I I) 
 
 I
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 Mr. H. H. Kil iani
 
 UCSB LIBRARY
 
 MODESTE M1GNON.
 
 H. DE BALZAC 
 
 MODESTE MlGNON 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 CLARA BELL 
 
 WITH A PREFACE BY 
 
 GEORGE SAINTSBURY 
 
 *& 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE GEBBIE PUBLISHING Co., Ltd. 
 1898
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PREFACE 
 MODESTE MIGNON 
 
 HONORINE 
 
 288 
 
 FACING CANE 375
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 MODESTE MIGNON Frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " DUMAY, GUARD MY LAST CHILD AS A BULL-DOG MIGHT " . 24 
 
 " I WILL NEVER MARRY WITHOUT MY FATHER'S CONSENT " . IOO 
 
 "YOU WILL MAKE ME DRUNK," SAID THE CLERK . . . 233 
 
 " I AM CONQUERED," SAID SHE 367 
 
 Drawn by D. Murray-Smith.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 " MODESTE MIGNON " occupies a very peculiar place in 
 Balzac's works a place indeed, which, though for the form's 
 sake more than anything else the author has connected it with 
 the rest of the " Comedie " by some repetition of personages, 
 is almost entirely isolated. I think it has puzzled some devoted 
 Balzacians so much so that I have seen it omitted even from 
 lists of his works suitable to " the young person," in which it 
 surely should have had an eminent place. As it is distinctly 
 late it was written in 1844, and nothing of combined mag- 
 nitude and first-class importance succeeded it except " Les Pa- 
 rents Pauvres " it may not impossibly serve as a basis for the 
 expectation that if Balzac, after his re-establishment in Paris as 
 a wealthy personage, had received a new lease of life and vigor 
 instead of a sentence of death, we might have had from him a 
 series of works as different from anything that he had com- 
 posed before as " Modeste Mignon " is from her sisters. 
 
 In saying this, I do not mean to put the book itself in the 
 very first class of its author's work. It is too much of an ex- 
 periment for that of an experiment as far as the heroine is 
 concerned, the boldness and novelty of which is likely to be 
 underestimated by almost any reader, unless he be a literary 
 student who pays strict attention to times and seasons. Even 
 in England (though Charlotte Bronte was planning her at this 
 very time) the willful, unconventional heroine was something 
 of a novelty ; and when it is remembered how infinitely stricter 
 was the standard of the French ingenue, until quite recently, 
 than it ever, even in the depths of the eighteenth century, 
 was in England, the audacity of the conception of Modeste 
 may be at least generally appreciated. And it is specially im- 
 portant to observe that though the author puts in Charles 
 
 (ix)
 
 x PREFACE. 
 
 Mignon's mouth a vindication of the French process of tying 
 a girl hand and foot and handing her over to the best bidder 
 as a husband, instead of allowing her to choose for herself, 
 Modeste's audacity in pursuing the opposite method is crowned 
 with complete success, if not with success of exactly the kind 
 that she anticipated. Except the case of Savinien de Porten- 
 duere and Ursule Mirouet, hers is, so far as I can remember, 
 the only exam pie in the whole "Comedie" of a love-marriage 
 which, as we are told, was wholly successful, without even 
 vacillations on the wife's part or relapses on the husband's. 
 It is true that, with a slight touch of cowardice or concession, 
 Balzac has made Modeste half a German ; but this is a very 
 venial bowing in the porch, not the chancel, of the House of 
 Rimmon. 
 
 Whether the young lady is as entirely successful and as en- 
 tirely charming as she is undeniably audacious in conception, 
 is not a point for equally positive pronouncement. Just as it 
 was probably necessary for Balzac, in order not to outrage the 
 feelings of his readers too much, to put that Teutonic strain in 
 Modeste, so he had, in all probability, to exhibit her as 
 capricious and almost unamiable, in order to attain the fitness 
 of things in connection with so terrible a young person. It 
 is certain that even those who by no means rejoice in pattern 
 heroines, even those who "like them rather wicked," may 
 sometimes think Modeste nasty in her behavior to her family, 
 to Butscha, and, perhaps, to her future husband. She is, for 
 instance, quite wrong about the whip, which she might have 
 refused altogether, but could not with decency accept from 
 one person and refuse from another. But what has just been 
 said will cover this and other petulances and outbursts. So 
 " shoking " a young person (it is very cheerful and interesting 
 to think how much more exactly that favorite vox nihili of 
 French speech expresses French than English sentiment) could 
 not but behave "shokingly." 
 
 Most of the minor characters are good : Butscha, a difficult
 
 PR&FACZ. xi 
 
 and, in any case, slightly improbable personage, is, in his own 
 way, very good, indeed. It was probably necessary for Bal- 
 zac, in turning the usual scheme of the French novel upside 
 down, to provide a rather timid hero for such a masterful 
 heroine; and it must be admitted that Ernest de la Briere is a 
 rather preternaturally good young man. Still, he is not mawk- 
 ish ; and except that he should not have given Modeste quite 
 such a valuable present, he behaves more like a gentleman in 
 the full English sense than any other of Balzac's heroes. 
 
 The very full, very elaborate, and very unfavorable portrait 
 of Canalis offers again much scope for difference of mere taste 
 and opinion, without the possibility of laying down a conclu- 
 sion very positively. Even if tradition were not unanimous 
 on the subject, it would be quite certain that Canalis is a 
 direct presentment of Lamartine, from whom he is so ostenta- 
 tiously dissociated. And there can, of course, be no two 
 opinions as to the presentment being very distinctly unfavor- 
 able much more so than the earlier introductions of this same 
 Canalis, which are either complimentary or colorless for the 
 most part, though his vanity is sometimes hinted at. I do not 
 know whether Balzac had any private quarrel with the poet, or 
 whether Lamartine's increasing leanings toward republicanism 
 exasperated the always monarchical novelist. But it is certain 
 that Canalis cuts rather a bad figure here that Lamartine 
 was actually supposed to have married for money and that 
 the whole thing has more of the nature of a personal attack 
 than anything else in Balzac, except the outbreak against 
 Sainte-Beuve in " Un Prince de la Boheme." 
 
 Perhaps it should be added that the practice of correspond- 
 ence between incognitas and men of letters, not unknown in 
 any country, has been rather frequent and famous in France. 
 The chief example is, of course, that interchange of communi- 
 cations between Merimee and Mile. Jenny Dacquin, which 
 had such important results for literature, and such not unim- 
 portant ones for the parties concerned. Balzac himself
 
 xii PREFACE. 
 
 rejoiced in a Modeste called Louise, whom, however, he 
 seems never to have seen ; and there is little doubt that 
 Lamartine the actual was attacked, as the fictitious Canalis 
 boasts that he was, by scores of such persons. The chief in- 
 stance I can think of in which such a correspondence led to 
 matrimony was that of Southey and his second wife, Caroline 
 Bowles. 
 
 The history of " Modeste Mignon " is short and simple. 
 It was first given to the public in the spring and summer of 
 1844 by the "Journal des Debats," and before the end of the 
 year it appeared in four volumes, published by Roux and 
 Cassanet. It had here seventy-five chapter divisions, with 
 headings. In 1845, scarcely twelve months after its first 
 appearance, it took its place in the "Comedie." 
 
 The story of " Honorine " contains some of Balzac's pro- 
 foundest observations, better stated than is usual, or, at least, 
 invariable, with him. The best of all are certain axioms, dis- 
 puted rather than disputable, as to the difference of men's and 
 women's love. The book suffers to some extent from that 
 artistic fault of the recitation, rather than the story proper, to 
 which he was so prone, and perhaps a little from the other 
 proneness so constantly to be noted in any complete 
 critique of him to exaggerate and idealize good as well as 
 ill. But it is, as his abomination Sainte-Beuve said of another 
 matter, an essai noble (a great sketch) ; and it is not, as Sainte- 
 Beuve also said of that matter which had nothing to do with 
 Balzac, an essai pale (light sketch). 
 
 " Facino Cane " first saw the light in the " Chronique de 
 Paris " of March 17, 1836. Next year it became an " Etude 
 Philosophique" (Philosophical Study). It had another grouped 
 appearance with "Albert Savaron," etc., in 1843, an ^ entered 
 the " Comedie " the year after. 
 
 G. S.
 
 MODESTB MIGNON. 
 
 To a Polish Lady. 
 
 Daughter of an enslaved land, an angel in your love, 
 a demon in your imagination, a child in faith, an old 
 man in experience, a man in brain, a woman in heart, 
 a giant in hope, a mother in suffering, a poet in your 
 dreams, and Beauty itself withal this work, in which 
 your love and your fancy, your faith, your experience, 
 your suffering, your hopes, and your dreams, are like 
 chains by which hangs a web less lovely than the 
 poetry cherished in your soul the poetry whose ex- 
 pression when it lights up your countenance is, to those 
 who admire you, what the characters of a lost language 
 are to the learned this work is yours. 
 
 DE BALZAC. 
 
 IN the beginning of October, 1829, Monsieur Simon-Babylas 
 Latournelle, a notary, was walking up the hill from le Havre 
 to Ingouville arm in arm with his son, and accompanied by 
 his wife. By her, like a page, came the notary's head clerk, a 
 little hunchback named Jean Butscha. When these four per- 
 sons of whom two at least mounted by the same way every 
 evening reached the turn in the zigzag road (like what the 
 Italians call a Cornice), the notary looked about him to see 
 whether any one might overhear him from some garden ter- 
 race above or below, and as an additional precaution he spoke 
 low. 
 
 "Exupere," said he to his son, "try to carry out in an 
 intelligent manner, without guessing at the meaning, a little 
 manoeuvre I will explain to you ; and even if you have a sus- 
 picion, I desire you will fling it into the Styx which every 
 
 (1)
 
 2 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 notary or law-student ought to keep handy for other people's 
 secrets. After paying your respects, homage, and devoir to 
 Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon, to Monsieur and Mad- 
 ame Dumay, and to Monsieur Gobenheim, if he is at the 
 chalet, when silence is restored, Monsieur Dumay will take 
 you aside ; look attentively I allow you at Mademoiselle 
 Modeste all the time he is talking to you. My worthy friend 
 will ask you to go out for a walk and return in about an hour, 
 at about nine o'clock, with a hurried air ; try to seem quite out 
 of breath, then whisper in his ear, but loud enough for Made- 
 moiselle Modeste to hear : ' The young man is coming ! ' ' 
 
 Exupere was to start for Paris on the following day to 
 begin his law studies. It was this prospect of departure which 
 had led Latournelle to propose to his friend Dumay that his 
 son should play the assistant in the important conspiracy 
 which may be suspected from his instructions. 
 
 " Is Mademoiselle Modeste suspected of carrying on an 
 intrigue? " asked Butscha timidly of his mistress. 
 
 " Hsh Butscha!" replied Madame Latournelle, taking 
 her husband's arm. 
 
 Madame Latournelle, the daughter of the registrar of the 
 lower court, considers herself justified by her birth in describ- 
 ing her family as parliamentary. These pretensions account 
 for the efforts made by the lady, whose face is rather too red 
 and rough, to assume the majesty of the tribunal whose ver- 
 dicts are recorded by her father. She takes snuff, holds her- 
 self as stiff as a post, gives herself airs of importance, and 
 looks exactly like a mummy that has been galvanized into 
 life for a moment. She tries to give her sharp voice an aris- 
 tocratic tone, but she no more succeeds in that than in con- 
 cealing her defective education. Her social value is indisput- 
 able when you look at the caps she wears, bristling with 
 flowers, the false fronts plastered on her temples, and the 
 gowns she chooses. How could the stores get rid of such 
 goods if it were not for such as Madame Latournelle?
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 3 
 
 This worthy woman's absurdities might have passed almost 
 unremarked, for she was essentially charitable and pious, but 
 that nature, which sometimes has its little jest by turning out 
 these grotesque creations, gave her the figure of a drum-major 
 so as to display the devices of her provincial mind. She has 
 never been out of le Havre, she believes in the infallibility of 
 le Havre, she buys everything at le Havre, and gets her dresses 
 there ; she speaks of herself as Norman to the finger-tips ; she 
 reverences her father and adores her husband. Little Latour- 
 nelle was bold enough to marry this woman when she had 
 attained the post-matrimonial age of thirty-three, and they 
 contrived to have a son. As he might anywhere have won 
 the sixty thousand francs which the registrar had to settle, his 
 unusual courage was set down to a wish to avoid the irruption 
 of the Minotaur, against which his personal attractions would 
 hardly have guaranteed him if he had been so rash as to set 
 his house on fire by bringing home a pretty, young wife. The 
 notary had, in fact, simply discerned the good qualities of 
 Mademoiselle Agnes her name was Agnes and remarked 
 how soon a wife's beauty is a thing of the past to her husband. 
 As to the insignificant youth to whom the registrar gave his 
 Norman name at the font, Madame Latournelle was so much 
 astonished to find herself a mother at the age of thirty-five 
 years and seven months, that she would even now find milk 
 to suckle him withal if he needed it the only hyperbole which 
 can give a notion of her maternal mania. 
 
 " How handsome my boy is ! " she would say to her little 
 friend Modeste Mignon, without any ulterior motive, as she 
 looked at him on their way to church, her beautiful Exupere 
 leading the way. 
 
 "He is like you," Modeste Mignon would reply, as she 
 might have said, " What bad weather ! " 
 
 This sketch of the woman, a mere accessory figure, seems 
 necessary when it is said that Madame Latournelle had for 
 three years past been the chaperon of the young girl for whom
 
 4 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 the notary and his friend Dumay were laying one of those 
 snares which, in the "Physiologic du Manage," I have called 
 mouse-traps. 
 
 As for Latournelle, imagine a good little man, as wily as the 
 purest honesty will allow, but whom every stranger would take 
 for a rogue at first sight of the singular face, to which every 
 one at le Havre is accustomed. Weak eyes, always red, compel 
 the worthy lawyer to wear green spectacles to protect them. 
 Each eyebrow, thinly marked with down, projects about a line 
 beyond the brown tortoise-shell rim of the glasses, thus making 
 a sort of double arch. If you never happen to have noticed 
 in some passer-by the effect of these two semicircles, one above 
 the other and divided by a hollow, you cannot conceive how 
 puzzling such a face may be ; especially when this face is pale 
 and haggard, and ends in a point like that of Mephistopheles, 
 which painters have taken from the cat, and this is what 
 Babylas Latournelle is like. Above those vile green spec- 
 tacles rises a bald skull, with a wig all the more obviously 
 artificial because it seems endowed with motion and is so in- 
 discreet as to show a few white hairs straggling below it all 
 around, while it never sits straight on the forehead. As we 
 look at this estimable Norman, dressed in black like a beetle, 
 on two legs like pins, and know him to be the most honest 
 soul living, we wonder, but cannot discover, what is the reason 
 of such contradictory physiognomies. 
 
 Jean Butscha, a poor, abandoned foundling, of whom the 
 Registrar Labrosse and his daughter had taken charge, had 
 risen to be head clerk by sheer hard work, and was lodged and 
 fed by his master, who gave him nine hundred francs a year. 
 With no appearance of youth and almost a dwarf, he had made 
 Modeste his idol ; he would have given his life for her. This 
 poor creature, his eyes, like two slow matches under thickened 
 eyelids, marked by the smallpox, crushed by a mass of woolly 
 hair, encumbered by his huge hands, had lived under the gaze 
 of pity from the age of seven. Is not this enough to account
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 5 
 
 for him in every way? Silent, reserved, exemplary in his 
 conduct, and religious, he wandered through the vast expanse 
 marked on the map of the realm of Love, as Love without 
 Hope, the barren and sublime wilderness of Longing. Mo- 
 deste had nicknamed this grotesque clerk "The Mysterious 
 Dwarf. " This led Butscha to read Walter Scott's romance, and 
 he said to Modeste 
 
 "Would you like to have a rose from your Mysterious 
 Dwarf in case of danger?" 
 
 Modeste hurled the soul of her adorer down into its mud 
 hovel again by one of the terrible looks which young women 
 fling at men whom they do not like. Butscha had called 
 himself le clerc obscure (the obscure clerk), not knowing that 
 the pun dated back to the origin of coats-of-arms ; but he, 
 like his master's wife, had never been away from le Havre. 
 
 It is perhaps necessary, for the benefit of those who do not 
 know that town, to give a word of explanation as to whither 
 the Latournelle family was bound, the head clerk evidently 
 being included. Ingouville is to le Havre what Montmartre 
 is to Paris, a high hill with the town spread at its foot ; with 
 this difference, however that the sea and the Seine surround 
 the town and the hill ; that le Havre is permanently limited 
 by enclosing fortifications ; and, finally, that the mouth of 
 the river, the port and the docks, form a scene quite unlike 
 that offered by the fifty thousand houses of Paris. 
 
 At the foot of Montmartre an ocean of slates displays its 
 rigid blue waves ; at Ingouville you look down on what might 
 be moving roofs stirred by the wind. This high ground, 
 which, from Rouen to the sea, follows the course of the river, 
 leaving a wider or narrower margin between itself and the 
 water, contains treasures of picturesque beauty with its towns, 
 its ravines, its valleys, and its meadows, and rose to immense 
 value at Ingouville after 1818, from which year dates the 
 prosperity of le Havre. This hamlet became the Auteuil, the 
 Ville-d'Avray, the Montmorency of the merchants, who built
 
 6 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 themseleves terraced villas on this amphitheatre, to breathe the 
 sea-air sweetened by the flowers of their magnificent gardens. 
 These bold speculators rest there from the fatigues of the count- 
 ing-house and the atmosphere of the closely packed houses, 
 with no space between them often not even a courtyard, the 
 inevitable result of the growth of the population, the un- 
 yielding belt of the ramparts and the expansion of the docks. 
 And, indeed, how dreary is the heart of the town, how 
 glad is Ingouville ! The law of social development has made the 
 suburb of Graville sprout into life like a mushroom ; it is larger 
 now than le Havre itself, clinging to the foot of the slope like 
 a serpent. Ingouville, on the ridge, has but one street ; and, 
 as in all such places, the houses looking over the Seine have an 
 immense advantage over those on the opposite side of the 
 road, from which the view is shut out, though they stand like 
 spectators, on tiptoe, to peep over the roofs. Here, however, 
 as everywhere else, compromises have been exacted. Some 
 of the houses perched on the top occupy a superior position, 
 or enjoy a right of view which compels their neighbor to keep 
 his buildings below a certain height. Then the broken rocky 
 soil has cuttings here and there for roads leading up to the 
 amphitheatre, and through these dips some of the plots 
 get a glimpse of the town, the river, or the sea. Though it 
 is not precipitous, the high ground ends rather suddenly in a 
 cliff; from the top of the street, which zigzags up the steep 
 slope, coombes are visible where villages are planted : Saint- 
 Adresse, two or three Saints-who-knows-who, and coves where 
 the sea roars. This side of Ingouville, almost deserted, is in 
 striking contrast to the handsome villas that overlook the Seine 
 valley. Are the gales a foe to vegetation ? Do the merchants 
 shrink from the expense of gardening on so steep a slope ? 
 Be this as it may, the traveler by steamboat is startled at find- 
 ing the coast so bare and rugged to the west of Ingouville a 
 beggar in rags next to a rich man sumptuously clothed and 
 perfumed.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 7 
 
 In 1829, one of the last houses toward the sea now, no 
 doubt, in the middle of Ingouville was called, perhaps is 
 still called, the chalet. It had been originally a gatekeeper's 
 lodge, with a plot of garden in front. The owner of the villa 
 to which it belonged a house with a paddock, gardens, an 
 aviary, hot-houses, and meadows had a fancy to bring this 
 lodge into harmony with the splendor of his residence, and 
 had it rebuilt in the style of an English cottage. He divided 
 it by a low wall from his lawn, graced with flowers, borders 
 and the terrace of the villa, and planted a hedge close to the 
 wall to screen it. Behind this cottage, called the chalet in 
 spite of all he could do, lie the kitchen-garden and orchards. 
 This chalet a chalet without cows or dairy has no fence 
 from the road but a paling, of which the wood has become 
 invisible under a luxuriant hedge. 
 
 Now, on the other side of the road, the opposite house has 
 a similar paling and hedge. Being built under special con- 
 ditions it allows the town to be seen from the chalet. 
 
 This little house was the despair of Monsieur Vilquin, the 
 owner of the villa. And this is why : The creator of this 
 residence, where every detail loudly proclaimed, "Here mil- 
 lions are displayed ! " had extended his grounds into the 
 country solely, as he said, not to have his gardeners in his 
 pocket. As soon as it was finished, the chalet could only be 
 inhabited by a friend. 
 
 Monsieur Mignon, the first owner, was greatly attached to 
 his cashier, and this story will prove that Dumay fully re- 
 turned the feeling ; he therefore offered him this little home. 
 Dumay, a stickler for formalities, made his master sign a lease 
 for twelve years at three hundred francs a year ; and Monsieur 
 Mignon signed it willingly, saying, " Consider, my dear 
 Dumay, you are binding yourself to live with me for twelve 
 years." 
 
 In consequence of events to be here related, the estates of 
 Monsieur Mignon, formerly the richest merchant in le Havre,
 
 8 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 were sold to Vilquin, one of his opponents on 'Change. In 
 his delight at taking possession of the famous Villa Mignon, 
 the purchaser forgot to ask for this lease to be canceled. 
 Dumay, not to hinder the sale, would at that time have signed 
 anything Vilquin might have required ; but when once the 
 sale was completed, he stuck to his lease as to a revenge. He 
 stayed in Vilquin's pocket, in the heart of the Vilquin family, 
 watching Vilquin, annoying Vilquin ; in short, Vilquin's gad- 
 fly. Every morning, at his window, Vilquin felt a surge of 
 violent vexation as he saw this gem of domestic architecture, 
 this chalet which had cost sixty thousand francs, and which 
 blazed like a ruby in the sunshine. 
 
 An almost exact comparison ! The architect had built the 
 cottage of the finest red-bricks, pointed with white. The 
 window-frames are painted bright green and the timbers a 
 yellow-brown. The roof projects several feet. A pretty fret- 
 work balcony adorns the first floor, and a verandah stands out 
 like a glass cage from the middle of the front. The first floor 
 consists of a pretty drawing-room and a dining-room divided 
 by the bottom landing of the stairs, which are of wood de- 
 signed and decorated with elegant simplicity. The kitchen 
 is at the back of the dining-room, and behind the drawing- 
 room is a small room which, at this time, was used by Mon- 
 sieur and Madame Dumay as their bedroom. On the second 
 floor the architect has planned two large bedrooms, each with 
 a dressing-room, the verandah serving as a sitting-room ; and 
 above these, in the roof, which looks like two cards leaning 
 against each other, are two servants' rooms, attics, each with 
 a dormer window, but fairly spacious. 
 
 Vilquin had the meanness to build a wall on the side next 
 the kitchen-garden and orchard. Since this act of vengeance, 
 the few square yards secured to the chalet by the lease are like 
 a Paris garden. The outbuildings, constructed and painted 
 to match the chalet, back against the neighboring grounds. 
 
 The interior of this pleasant residence harmonizes with the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 9 
 
 exterior. The drawing-room, floored with polished iron-wood, 
 is decorated with a marvelous imitation of Chinese lacquer. 
 Myriad-colored birds and impossible green foliage, in fantastic 
 Chinese drawing, stand out against a black background, in 
 panels with gilt frames. The dining-room is completely 
 fitted with pine-wood carved and fretted, as in the high-class 
 peasants' houses in Russia. The little anteroom, formed by 
 the landing, and the staircase are painted like old oak, to 
 represent Gothic decoration. The bedrooms, hung with 
 chintz, are attractive by their costly simplicity. That in which 
 the cashier and his wife slept is wainscoted, like the cabin of 
 a steamship. These shipowners' vagaries account for Vil- 
 quin's fury. This ill-starred purchaser wanted to lodge his 
 son-in-law and his daughter in the cottage. This plan, being 
 known to Dumay, may subsequently explain his Breton 
 obstinacy. 
 
 The entrance to the chalet is through a trellised iron gate, 
 with lance-heads, standing some inches above the paling and 
 the hedge. The little garden, of the same width as the pom- 
 pous lawn beyond, was just now full of flowers roses, dahlias, 
 and the choicest and rarest products of the hot-house flora ; 
 for another subject of grievance to Vilquin was that the pretty 
 little hot-house, madame's hot-house as it was called, belongs 
 to the chalet, and divides the chalet from the villa or con- 
 nects them, if you like to say so. Dumay indemnified him- 
 self for the cares of his place by caring for the conservatory, 
 and its exotic blossoms were one of Modeste's chief pleasures. 
 The billiard-room of Vilquin' s villa, a sort of passage-room, 
 was formerly connected with this conservatory by a large 
 turret-shaped aviary, but after the wall was built, which blocked 
 out the view of the orchard, Dumay bricked up the door. 
 
 "Wall for wall! "said he. 
 
 "You and Dumay have both gone to the wall ! " Vilquin's 
 acquaintances on 'Change threw in his teeth ; and every day 
 the envied speculator was hailed with some new jest.
 
 10 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 In 1827 Vilquin offered Dumay six thousand francs a year 
 and ten thousand francs in compensation if he would cancel 
 the lease ; the cashier refused, though he had but a thousand 
 crowns laid by with Gobenheim, a former clerk of his mas- 
 ter's. Dumay is indeed a Breton whom fate has planted out 
 in Normandy. Imagine the hatred for his tenants worked up 
 in Vilquin, a Norman with a fortune of three million francs. 
 What high treason to wealth to dare prove to the rich the 
 impotence of gold ! Vilquin, whose desperation made him 
 the talk of le Havre, had first offered Dumay the absolute 
 freehold of another pretty house, but Dumay again refused. 
 The town was beginning to wonder at this obstinacy, though 
 many found a reason for it in the statement, " Dumay is a 
 Breton." 
 
 In fact, the cashier thought that Madame and Mademoiselle 
 Mignon would be too uncomfortable anywhere else. His two 
 idols dwelt here in a temple worthy of them, and at least had 
 the benefit of this sumptuous cottage, where a dethroned king 
 might have kept up the majesty of his surroundings, a kind of 
 decorum which is often lacking to those who have fallen. The 
 reader will not be sorry perhaps to have made acquaintance 
 with Modeste's home and habitual companions; for, at her 
 age, persons and things influence the future as much as char- 
 acter does, if, indeed, the character does not derive from them 
 certain ineffaceable impressions. 
 
 By the Latournelles' manner as they went into the chalet, 
 a stranger might have guessed that they came there every 
 evening. 
 
 " Already here, sir?" said the notary, on finding in the 
 drawing-room a young banker of the town, Gobenheim, a 
 relation of Gobenheim-Keller, the head of the great Paris 
 house. This young fellow, who was lividly pale one of 
 those fair men with black eyes, in whose fixed gaze there is 
 something fascinating who was as sober in speech as in 
 habits, dressed in black, strongly built, though as thin as a
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 11 
 
 consumptive patient, was a constant visitor to his former mas- 
 ter's family and the cashier's house, far less from affection 
 than from interest ; whist was played there at two sous a point, 
 and evening dress was not insisted on ; he took nothing but a 
 few glasses of eau sucree, and need offer no civilities in re- 
 turn. By his apparent devotion to the Mignons he got credit 
 for a good heart ; and it excused him from going into society 
 in le Havre, from useless expenditure, and disturbing the 
 arrangements of his domestic life. This youthful devotee of 
 the golden calf went to bed every evening at half-past ten, and 
 rose at five in the morning. Also, being certain of secrecy 
 in Latournelle and Butscha, Gobenheim could analyze in their 
 presence various knotty questions, benefit by the notary's 
 gratuitous advice and reduce the gossip on 'Change to its true 
 value. This sucking gold-eater (Gobe-or, a witticism of Buts- 
 cha's) was of the nature of the substances known to chemistry 
 as absorbents. Ever since disaster had overwhelmed the house 
 of Mignon, to which he had been apprenticed by the Kellers 
 to learn the higher branches of maritime trade, no one at the 
 chalet had ever asked him to do a single thing, not even a 
 simple commission ; his answer was known beforehand. This 
 youth looked at Modeste as he might have examined a penny 
 lithograph. 
 
 " He is one of the pistons of the huge machine called 
 trade," said poor Butscha, whose wit betrayed itself by little 
 ironies, timidly uttered. 
 
 The four Latournelles greeted, with the utmost deference, 
 an old lady dressed in black, who did not rise from the arm- 
 chair in which she sat, for both her eyes were covered with 
 the yellow film produced by cataract. Madame Mignon may 
 be painted in a sentence. She attracted attention at once by 
 the august expression of those mothers whose blameless life is 
 a challenge to the strokes of fate, though fate has taken them 
 as a mark for its shafts, who form the larger class of Niobes. 
 Her white wig, well curled and well put on, became her cold
 
 12 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 white face, like those of the burgomasters' wives painted by 
 Mirevelt. The extreme neatness of her dress velvet shoes, 
 a lace collar, a shawl put on straight bore witness to Mo- 
 deste's tender care for her mother. 
 
 When a minute's silence as predicted by the notary 
 reigned in the pretty room, Modeste, seated by her mother, 
 for whom she was embroidering a kerchief, was for a moment 
 the centre of all eyes. This inquisitiveness, concealed under 
 the commonplace questions always asked by callers, even 
 those who meet every day, might have betrayed the little 
 domestic plot against the girl, even to an indifferent person ; 
 but Gobenheim, more than indifferent, noticed nothing ; he 
 lighted the candles on the card-table. Dumay's attitude made 
 the situation a terrible one for Butscha, for the Latournelles, 
 and, above all, for Madame Dumay, who knew that her hus- 
 band was capable of shooting Modeste's lover as if he were a 
 mad dog. After dinner, the cashier had gone out for a walk, 
 taking with him two magnificent Pyrenean dogs, whom he 
 suspected of treason, and, had therefore, left with a farmer, 
 formerly a tenant of Monsieur Mignon's ; then, a few minutes 
 before the Latournelles had come in, he had brought his pis- 
 tols from their place by his bed, and had laid them on the 
 chimney-shelf, without letting Modeste see it. The young 
 girl paid no attention to all these arrangements strange, to 
 say the least of it. 
 
 Though short, thick-set, and battered, with a low voice, 
 and an air of listening to his own words, this Breton, for- 
 merly a lieutenant in the Guard, has determination and pres- 
 ence of mind so plainly stamped on his features that, in 
 twenty years, no man in the army had ever tried to make 
 game of him. His eyes, small and calmly blue, are like two 
 specks of steel. His manners, the expression of his face, his 
 mode of speech, his gait, all suit his short name of Dumay. 
 His strength, which is well known, secures him against any 
 offense. He can kill a man with a blow of his fist ; and, in
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 13 
 
 fact, achieved this doughty deed at Botzen, where he found 
 himself in the rear of his company, without any weapon, and 
 face to face with a Saxon. 
 
 At this moment, the man's set but gentle countenance was 
 sublimely tragical ; his lips, as pale as his face, betrayed con- 
 vulsive fury subdued by Breton determination ; his brow was 
 damp with slight perspiration, visible to all, and understood 
 to be a cold moisture. The notary knew that the upshot of 
 all this might be a scene in an assize court. In fact, the 
 cashier was playing a game for Modeste's sake, where honor, 
 fidelity, and feelings of far more importance than any social 
 ties, were at stake ; and it was the outcome of one of those 
 compacts of which, in the event of fatal issues, none but God 
 can be the judge. Most dramas lie in the ideas we form of 
 things. The events which seem to us dramatic are only such 
 as our soul turns to tragedy or comedy, as our own nature 
 tends. 
 
 Madame Latournelle and Madame Dumay, charmed with 
 keeping watch over Modeste, both had an indescribable artifi- 
 cial manner, a quaver in their voice, which the object of 
 their suspicions did not notice, she seemed so much absorbed 
 by her work. Modeste laid each strand of cotton with an 
 accuracy that might be the envy of any embroiderer. Her 
 face showed the pleasure she derived from the satin-stitch 
 petal that put the finish to a flower. The hunchback, sitting 
 between Madame Latournelle and Gobenheirn, was swallow- 
 ing tears and wondering how he could get round to Modeste, 
 and whisper two words of warning in her ear. Madame 
 Latournelle, by placing herself in front of Madame Mignon, 
 had cut off Modeste with the diabolical ingenuity of a pious 
 prude. Madame Mignon, silent, blind, and whiter than her 
 usual pallor, plainly betrayed her knowledge of the ordeal to 
 which the girl was to be subjected. Now, at the last moment, 
 perhaps she disapproved of the stratagem, though deeming it 
 necessary. Hence her silence. She was weeping in her
 
 14 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 heart. Exupere, the trigger of the trap, knew nothing what- 
 ever of the piece in which chance had cast him for a part. 
 Gobenheim was as indifferent as Modeste herself seemed to be 
 a consequence of his nature. 
 
 To a spectator in the secret, the contrast between the utter 
 ignorance of one-half of the party and the tremulous tension 
 of the others would have been thrilling. In these days, more 
 than ever, novel-writers deal largely in such effects ; and they 
 are in their rights, for nature has at all times outdone their 
 skill. In this case, as you will see, social nature which is 
 nature within nature was allowing itself the pleasure of mak- 
 ing fact more interesting than romance, just as torrents pro- 
 duce effects forbidden to painters and achieve marvels by 
 arranging or polishing stones so that architects and sculptors 
 are amazed. 
 
 It was eight o'clock. At this season of the year it is the 
 hour of the last gleam of twilight. That evening the sky was 
 cloudless, the mild air caressed the earth, flowers breathed 
 their fragrance, the grinding gravel could be heard under the 
 feet of persons returning from their walk. The sea shone 
 like a mirror. 
 
 There was so little wind that the candles on the table 
 burned with a steady flame though the windows were half-open. 
 The room, the evening, the house what a setting for the 
 portrait of this young creature, who at the moment was being 
 studied by her friends with the deep attention of an artist 
 gazing at " Margherita Doni," one of the glories of the Pitti 
 palace. Was Modeste, a flower enshrined like that of Catul- 
 lus, worthy of all these precautions? You have seen the 
 cage ; this is the bird : 
 
 At the age of twenty, slender and delicately made, like one 
 of the sirens invented by English painters to grace a book of 
 beauty, Modeste, like her mother before her, bears the engag- 
 ing expression of a grace little appreciated in France, where 
 it is called sentimentality, though among the Germans it is
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 15 
 
 the poetry of the heart suffusing the surface, and displayed in 
 affectation by simpletons, in exquisite manners by sensible 
 girls. Her most conspicuous feature was her pale gold hair, 
 which classed her with the women called, no doubt in memory 
 of Eve, blondes celestes (heavenly fair), whose sheeny skin looks 
 like silk paper laid over the flesh, shivering in the winter or 
 reveling in the sunshine of a look, and making the hand 
 envious of the eye. Under this hair, as light as marabout 
 feathers, and worn in ringlets, the brow, so purely formed 
 that it might have been drawn by compasses, is reserved and 
 calm to placidity, though bright with thought ; but when or 
 where could a smoother one be found, or more transparently 
 frank? It seems to have a lustre like pearl. Her eyes, of 
 grayish blue, as clear as those of a child, have all a child's 
 mischief and innocence, in harmony with the arch of eye- 
 brows scarcely outlined, as lightly touched in as those painted 
 in Chinese faces. This playful innocence is accentuated by 
 nacreous tones, with blue veins round the eyes and on the 
 temples, a peculiarity of those delicate complexions. Her 
 face, of the oval so often seen in Raphael's Madonnas, is dis- 
 tinguished by the cool, maidenly flush of her cheeks, as tender 
 as a China rose, on which the long lashes of her transparent 
 eyelids cast a play of light and shade. Her throat, bent over 
 her work, and slender to fragility, suggests the sweeping lines 
 dear to Leonardo. A few freckles, like the patches of the 
 past century, show that Modeste is a daughter of earth and 
 not one of the creations seen in dreams by the Italian school 
 of Angelico. Lips, full but finely curved, and somewhat 
 satirical in expression, betray a love of pleasure. Her shape, 
 pliant without being frail, would not scare away motherhood, 
 like that of girls who seek to triumph through the unhealthy 
 pressure of stays. Buckram, steel, and stay-lace never im- 
 proved or formed such serpentine lines of elegance, resem- 
 bling those of a young poplar swayed by the wind. A pearl- 
 gray dress, long in the waist, and trimmed with cherry-colored
 
 16 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 gimp, accentuated the pure bust and covered the shoulders, 
 still somewhat thin, over a deep muslin tucker, which be- 
 trayed only the outline of the curves where the bosom joins 
 the shoulders. At the sight of this countenance, at once 
 vague and intelligent, with a singular touch of determination 
 given to it by a straight nose with rosy nostrils and firmly-cut 
 outlines a countenance where the poetry of an almost mys- 
 tical brow was belied by the voluptuous curve of the mouth 
 where, in the changing depths of the eyes, candor seemed to 
 fight for the mastery with the most accomplished irony an 
 observer might have thought that this young girl, whose quick 
 ear caught every sound, whose nose was open to the fragrance 
 of the blue flower of the ideal, must be the arena of a struggle 
 between the poetry that plays around the daily rising of the 
 sun and the labors of the day, between fancy and reality. 
 Modeste was both curious and modest, knowing her fate, and 
 purely chaste, the virgin of Spain rather than of Raphael. 
 
 She raised her head on hearing Dumay say to Exupere, 
 " Come here, young man," and, seeing them talk together in 
 a corner of the room, she fancied it was about some commis- 
 sion for Paris. She looked at the friends who surrounded her 
 as if astonished at their silence, and exclaimed with a per- 
 fectly natural air 
 
 " Well, are you not going to play ? " pointing to the green 
 table that Madame Latournelle called the altar. 
 
 " Let us begin," said Dumay, after dismissing Exupere. 
 
 "Sit there, Butscha ! " said Madame Latournelle, placing 
 the table between the clerk and the group formed by Madame 
 Mignon and her daughter. 
 
 " And you come here," said Dumay to his wife, desiring 
 her to stay near him. 
 
 Madame Dumay, a little American of six-and-thirty, secretly 
 wiped away her tears; she was devoted to Modeste and 
 dreaded a catastrophe. 
 
 " You are not lively this evening," said Modeste.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 17 
 
 " We are playing," said Gobenheim, sorting his hand. 
 
 However interesting the situation may seem, it will be far 
 more so when Dumay's position with regard to Modeste is 
 explained. If the brevity of the style makes the narrative 
 dry, this will be forgiven for the sake of hastening to the end 
 of this scene, and of the need, which rules all dramas, for 
 setting forth the argument. 
 
 Dumay Anne-Francois-Bernard born at Vannes, went as 
 a soldier in 1799, joining the army of Italy. His father, a 
 president of the revolutionary tribunal, had distinguished 
 himself by so much vigor that the country was too hot to hold 
 the son when his father, a second-rate lawyer, perished on the 
 scaffold after the gth of Thermidor. His mother died of 
 grief; and Anne, having sold everything he possessed, went 
 off to Italy at the age of twenty-two, just as our armies were 
 defeated. In the department of the Var he met a young man 
 who, for similar reasons, was also in search of glory, thinking 
 the battlefield less dangerous than Provence. 
 
 Charles Mignon, the last survivor of the family to whom 
 Paris owes the street and the hotel built by Cardinal Mignon, 
 had for his father a crafty man, who wished to save his estate 
 of la Bastie, a nice little fief under the Counts of Provence, 
 from the clutches of the revolution. Like all nervous people 
 in those days, the Comte de la Bastie, now Citizen Mignon, 
 thought it healthier to cut off other heads than to lose his 
 own. This supposed terrorist vanished on the gth of Ther- 
 midor, and was thenceforth placed on the list of emigres. 
 The fief of la Bastie was sold. The pepper-caster towers of 
 the dishonored chateau were razed to the ground. Finally, 
 Citizen Mignon himself, discovered at Orange, was killed 
 with his wife and children, with the exception of Charles 
 Mignon, whom he had sent in search of a refuge in the de- 
 partment of the Hautes-Alpes. Charles, stopped by these 
 shocking tidings, awaited quieter times in a valley of Mont 
 2
 
 18 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Genevre. There he lived till 1799 on a few louis his father 
 had put into his hand at parting. At last, when he was 
 three-and-twenty, with no fortune but his handsome person 
 the southern beauty which, in its perfection, is a glorious 
 thing, the type of Antinous, Hadrian's famous favorite he 
 resolved to stake his Provencal daring on the red field of war, 
 regarding his courage as a vocation, as did many another. 
 On his way to headquarters at Nice he met the Breton. 
 
 The two infantrymen, thrown together by the similarity of 
 their destiny and the contrast of their nature, drank of the 
 torrent from the same cup, divided their allowance of biscuit, 
 and were sergeants by the time peace was signed after the 
 battle of Marengo. 
 
 When war broke out again, Charles Mignon got leave to be 
 transferred to the cavalry, and then lost sight of his comrade. 
 The last of the Mignons of la Bastie was, in 1812, an officer of 
 the Legion of Honor and major of a cavalry regiment, hop- 
 ing to be reinstated as Comte de la Bastie and made colonel 
 by the Emperor. Then, taken prisoner by the Russians, he 
 was sent with many more to Siberia. His traveling compan- 
 ion was a poor lieutenant, in whom he recognized Anne 
 Dumay, with no decoration, brave indeed, but hapless, like 
 the millions of rank-and-file with worsted epaulettes, the web 
 of men on which Napoleon painted the picture of his Empire. 
 In Siberia, to pass the time, the lieutenant-colonel taught his 
 comrade arithmetic and writing, for education had seemed 
 unimportant to his Scaevola parent. Charles found in his 
 first traveling companion one of those rare hearts to whom he 
 could pour out all his griefs while confiding all his joys. 
 
 The Provencal had, ere this, met the fate which awaits 
 every handsome young fellow. In 1804, at Frankfort-on-the- 
 Main, he was adored by Bettina Wallenrod, the only daughter 
 of a banker, and married her with all the more enthusiasm 
 because she was rich, one of the beauties of the town, and he 
 was still only a lieutenant with no fortune but the most un-
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 19 
 
 certain prospects of a soldier of that time. Old Wallenrod, a 
 decayed German Baron bankers are always barons was en- 
 chanted to think that the handsome lieutenant was the sole 
 representative of the Mignons of la Bastie, and approved the 
 affections of the fair Bettina, whom a painter for there was 
 a painter then at Frankfort had taken for his model of an 
 ideal figure of Germany. Wallenrod, who already thought 
 of his grandsons as Comtes de la Bastie- Wallenrod, invested 
 in the French funds a sufficient sum to secure to his daughter 
 thirty thousand francs a year. This dower made a very small 
 hole in his coffers, seeing how small a capital was required. 
 The Empire, following a practice not uncommon among 
 debtors, rarely paid the half-yearly dividends. Charles, in- 
 deed, was somewhat alarmed at this investment, for he had 
 not so much faith in the Imperial Eagle as the German Baron 
 had. The phenomenon of belief, or of admiration, which is 
 only a transient form of belief, can hardly exist in illicit com- 
 panionship with the idol. An engineer dreads the machine 
 which the traveler admires, and Napoleon's officers were the 
 stokers of his locomotive when they were not the fuel. Baron 
 von Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild then promised to help the 
 young people. Charles loved Bettina Wallenrod as much as 
 she loved him, and that is saying a great deal ; but when a 
 Provencal is fired, anything seems natural to him in the matter 
 of feeling. How could he help worshiping a golden-haired 
 woman who had stepped out of a picture by Albert Diirer, an 
 angel of good temper, with a fortune famous in Frankfort? 
 
 So Charles had four children, of whom only two daughters 
 were alive at the time when he poured out his sorrows on the 
 Breton's heart. Without knowing them, Dumay was fond of 
 these two little girls, the effect of the sympathy so well under- 
 stood by Charles, who shows us the soldier as fatherly to 
 every child. The elder, named Bettina Caroline, was born in 
 1805 ; the second, Marie Modeste, in 1808. The unhappy 
 lieutenant-colonel, having had no news of those he loved,
 
 20 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 came back on foot in 1814, with the lieutenant for his com- 
 panion, all across Russia and Prussia. The two friends, for 
 whom any difference of rank had ceased to exist, arrived at 
 Frankfort just as Napoleon landed at Cannes. Charles found 
 his wife at Frankfort, but in mourning ; she had had the 
 grief of losing the father who adored her, and who longed 
 always to see her smiling, even by his death-bed. Old Wal- 
 lenrod did not survive the overthrow of the Empire. At the 
 age of seventy-two he had speculated largely in cotton, be- 
 lieving still in Napoleon's genius, and not knowing that genius 
 is as often the slave of events as their master. 
 
 The last of the Wallenrods, the true Wallenrod-Tustall- 
 Bartenstild, had bought almost as many bales of cotton as the 
 Emperor had sacrificed men during his tremendous campaign 
 in France. 
 
 "I am tying in cotton " (I am dying in clover), said this 
 father to his daughter, for he was of the Goriot species, try- 
 ing to beguile her of her grief, which terrified him, "and I 
 tie owing noting to noboty " and the Franco-German died 
 struggling with the French language his daughter loved. 
 
 Charles Mignon, happy to have saved his wife and daugh- 
 ters from this double shipwreck, now returned to Paris, where 
 the Emperor made him lieutenant-colonel of the Cuirassiers 
 of the Guard and commander of the Legion of Honor. The 
 colonel at last was general and Count, after Napoleon's first 
 success ; but his dream was drowned in torrents of blood at 
 Waterloo. He was slightly wounded, and retired to the 
 Loire, leaving Tours before the troops were disbanded. 
 
 In the spring of 1816 Charles realized the capital of his 
 thirty thousand francs a year, which gave him about four hun- 
 dred thousand francs, and decided on going to make his 
 fortune in America, leaving a country where persecution 
 already pressed hardly on Napoleon's soldiers. He went 
 from Paris to le Havre, accompanied by Dumay, whose life 
 he had saved in one of the frequent chances of war, by taking
 
 MODESTB MIGNON. 21 
 
 him behind him on his horse in the confusion that ended the 
 day of Waterloo. Dumay shared the colonel's opinions and 
 despondency. Charles, to whom the Breton clung like a dog, 
 for the poor infantryman worshiped the two little girls, thought 
 that Dumay's habits of obedience and discipline, his honesty 
 and his attachment, would make him a servant not less faith- 
 ful than useful. He therefore proposed to him to take service 
 under him in private life. Dumay was very happy to find 
 himself adopted into a family with whom he hoped to live 
 like mistletoe on an oak. 
 
 While awaiting an opportunity of sailing, choosing among 
 the ships, and meditating on the chances offered in the vari- 
 ous ports of their destination, the colonel heard rumors of the 
 splendid fortunes that the peace held in store for le Havre. 
 While listening to a discussion between two of the natives, 
 he saw a means of making his fortune, and set up forthwith as 
 a shipowner, a banker, and a country gentleman. He invested 
 two hundred thousand francs in land and houses, and freighted 
 a ship for New York with a cargo of French silks bought at 
 Lyons at a low figure, Dumay sailed on the vessel as his 
 agent. While the colonel was settling himself with his family 
 in the handsomest house in the Rue Royale, and studying the 
 science of banking with all the energy and prodigious acumen 
 of a Provencal, Dumay made two fortunes, for he returned 
 with a cargo of cotton bought for a mere song. This transac- 
 tion produced an enormous capital for Mignon's business. 
 He then purchased the villa at Ingouville, and rewarded 
 Dumay by giving him a small house in the Rue Royale. 
 
 The worthy Breton had brought back with him from New 
 York with his bales a pretty little wife, who had been chiefly 
 attracted by his nationality as a Frenchman. Miss Grummer 
 owned about four thousand dollars (twenty thousand francs), 
 which Dumay invested in his colonel's business. Dumay, 
 now the alter ego of the shipowner, very soon learned book- 
 keeping, the science which, to use his phrase, distinguished the
 
 22 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 sergeant-majors of trade. This guileless soldier, whom fortune 
 had neglected for twenty years, thought himself the happiest 
 man in the world when he saw himself master of a house 
 which his employer's munificence furnished very prettily of 
 twelve hundred francs a year of interest on his capital, and 
 of three thousand six hundred francs in salary. Never in his 
 dreams had Lieutenant Dumay hoped for such prosperity; but 
 he was even happier in feeling himself the hub of the richest 
 merchant's house in le Havre. 
 
 Madame Dumay had the sorrow of losing all her children 
 at their birth, and the disasters of her last confinement left her 
 no hope of having any ; she therefore attached herself to the 
 two Mignon girls as affectionately as Dumay, who would not 
 have loved his own children so well. Madame Dumay, the 
 child of agriculturists, accustomed to a thrifty life, found two 
 thousand four hundred francs enough for herself and her 
 housekeeping. Thus, year by year, Dumay put two thousand 
 and some hundred francs into the Mignon concern. When 
 the master made up the annual balance, he added to the 
 cashier's credit a bonus in proportion to the business done. 
 In 1824 the sum to the cashier's account amounted to fifty- 
 eight thousand francs. Then it was that Charles Mignon, 
 Comte de la Bastie, a title that was never mentioned, crowned 
 his cashier's joy by giving him a lease of the chalet, where 
 we now find Modeste and her mother. 
 
 Madame Mignon's deplorable condition had its cause in 
 the catastrophe to which Charles' absence was due, for her 
 husband had left her a still handsome woman. It had taken 
 three years of sorrow to destroy the gentle German lady, but 
 it was one of those sorrows which are like a worm lying at 
 the heart of a fine fruit. The sum-total of her woes is easily 
 stated : Two children who died young had stamped a double 
 ci-glt on a soul which could never forget. Charles' captivity 
 in Siberia had been to this dear and loving heart a daily 
 death. The disasters of the great Wallenrod house and the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 23 
 
 unhappy banker's death on his empty money-bags, coming in 
 the midst of Bettina's suspense about her husband, was a 
 final blow. The joy of seeing him again almost killed this 
 German floweret. Then came the second overthrow of the 
 Empire, and their plans for emigration had been like relapses 
 of the same fit of fever. 
 
 At last ten years of constant prosperity, the amusements of 
 her home-life, the handsomest house in le Havre, the dinners, 
 balls, and entertainments given by the successful merchant, 
 the magnificence of the Villa Mignon, the immense respect 
 and high esteem enjoyed by her husband, with the undivided 
 affection of this man, who responded to perfect love by love 
 equally perfect all these had reconciled the poor woman to 
 life. 
 
 Then, at the moment when all her doubts were at rest, and 
 she looked forward to a calm evening after her stormy day, a 
 mysterious disaster, buried in the heart of the double house- 
 hold, and presently to be related, came like a summons from 
 misfortune. In 1826, in the midst of a party, when all the 
 town was ready to return Charles Mignon as its deputy, three 
 letters (from New York, London, and Paris) came like three 
 hammer-strokes on the glass house of prosperity. In ten 
 minutes ruin swooped down with vulture's wings on this un- 
 heard-of good fortune, like the frost on the Grande Armee in 
 1812. In one night which he spent with Dumay over the 
 books, Charles Mignon was prepared for the worst. It would 
 absorb everything he possessed, not excepting the furniture, 
 to pay everybody. 
 
 "Le Havre," said the colonel to the lieutenant, "shall 
 never see me in the mud. Dumay, I will take your sixty 
 thousand francs at six per cent. " 
 
 "At three, colonel." 
 
 " At nothing, then," said Charles peremptorily. " I make 
 you my partner in my new enterprise. The ' Modeste,' which 
 is no longer mine, sails to-morrow ; the captain takes me with
 
 24 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 him. You I place you in charge of my wife and daughter. 
 I shall never write. No news is good news." 
 
 Dumay, still but a lieutenant, had not asked his colonel by 
 a word what his purpose was. 
 
 "I suspect," said he to Latournelle, with a knowing air, 
 " that the colonel has laid his plans." 
 
 On the following morning, at break of day, he saw his 
 master safe on board the good ship " Modeste," bound for 
 Constantinople. Standing on the vessel's poop, the Breton 
 said to the Provencal 
 
 " What are your last orders, colonel?" 
 
 "That no man ever goes near the chalet!" cried the 
 father, with difficulty restraining a tear. " Dumay, guard my 
 last child as a bull-dog might. Death to any one who may 
 try to tempt my second daughter! Fear nothing, not even 
 the scaffold. I would meet you there ! " 
 
 " Colonel, do your business in peace. I understand. You 
 will find Mademoiselle Modeste as you leave her, or I shall 
 be dead ! You know me, and you know our two Pyrenean 
 dogs. No one shall get at your daughter. Forgive me for 
 using so many words." 
 
 The two soldiers embraced as men who had learned to ap- 
 preciate each other in the heart of Siberia. 
 
 The same day the " Courrier du Havre" published this 
 terrible, simple, vigorous, and honest leading paragraph : 
 
 "The house of Charles Mignon has suspended payment, 
 but the undersigned liquidators pledge themselves to pay all 
 the outstanding debts. Bearers of bills at date can at once 
 discount them. The value of the landed estate will com- 
 pletely cover current accounts. 
 
 " This notice is issued for the honor of the house and to 
 prevent any shock to general credit on the Havre Exchange. 
 
 " Monsieur Charles Mignon sailed this morning in the 
 ' Modeste ' for Asia Minor, having left a power-of-attorney
 
 ' DUMAY, GUARD MY LAST CHILD AS A BULL-DOC MIGHT.'
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 25 
 
 to enable us to realize every form of property, even landed 
 estate. 
 
 " DUMAY, Liquidator for the Banking Account. 
 
 " LATOURNELLE, Notary, Liquidator for the Houses 
 and Land in Town and Country. 
 
 "GoBENHEiM, Liquidator for Commercial Bills." 
 
 Latournelle owed his prosperity to Monsieur Mignon's 
 kindness; he had, in 1817, lent the notary a hundred thou- 
 sand francs to buy the best business in le Havre. The poor 
 lawyer, without any pecuniary resources, was by that time 
 forty years old ; he had been a head clerk for ten years, and 
 looked forward to being a clerk for the rest of his days. He 
 was the only man in le Havre whose devotion could compare 
 with Dumay's, for Gobenheim took advantage of this bank- 
 ruptcy to carry on Mignon's connection and business, which 
 enabled him to start his little banking concern. While uni- 
 versal regret was expressed on 'Change, on the quays, and in 
 every home ; while praises of a blameless, honorable, and 
 beneficent man were on every lip, Latournelle and Dumay, 
 as silent and as busy as emmets, were selling, realizing, 
 paying, and settling up. Vilquin gave himself airs of gener- 
 osity, and bought the villa, the town-house, and a farm, and 
 Latournelle took advantage of this first impulse to extract a 
 good price from Vilquin. 
 
 Every one wanted to call on Madame and Mademoiselle 
 Mignon, but they had obeyed Charles and taken refuge at the 
 chalet the very morning of his departure, of which at the 
 first moment they knew nothing. Not to be shaken in his 
 purpose by their grief, the courageous banker had kissed his 
 wife and daughter in their sleep. Three hundred cards were 
 left at the door. A fortnight later the most complete obliv- 
 ion, as Charles had prophesied, showed the two women the 
 wisdom and dignity of the step enjoined on them. 
 
 Pumay appointed representatives of his master at New York,
 
 26 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 London, and Paris. He followed up the liquidation of the 
 three banking houses to which Mignon's ruin was due, and 
 between 1826 and 1828 recovered five hundred thousand 
 francs, the eighth part of Charles' fortune. In obedience to 
 the orders drawn up the night before his departure, Dumay 
 forwarded this sum at the beginning of 1828, through the 
 house of Mongenod at New York, to be placed to Monsieur 
 Mignon's credit. All this was done with military punctuality, 
 excepting with regard to the retention of thirty thousand 
 francs for the personal needs of Madame and Mademoiselle 
 Mignon. This, which Charles had ordered, Dumay did not 
 carry out. The Breton sold his house in the town for twenty 
 thousand francs, and gave this to Madame Mignon, reflecting 
 that the more money his colonel could command, the sooner 
 he would return. 
 
 " For lack of thirty thousand francs a man sometimes is 
 lost," said he to Latournelle, who bought the house at his 
 friend's price ; and there the inhabitants of the chalet could 
 always find room. Many were the pleasant hours that Madame 
 Mignon, her daughter, Modeste, and also Lieutenant Dumay 
 and his ever-watchful wife, passed in that hospitable retreat. 
 Butscha's wit constantly entertained them. 
 
 This, to the famous house of Mignon, le Havre, was the 
 outcome of the crisis which, in 1825-26, upset the principal 
 centres of commerce, and caused if you remember that 
 hurricane the ruin of several Paris bankers, one of them the 
 president of the chamber of commerce. It is intelligible that 
 this tremendous overthrow, closing a civic reign of ten years, 
 might have been a death-blow to Bettina Wallenrod, who once 
 more found herself parted from her husband, knowing nothing 
 of his fate, apparently as full of peril and adventure as 
 Siberian exile ; but the trouble that was really bringing her to 
 the grave was to these visible griefs what an ill-starred child 
 is to the commonplace troubles of a family a child that 
 gnaws and devours its home. The fatal stone that had struck
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 27 
 
 this mother's heart was a tombstone in the little cemetery of 
 Ingouville, on which may be read : 
 
 BETTINA CAROLINE MIGNON 
 
 AGED TWO-AND-TWENTY 
 
 PRAY FOR HER ! 
 
 1827. 
 
 This inscription is for the girl who lies there what many an 
 epitaph is for the dead a table of contents to an unknown 
 book. Here is the book in its terrible epitome, and it may 
 explain the pledge demanded and given in the parting words 
 of the colonel and subaltern. 
 
 A young man, extremely handsome, named Georges 
 d'Estourny, came to le Havre on the common pretext of 
 seeing the sea, and he saw Caroline Mignon. A man of some 
 pretense to fashion, and from Paris, never lacks some intro- 
 ductions ; he was therefore invited by the intervention of a 
 friend of the Mignons to an entertainment at Ingouville. He 
 fell very much in love with Caroline and her fortune and 
 schemed for a happy issue. At the end of three months he 
 had played every trick of the seducer, and run away with 
 Caroline. The father of a family who has two daughters 
 ought no more to admit a young man to his house without 
 knowing him than he should allow books or newspapers to lie 
 about without having read them. The innocence of a girl is 
 like milk which is turned by a thunder-clap, by an evil smell, 
 by a hot day, or even by a breath. 
 
 When he read his eldest daughter's farewell letter, Charles 
 Mignon made Madame Dumay set out instantly for Paris. 
 The family alleged the need for a change of air suddenly pre- 
 scribed by the family doctor, who lent himself to this neces- 
 sary pretext ; but this could not keep the town from gossiping 
 about her absence.
 
 28 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " What, such a strong girl, with the complexion of a 
 Spaniard, and hair like jet ! She, consumptive ! " 
 
 "Yes so they say. She did something imprudent " 
 
 " Ah, ha ! " cried some Vilquin. 
 
 " She came in from a ride bathed in perspiration and drank 
 iced water, at least so Dr. Troussenard says." 
 
 By the time Madame Dumay returned, the troubles of the 
 Mignons were an exhausted subject ; no one thought anything 
 more of Caroline's absence or the return of the cashier's wife. 
 
 At the beginning of 1827 the newspapers were full of the 
 trial of Georges d'Estourny, who was proved guilty of con- 
 stant cheating at play. This young pirate vanished abroad 
 without thinking anything more about Mademoiselle Mignon, 
 whose money value was destroyed by the bankruptcy at le 
 Havre. Before long Caroline knew that she was deserted and 
 her father a ruined man. She came home in a fearful state of 
 mortal illness, and died a few days afterward at the chalet. 
 Her death, at any rate, saved her reputation. The malady 
 spoken of by Monsieur Mignon at the time of his daughter's 
 elopement was very generally believed in, and the medical 
 orders which had sent her off, it was said, to Nice. 
 
 To the very last the mother hoped to save her child. 
 Bettina was her darling, as Modeste was her father's. There 
 was something touching in this preference : Bettina was the 
 image of Charles, as Modeste was of her mother. They per- 
 petuated their love in their children. Caroline, a Provencal, 
 inherited from her father the beautiful blue-black hair, like a 
 raven's wing, which we admire in the daughters of the south, 
 the hazel, almond-shaped eye as bright as a star, the olive 
 complexion with the golden glow of a velvety fruit, the arched 
 foot, the Spanish bust that swells beneath the bodice. And 
 the father and mother were alike proud of the charming con- 
 trast of the two sisters. 
 
 " A demon and an angel ! " people used to say, without ill 
 meaning, though it was prophetic.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 29 
 
 After spending a month in tears in her room, where she in- 
 sisted on staying and seeing no one, the poor German lady 
 came forth with her eyes seriously injured. Before she lost her 
 sight she went, in spite of all her friends, to look at Caroline's 
 tomb. This last image remained bright in her darkness, as 
 the red spectre of the last object we have seen remains when 
 we shut our eyes in bright daylight. After this terrible and 
 twofold disaster, Dumay, though he could not be more de- 
 voted, was more anxious than ever about Modeste, now an 
 only child, though her father knew it not. Madame Dumay, 
 who was crazy about Modeste, like all women who have no 
 children, overpowered her with her deputy motherhood, but 
 without disobeying her husband's orders. Dumay was dis- 
 trustful of female friendships. His injunctions were absolute. 
 " If ever any man, of whatever age or rank, speaks to 
 Modeste," said Dumay, " if he looks at her, casts sheep's eyes 
 at her, he is a dead man. I will blow his brains out and sur- 
 render myself to the public prosecutor. My death may save 
 her. If you do not wish to see me cut my throat, fill my place 
 unfailingly when I am in town." 
 
 For three years Dumay had examined his pistols every 
 night. He seemed to have included in his oath the two 
 Pyrenean dogs, remarkably intelligent beasts ; one slept in 
 the house, the other was sentinel in a kennel that he never 
 came out of, and he never barked ; but the minute when those 
 dogs should set their teeth in an intruder would be a terrible 
 one for him. 
 
 The life may now be imagined which the mother and 
 daughter led at the chalet. Monsieur and Madame Latour- 
 nelle, frequently accompanied by Gobenheim, came almost 
 every evening to visit their friends and play a rubber. Con- 
 versation would turn on business at le Havre, on the trivial 
 events of country-town life. They left between nine and ten. 
 Modeste went to put her mother to bed ; they said their 
 prayers together, they talked over their hopes, they spoke of
 
 30 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 the dearly loved traveler. After kissing her mother, Modeste 
 went to her own room at about ten o'clock. Next morning 
 Modeste dressed her mother with the same care, the same 
 prayers, the same little chat. To Modeste's honor, from the 
 day when her mother's terrible infirmity deprived her of one 
 of her senses, she made herself her waiting-maid, and always 
 with the same solicitude at every hour, without wearying of 
 it, or finding it monotonous. Her affection was supreme, 
 and always ready, with a sweetness rare in young girls, and 
 that was highly appreciated by those who saw her tenderness. 
 And so Modeste was, in the eyes of the Latournelles and of 
 Monsieur and Madame Dumay, the jewel I have described. 
 Between breakfast and dinner, on sunny days, Madame Mig- 
 non and Madame Dumay took a little walk as far as the shore, 
 Modeste assisting, for the blind woman needed the support of 
 two arms. 
 
 A month before the scene in which this digression falls as 
 a parenthesis, Madame Mignon had held council with her 
 only friends, Madame Latournelle, the notary, and Dumay, 
 while Madame Dumay was giving Modeste the little diversion 
 of a long walk. 
 
 " Listen, my friends," said the blind woman, " my daughter 
 is in love. I feel it. A strange change has come over her, 
 and I cannot think how you have failed to observe it " 
 
 " Bless my stars ! " the lieutenant exclaimed. 
 
 " Do not interrupt me, Dumay. For the last two months 
 Modeste has dressed herself with care as if she were going to 
 meet some one. She has become excessively particular about 
 her shoes ; she wants her foot to look nice, and scolds Mad- 
 ame Gobain the shoemaker. Some days the poor child sits 
 gloomy and watchful, as if she expected somebody; her voice 
 is short and sharp, as though by questioning her I broke in 
 on her expectancy, her secret hopes ; and then, if that some- 
 body has been "
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 31 
 
 "Bless my stars ! " 
 
 "Sit down, Dumay," said the lady. "Well, then Modeste 
 is gay. Oh ! you do not see that she is gay; you cannot 
 discern these shades, too subtle for eyes to see that have all 
 nature to look at. Her cheerfulness betrays itself in the 
 tones of her voice, accents which I can detect and account 
 for. Modeste, instead of sitting still and dreaming, expends 
 her light activity in flighty movement. In short, she is 
 happy ! There is a tone of thanksgiving even in the ideas 
 she utters. Oh, my friends, I have learned to know happi- 
 ness as well as grief. By the kiss my poor Modeste gives me 
 I can guess what is going on in her mind : whether she has 
 had what she was expecting, or is uneasy. There are many 
 shades in kisses, even in those of a young girl for Modeste 
 is innocence itself, but it is not ignorant innocence. Though 
 I am blind, my affection is clairvoyante, and I implore you 
 watch my daughter." 
 
 On this, Dumay, quite ferocious ; the notary as a man who 
 is bent on solving a riddle ; Madame Latournelle as a duenna 
 who has been cheated ; and Madame Dumay, who shared her 
 husband's fears all constituted themselves spies over Mod- 
 este. Modeste was never alone for a moment. Dumay 
 spent whole nights under the windows, wrapped in a cloak 
 like a jealous Spaniard ; still, armed as he was with military 
 sagacity, he could find no accusing clue. Unless she were in 
 love with the nightingales in Vilquin's park, or some goblin 
 prince, Modeste could have seen no one, could neither have 
 received nor given a signal. Madame Dumay, who never 
 went to bed till she had seen Modeste asleep, hovered about 
 the roads on the high ground near the chalet with a vigilance 
 equal to her husband's. Under the eyes of these four Arguses, 
 the blameless child, whose smallest actions were reported and 
 analyzed, was so absolutely acquitted of any criminal proceed- 
 ings, that the friends suspected Madame Mignon of a craze, 
 a monomania. It devolved on Madame Latournelle, who
 
 32 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 herself took Modeste to church and home again, to tell the 
 mother that she was under a mistake. 
 
 " Modeste," said she, " is a very enthusiastic young person; 
 she has passions for this one's poetry and that one's prose. 
 You could not see what an impression was made on her by 
 that executioner's piece (a phrase of Butscha's, who lent wit 
 without any return to his benefactress), called ' Le Dernier 
 Jour d'un condamne ' (The Condemned's Last Day) ; but 
 she seemed to me beside herself with her admiration of that 
 Monsieur Hugo. I cannot think where that sort of people 
 (Victor Hugo, Lamartine, and Byron were what Madame 
 Latournelle meant by that sorf) go to find their ideas. The 
 little thing talked to me about ' Childe Harold ; ' I did not 
 choose to have the worst of it ; I was fool enough to set to 
 work to read it that I might be able to argue with her. I 
 don't know whether it is to be set down to the translation, 
 but my heart heaved, my eyes were dizzy. I could not get 
 on with it. It is full of howling comparisons, of rocks that 
 faint away, of the lava of war ! 
 
 " Of course, as it is an Englishman on his travels, one 
 must expect something queer, but this is really too much ! 
 You fancy you are in Spain, and he carries you up into the 
 clouds above the Alps ; he makes the torrents and the stars 
 speak ; and then there are too many virgins ! You get sick 
 of them. In short, after Napoleon's campaigns we have had 
 enough of flaming shot and sounding brass which roll on 
 from page to page. Modeste tells me that all this pathos 
 comes from the translator, and I ought to read the English. 
 But I am not going to learn English for Lord Byron when I 
 would not learn it for Exupere ! I much prefer the romances 
 of Ducray-Dumenil to these English romances ! I am too 
 thoroughly Norman to fall in love with everything that comes 
 from abroad, and especially from England " 
 
 Madame Mignon, notwithstanding her perpetual mourning, 
 could not help smiling at the idea of Madame Latournelle
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 33 
 
 reading " Childe Harold." The stern lady accepted this 
 smile as approbation of her doctrines. 
 
 " And so, my dear Madame Mignon, you mistake Modeste's 
 imaginings, the result of her reading, for love affairs. She is 
 twenty. At that age a girl loves herself. She dresses to see 
 herself dressed. Why, I used to make my little sister, who is 
 dead now, put on a man's hat, and we played at gentleman 
 
 and lady You, at Frankfort, had a happy girlhood, but 
 
 let us be just : Modeste here has no amusements. In spite of 
 our readiness to meet her lightest wishes, she knows that she 
 is guarded, and the life she leads has little pleasure to offer a 
 girl who could not, as she can, find something to divert her 
 in books. Take my word for it, she loves no one but you. 
 Think yourself lucky that she falls in love with nobody but 
 Lord Byron's corsairs, Walter Scott's romantic heroes, or 
 your Germans, Count Egmont, Werther, Schiller, and all the 
 other ers." 
 
 "Well, madame?" said Dumay respectfully, alarmed by 
 Madame Mignon's silence. 
 
 " Modeste is not merely ready for love ; she loves some- 
 body," said the mother obstinately. 
 
 " Madame, my life is at stake, and you will no doubt allow 
 me not for my own sake, but for my poor wife's and for the 
 colonel's, and all our sakes to try to find out which is mis- 
 taken the watch-dog or the mother." 
 
 " It is you, Dumay ! Oh, if I could but look my daughter 
 in the face ! " sobbed the poor blind woman. 
 
 " But who is there that she can love?" replied Madame 
 Latournelle. "As for us I can answer for my Exupere." 
 
 " It cannot be Gobenheim, whom we hardly see for nine 
 hours out of the week since the colonel went away. Besides, 
 he is not thinking of Modeste that crown-piece made man ! 
 His uncle, Gobenheim-Keller, told him, ' Get rich enough to 
 marry a Keller ! ' With that for a programme, there is no 
 fear that he will even know of what sex Modeste is. Those 
 3
 
 34 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 are all the men we see here. I do not count Butscha, poor 
 little hunchback. I love him ; he is your Dumay, madame," 
 he said to the notary's wife. " Butscha knows very well that 
 if he glanced at Modeste it would cost him a combing a la 
 mode de Vannes. Not a soul ever comes near us. Madame 
 Latournelle, who since since your misfortune, comes to take 
 Modeste to church and bring her home again, has watched 
 her carefully these last days during the mass, and has seen 
 nothing suspicious about her. And then, if I must tell you 
 everything, I myself have raked the paths round the house for 
 the last month, and I have always found them in the morning 
 with no footmarks." 
 
 "Rakes are not costly nor difficult to use," said the Ger- 
 man lady. 
 
 "And the dogs?" asked Dumay. 
 
 " Lovers can find sops for them," replied Madame Mignon. 
 
 "I could blow out my own brains if you are right, for I 
 should be done for," cried Dumay. 
 
 "And why, Dumay?" 
 
 " Madame, I could not meet the colonel's eye if he were 
 not to find his daughter, especially now that she is his only 
 child ; and as pure, as virtuous as she was when he said to me 
 on board the ship, ' Do not let the fear of the scaffold, stop 
 you, Dumay, when Modeste's honor is at stake.' ' 
 
 " I know you both how like you ! " murmured Madame 
 Mignon, much moved. 
 
 " I will wager my eternal salvation that Modeste is as inno- 
 cent as she was in her cradle," quoth Madame Dumay. 
 
 "Oh, I will know all about it," replied Dumay, "if 
 Madame la Comtesse will allow me to try a plan, for old sol- 
 diers are knowing in stratagems." 
 
 " I allow you to do anything that may clear up the matter 
 without injuring our last surviving child." 
 
 "And what will you do, Anne," asked his wife, "to find 
 out a young girl's secret when it is so closely kept? "
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 35 
 
 " All of you obey me exactly," returned the lieutenant, " for 
 you must all help." 
 
 This brief account, which, if elaborately worked up, would 
 have furnished forth a complete picture of domestic life 
 how many families will recognize in it the events of their own 
 home ! is enough to give a clue to the importance of the 
 little details previously given of the persons and circumstances 
 of this evening, when the lieutenant had undertaken to cope 
 with a young girl, and to drag from the recesses of her heart 
 a passion detected by her blind mother. 
 
 An hour went by in ominous calm, broken only by the 
 hieroglyphical phrases of the whist-players : " Spade ! Trump ! 
 Cut ! Have we the honors ? Two trebles ! Eight all ! Who 
 deals?" phrases representing in these days the great emo- 
 tions of the aristocracy of Europe. Modeste stitched, without 
 any surprise at her mother's taciturnity. Madame Mignon's 
 pocket-handkerchief slipped off her lap on to the floor; Butscha 
 flew to pick it up. He was close to Modeste, and as he rose 
 whispered in her ear, "Be on your guard ! " 
 
 Modeste raised astonished eyes, and their light, pointed 
 darts as it seemed, filled the hunchback with ineffable joy. 
 
 "She loves no one," said the poor fellow to himself, and 
 he rubbed his hands hard enough to flay them. 
 
 At this moment Exupere flew through the garden and into 
 the house, rushing into the drawing-room like a whirlwind, 
 and said in Dumay's ear, " Here is the young man ! " 
 
 Dumay rose, seized his pistols, and went out. 
 
 "Good God! Supposing he kills him!" cried Madame 
 Dumay, who burst into tears. 
 
 "But what is going on?" asked Modeste, looking at her 
 friends with an air of perfect candor, and without any alarm. 
 
 "Something about a young man who prowls round the 
 chalet ! " cried Madame Latournelle.
 
 36 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " What then ? " said Modeste. " Why should Dumay kill 
 him?" 
 
 " Sancta simplicitas ! " said Butscha, looking at his master 
 as proudly as Alexander gazes at Babylon in Lebrun's picture. 
 
 "Where are you going, Modeste?" asked her mother, as 
 her daughter was leaving the room. 
 
 " To get everything ready for you to go to bed, mamma," 
 replied Modeste, in a voice as clear as the notes of a har- 
 monica. 
 
 " You have had all your trouble for nothing," said Butscha 
 to Dumay when he came in. 
 
 " Modeste is as saintly as the Virgin on our altar ! " cried 
 Madame Latournelle. 
 
 "Ah, good heavens ! Such agitation is too much for me," 
 said the cashier. "And yet I am a strong man." 
 
 "I would give twenty-five sous to understand one word of 
 what you are at this evening," said Gobenheim ; "you all 
 seem to me to have gone mad. ' ' 
 
 " And yet a treasure is at stake," said Butscha, standing on 
 tiptoe to speak into Gobenheim's ear. 
 
 " Unfortunately, I am almost positive of the truth of what 
 I say," repeated the mother. 
 
 " Then it now lies with you, madame," said Dumay quietly, 
 " to prove that we are wrong." 
 
 When he found that nothing was involved but Modeste's 
 reputation, Gobenheim took his hat, bowed, and went away, 
 carrying off ten sous, regarding a fresh rubber as hopeless. 
 
 "Exupere, and you Butscha, leave us," said Madame 
 Latournelle. " Go down to the town. You will be in time to 
 see one piece; I will treat you to the play." 
 
 As soon as Madame Mignon was left with her four friends, 
 Madame Latournelle glanced at Dumay, who, being a Breton, 
 understood the mother's persistency, and then at her husband 
 fidgeting with the cards, and thought herself justified in 
 speaking.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 37 
 
 "Come, Madame Mignon, tell us what decisive evidence 
 has struck your ear?" 
 
 " Oh, my dear friend, if you were a musician, you, like me, 
 would have heard Modeste's tone when she sings of love." 
 
 The piano belonging to the two sisters was one of the few 
 feminine luxuries among the furniture brought from the town- 
 house to the chalet. Modeste had mitigated some tedium by 
 studying without a master. She was a born musician, and 
 often played to cheer her mother. She sang with natural grace 
 the German airs her mother taught her. From this instruction 
 and this endeavor had resulted the phenomenon, not uncom- 
 mon in natures prompted by a vocation, that Modeste uncon- 
 sciously composed purely melodic strains, as such composition 
 is possible without a knowledge of harmony. Melody is to 
 music what imagery and feeling are to poetry, a flower that 
 may blossom spontaneously. All nations have had popular 
 melodies before the introduction of harmony. Botany came 
 after flowers. Thus Modeste, without having learned anything 
 of the technique of painting beyond what she had gathered 
 from seeing her sister work in water-colors, could stand en- 
 chanted before a picture by Raphael, Titian, Rubens, Murillo, 
 Rembrandt, Albert Diirer, or Holbein ; that is to say, the 
 highest ideal of each nation. Now, for about a month, 
 Modeste had more especially burst into nightingale songs, 
 into new strains so poetical as to arouse her mother's atten- 
 tion, surprised as she was to find Modeste bent on composi- 
 tion and trying airs to unfamiliar words. 
 
 "If your suspicions have no other foundation," said La- 
 tournelle to Madame Mignon, "I pity your sensitiveness." 
 
 "When a young girl sings in Brittany," said Dumay, now 
 grave again, "the lover is very near." 
 
 "I will let you overhear Modeste improvising," said the 
 mother, " and you will see ! " 
 
 " Poor child ! " said Madame Dumay. " If she could but 
 know of our anxiety, she would be in despair ; and she would
 
 38 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 tell us the truth, especially if she knew all it meant to 
 Dumay." 
 
 "To-morrow, my friends, I will question Modeste," said 
 Madame Mignon ; "and perhaps I shall achieve more by affec- 
 tion than you have gained by ruse." 
 
 Was the comedy of the " Ill-guarded Daughter " being en- 
 acted here, as it is everywhere and at all times, while these 
 worthy Bartolos, these spies, these vigilant watch-dogs failed 
 to scent, to guess, to detect the lover, the conspiracy, the 
 smoke of the fire ? 
 
 This was not the consequence of any defiance between a 
 prisoner and her gaolers, between the tyranny of the dungeon 
 and the liberty of the captive, but merely the eternal repeti- 
 tion of the first drama played as the curtain rose on the new 
 creation : Eve in Paradise. Which, in this case, was right 
 the mother or the watch-dog ? 
 
 None of the persons about Modeste understood the girl's 
 heart for, be assured, the soul and the face were in 
 unison. Modeste had transplanted her life into a world of 
 which the existence is as completely denied in our days as the 
 New World of Christopher Columbus was denied in the six- 
 teenth century. Fortunately, she could be silent, or she 
 would have been thought mad. 
 
 We must first explain the influence that past events had had 
 on the girl. Two especially had formed her character, as 
 they had awakened her intelligence. Monsieur and Madame 
 Mignon, startled by the disaster that had come upon Bettina, 
 had, before their bankruptcy, resolved on seeing Modeste 
 married, and their choice fell on the son of a wealthy banker, 
 a native of Hamburg, who had settled at le Havre in 1815, 
 and who was under some obligations to them. This young 
 man Francisque Althor the dandy of le Havre, handsome 
 in the style which captivates the Philistine, what the English 
 call a heavy-weight florid, healthy coloring, firm flesh, and 
 square shoulders threw over his bride-elect, at the news of
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 39 
 
 their disaster, so completely that he had never since set eyes 
 on Modeste, or on Madame Mignon, or on the Dumays. 
 Latournelle having made so bold as to speak to the father, 
 Jacob Althor, on the subject, the old German had shrugged 
 his shoulders, and replied, " I do not know what you mean." 
 
 This reply, repeated to Modeste to give her experience, 
 was a lesson she understood all the better because Latournelle 
 and Dumay made voluminous comments on this base deser- 
 tion. Charles Mignon's two daughters, spoiled children as 
 they were, rode, had their own horses and servants, and en- 
 joyed fatal liberty. Modeste, finding herself in command of 
 a recognized lover, had allowed Francisque to kiss her hand, 
 and put his arm round her to help her to mount ; she had 
 accepted flowers and the trifling gifts of affection which are 
 the burden of paying court to a young lady ; she worked him 
 a purse, believing in bonds of that kind, so strong to noble 
 souls, but mere cobwebs to the Gobenheims, Vilquins, and 
 Althors. 
 
 In the course of the spring, after Madame Mignon and her 
 daughter had moved into the chalet, Francisque Althor went 
 to dine with the Vilquins. On catching sight of Modeste 
 beyond the wall of the lawn, he looked away. Six weeks 
 after, he married Mademoiselle Vilquin the eldest. Thus 
 Modeste learned that she, handsome, young, and well born, 
 had for three months been simply Mademoiselle Million. So 
 Modeste's poverty, which was of course known, was a sentinel 
 which guarded the ways to the chalet quite as well as the Du- 
 mays' prudence and the Latournelles' vigilance. Mademoiselle 
 Mignon was never mentioned but with insulting pity: "Poor 
 girl ! what will become of her? She will die an old maid." 
 " What a hard lot ! After seeing all the world at her feet, 
 and having a chance of marrying Althor, to find that no one 
 will have anything to say to her? " " Such a life of luxury, 
 my dear ! and to have sunk to penury ! " 
 
 Nor were these insults spoken in private and only guessed
 
 40 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 by Modeste ; more than once she heard them uttered by the 
 young men and girls of the town when walking at Ingouville, 
 who, knowing that Madame and Mademoiselle Mignon lived 
 at the chalet, discussed them audibly as they went past the 
 pretty little house. Some of the Vilquins' friends wondered 
 that these ladies could bear to live so near the home of their 
 former splendor. Modeste, sitting behind closed shutters, 
 often heard such impertinence as this : "I cannot think how 
 they can live there!" one would say to another, walking 
 round the garden, perhaps to help the Vilquins to be rid of 
 their tenants. "What do they live on? What can they do 
 there ? The old woman is gone blind ! Is Mademoiselle 
 Mignon still pretty? Ah, she has no horses now. How 
 dashing she used to be ! " 
 
 As she heard this savage nonsense spoken by envy, foul- 
 mouthed and surly, and tilting at the past, many girls would 
 have felt the blood rise to their very brow; others would 
 have wept ; some would have felt a surge of rage ; but Modeste 
 smiled as we smile at a theatre, hearing actors speak. Her 
 pride could not descend to the level which such words, rising 
 from below, could reach. 
 
 The other event was even more serious than this mercenary 
 desertion. Bettina Caroline had died in her sister's arms; 
 Modeste had nursed her with the devotion of a woman, with 
 the inquisitiveness of a maiden imagination. The two girls, 
 in the watches of the night, had exchanged many a con- 
 fidence. What dramatic interest hung around Bettina in the 
 eyes of her innocent sister ! Bettina knew passion only as 
 misfortune ; she was dying because she had loved. Between 
 two girls every man, wretch though he be, is a lover. Passion 
 is the one thing really absolute in human life ; it will always 
 have its own. Georges d'Estourny, a gambler, dissipated 
 and guilty, always dwelt in the memory of these two young 
 things as the Parisian dandy of the Havre parties, the cyno- 
 sure of every woman Bettina believed that she had snatched
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 41 
 
 him from Madame Vilquin's flirtations and, to crown all, 
 Bettina's successful lover. In a young girl her worship is 
 stronger than social reprobation. In Bettina's mind, justice 
 had erred ; how should she have condemned a young man by 
 whom she had been loved for six months, loved with passion 
 in the mysterious retreat where Georges hid her in Paris, that 
 he might preserve his liberty. Thus Bettina, in her death, 
 had inoculated her sister with love. 
 
 The sisters had often discussed the great drama of passion, 
 to which imagination lends added importance ; and the dead 
 girl had taken Modeste's purity with her to her grave, leaving 
 her not perhaps all-knowing, but, at any rate, all-curious. At 
 the same time, remorse had often set sharp pangs in Bettina's 
 heart, and she lavished warnings on her sister. In the midst 
 of her revelations, she never failed to preach obedience in 
 Modeste, absolute obedience to her family. On the eve of 
 her death, she implored her sister to remember the pillow she 
 had soaked with her tears, and never to imitate the conduct 
 her sufferings could scarcely expiate. Bettina accused herself 
 of having brought the lightning down on those dear to her ; 
 she died in despair at not receiving her father's forgiveness. 
 In spite of the consolations of religion, which was softened 
 by such deep repentance, Bettina's last words, in a heart- 
 rending cry, were, " Father ! Father ! " 
 
 " Never give your heart but with your hand," said she to 
 Modeste, an hour before her death ; "and, above all, accept 
 no attentions without my mother's consent or papa's." 
 
 These words, touching in their simple truth and spoken in 
 the hour of death, found an echo in Modeste's mind, all the 
 more because Bettina made her take a solemn vow. The 
 poor girl, with prophetic insight, drew from under her pillow 
 a ring on which she had had engraved Pensc a Bettina, 1827 
 " Remember Bettina " instead of a motto, sending it by 
 the hand of her faithful servant Franchise Cochet, to be done 
 in the town. A few minutes before she breathed her last
 
 42 MODESTE MIGNON, 
 
 sigh, she placed this ring on her sister's finger, begging her 
 to wear it till she should be married. Thus, between these 
 two girls there had been a strange succession of acute remorse 
 and artless descriptions of that brief summer which had been 
 so soon followed by the autumn winds of desertion, while 
 tears, regrets, and memories were constantly overruled by a 
 dread of evil. 
 
 And yet this drama of the young creature seduced, and re- 
 turning to die of a dreadful disorder under the roof of elegant 
 poverty, the meanness of the Vilquins' son-in-law, and her 
 mother's blindness, resulting from her griefs, only account 
 for the surface of Modeste's character, with which the Dumays 
 and the Latournelles had to be content, for no devotion can 
 fill the mother's place. This monotonous life in the pretty 
 chalet, among the beautiful flowers grown by Dumay ; these 
 habits, as regular as the working of a clock ; this provincial 
 propriety ; these rubbers at cards by which she sat knitting ; 
 this silence, only broken by the moaning of the sea at the 
 equinoxes ; this monastic peace covered the stormiest kind of 
 life the life of ideas, the life of the spiritual world. 
 
 We sometimes wonder at the lapses of young girls, but that 
 is when they have no blind mother to sound with her stick 
 the depths of the maiden heart undermined by the caverns 
 of fancy. 
 
 The Dumays were asleep when Modeste opened her window, 
 imagining that a man might pass by the man of her dreams, 
 the knight who would take her on a pillion, defying Dumay's 
 pistols. In her dejection after her sister's death, Modeste had 
 plunged into such constant reading as was enough to make 
 her idiotic. Having been brought up to speak two languages, 
 she was mistress of German as well as of French ; then she 
 and Caroline had learned English of Madame Dumay. Mod- 
 este, who, in such matters, found little supervision from her 
 uncultivated companions, fed her soul on the masterpieces of 
 modern English, German, and French literature Lord Byron,
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 43 
 
 Goethe, Schiller, Walter Scott, Hugo, Lamartine, Crabbe, 
 Moore, the great works of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries, history and the theatre, romance from Rabelais to 
 Manon Lescaut, from Montaigne's "Essays" to Diderot, 
 from the " Fabliaux " to " La Nouvelle Heloise," the thoughts 
 of three countries furnished her brain with a medley of im- 
 ages. And her mind was beautiful in its cold guilelessness, 
 its repressed virginal instincts, from which sprang forth, flash- 
 ing, armed, sincere, and powerful, an intense admiration for 
 genius. To Modeste, a new book was a great event ; she was 
 so happy over a great work as to alarm Madame Latournelle, 
 as we have seen, and saddened when it failed to take her 
 heart by storm. 
 
 But no gleam of this lurid flame ever appeared on the 
 surface ; it escaped the eye of Lieutenant Dumay and his wife 
 as well as of the Latournelles ; but the ear of the blind mother 
 could not fail to hear its crackling. The deep contempt 
 which Modeste thenceforth conceived for all ordinary men 
 soon gave her countenance an indescribably proud and shy 
 expression which qualified its German simplicity, but which 
 agrees with one detail of her face ; her hair, growing in a 
 point in the middle of her forehead, seems to continue the 
 slight furrow made by thought between her brows, and makes 
 this shy look perhaps a little too wild. 
 
 This sweet girl's voice before his departure Charles 
 Mignon used to call her his little "Solomon's slipper," she 
 was so clever had acquired delightful flexibility of accent 
 from her study of three languages. This advantage is yet 
 further enhanced by a suave fresh quality which goes to the 
 heart as well as to the ear. Though her mother could not see 
 the hope of high destiny stamped on her daughter's brow, she 
 could study the changes of her soul's development in the tones 
 of that amorous voice. 
 
 After this period of ravenous reading, there came to Mo- 
 deste a phase of the singular faculty possessed by a lively
 
 44 MODESTE MIGNO2T. 
 
 imagination ; of living as an actor in an existence pictured 
 as in a dream ; of representing things wished for with a vivid- 
 ness so keen that it verges on reality ; of enjoying them in 
 fancy, of devouring time even, seeing herself married, grown 
 old, attending her own funeral, like Charles V. in short, 
 of playing out the drama of life, and at need that of death too. 
 
