UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES BROWSING ROOM THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES Jl^onore tie ISal^ac I^onort tre Balzac PROVINCIAL LIFE VOLUME VII LIMITED TO ONE THOUSAND COMPLETE COPIES 713 NO. r!\t:rmm:'''':.\Mi,iiiii!i •,:m.i,..i, ,'/,♦( h^^i^iyefAr^ t'i^/i /y f/.Jii.;/ .J^,„ . *l 11 \ %Tf f filv^r^j^^^^j^ IN THE RUE DU CYGNE Dii Bousquier made no attempt to conceal this very serious deliberation, he passed his hand over his head, txvisting his nightcap zvhich concealed his disastrous baldness. Like all those zvho exceed their aim, by finding more than they hoped for, SuzaJine zvas astounded. To conceal her astonishment, she assumed the melancholy attitude of a wronged maid before her seducer ; but inwardly she zvas laughing like a grisette at a junket. THE NOVELS OF HONORE DE BALZAC NOW FOR THE FIRST TIME COMPLETELY TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH THE OLD MAID THE CABINET OF ANTIQUITIES BY WILLIAM WALTON WITH FIVE ETCHINGS BY EUGENE DECISY AND CHARLES GIROUX, AFTER PAINTINGS BY DANIEL HERNANDEZ AND PIERRE VIDAL IN ONE VOLUME PRINTED ONLY FOR SUBSCRIBERS BY GEORGE BARRIE & SON, PHILADELPHIA COPYRIGHTED, 1 898, BY G. B. & SON * • V « 8 O ?9 LA VIEILLE FILLE THE OLD MAID 189953 TO MONSIEUR EUGENE-AUGUSTE-GEORGES-LOUIS MIDY DE LA GRENERAYE SURVILLE, ENGINEER OF THE CORPS ROYAL OF BRIDGES AND HIGHIVAYS, As a token of the affection of his brother-in-law DE Balzac THE OLD MAID « Very many persons must have met in certain of the provinces of France a greater or less number of Chevaliers de Valois, for there is one in Nor- mandy, another is to be found at Bourges, a third flourished in 1816 in the city of Alengon, and per- haps the Midi possesses one of its own. But the enumeration of this Valesienne tribe is here unim- portant. All these chevaliers, among whom there were doubtless some who were Valois as Louis XIV. was Bourbon, were so little acquainted with each other that it was not worth while to mention their names to each other. All of them, moreover, per- mitted the Bourbons to remain upon the throne of France in perfect tranquillity, for it is somewhat too well established that Henri IV. became king owing to the want of a male heir in the first branch of the Orleans family, called Valois. If there be any Valoises in existence, they descend from Charles de Valois, Due d'Angouleme, son of Charles IX. and (5) 6 THE RIVALRIES Marie Touchet, whose male posterity came to an end, until the contrary is demonstrated, in the per- son of the Abbe de Rothelin ; the Valois-Saint- Remy, who descended from Henri II., likewise be- came extinct in the famous Lamothe-Valois, impli- cated in the affair of the Diamond Necklace. Every one of these chevaliers, if our information is reliable, was, like he of Alenjon, an old gentle- man, tall, dry, and without a fortune. He of Bourges had emigrated, he of Touraine had con- cealed himself, he of Alengon had fought in La Vendee and Chouanned a little. The latter had passed the greater part of his youth in Paris, where the Revolution surprised him at the age of thirty in the midst of his conquests. Accepted by the highest aristocracy of the province as a real Valois, this Chevalier de Valois d'Alenjon was distin- guished, like his homonyms, by his excellent man- ners, and had the appearance of a man accustomed to the best society. He dined out every day, and might be seen at play every evening. He had the reputation of being a witty man, thanks to one of his defects, a habit of relating a great number of anecdotes of the reign of Louis XV. and of the be- ginning of the Revolution. When these stories were heard for the first time, they seemed to be very well told. The Chevalier de Valois had, moreover, the virtue of not repeating his ov/n bons mots and of never speaking of his love affairs ; but his smiles and his agreeable manners were like de- lightful indiscretions. This good gentleman availed THE OLD MAID 7 himself of the privilege of the old Voltaireans, of not going to mass, but his irreiigion was regarded with the very greatest indulgence because of his devotion to the royal cause. One of his graces that was the most remarked was the manner, doubtless imitated from Mole, of taking snuff from an old gold snuff- box ornamented by a portrait of a Princess Goritza, a charming Hungarian, celebrated for her beauty in the latter days of the reign of Louis XV. Having had an attachment in his youth for this illustrious foreigner, he never spoke of her without emotion ; he had fought a duel for her with Monsieur de Lau- zun. Though fifty-eight years of age at this period, he acknowledged only fifty, and could very well permit himself this innocent deceit, for, among the advantages enjoyed by those who are both blond and spare is that of preserving that still-youth- ful figure which, in both men and women, de- lays the appearance of age. Yes, be it known, all the course of life, or all that elegance which is the expression of the life, resides in the figure. Among the number of the chevalier's properties, mention must be made of the prodigious nose with which Nature had endowed him. This nose divided vigorously a pale countenance into two sections which seemed to have no knowledge of each other, and of which only one flushed during the labor of digestion. This fact is worthy of remark at a time when physiology is so much concerned with the human mind. This incandescence took place on the left. Although the long and slender legs of 8 THE RIVALRIES Monsieur de Valols, his thin body and wan com- plexion did not give evidence of robust health, he nevertheless ate like an ogre, and pretended to have a malady known in the provinces as foie chaud — in- flamed liver — doubtless as an excuse for his excess- ive appetite. The circumstance of his flushing supported this pretension ; but, in a country where the repasts develop along the lines of thirty or forty courses, and last for four hours, the stomach of the