine. Tired, perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the viscount came to Fontainebleau, whei'e he had appointed one of his Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in garrison. He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet, his futiu'e wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil's confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father's conduct, first in refusing to pay Gonpil the price agreed on for his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of 334 Ursula. Goupil's malignity, going security to INIonsieur Dionis for the price of his practice which Goupil is to have. The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination, having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons whose esteem I value, and in- sult me openly In France, a coward is unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser in me to arrange a meeting in the usual man- ner among men of honor, so that Ursula INIirouet might not be known as the cause of the quarrel -, to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to the nearest frontier. In shorty my seconds met his yesterday, and they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. ' A week from to-day I leave for Geneva witli my two friends. Monsieur de Porten- duère. Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will meet me there. The preliminaries of the duel are settled ; we shall fight with pistols ; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from public knowledge (for I find it im- possible to justify my father's conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must confoi-m to the rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall pass the night in Xemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you good-by then. Ursula. 335 After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zélie and Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating all the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even Ursula's dreams. The million fascinated Zulie quite as much as it did Minoret. " You stay quietly here," Zélie said to her husband, without the slightest remonstrance against his folly. " I '11 manage the whole thing. We '11 keep the monej-, and Desire shall not fight a duel." Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son's letter to Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In spite of her assur- ance Zélie was discomfited by the cold look which the young girl gave her. But she took herself to task for her cowardice and assumed an eas}' air. " Here, Mademoiselle Mirouët, do me the kindness to read that and tell me what 3-ou think of it," she cried, giving Ursula her son's letter. Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the letter, which showed her how truly she was loved and what care Savinien took of the honor of the woman who was to be his wife ; but she had too much charity and true religion to be willing to be the cause of death or suflîering to her most cruel enemy. "I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; ^-ou may 336 Ursula. feel perfectly easy, — but I must request you to leave me this letter." "My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement. Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property' about Rouvre, — a really' regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year ; we shall give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the Funds ; in all, sevent}' thousand francs a year. You will admit that there are not man}' better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl, — and quite right too," added Zélie, seeing Ursula's quick gesture of denial ; "I have therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will bear your godfather's name, and that will honor it. Desire, as 3"ou must have seen, is a handsome fellow ; he is very much thought of at Fontainebleau, and he will soon be procureur du roi himself. You are a coaxing girl and you can easily persuade him to live in Paris. We will give you a fine house there ; you will shine ; you will pla}" a distin- guished part ; for, with seventv thousand francs a year and the salary of an office, 3'ou and Desire can enter the higliest society. Consult your friends ; 3'ou '11 see what they tell you." " I need only consult my heart, madame." " Ta, ta, ta I now don't talk to me about that little lady-killer Savinien. You 'd pay too high a price for his name, and for that little moustache curled up at the Ursula. 337 points like two Liooks, and his black hair. How do yoxx expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a man who made two hundred thousand francs of debt in two years ? Besides — though this is a thing you don't know yet — all men are alike ; and without flattering myself too much, I ma}' sa}' that m}- Desire is the equal of a king's son." "You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment ; which can, perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduère's desire to please me. If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals that danger might not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame, that I shall be far happier in the moder- ate circumstances to which you allude than I should be in the opulence with which you are trying to dazzle me. For reasons hitherto unknown, but which will 3'et be made known, Monsieur Minoret, b}' persecutmg me in an odious manner, strengthened the atïection that exists between Monsieur de Portenduère and mj'self — which I can now admit because his mother has blessed it. I will also tell 3'ou that this affection, sanctioned and legitimate as it is, is life itself to me. No destiny, how- ever brilliant, however lofty, could make me change. I love without the possibility of changing. It would therefore be a crime if I married a man to whom I could take nothing but a soul that is Savinien's. But, madame, sinc^ you force me to be explicit, I must tell 22 338 Ursula. 