 As for Modeste, she played the drama of love. She im- 
 agined herself adored to the height of her wishes, and passing 
 through every social phase. As the heroine of some dark 
 romance, she loved either the executioner or some villain who 
 died on the scaffold, or else, like her sister, some penniless 
 fop, whose misdemeanors were the affair of the police court. 
 She pictured herself as a courtesan, and laughed men to scorn 
 in the midst of perpetual festivities, like Ninon. By turns, 
 she led the life of an adventuress or of a popular actress, go- 
 ing through the vicissitudes of a Gil Bias or the triumphs of 
 Pasta, Malibran, Florine. Satiated with horrors, she would 
 come back to real life. She married a notary, she ate the 
 dry bread of respectability, she saw herself in Madame La- 
 tournelle. She accepted a laborious life, facing the worries 
 of accumulating a fortune ; then she began to romance again : 
 she was loved for her beauty ; the son of a peer of France, 
 artistic and eccentric, read her heart, and discerned the star 
 which the genius of a Stael had set on her brow. At last her 
 father returned a millionaire. Justified by experience, she 
 subjected her lovers to tests, preserving her own freedom ; 
 she owned a splendid chateau, servants' carriages, everything 
 that luxury has most curious to bestow ; and she mystified her 
 lovers till she was forty, when she accepted an offer. 
 
 This edition of the "Arabian Nights," of which there was 
 but one copy, lasted nearly a year, and brought Modeste to 
 satiety of invention. She too often held life in the hollow 
 of her hand ; she could say to herself very philosophically, 
 and too seriously, too bitterly, too often, "Well; and then?" 
 not to sink now to her waist in those depths of disgust, into
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 45 
 
 which men of genius fall who are too eager to escape by the 
 vast labor of the task to which they have devoted themselves. 
 But for her rich nature and her youth, Modeste would have 
 retired to a cloister. This satiety flung the girl, still soaked 
 in Catholic feeling, into a love of goodness and of the infini- 
 tude of heaven. She conceived of charity as the occupation 
 of her life ; still she groped in forlorn gloom as she found 
 there no aliment for the fancy that gnawed at her heart like a 
 malignant insect in the cup of a flower. She calmly sewed 
 on baby clothes for poor women ; and she listened absently 
 to Monsieur Latournelle grumbling at Monsieur Dumay for 
 trumping a thirteenth, or forcing him to play his last trump. 
 Faith led Modeste into a strange path. She fancied that by 
 becoming irreproachable in the Catholic sense, she might 
 achieve such a pitch of sanctity that God would hear her and 
 grant her desires. 
 
 " 'Faith,' as Jesus Christ says, 'can remove mountains;' 
 the Saviour made His apostle walk on the Lake of Tiberias, 
 while I only ask of God to send me a husband," thought she. 
 " That is much easier than going for a walk on the sea." 
 
 She fasted all through Lent, and did not commit the smallest 
 sin ; then she promised herself that on coming out of church 
 on a certain day she would meet a handsome young man, 
 worthy of her, whom her mother would approve, and who 
 would follow her, madly in love. On the day she had fixed 
 for God to send her this angel without fail, she was persist- 
 ently followed by a horrible beggar ; it poured with rain ; 
 and there was not one young man out of doors. She went 
 down to the quay to see the English come on shore, but every 
 Englishman had an English damsel almost as handsome as 
 herself, and Modeste could not see anything like a " Childe 
 Harold " who had lost his way. At that stage tears rose to her 
 eyes as she sat, like Marius, on the ruins of her imaginings. 
 One day when she made an appointment with God for the 
 third time, she believed that the elect of her dreams had come
 
 46 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 into the church, and she dragged Madame Latournelle to 
 look behind every pillar, imagining that he was hiding out 
 of delicacy. Thenceforth she concluded that God had no 
 power. She often made conversations with this imaginary 
 lover, inventing question and answer, and giving him a very 
 pretty wit. 
 
 Thus it was her heart's excessive ambition, buried in ro- 
 mance, which gave Modeste the discretion so much admired 
 by the good people who watched over her ; they might have 
 brought her many a Francisque Althor or Vilquin fils, she 
 would not have stooped to such boors. She required simply 
 and purely a man of genius ; talent she thought little of, as a 
 barrister is nothing to a girl who is set on an ambassador. 
 She wished for riches only to cast them at her idol's feet. 
 The golden background against which the figures of her 
 dreams stood out was less precious than her heart overflowing 
 with a woman's delicacy ; for her ruling idea was to give 
 wealth and happiness to a Tasso, a Milton, a Jean-Jacques 
 Rousseau, a Murat, a Christopher Columbus. Vulgar sorrows 
 appealed but little to this soul, which longed to extinguish 
 the stake of such martyrs unrecognized during their lifetime. 
 Modeste thirsted for unconfessed suffering, the great anguish 
 of the mind. 
 
 Sometimes she imagined the balm, she elaborated the ten- 
 derness, the music, the thousand devices by which she would 
 have soothed the fierce misanthropy of Jean-Jacques. Again 
 she fancied herself the wife of Lord Byron, and almost entered 
 into his scorn of realities, while making herself as fantastic as 
 the poetry of Manfred, and into his doubts while making him 
 a Catholic. Modeste accused all the women of the seven- 
 teenth century as guilty of Moliere's melancholy. 
 
 " How is it," she wondered, " that some living, wealthy, 
 and beautiful woman does not rush forth to meet every man 
 of genius, to make herself his slave like Lara, the mysterious 
 page?"
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 47 
 
 As you see, she had quite understood the English poet's 
 wail, as sung by Gulnare. She greatly admired the conduct 
 of the young English girl who came to propose to the younger 
 Cr6billon, who married her. The story of Sterne and Eliza 
 Draper was a joy to her for some months ; as the imaginary 
 heroine of a similar romance she studied the sublime part of 
 Eliza again and again. The exquisite feeling so gracefully 
 expressed in those letters filled her eyes with the tears which, 
 it is said, never rose to those of the wittiest of English writers. 
 
 Modeste thus lived for some time by her sympathy, not 
 merely with the works, but with the personal character of her 
 favorite authors. Goldsmith, the author of "Obermann," 
 Charles Nodier, Maturin the poorest, the most unhappy were 
 her gods; she understood their sufferings, she entered into 
 their squalor, blending with heaven-sent visions; she poured 
 on them the treasures of her heart ; she pictured herself clearly 
 as supplying the comforts of life to these artists, martyrs to 
 their gifts. This noble compassion, this intuitive knowledge 
 of the difficulties of work, this worship for talent, is one of 
 the rarest vagaries that ever beat its wings in a woman's soul. 
 At first it is like a secret between her and God, for there is ' 
 nothing dazzling in it, nothing to flatter her vanity that 
 potent auxiliary of all actions in France. 
 
 From this third phase of her ideas there was born in 
 Modeste a violent desire to study one of these anomalous 
 lives to the very heart of it, to know the springs of thought, 
 the secret sorrows of genius, and what it craves, and what it 
 is. And so, in her, the rashness of phantasy, the wanderings 
 of her soul in a void, her excursions into the darkness of the 
 future, the impatience of her undeveloped love to centre in an 
 object, the nobleness of her notions of life, her determination 
 to suffer in some lofty sphere rather than to paddle in the 
 slough of provincial life as her mother had done, the vow 
 she had made to herself never to go wrong, to respect her 
 parents' home, and never bring to it anything but joy
 
 48 MODESTE M1GNON. 
 
 all this world of feeling at last took shape : Modeste purposed 
 to be the wife of a poet, an artist ; a man, in short, superior to 
 the crowd ; but she meant to choose him, and to subject him 
 to a thorough study, before giving him her heart, her life, 
 her immense tenderness freed from all the different trammels 
 of passion. 
 
 She began by reveling in this pretty romance. Perfect 
 tranquillity possessed her soul. Her countenance was grad- 
 ually colored by it. She became the lovely and sublime 
 image of Germany that you have seen, the glory of the chalet, 
 the pride of Madame Latournelle and the Dumays. Thus 
 Modeste lived a double life. She humbly and lovingly ful- 
 filled all the trivial tasks of daily life at the chalet, using them 
 as a check to hold in the poem of her ideal existence, like the 
 Carthusians, who order their material life by rule, and occupy 
 their time to allow the soul to develop itself in prayer. 
 
 All great intellects subject themselves to some mechanical 
 employment to obtain control of thought. Spinoza ground 
 lenses, Bayle counted the tiles in a roof, Montesquieu worked 
 in his garden. The body being thus under control, the spirit 
 spreads its wings in perfect security. So Madame Mignon, 
 who read her daughter's soul, was right. Modeste was in 
 love ; she loved with that Platonic sentiment which is so rare, 
 so little understood the first illusion of girlhood, the subtlest 
 of feelings, the heart's daintiest morsel. She drank deep 
 draughts from the cup of the unknown, the impossible, the 
 visionary. She delighted in the blue bird of the Maiden's 
 Paradise, which sings far away, on which none may lay hands, 
 which lets itself be seen, while the shot of no gun can ever 
 touch it ; its magical colors, like the sparkling of gems, dazzle 
 the eye, but it is never more seen when once reality ap- 
 pears the hideous Harpy bringing witnesses and the maire 
 in her train. To have all the poetry of love without the 
 presence of the lover ! How exquisite an orgy ! What a fair 
 chimera of all colors and every plumage !
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 49 
 
 This was the trifling foolish accident which sealed the girl's 
 fate. 
 
 Modeste saw on a bookseller's counter a lithographed por- 
 trait of de Canalis, one of her favorites. You know what 
 libels these sketches are, the outcome of an odious kind of 
 speculation which falls upon the persons of celebrated men, 
 as if their faces were public property. So Canalis, caught in a 
 Byronic attitude, offered to public admiration his disordered 
 hair, his bare throat, and the excessively high forehead proper 
 to every bard. Victor Hugo's brow will lead to as many 
 heads being shaved as there were suckling field -marshals who 
 rushed to die on the strength of Napoleon's glory. 
 
 Modeste was struck by this head, made sublime by com- 
 mercial requirements ; and on the day when she bought the 
 portrait, one of the finest books by Arthes had just come out. 
 Though it may sound to her discredit, it must be confessed 
 that she long hesitated between the illustrious poet and the 
 illustrious prose writer. But were these two great men unmar- 
 ried ? Modeste began by securing the co-operation of Fran- 
 <;oise Cochet, the girl whom poor Bettina Caroline had taken 
 with her from le Havre and brought back again. She lived 
 in the town, and Madame Mignon and Madame Dumay would 
 employ her for a day's work in preference to any other. 
 Modeste had this somewhat homely creature up into her 
 room ; she swore that she would never cause her parents the 
 smallest grief, nor exceed the limits imposed on a young lady; 
 she promised Francoise that in the future, on her father's 
 return, the poor girl should have an easy life, on condition of 
 her keeping absolute secrecy as to the service required of her. 
 What was it ? A mere trifle, a perfectly innocent thing. All 
 that Modeste asked of her accomplice was that she should post 
 certain letters and fetch the replies, addressed to Franchise 
 Cochet. 
 
 The bargain concluded, Modeste wrote a polite note to 
 Dauriat, the publisher of Canalis' poems, in which she asked 
 4
 
 50 MODES TE M1GNON. 
 
 him, in the interests of the great poet, whether Canalis was 
 married, begging him to address the answer to Mademoiselle 
 Franchise, poste restante, au Havre. Dauriat, who, of course, 
 could not take such a letter seriously, sent a reply concocted 
 in his private room by five or six journalists, each in turn 
 adding his jest : 
 
 "MADEMOISELLE: Canalis (Baron de), Constant-Cyr- 
 Melchior, member of the French Academy, born in 1800 at 
 Canalis, Correze ; stands five feet four, is in good condition, 
 vaccinated, thoroughbred, has served his term under the con- 
 scription, enjoys perfect health, has a small landed estate in 
 Correze, and wishes to marry, but looks for great wealth. 
 
 " His arms are, party per pale gules a broad axe or, and 
 sable a shell argent ; surmounted by a baron's coronet ; sup- 
 porters, two larches proper. The motto Or et fer (gold and 
 iron) has never proved auriferous. 
 
 " The first Canalis, who went to the Holy Land in the first 
 crusade, is mentioned in the Chronicles of Auvergne as carry- 
 ing no weapon but an axe, by reason of the complete indi- 
 gence in which he lived, and which has ever since weighed 
 on his posterity. Hence, no doubt, the blazon. The axe 
 brought him nothing but an empty shell. This noble baron 
 became famous, having discomfited many infidels, and he 
 died at Jerusalem, without either gold or iron, as bare as a 
 worm, on the road to Ascalon, the ambulance service having 
 not yet been called into existence. 
 
 " The castle of Canalis the land yields a few chestnuts 
 consists of two dismantled towers joined by a wall, remark- 
 able for its superior growth of ivy, and it pays twenty-two 
 francs to the revenue. 
 
 " The publisher, undersigned, begs to remark that he pays 
 Monsieur de Canalis ten thousand francs per volume for his 
 poetry. He does not give his empty shells for nothing. 
 
 "The Bard of the Correze lives at Rue de Paradis-Poisson-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 51 
 
 niere, No. 29, which is a suitable situation for a poet of the 
 Seraphic School. Worms (les vers) are a bait for gudgeon. 
 Letters must be prepaid. 
 
 " Certain noble dames of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, 
 often, it is said, make their way to paradise and patronize the 
 divinity. King Charles X. thinks so highly of this great poet 
 as to believe him capable of becoming a statesman. He has 
 recently made him an officer of the Legion of Honor, and, 
 what is more to the purpose, master of appeals, attached to 
 the ministry for foreign affairs. These functions in no way 
 keep the great man from drawing a pension of three thousand 
 francs from the fund devoted to the encouragement of art 
 and letters. This pecuniary success causes, in the publishing 
 world, an eighth plague which Egypt was spared a plague 
 of worms (/ vers) \ 
 
 "The last edition of the works of Canalis, printed on hand- 
 made paper, large 8vo, with vignettes by Bixiou, Joseph Bri- 
 dau, Schinner, Sommervieux, and others, printed by Didot, 
 is in five volumes, price nine francs, postpaid." 
 
 This letter fell like a paving-stone on a tulip. A poet as 
 master of appeals, in the immediate circle of a minister, 
 drawing a pension, aiming at the red rosette, adored of the 
 ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain ! Was this at all like 
 the threadbare poet wandering on the quays, melancholy and 
 dreamy, overwrought by work, and climbing up to his garret 
 again loaded with poetic inspiration? At the same time, 
 Modeste saw through the jest of the envious publisher, which 
 conveyed, " I made Canalis ! I made Nathan ! " Then she 
 re-read Canalis' verses, very catching verses, full of hypocrisy, 
 and which require a few words of analysis if only to explain 
 her infatuation. 
 
 Canalis is distinguished from Lamartine, the chief of the 
 Seraphic School, by a sort of sick-nurse blarney, a perfidious 
 sweetness, and exquisite correctness. If the chief, with his
 
 52 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 sublime outcry, may be called an eagle, Canalis, all rose and 
 white, is a flamingo. In him women discern the friend they 
 yearn for, a discreet confidant, their interpreter, the being 
 who understands them, and who explains them to themselves. 
 The broad margins with which Dauriat had graced his last 
 edition were covered with confessions scribbled in pencil by 
 Modeste, who sympathized with this dreamy and tender soul. 
 Canalis has not life in his gift ; he does not breathe it into his 
 creations ; but he knows how to soothe vague sufferings such 
 as Modeste was a victim of. He speaks to girls in their own 
 language, lulling the pain of the most recent wounds, and 
 silencing groans and even sobs. His talent does not consist 
 in preaching loftily to the sufferer, in giving her the medi- 
 cine of strong emotions ; he is content to say in a musical 
 voice which commands belief: "I am unhappy, as you are; 
 I understand you fully ; come with me, we will weep together 
 on the bank of this stream, under the willows ! " And they 
 go ! and listen to his verse, as vacuous and as sonorous as the 
 song of a nurse putting a baby to sleep ! Canalis like 
 Nodier in this bewitches you by an artlessness, which in the 
 prose writer is natural but in the poet elaborately studied, -by 
 his archness, his smile, his fallen flowers, his childlike philos- 
 ophy. He mimics the language of early days well enough to 
 carry you back to the fair field of illusion. 
 
 To an eagle we are pitiless ; we insist on the quality of the 
 diamond, flawless perfection ; but from Canalis we are satis- 
 fied with the orphan's mite ; everything may be forgiven him. 
 He seems such a good fellow, human above everything. 
 These seraphic airs succeed with him, as those of a woman 
 will always succeed if she acts simplicity well the startled, 
 youthful, martyred, suffering angel. 
 
 Modeste, summing up her impressions, felt that she trusted 
 that soul, that countenance, as attractive as Bernardin de 
 Saint-Pierre's. She paid no heed to the publisher. And so, 
 at the beginning of the month of August, she wrote the fol-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 53 
 
 lowing letter to this Dorat of the sacristy, who even now is 
 regarded as one of the stars of the modern Pleiades : 
 
 I. 
 
 To Monsieur dc Canalis. 
 
 " Many times ere now, monsieur, I have intended to write 
 you and why ? You can guess : to tell you how much I de- 
 light in your talent. Yes, I feel a longing to express to you 
 the admiration of a poor country-bred girl, very solitary in 
 her nook, whose sole joy is in reading your poetry. From 
 Rene I came to you. Melancholy tends to reverie. How 
 many other women must have paid you the homage of their 
 secret thoughts ! What chance have I of being of the elect 
 in such a crowd ! What interest can this paper have, though 
 full of my soul, above all the perfumed letters which beset 
 you ? I introduce myself with more to perplex you than any 
 other woman. I intend to remain unknown, and yet ask 
 your entire confidence, as if you had known me a long time. 
 
 " Answer me, be kind to me. I do not pledge myself 
 to tell my name some day, still I do not positively say no. 
 What more can I add to this letter? Regard it, monsieur, 
 as a great effort, and allow me to offer you my hand oh, 
 a very friendly hand that of your servant, 
 
 "O. D'ESTE-M. 
 
 " If you do me the favor of replying, address your 
 letter, I beg, to Mademoiselle F. Cochet, Poste Restante, le 
 Havre." 
 
 Now every damsel, whether romantic or not, can imagine 
 Modeste's impatience during the next few days ! The air 
 was full of tongues of flame ; the trees looked like plumage ; 
 she did not feel her body ; she floated above nature ! The
 
 54 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 earth vanished under her tread. Wondering at the powers of 
 the postoffice, she followed her little sheet of paper through 
 space; she was glad, as we are glad at twenty at the first 
 exercise of our will. She was bewitched, possessed, as peo- 
 ple were in the middle ages. She pictured to herself the 
 poet's lodgings, his room ; she saw him opening the letter, 
 and she made a million guesses. 
 
 Having sketched his poetry, it is necessary here to give 
 an outline of the man. Canalis is small and thin, with an 
 aristocratic figure; dark; gifted with a foolish face and a 
 rather insignificant head, that of a man who has more vanity 
 than pride. He loves luxury, display, and splendor. For- 
 tune is a necessity to him more than to most other men. No 
 less proud of his birth than of his talent, he has swamped 
 his ancestors by too-great personal pretensions. After all, 
 the Canalises are neither Navarreins, nor Cadignans, nor 
 Grandlieus, nor Negrepelisses ; however, nature has done 
 much to support his pretensions. He has the eyes of Oriental 
 lustre that we look for in a poet, a very pretty refinement of 
 manner, a thrilling voice ; but a mannerism that is natural to 
 him almost nullifies these advantages. He is an actor in 
 perfect good faith. He displays a very elegant foot it is an 
 acquired habit. He has a declamatory style of talk, but it 
 is his own. His affectation is theatrical, but it has become a 
 second nature. These faults, as we must call them, are in 
 harmony with an unfailing generosity, which may be termed 
 carpet-knightliness in contrast to chivalry. Canalis has not 
 faith enough to be a Don Quixote, but he is too high-minded 
 not to take invariably the nobler side in any question. His 
 poetry, which comes out in a miliary eruption on every pos- 
 sible occasion, is a great disadvantage to the poet, who is not 
 indeed lacking in wit, but whose talent hinders his wit from 
 developing. He is the slave of his reputation ; he aims at 
 seeming superior to it. 
 
 Hence, as frequently happens, the man is completely out
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 55 
 
 of tune with the products of his mind. The author of these 
 insinuating, artless poems, full of tender sentiment, of these 
 calm verses as clear as lake-ice, of this caressing womanish 
 poetry, is an ambitious little man, buttoned tightly into his 
 coat, with the air of a diplomat, dreaming of political influ- 
 ence, stinking of the aristocrat, scented and conceited, thirst- 
 ing for a fortune that he may have an income equal to his 
 ambitions, and already spoiled by success under two aspects 
 the crown of bays and the crown of myrtle. A salary of 
 eight thousand francs, a pension of three thousand, two thou- 
 sand from the Academic, a thousand crowns of inherited 
 income a good deal reduced by the agricultural requirements 
 of the Canalis estate, and the ten thousand francs he gets 
 from his poems one year with another twenty-five thousand 
 francs a year in all. 
 
 To Modeste's hero this income was all the more precarious 
 because he spent, on an average, five or six thousand francs a 
 year more than he received, but hitherto the King's privy 
 purse and the secret funds of the ministry had made up the 
 deficit. He had composed a hymn for the coronation, for 
 which he had been rewarded with a service of plate ; he 
 refused a sum of money, saying that the Canalises owed their 
 homage to the King of France. The cavalier King smiled, 
 and ordered from Odiot a costly version of the well-known lines 
 from "Zaire:" 
 
 " What ! Rhymester, did you ever hope to vie 
 With Charles the Tenth in generosity?" 
 
 Canalis had drained himself dry, to use a picturesque vul- 
 garism ; he knew that he was incapable of inventing a fresh 
 form of poetry ; his lyre has not seven strings, it has but one ; 
 and so long had he played on it that the public left him now 
 no choice but to use it to hang himself, or be silent. De 
 Marsay, who could not endure Canalis, had uttered a sarcasm
 
 56 MODESTE A11GNON. 
 
 of which the poisoned dart had pierced the poet's conceit to 
 the quick. 
 
 " Canalis," he had said, " strikes me as being just like the 
 man of whom Frederick the Great spoke after a battle, as the 
 trumpeter who had never ceased blowing the same note 
 through his penny pipe ! " 
 
 Canalis was anxious to become a political personage, and as 
 a beginning made capital of a journey he had taken to Mad- 
 rid when the Due de Chaulieu was ambassador, accompany- 
 ing him as attach* but to the Duchess, as the jest went in 
 fashionable drawing-rooms. How often has a jest sealed a 
 man's fate ! Colla, the erewhile President of the Cisalpine 
 Republic, and the greatest advocate in Piemont, is told by a 
 friend, at the age of forty, that he knows nothing of botany ; 
 he is nettled, he becomes a Jussieu, cultivates flowers, invents 
 new ones, and publishes, in Latin, the "Flora of Piemont," 
 the work of ten years ! 
 
 "Well, after all, Canning and Chateaubriand were states- 
 men," said the extinguished poet, "and in me de Marsay 
 shall find his master ! " 
 
 Canalis would have liked to write an important political 
 work ; but he was afraid of getting into trouble with French 
 prose, a cruelly exacting medium to those who have acquired 
 the habit of taking four Alexandrine lines to express one idea. 
 Of all the poets of the day, only three Victor Hugo, 
 The'ophile Gautier, and de Vigny have been able to conquer 
 the double glory of a poet and a prose-writer, which was also 
 achieved by Voltaire, Moliere, and Rabelais. It is one of 
 the rarest triumphs in French literature, and distinguishes a 
 poet far above his fellows. Our poet of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain was therefore very wise to try to find shelter for his 
 chariot under the guardian roof of a government office. 
 
 When he was made master of appeals, he felt the need of 
 a secretary, a friend who might fill his place on many occa- 
 sions, cook his affairs with publishers, see to his fame in the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 57 
 
 newspapers, and, at a pinch, support him in politics in short, 
 who would be his satellite. Several men, famous in art, 
 science, or letters, have one or two such followers in Paris, a 
 captain in the Guards, or a court chamberlain, who live in 
 the beams of their sunshine, a sort of aides-de-camp intrusted 
 with delicate tasks, allowing themselves to be compromised 
 at need, working round the idol's pedestal, not quite his 
 equals, not quite his superiors ; men bold in puffery, the first 
 in every breach, covering his retreats, looking after his busi- 
 ness, and devoted to him so long as their illusions last or till 
 their claims are satisfied. Some at last perceive that their 
 Great Man is ungrateful ; others feel that they are being made 
 use of; many weary of the work; and few indeed are satis- 
 fied by the mild interchange of sentiment, the only reward to 
 be looked for from an intimacy with a superior man, and 
 which satisfied AH, raised by Mahomet to his- own level. 
 Many, deluded by their self-conceit, think themselves as 
 clever as their Great Man. Devotion is rare, especially with- 
 out reward and without hope, as Modeste conceived of it. 
 
 Nevertheless, a Menneval is occasionally to be met with ; 
 and, in Paris more than anywhere, men love to live in the 
 shade and to work in silence, Benedictines who have lost 
 their way in a world which has no monastery for them. 
 These valiant lambs bear in their deeds and in their private 
 lives the poetry which writers put into words. They are 
 poets at heart, in their secluded meditations, in their tender- 
 ness, as others are poets on paper, in the fields of intellect, 
 and at so much a verse, like Lord Byron like all those who 
 live, alas ! by ink, which in these days is the water of Hippo- 
 crene, for which the government is to blame. 
 
 It was a young consulting referendary of the court of 
 exchequer who constituted himself the poet's secretary; he 
 was attracted by the poet's fame, and the future prospects of 
 this vaunted political genius, and led by the advice of Madame 
 d'Espard, who thus played the Duchesse de Chaulieu's cards
 
 58 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 for her ; and Canal is made much of him, as a speculator does 
 of his first shareholder. The beginnings of this alliance had 
 quite an air of friendship. The younger man had already 
 gone through a course of the same kind with one of the min- 
 isters who fell in 1827; but the minister had taken care to 
 find him a place in the exchequer. 
 
 Ernest de la Briere, at that time seven-and-twenty, decor- 
 ated with the Legion of Honor, with nothing in the world 
 but the emoluments of his office, had the habit of business, 
 and, after hanging about the private room of the prime min- 
 ister for four years, he knew a good deal. He was gentle, 
 amiable, with an almost maidenly soul, full of good feeling, 
 and he hated to be seen in the foreground. He loved his 
 country, he yearned to be of use, but brilliancy dazzled him. 
 If he had had his choice, the place of secretary to a Napoleon 
 would have been more to his mind than that of prime 
 minister. 
 
 Ernest, having become the friend of Canalis, did great 
 things for him, but in eighteen months he became aware of the 
 shallowness of a nature which was poetical merely in its liter- 
 ary expression. The truth of the homely proverb, " The 
 cowl does not make the monk," is especially applicable in 
 literature. It is most rare to find a talent and character in 
 harmony. A man's faculties are not the sum-total of a man. 
 This discord, of which the manifestations are startling, is the 
 outcome of an unexplored a perhaps unexplorable mystery. 
 The brain and its products of every kind since in the art? 
 the hand of man carries out his brain form a world apart 
 that flourishes under the skull, perfectly independent of the 
 feelings, of what are called the virtues of a citizen, of the 
 head of a family, of a private householder. And yet this is 
 not final ; nothing in man is final. It is certain that a 
 debauchee will exhaust his talent in orgies, and a drunkard 
 drown it in his libations, while a good man can never acquire 
 talent by wholesome decency ; but it is also almost proved that
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 59 
 
 Virgil, the poet of love, never loved a Dido; and that 
 Rousseau, the pattern citizen, had pride enough to furnish 
 forth a whole aristocracy. Nevertheless, Michael Angelo and 
 Raphael showed the happy concord of talent and character. 
 Hence talent is in men, as far as the individual is con- 
 cerned, what beauty is in women a promise. Let us give 
 twofold admiration to the man whose heart and character 
 are equally perfect with his talent. 
 
 Ernest, when he detected under the poet an ambitious 
 egoist the worst species of egoist, for some are amiable 
 felt a singular diffidence about leaving him. Honest souls 
 do not easily break their bonds, especially those they have 
 voluntarily accepted. The secretary, then, was on very 
 good terms with the poet when Modeste's letter was flying 
 through the mail, but on the good terms of constant self- 
 effacement. La Briere felt he owed Canalis something for 
 the frankness with which he had revealed himself. And in- 
 deed, in this man, who will be accounted great so long as he 
 lives, and made much of, like Marmontel, his defects are the 
 seamy side of brilliant qualities. But for his vanity, his pre- 
 tentious conceit, he might not have been gifted with that 
 sonorous verbiage which is a necessary instrument in the polit- 
 ical life of the day. His shallowness is part of his rectitude 
 and loyalty ; his ostentation is paired with liberality. Society 
 profits by the results ; the motives may be left to God. 
 
 Still, when Modeste's letter arrived, Ernest had no illusions 
 left as to Canalis. The two friends had just breakfasted and 
 were chatting in the poet's study ; he was at that time living 
 in first-floor rooms looking out on a garden, beyond a court- 
 yard. 
 
 "Ah!" cried Canalis, "I was saying the other day to 
 Madame de Chaulieu that I must cast forth some new poem ; 
 admiration is running low, for it is some time since I have 
 had any anonymous letters " 
 
 "An unknown lady?"
 
 60 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " Unknown ! A d'Este, and from le Havre ! It is evi- 
 dently an assumed name ! " 
 
 And Canalis handed the letter to la Briere. This poem, 
 this veiled enthusiasm in short, Modeste's very heart was 
 recklessly exposed by the gesture of a coxcomb. 
 
 " It is a grand thing," said the young accountant, "thus to 
 attract the chastest feelings, to compel a helpless woman to 
 shake off the habits forced upon her by education, by nature, 
 
 by society, to break through conventionalities What 
 
 privileges genius commands ! A letter like this in my hand, 
 written by a girl, a genuine girl, without reservation, with 
 enthusiasm ' ' 
 
 "Well?" said Canalis. 
 
 "Well, if you had suffered as much as Tasso, you ought to 
 find it reward enough ! " exclaimed la Briere. 
 
 "So we tell ourselves at the first or at the second letter," 
 
 said Canalis. "But at the thirtieth ! but when we have 
 
 discovered that the young enthusiast is an old hand ! but when 
 at the end of the radiant path traveled over by the poet's im- 
 agination we have seen some English old maid sitting on a 
 milestone and holding out her hand ! but when the angel, by 
 post, turns into a poor creature, moderately good-looking, in 
 search of a husband ! Well, then, the effervescence sub- 
 sides." 
 
 " I am beginning to think," said la Briere, smiling, "that 
 glory has something poisonous in it, like certain gorgeous 
 flowers." 
 
 "Beside, my dear fellow," Canalis went on, "all these 
 women, even when they are sincere, have an ideal to which 
 we rarely correspond. They never tell themselves that a 
 poet is a man, and a tolerably vain one, as I am accused of 
 being ; it never occurs to them that he is rough-ridden by a 
 sort of feverish excitement which makes him disagreeable and 
 uncertain. They want him to be always great, always splen- 
 did ; they never dream that talent is a disease ; that Nathan
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 61 
 
 lives on Florine ; that d'Arthez is too fat ; that Joseph Bridau 
 is too thin ; that Beranger can go on foot ; that the divinity 
 may foam at the mouth. A Lucien de Rubempre, a verse- 
 writer and a pretty fellow, is a phoenix. So why go out of 
 your way to receive bad compliments and sit under the cold 
 shower-bath of a disillusioned woman's helpless stare?" 
 
 "Then the true poet," said la Briere, "ought to remain 
 hidden, like God, in the centre of his universe, and be visible 
 only in his creations ! " 
 
 "Then glory would be too dearly paid for," replied Can- 
 alis. "There is some good in life, I tell you," said he, 
 taking a cup of tea. " When a woman of birth and beauty 
 loves a poet, she does not hide herself in the gallery or 
 the stage-box of a theatre, like a duchess smitten by an actor ; 
 she feels strong enough and sufficiently protected by her 
 beauty, by her fortune, by her name, to say, as in every epic 
 poem, 'I am the nymph Calypso, and I love Telemachus.' 
 Mystification is the resource of small minds. For some time 
 now I have never answered such masqueraders " 
 
 " Oh ! how I could love a woman who had come to me ! " 
 cried la Briere, restraining a tear. " It may be said in reply, 
 my dear Canalis, that it is never a poor creature that rises to 
 the level of a celebrated man ; she is too suspicious, too vain, 
 too much afraid. It is always a star, a " 
 
 "A princess," said Canalis, with a shout of laughter, 
 "who condescends to him, I suppose? My dear fellow, 
 such things happen once in a century. Such a passion is 
 like the plant that flowers once in a hundred years. Prin- 
 cesses who are young, rich, and handsome have too much else 
 to do ; they are enclosed, like all rare plants, within a hedge 
 of silly men, well-born and well-bred, and as empty as an 
 alder-stem. My dream, alas ! the crystal of my dream hung 
 with garlands of flowers all the way hither from la Correze, 
 and with what fervor ! But no more of that ! it is in frag- 
 ments, at my feet, long since. No, no, every anonymous
 
 62 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 letter is a beggar ! And what demands they make. Write 
 to this young person, assuming her to be young and pretty, 
 and you will see ! You will have your hands full. One can- 
 not, in reason, love every woman. Apollo, or, at any rate, 
 the Apollo Belvedere, is a consumptive dandy who must save 
 his strength." 
 
 "But when a woman comes to you like this," argued 
 Ernest, "her excuse must lie in her certainty that she can 
 eclipse the most adored mistress in tenderness, in beauty 
 and then a little curiosity " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Canalis, " my too youthful Ernest, you must 
 allow me to be faithful to the fair Duchess, who is all my joy !" 
 
 "You are right too right," replied Ernest. 
 
 Nevertheless, the young secretary read and re-read Mod- 
 este's letter, trying to guess the mind behind it. 
 
 " But there is nothing extravagant in it, no appeal to your 
 genius, only to your heart," he said to Canalis. "This per- 
 fume of modesty and the exchange proposed would tempt 
 me " 
 
 " Sign it yourself; answer her, and follow up the adventure 
 to the end ; it is a poor bargain that I offer you," exclaimed 
 Canalis, with a smile. " Go on ; you will have something to 
 tell me in three months' time, if it lasts three months." 
 
 Four days after Modeste received the following letter, 
 written on handsome paper, under a double cover, and sealed 
 with the arms of Canalis : 
 
 II. 
 
 To Mademoiselle O. d' Este-M. 
 
 " MADEMOISELLE : Admiration for great works admitting 
 that mine may be great implies a certain holy simplicity 
 which is a defense against irony and a justification, in the 
 eyes of every tribunal, of the step you have taken in writing
 
 MODESTE MIGNOM. 63 
 
 me. Above all, I must thank you for the pleasure which such 
 a testimonial never fails to give, even when undeserved, for 
 the writer of verse and the poet alike secretly believe them- 
 selves worthy of them, self-love is a form of matter so far from 
 repellent of praise. The best proof of friendship that I can 
 give to an unknown lady in return for this balm, which heals 
 the stings of criticism, is surely to share with her the harvest 
 of my experience, at the risk of scaring away her living 
 illusions. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, the noblest palm a young girl can bear is 
 that of a saintly, pure, and blameless life. Are you alone in 
 the world? That is a sufficient answer. But if you have a 
 family, a father, or a mother, consider all the sorrows that a 
 letter like yours may entail written to a poet whom you do 
 not know. Not every writer is an angel ; they have their 
 faults. Some are fickle, reckless, conceited, ambitious, dis- 
 sipated ; and imposing as innocence must be, chivalrous as a 
 French poet may be, you might find more than one degener- 
 ate bard willing to encourage your affection only to betray it. 
 Then your letter would not be interpreted as I read it. He 
 would find a meaning in it which you have not put there, and 
 which in your innocence you do not even suspect. Many 
 authors, many natures ! 
 
 " I am extremely flattered by your having thought me 
 worthy to understand you ; but if you had addressed yourself 
 to an insincere talent, to a cynic whose writings were melan- 
 choly while his life was a continual carnival, you might have 
 found at the end of your sublime imprudence some bad man, 
 a dangler behind the scenes, or a wine-shop hero ! You, under 
 the arbor of clematis where you dream over poetry, cannot 
 smell the stale cigar smoke which depoetizes the manuscript ; 
 just as when you go to a ball, dressed in the dazzling products 
 of the jeweler's skill, you never think of the sinewy arms, the 
 toilers in their shirt-sleeves, the wretched workshops whence 
 spring these radiant flowers of handicraft.
 
 64 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " Go further. What is there in the solitary life of reverie 
 that you lead by the seashore, no doubt to interest a poet 
 whose task it is to divine everything, since he must describe 
 everything? Our young girls here are so highly accomplished 
 that no daughter of Eve can vie with them ! What reality 
 was ever so good as a dream? And you now, you, a young 
 girl brought up to be the duteous mother of a family, what 
 would you gain by an initiation into the terrible excitement 
 of a poet's life in this appalling capital, to be denned only as 
 a hell we love. 
 
 " If you took up your pen, prompted by the wish to enliven 
 your monotonous existence as an inquisitive girl, has not this 
 a semblance of depravity ? What meaning am I to attribute 
 to your letter? Are you one of a caste of reprobates, seek- 
 ing a friend at a distance ? Are you cursed with ugliness, 
 and do you feel you have a noble soul with none to trust ? 
 Alas ! a sad conclusion you have either gone too far or not 
 far enough. Either let it end here, or, if you persist, tell me 
 more than in the letter you have already written. 
 
 "But, mademoiselle, if you are young, if you have a fam- 
 ily, if you feel that you bear in your heart a heavenly spike- 
 nard, to be shed, as the Magdalen shed hers on Christ's feet, 
 suffer yourself to be appreciated by some man who is worthy 
 of you, and become what every good girl should attain an 
 admirable wife, the virtuous mother of children. A poet is 
 the poorest conquest any young woman can aspire to ; he has 
 too much vanity, too many salient angles which must run 
 counter to the legitimate vanity of a wife, and bruise the 
 tenderness which has no experience of life. The poet's wife 
 should love him for long before marrying him ; she must 
 resign herself to be as charitable and as indulgent as the 
 angels, to all the virtues of motherhood. These qualities, 
 mademoiselle, exist only as a germ in a young girl. 
 
 " Listen to the whole truth ; do I not owe it you in return 
 for your intoxicating flattery? Though it may be glorious to
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. g6 
 
 marry a great celebrity, a woman soon discovers that a man, 
 however superior, is but a man like all others. He then the 
 less fulfills her hopes, because miracles are expected of him. 
 A famous poet is then in the predicament of a woman whose 
 overpraised beauty makes us say, ' I had pictured her as hand- 
 somer ; ' she does not answer to the requirements of the por- 
 trait sketched by the same fairy to whom I owe your letter 
 Imagination ! 
 
 " Again, great qualities of mind develop and flourish only 
 in an invisible sphere ; the poet's wife sees only the unpleas- 
 ant side of it ; she sees the jewels made instead of wearing 
 them. If the brilliancy of an exceptional position is what 
 fascinates you, I warn you, its pleasures are soon exhausted. 
 You would be provoked to find so much that is rough in a 
 situation which from afar looks so smooth, so much ice on a 
 glittering height ! And then, as women never have set foot 
 in the world of difficulty, they presently cease to value what 
 they once admired, when they fancy that they have under- 
 stood the workmanship at a glance. 
 
 " I will conclude with a last reflection, which you will do 
 wrong to mis-read as an entreaty in disguise ; it is the advice 
 of a friend. A communion of souls cannot be complete ex- 
 cepting between two persons who are prepared to conceal 
 nothing. Could you show yourself as you really are to a 
 stranger ? I pause before the consequences of such a notion. 
 
 "Accept, mademoiselle, all the respect we owe to every 
 woman, even to those who are unknown, and who wear a 
 mask." 
 
 To think that she had carried this letter between her skin 
 
 and her stays, under the scorching busk, for a whole day ! 
 
 that she had postponed reading it till an hour when every- 
 body was asleep, till midnight, after waiting for the solemn 
 
 hour in the pangs of a fiery imagination ! that she had 
 
 blessed the poet, had read in fancy a thousand letters, had 
 5
 
 66 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 conceived of everything excepting this drop of cold water 
 shed on the most diaphanous visions of fancy, and destroying 
 them as prussic acid destroys life. It was enough to make 
 her hide her face as Modeste did under her sheets, though 
 she was alone, and put out the candle, and weep. 
 
 All this happened in the early days of July. Modeste pres- 
 ently got up, paced her room, and then opened the window. 
 She wanted air. The scent of flowers came up to her with 
 the peculiar freshness of night-perfumes. The sea, lighted up 
 by the moon, twinkled like a mirror. A nightingale was 
 singing in the Vilquins' park. 
 
 "Ah ! there is the poet ! " said Modeste to herself, her 
 anger dying out. 
 
 The bitterest reflections crowded on her mind. She was 
 stung to the quick ; she wanted to read the letter again. She 
 re-lighted the candle, and studied this careful production, till 
 at last she heard the early voices of real life. 
 
 " He is in the right, and I am in the wrong," thought she. 
 " But how could I expect to find one of Moli&re's old men 
 under the star-spangled robe of a poet ? " 
 
 When a woman or a girl is caught red-handed, she feels 
 intense hatred of the witness, the first cause, or the object of 
 her folly. And so Modeste, genuine, natural, and coy, felt 
 her heart swell with a dreadful longing to trample on this 
 essence of rectitude and throw him into some abyss of con- 
 tradiction, anything she could devise to pay him back this 
 stunning blow. 
 
 The pure-hearted child, whose head alone had been cor- 
 rupted by her reading, by her sister's long agony, and by the 
 perilous meditations of her solitude, was roused by a sunbeam 
 falling on her face. She had lain for three hours tacking 
 about on the immense ocean of doubt. Such nights are never 
 forgotten. 
 
 Modeste went at once to her little lacquer table, her father's 
 gift, and wrote a letter dictated by the infernal spirit of re-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 87 
 
 venge which disports itself at the bottom of a young girl's 
 heart : 
 
 III. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canafft. 
 
 " MONSIEUR : You are certainly a great poet, but you are 
 something better an honest man. After showing so much 
 frank loyalty to a young girl on the verge of an abyss, have 
 you enough to reply without the least hypocrisy or evasion to 
 this question 
 
 " Would you have written the .letter I have received in an- 
 swer to mine would your ideas, your language, have been 
 the same if some one had whispered in your ear, what may be 
 true : ' Mademoiselle O. d'Este-M. has six millions of francs, 
 and does not want to have a simpleton for her master?' 
 
 " For one moment admit this hypothesis for a fact. Be as 
 honest with me as with yourself; fear nothing, I am superior 
 to my twenty years ; nothing that is genuine can injure you 
 in my estimation. When I shall have read that confession, if, 
 indeed, you vouchsafe to make it to me, you shall have an 
 answer to your first letter. 
 
 "After admiring your talent, which is often sublime, allow 
 me to do homage to your delicacy and rectitude, which compel 
 me to sign myself 
 
 "Your humble servant, 
 
 "O. D'ESTE-M." 
 
 When this note was placed in la Briere's hands, he went 
 out to walk on the boulevards, tossed in his soul like a light 
 bark in the tempest when the wind blows every minute from a 
 different point of the compass. One of the young men of 
 whom we meet so many a true Parisian would have summed 
 up the case in these words, "An old hand ! " But to a young
 
 68 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 fellow whose soul is lofty and refined, this sort of implied 
 oath, this appeal to veracity, had the power to arouse the three 
 judges that lurk at the bottom of every conscience. And 
 Honor, Truth, and Justice, rising erect, as it were, thus cried 
 aloud. 
 
 "Ah ! my dear Ernest," said Truth, " you certainly would 
 not have written a lecture to a rich heiress. No, no, my boy, 
 you would have set off, nose on, for le Havre, to find out 
 whether the young lady was handsome, and you would have 
 been much aggrieved by the preference given to genius. And 
 if you only could have tripped your friend up, and have made 
 yourself acceptable in his place, Mademoiselle d'Este would 
 have been divine ! " " What," said Justice, " you pity your- 
 selves, you men of brains or wit, and without cash, when you 
 see rich girls married to men whom you would not employ as 
 porters ; you run amuck against the sordidness of the age, 
 which is eager to wed money with money, and never to unite 
 some fine young fellow full of talent to a rich and high-born 
 beauty ; now here is one who rebels against the spirit of the 
 time, and the poet retorts with a blow on the heart ! " " Rich 
 or poor, young or old, handsome or plain, this girl is in the 
 right, she has brains, she casts the poet into the mire of self- 
 interest," cried Honor. " She deserves a sincere, noble, and 
 honest reply ; and, above all, the true expression of your 
 thought ! Examine yourself. Sound your heart, and purge 
 it of its meanness! What would Moliere's Alceste say?" 
 And la Briere, starting from the Boulevard Poissonniere, lost 
 in meditation, walked so slowly that at the end of an hour he 
 had but just reached the Boulevard des Capucines. He re- 
 turned by the quays to the exchequer, at that time situated near 
 the Sainte-Chapelle. Instead of verifying accounts, he sat 
 under the spell of his perplexities. 
 
 "She has not six millions, that is clear," said he to himself; 
 " but that is not the question " 
 
 Six days later Modeste received the following letter :
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. gg 
 
 IV. 
 To Mademoiselle O. d' Este-M. 
 
 " MADEMOISELLE : You are not a d'Este. That is an 
 assumed name to conceal your own. Are such revelations as 
 you request due to a person who is false as to her identity ? 
 Attend ; I will answer your question by asking another, Are 
 you of illustrious parentage ? of noble birth ? of a family of 
 townsfolk ? 
 
 " Morality indeed cannot change ; it is one; but its obliga- 
 tions vary in different spheres. As the sun sheds a different 
 light on different aspects, producing the variety we admire, 
 morality makes social duty conform to rank and position. 
 What is a peccadillo in the soldier is a crime in the general, 
 and vice versa. The proprieties are not the same for a peasant- 
 girl who reaps the field, for a workwoman at fifteen sous a 
 day, for the daughter of a small shopkeeper, for a young girl 
 of the middle class, for the child of a rich commercial house, 
 for the heiress of a noble family, for a daughter of the race of 
 Este. A king must not stoop to pick up a gold coin, and a 
 workman must turn back to look for a piece of ten sous he has 
 dropped, though both alike ought to observe the laws of 
 economy. A d'Este owning six millions of francs may wear 
 a broad-brimmed hat and feathers, flourish a riding whip, 
 mount an Arab horse, and come as an Amazon in gold lace, 
 followed by a groom, to say to a poet, ' I love poetry, and I 
 desire to expiate the wrongs done by Leonora to Tasso,' while 
 the daughter of a merchant would be simply ridiculous in 
 imitating her. 
 
 " To what social class do you belong? Answer truly, and 
 I will as truly reply to the question you ask me. 
 
 " Not being so happy as to know you, though already 
 bound to you by a sort of poetical communion, I do not like
 
 70 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 to offer you any vulgar homage. It is already a triumph of 
 mischief for you perhaps to have perplexed a man whose 
 books are published." 
 
 The young accountant was not lacking in the skill of fence 
 which a man of honor may allow himself. By return of post 
 he received this reply: 
 
 V. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis. 
 
 "You are more and more cautious, my dear poet. My 
 father is a count. The most distinguished member of our 
 family was a cardinal, in the days when cardinals were the 
 equals of kings. At the present day our race, almost extinct, 
 ends in me; but I have the necessary quarterings to admit 
 me to any court or any chapter. In short, we are a match 
 for the Canalises. Excuse my not forwarding our coat-of- 
 arms. 
 
 " Try to write as sincerely as I do. I await your reply to 
 know whether I may still subscribe myself, as now, 
 "Your servant, 
 
 " O. D'ESTE-M." 
 
 " What advantage the young person takes of her position ! " 
 exclaimed la Briere. " But is she truthful? " 
 
 It is not for nothing that a man has been for four years a 
 minister's private secretary ; that he has lived in Paris and 
 watched its intrigues ; and the purest soul is always more or 
 less intoxicated by the heady atmosphere of the Empress City. 
 La Briere, rejoicing that he was not Canalis, secured a place 
 in the mail-coach for le Havre, after writing a letter in which 
 he promised a reply by a certain day, excusing the delay by 
 the importance of the confession required of him and the 
 business of his office. He took the precaution of obtaining
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 71 
 
 from the director-general of the mails a line enjoining silence 
 and compliance on the head of the office at le Havre. He 
 could thus wait to see Franchise Cochet arrive at the office, 
 and quietly follow her home. Guided by her, he mounted 
 the hill of Ingouville, and saw Modeste Mignon at the window 
 of the chalet. 
 
 "Well, Francoise?" asked the girl. 
 
 "Yes, mademoiselle, I have one." 
 
 Ernest, struck by this celestially fair type of beauty, turned 
 on his heel, and inquired of a passer-by the name of the owner 
 of that splendid residence. 
 
 " That ? " asked the native, pointing to the great house. 
 
 "Yes, my good fellow." 
 
 " Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest ship- 
 owner of the place, a man who does not know how much he 
 has." 
 
 " I know of no Cardinal Vilquin in history," said the ac- 
 countant to himself, as he went down the town again, to 
 return to Paris. 
 
 Of course, he questioned the postmaster as to the Vilquin 
 family. He learned that the Vilquins owned an immense 
 fortune ; that Monsieur Vilquin had a son and two daughters, 
 one of them married to young Monsieur Althor. Prudence 
 saved la Briere from showing any adverse interest in the 
 Vilquins ; the postmaster was already looking at him with 
 suspicion. 
 
 " Is there no one at the house just now beside the family?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Just at present the Herouville family is there. There 
 is some talk of a marriage between the young Duke and the 
 second Mademoiselle Vilquin." 
 
 " There was a famous Cardinal d' Herouville," thought la 
 Briere, "in the time of the Valois; and, under Henry IV., 
 the terrible marshal, who was created duke." 
 
 Ernest returned, having seen enough of Modeste to dream
 
 72 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 of her ; to believe that, rich or poor, if she had a noble soul, 
 he would gladly and unhesitatingly make her Madame la Briere, 
 and he, therefore, determined to still carry on the corre- 
 spondence. 
 
 Do your utmost, hapless Frenchwomen, to remain un- 
 known, to weave the very least little romance in the midst of 
 civilization which takes note on public squares of the hour 
 when every hackney cab comes and goes, which counts every 
 letter and stamps them twice at the exact hours when they 
 are posted and when they are delivered, which numbers the 
 houses, which registers each floor on the schedule of taxes, 
 after making a list of the windows and doors, which ere long 
 will have every acre of land, down to the smallest holdings 
 and its most trifling details, laid down on the broad sheets of 
 a survey a giant's task, by command of a giant ! Try, rash 
 maidens, to evade not, indeed, the eye of the police, but 
 the ceaseless gossip which, in the poorest hamlet, scrutinizes 
 your most trivial acts, counts the dishes at the prefet's dessert, 
 and sees the melon-rind outside the door of the small annui- 
 tant, which tries to hear the chink of gold when Economy 
 adds it to her treasury, and every evening, over the fire, sums 
 up the incomes of the village, of the town, of the depart- 
 ment ! 
 
 Modeste, by a commonplace mistake, had escaped the most 
 innocent espionage, for which Ernest already blamed himself. 
 But what Parisian could endure to be the dupe of a little 
 country girl ? Never be duped ! This odious maxim is a 
 solvent for all man's noble sentiments. From the letter he 
 wrote, where every lash of the scourge of conscience has left 
 its mark, the reader may easily imagine the conflict of feelings 
 to which the honest youth was a prey. 
 
 A few days later, Modeste, sitting at her window on a fine 
 summer day, read the following pages :
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 73 
 
 VI. 
 
 To Mademoiselle O. d' Esie-M. 
 
 " MADEMOISELLE : Without hypocrisy, yes, if I had been 
 sure that you had an immense fortune, I should have acted 
 quite differently. Why ? I have sought the reason, and it is 
 this : There is in us an inborn feeling, developed, too, to an 
 extreme by society, which urges us to seek and to seize hap- 
 piness. Most men confound happiness with the means to 
 happiness, and in their eyes fortune is its chief element. I 
 should therefore have endeavored to please you, spurred by 
 the social instinct that has in all ages made wealth a religion. 
 At least, I think so. The wisdom which substitutes good 
 sense for impulse is not to be looked for in a man who is still 
 young; and when the prey is in sight, the animal instinct 
 lurking in the heart of man urges him on. Thus, instead of 
 a lecture, I should have sent you compliments and flattery. 
 
 " Should I have respected myself? I doubt it. Made- 
 moiselle, in such a case, success brings absolution ; but as to 
 happiness, that is another matter. Should I not distrust my 
 wife if I won her thus ? Most certainly. Your action would, 
 sooner or later, have resumed its true character ; your hus- 
 band, however great you might deem him, would at last have 
 reproached you for having humiliated him ; and you, sooner 
 or later, might have learned to despise him. An ordinary 
 man cuts the gordian knot of a marriage for money with the 
 sword of tyranny. A strong man forgives. The poet be- 
 wails himself. This, mademoiselle, is the answer given by 
 my honesty. 
 
 " Now, attend to me well. Yours is the triumph of having 
 made me reflect deeply, both on you, whom I know not 
 enough, and on myself, whom I know but little. You have 
 had the skill to stir up the evil thoughts that grovel at the
 
 74 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 bottom of every heart ; but in me the outcome has been a 
 generous something, and I hail you with my most grateful 
 blessings, as, at sea, we hail a lighthouse varning us of rocks 
 where we might have been wrecked. 
 
 " And now for my confession, for I would not lose your 
 esteem nor my own for the price of all the treasures on earth. 
 I was bent on knowing who you were. I have just come back 
 from le Havre, where I saw Francoise Cochet, followed her to 
 Ingouville, and saw you in your magnificent villa. You are 
 as lovely as a poet's dream of woman ; but I know not whether 
 you are Mademoiselle Vilquin hidden under Mademoiselle 
 d'H6rouville, or Mademoiselle d' Herouville hidden under 
 Mademoiselle Vilquin. Though all is fair in war, I blush at 
 playing the spy, and I paused in my investigations. You 
 piqued my curiosity ; owe me no grudge for having been so 
 womanly, is it not a poet's privilege ? Now I have opened 
 my heart to you ; I have let you read it ; you may believe in 
 the sincerity of what I am about to add. Brief as was the 
 glimpse I had of you, it was enough to modify my opinion. 
 You are a poet and a poem even before being a woman. Yes, 
 there is in you something more precious than beauty ; you 
 are the ideal of art, of fancy. 
 
 "The step you took, blamable in a young girl fated to a 
 commonplace existence, is different in one gifted with such a 
 character as I suppose you to have. Among the vast number 
 of beings flung by chance into social life to make up a 
 generation, there are exceptions. If your letter is the outcome 
 of long political musing on the lot which the law reserves for 
 women ; if, carried away by the vocation of a superior and 
 cultivated mind, you have wished to know something of the 
 intimate life of a man to whom you concede the chance en- 
 dowment of genius, in order to create a friendship with a 
 soul akin to your own, exempt from vulgar conditions, and 
 evading all the limitations of your sex you are, indeed, an 
 exception ! The law which is good to measure the actions
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 75 
 
 of the crowd is then very narrow to qualify your determi- 
 nation. But then the words of my first letter recur in all 
 their meaning, < You have done too much or not enough.' 
 
 "Once more accept my thanks for the service you have 
 done me in compelling me to probe my heart; for you 
 have cured me of the error, common enough in France, of 
 regarding marriage as a means to fortune. In the midst of 
 the disturbance of my conscience a sacred voice has spoken. 
 I have solemnly sworn to myself to make my own fortune, 
 that my choice of a wife may never be determined by mer- 
 cenary motives. Finally, I have blamed and repressed the 
 unbecoming curiosity you aroused in me. You have not six 
 millions. It would be impossible at le Havre that a young 
 lady possessed of such a fortune should remain unknown, 
 and you would have been betrayed by the pack of those 
 aristocratic families which I see in pursuit of heiresses here 
 in Paris, and which has sent the King's chief equerry on a 
 visit to your Vilquins. So the sentiments I express are put 
 forward as a positive rule, apart from all romance or state- 
 ment of fact. 
 
 " Now, prove to me that you have one of those souls which 
 we allow to disobey the common law, and you will grant in 
 your mind that this second letter is in the right as well as 
 the first. You are destined to a middle-class life ; obey the 
 iron law that holds society together. You are a superior 
 woman, and I admire you ; but if you are bent on yielding 
 to the instinct you ought to repress, I pity you ; these are the 
 conditions of the social state. The admirable moral of the 
 domestic epic ' Clarissa Harlowe ' is that the victim's love, 
 though legitimate and sincere, leads to her ruin, because it 
 has its rise and progress in defiance of her family. The family, 
 silly and cruel as it is, is in its rights as against Lovelace. 
 The family is society. 
 
 " Believe me, for a girl, as for a wife, her glory 'will always 
 consist in restraining her ardent whims within the strictest
 
 76 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 limits of propriety. If I had a daughter who might become 
 a Madame de Stael, I would wish that she might die at fifteen. 
 Can you think, without the acutest regret, of your own child 
 exhibited on the stage of celebrity and parading to win the 
 applause of the mob? However high a woman may have 
 raised herself in the secret poetry of her dreams, she must 
 sacrifice her superiority on the altar of family life. Her soar- 
 ing moods, her genius, her aspirations toward the lofty and 
 the sublime, all the poem of a girl's soul belongs to the man 
 she accepts, the children she may bear. I discern in you a 
 secret ambition to enlarge the narrow circle of life to which 
 every woman is condemned, and to bring passion and love 
 into your marriage. Ah ! it is a beautiful dream ; it is not 
 impossible ; it is difficult ; but it has been realized to bring 
 incompatible souls forgive me a word which has become 
 ridiculous to desperation. 
 
 " If you look for a sort of Platonic regard, it can only lead 
 you to despair in the future. If your letter was a sport, play 
 no more. And so this little romance ends, does it not ? It 
 will not have been altogether barren of fruit ; my honesty has 
 taken up arms ; and you, on your part, have learned some- 
 thing certain about social life. Turn your gaze on real life, 
 and throw the transient enthusiasm to which literature has 
 given birth into the virtues of your sex. Farewell, mademoi- 
 selle ; do me the honor of granting me your esteem. Since 
 seeing you or her whom I believe to be you your letter has 
 seemed to me quite natural ; so fair a flower would instinct- 
 ively turn toward the sun of poetry. So love poetry still, as 
 you doubtless love flowers and music, the sumptuous grandeur 
 of the sea, the beauties of Nature all as ornaments of the 
 soul ; but remember all I have had the honor of telling you 
 about poets. Be sure you do not marry an ass ; seek with 
 care for the mate God has created for you. There are, take 
 my word for it, many clever men capable of appreciating you 
 and of making you happy. If I were rich, and you were
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 77 
 
 poor, I would some day lay my fortune and my heart at your 
 feet, for I surely believe that you have a soul full of riches and 
 of loyalty ; and I would intrust you with my life and honor 
 in the fullest confidence. Once more farewell, fair daughter 
 of fair Eve." 
 
 On reading this letter at one gulp, like a drink of cold 
 water in a desert the mountain weighing on Modeste's heart 
 was lifted ; then, perceiving the mistakes she had made in 
 carrying out her scheme, she corrected them at once by 
 making some wrappers for Francoise, on which she wrote her 
 own address at Ingouville, desiring her to come no more to 
 the chalet. Thenceforth Francoise was to go home, place 
 each letter as it came from Paris in one of these wrappers, 
 and privily repost it in the town. Modeste promised herself 
 always to meet the postman, standing at the front door at the 
 hour when he should pass. 
 
 As to the feelings excited in Modeste by this reply, in which 
 poor la Briere's noble heart throbbed under the brilliant mask 
 of Canalis, they were as infinite as the waves which rolled up 
 to die one after another on the shore, while, with her eyes 
 fixed on the ocean, she gave herself up to the joy of having 
 harpooned an angel's soul, so to speak, in the sea of Paris, of 
 having discerned that in a really superior man the heart may 
 sometimes be on a par with genius, and of having been well 
 advised by the voice of presentiment. A mastering interest 
 would henceforth inspire her life. The enclosure of her 
 pretty home, the wires of her cage were broken. Thought 
 could soar on widespread wings. 
 
 " Oh, dear father," she cried, looking across to the horizon, 
 " make us very rich ! " 
 
 Her answer, which Ernest de la Briere read five days later, 
 will tell more than any comments can the feelings of her mind 
 at this time :
 
 78 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 VII. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis. 
 
 " MY FRIEND : Let me call you so you have enchanted 
 me, and I would not have you other than you are in this 
 letter the first ; oh, let it not be the last ! Who but a poet 
 could ever have so perfectly excused and understood a girl ? 
 
 "I wish to speak to you with the same sincerity as that 
 which dictated the opening lines of your letter. 
 
 " In the first place, happily, you do not know me. I can 
 tell you, gladly, that I am neither that frightful Mademoiselle 
 Vilquin nor that most noble and most faded Mademoiselle 
 d'Herouville, who hovers between thirty and fifty, and cannot 
 make up her mind to a creditable age. Cardinal d'Herou- 
 ville flourished in church history before the cardinal who is 
 our only pride, for I do not count lieutenant-generals, or 
 abbes who write small volumes of too big verse, as celebrities. 
 
 " Also, I do not live in the Vilquins' gorgeous villa ; thank 
 God, not the millionth part of a drop of their blood, chilled 
 in many a counting-house, flows in my veins. I am by birth 
 partly German, partly a child of Southern France ; in my 
 brain lurks Teutonic sentiment, and in my blood the energy 
 of the Provencal. I am of noble birth both on my father's 
 and my mother's side; through my mother I have connections 
 on every page of the 'Almanach de Gotha.' But I have 
 taken every precaution ; it is not in the power of any man, 
 not even of the police, to lift my disguise. I shall remain 
 shrouded, unknown. As to myself and my belongings, mes 
 propres, as they say in Normandy, be quite easy ; I am at 
 least as good-looking as the little person happy, though she 
 knows it not on whom your eyes fell ; and I do not think 
 myself a pauper, though I am not attended in my walks 
 by ten sons of peers ! I have even seen the contemptible
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 79 
 
 farce played in my behoof of the heiress adored for her 
 millions. 
 
 "Finally, make no attempt to find me, not even to win a 
 bet. Alas ! though free, I am guarded ; in the first place, by 
 myself, and then by brave folk, who would not hesitate to 
 stick a knife in your heart if you tried to penetrate this re- 
 treat. I say this, not to incite your courage or your curiosity ; 
 I believe no such sentiments are needed to arouse your inter- 
 est in me or to secure your attachment. 
 
 " I now proceed to reply to the second and greatly enlarged 
 edition of your sermon : 
 
 "Shall I make a confession? When I found you so sus- 
 picious, taking me for a Corinne how her improvisations 
 have bored me ! I said to myself that many a tenth Muse 
 had, ere now, led you by the tow-line of curiosity into her 
 inmost vales, and proposed to you to taste the fruits of her 
 school-girl Parnassus. Be quite easy, my friend; though I 
 love poetry, I have no copies of verses in my blotting-book; 
 my stockings are, and will remain, perfectly white. You 
 will not be bored by any ' trifles ' in one or two volumes. In 
 short, if I should ever say to you, 'Come,' you know now 
 that you will not find an old maid, ugly and penniless 
 
 " Oh ! my friend, if you could only know how much I 
 regret that you should have come to le Havre ! You have 
 altered the aspect of what you call my romance. God 
 alone can weigh in His Almighty hands the treasure I had in 
 store for a man great enough, confiding and clear-sighted 
 enough, to set out on the strength of my letters, after having 
 made his way step by step through all the recesses of my 
 heart, and to come to our first meeting with the guilelessness 
 of a child ! I dreamed of such innocence in a genius ; you 
 have marred that treasure. I forgive you ; you live in Paris ; 
 and, as you say, a poet is a man. 
 
 " Will you, therefore, take me to be a silly school-girl, cher- 
 ishing the enchanted garden of illusions ? Nay, do not amuse
 
 80 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 yourself with throwing stones at the broken windows of a 
 long-ruined castle. You, a man of wit, how is it that you 
 never guessed that Mademoiselle d'Este had already read her- 
 self the lecture contained in your first letter ? No, my dear 
 poet, my first note was a pebble flung by a boy loitering along 
 the highway, who thinks it fun to startle a landowner reading 
 his tax-paper under shelter of his fruit trees ; or, rather, was 
 the line carefully fixed by a fisherman from the top of a rock 
 by the seashore, in hope of a miraculous draught. 
 
 " All you say so beautifully about family ties has my appro- 
 bation. The man I shall love, and of whom I shall think 
 myself worthy, shall have my heart and my life with my 
 parents' consent. I would neither distress nor startle them ; 
 I am certain of overruling them, and they have no prejudices. 
 Again, I am strong enough to defy the illusions of my fancy. 
 I have built a stronghold with my own hands, and have 
 allowed it to be fortified by the unbounded devotion of those 
 who watch over me as a treasure not that I am not strong 
 enough to defend myself in open fight ; for, I may tell you, 
 fate has clothed me in well-tempered armor on which is 
 stamped the word DISDAIN. I have the deepest horror of 
 everything which suggests self-interest, of all that is not en- 
 tirely noble, pure, and disinterested. Without being romantic, 
 I worship the beautiful and the ideal; though I have been 
 romantic, all to myself, in my dreams. And so I could recog- 
 nize the truth true even to platitude of what you wrote me 
 as to social life. 
 
 " For the present, we are only, and can only be, friends. 
 Why seek a friend among the unknown ? you will ask. Your 
 person is unknown to me ; but your mind and heart are known 
 to me ; I like them, and I am conscious of infinite feelings in 
 my soul, which demand a man of genius as their only confi- 
 dant. I do not want the poem of my heart to be wasted ; it 
 shall be as beautiful for you as it would have been for God 
 alone. What a precious thing is a trusty comrade to whom
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. gj 
 
 we may say what we will ! Can you reject the unspoiled blos- 
 soms of a genuine girl ? They will fly to you as gnats fly to 
 the sunbeams. I am sure that your intellect has never before 
 won you such a success the confidences of a young girl. 
 Listen to her prattle, accept the songs she has hitherto sung 
 only for herself. 
 
 "By-and-by, if our souls are really akin, if on trial our 
 characters agree, some day an old white-haired retainer will 
 await you, standing by the roadside, and conduct you to a 
 chalet, a villa, a castle, a palace I do not yet know of what 
 type that temple of Hymen may be brown and gold, the 
 colors of Austria, which marriage has made so powerful nor 
 whether such a conclusion may be possible ; but confess that 
 it is poetical, and that Mademoiselle d'Este has good ideas. 
 Does she not leave you free ? Does she come on jealous tip- 
 toe to glance round Paris drawing-rooms ? Does she lay on 
 you the task of some high emprise, the chains which paladins 
 of old voluntarily hung on their arm ? What she asks of you 
 is a really spiritual and mystical alliance. 
 
 " Come, come to my heart whenever you are unhappy, 
 wounded, weary. Tell me everything, conceal nothing; I 
 shall have balm for all your sorrows. I, my friend, am but 
 twenty ; but my mind is fifty, and I have unhappily known 
 through another, my second self, the horrors and ecstasies of 
 passion. I know all that the human heart can possibly con- 
 tain of meanness and infamy, and yet I am the most honest 
 girl living. No ; I have no illusions left ; but I have some- 
 thing better faith and religion. There, I have played first 
 in our game of confidences. 
 
 " Whoever my husband may be, if he is my own choice, 
 he may sleep in peace ; he might sail for the Indies, and on 
 his return he would find me finishing the tapestry begun at 
 his departure ; no eyes would have looked into mine, no 
 man's voice would have tainted the air in my ear ; in every 
 stitch he might find a line of the poem of which he was the 
 6
 
 82 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 hero. Even if I should have been taken in by a fair and 
 false exterior, that man would have every flower of my 
 thought, every refinement of my tenderness, all the wordless 
 sacrifices of proud and never suppliant resignation. Yes, I 
 have vowed to myself never even to go out with my husband 
 when he does not want me ; I will be the divinity of his 
 hearth. This is my human religion. But why should I not 
 test and choose the man to whom I shall be what life is to the 
 body? Does a man ever find life an inconvenience? What 
 is a wife who annoys her husband? Not life, but a sickness. 
 By life, I mean the perfect health which makes every hour an 
 enjoyment. 
 
 "To return to your letter, which will always be dear to 
 me. Yes, jesting apart, it really contains what I had hoped 
 for the expression of prosaic sentiments, which are as neces- 
 sary to family life as air is to the lungs, and without which 
 happiness is out of the question. What I hoped for in my 
 friend was that he should act as an honest man, think as a 
 poet, love as women love ; and this is now, beyond a doubt, 
 no longer a chimera. 
 
 "Farewell, my friend. At present I am poor. That is 
 one of the reasons which makes me cling to my mask, my 
 incognito, my impenetrable fortress. 
 
 "I read your last poem in the 'Revue,' and with what 
 delight, after having mastered the austere and secret loftiness 
 of your soul ! 
 
 " Will it aggrieve you greatly to be told that a girl be- 
 seeches God fervently in your behalf, that she makes you her 
 one thought, and that you have no rival in her heart but her 
 father and mother ? Can there be any reason why you should 
 reject these pages that are full of you, that are written for 
 you, that none but you will read ? Repay me in kind. I am 
 as yet so little a woman that your effusions, so long as they 
 are genuine and full, will suffice for the happiness of your 
 
 "O. D'ESTE-M."
 
 MODES TE MIGNON. 83 
 
 "Great heavens! am I in love with her already?" ex- 
 claimed the young referendary, when he discovered that he 
 had been sitting for an hour with this letter in his hand, after 
 having read it. " What must I do next ? She believes she 
 is writing to our great poet. Ought I to carry on the decep- 
 tion ? Is she a woman of forty or a girl of twenty ? " 
 
 Ernest was fascinated by the abyss of the unknown. The 
 unknown is dark infinitude, and nothing is more enthralling. 
 From that murky vastness flash fires which rend it from time 
 to time, and light up visions like those of Martin. In a life 
 as full as that of Canalis, an adventure of this kind is swept 
 away like a cornflower among the boulders of a torrent ; in that 
 of a young referendary awaiting the reinstatement in power 
 of the party of which his patron was the representative, and 
 who, as a precaution, was dry-nursing Canalis for parliament, 
 this pretty girl his imagination persistently believed her to 
 be the fair-haired damsel he had seen was bound to find a 
 place in his heart, and commit all the ravages caused by a 
 romance when it breaks into a humdrum existence, like a wolf 
 into a farmyard. So Ernest thought a great deal about his 
 unknown correspondent, and he replied by the following let- 
 ter an elaborate and pretentious letter, but already betraying 
 some passion by its tone of annoyance : 
 
 VIII. 
 To Mademoiselle O. <T Este-M. 
 
 " MADEMOISELLE : Is it quite fair in you to come and 
 establish yourself in a poor poet's heart with the admitted 
 purpose of leaving him to his fate if he should not be to your 
 mind, and bequeathing to him perennial regrets after showing 
 him, for a few minutes, an image of perfection were it but 
 assumed, or, at least, a first promise of happiness? 
 
 " I was wanting in foresight when I requested the letter in
 
 84 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 which you have begun the display of your elegant assortment 
 of ideas. A man may well fall in love with a stranger who can 
 unite so much daring with so much originality, such fancy 
 with such feeling. Who but would long to know you after 
 reading these first confidences ? It is only by a really great 
 effort that I preserve my balance when I think of you, for in 
 you are combined all things that can disturb a man's heart 
 and brain. So I take advantage of the remains of coolness I 
 am able to preserve to put the case humbly before you. 
 
 " Do you believe, mademoiselle, that letters which are 
 more or less truthful in relation to life as it really is, and 
 more or less insincere, since the letters we may write to each 
 other must be the expression of the moment when we send 
 them forth, and not the general outcome of our characters 
 do you believe, I ask, that, however fine they may be, 
 these letters can ever take the place of the expression of our- 
 selves we should give through the practical evidence of daily 
 life ? Each man is twofold. There is the invisible life of 
 the spirit, which letters may satisfy, and the mechanical life, 
 to which we attach, alas ! more importance than you, at your 
 age, can imagine. These two existences ought both to agree 
 with the ideal you cherish, and this, it may be said, very 
 rarely happens. 
 
 " The pure, spontaneous, disinterested homage of a solitary 
 soul, at once well-informed and chaste, is one of those heav- 
 enly flowers whose color and fragrance are a consolation for 
 every grief, every wound, every mortification entailed by a 
 literary life in Paris ; and I thank you with a fervor equal to 
 your own ; but after this poetical exchange of my woes in re- 
 turn for the pearls of your charity, what can you expect ? I 
 have neither the genius nor the splendid position of Lord 
 Byron ; above all, I have not the halo of his artificial damna- 
 tion and his imaginary social grievances ; but what would you 
 have hoped for from him in similar circumstances? His 
 friendship, no doubt. Well, he, who ought only to have
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 85 
 
 been proud, was eaten up by an offensive and sickly vanity 
 which discouraged friendship. I, who am a thousand times 
 less great than he may not I, too, have such discords of nature 
 as to make life unpleasing, and turn friendship into the most 
 difficult burden? What will you get in return for your dreams? 
 The vexations of a life which will not be wholly yours. 
 
 " The bargain is a mad one, for this reason : The poetry of 
 your dreams is but a plagiarism. A young German girl, not 
 half-German, like you, but wholly German, in the intoxication 
 of her twenty years, adored Goethe ; she made him her friend, 
 her religion, her god, knowing that he was married. Frau 
 Goethe, a good German soul, a poet's wife, lent herself to 
 this worship with very shrewd complacency which failed to 
 cure Bettina ! But what was the end ? The ecstatic married 
 some substantial worthy German. Between ourselves let us 
 confess that a girl who should have made herself the hand- 
 maid of a genius, who should have raised herself to his level 
 by understanding him, and have adored him piously till her 
 death as one of those divine figures might have done that 
 painters have represented on the doors of their mystical 
 shrines and who, when Germany should lose Goethe, would 
 have retired to some wilderness never more to see mankind 
 as Lord Bolingbroke's lady did let us confess that this girl 
 would have lived forever in the poet's glory as Mary Magdalen 
 does in the blood-stained triumph of the Saviour. 
 
 " If this is sublime, what do you say to the converse of it? 
 
 " Being neither Lord Byron nor Goethe, but merely the 
 writer of a few approved poems, I cannot claim the honors of 
 worship. I have little in me of the martyr. I have a heart, but 
 I am also ambitious, for I have to make my fortune, and I am 
 yet young. See me as I am. The King's favor and the pat- 
 ronage of his ministers afford me a decent maintenance ; I 
 have all the habits of a very commonplace man. I go to 
 evening parties exactly like the first fool you meet ; but my 
 carriage-wheels do not run, as the present times require,
 
 86 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 on ground made solid under me by securities in the state 
 funds. 
 
 " Though I am not rich, I have not, on the other hand, 
 the distinction conferred by a garret, by neglected work, by 
 \ glory in penury, on certain men of greater merit than mine ; 
 for instance, on d'Arthez. 
 
 "What prosaic fifth act will you not find for the enchanted 
 fancy of your young enthusiasm ? Let it rest here. If I have 
 been so happy as to seem to you an earthly wonder, you will 
 have been to me something radiant and supernal, like a star that 
 blazes and vanishes. Let nothing tarnish this episode in our 
 lives. By remaining as we are, I may love you, going through 
 one of those mad passions which break down every obstacle and 
 light fires in the heart, which are alarming by their violence 
 out of all proportion to their duration ; and, supposing that 
 I should succeed in pleasing you, we must end in the vulgarest 
 way marriage, housekeeping, and children. Oh, Belise and 
 Henriette Chrysale in one, can that be ? So, farewell. ' ' 
 
 IX. 
 
 To Monsieur dc Canalis. 
 
 " MY FRIEND : Your letter gave me as much pain as 
 pleasure. Perhaps we may soon find it all pleasure to read 
 each other's letters. Understand me. We speak to God ; 
 we ask of Him many things ; He remains speechless. Now, I 
 want to have from you the answers God never gives us. Can- 
 not such a friendship as that of Mademoiselle de Gournay and 
 Montaigne be repeated ? Have you not known the household 
 of Sismonde de Sismondi, at Geneva, the most touching 
 home-life ever seen, and of which I have been told something 
 like that of the Marchese and Marchesa di Pescara, happy even 
 in their old age ? Good heavens ! is it impossible that there
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 87 
 
 should be two harps, which, though at a distance, respond to 
 each other as in a symphony, and vibrate so as to produce de- 
 licious harmony ? Man alone, in all creation, is at once the 
 harp, the musician, and the hearer. 
 
 "Do you see me fretting after the manner of ordinary 
 women ? Do I not know that you go into society and see 
 the handsomest and cleverest women in Paris? Can I not 
 imagine that one of those sirens might embrace you in her 
 cold scales, and that it is she who has sent the answer that 
 grieves me by its prosaic reflections ? There is, my friend, 
 something more beautiful than these flowers of Parisian 
 blandishment ; there is a flower that grows at the height 
 of those Alpine peaks called men of genius; the pride of 
 humanity, which they fructify by shedding on it the clouds 
 they collect with their heads in the skies; that flower I 
 intend to cultivate and to make it open, for its wild, sweet 
 perfume will never fail us; it is perennial. 
 
 " Do me the honor to believe that in me there is noth- 
 ing common. If I had been Bettina for I know to whom 
 you allude I would never have been Frau von Arnim; 
 and if I had been one of Lord Byron's loves, I should at 
 this moment be in a convent. You have touched me in a 
 sensitive spot. 
 
 "You do not know me; you will know me. I feel in 
 myself a sublime something which may be spoken of with- 
 out vanity. God has implanted in my soul the root of 
 that hybrid plant I have mentioned as native to Alpine 
 heights, and I will not stick it in a flower-pot at my window 
 to see it perish. No, that gorgeous and unique blossom, full 
 of intoxicating fragrance, shall not be dragged through the 
 vulgarities of life ; it is yours yours without a glance having 
 blighted it, yours for ever. Yes, dear one, yours are all my 
 thoughts, even the most secret, the most mad ; yours is the 
 heart of a girl without reserve ; yours an infinite affection. 
 If I do not like you personally, I shall not marry.
 
 88 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " I can live the life of the heart, the life of your mind, of 
 your feelings ; they please me, and I shall always be, as I am 
 now, your friend. There is beauty of nature in you, and 
 that is enough for me. There lies my life. Do not disdain a 
 pretty young handmaiden who, for her part, does not shrink 
 from the idea of being some day the poet's old housekeeper, 
 in some sort his housewife, in some sort his commonsense, 
 in some sort his wealth. This devoted maid, so precious in 
 your lives, is pure, disinterested Friendship, to whom every- 
 thing is revealed ; who listens sometimes with a shake of the 
 head, and who sits late, spinning by the light of the lamp, to 
 be at hand when the poet comes home, soaked by the rain or 
 out of sorts. This is my destiny if I am never to be a happy 
 and faithfully attached wife : I can smile on one as on the 
 other. 
 
 "And do not suppose that France will be deeply aggrieved 
 if Mademoiselle d'Este does not give her two or three chil- 
 dren, or refuses even to be a Madame Vilquin, or the like. 
 I, for my part, shall never be an old maid. I shall make my- 
 self a motherhood by beneficence, and by secretly sharing 
 the existence of a great man, to whom I shall dedicate all my 
 thoughts and all my earthly efforts. I have the utmost horror 
 of the commonplace. If I should be free and rich and I 
 know I am young and handsome I will never become the 
 property of some simpleton under the excuse of his being the 
 son of a peer of France ; nor of some good-looking man, 
 who would be the woman of the two ; nor of any man who 
 would make me blush twenty times a day at the thought that 
 I was his. Be quite easy on that score. 
 
 " My father adores my wishes too much ever to contravene 
 them. If my poet likes me, if I like him, the glorious palace 
 of our love will be built so high that it will be absolutely in- 
 accessible to misfortune. I am an eaglet ; you will see it in 
 my eye. I will not repeat what I have already told you, but 
 I put it into fewer words when I assure you that I shall be of
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. gg 
 
 all women the most glad to be as completely the captive of 
 love, as I am at this moment of my father's will. 
 
 " Come, my friend, let us reduce to the truth of romance 
 what has come upon us by my free-will. 
 
 "A girl of lively imagination shut up in a turret is dying 
 to run about in a park which only her eyes can explore ; she 
 invents a way of opening her bars, she springs out of window, 
 climbs the park wall, and goes off to sport at her neighbor's. 
 
 It is the eternal comedy ! Well, that girl is my soul, 
 
 the neighboring park is your genius. Is it not most natural ? 
 Was a neighbor ever heard of who complained of his trellis 
 being damaged by pretty feet ? 
 
 " So much for the poet ; but must the ultra-reasonable hero 
 of Moliere's comedies have reasons? Here are plenty. My 
 dear Geronte, marriages are commonly made in direct oppo- 
 sition to commonsense. A family makes inquiries as to a 
 young man. If this Leandre, provided by a friendly gossip, 
 or picked up in a ball-room, has robbed no one, if he has no 
 visible stain, if he has as much money as is expected, if he 
 has come from college or has had a legal training, thus satis- 
 fying the usual ideas of education, he is allowed to call on a 
 young lady, dressed to receive him from the moment when 
 she gets up, instructed by her mother to be careful of what 
 she says, and enjoined to keep anything of her soul or heart 
 from being read in her countenance by assuming a set smile, 
 like a dancer finishing a pirouette ; she is armed with the 
 most positive instructions as to the perils of showing her true 
 character, and advised not to appear too distressingly know- 
 ing. The parents, when all the points of interest are satisfac- 
 torily settled between them, are simple-minded enough to 
 recommend the young people to know all they can of each 
 other during the few moments when they are alone, when 
 they talk together, when they walk out without any kind of 
 freedom, for they know that they are tied already. Under 
 such conditions a man dresses his mind as carefully as his
 
 90 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 person, and the girl on her side does the same. This miser- 
 able farce, carried on with gifts of flowers and jewels and 
 places at the play, is what is called courting a girl. 
 
 " This is what I rebel against, and I mean to make legal 
 marriage the outcome of a long marriage of souls. In all a 
 girl's life this is the only moment when she needs reflection, 
 insight, and experience. Her liberty and happiness are at 
 stake, and you place neither the dice nor the box in her 
 hands ; she bets on the game ; she is but a looker-on. I have 
 the right, the will, and the power to work out my own woe, 
 and I will use them as my mother did when, guided by 
 instinct, she married the most generous, devoted, and loving 
 of men, who bewitched her one evening by his beauty. I 
 know you to be single, a poet, and handsome. You may be 
 sure that I never should have chosen for my confidant one of 
 your brethren in Apollo who was married. If my mother 
 was attracted by a handsome face, which is perhaps the genius 
 of form, why should not I be attracted by mind and form 
 combined ? Shall I know you better after studying you by 
 correspondence than after beginning by the vulgar method 
 of so many months of courting? ' That is the question,' saith 
 Hamlet. 
 
 " My plan, my dear Chrysale, has at least the advantage 
 of not compromising our persons. I know that love has its 
 illusions, and every illusion has its morrow. Therein lies the 
 reason why so many lovers part who believed themselves 
 bound for life. The true test lies in suffering and in happi- 
 ness. When, after standing this double test of life, two beings 
 have shown all their faults and good qualities, and have learned 
 each other's characters, they may go to the tomb hand in 
 hand ; but, my dear Argante, who tells you that our little 
 
 drama has no future before it ? And, at any rate, shall 
 
 we not have had the pleasure of our correspondence ? 
 
 " I await your commands, monseigneur, and remain, with 
 all my heart, yours obediently, O. D'EsxE-M."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 91 
 
 X. 
 
 To Mademoiselle O. d* Este-M. 
 
 " You are a demon ! I love you. Is that what you want, 
 extraordinary girl ? Perhaps you only wish to divert your 
 leisure in the country by looking on at the follies of which a 
 poet is capable ? That would be a very wicked thing. Your 
 two letters betray just enough of mischief to suggest the 
 doubt to a Parisian. But I am no longer master of myself; 
 my life and future hang on the answer you may send me. 
 Tell me whether the certain possession of an unbounded affec- 
 tion given to you, in defiance of social conventionalities, can 
 touch you ; if you will allow me to visit you ? There will 
 still be ample room for doubt and agony of mind in the 
 question whether I shall personally be agreeable to you. If 
 your answer is favorable, I alter my life, and bid adieu to 
 many vexations which we are so foolish as to call happiness. 
 
 " Happiness, my dear, beautiful, unknown one, is what you 
 have dreamed it ; a perfect fusion of feelings, an absolute 
 harmony of souls, a keen sense of ideal beauty so far as God 
 vouchsafes it to us here below stamped on the common 
 actions of a life whose round we are bound to follow ; above 
 all constancy of heart, far more precious than what we call 
 fidelity. Can anything be called a sacrifice when the end is 
 the supremest good, the dream of poets and of maidens, the 
 poem to which on entering life as soon as the spirit tries its 
 wings every lofty mind looks up with longing, brooding 
 eyes, only to see it dashed to pieces against a stumbling-stone 
 as hard as it is vulgar ; for almost every man sees the foot of 
 reality set down at once on that mysterious egg which hardly 
 ever hatches out ? 
 
 " I will not as yet tell you of myself, of my past, of my 
 character, nor of an affection almost motherly on one side,
 
 92 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 and on mine almost filial in which you have already wrought 
 a change with results in my life that may explain the word 
 sacrifice. You have made me forgetful, not to say ungrateful. 
 Is that enough to satisfy you ? Oh ! speak ! Say one word, 
 and I shall love you till my eyes are closed in death, as Pes- 
 cara loved his wife, as Romeo loved his Juliet, and as faith- 
 fully. Our life mine, at any rate will be that untroubled 
 happiness of which Dante speaks as being the atmosphere of 
 his ' Paradiso ' a poem infinitely superior to his ' Inferno.' 
 
 " Strange to say, it is not myself, but you, whom I doubt 
 in the long meditations in which I have allowed myself like 
 you, perhaps to follow the chimerical course of a dream- 
 life. Yes, dear one, I feel in me the strength to love thus, to 
 go on my way to the tomb gently, slowly, always smiling, 
 arm in arm with the woman I love, without a cloud on the 
 fair weather of my soul. Yes, I have courage enough to look 
 forward to our old age together, to see us both with white 
 hair, like the venerable historian of Italy, still inspired by the 
 same affection, but changed by the spirit of each season. 
 
 " You see, I can no longer be no more than your friend. 
 Though Chrysale, Oronte, and Argante, you say, have come 
 to life again in me, I am not yet so senile as to drink of a cup 
 held by the fair hands of a veiled woman without feeling a 
 fierce desire to tear away the domino, the mask, and to see 
 her face. Either write no more or give me hope. I must 
 have a glimpse of you, or throw up the game. Must I say 
 farewell ? Will you allow me to sign myself, 
 
 "YouR FRIEND?" 
 
 XI. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis. 
 
 " What flattery ! How quickly has grave Anselme turned 
 into a dashing Leandre ! To what am I to ascribe such a
 
 MODESTE MIGNON, 93 
 
 change? Is it to the black I have scribbled on white, to the 
 ideas which are to the flowers of my soul what a rose drawn 
 in black-lead pencil is to the roses of the garden ? Or to the 
 remembrance of the girl you took for me, who is to my real 
 self what a waiting-maid is to her mistress ? Have we ex- 
 changed parts? Am I reason, and are you folly? 
 
 " A truce to this nonsense. Your letter made me acquainted 
 with intoxicating joys of soul, the first I have not owed to 
 family feelings. What, a poet has asked, are the ties of blood 
 which weigh so heavily on ordinary souls in comparison with 
 those which heaven forges for us of mysterious sympathies? 
 Let me thank you no, there are no thanks for such things. 
 Blessings on you for the happiness you have given me ; may 
 you be happy with the gladness you poured into my soul. 
 
 "You have explained to me some apparent injustice in 
 social life. There is something brilliant in glory, something 
 masculine which becomes men alone, and God has prohibited 
 women from wearing this halo while giving us love and 
 tenderness with which to refresh the brows on which its awful 
 light rests. I feel my mission, or, rather, you have confirmed 
 me in it. 
 
 " Sometimes, my friend, I have risen in the morning in a 
 frame of inconceivable sweetness. A sort of peace, tender 
 and divine, gave me a sense as of heaven. My first thought 
 was like a blessing. I used to call these mornings my Ger- 
 man levers, to distinguish them from my southern sunsets, 
 full of heroic deeds of battles, of Roman festivals, and of 
 ardent verse. Well, after having read the letter into which 
 you breathed a fever of impatience, I felt in my heart the 
 lightness of one of those heavenly awakenings, when I loved 
 air and nature, and felt myself destined to die for some one I 
 loved. One of your poems, ' Le Chant d'une jeune fille,' 
 describes these delicious hours when gladness is sweet, when 
 prayer is a necessity, and it is my favorite piece. Shall I put 
 all my flattery into one line : I think you worthy to be me !
 