chevalier seemed a blessing bestowed by Providence upon this good city. According to certain physi- cians, this flush on the left side indicates a prodigal heart. The gallantries of the chevalier confirmed these scientific assertions, the responsibility for which, very fortunately, does not weigh upon the historian. Notwithstanding these symptoms. Mon- sieur de Valois had a nervous, consequently a viva- cious organization. If his liver was ardent, to make use of an old expression, his heart burned none the less. If some wrinkles might be discov- ered on his countenance, if his hair was silvered, an experienced observer would have seen there the stigmata of the passions and the furrows of pleas- ure. In fact, the characteristic goose-feet and the palace steps displayed those elegant lines so much prized at the court of Cytherasa. Everything about the gallant chevalier betrayed the manners of a ladies' man ; he was so exact in his ablutions that it was a pleasure to see his cheeks, they seemed to be refreshed with some marvellous water. That part of his skull which his hair refused to cover THE OLD MAID 9 glittered like ivory. His eyebrows, like his hair, affected youthfulness by the regularity lent them by the comb. His skin, already so white, seemed to be still more whitened by some secret. Without using any perfumes, the chevalier exhaled, as it were, a perfume of youth which refreshed his sur- roundings. His hands of a gentleman, cared for like those of a fastidious woman, attracted attention by their pink and well-trimmed nails. In short, had it not been for his magisterial and superlative nose, he would have been merely spruce. It is necessary to summon courage to spoil this portrait by the admis- sion of a weakness. The chevalier put cotton in his ears, and still wore in them two little rings repre- senting heads of negroes in diamonds, admirably executed, moreover ; but he considered himself suf- ficiently justified in this singular habit by asserting that, since he had had his ears pierced, his head- aches had left him ; — he had been subject to head- aches. We do not present the chevalier as an ac- complished man ; but is it not well to pardon in old bachelors, whose hearts send so much blood to their faces, some admirable absurdities, founded perhaps upon some sublime secrets ? Moreover, the Cheva- lier de Valois redeemed his negroes' heads by so many other graces that society should have consid- ered itself sufficiently indemnified. He took, truly, a great deal of trouble to conceal his age and to give pleasure to his acquaintances. In the first place, there must be noticed the extreme care which he be- stowed upon his linen, the sole distinction which lO THE RIVALRIES persons of breeding can to-day have in their cos- tume ; — that of the chevalier was always of a most aristocratic fineness and whiteness. As to his coat, though it was of remarkable neatness, it was always somewhat worn, though without spots or wrinkles. The preservation of the garment seemed to be some- thing extraordinary for those who noticed the fash- ionable indifference of the chevalier on this point ; he did not go so far as to rub it with glass, a refine- ment invented by the Prince of Wales ; but Mon- sieur de Valois brought to the observance of the most elegant English modes a personal foppishness which could scarcely be appreciated by the good peo- ple of Alenfon. Does not the world owe some con- sideration to those who are at so much expense for it ? Is there not in this the fulfilment of the most difficult precept of the Gospel, which commands that good shall be rendered for evil ? This freshness of toilet, this care, became very well the blue eyes, the ivory teeth, and the blond aspect of the cheva- lier. Only, this Adonis in retreat had nothing virile in his appearance, and seemed to employ the adorn- ment of the toilet to conceal the ruin occasioned by the military service of gallantry. To complete, his voice produced something like an antithesis in con- nection with the chevalier's blond delicacy. With- out necessarily adopting the opinion of some observ- ers of the human mind, and concluding that the chevalier had the voice appropriate to his nose, you might well have been surprised by its ample and re- dundant sound. Although it did not possess the THE OLD MAID II volume of the colossal basses, the timbre of this voice was pleasant because of its full medium qual- ity, similar to the tones of the cor anglais — a sort of hautboy — enduring and soft, strong and velvety. The chevalier had repudiated the absurd costume preserved by some of the monarchists, and had frankly modernized himself ; he always appeared in a chestnut-colored coat with gilt buttons, in breeches half tight-fitting in pou-de-soie and with gold buckles, in a white waistcoat without embroidery, in a cravat worn tight without a shirt collar, the last vestige of the ancient French toilet which he had been the less inclined to renounce as he was thus able to display his neck of an abbe in commendam. His shoes were set off by square golden buckles, of which the present generation has no remembrance, and which were applied on varnished black leather. The chevalier showed two watch chains which hung in parallel lines from each of his fobs, another rem- nant of the eighteenth century which the incrqyables had not disdained to adopt under the Directory. This costume of transition, which united two centu- ries, the chevalier wore with that grace of a marquis, the secret of which was lost from the French scene on the day when Fleury, the last pupil of Mole, dis- appeared. The private life of this old bachelor was apparently open to the inspection of all, but was, in reality, mysterious. He occupied a modest lodging — to say no more — in the Rue du Cours, on the sec- ond floor of a house belonging to Madame Lardot, the clear-starcher with the largest business in the 12 THE RIVALRIES city. This circumstance explains the excessive care bestowed upon