3"ou that even if I did not love Monsieur de Portenduère I could not bring myself to bear the troubles and joys of life in the conipau}' of your son. If Monsieur Savi- nien made debts, j'ou have often paid those of 30ur son. Our characters have neither the similarities nor the dif- ferences which enable two persons to live together with- out bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the forbearance a wife owes to her husband ; I should then be a trial to him. Pray cease to think of an alhance of which I count myself quite unworth}', and which I feel I can decline without pain to you ; for with the great advantages you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl of better station, more wealth, and more beauty than mine." "Will you swear to me," said Zélie, "to prevent these young men from taking that journe}- and fighting that duel ? " "It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice which Monsieur de Portenduère can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown must have no blood upon it." " Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can onl^' hope 3'ou will be happ}-." "And I, madame, sincerely wish that you ma^' real- ize all 3-our expectations for the future of your son." These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenh' remembered the predictions of Ursula's Ursula. 339 last dream ; she stood still, her small eyes fixed on Ursula's face, so white, so pure, so beautiful in her mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-called cousin's departure. " Do 3-ou believe in dreams?" asked Zélie. " I suffer from them too much not to do so." " But if 3'ou do — " began Zélie. "Adieu, madame," exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she heard the abbe's entering step. The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post mistress induced him to take note of the two women. " Do you believe in spirits?" Zélie asked him. " What do you believe in? " he answered, smiling. " The}' are all slj'," thought Zélie, — " every one of them ! They want to deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams ! no more dreams than there are hairs on the palm of my hand." With two stiff, curt bows she left the room. " I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau," said Ursula to the abbé, telling him about the duel and beg- ging him to use his influence to prevent it. " Did Madame Minoret offer you her son's hand?" asked the abbé. 340 Ursula. " Yes." *•' Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her," added the priest. Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step taken by Zélie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to bim. He looked at the abbé as if to sa}': " Come out, I want to speak to you of Ursula without her hearing me." " Savinien must be told that you refused eight}- thou- sand francs a year and the dandy of Nemours," he said aloud. "Is it, then, a sacrifice?" she answered, laughing. " Are there sacrifices when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of a man we all despise? Others ma}' make virtues of their dislikes, but that ought not to be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy, and the abbé, and my dear godfather," she said, look- ing up at his portrait. Bongrand took Ursula's hand and kissed it. "Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?" said the justice as soon as they were in the street. "What?" asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air tliat seemed merely curious. " She had some plan for restitution." " Then you think — " began the abbé. " I don't think, I know ; I have the certainty — and see there ! " Ursula. 341 So saying, Boiigrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on his way home. " When I was a lawj'er in the criminal courts," con- tinued Bongrand, " I naturall}' had many opportunities to stud}' remorse ; but I have never seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity, that pallor of the cheeks where tlie skin was once as tight as a drum and bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care ? What has put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity? Did 3'ou ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead ? Who would have supposed that the brain of that colos- sus could be excited? The man has felt his heart! I am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge of repentance, my dear abbé. That which I have hitherto observed has developed in men who were awaiting pun- ishment, or enduring it to get quits with the world ; the}' were either resigned, or breathing vengeance ; but here is remorse without expiation, remorse pure and simple, fastening on its prey and rending him." The judge stopped Minoret and said : " Do you know that Mademoiselle Mirouët has refused your sou's hand ? " "But," interposed the abbé, "do not be uneasy; she will prevent the duel." "Ah, then m}- wife succeeded?" said Minoret. "I am very glad, for it nearl}- killed me." 342 Ursula. " You are, indeed, so changed that 3'ou are no longer like yourself," remarked Bongrand. Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had betrayed the dreams ; but the abbe's face was unmoved, expressing only a calm sadness which reassured the guilty man. " And it is the more surprising," went on Mon- sieur Bongrand, "because you ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and all those farms and mills and meadows and — with your invest- ments in the Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs — " " I have n't anything in the Funds," cried Minoret, hastily. "Pooh," said Bongrand; "this is just as it was about your son's love for Ursula, — first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage. After tr3-ing to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a daughter- in-law. M3' good friend, 3'ou have got some secret in your pouch." Minoret tried to answer ; he searched for words and could find nothing better than : — " You 're very queer, monsieur. Good-da}', gentle- men ; " and he turned with a slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois. " He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula," said Bongrand, " but how can we ever find the proof? " Ursula. 