 94 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "Your letter, though short, allowed me to read your heart. 
 Yes, I could guess your tumultuous impulses, your excited 
 curiosity, your plans, all the faggots carried (by whom) for 
 the pyre of your heart. But I do not yet know enough of 
 you to comply with your request. Understand, dear one, it 
 is mystery which allows me the freedom that betrays the 
 depths of my soul. When once we have met, farewell to our 
 knowledge of each other. 
 
 " Shall we make a bargain ? Was the first we made a bad 
 one for you ? You gained my esteem by it. And admira- 
 tion supported by esteem is a great thing, my friend. First 
 write me a sketch of your life in a few words ; then tell me 
 about your life in Paris, day by day, without any disguise, as if 
 you were chattily to an old friend ; well, then, after that I will 
 carry our friendship a step further. I will see you, my 
 friend, that I promise you ; and it is a great deal. 
 
 "All this, dear, I warn you, is neither an intrigue nor an 
 adventure ; it cannot result in any kind of an ' affair ' of gal- 
 lantry, as you men say among yourselves. My life is involved 
 in it, and, moreover a thing which sometimes causes me 
 terrible remorse as to the thoughts I send flying to you in 
 flocks not less involved is the life of a father and mother I 
 adore, whom I must satisfy in my choice, and who in my friend 
 must find a son. 
 
 " How far can you lordly souls, to whom God has given 
 the wings of angels, but not always their perfections, yield to 
 the family and its petty needs ? A text I have pondered over 
 already ! Although before going forth to you I said in my 
 heart, ' Be bold ! ' it has not quaked the less on the road, and 
 I have never deceived myself either as to the roughness of the 
 way or the difficulties of the mountain I had to climb. I 
 have followed it all out in long meditations. Do I not know 
 that men as eminent as you are have known the love they have 
 inspired quite as well as that they have felt ; that they have 
 had more than one romance ; and that you, above all, while
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 95 
 
 cherishing those thoroughbred chimeras which a woman will 
 buy at any cost, have gone through more final than first chap- 
 ters ? And yet I could say to myself, ' Be bold ! ' because I 
 have studied the geography of the high peaks of humanity 
 that you accuse of coldness studied them more than you 
 think. Did you not say of Byron and Goethe that they were 
 two colossal masses of egoism and poetry? Ah, my friend, 
 you there fall into the error of superficial minds ; but it was, 
 perhaps, generosity on your part, false modesty, or the hope 
 of evading me. 
 
 "The vulgar maybe allowed, but you may not, to regard 
 the results of hard work as a development of the individual. 
 Neither Lord Byron, nor Goethe, nor Walter Scott, nor Cu- 
 vier, nor any inventor belongs to himself; they are all the 
 slaves of an idea ; and this mysterious power is more jealous 
 than a woman, it absorbs them, it makes them or kills them 
 for its own advantage. The visible outcome of this concealed 
 life resembles egoism in its effects ; but how dare we say that 
 a man who has sold himself for the delight, the instruction, or 
 the greatness of his age is an egoist ? Is a mother accused 
 of selfishness when she sacrifices everything for her child? 
 Well, the detractors of genius do not discern its teeming 
 maternity, that is all. 
 
 " The poet's life is so perpetual a sacrifice that he needs a 
 gigantic organization to enable him to enjoy the pleasures of 
 an ordinary life. Hence, if, like Moliere, he insists on living 
 the life of feelings while giving them expression in their most 
 acute crises, what disasters come upon him ! for to me the 
 comic side of Moliere, as overlaying his private life, is really 
 horrible. The magnanimity of genius seems to me almost 
 divine, and I have classed you with that noble family of ego- 
 ists so called. Oh ! if I had found shallowness, self-interest, 
 and ambition where, as it is, I admire all the flowers of the 
 soul that I love best, you cannot know what slow suffering 
 would have consumed me. I found disappointment sitting at
 
 96 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 the portal of my sixteenth year ; what should I have done if at 
 twenty I had found fame a liar, and the man who, in his 
 writings, had expressed so many of the sentiments buried in my 
 heart, incapable of understanding that heart when disclosed 
 to him alone ? 
 
 " Do you know, my friend, what would have become of 
 me? I am going to admit you to the very depths of my soul. 
 Well, I should have said to my father, ' Bring me any son- 
 in-law to your mind ; I give up all free-will ; get me married 
 to please yourself ! ' and the man might have been a notary, 
 a banker, avaricious, stupid, provincial, as tiresome as a rainy 
 day, as vulgar as a parish voter ; he might have been a manu- 
 facturer or some brave but brainless soldier he would have 
 found in me his most resigned and attentive slave. But then 
 dreadful suicide at every instant ! my soul would never have 
 unfolded in the life-giving beams of the sun it worships. Not 
 a murmur should ever have revealed to my father, my mother, 
 or my children the suicide of the being who is at this moment 
 shaking its prison-bars, flashing lightnings from its eyes, flying 
 to you on outspread pinions, perching like a Polyhymnia in 
 the corner of your study, breathing its atmosphere, and gazing 
 at everything with a mildly inquisitive eye. Sometimes in the 
 fields, where my husband might have taken me, I should have 
 escaped a little way from my babes, and, seeing a lovely morn- 
 ing, would secretly have shed a few very bitter tears. Finally, 
 in my heart, and in the corner of a drawer, I should have 
 stored a little comfort for every girl betrayed by love, poor 
 poetical souls dragged into torments by a smiling face ! 
 
 " But I believe in you, my friend. This faith purifies the 
 most fantastic notions of my secret ambition, and sometimes 
 see how frank I can be I long to be in the middle of the 
 story we have just begun, so assured am I of my feelings, such 
 strength for love do I feel in my heart, such constancy founded 
 on reason, such heroism to fulfill the duty I am creating for 
 myself in case love should ever turn to duty.
 
 MODESTE MIGXON. yj 
 
 "If it were given to you to follow me to the splendid seclu- 
 sion where I picture our happiness, if you could know my 
 schemes, you might utter some terrible sentence about mad- 
 ness, and I should perhaps be cruelly punished for sending so 
 much poetry to a poet. Yes, I want to be a living spring, to be 
 as inexhaustible as a beautiful country during the twenty years 
 which nature allows us to shine in. I will keep satiety at a 
 distance by refinements and variety. I will be brave for my 
 love as other women are for the world. I will vary happiness, 
 lend wit to tenderness, and piquancy to faithfulness. I am 
 ambitious ; I will kill my past rivals, dispel superficial troubles 
 by the sweetness, the proud self-devotion of a wife, and, for a 
 whole lifetime, give such care to the nest as a bird gives for 
 only a few days. This immense dower ought, and could, 
 only be offered to a great man before being dropped into the 
 mire of vulgar conventionality. 
 
 "Now, do you still think my first letter a mistake? A 
 gust of some mysterious will flung me toward you, as a 
 tempest may carry a rose-bush to the heart of a stately willow. 
 And in the letter I keep here next my heart you have ex- 
 claimed like your ancestor when he set out for the crusades, 
 ' It is God's will ! ' 
 
 "You will be saying, 'How she chatters!' All those 
 about me say, ' Mademoiselle is very silent ! ' 
 
 "O. D'ESTE-M." 
 
 These letters seemed very original to those persons to whose 
 kindness the author of the " Comedie Humaine " is beholden 
 for them; but their admiration for this duel between two 
 minds crossing their pens, while their faces were hidden by 
 the strictest incognito, may not be generally shared. Of a 
 hundred spectators, eighty perhaps will be tired of this assault 
 of arms. So the respect due to the majority even to a possi- 
 ble majority in every country enjoying a constitutional 
 government, advises the suppression of eleven more letters 
 7
 
 98 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 exchanged by Ernest and Modeste during the month of Sep- 
 tember ; if a flattering majority should clamor for them, let 
 us hope that it may one day afford me the means of restoring 
 them here. 
 
 Tempted on by a wit as audacious as the heart beneath 
 seemed to be adorable, the poor private secretary's really 
 heroic feelings gave themselves the rein in those letters, which 
 each reader's imagination may conceive of as finer than they 
 really are, when picturing this harmony of two unfettered 
 souls. Ernest, indeed, lived only on those dear scraps of 
 paper, as a miser lives on those sent forth by the bank ; while 
 in Modeste a deep attachment had grown up in the place of 
 the pleasure of bringing excitement into a life of celebrity, 
 and being, in spite of distance, its chief element. Ernest's 
 affection completed Canalis' glory. Alas ! it often takes two 
 men to make one perfect lover, just as in literature a type 
 can only be produced by a compound of the peculiarities of 
 several different characters. How often has a woman said in 
 a drawing-room after some intimate talk: "That man would 
 be my ideal as to his soul, but I feel that I love that other 
 who is no more than a fancy of my senses ! " 
 
 The last letter written by Modeste, which here follows, 
 gives us a glimpse of the "Isle of Pheasants," whither the 
 divagations of this correspondence was conducting our lovers : 
 
 XII. 
 
 To Monsieur de Canalis. 
 
 " Be at le Havre on Sunday ; go into the church after the 
 one o'clock service, walk round it two or three times, go out 
 without speaking to any one, without asking anybody a ques- 
 tion ; wear a white rose in your button-hole. Then return to 
 Paris, you will there find an answer. This answer will not 
 be such as you expect, for, I must tell you, the future is not
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 99 
 
 yet in my hands. But should I not be really mad to say yes 
 without having seen you ? When I have seen you, I can say 
 no without offense. I am sure to remain unrecognized." 
 
 This was the letter Modeste had sent off the very day before 
 that on which the futile struggle between herself and Dumay 
 had taken place. So she was happy in looking forward with 
 yearning impatience to Sunday, when her eyes would prove 
 her intuitions, her heart, to be right or wrong one of the 
 most solemn moments in a woman's life, made, too, as ro- 
 mantic as the most enthusiastic girl could desire by three 
 months of communion soul to soul. 
 
 Everybody, excepting her mother, had taken this torpor of 
 expectancy for the placidity of innocence. However strin- 
 gent the laws of family life and religious bonds, there are still 
 Julies d'Etanges and Clarissas souls which, like a brimming 
 cup, overflow under the divine touch. Was not Modeste 
 splendid in the fierce energy she brought to bear on repress- 
 ing her exuberant youth, and remaining concealed? Let us 
 confess that the memory of her sister was more potent than 
 any social limitations ; she had sheathed her will in iron that 
 she might not fail her father or her family. But what a tur- 
 bulent upheaval ! and how could a mother possibly fail to 
 perceive it ! 
 
 On the following day Modeste and Madame Dumay led 
 Madame Mignon out into the noonday sun to her bench 
 among the flowers. The blind woman turned her pale, with- 
 ered face toward the ocean, inhaled the scent of the sea, and 
 took Modeste's hand in her own, for the girl was sitting by 
 her mother. Even as she was about to question her child, 
 the mother hesitated between forgiveness and remonstrance, 
 for she knew that this was love, and to her, as to the false 
 Canalis, Modeste seemed exceptional. 
 
 "If only your father may be here in time! If he delays 
 much longer, he will find you alone of those he loved !
 
 100 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Promise me once more, Modeste, never to leave him," she 
 said, with motherly persuasiveness. 
 
 Modeste raised her mother's hands to her lips and kissed 
 them softly, as she replied 
 
 " Need I tell you so again ? " 
 
 "Ah, my child, you see, I myself left my father to go to 
 my husband ! And my father was alone too ; I was his only 
 
 child Is that what God is punishing me for, I wonder? 
 
 All I ask you is to marry in agreement with your father's 
 choice, to keep a place for him in your heart, not to sacrifice 
 him to your happiness ; to keep him in the bosom of your 
 family. Before I lost my sight I made a note of my wishes ; 
 he will carry them out ; I have enjoined on him to keep the 
 whole of his fortune, not that I have a thought of distrusting 
 you, but can one ever be sure about a son-in-law ? I, my 
 child, was I prudent? A flash of an eye settled my whole 
 life. Beauty, the most deceitful of shows, spoke the truth to 
 me ; but if it should ever be the same with you, poor child, 
 swear to me that if appearances should carry you away, as 
 they did your mother, you would leave it to your father to 
 make inquiries as to the character, the heart, and the previous 
 life of the man of your choice, if you make a choice." 
 
 " I will never marry without my father's consent," replied 
 Modeste. 
 
 On hearing this answer, her mother sat in complete silence, 
 and her half-dead countenance showed that she was pondering 
 on it, as blind people ponder, meditating on her daughter's 
 tone in speaking it. 
 
 "You see, my child," said Madame Mignon, after a long 
 silence, " the thing is this : If Caroline's wrong-doing is kill- 
 ing me by inches, your father would never survive yours ; I 
 know him ; he would blow his brains out ; there would neither 
 be life nor happiness on earth for him " 
 
 Modeste walked away a few steps, and returned in a minute. 
 
 " Why did you leave me ? " asked Madame Mignon.
 
 / WILL NEVER MARRY WITHOUT MY FATHER'S CONSENT."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 101 
 
 "You made me cry, mamma," said Modeste. 
 
 "Well, my angel, kiss me then. You love no one here? 
 You have no one paying attentions to you ? " 
 
 " No, mamma," said the little Jesuit. 
 
 " Can you swear to that?" 
 
 " Really, truly ! " cried Modeste. 
 
 Madame Mignon said no more ; she still doubted. 
 
 " In short, if you should choose a husband, your father 
 would know all about it ? " 
 
 " I promised that to my sister and to you, mother. What 
 sin do you suppose I could commit when every minute I read 
 on my finger, ' Remember Bettina ! ' Poor little sister ! " 
 
 At the moment when the words, " Poor little sister ! " were 
 followed by an interval of silence between Modeste and her 
 mother, from whose darkened eyes fell tears which Modeste 
 could not check even by falling at Madame Mignon's knees 
 and crying, "Forgive me; forgive me, mamma!" at that 
 very moment the worthy Dumay was mounting the hill of 
 Ingouville at a rapid pace, an abnormal incident in the 
 cashier's life. 
 
 Three letters had once brought them ruin ; one had brought 
 fortune back to them. That morning Dumay had received, 
 by the hand of a captain just returned from the China seas, 
 the first news he had had of his patron and only friend. 
 
 To Monsieur Dumay, formerly Cashier to the 
 firm of Mignon. 
 
 " MY DEAR DUMAY : Barring misadventure by sea, I shall 
 follow closely on the vessel by which I am forwarding this 
 letter ; I would not leave the ship to which I am accustomed. 
 I told you no news was to be good news ; but the first words 
 of this letter will rejoice you, for those words are, I have at 
 least seven millions of francs ! I am bringing a large part of 
 it in indigo, a third in good bills on London and Paris, and
 
 102 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 another third in bright gold. The money you sent me enabled 
 me to make the sum I had determined on two millions for 
 ach of the girls, and comfort for myself. 
 
 " I have been dealing wholesale in opium for the Canton 
 houses, all ten times as rich as I am. You have no notion in 
 Europe of what the rich China merchants are. I traveled 
 from Asia Minor, where I could buy opium cheap, to Canton, 
 where I sold it in bulk to the firms that deal in it. 
 
 " My last voyage was to the Malay archipelago, where I could 
 buy indigo of the first quality with the proceeds of the opium 
 trade. Perhaps I may find that I have five or six hundred 
 thousand francs more, as I am valuing my indigo only at cost 
 price. 
 
 "I have been quite well all the time; never an ailment. 
 That is the reward of traveling for one's children ! At the 
 beginning of the second year I was able to purchase the 
 ' Mignon,' a nice brig of seven hundred tons burthen, built 
 of teak, and lined with the same, and copper-bottomed ; fitted 
 throughout to suit my convenience. This, too, is worth some- 
 thing. The seafaring life, the constant change needed in my 
 trading, and hard work, as being in a way my own captain 
 on the high-seas, have all kept me in excellent health. 
 
 " To speak of all this is to speak of my two girls and my 
 dear wife ! I hope that on hearing of my ruin the wretch who 
 robbed me of my Bettina may have deserted her, and the 
 wandering lamb have returned to the cottage. She, no doubt, 
 will need a larger dower. 
 
 " My three women and my good Dumay you have all four 
 been constantly in my thoughts during these three years. 
 Dumay, you are a rich man. Your share, beside my own 
 fortune, amounts to five hundred and sixty thousand francs, 
 which I am forwarding to you by a draft, payable to yourself 
 only, by the firm of Mongenod, who are advised from New 
 York. A few months more and I shall see you all again 
 well, I hope.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 103 
 
 " Now, my dear Dumay, I write to you only, because I wish 
 you to keep the secret of my fortune, and I leave it to you to 
 prepare my dear ones for the joy of my return. I have had 
 enough of trade, and I mean to leave le Havre. 
 
 " The choice of my sons-in-law is a very serious matter. 
 It is my intention to repurchase the estate and chateau of la 
 Bastie, to endow it with an entailed settlement of a hun- 
 dred thousand francs a year at least, and to petition the 
 King to confer my name and titles on one of my sons-in-law. 
 You, my dear Dumay, know the misfortune that befell us in 
 consequence of the fatal splendor given by wealth. By 
 that I wrecked the honor of one of my daughters. I carried 
 back to Java the most wretched of fathers an unhappy Dutch 
 merchant, with nine millions of francs, whose two daughters 
 had been both carried off by villains ! We wept together like 
 two children. So I will not have the amount of my fortune 
 known. 
 
 " I shall not land at le Havre, but at Marseilles. My mate 
 is a Provencal, an old retainer of my family, whom I have 
 enabled to make a little fortune. Castagnould will have my 
 instructions to repurchase la Bastie, and I shall dispose of my 
 indigo through the firm of Mongenod. I shall place my 
 money in the Bank of France, and come home to you, pro- 
 fessing to have made no more than about a million of francs 
 in merchandise. My daughters will be reputed to have two 
 hundred thousand francs apiece. Then my great business 
 will be to decide which of my sons-in-law may be worthy to 
 succeed to my name, my arms, and my titles, and to live 
 with us ; but they must both be, as you and I are, absolutely 
 steady, firm, loyal, and honest men. 
 
 "I have never doubted you, old boy, for a single instant. 
 I have felt sure that my dear and admirable wife, with yours 
 and yourself, will have drawn an impassable fence round my 
 daughter, and that I may press a kiss full of hope on the pure 
 brow of the angel that remains to me. Bettina Caroline, if
 
 104 MODESTE M1GNON. 
 
 you have been able to screen her fault, will have a fortune. 
 After trying war and trade, we will now go in for agriculture, 
 and you must be our steward. Will that suit you ? 
 
 "And so, old friend, you are master of your line of con- 
 duct to the family, to tell them, or to say nothing of my suc- 
 cess. I trust to your judgment ; you are to say just what you 
 think right. In four years there may have been many changes 
 of character. I make you the judge ; I so greatly fear my 
 wife's tender weakness with her daughters. 
 
 " Farewell, my dear old Dumay. Tell my wife and daugh- 
 ters that I have never failed to embrace them in my heart 
 every day, morning and evening. The second draft, for 
 forty thousand francs, payable, like the other, to you alone, is 
 for my wife and daughters to go on with. 
 
 " Your master and friend, 
 
 " CHARLES MIGNON." 
 
 "Your father is coming home," said Madame Mignon to 
 her daughter. 
 
 "What makes you think that, mamma?" asked Modeste. 
 
 " Nothing could make Dumay run but having that news to 
 bring us." 
 
 Modeste, lost in her own thoughts, had not seen nor heard 
 Dumay. 
 
 " Victory ! " shouted the lieutenant from the gate. "Mad- 
 ame, the colonel has never been ill, and he is coming home 
 
 He is coming on the ' Mignon,' a good ship of his own, 
 which, with the cargo he describes to me, must be worth 
 eight or nine hundred thousand francs. But he urgently begs 
 you will say nothing about it ; the disaster to our poor, lost 
 child has eaten deeply into his heart." 
 
 " He has made room in it for a grave then," said Madame 
 Mignon. 
 
 " And he ascribes this disaster as seems to me most prob- 
 able to the greed which a large fortune excites in young
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 105 
 
 men. My poor colonel hopes to find the lost lamb among us 
 here. Let us rejoice among ourselves, and say nothing to 
 anybody, not even to Latournelle if possible. Mademoiselle," 
 he added to Modeste apart, " write a letter to your father to 
 tell him of the loss in the family and its terrible conse- 
 quences, so as to prepare him for the dreadful sight that awaits 
 him ; I will undertake that he shall get the letter before arriv- 
 ing at le Havre, for he will be obliged to come through Paris; 
 write fully, you have plenty of time ; I will take the letter 
 on Monday ; on Monday, no doubt, I shall have to go to 
 Paris " 
 
 Modeste was now afraid lest Dumay and Canalis should 
 meet ; she was eager to go up to her room and write to put 
 off the assignation. 
 
 "Tell me, mademoiselle," Dumay went on in the humblest 
 tone, but standing in her path, "that your father will find 
 his daughter without a feeling in her heart but that which was 
 in it when he left of love for her mother." 
 
 " I have sworn to my sister and my mother I have sworn 
 to myself to be my father's comfort, his joy, and his pride, 
 and I will be," replied Modeste, with a haughty and scorn- 
 ful glance at Dumay. " Do not mar my joy at knowing that 
 my father will soon be among us again by any offensive sus- 
 picions. A young girl's heart cannot be hindered from beat- 
 ing ; you do not wish me to be a mummy ? I belong to my 
 family ; but my heart is my own. If I love any one, my 
 father and mother shall be told of it. Are you satisfied, mon- 
 sieur ? " 
 
 " Thank you, mademoiselle," replied Dumay. " You have 
 restored me to life. But you might at least have called me 
 Dumay, even when giving me a slap in the face ! " 
 
 " Swear to me," said her mother earnestly and beseechingly, 
 " that you have never exchanged a word or a glance with any 
 young man." 
 
 " I can swear it," said Modeste, smiling, and looking at
 
 106 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Dumay, who was studying her with a mischievous smile like a 
 girl's, when playing off some joke. 
 
 "Can she really be so false?" exclaimed Dumay, when 
 Modeste had gone into the house. 
 
 " My daughter Modeste may have her faults," said the 
 mother, " but she is incapable of a lie." 
 
 "Well, then, let us make ourselves easy," replied the lieu- 
 tenant, " and be satisfied that misfortune has now closed its 
 account with us." 
 
 "God grant it! " said Madame Mignon. "You will see 
 him, Dumay ; I can only hear him There is much sad- 
 ness in my joy." 
 
 Modeste, meanwhile, though happy in the thought of her 
 father's return, was, like Pierrette, distressed to see all her 
 eggs broken. She had hoped for a larger fortune than Dumay 
 had spoken of. She was ambitious for her poet, and wished 
 for at least half of the six millions of which she had written 
 in her second letter. Thus absorbed by her double happiness, 
 and annoyed by the grievance of her comparative poverty, 
 she sat down to her piano, the confidant of so many girls, 
 who 'tell it their anger and their wishes, expressing them in 
 their way of playing. 
 
 Dumay was talking to his wife, walking to and fro below 
 her window, confiding to her the secret of their good fortune, 
 and questioning her as to her hopes, wishes, and intentions. 
 Madame Dumay, like her husband, had no family but the 
 Mignon family. The husband and wife decided on living in 
 Provence, if the Count should go to Provence, and to leave 
 their money to any child of Modeste's that might need it. 
 
 "Listen to Modeste," said Madame Mignon to them; 
 " only a girl in love could compose such a melody without 
 any knowledge of music." 
 
 Homes may burn, fortunes may collapse, fathers may come 
 back from their travels, empires may fall, cholera may ravage
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 107 
 
 the town a girl's love pursues its flight as nature keeps her 
 course, or that horrible acid discovered by chemistry which 
 might pierce through the earth if it were not absorbed in the 
 centre. 
 
 This is the melody Modeste had improvised to some verses 
 which must be quoted here, though they are to be found in 
 the second volume of poems published by Dauriat ; for, to 
 adapt them to the air, the young composer had broken the 
 rhythm by some changes which might puzzle the admirers of a 
 poet who is sometimes too precise. 
 
 And here, too, since modern typography allows of it, is 
 Modeste's music, to which her exquisite expression lent the 
 charm we admire in the greatest singers a charm that no 
 printing, were it phonetic or hieroglyphic, could ever rep- 
 resent : 
 
 A MAIDEN'S SONG. 
 
 PIANO. 
 
 _^*-**3~ 
 
 nzfa==EEEH. I I l-y-JEE 
 
 ^ :
 
 108 
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Come a 
 
 S3 
 
 V ' r f 
 
 r r 
 
 SE 
 
 f 
 
 wake, my heart, for the soaring lark Wings her 
 
 H> 
 
 :^rS: 
 
 i 
 
 ^F^ 
 
 p r r 
 
 p-^-p 
 
 flgb j K J> 
 
 
 p 
 
 =fc 
 
 1 r 1 
 
 r r 
 
 2 
 
 t/ upward flight 
 b 1 
 
 as she c 
 
 iants her lay. 
 
 r r i 
 
 Sleep no 
 
 
 1- 
 
 1 j* 
 
 
 
 -P 
 
 
 
 -P 1 
 
 F^FH 
 
 {(T) 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 JSH * 
 
 I ""* 
 
 f-, H-* 
 
 * 
 
 '-m 
 
 ^ 
 
 -4 
 
 r 
 
 Sj 1- P- 
 
 r 
 
 5S 
 
 12 
 
 1 t~ & 
 
 J 12 tf , 
 
 ^-AJ=^=q 
 
 r i* 
 
 ^H 
 
 -g-J^J 
 
 q^=lt 
 
 t^ more, my heart, for 
 
 -0 h 
 
 the vi - o - let Breathes her 
 
 U , P 
 
 
 
 
 
 /i b r* 
 
 
 
 -p 
 
 
 
 H 2 1 1- 
 
 -P 1 r- 
 
 <a}^ ! 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 h 
 
 J 1 r- 
 
 tr- -^ - 
 
 . . , * SJ 
 
 J 
 
 a 
 
 T H ** 
 
 PT^ b 
 
 
 - 
 
 ^*- 
 
 
 jj *~+~\ 
 
 ^F 1 rP P - 
 
 )-p-r- 
 
 P P 

 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 100 
 
 
 f-f- 
 
 incense to God at break of day. 
 
 Ev*ry 
 
 t=t 
 
 
 \x~~fi~ 
 
 
 ff == ^ 
 
 B 
 
 [J '.71 
 
 f- 1 ^ 
 
 
 t) bl 
 
 os torn re - fi 
 
 1 
 
 1 9 
 
 esh'd, and 
 
 -- 
 
 soft - ly un 
 
 B 
 
 3 
 
 clot 
 
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 ~ 
 bg, 
 
 
 -- 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 - - 
 
 
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 ^<-, 
 
 Nffc= 
 
 -ri^-f 
 
 -H^ 
 
 
 -i-f-f 
 
 - . -WL m 
 
 35: 
 
 @ 
 
 Op ens an eye to be hold it self fair. In each 
 
 **^ 
 
 3 
 
 r r 
 
 ^ 
 
 s 
 
 chalice a gem, a dew - drop re pot ing, 
 
 t
 
 110 
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 ~M ~ W 
 
 ff-J-J. 
 
 S 
 
 Mir - rors its hues Ere it dies- in the air. We 
 
 4=4 
 
 EjEEQ 
 
 j3TF*p 
 
 = i g H 
 
 1 J J J-| 
 
 -r-r-r- 
 
 : =^^ 
 
 s 
 
 -^ i * i i ^-* 
 
 in the breeze, that the an-gel of flowers Has 
 
 ' W \ ** 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 xL-p- 
 
 -[ 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 J Y- 
 
 JU-.. L r^j . \f.c*i. m r^> . 
 
 Tt fff>rr ffj 
 
 y^\ L 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 (>L^ 1- 
 
 ? ? 
 
 i r r 
 
 - 
 
 l.i* r 
 
 ii 
 
 kios'd cv* - ry rose as he paas'd hi the . night, Has 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 5 
 
 ^ 
 
 guarded their beauty through all the dark hour?, Their 
 
 
 P 

 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Ill 
 
 ? J I-J-4-. 
 
 fcfc 
 
 first smile is his in the sweet morning light 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^3 
 
 E 
 
 Then a wake, my heart, for the soaring lark 
 
 m 
 
 U 
 
 ^=Ez: 
 
 -F-F- 
 
 
 Wings her ear-iy flight, and chants her lay. 
 
 3=F= 
 
 -F-F- 
 
 Night and sleep he-gone ! my heart, the w - o - kt 
 
 3=f 
 
 IF*
 
 112 
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 ^f^FFg 
 
 ? 
 
 r r 
 
 To God her in-cense breathes at break of day. 
 
 -P-P- 
 
 -P, p- 
 
 Night and sleep begone ! my heart, the vi - o let To 
 
 4=P= 
 
 ^^tiMt 
 
 TX=^==ttk=^ 
 
 -p P * r r 
 
 P-P- 
 
 
 1J-^JhW 
 
 God her in cense breathes at break of day. 
 
 m 
 
 -P P- 
 
 H 
 
 iU: 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
 r p- 
 
 -p P- 
 
 P 
 
 -r&f- 
 
 
 rP- 
 
 ^^ 
 
 f rnr
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 113 
 
 "It is pretty," said Madame Dumay. " Modeste is very 
 musical; that is all." 
 
 "She has the very devil in her!" exclaimed the cashier, 
 for the mother's dread had entered into his soul and made his 
 blood run cold. 
 
 "She is in love," returned Madame Mignon. 
 
 By her success in communicating her conviction as to Mod- 
 este' s secret passion on the irrefragable evidence of that 
 melody, Madame Mignon chilled the cashier's joy over his 
 patron's return and success. The worthy Breton went off to 
 the town to do his day's business at Gobenheim's; then, 
 before going home to dinner, he called on the Latournelles to 
 mention his fears, and once more to request their help and 
 cooperation. 
 
 "Yes, my good friend," said Dumay on the threshold, as 
 he took leave of the notary, " I am of madame's opinion. 
 She is in love, sure enough ; beyond that the devil only 
 knows ! I am disgraced ! " 
 
 "Do not worry yourself, Dumay," said the little notary. 
 "We certainly, among us all, must be a match for that little 
 lady. Sooner or later every girl who is in love does some- 
 thing rash which betrays her secret ; we will talk it over this 
 evening." 
 
 So all these persons, devoted to the Mignon family, were 
 still a prey to the same anxiety as had tormented them before 
 the experiment that the old soldier had expected to be deci- 
 8
 
 114 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 sive. The futility of all these struggles so spurred Dumay's 
 conscience that he would not go to Paris to fetch his fortune 
 before he had discovered the clue to this enigma. All these 
 hearts, caring far more for sentiment than for self-interest, 
 understood that unless he found this daughter innocently pure, 
 the colonel might die of grief on finding Bettina dead and 
 his wife blind. The unhappy Dumay's despair made so deep 
 an impression on the Latournelles that they forgot their loss of 
 Exupere, whom they had sent off to Paris that morning. 
 During the dinner hour, when the three were alone, Monsieur 
 and Madame Latournelle and Butscha turned the matter over 
 under every aspect and considered every conceivable hypoth- 
 esis. 
 
 " If Modeste were in love with any one at le Havre, she 
 would have quaked last night," said Madame Latournelle, 
 " so her lover must be elsewhere." 
 
 " She swore this morning to her mother, in Dumay's pres- 
 ence, that she had not exchanged a glance or a word with a 
 living soul," said the notary. 
 
 " Then she loves as I do ! " said Butscha. 
 
 "And how do you love, my poor boy?" asked Madame 
 Latournelle. 
 
 " Madame," replied the little hunchback, " I love all to 
 myself, from afar, almost as far as from hence to the stars." 
 
 "And how do you get there, you great goose?" said 
 Madame Latournelle, smiling at him. 
 
 " Ah, madame, what you take to be a hump is the sheath 
 for my wings." 
 
 " Then this explains your seal ! " laughingly exclaimed the 
 lawyer. 
 
 The clerk's seal was a star ; the motto, Fulgens, sequar 
 Shine, and I will follow you the device of the house of 
 Chastillonest. 
 
 " A beautiful creature may be as diffident as the most hide- 
 ous," said Butscha, as if talking to himself. "Modeste is
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. Ho 
 
 quite clever enough to have feared lest she should be loved 
 only for her beauty." 
 
 Hunchbacks are wonderful creatures, and due entirely to 
 civilization ; for, in the scheme of nature, weak or deformed 
 beings ought to perish. A curvature or twist of the spinal 
 column gives to these men, who seem to be nature's outcasts, 
 a flashing look, in which is concentrated a greater quantity of 
 nervous fluids than other men can command, in the very 
 centre where they are elaborated and act, and whence they 
 are sent forth like a light to vivify their inmost being. Cer- 
 tain forces are the result, detected occasionally by magnetism, 
 but most frequently lost in the waste-places of the spiritual 
 world. Try to find a hunchback who is not gifted in some re- 
 markable way, either with a cheerful wit, superlative malig- 
 nity, or sublime kindliness. These beings, privileged beings 
 though they know it not, live within themselves as Butscha 
 did, when they have not exhausted their splendidly concen- 
 trated powers in the battle they have fought to conquer 
 obstacles and remain alive. 
 
 In this way we may explain the superstitious and popular 
 traditions, which we owe to the belief in gnomes, in frightful 
 dwarfs, in misshapen fairies the whole race of la boutcillc, as 
 Rabelais has it, that contain rare balsams and elixirs. 
 
 Thus Butscha almost read Modeste ; and with the eagerness 
 of a hopeless lover, of a slave ever ready to die like the 
 soldiers who, deserted and alone amid Russian snows, still 
 shouted " Vive V Empereur ! " he dreamed of discovering her 
 secret for himself alone. 
 
 As his chief and Madame Latournelle walked up to the 
 chalet, he followed them with a very anxious mien, for it was 
 imperative that he should conceal from every watchful eye, 
 from every listening ear, the snare in which he meant to 
 entrap the girl. There should be a flashing glance, a start 
 detected, as when a surgeon lays his finger on a hidden injury. 
 
 That evening Gobenheim did not join them ; Butscha was
 
 116 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Monsieur Dumay's partner against Monsieur and Madame 
 Latournelle. At about nine o'clock, while Modeste was 
 absent preparing her mother's room, Madame Mignon and 
 her friends could talk openly ; but the poor clerk, stricken by 
 the conviction which had come on him too, seemed as far 
 away from the discussion as Gobenheim had been the night 
 before. 
 
 "Why, Butscha, what ails you?" exclaimed Madame La- 
 tournelle, astonished at him. "One might think you had 
 lost all your relations ! " 
 
 A tear started to the poor fellow's eye a foundling, de- 
 serted by a Swedish sailor, and his mother dead of grief in 
 the workhouse ! 
 
 " I have no one in the world but you," he replied in husky 
 tones ; " and your compassion is too pious ever to be with- 
 drawn from me, for I will never cease to deserve your kind- 
 ness." 
 
 The answer struck an equally sensitive chord in those 
 present, that of delicacy. 
 
 "We all love you, Monsieur Butscha," said Madame Mig- 
 non with emotion. 
 
 " I have six hundred thousand francs of my own ! " cried 
 the worthy Dumay. " You shall be a notary at le Havre, 
 and Latournelle's successor." 
 
 The American, for her part, had taken the poor hunch- 
 back's hand and pressed it. 
 
 "You have six hundred thousand francs!" cried Latour- 
 nelle, pricking up his ears at this speech, " and you let these 
 ladies stay here ! And Modeste has no horse ! And she no 
 longer has lessons in music, in painting, in " 
 
 " Oh, he has only had the money a few hours," exclaimed 
 the American. 
 
 "Hush!" exclaimed Madame Mignon. While this was 
 going on, the dignified Madame Latournelle had recovered 
 herself. She turned to Butscha.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 117 
 
 " My dear boy," said she, "you have so much affection 
 around you that I never considered the particular bearing of 
 a common phrase as applied to you ; but you may thank me 
 for my blunder, since it has shown you what friends you have 
 earned by your beautiful nature." 
 
 "Then you have some news of Monsieur Mignon?" asked 
 the notary. 
 
 "He is coming home," said Madame Mignon; "but we 
 must keep it secret. When my husband hears how Butscha 
 has clung to us, and that he has shown us the warmest and 
 most disinterested friendship when the world turned its back 
 on us, he will not leave you to provide for him entirely, 
 Dumay. And so, my friend," she added, trying to turn 
 towards Butscha, "you may proceed at once to deal with 
 Latournelle ' ' 
 
 "He is of full age, five-and- twenty," said Latournelle. 
 "And, on my part, it is paying off a debt, my dear fellow, if 
 I give you the refusal of my practice." 
 
 Butscha kissed Madame Mignon's hand, wetting it with his 
 tears, and showed a tearful face when Modeste opened the 
 drawing-room door. 
 
 "Who has been distressing my mysterious dwarf?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh, mademoiselle, do we children nursed in sorrow ever 
 shed tears of grief? I have just received such marks of 
 attachment that I was moved with tenderness for all those 
 in whom I liked to believe I had found relations. I am to 
 be a notary; I may grow rich. Ah, ha ! Poor Butscha may 
 some day be rich Butscha. You do not know what audacity 
 exists in this abortion ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 The hunchback struck himself hard on his cavernous breast, 
 and placed himself in front of the fireplace after giving 
 Modeste a look that stole like a gleam from under his heavy, 
 drooping eyelids ; for in this unforeseen conjuncture he had 
 found his chance of sounding his sovereign lady's heart.
 
 118 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 For an instant Dumay fancied that the clerk had dared 
 aspire to Modeste; he exchanged looks with his friends which 
 were understood by all, and which made them gaze at the 
 little hunchback with a sort of dread mingled with curiosity. 
 
 " I I too have my dreams," Butscha went on, not taking 
 his eyes off Modeste. 
 
 The girl looked down instinctively, in a way which was a 
 revelation to the clerk. " You love romances ; allow me, in 
 the midst of my joy, to confide my secret to you, and you 
 will tell me if the end of the romance I have dreamed of for 
 
 my life is possible If not, of what use is fortune. To 
 
 me, more than to any one else, money is happiness, since to 
 me happiness means the enriching of the one I love ! You 
 who know so many things, mademoiselle, tell me whether a 
 man can be loved independently of his person handsome or 
 ugly, and for his soul alone ? ' ' 
 
 Modeste looked up at Butscha. It was a terrible, question- 
 ing look, for at this moment Modeste shared Dumay's suspi- 
 cions. " When I am rich, I shall look out for some poor but 
 beautiful girl, a foundling like myself, who has suffered much, 
 and is very unhappy ; I will write to her, comfort her, be her 
 good genius ; she shall read my heart, my soul ; she shall 
 have all my wealth, in both kinds my gold, offered with 
 great delicacy, and my mind, beautified by all the graces 
 which the misfortune of birth has denied to my grotesque 
 form ! And I will remain hidden, like a cause which science 
 seeks. God perhaps is not beautiful. The girl will naturally 
 be curious and want to see me ; but I shall tell her that I am 
 a monster of ugliness, I will describe myself as hideous " 
 
 At this, Modeste looked hard in his face. If she had said, 
 " What do you know of my love affairs ? " it could not have 
 been more explicit. 
 
 " If I am so happy as to be loved for the poetry of my 
 soul ! if, some day, I might seem to that woman to be only 
 slightly deformed, confess that I shall be happier than the
 
 MODES TE MIGNON. 119 
 
 handsomest of men, that even a man of genius beloved by 
 such a heavenly creature as you are " 
 
 The blush that mounted to Modeste's face betrayed almost 
 the whole of the girl's secret to the hunchback. 
 
 " Well, now, if a man can enrich the girl he loves, and 
 charm her heart irrespective of his person, is that the way to 
 be loved ? This has been the poor hunchback's dream 
 yesterday's dream ; for to-day your adorable mother has given 
 me the clue to my future treasure by promising to facilitate 
 my acquiring an office and connection. Still, before becom- 
 ing a Gobenheim, I must know whether such a horrible trans- 
 formation will achieve its end. What do you think, made- 
 moiselle, on your part? " 
 
 Modeste was so taken by surprise that she did not observe 
 Butscha's appeal to her judgment. The lover's snare was 
 better contrived than the soldier's ; for the poor girl, quite 
 bewildered, stood speechless. 
 
 ' ' Poor Butscha ! ' ' said Madame Latournelle to her hus- 
 banand, " is he going mad? " 
 
 " You want to play the fairy tale of Beauty and the Beast," 
 said Modeste at last, " and you forget that the Beast is turned 
 into Prince Charming." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " said the dwarf. " Now I have always 
 imagined that transformation to symbolize the phenomenon 
 of the soul becoming visible and eclipsing the body by its 
 radiant glory. If I should never be loved, I shall remain 
 invisible, that is all ! You and yours, madame," said he to 
 his mistress, " instead of having a dwarf at your command, 
 will have a life and fortune." 
 
 Butscha returned to his seat, and said to the three players, 
 affecting perfect calmness 
 
 "Who deals?" 
 
 But to himself he was saying with grief, " She wants to be 
 loved for her own sake ; she is corresponding with some sham 
 great man, but how far has she gone ? ' '
 
 120 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "My dear mamma, it has struck a quarter to ten," said 
 Modeste to her mother. 
 
 Madame Mignon bid her friends good-night, and went to 
 bed. 
 
 Those who insist on loving in secret may be watched over 
 by Pyrenean dogs, mothers, Dumays, Latournelles they are 
 in no danger from these ; but a lover ! It is diamond cut 
 diamond, fire against fire, wit against wit, a perfect equation, 
 of which the terms are equal and interchangeable. 
 
 On Sunday morning Butscha was beforehand with Madame 
 Latournelle, who always went to escort Modeste to mass, and 
 stayed cruising about outside the chalet, waiting for the post- 
 man. 
 
 " Have you a letter for Mademoiselle Modeste this morn- 
 ing ? " he asked of that humble functionary as he approached. 
 
 " No, monsieur, no " 
 
 " We have been good customers of the government for 
 some time past ! " exclaimed the clerk. 
 
 " I believe you ! " replied the postman. 
 
 Modeste from her room saw and heard this little interview; 
 she posted herself at her window at this hour, behind the 
 Venetian shutter, to watch for the postman. 
 
 She went down and out into the little garden, where, in a 
 husky voice, she called out, " Monsieur Butscha ! " 
 
 " Here am I, mademoiselle," said the hunchback, coming 
 to the little gate, which Modeste herself opened. 
 
 "Will you tell me whether you include among your titles 
 to the affection of a woman the disgraceful espionage you 
 choose to exercise?" asked the girl, trying to overwhelm her 
 slave by her gaze and queenly attitude. 
 
 "Yes, mademoiselle," he proudly replied. "I had never 
 imagined," he added in a low voice, " that a worm could do 
 good service to a star ! But so it is. Would you rather have 
 your heart read by your mother, Monsieur Dumay, and Mad- 
 ame Latournelle than by a poor creature, almost an outcast
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1-jl 
 
 from life, who is yours as much as one of the flowers you cut 
 to gratify you for a moment ? They all know that you love ; 
 I alone know how. Take me as you would take a watch-dog ; 
 I will obey you, I will protect you, I will never bark, and I 
 will have no opinions about you. All I ask is that you will 
 let me be of some use to you. Your father placed a Dumay 
 in your menagerie ; try a Butscha, and you will find it quite 
 another story ! A poor Butscha, who asks for nothing, not 
 even for a bone." 
 
 "Well, I will take you on trial," said Modeste, who only 
 wished to be rid of so sharp a guardian. " Go at once to all 
 the hotels at Graville and le Havre, and ask if a M. Arthur 
 has arrived from England " 
 
 "Listen, mademoiselle," said Butscha respectfully, but in- 
 terrupting Modeste, " I will just go for a walk on the beach, 
 and that will be all that is necessary, for you do not wish me 
 to go to church, that is all." 
 
 Modeste looked at the hunchback in blank astonishment. 
 
 " Yes, mademoiselle, though you have wrapped your face in 
 wadding and a handkerchief, you have no cold ; though you 
 have a double veil to your hat, it is only to see without being 
 seen." 
 
 "What endows you with so much penetration?" cried 
 Modeste, reddening. 
 
 " Why, mademoiselle, you have no stays on ! A cold would 
 not require you to disguise your figure by putting on several 
 petticoats, to hide your hands in old gloves, and your pretty 
 feet in hideous boots, to dress yourself anyhow, to 
 
 "That will do," said she. "But, now, how am I sure 
 that you will obey me ? " 
 
 " My master wanted to go to Sainte-Adresse, and was rather 
 put out ; but as he is really very kind, he would not deprive 
 me of my Sunday. Well, I will propose to him that we 
 should go "
 
 122 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "Are you sure you will not want me at le Havre?" 
 
 " Quite. Listen, mysterious dwarf, and look up," she said, 
 pointing to a cloudless sky. " Can you see the track left by 
 the bird that flew across just now ? Well, my actions, as pure 
 as that pure air, leave no more trace than that. Reassure 
 Dumay and the Latournelles, reassure my mother; and be 
 sure that this hand " (and she held out to him a slender little 
 hand with upturned finger-tips, transparent to the light) "will 
 never be given away, never even warmed by the kiss of what 
 is called a lover, before my father's return." 
 
 ' ' And why do you want me to keep away from church 
 to-day?" 
 
 " Do you cross-question me, after all I have done you the 
 honor to tell you and require of you?" 
 
 Butscha bowed without replying, and hastened home, enrap- 
 tured at thus entering the service of his anonymous mistress. 
 
 An hour later Monsieur and Madame Latournelle came to 
 fetch Modeste, who complained of a dreadful toothache. 
 
 " I really had not strength to dress," said she. 
 
 " Well, then, stay at home," said the notary's wife. 
 
 " No, no. I will go and pray for my father's safe return," 
 replied Modeste ; "and I thought that if I wrapped up well, 
 it would do me more good than harm to go out." 
 
 So Mademoiselle Mignon set out alone with Latournelle. 
 She would not take his arm for fear of being questioned as to 
 the internal tremor that agitated her at the idea of so soon 
 seeing her great poet. One look, the first, was about to decide 
 her future existence. 
 
 Is there in the life of man a more exquisite moment than 
 that of the first promised meeting ? Can the feelings that lie 
 buried in his heart, and that then burst into life, ever be 
 known again ? Can he ever again feel the pleasure that he 
 finds, as did Ernest de la Briere, in choosing his best razors, 
 his finest shirts, spotless collars, and impeccable clothes ? We
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 133 
 
 deify everything that is associated with that supreme hour. 
 We imagine poems in our hearts, secret poems as beautiful as 
 the woman's, and on the day when each reads the other's soul 
 all is over ! Is it not the same with these things as with the 
 blossom of those wild fruits, at once sharp and sweet, lost in 
 forest depths, the delight of the sun, no doubt ; or, as Canalis 
 says in " The Maiden's Song," the gladness of the plant itself 
 which the Angel of Flowers has allowed to see its own beauty. 
 
 This leads to the reflection that la Briere, a modest soul, 
 like many another penurious being for whom life begins with 
 toil and money difficulties, had never yet been loved. He 
 had arrived at le Havre the night before, and had at once 
 gone to bed like a coquette, to efface every trace of his jour- 
 ney ; and he had now, after taking a bath, just completed a 
 carefully advantageous toilet. This, perhaps, is the place for 
 giving a full-length portrait of him, if only to justify the last 
 letter Modeste was ever to write to him. 
 
 Born of a good family at Toulouse, distantly connected 
 with that minister who took him under his patronage, Ernest 
 has the well-bred air which comes of an education begun from 
 the cradle ; the habit of business has given it solidity without 
 effort, for pedantry is the rock on which precocious gravity is 
 commonly wrecked. Of medium height, his face is attractively 
 refined and gentle; his complexion warm, though colorless, was 
 at that time set off by a slender mustache and a small imperial, 
 a virgule a la Mazarin. But for these manly witnesses, he 
 would, perhaps, have looked too much like a girl dressed up, 
 so delicate is the cut of his face and lips, so natural is it to 
 attribute to a woman teeth of transparent enamel and almost 
 artificial evenness. Add to these feminine characteristics a 
 voice as sweet as his looks, as gentle as his turquoise-blue eyes, 
 with Oriental lids, and you will perfectly understand how it was 
 that the minister had nicknamed his young private secretary 
 Mademoiselle de la Briere. His broad, smooth forehead, 
 framed under thick black hair, has a dreamy look that does
 
 124 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 not contradict the expression of his countenance, which is 
 wholly melancholy. The prominence of the eyebrows, though 
 delicately arched, overshadows the eyes, and adds to this look 
 of melancholy by the sadness a physical sadness, so to speak 
 that the eyelids give when they half-close the eyes. This 
 secret bashfulness, to which we give the name of modesty, 
 characterizes his features and person. The whole result will, 
 perhaps, be better understood if we add that the theory of 
 perfect drawing demands greater length in the shape of the 
 head, more space between the chin, which ends abruptly, and 
 the forehead, on which the hair grows too low. Thus the 
 face looks flattened. Work had already graven a furrow be- 
 tween the eyebrows, which were thick, and too nearly met, like 
 those of all jealous natures. Though la Briere was as yet 
 slight, his figure was one of those which, developing late, are 
 most unexpectedly stout at the age of thirty or thirty-five 
 years. 
 
 The young man might very well have typified, to those 
 who are familiar with French history, the royal and myste- 
 rious personality of Louis XIII., with his melancholy diffi- 
 dence for no known reason, pallid under his crown, loving 
 the fatigue of hunting, and hating work ; so timid with his 
 mistress as to respect her virtue, so indifferent to his friend 
 as to leave him to be beheaded ; explicable only by his re- 
 morse at having avenged his father on his mother either a 
 Catholic Hamlet or the victim of some incurable malady. 
 But the canker-worm which paled the King's cheek and un- 
 nerved his strength was as yet, in Ernest, no more than 
 simple distrust of himself, the shyness of a man to whom no 
 woman had ever said, "How I love you ! " and, above all, 
 wasted self-sacrifice. After hearing the knell of a monarchy 
 in the fall of a minister, the poor boy had found in Canalis a 
 rock hidden under tempting mosses ; he was seeking a despot- 
 ism to worship ; and this uneasiness, that of a dog in search 
 of a master, gave him the expression of the King who found
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 12 5 
 
 his. These clouds and feelings, this "pale cast" over his 
 whole person, made his face far more attractive than the 
 young secretary himself imagined, annoyed as he was some- 
 times to find himself classed by women as a beau tenebreux 
 gloomily handsome ; a style gone quite out of fashion at a 
 time when every man would gladly keep the clarions of adver- 
 tisement for his own exclusive use. 
 
 So Ernest the diffident had sought the adornment of the 
 most fashionable clothes. For this interview, when everything 
 would depend on first sight, he donned black trousers and 
 carefully polished shoes, a sulphur-colored waistcoat, revealing 
 an excessively fine shirt fastened with opal studs, a black 
 necktie, and a short blue coat, which looked as if it had been 
 glued to his back and waist by some new process ; his rosette 
 graced the button-hole. He wore smart kid gloves of the 
 color of Florentine bronze, and held in his left hand a light 
 cane and his hat, with a certain Louis-quatorze air; thus 
 showing, as the sacred place demanded, his carefully combed 
 hair, on which the light shed satin-like reflections. Standing 
 sentry under the porch from the very beginning of the ser- 
 vice, he studied the church while watching all the Christians, 
 more especially those in petticoats, who came to dip their 
 fingers in the holy water. 
 
 As Modeste came in, an inner voice cried out, " "Tis 
 he!" That coat and figure, so essentially Parisian, the 
 rosette, the gloves, the walking-cane, the scented hair none 
 of these things were native to le Havre. And when la Briere 
 turned to look at the notary's tall and showy wife, the little 
 notary himself and the bundle a word dedicated to this sense 
 by women under which Modeste had concealed herself, 
 though she was fully prepared, the poor child was stricken to 
 the heart by the aspect of this romantic countenance, in the 
 bright daylight from the open door. She could not be mis- 
 taken ; a small white rose almost hid the rosette. Would 
 Ernest recognize his unknown fair hidden under an old hat
 
 126 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 and a double veil ? Modeste was so fearful of the clairvoyance 
 of love that she walked with an elderly shuffle. 
 
 "Wife," said Latournelle, as he went to his place, "that 
 man does not belong to le Havre." 
 
 " So many strangers come through," replied that lady to 
 her husband. 
 
 " But do strangers ever think of coming to see our church, 
 which is not more than two centuries old? " 
 
 Ernest remained in the porch all through the service with- 
 out seeing any woman who realized his hopes. Modeste, on 
 her part, could not control her trembling till near the end. 
 She was agitated by joys which she alone could have described. 
 At last she heard on the pavement the step of a gentleman, 
 for, mass being over, Ernest was walking round the church, 
 where no one remained but the dilettanti of prayer, who be- 
 came to him the object of anxious and piercing scrutiny. He 
 remarked the excessive trembling of the prayer-book held by 
 the veiled lady as he passed her ; and as she was the only one 
 who hid her face, he conceived some suspicions, confirmed by 
 'Modeste's dress, which he studied with the care of an inquisi- 
 tive lover. 
 
 When Madame Latournelle left the church, he followed her 
 at a decent distance, and saw her, with Modeste, go into the 
 house in the Rue Royale, where Mademoiselle Mignon usually 
 waited till the hour of vespers. Ernest studied the house, 
 decorated with escutcheons, and asked of a passer-by the name 
 of the owner, who was mentioned almost with pride as Mon- 
 sieur Latournelle, the first notary of le Havre. 
 
 As he lounged down the Rue Royale, trying to catch a 
 glimpse of the interior of the house, Modeste could see her 
 lover ; she then declared herself to be too ill to attend vespers, 
 and Madame Latournelle kept her company. So poor Ernest 
 had his cruise for his pains. He dared not go to loiter about 
 Ingouville ; he made it a point of honor to obey, and returned 
 to Paris after writing a letter while waiting for the coach, and
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 127 
 
 posting it for Franchise Cochet to receive next morning with 
 the postmark of le Havre. 
 
 Monsieur and Madame Latournelle dined at the chalet every 
 Sunday, taking Modeste home after vespers. As soon as the 
 young lady felt better, they all went up to Ingouville, followed 
 by Butscha. Modeste, quite happy, now dressed herself beau- 
 tifully. As she went down to dinner she forget all about her 
 disguise of the morning, and her cold, and sang 
 
 " Night and sleep begone ! My heart, the violet 
 To God her incense breathes at break of day ! " 
 
 Butscha felt a thrill as he beheld Modeste, she seemed to 
 him so completely changed ; for the wings of love fluttered, as 
 it were, on her shoulders ; she looked like a sylph, and her 
 cheeks glowed with the divine hue of happiness. 
 
 " Whose words are those which you have set to such a pretty 
 air?" Madame Mignon asked her daughter. 
 
 " They are by Canalis, mamma," she replied, turning in an 
 instant to the finest crimson, from her neck to the roots of her 
 hair. 
 
 " Canalis ! " exclaimed the dwarf, who learned from Mod- 
 este's tone and blush all of her secret that he as yet knew not. 
 " He, the great poet, does he write ballads? " 
 
 "They are some simple lines," replied she, "to which I 
 have ventured to adapt some reminiscences of German airs." 
 
 " No, no, my child," said Madame Mignon ; "that music 
 is your own, my dear." 
 
 Modeste, feeling herself grow hotter and hotter, went out 
 into the garden, taking Butscha with her. 
 
 "You can do me a great service," said she, in an under- 
 tone. " Dumay is affecting discretion to my mother and me 
 as to the amount of the fortune my father is bringing home, 
 and I want to know the truth. Has not Dumay, at different 
 times, sent papa five hundred and something thousand francs?
 
 128 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 My father is not the man to stay abroad four years simply to 
 double his capital. Now a ship is coming in that is all his 
 own, and the share he offers Dumay amounts to nearly six 
 hundred thousand francs." 
 
 "We need not question Dumay," said Butscha. "Your 
 father had lost, as you know, four millions of francs before 
 his departure, these he has no doubt recovered ; he would 
 certainly have given Dumay ten per cent, of his profits ; so, 
 from the fortune the worthy Breton confesses to, my chief and 
 I calculate that the colonel's must amount to six or seven 
 millions " 
 
 "Oh, father ! " cried Modeste, crossing her arms and rais- 
 ing her eyes to heaven, " you have given me a second life! " 
 
 "Oh, mademoiselle, you love a poet! A man of that 
 stamp is more or less of a Narcissus. Will he love you as he 
 ought? A craftsman in words, always absorbed in fitting 
 sentences together, is very fatiguing. A poet, mademoiselle, 
 is not poetry any more than the seed is the flower." 
 
 " Butscha, I never saw such a handsome man ! " 
 
 " Beauty, mademoiselle, is a veil which often serves to 
 hide many imperfections." 
 
 " He has the most angelic heart that heaven " 
 
 "God grant you may be right," said the dwarf, clasping 
 his hands. " May you be happy ! That man, like yourself, 
 will have a slave in Jean Butscha. I shall then no longer be a 
 notary ; I shall give myself up to study to science " 
 
 "And why?" 
 
 "Well, mademoiselle, to bring up your children, if you 
 
 will condescend to allow me to be their tutor Oh ! if you 
 
 would accept a piece of advice ! Look here, let me go to 
 work my own way. I could ferret out this man's life and 
 habits, could discover if he is kind, if he is violent or gentle, 
 if he will show you the respect you deserve, if he is capable 
 of loving you perfectly, preferring you to all else, even to his 
 own talent "
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 129 
 
 " What can it matter if I love him ? " said she simply. 
 
 "To be sure, that is true," cried the hunchback. 
 
 At this moment Madame Mignon was saying to her friends: 
 
 " My daughter has this day seen the man she loves." 
 
 " Can it be that sulphur-colored waistcoat that puzzled you 
 so much, Latournelle ?" at once ejaculated the notary's 
 wife. " That young man had a pretty white rosebud in his 
 button-hole and " 
 
 " Ah ! " said the mother, " a token to be known by ! " 
 
 " He wore the rosette of the Legion of Honor," Madame 
 Latournelle went on. " He is a charming youth ! But we 
 are all wrong ; Modeste never raised her veil, she was huddled 
 up like a pauper, and " 
 
 " And she said she was ill," added the notary. "But she 
 has thrown off her mufflers, and is perfectly well now ! " 
 
 "It is incomprehensible ! " said Dumay. 
 
 " Alas ! it is as clear as day," said the notary. 
 
 " My child," said Madame Mignon to Modeste, who came 
 in, followed by Butscha, "did you happen to see in church 
 this morning a well-dressed little man with a white rose in 
 his buttonhole, and the rosette " 
 
 " I saw him," Butscha hastily put in, seeing by the atten- 
 tion of the whole party what a trap Modeste might fall into. 
 " It was Grindot, the famous architect, with whom the town 
 is treating for the restoration of the church. He came from 
 Paris, and I found him this morning examining the outside 
 as I set out for Sainte-Adresse." 
 
 "Oh! he is an architect! He puzzled me greatly," 
 said Modeste, to whom Butscha had secured time to recover 
 herself. 
 
 Dumay looked askance at Butscha. Modeste, put on her 
 guard, assumed an impenetrable demeanor. Dumay's sus- 
 picions were excited to the highest pitch, and he resolved to 
 go next day to the mayor and ascertain whether the expected 
 architect had in fact been at le Havre. Butscha, on his part, 
 9
 
 130 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 very uneasy as to Modeste's ultimate fate, decided on starting 
 for Paris to set a watch over Canalis. 
 
 Gobenheim arrived in time to play a rubber, and his pres- 
 ence repressed the ferment of feeling. Modeste awaited her 
 mother's bedtime almost with impatience ; she wanted to write, 
 and this is the letter her love dictated to her when she thought 
 that every one was asleep : 
 
 XIII. 
 To Monseiur de Canalis. 
 
 " Oh, my best-beloved friend, what vile libels are your por- 
 traits displayed in the print-sellers' windows ! And I who was 
 happy with that detestable lithograph ! I am quite shy of 
 loving such a handsome man. No, I cannot conceive that 
 Paris women can be so stupid as not to see, one and all, that 
 you are the fulfillment of their dreams. You neglected ! You 
 loveless ! I do not believe a word you have said about your 
 obscure and laborious life, your devotion to an idol till now 
 vainly sought for. You have been too well loved, monsieur ; 
 your brow, as pale and smooth as a magnolia petal, plainly 
 shows it, and I shall be wretched. 
 
 " What am I now? Ah ! why have you called me forth to 
 life ? In one instant I felt that I had shed my ponderous 
 chrysalis ! My soul burst the crystal which held it cap- 
 tive ; it rushed through my veins. In short, the cold 
 silence of things suddenly ceased to me ; everything in 
 nature spoke to me. The old church to me was luminous ; 
 its vault, glittering with gold and azure, like that of an 
 Italian church, sparkled above my head. The melodious 
 strains, sung by angels to martyrs to make them forget their 
 anguish, sounded through the organ ! The hideous pavement 
 of le Havre seemed like a flowery path. I recognized the sea
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 131 
 
 as an old friend, whose language, full of sympathy, I had 
 never known well enough. I saw how the roses in my garden 
 and greenhouse had long worshiped me, and whispered to me 
 to love ! They all smiled on me on my return from church ; 
 and, to crown all, I heard your name of Melchior murmured by 
 the flower-bells ; I saw it written on the clouds ! Yes, I am, 
 indeed, alive, thanks to you poet more beautiful than that 
 cold and prim Lord Byron, whose face is as dull as the English 
 climate. Wedded to you by one only of your Oriental 
 glances which pierced my black veil, you transfused your 
 blood into my veins, and it fired me from head to foot. Ah, 
 we do not feel life like that when our mothers bring us into 
 the world ! A blow dealt to you would fall on me at the same 
 instant, and my existence henceforth can only be accounted 
 for by your mind. I know now the purpose of the divine 
 harmony of music; it was invented by the angels to express 
 love. 
 
 " To be a genius and handsome, too, my Melchior, is too 
 much. A man should have a choice at his birth. But when 
 I think of the treasures of tenderness and affection you have 
 lavished on me, especially during this last month, I wonder 
 whether I am dreaming ! Nay, you must be hiding some 
 mystery. What woman could give you up without dying 
 of it ? Yes, jealousy has entered my heart with such love 
 as I could not believe in ! Could I imagine such a confla- 
 gration ? 
 
 " A new and inconceivable vagary ! I now wish you were 
 ugly ! What follies I committed when I got home ! Every 
 yellow dahlia reminded me of your pretty waistcoat, every 
 white rose was a friend, and I greeted them with a look which 
 was yours, as I am wholly ! The color of the gentleman's 
 well-fitting gloves everything, to the sound of his step on 
 the flagstones everything is so exactly represented by my 
 memory that, sixty years hence, I shall still see the smallest 
 details of this high day, the particular hue of the atmosphere,
 
 132 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 and the gleam of the sunbeam reflected from a pillar ; I shall 
 hear the prayer which your advent broke into ; I shall breathe 
 the incense from the altar ; and I shall fancy that I feel above 
 our heads the hands of the priest who was giving us the final 
 benediction just as you went past. That good Abbe Mar- 
 cellin has married us already. The superhuman joy of ex- 
 periencing this world of new and unexpected emotions can 
 only be equaled by the joy I feel in telling you of them, in 
 rendering up all my happiness to him who pours it into my 
 soul with the unstinting bounty of the sun. So no more veils, 
 my beloved ! Come, oh, come back soon ! I will unmask 
 with joy. 
 
 "You have, no doubt, heard of the firm of Mignon of le 
 Havre? Well, in consequence of an irreparable loss, I am 
 the sole heiress of the family. Do not scorn us, you who are 
 descended from one of the heroes of Auvergne. The arms 
 of Mignon de la Bastie will not dishonor those of Canalis. 
 They are gules, a bend sable charged with three besants, in each 
 quarter a patriarchal cross or, surmonted by a cardinal's hat, 
 and the cord and tassels as mantling. My dear, I will be 
 faithful to our motto, Una fides, unus Dominus ! One faith 
 and one Lord. 
 
 " Perhaps, my friend, you will think there is some irony in 
 my name after all I have here confessed. It is Modeste. 
 Thus, I did not altogether cheat you in signing ' O. d'Este-M.' 
 Nor did I deceive you in speaking of my fortune ; it will, I 
 believe, amount to the sum which has made you so virtuous. 
 And I know so surely that to you money is so unimportant 
 a consideration, that I can write of it unaffectedly. At the 
 same time, you must let me tell you how glad I am to be able 
 to endow our happiness with the freedom of action and move- 
 ment that wealth gives, the power of saying, ' Let us go ' 
 
 when the fancy takes us to see a foreign land, of flying off in 
 a comfortable carriage, seated side by side, without a care 
 about money ; and happy, too, to give you the right of saying
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 133 
 
 to the King, ' I have such a fortune as you require in your 
 peers ! ' 
 
 " In this, Modeste Mignon can be of some service to you, 
 and her money will find noble uses. As to your humble 
 servant, you have seen her once, at her window in a wrapper. 
 Yes, the fair-haired daughter of Eve was your unknown cor- 
 respondent; but how little does the Modeste of to-day re- 
 semble her whom you then saw ! She was wrapped in a 
 shroud, and this other have I not told you so? has derived 
 from you the life of life. Pure and permitted love, a love 
 that my father, now at last returning from his travels and with 
 riches, will sanction, has uplifted me with its childlike but 
 powerful hand from the depths of the tomb where I was sleep- 
 ing. You awoke me as the sun awakes the flowers. The 
 glance of her you love is not now that of the bold-faced little 
 Modeste ! Oh, no ; it is bashful, it has glimpses of happiness, 
 and veils itself under chaste eyelids. My fear now is that I 
 cannot deserve my lot. The King has appeared in his glory ; 
 my liege has now a mere vassal, who implores his forgiveness 
 for taking such liberties, as the thimble-rigger with loaded 
 dice did after cheating the Chevalier de Grammont. 
 
 " Yes, beloved poet, I will be your ' Mignon,' but a happier 
 Mignon than Goethe's, for you will leave me to dwell in my 
 native land, won't you? in your heart. 
 
 "As I write this bridal wish, a nightingale in the Vilquins' 
 park has just answered for you. Oh ! let me quickly hear 
 that the nightingale, with his long-drawn note, so pure, so 
 clear, so full, inundating my heart with love and gladness, 
 like an annunciation, has not lied. 
 
 " My father will pass through Paris on his way from Mar- 
 seilles. The house of Mongenod, his correspondents, will 
 know his address ; go and see him, my dearest Melchior, tell 
 him that you love me, and do not try to tell him how much 
 I love you ; let that be a secret always between us and God ! 
 I, dear adored one, will tell my mother everything. She, a
 
 134 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 daughter of Wallenrod Tustall-Bartenstild, will justify me by 
 her caresses ; she will be made happy by our secret and ro- 
 mantic poem, at once human and divine ! You have the 
 daughter's pledge ; now obtain the consent of the Comte de 
 la Bastie, the father of your own 
 
 " MODESTE. 
 
 ft P. S. Above all, do not come to le Havre without having 
 obtained my father's permission ; and, if you love me, you 
 will be able to discover him on his way through Paris." 
 
 " What are you doing at this time of night, Mademoiselle 
 Modeste ? ' ' asked Dumay. 
 
 "I am writing to my father," she replied to the old sol- 
 dier. " Did you not tell me that you were starting to-mor- 
 row?" 
 
 Dumay had no answer to this and went to bed, while 
 Modeste wrote a long letter to her father. 
 
 Next day Francoise Cochet, alarmed at seeing the Havre 
 postmark, came up to the chalet to deliver to her young mis- 
 tress the following letter, and carry away that which Modeste 
 had written : 
 
 To Mademoiselle O. d' Estc-M. 
 
 " My heart warns me that you were the woman, so care- 
 fully veiled and disguised, placed between Monsieur and Mad- 
 ame Latournelle, who have hut one child, a son. Ah, dearly 
 loved one ! if you are of humble rank, devoid of position, 
 distinction, or even fortune, you cannot imagine what my joy 
 would be. You must know me by this time ; why not tell 
 me the whole truth ? I am no poet excepting through love, 
 in my heart, and for you. Oh, what immense affection I 
 must have to stay here, in this Hotel de Normandie, and not 
 walk up to Ingouville, that I can see from my windows !
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 135 
 
 Will you love me as I love you ? To have to leave le Havre 
 for Paris in such uncertainty ! Is not that being punished for 
 loving as if I had committed a crime ? I have obeyed you 
 blindly. 
 
 (< Ah ! let me soon have a letter; for, if you are mysteri- 
 ous, I have returned mystery for mystery, and I must at last 
 throw off the mask of my incognito, and tell you how little I 
 am a poet, abdicating the glory you have lent me." 
 
 This letter greatly disturbed Modeste ; she could not with- 
 draw her own, which Francoise had already posted by the 
 time she read the last lines once more, puzzled as to their 
 meaning; but she went up to her room, and wrote an an- 
 swer, asking for explanations. 
 
 During these little incidents, others, equally small, were 
 happening in the town, and were destined to make Modeste 
 forget her uneasiness. Dumay, having gone early to le Havre, 
 at once knew that no architect had arrived there the night 
 before last. Furious at the lie told him by Butscha, which 
 revealed a complicity which he was determined he would 
 know the meaning of, he hurried from the mayor to the 
 Latournelles. 
 
 "Where is your Master Butscha?" asked he of his friend 
 the notary, on not finding the clerk in the office. 
 
 "Butscha, my dear fellow? He is on the road to Paris, 
 whisked away by the steamboat. Early this morning, on the 
 quay, he met a sailor, who told him that his father, the Swed- 
 ish sailor, has come into some money. Butscha's father went 
 to India, it would seem, and served some prince, a Mahratta, 
 and he is now in Paris " 
 
 " A pack of lies ! Shameful ! Monstrous ! Oh, I will 
 find that damned hunchback ; I am going to Paris, and on 
 purpose for that!" cried Dumay. "Butscha is deceiving 
 us ! He knows something about Modeste, and has never 
 told us. If he dares meddle in the matter He shall
 
 136 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 never be a notary ; I will cast him back on his mother, in the 
 mire, in the " 
 
 " Come, my friend, never hang a man without trying 
 him," replied Latournelle, quite terrified at Dumay's exas- 
 peration. 
 
 After explaining on what his suspicions were founded, Du- 
 may begged Madame Latournelle to stay at the chalet with 
 Modeste during his absence. 
 
 "You will find the colonel in Paris," said the notary. 
 "In the shipping news this morning, in the 'Commerce' 
 newspaper, under the heading of Marseilles. Here, look!" 
 he said, handing him the sheet, "The ' Bettina Mignon,' 
 Captain Mignon, arrived October i6th, and to-day is the 
 1 7th. At this moment all le Havre knows of the master's 
 return." 
 
 Dumay requested Gobenheim to dispense henceforth with 
 his services ; he then returned at once to the chalet, going in 
 at the moment when Modeste had just closed her letters to 
 her father and to Canalis. The two letters were exactly alike 
 in shape and thickness, differing only in the address. Mod- 
 este thought she had laid that to her father over that to her 
 Melchior, and had done just the reverse. This mistake, so 
 common in the trifles of life, led to the discovery of her 
 secret by her mother and Dumay. 
 
 The lieutenant was talking eagerly to Madame Mignon in 
 the drawing-room, confiding to her the fresh fears to which 
 Modeste's duplicity and Butscha's connivance had given rise. 
 
 "I tell you, madame," he exclaimed, "he is a viper we 
 have warmed on our hearth ; there is not room for a soul in 
 these fag-ends of humanity." 
 
 Modeste had slipped the letter to her father into her pocket, 
 fancying that it was the letter to her lover, and went down 
 with that addressed to Canalis in her hand, hearing Dumay 
 speak of starting immediately for Paris. 
 
 " What is wrong with my poor mysterious dwarf, and why
 
 MODESTE MI G NOW. 137 
 
 are you talking so loud ? ' ' said she at the door of the drawing- 
 room. 
 
 " Butscha, mademoiselle, set out for Paris this morning, 
 and you, no doubt, can say why ! It must be to carry on 
 some intrigue with the so-called little architect in a sulphur- 
 colored waistcoat, who, unluckily for the hunchback's false- 
 hood, has not yet been to le Havre." 
 
 Modeste was startled ; she guessed that the dwarf had gone 
 off to make his own inquiries as to the poet's manners and 
 customs ; she turned pale, and sat down. 
 
 "I will be after him; I will find him !" said Dumay. 
 "That, no doubt, is the letter for your father?" he added, 
 holding out his hand. " I will send it to Mongenod's if 
 only my colonel and I do not cross on the way." 
 
 Modeste gave him the lettter. Little Dumay, who could 
 read without spectacles, mechanically read off the following 
 address 
 
 " Monsieur le Baron de Canalis, Rue de Farad is-Poisson- 
 niere, No. 29!" he exclaimed. "What is the meaning of 
 this?" 
 
 "Ah! my child, then he is the man you love !" cried 
 Madame Mignon. "The verses that you set to music are by 
 him " 
 
 " And it is his portrait that you have upstairs in a frame ! " 
 added Dumay. 
 
 " Give me back that letter, Monsieur Dumay," said Mod- 
 este, drawing herself up, like a lioness defending her cubs. 
 
 " Here it is, mademoiselle," he replied. Modeste slipped 
 the letter into her bosom, and held out to Dumay that ad- 
 dressed to her father. 
 
 " I know you to be capable of anything, Dumay," said she ; 
 " but if you move a single step toward Monsieur de Canalis, 
 I will take one out of this house and never come back ! " 
 
 " You will kill your mother ! " replied Dumay, who went to 
 call his wife.
 
 138 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 The poor mother had fainted away, stricken to the heart by 
 Modeste's threatening speech. 
 
 " Good-by, wife," said the Breton, embracing the little 
 American. " Save the mother; I am going to save the 
 daughter." 
 
 He left Modeste and Madame Dumay with Madame Mignon, 
 made his preparations in a few minutes, and went down to le 
 Havre. An hour later he set off by post with the swiftness 
 which passion or interest alone can give to the wheels. 
 
 Madame Mignon soon revived under her daughter's care, 
 and went up to her room, leaning on Modeste's arm ; the 
 only reproach she uttered when they were alone was to say, 
 "Unhappy child ! what have you done? Why hide anything 
 from me ? Am I so stern ? ' ' 
 
 "Why, of course, I was going to tell you everything," re- 
 plied the girl in tears. 
 
 She told her mother the whole story ; she read her all the 
 letters and replies ; she plucked the rose of her poem to 
 pieces, petal by petal, to lay in the heart of the kind German 
 lady ; this took up half the day. When her confession was 
 ended, and she saw something like a smile on the lips of the 
 too indulgent blind woman, she threw herself into her arms 
 with tears. 
 
 " Oh, mother ! " she cried, in the midst of her sobs, " you 
 whose heart is of gold, and all poetry, and like some choice 
 vessel moulded by God to contain the one pure and heavenly 
 love that can fill a whole life ! you whom I long to imitate 
 by loving nothing on earth but my husband you must know 
 how bitter are these tears which I shed at this moment, which 
 fall wet on your hands. The butterfly with iridescent wings, 
 that beautiful second soul which your daughter has cherished 
 with maternal care my love, my sacred love, that inspired 
 and living mystery has fallen into vulgar hands that will tear 
 its wings and its veil under the cruel pretext of enlightening 
 me, of inquiring whether genius is as correct as a banker, if
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 139 
 
 my Melchior is capable of amassing dividends, if he has some 
 love affair to be unearthed, if he is not guilty in vulgar eyes 
 of some youthful episode, which to our love is what a cloud 
 is to the sun. What are they going to do? Here, feel my 
 hand ; I am in a fever ! They will kill me ! " 
 
 Modeste, seized by a deadly shivering fit, was obliged to go 
 to bed, alarming her mother, Madame Latournelle, and 
 Madame Dumay, who nursed her while the lieutenant was 
 traveling to Paris, whither the logic of events transfers our 
 tale for the moment. 
 
 Men who are truly modest, like Ernest de la Briere, and 
 especially those who, though knowing their own value, are 
 neither loved nor appreciated, will understand the infinite 
 rapture in which the young secretary reveled as he read Mod- 
 este's letter. After discovering the wit and greatness of his 
 mind, his young and guileless but wily mistress thought him 
 handsome. This is the supremest flattery. Why? Because 
 beauty is no doubt the Master's signature on the work into 
 which He has infused His soul ; it is the divinity made mani- 
 fest ; and to see it where it does not exist, to create it by the 
 power of an enchanted eye, is is it not ? the crowning 
 magic of love. 
 
 And the poor young fellow could exclaim to himself with 
 the ecstasy of an applauded author 
 
 " At last I am loved ! " 
 
 When once a woman, a courtesan, or an innocent girl has 
 let the words escape her, " How handsome you are ! " even 
 if it be untrue, if the man allows the subtle poison of the 
 words to enter his brain, he is thenceforth tied by eternal 
 bonds to the bewitching liar, to the truthful or deluded 
 woman ; she is his world ; he thirsts for this testimony ; he 
 would never weary of it, not even if he were a prince. 
 
 Ernest proudly paced his room ; he stood in front of the 
 mirror three-quarter face, in profile ; he tried to criticise his
 
 140 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 own features, but a diabolical, insinuating voice said to him, 
 " Modeste is right ! " and he came back to the letter and 
 read it again. He saw the heavenly fair one, he talked to 
 her! Then, in the midst of his rapture, came the overwhelm- 
 ing thought, " She believes me to be Canalis, and she is a 
 millionaire ! " 
 
 All his happiness fell with a crash, as a man falls when, 
 walking in his sleep, he has reached the ridge of a roof, and, 
 hearing a voice, steps forward and is dashed to pieces on the 
 stones. 
 
 " But for the halo of glory, I should be ugly ! " cried he. 
 "What a horrible predicament I have gotten myself into ! " 
 
 La Briere was too thoroughly the man of his letters, too 
 entirely the pure and noble soul he had shown in them, to 
 hesitate at the voice of honor. He at once resolved to go 
 and confess everything to Modeste's father if he were in 
 Paris, and to inform Canalis fully of the outcome of their 
 very Parisian practical joke. To this sensitive young fellow 
 the vastness of Modeste's fortune was a casting reason. Above 
 all, he would not be suspected of having used the stimulation 
 of this correspondence, though on his side so perfectly sin- 
 cere, for filching a fortune. Tears stood in his eyes as he 
 walked from his rooms in the Rue Chantereine to Mongenod 
 the banker's, whose prosperity, connections, and prospects 
 were partly the work of the minister to whom he himself was 
 indebted. 
 
 At the time when la Briere was closeted with the head of 
 the house of Mongenod, and acquiring all the information he 
 needed in his strange position, such a scene was taking place 
 in Canalis' house as Dumay's hasty departure might have led 
 us to expect. 
 
 Dumay, like a true soldier of the imperial school, whose 
 blood had been boiling all through his journey, conceived of 
 a poet as an irresponsible fellow, a man who fooled in rhyme, 
 living in a garret, dressed in black cloth white at all the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1 41 
 
 seams, whose boots sometimes had soles, whose linen was 
 anonymous, who always looked as if he had just dropped 
 from the clouds, when he was not scribbling as intently as 
 Butscha. But the ferment that muttered in his brain and 
 heart received a sort of cold shower-bath when he reached 
 the poet's handsome residence, saw a man cleaning a carriage 
 in the courtyard, found himself in a splendid dining-room 
 with another servant dressed like a banker, to whom the 
 groom had referred him, who looked him over from head to 
 foot as he said that Monsieur le Baron could not see any one. 
 
 " Monsieur le Baron has a meeting to-day," he added, "at 
 the council of state." 
 
 "Am I right ? " asked Dumay. " Is this the house of Mon- 
 sieur de Canalis, who writes poetry ? " 
 
 " Monsieur le Baron de Canalis," said the footman, " is no 
 doubt the great poet you mean ; but is also master of appeals 
 to the state council, and attached to the foreign office." 
 
 Dumay, who had come to box a rhymester's ears, to use his 
 own contemptuous expression, had found a state functionary. 
 The drawing-room where he was kept waiting, remarkable for 
 its magnificence, presented to his contemplation the row of 
 crosses that glittered on Canalis' evening coat, left by the 
 servant over the back of a chair. Presently he was attracted 
 by the sheen and workmanship of a silver-gilt cup, and the 
 words, "The gift of MADAME," struck his eye. Opposite 
 this, on a bracket, was a Sevres vase, over which was engraved, 
 "Given by Madame la Dauphine." These silent warnings 
 restored Dumay to his commonsense, while the manservant 
 was asking his master whether he could receive a stranger, who 
 had come from le Havre on purpose to see him his name 
 Dumay. 
 
 " What is he like? " asked Canalis. 
 
 " Has a good hat and the red ribbon." 
 
 At a nod of assent, the man went out, and returned an- 
 nouncing
 
 142 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " Monsieur Dumay." 
 
 When he heard his own name, when he stood before Canalis 
 in a study as costly as it was elegant, his feet on a carpet quite 
 as good as the best in the Mignons' old house, when he met 
 the glance prepared by the poet, who was playing with the 
 tassels of a sumptuous dressing-gown, Dumay was so absolutely 
 dumfounded that he left the great man to speak first. 
 
 " To what, monsieur, do I owe the honor of this visit? " 
 
 " Monsieur," Dumay began, still standing. 
 
 "If you have much to say, pray be seated," said Canalis, 
 interrupting him ; and the poet sank back into his large easy- 
 chair, and crossed his legs, raising the upper one to r.ock his 
 foot on a level with his eye, while staring hard at Dumay, 
 who, to use his own soldier's phrase, " felt like a dummy." 
 
 " I am listening, monsieur," said the poet. " My time is 
 precious; I am due at the office " 
 
 " Monsieur," returned Dumay, " I will be brief. You have 
 bewitched how I know not a young lady at le Havre 
 handsome, rich, the last and only hope of two noble families, 
 and I have come to ask you your intentions." 
 
 Canalis, who for the last three months had been absorbed 
 by serious matters, who aimed at promotion to the grade of 
 commander of the Legion of Honor and to be minister to a 
 German court, had totally forgotten the letter from le Havre. 
 
 "I?" cried he. 
 
 "You," replied Dumay. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Canalis, smiling, " I know no more what 
 you mean than if you were talking Hebrew. I bewitch a 
 
 young girl? I, who ?" A lorldly smile curled the 
 
 poet's lip. " Come, monsieur. I am not a boy that I should 
 amuse myself by stealing poor wild fruit when I have ample 
 orchards open to me, where the finest peaches in the world 
 ripen. All Paris knows where my affections are placed. 
 That there should be at le Havre a young lady suffering from 
 some admiration, of which I am wholly unworthy, for the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1 43 
 
 verses I have written, my dear sir, would not astonish me ! 
 Nothing is commoner. Look there ! You see that handsome 
 ebony-box inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and fitted with iron 
 wrought as fine as lace. That coffer belonged to Pope Leo X.; 
 it was given to me by the Duchesse de Chaulieu, who had it 
 from the King of Spain. I have devoted it to the preserva- 
 tion of all the letters I receive from every part of Europe, 
 written by unknown women and girls. Oh ! I have the 
 greatest respect for those posies of flowers culled from the 
 very soul, and sent to me in a moment of enthusiasm that is 
 indeed worthy of all respect. Yes, to me the impulse of a 
 heart is a noble and beautiful thing ! Others, mocking spirits, 
 screw up such notes to light their cigars, or give them to 
 their wives for curl-papers ; I who am a bachelor, monsieur 
 have too much delicate feeling not to treasure these artless 
 and disinterested offerings in a kind of tabernacle ; indeed, I 
 hoard them with no little reverence, and when I am dying I 
 will see them burnt under my eyes. So much the worse for 
 those who think me ridiculous ! What is to be said ? I am 
 grateful by nature, and these testimonials help me to endure 
 the criticisms and annoyances of a literary life. When I 
 receive in my spine the broadside of an enemy in ambush 
 behind a newspaper, I look at that chest and say to myself, 
 * There are, here and there, a few souls whose wounds have 
 been healed, or beguiled or stanched by me ' ' 
 
 This rodomontade, pronounced with the cleverness of a 
 great actor, petrified the little cashier, whose eyes dilated 
 while his astonishment amused the great poet. 
 
 "To you," the peacock went on, still spreading his tail, 
 "out of respect for a position I can sympathize with, I can 
 but propose that you should open that treasury and look there 
 for your young lady ; but I never forget names. I know what 
 I am saying, and you are mistaken." 
 
 " And this is what happens to a poor girl in this gulf called 
 Paris ! " cried Dumay. " The idol of her parents, the delight
 
 144 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 of her friends, the hope, the darling of them all; the pride 
 of her family, for whom six persons have made a rampart 
 of their hearts and their fortunes against disaster ! " 
 
 Dumay paused, and then went on 
 
 " Well, monsieur, you are a great poet, and I am but a poor 
 soldier. For fifteen years, while I served my country in the 
 ranks, I felt the wind of many a bullet in my face, I crossed 
 Siberia, where I was kept a prisoner, the Russians flung me on 
 a truck like a bale of goods, I have endured everything ; I 
 have seen no end of my comrades die And you, mon- 
 sieur, have sent such a chill through my bones as I never felt 
 before ! " 
 
 Dumay believed that he had touched the poet; he had 
 flattered him an almost impossible achievement, for the am- 
 bitious man had by this time forgotten the first phial of pre- 
 cious balm that praise, it seemed now long past, had broken 
 on his head. 
 
 "You see, my brave friend," said the poet solemnly, as he 
 laid his hand on Dumay's shoulder, feeling it a strange thing 
 that he should be able to make a soldier of the Empire shiver, 
 
 " this girl is everything to you But to society, what is 
 
 she? Nothing. If at this moment the most important man- 
 darin in China is closing his eyes and putting the Empire into 
 mourning, does that grieve you deeply? In India the Eng- 
 lish are killing thousands of men as good as we are ; and at 
 this moment, as I speak, the most charming woman is there 
 being burnt but you have had coffee for breakfast all the 
 same? Indeed, at this minute, here in Paris, you may find 
 several mothers of families lying on straw and bringing a child 
 into the world without a rag to wrap it in ! And here is some 
 delicious tea in a cup that cost five louis, and I am writing 
 verses to make the ladies of Paris exclaim, ' Charming, charm- 
 ing! divine, exquisite ! it goes to the heart.? 1 
 
 "Social nature, like mother nature herself, is great at for- 
 getting. Ten years hence you will be amazed at the step you
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 145 
 
 have taken. You are in a city where we die, and marry, and 
 worship each other at an assignation ; where a girl suffocates 
 herself, while a man of genius and his cargo of ideas full of 
 humanitarian benefits go to the bottom, side by side, often 
 under the same roof, and knowing nothing of each other. 
 And you come and expect us to swoon with anguish at this 
 commonplace question, ' Is a certain young person at le Havre 
 this or that, or is she not? ' Oh, you really are " 
 
 " And you call yourself a poet ! " cried Dumay. " But do 
 you really feel nothing of what you depict?" 
 
 "If we felt all the misery or joy that we describe, we should 
 be worn out in a few months, like old shoes," said the poet, 
 smiling. "Listen, you shall not have come from le Havre 
 to Paris, and to me, Canalis, without having something to 
 take back with you. Soldier ! " and Canalis had the figure 
 and gesture of an Homeric hero "learn this from the poet, 
 ' Every noble feeling in each of us is a poem so essentially 
 individual that our best friend, our self, takes no interest in it. 
 It is a treasure belonging to each alone ' ; 
 
 " Forgive me for interrupting you," said Dumay, who 
 gazed at Canalis with horror, " but have you been to le 
 Havre?" 
 
 " I spent a night and day there in the spring of 1824 on 
 my way to London." 
 
 " You are a man of honor," Dumay went on. " Can you 
 give me your word of honor that you do not know Mademoi- 
 selle Modeste Mignon?" 
 
 "This is the first time I ever heard her name," replied 
 Canalis. 
 
 "Oh, monsieur," cried Dumay, "into what dark intrigue 
 am I about to plunge ? May I count on you to help me in 
 my inquiries ? For some one, I am certain, has been making 
 use of your name. You ought to have received a letter yes- 
 terday from le Havre." 
 
 " I have received nothing ! You may be sure, monsieur, 
 10
 
 146 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 that I will do all that lies in my power to be of service to 
 you." 
 
 Dumay took leave, his heart full of anxiety, believing that 
 hideous little Butscha had hidden himself in the semblance 
 of the great poet to captivate Modeste; while Butscha, on 
 the contrary, as keen and clever as a prince who avenges 
 himself, sharper than a spy, was making inquisition into the 
 poet's life and actions, escaping detection by his insignifi- 
 cance like an insect working its way into the young wood of 
 a tree. 
 