his linen. Most unfortunately, Alen- Qon had, one day, grounds for believing that the chevalier had not always conducted himself strictly as a gentleman should, and that he had privately married, in his old age, a certain Cesarine, mother of an infant that had had the impertinence to come without being called. " He had," said a certain Monsieur du Bousquier, " given his hand to her who had so long been lend- ing him her smoothing-iron." This dreadful calumny embittered all the more the declining years of the sensitive gentleman, because, as the present Scene will show, he was thus los- ing a hope that he had long cherished and for which he had made many sacrifices. Madame Lardot rented to Monsieur le Chevalier de Valois two chambers on the second floor of her house, for the moderate sum of a hundred francs a year. The worthy gentleman, who dined out every day, re- turned home only to sleep. His sole expense was thus his dejeuner, which consisted invariably of a cup of chocolate, accompanied with bread and butter and with the fruits of the season. He had a fire only during the most inclement winters, and then only at the hour when he rose. Between eleven o'clock and four he took his promenades, went out to read the journals, and made calls. At the period of establishing himself at Alenfon he had nobly ad- mitted his poverty, saying that his entire fortune consisted in an annuity of six hundred francs, the THE OLD MAID 1 3 sole remnant which remained to him of his ancient opulence, and which was paid him quarterly by his former business agent who held the deeds of the an- nuity. In fact, a banker of the city counted out to him every three months, a hundred and fifty francs sent by a Monsieur Bordin, of Paris, the last of the procureurs of the Chatelet. Everyone was ac- quainted with these details, because of the profound secrecy which the chevalier always demanded of whomsoever received his confidence. Monsieur de Valois gathered the fruits of his misfortune ; — his plate was laid regularly in all the most distinguished houses of Alencon, and he was invited to all the en- tertainments. His talents as a card-player, as a story-teller, as an agreeable man of good society, were so well appreciated, that it seemed as if every- thing were disarranged if the connoisseur of the city were absent. The masters of the households, the ladies, felt the need of his little approving grimace. When a young woman heard the old chevalier say at a ball : " You are admirably dressed ! " she was happier at this eulogium than at the despair of her rival. Monsieur de Valois was the only one who could properly express certain phrases that had come down from former times. The words my heart, my jewel, my little darling, my queen, all the amorous diminutives of the year 1770, took on an irresistible grace in his mouth ; finally, he had the privilege of superlatives. His compliments, of which he was, moreover, very sparing, acquired him the good-will of all the old women ; he flattered every- 14 THE RIVALRIES one, even the men in official positions of whose good favors he did not stand in need. His conduct at play was of a distinction which would have made him re- marked anywhere ; he never complained, he praised his adversaries when they lost ; he did not under- take the education of his partners by showing them how the hand could have been better played. When, during the deal, there arose those wearisome discus- sions, thechevalier drew out his snuff-box with a ges- ture worthy of Mole, looked at the Princess Goritza, lifted the lid worthily, gathered together his pinch ; winnowed it, powdered it, fashioned it to an edge ; then, when the cards were dealt, he had garnished the caverns of his nostrils and replaced the princess in his waistcoat pocket, always on the left side ! A gentle- man of the fine age — in opposition to the grattd age — could alone have invented this transaction, half-way between a disdainful silence and the epigram which would not have been comprehended. He accepted the novices at play as partners, and knew how to make the most of them. His delightful evenness of temper caused a great many persons to say of him : " I admire the Chevalier de Valois ! " His conver- sation, his manners, everything about him, seemed blond, like his person. He made a study of offend- ing neither man nor woman. Indulgent for the bod- ily faults, as for mental defects, he listened patiently, with the aid of the Princess Goritza, to those who retailed to him the little unhappinesses of life in the provinces ; — the badly cooked egg at dejeuner, the coffee in which the cream had turned, the absurd THE OLD MAID 1 5 details of bodily health, the sudden awakenings from sleep, the dreams, the visits. The chevalier pos- sessed a languorous look, a classic attitude for feigning compassion, v/hich rendered him a delight- ful auditor ; he placed an Ah /, a Bah !, a What did vou do? with charming appositeness. He died without ever having been suspected of recalling to his memory the most affecting chapters of his ro- mance with the Princess Goritza whilst these out- pourings of silliness lasted. Has anyone ever thought of the services which an extinguished senti- ment may render to society, of the extent to which love is sociable and useful } This may explain why, notwithstanding his constant winnings, the chevalier remained the spoiled child of the city, — for he never left a salon without carrying away about six francs of winnings. His losses, which, moreover, he announced loudly, were very small. All those who have known him, admit that they have never encountered any- where, not even in the Egyptian museum at Turin, so gentle a mummy. In no country of the world did parasitism clothe itself in such graceful forms. Nev- er did the most concentrated egotism show itself more obliging and less offensive than in this gentle- man, it was worthy of a devoted friendship. If any- one came to request of Monsieur de Valois a little service