343 " God ma}' — " began the abbé. " God has put into us the sentiment that is now appeaUng to that man ; but all that is mereh' what is called presumptive, and human justice requires some- thing more." The abbé maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in similar circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think of the robbery, now almost admitted b}' Minoret, and of Savinien's happiness, dela3'ed onl}' by Ursula's loss of fortune — for the old lad}' had privately owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not consenting to the marriage in the doctor's lifetime. 344 Ursula. XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS VERY EASILY STOLEN. The following day, as the abbé was leaving the altar after saying mass, a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance of a voice, lie made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied her home without having breakfasted. " M}' child," he said, "I want to sec the two vol- umes your godfather showed 3-ou in your dreams — where he said that he placed those certificates and banknotes." Ursula and the abbé went up to the library and took down the third volume of the Pandects. AVhen the old man opened it he noticed, not without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found a sort of hollow made bv the long-continued presence of a package, which had left its traces on the two pages next to it. " Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand." La Bougival was heard to say, and the justice of peace came into the library just as the abbé was putting on his spectacles Ursula. 345 to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret's hand-writing on the fl\-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the cover of the volume, — figures which Ursula had just discovered. "What's the meaning of those figures?" said the abbé ; " our dear doctor was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fl^'-leaf of a valuable volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U." " What are you talking of? " said Bongrand. " Let me see that. Good God ! " he cried, after a moment's examination ; " it would open the eyes of an atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence ! Human justice is, I believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the worlds." He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. " Oh ! my child, you will be rich and happ}-, and all through me ! " " What is it?" exclaimed the abbé. "Oh, monsieur," cried La Bougival, catching Bon- grand's blue overcoat, " let me kiss you for what you've just said." " Explain, explain! don't give us false hopes," said the abbé. " If I bring trouble on others b}- becoming rich " said Ursula, forseeing a criminal trial, "I — " " Remember," said the justice, interrupting her, "the happiness you will give to Savinien." 346 Urëida. " Are 3'ou mad? " said the abbé. "No, m}' dear friend," said Bongrand. "Listen; the certificates in tlie Funds are issued in series, — as many series as tliere are letters in the alphabet ; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the cer- tificates which are made out to bearer cannot have a letter ; they are not in any person's name. What 3'ou see there shows that the da}' the doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears his initial M ; next, the numbers of three inscrip- tions to bearer ; these are without a letter ; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula's share in the Funds, the num- ber of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see, that of the fiftcen-thousand-franc certificate with letter- ing This goes far to prove that these numbers are those of five certificates of investments made on the same da}' and noted down b}' the doctor in case of loss. I advisee! him to take certificates to bearer for Ursula's fortune, and he must have made his own investment and that of Ursula's little property the same da}'. I '11 go to Dionis's oflfice and look at the inventoiy. If the number of the certificate for his own investment is 23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he invested, through the same broker on the same day, first his own property on a single certificate ; secondl}', his savings in three certificates to bearer (numbered, but without Ursula. 347 the series letter) thirdly, Ursula's own property ; the transfer books will show, of course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha ! Minoret, you deceiver, I have 3'ou — Mbtus, mj^ children ! " Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with ad- miration on the ways b}' which Providence had brought the innocent to victory. " The finger of God is in all this," cried the abbé. " Will they punish him? " asked Ursula. " Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival. "I'd give the rope to hang him." Bongrand was alread}' at Goupil's, now the appointed successor of Dionis, but he entered the office with a careless air. " I have a little matter to verify about the Minoret propert}-," he said to Goupil. " What is it? " asked the latter. " The doctor left one or more certificates in the three- per-cent Funds ? " "He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year," said Goupil ; " I recorded it m3'self." " Then just look on the inventory," said Bongrand. Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the place, and read : — " 'Item, one certificate' — Here, read for 3'ourself — under the number 23,533, letter M." " Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an hour," said Bongrand. 