 The Breton had but just left when la Briere came into his 
 friend's room. Canalis naturally mentioned the visit of this 
 man from le Havre. 
 
 "Hah! " said Ernest, "Modeste Mignon ! I have come 
 on purpose to speak about that affair." 
 
 " Bless me ! " cried Canalis, " do you mean to say I have 
 made a conquest by proxy? " 
 
 " Why, yes, that is the turning-point of the drama. My 
 friend, I am loved by the sweetest girl in the world, beautiful 
 enough to shine among the beauties of Paris, with a heart and 
 education worthy of Clarissa Harlowe ; she has seen me, she 
 likes my looks and she believes me to be the great poet 
 Canalis. 
 
 " Nor is this all : Modeste Mignon is of good birth, and 
 Mongenod has just told me that her father, the Comte de la 
 Bastie, must have a fortune of something like six millions of 
 francs. This father has come home within three days, and I 
 have just begged him to arrange an interview with me, at two 
 o'clock through Mongenod, who in his note mentioned that 
 it concerned his daughter's happiness. You will understand 
 that before meeting the father I was bound to tell you every- 
 thing." 
 
 "Among all the blossoms that open to the sunshine of 
 fame," said Canalis with emphasis, "there is one glorious 
 plant which, like the orange, bears its golden fruit amid the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON, 147 
 
 thousand united perfumes of wit and beauty ! one elegant 
 shrub, one true passion, one perfect happiness and it has 
 evaded me ! " Canalis kept his eyes on the carpet that 
 Ernest might not read them. " How," he went on after a 
 pause, to recover his presence of mind, " how is it possible, 
 among the intoxicating scents of these fancy-paper notes, and 
 these phrases that mount to the brain, to detect the genuine 
 heart the girl, the woman, in whom true love is hidden 
 under the livery of flattery, who loves us for ourselves, and 
 who offers us happiness ? No one could do it but an angel or 
 a demon, and I am only an ambitious master of appeals ! 
 
 "Ah, my dear fellow, fame transforms us into a butt, a 
 target for a thousand arrows. One of us owed his marriage 
 to a copy of hydraulic verses ; and I, even more ingratiating, 
 more the ladies' man than he, shall have missed my chance 
 for you love this poor girl?" said he, looking intently at 
 la Briere. 
 
 "Oh! " cried la Briere. 
 
 "Well, then, be happy, Ernest," said the poet, taking his 
 friend's arm and leaning on it. "As it turns out, I shall not 
 have been ungrateful to you ! You are handsomely rewarded 
 for your devotion, for I will be generously helpful to your 
 happiness." 
 
 Canalis was furious, but he could not behave otherwise, so 
 he took the benefit of his ill-luck by using it as a pedestal. A 
 tear rose to the young secretary's eye ; he threw his arms about 
 Canalis and embraced him. 
 
 " Oh, Canalis, I did not half know you ! " 
 
 " What did you expect ? It takes time to travel around the 
 world," replied the poet with emphatic irony. 
 
 "Consider," said la Briere, "that immense fortune? 
 
 "Well, my friend, will it not be in good hands?" cried 
 Canalis, pointing his effusiveness by a charming gesture. 
 
 "Melchior," said la Briere, "I am yours in life and 
 death."
 
 148 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 He wrung the poet's hands and went away hastily ; he was 
 eager to see Monsieur Mignon. 
 
 At this hour the Comte de la Bastie was suffering all the 
 sorrows that had been lurking for him as their prey. He had 
 learned from his daughter's letter the facts of Bettina Car- 
 oline's death and her mother's blindness; and Dumay had 
 just told him the story of the terrible imbroglio of Modeste's 
 love affair. 
 
 "Leave me to myself," he said to his faithful friend. 
 
 When the lieutenant had closed the door, the unhappy 
 father threw himself on a couch and lay there, his head in his 
 hands, shedding the few thin tears that lie without falling un- 
 der the eyelids of a man of fifty-six, wetting them, but drying 
 quickly and rising again, the last dews of the autumn of human 
 life. 
 
 "To have children you love and a wife you adore is to 
 have many hearts and offer them all to the dagger!" cried 
 he, starting to his feet with a furious bound and pacing the 
 room. "To be a father is to give one's self over to misfortune, 
 bound hand and foot. If I meet that fellow d'Estournyl will 
 kill him. Daughters! Who would have daughters? One 
 gets hold of a scoundrel; and the other, my Modeste, of what? 
 A coward, who deludes her under the gilt-paper armor of a 
 poet. If only it were Canalis ! There would be no great 
 harm done. But this Scapin of a lover ! I will throttle him 
 with my own hands ! " said he to himself, with an involuntary 
 gesture of energetic atrocity. "And what then," he thought,, 
 " if my child should die of grief? " 
 
 Mechanically he looked out of the window of the Hotel des 
 Princes, and came back to sit down on the divan, where he 
 remained motionless. The fatigue of six voyages to the 
 Indies, the anxieties of investments, the dangers he had met 
 and escaped, care and sorrow had silvered Charles Mignon's 
 hair. His fine military face, clean in outline, was bronzed
 
 MODES TE MIGNON. 149 
 
 by the sun of Malaysia, China, and Asia Minor, and had 
 assumed an imposing expression, which grief at this moment 
 made sublime. 
 
 "And Mongenod tells me I can perfectly trust the young 
 man who is to come to speak to me about my daughter ! " 
 
 Ernest de la Briere was just then announced by one of the 
 servants whom the Comte de la Bastie had attached to him in 
 the course of these four years, and had picked out from the 
 crowd of men under him. 
 
 " You come, monsieur, with an introduction from my friend 
 Mongenod?" said he. 
 
 "Yes," replied Ernest, gazing timidly at a face as gloomy 
 as Othello's. " My name is Ernest de la Briere, connected, 
 monsieur, with the family of the late prime minister ; I was his 
 private secretary when he was in office. At his fall, his excel- 
 lency was good enough to place me in the court of exchequer, 
 where I am now a first-class referendary, and where I may rise 
 to be a master " 
 
 "And what has all this to do with Mademoiselle de la 
 Bastie?" asked Charles Mignon. 
 
 " Monsieur, I love her, and it is my unhoped-for happiness 
 to be loved by her. Listen, monsieur," said Ernest, inter- 
 rupting a terrible movement on the part of the angry father, 
 " I have the strangest confession to make to you, the most 
 ignominious for a man of honor. And the worst punishment 
 of my conduct, which perhaps was natural, is not this rev- 
 elation to you I dread the daughter even more than the 
 father." 
 
 Ernest then told the prologue of this domestic drama, 
 quite simply, and with the dignity of sincerity; he did not 
 omit the twenty and odd letters they had exchanged he had 
 brought them with him nor the interview he had just had 
 with Canalis. When the father had read all these letters, the 
 poor lover, pale and suppliant, quaked before the fiery looks 
 of the Provencal.
 
 150 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "Well, monsieur," said Mignon, "in all this, there is 
 only one mistake, but it is all-important. My daughter has 
 not six millions of francs ; her fortune at most is two hun- 
 dred thousand francs in settlement, and very doubtful expec- 
 tations." 
 
 " Oh, monsieur ! " cried Ernest, throwing his arms around 
 Charles Mignon and hugging him, " you relieve me of a 
 load that oppressed me. Now, perhaps, nothing will come in 
 the way of my happiness ! I have interest ; I shall soon be 
 master of the exchequer. If she had but ten thousand francs, 
 if I had to accept nominal settlements, Mademoiselle Mignon 
 would still be the wife of my choice ; and to make her happy, 
 as happy as you have made yours, to be a true son to you 
 yes, monsieur, for my father is dead this is the deepest wish 
 of my heart." 
 
 Charles Mignon drew back three steps, and fixed on la 
 Briere a look that sank into the young man's eyes, as a pon- 
 iard goes into its sheath ; then he stood silent, reading in 
 those fascinated eyes and on that eager countenance the most 
 perfect candor and the purest truthfulness. 
 
 "Is fate at -last wearied out?" said he to himself in an 
 undertone. " Can I have found a paragon son-in-law in this 
 youth ? " He walked up and down the room in great excite- 
 ment. 
 
 "Well, monsieur," he said at length, "you owe implicit 
 obedience to the sentence you have come to ask, for otherwise 
 you would at this moment be acting a mere farce." 
 
 " Indeed, monsieur " 
 
 "Listen to me," said the father, nailing la Briere to the 
 spot by a look. " I will be neither severe, nor hard, nor un- 
 just. You must take the disadvantages with the advantages 
 of the false position in which you have placed yourself. My 
 daughter imagines that she is in love with one of the great 
 poets of our day, whose fame chiefly has fascinated her. 
 Well, then, ought not I, as her father, to enable her to choose
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1 51 
 
 between the celebrity which has seemed a lighthouse to her, 
 and the humble reality thrown to her by chance in the irony 
 it so often allows itself? Must she not be free to choose be- 
 tween you and Canalis. I trust to your honor to be silent as 
 to what I have just told you concerning the state of my af- 
 fairs. You and your friend, the Baron de Canalis, must come 
 to spend the last fortnight of this month of October at le 
 Havre. My house will be open to you both ; my daughter 
 will have the opportunity of knowing you. Remember, you 
 yourself are to bring your rival, and to allow him to believe 
 all the fables that may be current as to the Comte de la 
 Bastie's millions. I shall be at le Havre by to-morrow, and 
 shall expect you three days later. Good-morning, mon- 
 sieur." 
 
 Poor la Briere very slowly made his way back to Canalis. 
 At that moment the poet, face to face with himself, could 
 give himself up to the torrent of reflections that flow from 
 that " second thought " which Talleyrand so highly praised. 
 The first thought is the impulse of nature, the second that of 
 society. 
 
 " A girl with six millions of francs ! And my eyes failed 
 to discern the glitter of that gold through the darkness ! 
 With such a fortune as that, I can be a peer of France, count, 
 ambassador ! I have answered the most ordinary women, 
 simpletons, intriguing girls who only wanted an autograph ! 
 And I rebelled against these bal masque wiles on the very day 
 when heaven sent me a chosen soul, an angel with wings of 
 gold ! Pooh ! I will write a sublime poem, and the chance 
 will come again ! What luck for that little la Briere, who 
 spread his tail in my sunbeams ! And what plagiary. I am 
 the model, and he is to be the statue ! This is playing the 
 fable of 'Bertrand and Raton.' Six millions, and an angel, 
 a Mignon de la Bastie ! An aristocratic angel, who loves 
 poetry and the poet ! And I meanwhile display my muscles 
 as a strong man, perform athletics, like Alcides, to astonish
 
 152 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 this champion of physical strength by moral force this brave 
 soldier full of fine feeling, this young girl's friend, who will 
 tell her I have a soul of iron. I am playing Napoleon, when 
 I ought to show myself as a seraph ! I shall have won a 
 friend perhaps, and have paid dear for him ; but friendship is 
 a fine thing. Six millions that is the price of a friend ; a 
 man cannot have many at that figure ! ' ' 
 
 At this last point of exclamation la Briere came into his 
 friend's room ; he was depressed. 
 
 "Well, what is the matter? " said Canalis. 
 
 " The father insists that his daughter shall be enabled to 
 choose between the two Canalis " 
 
 "Poor boy ! " said the poet, laughing. " A clever man is 
 that father ! " 
 
 " I have pledged my honor to take you to le Havre," said 
 la Briere dolefully. 
 
 "My dear boy," said Canalis, "if your honor is at stake, 
 you may depend upon me. I will ask for a month's leave of 
 absence. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, Modeste is lovely!" cried la Briere in despair, 
 " and you will easily extinguish me ! Still, I was amazed to 
 find good fortune coming my way ; I said to myself, it is all 
 a mistake ! " 
 
 "Pooh! We shall see," said Canalis with ruthless cheer- 
 fulness. 
 
 That evening, after dinner, Charles Mignon and his cashier 
 were flying, at the cost of three francs a stage to the pos- 
 tillion, from Paris to le Havre. The father had completely 
 allayed his watch-dog's alarms as to Modeste's love affairs, had 
 released him from his responsibilities, and reassured him as to 
 Butscha's proceedings. 
 
 "Everything is for the best, my good old friend," said 
 Charles, who had made inquiries of Mongenod as to Canalis 
 and la Briere. "We have two players for one part," he 
 added, laughing.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 153 
 
 At the same time, he enjoined absolute silence on his old 
 comrade as to the comedy about to be played at the chalet 
 and his gentle revenge, or, if you will, the lesson to be giveii 
 by a father to his child. From Paris to le Havre was one 
 long dialogue between the friends, by which the colonel 
 learned the smallest events that had happened in his family 
 during the past four years; and Charles told Dumay that 
 Desplein, the great surgeon, was to come before the end of 
 the month to examine the Countess' eyes and decide whether 
 it would be possible to remove the cataract and restore her 
 sight. 
 
 A few minutes before the breakfast hour at the chalet, the 
 cracking of a whip, by a postillion counting on a large gra- 
 tuity, announced the return of the two soldiers. Only the joy 
 of a father coming home to his family after a long absence 
 would give rise to such a detonation, and all the women were 
 standing at the little gate. 
 
 There are so many fathers, and so many children more 
 fathers perhaps than children who can enter the excitement 
 of such a meeting, that literature is never required to depict it ; 
 happily ! for the finest words, and poetry itself, are inadequate 
 to such emotions. Perhaps, indeed, the sweeter emotions 
 have no literary side. 
 
 Not a word was spoken that day that could disturb the 
 happiness of the Mignon family. There was a truce between 
 the father, the mother, and the daughter as to the mysterious 
 love affair which had paled Modeste's cheek. She was up to- 
 day for the first time. The colonel, with the delicate tender- 
 ness that characterizes a true soldier, sat all the time by his 
 wife's side, her hand constantly held in his, and he watched 
 Modeste, never tired of admiring her refined, elegant, and 
 poetic beauty. Is it not by such small things that we know a 
 man of true feeling? 
 
 Modeste, fearful of troubling the melancholy happiness of 
 her father and mother, came from time to time to kiss the
 
 154 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 traveler's brow, and by kissing him so often seemed to wish 
 to kiss him for two. 
 
 " Ah, darling child ! I understand you," said her father, 
 pressing Modeste's hand at a moment when she was smother- 
 ing him with affection. 
 
 "Hush! " whispered Modeste in his ear, pointing to her 
 mother. 
 
 Dumay's rather perfidious silence left Modeste very uneasy 
 as to the results of his journey to Paris ; she now and then 
 stole a look at the lieutenant, but could not penetrate that 
 tough skin. The colonel, as a prudent father, wished to 
 study his only daughter's nature, and, above all, to consult 
 his wife, before proceeding to a discussion on which the hap- 
 piness of the whole family would depend. 
 
 "To-morrow, my dearest child, rise early," said he at 
 night, " and, if it is fine, we will go for a walk together on 
 the seashore. We have to talk over your poems, Mademoiselle 
 de la Bastie." 
 
 These words, spoken with a smile that was reflected on 
 Dumay's lips, were all Modeste could know ; still, this was 
 enough to allay her anxiety and to make her too curious to 
 get to sleep till late, so busy was her fancy. 
 
 Next morning Modeste was dressed and ready before the 
 colonel. 
 
 "You know everything, my dear father," said she, as soon 
 as they had started on their way to the sea. 
 
 " I know everything and a good many things that you do 
 not know," replied he. 
 
 Thereupon the father and daughter walked some few steps 
 in silence. 
 
 "Now, tell me, my child, how a daughter so worshiped by 
 her mother could take so decisive a step as to write to a man 
 unknown to her without asking that mother's advice? " 
 
 " Well, papa, because mamma would not have allowed it,"
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 155 
 
 And do you think, my child, that it was right ? Though 
 you have inevitably been left to bring yourself up, how 
 is it that your reason or your insight if modesty Vailed 
 you did not tell you that to act in such a way was to throw 
 yourself at a man's head? Can it be that my daughter, my 
 only child, lacks pride and delicacy ? Oh ! Modeste, you 
 gave your father two hours of hell's torments in Paris j for, in 
 point of fact your conduct, morally, has been the same as 
 Bettina's, without having the excuse of seduction ; you have 
 been a coquette in cold blood, and that is love without heart, 
 the worst vice of the Frenchwoman." 
 
 " I without pride ? " said Modeste in tears. " But he has 
 never seen me ! " 
 
 "He knows your name." 
 
 " I never let him know it till the moment when our eyes 
 had set the seal to three months of correspondence, during 
 which our souls had spoken to each other ! " 
 
 " Yes, my dear mistaken angel, you have brought a kind 
 of reason to bear on this madness which has compromised 
 your happiness and your family." 
 
 " Well, after all, papa, happiness is the justification of such 
 boldness," said she, with a touch of temper. 
 
 "Ah ! Then it is merely boldness? " cried her father. 
 
 "Such boldness as my mother allowed herself," she an- 
 swered hastily. 
 
 " Refractory child ! Your mother, after meeting me at a 
 ball, told her father, who adored her, the same evening that 
 she believed she could be happy with me. Now, be candid, 
 Modeste ; is there any resemblance between love, at first sight 
 it is true, but under a father's eye, and the mad act of writing 
 to an unknown man ?" 
 
 " An unknown man ? Nay, papa, one of our greatest poets, 
 whose character and life are under the light of day, exposed 
 to gossip and calumny ; a man clothed in glory, to whom, 
 my dear father, I was but a dramatic, literary personage a
 
 156 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 girl of Shakespeare's until the moment when I felt I must 
 know whether the man was as attractive as his soul is beau- 
 tiful." 
 
 " Bless me, my poor child, you are dreaming of poetry in 
 connection with marriage. But if in all ages girls have been 
 cloistered in the family ; if God and social law have placed 
 them under the stern yoke of parental sanction, it is precisely 
 and on purpose to spare them the misfortunes to which the 
 poetry that fascinates you must lead while it dazzles you, and 
 which you therefore cannot estimate at its true worth. Poetry 
 is one of the graces of life; it is not the whole of life." 
 
 " Papa, it is an action for ever undecided before the tri- 
 bunal of facts, for there is a constant struggle between our 
 hearts and the family authority." 
 
 "Woe to the girl who should find happiness by means of 
 such resistance !" said the colonel gravely. "In 1813 one 
 of my fellow-officers, the Marquis d'Aiglemont, married his 
 cousin against her father's warnings, and the household paid 
 dearly for the obstinacy that a girl could mistake for love. 
 In these matters the family is supreme." 
 
 " My fiance has told me all that," said she. " He assumed 
 the part of Orgon for some time, and had the courage to run 
 down the personal character of poets." 
 
 "I have read the correspondence," said her father, with a 
 meaning smile that made Modeste uneasy. "And I may, on 
 that point, remark that your last letter would hardly be allow- 
 able in a girl who had been seduced in a Julie d'Etanges. 
 Good God ! what mischief comes of romances! " 
 
 " If they were never written, my dear father, we should 
 still enact them. It is better to read them. There are fewer 
 romantic adventures now than in the time of Louis XIV. and 
 Louis XV., when fewer novels were published. Beside, if you 
 have read our letters, you must have perceived that I have found 
 you for a son-in-law the most respectful son, the most angelic 
 nature, the strictest honestv, and that we love each other at
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 157 
 
 least as much as you and mamma did. Well, I will admit 
 that the affair has not been conducted exactly as etiquette 
 requires. I made a mistake, if you like " 
 
 "I have read your letters," repeated her father, interrupt- 
 ing her, "so I know how he justified you in your own eyes 
 for a step which might perhaps be excusable in a woman who 
 knows life, who is carried away by passion, but which in a 
 girl of twenty is a monstrous fault ' ' 
 
 " A fault in common people's eyes, in those of narrow- 
 minded Gobenheims, who measure out life with a T-square ! 
 But do not let us go beyond the artistic and poetic world, 
 papa. We young girls live between two alternatives: we 
 may show a man that we love him by mincing graces, or we 
 may go to meet him frankly. And is not this last method 
 really great and noble ? We French girls are disposed of by 
 our family like merchandise, at three months' date, sometimes 
 much sooner, like Mademoiselle Vilquin ; but in England, 
 Switzerland, and Germany they are married more nearly on 
 the system I have adopted. What can you say to that ? Am 
 I not half-German?" 
 
 "Child," exclaimed the colonel, looking at his daughter, 
 "the superiority of France lies precisely in the commonsense, 
 the strict logic to which our splendid language compels the 
 mind. France is the reason of the world ! England and 
 Germany are romantic in this point ; but even there the great 
 families follow our custom. You girls would rather not be- 
 lieve, then, that your parents, who know life, have the charge 
 of your souls and your happiness, and that it is their duty to 
 steer you clear of the rocks ! Good God ! " he went on, " is 
 this their fault or ours ? Ought we to bend our children under 
 a yoke of iron ? Must we always be punished for the tender- 
 ness which prompts us to make them happy, which, unfortu- 
 nately, makes them heart of our heart ! " 
 
 As she heard this ejaculation, spoken almost with tears, 
 Modeste cast a side glance at her father.
 
 158 MODESTE M1GNON. 
 
 "Is it wrong in a girl whose heart is free," said she, " to 
 choose for her husband a man who is not only charming in 
 himself, but who is also a man of genius, of good birth, and 
 in a fine position a gentleman as gentle as myself?" 
 
 "Then you love him?" said the colonel. 
 
 "I tell you, father," said she, laying her head on his 
 breast, " if you do not want to see me die " 
 
 " That is enough," said the colonel, " your passion is, I see, 
 unchangeable." 
 
 " Unchangeable." 
 
 " Nothing could move you ? " 
 
 " Nothing in the world." 
 
 "You can conceive of no alteration, no betrayal," her 
 father went on. " You love him for better, for worse, for the 
 sake of his personal charms ; and if he should be a d'Estourny, 
 you still would love him ? " 
 
 " Oh, papa, you do not know your child ! Could I love a 
 coward, a man devoid of truth and honor a gallows-bird? " 
 
 " Then supposing you have been deceived ? " 
 
 " By that charming young fellow, so candid almost mel- 
 ancholy ? You are laughing at me, or you have not seen 
 him." 
 
 " I see; happily your love is not so imperative as you say. 
 I have suggested conditions which might modify your poem. 
 Well, then, you will admit that fathers are of some use? " 
 
 " You wanted to give me a lesson, papa a sort of object- 
 lesson, it would seem." 
 
 "Poor misled girl ! " said her father severely; "the lesson 
 is not of my giving ; I have nothing to do with it beyond 
 trying to soften the blow." 
 
 " Say no more, papa ; do not trifle with my very life," said 
 Modeste, turning pale. 
 
 " Nay, my child, summon up your courage. It is you 
 who have trifled with life, and life now laughs you to scorn." 
 
 Modeste looked at her father in bewilderment.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 159 
 
 "Listen; if the young man you love, whom you saw in 
 church at le Havre four days ago, were a contemptible 
 wretch ' ' 
 
 "It is not true!" said she. "That pale, dark face, so 
 noble and full of poetry " 
 
 "Is a lie! " said the colonel, interrupting her. "He is 
 no more Monsieur de Canalis than I am that fisherman hauling 
 up his sail to go out " 
 
 "Do you know what you are killing in me?" returned 
 Modeste. 
 
 " Be comforted, my child ; though fate has made your 
 fault its own punishment, the mischief is not irreparable. The 
 youth you saw, with whom you have exchanged hearts by cor- 
 respondence, is an honest fellow ; he came to me to confess 
 his dilemma. He loves you, and I should not object to him 
 as a son-in-law." 
 
 "And if he is not Canalis, who is he?" asked Modeste, 
 in a broken voice. 
 
 " His secretary. His name is Ernest de la Briere. He is 
 not of superior birth, but he is one of those average men, 
 with solid virtues and sound morals, whom parents like. 
 And what does it matter to us, after all ? You have seen 
 him ; nothing can change your feelings ; you have chosen 
 him, you know his soul it is as noble as he is good-looking." 
 
 The Comte de la Bastie was checked by a sigh from Mod- 
 este. The poor child, perfectly white, her eyes fixed on the 
 sea, and as rigid as the dead, had been struck as by a pistol- 
 shot by the words, " One of those average men, with solid vir- 
 tues and sound morals, whom parents like." 
 
 " Deceived ! " she said at last. 
 
 "As your poor sister was, but less seriously." 
 
 "Let us go home, papa," she said, rising from the knoll 
 on which they had been sitting. " Listen, father ; I swear 
 before God to obey your wishes, whatever they may be, in the 
 business of marriage. ' '
 
 160 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "Then you have already ceased to love?" asked her father 
 sarcastically. 
 
 " I loved a true man without a falsehood on his face, as 
 honest as you yourself, incapable of disguising himself like an 
 actor, of dressing himself up in another man's glory." 
 
 "You said that nothing could move you ! " said the col- 
 onel ironically. 
 
 " Oh, do not make game of me ! " cried she, clasping her 
 hands, and looking at her father in an agony of entreaty. 
 "You do not know how you are torturing my heart and my 
 dearest beliefs by your satire " 
 
 " God forbid ! I have said the exact truth." 
 
 "You are very good, father," she replied, after a pause, 
 with a certain solemnity. 
 
 "And he has your letters ! Heh?" said Charles Mignon. 
 " If those crazy effusions of your soul had fallen into the 
 hands of one of those poets who, according to Dumay, use 
 them for pipe-lights " 
 
 "Oh, that is going too far." 
 
 "So Canalis told him." 
 
 "He saw Canalis?" 
 
 "Yes," replied the colonel. 
 
 They walked on a little way in silence. 
 
 "That, then," said Modeste, when they had gone a few 
 steps, "was why that gentleman spoke so ill of poets and 
 poetry ! Why did that little secretary talk of? But, how- 
 ever," she added, interrupting herself, "were not his virtues, 
 his qualities, his fine sentiments, a mere epistolary make-up ? 
 The man who can steal another one's fame and name may very 
 well " 
 
 "Pick locks, rob the treasury, murder on the highway," 
 said Charles Mignon, smiling. " That is just like you you 
 girls, with your uncompromising feelings and your ignorance 
 of life. A man who can deceive a woman has either escaped 
 the scaffold or must end there."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1 61 
 
 This raillery checked Modeste's effervescence, and again 
 they were both silent. 
 
 "My child," the colonel added, "men in the world as 
 in nature, for that matter are bound to try to win your 
 hearts, and you to defend them. You have reversed the posi- 
 tion. Is that well? In a false position everything is false. 
 Yours, then, was the first wrong step. No, a man is not a 
 monster because he tries to attract a woman ; our rights allow 
 us to be the aggressors, with all the consequences, short of 
 crime and baseness. A man may still have virtues even after 
 throwing over a woman, for this simply means that he has 
 failed to find the treasure he sought in her ; while no woman 
 but a queen, an actress, or a woman so far above the man in 
 rank that to him she is like a queen, can take the initiative 
 without incurring much blame. But a girl ! She is false to 
 everything that God has given her, every flower of saintli- 
 ness, dignity, and sweetness, whatever grace, poetry, or pre- 
 caution she may infuse into the act." 
 
 " To seek the master and find the servant ! To play the 
 old farce of Love and Chance on one side only ! " she ex- 
 claimed, with bitter feeling. " Oh, I shall never hold up my 
 head again ! ' ' 
 
 " Foolish child ! Monsieur Ernest de la Briere is, in my 
 eyes, at least the equal of Monsieur de Canalis ; he has been 
 private secretary to a prime minister, he is referendary to the 
 court of exchequer, he is a man of heart, he adores you but 
 he does not write verses. No, I confess it, he is not a poet ; 
 but he may have a heart full of poetry. However, my poor 
 child," he added, in reply to Modeste's face of disgust, "you 
 will see them both the false and the real Canalis 
 
 "Oh, papa! " 
 
 " Did you not swear to obey me in everything that con- 
 cerns the business of your marriage ? Well, you may choose 
 between them the man you prefer for your husband. You 
 began with a poem, you may end with a page of bucolics by 
 11
 
 162 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 trying to detect the true nature of these gentlemen in some 
 rustic excursions, a shooting or a fishing party." 
 
 Modeste bent her head and returned to the chalet with her 
 father, listening to what he said, and answering in monosylla- 
 bles. She had fallen humiliated into the depths of a bog, 
 from the Alp where she fancied she had flown up to an eagle's 
 nest. To adopt the poetical phraseology of an author of that 
 period, "After feeling the soles of her feet too tender to 
 tread on the glass sherds of reality, fancy, which had united 
 every characteristic of woman in that fragile form, from the 
 day-dreams of a modest girl, all strewn with violets, to the 
 unbridled desires of a courtesan, had now led her into the 
 midst of her enchanted gardens, where, hideous surprise ! 
 instead of an exquisite blossom, she found growing from the 
 soil the hairy and twisted limbs of the Mandragora." 
 
 From the mystic heights of her love Modeste had dropped 
 on to the dull, flat road, lying between ditches and ploughed 
 lands the road, in short, that is paved with vulgarity. What 
 girl with an ardent spirit but would be broken by such a fall? 
 At whose feet had she cast her promises ? 
 
 The Modeste who returned to the chalet bore no more re- 
 semblance to the girl who had gone out two hours before, 
 than the actress in the street resembles the heroine on the 
 stage. She sank into a state of apathy that was painful to be- 
 hold. The sun was darkened, nature was under a shroud, the 
 flowers had no message for her. Like every girl of a vehe- 
 ment disposition, she drank a little too deeply of the cup of 
 disenchantment. She rebelled against reality, without choos- 
 ing as yet to bend her neck to the yoke of the family and of 
 society ; she thought it too heavy, too hard, too oppressive. 
 She would not even listen to the comfort offered by her father 
 and mother, and felt an indescribable savage delight in 
 abandoning herself wholly and unrestrainedly to her mental 
 sufferings.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1G3 
 
 " Then poor Butscha was right ! " she exclaimed one even- 
 ing. 
 
 This speech shows how far she had traveled in so short a 
 time on the barren plains of reality, guided by her deep de- 
 jection. Grief, when it comes of the upheaval of all our 
 hopes, is an illness ; it often ends in death. It would be no 
 mean occupation for modern physiology to investigate the 
 process and means by which a thought can produce the same 
 deadly effects as a poison ; how despair can destroy the appe- 
 tite, injure the pylorus, and change all the functions of the 
 strongest vitality. This was the case with Modeste. In 
 three days she presented an image of morbid melancholy; she 
 sang no more, it was impossible to make her smile ; her 
 parents and friends were alarmed. Charles Mignon, uneasy 
 at seeing nothing of the two young men, was thinking of 
 going to Paris, remind la Briere of his promise, and fetch 
 them ; but on the fourth day Monsieur Latournelle had news 
 of them, and this was how : 
 
 Canalis, immensely tempted by such a rich marriage, would 
 neglect no means of outdoing la Briere, while Ernest could 
 not complain of his having violated the laws of friendship. 
 The poet thought that nothing put a lover at a greater disad- 
 vantage in a young lady's eyes than figuring in an inferior 
 position ; so he proposed, in the most innocent manner pos- 
 sible, that he and la Briere should keep house together, 
 taking a little country place at Ingouville, where they might 
 live for a month under pretext of recruiting their health. 
 
 As soon as la Briere had consented to this proposal, at 
 first regarding it as very natural, Canalis insisted on his being 
 his guest, and made all the arrangements himself. He sent 
 his manservant to le Havre, desiring him to apply to Mon- 
 sieur Latournelle for the choice of a country cottage at 
 Ingouville, thinking that the notary would certainly talk over 
 the matter with the Mignon family. Ernest and Canalis, it 
 may be supposed, had discussed every detail of their adven-
 
 164 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 ture; and la Briere, always prolix, had given his rival a 
 thousand valuable hints. 
 
 The servant, understanding his master's intentions, carried 
 them out to admiration ; he trumpeted the advent of the 
 great poet, to whom his doctors had ordered some sea-baths 
 to recruit him after the double fatigues of politics and liter- 
 ature. This grand personage required a house of at least so 
 many rooms ; for he was bringing his secretary, his cook, two 
 menservants, and a coachman, not to mention Monsieur Ger- 
 main Bonnet, his body-servant. The traveling carriage the 
 poet selected and hired for a month was very neat, and could 
 serve for making some excursions ; and Germain was in search 
 of two saddle-horses for hire in the neighborhood, as Monsieur 
 le Baron and his secretary were fond of horse exercise. In 
 the presence of little Latournelle, Germain, as he went over 
 various houses, spoke much of the secretary, and rejected two 
 villas on the ground that Monsieur de la Briere would not be 
 well accommodated. 
 
 "Monsieur le Baron," said he, "regards his secretary as 
 his best friend. Oh, I should catch it handsomely if Monsieur 
 de la Briere was not as well served as Monsieur le Baron 
 himself. And, after all, Monsieur de la Briere is referendary 
 to the court of exchequer." 
 
 Germain was never seen dressed otherwise than in a suit of 
 black, with good gloves and boots, turned out like a gentle- 
 man. Imagine the effect he produced, and the notion that 
 was formed of the great poet from this specimen. A clever 
 man's servant becomes clever too ; the master's cleverness 
 presently "runs" and colors the man. Germain did not 
 overact his part ; he was straightforward and genial, as Canalis 
 had, instructed him to be. Poor la Briere had no suspicion 
 of the injury Germain was doing him, or of the depreciation 
 to which he had exposed himself; for some echoes of public 
 report arose from the lower depths to Modeste's ears. Thus 
 Canalis was bringing his friend in his retinue, in his carriage;
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 165 
 
 and Ernest's simple nature did not allow him to perceive his 
 false position soon enough to remedy it. 
 
 The delay which so provoked Charles Mignon was caused 
 by the poet's desire to have his arms painted on the doors of 
 the chaise, and by his orders to the tailor ; for Canalis took 
 in the wide world of such trivialities, of which the least may 
 influence a girl. 
 
 " Make yourself easy," said Latournelle to the colonel on 
 the fifth day. " Monsieur de Canalis' man came to a deter- 
 mination this morning. He has taken Madame Amaury's 
 cottage at San vie, furnished, for seven hundred francs, and 
 has written to his master that he can start, and will find every- 
 thing ready on his arrival. So the gentlemen will be here by 
 Sunday. I have also had this note from Butscha. Here it 
 is not long : ' My dear master, I cannot get back before 
 Sunday. Between this and then I must get some important 
 information which nearly concerns some one in whom you are 
 interested.' " 
 
 The announcement of this arrival did not make Modeste at 
 all less sad; the sense of a fall, of humiliation, still held sway 
 over her, and she was not such a born coquette as her father 
 thought her. There is a charming and permissible kind of 
 flirtation, the coquetry of the soul, which might be called the 
 good breeding of love ; and Charles Mignon, when reproving 
 his daughter, had failed to distinguish between the desire to 
 please and the factitious love of the jnind, between the craving 
 of love and self-interest. Just like a soldier of the Empire, he 
 saw in the letters he had so hastily read a girl throwing herself 
 at a poet's head ; but in many letters ^omitted here for the 
 sake of brevity a connoisseur would have admired the maid- 
 enly and graceful reserve which Modeste had immediately 
 substituted for the aggressive and frivolous pertness of her first 
 effusions a transition very natural in a woman. 
 
 On one point her father had been cruelly right. It was her 
 last letter in which Modeste, carried away by threefold love,
 
 166 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 had spoken as though their marriage was a decided thing, 
 which really brought her to shame. Still, she thought her 
 father very hard, very cruel, to compel her to receive a man 
 so unworthy of her, toward whom her soul had flown almost 
 unveiled. She had questioned Dumay as to his interview with 
 the poet ; she had ingeniously extracted from him every detail, 
 and she could not think Canalis such a barbarian as the lieu- 
 tenant thought him. She could smile at the fine papal chest 
 containing the letters of the mille et trois ladies of this literary 
 Don Giovanni. Again and again she was on the point of 
 saying to her father, " I am not the only girl who writes to 
 him; the cream of womankind sends leaves for the poet's 
 crown of bay." 
 
 In the course of this week Modeste's character underwent 
 a transformation. This catastrophe and it was a great one 
 to so poetical a nature aroused her latent acumen and spirit 
 of mischief, and her suitors were to find her a formidable 
 adversary. For, in fact, in any girl, if her heart is chilled, 
 her head grows clear ; she then observes everything with a 
 certain swiftness of judgment and a spirit of mockery, such as 
 Shakespeare has admirably painted in the person of Beatrice 
 in "Much Ado about Nothing." Modeste was seized by 
 intense disgust of mankind, since the most distinguished of 
 them had deceived her hopes. In love, what a woman mis- 
 takes for disgust is simply seeing clearly ; but in matters of 
 feeling no woman, especially no young girl, ever sees truly. 
 When she ceases to admire, she contemns. So Modeste, after 
 going through fearful tortures of mind, inevitably put on the 
 armor on which, as she declared, she had stamped the word 
 Contempt ; thenceforward she could look on as a disinterested 
 spectator at what she called the Farce of Suitors ; although she 
 filled the part of leading lady. More especially was she bent 
 on pertinaciously humiliating and scornfully treating Monsieur 
 de la Briere. 
 
 " Modeste is saved," said Madame Mignon to her husband
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 167 
 
 with a smile. " She means to be revenged on the false Can- 
 alis by trying to fall in love with the true one." 
 
 This was, indeed, Modeste's plan. It was so obvious that 
 her mother, to whom she confided her vexation, advised her 
 to treat Monsieur de la Briere with oppressive civility. 
 
 "These two young fellows," said Madame Latournelle on 
 the Saturday, " have no suspicion of the troop of spies at 
 their heels, for here are eight of us to keep an eye on them." 
 
 " What, my dear two? " cried little Latournelle ; " there 
 are three of them ! Gobenheim is not here yet, so I may 
 speak. ' ' 
 
 Modeste had looked up, and all the others, following her 
 example, gazed at the notary. 
 
 " A third lover, and he is a lover, has put himself on the 
 list " 
 
 " Bless me ! " said Charles Mignon. 
 
 "But he is no less a person," the notary went on pomp- 
 ously, "than his lordship Monsieur le Due d'Herouville, 
 Marquis de Saint-Sever, Due de Nivron, Comte de Bayeux, 
 Vicomte d'Essigny, High Equerry of France, and Peer of the 
 Realm, Knight of the Orders of the Spur and of the Golden 
 Fleece, Grandee of Spain, and son of the last Governor of 
 Normandy. He saw Mademoiselle Modeste when he was 
 staying with the Vilquins, and he then only regretted as his 
 notary told me, who arrived yesterday from Bayeux that she 
 was not rich enough for him, since his father, on his return 
 from exile, had found nothing left but his chateau of Herou- 
 ville, graced by his sister's presence. The young Duke is 
 three-and-thirty. I am definitely charged to make overtures, 
 Monsieur le Comte," added Latournelle, turning respectfully 
 to the colonel. 
 
 "Ask Modeste," said her father, "whether she wishes to 
 have another bird in her aviary ; for, so far as I am concerned, 
 I am quite willing that this fine gentleman equerry should pay 
 his addresses to her."
 
 168 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Notwithstanding the care with which Charles Mignon 
 avoided seeing anybody, for he stayed in the chalet and never 
 went out but with Modeste ; Gobenheim, whom they could 
 hardly cease to receive at the chalet, had gossiped about 
 Dumay's wealth ; for Dumay, a second father to Modeste, had 
 said to Gobenheim when he left his service, " I shall be my 
 colonel's steward, and all my money, excepting what my wife 
 may keep, will go to my little Modeste's children." 
 
 So every one at le Havre had echoed the plain question 
 that Latournelle had asked himself 
 
 " Must not Monsieur Charles Mignon have made an enor- 
 mous fortune if Dumay's share amounts to six hundred thou- 
 sand francs and if Dumay is to be his steward?" 
 
 " Monsieur Mignon came home in a ship of his own," said 
 the gossips on 'Change, "loaded with indigo. The freight 
 alone, not to mention the vessel, is worth more than he gives 
 out to be his fortune." 
 
 The colonel would not discharge the servants he had so 
 carefully chosen during his travels, so he was obliged to hire 
 a house for six months in the lower part of Ingouville ; he 
 had a body-servant, a cook, and a coachman both negroes 
 and a mulatto woman and two mulatto men on whose faith- 
 fulness he could rely. The coachman was inquiring for riding 
 horses for mademoiselle and his master, and for carriage horses 
 for the chaise in which the colonel and the lieutenant had 
 come home. This traveling carriage, purchased in Paris, was 
 in the latest fashion, and bore the arms of la Bastie with a 
 Count's coronet. All these things, mere trifles in the eyes of 
 a man who had been living for four years in the midst of the 
 unbounded luxury of the Indies, of the Hong merchants, 
 and the English at Canton, were the subject of comment to 
 the traders of le Havre and the good folks of Graville and 
 Ingouville. Within five days there was a hubbub of talk 
 which flashed across Normandy like a fired train of gunpowder. 
 " Monsieur Mignon has come home from China with mil-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. j,;;, 
 
 lions," was said at Rouen, "and it would seem that he has 
 become a Count in the course of his travels." 
 
 "But he was Comte de la Bastie before the revolution," 
 somebody remarked. 
 
 "So a Liberal, who for five-and twenty years was known 
 as Charles Mignon, is now called Monsieur le Comte ! What 
 are we coming to ? " 
 
 Thus, in spite of the reserve of her parents and intimates, 
 Modeste was regarded as the richest heiress in Normandy, 
 and all eyes could now see her merits. The Due d'H6rou- 
 ville's aunt and sister, in full drawing-room assembly at 
 Bayeux, confirmed Monsieur Charles Mignon's right to the 
 arms and title of Count conferred on Cardinal Mignon, whose 
 cardinal's hat and cords were, out of gratitude, assumed in 
 place of a crest and supporters. These ladies had caught 
 sight of Mademoiselle de la Bastie from the Vilquins', and 
 their solicitude for the impoverished head of the house at 
 once scented an opportunity. 
 
 " If Mademoiselle de la Bastie is as rich as she is hand- 
 some," said the young Duke's aunt, "she will be the best 
 match in the province. And she, at any rate, is of noble 
 birth!" 
 
 The last words were a shot at the Vilquins, with whom they 
 could not come to terms after enduring the humiliation of 
 paying them a visit. 
 
 Such were the little events which led to the introduction 
 of another actor in this domestic drama, contrary to all the 
 laws of Aristotle and Horace. But the portrait and biog- 
 raphy of this personage, so tardy in his appearance, will not 
 detain us long, since he is of the smallest importance. Mon- 
 sieur le Due will not fill more space here than he will in 
 
 history. 
 
 Monsieur le Due d'Herouville, the fruit of the matrimonial 
 autumn of the last Governor of Normandy, was born at 
 Vienna in 1796, during the emigration. The old marshal,
 
 170 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 who returned with the King in 1814, died in 1819 without 
 seeing his son married, though he was Due de Nivron ; he 
 had nothing to leave him but the immense chateau of Herou- 
 ville, with the park, some outlying ground and a farm, all 
 painfully repurchased, and worth about fifteen thousand francs 
 a year. Louis XVIII. gave the young Duke the post of 
 master of the horse ; and under Charles X. he received the 
 allowance of twelve thousand francs a year granted to impe- 
 cunious peers. 
 
 But what were twenty-seven thousand francs a year for such 
 a family ? In Paris, indeed, the young Duke had the use of 
 the royal carriages, and his official residence at the King's 
 stables in the Rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre ; his salary paid 
 the expenses of the winter, and the twenty-seven thousand 
 francs paid those of the summer in Normandy. 
 
 Though this great man was still a bachelor, the fault was 
 less his own than that of his aunt, who was not familiar 
 with La Fontaine's fables. Mademoiselle d'Herouville's pre- 
 tensions were stupendous, quite out of harmony with the spirit 
 of the age ; for great names without money can hardly meet 
 with any wealthy heiresses among the high French nobility, 
 which finds it difficult enough to enrich its sons, ruined by 
 the equal division of property. To find an advantageous 
 match for the young Due d'Herouville she should have culti- 
 vated the great financial houses, but this haughty daughter of 
 the noble house offended them all by her cutting speeches. 
 During the early years of the restoration, between 1817 and 
 1825, while looking out for millions, Mademoiselle d'Herou- 
 ville refused Mademoiselle Mongenod, the banker's daughter, 
 with whom Monsieur de Fontaine was content. And now, 
 after various good matches had been marred by her pride, she 
 had just decided that the fortune of the Nucingens had been 
 amassed by too vile means to allow of her lending herself to 
 Madame de Nucingen's ambitious desire to see her daughter 
 a duchess. The King, anxious to restore the splendor of the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. J71 
 
 Herouvilles, had almost made the match himself, and he pub- 
 licly taxed Mademoiselle d'Herouville with folly. Thus the 
 aunt made her nephew ridiculous, and the Duke laid himself 
 open to ridicule. 
 
 It is a fact that when the great things of humanity vanish 
 they leave some fragments (frusteaux, Rabelais would call 
 them); and the French nobility in our day shows too many 
 fag-ends. In this long study of manners neither the clergy 
 nor the nobility have anything to complain of. Those two 
 great and magnificent social necessaries are well represented ; 
 but would it not be false to the proud title of historian to be 
 other than impartial, to fail to show here the degeneracy of 
 the race just as you will elsewhere find the study of an 
 emigre, the Comte de Mortsauf (le Lys dans la vallee), and 
 every noblest feature of the noble, in the Marquis d'Espard 
 (/ ' Interdiction) . 
 
 How was it that a race of brave and strong men, that the 
 house of d'Herouville, which gave the famous marshal to the 
 royal cause, cardinals to the church, captains to the Valois, 
 and brave men to Louis XIV., ended in a frail creature 
 smaller than Butscha ? It is a question we may ask ourselves 
 in many a Paris drawing-room, as we hear one of the great 
 names of France announced, and see a little slender slip of a 
 man come in who seems only to breathe, or a prematurely old 
 fellow, or some eccentric being, in whom the observer seeks, 
 but scarcely finds, a feature in which imagination can see a 
 trace of original greatness. The dissipations of the reign of 
 Louis XV., the orgies of that selfish time, have produced the 
 etiolated generation in which fine manners are the sole sur- 
 vivors of extinct great qualities. Style is the only inheritance 
 preserved by the nobility. Thus, apart from certain excep- 
 tions, the defection which left Louis XVI. to perish may be 
 to some extent explained by the miserable heritage of the 
 reign of Madame de Pompadour. 
 
 The master of the horse, a young man with blue eyes,
 
 172 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 fair, pale, and slight, had a certain dignity of mind ; but his 
 small size, and his aunt's mistake in having led him to be 
 uselessly civil to the Vilquins, made him excessively shy. 
 The d'Herouvilles had had a narrow escape of dying out in 
 the person of a cripple (T Enfant maudif). But the Grand 
 Marshal as the family always called the d'Herouville whom 
 Louis XIII. had created Duke had married at the age of 
 eighty-two, and, of course, the family had been continued. 
 The young Duke liked women ; but he placed them too high, 
 he respected them too much, he adored them, and was not at 
 his ease but with those whom no one respects. This character 
 had led to his living a twofold life. He avenged himself on 
 women of easy life for the worship he paid in the drawing- 
 rooms, or, if you like, the boudoirs, of Saint-Germain. His 
 ways and his tiny figure, his weary face, his blue eyes, with 
 their somewhat ecstatic expression, had added to the ridicule 
 poured on him, most unjustly, for he was full of apprehen- 
 siveness and wit ; but his wit had no sparkle, and was never 
 seen excepting when he was quite at his ease. Fanny Beaupre, 
 the actress, who was supposed to be his highly paid and most 
 intimate friend, used to say of him, " It is good wine, but so 
 tightly corked up that you break your corkscrews." 
 
 The handsome Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, whom the master 
 of the horse could only adore, crushed him by a speech 
 which, unluckily, was repeated, as all clever but ill-natured 
 speeches are. 
 
 "He reminds me," said she, "of a trinket, beautifully 
 wrought, but which we show more than we use and always 
 keep in cotton wool." 
 
 Even his title of master of the horse would, by force of 
 contrast, make good King Charles X. laugh, though the Due 
 d'Herouville was a capital horseman. Men, like books, are 
 sometimes valued too late. Modeste had had a glimpse of 
 the Duke during his fruitless visit to the Vilquins, and, as he 
 went by, all these remarks involuntarily recurred to her mind ;
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 17 3 
 
 but in the position in which she now stood, she perceived 
 how valuable the Due d'Herouville's suit would be to save her 
 from being at the mercy of a Canalis. 
 
 "I do not see," said she to Latournelle, "why the Due 
 d'Herouville should not be allowed to call. In spite of our 
 indigence," she added, with a mischievous glance at her 
 father, " I am supposed to be an heiress. I shall have at last 
 to publish a card of the field. Have you not noticed how 
 Gobenheim's looks have changed in the course of this week? 
 He is in despair because he cannot set down his faithful at- 
 tendance for whist to the score of mute admiration of me ! " 
 
 " Hush, my darling ! here he is," said Madame Latour- 
 nelle. 
 
 "Old Althor is in despair," said Gobenheim to Monsieur 
 Mignon as he came in. 
 
 " What about ? " asked the Comte de la Bastie. 
 
 " Vilquin is going to fail, they say, and on 'Change here 
 you are said to have several millions " , 
 
 " No one knows," said Charles Mignon very drily, "what 
 my obligations in India may amount to, and I do not care to 
 admit the public to my confidence in business matters. Du- 
 may," he said in his friend's ear, "if Vilquin is in difficul- 
 ties we may be able to get the place back for what he gave 
 for it in ready money." 
 
 Such was the state of affairs brought about by chance when, 
 on Sunday morning, Canalis and la Bridre, preceded by a 
 courier, arrived at Madame Amaury's villa. They were told 
 that the Due d'Herouville and his sister had arrived on the 
 previous Tuesday at a hired house in Graville, for the benefit 
 of their health. This competition led to a jest in the town 
 that rents would rise at Ingouville. 
 
 " She will make the place a perfect hospital if this goes 
 on ! " remarked Mademoiselle Vilquin, disgusted at not be- 
 coming a duchess. 
 
 The perennial comedy of "The Heiress," now to be per-
 
 174 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 formed at the chalet, might certainly, from the frame of mind 
 in which it found Modeste, have been, as she had said in jest, 
 a competition, for she was firmly resolved, after the over- 
 throw of her illusions, to give her hand only to the man 
 whose character should prove perfectly satisfactory. 
 
 On the morrow of their arrival, the rivals still bosom 
 friends prepared to make their first visit to the chalet that 
 evening. They devoted the whole of Sunday and all Mon- 
 day morning to unpacking, to taking possession of Madame 
 Amaury's house, and to settling themselves in it for a month. 
 Beside, the poet, justified by his position as minister's ap- 
 prentice in allowing himself some craft, had thought of every- 
 thing ; he wished to get the benefit of the excitement that 
 might be caused by his arrival, of which some echoes might 
 reach the chalet. Canalis, supposed to be much fatigued, 
 did not go out ; la Briere went twice to walk past the chalet, 
 for he loved with a sort of desperation, he had the greatest 
 dread of having repelled Modeste, his future seemed wrapped 
 in thick clouds. 
 
 The two friends came down to dinner on that Monday in 
 array for their first visit, the most important of all. La Briere 
 was dressed as he had been in church on that famous Sunday ; 
 but he regarded himself as the satellite to a planet, and trusted 
 wholly to the chance of circumstances. Canalis, on his part, 
 had not forgotten his black coat, nor his orders, nor the 
 drawing-room grace perfected by his intimacy with the Duch- 
 esse de Chaulieu, his patroness, and with the finest company 
 of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Canalis had attended to 
 every detail of dandyism, while poor Ernest was prepared to 
 appear in the comparative carelessness of a hopeless man. 
 
 As he waited on the two gentlemen at table, Germain could 
 not help smiling at the contrast. At the second course he 
 came in with a diplomatic, or, to be exact, a disturbed air. 
 
 "Monsieur le Baron," said he to Canalis in a low voice, 
 "did you know that monsieur the master of the horse is
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 175 
 
 coming to Graville to be cured of the same complaint as you 
 and Monsieur de la Briere?" 
 
 "The little Ducd'Herouville?" cried Canalis. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " Can he have come for Mademoiselle de la Bastie ? " asked 
 la Briere, coloring. 
 
 "For Mademoiselle Mignon," replied Germain. 
 
 " We are done 1 " said Canalis, looking at la Briere. 
 
 "Ah !" Ernest eagerly replied, "that is the first time you 
 have said we since we left Paris. Till this moment you have 
 said /." 
 
 " You know me ! " cried Melchior with a burst of laughter. 
 " Well, we are not in a position to hold our own against an 
 officer of the household, against the title of duke and peer, 
 nor against the marsh-lands which the privy council has just 
 conferred, on the strength of my report, on the House of 
 Herouville." 
 
 "His highness," said la Briere with mischievous gravity, 
 " offers you a plum of consolation in the person of his sister." 
 
 Just at this moment the Comte de la Bastie was announced. 
 The two young men arose to receive him, and la Briere has- 
 tened to meet him and introduce Canalis. 
 
 "I had to return the visit you paid me in Paris," said 
 Charles Mignon to the young referendary, " and I knew that 
 by coming here I should have the added pleasure of seeing 
 one of our living great poets." 
 
 " Great ? monsieur," the poet replied with a smile; " there 
 can be nothing great henceforth in an age to which the reign 
 of Napoleon was the preface. To begin with, we are a perfect 
 tribe of so-called great poets. And beside, second-rate talent 
 apes genius so well that it has made any great distinction im- 
 possible." 
 
 "And is that what has driven you into politics? " asked the 
 Comte de la Bastie. 
 
 "It is the same in that field too," said Canalis. "There
 
 176 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 will be no more great statesmen ; there will be only men who 
 are more or less in touch with events. Under the system pro- 
 duced by the charter, monsieur, which regards the schedule 
 of the rates you pay as a patent of nobility, there is nothing 
 substantial but what you went to find in China a fortune." 
 
 Melchior, well pleased with himself, and satisfied with the 
 impression he was making on his future father-in-law, now 
 turned to Germain. 
 
 "Give us coffee in the drawing-room," said he, bowing to 
 the merchant to leave the dining-room. 
 
 "I must thank you, Monsieur le Comte," said la Briere, 
 " for having spared me the embarrassment of not knowing 
 how I might introduce my friend at your house. To your 
 kind heart you add a happy wit " 
 
 "Oh, such wit as is common to the natives of Provence," 
 returned Mignon. 
 
 "Ah, you come from Provence?" cried Canalis. 
 
 " Forgive my friend," said la Briere, "he has not studied 
 the history of the la Basties, as I have." 
 
 At the word friend, Canalis shot a deep look at Ernest. 
 
 " If your health permits," said the Provencal to the great 
 poet, " I claim the honor of receiving you this evening under 
 my roof. It will be a day to mark, as the ancients have it, 
 albo notanda lapillo. Though we are somewhat shy of receiv- 
 ing so great a glory in so small a house, you will gratify my 
 daughter's impatience, for her admiration has led her even to 
 set your verses to music." 
 
 "You possess what is better than glory," said Canalis. 
 "You have beauty in your home, if I may believe Ernest." 
 
 " Oh, she is a good girl, whom you will find quite pro- 
 vincial," said the father. 
 
 " Provincial as she is, she has a suitor in the Due d'H6rou- 
 ville," cried Canalis in a hard tone. 
 
 "Oh," said Monsieur Mignon, with the deceptive frankness 
 of a southerner, "I leave my daughter free to choose. Dukes,
 
 I 
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 177 
 
 princes, private gentlemen, they are all the same to me, even 
 men of genius. I will pledge myself to nothing ; the man my 
 Modeste may prefer will be my son-in-law, or rather my son," 
 and he looked at la Briere. " Madame de la Bastie is a Ger- 
 man ; she cannot tolerate French etiquette, and I allow myself 
 to be guided by my two women. I would always rather ride 
 inside a carriage than on the box. We can discuss such 
 serious matters in jest, for we have not yet seen the Due 
 d'Herouville, and I do not believe in marriages arranged 
 by proxy any more than in suitors forced on girls by their 
 parents." 
 
 " That is a declaration equally disheartening and encour- 
 aging to two young men who seek in marriage the philosopher's 
 stone of happiness," said Canalis. 
 
 " Do you not think it desirable, necessary, and indeed good 
 policy to stipulate for perfect liberty for the parents, the 
 daughter, and the suitors?" asked Charles Mignon. 
 
 Canalis, at a glance from la Briere, made no reply, and the 
 conversation continued on indifferent subjects. After walking 
 two or three times round the garden, the father withdrew, 
 begging the two friends to pay their visit. 
 
 " That is our dismissal," cried Canalis. " You understood 
 it as I did. After all, in his place I should not hesitate between 
 the master of the horse and either of us, charming fellows as 
 we may be. ' ' 
 
 "I do not think so," said la Briere, " I believe that the 
 worthy officer came simply to gratify his own impatience to 
 > see you, and to declare his neutrality while opening his house 
 to us. Modeste, bewitched by your fame and misled as to my 
 identity, finds herself between poetry and hard fact. It is my 
 misfortune to be the hard fact." 
 
 "Germain," said Canalis to the servant who came in to 
 clear away the coffee, " order the carriage round. We will 
 go out in half an hour and take a drive before going to the 
 
 chalet." 
 
 12
 
 178 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 The two young men were equally impatient to see Modeste, 
 but la Briere dreaded the meeting, while Canalis looked for- 
 ward to it with a confidence inspired by conceit. Ernest's 
 impulsive advances to her father, and the flattery by which he 
 had soothed the merchant's aristocratic pride while showing 
 up the poet's awkwardness, made Canalis determine that he 
 would play a part. He resolved that he would display all his 
 powers of attraction, but at the same time affect indifference, 
 seem to disdain Modeste, and so goad the girl's vanity. A 
 disciple of the beautiful Duchesse de Chaulieu, he here showed 
 himself worthy of his reputation as a man who knew women 
 well ; though he did not really know them, since no man 
 does who is the happy victim of an exclusive passion. While 
 the luckless Ernest, sunk in a corner of the carriage, was 
 crushed by the terrors of true love and the anticipated wrath, 
 scorn, contempt all the lightnings of an offended and dis- 
 appointed girl and kept gloomy silence, Canalis, not less 
 silent, was preparing himself like an actor studying an im- 
 portant part in a new play. 
 
 Neither of them certainly looked like a happy man. 
 
 For Canalis, indeed, the matter was serious. To him the 
 mere fancy for marrying involved the breach of the serious 
 friendship which had bound him for nearly ten years to the 
 Duchesse de Chaulieu. Though he had screened his journey 
 under the common excuse of overwork in which no woman 
 ever believes, even if it is true his conscience troubled him 
 somewhat ; but to la Briere the word conscience seemed so 
 Jesuitical that he only shrugged his shoulders when the poet 
 spoke of his scruples. 
 
 "Your conscience, my boy, seems to me to mean simply 
 your fear of losing the gratifications of vanity, some solid 
 advantages, and a pleasant habit in sacrificing Madame de 
 Chaulieu' s affection ; for, if you are successful with Modeste, 
 you will certainly have nothing to regret in the aftermath of a 
 passion so constantly reaped during these eight years past.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 1 79 
 
 If you tell me that you are afraid of offending your protec- 
 tress, should she learn the real reason of your visit here, I can 
 easily believe you. To throw over the Duchess and fail at 
 the chalet is staking too much ! And you mistake the distress 
 of this alternative for remorse ! " 
 
 "You know nothing about sentiment!" cried Canalis, 
 nettled, as a man always is when he asks for a compliment 
 and hears the truth. 
 
 " That is just what a bigamist would say to a dozen jury- 
 men," said la Briere, laughing. 
 
 This epigram made a yet more disagreeable impression on 
 Canalis ; he thought la Briere much too clever and too free 
 for a secretary. 
 
 The arrival of a handsome carriage, with a coachman in 
 Canalis' livery, made all the greater sensation at the chalet 
 because the two gentlemen were expected, and all the persons 
 of this tale, excepting only the Duke and Butscha, were as- 
 sembled there. 
 
 "Which is the poet?" asked Madame Latournelle of 
 Dumay, as they stood in the window-bay, where she had 
 posted herself, on hearing the carriage wheels, to inspect the 
 visitors. 
 
 " The one who marches like a, drum-major," replied the 
 cashier. 
 
 " Ah, hah ! " said the lady, studying Melchior, who strutted 
 like a man on whom the world has its eye. 
 
 Though rather severe, Dumay's judgment a simple soul, 
 if ever man was had hit the mark. Canalis was, morally 
 speaking, a sort of Narcissus ; this was the fault of the great 
 lady who flattered him immensely, and spoilt him as women 
 older than their adorers always will flatter and spoil men. A 
 woman past her first youth, who means to attach a man per- 
 manently, begins by glorifying his faults, so as to make all 
 rivalry impossible ; for her rival cannot at once be in the 
 secret of that subtle flattery to which a man so easily becomes
 
 180 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 accustomed. Coxcombs are the product of this feminine in- 
 dustry when they are not coxcombs by nature. 
 
 Hence Canalis, caught young by the beautiful Duchess, 
 justified himself for his airs and graces by telling himself that 
 they pleased a woman whose taste was law. Subtle as these 
 shades of feeling are, it is not impossible to render them. 
 Thus Melchior had a real talent for reading aloud, which had 
 been much admired, and too flattering praise had led him into 
 an exaggerated manner, which neither poet nor actor can set 
 bounds to, and which made de Marsay say always de Marsay 
 that he did not declaim, but brayed out his verses, so fully 
 would he mouth the vowels as he listened to himself. To use 
 the slang of the stage, he pumped himself out, and made too 
 long pauses. He would examine his audience with a knowing 
 look, and give himself self-satisfied airs, with the aids to 
 emphasis of "sawing the air" and "windmill action" 
 picturesque phrases, as the catchwords of art always are. 
 Canalis indeed had imitators, and was the head of a school 
 in this style. This melodramatic emphasis had slightly in- 
 fected his conversation and given it a declamatory tone, as 
 will have been seen in his interview with Dumay. When 
 once the mind has become foppish, manners show the influ- 
 ence. Canalis had come a$ last to a sort of rhythmic gait, he 
 invented attitudes, stole looks at himself in the glass, and 
 made his language harmonize with the position he assumed. 
 He thought so much of the effect to be produced, that more 
 than once Blondet, a mocking spirit, had bet he would pull 
 him up short and had done it merely by fixing a set gaze 
 on the poet's hair, or boots, or the tail of his coat. 
 
 At the end of ten years these antics, which at first had 
 passed under favor of youthful exuberance, had grown stale, 
 and all the more so as Melchior himself seemed somewhat worn. 
 Fashionable life is as fatiguing for men as for women, and per- 
 haps the Duchess' twenty years' seniority weighed on Canalis 
 more than on her ; for the world saw her still handsome, with-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 181 
 
 out a wrinkle, without rouge, and without heart. Alas ! neither 
 men nor women have a friend to warn them at the moment 
 when the fragrance of modesty turns rancid, when a caressing 
 look is like a theatrical trick, when the expressiveness of a 
 face becomes a grimace, when the mechanism of their liveli- 
 ness shows its rusty skeleton. Genius alone can renew its 
 youth like the serpent, and in grace, as in all else, only the 
 heart never grows stale. Persons of genuine feeling are single- 
 hearted. Now in Canalis, as we know, the heart was dry. 
 He wasted the beauty of his gaze by assuming at inappropriate 
 moments the intensity that deep thought gives to the eyes. 
 
 And, then, praise to him was an article of exchange, in 
 which he wanted to have all the advantage. His way of pay- 
 ing compliments, which charmed superficial persons, to those 
 of more refined taste might seem insultingly commonplace, 
 and the readiness of his flattery betrayed a set purpose. In 
 fact, Melchior lied like a courtier. To the Due de Chaulieu, 
 who had proved an ineffective speaker when, as minister for 
 foreign affairs, he had been obliged to mount the tribune, 
 Canalis had unblushingly said, "Your excellency was sub- 
 lime!" 
 
 Many men like Canalis might have had their affectations 
 eradicated by failure administered in small doses. Trifling, 
 indeed, as such faults are in the gilded drawing-rooms of the 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain where every one contributes a quota 
 of absurdities, and this kind of audacity, artificiality, infla- 
 tion if you will, has a background of excessive luxury and 
 magnificent dress which is perhaps an excuse for it they are 
 monstrously conspicuous in the depths of the country, where 
 what is thought ridiculous is the very opposite of all this. 
 Canalis, indeed, at once pompous and mannered, could not 
 now metamorphose himself; he had had time to set in the 
 mould into which the Duchess had cast him, and he was, 
 moreover, very Parisian, or, if you prefer it, very French. 
 The Parisian is amazed that everything, everywhere, is not
 
 182 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 what it is in Paris, and the Frenchman that it is not what it 
 is in France. Good taste consists in accommodating one's self 
 to the manners of other places without losing too much of one's 
 native character, as Alcibiades did the model of a gentleman. 
 True grace is elastic. It yields to every circumstance, it is in 
 harmony with every social atmosphere, it knows how to walk 
 in the street in a cheap dress, remarkable only for its fitness, 
 instead of parading the feathers and gaudy hues which some 
 vulgar people flaunt. 
 
 Now, Canalis, influenced by a woman who loved him for 
 her own sake rather than for his, wanted to be himself a law, 
 and to remain what he was wherever he might go. He be- 
 lieved that he carried his private public with him a mistake 
 shared by some other great men in Paris. 
 
 While the poet made a studied entrance into the little 
 drawing-room, la Briere sneaked in like a dog that is afraid 
 of being beaten. 
 
 " Ah, here is my soldier ! " said Canalis, on seeing Dumay, 
 after paying Madame Mignon his respects, and bowing to the 
 other women. "Your anxieties are relieved, I hope?" he 
 went on, offering him his hand with a flourish. "But the 
 sight of mademoiselle sufficiently explains their gravity. I 
 spoke only of earthly beings, not of angels." 
 
 The hearers by their expression asked for a clue to this 
 riddle. 
 
 "Yes, I shall regard it as a triumph," the poet went on, 
 understanding that everybody wanted an explanation, " that 
 I succeeded in alarming one of those men of iron whom Na- 
 poleon succeeded in finding to form the piles on which he 
 tried to found an empire too vast to be permanent. Only 
 time can serve to cement such a structure ! But have I any 
 right to boast of my triumph ? I had nothing to do with it ; 
 it was the triumph of fancy over fact. Your battles, dear 
 Monsieur Dumay ; your heroic cavalry charges, Monsieur le 
 Comte ; in short, war was the form assumed by Napoleon's
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 183 
 
 thoughts. And of all these things what remains ? The grass 
 that grows over them knows nothing of them, nor will har- 
 vests mark the spot ; but for history, but for writing, the 
 future might know nothing of this heroic age ! Thus your 
 fifteen years of struggle are no more than ideas, and that is 
 what will save the Empire ; poets will make a poem of it. 
 A land that can win such battles ought to be able to sing 
 them ! " 
 
 Canalis paused to collect, by a sweeping glance at their 
 faces, the tribute of admiration due to him from these country 
 folk. 
 
 "You cannot doubt, monsieur," said Madame Mignon, 
 "how much I regret being unable to see you, from the way 
 you indemnify me by the pleasure I feel in listening to you." 
 
 Modeste, dressed as she had been on the day when this 
 story opens, having made up her mind to think Canalis sub- 
 lime, sat speechless, and dropped her embroidery, which hung 
 from her fingers at the end of the needleful of cotton. 
 
 " Modeste, this is Monsieur de la Briere. Monsieur Ernest 
 my daughter," said Charles Mignon, thinking that the sec- 
 retary was thrown rather too much into the background. 
 
 The young lady bowed coldly to Ernest, giving him a look 
 intended to convey to the whole party that she had never 
 seen him before. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said she, without a blush, " the fer- 
 vent admiration I profess for our greatest poet is, in my 
 friends' eyes, a sufficient excuse for my having seen no one 
 else." 
 
 The clear, young voice, with a ring in it like the famous 
 tones of Mademoiselle Mars, enchanted the poor referendary, 
 already dazzled by Modeste's beauty, and in his amazement 
 he spoke a few words which, had they been true, would have 
 been sublime 
 
 " But he is my friend," said he. 
 
 (l Then you will have forgiven me," she replied.
 
 184 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "He is more than a friend," cried Canalis, taking Ernest 
 by the shoulder, and leaning on him as Alexander leaned on 
 Hephaestion. "We love each other like two brothers " 
 
 Madame Latournelle cut the poet short in the middle of 
 his speech by saying to her husband 
 
 " Surely monsieur is the gentleman we saw in church ? " 
 
 "Why not?" said Charles Mignon, seeing Ernest color. 
 
 Modeste gave no sign, but took up her work again. 
 
 " You may be right ; I have been twice to le Havre," said 
 la Briere, sitting down by the side of Dumay after again 
 saluting him. 
 
 Canalis, bewildered by Modeste's beauty, misunderstood 
 the admiration she expressed, and flattered himself that his 
 efforts had been perfectly successful. 
 
 " I should think a man of genius devoid of heart if he had 
 not about him some attached friend," said Modeste, to revive 
 the subject interrupted by Madame Latournelle 's awkward- 
 ness. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, Ernest's devotion is enough to make me 
 believe that I am good for something," said Canalis. "For 
 my dear Pylades is full of talent ; he was quite half of the 
 greatest minister we have had since the peace. Though he 
 fills a distinguished position, he consents to be my tutor in 
 politics. He teaches me business, he feeds me with his ex- 
 perience, while he might aspire to the highest office. Oh ! 
 he is much superior to me " 
 
 At a gesture from Modeste, Melchior added gracefully 
 
 "The poetry I write he bears in his heart; and if I 
 dare speak so to his face, it is because he is as diffident as 
 a nun." 
 
 " Come, come, that will do," said la Briere, who did not 
 know how to look. " My dear fellow, you might be a mother 
 wanting to get her daughter married." 
 
 " How can you think, monsieur, of becoming a politician?" 
 said Charles Mignon to Canalis.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 185 
 
 " For a poet it is abdication ! " said Modeste. " Politics 
 are the stand-by of men without imagination," she added as 
 an after-thought. 
 
 " Nay, mademoiselle, in these days the tribune is the 
 grandest stage in the world ; it has taken the place of the 
 lists of chivalry; it will be the meeting-place of every 
 kind of intellect, as of old the army was of every form of 
 courage. ' ' 
 
 Canalis had mounted his war-horse; for ten minutes he 
 declaimed on the subject of political life : Poetry was the 
 preface to a statesman. In these days the orator's province 
 was lofty generalization ; he was the pastor of ideas. If a 
 poet could show his countrymen the road of the future, did 
 he cease to be himself? He quoted Chateaubriand, asserting 
 that he would some day be more important on his political 
 than on his literary side. The French Chambers would be 
 the guiding light of humanity. Contests by words henceforth 
 had taken the place of fighting on the battlefield. Such or 
 such a sitting had been a second Austerlitz and the speakers 
 had risen to the dignity of generals ; they spent as much of 
 their life, courage, and strength, they wore themselves out as 
 much as generals in war. Was not speech almost the most 
 exhausting expenditure of vital power that man could indulge 
 in, etc., etc. 
 
 This long harangue, made up of modern commonplace, but 
 clothed in high-sounding phrases, newly coined words, and 
 intended to prove that the Baron de Canalis must some day 
 'be one of the glories of the tribune, made a deep impression 
 on the notary, on Gobenheim, on Madame Latournelle, and 
 Madame Mignon. Modeste felt as if she were at the play 
 and fired with enthusiasm for the actor, exactly as Ernest was 
 in her presence ; for though the secretary knew all these fine 
 phrases by heart, he was listening to them by the light of the 
 girl's eyes, and falling in love to the verge of madness. To 
 this genuine lover Modeste had eclipsed all the different Mod-
 
 186 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 estes he had pictured to himself when reading or answering 
 her letters. 
 
 This visit, of which Canalis had fixed the limits beforehand, 
 for he would not give his admirers time to get tired of 
 him, ended by an invitation to dinner on the following 
 Monday. 
 
 "We shall no longer be at the chalet," said the Comte 
 de la Bastie. "It is Dumay's home once more. I am 
 going back to my old house by an agreement for six 
 months, with the right of redemption, which I have just 
 signed with Monsieur Vilquin in my friend Latournelle's 
 office." 
 
 " I only hope," said Dumay, " that Vilquin may not be in 
 a position to repay the sum you have loaned him on it." 
 
 "You will be in a home suitable to your fortune," said 
 Canalis. 
 
 " To the fortune I am supposed to have," Charles Mignon 
 put in. 
 
 "It would be a pity," said the poet, with a charming bow 
 to Modeste, " that this Madonna should lack a frame worthy 
 of her divine affections." 
 
 This was all that Canalis said about Modeste, for he had 
 affected not to look at her, and to behave like a man who is 
 not at liberty to think of marriage. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Madame Mignon, he is immensely clever ! " 
 exclaimed the notary's wife, when the gravel was heard crunch- 
 ing under the Parisians' feet. 
 
 " Is he rich? that is the question," said Gobenheim. 
 
 Modeste stood at the window, not missing a single gesture 
 of the great poet's, and never casting a glance on Ernest de 
 la Briere. When Monsieur Mignon came into the room 
 again, and Modeste, after receiving a parting bow from the 
 two young men as the carriage turned, had resumed her seat, 
 a deep discussion ensued, such as country people indulge in 
 on Paris visitors after a first meeting. Gobenheim reiterated
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. ]87 
 
 his remark, is he rich?" in reply to the trio of praise sung 
 by Madame Latournelle, Modeste, and her mother. 
 
 " Rich ? ' ' retorted Modeste. " What can it matter ? Can 
 you not see that Monsieur de Canalis is a man destined to fill 
 the highest posts in the government? He has more than 
 wealth ; he has the means of acquiring wealth ! " 
 
 " He will be an ambassador or a minister," said Monsieur 
 Mignon. 
 
 "The taxpayers may have to pay for his funeral neverthe- 
 less," said little Lautournelle. 
 
 " Why?" asked Charles Mignon. 
 
 " He strikes me as being a man to squander all the fortunes 
 which Mademoiselle Modeste so liberally credits him with the 
 power of earning." 
 
 " How can Modeste help being liberal to a man who regards 
 her as a Madonna?" said Dumay, faithful to the aversion 
 Canalis had roused in him. 
 
 Gobenheim was preparing the whist-table, with all the more 
 eagerness because since Monsieur Mignon's return Latournelle 
 and Dumay had allowed themselves to play for ten sous a 
 point. 
 
 " Now, my little darling," said the father to his daughter 
 in the window recess, "you must own that papa thinks of 
 everything. In a week, if you send orders this evening to 
 the dressmaker you used to employ in Paris and to your 
 other tradesmen, you may display yourself in all the magnifi- 
 cence of an heiress, while I take time to settle into our old 
 house. You shall have a nice pony, so take care to have a 
 habit made the master of the horse deserves that little at- 
 tention." 
 
 "All the more so as we must show our friends the coun- 
 try," said Modeste, whose cheeks were recovering the hues of 
 health. 
 
 " The secretary," observed Madame Mignon, " is not much 
 to speak of,"
 
 188 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " He is a little simpleton," said Madame Latournelle. "The 
 poet was very attentive to everybody. He remembered to 
 thank Latournelle for finding him a house, by saying to me 
 that he seemed to have consulted a lady's taste. And the 
 other stood there as gloomy as a Spaniard, staring hard, look- 
 ing as if he could swallow Modeste. If he had looked at me 
 so, I should have been frightened." 
 
 " He has a very pleasant voice," Madame Mignon observed. 
 
 " He must have come to le Havre to make inquiries about 
 the house of Mignon for the poet's benefit," said Modeste, 
 with a sly look at her father. " He is certainly the man we 
 saw in church." 
 
 Madame Dumay and the Latournelles accepted this explana- 
 tion of Ernest's former journey. 
 
 "I tell you what, Ernest," said Canalis when they had 
 gone twenty yards, "I see no one in the Paris world, not 
 a single girl to marry, that can compare with this adorable 
 creature ! " 
 
 " Oh ! it is all settled," replied la Briere, with concentrated 
 bitterness; "she loves you or, if you choose, she will love 
 you. Your fame half-won the battle. In short, you have 
 only to command. You can go there alone next time ; Mod- 
 este has the deepest contempt for me, and she is right ; but I 
 do not see why I should condemn myself to the torture of 
 going to admire, desire, and adore what I can never possess." 
 
 After a few condoling speeches, in which Canalis betrayed 
 his satisfaction at having produced a new edition of Caesar's 
 famous motto, he hinted at his wish to be "off" with the 
 Duchesse de Chaulieu. La Briere, who could not endure the 
 conversation, made an excuse of the loveliness of a rather 
 doubtful night to get out and walk ; he flew like a madman 
 to the cliffs, where he stayed till half-past ten, given up to a 
 sort of frenzy, sometimes walking at a great pace and spout- 
 ing soliloquies, sometimes standing still or sitting down, with-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. igg 
 
 out observing the uneasiness he was giving to two coastguards 
 on the lookout. After falling in love with Modeste's mental 
 culture and aggressive candor, he now added his adoration of 
 her beauty, that is to say, an unreasoning and inexplicable 
 passion, to all the other causes that had brought him ten days 
 ago to church at le Havre. 
 
 Then he wandered back to the chalet, where the Pyrenean 
 dogs barked - at him so furiously that he could not allow him- 
 self the happiness of gazing at Modeste's windows. In love, 
 all these things are of no more account than the under-paint- 
 ing covered by the final touches is to the painter ; but they 
 are nevertheless the whole of love, as concealed painstaking is 
 the whole of art : the outcome is a great painter and a perfect 
 lover, which the public and the woman worship at last often 
 too late. 
 
 "Well ! " cried he aloud, "I will stay, I will endure. I 
 shall see her and love her selfishly, for my own joy ! Modeste 
 will be my sun, my life, I shall breathe by her breath, I shall 
 rejoice in her joys, I shall pine over her sorrows, even if she 
 should be the wife of that egoist Canalis " 
 
 " That is something like love, monsieur ! " said a voice 
 proceeding from a bush by the wayside. " Bless me ! is 
 everybody in love with Mademoiselle de la Bastie?" 
 
 Butscha started forth and gazed at la Briere. Ernest 
 sheathed his wrath as he looked at the dwarf in the moon- 
 light, and walked on a few steps without replying. 
 
 " Two soldiers serving in the same company should be on 
 better terms than that," said Butscha. "If you are not in 
 love with Canalis, I am not very sweet on him myself." 
 
 "He is my friend," said Ernest, earnestly scrutinizing the 
 speaker. 
 
 "Oh! then you are the little secretary?" replied the 
 hunchback. 
 
 " I would have you to know, monsieur," said la Briere, 
 "that I am no man's secretary. I have the honor to call my-
 
 190 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 self councilor to one of the high courts of justice of this 
 realm." 
 
 "I have the honor, then, of making my bow to Monsieur 
 de la Briere," aid Butscha. " I have the honor to call my- 
 self head clerk to Maitre Latournelle, the first notary in le 
 Havre, and I certainly am better off than you are. Yes for 
 I have had the happiness of seeing Mademoiselle Modeste de 
 la Bastie almost every afternoon for the last four years, and I 
 propose to live within her ken as one of the King's house- 
 hold lives at the Tuileries. If I were offered the throne of 
 Russia, I should reply, ' I like the sun too well ! ' Is not 
 that as much as to say, monsieur, that I care more for her 
 than for myself with all respect and honor? And do you 
 suppose that the high and mighty Duchesse de Chaulieu will 
 look with a friendly eye on the happiness of Madame de 
 Canalis, when her maid, who is in love with Monsieur Ger- 
 main, and is already uneasy at that fascinating valet's long 
 absence at le Havre, as she dresses her mistress' hair com- 
 plains? " 
 
 " How do you know all this? " said la Briere, interrupting 
 him. 
 
 " In the first place, I am a notary's clerk," replied Butscha. 
 " And have you not observed that I have a hump? It is full 
 of ingenuity, monsieur. I made myself cousin to Made- 
 moiselle Philoxene Jacmin, of Honfleur, where my mother 
 was born, also a Jacmin there are eleven branches of Jac- 
 mins at Honfleur. And so my fair cousin, tempted by the 
 hope of a highly improbable legacy, told me a good many 
 things." 
 
 "And the Duchess is vindictive?" said la Briere. 
 
 "As vengeful as a queen, says Philoxene. She has not 
 yet forgiven the Duke for being only her husband," replied 
 Butscha. " She hates as she loves. I am thoroughly in- 
 formed as to her temper, her dress, her tastes, her religion, 
 and her meanness, for Philoxene stripped her soul and
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 191 
 
 body. I went to the opera to see Madame de Chaulieu, and 
 I do not regret my ten francs I am not thinking of the piece. 
 If my hypothetical cousin had not told me that her mistress 
 had seen fifty springs, I should have thought it lavish to give 
 her thirty; she has known no winter, my lady the Duchess." 
 
 " True," said la Briere, "she is a cameo preserved by the 
 onyx. Canalis would be in great difficulties if the Duchess 
 knew of his plans ; and I hope, monsieur, that you will go no 
 further in an espionage so unworthy of an honest man." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Butscha proudly, " to me Modeste is the 
 State. I do not spy, I forestall ! The Duchesse de Chaulieu 
 will come here if necessary, or will remain quietly where she 
 is if I think it advisable." 
 
 "You?" 
 
 " I." 
 
 "And by what means?" asked la Briere. 
 
 "Ah, that is the question," said the little hunchback. He 
 plucked a blade of grass. "This little plant imagines that 
 man builds palaces for its accommodation, and one day it dis- 
 lodges the most firmly cemented marble, just as the populace, 
 having found a foothold in the structure of the feudal system, 
 overthrew it. The power of the weakest that can creep in 
 everywhere is greater than that of the strong man who relies 
 on his cannon. There are three of us, a Swiss league, who 
 have sworn that Modeste shall be happy, and who would sell 
 our honor for her sake. Good-night, monsieur. If you love 
 Mademoiselle de la Bastie, forget this conversation, and give 
 me your hand to shake, for you seem to me to have a heart ! 
 I was pining to see the chalet ; I got here just as she put out 
 her candle. I saw you when the dogs gave tongue, I heard 
 you raving; and so I took the liberty of telling you that we 
 serve under the same colors, in the regiment of loyal de- 
 votion ! " 
 
 " Good," replied la Briere, pressing the hunchback's hand. 
 "Then be kind enough to tell me whether Mademoiselle
 
 192 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Modeste ever fell in love with a man before her secret cor- 
 respondence with Canalis?" 
 
 "Oh!" cried Butscha, "the mere question is an insult! 
 And even now who knows whether she is in love ? Does she 
 herself know? She has rushed into enthusiasm for the mind, 
 the genius, the spirit of this verse-monger, this vendor of 
 literary pinchbeck ; but she will study him we shall all study 
 him ; I will find some means of making his true character peep 
 out from beneath the carapace of the well-mannered man, and 
 we shall see the insignificant head of his ambition and his 
 vanity," said Butscha, rubbing his hands. "Now, unless 
 mademoiselle is mad enough to die of it " 
 
 " Oh, she sat entranced before him, as if he were a mir- 
 acle ! " cried la Briere, revealing the secret of his jealousy. 
 
 "If he is really a good fellow, and loyal, and loves her, if 
 he is worthy of her," Butscha went on, " if he gives up his 
 Duchess, it is the Duchess I will spread a net for ! There, my 
 dear sir, follow that path, and you will be at home in ten 
 minutes." 
 
 But Butscha presently turned back and called to the hapless 
 Ernest, who, as an ardent lover, would have stayed all night 
 to talk of Modeste. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Butscha, " I have not yet had the honor 
 of seeing our great poet ; I am anxious to study that splendid 
 phenomenon in the exercise of his functions ; do me the kind- 
 ness to come and spend the evening at the chalet the day after 
 to-morrow ; and stay some time, for a man does not com- 
 pletely betray himself in an hour. I shall know, before any 
 one, if he loves, or ever will love, or ever could love Made- 
 moiselle Modeste." 
 
 "You are very young to " 
 
 "To be a professor!" interrupted Butscha. "Ah, mon- 
 sieur, the deformed come into the world a hundred years old. 
 Besides, a sick man, you see, when he has been ill a long 
 time, becomes more knowing than his doctor ; he understands
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 193 
 
 the ways of the disease, which is more than a conscientious 
 doctor always does. Well, in the same way, a man who loves 
 a woman, while the woman cannot help scorning him for his 
 ugliness or his misshapen person, is at last so qualified in love 
 that he could pass as a seducer, as the sick man at last recovers 
 his health. Folly alone is incurable. Since the age of six, 
 and I am now five-and-twenty, I have had neither father nor 
 mother ; public charity has been my mother and the King's 
 commissioner my father. Nay, do not be distressed," he 
 said, in reply to Ernest's expression, "I am less miserable 
 
 than my position Well, since I was six years old, when 
 
 the insolent eyes of a servant of Madame Latournelle's told 
 me that I had no right to wish to love, I have loved and have 
 studied women. I began with ugly ones it is well to take 
 the bull by the horns. So I took for the first subject of my 
 studies Madame Latournelle herself, who has been really 
 angelic to me. I was perhaps wrong; however, so it was. 
 I distilled her in my alembic, and I at last discovered hidden 
 in a corner of her soul this idea, * I am not as ugly as people 
 think ! ' And in spite of her deep piety, by working on that 
 idea, I could have led her to the brink of the abyss to leave 
 her there." 
 
 "And have you studied Modeste?" 
 
 " I thought I had told you," replied the hunchback, " that 
 my life is hers, as France is the King's ! Now do you under- 
 stand my playing the spy in Paris? I alone know all the 
 nobleness and pride, the unselfishness, and unexpected sweet- 
 ness that lie in the heart and soul of that adorable creature 
 the indefatigable kindness, the true piety, the light-hearted- 
 ness, information, refinement, affability " 
 
 Butscha drew out his handkerchief to stop two tears from 
 falling, and la Briere held his hand for some time. 
 
 " I shall live in her radiance ! It comes from her, and it 
 ends in me, that is how we are united, somewhat as nature is 
 to God by light and the word. Good-night, monsieur, I 
 13
 
 194 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 never chattered so much in my life ; but seeing you below her 
 windows, I guessed that you loved her in my way." 
 
 Butscha, without waiting for an answer, left the unhappy 
 lover, on whose heart this conversation had shed a mysterious 
 balm. Ernest determined to make Butscha his friend, never 
 suspecting that the clerk's loquacity was chiefly intended to 
 open communication with Canalis' house. In what a flow 
 and ebb of thoughts, resolutions, and schemes was Ernest 
 lapped before falling asleep ; and his friend Canalis was sleep- 
 ing the sleep of the triumphant, the sweetest slumber there is 
 next to that of the just. 
 
 At breakfast the friends agreed to go together to spend the 
 evening of the following day at the chalet, and be initiated 
 into the mild joys of provincial whist. To get rid of this 
 day they ordered out the horses, both guaranteed to ride and 
 drive, and ventured forth into a country certainly as unknown 
 to them as China ; for the least known thing in France to a 
 Frenchman, is France. 
 
 As he reflected on his position as a lover rejected and 
 scorned, the secretary made such a study of himself as he had 
 been led to make by the question Modeste had put to him at 
 the beginning of their correspondence. Though misfortune is 
 supposed to develop virtues, it only does so in virtuous people ; 
 for this sort of cleaning up of the conscience takes place only 
 in naturally cleanly persons. La Briere determined to swallow 
 his griefs with Spartan philosophy, to preserve his dignity, 
 and never allow himself to be betrayed into a mean action ; 
 while Canalis, fascinated by such an enormous fortune, vowed 
 to himself that he would neglect nothing that might captivate 
 Modeste. Egoism and unselfishness, the watchwords of these 
 two natures, brought them by a moral law, which sometimes 
 has whimsical results, to behave in opposition to their char- 
 acters. The selfish man meant to act self-sacrifice, the man 
 who was all kindliness would take refuge on the Aventine 
 Hill of pride. This phenomenon may also be seen in poli-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 195 
 
 tics. Men often turn their natures inside out, and not unfre- 
 quently the public does not know the right side from the 
 wrong. 
 
 After dinner they heard from Germain that the master of 
 the horse had arrived ; he was introduced at the chalet that 
 evening by Monsieur Latournelle. Mademoiselle d'Herou- 
 ville managed to offend the worthy lawyer at once, by send- 
 ing a message through a footman, desiring him to call at her 
 house, instead of simply sending her nephew to take up the 
 lawyer, who would certainly have talked till his dying day of 
 the visit paid by the master of the horse. So when his lord- 
 ship offered to take him to Ingouville in his carriage the little 
 notary merely said that he must return home to accompany 
 his wife. Seeing by his sullen manner that there was some- 
 thing wrong, the Duke graciously replied, " If you will allow 
 me, I shall have the honor of going round to fetch Madame 
 Latournelle." 
 