which might have inconvenienced him, that one never left the good chevalier without being in love with him, without being above all convinced that he could do nothing in the affair, or that he would spoil it by interfering in it. l6 THE RIVALRIES In order to explain the problematic existence of the chevalier, the historian, on whose throat, truth, that cruel debauchee, sets her grip, is obliged to say- that lately, after the sadly glorious days of July, Alengon learned that the amounts won at play by Monsieur de Valois amounted quarterly to about a hundred and fifty crowns, and that the intelligent chevalier had had the courage to send himself his annuity, so that he might not appear to be without any resources in a country in which there is a demand for the positive. Many of his friends — after his death, be it understood ! — have doggedly con- tested the truth of this statement, treated it as a fable, holding the Chevalier de Valois to have been a worthy and respectable gentleman calumniated by the liberals. Fortunately for the fine players, there are always to be found in the galleries, individuals who will sustain them. Ashamed at having to justify a wrong, these admirers deny it with intre- pidity ; do not accuse them of obstinacy, these men have the sentiment of their dignity : the govern- ment gives them the example of this virtue which consists in interring its dead in the night, without chanting the Te Deimi of its defeats. If the chevalier had permitted himself this fine trick, which, more- over, would have procured him the esteem of the Chevalier de Gramont, a smile from the Baron de Foeneste, a grasp of the hand from the Marquis de Moncade, was he any the less the agreeable guest, the witty man, the equable player, the delightful story-teller who was the favorite of Alenfon ? In THE OLD MAID I7 what, moreover, was his action, which is well within the domain of free will, contrary to the ele- gant manners of a gentleman ? When so many individuals are obliged to pay out annuities to others, what is more natural than to give one volun- tarily, to one's best friend ? But Laius is dead. — At the end of fifteen years of this manner of living, the chevalier had amassed ten thousand and some hun- dred francs. On the return of the Bourbons, one of his old friends, Monsieur le Marquis de Pombreton, formerly lieutenant in the black musketeers, had, he said, returned to him twelve hundred pistoles which he had lent him to emigrate. This event made a sensation ; it was, later, quoted against the jests invented by Le Constitutionnel concerning the manner of paying their debts employed by some of the emigres. When any one spoke of this noble action of the Marquis de Pombreton before the chevalier, that poor man blushed even to the right cheek. Everyone then rejoiced for Monsieur de Valois, who consulted some moneyed men as to the best manner in which to invest the remnant of a fortune. Con- fiding in the fortunes of the Restoration, he inscribed his name on the register of creditors of the state at the period when the Rentes were held at fifty-six francs, twenty-five centimes. Messieurs de Lenon- court, de Navarreins, de Verneuil, de Fontaine and la Billardi^re, whom he knew, he said, obtained for him a pension of a hundred ecus from the king's privy purse and sent him the cross of Saint-Louis. It was never known by what means the old chevalier 2 l8 THE RIVALRIES obtained these two solemn attestations of his title and his rank ; but it is certain that the bestowal of the cross of Saint-Louis authorized him to take the grade of retired colonel, by reason of his services in the Catholic armies of the West. Not considering his fiction of the annuity, with which no one was any longer concerned, the chevalier had then an authenticated income of a thousand francs. Not- withstanding this amelioration in his circumstances, he made no change either in his manner of living or in his daily habits ; only, the red ribbon was mar- vellously becoming on his chestnut-colored coat, and completed, so to speak, his physiognomy of a gentle- man. Since 1802, the chevalier had been sealing his letters with a very antique gold seal, sufficiently badly engraved, but on which the Casterans, the d'Esgrignons, the Troisvilles, might see that he bore party per pale Fra^tce gemelles gules, gules five mascles or arranged in a cross, touching. The shield somme with a chief sable, with a cross in pale, argent. For crest, a knight's helmet. For device: Valeo. With these noble arms, the pretended bastard of the Valois should and could take his seat in any of the royal carriages of the world. Very many people have envied the pleasant life of this old bachelor, filled with parties of boston, of backgammon, oireversi, of whist and of piquet well played, of dinners well digested, of pinches of snuff taken gracefully, of tranquil promenades. Almost all Alenfon be- lieved this life to be free from ambition and from grave interests ; but no man leads so simple a life as THE OLD MAID 19 those envious of him believe. You will discover in villages the most forgotten of human molluscs, rotifera apparently dead, who have the collector's mania for lepidoptera or conchology, and who will take infinite trouble for 1 know not what butterflies or for the concha Veneris. Not only did the chevalier have his sea-shells, but, still more, he nourished an ambitious desire, cherished with a profundity worthy of Sixtus Fifth ; he wished to marry some wealthy old maid, doubtless with the intention of making of this alliance a stepping-stone to attain the elevated spheres of the court. In this lay the secret of his pretensions to royalty and of his sojourn at Alen- fon. One Wednesday, very early in the morning, about the middle of the spring of the year 16, — this was his manner of speaking, — at the moment when the chevalier donned his dressing-robe of old, green, flowered damask, he heard, notwithstanding the cotton in his ears, the light step of a young