348 Ursula. " What good is it to you? " asked Goupil. "Do you waut to be a notary?" answered the justice of peace, looking sternly at Dionis's proposed successor. " Of course I do," cried Goupil. " I 've swallowed too many affronts not to succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maître Jean- Sébastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and hus- band of Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no longer even alike. Look at me ! " Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil's clothes. The new notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with rub}- but- tons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat ; his hair, carefuU}- combed, was per- fumed — in short he was metamorphosed. " The fact is you are another man," said Bongrand. " Morall}' as well as physicalh'. Virtue comes with practice — a practice ; besides, mone}' is the source of cleanliness — " " Morally as well as physically," returned Bongrand, settling his spectacles. "• Ha ! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a vear ever a democrat? Consider me in future Ursula. 349 as an honest man who knows what refinement is, and who intends to love his wife," said Gonpil ; "and what 's more, I shall prevent my cUents from ever doing dirt}^ actions." " Well, make haste," said Bongrand. " Let me have that copy in an hour, and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the clerk." After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he went back to Ursula's house for the two important volumes and for her own certificate of Funds ; then, armed with the extract from the inven- tory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the promireiir du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs, — presumabl}' b}- Minoret. " His conduct is explained," said the jyrocureicr. As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go to Paris and ascer- tain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence. Zélie, ver}' uneasy about her son's duel, dressed her- self at once, had the hoi'ses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The procureicr's plan was simple enough. B3' separating the wife from the hus- band, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he expected to learn the truth. Zélie found the 350 . Ursula. official in his private office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows : — " Madame," he said ; " I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft that has been committed upon the Minoret property', on the track of which the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of appearing in the prisoner's dock by making a full confession of what you know about it. The punish- ment which your husband has incurred is, moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son's career is to be thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be too late. Tlie police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant is made out." Zélie nearly fainted ; when she recovered her senses she confessed ever^'thing. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence. " You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate," he said. " No complaint has been lodged b}' the victim, nor has any publicity been given to the theft. But 3'our husband has committed a great crime, which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make 3-ou a prisoner — oh, in my own house, on parole," he added, seeing that Zélie Ursula. 351 was about to faint. "You must remember that my official duty would require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination ; but I am acting now indi- vidually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouët, and her best interests demand a compromise." " Ah ! " exclaimed Zélie. " Write to your husband in the following words," he continued, placing Zélie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter : — " My Friend, — I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the certificates which uucle left to ^lonsieur de Por- tenduere in the will which you burned ; for the procureur du roi has stopped payment at the Treasury." "You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to make," said the magistrate, smil- ing at Zélie's orthography. "We will see that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make yowY sta}' in our house as little disagreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of this matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy." Now that Zélie had confessed and was safely im- mured, the magistrate sent for Désiré, told him all the particulars of his father's theft, which was really to Ursula's injury but, as matters stood, legally to that of his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written bj' his mother. Désiré at once asked to be allowed to go to 352 Ursula. Nemours and see that bis father made immediate restitution. "It is a ver}' serious matter," said the magistrate. " The will having been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and Crémière ma}- put in a claim. I have proof enough against 3-our father. I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her dut}-. To her, I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you can. Don't fear an\- one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouët too well to let the matter become known." Zélie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the 2'^'^^^^''^^'^^''' ^^'^ ^^* received b}- a mounted messenger the following letter, the ortho- graph}- of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule on a man crushed by affliction. To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau : Monsieur, — God is less kind to us than you ; we have met with an irreparable misfortune. AVhen ray wife and son reached the bridge at Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the carriage ; the horses smelt the stable ; my son, fearing their impatience, jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the box. As he turned to resume his place in the carriage be- side his mother the horses started ; Desire did not step back Ursula. 