 In spite of an emphatic shrug of his despotic aunt's shoul- 
 ders, the Duke set out with the little notary. Intoxicated 
 with the delight of seeing a magnificent carriage at her door, 
 and men in the royal livery to let down the steps, the lawyer's 
 wife did not know which way to turn for her gloves, her para- 
 sol, her bag, and her dignity, when it was announced to her 
 that the master of the horse had come to fetch her. As 
 soon as she was in the carriage, while pouring out civilities to 
 the little Duke, she suddenly exclaimed with kindly impulse 
 
 "Oh, and Butscha?" 
 
 " Bring Butscha, too," said the Duke, smiling. 
 
 As the harbor-men, who had collected around the dazzling 
 vehicle, saw these three little men with that tall meagre 
 woman, they looked at each other and laughed. 
 
 " If you stuck them together end-to-end, perhaps you might 
 make a man tall enough for that long May-pole," said a sailor 
 from Bordeaux. 
 
 " Have you anything else to take with you, madame? " the
 
 196 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Duke asked jestingly, as the footman stood waiting for his 
 orders. 
 
 " No, monseigneur," replied she, turning scarlet, and look- 
 ing at her husband as much as to say, " What have I done 
 wrong?" 
 
 " His lordship," said Butscha, " does me too much honor 
 in speaking of me as a thing ; a poor clerk like me is a name- 
 less object." 
 
 Though he spoke lightly, the Duke colored and made no 
 reply. Grand folk are always in the wrong to bandy jests 
 with those below them. Banter is a game, and a game implies 
 equality. And, indeed, it is to obviate the unpleasant re- 
 sults of such a transient familiarity that, when the game is 
 over, the players have a right to not recognize each other. 
 
 The Duke's visit to le Havre was ostensibly for the settle- 
 ment of an immense undertaking, namely, the reclaiming of a 
 vast tract of land, left dry by the sea between two streams, 
 of which the ownership had just been confirmed to the 
 H6rouville family by the high court of appeals. The pro- 
 posed scheme was no less a matter than the adjustment of 
 sluice gates to two bridges, to drain a tract of mud-flats ex- 
 tending for about a kilometre, with a breadth of three or four 
 hundred acres, to embank roads and dig ditches. When the 
 Due d'Herouville had explained the nature and position of the 
 land, Charles Mignon observed that he would have to wait until 
 nature had enabled the soil to settle by the consolidation of 
 its still shifting natural constituents. 
 
 " Time, which has providentially enriched your estate, 
 Monsieur le Due, must be left to complete its work," said he, 
 in conclusion. " You will do well to wait another fifty years 
 before setting to work." 
 
 " Do not let that be your final opinion, Monsieur le Comte," 
 said the Duke. " Come to H6rouville, see, and judge for 
 yourself." 
 
 Charles Mignon replied that some capitalist would need to
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 197 
 
 look into the matter with a cool head ; and this remark had 
 given Monsieur d'Herouville an excuse for calling at the 
 chalet. 
 
 Modeste made a deep impression on him ; he begged the 
 favor of a visit from her, saying that his aunt and sister had 
 heard of her, and would be happy to make her acquaintance. 
 On this, Charles Mignon proposed to introduce his daughter 
 to the two ladies, and invited them to dine with him on the 
 day when he should be re-established in his former home ; 
 this the Duke accepted. The nobleman's blue ribbon, his 
 title, and, above all, his rapturous glances, had their effect on 
 Modeste ; still, she was admirably calm in speech, manner, 
 and dignity. The Duke when he left seemed loath to depart, 
 but he had received an invitation to go to the chalet every 
 evening, on the pretext that, of course, no courtier of Charles 
 X. could possibly endure an evening without a game of whist. 
 
 So, on the following evening, Modeste was to see her three 
 admirers all on the stage at once. 
 
 Say what she will, it is certainly flattering to a girl to see 
 several rivals fluttering around her, men of talent, fame, or 
 high birth, all trying to shine and please her, though the 
 logic of the heart will lead her to sacrifice everything to per- 
 sonal predilection. Even if Modeste should lose credit by 
 the admission, she owned, at a later day, that the feelings 
 expressed in her letters had paled before the pleasure of see- 
 ing three men, so different, vying with each other three men, 
 each of whom would have done honor to the most exacting 
 family pride. At the same time, this luxury of vanity gave 
 way before the misanthropical spirit of mischief engendered 
 by the bitter affront which she already thought of merely as 
 a disappointment. So when her father said to her with a 
 smile 
 
 " Well, Modeste, would you like to be a duchess ? " 
 
 " 111 fortune has made me philosophical," she replied, with 
 a mocking curtsey.
 
 198 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "You are content to be baroness? " asked Butscha quietly. 
 
 " Or viscountess ? " replied her father. 
 
 " How could that be ? " said Modeste quickly. 
 
 " Why, if you were to accept Monsieur de la Briere, he 
 would certainly have influence enough with the King to get 
 leave to take my title and bear my arms." 
 
 " Oh, if it is a matter of borrowing a disguise, he will 
 make no difficulties ! " replied Modeste bitterly. 
 
 Butscha did not understand this sarcasm, of which only 
 Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay knew the meaning. 
 
 " As soon as marriage is in question, every man assumes a 
 disguise," said Madame Latournelle, " and women set them 
 the example. Ever since I can remember I have heard it 
 said, ' Monsieur this or mademoiselle that is making a very 
 good match ' so the other party must be making a bad one, 
 I suppose ? ' ' 
 
 " Marriage," quoth Butscha, " is like an action at law ; one 
 side is always left dissatisfied ; and if one party deceives the 
 other, half the married couples one sees certainly play the 
 farce at the cost of the other." 
 
 "Whence you conclude, Sire Butscha?" asked Modeste. 
 
 " That we must always keep our eyes sternly open to the 
 enemy's movements," replied the clerk. 
 
 "What did I tell you, my pet?" said Charles Mignon, 
 alluding to his conversation with his daughter on the sea- 
 shore. 
 
 "Men, to get married," interjected Latournelle, "play as 
 many parts as mothers make their daughters play in order 
 to get them off their hands." 
 
 "Then you think stratagem allowable?" rejoined Mod- 
 este. 
 
 " On both sides," cried Gobenheim. "Then the game is 
 even." 
 
 This conversation was carried on in a fragmentary manner 
 between the deals, and mixed up with the opinions each one
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 199 
 
 allowed himself to express about Monsieur d'Herouville, who 
 was thought quite good-looking by the little notary, by little 
 Dumay, and by little Butscha. 
 
 "I see," said Madame Mignon, with a smile, "that Ma- 
 dame Latournelle and my husband are quite monsters here ! " 
 
 "Happily for him the colonel is not excessively tall," 
 replied Butscha, while the lawyer was dealing, "for a tall 
 man who is also intelligent is always a rare exception." 
 
 But for this little discussion on the legitimate use of matri- 
 monial wiles, the account of the evening so anxiously expected 
 by Butscha might seem lengthy; but wealth, for which so 
 much secret meanness was committed, may perhaps lend to 
 the minutiae of private life the interest which is always aroused 
 by the social feeling so frankly set forth by Ernest in his reply 
 to Modeste. 
 
 In the course of the next morning Desplein arrived. He 
 stayed only so long as was needful for sending to le Havre 
 for a relay of post-horses, which were at once put in about 
 an hour. After examining Madame Mignon, he said she 
 would certainly recover her sight, and fixed the date for the 
 operation a month later. This important consultation was 
 held, of course, in the presence of the family party at the 
 chalet, all anxiously eager to hear the decision of the prince 
 of science. The illustrious member of the Academy of 
 Science asked the blind woman ten short questions, while 
 examining her eyes in the bright light by the window. Mod- 
 este, amazed at the value of time to this famous man, noticed 
 that his traveling chaise was full of books, which he intended 
 to read on his way back 10 Paris, for he had come away on 
 the previous evening, spending the night in sleeping and trav- 
 eling. 
 
 The swiftness and clearness of Desplein 's decisions on 
 every answer of Madame Mignon's, his curt speech, his man- 
 ner, all gave Modeste, for the first time, any clear idea of a
 
 200 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 man of genius. She felt the enormous gulf between Canalis, 
 a man of second-rate talents, and Desplein, a more than supe- 
 rior mind. 
 
 A man of genius has in the consciousness of his talent and 
 the assurance of his fame a domain, as it were, where his 
 legitimate pride can move and breathe freely without incom- 
 moding other people. Then the incessant conflict with men 
 and things gives him no time to indulge the coquettish con- 
 ceits in which the heroes of fashion indulge, as they hastily 
 reap the harvest of a passing season, while their vanity and 
 self-love are exacting and irritable, like a sort of custom- 
 house ever alert to seize a toll on everything that passes within 
 its ken. 
 
 Modeste was all the more delighted with the great surgeon 
 because he seemed struck by her extreme beauty he, under 
 whose hands so many women had passed, and who for years 
 had been scrutinizing them with the lancet and microscope. 
 
 "It would really be too bad," said he, with the gallantry 
 which he could so well assume, in contrast to his habitual 
 abruptness, " that a mother should be deprived of seeing such 
 a lovely daughter." 
 
 Modeste herself waited on the great surgeon at the simple 
 luncheon he would accept. She, with her father and Dumay, 
 escorted the learned man, for whom so many sick were long- 
 ing, as far as the chaise which waited for him at the side gate, 
 and there, her eyes beaming with hope, she said once more to 
 Desplein 
 
 " Then dear mamma will really see me ? " 
 
 " Yes, my pretty will-o'-the-wisp, I promise you she shall,'* 
 he replied, with a smile ; " and I am incapable of deceiving 
 you, for I, too, have a daughter." 
 
 The horses whirled him off as he spoke the words, which 
 had an unexpected touch of feeling. Nothing is more be- 
 witching than the unforeseen peculiar to very clever men. 
 
 This visit was the event of the day, and it left a track of
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 201 
 
 light in Modeste's soul. The enthusiastic child admired with- 
 out guile this man whose life was at everybody's command, 
 and in whom the habit of contemplating physical suffering 
 had overcome every appearance of egoism. 
 
 In the evening, when Gobenheim, the Latournelles, Canalis, 
 Ernest, and the Due d'Herouville had assembled, they con- 
 gratulated the Mignon family on the good news given them 
 by Desplein. Then, of course, the conversation, led by 
 Modeste, as we know her from her letters, turned on this man 
 whose genius, unfortunately for his glory, could only be ap- 
 preciated by the most learned men and the medical faculty. 
 And Gobenheim uttered this speech, which is in our days the 
 sanctifying anointing of genius in the ears of economists and 
 bankers 
 
 " He makes enormous sums." 
 
 " He is said to be very greedy? " replied Canalis. 
 
 The praise lavished on Desplein by Modeste annoyed the 
 poet. Vanity behaves like woman. They both believe that 
 they lose something by praise or affection bestowed on 
 another. Voltaire was jealous of the wit of a man whom 
 Paris admired for two days, just as a duchess takes offense at 
 a glance bestowed on her waiting-maid. So great is the 
 avarice of these two feelings that they feel robbed of a pit- 
 tance bestowed on the poor. 
 
 "And do you think, monsieur," asked Modeste, with a 
 smile, " that a genius should be 'measured by the ordinary 
 standard ?" 
 
 "It would first be necessary, perhaps," said Canalis, "to 
 define a man of genius. One of his prime characteristics is 
 inventiveness the invention of a type, of a system, of a 
 power. Napoleon was an inventor, apart from his other 
 characteristics of genius. He invented his method of war- 
 fare. Walter Scott is an inventor, Linnaeus was an inventor, 
 so are Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier. Such men are 
 geniuses above all else. They renew, or expand, or modify
 
 202 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 science or art. But Desplein is a man whose immense talent 
 consists in applying laws that were previously discovered ; in 
 detecting, by natural intuition, the final tendency of every 
 temperament, and the hour marked out by nature for the 
 performance of an operation. He did not, like Hippocrates, 
 lay the foundations of the science itself. He has not discovered 
 a system, like Galen, Broussais, or Rasori. His is the genius 
 of the executant, like Moscheles on the piano, Paganini on 
 the violin, or Farinelli on his own larynx men who display 
 immense powers, but who do not create music. Between 
 Beethoven and Madame Catalani you will allow that to him 
 should be awarded the crown of genius and suffering ; to her 
 a vast heap of five-franc pieces. We can pay our debt to 
 one, while the world must for ever remain in debt to the 
 other ! We owe more and more to Moliere every day, and 
 we have already ever paid Baron." 
 
 "It seems to me that you are giving too large a share to 
 ideas, my dear fellow," said la Briere, in a sweet and gentle 
 voice that was in startling contrast to the poet's peremptory 
 style, for his flexible voice had lost its insinuating tone and 
 assumed the dominant ring of rhetoric. " Genius ought to 
 be estimated chiefly for its utility. Parmentier, Jacquard, 
 and Papin, to whom statues will one day be erected, were 
 also men of genius. They have in a certain direction altered, 
 or will alter, the face of nations. From this point of view 
 Desplein will always appear in the eyes of thinking men 
 accompanied by a whole generation whose tears and sufferings 
 have been alleviated by his mighty hand." 
 
 That Ernest should have expressed this opinion was enough 
 to prompt Modeste to contest it. 
 
 "In that case, monsieur," said she, "the man who should 
 find means to reap corn without spoiling the straw, by a ma- 
 chine that should do the work of ten laborers, would be a 
 man of genius? " 
 
 "Oh yes, my child," said Madame Mignon, " he would be
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 203 
 
 blessed by the poor, whose bread would then be cheaper; and 
 he whom the poor bless is blessed by God." 
 
 "That is to give utility the preference over art," said Mod- 
 este, with a toss of her head. 
 
 "But for utility," said her father, " on what would art be 
 founded ? On what basis would it rest, on what would the 
 poet live, and who would give him shelter, who would pay 
 him?" 
 
 " Oh, my dear father, that is quite the view of a merchant 
 captain, a Philistine, a counter-jumper. That Gobenheim or 
 Monsieur de la Briere should hold it I can understand ; they 
 are interested in the solution of such social problems ; but 
 you, whose life has been so romantically useless to your age, 
 since your blood spilt on the soil of Europe, and the terrible 
 sufferings required of you by a Colossus, have not hindered 
 France from losing ten departments which the Republic had 
 conquered, how can you subscribe to a view so excessively 
 'out of date,' as the romantics have it? It is easy to see 
 that you have dropped from China." 
 
 The disrespect of Modeste's speech was aggravated by the 
 scornful and contemptuous-flippancy of the tone in which she 
 intentionally spoke, and which astonished Madame Latour- 
 nelle, Madame Mignon, and Dumay. Madame Latournelle, 
 though she opened her eyes wide enough, could not see nor 
 in the least comprehend what Modeste was driving at ; Butscha, 
 who was as alert as a spy, looked significantly at Monsieur 
 Mignon on seeing his face flush with deep and sudden indig- 
 nation. 
 
 "A little more, mademoiselle, and you would have failed in 
 respect to your father," said the colonel with a smile, enlight- 
 ened by Butscha's glance. "That is what comes of spoiling 
 a child." 
 
 "I am an only daughter ! " she retorted insolently. 
 
 "Unique ! " said the notary, with emphasis. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Modeste to Latournelle, "my father is
 
 204 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 very willing that I should educate him. He gave me life, I 
 give him wisdom he will still be my debtor." 
 
 " But there is a way of doing it and, above all, a time for 
 it," interposed Madame Mignon. 
 
 "But mademoiselle is very right," said Canalis, rising, and 
 placing himself by the ornate mantel in one of the finest 
 postures of his collection of attitudes. " God in His foresight 
 has given man food and clothing, and has not directly en- 
 dowed him with art ! He has said to man, ' To eat, you 
 must stoop to the earth ; to think, you must uplift yourself to 
 Me ! ' We need the life of the soul as much as the life of 
 the body. Hence there are two forms of utility obviously 
 we do not wear books on our feet. From the utilitarian point 
 of view, a canto of an epic is not to compare with a bowl of 
 cheap soup from a charity kitchen. The finest idea in the 
 world cannot take the place of the sail of a ship. An auto- 
 matic boiler, no doubt, by lifting itself two inches, supplies 
 us with calico thirty sous a yard cheaper ; but this machine 
 and the inventions of industry do not breathe the life of the 
 people, and will never tell the future that it has existed ; 
 whereas Egyptian art, Mexican art-, Greek or Roman art, with 
 their masterpieces, stigmatized as useless, have borne witness 
 to the existence of these nations through a vast space of time 
 in places where great intermediate nations have vanished 
 without leaving even a name-card, for lack of men of genius ! 
 Works of genius form the summum of a civilization and pre- 
 suppose a great use. You, no doubt, would not think a pair 
 of boots better in itself than a drama, nor prefer a windmill 
 to the church of Saint-Ouen? Well, a nation is moved by 
 the same spirit as an individual, and man's favorite dream is 
 to survive himself morally, as he reproduces himself physically. 
 What survives of a nation is the work of its men of genius. 
 
 "At this moment France is a vigorous proof of the truth of 
 this proposition. She is assuredly outdone by England in 
 industry, commerce, and navigation ; nevertheless, she leads
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 205 
 
 the world, I believe, by her artists, her gifted men, and the 
 taste of her products. There is not an artist, not a man of 
 mark anywhere, who does not come to Paris to win his patent 
 of mastery. There is at this day no school of painting but in 
 France ; and we shall rule by the book more surely perhaps, 
 and for longer, than by the sword. 
 
 " Under Ernest's system the flowers of luxury would be sup- 
 pressed the beauty of woman, music, painting, and poetry. 
 Society would not, indeed, be overthrown ; but who would 
 accept life on such terms ? All that is useful is horrible and 
 ugly. The kitchen is indispensable in a house, but you take 
 good care never to stay in it ; you live in a drawing-room orna- 
 mented, as this is, with perfectly superfluous things. Of what 
 use are those beautiful pictures and all this carved woodwork ? 
 Nothing is beautiful but what we feel to be useless. We have 
 called the sixteenth century the age of the Renaissance with 
 admirable accuracy of expression. That century was the dawn 
 of a new world ; men will still talk of it when some preceding 
 ages are forgotten, whose sole merit will be that they have 
 existed like the millions of beings that are of no account in 
 a generation." 
 
 " ' Guentlte, soit ! ma gucnille m'cst chere ' * ('A poor thing, 
 but mine own ')," said the Due d'Herouville playfully, during 
 the silence that followed this pompous declamation of prose. 
 
 "But," said Butscha, taking up the cudgels against Canalis, 
 " does the art exist which, according to you, is the sphere in 
 which genius should disport itself? Is it not rather a magnifi- 
 cent fiction which social man is madly bent on believing? 
 What need have I for a landscape in Normandy hanging in 
 my room when I can go and see it so well done by God ? We 
 have in our dreams finer poems than the ' Iliad.' For a very 
 moderate sum I can find at Valognes, at Carentan, as in 
 Provence, at Aries, Venuses quite as lovely as Titian's. The 
 * Police News ' publishes romances, different, indeed, from 
 * Lit.: Be it rags ! my rags are my entertainment.
 
 206 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 Walter Scott's, but with terrible endings in real blood, and 
 not in ink. Happiness and virtue are far above art and 
 genius ! " 
 
 " Bravo, Butscha ! " cried Madame Latournelle. 
 
 " What did he say ! " asked Canalis of la Briere, ceasing to 
 watch Modeste, in whose eyes and attitude he read the de- 
 lightful evidence of her artless admiration. 
 
 The scorn with which he had been treated, and, above all, 
 the girl's disrespectful speech to her father, had so depressed 
 the unhappy la Briere that he made no reply ; his gaze, sadly 
 fixed on Modeste, betrayed absorbed meditation. The little 
 clerk's argument was, however, repeated with some wit by the 
 Due d'Herouville, who ended by saying that the raptures of 
 Saint Theresa were far superior to the inventions of Lord 
 Byron. 
 
 " Oh, Monsieur le Due," remarked Modeste, "that is 
 wholly personal poetry, while Lord Byron's or Moliere's is 
 for the benefit of the world " 
 
 "Then you must make your peace with the Baron," inter- 
 rupted her father quickly. " Now you are insisting that 
 genius is to be useful, as much so as cotton ; but you will, 
 perhaps, think logic as stale and out of date as your poor old 
 father." 
 
 Butscha, la Briere, and Madame Latournelle exchanged 
 half-laughing glances, which spurred Modeste on in her career 
 of provocation, all the more because for a moment she was 
 checked. 
 
 "Nay, mademoiselle," said Canalis with a smile, "we 
 have not fought nor even contradicted each other. Every 
 work of art, whether in literature, music, painting, sculpture, 
 or architecture, carries with it a positive social utility, like 
 that of any other form of commercial produce. Art is the 
 truest form of commerce ; it takes it for granted. A book 
 in these days helps its writer to pocket about ten thousand 
 francs, and its production involves printing, paper-making,
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 207 
 
 type-founding, and the bookseller's trade ; that is to say, the 
 occupation of thousands of hands. The performance of a 
 symphony by Beethoven or of an opera by Rossini demands 
 quite as many hands, machines, and forms of industry. 
 
 "The cost of a building is a still more tangible answer to 
 the objection. It may, indeed, be said that works of genius 
 rest on a very costly basis, and are necessarily profitable to 
 the workingman." 
 
 Fairly started on this text, Canalis talked on for some min- 
 utes with a lavish use of imagery, and reveling in his own 
 words ; but it befell him, as often happens with great talkers, 
 to find himself at the end of his harangue just where he 
 started, and agreeing with la Briere, though he failed to per- 
 ceive it. 
 
 " I discern with pleasure, my dear Baron," said the little 
 Duke slily, " that you will make a great constitutional 
 minister." 
 
 "Oh," returned Canalis, with an ostentatious flourish, 
 " what do we prove by all our discussions ? The eternal truth 
 of this axiom, 'Everything is true and everything is false.' 
 Moral truths, like living beings, may be placed in an atmos- 
 phere where they change their appearance to the point of 
 being unrecognizable? " 
 
 " Society lives by condemned things," interposed the Due 
 d'Herouville. 
 
 "What flippancy!" said Madame Latournelle in a low 
 voice to her husband. 
 
 " He is a poet," said Gobenheim, who overheard her. 
 
 Canalis, who had soared ten leagues above his audience, 
 and who was, perhaps, right in his final philosophical dictum, 
 took the sort of chill he read on every face for a symptom of 
 ignorance ; but he saw that Modeste understood him, and was 
 content ; never discerning how offensive such a monologue is 
 to country folk, whose one idea is to prove to Parisians the 
 vitality, intelligence, and good judgment of the provinces.
 
 208 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " Is it long since you last saw the Duchesse de Chaulieu? " 
 asked the Duke of Canalis, to change the subject. 
 
 " I saw her six days ago," replied Canalis. 
 
 "And is she well?" 
 
 "Perfectly well." 
 
 " Remember me to her, pray, when you write." 
 
 " I hear she is charming," Modeste remarked to the Duke. 
 
 "Monsieur le Baron," said he, "knows more about that 
 than I do." 
 
 " She is more than charming," said Canalis, accepting the 
 Duke's perfidious challenge. " But I am partial, mademoi- 
 selle ; she has been my friend these ten years. I owe to her 
 all that may be good in me ; she has sheltered me from the 
 perils of the world. Beside, the Due de Chaulieu started me 
 in the way I am going. But for their influence the King and 
 Princesses would often have forgotten a poor poet as I am ; 
 my affection, therefore, is always full of gratitude." 
 
 And he spoke with tears in his voice. 
 
 " How much we all ought to love the woman who has in- 
 spired you with such sublime song and such a noble senti- 
 ment," said Modeste with feeling. " Can one conceive of a 
 poet without a Muse ? " 
 
 "He would have no heart," said Canalis; "he would 
 write verse as dry as Voltaire's who never loved any one but 
 Voltaire." 
 
 " When I was in Paris," said Dumay, "did you not do me 
 the honor of assuring me that you felt none of the feelings 
 you expressed ? ' ' 
 
 " A straight hit, my worthy soldier," replied the poet with 
 a smile ; " but you must understand that at the same time it 
 is allowable to have a great deal of heart in the intellectual 
 life as well as in real life. A man may express very fine senti- 
 ments without feeling them, or feel them without being able 
 to express them. La Briere, my friend there, loves to distrac- 
 tion," said he generously, as he looked at Modeste. "I, who
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 209 
 
 love at least as much as he does, believe unless I am under 
 an illusion that I can give my passion a literary form worthy 
 of its depth. Still, I will not answer for it, mademoiselle," 
 he adroitly added, turning to Modeste with a rather over-elab- 
 orate grace, " that I shall not be bereft of my wits by to- 
 
 morrow- 
 
 And thus the poet triumphed over every obstacle, burning 
 in honor of his love the sticks they tried to trip him up with, 
 while Modeste was dazzled by this Parisian brilliancy, which 
 was unfamiliar to her, and which lent a glitter to the orator's 
 rhetoric. 
 
 "What a mountebank!" said Butscha in a whisper to 
 Latournelle, after listening to a magniloquent tirade on the 
 Catholic religion, and the happiness of having a pious wife, 
 poured out in response to an observation from Madame 
 Mignon. 
 
 Modeste had a bandage over her eyes; the effect of his 
 delivery and the attention she intentionally devoted to Canalis 
 prevented her perceiving what Butscha saw and noted the 
 declamatory tone, the lack of simplicity, rant taking the place 
 of feeling, and all the incoherence which prompted the clerk's 
 rather too severe epithet. 
 
 While Monsieur Mignon, Dumay, Butscha, and Latournelle 
 wondered at the poet's want of sequence, overlooking, indeed, 
 the inevitable digressions of conversation, which in France is 
 always very devious, Modeste was admiring the poet's versa- 
 tility, saying to herself as she led him to follow the tortuous 
 windings of her fancy, "He loves me ! " 
 
 Butscha, like all the other spectators of this performance, 
 as we must call it, was struck by the chief fault of all egoists, 
 which Canalis shows a little too much, like all men who are 
 accustomed to speechify in drawing-rooms. Whether he 
 knew beforehand what the other speaker meant to say, or 
 merely did not listen, or had the power of listening while 
 thinking of something else, Melchior wore the look of inat- 
 14
 
 210 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 tention which is as disconcerting to another man's flow of 
 words as it is wounding to his vanity. 
 
 Not to attend to what is said is not merely a lack of polite- 
 ness ; it is an expression of contempt. And Canalis carries 
 this habit rather too far, for he often neglects to reply to a 
 remark that requires an answer, and goes off to the subject 
 he is absorbed in without any polite transition. Though this 
 form of impertinence may be accepted without protest from a 
 man of position, it nevertheless creates a leaven of hatred 
 and vengeful feeling at the bottom of men's hearts; in an 
 equal, it may even break up a friendship. 
 
 When by any chance Melchior compels himself to listen, 
 he falls into another failing he only lends himself, he does 
 not give himself up. Nothing in social intercourse pays better 
 than the bestowal of attention. " Blessed are they that hear !" 
 is not only a precept of the Gospel, it is also an excellent 
 speculation ; act on it, and you will be forgiven everything, 
 even vices. Canalis took much upon himself in the intention 
 of charming Modeste ; but while he was sacrificing himself to 
 her, he was himself all the while with the others. 
 
 Modeste, pitiless for the ten persons she was martyrizing, 
 begged Canalis to read them some piece of his verse; she 
 wanted to hear a specimen of that much-praised elocution. 
 
 Canalis took the volume offered him by Modeste and cooed 
 for that is the correct word the poem that is supposed to 
 be his finest, an imitation of Moore's " Loves of the Angels," 
 entitled " Vitalis," which was received with some yawns by 
 Mesdames Latournelle and Dumay, by Gobenheim and the 
 cashier. 
 
 "If you play whist well, monsieur," said Gobenheim, 
 offering him five cards spread out in a fan, " I have never met 
 with so accomplished a gentleman." 
 
 The remark made every one laugh, for it was the expres- 
 sion of the common wish. 
 
 " I play it well enough to be able to end my days in a
 
 MODESTE MIGMON. 211 
 
 country town," replied Canalis. "There has, I dare say, 
 been more of literature and conversation than whist players 
 care to have," he added in an impertinent tone, flinging the 
 book on to the side-table. 
 
 This incident shows what dangers are incurred by the hero 
 of a salon when, like Canalis, he moves outside his orbit; he 
 is then in the case of an actor who is a favorite with one par- 
 ticular public, but whose talent is wasted when he quits his 
 own stage and ventures on to that of a superior theatre. 
 
 The Baron and the Duke were partners ; Gobenheim played 
 with Latournelle. Modeste sat down at the great poet's 
 elbow, to the despair of Ernest, who marked on the capricious 
 girl's countenance the progress of Canalis' fascination. La 
 Briere had not known the power of seduction possessed by 
 Melchior, and often denied by nature to genuine souls, who 
 are generally shy. This gift demands a boldness and readiness 
 of spirit which might be called the acrobatic agility of the 
 mind ; it even allows of a little part-playing ; but is there 
 not, morally speaking, always something of the actor in a 
 poet ? There is, indeed, a wide difference between expressing 
 feelings we do not experience though we can imagine them in 
 all their variety, and pretending to have them when they seem 
 necessary to success on the stage of private life ; and yet, if 
 the hypocrisy needful to a man of the world has cankered the 
 poet, he easily transfuses the powers of his talent into the 
 expression of the required sentiment, just as a great man who 
 has buried himself in solitude at last finds his heart overflow- 
 ing into his brain. 
 
 " He is playing for millions," thought la Bri6re in anguish ; 
 " and he will act passion so well that Modeste will believe 
 in it!" 
 
 And instead of showing himself more delightful and wittier 
 than his rival, la Briere, like the Due d'Herouville, sat gloomy, 
 uneasy, and on the watch ; but while the courtier was studying 
 the heiress' vagaries, Ernest was a prey to the misery of black
 
 212 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 and concentrated jealousy, and had not yet won a single 
 glance from his idol. He presently went into the garden for 
 a few minutes with Butscha. 
 
 " It is all over, she is crazy about him," said he. "I am 
 worse than disagreeable and, after all, she is right ! Canal is 
 is delightful, he is witty even in his silence, he has passion in 
 his eyes, poetry in his harangues " 
 
 " Is he an honest man ? " asked Butscha. 
 
 " Oh, yes," replied la Briere. " He is loyal, chivalrous, 
 and under Modeste's influence he is quite capable of getting 
 over the little faults he has acquired under Madame de 
 Chaulieu " 
 
 " You are a good fellow !" exclaimed the little hunchback. 
 " But is he capable of loving will he love her ? " 
 
 "I do not know," replied Ernest. " Has she men- 
 tioned me? " he asked after a short silence. 
 
 "Yes," said Butscha, and he repeated what Modeste had 
 said about borrowing a disguise. 
 
 The young fellow threw himself on a seat and hid his face 
 in his hands. He could not restrain his tears, and would not 
 let Butscha see them; but the dwarf was the man to guess 
 them. 
 
 " What is wrong, monsieur ? " asked he. 
 
 " She is right ! " cried la Briere, suddenly sitting up. " I 
 am a wretch." 
 
 He told the story of the trick he had been led into by 
 Canalis, explaining to Butscha that he had wished to unde- 
 ceive Modeste before she had unmasked ; and he overflowed 
 in rather childish lamentations over the perversity of his fate. 
 Butscha's sympathy recognized this as love in its most vigor- 
 ous and youthful artlessness, in its genuine and deep anxiety. 
 
 " But why," said he, " do you not make the best of your- 
 self to Mademoiselle Modeste, instead of leaving your rival to 
 prance alone? " 
 
 " Ah ! you evidently never felt your throat tighten as soon
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 213 
 
 as you tried to speak to her," said la Briere. " Do you not 
 feel a sensation at the roots of your hair and all over your 
 skin when she looks at you, even without seeing you? " 
 
 " Still you had your wits about you sufficiently to be deeply 
 grieved when she as good as told her father that he was an old 
 woman." 
 
 " Monsieur, I love her too truly not to have felt it like a 
 dagger-thrust when I heard her thus belie the perfection I 
 ascribed to her ! " 
 
 " But Canalis, you see, justified her," replied Butscha. 
 
 " If she has more vanity than good feeling, she would 
 not be worth regretting ! " said Ernest. 
 
 At this moment Modeste came out to breathe the freshness 
 of the starlit night with Canalis (who had been losing at 
 cards), her father, and Madame Dumay. While his daughter 
 walked on with Melchior, Charles Mignon left her and came 
 up to la Briere. 
 
 " Your friend ought to have been an advocate, monsieur," 
 said he with a smile, and looking narrowly at the young man. 
 
 " Do not be in a hurry to judge a poet with the severity 
 you might exercise on an ordinary man, like me, for instance, 
 Monsieur le Comte," said la Briere. " The poet has his mis- 
 sion. He is destined by nature to see the poetical side of 
 every question, just as he expresses the poetry of everything ; 
 thus when you fancy that he is arguing against himself, he is 
 faithful to his calling. He is a painter ready to represent 
 either a Madonna or a courtesan. Moliere is alike right in 
 his pictures of old men and young men, and Moliere cer- 
 tainly had a sound judgment. These sports of fancy which 
 corrupt second-rate minds have no influence over the character 
 of really great men." 
 
 Charles Mignon pressed the young fellow's hand, saying, 
 " At the same time, this versatility might be used by a man 
 to justify himself for actions diametrically antagonistic, espe- 
 cially in politics."
 
 214 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 At this moment Canalis was saying in an insinuating voice, 
 in reply to some saucy remark of Modeste's : " Ah, made- 
 moiselle, never believe that the multiplicity of emotions can 
 in any degree diminish strength of feeling. Poets, more 
 than other men, must love with constancy and truth. In the 
 first place, do not be jealous of what is called ' The Muse. ' 
 Happy is the wife of a busy man ! If you could but hear the 
 lamentations of the wives who are crushed under the idleness 
 of husbands without employment, or to whom wealth gives 
 much leisure, you would know that the chief happiness of a 
 Parisian woman is liberty, sovereignty in her home. And we 
 poets allow the wife to hold the sceptre, for we cannot possi- 
 bly condescend to the tyranny exerted by small minds. We 
 have something better to do. If ever I should marry, which 
 I vow is a very remote disaster in my life, I should wish my 
 wife to enjoy the perfect moral liberty which a mistress always 
 preserves, and which is perhaps the source of all her seductive- 
 ness." 
 
 Canalis put forth all his spirit and grace in talking of love, 
 marriage, the worship of woman, and arguing with Modeste, 
 but presently Monsieur Mignon, who came to join them, seized 
 a moment's silence to take his daughter by the arm and lead 
 her back to Ernest, whom the worthy colonel had advised to 
 attempt some explanation. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said Ernest in a broken voice, "I cannot 
 possibly endure to remain here the object of your scorn. I 
 do not defend myself, I make no attempt at justification ; I 
 only beg to point out to you that before receiving your flatter- 
 ing letter addressed to the man and not to the poet your last 
 letter I desired, and by a letter written at le Havre I intended, 
 to dispel the mistake under which you wrote. All the feelings 
 I have had the honor of expressing to you are sincere. A 
 hope beamed on me when, in Paris, your father told me that 
 he was poor ; but now, if all is lost, if nothing is left to me 
 but eternal regrets, why should I stay where there is nothing
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 215 
 
 for me but torture? Let me only take away with me one 
 smile from you. It will remain graven on my heart." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Modeste, who appeared cold and absent- 
 minded, "I am not the mistress here ; but I certainly should 
 deeply regret keeping any one here who should find neither 
 pleasure nor happiness in staying." 
 
 She turned away, and took Madame Dumay's arm to go 
 back into the house. A few minutes later all the personages 
 of this domestic drama, once more united in the drawing- 
 room, were surprised to see Modeste sitting by the Due d'He- 
 rouville, and flirting with him in the best style of the most 
 wily Parisienne. She watched his play, gave him advice when 
 he asked it, and took opportunities of saying flattering things 
 to him, placing the chance advantage of noble birth on the 
 same level as that of talent or of beauty. 
 
 Canalis knew, or fancied he knew, the reason for this caprice; 
 he had tried to pique Modeste by speaking of marriage as a 
 disaster and seeming to be averse to it ; but, like all who play 
 with fire, it was he who was burnt. Modeste's pride and dis- 
 dain alarmed the poet ; he came up to her, making a display 
 of jealousy all the more marked because it was assumed. 
 Modeste, as implacable as the angels, relished the pleasure she 
 felt in the exercise of her power, and naturally carried it too 
 far. The Due d'Herouville had never been so well treated: 
 a woman smiled on him ! 
 
 At eleven o'clock, an unheard-of hour at the chalet, the 
 three rivals left, the Duke thinking Modeste charming, Canalis 
 regarding her as a coquette, and la Briere heart-broken by her 
 relentlessness. 
 
 For a week the heiress still remained to her three admirers 
 just what she had been on that evening, so that the poet 
 seemed to have triumphed in spite of the whims and freaks 
 which from time to time inspired some hopes in the Due 
 d'H^rouvjlle. Modeste's irreverence to her father and the
 
 216 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 liberties she took with him ; her irritability toward her blind 
 mother, as she half-grudgingly did her the little services which 
 formerly had been the delight of her filial affection, seemed 
 to be the outcome of a wayward, temper and liveliness tolerated 
 in her childhood. When Modeste went too far she would 
 assert a code of her own, and ascribe her levity and fractious- 
 ness to her spirit of independence. She owned to Canalis and 
 the Duke that she hated obedience, and regarded this as an 
 obstacle in the way of marriage, thus sounding her suitors' 
 character after the manner of those who pierce the soil to 
 bring up gold, coal, stone, or water. 
 
 "I shall never find a husband," she said, the day before 
 that on which the family were to reinstate themselves in the 
 villa, " who will endure my caprices with such kindness as my 
 father's, which has never failed for an instant, or the indul- 
 gence of my adorable mother." 
 
 "They know that you love them, mademoiselle," said la 
 Briere. 
 
 "Be assured, mademoiselle, that your husband will know 
 the full value of his treasure," added the Duke. 
 
 "You have more wit and spirit than are needed to break in 
 a husband," said Canalis, laughing. 
 
 Modeste smiled, as Henri IV. may have smiled when, by 
 extracting three answers to an insidious question, he had re- 
 vealed to some foreign ambassador the character of his three 
 leading ministers. 
 
 On the day of the dinner, Modeste, led away by her prefer- 
 ence for Canalis, walked alone with him for some time up and 
 down the graveled walk leading from the house to the lawn 
 with its flower-beds. It was easy to perceive, from the poet's 
 gestures and the young heiress' demeanor, that she was lend- 
 ing a favorable ear to Canalis, and the two Demoiselles 
 d'Herouville came out to interrupt a tete-a-tete that scandal- 
 ized them. With the tact natural to women in such cases, 
 they turned the conversation to the subject of the court, of the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 217 
 
 high position conferred by an office under the crown, explain- 
 ing the difference subsisting between an appointment to the 
 household and one held under the crown ; they tried, in fact, 
 to intoxicate Modeste by appealing to her pride, and display, 
 ing to her one of the highest positions which a woman at that 
 time could hope to attain. 
 
 " To have a duke in your son," cried the old lady, "is a 
 positive distinction. The mere title is a fortune, out of reach 
 of reverses, to bequeath to your children." 
 
 "To what ill-fortune," said Canalis, very ill pleased at this 
 interruption to his conversation, " must we attribute the small 
 success that the master of the horse has hitherto achieved in 
 the matter in which that title is supposed to be of most service 
 as supporting a man's pretensions?" 
 
 The two unmarried ladies shot a look at Canalis as full of 
 venom as a viper's fangs, but were so put out of countenance 
 by Modeste's sarcastic smile that they had not a word in reply. 
 
 "The master of the horse," said Modeste to Canalis, "has 
 never blamed you for the diffidence you have learned from your 
 fame; why then grudge him his modesty? " 
 
 "Also," said the Duke's aunt, "we have not yet met with 
 a wife worthy of my nephew's rank. Some we have seen who 
 had merely the fortune that might suit the position ; others 
 who, without the fortune, had indeed the right spirit ; and I 
 must confess that we have done well to wait till God should 
 give us the opportunity of making acquaintance with a young 
 lady in whom should be united both the noble soul and the 
 handsome fortune of a Duchesse d'Herouville ! " 
 
 "My dear Modeste," said Helene d'Herouville, walking 
 away a few steps with her new friend, " there are a thousand 
 Barons de Canalis in the kingdom, and a hundred poets in 
 Paris who are as good as he ; and he is so far from being a 
 great man, that I, a poor girl, fated to take the veil for lack 
 of a dower, would have nothing to say to him ! And you do 
 not know, I dare say, that he is a man who has, for the last
 
 218 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 ten years, been at the beck and call of the Duchesse de Chau- 
 lieu. Really, none but an old woman of sixty could put up 
 with the endless little ailments with which, it is said, the poet 
 is afflicted, the least of which was unendurable in Louis XVI. 
 Still, the Duchess, of course, does not suffer from them as his 
 wife would ; he is not so constantly with her as a husband 
 would be " 
 
 And so by one of the manoeuvres peculiar to woman against 
 woman, Helene d'Herouville whispered in every ear the 
 calumnies which women, jealous of Madame de Chaulieu, 
 propagated concerning the poet. This trivial detail, not rare 
 in the gossip of young girls, shows that the Comte de la 
 Bastie's fortune was already made the object of ardent rivalry. 
 
 Within ten days, opinions at the chalet had varied consid- 
 erably about the three men who aspired to Modeste's hand. 
 This change, wholly to the disadvantage of Canalis, was 
 founded on considerations calculated to make the hero of any 
 form of fame reflect deeply. When we see the passion with 
 which an autograph is craved, it is impossible to doubt that 
 public curiosity is strongly excited by celebrity. Most pro- 
 vincials, it is evident, have no very exact idea of the manner 
 in which illustrious persons fasten their cravat, walk on the 
 boulevard, gape at the crows, or eat a cutlet ; for, as soon as 
 they see a man wearing the halo of fashion, or resplendent 
 with popularity more or less transient, no doubt, but always 
 the object of envy they are ready to exclaim, " Ah ! so 
 that is the thing ! " or, " Well, that is odd ! " or something 
 equally absurd. In a word, the strange charm that is pro- 
 duced by every form of renown, even when justly acquired, 
 has no permanence. To superficial minds, especially to the 
 sarcastic and the envious, it is an impression as swift as a 
 lightning-flash, and never repeated. Glory, it would seem, 
 like the sun, is hot and luminous from afar, but, when we get 
 near, it is as cold as the peak of an Alp. Perhaps a man is really 
 great only to his peers ; perhaps the defects inherent in the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 219 
 
 conditions of humanity are more readily lost to their eyes 
 than to those of vulgar admirers. Thus, to be constantly 
 pleasing, a poet would be compelled to display the deceptive 
 graces of those persons who can win forgiveness for their ob- 
 scurity by amiable manners and agreeable speeches, since, 
 beside genius, the vapid drawing-room virtues and harmless 
 domestic twaddle are exacted from him. 
 
 The great poet of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, who re- 
 fused to yield to this law of society, found that insulting 
 indifference soon took the place of the fascination at first 
 caused by his conversation at evening parties. Cleverness too 
 prodigally displayed produces the same effect on the mind as 
 a shop full of cut-glass has on the eyes ; this sufficiently ex- 
 plains that Canalis' glitter soon wearied those people who, to 
 use their own words, like something solid. Then, under the 
 necessity of appearing an ordinary man, the poet found many 
 rocks ahead where la Briere could win the good opinion of 
 those who, at first, had thought him sullen. They felt the de- 
 sire to be revenged on Canalis for his reputation by making 
 more of his friend. The most kindly people are so made. 
 The amiable and unpretentious referendary shocked nobody's 
 vanity ; falling back on him, every one discerned his good 
 heart, his great modesty, the discretion of a strong box, and 
 delightful manners. On political questions the Due d'He- 
 rouville held Ernest far above Canalis. The poet, as erratic, 
 ambitious, and mutable as Tasso, loved luxury and splendor, 
 and ran into debt ; while the young lawyer, even-minded, 
 living prudently, and useful without officiousness, hoped for 
 promotion without asking it, and was saving money mean- 
 while. 
 
 Canalis had indeed justified the good people who were 
 watching him. For the last two or three days he had given 
 way to fits of irritability, of depression, of melancholy, with- 
 out any apparent cause the caprices of temper that come of 
 the nervous poetical temperament, These eccentricities as
 
 220 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 they are called in a country town had their cause in the 
 wrong, which each day made worse, that he was doing to the 
 Duchesse de Chaulieu, to whom he knew he ought to write, 
 without being able to make up his mind to do it ; they were 
 anxiously noted by the gentle American and worthy Madame 
 Latournelle, and more than once came under discussion be- 
 tween them and Madame Mignon. Canalis, knowing nothing 
 of these discussions, felt their effect. He was no longer 
 listened to with the same attention, the faces round him did 
 not express the rapture of the first days, while Ernest was 
 beginning to be listened to. For the last few days the poet 
 had, therefore, been bent on captivating Modeste, and seized 
 every moment when he could be alone with her to cast over 
 her the tangles of the most impassioned language. Modeste' s 
 heightened color plainly showed the two Demoiselles d'He- 
 rouville with what pleasure the heiress heard insinuating 
 conceits charmingly spoken ; and, uneasy at the poet's rapid 
 advances, they had recourse to the ultima ratio of women in 
 such predicaments to calumny, which rarely misses its aim 
 when it appeals to vehement physical repulsion. 
 
 As he sat down to dinner the poet saw a cloud on his idol's 
 brow, and read in it Mademoiselle d'Herouville's perfidy; so 
 he decided that he must offer himself as a husband to Mod- 
 este at the first opportunity he should have of speaking to 
 her. As he and the two noble damsels exchanged some sub- 
 acid, though polite remarks, Gobenheim nudged Butscha, 
 who sat next to him, to look at the poet and the master of 
 the horse. 
 
 " They will demolish each other," said he in a whisper. 
 
 " Canalis has genius enough to demolish himself unaided," 
 said the dwarf. 
 
 In the course of the dinner, which was extremely splendid 
 and served to perfection, the Duke achieved a great triumph 
 over Canalis. Modeste, whose riding-habit had arrived the 
 evening before, talked of the various rides to be taken in the
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 221 
 
 neighborhood. In the course of the conversation that ensued 
 she was led to express a strong wish to see a hunt a pleasure 
 she had never known. The Duke at once proposed to ar- 
 range a hunt for Mademoiselle Mignon's benefit in one of the 
 crown forest-lands a few leagues from le Havre. Thanks to 
 his connection with the master of the King's hounds, the 
 Prince de Cadignan, he had it in his power to show Modeste 
 a scene of royal magnificence, to charm her by showing her 
 the dazzling world of a court, and making her wish to enter 
 it by marriage. The glances exchanged by the Duke and 
 the two Demoiselles d'Herouville, which Canalis happened to 
 catch, distinctly said, " The heiress is ours ! " enough to urge 
 the poet, who was reduced to mere personal glitter, to secure 
 some pledge of her affection without loss of time. 
 
 Modeste, somewhat scared at having gone further than she 
 intended with the d'Herouvilles, after dinner, when they 
 were walking in the grounds, went forward a little distance in 
 a rather marked manner, accompanied by Melchior. With a 
 young girl's not illegitimate curiosity, she allowed him to 
 guess the calumnies repeated by Helene, and, on a remon- 
 strance from Canalis, she pledged him to secrecy, which he 
 promised. 
 
 " These lashes of the tongue," said he, " are fair war in 
 the world of fashion ; your simplicity is scared by them ; for 
 my part, I can laugh at them nay, I enjoy them. Those 
 ladies must think his lordship's interests seriously imperiled, 
 or they would not have recourse to them." 
 
 Then, profiting by the opportunity given by such a piece 
 of information, Canalis justified himself with so much mock- 
 ing wit and passion so ingeniously expressed, while thanking 
 Modeste for her confidence, in which he insisted in seeing a 
 slight strain of love, that she found herself quite as deeply 
 compromised toward the poet as she was toward the Duke. 
 Canalis felt that daring was necessary ; he declared himself 
 in plain terms. He paid his vows to Modeste in a style
 
 222 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 through which his poetic fancy shone like a moon ingeniously 
 staged, with a brilliant picture of herself beautifully fair, 
 and arrayed to admiration for this family festival. The in- 
 spiration so cleverly called up, and encouraged by the com- 
 plicity of the evening, the grove, the sky, and the earth, led 
 the grasping lover beyond all reason ; for he even talked of 
 his disinterestedness, and succeeded by the flowers of his elo- 
 quence in giving a new aspect to Diderot's stale theme of 
 " Five hundred francs and my Sophie," or the " Give me a 
 cottage and your heart ! " of every lover who knows that his 
 father-in-law has a fortune. 
 
 "Monsieur," said Modeste, after enjoying the music of 
 this concerto so admirably composed on "a familiar theme," 
 "my parents leave me such freedom as has allowed me to 
 hear you ; but you must address yourself to them." 
 
 "Well, then," cried Canalis, "only tell me that if I get 
 their consent you will be quite satisfied to obey them." 
 
 " I know beforehand," said she, " that my father has some 
 wishes which might offend the legitimate pride of a family as 
 old as yours, for he is bent on transmitting his title and his 
 name to his grandsons." 
 
 " Oh, my dear Modeste, what sacrifice would I not make 
 to place my life in the hands of such a guardian angel as you 
 are!" 
 
 " You must allow me not to decide my fate for life in 
 one moment," said she, going to join the Demoiselles 
 d'Herouville. 
 
 These two ladies were at that minute flattering little Latour- 
 nelle's vanity in the hope of securing him to their interests. 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville, to whom we must give the family 
 name to distinguish her from her niece Helene, was convey- 
 ing to the notary that the place of president of the court at le 
 Havre, which Charles X. would give to a man recommended 
 by them, was an appointment due to his honesty and talents 
 as a lawyer. Butscha, who was walking with la Briere, in
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 223 
 
 great alarm at Melchior's audacity and rapid progress, found 
 means to speak to Modeste for a few minutes at the bottom 
 of the garden steps as the party went indoors to give them- 
 selves up to the vexations of the inevitable rubber. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, I hope you do not yet address him as 
 Melchior," said he in an undertone. 
 
 "Not far short of it, my mysterious dwarf," she replied, 
 with a smile that might have seduced an angel. 
 
 " Good God ! " cried the clerk, dropping his hands, which 
 almost touched the steps. 
 
 " Well, and is he not as good as that odious gloomy refer- 
 endary in whom you take so much interest? " cried she, put- 
 ting on for Ernest a haughty look of scorn, such as young 
 girls alone have the secret of, as though their maidenhood 
 lent them wings to soar so high. " Would your little Mon- 
 sieur de la Briere take me without a settlement ? " she added 
 after a pause. 
 
 "Ask your father," replied Butscha, going a few steps on, 
 so as to lead Modeste to a little distance from the windows. 
 " Listen to me, mademoiselle. You know that I who speak 
 to you am ready to lay down not my life only, but my honor 
 for you, at any time, at any moment. So you can believe in 
 me, you can trust me with things you would not perhaps tell 
 your father. Well, has that sublime Canalis ever spoken to 
 you in the disinterested way that allows you to cast such a 
 taunt at poor Ernest?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And you believe him ? " 
 
 " That, malignant clerk," said she, giving him one of the 
 ten or twelve nicknames she had devised for him, " is, as it 
 seems to me, casting a doubt on the strength of my self- 
 respect." 
 
 " You can laugh, dear mademoiselle, so it cannot be serious. 
 I can only hope that you are making a fool of him." 
 
 " What would you think of me, Monsieur Butscha, if I
 
 224 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 thought I had any right to mock at either of the gentlemen 
 who do me the honor to wish for me as a wife ? I can tell 
 you, Master John, that even when she appears to scorn the 
 most contemptible admiration, a girl is always flattered at 
 having it offered to her." 
 
 " Then I flatter you ? " said the clerk, his face lighting 
 
 up as a town is illuminated on some great occasion. 
 
 " You ? " said she. " You give me the most precious 
 
 kind of friendship, a feeling as disinterested as that of a mother 
 for her child ! Do not compare yourself to any one else, for 
 even my father is obliged to yield to me." She paused. " I 
 cannot tell you that I love you, in the sense men give to the 
 word ; but what I feel for you is eternal and can never know 
 any change." 
 
 " Well, then," said Butscha, stooping to pick up a pebble 
 that he might leave a kiss and a tear on the tip of Modeste's 
 shoe, "let me watch over you as a dragon watches over a 
 treasure. The poet spreads before you just now all the filigree 
 of his elaborate phrases, the tinsel of his promises. He sang 
 of love to the sweetest chord of his lyre, no doubt ? If, when 
 this noble lover is fully assured of your having but a small 
 fortune, you should see his demeanor change ; if you then find 
 him cold and embarrassed, will you still make him your hus- 
 band, still honor him with your esteem? " 
 
 "Can he be a Francisque Althor?" she asked, with an 
 expression of the deepest disgust. 
 
 "Let me have the pleasure of working this transformation 
 scene," said Butscha. " Not only do I intend that it shall be 
 sudden, but I do not despair of restoring your poet to you 
 afterward, in love once more, of making him blow hot and 
 cold on your heart with as good a grace as when he argues for 
 and against the same thing in the course of a single evening, 
 sometimes without being aware of it " 
 
 "And if you are right," said she, " whom can I trust? " 
 
 "The man who truly loves you."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 225 
 
 "The little Duke?" 
 
 Butscha looked at Modeste. They both walked on a few 
 steps in silence. The girl was impenetrable; she did not 
 wince. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, will you allow me to put into words the 
 thoughts that lurk at the bottom of your heart like water- 
 mosses in a pool, and that you refuse to explain to yourself 
 even?" 
 
 " Why, indeed ! " cried Modeste, " is my privy councilor- 
 in-waiting a mirror, too?" 
 
 " No, but an echo," he replied, with a little bow stamped 
 with the utmost modesty. "The Duke loves you, but he loves 
 you too well. I, a dwarf, have fully understood the exquisite 
 delicacy of your soul. You would hate to be adored like the 
 holy wafer in a monstrance. But, being so eminently a woman, 
 you could no more bear to see a man of whom you were always 
 secure perpetually at your feet, than you could endure an 
 egoist like Canalis, who would always care more for himself 
 than for you. Why? I know not. I would I could be a 
 woman, and an old woman, to learn the reason of the pro- 
 gramme I can read in your eyes, which is perhaps that of every 
 girl. 
 
 "At the same time, your lofty soul craves for adoration. 
 When a man is at your feet you cannot throw yourself at his. 
 ' But you cannot go far in that way,' Voltaire used to say. 
 So the little Duke has, morally speaking, too many genu- 
 flexions, and Canalis not enough not to say none at all. And 
 I can read the mischief hidden in your smile when you are 
 speaking to the master of the horse, when he speaks to you 
 and you reply. You would never be unhappy with the Duke ; 
 everybody would be pleased if you chose him for your hus- 
 band \ but you would not love him. The coldness of egoism 
 and the excessive fervor of perennial raptures no doubt have a 
 negative effect on the heart of every woman. 
 
 " Obviously this is not the perpetual triumph that you would 
 15
 
 226 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 enjoy in the infinite delights of such a marriage as that you 
 dream of, in which you would find a submission to be proud 
 of, great little sacrifices that are gladly unconfessed, successes 
 looked forward to with rapture, and unforeseen magnanimity 
 to which it is a joy to yield ; in which a woman finds herself 
 understood even to her deepest secrets, while her love is 
 sometimes a protection to her protector " 
 
 " You are a wizard ! " cried Modeste. 
 
 " Nor will you meet with that enchanting equality of feel- 
 ing, that constant sharing of life, and that certainty of giving 
 happiness which makes marriage acceptable, if you marry a 
 Canalis, a man who thinks only of himself, to whom / is the 
 only note in the scale, and whose attention has not yet con- 
 descended so low as to listen to your father or the Duke. An 
 ambitious man, not of the first class, to whom your dignity 
 and supremacy matter little, who will treat you as a necessary 
 chattel in his house, who insults you already by his indiffer- 
 ence on points of honor. Yes, if you allowed yourself to go 
 so far as to slap your mother, Monsieur Canalis would shut his 
 eyes that he might not see your guilt, so hungry is he for your 
 fortune ! 
 
 " So, mademoiselle, I was not thinking of the great poet, 
 who is but a little actor, nor of my lord Duke, who would be 
 for you a splendid match, but not a husband " 
 
 " Butscha, my heart is a blank page on which you yourself 
 write what you read," replied Modeste. "You are carried 
 away by your provincial hatred of everything that compels 
 you to look above your head. You cannot forgive the poet 
 for being a political man, for having an eloquent tongue, and 
 a splendid future ; you calumniate his purpose " 
 
 " His, mademoiselle ! He would turn his back on you 
 within twenty-four hours with the meanness of a Vilquin." 
 
 "Well, make him play such a farcical scene, and " 
 
 "Ay, and in every key; in three days on Wednesday 
 do not forget. Until then, mademoiselle, amuse yourself by
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. <ffl 
 
 making the musical box play all its airs, that the vile discords 
 of the antiphony may come out all the more clearly." 
 
 Modeste gayly returned to the drawing-room, where of all 
 the men present, la Briere alone, seated in the recess of a 
 window whence, no doubt, he had been looking at his idol 
 rose at her entrance, as if an usher had shouted, " The 
 Queen ! " It was a respectful impulse, full of the eloquence 
 peculiar to action, which surpasses that of the finest speech. 
 Spoken love is not to be compared with love in action every 
 girl of twenty is fifty as concerns this axiom ; this is the 
 seducer's strongest argument. 
 
 Instead of looking Modeste in the face, as Canalis did, 
 bowing to her as an act of public homage, the disdained 
 lover watched her with a slow side-glance, as humble as 
 Butscha's, almost timid. The young heiress observed this 
 demeanor as she went to place herself by Canalis, in whose 
 game she affected an interest. In the course of the conversa- 
 tion la Briere learned, from a remark she made to her father, 
 that Modeste intended to begin riding again on the following 
 Wednesday, and she mentioned that she had no riding-whip 
 suitable to match with her handsome new habit. Ernest 
 flashed a glance at the dwarf like a spark of fire, and a few 
 minutes later they were walking together on the terrace. 
 
 " It is now nine o'clock," said la Briere. "I am off to 
 Paris as fast as my horse will carry me. I can be there by 
 ten to-morrow morning. My dear Butscha, from you she 
 will accept a gift with pleasure, for she has a great regard for 
 you ; let me give her a riding-whip in your name ; and, be- 
 lieve me, in return for such an immense favor you have in me 
 not indeed a friend, but a slave ! " 
 
 "Go; you are happy," said the clerk. "You have 
 money." 
 
 " Tell Canalis from me that I shall not be in to-night, and 
 that he must invent some excuse for my absence for two 
 days."
 
 228 MODESTE M1GNON. 
 
 An hour later Ernest had set out on horseback for Paris, 
 where he arrived after twelve hours' riding, his first care 
 being to secure a place in the mail-coach for le Havre on the 
 following day. He then went to the three first jewelers in 
 Paris, comparing handles of riding-whips, and seeking what 
 art could produce of the most royal perfection. He found 
 one made by Stidmann for a Russian lady, who, after order- 
 ing it, had been unable to pay for it a fox-hunt wrought in 
 gold, with a ruby at the top, and exorbitantly expensive as 
 compared with a referendary's stipend ; all his savings were 
 swallowed up, amounting to seven thousand francs. Ernest 
 gave a sketch of the arms of la Bastie, allowing twenty hours 
 for them to be engraved instead of those that were on it. 
 This handle, a masterpiece of workmanship, was fitted to an 
 india-rubber whip, and placed in a red morocco case, lined 
 with velvet, with a monogram of two M's on the top. 
 
 By Wednesday morning la Briere had returned by the mail, 
 in time to breakfast with Canalis. The poet had explained 
 his secretary's absence by saying that he was busy with some 
 work forwarded from Paris. Butscha, who had gone to the 
 coach office to hold out a welcoming hand to Ernest on the 
 arrival of the mail, flew to give this work of art to Francoise 
 Cochet, desiring her to place it on Modeste's dressing-table. 
 
 "You are going out riding, no doubt, with Mademoiselle 
 Modeste," said Butscha, on returning to Canalis' villa to 
 inform Ernest, by a side-glance, that the whip had safely 
 reached its destination. 
 
 " I ! " said la Briere. " I am going to bed." 
 
 " Well ! " exclaimed Canalis, looking at his friend, " I do 
 not understand you at all." 
 
 Breakfast was ready, and the poet naturally invited the 
 clerk to sit down with them. Butscha had stayed, intending 
 to get himself invited if necessary by la Bridre, seeing on 
 Germain's countenance the success of a hunchback's trick, 
 of which his promise to Modeste may have given a hint.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 229 
 
 " Monsieur was very wise to keep Monsieur Latournelle's 
 clerk," said Germain in his master's ear. Canalis and Ger- 
 main, on a hint from the latter, passed into the drawing-room. 
 "This morning I went out to see some fishing, an expedition 
 to which I was invited the day before yesterday by the owner 
 of a boat I have made acquaintance with." 
 
 Germain did not confess that he had had such bad taste as 
 to play billiards in a cafe in le Havre, where Butscha had 
 surrounded him with a number of his friends in order to be 
 able to work upon him. 
 
 "What then?" said Canalis. "Come to the point, and 
 at once." 
 
 " Monsieur le Baron, I heard a discussion about Monsieur 
 Mignon, which I did my best to keep going no one knew 
 who I lived with. I tell you, Monsieur le Baron, everybody 
 in le Havre says that you are running your head against a 
 wall. Mademoiselle de la Bastie's fortune is, like her name, 
 very modest. The ship on which the father came home is not 
 his own ; it belongs to some China merchants, with whom he 
 has to settle, and things are said about it that are far from flat- 
 tering to the colonel. Having heard that you and Monsieur 
 le Due were rivals for Mademoiselle de la Bastie, I take the 
 liberty of mentioning it ; for, between you and him, it is 
 better that his lordship should swallow the bait. On my way 
 back I took a turn on the quay, past the theatre, where the 
 merchants walk up and down, and I pushed my way boldly 
 among them. These worthy folk, seeing a well-dressed man, 
 began to talk about the affairs of the town ; from one thing to 
 another I led them to speak of Colonel Mignon ; and they 
 were so much of the same mind as the fishermen that I felt it 
 my duty to speak. That is why I left you, sir, to get up and 
 
 dress alone " 
 
 " What is to be done?" cried Canalis, feeling that he was 
 
 too deeply pledged to withdraw from his promises to Modeste. 
 
 "You know my attachment to you, sir," said Germain,
 
 230 MODESTE MIGNON, 
 
 seeing that the poet was thunderstruck, " and you will not be 
 surprised if I offer a piece of advice. If you can make this 
 clerk drunk, he will let the cat out of the bag, and if he 
 won't open his mouth for two bottles of champagne, he cer- 
 tainly will for the third. It would be a strange thing, too, 
 if monsieur, who will certainly be an ambassador one day, for 
 Philoxene heard Madame la Duchesse say so if you, sir, 
 cannot get round a country lawyer's clerk." 
 
 At this moment Butscha, the unknown author of this fish- 
 ing expedition, was begging the referendary to say nothing 
 about his journey to Paris, and not to interfere with his ma- 
 noeuvres at breakfast. Butscha meant to take advantage of a 
 reaction of feeling unfavorable to Charles Mignon, which had 
 set in at le Havre. 
 
 This was the cause of that reaction : Monsieur le Comte de 
 la Bastie had entirely ignored those of his former friends who, 
 during his absence, had neglected his wife and children. On 
 hearing that a dinner was to be given at the Villa Mignon, 
 each one flattered himself that he would be among the guests, 
 and expected an invitation ; but when it was known that only 
 Gobenheim, the Latournelles, the Duke, and the two Paris- 
 ians were to be asked, there was a loud outcry at the mer- 
 chant's arrogance ; his marked avoidance of seeing anybody 
 and of ever going down to le Havre was commented on and 
 attributed to scorn, on which the whole town avenged itself 
 by casting doubts on Mignon's sudden wealth. By dint of 
 gossip everybody soon ascertained that the money advanced 
 to Vilquin on the villa had been found by Dumay. This fact 
 gave the most malignant persons grounds for the libelous 
 supposition that Charles had confided to Dumay's known de- 
 votion the funds concerning which he anticipated litigation 
 on the part of his so-called partners in Canton. Charles' reti- 
 cence, for his constant aim was to conceal his wealth, and 
 the gossip of his servants, who had been put on their guard, 
 lent an appearance of truth to these monstrous fables, believed
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 231 
 
 by all who were governed by the spirit of detraction that 
 animates rival traders. In proportion as parochial pride had 
 formerly cried up his immense fortune as one of the makers 
 of le Havre, so now provincial jealousy cast doubts on it. 
 
 Butscha, to whom the fishermen of the port owed more 
 than one good turn, desired them to be secret, and to cram 
 their new friend. He was well served. The owner of the 
 boat told Germain that a cousin of his, a sailor, was coming 
 from Marseilles, having just been paid off in consequence of 
 the sale of the brig in which the colonel had come home. 
 The vessel was being sold by order of one Castagnould, and 
 the cargo according to the cousin was worth only three or 
 four hundred thousand francs at most. 
 
 " Germain," said Canalis, as the servant was leaving the 
 room, " bring us up some champagne and some bordeaux. 
 A member of the legal factor of Normandy must carry away 
 some memories of a poet's hospitality. And he has the wit 
 of ' le Figaro/ " added Canalis, laying his hand on the dwarf's 
 shoulder ; " that petit-journal brilliancy must be made to 
 sparkle and foam with the wine of champagne ; we will not 
 spare ourselves either, Ernest ! Why, it is two years at least 
 since I last got tipsy," he added, turning to la Briere. 
 
 "With wine? That I can quite understand," replied the 
 clerk. "You get tipsy with yourself every day! In the 
 matter of praise, you drink your fill. You are handsome; 
 you are famous during your lifetime ; your conversation is on 
 a level with your genius ; and you fascinate all the women, 
 even my master's wife. Loved as you are by the most beauti- 
 ful Sultana Valideh I ever saw it is true, I have never seen 
 another you can, if you choose, marry Mademoiselle de la 
 Bastie. Why, merely with making this inventory of your 
 present advantages, to say nothing of the future a fine title, 
 a peerage, an embassy ! I am quite fuddled, like the men 
 who bottle wine for other people to drink." 
 
 " All this social magnificence is nothing," replied Canalis,
 
 232 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " without that which gives them value a fortune ! Here 
 we are men among men; fine sentiments are delightful in 
 stanzas. ' ' 
 
 "And in certain circurm/az<w," said Butscha, with a sig- 
 nificant shrug. 
 
 "You, a master of the mystery of settlements," said the 
 poet, smiling at the pun, " must know as well as I do that 
 cottage rhymes to nothing better than pottage." 
 
 At table Butscha played with signal success the part of le 
 Rigaudin in "la Maison en Loterie," alarming Ernest, to 
 whom the jests of a lawyer's office were unfamiliar ; they are 
 a match for those of the studio. The clerk repeated all the 
 scandal of le Havre, the history of every fortune, of every 
 boudoir, and of all the crimes committed just outside the 
 pale of the law, what is called sailing as close hauled as possi- 
 ble (in Normandy, se tirer d" affaire comme on peuf). He 
 spared no one, and his spirits rose with the stream of wine he 
 poured down his throat like storm-water through a gutter. 
 
 " Do you know, la Briere," said Canalis, filling up Butscha's 
 glass, " that this brave boy would be a first-rate secretary to 
 an ambassador?" 
 
 "And cut out his master ! " retorted the dwarf with a look 
 at Canalis, of insolence redeemed by the sparkle of carbonic 
 acid gas. " I have enough spirit of intrigue and little enough 
 gratitude to climb on to your shoulders. A poet supporting 
 an abortion ! Well, it has been seen, and pretty frequently 
 in libraries. Why, you are staring at me as if I were swallow- 
 ing swords. Heh ! my dear, great genius, you are a very 
 superior man ; you know full well that gratitude is a word for 
 idiots ; it is to be found in the dictionary, but not in the 
 human heart. I O U is a formula unhonored on the green 
 banks of Parnassus or Pindus. Do you suppose I feel the 
 debt to my master's wife for having brought me up? Why, 
 the whole town has paid it off in esteem, praise, and admira- 
 tion, the most precious of all coin. I do not see the virtue
 
 'YOU WILL MAKE ME DRUNK," SAID THE CLERK.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 233 
 
 that is merely an investment for the benefit of one's vanity. 
 Men make a trade of reciprocal services ; the word gratitude 
 represents the debit side, that is all. 
 
 " As to intrigue, I adore it ! What ! " he went on, in reply 
 to a gesture from Canalis, " do you not delight in the faculty 
 which enables a crafty man to get the upper hand of a man 
 of genius, which requires constant observation of the vices 
 and weaknesses of our betters, and a sense of the nick of 
 time for everything ? Ask diplomacy whether the triumph 
 of cunning over strength is not the most delightful success 
 there is. If I were your secretary, Monsieur le Baron, you 
 would soon be prime minister, because it would be to my 
 interest ! Now, would you like a sample of my little talents 
 of that kind ? Hearken ! You love Mademoiselle Modeste 
 to distraction, and you are very right. In my opinion, the 
 girl is a genuine Parisienne, for here and there a Parisienne 
 sprouts in the country. Our Modeste would be a wife to 
 push a man. She has that sort of thing," said he, giving his 
 hand a twirl in the air. " You have a formidable rival in the 
 Duke. Now, what will you give me to pack him off within 
 three days?" 
 
 " Let us finish this bottle," said the poet, refilling Butscha's 
 glass. 
 
 "You will make me drunk! "said the clerk, swallowing 
 down his ninth glass of champagne. " Is there a bed where 
 I may sleep for an hour? My master is as sober as a camel, 
 the old fox, and Madame Latournelle too. They would both 
 be hard upon me, and they would have good reason, while I 
 should have lost mine, and I have some work to do." 
 
 Then going back to a former subject without any transition, 
 after the manner of a man when he is screwed, he exclaimed 
 
 " And then, what a memory I have ! It is a match for my 
 gratitude." 
 
 "Butscha!" exclaimed the poet, " just now you said that 
 you had no gratitude; you are contradicting yourself."
 
 234 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "Not at all," said the clerk. "Forgetting almost always 
 means remembering ! Now, then, on we go ! I am made to 
 be a secretary. ' ' 
 
 " And how will you set to work to get rid of the Duke? " 
 asked Canalis, charmed to find the conversation tending 
 naturally to the subjects he aimed at. 
 
 "That is no concern of yours," said Butscha, with a 
 tremendous hiccough. 
 
 Butscha rolled his head on his shoulders, and his eyes from 
 Germain to la Briere, and from la Briere to Canalis, in the 
 manner of a man who feels intoxication creeping over him, 
 and wants to know in what esteem he is held ; for in the 
 wreck of drunkenness it may be noted that self-esteem is the 
 last sentiment to float. 
 
 ''Look here, great poet, you are a jolly fellow, you are. 
 Do you take me for one of your readers, you who sent your 
 friend to Paris to procure information concerning the house 
 of Mignon. I humbug, you humbug, we humbug. Well 
 and good ; but do me the honor to believe that I am clear- 
 headed enough always to keep as much conscience as I need 
 in my sphere of life. As head clerk to Maitre Latournelle 
 my heart is a padlocked despatch-box, my lips never breathe 
 a word of any paper concerning the clients. I know every- 
 thing, and I know nothing. And then, passion is no secret: 
 I love Modeste, she is a pupil of mine, she must marry well ; 
 and I could get round the Duke if necessary. But you are 
 going to marry ' ' 
 
 "Germain, coffee and liqueurs," said Canalis to his man- 
 servant. 
 
 "Liqueurs?" repeated Butscha, holding up a forbidding 
 hand like a too knowing maiden putting aside some little 
 temptation. " Oh, my poor work ! By the way, there is a 
 marriage contract to be drawn up, and my second clerk is as 
 stupid as a matrimonial bargain, and quite capable of p-p-pok- 
 ing a penknife through the bride's personal property. He
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 235 
 
 thinks himself a fine fellow because he measures nearly six 
 feet the idiot ! " 
 
 "Here, this is creme de th6, a West India liqueur," said 
 Canalis. " You who are Mademoiselle Modeste's most trusty 
 adviser " 
 
 " Her adviser ? " 
 
 " Well, do you think she loves me? " 
 
 "Ye-e-es, more than she loves the Duke," drawled the 
 dwarf, rousing himself from a sort of torpor, which he acted 
 to admiration. " She loves you for your disinterestedness. 
 She told me that for you she felt equal to the greatest sacri- 
 fices, to giving up dress, spending only a thousand francs a 
 year, devoting her life to prove to you that in marrying her 
 you would have done a good stroke of business. And she is 
 devilish honest (hiccough), I can tell you, and well informed ; 
 there is nothing that girl does not know." 
 
 "That and three hundred thousand francs," said Canalis. 
 
 " Oh ! there may be as much as you say," replied the 
 clerk with enthusiasm. " Mignon Papa and you see he is 
 really a Mignon, a dear papa, that's what I like him for to 
 marry his only daughter well, he would strip himself of 
 everything. The colonel has been accustomed under your 
 restoration to live on half-pay (hiccough), and he will be quite 
 happy living with Dumay, speculating in a small way at le 
 Havre ; he will be sure to give the child his three hundred 
 thousand francs. Then we must not forget Dumay, who 
 means to leave his fortune to Modeste. Dumay, you know, 
 is a Breton ; his birth gives security to the bargain ; he never 
 changes his mind, and his fortune is quite equal to his mas- 
 ter's. At the same time, since they listen to me at least as 
 much as to you, though I do not talk so much nor so well, I 
 said to them, ' You are putting too much money into your 
 house ; if Vilquin leaves it on your hands, there are two hun- 
 dred thousand francs that will bring you no return. There 
 will be only a hundred thousand francs left to turn over,
 
 236 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 and that, in my opinion, is not enough.' At this moment 
 the colonel and Dumay are talking it over. Take my word 
 for it, Modeste is rich. The people of the town talk non- 
 sense, they are envious. Why, who in the department has 
 such a portion ? ' ' said Butscha, holding up his fingers to 
 count. "Two to three hundred thousand francs in hard 
 cash! " said he, folding down his left thumb with the fore- 
 finger of his right hand. " That is for one. The freehold 
 of the Villa Mignon," and he doubled down his left fore- 
 finger, "for two; Dumay's fortune for three," he added, 
 ticking it off on the middle finger. "Why, little Mother 
 Modeste is a lady with six hundred thousand francs of her 
 own when the two old soldiers shall have gone aloft to take 
 further orders from God A' mighty." 
 
 This blunt and artless communication, broken by sips of 
 liqueur, sobered Canalis as much as it seemed to intoxicate 
 Butscha. To the lawyer's clerk, a mere provincial, this for- 
 tune was evidently colossal. He let his head drop on the 
 palm of his right hand, and with the elbow majestically rest- 
 ing on the table, he sat blinking and talking to himself: " In 
 twenty years, at the pace the code is taking us, melting down 
 fortunes by the process of subdivision, an heiress with six 
 hundred thousand francs will be as rare as disinterestedness 
 in a money-lender. You may say that Modeste will spend at 
 least twelve thousand francs a year, the interest of her for- 
 tune ; but she is a very nice girl very nice very nice. She 
 is as you may say a poet must have imagery she is an 
 ermine as knowing as a monkey." 
 
 "And what did you tell me? " cried Canalis in an under- 
 tone to la Briere. " That she had six millions? " 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Ernest, "allow me to remark 
 that I could say nothing. I am bound by an oath, and 
 it is perhaps saying more than I ought to tell you " 
 
 "An oath! and to whom?" 
 
 "To Monsieur Mignon."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 237 
 
 " Why, Ernest, when you know how indispensable fortune is 
 to me" Butscha was snoring " you who know my posi- 
 tion and all that I should lose in the Rue de Crenelle by 
 marrying you would have coolly allowed me to plunge 
 in?" said Canalis, turning pale. "But this is a matter 
 between friends; and our friendship, my boy, is a compact 
 of a far older date than this that the wily Provencal has 
 required of you." 
 
 "My dear fellow," said Ernest, "I love Modeste too 
 well to " 
 
 "Idiot, take her!" cried the poet. "So break your 
 oath " 
 
 " Do you solemnly promise, on your honor as a man, to 
 forget what I tell you, and to be just the same to me 
 as though I had never confided it to you, come what 
 may?" 
 
 " I swear it by the sacred memory of my mother ! " 
 
 "Well, when I was in Paris, Monsieur Mignon told me 
 that he was very far from having such a colossal fortune as the 
 Mongenods had spoken of. The colonel intends to give his 
 daughter two hundred thousand francs. But then, Melchior, 
 was the father suspicious ? or was he sincere ? It is no concern 
 of mine to solve that question. If she should condescend to 
 choose me, Modeste, with nothing, should be my wife." 
 
 " A blue-stocking, appallingly learned, who has read every- 
 thing and knows everything in theory," cried Canalis, in 
 reply to a protesting gesture of la Briere's; "a spoilt child, 
 brought up in luxury during her early years, and weaned from 
 it for the last five. Oh, my poor friend, think, pause, con- 
 sider " 
 
 " Ode and Code ! " said Butscha, rousing himself. " You 
 go in for the Ode, and I for the Code ; there is only a C 
 between. Code, from coda, a tail ! You have treated me 
 handsomely, and I like you don't have anything to do with 
 the Code. Listen ; a piece of good advice is not a bad return
 
 238 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 for your wine and your creme de the. Old Mignon is 
 cream too, the cream of good fellows. Well, trot out your 
 horse, he is riding out with his daughter; you can speak 
 frankly to him ; ask him about her marriage portion ; he will 
 give you a plain answer, and you will see to the bottom of 
 things as sure as I am tipsy and you are a great man ; but then 
 there must be no mistake, we leave le Havre together, I 
 suppose ? I am to be your secretary, since this little chap, 
 who thinks I am drunk and is laughing at me, is going to 
 leave you. Go ahead. March ! and leave him to marry 
 the girl." 
 
 Canalis went to dress. 
 
 "Not a word; he is rushing on suicide," said Butscha (as 
 cool as Gobenheim) to la Briere, very quietly ; and he tele- 
 graphed behind Canalis a signal of scorn familiar to the Paris 
 street boy. " Good-by, master," he went on at the top of his 
 voice, " may I go and get forty winks in Madame Amaury's 
 summer-house ? ' ' 
 
 " Make yourself at home," replied the poet as Butscha 
 staggered out. 
 
 The clerk, loudly laughed at by Canalis' three servants, 
 made his way to the summer-house, plunging into flower-beds 
 and baskets with the perverse grace of an insect describing its 
 endless zigzags as it tries to escape through a closed window. 
 He scrambled up into the gazebo, and when the servants had 
 gotten indoors he sat down on a wooden bench and gave him- 
 self up to the joys of triumph. He had fooled the superior 
 man ; not only had he snatched off his mask, but he had seen 
 him untie the strings, and he laughed as an author laughs at 
 his piece, with a full appreciation of the value of this vis 
 comic a. 
 
 " Men are tops! " cried he; " you have only to find the 
 end of the string that is wound around them. Why, any one 
 could make me faint away by simply saying, ' Mademoiselle 
 Modeste has fallen off her horse and broken her leg.' "
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 230 
 
 A few minutes later, Modeste, wearing a bewitching habit 
 of dark-green kerseymere, a little hat with a green veil, doe- 
 skin gloves, and velvet boots, over which the lace frills of her 
 drawers fell gracefully, had mounted her handsomely saddled 
 pony, and was showing to her father and the Due d'Herou- 
 ville the pretty gift she had just received ; she was delighted 
 with it, seeing in it one of those attentions which most flatter 
 a woman. 
 
 "Was it you, Monsieur le Due?" she said, holding out 
 the sparkling end of her whip. "There was a card on it 
 with the words, ' Guess if you can,' and a row of dots. 
 Franchise and Madame Dumay ascribe this charming surprise 
 to Butscha ; but my dear Butscha is not rich enough to pay 
 for such fine rubies ! And my father, on my saying on 
 Sunday evening that I had no whip, sent for that one from 
 Rouen." 
 
 Modeste pointed to a whip in her father's hand with a 
 handle set closely with turquoises, a fashionable novelty then, 
 but now rather common. 
 
 " I only wish, mademoiselle I would give ten years of my 
 life to have the right of offering such a magnificent jewel," 
 replied the Duke politely. 
 
 " Ah ! then here is the audacious man," cried Modeste, 
 seeing Canalis come up on horseback. " None but a poet 
 can find such exquisite things. Monsieur," she went on to 
 Melchior, " my father will be angry with you; you are justi- 
 fying those who blame you for your extravagance." 
 
 "Hah!" cried Canalis simply, "then that is what took 
 la Briere from le Havre to Paris as fast as he could ride." 
 
 " Your secretary took such -a liberty ! " said Modeste, turn- 
 ing pale, and flinging the whip to Francoise Cochet with a 
 vehemence expressive of the deepest contempt. " Give me 
 back that whip, father ! " >f 
 
 " The poor boy is lying on his bed broken with fatigue ! 
 Melchior went on, as they followed the girl, who had gone off-
 
 240 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 at a gallop. " You are hard, mademoiselle. ' I have this 
 chance alone of reminding her of my existence,' was what he 
 said. " 
 
 "And could you esteem a woman who was capable of pre- 
 serving keepsakes from every comer ? ' ' asked Modeste. 
 
 Modeste, who was surprised at receiving no reply from 
 Canalis, ascribed his inattention to the sound of the horse's 
 hoofs. 
 
 "How you delight in tormenting those who are in love 
 with you!" said the Duke. "Your pride and dignity so 
 entirely belie your vagaries that I am beginning to suspect 
 that you do yourself injustice by deliberately planning your 
 malicious tricks ! " 
 
 "What ! you have just discovered that, Monsieur le Due?" 
 returned she, with a laugh. " You have exactly as much in- 
 sight as a husband ! " 
 
 For about a kilometre they rode on in silence. Modeste 
 was surprised at being no longer aware of the flaming glances 
 of Canalis, whose admiration for the beauties of the landscape 
 seemed rather more than was natural. On the preceding 
 evening Modeste had pointed out to the poet a beautiful effect 
 of color in the sunset over the sea, and, finding him as speech- 
 less as a mute, had said 
 
 " Well, do you not see it all ? " 
 
 " I see nothing but your hand," he had replied. 
 
 " Does Monsieur de la Briere know how to ride? " Modeste 
 asked, to pique him. 
 
 "He is not a very good horseman, but he goes," replied 
 the poet, as cold as Gobenheim had been before the colonel's 
 return. 
 
 As they went along a cross-road, down which Monsieur 
 Mignon turned to go through a pretty valley to a hill over- 
 looking the course of the Seine, Canalis let Modeste and the 
 Duke go forward, slackening his speed so as to bring his horse 
 side by side with the colonel's.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 241 
 
 " Monsieur le Comte," said he, " you are a frank soldier, 
 so you will regard my openness as a claim to your esteem. 
 When an offer of marriage, with all the too barbarous, or, if 
 you will, too civilized discussions to which it gives rise, is made 
 through a third person, every one suffers. You and I are both 
 men of perfect discretion, and you, like me, are past the age 
 for surprises, so let us speak as man to man. I will set the 
 example. I am nine-and-twenty, I have no landed estate, I 
 am an ambitious man. That I ardently admire Mademoiselle 
 Modeste you must have seen. Now, in spite of the faults your 
 charming daughter delights in affecting " 
 
 " To say nothing of those she really has," said the colonel, 
 smiling. 
 
 " I should be glad, indeed, to make her my wife, and I be- 
 lieve I could make her happy. The whole question of my 
 future life turns on the point of fortune. Every girl who is 
 open to marriage must be loved whatever comes of it ; at the 
 same time you are not the man to get rid of your dear Modeste 
 without a portion, and my position would no more allow of 
 my marrying ' for love,' as the phrase is, than of my proposing 
 to a girl without a fortune at least equal to my own. My 
 salary and some sinecures, with what I get from the Academy, 
 and my writings, come to about thirty thousand francs a year, 
 a fine income for a bachelor. If my wife and I between us 
 have sixty thousand francs a year, I could continue to live on 
 much the same footing as at present. Have you a million 
 francs to give Mademoiselle Modeste?" 
 
 "Oh! monsieur, we are very far from any agreement," 
 said the colonel jesuitically. 
 
 " Well, then, we have said nothing about the matter only 
 whistled," said Canalis anxiously. " You will be quite satis- 
 fied with my conduct, Monsieur le Comte ; I shall be one 
 more of the unfortunate men crushed by that charming young 
 lady. Give me your word that you will say nothing of this 
 to anybody, not even to Mademoiselle Modeste; for," he 
 16
 
 242 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 added, by way of consolation, " some change might occur in 
 my position which would allow of my asking her hand without 
 a settlement." 
 
 "I swear it," said the colonel. "You know, monsieur, 
 with what exaggerated language the public, in the provinces 
 as in Paris, talk of fortunes made and lost. Success and 
 failure are alike magnified, and we are never so lucky or so 
 unlucky as report says. In business there is no real security 
 but investment in land when cash transactions are settled. I 
 am awaiting with anxious impatience the reports of my various 
 agents ; nothing is as yet concluded neither the sale of my 
 merchandise and my ship, nor my account with China. I 
 shall not for the next ten months know the amount of my 
 capital. However, in Paris, when talking to Monsieur de la 
 Briere, I guaranteed a settlement on my daughter of two 
 hundred thousand francs in money down. I intend to pur- 
 chase a landed estate and settle it in tail on my grandchildren, 
 obtaining for them a grant of my titles and coat-of-arms." 
 
 After the first words of this speech Canalis had ceased to 
 listen. 
 
 The four riders now came out on a wide road and rode 
 abreast up to the plateau, which commands a view of the rich 
 valley of the Seine towards Rouen, while on the other horizon 
 they could still see the line of the sea. 
 
 " Butscha was indeed right, God is a great landscape- 
 maker," said Canalis, as he looked down on the panorama, 
 unique among those for which the hills above the Seine are 
 justly famous. 
 
 " But it is when out hunting, my dear Baron," said the 
 Duke, " when nature is roused by a voice, by a stir in the 
 silence, that the scenery, as we fly past, seems most really 
 sublime with the rapid change of effect." 
 
 "The sun has an inexhaustible palette," said Modeste, 
 gazing at the poet in a sort of bewilderment. On her making 
 a remark as to the absence of mind she observed in Canalis,
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 243 
 
 he replied that he was " reveling in his own thoughts," an 
 excuse which writers can make in addition to those common 
 to other men. 
 
 " Are we really blest when we transfer our life to the centre 
 of the world, and add to it a thousand factitious needs and 
 overwrought vanities?" asked Modeste, as she contemplated 
 the calm and luxuriant champaign which seemed to counsel 
 philosophical quietude. 
 
 " Such bucolics, mademoiselle, are always written on tables 
 of gold," said the poet. 
 
 " And imagined, perhaps, in a garret," interposed the 
 colonel. 
 
 Modeste gave Canalis a piercing look, and saw him flinch ; 
 there was a sound of bells in her ears ; for a moment every- 
 thing grew dark before her \ then, in a hard, cold tone, she 
 exclaimed 
 
 " Ah ! it is Wednesday ! " 
 
 "It is not with the idea of flattering a merely transient 
 fancy of yours, mademoiselle," said the Due d'Herouville 
 solemnly for this little scene, so tragical to Modeste, had 
 given him time for thought "but, I assure you, I am so 
 utterly disgusted with the world, the court, and Paris life, 
 that, for my part, with a Duchesse d'Hdrouville so full of 
 charm and wit as you are, I could pledge myself to live like a 
 philosopher in my chateau, doing good to those about me, 
 reclaiming my alluvial flats, bringing up my children ' 
 
 " This shall be set down to your credit, Duke," said Mod- 
 este, looking steadily at the noble gentleman. "You flatter 
 me," she added, " for you do not think me frivolous, and you 
 believe that I have enough resources in myself to live in soli- 
 tude. And that perhaps will be my fate," she added, look- 
 ing at Canalis with a compassionate expression. 
 
 "It is the lot of all small fortunes," replied the poet. 
 " Paris requires Babylonian luxury. I sometimes wonder how 
 I have managed to live till now."
 
 244 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "The King is Providence to you and me," said the Duke 
 frankly, " for we both live on his majesty's bounty. If, since 
 the death of Monsieur le Grand, as Cinq-Mars was called, we 
 had not always held his office in our family, we should have 
 had to sell Herouville to be demolished by the Black Gang. 
 Believe me, mademoiselle, it is to me a terrible humiliation 
 to mix up financial considerations with the thought of mar- 
 riage ' ' 
 
 The candor of this avowal, which came from the heart, and 
 the sincerity of this regret, touched Modeste. 
 