girl mounting the stairway. Presently three knocks were discreetly given on his door ; then, without waiting for a summons, an attractive-looking young girl slipped like an eel into the old bachelor's chamber. " Ah ! it is you, Suzanne," said the Chevalier de Valois without discontinuing the operation he had commenced, which consisted in passing the blade of his razor backward and forward over a leathern strap. "What are you coming to do here, dear little jewel of mischief ? " 20 THE RIVALRIES " 1 came to tell you something that will perhaps give you as much pleasure as pain." " Is it about Cesarine ? " "Much I am troubled about your Cesarine!" said she, with an air at once mutinous, grave and indifferent. This charming Suzanne, whose pleasant adven- ture was destined to exert so great an influence on the destinies of the principal personages of this history, was one of Madame Lardot's workwomen. A word is necessary as to the arrangement of the house. The workrooms occupied the whole of the ground floor. The little courtyard served to hang out on cords the embroidered handkerchiefs, the collarettes, the cane^oiis, the sleeves, the frilled shirts, the cravats, the laces, the embroidered gowns, all the fine linen of the best households in the city. The chevalier pretended to be able to de- termine, by the number of the canezous, or sleeve- less gowns, of the wife of the receiver-general, the current of her intrigues ; for there were to be seen frilled shirts and cravats in correlation with the cane- zous and collarettes. Although able to divine by this species of double appearance everything con- cerning the rendezvous of the city, the chevalier never committed an indiscretion, never did he utter an epigram capable of closing to him a single house — and he had wit ! — Thus you may well take Mon- sieur de Valois for a man of superior parts, and one whose talents, like those of so many others, are lost in a restricted circle. Only, as he was, nevertheless, THE OLD MAID 21 a man, the chevalier permitted himself certain inci- sive side glances that made the women tremble ; nevertheless, they all loved him when they came to recognize how profound was his discretion, how much sympathy he really had for the pretty weaklings. The head workwoman, Madame Lardot's factotum, an old maid of forty-five, terrifyingly ugly, had her room directly opposite the chevalier's. Above them there was nothing but the garrets in which the lines was dried in winter. Each apartment, like that of the chevalier, consisted of two rooms lighted, one from the street and the other from the court. On the floor below the chevalier, lived an old paralytic, Madame Lardot's grandfather, an ex-corsair named Grevin, who had served under Admiral Simeuse in the Indies, and who was deaf. As to Madame Lar- dot, who occupied the other apartment on the first floor, she had such a weakness for people of condi- tion that she might be considered as blind as far as the chevalier was concerned. For her, Monsieur de Valois was an absolute monarch who did everything for the best. Had one of her workwomen been guilty of a good fortune that might be attributed to the chevalier, she would have said : " He is such a nice man ! " Thus, though this house was of glass, like all houses in the provinces, in all that concerned Monsieur de Valois it was as discreet as a cave of thieves. Born confidant of all the little intrigues of the workroom, the chevalier never passed before the door, which was usually open, without giving some small presents to his pets, — chocolate, bon- 22 THE RIVALRIES bons, ribbons, laces, a gold cross, all kinds of pretty trifles of which the grisettes are so fond. There- fore the good chevalier was adored by these young girls. Women have an instinct which enables them to divine those men who love them solely because they wear petticoats, who are happy to be near them, and to whom it never occurs to stupidly de- mand a return for their gallantries. Women have in this respect the fine scent of dogs, who in the midst of a company, go straight to the man who has an affection for animals. The poor Chevalier de Valois had preserved, from his early life, that need of exercising a gallant protection which formerly distinguished the grand seigneur. Always faithful to the traditions of the houses of pleasure, he liked to give to women, the only beings who know how to receive gracefully, because they can always re- turn. Is it not extraordinary that at a period when all the graduates issuing from their colleges set them- selves to hunt out a symbol or to examine myths, no one has yet explained the young girls of the eighteenth century ? Did they not represent the fifteenth century tournament? In 1550, the knights, the chevaliers, combated for their ladies ; in 1750, they displayed their mistresses at Longchamp ; to- day, they keep race horses ; at every epoch the gentleman has endeavored to create for himself a mode of life which should be for himself alone. The shoes a la poiilaine of the fourteenth century were the red heels of the eighteenth, and the luxury of mistresses was in 1750 an ostentation similar to THE OLD MAID 23 that of the sentiments of knight errantry. But the chevalier could no longer ruin himself for a mistress ! In the place of bonbons enveloped in bank notes, he offered gallantly a little bag of dry tarts. Let it be said for the glory of Alengon, these tarts were ac- cepted more joyously than La Duthe ever received a dressing-case in silver or a carriage from the Comte d'Artois. All these grisettes had compre- hended the fallen majesty of the Chevalier de Valois, and maintained for him a profound secrecy concerning their household familiarities. When they v/ere questioned in certain houses in the city concerning the Chevalier de Valois, they spoke gravely of the gentleman, they made him older, he became a very respectable monsieur whose life was a flower of sanctity ; but, in the house, they would all have climbed on his shoulders