353 against the parapet in time ; the step of the carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the hind wheel passing over his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for the best sur- geon will bring you this letter, which my sou in the midst of his sufferings desires me to write so as to let you know our entire submission to your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to speak to me. I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you have acted, and I will deserve your goodness. François Minoket. This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Ne- mours. The crowds standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell Savinieu tiiat his vengeance had been taken bj' a hand more powerful than his own. He went at once to Ursula's house, where he found both the abbé and the joung girl more distressed than surprised. The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied b^' the abbé, to Ursula's house, where he found also Mon- sieur Bongrand and Savinien. '' Mademoiselle," he said ; " I am ver}- guilty towards you ; but if all the wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that I can expiate. M3' wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our 23 354 Ursula. son recovers, and also in case we have tlie dreadful sorrow of losing him." . He burst into tears as he said the last words. " I can assure you, m}' dear Ursula," said the abbé, "that .you can and that you ought to accept a part of this gift." "Will 3'ou forgive me?" said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the astonished girl. "The operation is about to be performed by the first surgeon of the Hôtel-Dieu ; but I do not trust to human science, I rely only on the power of God. If you forgive us, if you ask God to restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we shall have the joy of saving him." " Let us go to the church ! " cried Ursula, rising. But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and she fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her friends — but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor — looking at her with anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled their hearts. "I saw my godfather standing in the doorway," she said, " and he signed to me that there was no hope." The àa.j after the operation Desire died, — cai'ried off by the fever and the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame Minoret, whose Ursula. 355 heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, be- came insane after the burial of her son, and was taken b}" her husband to the establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841. Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married Savinien with Madame de Portenduère's consent. Minoret took part in the marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouët his estate at Rouvre and an income of twentj'-four thousand francs from the Funds ; keeping for himself onl}' his uncle's house and ten thousand francs a year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most relig- ious ; he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of the unfortunate. " The poor take the place of my son," he sa3-s. If j'ou have ever noticed by the wa3side, in countries where they poll the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair, — broken, emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial dullard whom 3'ou first saw watching for his son at the beginning of this his- tory ; he does not even take his snuff as he once did ; he carries something more now than the weight of his bod}'. Beholding him, we feel that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful warning. 356 Ursula. After hating so violentl}' his uncle's godchild the old man now, like Doctor Minoret himself, has concen- trated all his affections on her, and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours. Monsieur and Madame de Portenduère pass five months of the year in Paris, where the}- have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Ma- dame de Portenduère the elder, after giving her house in Nemours to the Sisters of Charitj' for a free school, went to live at Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter's lodge. Cabirolle, the former conductor of the " Dueler," a man sixt}' 3-ears of age, has married La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a 3ear which she possesses besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur de Portenduère's coachman. If, you happen to see in the Champs-El3-sées one of those charming little low carriages called escargots^ lined with gra}' silk and trimmed with blue, and con- taining a pretty young woman whom you admire because her face is wreathed with innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as forget-me-nots and filled with love ; if \on see her bending slightl}- towards a fine 3'oung man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of envy — pause and I'eflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have paid their quota to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married lovers are the Ursula. 357 Vicomte de Portenduère and bis wife. There is not another such home in Paris as theirs. "• It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen," said the Comtesse de I'Estorade, speaking of them latel}-. Bless them therefore, and be not envious ; seek an Ursula for ^-ourselves, a 3'oung girl brought up b^- three old men, and by the best of all mothers — adversity. Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justl}' considered the wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he is punished in his children, who are ricket}' and hydrocephalous. Dionis, his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of her recep- tions at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the king of the French. She lords it over Nemours b^^ means of the throne, which therefore must be popular in the little town. Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is in the way of becoming an honest attorney -general. Madame Crémière continues to make her delightful speeches. On the occasion of her daughter's marriage, she exhorted her to be the working caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with the CA'es 358 Ursula. of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her " slapsus-linquies," which he calls a Crémièrana. " We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbé Chaperon," said the Vicomtesse de Portenduère this winter — having nursed him herself during his ill- ness. "The whole canton came to his funeral. Ne- mours is very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the venerable curé of Saint-Lange." THE END. Messrs. Roberts BrotJiers' Ptiblicatio7is. BALZAC IN ENGLISH. A Great Mm of the Provinces in Paris. By honoré de BALZAC. Being the second part of " Lost Illusions." Translated by Kath- arine Prescott Wormeley. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, J1.50. We are beginning to look forward to the new translations of Balzac by Katha- rine Wormeley almost as eagerly as to the new works of the best contemporary writers. But, unlike the writings of most novelists, Balzac's novels cannot be judged separately. They belong together, and it is impossible to understand the breadth and depth of the great writer's insight into human life by reading any one volume of this remarkable series. For instance, we rise from the reading of this last volume feeling as if there was nothing high or noble or pure in life. But what would be more untrue than to fancy that Balzac was unable to appreciate the true and the good and the beautiful ! Compare " The Lily of the Valley " or " Seraphita " or " Louis Lambert" with "The Duchesse of Langeais" and " Cousin Bette," and then perhaps the reader will be able to criticise Balzac with some sort of justice. — Bostoti Transcript. Balzac paints the terrible verities of life with an inexorable hand. The siren charms, the music and lights, the feast and the dance, are presented in voluptu- ous colors — but read to the end of the book! There are depicted with equal truthfulness the deplorable consequences of weakness and crime. Some have read Balzac's " Cousin Bette " and have pronounced him immoral ; but when the last chapter of any of his novels is read, the purpose of the whole is clear, and immorality cannot be alleged. Balzac presents life. His novels are as truthful as they are terrible. — Springfield Union. Admirers of Balzac will doubtless enjoy the mingled sarcasm and keen analy- sis of human nature displayed in the present volume, brought ont with even more than the usual amount of the skill and energy characteristic of the author. — Pittsburgh Post. The art of Balzac, the wonderful power of his contrast, the depth of his knowledge of life and men and tilings, this tremendous story illustrates. How admirably the rise of the poet is traced ; the crescendo is perfect in gradation, yet as inexorable as fate! As for the fall, the effect is more depressing than a personal catastrophe. This is a book to read over and over, an epic of life in prose, more tremendous than the blank verse of " Paradise Lost " or the " Divine Comedy" Miss Wormeley and the publishers deserve not congratula- tions alone, but thanks for adding this book and its predecessor, " Lost Illusions," to the literature of English. — San Francisco Wave. Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the Publis/iers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. Messrs. Roberts Brothers' Publications. BALZAC IN ENGLISH. THE BROTHERHOOD OF CONSOLATION. (UENVERS DE L'HISTOIRE CONTEMPORAINE.) By honoré de BALZAC. l. Madame de la Chanterie. 2. The Initiate. Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, $1.50. There is no book of Balzac which is informed by a loftier spirit than "L'Envers de l'Histoire Contemporaine," which has just been added by Miss Wormeley to her admirable series of translations under the title. " The Brother- hood of Consolation." The title which is given to the translation is, to our thinking, a happier one than that which the work bears in the original, since, after all, the political and hisiorical portions of the book are only the background of the other and mote absorbing theme, — the development of the brotherhood over which Madame de la Chanterie presided. It is true that there is about it all something theatrical, something which shows the French taste for making godli- ness itself liislrionically effective, that quality of mind which would lead a Parisian to criticise the coming of the judgment angels if their entrance were not happily arranged and properly executed ; but in spite of this there is an elevation such as it is rare to meet with in literature, and especially in the literature of Balzac's age and land. The story is admirably told, and the figure of the Baron Bourlac is really noble in its martyrdom of self-denial and heroic patience. The picture of the Jewish doctor is a most characteristic piece of work, and shows Balzac's intimate touch in every line. Balzac was always attracted by the mystical side of the phvsical nature ; and it might ahnost be said that everything that savored of mystery, even though it ran obviously into quackery, had a strong attraction for him. He pictures Halpersohn with a few strokes, but his picture of him has a striking vitality and reality. The volume is a valuable and attractive addition to the series to which it belongs; and the series comes as near to fulfilling the ideal o' what translations should be as is often granted to earthly things. — Boston Courier. The book, which is one of rare charm, is one of the most refined, while at the same time tragic, of all his works. — Public Opinion. His present work is a fiction beautiful in its conception, just one of those practical ideals which Balzac nourished and believed in. There never was greater iiomage than he pavs to the book of books, " The Imitation of Jesus Christ." Miss Wormeley has here accomplished her work just as cleverly as in her other volumes of Balzac. — N. V. Times Sold bv all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, by the Piiblishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS, Boston. Messrs. Roberts Brothers Publications. 