 "In these days," said the poet, "nobody in France, Mon- 
 sieur le Due, is rich enough to commit the folly of marrying 
 a woman for her personal merits, her charm, her character, or 
 her beauty " 
 
 The colonel looked at Canalis with a strange expression, 
 after studying his daughter, whose face no longer expressed 
 any astonishment. 
 
 "Then for a man of honor," he said, "it is a noble use 
 of riches to devote them to repair the ravages that time has 
 wrought on our old historical families." 
 
 "Yes, papa," said the girl gravely. 
 
 The colonel asked the Duke and Canalis to dine at the 
 villa, without ceremony, in their riding dress, and set them 
 the example by not changing his for dinner. When, on their 
 return, Modeste went to change her dress, she looked curiously 
 at the trinket that had come from Paris, and that she had so 
 cruelly disdained. 
 
 " How exquisitely such work is done nowadays," said she 
 to Francoise Cochet, who was now her maid. 
 
 "And that poor young gentleman, mademoiselle, ill of a 
 fever " 
 
 "Who told you so?" 
 
 "Monsieur Butscha. He came here just now to bid me 
 say you had no doubt found out that he had kept his word on 
 the day he named."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 245 
 
 Modeste went down stairs, dressed with queenly sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 " My dear father," said she, quite audibly, taking the col- 
 onel's arm, "will you go and ask after Monsieur de la Briere, 
 and oblige me by taking back his present. You may put it 
 to him that my small fortune, as well as my own taste, pro- 
 hibits my using such toys as are fit only for a queen or a 
 courtesan. Beside, I can only accept presents from the man 
 I may hope to marry. Beg our excellent young friend to 
 keep the whip till you find yourself rich enough to buy it of 
 him." 
 
 " Then my little girl is full of good sense ! " replied the 
 colonel, kissing her on the forehead. 
 
 Canalis took advantage of a conversation between the Due 
 d'Herouville and Madame Mignon to go out on the terrace, 
 where Modeste presently joined him, urged by curiosity, while 
 he believed it was by her desire to become Madame Canalis. 
 Somewhat alarmed at his own audacity in thus executing what 
 a soldier would call "right about face," though, according 
 to the jurisprudence of ambitious souls, every man in his 
 place would have done the same, and just as suddenly, he 
 tried to find some plausible reasons as he saw the ill-starred 
 Modeste come out to him. 
 
 " Dear Modeste," said he, in insinuating tones, "as we are 
 on such terms of friendship, will you be offended if I point 
 out to you how painfnl your replies with regard to Monsieur 
 d'Herouville must be to a man who loves you, and, above all, 
 to a poet, whose soul is a woman, is all nerves, and suffering 
 from the myriad jealousies of a genuine passion. I should be 
 a poor diplomat indeed if I had not understood that your 
 preliminary flirtations, your elaborate recklessness, were the 
 outcome of a plan to study our characters " 
 
 Modeste raised her head with a quick, intelligent, and 
 pretty movement, of a type that may perhaps be traced to 
 certain animals to which instinct gives wonderful grace.
 
 246 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " And so, thrown back on myself, I was no longer deceived 
 by them. I marveled at your subtle wit, in harmony with 
 your character and your countenance. Be satisfied that I 
 never imagined your assumed duplicity to be anything but an 
 outer wrapper, covering the most adorable candor. No, your 
 intelligence, your learning, .have left untainted the exquisite 
 innocence we look for in a wife. You are the very wife for a 
 poet, a diplomatist, a thinker, a man fated to live through 
 hazardous moments, and I admire you as much as I feel at- 
 tached to you. I entreat you, unless you were merely playing 
 with me yesterday when you accepted the pledges of a man 
 whose vanity will turn to pride if he is chosen by you, whose 
 faults will turn to virtues at your divine touch I beseech you, 
 do not crush the feeling he has indulged till it is a vice ! 
 
 " Jealousy in me is a solvent, and you have shown me 
 what its violence is ; it is fearful ; it eats into everything ! 
 Oh ! it is not the jealousy of Othello ! " said he, in reply to 
 a movement on Modeste's part. " No, no ! I myself am in 
 question ; I am spoiled in this regard. You know of the one 
 affection to which I owe the only form of happiness I have 
 yet known and that very incomplete." He shook his head. 
 
 " Love is depicted as a child by every nation, because it 
 cannot be conceived of but as having all life before it. Well, 
 this love of mine had its term fixed by nature ; it was still- 
 born. The most intuitive motherliness discerned and soothed 
 this aching spot in my heart, for a woman who feels who 
 sees that she is dying to the joys of love, has angelic consid- 
 eration ; the Duchess has never given me a pang of that kind. 
 In ten years not a word, not a look, has failed of its mark. 
 I attach more importance than ordinary people do to words, 
 thoughts, and looks. To me a glance is an infinite posses- 
 sion, the slightest doubt is a mortal poison, and acts instan- 
 taneously : I cease to love. In my opinion which is opposed 
 to that of the vulgar, who revel in trembling, hoping, waiting 
 love ought to dwell in absolute assurance, childlike, infinite.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 247 
 
 To me the enchanting purgatory which women delight in 
 inflicting on us with their caprices is an intolerable form of 
 happiness to which I will have nothing to say ; to me, love 
 is heaven or hell. Hell I will not have ; I feel that 'l am 
 strong enough to endure the sempiternal blue of paradise. I 
 give myself unreservedly, I will have no secrets, no doubts, 
 no delusions in my future life, and I ask for reciprocity. 
 Perhaps I offend you by doubting you ! But, remember, I 
 am speaking only of myself " 
 
 "And a great deal," said Modeste, hurt by all the lancet 
 points of this harangue, in which the Duchesse de Chaulieu 
 was used as a sledge-hammer, " but it can never be too much ; 
 I have a habit of admiring you, my dear poet." 
 
 "Well, then, can you promise me the dog-like fidelity I 
 offer you ? Is it not fine ? Is it not what you wish for ? " 
 
 " But why, my dear poet, do you not look for a wife who 
 is dumb and blind and something of a fool ? I am quite pre- 
 pared to please my husband in all things ; but you threaten 
 to deprive a girl of the very happiness you promise her, to 
 snatch it from her at the slightest movement, the slightest 
 word, the slightest look ! You cut the bird's wings and want 
 to see it fly ! I knew that poets were accused of inconsist- 
 ency. Oh ! quite unjustly," she added, as Canalis protested 
 by a gesture, " for the supposed fault is merely the result of a 
 vulgar misapprehension, of the suddenness of their impulses. 
 Still, I had not thought that a man of genius would devise the 
 contradictory conditions of such a game, and then call it life ! 
 You insist on impossibilities just to have the pleasure of put- 
 ting me in the wrong, like those enchanters who in fairy tales 
 set tasks to persecuted damsels whom good fairies rescue " 
 
 "In this case true love will be the fairy," said Canalis, 
 rather drily, seeing that his motive for a separation had been 
 detected by the acute and delicate intelligence which Butscha 
 had put on the scent. 
 
 " You, at this moment, my dear poet, are like those parents
 
 248 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 who inquire as to a girl's fortune before mentioning what their 
 son's will be. You make difficulties with me, not knowing 
 whether you have any right to do so. Love cannot be based 
 on agreements discussed in cold blood. The poor Duke 
 allows himself to be managed with all the submissiveness of 
 Uncle Toby in Sterne's novel, with this difference, that I am 
 not the widow Wadman, though bereaved at this moment of 
 many illusions concerning poetry. Yes ! we hate to believe 
 anything, we girls, that can overthrow our world of fancy ! 
 I had been told all this beforehand ! Oh ! you are trying to 
 quarrel with me in a way unworthy of you ! I cannot recog- 
 nize the Melchior of yesterday." 
 
 " Because Melchior has detected in you an ambition you 
 still cherish ? " 
 
 Modeste looked at Canalis from head to foot with an im- 
 perial glance. 
 
 " But I shall some day be an ambassador and a peer as 
 he is " 
 
 "You take me for a vulgar school-girl ! " she said, as she 
 went up the steps. But she turned hastily, and added in some 
 confusion, for she felt suffocating 
 
 "That is less insolent than taking me for a fool. The 
 change in your demeanor is due to the nonsense current in le 
 Havre, which Franchise, my maid, has just repeated to me." 
 
 "Oh, Modeste, can you believe that? " cried Canalis, with 
 theatrical emphasis. " Then you think that I want to marry 
 you only for your fortune ! " 
 
 " If I do you this injustice after your edifying remarks on 
 the hills by the Seine, it lies with you to undeceive me, and 
 thenceforth I will be what you would wish me to be," said 
 she, blighting him with her scorn. 
 
 "If you think you can catch me in that trap, my lady," 
 said the poet to himself as he followed her, "you fancy me 
 younger than I am. What an ado, to be sure, for a little hussy 
 for whose esteem I care no more than for that of the King of
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. -_MO 
 
 Borneo. However, by ascribing to me an ignoble motive she 
 justifies my present attitude. Isn't she cunning? La Briere 
 will be saddled, like the little fool that he is ; and five years 
 hence we shall laugh at him well, she and I." 
 
 The coolness produced by this dispute between Modeste 
 and Canalis was obvious to all eyes that evening. Canalis 
 withdrew early, on the pretext of la Briere's illness, leaving 
 the field free to the master of the horse. At about eleven 
 Butscha, who had come to escort Madame Latournelle home, 
 said in an undertone to Modeste 
 
 "Was I right?" 
 
 "Alas, yes! " said she. 
 
 " But have you done as we agreed, and left the door ajar so 
 that he may return ? " 
 
 " My anger was too much for me," replied Modeste. "Such 
 meanness brought the blood to my head, and I told him my 
 mind." 
 
 "Well, so much the better! When you have quarreled 
 so that you cannot speak civilly to each other, even then I 
 undertake to make him so devoted and pressing that you your- 
 self will be taken in by him." 
 
 " Come, come, Butscha; he is a great poet, a gentleman, 
 and a man of intellect." 
 
 "Your father's eight millions will be more than all that." 
 
 " Eight millions ! " said Modeste. 
 
 " My master, who is selling his business, is setting out for 
 Provence to look into Castagnould's investments as your 
 father's agent. The sum-total of the contracts for repur- 
 chasing the lands of la Bastie amounts to four millions of 
 francs, and your father has consented to every item. Your 
 settlement is to be two millions, and the colonel allows one 
 for establishing you in Paris with a house and furniture. Cal- 
 culate." 
 
 "Ah, then, I may be Duchesse d'HSrouville," said Modeste, 
 
 looking at Butscha,
 
 250 MODESTE MIGNON, 
 
 " But for that ridiculous Canalis, you would have kept his 
 whip, as sent by me," said Butscha, putting in a word for la 
 Briere. 
 
 " Monsieur Butscha, do you really expect me to marry the 
 man you may choose ? ' ' retorted Modeste, laughing. 
 
 " That worthy young fellow loves as truly as I do ; you 
 loved him yourself for a week, and he is a man of genuine 
 heart," replied the clerk. 
 
 "And can he compete with a crown appointment, do you 
 think ? There are but six the high almoner, the chancellor, 
 the lord chamberlain, the master of the horse, the high con- 
 stable, the high admiral. But there are no more lords high 
 constable." 
 
 " But in six months, mademoiselle, the people, composed 
 of an infinite number of malignant Butschas, may blow upon 
 all this grandeur. Beside, what does nobility matter in these 
 days ? There are not a thousand real noblemen in France. 
 The d'Herouvilles are descended from an usher of the rod 
 under Robert of Normandy. You will have many a vexation 
 from those two knife-faced old maids. If you are bent on 
 being a duchess well, you belong to Franche Comte, the 
 pope will have at least as much consideration for you as for the 
 tradespeople, he will sell you a duchy ending in nia or agno. 
 Do not trifle with your happiness for the sake of a crown ap- 
 pointment." 
 
 The reflections indulged in by Canalis during the night were 
 all satisfactory. He could imagine nothing in the world 
 worse than the situation of a married man without a fortune. 
 Still tremulous at the thought of the danger he had been led 
 into by his vanity, which he had pledged, as it were, to Mod- 
 este by his desire to triumph over the Due d'Herouville, and 
 by his belief in Monsieur Mignon's millions, he began to 
 wonder what the Duchesse de Chaulieu must be thinking of 
 his stay at le Havre, aggravated by five days' cessation from
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 2.51 
 
 letter-writing, whereas in Paris they wrote each other four or 
 five notes a week. 
 
 ''And the poor woman is struggling to get me promoted to 
 be commander of the Legion of Honor and to the place of 
 minister to the Grand Duchy of Baden ! " cried he. 
 
 Forthwith, with the prompt decisiveness which in poets, as 
 in speculators, is the result of a clear intuition of the future, he 
 sat down and wrote the following letter : 
 
 To Madame la Duchesse dc Chaulieu. 
 
 " MY DEAR ELEONORE : You are, no doubt, astonished at 
 having had no news of me, but my stay here is not merely 
 a matter of health ; I also have had to do my duty in some 
 degree to our little friend la Briere. The poor boy has fallen 
 desperately in love with a certain Demoiselle Modeste de la 
 Bastie, a little pale-faced, insignificant thread-paper of a girl, 
 who, by the way, has as a vice a mania for literature, and calls 
 herself poetical to justify the whims, the tantrums, and changes 
 of a pretty bad temper. You know Ernest, he is so easily made 
 a fool of that I would not trust him alone. Mademoiselle de 
 la Bastie set up a strange flirtation with your Melchior ; she 
 was very well inclined to be your rival, though she has lean 
 arms and scraggy shoulders, like most young girls, hair more 
 colorless than Madame de Rochefide's, and a very doubtful 
 expression in her little gray eyes. I pulled up this Immod- 
 este's advances pretty short perhaps rather too roughly; but 
 that is the way of an absorbing passion. What do I care for 
 all the women on earth, who, all put together, are not worth 
 you? 
 
 " The people with whom we spend our time, who surround 
 this heiress, are bourgeois enough to make one sick. Pity me ; 
 I spend my evenings with notaries' clerks, their wives, their 
 cashiers, and a provincial money-lender ; wide indeed is the 
 gulf between this and the evenings in the Rue de Crenelle.
 
 252 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 The father's trumped-up fortune he has just come home from 
 China has secured us the company of that omnipresent suitor 
 the master of the horse, hungrier for millions than ever, since 
 it will cost six or seven, they say, to reclaim and work the 
 much-talked-of alluvion of Herouville. The King has no 
 idea what a fatal gift he has made to the little Duke. His 
 grace, who does not suspect how small a fortune his hoped-for 
 father-in-law possesses, is jealous only of me. La Briere is 
 making his way with his idol under cover of his friend, who 
 serves as a screen. 
 
 "In spite of Ernest's raptures, I, the poet, think of the 
 substantial ; and the information I have gathered as to the 
 gentleman's wealth casts a gloomy hue over our secretary's 
 prospects, for his lady-love has sharp enough teeth to eat a 
 hole in any fortune. Now, if my angel would redeem some 
 of our sins, she would try to find out the truth about this 
 matter, by sending for her banker, Mongenod, and cross- 
 questioning him with the skill that distinguishes her. Mon- 
 sieur Charles Mignon, formerly a colonel in the cavalry of the 
 Imperial Guard, has for seven years been in constant commu- 
 nication with Mongenod's house. They talk here of two 
 hundred thousand francs in settlement, at most; and before 
 making an offer in form for the young lady on Ernest's be- 
 half, I should be glad to have positive data. As soon as the 
 good folks are agreed, I return to Paris. I know a way of 
 bringing the business to a satisfactory conclusion for our lover. 
 All that is needed is to secure permission for Monsieur Mig- 
 non's son-in-law to take his title of Count, and no man is 
 more likely to obtain such a grant than Ernest, in view of 
 his services, especially when seconded by us three you, the 
 Duke, and myself. With his tastes, Ernest, who will un- 
 doubtedly rise to be a master of the exchequer, will be per- 
 fectly happy living in Paris if he is certain of twenty-five 
 thousand francs a year, a permanent office, and a wife poor 
 wretch !
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 253 
 
 "Oh, my dear! how I long to see the Rue de Crenelle 
 again ! A fortnight's absence, when it does not kill love, 
 revives the ardor of its early days, and you know, better per- 
 haps than I, all the reasons that make my love eternal. My 
 bones in the tomb will love you still ! Indeed, I cannot hold 
 out ! If I am compelled to remain ten days longer, I must 
 go to Paris for a few hours. 
 
 " Has the Duke got me rope to hang myself? And you, 
 dear life, shall you have to take the Baden waters this sea- 
 son ? The cooing of our secret love, as compared with the 
 accents of happy love always the same, and true to itself for 
 nearly ten years past has given me a deep contempt of mar- 
 riage ; I had never seen all this so close to my eyes before. 
 Ah ! my dear, what is called wrongdoing is a far closer tie 
 between two souls than the law is it not?" 
 
 This idea served as the text for two pages of reminiscences 
 and of aspirations of too private a nature for publication. 
 
 On the day before Canalis posted this letter, Butscha, who 
 wrote under the name of Jean Jacmin to his imaginary cousin 
 Philoxene, had sent off his answer twelve hours in advance 
 of the poet's letter. The Duchess, for the last fortnight ex- 
 tremely alarmed and offended by Melchior's silence, had 
 dictated Philoxene's letter to her cousin ; and now, after 
 reading the clerk's reply somewhat too decisive for the 
 vanity of a lady of fifty had made minute inquiries as to 
 Colonel Mignon's fortune. Finding herself betrayed, de- 
 serted for money, El6onore gave herself up to a paroxysm of 
 rage, hatred, and cold malignancy. Philoxene, knocking at 
 the door of her mistress' luxurious room, on going in, found 
 her with tears in her eyes, and stood amazed at this unprece- 
 dented phenomenon, which she had never before seen during 
 fifteen years of service. 
 
 " We expiate the happiness of ten years in ten minutes ! " 
 exclaimed the Duchess. 
 
 " A letter from le Havre, madame."
 
 L>54 MODESTE MlGNON. 
 
 Eleonore read Canalis' effusion of prose without observing 
 Philoxene's presence, and the maid's surprise was heightened 
 as she saw the Duchess' face recover its serenity as she read 
 the letter. If you hold out to a drowning man a pole as 
 thick as a walking stick, he will regard it as the king's high- 
 way to safety ; and so the happy Eleonore believed in the 
 poet's good faith as she perused these sheets in which love 
 and business, lies and truth, elbowed each other. 
 
 Just now, when the banker had left her, she had sent for 
 her husband to hinder Melchior's promotion if there were 
 time yet ; but a generous regret came over her that rose to a 
 sublime impulse. 
 
 "Poor boy!" thought she, "he has not the smallest 
 thought of ill. He loves me as he did the first day ; he tells 
 me everything. Philoxene ! " said she, noticing her head 
 maid loitering about and affecting to arrange the toilet-table. 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse ? " 
 
 "My hand-glass, child." 
 
 Eleonore looked at herself, noted the razor-fine lines groov- 
 ing her forehead, but invisible at a distance ; and she sighed, 
 for she believed that in that sigh she was taking leave of love. 
 Then she had a man's thought, above the pettiness of woman 
 a thought which is sometimes intoxicating; an intoxica- 
 tion which may perhaps account for the clemency of the 
 Semiramis of the North when she made her young and lovely 
 rival MomonofFs wife. 
 
 " Since he has not failed me, I will get the millions and 
 the girl for him," thought she, " if this little Mademoiselle 
 Mignon is as plain as he says she is." 
 
 Three knocks, delicately rapped out, announced the Duke, 
 for whom his wife herself opened the door. 
 
 " Ah ! you are better, my dear," cried he, with the as- 
 sumed gladness that courtiers so well know how to put on, 
 and by which simpletons are taken in. 
 
 "My dear Henri," said she, "it is really inconceivable
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 255 
 
 that you should not by this time have secured Melchior's 
 appointment, after sacrificing yourself for the King during 
 your year's ministry, knowing that it would scarcely endure 
 so long ! ' ' 
 
 The Duke glanced at Philoxene ; and the maid, by an 
 almost imperceptible jerk of the head, showed him the letter 
 from le Havre on the dressing-table. " You would be bored 
 to death in Germany and quarrel with Melchior before your 
 return," said the Duke artlessly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, would you not always be together?" replied the 
 erewhile ambassador with comical candor. 
 
 " Oh ! no," said she ; "I mean to get him married." 
 
 "If d'Herouville is to be believed, our dear Canalis has 
 not waited for your good offices," replied the Duke, smiling. 
 " Grandlieu yesterday read me some passages of a letter to 
 him from the master of the horse, which was no doubt edited 
 by his aunt to come to your ears ; for Mademoiselle d'Herou- 
 ville, always on the lookout for a fortune, knows that Grand- 
 lieu and I play whist together almost every evening. That 
 good little d'Herouville invites the Prince de Cadignan to a 
 royal hunt in Normandy, begging him to persuade the King 
 to go, so as to turn the damsel's head when she finds herself 
 the object of such a chivalrous procession. In fact, two 
 words from Charles X. would settle everything. D'He>ou- 
 ville says the girl is incomparably lovely." 
 
 "Henri, let us go to le Havre ! " cried the Duchess, inter- 
 rupting her husband. 
 
 "But on what excuse?" said he gravely a man who had 
 been in the intimate confidence of Louis XVIII. 
 
 " I never saw a hunt." 
 
 " That would be all very well if the King should be there, 
 but to go so far for a hunt would be ridiculous ; and he will 
 not go, I have just spoken to him about it." 
 
 " MADAME perhaps would go "
 
 256 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 " That is a better plan," said the Duke ; " and the Duchesse 
 de Maufrigneuse may help you to get her away from Rosny. 
 Then the King would make no objection to his hounds being 
 taken out. But do not go to le Havre, my dear," said the 
 Duke, in a paternal tone ; "it would make you conspicuous. 
 Look here ; this, I think, will be a better plan. Gaspard has 
 his Chateau of Rosembray, on the further side of the forest 
 of Brotonne ; why not give him a hint to receive all the party 
 there?" 
 
 " Through whom ? " 
 
 " Why, his wife the Duchess, who attends the holy table 
 with Mademoiselle d' Herouville, might ask Gaspard to do it 
 if the old maid hinted it to her." 
 
 " You are the dearest man ! " said Eleonore. " I will write 
 two lines to the old lady, and to Diane ; for we must have 
 hunting-suits made. The little hat, now I think of it, makes 
 one look very much younger. Did you win yesterday at the 
 English embassy ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes," said the Duke ; " I wiped out my score." 
 
 " And, above all, Henri, set everything aside till Mel- 
 chior's two promotions are settled." 
 
 After writing a few lines to the fair Diane de Maufrigneuse 
 and a note to Mademoiselle d' Herouville, Eleonore flung this 
 reply like the smack of a horsewhip across Canalis' lies : 
 
 To Monsieur le Baron de Canalis. 
 
 " MY DEAR POET : Mademoiselle de la Bastie is beautiful; 
 Mongenod assures me that her father has eight millions of 
 francs ; I had thought of making her your wife, so I am 
 deeply annoyed by your want of confidence in me. If before 
 you started for le Havre, you aimed at getting la Briere 
 married to her, I cannot imagine your not telling me so 
 plainly before you went. And why pass a fortnight without 
 writing a line to a friend so easily alarmed as I am ?
 
 MODESTE At 1C N ON. 257 
 
 " Your letter came a little late ; I had already seen the 
 banker. You are a child, Melchior ; you try to be cunning 
 with us. That is not right. Even the Duke is amazed at 
 your behavior ; he thinks you not quite gentlemanly which 
 casts a doubt on the virtue of your lady mother. 
 
 " Now, I want to see things for myself. I shall, I believe, 
 have the honor of attending MADAME to the hunt arranged 
 by the Due d'Herouville for Mademoiselle de la Bastie. I 
 will contrive that you shall be invited to stay at Rosembray, 
 as the hunt will probably take place at the Due de Verneuil's. 
 
 " Believe me, none the less, my dear poet, your friend for 
 life, ELONORE." 
 
 " There, Ernest," said Canalis, tossing this letter, which 
 arrived at breakfast-time, across the table in la Briere's face. 
 " That is the two thousandth love-letter I have received from 
 that woman, and there is not one single 'thou.' The noble 
 Eleonore never compromised herself further than what you 
 find there. Get married, and make haste about it ! The 
 worst marriage in the world is more tolerable than the lightest 
 of these halters. Well, I am the veriest Nicodemus that ever 
 dropped from the moon. Modeste has millions ; she is lost 
 to me for ever ; for no one ever comes back from the poles, 
 where we now are, to the tropics, where we dwelt three days 
 ago ! Beside, I have all the more reason to wish for your 
 triumph over the little Duke, because I told the Duchesse de 
 Chaulieu that I came here only for your sake ; so now I shall 
 work for you." 
 
 "Alas, Melchior, Modeste must need have so superior, so 
 mature a character, and such a noble mind, to resist the spec- 
 tacle of the court, and all the splendor so skillfully displayed 
 in her honor and glory by the Duke, that I cannot believe in 
 the existence of such perfection ; and yet if she is still the 
 Modeste of her letters, there may be a hope 
 
 " You are a happy fellow, young Boniface, to see the world 
 17
 
 258 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 and your lady-love through such green spectacles ! ' ' ex- 
 claimed Canalis, going out to walk in the garden. 
 
 The poet, caught between two falsehoods, could not make 
 up his mind what to do next. 
 
 " Play the game by the rules, and you lose ! " cried he as 
 he sat in the summer-house. " Every man of sense would 
 undoubtedly have acted as I did four days ago, and have 
 crept out of the trap in which I found myself. For in such 
 a case you don't wait to untie the knots; you break through 
 everything ! Come, I must be cold, calm, dignified, hurt. 
 Honor will not allow of any other demeanor. English rigid- 
 ity is the only way to recover Modeste's respect. After all, 
 if I only get out of the scrape by falling back on my old 
 felicity, my ten years' fidelity will be rewarded. El6onore 
 will find me a suitable match." 
 
 The hunt was destined to be the rallying-point of all the 
 passions brought into play by the colonel's fortune and his 
 daughter's beauty. There was a sort of truce among the con- 
 tending parties during the few days needed to prepare this 
 solemn act of forestry; the drawing-room in the Villa Mignon 
 had the peaceful appearance of a very united family party. 
 Canalis, intrenched in his part of a much-injured man, made 
 a display of courtesy; he put aside his pretentiousness, gave 
 no more specimens of oratorical talent, and was charming, as 
 clever men are when they shed their affectations. He dis- 
 cussed the money-market with Gobenheim, war with the 
 colonel, Germany with Madame Mignon, and housekeeping 
 with Madame Latournelle, trying to win them over to la 
 Briere. The Due d'Herouville frequently left the field free 
 to the two friends, as he was obliged to go to Rosembray to 
 consult the Due de Verneuil and superintend the execution of 
 the orders issued by the master of the hounds, the Prince de 
 Cadignan. 
 
 Meanwhile, the comic element was not lacking. Modeste
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 259 
 
 found herself between the disparagement Canalis tried to cast 
 on the Duke's gallant attentions and the exaggerated views 
 of the two Demoiselles d'Herouville, who came every evening. 
 Canalis pointed out to Modeste that, far from being the hero- 
 ine of the day, she would be scarcely noticed. MADAME 
 would be attended by the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, the 
 daughter-in-law of the master of the hounds, by the Duchesse 
 de Chaulieu, and some other ladies of the court, and among 
 them a mere girl would produce no sensation. Some officers 
 would, no doubt, be invited from the garrison at Rouen, etc. 
 Helene was never tired of repeating to the girl, whom she 
 looked upon as her sister-in-law, that she would, of course, 
 be presented to MADAME ; that the Due de Verneuil would 
 certainly invite her and her father to stay at Rosembray ; that 
 if the colonel had any favor to ask of the King such as a peerage 
 this would be a unique opportunity, for they did not despair 
 of getting the King there on the third day; that she would 
 be surprised at the charming reception she would meet with 
 from the handsomest women of the court, the Duchesses de 
 Chaulieu, de Maufrigneuse, de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu, etc.; 
 Modeste's prejudices against the Faubourg Saint-Germain 
 would disappear and so forth, and so forth. It was a most 
 amusing little warfare, with its marches and counter-marches 
 and strategy, which the Dumays, the Latournelles, Goben- 
 heim, and Butscha looked upon and enjoyed, saying among 
 themselves all manner of hard things about the nobility, as 
 they watched their elaborate, cruel, and studied meanness. 
 
 The assurances of the d'Herouville faction were justified by 
 an invitation, in the most flattering terms, from the Due de 
 Verneuil and the master of the King's hounds to Monsieur 
 le Comte de la Bastie and his daughter to be present at a 
 royal hunt at Rosembray on the 7th, 8th, pth, and loth of 
 November. 
 
 La Briere, oppressed by gloomy presentiments, reveled in 
 Modeste's presence in that spirit of concentrated avidity
 
 260 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 whose bitter joys are known only to lovers irrevocably and 
 for ever discarded. The flashes of happiness in his inmost 
 self, mingled with melancholy reflections on the same theme, 
 " She is lost to me ! " made the poor youth a pathetic spec- 
 tacle, all the more touching because his countenance and per- 
 son were in harmony with this depth of feeling. There is 
 nothing more poetical than such a living elegy that has eyes, 
 that walks, and sighs without rhyming. 
 
 Finally, the Due d'Herouville came to arrange for Mod- 
 este's journey. After crossing the Seine, she was to proceed 
 in the Duke's traveling carriage with his aunt and sister. 
 The Duke was perfect in his courtesy ; he invited Canalis and 
 la Briere, telling them, as he told Monsieur Mignon, that 
 they would find hunters at their service. 
 
 The colonel asked his daughter's three lovers to breakfast 
 on the day of the departure. Then Canalis tried to execute a 
 scheme that had ripened in his mind during the last few days 
 namely, to reconquer Modeste, and to trick the Duchess, 
 the master of the horse, and la Briere. A graduate in diplo- 
 macy could not remain bogged in such a position as that in 
 which he found himself. La Briere, on his part, had made 
 up his mind to bid Modeste an eternal farewell. Thus each 
 suitor, as he foresaw the conclusion of a struggle that had 
 been going on for three weeks, proposed to put in a last word, 
 like a pleader to the judge before sentence is pronounced. 
 
 After dinner the day before, the colonel took his daughter 
 by the arm and impressed on her the necessity for coming to 
 a decision. 
 
 " Our position with the d'Herouville family would be in- 
 tolerable at Rosembray. Do you want to be a duchess?" 
 he asked Modeste. 
 
 " No, father," she replied. 
 
 " Then do you really love Canalis ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, papa; a thousand times, no ! " said she, 
 with childish irritability.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 261 
 
 The colonel looked at her with a sort of glee. 
 
 "Ah ! I have not influenced you," cried the kind father. 
 " But I may tell you now that even in Paris I had chosen my 
 son-in-law when, on my impressing on him that I had no 
 fortune, he threw his arms around me, saying that I had lifted 
 a hundredweight from his heart." 
 
 "Of whom are you speaking?" asked Modeste, coloring. 
 
 " Of the man of solid virtues and sound morals," said he, 
 mockingly repeating the phrase which, on the day after his 
 return, had scattered Modeste's dreams. 
 
 " Oh, I am not thinking of him, papa ! Leave me free to 
 refuse the Duke myself; I know him, I 'know how to soothe 
 him " 
 
 " Then your choice is not made? " 
 
 " Not yet. I still have to guess a few syllables in the riddle 
 of my future ; but after having had a glimpse of the court, I 
 will tell you my secret at Rosembray." 
 
 "You will join the hunt, will you not?" said the colonel 
 to Ernest, whom he saw coming down the path where he was 
 walking with Modeste. 
 
 " No, colonel," replied Ernest. " I have come to take leave 
 of you and of mademoiselle. I am going back to Paris." 
 
 "You have no curiosity? " said Modeste, interrupting him, 
 and looking at the bashful youth. 
 
 "Nothing is needed to keep me," said he, "but the ex- 
 pression of a wish I hardly hope for." 
 
 " If that is all, it will give me pleasure, at any rate," said 
 the colonel, as he went forward to meet Canalis, leaving his 
 daughter alone for a moment with the hapless Ernest. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said the young man, looking up at her 
 with the courage of despair ; " I have a petition to make." 
 
 "Tome?" 
 
 " Let me depart forgiven ! My life can never be happy; 
 I must endure the remorse of having lost my happiness, by my 
 own fault no doubt ; but at least "
 
 262 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "Before we part for ever," replied Modeste, interrupting 
 him "a la Canalis, "I want to know one thing only; and 
 though you once assumed a disguise, I do not think that you 
 Will now be such a coward as to deceive me ' ' 
 
 At the word "coward " Ernest turned pale. 
 
 " You are merciless ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " Will you be frank with me ? " 
 
 "You have the right to ask me such a humiliating ques- 
 tion," said he, in a voice made husky by the violent beating 
 of his heart. 
 
 "Well, then, did you read my letters out to Monsieur de 
 Canalis?" 
 
 " No, mademoiselle ; and though I gave them to the colonel 
 to read, it was only to justify my love, by showing him how 
 my affection had had birth, and how genuine my efforts had 
 been to cure you of your fancy." 
 
 " But what put this ignoble masquerading into your head ? " 
 she asked with a kind of impatience. 
 
 La Briere related, in all its details, the scene to which 
 Modeste' s first letter had given rise, and the challenge which 
 had resulted' from Ernest's high opinion in favor of a young 
 lady yearning for glory, as a plant strives for its share of the 
 sunshine. 
 
 "Enough," said Modeste, concealing her agitation. "If 
 you have not my heart, monsieur, you have my highest esteem." 
 
 This simple speech made la Briere quite dizzy. He felt 
 himself totter, and leaned against a tree, like a man whose 
 senses are failing him. Modeste, who had walked away turned 
 her head and hastily came back. 
 
 "What is the matter?" she exclaimed, taking him by the 
 hand to save him from falling. 
 
 Modeste felt his hand like ice, and saw a face as white as a 
 lily ; all the blood had rushed to his heart. 
 
 " Forgive me, mademoiselle, I had fancied myself so de- 
 spised "
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 2g 3 
 
 " Well," said she, with haughty scorn, " I did not say that 
 I loved you." 
 
 And she again left la Briere, who, notwithstanding this hard 
 speech, thought he was walking on the upper air. The earth 
 felt soft beneath his feet, the trees seemed decked with flowers, 
 the sky was rosy and the air blue, as in the temples of Hymen 
 at the close of a fairy drama that ends happily. In such cir- 
 cumstances women are Janus-like, they see what is going on 
 behind them without turning round ; and Modeste saw in her 
 lover's expression the unmistakable symptoms of a love such 
 as Butscha's, which is beyond a doubt the ne plus ultra of a 
 woman's desire. And the high value attached by la Briere to 
 her esteem was to Modeste an infinitely sweet experience. 
 
 "Mademoiselle," said Canalis, leaving the colonel and 
 coming to meet Modeste, " in spite of the small interest you 
 take in my sentiments, it is a point of honor with me to wipe 
 out a stain from which I have too long suffered. Here is 
 what Madame the Duchess wrote me five days after my arrival 
 here." 
 
 He made Modeste read the first few lines of the letter, in 
 which the Duchess said that she had seen Mongenod, and 
 wished that Melchior should marry Modeste ; then, having 
 torn off tl|e rest, he placed them in her hand. 
 
 " I cannot show you the remainder," said he, putting the 
 paper in his pocket; "but I intrust these 'few lines to your 
 delicacy, that you may be able to verify the handwriting. 
 The girl who could ascribe to me such ignoble sentiments is 
 quite capable of believing in some collusion, some stratagem. 
 This may prove to you how much I care to convince you that 
 the difference between us was not based on the vilest interest 
 on my part. Ah ! Modeste," he went on, with tears in his 
 voice, " your poet Madame de Chaulieu's poet has not less 
 poetry in his heart than in his mind. You will see the 
 Duchess. Suspend your judgment of me until then. ' ' And he 
 left Modeste quite disconcerted.
 
 264 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 "On my word! They are all angels," she muttered to 
 herself. " All too fine for marriage ! Only the Duke is a 
 human being." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Modeste, this hunt makes me very uneasy," 
 said Butscha, appearing on the scene with a parcel under his 
 arm. "I dreamed that your horse ran away with you, so I 
 have been to Rouen to get you a Spanish snaffle ; I have been 
 told that a horse can never get it between his teeth. I im- 
 plore you to use it ; I have shown it to the colonel, who has 
 thanked me more than the thing is worth." 
 
 " Poor, dear Butscha ! " cried Modeste, touched to tears by 
 this motherly care. 
 
 Butscha went skipping off like a man who has suddenly heard 
 of the death of an old uncle leaving a fortune. 
 
 "My dear father," said Modeste, on returning to the 
 drawing-room, "I should like very much to have that hand- 
 some whip ; supposing you were to offer to exchange with 
 Monsieur de la Briere that whip for your picture by 
 Ostade?" 
 
 Modeste cast a side-glance at Ernest while the colonel made 
 this proposal, standing in front of the picture the only thing 
 he possessed as a memorial of the campaigns he had fought 
 in ; he had bought it of a citizen of Ratisbon. And seeing 
 the eagerness with which Ernest rushed from the room, " He 
 will attend the hunt," said she to hdrself. 
 
 Thus, strange to say, Modeste's three lovers all went to 
 Rosembray with hearts full of hope and enraptured by her 
 adorable charms. 
 
 Rosembray, an estate recently purchased by the Due de 
 Verneuil with the money that fell to his share of the thousand 
 million francs voted to legitimize the sale of national property, 
 is remarkable for a chateau comparable for magnificence with 
 those of Mesniere and Balleroy. This noble and imposing 
 mansion is reached by an immense avenue of ancestral elms
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 four rows deep, and across a vast courtyard on a slope, like 
 that of Versailles, with a splendid iron screen and two gate 
 lodges, and surrounded by large orange trees in tubs. The 
 facade to this great court displays two stories of' nineteen 
 windows in each, between two wings at right angles tall 
 windows with small panes, set in carved stone arches, and 
 separated by reeded pilasters. A cornice and balustrade screen 
 an Italian roof, whence rise stone chimneys marked by 
 trophies of arms, Rosembray having been built in the reign 
 of Lous XIV. by a farmer-general named Cottin. The front 
 toward the park differs from this, having a centre block of 
 five windows projecting from the main building, with columns 
 and a noble pediment. The Marigny family, to whom the 
 possessions of this Cottin came by marriage with his sole 
 heiress, had a group representing Dawn executed for this 
 pediment by Coysevox. Below it two genii support a scroll, 
 on which this motto is ascribed in honor of the King, instead 
 of the old family device : Sol nobis benignus. The great Louis 
 had made a duke of the Marquis de Marigny, one of his most 
 insignificant favorites. 
 
 From the top of the semicircular double-flight of steps there 
 is a view over a large lake, as long and wide as the grand 
 canal of Versailles, starting from the bottom of a slope of 
 turf worthy of the most English lawn, its banks dotted with 
 clumps displaying the brightest autumn flowers. Beyond, on 
 each side, a French formal parterre spreads its square beds 
 and paths pages written in the most majestic style of our 
 time. These two gardens are set in a border of wood and 
 shrubbery, extending the whole length to the extent of thirty 
 acres, and cleared in places in the English fashion under 
 Louis XV. The view from the terrace is shut in beyond by 
 a forest belonging to Rosembray, adjoining two demesnes, 
 one belonging to the nation and one to the crown. It would 
 be hard to find a more beautiful landscape. 
 
 Modeste's arrival caused some sensation in the avenue
 
 266 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 when the carriage was seen with the royal livery of France, 
 escorted by the master of the horse, the colonel, Canalis, 
 and la Briere, all riding, and preceded by an outrider in the 
 royal livery ; behind them came ten servants, among them 
 the colonel's negro and mulatto, and his elegant britska, in 
 which were the two ladies' maids and the luggage. The first 
 carriage was drawn by four horses mounted by tigers, dressed 
 with the spruce perfection insisted on by the master of the 
 horse often better served in such matters than the King 
 himself. 
 
 Modeste, as she drove up and saw this minor Versailles, 
 was dazzled by the magnificence of these great folk ; she was 
 suddenly conscious of having to meet these famous duchesses ; 
 she dreaded seeming affected, provincial, or parvenu, lost her 
 head completely, and repented of ever having wished for this 
 hunting party. 
 
 When the carriage stopped, Modeste happily saw before 
 her an old man in a fair, frizzy wig, with small curls, whose 
 calm, smooth, full face wore a paternal smile and an expres- 
 sion of monastic joviality, to which a half-downcast look 
 lent something like dignity. The Duchess, a woman of deep 
 devotion, the only daughter of a very wealthy president of the 
 supreme court, who had died in 1800, was the mother of four 
 children ; very thin and erect, she bore some resemblance to 
 Madame Latournelle, .if imagination could be persuaded to 
 embellish the lawyer's wife with the graces of a noble lady- 
 prioress. 
 
 "Ah ! how do you do, dear Hortense?" said Mademoiselle 
 d'Herouville, embracing the Duchess with all the sympathy 
 that was a tie between these two proud spirits ; "allow me to 
 introduce to you and to our dear Duke, Mademoiselle de la 
 Bastie, who is a little angel." 
 
 "We have heard so much about you, mademoiselle," said 
 the Duchess, " that we have been most eager to have you 
 here."
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 2g 7 
 
 " We can but regret our lost time," added the Due de 
 Verneuil, bowing with gallant admiration. 
 
 "Monsieur le Comte de la Bastie," added the master of 
 the horse, taking the colonel by the arm, and leading him up 
 to the Duke and Duchess with a tinge of respect in his tone 
 and manner. 
 
 The colonel bowed to the Duchess, the Duke gave him his 
 hand. 
 
 " You are very welcorrie, Monsieur le Comte," said Mon- 
 sieur de Verneuil. " You are the owner of many treasures," 
 he added, glancing at Modeste. 
 
 The Duchess drew Modeste's hand through her arm and 
 led her into a vast drawing-room, where half a score of 
 women were sitting in groups around the fire. The men, led 
 by the Duke, went to walk on the terrace, excepting only 
 Canalis, who went in to pay his respects to the superb 
 Eleonore. She, seated before a tapestry frame, was giving 
 Mademoiselle de Verneuil some hints as to shading. 
 
 If Modeste had thrust her finger through with a needle 
 when laying her hand on a cushion, she could not have felt a 
 keener shock than she received from the icy glance, haughty 
 and contemptuous, that the Duchesse de Chaulieu bestowed 
 on her. From the first instant she saw no one but this 
 woman, and guessed whom she was. To know to what a pitch 
 the cruelty can go of those sweet creatures who are exalted by 
 our passion, women must be 'seen together. Modeste might 
 have disarmed any one but Eleonore by her amazed and in- 
 voluntary admiration ; for if she had not known her rival's 
 age, she would have taken her to be a woman of six-and- 
 thirty ; but there were greater surprises in store for her ! 
 
 The poet found himself flung against the wrath of a great 
 lady. Such anger is the most ruthless Sphinx; the face 
 is beaming, all else is savage. Even kings do not know how 
 to reduce the stronghold of exquisitely cold politeness which 
 a mistress can then hide under steel armor. The lovely
 
 268 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 woman's countenance smiles, and at the same time the steel 
 strikes home : the hand is of steel, the arm, the body, all is 
 steel. Canalis tried to clutch this steel, but his fingers slipped 
 over it as his words slipped from her heart. And the gracious 
 face, the gracious phrases, the gracious manner of the 
 Duchess, concealed from every eye the steel of her cold fury 
 down to twenty-five degrees below zero. The sight of 
 Modeste's supreme beauty, heightened by her journey, the 
 appearance of the girl, as well dressed as Diane de Maufrig- 
 neuse, had fired the powder that reflection had stored up in 
 E16onore's brain. 
 
 All the women had gone to the window to see the wonder 
 of the day step out of the carriage, followed by her three 
 lovers. 
 
 " Do not let us show that we are so curious," said Madame 
 de Chaulieu, struck to the heart by Diane's exclamation, 
 ''She is divine! Where can such a creature have dropped 
 from?" 
 
 And they had fled back to the drawing-room, where each 
 one had composed her countenance, while the Duchesse de 
 Chaulieu felt in her heart a thousand vipers all crying at once 
 to be satisfied. 
 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville remarked in an undertone and 
 with marked meaning to the Duchesse de Verneuil 
 
 " Eldonore is not cordial in her reception of her great 
 Melchior." 
 
 " The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse thinks that there is a cool- 
 ness between them," replied Laure de Verneuil simply. This 
 phrase, so often spoken in the world of fashion, is full of 
 meaning. We feel in it the icy polar blast. 
 
 "Why?" asked Modeste of the charming girl who had 
 left the convent of the sacred heart not more than two 
 months since. 
 
 " The great man," replied the Duchess, signing to her 
 daughter to be silent, " left her for a fortnight without writ-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 269 
 
 ing a word to her, after setting out for le Havre, and saying 
 that he had gone for his health." 
 
 Modeste gave a little start which struck Laure, Helene, and 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville. 
 
 "And meanwhile," the devout Duchess went on, "she 
 was getting him appointed commander of the Legion of 
 Honor and minister to Baden." 
 
 " Oh, it is very wrong of Canalis, for he owes everything 
 to her," said Mademoiselle d'Herouville. 
 
 "Why did Madame de Chaulieu not come to le Havre?" 
 asked Modeste guilelessly of Helene. 
 
 " My child," said the Duchesse de Verneuil, "she would 
 let herself be killed without speaking a word. Look at her. 
 What a queen ! With her head on the block she would still 
 smile, like Mary Stuart indeed, our handsome Eldonore has 
 the same blood in her veins." 
 
 " And she did not write to him ? " said Modeste. 
 
 " Diane told me," replied the Duchess, prompted to fur- 
 ther confidences by an elbow nudge from Mademoiselle 
 d'Herouville, "that she had sent a very cutting answer to 
 the first letter Canalis wrote to her about ten days ago." 
 
 This statement made Modeste color with shame for Canalis; 
 she longed not to crush him under her feet, but to revenge 
 herself by a piece of mischief more cruel than a poniard 
 thrust. She looked proudly at Madame de Chaulieu. That 
 glance was gilded with eight millions of francs. 
 
 " Monsieur Melchior ! " said she. 
 
 All the women looked up, first at the Duchess, who was 
 talking to Canalis over the work-frame, then at this young 
 girl, so ill-bred as to disturb two lovers who were settling their 
 quarrel a thing which is never done in any rank of life. 
 
 Diane de Maufrigneuse gave her head a little toss, as much 
 as to say, " The child is in her rights." 
 
 Finally, the twelve women smiled at each other, for they 
 were all jealous of a woman of fifty-six who was still hand-
 
 270 MODESTE M1GNON. 
 
 some enough to dip her hand in the common treasury and 
 steal a young woman's share. Melchior glanced at Modeste 
 with feverish irritability, the hasty look of a master to a ser- 
 vant, while the Duchess bent her head with the air of a lioness 
 interrupted at her meal ; her eyes, fixed on the canvas, shot 
 flames of fire, almost red-hot, at the poet while she sifted his 
 very soul with her epigrams, for each sentence was a ven- 
 geance for a triple injury. 
 
 " Monsieur Melchior ! " repeated Modeste, in a voice that 
 asserted its right to be heard. 
 
 " What is it, mademoiselle ? " asked the poet. 
 
 He was obliged to rise, but he stood still half-way between 
 the work-frame, which was near the window, and the fire- 
 place, by which Modeste was sitting on the Duchess de Ver- 
 neuil's sofa. What cruel reflections were forced on the am- 
 bitious man when he met Eleonore's steady eye. If he should 
 obey Modeste, all was over for ever between the poet and his 
 protectress. If he paid no heed to the girl, it would be an 
 avowal of his serfdom, he would lose the advantages gained 
 by five-and-twenty days of meanness, and fail in the simplest 
 rules of gentlemanly politeness. The greater the folly, the 
 more imperatively the Duchess insisted on it. Modeste's 
 beauty and fortune, set in the opposite scale to Eleonore's 
 influence and established rights, made this hesitancy between 
 the man and his honor as terrible to watch as the peril of a 
 matadore in the ring. A man never knows such frightful pal- 
 pitations, as those that seemed to threaten Canalis with an 
 aneurism, anywhere but in front of the gaming-table where 
 his fortune or his ruin is settled within five minutes. 
 
 " Mademoiselle d'Herouville made me get out of the car- 
 riage in such a hurry," said Modeste to Canalis, " that I 
 dropped my handkerchief 
 
 Canalis gave a highly significant shrug. 
 
 "And," she went on, in spite of this impatient gesture, " I 
 had, tied to it, the key of a blotting-case, containing an im-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. L . :i 
 
 portant fragment of a letter; will you be good enough, Mel- 
 chior, to ask for it? " 
 
 Between an angel and a tigress, equally irate, Canalis, who 
 had turned pale, hesitated no longer ; the tigress seemed the 
 less dangerous. He was on the point of committing himself 
 when la Briere appeared in the doorway, seeming to Canalis 
 something like the archangel Michael descended from heaven. 
 
 "Here, Ernest, Mademoiselle de la Bastie wants you," 
 said the poet, hastily retreating to his chair by the work- 
 frame. 
 
 Ernest, on his part, went at once to Modeste without bow- 
 ing to any one else ; he saw her alone, received her instruc- 
 tions with visible joy, and ran off with the unconfessed appro- 
 bation of every woman present. 
 
 "What a position for a poet !" said Modeste to Helene, 
 pointing to the worsted work at which the Duchess was 
 stitching furiously. 
 
 " If you speak to her, if you once look at her, all is ended," 
 said El6onore to Melchior in a low tone, for his middle course 
 had not satisfied her. " And, mind, when I am absent I 
 shall leave other eyes to watch you." 
 
 As she spoke, Madame de Chaulieu, a woman of medium 
 height, but rather too fat as all women are who are still 
 handsome when past fifty rose, walked toward the group 
 with which Diane de Maufrigneuse was sitting, stepping out 
 with small feet as firm and light as a fawn's. Under her full 
 form the exquisite refinement was conspicuous with which 
 women of that type are gifted, and which gives them that 
 vigorous nervous system that controls and animates the devel- 
 opment of the flesh. It was impossible otherwise to account 
 for her light step, which was amazingly dignified. Only 
 those women whose quarterings of nobility date back to 
 Noah, like Eleonore's, know how to be majestic in spite of 
 being as large as a farmer's wife. A philosopher might, 
 perhaps, have pitied Philoxene, while admiring the happy
 
 272 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 arrangement of the bodice and the careful details of a morn- 
 ing dress worn with the elegance of a queen and the ease of a 
 girl. Boldly wearing her own abundant and undyed hair, 
 plaited on the top of her head in a coronet like a tower, 
 Eleonore proudly displayed her white neck, her finely shaped 
 bust and shoulders, her dazzling bare arms, ending in hands 
 famous for their beauty. Modeste, like all the Duchess' 
 rivals, saw in her one of those women of whom the others 
 say, " She is past mistress of us all ! " 
 
 In fact, every one recognized her as one of those few great 
 ladies who are now become so rare in France. Any attempt to 
 describe how majestic was the carriage of her head, how re- 
 fined and delicate this or that curve of her neck, what har- 
 mony there was in her movements, what dignity in her mien, 
 what nobleness in the perfect agreement of every detail with 
 the whole result in the little arts that are a second nature, and 
 make a woman holy and supreme this would be to try to 
 analyze the sublime. We delight in such poetry, as in that 
 of Paganini, without seeking the means, for the cause is a soul 
 making itself visible. 
 
 The Duchess bowed, saluting Helene and her aunt ; then 
 she said to Diane in a clear, bright voice without a trace of 
 emotion 
 
 " Is it not time to dress, Duchess? " 
 
 And she swept out of the room, accompanied by her 
 daughter-in-law and Mademoiselle d'Herouville, each giving 
 her an arm. She was speaking in a low voice as she went 
 away with the old maid, who pressed her to her heart, saying, 
 " You are quite charming ! " which was as much as to say, " I 
 am wholly yours in return for the service you have just 
 done us." 
 
 Mademoiselle d'Herouville returned to the drawing-room to 
 play her part as spy, and her first glance told Canalis that the 
 Duchess' last words were no vain threat. The apprentice to 
 diplomacy felt he knew too little of this minor science for so
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 273 
 
 severe a struggle, and his wit served him at any rate so far as 
 to enable him to assume a straightforward, if not a dignified, 
 attitude. When Ernest returned with Modeste's handker- 
 chief, he took him by the arm and led him out on the lawn. 
 
 "My dear fellow," said he, ''I am, of all men, not the 
 most unhappy, but the most ridiculous. So I have recourse to 
 you to help me out of the wasps' nest I have gotten into. Mod- 
 este is a demon ; she saw my embarrassment, she mocks at it ; 
 she has just spoken to me of two line's of a letter of Madame 
 de Chaulieu's that I was fool enough to trust her with. If 
 she were to show them, I could never make it up again with 
 Eleonore. So, pray, at once ask Modeste for that paper, and 
 tell her from me that I have no views no pretensions to her 
 hand ; I rely on her delicacy, on her honesty as a lady, to 
 behave to me as though we had never met ; I entreat her not 
 to speak to me ; I beseech her to vouchsafe to be implacable, 
 though I dare not hope that her spite will move her to a sort 
 
 of jealous wrath that would serve my ends to a miracle 
 
 Go, I will wait here." 
 
 On re-entering the room, Ernest de la Briere saw there a 
 young officer of Havre's company of the Guards, the Vicomte 
 de Serizy, who had just arrived from Rosny to announce that 
 MADAME was obliged to be present at the opening of the 
 session. This constitutional solemnity was, as is well known, 
 a very important function. Charles X. pronounced a speech 
 in the presence of his whole family, the Dauphiness and MA- 
 DAME being present in their seats. The choice of the envoy 
 charged with expressing the Princess' regrets was a compli- 
 ment to Diane. She was supposed to be the immediate object 
 of this fascinating youth's adoration ; he was the son of a 
 minister of state, gentleman-in-waiting, and hopeful of high 
 destinies, as being an only son and heir to an immense for- 
 tune. The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, however, only accepted 
 the Viscount's attentions in order to throw light on the age of 
 Madame de Serizy, who, according to the chronicle repeated 
 18
 
 274 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 behind fans, had won from her the heart of handsome Lucien 
 de Rubempre. 
 
 " You, I hope, will do us the pleasure of remaining at 
 Rosembray," said the severe Duchess to the young man. 
 
 While keeping her ears open to evil-speaking, the pious 
 lady shut her eyes to the peccadilloes of her guests, who were 
 carefully paired by the Duke ; for no one knows what such 
 excellent women will tolerate on the plea of bringing a lost 
 sheep back to the fold by treating it with indulgence. 
 
 " We reckoned without the constitutional government," 
 said the Due d'Herouville, "and Rosembray loses a great 
 honor, Madame la Duchesse " 
 
 "We shall feel all the more at our ease," observed a tall, 
 lean old man of about seventy-five, dressed in blue cloth, and 
 keeping on his hunting cap by leave of the ladies. 
 
 This personage, who was very like the Due de Bourbon, 
 was no less a man than the Prince de Cadignan, the master 
 of the hounds, and also one of the last of the French Great 
 Lords. 
 
 Just as la Briere was about to slip behind the sofa to beg a 
 minute's speech with Modeste, a man of about eight and 
 thirty came in, short, fat, and common looking. 
 
 "My son, the Prince de Loudon," said the Duchesse de 
 Verneuil to Modeste, who could not control an expression of 
 amazement on her youthful features as she saw the man who 
 now bore the name which the general of the Vendee Cavalry 
 had made so famous by his daring and by his execution. 
 
 The present Due de Verneuil was the third son taken by 
 his father into exile, and the only survivor of four children. 
 
 " Gaspard," said the Duchess, calling her son to her. 
 The Prince obeyed his mother, who went on as she intro- 
 duced Modeste 
 
 " Mademoiselle de la Bastie, my dear." 
 
 The heir presumptive, whose marriage to Desplein's only 
 daughter was a settled thing, bowed to the girl without
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 275 
 
 seeming struck by her beauty, as his father had been. Mod- 
 este thus had an opportunity of comparing the young men of 
 to-day with the old men of the past ; for the old Prince de 
 Cadignan had already made her two or three very pretty 
 speeches, proving that he was not less devoted to women than 
 to royalty. The Due de Rhetore, Madame de Chaulieu's 
 eldest son, noted for the style which combines impertinence 
 with easy freedom, had, like the Prince de Loudon, treated 
 Modeste almost cavalierly. 
 
 The reason of this contrast between the sons and the fathers 
 may, perhaps, lie in the fact that the heirs no longer feel 
 themselves to be objects of importance, as their ancestors 
 were, and excuse themselves from the duties of power, since 
 they no longer have anything but its shadow. The fathers 
 still have the fine manners inherent in their vanished grandeur, 
 like mountains gilded by the sunshine, when all around them 
 is in darkness. 
 
 At last Ernest succeeded in saying two words to Modeste, 
 who arose. 
 
 " My little beauty ! " said the Duchess, as she pulled a bell, 
 thinking that Modeste was going to change her dress, " you 
 shall be taken to your rooms." 
 
 Ernest went with Modeste to the foot of the great staircase 
 to make the unhappy Melchior's request, and he tried to 
 touch her by describing the poet's miseries. 
 
 " He loves her, you see ! He is a captive who thought he 
 could break his chains." 
 
 " Love ! In a man who calculates everything so closely? " 
 retorted Modeste. 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you are at the beginning of your life ; you 
 do not know its narrow places. Every sort of inconsistency 
 must be forgiven to a man who places himself under the 
 dominion of a woman older than himself, for he is not respon- 
 sible. Consider how many sacrifices Canalis has offered to 
 that divinity ! how he has sown too much seed to scorn the
 
 276 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 harvest ; the Duchess represents to him ten years of devotion 
 and of happiness. You had made the poet forget everything, 
 for, unhappily, he has more vanity than pride ; he knew not 
 what he was losing till he saw Madame de Chaulieu again. 
 If you knew Canalis, you would help him. He is a mere 
 child, and is spoiling his life for ever. You say he calculates 
 everything, but he calculates very badly, like all poets indeed 
 creatures of impulse, full of childishness, dazzled, like chil- 
 dren, by all that shines, and running after it ! He has been 
 fond of horses, of pictures ; he has yearned for glory ; he sells 
 his pictures to get armor and furniture of the style of the 
 Renaissance and of Louis XV.; he now has a grudge against 
 the government. Admit that his whims are on a grand 
 scale! " 
 
 " That will do," said Modeste. " Come," she added, as 
 she saw her father, and beckoned to him to ask him to accom- 
 pany her, " I will give you that scrap of paper; you can take 
 it to the great man, and assure him of my entire consent to 
 all he wishes, but on one condition, I beg you to give him 
 my best thanks for the pleasure I have enjoyed in seeing him 
 perform for my sole benefit one of the finest pieces of the 
 German theatre. I know now that Goethe's chef-d } ceuvre is 
 neither 'Faust' nor ' Egmont ' " and, as Ernest looked at 
 the sprightly girl with a puzzled expression " it is ' Torquato 
 Tasso,' " she added. "Desire Monsieur Canalis to read it 
 once more," she went on, smiling. "I particularly desire 
 that you will repeat this to your friend word for word, for it 
 is not an epigram ; it is the justification of his conduct with 
 this difference, that I hope he will become quite sane, thanks 
 to his Eleonore's folly." 
 
 The Duchess' head waiting-maid led Modeste and her 
 father to their rooms, where Franchise Cochet had already 
 arranged everything. Their choice elegance surprised the 
 colonel, and Franchise told him that there were thirty guest- 
 chambers in the same style in the chateau.
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 277 
 
 " This is my idea of a country-house," said Modeste. 
 
 "The Comte de la Bastie will have such another built for 
 you," replied the colonel. 
 
 "Here, monsieur," said Modeste, handing the scrap of 
 paper to Ernest, "go and reassure our friend." 
 
 The words "our friend" struck the young man. He 
 looked at Modeste to see if there were seriously some com- 
 munity of sentiment such as she seemed to acknowledge; and 
 the girl, understanding the implied question, added 
 
 " Well, go ; your friend is waiting." 
 
 La Briere colored violently, and went, in a state of doubt, 
 anxiety, and disturbance more terrible than despair. The 
 approach to happiness is to true lovers very like what the 
 poetry of Catholicism has called the straits of paradise, to ex- 
 press a dark, difficult, and narrow way, echoing with the last 
 cries of supreme anguish. 
 
 An hour later the distinguished party had all met again in 
 the drawing-room, some playing at whist, others chatting, the 
 women busy with fancy-work, while awaiting the dinner-hour. 
 The master of the hounds led Monsieur Mignon to talk of 
 China, of his campaigns, of the great Provencal families of 
 Portenduere, 1'Estorade, and Maucombe; and he remon- 
 strated with him on not asking for employment, assuring him 
 that nothing would be easier than to obtain a post in the 
 Guards with' his full rank as colonel. 
 
 "A man of your birth and fortune can never class himself 
 with the present opposition," said the Prince with a smile. 
 
 This aristocratic society pleased Modeste; and not only 
 that, during her visit she gained a perfection of manner which, 
 but for this revelation, she would never. in her life have ac- 
 quired. If you show a clock to a natural mechanic, it is 
 always enough to reveal to him what mechanism means ; the 
 germs within him are at once developed. In the same way, 
 Modeste intuitively assimilated everything that gave distinc- 
 tion to the Duchesses de Maufrigneuse and de Chaulieu. To
 
 278 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 her each detail was a lesson, where a commonplace woman 
 would have fallen into absurdity by imitating mere manners. 
 A girl of good birth, well informed, with the instincts of 
 Modeste, fell naturally into the right key, and discerned the 
 differences which divide the aristocratic from the middle-class, 
 and provincial life from that of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; 
 she caught the almost imperceptible shades; in short, she 
 recognized the grace of a really fine lady, and did not despair 
 of acquiring it. 
 
 In the midst of this Olympus she saw that her father and la 
 Briere were infinitely superior to Canalis. The great poet, 
 abdicating his real and indisputable power, that of the intellect, 
 was nothing but a master of appeals, eager to become a min- 
 ister, anxious for the collar of the Legion of Honor, and obliged 
 to subserve every constellation. Ernest de la Briere, devoid 
 of ambition, was 'simply himself; while Melchior, eating 
 humble pie, to use a vulgar phrase, paid court to the Prince 
 de Loudon, the Due de Rhetore, the Vicomte de S6rizy, the 
 Due de Maufrigneuse, as though he had no liberty of speech 
 like Colonel Mignon the Comte de la Bastie, proud of his ser- 
 vices and of the Emperor Napoleon's esteem. Modeste saw the 
 continued preoccupation of a wit seeking a point to raise a 
 laugh, a brilliant remark to surprise, or a compliment to flatter 
 the high and mighty personages, on whose level he aimed at 
 keeping himself. In short, here the peacock shed his glitter- 
 ing plumes. 
 
 In the course of the evening Modeste went to sit with the 
 master of the horse in a recess of the drawing-room ; she took 
 him there to put an end to a struggle she could no longer 
 encourage without lowering herself in her own eyes. 
 
 " Monsieur le Due," she began, " if you knew me well, 
 you would know how deeply I am touched by your attentions. 
 It is precisely the high esteem I have for your character, the 
 friendship inspired by such a nature as yours, which makes 
 me anxious not to inflict the smallest wound on your self-
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 279 
 
 respect. Before you came to le Havre I loved sincerely, 
 deeply, and for ever a man who is worthy to be loved, and 
 from whom my affection is still a secret ; but I may tell you 
 and in this I am more sincere than most girls that, if I had 
 not been bound by this voluntary engagement, you would 
 have been my choice, so many and so great are the good 
 qualities I have found in you. A few words dropped by your 
 sister and aunt compel me to say this. If you think it neces- 
 sary, by to-morrow, before the hunt, my mother shall recall 
 me home under the excuse of serious indisposition. I will 
 not be present without your consent at an entertainment ar- 
 ranged by your kind care, where, if my secret should escape 
 me, I might aggrieve you by an insult to your legitimate pre- 
 tensions. 
 
 '"Why did I come?' you may ask. I might have de- 
 clined. Be so generous as not to make a crime of an inevi- 
 table curiosity. This is not the most delicate part of what 
 I have to communicate. You have firmer friends than you 
 know of in my father and me ; and as my fortune was the 
 prime motive in your mind when you came to seek me, with- 
 out wishing to treat it as a solace to the grief your gallantry 
 requires of you, I may tell you that my father is giving his 
 mind to the matter of the Herouville lands. His friend Du- 
 may thinks the scheme feasible, and has been feeling his way 
 to the formation of a company. Gobenheim, Dumay, and 
 my father are each ready with fifteen hundred thousand francs, 
 and undertake to collect the remainder by the confidence they 
 will inspire in the minds of capitalists by taking substantial 
 interest in the business. 
 
 " Though I may not have the honor of being the Duchesse 
 d' Herouville, I am almost certain of putting you in the posi- 
 tion to choose her one day with perfect freedom in the exalted 
 sphere to which she belongs. Oh, let me finish," said she, 
 at a gesture of the Duke's. 
 
 " It is easy to see from my brother's agitation," said Made-
 
 280 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 moiselle d'Herouville to her niece, " that you have gained a 
 sister." 
 
 " Monsieur le Due, I decided on this on the day of our 
 first ride together, when I heard you lamenting your position. 
 This is what I wanted to tell you ; on that day my fate was 
 sealed. If you have not won a wife, you have, at any rate, 
 found friends at Ingouville, if, indeed, you will accept us as 
 friends." 
 
 This little speech which Modeste had prepared was uttered 
 with such soul-felt charm that tears rose to the Duke's eyes. 
 He seized Modeste's hand and kissed it. 
 
 " Remain here for the hunt," said he. " My small merit 
 has accustomed me to such refusals. But while I accept your 
 friendship and the colonel's, allow me to assure myself, by 
 inquiring of the most competent experts, that the reclaiming 
 of the marsh-lands of Herouville will involve the company of 
 which you speak in no risks, but may bring in some profits, 
 before I accept the liberality of your friends. 
 
 "You are a noble girl, and though it breaks my heart to 
 be no more than your friend, I shall glory in the title and 
 prove it to you whenever and wherever I find occasion." 
 
 " At any rate, Monsieur le Due, let us keep the secret to 
 ourselves. My choice will not be announced, unless I am 
 greatly mistaken, till my mother is completely cured ; for it 
 is my desire that my plighted husband and I should be blessed 
 with her first glances." 
 
 "Ladies," said the Prince de Cadignan at the moment 
 when all were going to bed, " I remember that several of you 
 proposed to follow the hunt with us to-morrow ; now I think 
 it my duty to inform you that, if you are bent on being 
 Dianas, you must rise with the dawn. The meet is fixed for 
 half-past eight. I have often in the course of my life seen 
 women display greater courage than men, but only for a few 
 minutes, and you will all need a certain modicum of deter- 
 mination to remain on horseback for a whole day excepting
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 2gi 
 
 during the halt called for luncheon a mere snack, as beseems 
 sportsmen and sportswomen. Are you all still resolved to 
 prove yourselves gallant horsewomen? " 
 
 " I, Prince, cannot help myself," said Modeste slily. 
 
 " I can answer for myself," said the Duchesse de Chaulieu. 
 
 "I know my daughter Diane ; she is worthy of her name," 
 replied the Prince. " Well, then, you are all primed for the 
 sport. However, for the sake of Madame and Mademoiselle 
 de Verneuil, who remain at home, I shall do my best to turn 
 the stag to the further end of the pool." 
 
 " Do not be uneasy, ladies, the hunters' snack will be 
 served under a splendid marquee," said the Prince de Loudon 
 when the master of the hounds had left the room. 
 
 Next morning at daybreak everything promised fine weather. 
 The sky, lightly veiled with gray mist, showed through it here 
 and there in patches of pure blue, and it would be entirely 
 cleared before noon by a northwest breeze, which was already 
 sweeping up some little, fleecy clouds. As they left the 
 chateau, the master of the hounds, the Prince de Loudon, 
 and the Due de Rhetore, who, having no ladies under their 
 care, started first for the meet, saw the chimneys of the house 
 piercing through the veil-mist in white masses against the 
 russet foliage, which the trees in Normandy never lose till 
 quite the end of a fine autumn. 
 
 " The ladies are in luck," said the Prince to the Due de 
 Rhetore. 
 
 " Oh, in spite of their bravado last night, I fancy they will 
 leave us to hunt without them," replied the Due de Verneuil. 
 
 "Yes, if they have not each a gentleman-in-waiting," re- 
 torted the Duke. 
 
 At this moment these determined sportsmen for the Prince 
 de Loudon and the Due de RhetorS are of the race of 
 Nimrod, and supposed to be the finest shots of the Faubourg 
 Saint-Germainheard the noise of an altercation, and rode 
 forward at a gallop to the clearing appointed for the meet,
 
 282 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 at one of the openings into the forest of Rosembray, and 
 remarkable for a mossy knoll. This was the subject of the 
 quarrel : The Prince de Loudon, bitten by Anglomania, had 
 placed at the Due de Verneuil's orders the whole of his stable 
 and kennel, in the English style throughout. On one side of 
 the clearing stood a young Englishman, short, fair, insolent- 
 looking and cool, speaking French after a fashion, and 
 dressed with the neatness that characterizes Englishmen even 
 of the lowest class. John Barry had a tunic-coat of scarlet 
 cloth belted round the waist, silver buttons with the arms of 
 Verneuil, white doeskin breeches, top-boots, a striped waist- 
 coat, and a black velvet collar and cap. In his right hand he 
 held a hunting-crop, and in his left, hanging by a silk cord, 
 was a brass horn. This chief huntsman had with him two 
 large thoroughbred hounds, pure fox-hounds with white coats 
 spotted with tan, high on their legs, with keen noses, small 
 heads, and short ears, high up. This man, one of the most 
 famous huntsmen of the country whence the Prince had sent 
 for him at great expense, ruled over fifteen hunters and sixty 
 English-bred dogs, which annually cost the Due de Verneuil 
 enormous sums ; though he cared little for sport, he indulged 
 his son in this truly royal taste. The subordinates, men and 
 horses, stood some little way off and kept perfect silence. 
 
 Now on arriving on the ground, John found there three 
 huntsmen with three packs of the King's hounds that had 
 arrived before him in carts ; the Prince de Cadignan's three 
 best men, whose figures, both in character and costumes, were 
 a perfect contrast with the representative of insolent Albion. 
 These, the Prince's favorites, all wearing three-cornered 
 cocked hats, very low and flat, beneath which grinned tanned, 
 wrinkled, weather-beaten faces, lighted up as it were by their 
 twinkling eyes, were curiously dry, lean, and sinewy men, 
 burnt up with the passion for sport. Each was provided with 
 a large bugle hung about with green worsted cord that left 
 nothing visible but the bell of the trumpet ; they kept their
 
 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 dogs in order by the eye and voice. The noble brutes, all 
 splashed with liver-color and black, each with his individual 
 expression, as distinct as Napoleon's soldiers, formed a posse 
 of subjects more faithful than those whom the King was at 
 that moment addressing their eyes lighting up at the slightest 
 sound with a spark that glittered like a diamond this one 
 from Poitou, short in the loins, broad-shouldered, low on the 
 ground, long-eared ; that one an English dog, white, slim in 
 the belly, with short ears, and made for coursing ; all the 
 young hounds eager to give tongue, while their elders, seamed 
 with scars, lay quiet, at full length, their heads resting on 
 their fore-paws, and listening on the ground like wild men of 
 the woods. 
 
 On seeing the English contingent the dogs and the King's 
 men looked at each other, asking without saying a word 
 
 " Are we not to hunt by ourselves? Is not this a slur on 
 his majesty's royal hunt ? " 
 
 After beginning with some banter, the squabble had grown 
 warm between Monsieur Jacquin la Roulie, the old chief 
 huntsman of the French force, and John Barry, the young 
 Briton. 
 
 While still at some distance the princes guessed what had 
 given rise to the quarrel, and the master of the hounds, put- 
 ting spurs to his horse, ended the matter by asking in a com- 
 manding tone 
 
 " Who beat the wood ? " 
 
 " I, monseigneur," said the Englishman. 
 
 "Very good," said the Prince de Cadignan, listening to 
 John Barry's report. 
 
 Men and dogs, all alike, were respectful in the presence of 
 the master of the hounds, as though all alike recognized 
 supreme authority. The Prince planned the order of the 
 day; for a hunt is like a battle, and Charles 3 
 the hounds was a Napoleon of the forest. Thanks to tl 
 admirable discipline carried out by his orders in stable and
 
 284 MODESTE MIGNON. 
 
 kennel, he could give his whole mind to strategy and the 
 science of the chase. He assigned a place in the proceedings 
 of the day to the Prince de London's hounds and men, re- 
 serving them, like a cavalry corps, to turn the stag back on 
 the pool, in the event of the King's packs succeeding, as he 
 hoped, in forcing the game into the royal demesne lying in 
 the distance in front of the chateau. He gratified the self- 
 respect of his own old retainers by giving them the hardest 
 work, and that of the Englishman, whom he employed in his 
 own special line, by giving him an opportunity of displaying 
 the strength of limb of his dogs and horses. Thus the two 
 methods would work against each other, and do wonders to 
 excite reciprocal emulation. 
 
 "Are we to wait any longer, monsiegneur ? " asked la 
 Roulie respectfully. 
 
 "I understand you, old friend," replied the Prince. "It 
 is late, but " 
 
 " Here come the ladies, for Jupiter scents the fetish 
 odors," said the second huntsman, observing the nose of his 
 favorite hound. 
 
 " Fetish? " repeated the Prince de Loudon with a smile. 
 
 " He probably means fetid," said the Due de Rhetore. 
 
 "That is it, no doubt, for everything that does not smell 
 of the kennel is poisonous, according to Monsieur Laravine," 
 replied the Prince. 
 
 In point of fact, the three gentlemen could see in the dis- 
 tance a party of sixteen riders, and fluttering at their head the 
 green veils of four ladies. Modeste, with her father, the Due 
 d'Herouville, and little la Briere, was in front, with the 
 Duchesse de Maufrigneuse attended by the Vicomte de Serizy. 
 Then came the Duchesse de Chaulieu with Canalis at her side, 
 she smiling at him with no sign of rancor. On reaching the 
 clearing, where the huntsmen, dressed in red, holding their 
 hunting horns and surrounded by dogs and beaters, formed a 
 group worthy of the brush of Van der Meulen, the Duchesse
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 285 
 
 de Chaulieu, an admirable figure on horseback, though some- 
 what too stout, drew up close to Modeste, feeling it beneath 
 her dignity to sulk with the young person to whom, the day 
 before, she had not spoken a word. 
 
 Just at the moment when the master of the hounds had 
 ended his compliments on such fabulous punctuality, Eleonore 
 condescended to remark the splendid whip-handle that sparkled 
 in Modeste' s little hand, and she very graciously begged to 
 examine it. 
 
 "It is the finest thing in its way that I have ever seen," 
 said she, showing the gem to Diane de Maufrigneuse ; " but, 
 indeed, it is in harmony with the owner's whole person," she 
 added, as she returned it to Modeste. 
 
 " You will confess, madame," replied Mademoiselle de la 
 Bastie, with a mischievous but tender glance at la Briere, in 
 which he could read an avowal, " that it is a very strange gift 
 
 as coming from a future husband " 
 
 " Indeed," exclaimed Madame de Maufrigneuse, "I should 
 regard it as a recognition of my rights, remembering always 
 Louis XIV." 
 
 There were tears in la Briere' s eyes ; he dropped his bridle, 
 and was ready to fall j but another look from Modeste recalled 
 him to himself by warning him not to betray his supreme 
 happiness. 
 
 The cavalcade set out. 
 
 The Due d'Herouville said in a low voice to la Briere: 
 hope, monsieur, that you will make your wife happy, and if ] 
 can in any way serve you, command me; for I should 
 lighted to contribute to the happiness of two such chare 
 
 people." , 
 
 This great day, when such important interests of hea 
 fortunes were definitely settled, to the master of the hounds 
 offered no other problem but that as to whether the stag won 
 cross the pool, and be killed on the grass-slope within sight 
 of the chateau ; for huntsmen of such experience are like chess
 
 286 MODESTE MlGNOK. 
 
 players, who can foresee a checkmate many moves ahead. 
 The fortunate old gentleman succeeded to the height of his 
 wishes; the run was splendid, and the ladies relieved him of 
 their presence on the next day but one, which proved to be 
 rainy. 
 
 The Due de Verneuil's guests remained three days at 
 Rosembray. On the last morning the "Gazette de France" 
 contained the announcement that M. le Baron de Canalis was 
 appointed to the rank of commander of the Legion of Honor 
 and the post of minister at Carlsruhe. 
 
 When early in the month of December the Comtesse de la 
 Bastie was operated on by Desplein, and could at last see 
 Ernest de la Briere, she pressed Modeste's hand and said in 
 her ear 
 
 " I should have chosen him." 
 
 Toward the end of February all the documents relating to 
 the acquisition of the estates were signed by the worthy and 
 excellent Latournelle, Monsieur Mignon's attorney in Prov- 
 ence. At this time the family of la Bastie obtained from his 
 majesty the distinguished honor of his signature to the mar- 
 riage contract and the transmission of the title and the arms 
 of la Bastie to Ernest de la Briere, who was authorized to call 
 himself the Vicomte de la Bastie-La Briere. The estate of la 
 Bastie, reconstituted to yield more than a hundred thousand 
 francs a year, was entailed by letters patent registered by the 
 court in the month of April. 
 
 La Briere's witnesses were Canalis and the minister, whose 
 private secretary he had been for five years. Those who 
 signed for the bride were the Due d'Herouville and Desplein, 
 for whom the Mignons cherished enduring gratitude, after 
 giving him magnificent proofs of it. 
 
 By-and-by, perhaps, in this long record of our manners, we 
 may meet again with Monsieur and Madame de la Briere-La 
 Bastie, and connoisseurs will then perceive how easy and
 
 MODESTE M1GNON. 
 
 287 
 
 sweet a tie is marriage when the wife is well informed and 
 clever; for Modeste, who kept her promise of avoiding all 
 the absurdities of pedantry, is still the pride and delight of 
 her husband, of her family, and of her circle of friends. 
 
 PARIS, March-July, 1844.
 
 HONORINB. 
 
 To Monsieur Achille Deveria. 
 An affectionate remembrance from the Author. 
 
 IF the French have as great an aversion for traveling as the 
 English have a propensity for it, both English and French 
 have perhaps sufficient reasons. Something better than 
 England is everywhere to be found; whereas, it is exces- 
 sively difficult to find the charms of France outside France. 
 Other countries can show admirable scenery, and they fre- 
 quently offer greater comfort than that of France, which 
 makes but slow progress in that particular. They sometimes 
 display a bewildering magnificence, grandeur, and luxury ; 
 they lack neither grace nor noble manners ; but the life of 
 the brain, the talent for conversation, the "Attic salt" so 
 familiar at Paris, the prompt apprehension of what one is 
 thinking, but does not say, the spirit of the unspoken, which 
 is half the French language, is nowhere else to be met with. 
 Hence a Frenchman, whose raillery, as it is, finds so little 
 comprehension, would wither in a foreign land like an up- 
 rooted tree. Emigration is counter to the instincts of the 
 French nation. Many Frenchmen, of the kind here in ques- 
 tion, have owned to pleasure at seeing the custom-house 
 officers of their native land, which may seem the most daring 
 hyperbole of patriotism. 
 
 This little preamble is intended to recall to such French- 
 men as have traveled the extreme pleasure they have felt on 
 occasionally finding their native land, like an oasis, in the 
 drawing-room of some diplomatist : a pleasure hard to be 
 understood by those who have never left the asphalt of the 
 (288)
 
 HONOR INE. LSD 
 
 Boulevard des Italians, and to whom the quais of the left 
 bank of the Seine are not really Paris. To find Paris again ! 
 Do you know what that means, O Parisians ? It is to find 
 not indeed the cookery of the Rocher de Cancalc as Borel 
 elaborates it for those who can appreciate it, for that exists 
 only in the Rue Montorgueil but a meal which reminds you 
 of it ! It is to find the wines of France, which out of France 
 are to be regarded as myths, and as rare as the woman of 
 whom I write ! It is to find not the most fashionable pleas- 
 antry, for it loses its aroma between Paris and the frontier 
 but the witty understanding, the critical atmosphere in which 
 the French live, from the poet down to the artisan, from the 
 duchess to the boy in the street. 
 
 In 1836, when the Sardinian court was residing at Genoa, 
 two Parisians, more or less famous, could fancy themselves 
 still in Paris when they found themselves in a palazzo, taken 
 by the French consul-general, on the hill forming the last 
 fold of the Apennines between the gate of San Tomaso and 
 the well-known lighthouse, which is to be seen in all the 
 keepsake views of Genoa. This palazzo is one of the mag- 
 nificent villas on which Genoese nobles were wont to spend 
 millions at the time when the aristocratic republic was a 
 power. 
 
 If the early night is beautiful anywhere, it surely is at 
 Genoa, after it has rained as it can rain there, in torrents, all 
 the morning ; when the clearness of the sea vies with that of 
 the sky ; when silence reigns on the quay and in the groves 
 of the villa, and over the marble heads with yawning jaws, 
 from which water mysteriously flows; when the stars are 
 beaming ; when the waves of the Mediterranean lap one after 
 another like the avowal of a woman, from whom you drag it 
 word by word. It must be confessed that the moment when 
 the perfumed air brings fragrance to the lungs and to our day- 
 dreams; when voluptuousness, made visible and ambient ; 
 the air, holds you in your easy-chair; when, a spoon in your 
 19
 
 290 HONORINE. 
 
 hand, you sip an ice or a sherbet, the town at your feet and 
 fair women opposite such Boccaccio hours can be known 
 only in Italy and on the shores of the Mediterranean. 
 
 Imagine to yourself, round the table, the Marquis di Negro, 
 a knight hospitaler to all men of talent on their travels, and 
 the Marquis Damaso Pareto, two Frenchmen disguised as 
 Genoese, a consul-general with a wife as beautiful as a Ma- 
 donna, and two silent children silent because sleep has fallen 
 on them the French ambassador and his wife, a secretary to 
 the embassy who believes himself to be crushed and mischiev- 
 ous; finally, two Parisians, who have come to take leave of the 
 consul's wife at a splendid dinner, and you will have the pic- 
 ture presented by the terrace of the villa about the middle of 
 May a picture in which the predominant figure was that of a 
 celebrated woman, on whom all eyes centred now and again, 
 the heroine of this improvised festival. 
 
 One of the two Frenchmen was the famous landscape painter, 
 Leon de Lora ; the other a well-known critic, Claude Vignon. 
 They had both come with this lady, one of the glories of the 
 fair sex, Mademoiselle des Touches, known in the literary 
 world by the name of Camille Maupin. 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches had been to Florence on busi- 
 ness. With the charming kindness of which she is prodigal, 
 she had brought with her L6on de Lora to show him Italy, and 
 had gone on as far as Rome that he might see the Campagna. 
 She had come by the Simplon, and was returning by the Cor- 
 nice road to Marseilles. She had stopped at Genoa, again on 
 the landscape painter's account. The consul-general had, of 
 course, wished to do the honors of Genoa, before the arrival 
 of the court, to a woman whose wealth, name, and position 
 recommend her no less than her talents. Camille Maupin, 
 who knew her Genoa down to its smallest chapels, had left 
 her landscape painter to the care of the diplomatist and the 
 Genoese marquises, and was miserly of her minutes. Though 
 the ambassador was a distinguished man of letters, the cele-
 
 HONORINE. 29! 
 
 brated lady had refused to yield to his advances, dreading 
 what the English call an exhibition ; but she had drawn in 
 the claws of her refusals when it was proposed that they should 
 spend a farewell day at the consul's villa. Leon de Lora had 
 told Camille that her presence at the villa was the only return 
 he could make to the ambassador and his wife, the two Gen- 
 oese noblemen, the consul and his wife. So Mademoiselle des 
 Touches had sacrificed one of those days of perfect freedom, 
 which are not always to be had in Paris by those on whom the 
 world has its eye. 
 
 Now, the meeting being accounted for, it is easy to under- 
 stand that etiquette had been banished, as well as a great 
 many women even of the highest rank, who were curious to 
 know whether Camille Maupin's manly talent impaired her 
 grace as a pretty woman, and to see, in a word, whether the 
 trousers showed below her petticoats. After dinner till nine 
 o'clock, when a collation was served, though the conversation 
 had been gay and grave by turns, and constantly enlivened 
 by Leon de Lora's sallies for he is considered the most 
 roguish wit of Paris to-day and by the good taste which will 
 surprise no one after the list of guests, literature had scarcely 
 been mentioned. However, the butterfly Sittings of this 
 French tilting match were certain to come to it, were it only 
 to flutter over this essentially French subject. But before 
 coming to the turn in the conversation which led the consul- 
 general to speak, it will not be out of place to give some ac- 
 count of him and his family. 
 
 This diplomatist, a man of four-and-thirty, who had been 
 married about seven years, was a living portrait of Lord Byron. 
 The familiarity of that face makes a description of the con- 
 sul's unnecessary. It may, however, be noted that there was 
 no affectation in his dreamy expression. Lord Byron was 
 a poet, and the consul was poetical ; women know and recog- 
 nize the difference, which explains without justifying some 
 of their attachments. His handsome face, thrown into relief
 
 292 HONORINE. 
 
 by a delightful nature, had captivated a Genoese heiress. A 
 Genoese heiress ! the expression might raise a smile at Genoa, 
 where, in consequence of the inability of daughters to inherit, 
 a woman is rarely rich ; but Onorina Pedrotti, the only child 
 of a banker without heirs male, was an exception. Notwith- 
 standing all the flattering advances prompted by a spontaneous 
 passion, the consul-general had not seemed to wish to marry. 
 Nevertheless, after living in the town for two years, and after 
 certain steps taken by the ambassador during his visits to the 
 Genoese court, the marriage was decided on. The young 
 man withdrew his former refusal, less on account of the touch- 
 ing affection of Onorina Pedrotti than by reason of an un- 
 known incident, one of those crises of private life which are 
 so instantly buried under the daily tide of interests that, at a 
 subsequent date, the most natural actions seem inexplicable. 
 
 This involution of causes sometimes affects the most serious 
 events of history. This, at any rate, was the opinion of the 
 town of Genoa, where, to some women, the extreme reserve, 
 the melancholy of the French consul could be explained only 
 by the word passion. It may be remarked, in passing, that 
 women never complain of being the victims of a preference ; 
 they are very ready to immolate themselves for the common 
 weal. Onorina Pedrotti, who might have hated the consul 
 if she had been altogether scorned, loved her sposo no less, 
 and perhaps more, when she knew that he had loved. Women 
 allow precedence in love affairs. All is well if other women 
 are in question. 
 
 A man is not a diplomatist with impunity : the sposo was as 
 secret as the grave so secret that the merchants of Genoa 
 chose to regard the young consul's attitude as premeditated, 
 and the heiress might perhaps have slipped through his fingers 
 if he had not played his part of a love-sick malade imaginaire. 
 If it was real, the women thought it too degrading to be 
 believed. 
 
 Pedrotti's daughter gave him her love as a consolation ;
 
 HONORINE. i:i 
 
 she lulled these unknown griefs in a cradle of tenderness and 
 Italian caresses. 
 
 The Signer Pedrotti had indeed no reason to complain of the 
 choice to which he was driven by his beloved child. Power- 
 ful protectors in Paris watched over the young diplomatist's 
 fortunes. In accordance with a promise made by the am- 
 bassador to the consul-general's father-in-law, the young man 
 was created Baron and commander of the Legion of Honor. 
 Signer Pedrotti himself was made a Count by the King of 
 Sardinia. Onorina's dower was a million of francs. As to 
 the fortune of the Casa Pedrotti, estimated at two millions, 
 made in the corn trade, the young couple came into it within 
 six months of their marriage, for the first and last Count 
 Pedrotti died in January, 1831. 
 