like parrakeets. He was very fond of hearing the secrets which the laundrywomen learned in the households, and they accordingly came in the mornings to retail to him the diversions of Alenfon ; he termed them his gazettes in petticoats, his living journals ; never did Monsieur de Sartines have more intelligent spies, or cheaper ones, who would have preserved so much honor while displaying so much deceitful- ness of mind. It will be noted that, during his dejeuner, the chevalier was amused like a true believer. Suzanne, one of his favorites, clever, ambitious, had in her the quality of a Sophie Arnould, she was, moreover, as beautiful as the most beautiful cour- 24 THE RIVALRIES tesan that ever Titian invited to pose upon a black velvet to aid his brush in creating a Venus ; but her countenance, though fine in the form of the eyes and the forehead, sinned in the lower part of the face by commonplace contours. It was the "Norman type of beauty, fresh, brilliant, rounded, the flesh of Rubens, which should be married to the muscles of the Farnese Hercules, and not the Venus de Me- dici, that graceful spouse of Apollo. " Well, my child, tell me your little story or your big one." That which, from Paris to Pekin, would have made the chevalier remarkable, was his gentle, paternal manner with these grisettes ; they recalled to him the young women he had known in former times, those illustrious queens of the Opera, whose renown was European in extent during a good third of the eighteenth century. It is quite certain that the gentleman who had lived with that feminine nation, now forgotten like all other great things, like the Jesuits and the filibusters, like the abbes and the farmers of the king's revenue, had acquired an irresistible good nature, a graceful facility, an ease of manner quite destitute of egotism, all the incog- nito of Jupiter in the house of Alcmena, of the king who allows himself to be deceived by everyone, who throws to the devil the superiority of his thunderbolts and wishes to consume his Olympus in follies, in little suppers, in feminine wastefulness, — but far from Juno. Notwithstanding his dressing gown of old, green damask, notwithstanding the bare- THE OLD MAID 25 ness of the chamber in which he received, and on the floor of which there was a wretched piece of tapestry in place of a carpet, greasy old armchairs, the walls covered with a public-house paper which presented here the profiles of Louis XVI. and the members of his family traced under a weeping- willow, there the sublime testament printed in the shape of an urn, in short, all the sentimentalities invented by royalism under the Terror ; notwith- standing his ruins, the chevalier, shaving himself before an old toilet table ornamented with wretched lace, still represented the eighteenth century ! — All the libertine graces of his youth reappeared, he seemed to be rich with three hundred thousand francs of debts and to have his berlin at the door. He was as grand as Berthier issuing orders during the re- treat from Moscow, to the battalions of an army which no longer existed. ** Monsieur le chevalier," said Suzanne drolly, " it seems to me that I have nothing to relate to you, you have only to see." And she posed herself in profile, in such a manner as to support her words with a demonstration like a lawyer's. The chevalier, who, be assured, was sufficiently shrewd, lowered, while still keeping the razor obliquely on his neck, his right eye upon the grisette, and feigned to understand. " Good, good, my little dear, we will talk pres- ently. But you are anticipating, it seems to me." " But, monsieur le chevalier, should I wait till my mother beats me, till Madame Lardot turns me out ? 26 THE RIVALRIES If 1 do not go promptly to Paris, I can never get married here, where the men are so absurd." "What would you have, my child! society is changing ; the women are victims, no less than the nobility, of the frightful disorder which is preparing. After the political overturnings, come the overturn- ings of manners and customs. Alas ! woman will soon no longer exist — he took out his cotton in order to clear his ears ; — she will have lost much in giving herself up to feeling ; she will rack her nerves, and will no longer have this pleasant little enjoyment of our times, desired without shame, accepted without ceremony, and in which her whims are employed only — he polished his little negroes* heads — as a means of attaining her ends ; she will make of it all a malady which will end in infusions of orange- leaves. — He began to laugh. — In short, marriage will become something — he took his tweezers to remove superfluous hairs — exceedingly wearisome, and it was so cheerful in my time ! The reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., remember this, my child, were the farewells of the finest manners in the world." " But, monsieur le chevalier," said the grisette, "it is a question of the morals and the honor of your little Suzanne, and I hope that you will not forsake her." "What!" exclaimed the chevalier, finishing his coiffure, " I would rather lose my name ! " " Ah ! " said Suzanne. " Listen to me, little witch," said the chevalier, stretching himself out on a great couch which was THE OLD MAID 27 formerly called une duchesse, and which Madame Lardot had succeeded in finding for him. He drew the magnificent Suzanne to him, taking her legs between his knees. The pretty maid yielded, she so haughty in the street, she who had twenty times refused the fortune offered her by some of the men of Alenfon, as much through honor as through contempt for their stinginess. Suzanne then presented her pretended sin so auda- ciously to the chevalier that that old sinner, who had sounded so many other mysteries in other ex- istences very crafty in other ways, would have per- ceived the affair at a single glance. He knew well that no young girl makes a jest of a real dishonor ; but he disdained to upset the scaffolding of this pretty falsehood by touching it. "We are slandering ourselves," said the cheva- lier to her, smiling with inimitable subtlety, "we are as clever as the beautiful maid whose name we bear, we can get married without any fear ; but we do not wish to vegetate here, we are thirsty for Paris, where charming creatures become rich when they are clever, and we are not a fool. We wish then to go to see if the capital of pleasures has re- served for us some young Chevaliers de Valois, a carriage, diamonds, a box at the Opera. The Rus- sians, the English, the Austrians, have brought with them millions, out of which Mamma has assigned a dot to us by making us pretty. Finally, we have some patriotism, we wish to aid France to recover her money from the pockets of these messieurs. 