25aÏ5ac in ^ngïi^t), THE VILLAGE RECTOR. By Honoré de Balzac. Translated by Katharine Prescoft Wormeley. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, $1.50. Once more tliat wonderful acquaintance wliich Kalzac had with all callings appears manifest in this work. Would you get to the bottom of the engineer's occupation in France? Balzac presents it in the whole system, with its aspects, disadvantages, and the excellence of the work accomplished. We write to-day of irrigation and of arboriculture as if they were novelties ; yet in the waste lands of Montagnac, Balzac found these topics ; and what he wrote is the clearest exposition of the subjects. Hut, above all, in "The Village Rector" is found the most potent of religious ideas, — the one that God grants pardon to sinners. Balzac had studied and appreciated the intensely human side of Catholicism and its ada|itiveness to the w.mts of mankind. It is religion, with Balzac, " that opens to us an inexhaustible treasure of indulgence." It is true repentance that saves. The drama which is unrolled in "The Village Rector " is a terrible one, and perhaps repugnant to our sensitive minds. The selection of such a plot, pitiless as it is, Balzac made so as to present the darkest side of human nature, and to show how, through God's pity, a soul might be saved. The instrument of mercy is the Rector Bonnet, and in the chapter entitled "The Rector at Work" he shows how religion " extends a man's life beyond the world." It is not sufficient to weep and moan. "That is but the beginning; the end is action." Th« rector urges the woman whose sins are great to devote what remains of her lifst to work for the benefit of her brothers and sisters, and so she sets about reclaim- ing the waste lands which surround her chateau. With a talent of a superlative order, which gives grace to Véronique, she is like the Madonna of some old panel of Van Eyck's Doing penance, she wears close to her tender skin a haircloth vestment. For love of her, a man has committed murder and died and kept his secret. In her youth, Veronique's face had been pitted, but her saintly life had obliterated that spotted mantle of smallpox. Tears had washed out every blemish. If through true repentance a soul was ever saved, it was Veronique's. This work, too, has afiforded consolation to many miserable sinners, and showed them the way to grace. The present translation is to be cited for its wonderful accuracy and its literary distinction. We can hardly think of a more difficult task than the Englishing of Balzac, and a general reading public should be grateful for the admirable manner in which Miss Wormeley has performed her task. — AViw ï'ork Times. Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, post-paid, on receipt of p? ice by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS. Boston. Mass. Messrs. Roberts BrotJiers' Publications. 25al5ac in «Êngli^sfî). Memoirs of Two Young Married Women. By Honoré de Balzac. Translated by Katharine Prescott VVormeley. i2mo. Half Russia. Price, $1.50. "There are," says Henry James in one of his essays, "two writers In Balzac, — the spontaneous one and the reflective one, the former of which is much the more dehghtful, while the latter is the more extraordi- nary." It is the reflective Balzac, the Balzac with a theory, whom we get in the "Deux Jeunes Mariées," now translated by Miss Wormeley under the title of " Memoirs of Two Young Married Women." The theory of Balzac is that the marriage of convenience, properly regarded, is far preferable to the marriage simply from love, and he undertakes to prove this proposition by contrasting the careers of two young girls who have been fellow-students at a convent. One of them, the ardent and passionate Louise de Chaulieu, has an intrigue with a Spanish refugee, finally marries him, kills him, as she herself confesses, by her perpetual jealousy and exaction, mourns his loss bitterly, then marries a golden- haired youth, lives with him in a dream of ecstasy for a year or so, and this time kills herself through jealousy wrongfully inspired. As for bel friend, Renée de Maucombe, she dutifully makes a marriage to please her parents, calculates coolly beforehand how many children she will have and how they shall be trained; insists, however, that the marriage shall be merely a civil contract till she and her husband find that their hearts are indeed one; and sees all her brightest visions realized, — her Louis an ambitious man for her sake and her children truly adorable creatures. The siory, which is told in the form of letters, fairly scintillates witli brilliant sayings, and is filled with eloquent discourses concerning the nature of love, conjugal and otherwise. Louise and Renée are both extremely sophisticated young women, even in their teens ; and those who expect to find in their letters the demure innocence of the Anglo- Saxon type will be somewhat astonished. The translation, under the circumstances, was ratlier a daring attempt, but it has been most felicit- ously done. — The Beacon. Sold by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on receipt of price by the Publishers, ROBERTS BROTHERS. Boston. Mass. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 888 731 7