 Onorina Pedrotti is one of those beautiful Genoese women 
 who, when they are beautiful, are the most magnificent crea- 
 tures in Italy. Michael Angelo took his models in Genoa for 
 the tomb of Giuliano. Hence the fullness and singular plac- 
 ing of the breast in the figures of Day and Night, which so 
 many critics have thought exaggerated, but which is peculiar 
 to the women of Liguria. A Genoese beauty is no longer to 
 be found excepting under the mezzaro, as at Venice it is met 
 with only under the fazzioli. This phenomenon is observed 
 among all fallen nations. The noble type survives only among 
 the populace, as after the burning of a town coins are found 
 hidden in the ashes. And Onorina, an exception as regards 
 her fortune, is no less an exceptional patrician beauty. Re- 
 call to mind the figure of Night which Michael Angelo has 
 placed at the feet of the " Pensieroso," dress her in modern 
 garb, twist that long hair around the magnificent head, a little 
 dark in complexion, set a spark of fire in those dreamy eyes, 
 throw a scarf about the massive bosom, see the long dress, 
 white, embroidered with flowers, imagine the statue sitting 
 upright, with her arms folded like those of Mademoiselle 
 Georges, and you will see before you the consul's wife, with
 
 294 HONORINE. 
 
 a boy of six, as handsome as a mother's desire, and a little 
 girl of four on her knees, as beautiful as the type of childhood 
 so laboriously sought out by the sculptor David to grace a 
 tomb. 
 
 This beautiful family was the object of Camille's secret 
 study. It struck Mademoiselle des Touches that the consul 
 looked rather too absent-minded for a perfectly happy man. 
 
 Although, throughout the day, the husband and wife had 
 offered her the pleasing spectacle of complete happiness, 
 Camille wondered why one of the most superior men she had 
 ever met, and whom she had seen, too, in Paris drawing-rooms, 
 remained as consul-general at Genoa when he possessed a for- 
 tune of a hundred-odd thousand francs a year. But, at the 
 same time, she had discerned, by many of the little nothings 
 which women perceive with the intelligence of the Arab sage 
 in " Zadig," that the husband was faithfully devoted. These 
 two handsome creatures would no doubt love each other with- 
 out a misunderstanding till the end of their days. So Camille 
 said to herself alternately, "What is wrong? Nothing is 
 wrong," following the misleading symptoms of the consul's 
 demeanor ; and he, it may be said, had the absolute calmness 
 of Englishmen, of savages, of Orientals, and of consummate 
 diplomatists. 
 
 In discussing literature, they spoke of the perennial stock- 
 in-trade of the republic of letters woman's sin. And they 
 presently found themselves confronted by two opinions : 
 When a woman sins, is the man or the woman to blame ? 
 The three women present the ambassadress, the consul's 
 wife, and Mademoiselle des Touches, women, of course, of 
 blameless reputations were without pity for the woman. The 
 men tried to convince these three fair flowers of their sex 
 that some virtues might remain in a woman after she had 
 fallen. 
 
 " How long are we going to play at hide-and-seek in this 
 way ? ' ' asked Leon de Lora.
 
 HONORINE. 29o 
 
 I 
 
 "Dear life, go and put your children to bed, and send me 
 by Gina the little black pocket-book that lies on my boule 
 cabinet," said the consul to his wife. 
 
 She arose without a reply, which showed that she loved her 
 husband very truly, for she already knew French enough to 
 understand that her husband was getting rid of her. 
 
 " I will tell you a story in which I played a part, and after 
 that we can discuss it, for it seems to me childish to practice 
 with the scalpel on an imaginary body. Begin by dissecting 
 a corpse." 
 
 Every one prepared to listen, with all the greater readiness 
 because they had all talked enough, and this is the moment to 
 be chosen for telling a story. This, then, is the consul- 
 general's tale : 
 
 "When I was twenty-two, and had taken my degree in 
 law, my old uncle, the Abb6 Loraux, then seventy-two years 
 old, felt it necessary to provide me with a protector and to 
 start me in some career. This excellent man, if not indeed 
 a saint, regarded each year of his life as a fresh gift from 
 God. I need not tell you that the father confessor of a royal 
 highness had no difficulty in finding a place for a young man 
 brought up by himself, his sister's only child. So one day, 
 toward the end of the year 1824, this venerable old man, 
 who for five years had been cure of the white friars at Paris, 
 came up to the room I had in his house, and said in his mild, 
 gentle way 
 
 " Get yourself dressed, my dear boy ; I am going to in- 
 troduce you to some one who is willing to engage you as 
 secretary. If I am not mistaken, he may fill my place in the 
 event of God's taking me to Himself. I shall have finis 
 mass by nine o'clock ; you have three-quarters of an hour 1 
 fore you. Be ready.' 
 
 " ' What, uncle ! must I say good-by to this room, wh 
 for four years I have been so happy ? ' 
 
 " < I have no fortune to leave you,' said he.
 
 296 HONORINE. 
 
 " ' Have you not the reputation of your name to leave me,* 
 the memory of your good works ? ' 
 
 " We need say nothing of that inheritance,' he replied, 
 smiling. ' You do not yet know enough of the world to be 
 aware that a legacy of that kind is hardly likely to be paid, 
 whereas by taking you this morning to M. le Comte ' Allow 
 me," said the consul, interrupting himself, " to speak of my 
 protector by his Christian name only, and to call him Comte 
 Octave. ' By taking you this morning to M. le Comte Octave, 
 I hope to secure you his patronage, which, if you are so for- 
 tunate as to please that virtuous statesman as I make no doubt 
 you can will be worth, at least, as much as the fortune I 
 might have accumulated for you, if my brother-in-law's ruin 
 and my sister's death had not fallen on me like a thunder- 
 bolt from a clear sky.' 
 
 " ' Are you the Count's director? ' 
 
 " ' If I were, could I place you with him ? What priest 
 could be capable of taking advantage of the secrets which he 
 learns at the tribunal of repentance ? No ; you owe this posi- 
 tion to his highness the keeper of the seals. My dear 
 Maurice, you will be as much at home there as in your father's 
 house. The Count will give you a salary of two thousand 
 four hundred francs, rooms in his house, and an allowance of 
 twelve hundred francs in lieu of feeding you. He will not 
 admit you to his table, nor give you a separate table, for fear 
 of leaving you to the care of servants. I did not accept the 
 offer when it was made to me till I was perfectly certain that 
 Comte Octave's secretary was never to be a mere upper 
 servant. You will have an immense amount of work, for the 
 Count is a great worker ; but when you leave him you will 
 be qualified to fill the highest posts. I need not warn you to 
 be discreet ; that is the first virtue of any man who hopes to 
 hold public appointments.' 
 
 "You may conceive of my curiosity. Comte Octave, at 
 that time, held one of the highest legal appointments; he
 
 HONORINE. 297 
 
 'was in the confidence of Madame the Dauphiness, who had 
 just got him made a state minister ; he led such a life as the 
 Comte de Serizy, whom you all know, I think ; but even more 
 quietly, for his house was in the Marais, Rue Payenne, and he 
 hardly ever entertained. His private life escaped public com- 
 ment by its hermit-like simplicity and by constant hard work. 
 
 "Let me describe my position to you in a few words. 
 Having found in the solemn headmaster of the College Saint- 
 Louis a tutor to whom my uncle delegated his authority, at 
 the age of eighteen I had gone through all the classes ; I left 
 school as innocent as a seminarist, full of faith, on quitting 
 Saint-Sulpice. My mother, on her death-bed, had made my 
 uncle promise that I should not become a priest, but I was as 
 pious as though I had to take orders. On leaving college, 
 the Abbe Loraux took me into his house and made me study 
 law. During the four years of study requisite for passing all 
 the examinations, I worked hard, but chiefly at things outside 
 the arid fields of jurisprudence. Weaned from literature as I 
 had been at college, where I lived in the headmaster's house, 
 I had a thirst to quench. As soon as I had read a few modern 
 masterpieces, the works of all the preceding ages were greedily 
 swallowed. I became crazy about the theatre, and for a long 
 time I went every night to the play, though my uncle gave 
 me only a hundred francs a month. This parsimony, to 
 which the good old man was compelled by his regard for the 
 poor, had the effect of keeping a young man's desires within 
 reasonable limits. 
 
 "When I went to live with Comte Octave I was not indeed 
 an innocent, but I thought of my rare escapades as crimes. 
 My uncle was so truly angelic, and I was so much afraid of 
 grieving him, that in all those four years I had never spent a 
 night out. The good man would wait till I came in to go to bed. 
 This almost-maternal care had more power to keep me within 
 bounds than the sermons and reproaches with which the life 
 of a young man is diversified in a puritanical home. I was a
 
 298 HONORINE. 
 
 stranger to the various circles which make up the world of 
 Paris society ; I only knew some women of the better sort, 
 and none of the inferior class but those I saw as I walked 
 about, or in the boxes at the play, and then only from the 
 depths of the pit where I sat. If, at that period, any one 
 had said to me, ' You will see Canalis or Camille Maupin,' I 
 should have felt hot coals on my head and in my bowels. 
 Famous people were to me as gods, who neither spoke, nor 
 walked, nor ate like other mortals. 
 
 "How many tales of the ' Thousand-and-one Nights' are 
 comprehended in the ripening of a youth ! How many won- 
 derful lamps must we have rubbed before we understand that 
 the true wonderful lamp is either luck, or work, or genius! 
 In some men this dream of the aroused spirit is but brief; 
 mine has lasted until now ! In those days I always went to 
 sleep as Grand Duke of Tuscany as a millionaire as beloved 
 by a princess or famous ! So to enter the service of Comte 
 Octave, and have a hundred louis a year, was entering on 
 independent life. I had glimpses of some chance of getting 
 into society, and seeking for what my heart desired most, a 
 protectress, who would rescue me from the paths of danger, 
 which a young man of twenty-two can hardly help treading, 
 however prudent and well brought up he may be. I began 
 to be afraid of myself. 
 
 " The persistent study of other people's rights into which I 
 had plunged was not always enough to repress painful imagin- 
 ings. Yes, sometimes in fancy I threw myself into theatrical 
 life ; I thought I could be a great actor ; I dreamed of endless 
 triumphs and loves, knowing nothing of the disillusion hidden 
 behind the curtain, as everywhere else for every stage has its 
 reverse behind the scenes. I have gone out sometimes, my 
 heart boiling, carried away by an impulse to rush hunting 
 through Paris, to attach myself to some handsome woman I 
 might meet, to follow her to her door, watch her, write to 
 her, throw myself on her mercy, and conquer her by sheer
 
 HONORINE. ._,,,, 
 
 force of passion. My poor uncle, a heart consumed by 
 charity, a child of seventy years, as clear-sighted as God, as 
 guileless as a man of genius, no doubt read the tumult of my 
 soul ; for when he felt the tether by which he held me strained 
 too tightly and ready to break, he would never fail to say, 
 ' Here, Maurice, you too are poor ! Here are twenty francs ; 
 go and amuse yourself, you are not a priest ! ' And if you 
 could then have seen the dancing light that gilded his gray 
 eyes, the smile that relaxed his fine lips, puckering the corners 
 of his mouth, the adorable expression of that august face, 
 whose native ugliness was redeemed by the spirit of an apostle, 
 you would understand the feeling which made me answer the 
 cure of white friars only with a kiss, as if he had been my 
 mother. 
 
 "'In Comte Octave you will find not a master, but a 
 friend,' said my uncle on the way to the Rue Payenne. ' But 
 he is distrustful, or, to be more exact, he is cautious. The 
 statesman's friendship can be won only with time ; for in 
 spite of his deep insight and his habit of gauging men, he was 
 deceived by the man you are succeeding, and nearly became 
 a victim to his abuse of confidence. This is enough to guide 
 you in your behavior to him.' 
 
 " When we knocked at the enormous outer door of a house 
 as large as the Hotel Carnavalet, with a courtyard in front 
 and a garden behind, the sound rang as in a desert. While 
 my uncle inquired of an old porter in livery if the Count were 
 at home, I cast my eyes, seeing everything at once, over the 
 courtyard where the cobblestones were hidden in grass, the 
 blackened walls where little gardens were flourishing above 
 the decorations of the elegant architecture, and on the roof, 
 as high as that of the Tuileries. The balustrade of the upper 
 balconies was eaten away. Through a magnificent colonnade 
 I could see a second court on one side, where were the offices ; 
 the door was rotting. An old coachman was there cleaning 
 an old carriage. The indifferent air of this servant allowed
 
 300 HONORINE. 
 
 me to assume that the handsome stables, where of old so many 
 horses had whinnied, now sheltered two at most. The hand- 
 some fagade of the house seemed to me gloomy, like that of a 
 mansion belonging to the state or the crown, and given up to 
 some public office. A bell rang as we walked across, my 
 uncle and I, from the porter's lodge ' Enquire of the Porter' 
 was still written over the door toward the outside steps, 
 where a footman came out in a livery like that of Labranche 
 at the Theatre Frangais in the old stock plays. A visitor was 
 so rare that the servant was putting his coat on when he 
 opened a door glazed with small panes, on each side of which 
 the smoke of a lamp had traced patterns on the wall. 
 
 "A hall so magnificent as to be worthy of Versailles ended 
 in a staircase such as will never again be built in France, 
 taking up as much space as the whole of a modern house. 
 As we went up the marble steps, as cold as tombstones and 
 wide enough for eight persons to walk abreast, our tread 
 echoed under sonorous vaulting. The banister charmed the 
 eye by its miraculous workmanship goldsmith's work in iron 
 wrought by the fancy of an artist of the time of Henri III. 
 Chilled as by an icy mantle that fell on our shoulders, we 
 went through anterooms, drawing-rooms, opening one out of 
 the other, with carpetless parquet floors, and furnished with 
 such splendid antiquities as from thence would find their way 
 to the curiosity dealers. At last we reached a large study in 
 a cross wing, with all the windows looking into an immense 
 garden. 
 
 " ' Monsieur le Cur6 of the White Friars and his nephew, 
 Monsieur de L'Hostal,' said Labranche, to whose care the 
 other theatrical servant had consigned us in the first ante- 
 chamber. 
 
 " Comte Octave, dressed in long trousers and a gray flannel 
 morning-coat, rose from his seat by a huge writing-table, 
 came to the fireplace and signed to me to sit down, while he 
 went forward to take my uncle's hands, which he pressed.
 
 HONORINE. 30l 
 
 " 'Though I am in the parish of Saint-Paul,' said he, I 
 could scarcely have failed to hear of the cure of the white 
 friars, and I am happy to make his acquaintance.' 
 
 "'Your excellency is most kind,' replied my uncle. 4 I 
 have brought to you my only remaining relation. While I 
 believe that I am offering a good gift to your excellency, 
 I hope at the same time to give my nephew a second father.' 
 
 " 'As to that, I can only reply, Monsieur 1'Abbe, when 
 we shall have tried each other,' said Comte Octave. 'Your 
 name ? ' he added to me. 
 
 " ' Maurice.' 
 
 " ' He has taken his doctor's degree in law,' my uncle ob- 
 served. 
 
 " Very good, very good ! ' said the Count, looking at me 
 from head to foot. ' Monsieur 1'Abbe, I hope that for your 
 nephew's sake in the first instance, and then for mine, you 
 will do me the honor of dining here every Monday. That 
 will be our family dinner, our family party.' 
 
 " My uncle and the Count then began to talk of religion 
 from the political point of view, of charitable institutes, the 
 repression of crime, so I could at my leisure study the man 
 on whom my fate would henceforth depend. The Count was 
 of middle height ; it was impossible to judge of his build on 
 account of his dress, but he seemed to me to be lean and 
 spare. His face was harsh and hollow; the features were 
 refined. His mouth, which was rather large, expressed both 
 irony and kindliness. His forehead, perhaps too spacious, 
 was as intimidating as that of a madman, all the more so 
 from the contrast of the lower part of the face, which ended 
 squarely in a short chin very near the lower lip. Small eyes, 
 of turquoise blue, were as keen and bright as those of the 
 Prince de Talleyrand which I admired at a later time 
 and endowed, like the Prince's, with a faculty of becoming 
 expressionless to the verge of gloom ; and they added to the 
 singularity of a face that was not pale but yellow. This com-
 
 302 HONORINE. 
 
 plexion seemed to bespeak an irritable temper and violent 
 passions. His hair, already silvered and carefully dressed, 
 seemed to furrow his head with streaks of black and white 
 alternately. The trimness of this head spoiled the resem- 
 blance I had remarked in the Count to the wonderful monk 
 described by Lewis after Schedoni in the ' Confessional of 
 the Black Penitents,' a superior creation, as it seems to me, 
 to 'The Monk.' 
 
 "The Count was already shaved, having to attend early at 
 the law courts. Two candelabra with four lights, screened 
 by lamp-shades, were still burning at the opposite ends of the 
 writing-table, and showed plainly that the magistrate rose 
 long before daylight. His hands, which I saw when he took 
 hold of the bell-pull to summon his servant, were extremely 
 fine and as white as a woman's. 
 
 "As I tell you this story," said the consul-general, inter- 
 rupting himself, " I am altering the titles and the social posi- 
 tion of this gentleman, while placing him in circumstances 
 analogous to what his really were. His profession, rank, 
 luxury, fortune, and style of living were the same ; all these 
 details are true, but I will not be false to my benefactor, nor 
 to my usual habits of discretion. 
 
 " Instead of feeling as I really was, socially speaking an 
 insect in the presence of an eagle," the narrator went on 
 after a pause, " I felt I know not what indefinable impression 
 from the Count's appearance, which, however, I can now 
 account for. Artists of genius" (and he bowed gracefully to 
 the ambassador, the distinguished lady, and the two French- 
 men), "real statesmen, poets, a general who has commanded 
 armies in short, all really great minds are simple, and their 
 simplicity places you on a level with themselves. You who 
 are all of superior minds," he said, addressing his guests, 
 " have perhaps observed how feeling can bridge over the dis- 
 tances created by society. If we are inferior to you in intel- 
 lect, we can be your equals in devoted friendship. By the
 
 HONORING. 303 
 
 temperature allow me the word of our hearts I felt myself 
 as near my patron as I was far below him in rank. In short, 
 the soul has its clairvoyance ; it has presentiments of suffer- 
 ing, grief, joy, antagonism, or hatred in others. 
 
 " I vaguely discerned the symptoms of a mystery, from rec- 
 ognizing in the Count the same effects of physiognomy that 
 I had observed in my uncle. The exercise of virtue, serenity 
 of conscience, and purity of mind had transfigured my uncle, 
 who from being ugly had become quite beautiful. I de- 
 tected a metamorphosis of a reverse kind in the Count's face; 
 at the first glance I thought he was about fifty-five, but after 
 an attentive examination I found youth entombed under the 
 ice of a great sorrow, under the fatigue of persistent study, 
 under the glowing hues of some suppressed passion. At a 
 word from my uncle the Count's eyes recovered for a moment 
 the softness of the periwinkle flower and he had an admir- 
 ing smile, which revealed what I believed to be his real age, 
 about forty. These observations I made, not then but after- 
 ward, as I recalled the many different circumstances of my 
 visit. 
 
 " The manservant came in carrying a tray with his master's 
 breakfast on it. 
 
 " ' I did not ask for breakfast,' remarked the Count; 'but 
 leave it, and show monsieur to his rooms. ' 
 
 " I followed the servant, who led the way to a complete set 
 of pretty rooms, under a terrace, between the great courtyard 
 and the servants' quarters, over a corridor of communication 
 between the kitchens and the grand staircase. When I re- 
 turned to the Count's study, I overheard, before opening the 
 door, my uncle pronouncing this judgment on me 
 
 " ' He may do wrong, for he has strong feelings, and 
 we are all liable to honorable mistakes; but he has no 
 
 vices.' 
 
 " ' Well,' said the Count to me, with a kindly look, ' do you 
 like yourself there ? Tell me. There are so many rooms
 
 304 HONORINE. 
 
 in this barrack that, if you were not comfortable, I could 
 put you elsewhere.' 
 
 " 'At my uncle's I had but one room,' I replied. 
 
 "'Well, you can settle yourself this evening,' said the 
 Count, ' for your possessions, no doubt, are such as all stu- 
 dents own and a hackney coach will be enough to convey 
 them. To-day we will all three dine together,' and he looked 
 at my uncle. 
 
 "A splendid library opened from the Count's study, and 
 he took us in there, showing me a pretty little recess decorated 
 with paintings, which had formerly served, no doubt, as an 
 oratory. 
 
 " 'This is your cell,' said he. 'You will sit there when 
 you have to work with me, for you will not be tethered by a 
 chain ; ' and he explained in detail the kind and duration of 
 my employment with him. As I listened I felt that he was a 
 great political teacher. 
 
 " It took me about a month to familiarize myself with peo- 
 ple and things, to learn the duties of my new office, and 
 accustom myself to the Count's methods. A secretary neces- 
 sarily watches the man who makes use of him. That man's 
 tastes, passions, temper, and manias become the subject of 
 involuntary study. The union of their two minds is at once 
 more and less than a marriage. 
 
 " During these months the Count and I reciprocally 
 studied each other. I learned with astonishment that Comte 
 Octave was but thirty-seven years old. The merely superficial 
 peacefulness of his life and the propriety of his conduct were 
 the outcome not solely of a deep sense of duty and of stoical 
 reflection ; in my constant intercourse with this man an 
 extraordinary man to those who knew him well I felt vast 
 depths beneath his toil, beneath his acts of politeness, his 
 mask of benignity, his assumption of resignation, which so 
 closely resembled calmness that it was easy to mistake it. 
 Just as when walking through forest lands certain soils give
 
 HONORINE. 305 
 
 forth under our feet a sound which enables us to guess whether 
 they are dense masses of stone or a void ; so intense egoism, 
 though hidden under the flowers of politeness, and subterra- 
 nean caverns eaten out by sorrow sound hollow under the 
 constant touch of familiar life. It was sorrow and not de- 
 spondency that dwelt in that really great soul. The Count 
 had understood that actions, deeds, are the supreme law of 
 social man. And he went on his way in spite of secret 
 wounds, looking to the future with a tranquil eye, like a 
 martyr full of faith. 
 
 " His concealed sadness, the bitter disenchantment from 
 which he suffered, had not led him into philosophical deserts 
 of incredulity ; this brave statesman was religious, but without 
 ostentation ; he always attended the earliest mass at Saint- 
 Paul's for pious workmen and servants. Not one of his friends, 
 no one at court, knew that he so punctually fulfilled the prac- 
 tice of religion. He was addicted to God as some men are 
 addicted to a vice, with the greatest mystery. Thus one day 
 I came to find the Count at the summit of an Alp of woe 
 much higher than that on which many are who think them- 
 selves the most tried ; who laugh at the passions and the 
 beliefs of others because they have conquered their own ; who 
 play variations in every key of irony and disdain. He did 
 not mock at those who still follow hope into the swamps 
 whither she leads, nor those who climb a peak to be alone, 
 nor those who persist in the fight, reddening the arena with 
 their blood and strewing it with their illusions. He looked 
 on the world as a whole ; he mastered its beliefs ; he listened 
 to its complaining ; he was doubtful of affection, and yet 
 more of self-sacrifice ; but this great and stern judge pitied 
 them, or admired them, not with transient enthusiasm, but 
 with silence, concentration, and the communion of a deeply 
 touched soul. He was a sort of catholic Manfred, and un- 
 stained by crime, carrying his choiceness into his faith, 
 melting the snows by all the deeply hidden and smoldering 
 20
 
 306 HONORINE. 
 
 fires of a sealed volcano, holding converse with a star seen 
 by himself alone ! 
 
 " I detected many dark riddles in his ordinary life. He 
 evaded my gaze, not like a traveler who, following a path, 
 disappears from time to time in dells or ravines according to 
 the formation of the soil, but like a sharpshooter who is 
 being watched, who wants to hide himself, and seeks a cover. 
 I could not account for his frequent absences at times when 
 he was working the hardest, and of which he made no secret 
 from me, for he would say, ' Go on with this for me,' and 
 trust me with the work in hand. 
 
 "This man, wrapped in the threefold duties of the states- 
 man, the judge, and the orator, charmed me by a taste for 
 flowers, which shows an elegant mind, and which is shared by 
 almost all persons of refinement. His garden and his study 
 were full of the rarest plants, but he always bought them half- 
 withered. Perhaps it pleased him to see such an image of his 
 own fate ! He was faded like these dying flowers, whose almost 
 decaying fragrance mounted strangely to his brain. The 
 Count loved his country ; he devoted himself to public inter- 
 ests with the frenzy of a heart that seeks to cheat some other 
 passion ; but the studies and work into which he threw him- 
 self were not enough for him ; there were frightful struggles 
 in his mind, of which some echoes reached me. Finally, he 
 would give utterance to harrowing aspirations for happiness, 
 and it seemed to me he ought yet to be happy; but what was 
 the obstacle ? Was there a woman he loved ? This was a 
 question I asked myself. You may imagine the extent of the 
 circles of torment that my mind had searched before coming 
 to so simple and so terrible a question. Notwithstanding his 
 efforts, my patron did not succeed in stifling the movements 
 of his heart. Under his austere manner, under the reserve of 
 the magistrate, a passion rebelled, though coerced with such 
 force that no one but I who lived with him ever guessed the 
 secret. His motto seemed to be, 'I suffer and am silent.'
 
 HONORINE. 30- 
 
 The escort of respect and admiration which attended him ; 
 the friendship of workers as valiant as himself Grandville 
 and Serizy, both presiding judges had no hold over the 
 Count : either he told them nothing or they knew all. Im- 
 passible and lofty in public, the Count betrayed the man only 
 on rare intervals when, alone in his garden or his study, 
 he supposed himself unobserved; but then he was a child 
 again, he gave course to the tears hidden beneath the toga, to 
 the excitement which, if wrongly interpreted, might have 
 damaged his credit for perspicacity as a statesman. 
 
 "When all this had become tome a matter of certainty, 
 Comte Octave had all the attractions of a problem, and won 
 on my affection as much as though he had been my own father. 
 Can you enter into the feeling of curiosity, tempered by re- 
 spect ? What catastrophe had blasted this learned man, who, 
 like Pitt, had devoted himself from the age of eighteen to the 
 studies indispensable to power, while he had no ambition ; 
 this judge, who thoroughly knew the law of nations, political 
 law, civil and criminal law, and who could find in these a 
 weapon against every anxiety, against every mistake ; this 
 profound legislator, this serious writer, this pious celibate 
 whose life sufficiently proved that he was open to no reproach ? 
 A criminal could not have been more hardly punished by 
 God than was my master ; sorrow had robbed him of half 
 his slumbers ; he never slept more than four hours. What 
 struggle was it that went on in the depths of these hours 
 apparently so calm, so studious, passing without a sound or a 
 murmur, during which I often detected him, when the pen 
 had dropped from his fingers, with his head resting on one 
 hand, his eyes like two fixed stars, and sometimes wet with 
 tears? How could the waters of that living spring flow over 
 the burning strand without being dried up by the subterranean 
 fire? Was there below it, as there is under the sea, between 
 it and the central fires of the globe, a bed of granite? And 
 would the volcano burst at last ?
 
 308 HONOR1NE. 
 
 "Sometimes the Count would give me a look of that saga- 
 cious and keen-eyed curiosity by which one man searches 
 another when he desires an accomplice ; then he shunned my 
 eye as he saw it open a mouth, so to speak, insisting on a 
 reply, and seeming to say, ' Speak first ! ' Now and then 
 Comte Octave's melancholy was surly and gruff. If these 
 spurts of temper offended me, he could get over it without 
 thinking of asking my pardon ; but then his manners were 
 gracious to the point of Christian humility. 
 
 " When I became attached like a son to this man to me 
 such a mystery, but so intelligible to the outer world, to 
 whom the epithet eccentric is enough to account for all the 
 enigmas of the heart I changed the state of the house. 
 Neglect of his own interests was carried by the Count to the 
 length of folly in the management of his affairs. Possessing 
 an income of about a hundred and sixty thousand francs, 
 without including the emoluments of his appointments three 
 of which did not come under the law against plurality he 
 spent sixty thousand, of which at least thirty thousand went 
 to his servants. By the end of the first year I had rid him of 
 all these rascals, and begged his excellency to use his influence 
 in helping me to get honest servants. By the end of the 
 second year the Count, better fed and better served, enjoyed 
 the comforts of modern life ; he had fine horses, supplied by 
 a coachman to whom I paid so much a month for each horse ; 
 his dinners on his reception days, furnished by Chevet at a 
 price agreed upon, did him credit ; his daily meals were pre- 
 pared by an excellent cook found by my uncle, and helped 
 by two kitchen-maids. The expenditure for housekeeping, 
 not including purchases, was no more than thirty thousand 
 francs a year; we had two additional menservants, whose 
 care restored the poetical aspect of the house ; for this old 
 palace, splendid even in its rust, had an air of dignity which 
 neglect had dishonored. 
 
 " ' I am no longer astonished,' said he, on hearing of these
 
 HONORINE, ;;,,,, 
 
 results, ' at the fortunes made by my servants. In seven 
 years I have had two cooks, who have become rich restaurant- 
 keepers.' 
 
 " ' And in seven years you have lost a hundred thousand 
 francs,' replied I. 'You, a judge, who in your court sign 
 summonses against crime, encouraged robbery in your own 
 house. ' 
 
 " Early in the year 1826 the Count had, no doubt, ceased 
 to watch me, and we were as closely attached as two men can 
 be when one is subordinate to the other. He had never 
 spoken to me of my future prospects, but he had taken an 
 interest, both as a master and as a father, in training me. 
 He often required me to collect materials for his most arduous 
 labors ; I drew up some of his reports and he corrected them, 
 showing the difference between his interpretation of the law, 
 his views and mine. When at last I had produced a docu- 
 ment which he could give in as his own he was delighted ; 
 this satisfaction was my reward, and he could see that I took 
 it so. This little incident produced an extraordinary effect 
 on a soul which seemed so stern. The Count pronounced 
 sentence on me, to use a legal phrase, as supreme and royal 
 judge ; he took my head in his hands, and kissed me on the 
 forehead. 
 
 "'Maurice,' he exclaimed, 'you are no longer my 
 apprentice ; I know not yet what you will be to me but if 
 no change occurs in my life, perhaps you will take the place 
 of a son.' 
 
 " Comte Octave had introduced me to the best houses in 
 Paris, whither I went in his stead with his servants and car- 
 riage, on the too frequent occasions when, on the point of 
 starting, he changed his mind and sent for a hackney cab to 
 take him Where? that was the mystery. By the welcome 
 I met with I could judge of the Count's feelings toward me 
 and the earnestness of his recommendations. He supplied 
 all my wants with the thoughtfulness of a father, and with all
 
 310 HONORINE. 
 
 the greater liberality because my modesty left it to him always 
 to think of me. Toward the end of January, 1827, at the 
 house of the Comtesse de Serizy, I had such persistent ill- 
 luck at play that I lost two thousand francs, and I would not 
 draw them out of my savings. Next morning I asked my- 
 self, ' Had I better ask my uncle for the money, or put my 
 confidence in the Count ? ' 
 
 "I decided on the second alternative. 
 
 "'Yesterday,' I said, when he was at breakfast, 'I lost 
 persistently at play ; I was provoked, and went on ; I owe 
 two thousand francs. Will you allow me to draw the sum on 
 account of my year's salary ? ' 
 
 "'No,' said he, with the sweetest smile; 'when a man 
 plays in society, he must have a gambling purse. Draw six 
 thousand francs ; pay your debts. Henceforth we must go 
 halves ; for since you are my representative on most occasions, 
 your self-respect must not be made to suffer for it.' 
 
 " I made no speech of thanks. Thanks would have been 
 superfluous between us. This shade shows the character of 
 our relations. And as yet we had not unlimited confidence 
 in each other ; he did not open to me the vast subterranean 
 chambers which I had detected in his secret life ; and I, for 
 my part, never said to him, ' What ails you? From what are 
 you suffering ? ' 
 
 "What could he be doing during those long evenings? 
 He would often come in on foot or in a hackney cab when I 
 returned in a carriage I, his secretary ! Was so pious a man 
 a prey to vices hidden under hypocrisy ? Did he expend all 
 the powers of his mind to satisfy a jealousy more dexterous 
 than Othello's? Did he live with some woman unworthy of 
 him? One morning, on returning from I have forgotten 
 what store, where I had just paid a bill, between the church 
 of Saint-Paul and the Hotel de Ville, I came across Comte 
 Octave in such eager conversation with an old woman that he 
 did not see me. The appearance of this hag filled me with
 
 HONORINE. 311 
 
 strange suspicions, suspicions that were all the better founded 
 because I never found that the Count invested his savings. Is 
 it not shocking to think of? I was constituting myself my 
 patron's censor. At that time I knew that he had more than 
 six hundred thousand francs to invest ; and if he had bought 
 securities of any kind his confidence in me was so complete, 
 in all that concerned his pecuniary interests, that I certainly 
 should have known it. 
 
 " Sometimes, in the morning, the Count took exercise in 
 his garden, to and fro, like a man to whom a walk is the hip- 
 pogryph ridden by dreamy melancholy. He walked and 
 walked ! And he rubbed his hands enough to rub the skin 
 off. And then, if I met him unexpectedly as he came to the 
 angle of a path, I saw his face beaming. His eyes, instead 
 of the hardness of a turquoise, had that velvety softness of 
 the blue periwinkle, which had so much struck me on the 
 occasion of my first visit, by reason of the astonishing con- 
 trast in the two different looks : the look of a happy man 
 and the look of an unhappy man. Two or three times at 
 such a moment he had taken me by the arm and led me on ; 
 then he had said, ' What have you come to ask ? ' instead of 
 pouring out his joy into my heart that opened to him. But 
 more often, especially since I could do his work for him and 
 write his reports, the unhappy man would sit for hours staring 
 at the gold fish that swarmed in a handsome marble basin in 
 the middle of the garden, round which grew an amphi- 
 theatre of the finest flowers. He, an accomplished states- 
 man, seemed to have succeeded in making a passion, a reigning 
 hobby, of the mechanical amusement of crumbling bread to 
 
 fishes. 
 
 " This is how the drama was disclosed of this second inner 
 life, so deeply ravaged and storm-tossed, where, in a circle 
 overlooked by Dante in his Inferno,' horrible joys had their 
 birth." 
 
 The consul-general paused.
 
 312 HONOR I NE. 
 
 "On a certain Monday," he resumed, "as chance would 
 have it, M. le President de Grandville and M. de Serizy (at 
 that time vice-president of the council of state) had come to 
 hold a meeting at the Comte Octave's house. They formed 
 a committee of three, of which I was the secretary. The 
 Count had already gotten me the appointment of auditor to 
 the council of state. All, the documents requisite for their 
 inquiry into the political matter privately submitted to these 
 three gentlemen were laid out on one of the long tables in 
 the library. Messrs, de Grandville and de Serizy had trusted 
 to the Count to make the preliminary examination of the 
 papers relating to the matter. To avoid the necessity for 
 carrying all the papers to M. de Serizy, as president of the 
 commission, it was decided that they should meet first in 
 the Rue Payenne. The cabinet at the Tuileries attached 
 great importance to this piece of work, of which the chief 
 burden fell on me and to which, and my patron's efforts, I 
 owed my appointment, in the course of that year, to be master 
 of appeals. 
 
 " Though the Comtes de Grandville and de Serizy, whose 
 habits were much the same as my patron's, never dined away 
 from home, we were still discussing the matter at a late hour, 
 when we were startled by the manservant calling me aside to 
 say, ' Messrs, the Cures of Saint-Paul and of the White Friars 
 have been waiting in the drawing-room for two hours.' 
 
 " It was nine o'clock. 
 
 " 'Well, gentlemen, you find yourselves compelled to dine 
 with priests,' said Comte Octave to his colleagues. ' I do 
 not know whether Grandville can overcome his horror of a 
 priest's gown ' 
 
 " ' It depends on the priest.' 
 
 " ' One of them is my uncle and the other is the Abbe 
 Gaudron,' said I. ' Do not be alarmed ; the Abbe Fontanon 
 is no longer second priest at Saint-Paul ' 
 
 " 'Well, let us dine,' replied the President de Grandville,
 
 HONORINE. o i: j 
 
 ' A bigot frightens me, but there is no one so cheerful as a 
 truly pious man.' 
 
 " We went into the drawing-room. The dinner was de- 
 lightful. Men of real information, politicians to whom busi- 
 ness gives both consummate experience and the practice of 
 speech, are admirable story-tellers, when they tell stories. 
 With them there is no medium; they are either heavy or 
 they are sublime. In this delightful sport Prince Metternich 
 is as good as Charles Nodier. The fun of a statesman, cut in 
 facets like a diamond, is sharp, sparkling, and full of sense. 
 Being sure that the proprieties would be observed by these 
 three superior men, my uncle allowed his wit full play, a 
 refined wit, gentle, penetrating, and elegant, like that of all 
 men who are accustomed to conceal their thoughts under the 
 black robe. And you may rely upon it, there was nothing 
 vulgar nor idle in this light talk, which I would compare, for 
 its effect on the soul, to Rossini's music. 
 
 " The Abbe Gaudron was, as M. de Grandville said, a 
 Saint Peter rather than a Saint Paul, a peasant full of faith, as 
 square on his feet as he was tall, a sacerdotal of whose ignor- 
 ance in matters of the world and of literature enlivened the 
 conversation by guileless amazement and unexpected ques- 
 tions. They came to talking of one of the plague spots of 
 social life, of which we were just now speaking adultery. 
 My uncle remarked on the contradiction which the legisla- 
 tors of the code, still feeling the blows of the revolutionary 
 storm, had established between civil and religious law, and 
 which he maintained and insisted was at the root of all the 
 mischief. 
 
 '"In the eyes of the church,' said he, ' adultery is a crime ; 
 in those of your tribunals it is a misdemeanor. Adultery 
 drives to the police court in a carriage instead of standing at 
 the bar to be tried. Napoleon's council of state, touched 
 with tenderness toward erring women, was quite inefficient. 
 Ought they not in this case tp have harmonized the civil and
 
 314 HONORINE. 
 
 the religious law, and have sent the guilty wife to a convent, 
 as of old ? ' 
 
 " ' To a convent!' said M. de Serizy. 'They must first 
 have created convents, and in those days monasteries were 
 being turned into barracks. Beside, think of what you say, 
 Monsieur 1'Abbe give to God what society would have 
 none of ? ' 
 
 " ' Oh ! ' said the Comte de Grand ville, ' you do not know 
 France. They were obliged to leave the husband free to take 
 proceedings ; well, there are not ten cases of adultery brought 
 up in a year. ' 
 
 " ' M. 1'Abbe preaches for his own saint, for it was Jesus 
 Christ who invented adultery,' said Comte Octave. ' In the 
 East, the cradle of the human race, woman was merely a 
 luxury, and was there regarded as a chattel ; no virtues were 
 demanded of her but obedience and beauty. By exalting the 
 soul above the body, the modern family in Europe a daughter 
 of Christ invented indissoluble marriage and made it a 
 sacrament.' 
 
 "'Ah! the church saw all the difficulties,' exclaimed M. 
 de Grandville. 
 
 "'This institution has given rise to a new world,' the 
 Count went on with a smile. ' But the practice of that world 
 will never be that of a climate where women are marriageable 
 at seven years of age and more than old at five-and-twenty. 
 The Catholic Church overlooked the needs of half the globe. 
 So let us discuss Europe only. 
 
 " ' Is woman our superior or our inferior ? That is the real 
 question so far as we are concerned. If woman is our inferior, 
 by placing her on so high a level as the church does, fearful 
 punishment for adultery were needful. And formerly that 
 was what was done. The cloister or death sums up early 
 legislation. But since then practice has modified the law, as 
 is always the case. The throne served as a hot-bed for adultery, 
 and the increase of this inviting crime marks the decline of
 
 HONORINE. 315 
 
 the dogmas of the Catholic Church. In these days, in cases 
 where the church now exacts no more than sincere repent- 
 ance from the erring wife, society is satisfied with a brand- 
 mark instead of an execution. The law still condemns the 
 guilty, but it no longer terrifies them. In short, there are two 
 standards of morals : that of the world and that of the code. 
 Where the code is weak, as I admit with our dear abbe, the 
 world is audacious and satirical. There are so few judges 
 who would not gladly have committed the fault against which 
 they hurl the rather stolid thunders of their "Inasmuch." 
 The world, which gives the lie to the law alike in its rejoic- 
 ings, in its habits, and in its pleasures, is severer than the 
 code and the church ; the world punishes a blunder after 
 encouraging hypocrisy. The whole economy of the law on 
 marriage seems to me to require reconstruction from the 
 bottom to the top. The French law would be perfect perhaps 
 if it excluded daughters from inheriting.' 
 
 " ' We three among us know the question very thoroughly,' 
 said the Comte de Grandville with a laugh. ' I have a wife I 
 cannot live with. Serizy has a wife who will not live with 
 him. As for you, Octave, yours ran away from you. So we 
 three represent every case of the conjugal conscience, and, no 
 doubt, if ever divorce is brought in again, we shall form the 
 committee.' 
 
 "Octave's fork dropped on his glass, broke it, and broke 
 his plate. He had turned pale as death, and flashed a 
 thunderous glare at M. de Grandville, by which he hinted at 
 my presence, and which I caught. 
 
 " ' Forgive me, my dear fellow. I did not see Maurice,' 
 the president went on. ' Serizy and I, after being the wit- 
 nesses to your marriage, became your accomplices ; I did not 
 think I was committing an indiscretion in the presence of 
 these two venerable priests.' 
 
 " M. de Serizy changed the subject by relating all he 1 
 done to please his wife without ever succeeding. The old
 
 316 HONORINE. 
 
 man concluded that it was impossible to regulate human sym- 
 pathies and antipathies ; he maintained that social law was 
 never more perfect than when it was nearest to natural law. 
 Now, nature takes no account of the affinities of souls; her 
 aim is fulfilled by the propagation of the species. Hence, 
 the code, in its present form, was wise in leaving a wide lat- 
 itude to chance. The incapacity of daughters to inherit so 
 long as there were male heirs was an excellent provision, 
 whether to hinder the degeneration of the race, or to make 
 households happier by abolishing scandalous unions and giving 
 the sole preference to moral qualities and beauty. 
 
 " ' But then,' he exclaimed, lifting his hand with a gesture 
 of disgust, ' how are we to perfect legislation in a country 
 which insists on bringing together seven or eight hundred 
 legislators? After all, if I am sacrificed,' he added, 'I have 
 a child to succeed me.' 
 
 "'Setting aside all the religious question,' my uncle said, 
 ' I would remark to your excellency that nature only owes us 
 life, and that it is society that owes us happiness. Are you a 
 father ? ' asked my uncle. 
 
 " ' And I have I any children ? ' said Comte Octave in a 
 hollow voice, and his tone made such an impression that 
 there was no more talk of wives or marriage. 
 
 "When coffee had been served, the two Counts and the 
 two priests stole away, seeing that poor Octave had fallen 
 into a fit of melancholy, which prevented his noticing their 
 disappearance. My patron was sitting in an armchair by the 
 fire, in the attitude of a man crushed. 
 
 " 'You now know the secret of my life,' said he to me on 
 noticing that we were alone. ' After three years of married 
 life, one evening when I came in I found a letter in which 
 the Countess announced her flight. The letter did not lack 
 dignity, for it is in the nature of women to preserve some 
 virtues even when committing that horrible sin. The story 
 now is that my wife went abrpad ir a ship that was wrecked \
 
 she is supposed to be dead. I have lived alone for seven years ! 
 Enough for this evening, Maurice. We will talk of my situ- 
 ation when I have grown used to the idea of speaking of it 
 to you. When we suffer from a chronic disease, it needs 
 time to become accustomed to improvement. That improve- 
 ment often seems to be merely another aspect of the com- 
 plaint.' 
 
 "I went to bed greatly agitated; for the mystery, far 
 from being explained, seemed to me more obscure than ever. 
 I foresaw some strange drama indeed, for I understood that 
 there could be no vulgar difference between the woman the 
 Count could choose and such a character as his. The events 
 which had driven the Countess to leave a man so noble, so 
 amiable, so perfect, so loving, so worthy to be loved, must 
 have been singular, to say the least. M. de Grandville's re- 
 mark had been like a torch flung into the caverns over which 
 I had so long been walking ; and though the flame lighted 
 them but dimly, my eyes could perceive their wide extent ! 
 I could imagine the Count's sufferings without knowing their 
 depth or their bitterness. That sallow face, those parched 
 temples, those overwhelming studies, those moments of ab- 
 sent-mindedness, the smallest details of the life of this 
 married bachelor, all stood out in luminous relief during 
 the hour of mental questioning, which is, as it were, the twi- 
 light before sleep, and to which any man would have given 
 himself up, as I did. 
 
 " Oh ! how I loved my poor master! He seemed to me 
 sublime. I read a poem of melancholy, I saw perpetual 
 activity in the heart I had accused of being torpid. Must 
 not supreme grief always come at last to stagnation ? Had 
 this judge, who had so much in his power, ever revenged 
 himself? Was he feeding himself on her long agony ? Is it 
 not a remarkable thing in Paris to keep anger always seething 
 for ten years? What had Octave done since this great 
 misfortune for the separation of husband and wife is a great
 
 318 HONORINE. 
 
 misfortune in our day, when domestic life has become a social 
 question, which it never was of old ? 
 
 " We allowed a few days to pass on the watch, for great 
 sorrows have a diffidence of their own ; but at last, one even- 
 ing, the Count said in a grave voice 
 
 " ' Stay.' 
 
 " This, as nearly as may be, is his story : 
 
 " ' My father had a ward, rich and lovely, who was sixteen 
 at the time when I came back from college to live in this old 
 house. Honorine, who had been brought up by my mother, 
 was just awaking to life. Full of grace and of childlike ways, 
 she dreamed of happiness as she would have dreamed of 
 jewels; perhaps happiness seemed to her the jewels of the 
 soul. Her piety was not free from puerile pleasures ; for 
 everything, even religion, was poetry to her ingenuous heart. 
 She looked to the future as a perpetual fete. Innocent and 
 pure, no delirium had disturbed her dream. Shame and grief 
 had never tinged her cheek nor moistened her eye. She did 
 not even inquire into the secret of her involuntary emotions 
 on a fine spring day. And, then, she felt that she was weak 
 and destined to obedience, and she awaited marriage without 
 wishing for it. Her smiling imagination knew nothing of the 
 corruption necessary perhaps which literature imparts by 
 depicting the passions ; she knew nothing of the world, and 
 was ignorant of all the dangers of society. The dear child had 
 suffered so little that she had not even developed her courage. 
 In short, her guilelessness would have led her to walk fear- 
 lessly among serpents, like the ideal figure of Innocence a 
 painter once created. We lived together like two brothers. 
 An ideal life. 
 
 " ' At the end of a year I said to her one day, in the garden 
 of this house, by the basin, as we stood throwing crumbs to 
 the fish 
 
 " < " Would you like that we should be married ? With me
 
 HONOR1NE. 319 
 
 you could do whatever you please, while another man would 
 make you unhappy." 
 
 " ' " Mamma," said she to my mother, who came out to 
 join us, " Octave and I have agreed to be married " 
 
 " " What ! at seventeen ? " said my mother. " No ; you 
 must wait eighteen months ; and if eighteen months hence 
 you like each other, well, your birth and fortunes are equal, 
 you can make a marriage which is suitable, as well as being a 
 love match." 
 
 " ' When I was six-and- twenty and Honorine nineteen, we 
 were married. Our respect for my father and mother, old 
 folk of the Bourbon court, hindered us from making this 
 house fashionable or renewing the furniture; we lived on, 
 as we had done in the past, as children. However, I went 
 into society ; I initiated my wife into the world of fashion ; 
 and I regarded it as one of my duties to instruct her. 
 
 " ' I recognized afterward that marriages contracted under 
 such circumstances as ours bear in themselves a rock against 
 which many affections are wrecked, many prudent calcula- 
 tions, many lives. The husband becomes a pedagogue, or, 
 if you like, a professor, and love perishes under the rod which, 
 soon or later, gives pain ; for a young and handsome wife, at 
 once discreet and laughter-loving, will not accept any superi- 
 ority above that with which she is endowed by nature. Per- 
 haps I was in the wrong. During the difficult beginnings of 
 a household I, perhaps, assumed a magisterial tone. On the 
 other hand, I may have made the mistake of trusting too 
 entirely to that artless nature ; I kept no watch over the 
 Countess, in whom revolt seemed to me impossible. Alas! 
 neither in politics nor domestic life has it yet been ascertained 
 whether empires and happiness are wrecked by too much 
 confidence or too much severity ! Perhaps, again, the hus- 
 band failed to realize Honorine's girlish dreams? Who can 
 tell, while happy days last, what precepts he has neglected.' 
 
 " I remember only the broad outlines of the reproaches the
 
 320 HONORING. 
 
 Count addressed to himself, with all the good faith of an 
 anatomist seeking the cause of a disease which might be over- 
 looked by his brethren; but his merciful indulgence struck 
 me then as equally worthy as that of Jesus Christ when He 
 rescued the woman taken in adultery. 
 
 " ' It was eighteen months after my father's death my 
 mother followed him to the tomb in a few months when the 
 fearful night came which surprised me by Honorine's farewell 
 letter. What poetic delusion had seduced my wife ? Was it 
 through her senses? Was it the magnetism of misfortune or 
 of genius ? Which of these powers had taken her by storm 
 or misled her? I would not know. The blow was so ter- 
 rible that for a month I remained stunned. Afterward, re- 
 flection counseled me to continue in ignorance, and Hono- 
 rine's misfortunes have since taught me too much about all 
 these things. So far, Maurice, the story is commonplace 
 enough ; but one word will change it all : I love Honorine, 
 I have never ceased to worship her. From the day when she 
 left me I have lived on memory ; one by one I recall the 
 pleasures for which Honorine, no doubt, had no taste. 
 
 " ' Oh ! ' said he, seeing the amazement in my eyes, 'do 
 not make a hero of me, do not think me such a fool, as a 
 colonel of the Empire would say, as to have sought no diver- 
 sion. Alas, my boy ! I was either too young or too much in 
 love; I have not in the whole world met with another woman. 
 After frightful struggles with myself, I tried to forget ; money 
 in hand, I stood on the very threshold of infidelity, but there 
 the memory of Honorine rose before me like a white statue. 
 As I recalled the infinite delicacy of that exquisite skin, 
 through which the blood might be seen coursing and the 
 nerves quivering ; as I saw in fancy that ingenuous face, as 
 guileless on the eve of my sorrows as on the day when I said 
 to her, "Shall we marry?" as I remembered a heavenly 
 fragrance, the very odor of virtue, and the light in her eyes, 
 the prettiness of her movements, I fled like a man preparing
 
 HONORINE. 3 . n 
 
 to violate a tomb, who sees emerging from it the transfigured 
 soul of the dead. At consultations, in court, by night, I 
 dream so incessantly of Honorine that only by excessive 
 strength of mind do I succeed in attending to what I am 
 doing and saying. This is the secret of my labors. 
 
 " ' Well, I felt no more anger with her than a father can 
 feel on seeing his beloved child in some danger it has im- 
 prudently rushed into. I understood that I had made a 
 poem of my wife a poem I delighted in with such intoxica- 
 tion that I fancied she shared the intoxication. Ah ! Mau- 
 rice, an indiscriminating passion in a husband is a mistake 
 that may lead to any crime in a wife. I had no doubt left 
 all the faculties of this child, loved as a child, entirely un- 
 employed ; I had perhaps wearied her with my love before the 
 hour of loving had struck for her ! Too young to understand 
 that in the constancy of the wife lies the germ of the mother's 
 devotion, she mistook this first test of marriage for life itself, 
 and the refractory child cursed life, unknown to me, not dar- 
 ing to complain to me, out of sheer modesty perhaps ! In so 
 cruel a position she would be defenseless against any man who 
 stirred her deeply. And I, so wise a judge as they say I, 
 who have a kind heart, but whose mind was absorbed I un- 
 derstood too late these unwritten laws of the woman's code; 
 I read them by the light of the fire that wrecked my roof. 
 Then I constituted my heart a tribunal by virtue of the law, 
 for the law makes the husband a judge : I acquitted my wife, 
 and I condemned myself. But love took possession of me as 
 a passion, the mean, despotic passion which comes over some 
 old men. At this day I love the absent Honorine as a man 
 of sixty loves a woman whom he must possess at any cost, 
 and yet I feel the strength of a young man. I have the in- 
 solence of the old man and the reserve of a boy. My dear 
 fellow, society only laughs at such a desperate conjugal pre- 
 dicament. Where it pities a lover, it regards a husband as 
 ridiculously inept ; it makes sport of those who cannot keep 
 21
 
 322 HONORINE. 
 
 the woman they have secured under the canopy of the church 
 and before the mayor's scarf of office. And I had to keep 
 silence. 
 
 " ' Serizy is happy. His indulgence allows him to see his 
 wife ; he can protect and defend her ; and, as he adores her, 
 he knows all the perfect joys of a benefactor whom nothing 
 can disturb, not even ridicule, for he pours it himself on his 
 fatherly pleasures. " I remain married only for my wife's 
 sake," he said to me one day on coming out of court. 
 
 " ' But I I have nothing ; I have not even to face ridicule, 
 I who live solely on a love which is starving ! I who can 
 never find a word to say to a woman of the world ! I who 
 loathe prostitution ! I who am faithful under a spell ! But 
 for my religious faith, I should have killed myself. I have 
 defied the gulf of hard work ; I have thrown myself into it, 
 and come out again alive, fevered, burning, ever bereft of 
 sleep ! ' 
 
 " I cannot remember all the words of this eloquent man, to 
 whom passion gave an eloquence indeed so far above that of 
 the pleader that, as I listened to him, I, like him, felt my 
 cheeks wet with tears. You may conceive of my feelings 
 when, after a pause, during which we dried them away, he 
 finished his story with this revelation: 
 
 " ' This is the drama of my soul, but it is not the actual 
 living drama which is at this moment being acted in Paris ! 
 The interior drama interests nobody. I know it ; and you 
 will one day admit that it is so, you, who at this moment 
 shed tears with me ; no one can burden his heart or his skin 
 with another's pain. The measure of our sufferings is in our- 
 selves. You even understand my sorrows only by very vague 
 analogy. Could you see me calming the most violent frenzy 
 of despair by the contemplation of a miniature in which I 
 can see and kiss her brow, the smile on her lips, the shape of 
 her face, can breathe the whiteness of her skin ; which enables 
 me almost to feel, to play with the black masses of her curling
 
 HONORINE. 
 
 hair ? Could you see me when I leap with hope when I 
 writhe under the myriad darts of despairwhen I tramp 
 through the mire of Paris to quell my irritation by fatigue ? 
 I have fits of collapse comparable to those of a consumptive 
 patient, moods of wild hilarity, terrors as of a murderer who 
 meets a sergeant of police. In short, my life is a continual 
 paroxysm of fears, joy, and dejection. 
 
 '"As to the drama it is this: You imagine that I am 
 occupied with the council of state, the chamber, the courts, 
 politics. Why, dear me, seven hours at night are enough for 
 all that, so much are my faculties overwrought by the life I 
 lead ! Honorine is my real concern. To recover my wife is 
 my only study ; to guard her in her cage, without her sus- 
 pecting that she is in my power; to satisfy her needs, to sup- 
 ply the little pleasure she allows herself, to be always about 
 her like a sylph without allowing her to see or to suspect me, 
 for, if she did, the future would be lost that is my life, my 
 true life. For seven years I have never gone to bed without 
 going first to see the light of her night-lamp or her shadow 
 on the window curtains. 
 
 " ' She left my house, choosing to take nothing but the 
 dress she wore that day. The child carried her magnanimity 
 to the point of folly ! Consequently, eighteen months after 
 her flight she was deserted by her lover, who was appalled by 
 the cold, cruel, sinister, and revolting aspect of poverty the 
 coward ! The man had, no doubt, counted on the easy and 
 luxurious life in Switzerland or Italy which fine ladies indulge 
 in when they leave their husbands. Honorine has sixty 
 thousand francs a year of her own. The wretch left the dear 
 creature expecting an infant, and without a penny. In the 
 month of November, 1820, I found means to persuade the 
 best accoucheur in Paris to play the part of a humble suburban 
 apothecary. I induced the priest of the parish in which the 
 Countess was living to supply her needs as though he were 
 performing an act of charity. Then to hide my wife, to
 
 324 HONORINE. 
 
 secure her against discovery, to find her a housekeeper who 
 would be devoted to me and be my intelligent confidante it 
 was a task worthy of Figaro ! You may suppose that to dis- 
 cover where my wife had taken refuge I had only to make up 
 my mind to it. 
 
 " ' After three months of desperation rather than despair, 
 the idea of devoting myself to Honorine, with God only in 
 my secret, was one of those poems which occur only to the 
 heart of a lover through life and death ! Love must have its 
 daily food. And ought I not to protect this child, whose 
 guilt was the outcome of my imprudence, against fresh dis- 
 aster to fulfill my part, in short, as a guardian angel ? At 
 the age of seven months her infant died, happily for her and 
 for me. For nine months more my wife lay between life and 
 death, deserted at the time when she most needed a manly 
 arm; but this arm,' said he, holding out his own with a 
 gesture of angelic dignity, ' was extended over her head. 
 Honorine was nursed as she would have been in her own 
 home. When, on her recovery, she asked how and by whom 
 she had been assisted, she was told " By the sisters of charity 
 in the neighborhood by the maternity society by the parish 
 priest, who took an interest in her." 
 
 " ' This woman, whose pride amounts to a vice, has shown 
 a power of resistance in misfortune, which on some evenings 
 I call the obstinacy of a mule. Honorine was bent on earn- 
 ing her living. My wife works ! For five years past I have 
 lodged her in the Rue Saint-Maur, in a charming little house, 
 where she makes artificial flowers and articles of fashion. 
 She believes that she sells the product of her elegant fancy- 
 work to a shop, where she is so well paid that she makes 
 twenty francs a day, and in these six years she has never had 
 a moment's suspicion. She pays for everything she needs at 
 about the third of its value, so that on six thousand francs a 
 year she lives as if she had fifteen thousand. She is devoted 
 to flowers, and pays a hundred crowns to a gardener, who
 
 HONORINE. 39 - 
 
 costs me twelve hundred in wages and sends me in a bill for 
 two thousand francs every three months. I have promised the 
 man a market-garden with a house on it close to the porter's 
 lodge in the Rue Saint-Maur. I hold this ground in the name 
 of a clerk of the law courts. The smallest indiscretion would 
 ruin the gardener's prospects. Honorine has her little house, 
 a garden, and a splendid hot-house, for a rent of five hundred 
 francs a year. There she lives under the name of her house- 
 keeper, Madame Gobain, the old woman of impeccable discre- 
 tion whom I was so lucky as to find, and whose affection 
 Honorine has won. But her zeal, like that of the gardener, 
 is kept hot by the promise of reward at the moment of success. 
 The porter and his wife cost me dreadfully dear for the same 
 reasons. However, for three years Honorine has been happy, 
 believing that she owes to her own toil all the luxury of 
 flowers, dress, and comfort. 
 
 " ' Oh ! I know what you are about to say,' cried the 
 Count, seeing a question in my eyes and on my lips. ' Yes, 
 yes ; I have made the attempt. My wife was formerly living 
 in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. One day when, from what 
 Gobain told me, I believed in some chance of a reconcilia- 
 tion, I wrote by post a letter, in which I tried to propitiate 
 my wife a letter written and re-written twenty times ! I 
 will not describe my agonies. I went from the Rue Payenne 
 to the Rue de Reuilly like a condemned wretch going from 
 the Palais de Justice to his execution ; but he goes on a cart, 
 and I was on foot. It was dark there was a fog ; I went to 
 meet Madame Gobain, who was to come and tell me what 
 my wife had done. Honorine, on recognizing my writing, 
 had thrown the letter into the fire without reading it. 
 "Madame Gobain," she had exclaimed, "I leave this to- 
 morrow. ' ' 
 
 " ' What a dagger-stroke was this to a man who found inex- 
 haustible pleasure in the trickery by which he gets the finest 
 Lyons velvet at twelve francs a yard, a pheasant, a fish, a dish
 
 326 HONORINE. 
 
 of fruit, for a tenth of their value, for a woman so ignorant as 
 to believe that she is paying ample wages with two hundred 
 and fifty francs to Madame Gobain, a cook fit for a bishop. 
 
 " 'You have sometimes found me rubbing my hands in the 
 enjoyment of a sort of happiness. Well, I had just succeeded 
 in some ruse worthy of the stage. I had just deceived my 
 wife I had sent her by a purchaser of wardrobes an India 
 shawl, to be offered to her as the property of an actress who 
 had hardly worn it, but in which I the solemn lawyer whom 
 you know had wrapped myself for a night ! In short, my 
 life at this day may be summed up in the two words which 
 express the extremes of torment I love and I wait ! I have 
 in Madame Gobain a faithful spy on the heart I worship. I 
 go every evening to chat with the old woman, to hear from 
 her all that Honorine has done during the day, the lightest 
 word she has spoken, for a single exclamation might betray 
 to me the secrets of that soul which is willfully deaf and 
 dumb. Honorine is pious ; she attends the church services 
 and prays, but she has never been to confession or taken the 
 communion ; she foresees what a priest would tell her. She 
 will not listen to the advice, to the injunction, that she should 
 return to me. This horror of me overwhelms me, dismays 
 me, for I have never done her the smallest harm. I have 
 always been kind to her. Granting even that I may have 
 been a little hasty when teaching her, that my man's irony 
 may have hurt her legitimate girlish pride, is that a reason for 
 persisting in a determination which only the most implacable 
 hatred could have inspired ? Honorine has never told Mad- 
 ame Gobain whom she is ; she keeps absolute silence as to her 
 marriage, so that the worthy and respectable woman can 
 never speak a word in my favor, for she is the only person in 
 the house who knows my secret. The others know nothing; 
 they live under the awe caused by the name of the prefect of 
 police, and their respect for the power of a minister. Hence 
 it is impossible for me to penetrate that heart; the citadel is
 
 HONORINE. 327 
 
 mine, but I cannot get into it. I have not a single means of 
 action. An act of violence would ruin me for ever. 
 
 " ' How can I argue against reasons of which I know noth- 
 ing ? Should I write a letter and have it copied by a public 
 writer, and laid before Honorine? But that would be to run 
 the risk of a third removal. The last cost me fifty thousand 
 francs. The purchase was made in the first instance in the 
 name of the secretary whom you succeeded. The unhappy 
 man, who did not know how lightly I sleep, was detected by me 
 in the act of opening the box in which I had put the private 
 agreement ; I coughed, and he was seized with a panic ; next 
 day I compelled him to sell the house to the man in whose 
 name it now stands, and I turned him out. 
 
 "* If it were not that I feel all my noblest faculties as a 
 man satisfied, happy, expansive ; if the part I am playing 
 were not that of divine fatherhood ; if I did not drink in 
 delight by every pore, there are moments when I should 
 believe that I was a monomaniac. Sometimes at night I hear 
 the jingling bells of madness. I dread the violent transitions 
 from a feeble hope, which sometimes shines and flashes up, to 
 complete despair, falling as low as man can fall. A few days 
 since I was seriously considering the horrible end of the story 
 of Lovelace and Clarissa Harlowe, and saying to myself, " If 
 Honorine were the mother of a child of mine, must she not 
 necessarily return under her husband's roof?" 
 
 " 'And I have such complete faith in a happy future that, 
 ten months ago, I bought and paid for one of the handsomest 
 houses in the Faubourg Saint-Honor^. If I win back Hon- 
 orine, I will not allow her to see this house again, nor the 
 room from which she fled. I mean to place my idol in a new 
 temple, where she may feel that life is altogether new. That 
 house is being made a marvel of elegance and taste. I have 
 been told of a poet who, being almost mad with love for an 
 actress, bought the handsomest bed in Paris without knowing 
 how the actress would reward his passion. Well, one of the
 
 328 HONORINE. 
 
 coldest of lawyers, a man who is supposed to be the gravest 
 adviser of the crown, was stirred to the depths of his heart by 
 that anecdote. The orator of the legislative chamber can 
 understand the poet who fed his ideal on material possibilities. 
 Three days before the arrival of Maria Louisa, Napoleon flung 
 himself on his wedding-bed at Compiegne. All stupendous 
 passions have the same impulses. I love as a poet as an 
 emperor ! ' 
 
 "As I heard the last words, I believed that Comte Octave's 
 fears were realized ; he had risen, and was walking up and 
 down, and gesticulating, but he stopped as if shocked by the 
 vehemence of his own words. 
 
 " ' I am very ridiculous,' he added, after a long pause, 
 looking at me, as if craving a glance of pity. 
 
 " ' No, monsieur, you are very unhappy.' 
 
 " 'Ah, yes! ' said he, taking up the thread of his con- 
 fidences. ' From the violence of my speech you may, you 
 must believe in the intensity of a physical passion which for 
 nine years has absorbed all my faculties ; but that is nothing 
 in comparison with the worship I feel for the soul, the mind, 
 the heart, all in that woman that is not mere woman ; the 
 enchanting divinities in the train of love, with whom we pass 
 our life, and who form the daily poem of a fugitive delight. 
 By a phenomenon of retrospection I see now the graces of 
 Honorine's mind and heart, to which I paid little heed in the 
 time of my happiness like all who are happy. From day to 
 day I have appreciated the extent of my loss, discovering the 
 exquisite gifts of that capricious and refractory young creature 
 who has grown so strong and so proud under the heavy hand 
 of poverty and the shock of the most cowardly desertion. And 
 that heavenly blossom is fading in solitude and hiding ! Ah ! 
 The law of which we were speaking,' he went on with bitter 
 irony, ' the law is a squad of gendarmes my wife seized and 
 dragged away by force ! Would not that be to triumph over 
 a corpse ? Religion has no hold on her ; she craves its poetry,
 
 HONORINE. ;>:;) 
 
 she prays, but she does not listen to the commandments of the 
 church. I, for my part, have exhausted everything in the way 
 of mercy, of kindness, of love ; I am at my wits' end. Only 
 one chance of victory is left to me : the cunning and patience 
 with which bird-catchers at last entrap the wariest birds, the 
 swiftest, the most capricious, and the rarest. Hence, Maurice, 
 when Monsieur de Grandville's indiscretion betrayed to you 
 the secret of my life, I ended by regarding this incident as, 
 one of the decrees of fate, one of the utterances for which 
 gamblers listen and pray in the midst of their most impas- 
 sioned play. Have you enough affection for me to show me 
 romantic devotion ? ' 
 
 " ' I see what you are coming to, Monsieur le Comte,' said 
 I, interrupting him ; ' I guess your purpose. Your first secre- 
 tary tried to open your deed box. I know the heart of your 
 second he might fall in love with your wife. And can you 
 devote him to destruction by sending him into the fire? Can 
 any one put his hand into a brasier without burning it?' 
 
 "'You are a foolish boy,' replied the Count. 'I will 
 send you well gloved. It is no secretary of mine that will 
 be lodged in the Rue Saint-Maur in the little garden-house 
 which I have at his disposal. It is my distant cousin, 
 Baron de L'Hostal, a lawyer high in office.' 
 
 "After a moment of silent surprise, I heard the gate 
 bell ring, and a carriage came into the courtyard. Pres- 
 ently the footman announced Madame de Courteville and her 
 daughter. The Count had a large family connection on his 
 mother's side. Madame de Courteville, his cousin, was the 
 widow of a judge on the bench of the Seine division, who 
 had left her a daughter and no fortune whatever. What 
 could a woman of nine-and-twenty be in comparison with a 
 young girl of twenty, as lovely as imagination could wish 
 for an ideal mistress? 
 
 '"Baron and master of appeals, till you get someth.ng 
 better, and this old house settled on her-would you not
 
 330 HONORINE. 
 
 have enough good reasons for not falling in love with the 
 Countess?' he said to me in a whisper, as he took me by 
 the hand and introduced me to Madame de Courteville and 
 her daughter. 
 
 " I was dazzled, not so much by these advantages of 
 which I had never dreamed, but by Amelie de Courteville, 
 whose beauty was thrown into relief by one of those well- 
 ichosen toilets which a mother can achieve for a daughter 
 when she wants to see her married. 
 
 " But I will not talk of myself," said the consul after 
 a pause. 
 
 " Three weeks later I went to live in the gardener's 
 cottage, which had been cleaned, repaired, and furnished 
 with the celerity which is explained by three words : Paris ; 
 French workmen ; money ! I was as much in love as the 
 Count could possibly desire as a security. Would the pru- 
 dence of a young man of twenty-five be equal to the part 
 I was undertaking, involving a friend's happiness? To settle 
 that matter, I may confess that I counted very much on 
 my uncle's advice; for I had been authorized by the Count 
 to take him into confidence in any case where I deemed 
 his interference necessary. I engaged a garden ; I devoted 
 myself to horticulture ; I worked frantically, like a man 
 whom nothing can divert, turning up the soil of the market- 
 garden, and appropriating the ground to the culture of flow- 
 ers. Like the maniacs of England, or of Holland, I gave it 
 out that I was devoted to one kind of flower, and especially 
 grew dahlias, collecting every variety. You will understand 
 that my conduct, even in the smallest detail, was laid down 
 for me by the Count, whose whole intellectual powers were 
 directed to the most trifling incidents of the tragi-comedy 
 enacted in the Rue Saint-Maur. As soon as the Countess 
 had gone to bed, at about eleven at night, Octave, Madame 
 Gobain, and I sat in council. I heard the old woman's report 
 to the Count of his wife's least proceedings during the day.
 
 HONORINE. 331 
 
 He inquired into everything : her meals, her occupations, her 
 frame of mind, her plans for the morrow, the flowers she pro- 
 posed to imitate. I understood what love in despair may be 
 when it is the threefold passion of the heart, the mind, and 
 the senses. Octave lived only for that hour. 
 
 " During two months, while my work in the garden lasted, 
 I never set eyes on the little house where my fair neighbor 
 dwelt. I had not even inquired whether I had a neighbor, 
 though the Countess' garden was divided from mine by a 
 paling, along which she had planted cypress trees already four 
 feet high. One fine morning Madame Gobain announced to 
 her mistress, as a disastrous piece of news, the intention, ex- 
 pressed by an eccentric creature who had become her neighbor, 
 of building a wall between the two gardens, at the end of the 
 year. I will say nothing of the curiosity which consumed me 
 to see the Countess ! The wish almost extinguished my bud- 
 ding love for Amelie de Courteville. My scheme for building 
 a wall was indeed a serious threat. There would be no more 
 fresh air for Honorine, whose garden would then be a sort of 
 narrow alley shut in between my wall and her own little 
 house. This dwelling, formerly a summer villa, was like a 
 house of cards ; it was not more than thirty feet deep and 
 about a hundred feet long. The garden front, painted in the 
 German fashion, imitated a trellis with flowers up to the 
 second floor, and was a really charming example of the pom- 
 padour style, so well called rococo. A long avenue of limes 
 led up to it. The gardens of the pavilion and ray plot of 
 ground were in the shape of a hatchet, of which this avenue 
 was the handle. My wall would cut away three-quarters of 
 the hatchet. 
 
 " The Countess was in despair. 
 
 " My good Gobain,' said she, ' what sort of a man is this 
 
 florist ? ' 
 
 '"On my word,' said the housekeeper, 'I do not knon 
 whether it will be possible to tame him. He seems to have
 
 332 HONORINE. 
 
 a horror of women. He is the nephew of a Paris cure. I 
 have seen the uncle but once ; a fine old man of sixty, very 
 ugly, but very amiable. It is quite possible that this priest 
 encourages his nephew, as they say in the neighborhood, in 
 his love of flowers, that nothing worse may happen ' 
 
 "' Why what?' 
 
 " ' Well, your neighbor is a little cracked ! ' said Gobain, 
 tapping her head ! 
 
 " Now a harmless lunatic is the only man whom no woman 
 ever distrusts in the matter of sentiment. You will see how 
 wise'the Count had been in choosing this disguise for me. 
 
 " ' What ails him then ? ' asked the Countess. 
 
 " ' He has studied too hard,' replied Gobain ; ' he has 
 turned misanthropic. And he has his reasons for disliking 
 women well, if you want to know all that is being said about 
 him ' 
 
 "'Well,' said Honorine, 'madmen frighten me less than 
 sane folk ; I will speak to him myself! Tell him that I beg 
 him to come here. If I do not succeed, I will send for the 
 cure. ' 
 
 " The day after this conversation, as I was walking along 
 my graveled path, I caught sight of the half-opened curtains 
 on the second floor of the little house, and of a woman's face 
 curiously peeping out. Madame Gobain called me. I hastily 
 glanced at the Countess' house, and by a rude shrug expressed, 
 ' What do I care for your mistress ? ' 
 
 " ' Madame,' said Gobain, called upon to give an account 
 of her errand, ' the madman bid me leave him in peace, say- 
 ing that even a charcoal-seller is master in his own premises, 
 especially when he has no wife.' 
 
 " ' He is perfectly right,' said the Countess. 
 
 " 'Yes, but he ended by saying, " I will go," when I told 
 him that he would greatly distress a lady living in retirement, 
 who found her greatest solace in growing flowers.' 
 
 " Next day a signal from Gobain informed me that I was
 
 HONORINE. xx 
 
 expected. After the Countess' breakfast, when she was walk- 
 ing to and fro in front of her house, I broke out some palings 
 and went toward her. I had dressed myself like a country- 
 man, in an old pair of gray flannel trousers, heavy wooden 
 shoes, and shabby shooting coat, a peaked cap on my head, a 
 ragged bandana round my neck, hands soiled with mold, and 
 a dibble in my hand. 
 
 " Madame,' said the housekeeper, 'this good man is your 
 neighbor.' 
 
 " The Countess was not alarmed. I saw at last the woman 
 whom her own conduct and her husband's confidences had 
 made me so curious to meet. It was in the early days of 
 May. The air was pure, the weather serene ; the verdure of 
 the first foliage, the fragrance of spring formed a setting for 
 this creature of sorrow. As I then saw Honorine I under- 
 stood Octave's passion and the truthfulness of his description, 
 ' A heavenly flower ! ' 
 
 " Her pallor was what first struck me by its peculiar tone 
 of white for there are as many tones of white as of red or 
 blue. On looking at the Countess, the eye seemed to feel 
 that tender skin, where the blood flowed in the blue veins. 
 At the slightest emotion the blood mounted under the surface 
 in rosy flushes like a cloud. When we met, the sunshine, 
 filtering through the light foliage of the acacias, shed on 
 Honorine the pale gold, ambient glory in which Raphael and 
 Titian, alone of all painters, have been able to enwrap the 
 Virgin. Her brown eyes expressed both tenderness and viva- 
 city ; their brightness seemed reflected in her face through 
 the long downcast lashes. Merely by lifting her delicate eye- 
 lids, Honorine could cast a spell ; there was so much feeling, 
 dignity, terror, or contempt in her way of raising or dropping 
 those veils of the soul. She could freeze or give life by a 
 look. Her light-brown hair, carelessly knotted on her head, 
 outlined a poet's brow, high, powerful, and dreamy. The 
 mouth was wholly voluptuous. And to crown all by a grace,
 
 334 HONORINE. 
 
 rare in France, though common in Italy, all the lines ana 
 forms of the head had a stamp of nobleness which would 
 defy the outrages of time. 
 
 " Though slight, Honorine was not thin, and her figure 
 struck me as being one that might revive love when it be- 
 lieved itself exhausted. She perfectly represented the idea 
 conveyed by the word mignonne (darling), for she was one of 
 those pliant little women who allow themselves to be taken 
 up, petted, set down, and taken up again like a kitten. Her 
 small feet, as I heard them on the gravel, made a light sound 
 essentially their own, that harmonized with the rustle of her 
 dress, producing a feminine music which stamped itself on 
 the heart, and remained distinct from the footfall of a thou- 
 sand other women. Her gait bore all the quarterings of her 
 race with so much pride, that, in the street, the least respectful 
 workingman would have made way for her. Gay and tender, 
 haughty and imposing, it was impossible to understand her, 
 excepting as gifted with these apparently incompatible quali- 
 ties, which, nevertheless, had left her still a child. But it 
 was a child who might be as strong as an angel ; and, like the 
 angel, once hurt in her nature, she would be implacable. 
 
 " Coldness on that face must no doubt be death to those 
 on whom her eyes had smiled, for whom her set lips had 
 parted, for those whose soul had drunk in the melody of that 
 voice, lending to her words the poetry of song by its peculiar 
 intonation. Inhaling the perfume of violets that accompanied 
 her, I understood how the memory of this wife had arrested 
 the Count on the threshold of debauchery, and how impos- 
 sible it would be ever to forget a creature who really was a 
 flower to the touch, a flower to the eye, a flower of fragrance, 
 a heavenly flower to the soul Honorine inspired devo- 
 tion, chivalrous devotion, regardless of reward. A man on 
 seeing her must say to himself 
 
 " ' Think, and I will divine your thought ; speak, and I 
 will obey. If my life, sacrificed in torments, can procure
 
 HONORINE. 335 
 
 you one day's happiness, take my life ; I will smile like a. 
 martyr at the stake, for I shall offer that day to God, as a 
 token to which a father responds on recognizing a gift to his 
 child.' Many women study their expression, and succeed in 
 producing effects similar to those which would have struck 
 you at first sight of the Countess ; only, in her, it all was the 
 outcome of a delightful nature, an inimitable nature that went 
 at once to the heart. If I tell you all this, it is because her 
 soul, her thoughts, the exquisiteness of her heart, are all we 
 are concerned with, and you would have blamed me if I had 
 not sketched them for you. 
 
 " I was very near forgetting my part as a half-crazy lout, 
 clumsy, and by no means chivalrous. 
 
 " ' I have been told, madame, that you are very fond of 
 flowers ? ' 
 
 " ' I am an artificial flower-maker,' said she. 'After grow- 
 ing flowers, I imitate them, like a mother who is artist enough 
 to have the pleasure of painting portraits of her children. 
 That is enough to tell you that I am poor and unable to pay 
 for the concession that I am anxious to obtain from you?' 
 
 " ' But how,' said I, as grave as a judge, ' can a lady of such 
 rank as yours would seem to be, ply so humble a calling? 
 Have you, like me, good reasons for employing your fingers 
 so as to keep your brain from working ? ' 
 
 " ' Let us stick to the question of the wall,' said she with a 
 smile. 
 
 " ' Why we have begun at the foundations,' I rejoined. 
 'Must I not know which of us ought to yield to the other in 
 behalf of our suffering, or, if you choose, of our mania? Oh ! 
 what a charming clump of narcissus ! They are as fresh as this 
 spring morning ! ' 
 
 "I assure you, she had made for herself a perfect museum 
 of flowers and shrubs, which none might see but the sun, and 
 of which the arrangement had been prompted by the genius 
 of an artist j the most heartless of landlords must have treated
 
 336 HONORINE. 
 
 it with respect. The masses of plants, arranged according to 
 their height, or in single clumps, were really a joy to the soul. 
 This retired and solitary garden breathed comforting scents, 
 and suggested none but sweet thoughts and graceful, nay, 
 voluptuous pictures. On it was set that inscrutable sign- 
 manual, which our true character stamps on everything, as 
 soon as nothing compels us to obey the various hypocrisies, 
 necessary as they are, which society insists upon. I looked 
 alternately at the mass of narcissus and at the Countess, affect- 
 ing to be far more in love with the flowers than with her, to 
 carry out my part. 
 
 '"So you are very fond of flowers?' said she. 
 
 " ' They are,' I replied, ' the only beings that never disap- 
 point our cares and affection.' And I went on to deliver such 
 a diatribe while comparing botany and the world, that we 
 ended miles away from the dividing wall, and the Countess 
 must have supposed me to be a wretched and wounded sufferer 
 worthy of her pity. However, at the end of half an hour my 
 neighbor naturally brought me back to the point ; for women, 
 when they are not in love, have all the cold blood of an ex- 
 perienced attorney. 
 
 "'If you insist on my leaving the paling,' said I, 'you 
 will learn all the secrets of gardening that I want to hide ; I 
 am seeking to grow a blue dahlia, a blue rose ; I am crazy for 
 blue flowers. Is not blue the favorite color of superior souls? 
 We are neither of us really at home ; we might as well make 
 a little door of open railings to unite our gardens. You, too, 
 are fond of flowers ; you will see mine, I shall see yours. If 
 you receive no visitors at all, I, for my part, have none but 
 my uncle, the cure of the white friars.' 
 
 " 'No,' said she, 'I will give you the right to come into 
 my garden, my premises, at any hour. Come and welcome ; 
 you will always be admitted as a neighbor with whom I hope 
 to keep on good terms. But I like my solitude too well to 
 burden it with any loss of independence.'
 
 HONORINE. 337 
 
 '"As you please,' said I, and with one leap I was over the 
 paling. 
 
 " ' Now, of what use would a door be? ' said I, from my 
 own domain, turning round to the Countess, and mocking her 
 with a madman's gesture and grimace. 
 
 " For a fortnight I seemed to take no heed of my neighbor. 
 Toward the end of May, one lovely evening, we happened 
 both to be out on opposite sides of the paling, both walking 
 slowly. Having reached the end, we could not help exchang- 
 ing a few civil words ; she found me in such deep dejection, 
 lost in such painful meditations, that she spoke to me of hope- 
 fulness, in brief sentences that sounded like the songs with 
 which nurses lull their babes. I then leaped the fence and 
 found myself for the second time at her side. The Countess 
 led me into the house, wishing to subdue my sadness. So at 
 last I had penetrated the sanctuary where everything was in 
 harmony with the woman I have tried to describe to you. 
 
 "Exquisite simplicity reigned there. The interior of 
 the little house was just such a dainty box as the art of the 
 eighteenth century devised for the pretty profligacy of a fine 
 gentleman. The dining-room, on the first floor, was painted 
 in fresco, with garlands of flowers, admirably and marvelously 
 executed. The staircase was charmingly decorated in mono- 
 chrome. The little drawing-room, opposite the dining-room, 
 was very much faded ; but the Countess had hung it with 
 panels of tapestry of fanciful designs, taken off old screens. 
 A bath-room came next. Upstairs there was but one bed- 
 room, with a dressing-room, and a library which she used as 
 her workroom. The kitchen was beneath in the basement on 
 which the house was raised, for there was a flight of several 
 steps outside. The balustrade of a balcony in garlands a la 
 pompadour concealed the roof; only the lead cornices were 
 visible. In this retreat one was a hundred leagues from Paris. 
 
 " But for the bitter smile which occasionally played on the 
 beautiful red lips of this pale woman, it would have been 
 22
 
 338 HONORINE, 
 
 possible to believe that this violet buried in her thicket of 
 flowers was happy. In a few days we had reached a certain 
 degree of intimacy, the result of our close neighborhood and 
 of the Countess' conviction that I was indifferent to women. 
 A look would have spoilt all, and I never allowed a thought 
 of her to be seen in my eyes. Honorine chose to regard me 
 as an old friend. Her manner to me was the outcome of a 
 kind of pity. Her looks, her voice, her words, all showed 
 that she was a hundred miles away from the coquettish airs 
 which the strictest virtue might have allowed under such cir- 
 cumstances. She soon gave me the right to go into the pretty 
 workshop where she made her flowers, a retreat full of books 
 and curiosities, as smart as a boudoir, where elegance empha- 
 sized the vulgarity of the tools of her trade. The Countess 
 had in the course of time poetized, as I may say, a thing 
 which is at the antipodes to poetry a manufacture. 
 
 " Perhaps of all the work a woman can do, the making of 
 artificial flowers is that of which the details allow her to display 
 most grace. For coloring prints she must sit bent over a table 
 and devote herself, with some attention, to this half-painting. 
 Embroidering tapestry, as diligently as a woman must who 
 is to earn her living by it, entails consumption or curva- 
 ture of the spine. Engraving music is one of the most labor- 
 ious, by the care, the minute exactitude, and the intelligence 
 it demands. Sewing and white embroidery do not earn thirty 
 sous a day. But the making of flowers and light articles of 
 wear necessitates a variety of movements, gestures, ideas even, 
 which do not take a pretty woman out of her sphere ; she is 
 still herself; she may chat, laugh, sing, or think. 
 
 " There was certainly a feeling for art in the way in which 
 the Countess arranged on a long pine table the myriad-colored 
 petals which were used in composing the flowers she was to 
 produce. The saucers of color were of white china, and 
 always clean, arranged in such order that the eye could at 
 once see the required shade in the scale of tints. Thus the
 
 HONOR1NE. ....,, 
 
 aristocratic artist saved time. A pretty little cabinet with a 
 hundred tiny drawers, of ebony inlaid with ivory, contained 
 the little steel moulds in which she shaped the leaves and some 
 forms of petals. A fine Japanese bowl held the paste, which 
 was never allowed to turn sour, and it had a fitted cover with 
 a hinge so easy that she could lift it with a finger-tip. The 
 wire, of iron and brass, lurked in a little drawer of the table 
 before her. 
 
 " Under her eyes, in a Venetian glass, shaped like a flower- 
 cup on its stem, was the living model she strove to imitate. 
 She had a passion for achievement ; she attempted the most 
 difficult things, close racemes, the tiniest corollas, heaths, 
 nectaries, of the most variegated hues. Her hands, as swift as 
 her thoughts, went from the table to the flower she was 
 making, as those of an accomplished pianist fly over the keys. 
 Her fingers seemed to be fairies, to use Perrault's expression, 
 so infinite were the different actions of twisting, fitting, and 
 pressure needed for the work, all hidden under grace of move- 
 ment, while she adapted each motion to the result with the 
 lucidity of instinct. 
 
 " I could not tire of admiring her as she shaped a flower 
 from the materials sorted before her, padding the wire-stem 
 and adjusting the leaves. She displayed the genius of a painter 
 in her bold attempts ; she copied faded flowers and yellowing 
 leaves ; she struggled even with wild-flowers, the most artless 
 of all, and the most elaborate in their simplicity. 
 
 " 'This art,' she would say, 'is in its infancy. If the 
 women of Paris had a little of the genius which the slavery of 
 the harem brings out in Oriental women, they would lend a 
 complete language of flowers to the wreaths they wear on their 
 heads. To please my own taste as an artist, I have made 
 drooping flowers with leaves of the hue of Florentine bronze, 
 such as are found before or after the winter. Would not such 
 a crown on the head of a young woman whose life is a failure 
 have a certain poetical fitness ? How many things a woman
 
 340 HONOR1NE. 
 
 might express by her head-dress ! Are there not flowers for 
 drunken Bacchantes, flowers for gloomy and stern bigots, pen- 
 sive flowers for women who are bored ? Botany, I believe, 
 may be made to express every sensation and thought of the 
 soul, even the most subtle ? ' 
 
 " She would employ me to stamp out the leaves, cut up 
 material, and prepare wires for the stems. My affected desire 
 for occupation soon made me skillful. We talked as we 
 worked. When I had nothing to do, I read new books to 
 her, for I had my part to keep up as a man weary of life, worn 
 out with griefs, gloomy, skeptical, and soured. My person 
 led to adorable banter as to my purely physical resemblance 
 with the exception of his club-foot to Lord Byron. It was 
 tacitly acknowledged that her own troubles, as to which she 
 kept the most profound silence, far outweighed mine, though 
 the causes I assigned for my misanthropy might have satisfied 
 Young or Job. 
 
 "I will say nothing of the feelings of shame which tormented 
 me as I inflicted on my heart, like the beggars in the street, 
 false wounds to excite the compassion of that enchanting 
 woman. I soon appreciated the extent of my devotedness by 
 learning to estimate the baseness of a spy. The expressions 
 of sympathy bestowed on me would have comforted the 
 greatest grief. This charming creature, weaned from the 
 world, and for so many years alone, having, beside love, treas- 
 ures of kindliness to bestow, offered these to me with childlike 
 effusiveness and such compassion as would inevitably have 
 filled with bitterness any profligate who should have fallen in 
 love with her ; for, alas ! it was all charity, all sheer pity. 
 Her renunciation of love, her dread of what is called happiness 
 for women, she proclaimed with equal vehemence and candor. 
 These happy days proved to me that a woman's friendship is 
 far superior to her love. 
 
 "I suffered the revelations of my sorrows to be dragged 
 from me with as many grimaces as a young lady allows herself
 
 HONOKIA'E. 34! 
 
 before sitting down to the piano, so conscious are they of the 
 annoyance that will follow. As you may imagine, the neces- 
 sity for overcoming my dislike to speak had induced the 
 Countess to strengthen the bonds of our intimacy ; but she 
 found in me so exact a counterpart of her own antipathy to 
 love that I fancied she was well content with the chance which 
 had brought to her desert island a sort of Man Friday. Soli- 
 tude was, perhaps, beginning to weigh on her. At the same 
 time there was nothing of the coquette in her ; nothing sur- 
 vived of the woman ; she did not feel that she had a heart, 
 she told me, excepting in the ideal world where she found 
 refuge. I involuntarily compared these two lives hers 
 and the Count's : his, all activity, agitation, and emotion ; 
 hers, all inaction, quiescence, and stagnation. The woman 
 and the man were admirably obedient to their nature. My 
 misanthropy allowed me to utter cynical sallies against men 
 and women both, and I indulged in them, hoping to bring 
 Honorine to the confidential point ; but she was not to be 
 caught in any trap, and I began to understand that mulish 
 obstinacy which is commoner among women than is generally 
 supposed. 
 