28 THE RIVALRIES Eh ! eh ! dear little lamb of the devil, all that is not bad. The world in which thou livest will cry out a little, perhaps, but success will justify everything. That which is very bad, my child, is to be without money, and that is the malady of both of us. As we have a good deal of wit, we have conceived the idea of making use of our pretty little honor to catch an old bachelor ; but this old bachelor, my dear, knows the alpha and omega of feminine tricks, — which is to say, that thou mayst more easily put a grain of salt on a sparrow's tail than thou mayst make me believe that I have anything to do with thy affair. Go to Paris, little one, go there at the ex- pense of the vanity of a bachelor, I will not hinder thee, I will aid thee, for the old bachelor, Suzanne, is the natural cash-box of a young girl. But do not drag me into it. Listen, my queen, thou who un- derstandest life so well, thou wouldst do me much wrong and give me much trouble ; wrong ? thou couldst prevent my marriage in a country where they are particular ; much trouble ? in fact, thou wouldst be in an embarrassing position, which I deny, sly one ! thou knowest, my dearie, that I no longer have anything, I am as poor as a church rat. Ah ! if I should marry Mademoiselle Cormon, if I should become rich again, I should certainly prefer thee to Cesarine. Thou hast always seemed to me as fine as gold with which to gild lead, and thou art made to be the love of some grand seigneur. I believe thee so clever that the little trick which thou playest me does not surprise me at all, I was THE OLD MAID 29 expecting it. For a young girl, why it is throwing away the scabbard of thy sword. To act thus, my angel, it requires superior ideas. Therefore, thou hast my esteem ! " And he confirmed it on her cheek, in the manner of the bishops. " But, monsieur le chevalier, I assure you that you are mistaken, and that — " She blushed without having the courage to con- tinue, the chevalier had, with one look, divined, penetrated her whole scheme. "Yes, 1 hear thee, thou wishest that I should believe thee ! Well, I believe it. But, take my advice, go to see Monsieur du Bousquier. Hast thou not been carrying the linen to Monsieur du Bous- quier for the last five or six months ? Well, I do not ask thee what has happened between you ; but I know him, he has self-respect, he is an old bachelor, he is very rich, he has two thousand five hundred francs of income and does not expend eight hundred. If thou art as clever as I suppose, thou wilt see Paris at his expense. Go, my little dear, go and twist him up, above all, be as fine as silk ; and at each word make a double turn and a knot ; he is a man to dread scandal, and, if he has given thee occasion to put him in the prisoner's box — in short, thou comprehendest, threaten to apply to the ladies of the bureau of charity. Moreover, he is am- bitious. Well, a man may attain to everything by means of his wife. Art thou not pretty enough, clever enough, to make thy husband's fortune ? 30 THE RIVALRIES Eh ! the devil, thou art capable of holding thy own against a lady of the court." Suzanne, enlightened by the chevalier's last words, burned with desire to fly to Du Bousquier's house. But, not to leave too abruptly, she ques- tioned the chevalier about Paris, whilst assisting him in dressing. The chevalier divined the effect of his instructions, and aided Suzanne's going out by asking her to tell Cesarine to send him up the chocolate which Madame Lardot made for him every morning. Suzanne slipped away, to go to see her victim, whose biography here follows. * Du Bousquier, the descendant of an old family of Alenfon, occupied a position midwr.y between the bourgeois and the country gentleman. His father had exercised the judiciary functions of lieutenant- criminel. Left without means at the death of his father, Du Bousquier, like all the ruined provincials, went to Paris to seek his fortune. At the com- mencement of the Revolution, he had gone into com- mercial affairs. Notwithstanding the republicans, who are all very lofty concerning republican pro- bity, the affairs of those times are not altogether clear. A political spy, a stock j^^bber, a contractor, a man who procured the confiscation of the property of the emigres, — in collusion with the syndic of the commune — for the purpose of buying them in and selling them again, a minister and a general, all were equally interested in the business. From 1793 to 1799, Du Bousquier was a contractor to furnish sup- plies to the commissariat of the French armies. He had then a magnificent hotel, he was one of the great lights of finance, he was in partnership with Ouvrard, kept open house, and led the scandalous life of the period, a life of Cincinnatus with full (30 32 THE RIVALRIES harvests gathered without trouble, with stolen ra- tions, with little houses full of mistresses, and in which fine fetes were given to the Directors of the Republic. The Citizen du Bousquier was one of the familiars of Barras, he was on the best terms with Fouche, very intimate with Bernadotte, and believed himself on the point of becoming minister by throwing himself headlong into the party which was secretly