 " 'The Orientals are right,' I said to her one evening, 
 ' when they shut you up and regard you merely as the play- 
 things of their pleasure. Europe has been well punished for 
 having admitted you to form an element of society and for 
 accepting you on an equal footing. In my opinion, woman 
 is the most dishonorable and cowardly being to be found. 
 Nay, and that is where her charm lies. Where would be the 
 pleasure of hunting a tame thing ? When once a woman has 
 inspired a man's passion, she is to him for ever sacred; in 
 his eyes she is hedged round by an imprescriptible preroga- 
 tive. In men gratitude for past delights is eternal. Though 
 he should find his mistress grown old or unworthy, the 
 woman still has rights over his heart ; but to you women the 
 man you have loved is as nothing to you ; nay, more, he is
 
 342 HONORINE. 
 
 unpardonable in one thing he lives on ! You dare not own 
 it, but you all have in your hearts the feeling which that 
 popular calumny called tradition ascribes to the Lady of the 
 Tour de Nesle: "What a pity it is that we cannot live on 
 love as we live on fruit, and that, when we have had our fill, 
 nothing should survive but the remembrance of pleasure ! " 
 
 " ' God has, no doubt, reserved such perfect bliss for para- 
 dise,' said she. * But,' she added, ' if your argument seems 
 to you very witty, to me it has the disadvantage of being 
 false. What can those women be who give themselves up to 
 a succession of loves? ' she asked, looking at me as the Vir- 
 gin in Ingres' picture looks at Louis XIII. offering her his 
 kingdom. 
 
 " ' You are an actress in good faith,' said I, ' for you gave 
 me a look just now which would make the fame of an actress. 
 Still, lovely as you are, you have loved ; ergo, you forget.' 
 
 " ' I ! ' she exclaimed, evading my question, ' I am not a 
 woman. I am a nun, and seventy-two years old ! ' 
 
 "'Then, how can you so positively assert that you feel 
 more keenly than I ? Sorrow has but one form for women. 
 The only misfortunes they regard are disappointments of the 
 heart.' 
 
 " She looked at me sweetly, and, like all women when 
 stuck between the issues of a dilemma or held in the clutches 
 of truth, she persisted, nevertheless, in her willfulness. 
 
 " ' I am a nun,' she said, ' and you talk to me of a world 
 where I shall never again set foot.' 
 
 " ' Not even in thought ? ' said I. 
 
 '"Is the world so much to be desired?' she replied. 
 ' Oh ! when my mind wanders, it goes higher. The angel of 
 perfection, the beautiful angel Gabriel, often sings in my 
 heart. If I were rich, I should work all the same, to keep 
 me from soaring too often on the many-tinted wings of the 
 angel, and wandering in the world of fancy. There are 
 meditations which are the ruin of us women ! I owe much
 
 HONORINE. |s 
 
 peace of mind to my flowers, though sometimes they fail to 
 occupy me. On some days I find my soul invaded by a pur- 
 poseless expectancy ; I cannot banish some idea which takes 
 possession of me, which seems to make my fingers clumsy. I 
 feel that some great event is impending, that my life is about 
 to change ; I listen vaguely, I stare into the darkness, I have 
 no liking for my work, and after a thousand fatigues I find 
 life once more every-day life. Is this a warning from heaven? 
 I ask myself ' 
 
 "After three months of this struggle between two diplo- 
 matists, concealed under the semblance of youthful melan- 
 choly, and a woman whose disgust of life made her invulner- 
 able, I told the Count that it was impossible to drag this 
 tortoise out of her shell ; it must be broken. The evening 
 before, in our last quite friendly discussion, the Countess 
 had exclaimed 
 
 " ' Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of blood the watch- 
 word of woman's charter : "Liberty /" 
 
 " From that moment the Count left me free to act. 
 
 " ' I have been paid a hundred francs for the flowers and 
 caps I made this week ! ' Honorine exclaimed gleefully one 
 Saturday evening when I went to visit her in the little sitting- 
 room on the ground floor, which the unavowed proprietor 
 had had regilt. 
 
 " It was ten o'clock. The twilight of July and a glorious 
 moon lent us their misty light. Gusts of mingled perfumes 
 soothed the soul ; the Countess was clinking in her hand the 
 five gold-pieces given to her by a supposititious dealer in 
 fashionable frippery, another of Octave's accomplices found 
 for him by a judge, M. Popinot. 
 
 " ' I earn my living by amusing myself,' she said ; ' I am 
 free, when men, armed with their laws, have tried to make us 
 slaves. Oh, I have transports of pride every Saturday ! 
 short, I like Monsieur Gaudissart's gold-pieces as much as 
 Lord Byron, your double, liked Mr. Murray's.'
 
 (( C 
 
 HONORINE. 
 
 'This is not in the least becoming in a woman,' said I. 
 
 Pooh ! Am I a woman ? I am a boy gifted with a 
 soft soul, that is all; a boy whom no woman can ever 
 torture ' 
 
 "'Your life is the negation of your whole being,' I 
 replied. ' What ? You, on whom the good God has lav- 
 ished His choicest treasures of love and beauty, do you 
 never wish ' 
 
 " ' For what ? ' said she, somewhat disturbed by a speech 
 which, for the first time, gave the lie to the part I had 
 assumed. 
 
 " ' For a pretty little child with curling hair, running, 
 playing among the flowers, like a flower itself of life and 
 love, and calling you mother ! ' 
 
 "I waited for an answer. A too-prolonged silence led me 
 to perceive the terrible effect of my words, though the dark- 
 ness at first concealed it. Leaning on her sofa, the Countess 
 had not indeed fainted, but frozen under a nervous attack of 
 which the first chill, as gentle as everything that was part of her, 
 felt, as she afterward said, like the influence of a most in- 
 sidious poison. I called Madame Gobain, who came and led 
 away her mistress, laid her on her bed, unlaced her, undressed 
 her, and restored her, not to life, it is true, but to the con- 
 sciousness of some dreadful suffering. I meanwhile walked 
 up and down the path behind the house, weeping, and doubt- 
 ing my success. I only wished to give up this part of the 
 bird-catcher which I had so rashly assumed. Madame Gobain, 
 who came down and found me with my face wet with tears, 
 hastily went upstairs and into the bedroom again to say to the 
 Countess 
 
 "'What has happened, madame? Monsieur Maurice is 
 crying like a child.' 
 
 "Roused to action by the evil interpretation that might be 
 put on our mutual behavior, she summoned superhuman 
 strength to put on a wrapper and come down to me.
 
 HONORINE. r,$.'> 
 
 '"You are not the cause of this attack,' said she. ' I am 
 subject to these spasms, a sort of cramp of the heart ' 
 
 " ' And you will not tell me of your troubles ? ' I asked, in 
 a voice which cannot be affected, as I wiped away my tears. 
 ' Have you not just now told me that you have been a mother, 
 and have been so unhappy as to lose your child ? ' 
 
 " ' Marie ! ' she called as she rang the bell. Gobain 
 came in. 
 
 " ' Bring lights and some tea,' said she, with the calm deci- 
 sion of a ' mylady ' clothed in the armor of pride by the 
 dreadful English training which you know too well. 
 
 " When the housekeeper had lighted the tapers and closed 
 the shutters, the Countess showed me a mute countenance ; 
 her indomitable pride and gravity, worthy of a savage, had 
 already asserted their mastery. She said 
 
 " ' Do you know why I like Lord Byron so much ? It is 
 because he suffered as animals do. Of what use are com- 
 plaints when they are not an elegy like Manfred's, nor bitter 
 mockery like Don Juan's, nor a reverie like Childe Harold's? 
 Nothing shall be known of me. My heart is a poem that I 
 lay before God.' 
 
 " ' If I chose ' said I. 
 
 "'If?' she repeated. 
 
 " 'I have no interest in anything,' I replied, ' so I cannot 
 be inquisitive ; but, if I chose, I could know all your secrets 
 by to-morrow.' 
 
 '"I defy you ! ' she exclaimed, with ill-disguised uneasiness. 
 
 "'Seriously?' 
 
 " ' Certainly,' said she, tossing her head. ' If such a crime 
 is possible, I ought to know it.' 
 
 " ' In the first place, madame,' I went on, pointing to her 
 hands, those pretty fingers, which are enough to show that 
 you are not a mere girl were they made for toil ? Then you 
 call yourself Madame Gobain, you, who, in my presence the 
 other day on receiving a letter, said to Marie : " Here, this is
 
 346 HONORINE. 
 
 for you ? ' ' Marie is the real Madame Gobain ; so you con- 
 ceal your name behind that of your housekeeper. Fear 
 nothing, madame, from me. You have in me the most devoted 
 friend you will ever have: Friend, do you understand me? 
 I give this word its sacred and pathetic meaning, so profaned 
 in France, where we apply it to our enemies. And your 
 friend, who will defend you against everything, only wishes 
 that you should be as happy as such a woman ought to be. 
 Who can tell whether the pain I have involuntarily caused 
 you was not a voluntary act ? ' 
 
 " ' Yes,' replied she with threatening audacity, * I insist on 
 it. Be curious, and tell me all that you can find out about me ; 
 but,' and she held up her finger, ' you must also tell me by 
 what means you obtain your information. The preservation 
 of the small happiness I enjoy here depends on the steps you 
 take.' 
 
 " ' That means that you will fly ' 
 
 " ' On wings ! ' she cried, ' to the New World- 
 
 " ' Where you will be at the mercy of the brutal passions 
 you will inspire,' said I, interrupting her. ' Is it not the 
 very essence of genius and beauty to shine, to attract men's 
 gaze, to excite desires and evil thoughts ? Paris is a desert 
 with Bedouins ; Paris is the only place in the world where 
 those who must work for their livelihood can hide their life. 
 What have you to complain of? Who am I? An additional 
 servant M. Gobain, that is all. If you have to fight a duel, 
 you may need a second.' 
 
 " ' Never mind ; find out whom I am. I have already said 
 that I insist. Nay, I beg that you will,' she went on, with 
 the grace which you ladies have at command," said the con- 
 sul, looking at the ladies. 
 
 " 'Well, then, to-morrow, at the same hour, I will tell you 
 what I may have discovered,' replied I. 'But do not there- 
 fore hate me ! Will you behave like other women ?' 
 
 " 'What do other women do?'
 
 HONORINE. 347 
 
 ' They lay upon us immense sacrifices, and when we have 
 made them, they reproach us for it some time later as if it 
 were an injury.' 
 
 "'They are right if the thing required appears to be a 
 sacrifice ! ' replied she pointedly. 
 
 " ' Instead of sacrifices, say efforts and ' 
 
 " 'It would be an impertinence,' she said. 
 
 " ' Forgive me,' I replied. I forgot that woman and the 
 pope are infallible.' 
 
 " ' Good heavens ! ' she went on, after a long pause, ' only 
 two words would be enough to destroy the peace so dearly 
 bought, and which I enjoy like a fraud ' 
 
 " She arose and paid no further heed to me. 
 
 " ' Where can I go? ' she asked. ' What is to become of 
 me ? Must I leave this quiet retreat that I had arranged with 
 such care to end my days in ? ' 
 
 "'To end your days !' exclaimed I with visible alarm. 
 ' Has it never struck you that a time would come when you 
 could no longer work, when competition will lower the price 
 of flowers and articles of fashion ? ' 
 
 '"I have already saved a thousand crowns,' she returned. 
 
 " ' Heavens ! what privations must such a sum represent ! ' 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 "'Leave me,' she said, 'till to-morrow. This evening I 
 am not myself; I must be alone. Must I not save my strength 
 in case of disaster? For, if you should learn anything, others 
 beside you would be informed, and then Good-night,' she 
 added shortly, dismissing me with an imperious gesture. 
 
 " ' The battle is to-morrow, then,' I replied with a smile, 
 to keep up the appearance of indifference I had given to the 
 scene. But as I went down the avenue I repeated the words 
 
 " ' The battle is to-morrow.' 
 
 " Octave's anxiety was equal to Honorine's. The Count 
 and I remained together until two in the morning, walking back 
 and forth by the trenches of the bastile, like two generals
 
 348 HONORINE. 
 
 who, on the eve of a battle, calculate all the chances, examine 
 the ground, and perceive that the victory must depend on an 
 opportunity to be seized half-way through the fight. These 
 two divided beings would each lie awake, one in the hope, the 
 other in the agonizing dread of reunion. The real dramas of 
 life are not in circumstances, but in feelings ; they are played 
 in the heart, or, if you please, in that vast realm which we 
 ought to call the spiritual world. Octave and Honorine 
 moved and lived altogether in the world of lofty spirits. 
 
 "I was punctual. At ten next evening I was, for the first 
 time, shown into a charming bedroom furnished with white 
 and blue the nest of this wounded dove. The Countess 
 looked at me and was about to speak, but was stricken dumb 
 by my respectful demeanor. 
 
 " ' Madame la Comtesse,' said I with a grave .smile. 
 
 "The poor woman, who had risen, dropped back into her 
 chair and remained there, sunk in an attitude of grief, which 
 I should have liked to see perpetuated by a great painter. 
 
 " 'You are,' I went on, ' the wife of the noblest and most 
 highly respected of men ; of a man who is acknowledged to 
 be great, but who is far greater in his conduct to you than he 
 is in the eyes of the world. You and he are two lofty natures. 
 Where do you suppose yourself to be living? ' I asked her. 
 
 " ' In my own house, she replied,' opening her eyes with a 
 wide stare of astonishment. 
 
 " ' In Count Octave's,' I replied. / You have been tricked. 
 M. Lenormand, the usher of the court, is not the real owner; 
 he is only a screen for your husband. The delightful seclusion 
 you enjoy is the Count's work, the money you earn is paid by 
 him, and his protection extends to the most trivial details of 
 your existence. Your husband has saved you in the eyes of 
 the world ; he has assigned plausible reasons for your disap- 
 pearance ; he professes to hope that you were not lost in the 
 wreck of the " Cecile," the ship in which you sailed for Ha- 
 vana to secure the fortune to be left to you by an old aunt, who
 
 HONORINE. 349 
 
 might have forgotten you; you embarked, escorted by two 
 ladies of her family and an old manservant. The Count says 
 that he has sent agents to various spots, and received letters 
 which give him great hopes. He takes as many precautions to 
 hide you from all eyes as you take yourself. In short, he obeys 
 you ' 
 
 " ' That is enough,' she said. ' I want to know but one 
 thing more. From whom have you obtained all these details?' 
 
 "'Well, madame, my uncle got a place for a penniless 
 youth as secretary to the commissary of police in this part of 
 Paris. That young man told me everything. If you leave 
 this house this evening, however stealthily, your husband will 
 know where you are gone and his care will follow you every- 
 where. How could a woman so clever as you are believe that 
 shopkeepers buy flowers and caps as dear as they sell them ? 
 Ask a thousand crowns for a bouquet, and you will get it. 
 No mother's tenderness was ever more ingenious than your 
 husband's ! I have learned from the porter of this house that 
 the Count often comes behind the fence when all are asleep, 
 to see the glimmer of your night-light. Your large cashmere 
 shawl cost six thousand francs your old-clothes-seller brings 
 you, as second hand, things fresh from the best makers. In 
 short, you are living here like Venus in the toils of Vulcan ; 
 but you are alone in your prison by the devices of a sublime 
 magnanimity, sublime for seven years past, and at every hour.' 
 
 " The Countess was trembling as a trapped swallow trem- 
 bles while, as you hold it in your hand, it strains its neck to 
 look about it with wild eyes. She shook with a nervous 
 spasm, studying me with a defiant look. Her dry eyes glit- 
 tered with a light that was almost hot : still, she was a woman ! 
 The moment came when her tears forced their way, and she 
 we p t _not because she was touched, but because she was help- 
 less ; they were tears of desperation. She had believed her- 
 self independent and free ; marriage weighed on her as the 
 prison cell does on the captive.
 
 350 HONORINE. 
 
 " ' I will go ! ' she cried through her tears. ' He forces 
 me to it ; I will go where no one certainly will come after 
 me.' 
 
 " 'What,' I said, ' you would kill yourself? Madame, you 
 must have some very powerful reasons for not wishing to re- 
 turn to Comte Octave.' 
 
 " ' Certainly I have ! ' 
 
 "'Well, then, tell them to me; tell them to my uncle. 
 In us you will find two devoted advisers. Though in the 
 confessional my uncle is a priest, he is never one in a draw- 
 ing-room. We will hear you ; we will try to find a solution 
 of the problems you may lay before us ; and if you are the 
 dupe or the victim of some misapprehension, perhaps we can 
 clear the matter up. Your soul, I believe, is pure ; but if 
 
 you have done wrong, your fault is fully expiated At 
 
 any rate, remember that in me you have a most sincere friend. 
 If you should wish to evade the Count's tyranny, I will find 
 you the means ; he shall never find you.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! there is always a convent ! ' said she. 
 
 '"Yes. But the Count, as minister of state, can procure 
 your rejection by every convent in the world. Even though 
 he is powerful, I will save you from him ; but only when 
 you have demonstrated to me that you cannot and ought not 
 to return to him. Oh ! do not fear that you would escape 
 his power only to fall into mine,' I added, noticing a glance 
 of horrible suspicion, full of exaggerated dignity. ' You shall 
 have peace, solitude, and independence ; in short, you shall 
 be as free and as little annoyed as if you were an ugly, cross 
 old maid. I myself would never be able to see you without 
 your consent.' 
 
 " ' And how ? By what means ? ' 
 
 " ' That is my secret. I am not deceiving you, of that you 
 may be sure. Prove to me that this is the only life you can 
 lead, that it is preferable to that of the Comtesse Octave, 
 rich, admired, in one of the finest houses in Paris, beloved
 
 HONORINE. 35! 
 
 by her husband, a happy mother and I will decide in your 
 
 favor. ' 
 
 "'But,' said she, 'will there never be a man who under- 
 stands me?' 
 
 "'No. And that is why I appeal to religion to decide 
 between us. The cure of the white friars is a saint, seventy- 
 five years of age. My uncle is not a grand inquisitor, he is a 
 Saint John ; but for you he will be Fenelon the Fenelon 
 who said to the Due de Bourgogne : " Eat a calf on a Friday 
 by all means, monseigneur. But be a Christian." ' 
 
 " 'Nay, nay, monsieur, the convent is my last hope and 
 my only refuge. There is none but God who can understand 
 me. No man, not Saint Augustine himself, the tenderest of 
 the fathers of the church, could enter into the scruples of my 
 conscience, which are to me as the circles of Dante's hell, 
 whence there is no escape. Another than my husband, a 
 different man, however unworthy of the offering, has had all 
 my love. No, he has not had it, for he did not take it ; I 
 gave it him as a mother gives her child a wonderful toy, which 
 it breaks. For me there never could be two loves. In some 
 natures love can never be on trial ; it is, or it is not. When 
 it comes, when it rises up, it is complete. Well, that life of 
 eighteen months was to me a life of eighteen years ; I threw 
 into it all the faculties of my being, which were not impov- 
 erished by their effusiveness; they were exhausted by that 
 delusive intimacy in which I alone was genuine. For me the 
 cup of happiness is not drained, nor empty ; and nothing can. 
 refill it, for it is broken. I am out of the fray ; I have no 
 weapons left. Having thus utterly abandoned myself, what 
 am I ? the leavings of a feast. I had but one name bestowed 
 on me, Honorine, as I had but one heart. My husband had 
 the young girl, a worthless lover had the woman there is 
 nothing left ! Then let myself be loved ! that is the great idea 
 that you mean to utter to me. Oh ! but I still am something, 
 and I rebel at the idea of being a prostitute! Yes, by the
 
 352 HONORINE. 
 
 light of the conflagration I saw clearly ; and I tell you well, 
 I could imagine surrendering to another man's love, but to 
 Octave's? No, never.' 
 
 " ' Ah ! you love him,' I said. 
 
 " ' I esteem him, respect him, venerate him ; he has never 
 done me the smallest hurt ; he is kind, he is tender ; but I 
 can never more love him. However,' she went on, 'let us 
 talk no more of this. Discussion makes everything small. I 
 will express my notions on this subject in writing to you, for 
 at this moment they are suffocating me ; I am feverish, my 
 feet are standing in the ashes of my paraclete. All that I see, 
 these things which I believed I had earned by my labor, now 
 remind me of everything I wish to forget. Ah ! I must fly 
 from hence as I fled from my home.' 
 
 '"Where will you go?' I asked. 'Can a woman exist 
 unprotected ? At thirty, in all the glory of your beauty, rich 
 in powers of which you have no suspicion, full of tenderness 
 to be bestowed, are you prepared to live in the wilderness 
 where I could hide you ? Be quite easy. The Count, who 
 for nine years has never allowed himself to be seen here, will 
 never go there without your permission. You have his sub- 
 lime devotion of nine years as a guarantee for your tranquillity. 
 You may therefore discuss the future in perfect confidence 
 with my uncle and me. My uncle has as much influence as a 
 minister of state. So compose yourself; do not exaggerate 
 your misfortune. A priest whose hair has grown white in the 
 exercise of his functions is not a boy ; you will be understood 
 by him to whom every passion has been confided for nearly 
 fifty years now, and who weighs in his hands the ponderous 
 heart of kings and princes. If he is stern under his stole, in 
 the presence of your flowers he will be as tender as they are, 
 and as indulgent as his Divine Master.' 
 
 " I left the Countess at midnight ; she was apparently 
 calm, but depressed, and had some secret purpose which no 
 perspicacity could guess. I found the Count a few paces off,
 
 HONORINE. 353 
 
 in the Rue Saint-Maur. Drawn by an irresistible attraction 
 he had quitted the spot on the boulevards where we had 
 agreed to meet. 
 
 " ' What a night my poor child will go through ! ' he ex- 
 claimed, when I had finished my account of the scene that 
 had just taken place. ' Supposing I were to go to her ? ' he 
 added ; ' supposing she were to see me suddenly ? ' 
 
 " ' At this moment she is capable of throwing herself out 
 of the window,' I replied. 'The Countess is one of those 
 Lucretias who could not survive any violence, even if it were 
 done by a man into whose arms she could throw herself. 1 
 
 " ' You are young,' he answered ; ' you do not know that 
 in a soul tossed by such dreadful alternatives the will is like 
 the waters of a lake lashed by a tempest ; the wind changes 
 every instant, and the waves are driven now to one shore, 
 now to the other. During this night the chances are quite as 
 great that on seeing me Honorine might rush into my arms as 
 that she should throw herself out of the window.' 
 
 " ' And you would accept the equal chances ? ' said I inter- 
 rogatively. 
 
 " ' Well, come,' said he, ' I have at home, to enable me to 
 wait until to-morrow, a dose of opium which Desplein pre- 
 pared for me to send me to sleep without any risk !' 
 
 " Next day at noon Gobain brought me a letter, telling me 
 that the Countess had gone to bed at six, worn out with 
 fatigue, and that, having taken a soothing draught prepared 
 by the chemist, she had now fallen asleep. 
 
 " This is her letter, of which I kept a copy for you, 
 mademoiselle," said the consul, addressing Camille, "know 
 all the resources of art, the tricks of style, and the efforts 
 made in their compositions by writers who do not lack skill ; 
 but you will acknowledge that literature could never find such 
 language in its assumed pathos; there is nothing so terrible as 
 truth. Here is the letter written by this woman, or rather by 
 this anguish : 
 23
 
 354 HONORINE. 
 
 " ' MONSIEUR MAURICE: I know all your uncle could say 
 to me ; he is not better informed than my own conscience. 
 Conscience is the interpreter of God to man. I know that 
 if I am not reconciled to Octave, I shall be damned ; that is 
 the sentence of religious law. Civil law condemns me to 
 obey, cost what it may. If my husband does not reject me, 
 the world will regard me as pure, as virtuous, whatever I may 
 have done. Yes, that much is sublime in marriage : society 
 ratifies the husband's forgiveness ; but it forgets that the for- 
 giveness must be accepted. Legally, religiously, and from 
 the world's point of view I ought to go back to Octave. 
 Keeping only to the human aspect of the question, is it not 
 cruel to refuse him happiness, to deprive him of children, to 
 wipe his name out of the " Golden Book " and the list of 
 peers ? My sufferings, my repugnance, my feelings, all my 
 egoism for I know that I am an egoist ought to be sacri- 
 ficed to the family. I shall be a mother ; the caresses of my 
 child will wipe away many tears ! I shall be very happy ; I 
 certainly shall be much looked up to. I shall ride, haughty 
 and wealthy, in a handsome carriage ! I shall have servants 
 and a fine house, and be the queen of as many parties as there 
 are weeks in the year. The world will receive me hand- 
 somely. I shall not have to climb up again to the heaven of 
 aristocracy, I shall never have come down from it. So God, 
 the law, society are all in accord. 
 
 " ' (t What are you rebelling against?" I am asked from 
 the height of heaven, from the pulpit, from the judge's bench, 
 and from the throne, whose august intervention may at need 
 be invoked by the court. Your uncle, indeed, at need, would 
 speak to me of a certain celestial grace which will flood my 
 heart when I know the pleasure of doing my duty. 
 
 " ' God, the law, the world, and Octave all wish me to live, 
 no doubt. Well, if there is no other difficulty, my reply cuts 
 the knot : I will not live. I will become quite white and 
 innocent again ; for I will lie in my shroud, white with the
 
 HONOR1NE. : j. v , 
 
 blameless pallor of death. This is not in the least " mulish 
 obstinacy." That mulish obstinacy of which you jestingly 
 accused me is in a woman the result of confidence, of a vision 
 of the future. Though my husband, sublimely generous, 
 may forget all, I shall not forget. Does forgetfulness depend 
 on our will ? When a widow remarries, love makes a girl of 
 her ; she marries a man she loves. But I cannot love the 
 Count. It all lies in that, do you not see? 
 
 " ' Every time my eyes met his I should see my sin in them, 
 even when his were full of love. The greatness of his gener- 
 osity would be the measure of the greatness of my crime. 
 My eyes, always uneasy, would be for ever reading an invis- 
 ible condemnation. My heart would be full of confused and 
 struggling memories ; marriage can never move me to the 
 cruel rapture, the mortal delirium of passion. I should kill 
 my husband by my coldness, by comparisons with which he 
 would guess, though hidden in the depths of my conscience. 
 Oh ! on the day when I should read a trace of involuntary, 
 even of suppressed reproach in a furrow on his brow, in a 
 saddened look, in some imperceptible gesture, nothing could 
 hold me : I should be lying with a fractured skull on the 
 pavement, and find that less hard than my husband. It 
 might be my own over-susceptibility that would lead me to 
 this horrible but welcome death ; I might die the victim of 
 an impatient mood in Octave caused by some matter of busi- 
 ness, or be deceived by some unjust suspicion. Alas ! I might 
 even mistake some proof of love for a sign of contempt ! 
 
 " ' What torture on both sides ! Octave would be always 
 doubting me, I doubting him. I, quite involuntarily, should 
 give him a rival wholly unworthy of him, a man whom I 
 despise, but with whom I have known raptures branded on me 
 with fire, which are my shame, but which I cannot forget. 
 
 "'Have I shown you enough of my heart? No one, 
 monsieur, can convince me that love may be renewed, for I 
 neither can nor will accept love from any one. A young bride
 
 356 HONORINE. 
 
 is like a plucked flower ; but a guilty wife is like a flower that 
 has been walked over. You, who are a florist, you know 
 whether it is ever possible to restore the broken stem, to 
 revive the faded colors, to make the sap flow again in the 
 tender vessels of which the whole vegetative function lies in 
 their perfect rigidity. If some botanist should attempt the 
 operation, could his genius smooth out the folds of the 
 bruised corolla ? If he could remake a flower, he would be 
 God. God alone can remake me ! I am drinking the bitter 
 cup of expiation ; but as I drink it I painfully spell out this 
 sentence : Expiation is not annihilation. 
 
 '"In my little house, alone, I eat my bread soaked in 
 tears ; but no one sees me eat nor sees me weep. If I go 
 back to Octave, I must give up my tears they would offend 
 him. Oh ! monsieur, how many virtues must a woman tread 
 under foot, not to give herself, but to restore herself to a 
 betrayed husband ? Who could count them ? God alone ; 
 for He alone can know and encourage the horrible refinements 
 at which the angels must turn pale. Nay, I will go further. 
 A woman has courage in the presence of her husband if he 
 knows nothing ; she shows a sort of fierce strength in her 
 hypocrisy ; she deceives him to secure him double happiness. 
 But common knowledge is surely degrading. Supposing I 
 could exchange humiliation for ecstasy? Would not Octave 
 at last feel that my consent was sheer depravity? Marriage 
 is based on esteem, on sacrifices on both sides ; but neither 
 Octave nor I could esteem each other the day after our re- 
 union. He would have disgraced me by a love like that of 
 an old man for a courtesan, and I should for ever feel the 
 shame of being a chattel instead of a lady. I should repre- 
 sent pleasure, and not virtue, in his house. These are the 
 bitter fruits of such a sin. I have made myself a bed of an- 
 guish upon which I can only toss on burning coals, a sleepless 
 pillow. 
 
 '" Here, when I suffer, I bless my sufferings ; I say to God,
 
 HONORINE. 
 
 ..I, 
 
 " I thank Thee ! " But in my husband's house I should be 
 full of terror, tasting joys to which I have no right. 
 
 " < All this, monsieur, is not argument ; it is the feeling of 
 a soul made vast and hollow by seven years of suffering. 
 Finally, must I make a horrible confession ? I shall always 
 feel at my bosom the lips of a child conceived in rapture and 
 joy, and in the belief in happiness, of a child I nursed for 
 seven months, that I shall bear in my womb all the days of 
 my life. If other children should draw their nourishment 
 from me, they would drink in tears mingling with the milk 
 and turning it sour. I seem a light thing, you regard me as 
 a child Ah yes ! I have a child's memory, the memory which 
 returns to us on the verge of the tomb. So, you see, there is 
 not a situation in that beautiful life to which the world and 
 my husband's love want to recall me, which is not a false 
 position, which does not cover a snare or reveal a precipice 
 down which I must fall, torn by pitiless rocks. For five years 
 now I have been wandering in the sandy desert of the future 
 without finding a place convenient to repent in, because my 
 soul is possessed by true repentance. 
 
 " ' Religion has its answers ready to all this, and I know 
 them by heart. This suffering, these difficulties, are my pun- 
 ishment, she says, and God will give me strength to endure 
 them. This, monsieur, is an argument to certain pious souls 
 gifted with an energy which I have not. I have made my 
 choice between this hell, where God does not forbid my 
 blessing Him, and the hell that awaits me under Count 
 Octave's roof. 
 
 " ' One word more. If I were still a girl, with the experi- 
 ence I now have, my husband is the man I should choose ; but 
 that is the very reason of my refusal. I could not bear to 
 blush before that man. What ! I should be always on my 
 knees, he always standing upright ; and if we were to ex- 
 change positions, I should scorn him ! I will not be better 
 treated by him in consequence of my sin. The angel who
 
 358 HONORINE. 
 
 might venture under such circumstances on certain liberties, 
 which are permissible when both are equally blameless, is not 
 on earth ; he dwells in heaven ! Octave is full of delicate 
 feeling, I know ; but even in his soul (which, however gener- 
 ous, is a man's soul after all) there is no guarantee for the 
 new life I should lead with him. 
 
 " 'Come, then, and tell me where I may find the solitude, 
 the peace, the silence, so kindly to irreparable woes, which 
 you promised me.' 
 
 " After making this copy of the letter to preserve it com- 
 plete, I went to the Rue Payenne. Anxiety had conquered 
 the power of opium. Octave was walking up and down his 
 garden like a madman. 
 
 "'Answer that!' said I, giving him his wife's letter. 
 ' Try to reassure the modesty of experience. It is rather 
 more difficult than conquering the modesty of ignorance, 
 which curiosity helps to betray.' 
 
 " ' She is mine ! ' cried the Count, whose face expressed 
 joy as he went on reading the letter. 
 
 " He signed to me with his hand to leave him to himself. 
 I understood that extreme happiness and extreme pain obey 
 the same laws : I went in to receive Madame de Courteville 
 and Amelie, who were to dine with the Count that day. 
 However handsome Mademoiselle de Courteville might be, I 
 felt, on seeing her once more, that love has three aspects, 
 and that the women who can inspire us with perfect love are 
 very rare. As I involuntarily compared Amelie with Honor- 
 ine, I found the erring wife more attractive than the pure 
 girl. To Honorine's heart fidelity had not been a duty, but 
 the inevitable ; while Amelie would serenely pronounce the 
 most solemn promises without knowing their purport or to 
 what they bound her. The crushed, the dead woman, so to 
 speak, the sinner to be reinstated, seemed to me sublime; 
 she incited the special generosities of a man's nature ; she
 
 HONORINE. 359 
 
 demanded all the treasures of the heart, all the resources of 
 strength ; she filled his life and gave the zest of a conflict to 
 happiness; whereas Amelie, chaste and confiding, would 
 settle down into the sphere of peaceful motherhood, where 
 the commonplace must be its poetry, and where my mind 
 would find no struggle and no victory. 
 
 " Of the plains of Champagne and the snowy, storm-beaten 
 but sublime Alps, what young man would choose the chalky, 
 monotonous level ? No ; such comparisons are fatal and 
 wrong on the threshold of the mairie. Alas ! only the ex- 
 perience of life can teach us that marriage excludes passion, 
 that a family cannot have its foundation on the tempests of 
 love. After having dreamed of impossible love, with its in- 
 finite caprices, after having tasted the tormenting delights of 
 the ideal, I saw before me modest reality. Pity me, for what 
 could be expected! At twenty-five I did not trust myself; 
 but I took a manly resolution. 
 
 " I went back to the Count to announce the arrival of his 
 relations, and I saw him grown young again in the reflected 
 light of hope. 
 
 " ' What ails you, Maurice?' said he, struck by my changed 
 expression. 
 
 " ' Monsieur le Comte ' 
 
 '"No longer Octave? You, to whom I shall owe my 
 life, my happiness 
 
 " ' My dear Octave, if you should succeed in bringing the 
 Countess back to her duty, I have studied her well '(he 
 looked at me as Othello must have looked at lago when lago 
 first contrived to insinuate a suspicion into the Moor's mind) 
 ' she must never see me again ; she must never know that 
 Maurice was your secretary. Never mention my name to her, 
 or all will be undone You have gotten me an appoint- 
 ment as mattre des requetes* well, get me instead some diplo- 
 matic post abroad, a consulship, and do not think of my 
 * Chief of Requests (a Court Judge).
 
 360 HONORINE. 
 
 marrying Amelia. Oh ! do not be uneasy,' I added, seeing 
 him draw himself up, ' I will play my part to the end.' 
 
 " ' Poor boy ! ' said he, taking my hand, which he pressed, 
 while he kept back the tears that were starting to his eyes. 
 
 " 'You gave me gloves,' I said, laughing, ' but I have not 
 put them on ; that is all.' 
 
 " We then agreed as to what I was to do that evening at 
 Honorine's house, whither I presently returned. It was now 
 August ; the day had been hot and stormy, but the storm 
 hung overhead, the sky was like copper ; the scent of the 
 flowers was heavy, I felt as if I were in an oven, and caught 
 myself wishing that the Countess might have set out for the 
 Indies ; but she was sitting on a wooden bench shaped like a 
 sofa, under an arbor, in a loose dress of white muslin fastened 
 with blue bows, her hair unadorned in waving bands over her 
 cheeks, her feet on a small wooden stool, and showing a little 
 way beyond her skirt. She did not rise ; she showed me 
 with her hand to the seat by her side, saying 
 
 " ' Now, is not life at a deadlock for me ? ' 
 
 " ' Life as you have made it,' I replied. ' But not the life 
 I propose to make for you ; for, if you choose, you may be 
 very happy ' 
 
 " ' How ? ' said she ; her whole person was a question. 
 
 " 'Your letter is in the Count's hands.' 
 
 " Honorine started like a frightened doe, sprang to a few 
 paces off, walked down the garden, turned about, remained 
 standing for some minutes, and finally went in to sit alone in 
 the drawing-room, where I joined her, after giving her time 
 to get accustomed to the pain of this poniard thrust. 
 
 " ' You a friend? Say rather a traitor ! A spy, perhaps, 
 sent by my husband.' 
 
 " Instinct in women is as strong as the perspicacity of great 
 men. 
 
 " ' You wanted an answer to your letter, did you not ? And 
 there was but one man in the world who could write it. You
 
 HONORINE. ggj 
 
 must read the reply, my dear Countess; and if after reading 
 it you still find that your life is a deadlock, the spy will prove 
 himself a friend; I will place you in a convent whence the 
 Count's power cannot drag you. But, before going there, let 
 us consider the other side of the question. There is a law, 
 alike divine and human, which even hatred affects to obey' 
 and which commands us not to condemn the accused without 
 hearing his defense. Till now you have passed condemna- 
 tion, as children do, with your ears stopped. The devotion 
 of seven years has its claims. So you must read the answer 
 your husband will send you. I have forwarded to him, 
 through my uncle, a copy of your letter, and my uncle asked 
 him what his reply would be if his wife wrote him a letter in 
 such terms. Thus you are not compromised. He will him- 
 self bring the Count's answer. In the presence of that saintly 
 man, and in mine, out of respect for your own dignity, you 
 must read it, or you will be no better than a willful, passionate 
 child. You must make this sacrifice to the world, to the law, 
 and to God.' 
 
 "As she saw in this concession no attack on her womanly 
 resolve, she consented. All the labor of four or five months 
 had been building up to this moment. But do not the pyra- 
 mids end in a point on which a bird may perch ? The Count 
 had set all his hopes on this supreme instant, and he had 
 reached it. 
 
 " In all my life I remember nothing more formidable than 
 my uncle's entrance into that little pompadour drawing-room, 
 at ten that evening. The fine head with its silver hair thrown 
 into relief by the entirely black dress, and the divinely calm 
 face, had a magical effect on the Comtesse Honorine; she 
 had the feeling of cool balm on her wounds, and beamed in 
 the reflection of that virtue which gave light without know- 
 ing it. 
 
 " 'Monsieur the Cur6 of the White Friars,' said old Go- 
 bain.
 
 362 HONORINE. 
 
 " ' Are you come, uncle, with a message of happiness and 
 peace ? ' said I. 
 
 " ' Happiness and peace are always to be found in obedi- 
 ence to the precepts of the church,' replied my uncle, and he 
 handed the Countess the following letter : 
 
 " ' MY DEAR HONORINE : If you had but done me the 
 favor of trusting me, if you had read the letter I wrote to 
 you five years since, you would have spared yourself five years 
 of useless labor and of privations which have grieved me 
 deeply. In it I proposed an arrangement of which the stipula- 
 tions will relieve all your fears, and make our domestic life 
 possible. I have much to reproach myself with, and in seven 
 years of sorrow I have discovered all my errors. I misunder- 
 stood marriage. I failed to scent danger when it threatened 
 you. An angel was in my house. The Lord bade me guard 
 it well ! The Lord has punished me for my audacious confi- 
 dence. 
 
 " 'You cannot give yourself a single lash without striking 
 me. Have mercy on me, my dear Honorine. I so fully ap- 
 preciated your susceptibilities that I would not bring you back 
 to the old house in the Rue Payenne, where I can live without 
 you, but which I could not bear to see again with you. I am 
 decorating, with great pleasure, another house, in the Fau- 
 bourg Saint-Honore, to which, in hope, I conduct not a wife 
 whom I owe to her ignorance of life, and secured to me by 
 law, but a sister who will allow me to press on her brow such 
 a kiss as a father gives the daughter he blesses every day. 
 
 " ' Will you bereave me of the right I have conquered from 
 your despair that of watching more closely over your needs, 
 your pleasures, your life even ? Women have one heart always 
 on their side, always abounding in excuses their mother's ; 
 you never knew any mother but my mother, who would have 
 brought you back to me. But how is it that you never guessed 
 that I had for you the heart of a mother, both of my mother
 
 HONORINE. 
 
 and of your own ? Yes, dear, my affection is neither mean 
 nor grasping; it is one of those which will never let any 
 annoyance last long enough to pucker the brow of the child 
 it worships. What can you think of the companion of your 
 childhood, Honorine, if you believe him capable of accepting 
 kisses given in trembling, of living between delight and 
 anxiety? Do not fear that you will be exposed to the laments 
 of a suppliant passion ; I would not want you back until I felt 
 certain of my own strength to leave you in perfect freedom. 
 
 " ' Your solitary pride has exaggerated the difficulties. You 
 may, if you will, look on at the life of a brother, or of a father, 
 without either suffering or joy ; but you will find neither 
 mockery nor indifference, nor have any doubt as to his inten- 
 tions. The warmth of the atmosphere in which you live will 
 be always equable and genial, without tempests, without a 
 possible squall. If, later, when you feel secure that you are 
 as much at home as in your own little house, you desire to 
 try some other elements of happiness, pleasures, or amuse- 
 ments, you can expand their circle at your will. The tender- 
 ness of a mother knows neither contempt nor pity. What is 
 it? Love without desire. Well, in me admiration shall hide 
 every sentiment in which you might see an offense. 
 
 " ' Thus, living side by side, we may both be magnanimous. 
 In you the kindness of a sister, the affectionate thoughtfulness 
 of a friend, will satisfy the ambition of him who wishes to be 
 your life's companion ; and you may measure his tenderness 
 by the care he will take to conceal it. Neither you nor I will 
 be jealous of the past, for we may each acknowledge that the 
 other has sense enough to look only straightforward. 
 
 " ' Thus you will be at home in your new house exactly as 
 you are in the Rue Saint-Maur ; unapproachable, alone, occu- 
 pied as you please, living by your own law ; but having in 
 addition the legitimate protection, of which you are now 
 exacting the most chivalrous labors of love, with the con- 
 sideration which lends so much lustre to a woman, and the
 
 364 HONORINE. 
 
 fortune which will allow of your doing many good works. 
 Honorine, when you long for an unnecessary absolution, 
 you have only to ask for it ; it will not be forced upon you 
 by the church or by the law ; it will wait on your pride, on 
 your own impulsion. My wife might indeed have to fear all 
 the things you dread; but not my friend and sister, toward 
 whom I am bound to show every form and refinement of 
 politeness. To see you happy is enough happiness for me ; 
 I have proved this for these seven years past. The guarantee 
 for this, Honorine, is to be seen in all the flowers made by 
 you, carefully preserved, and watered by my tears. Like the 
 quipos, the tally cords of the Peruvians, they are the record 
 of our sorrows. 
 
 " ' If this secret compact does not suit you, my child, I 
 have begged the saintly man who takes charge of this letter 
 not to say a word in my behalf. I will not owe your return 
 to the terrors threatened by the church, nor to the bidding of 
 the law. I will not accept the simple and quiet happiness 
 that I ask from any one but yourself. If you persist in con- 
 demning me to the lonely life, bereft even of a fraternal 
 smile, which I have led for nine years, if you remain in your 
 solitude and show no sign, my will yields to yours. Under- 
 stand me perfectly : you shall be no more troubled than you 
 have been until this day. I will get rid of the crazy fellow 
 who has meddled in your concerns and has, perhaps, caused 
 you some annoyance ' 
 
 " ' Monsieur,' said Honorine, folding up the letter, which 
 she placed in her bosom, and looking at my uncle, ' thank 
 you very much. I will avail myself of Monsieur le Comte's 
 permission to remain here ' 
 
 "'Ah! ' I exclaimed. 
 
 "This exclamation made my uncle look at me uneasily, 
 and won from the Countess a mischievous glance which en- 
 lightened me as to her motives.
 
 HONORIXE. 36-, 
 
 " Honorine had wanted to ascertain whether I was an 
 actor, a bird-snarer ; and I had the melancholy satisfaction 
 of deceiving her by my exclamation, which was one of those 
 cries from the heart which women understand so well. 
 
 " ' Ah, Maurice,' said she, ' you know how to love.' 
 
 " The light that flashed in my eyes was another reply which 
 would have dissipated the Countess' uneasiness if she still had 
 any. Thus the Count found me useful to the very last. 
 
 " Honorine then took out the Count's letter again to finish 
 reading it. My uncle signed to me, and I arose. 
 
 " ' Let us leave the Countess,' said he. 
 
 "'You are going already, Maurice?' she said, without 
 looking at me. 
 
 " She arose, and still reading, followed us to the door. On 
 the threshold she took my hand, pressed it very affectionately, 
 and said, ' We shall meet again 
 
 " ' No,' I replied, wringing her hand, so that she cried out. 
 'You love your husband. I leave to-morrow.' 
 
 " And I rushed away, leaving my uncle, of whom she asked : 
 
 " ' Why, what is the matter with your nephew?' 
 
 " The good Abbe completed my work by pointing to his 
 head and heart, as much as to say, ' He is mad, madame ; you 
 must forgive him ! ' and with all the more truth, because he 
 really thought it. 
 
 " Six days after I set out with an appointment as vice- 
 consul in Spain, in a large commercial town, where I could 
 quickly qualify to rise in the career of a consul, to which I 
 now restricted my ambition. After I had established myself 
 there, I received this letter from the Count : 
 
 " ' MY DEAR MAURICE: If I were happy, I should not 
 write to you, but I have entered on a new life of suffering. I 
 have grown young again in my desires, with all the impatience 
 of a man of forty and the prudence of a diplomatist, who 
 has learned to moderate his passion. When you left I had
 
 366 HONORINE. 
 
 not yet been admitted to the pavilion in the Rue Saint-Maur, 
 but a letter had promised me that I should have permission 
 the mild and melancholy letter of a woman who dreaded the 
 agitations of a meeting. After waiting for more than a month, 
 I made bold to call, and desired Gobain to inquire whether I 
 could be received. I sat down in a chair in the avenue near 
 the lodge, my head buried in my hands, and there I remained 
 for almost an hour. 
 
 < "Madame had to dress," said Gobain, to hide Honorine's 
 hesitancy under a pride of appearance which was flattering 
 to me. 
 
 " ' During a long quarter of an hour we both of us were 
 possessed by an involuntary nervous trembling as great as that 
 which seizes a speaker on the platform, and we spoke to each 
 other in scared phrases like those of persons taken by surprise 
 who "make believe" a conversation. 
 
 t a you see, Honorine," said I, my eyes full of tears, " the 
 ice is broken, and I am so tremulous with happiness that you 
 must forgive the incoherency of my language. It will be so 
 for a long time yet." 
 
 " ' " There is no crime in being in love with your wife," 
 she returned with a forced smile. 
 
 " ' "Do me the favor," said I, ." no longer to work as you 
 do. I have heard from Madame Gobain that for three weeks 
 you have been living on your savings ; you have sixty thousand 
 francs a year of your own, and if you cannot give me back 
 your heart at least do not abandon your fortune to me." 
 
 " < " J have long known your kindness," said she. 
 
 " ' "Though you should prefer to remain here," I added 
 impressively, " and to preserve your independence; though the 
 most ardent love should find no favor in your eyes, still do 
 not toil." 
 
 "'I gave her three certificates for twelve thousand francs a 
 year each ; she took them, opened them languidly, and after 
 reading them through she gave me only a look as my reward.
 
 '/ AM CONQUERED," SAID SHE.
 
 HONORINE. w 
 
 oOi 
 
 She fully understood that I was not offering her money, but 
 freedom. 
 
 "'"1 am conquered," said she, holding out her hand 
 which I kissed. ' Come and see me as often as you like." 
 
 ' So she had done herself a violence in receiving roe. 
 Next day I found her armed with affected high spirits, and it 
 took two months of habit before I saw her in her true character. 
 But then it was like a delicious May, a springtime of love that 
 gave me ineffable bliss ; she was no longer afraid ; she was 
 studying me. Alas ! when I proposed that she should go to 
 England to return ostensibly to me, to our home, that she 
 should resume her rank and live in our new residence, she was 
 seized with alarm. 
 
 " ' "Why not live always as we are ! " she said. 
 
 " ' I submitted without saying a word. 
 
 " " Is she making an experiment?" I asked myself as I 
 left her. On my way from my own house to the Rue Saint- 
 Maur thoughts of love had swelled in my heart, and I had 
 said to myself, like a young man, "This evening she will 
 yield." 
 
 " 'All my real or affected force was blown to the winds by 
 a smile, by a command from those proud, calm eyes, un- 
 touched by passion. I remembered the terrible words you 
 once quoted to me, "Lucretia's dagger wrote in letters of 
 blood the watchword of woman's charter Liberty!" and 
 they froze me. I felt imperatively how necessary to me was 
 Honorine's consent, and how impossible it was to wring it 
 from her. Could she guess the storms that distracted me when 
 I left as when I came ? 
 
 " 'At last I painted my situation in a letter to her, giving 
 up the attempt to speak of it. Honorine made no answer, 
 and she was so sad that I made as though I had not written. 
 I was deeply grieved by the idea that I could have distressed 
 her ; she read my heart and forgave me. And this was how. 
 Three days ago she received me, for the first time, in her own
 
 3G8 HONORINE. 
 
 blue-and-white room. It was bright with flowers, dressed, 
 and lighted up. Honorine was in a dress that made her be- 
 witching. Her hair framed that face that you know in its 
 light curls ; and in it were some sprays of Cape heath ; she 
 wore a white muslin gown, a white sash with long floating 
 ends. You know what she is in such simplicity, but that day 
 she was a bride, the Honorine of long past days. My joy was 
 chilled at once, for her face was terribly grave ; there were 
 fires beneath the ice. 
 
 " ' "Octave," she said, "I will return as your wife when 
 you will. But understand clearly that this submission has its 
 dangers. I can be resigned ' ' 
 
 " ' I made a movement. 
 
 < "Yes," she went on, " I understand : resignation offends 
 you, and you want what I cannot give Love. Religion and 
 pity led me to renounce my vow of solitude ; you are here ! " 
 She paused. 
 
 " ' "At first," she went on, "you asked no more. Now 
 you demand your wife. Well, here I give you Honorine, 
 such as she is, without deceiving you as to what she will be. 
 What shall I be ? A mother ? I hope it. Believe me, I hope 
 it eagerly. Try to change me ; you have my consent ; but if I 
 should die, my dear, do not curse my memory, and do not 
 set down to obstinacy what I should call the worship of the 
 ideal, if it were not more natural to call the indefinable feeling 
 which must kill me the worship of the Divine ! The future 
 will be nothing to me ; it will be your concern ; consult your 
 own mind." 
 
 "'And she sat down in the calm attitude you used to 
 admire, and watched me turning pale with the pain she had 
 inflicted. My blood ran cold. On seeing the effect of her 
 words she took both my hands, and, holding them in her own, 
 she said 
 
 " ' " Octave, I do love you, but not in the way you wish to 
 be loved. I love your soul Still, understand that I love
 
 HONORING. 
 
 HW 
 
 you enough to die in your service like an Eastern slave and 
 without a regret. It will be my expiation." 
 
 ' She did more ; she knelt before me on a cushion, and 
 in a spirit of sublime charity she said 
 
 "'"" And perhaps I shall not die ! " 
 
 " ' For two months now I have been struggling with my- 
 self. What shall I do? My heart is too full; I therefore 
 seek a friend, and send out this cry, " What shall I do?" 
 
 "' OCTAVE.' 
 
 "I did not answer this letter. Two months later the 
 newspapers announced the return on board an English vessel 
 of the Comtesse Octave, restored to her family after adven- 
 tures by land and sea, invented with sufficient probability to 
 arouse no contradiction. 
 
 " When I moved to Genoa I received a formal announce- 
 ment of the happy event of the birth of a son to the Count 
 and Countess. I held that letter in my hand for two hours, 
 sitting on this terrace on this bench. Two months after, 
 urged by Octave, by Monsieur de Grandville, and Monsieur 
 de Serizy, my kind friends, and broken by the death of my 
 uncle, I agreed to take a wife. 
 
 "Six months after the revolution of July I received this 
 letter, which concludes the story of this couple : 
 
 " ' MONSIEUR MAURICE : I am dying -though I am a 
 mother perhaps because I am a mother. I have played my 
 part as a wife well ; I have deceived my husband. I have 
 had happiness not less genuine than the tears shed by actresses 
 on the stage. I am dying for society, for the family, for 
 marriage, as the early Christians died for God ! I know not 
 of what I am dying, and I am honestly trying to find out, 
 for I am not perverse ; but I am bent on explaining my 
 malady to you you who brought that heavenly physician 
 your uncle, at whose word I surrendered. He was my di- 
 24
 
 370 HONORINE. 
 
 rector ; I nursed him in his last illness, and he showed me 
 the way to heaven, bidding me persevere in my duty. 
 
 " ' And I have done my duty. 
 
 " ' I do not blame those who forget. I admire them as 
 strong and necessary natures ; but I have the malady of 
 memory ! I have not been able twice to feel that love of the 
 heart which identifies a woman with the man she loves. To 
 the last moment, as you know, I cried to your heart, in the 
 confessional, and to my husband, " Have mercy ! " But 
 there was no mercy. Well, and I am dying, dying with 
 stupendous courage. No courtesan was ever more gay than I. 
 My poor Octave is happy ; I let his love feed on the illusions 
 of my heart. I throw all my powers into this terrible mas- 
 querade ; the actress is applauded, feasted, smothered in 
 flowers; but the invisible rival comes every day to seek its 
 prey a fragment of my life. I am rent and I smile. I smile 
 on two children, but it is the elder, the dead one, that will 
 triumph ! I told you so before. The dead child calls me, 
 and I am going to him. 
 
 " ' The intimacy of marriage without love is a position in 
 which my soul feels degraded every hour. I can never weep 
 or give myself up to dreams but when I am alone. The 
 exigencies of society, the care of my child, and that of 
 Octave's happiness never leave me a moment to refresh 
 myself, to renew my strength, as I could in my solitude. The 
 incessant need for watchfulness startles my heart with constant 
 alarms. I have not succeeded in implanting in my soul the 
 sharp-eared vigilance that lies with facility, and has the eyes 
 of a lynx. It is not the lip of one I love that drinks my 
 tears and kisses my eyelids ; it is a handkerchief that dries 
 them ; my burning eyes are cooled with water, and not with 
 tender lips. It is my soul that acts a part, and that perhaps 
 is why I am dying ! I lock up my grief with so much care 
 that nothing is to be seen of it ; it must eat into something, 
 and it has attacked my life.
 
 HOXOR1HE. ^ 
 
 . "'I said to the doctors, who discovered my secret, " Make 
 me die of some plausible complaint, or I shall drag my hus- 
 band with me." 
 
 '"So it is quite understood by M. Desplein, Bianchon, 
 and myself that I am dying of the softening of some bone 
 which science has fully described. Octave believes that I 
 adore him, do you understand ? So I am afraid lest he should 
 follow me. I now write to beg you in that case to be the 
 little Count's guardian. You will find with this a codicil in 
 which I have expressed my wish ; but do not produce it ex- 
 cepting in case of need, for perhaps I am fatuously vain. My 
 devotion may perhaps leave Octave inconsolable but willing 
 to live. Poor Octave ! I wish him a better wife than I am, 
 for he deserves to be well loved. 
 
 " ' Since my spiritual spy is married, I bid him remember 
 what the florist of the Rue Saint-Maur hereby bequeaths to 
 him as a lesson : May your wife soon be a mother ! Fling 
 her into the vulgarest materialism of household life ; hinder 
 her from cherishing in her heart the mysterious flower of the 
 ideal of that heavenly perfection in which I believed, that 
 enchanted blossom with glorious colors, and whose perfume 
 disgusts us with reality. I am a Saint-Theresa who has not 
 been suffered to live on ecstasy in the depths of a convent, 
 with the Holy Infant, and a spotless winged angel to come 
 and go as she wished. 
 
 " ' You saw me happy among my beloved flowers. I did 
 not tell you all : I saw love budding under your affected mad- 
 ness and I concealed from you my thoughts, my poetry ; I 
 did not admit you to my kingdom of beauty. Well, well ; 
 you will love my child for love of me if he should one day 
 lose his poor father. Keep my secrets as the grave will keep 
 them. Do not mourn for me ; I have been dead this many a 
 day, if Saint-Bernard was right in saying that where there is 
 no more love there is no more life. 
 
 " ' HONORINK.'
 
 372 HONORINE. 
 
 "And the Countess died," said the consul, putting away, 
 the letters and locking the pocket-book. 
 
 "Is the Count still living?" asked the ambassador, "for 
 since the revolution of July he has disappeared from the 
 political stage." 
 
 " Do you remember, Monsieur de Lora," asked the consul- 
 general, turning to him, " having seen me going to the steam- 
 boat with ? ' ' 
 
 " A white-haired man ! an old man ? " said the painter. 
 
 "An old man of forty-five, going in search of health and 
 amusement in Southern Italy. That old man was my poor 
 friend, my patron, passing through Genoa to take leave of me 
 and place his will in my hands. He appoints me his son's 
 guardian. I had no occasion to tell him of Honorine's 
 wishes." 
 
 " Does he suspect himself of murder ? " said Mademoiselle 
 des Touches to the Baron de L'Hostal. 
 
 "He suspects the truth," replied the consul, "and that is 
 what is killing him. I remained on board the steamship that 
 was to take him to Naples until it was out of the roadstead ; 
 a small boat brought me back. We sat for some little time 
 taking leave of each other for ever, I fear. God only knows 
 how much we love the confidant of our love when she who 
 inspired it is no more. 
 
 "'That man,' said Octave, 'holds a charm and wears an 
 aureola.' The Count went to the prow and looked down on 
 the Mediterranean. It happened to be fine, and, moved no 
 doubt by the spectacle, he spoke these last words : ' Ought 
 we not, in the interests of human nature, to inquire what is 
 the irresistible power which leads us to sacrifice an exquisite 
 creature to the most fugitive of all pleasures, and in spite of 
 our reason ? In my conscience I heard cries. Honorine was 
 
 not alone in her anguish. And yet I would have it ! I 
 
 am consumed by remorse. In the Rue Payenne I was dying 
 of the joys I had not ; now I shall die in Italy of the joys I
 
 HONOR1NE. 
 
 0(O 
 
 have had- 
 
 Wherein lay the discord between two natures 
 equally noble, I dare assert?' " 
 
 For some minutes profound silence reigned on the terrace. 
 
 Then the consul, turning to the two women, asked, " Was 
 she virtuous?" 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches arose, took the consul's arm, 
 went a few steps away, and said to him 
 
 " Are not men wrong, too, when they come to us and make 
 a young girl a wife while cherishing at the bottom of their 
 heart some angelic image, and comparing us to those unknown 
 rivals, to perfections often borrowed from a remembrance, 
 and always finding us wanting? " 
 
 " Mademoiselle, you would be right if marriage were based 
 on passion ; and that was the mistake of those two, who will 
 soon be no more. Marriage with heart-deep love on both 
 sides would be paradise." 
 
 Mademoiselle des Touches turned from the consul, and was 
 immediately joined by Claude Vignon, who said in her ear 
 
 " A bit of a coxcomb is M. de L'Hostal." 
 
 "No," replied she, whispering to Claude these words: 
 " for he has not yet guessed that Honorine would have loved 
 him. Oh!" she exclaimed, seeing the consul's wife ap- 
 proaching, " his wife was listening ! Unhappy man ! " 
 
 Eleven was striking by all the clocks and the guests went 
 home on foot along the seashore. 
 
 " Still, that is not life," said Mademoiselle des Touches. 
 "That woman was one of the rarest, and perhaps the most 
 extraordinary exceptions in intellect a pearl ! Life is made 
 up of various incidents, of pain and pleasure alternately. The 
 paradise of Dante, that sublime expression of the ideal, that 
 perpetual blue, is to be found only in the soul ; to ask it of 
 the facts of life is a luxury against which nature protests every 
 hour. To such souls as those the six feet of a cell and the 
 kneeling chair are all they need." 
 
 "You are right," said Leon de Lora; "but good-for-
 
 374 HONORINE. 
 
 nothing as I may be, I cannot help admiring a woman who is 
 capable, as that one was, of living by the side of a studio, 
 under a painter's roof, and never coming down, nor seeing 
 the world, nor dipping her feet in the street mud." 
 
 "Such a thing has been known for a few months," said 
 Claude Vignon, with deep irony. 
 
 "Comtesse Honorine was not unique of her kind," replied 
 the ambassador to Mademoiselle des Touches. "A man, 
 nay, and a politician, a bitter writer, was the object of such a 
 passion ; and the pistol-shot which killed him hit not him 
 alone; the woman who loved lived like a nun ever after." 
 
 "Then there are yet some great souls in this age! " said 
 Camille Maupin, and she stood for some minutes pensively 
 leaning on the balustrade of the quay. 
 
 PARIS, January, 1843.
 
 FACING CANE. 
 
 I ONCE used to live in a little street which probably is not 
 known to you the Rue de Lesdiguieres. It is a turning out 
 of the Rue Saint-Antoine, beginning just opposite a fountain 
 near the Place de la Bastille, and ending in the Rue de la 
 Cerisaie. Love of knowledge stranded me in a garret ; my 
 nights I spent in work, my days in reading at the Orleans' 
 Library, close by. I lived frugally, I had accepted the con- 
 ditions of the monastic life, necessary conditions for every 
 worker, scarcely permitting myself a walk along the Boulevard 
 Bourdon when the weather was fine. One passion only had 
 power to draw me from my studies ; and yet, what was that 
 passion but a study of another kind ? I used to watch the 
 manners and customs of the faubourg, its inhabitants, and 
 their characteristics. As I dressed no better than a working- 
 man and cared nothing for appearances, I did not put them 
 on their guard ; I could join a group and look on while they 
 drove bargains or wrangled among themselves on their way 
 home from work. Even then observation had come to be an 
 instinct with me ; a faculty of penetrating to the soul without 
 neglecting the body ; or, rather, a power of grasping external 
 details so thoroughly that they never detained me for a mo- 
 ment and at once I passed beyond and through them. I 
 could enter into the life of the human creatures whom I 
 watched, just as the dervish in the "Arabian Nights" could 
 pass into any soul or body after pronouncing a certain 
 formula. 
 
 If I met a workingman and his wife in the streets between 
 eleven o'clock and midnight on their way home from the 
 Ambigu Comique, I used to amuse myself by following them 
 from the Boulevard du Pont aux Choux to the Boulevard Beau- 
 
 (375)
 
 376 FACING CANE. 
 
 marchais. The good folk would begin by talking about the 
 play; then from one thing to another they would come to 
 their own affairs, and the mother would walk on and on, 
 heedless of complaint or question from the little one that 
 dragged at her hand, while she and her husband reckoned up 
 the wages to be paid on the morrow, and spent the money in 
 a score of different ways. Then came domestic details, 
 lamentations over the excessive dearness of potatoes, or the 
 length of the winter and the high price of block fuel, together 
 with forcible representations of amounts owing to the baker, 
 ending in an acrimonious dispute, in the course of which such 
 couples reveal their characters in picturesque language. As I 
 listened, I could make their lives mine, I felt their rags on 
 my back, I walked with their gaping shoes on my feet ; their 
 cravings, their needs, had all passed into my soul, or my soul 
 had passed into theirs. It was the dream of a waking man. 
 I waxed hot with them over the foreman's tyranny, or the 
 bad customers that made them call again and again for pay- 
 ment. 
 
 To come out of my own way of life, to be another than 
 myself through a kind of intoxication of the intellectual facul- 
 ties, and to play this game at will, such was my recreation. 
 Whence comes the gift ? Is it a kind of second-sight ? Is it 
 one of those powers which, when abused, ends in madness? 
 I have never tried to discover its source ; I possess it, I use it, 
 that is all. But this it behooves you to know, that in those 
 days I began to resolve the heterogeneous mass known as the 
 People into its elements, and to evaluate its good and bad 
 qualities. Even then I realized the possibilities of my suburb, 
 that hot-bed of revolution in which heroes, inventors, and 
 practical men of science, rogues and scoundrels, virtues and 
 vices, were all packed together by poverty, stifled by necessity, 
 drowned in drink, and consumed by ardent spirits. 
 
 You would not imagine how many adventures, how many 
 tragedies, lie buried away out of sight in that dolorous city ;
 
 FACING CANE. 377 
 
 how much horror and beauty lurks there. No imagination 
 can reach the truth ; no one can go down into that city to 
 make discoveries ; for one must needs descend too low into its 
 depths to see the wonderful scenes of tragedy or comedy 
 enacted there, the masterpieces brought forth by chance. 
 
 I do not know how it is that I have kept the following story 
 so long untold. It is one of the curious things that stop in 
 the bag from which memory draws out stories at haphazard, 
 like numbers in a lottery. There are plenty of tales just as 
 strange and just as well hidden still left ; but some day, you 
 may be sure, their turn will come : 
 
 One day my charwoman, a workingman's wife, came to beg 
 me to honor her sister's wedding with my presence. If you 
 are to realize what this wedding was like, you must know that 
 I paid my charwoman, poor creature, four francs a month ; 
 for which sum she came every morning to make my bed, clean 
 my shoes, brush my clothes, sweep the room, and make ready 
 my breakfast, before going to her day's work of turning the 
 handle of a machine, at which hard drudgery she earned ten 
 sous. Her husband, a cabinet maker, made four francs a 
 day at his trade ; but as they had three children, it was all that 
 they could do to gain an honest living. Yet I have never met 
 with more sterling honesty than in this man and his wife. For 
 five years after I left the quarter, Mere Vaillant used to come 
 on my birthday with a bunch of flowers and some oranges for 
 me s he that had never one franc to put by ! Want had 
 drawn us together. I never could give her more than a ten- 
 franc piece, and often I had to borrow the money for the 
 occasion. This will perhaps explain my promise to go to the 
 wedding ; I hoped to efface myself in these poor people's 
 merry-making. 
 
 The banquet and the ball were given on the first floor above 
 a wineshop in the Rue de Charenton. It was a large room, 
 lighted by oil lamps with tin reflectors, A row of wooden
 
 378 FACING CANE. 
 
 benches ran round the walls, which were black with grime to 
 the height of the tables. Here some eighty persons, all in 
 their Sunday best, tricked out with ribbons and bunches of 
 flowers, all of them on pleasure bent, were dancing away with 
 heated visages as if the world were about to come to an end. 
 Bride and bridegroom exchanged salutes to the general satis- 
 faction, amid a chorus of facetious "Oh, ohs ! " and "Ah, 
 ahs ! " less really indecent than the furtive glances of young 
 girls that have been well brought up. There was something 
 indescribably infectious about the rough, homely enjoyment 
 in all countenances. 
 
 But neither the faces, nor the wedding, nor the wedding- 
 guests have anything to do with my story. Simply bear them 
 in mind as the odd setting to it. Try to realize the scene, 
 the shabby, red-painted wineshop, the smell of wine, the yells 
 of merriment ; try to feel that you are really in the faubourg, 
 among old people, workingmen and poor women giving 
 themselves up to a night's enjoyment. 
 
 The band consisted of a fiddle, a clarionet, and a flageolet 
 from the Blind Asylum. The three were paid seven francs in 
 a lump sum for the night. For the money, they gave us, not 
 Beethoven certainly, nor yet Rossini ; they played as they 
 had the will and the skill ; and every one in the room (with 
 charming delicacy of feeling) refrained from finding fault. 
 The music made such a brutal assault on the drum of my ear, 
 that after a first glance round the room my eyes fell at once 
 upon the blind trio, and the sight of their uniform inclined 
 me from the first to indulgence. As the artists stood in a 
 window recess, it was difficult to distinguish their faces except 
 at close quarters, and I kept away at first ; but when I came 
 nearer (I hardly know why) I thought of nothing else ; the 
 wedding-party and the music ceased to exist, my curiosity was 
 aroused to the highest pitch, for my soul passed into the body 
 of the clarionet player. 
 
 The fiddle and the flageolet were neither of them interest-
 
 FACING CANE. 3711 
 
 ing ; their faces were of the ordinary type among the blind- 
 earnest, attentive, and grave. Not so the clarionet player ; 
 any artist or philosopher must have come to a stop at the sight 
 of him. 
 
 Picture to yourself a plaster-mask of Dante in the red lamp- 
 light, with a forest of silver-white hair above the brows. 
 Blindness intensified the expression of bitterness and sorrow 
 in that grand face of his ; the dead eyes were lighted up, as it 
 were, by a thought within that broke forth like a burning 
 flame, lit by one sole insatiable desire, written large in vigor- 
 ous characters upon an arching brow scored across with as many 
 lines as an old stone-wall. 
 
 The old man was playing at random, without the slightest 
 regard for time or tune. His fingers traveled mechanically 
 over the worn keys of his instrument ; he did not trouble 
 himself over a false note now and again (a canard, in the lan- 
 guage of the orchestra), neither did the dancers, nor, for that 
 matter, did my old Italian's acolytes ; for I had made up my 
 mind that he must be an Italian, and an Italian he was. 
 There was something great, something too of the despot about 
 this old Homer bearing within him an " Odyssey" doomed 
 to oblivion. The greatness was so real that it triumphed 
 over his abject position ; the despotism so much a part of 
 him, that it rose above his poverty. 
 
 There are violent passions which drive a man to good or 
 evil, making of him a hero or a convict ; of these there was 
 not one that had failed to leave its traces on the grandly 
 hewn, lividly Italian face. You trembled lest a flash of 
 thought should suddenly light up the deep sightless hollows 
 under the grizzled brows, as you might fear to see brigands 
 with torches and poniards in the mouth of a cavern. Yoi 
 felt that there was a lion in that cage of flesh, a lion spei 
 with useless raging against iron bars. The fires of despai 
 had burned themselves out into ashes, the lava had 
 but the tracks of the flames, the wreckage, and a little smoke
 
 380 FACING CANE. 
 
 remained to bear witness to the violence of the eruption, the 
 ravages of the fire. These images crowded up at the sight of 
 the clarionet player, till the thoughts now grown cold in his 
 face burned hot within my soul. 
 
 The fiddle and the flageolet took a deep interest in bottles 
 and glasses ; at the end of a country dance they hung their 
 instruments from a button on their reddish-colored coats, and 
 stretched out their hands to a little table set in the window 
 recess to hold their liquor supply. Each time they did so 
 they held out a full glass to the Italian, who could not reach 
 it for himself because he sat in front of the table, and each 
 time the Italian thanked them with a friendly nod. All their 
 movements were made with the precision which always amazes 
 one so much at the Blind Asylum. You could almost think 
 that they can see. I came nearer to listen ; but when I stood 
 beside them, they evidently guessed I was not a workingman 
 and kept themselves to themselves. 
 
 "What part of the world do you come from, you that are 
 playing the clarionet? " 
 
 "From Venice," he said, with a trace of Italian accent. 
 
 " Have you always been blind, or did it come on after- 
 ward ?" 
 
 "Afterward," he answered quickly. "A cursed gutta 
 serena." 
 
 " Venice is a fine city ; I have always had a fancy to go 
 there." 
 
 The old man's face lighted up, the wrinkles began to work, 
 he was violently excited. 
 
 "If I went with you, you would not lose your time," he 
 said. 
 
 " Don't talk about Venice to our doge," put in the fiddle, 
 "or you will start him off, and he has stowed away a couple 
 of bottles as it is has the prince ! " 
 
 "Come, strike up, Daddy Canard ! " added the flageolet, 
 and the three began to play. But while they executed the four
 
 FACING CANE. Ml 
 
 figures of a square dance, the Venetian was scenting my 
 thoughts j he guessed the great interest I felt in him. The 
 dreary dispirited look died out of his face, some mysterious 
 hope brightened his features and slid like a blue flame over 
 his wrinkles. He smiled and wiped his brow, that fearless, 
 terrible brow of his, and at length grew gay like a man 
 mounted on his hobby. 
 
 "How old are you?" I asked. 
 
 "Eighty-two." 
 
 " How long have you been blind?" 
 
 " For very nearly fifty years," he said, and there was that 
 in his tone which told me that his regret was for something 
 more than his lost sight, for great power of which he had 
 been robbed. 
 
 " Then why do they call you ' the doge? ' " I asked. 
 
 " Oh, it is a joke. I am a Venetian noble and I might 
 have been a doge like any one else." 
 
 * ' What is your name ? ' ' 
 
 " Here, in Paris, I am Pere Canet," he said. " It was the 
 only way of spelling my name on the register. But in Italy I 
 am Marco Facino Cane, Prince of Varese." 
 
 " What, are you descended from the great condottierc Facino 
 Cane, whose lands won by the sword were taken by the Dukes 
 of Milan?" 
 
 " Of a truth," returned he. "His son's life was not safe 
 under the Visconti ; he fled to Venice, and his name was 
 inscribed on the Golden Book. And now neither Cane nor 
 Golden Book is in existence." His gesture startled me; it 
 told of patriotism extinguished and weariness of life. 
 
 " But if you were once a Venetian senator, you must have 
 been a wealthy man. How did you lose your fortune ? " 
 
 " In evil days." 
 
 He waved away the glass of wine handed to him by the 
 flageolet, and bowed his head. He had no heart to drink. 
 These details were not calculated to extinguish my curiosity.
 
 382 FACING CANE. 
 
 As the three ground out the music of the square dance I 
 gazed at the old Venetian noble, thinking thoughts that set a 
 young man's mind afire at the age of twenty. I saw Venice 
 and the Adriatic ; I saw her ruin in the ruin of the face before 
 me. I walked to and fro in that city, so beloved of her citi- 
 zens; I went from the Rialto Bridge, along the Grand Canal, 
 and from the Riva degli Schiavoni to the Lido, returning to 
 St. Mark's, that cathedral so unlike all others in its sublimity. 
 I looked up at the windows of the Casa Doro, each with its 
 different sculptured ornaments; I saw old palaces rich in 
 marbles, saw all the wonders which a student beholds with 
 the more sympathetic eyes because visible things take their 
 color of his fancy, and the sight of realities cannot rob him 
 of the glory of his dreams. Then I traced back a course of 
 life for this latest scion of a race of condottieri, tracking 
 down his misfortunes, looking for the reasons of the deep 
 moral and physical degradation out of which the lately re- 
 vived sparks of greatness and nobility shone so much the 
 more brightly. My ideas, no doubt, were passing through 
 his mind, for all processes of thought-communications are far 
 more swift, I think, in blind people, because their blindness 
 compels them to concentrate their attention. I had not long 
 to wait for proof that we were in sympathy in this way. 
 Facino Cane left off playing and came up to me. " Let us 
 go out! " he said; his tones thrilled through me like an 
 electric shock. I gave him my arm, and we went. 
 
 Outside on the street he said, " Will you take me back to 
 Venice ? will you be my guide ? Will you put faith in me ? 
 You shall be richer than ten of the richest houses in Amster- 
 dam or London, richer than Rothschild ; in short, you shall 
 have the fabulous wealth of the 'Arabian Nights.' " 
 
 The man was mad, I thought ; but in his voice there was a 
 potent something which I obeyed. I allowed him to lead, 
 and he went in the direction of the Fosses de la Bastille, as 
 if he could see ; walking till he reached a lonely spot down
 
 FACINO CANE. 3^ 
 
 by the river, just where the bridge has since been built at the 
 junction of the Canal Saint-Martin and the Seine. Here he 
 sat down on a stone, and I, sitting opposite to him, saw the 
 old man's hair gleaming like threads of silver in the moon, 
 light. The stillness was scarcely troubled by tne sound of ihe 
 far-off thunder of traffic along the boulevards ; the clear night 
 air and everything about us combined to make a strangely 
 unreal scene. 
 
 " You talk of millions to a young man," I began, "and 
 do you think that he will shrink from enduring any number 
 of hardships to gain them ? Are you not laughing at me?" 
 
 " May I die unshriven," he cried vehemently, " if all that 
 I am about to tell you is not true. I was one-and-twenty 
 years old, like you at this moment. I was rich, I was hand- 
 some, and a noble by birth. I began with the first madness 
 of all with love. I loved as no one can love nowadays. 
 I have hidden myself in a chest, at the risk of a dagger 
 thrust, for nothing more than the promise of a kiss. To 
 die for her it seemed to me to be a whole life in itself. 
 In 1 760 I fell in love with a lady of the Vendramin family ; 
 she was eighteen years old, and married to a Sagredo, one of 
 the richest senators, a man of thirty, madly in love with his 
 wife. My mistress and I were guiltless as cherubs when the 
 sposo caught us together talking of love. He was armed, I 
 was not, but he missed me ; I sprang upon him and killed 
 him with my two hands, wringing his neck as if he had been 
 a chicken. I wanted Bianca to fly with me ; but she would 
 not. That is the way with women ! So I went alone. I 
 was condemned to death, and my property was confiscated 
 and made over to my next-of-kin ; but I had carried off my 
 diamonds, five of Titian's pictures taken down from their 
 frames and rolled up, and all my gold. 
 
 " I went to Milan, no one molested me, my affair in no- 
 wise interested the state. One small observation before I go 
 further," he continued, after a pause, "whether it is true or
 
 384 fACINO CANE. 
 
 not that the mother's fancies at the time of conception or in 
 the months before birth can influence her child, this much is 
 certain, my mother during her pregnancy had a passion for 
 gold, and I am the victim of a monomania, of a craving for 
 gold which must be gratified. Gold is so much a necessity 
 of life for me that I have never been without it ; I must have 
 gold to toy with and finger. As a young man I always wore 
 jewelry, and carried two or three hundred ducats about with 
 me wherever I went." 
 
 He drew a couple of gold coins from his pocket and showed 
 them to me as he spoke. 
 
 " I can tell by instinct when gold is near. Blind as I am, 
 I stop before the jewelers' store windows. That passion was 
 the ruin of me ; I took to gambling to play with gold. I 
 was not a cheat I was cheated ; I ruined myself. I lost all 
 my fortune. Then the longing to see Bianca once more pos- 
 sessed me like a frenzy. I stole back to Venice and found 
 her again. For six months I was happy ; she hid me in her 
 house and fed me. I thought thus deliciously to finish my 
 days. But the Provveditore courted her, and guessed that he 
 had a rival ; we in Italy can feel that. He played the spy 
 upon us, and surprised us together in bed, base wretch ! You 
 may judge what a fight for life it was ; I did not kill him out- 
 right, but I wounded him dangerously. 
 
 " That adventure broke my luck. I have never found 
 another Bianca ; I have known great pleasures ; but among 
 the most celebrated women of the court of Louis XV. I never 
 found my beloved Venetian's charm, her love, her great 
 qualities. 
 
 " The Provveditore called his servants, the palace was sur- 
 rounded and entered. I fought for my life that I might die 
 beneath Bianca's eyes; Bianca helped me to kill the Prov- 
 veditore. Once before she had refused flight with me ; but 
 after six months of happiness she wished only to die with me, 
 and received several thrusts. I was entangled in a great
 
 FACING CANE. 
 
 cloak that they flung over me, carried down to a gondola and 
 hurried to the Pozzi dungeons. I was twenty-two years old ; 
 I gripped the hilt of my broken sword so hard that they 
 could only have taken it from me by cutting off my hand at 
 the wrist. A curious chance, or rather the instinct of self- 
 preservation, led me to hide the fragment of the blade in a 
 corner of my cell, as if it might still be of use. They tended 
 me ; none of my wounds were serious. At two-and-twenty 
 one can recover from anything. I was to lose my head on 
 the scaffold. I shammed illness to gain time. It seemed to 
 me that the canal lay just outside my cell. I thought to 
 make my escape by boring a hole through the wall and swim- 
 ming for my life. I based my hopes on the following rea- 
 sons: 
 
 " Every time that the gaoler came with my food there was 
 light enough to read directions written on the walls ' Side 
 of the Palace,' 'Side of the Canal,' 'Side of the Vaults.' 
 At last I saw a design in this, but I did not trouble myself 
 much about the meaning of it ; the actual incomplete condi- 
 tion of the Ducal Palace accounted for it. The longing to 
 regain my freedom gave me something like genius. Groping 
 about with my fingers, I spelled out an Arabic inscription on 
 the wall. The author of the work informed those to come 
 after him that he had loosened two stones in the lowest course 
 of masonry and hollowed out eleven feet beyond under- 
 ground. As he went on with his excavations, it became neces- 
 sary to spread the fragments of stone and mortar over the 
 floor of his cell. But even if gaolers and inquisitors had not 
 felt sure that the structure of the buildings was such that no 
 watch was needed below, the level of the Pozzi dungeons 
 being several steps below the threshold, it was possible grad- 
 ually to raise the earthen floor without exciting the warder's 
 suspicions. 
 
 "The tremendous labor had profited nothing nothing at 
 least to him that began it. The very fact that it was left
 
 386 FACING CANE. 
 
 unfinished told of the unknown worker's death. Unless his 
 devoted toil was to be wasted for ever, his successor must 
 have some knowledge of Arabic, but I had studied Oriental 
 languages at the Armenian convent. A few words written 
 on the back of the stone recorded the unhappy man's fate ; 
 he had fallen a victim to his great possessions ; Venice had 
 coveted his wealth and seized upon it. A whole month went 
 by before I obtained any result ; but whenever I felt my 
 strength failing as I worked, I heard the chink of gold, I saw 
 gold spread before me, I was dazzled by diamonds. Ah ! wait. 
 
 "One night my blunted steel struck on wood. I whetted 
 the fragment of my blade and cut a hole ; I crept on my belly 
 like a serpent ; I worked naked and mole-fashion, my hands 
 in front of me, using the stone itself to gain a purchase. I 
 was to appear before my judges in two days' time ; I made a 
 final effort, and that night I bored through the wood and felt 
 that there was space beyond. 
 
 "Judge of my surprise when I applied my eye to the hole. 
 I was in the ceiling of a vault, heaps of gold were dimly 
 visible in the faint light. The doge himself and one of the 
 Ten stood below ; I could hear their voices and sufficient of 
 their talk to know that this was the secret treasury of the 
 republic, full of the gifts of doges and reserves of booty called 
 the Tithe of Venice from the spoils of military expeditions. 
 I was saved ! 
 
 " When the gaoler came I proposed that he should help me 
 to escape and fly with me, and that we should take with us as 
 much as we could carry. There was no reason for hesitation ; 
 he agreed. Vessels were about to sail for the Levant. All 
 possible precautions were taken. Bianca furthered the schemes 
 which I suggested to my accomplice. It was arranged that 
 Bianca should only rejoin us in Smyrna for fear of exciting 
 suspicion. In a single night the hole was enlarged and we 
 dropped down into the secret treasury of Venice. 
 
 "What a night that was! Four great casks full of gold
 
 FACING CANE. 3g; 
 
 stood there. In the outer room silver pieces were piled in 
 heaps, leaving a gangway between by which to cross the 
 chamber. Banks of silver coins surrounded the walls to the 
 height of five feet. 
 
 " I thought the gaoler would go mad. He sang and 
 laughed and danced and capered among the gold, till I 
 threatened to strangle him if he made a sound or wasted time. 
 In his joy he did not notice at first the table where the dia- 
 monds lay. I flung myself upon these, and deftly filled the 
 pockets of my sailor's jacket and trousers with the stones. 
 Ah ! heaven, I did not take the third of them. Gold ingots 
 lay underneath the table. I persuaded my companion to fill 
 as many bags as we could carry with the gold, and made him 
 understand that this was our only chance of escaping detec- 
 tion abroad. 
 
 " ' Pearls, rubies, and diamonds might be recognized,' I 
 told him. 
 
 " Covetous though we were, we could not possibly take 
 more than two thousand livres weight of gold, which meant 
 six journeys across the prison to the gondola. The sentinel 
 at the water-gate was bribed with a bag containing ten livres 
 weight of gold ; and as for the two gondoliers, they believed 
 they were serving the republic. At daybreak we set out. 
 
 " Once upon the open sea, when I thought of that night, 
 when I recollected all that I had felt, when the vision of that 
 great hoard arose before my eyes, and I computed that I had 
 left behind thirty millions in silver, twenty in gold, and 
 many more in diamonds, pearls, and rubies then a sort of 
 madness began to work in me. I had the gold fever. 
 
 " We landed at Smyrna and took ship at once for France. 
 As we went on board the French vessel, heaven favored me 
 by ridding me of my accomplice. I did not think at the 
 time of all the possible consequences of this mishap and re- 
 joiced not a little. We were so completely unnerved by all 
 that had happened that we were stupid, we said not a word
 
 388 FACING CANE. 
 
 to each other, we waited until it should be safe to enjoy our- 
 selves at our ease. It was not wonderful that the rogue's 
 head was dizzy. You shall see how heavily God has punished 
 me. 
 
 " I never knew a quiet moment until I had sold two-thirds 
 of my diamonds in London or Amsterdam, and held the value 
 of my gold dust in a negotiable shape. For five years I hid 
 myself in Madrid, then in 1770 I came to Paris with a Span- 
 ish name, and led as brilliant a life as may be. Then, in the 
 midst of my pleasures, as I enjoyed a fortune of six millions, 
 I was smitten with blindness. I do not doubt but that my 
 infirmity was brought on by my sojourn in the cell and my 
 work in the stone, if, indeed, my peculiar faculty for ' seeing ' 
 gold was not an abuse of the power of sight which predes- 
 tined me to lose it. Bianca was dead. 
 
 " At this time I had fallen in love with a woman to whom 
 I thought to link my fate. I had told her the secret of my 
 name ; she belonged to a powerful family ; she was a friend 
 of Madame du Barry ; I hoped everything from the favor 
 shown me by Louis XV. ; I trusted in her. Acting on her 
 advice I went to England to consult a famous oculist, and 
 after a stay of several months in London she deserted me in 
 Hyde Park. She had stripped me of all that I had, and left 
 me without resource. Nor could I make complaint, for to 
 disclose my name was to lay myself open to the vengeance of 
 my native city ; I could appeal to no one for aid, I feared 
 Venice. The woman put spies about me to exploit my in- 
 firmity. I spare you a tale of adventures worthy of Gil Bias. 
 Your revolution followed. For two whole years that creature 
 kept me at the Bicetre as a lunatic, then she gained admit- 
 tance for me at the Blind Asylum ; there was no help for it, 
 I went. I could not kill her ; I could not see ; and I was so 
 poor that I could not pay another arm. 
 
 "If only I had taken counsel with my gaoler, Benedetto 
 Carpi, before I lost him, I might have known the exact post-
 
 FACING CAXE. , M 
 
 tion of my cell, I might have found my way back to the treas- 
 ury and returned to Venice when Napoleon crushed the re- 
 public 
 
 " Still, blind as I am, let us go back to Venice ! I shall 
 find the door of my prison, I shall see the gold through the 
 prison walls, I shall hear it where it lies under the water ; for 
 the events which brought about the fall of Venice befell in 
 such a way that the secret of the hoard must have perished 
 with Bianca's brother, Vendramin, a doge to whom I looked 
 to make my peace with the Ten. I sent memorials to the 
 First Consul ; I proposed an agreement with the Emperor of 
 Austria ; every one sent me about my business for a lunatic. 
 Come ! we will go to Venice ; let us set out as beggars, we 
 shall come back millionaires. We will buy back my estates, 
 and you shall be my heir ! You shall be Prince of Varese ! " 
 
 My head was swimming. For me his confidences reached 
 the proportions of tragedy ; at the sight of that white head 
 of his and beyond it the black water in the trenches of the 
 bastile lying still as a canal in Venice, I had no words to 
 answer him. Facino Cane thought, no doubt, that I judged 
 him, as the rest had done, with a disdainful pity; his gesture 
 expressed the whole philosophy of despair. 
 
 Perhaps his story had taken him back to happy days and to 
 Venice. He caught up his clarionet and made plaintive 
 music, playing a Venetian boat-song with something of his 
 lost skill, the skill of the young patrician lover. It was a sort 
 of Super flumina Babylonis. Tears filled my eyes. Any be- 
 lated persons walking along the Boulevard Bourdon must have 
 stood still to listen to an exile's last prayer, a last cry of regret 
 for a lost name, mingled with memories of Bianca. But gold 
 soon gained the upper hand, the fatal passion quenched the 
 light of youth. 
 
 " I see it always," he said, " dreaming or waking, I see it; 
 and as I pace to and fro, I pace in the treasury, and the dia- 
 monds sparkle. I am not so blind as you think ; gold and
 
 390 FACING CANE. 
 
 diamonds light up my night, the night of the last Facino Cane, 
 for my title passes to the Memmi. My God ! the murderer's 
 punishment was not long delayed! Ave Maria," and he re- 
 peated several prayers that I did not heed. 
 
 " We will go to Venice ! " I said, when he arose. 
 
 " Then I have found a man ! " he cried, with his face on 
 fire. 
 
 I gave him my arm and went home with him. We reached 
 the gates of the Blind Asylum just as some of the wedding- 
 guests were returning along the street, shouting at the top of 
 their voices. He squeezed my hand. 
 
 " Shall we start to-morrow? " he asked. 
 
 "As soon as we can get some money." 
 
 " But we can go on foot. I will beg. I am strong, and you 
 feel young when you see gold before you." 
 
 Facino Cane died before the winter was out, after a two 
 months' illness. The poor man had taken a chill. 
 
 PARIS, March, 1836.
 
 
 I 
 
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 1 1 
 
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