scheming against Bonaparte until Ma- rengo. It required the charge of Kellermann and the death of Desaix to prevent Du Bousquier from becoming a great statesman. He was one of the superior employes of the undescribed govern- ment which Napoleon's good fortune caused to be shifted into the side scenes in 1793. — See A Dark Affair. — The victory so obstinately obtained at Marengo was the defeat of this party, which had its proclamations already printed for a return to the system of the Mountain, in case the First Consul had succumbed. Du Bousquier was so confident of the impossibility of his triumph that he had staked the greater part of his fortune on a decline in the market, and had kept two couriers on the battle field ; — the first had started at the moment when Melas was victorious ; but, during the night, four hours later, the second came to announce the defeat of the Austrians. Du Bousquier cursed Kellermann and Desaix, he did not dare to curse the First Consul, who owed him millions. This alternative of millions to be gained and actual ruin deprived the contractor of all his faculties, for several days he was in a THE OLD MAID 33 state of imbecility, he had abused himself so much by a life of excesses that this thunderbolt found him without strength to resist. The liquidation of his credits upon the state permitted him to cherish some hopes ; but, notwithstanding his bribes, he encountered Napoleon's hatred for the contractors who had counted upon his defeat. Monsieur de Fer- mon, so jestingly called Fermons la caisse — Shut up the cash-box, — left Du Bousquier without a sou. The immorality of his private life, the relations of this contractor with Barras and Bernadotte, dis- pleased the First Consul even more than his specu- lations on the Bourse ; he struck him off the list of receivers-general on which, through a remnant of his credit, he had had himself inscribed for Alenfon. Of all his fortune, Du Bousquier preserved only twelve hundred francs of annuity, invested in the national funds, — a purely accidental investment that preserved him from absolute poverty. His cred- itors, ignorant of the result of the liquidation, left him only an income of a thousand francs in con- solidated funds, but they were all paid off with the moneys collected and by the sale of the Hotel de Beauseant which Du Bousquier owned. Thus the speculator, after having narrowly escaped failure, preserved his business credit. A man who had been ruined by the First Consul, and with the im- mense reputation which he had previously acquired by his relations with the chiefs of the former gov- ernment, by his manner of life, by his transient glory, excited great interest in the city of Alenfon, 3 34 THE RIVALRIES where the royalist sentiment secretly predominated. Du Bousquier, furious against Bonaparte, retailing the scandals against the First Consul, the extrava- gances of Josephine, and the secret anecdotes of the ten years of the Revolution, was very well received. About this period, Du Bousquier, though he had well and duly attained to forty years, presented the appearance of a bachelor of thirty-six, of medium height, fat as a contractor, parading his calves of a sprightly procureur, with a strongly-marked phys- iognomy, having a flat nose, but with the nostrils garnished with hairs ; black eyes with heavy eye- brows, and from which issued a glance like that of Monsieur de Talleyrand, but somewhat dulled ; he still wore the republican short whiskers and kept his brown hair very long. His hands, enriched with a little tuft of hair on each phalanx, testified to the robustness of his physique by the prominence of the great blue veins. In fact, he had the chest of the Farnese Hercules, and shoulders that might sustain the Rente. Shoulders like these are, to-day, seen only at Tortoni's. This luxury of masculine life was admirably depicted by a phrase in use during the last century and which to-day is scarcely un- derstood, — in the gallant speech of the last epoch, Du Bousquier would have passed for a true payeur d'arrefages, — literally, payer of arrears. But, as with the Chevalier de Valois, there were indications to be perceived in Du Bousquier which contrasted with the general aspect of his person. Thus, the ex-contractor had not a voice appropriate to his THE OLD MAID 35 muscles, not that his voice was that little, thin thread that sometimes issues from the mouths of these walruses with two feet ; it was, on the con- trary, a strong voice, but a smothered one, of which an idea cannot be given otherwise than by compar- ing it to the noise which a saw makes in soft and moist wood ; in short, the voice of a broken-down speculator. Du Bousquier continued to wear for a long time the costume in fashion at the period of his glory, — top-boots, white silk stockings, short breeches in ribbed cloth of a cinnamon color, waist-coat a la Robespierre and blue coat. Notwithstanding the titles which the First Consul's hatred gave him to the consideration of the leading royalists of the province. Monsieur du Bousquier was by no means received by the seven or eight families which com- posed the Faubourg Saint-Germain of Alengon, and whom the Chevalier de Valois visited. He had at first endeavored to marry Mademoiselle Armande, the sister of one of the most considerable nobles of the city, and of whom Du Bousquier hoped to make great use in his ulterior projects, for he dreamed of a brilliant revenge. He met with a refusal. He consoled himself by the compensation which was offered him by some ten rich families who had formerly been engaged in the manufacture of point d'Alencon, who possessed pasture lands or cattle, who were wholesale dealers in cloths, and amoncr whom chance might deliver to him some good match. The old bachelor had, in fact, concentrated his hopes 36 THE RIVALRIES in the prospect of a fortunate marriage, which his divers capacities seemed, moreover, to promise him ; for he was not wanting in a certain financial sl