The Deputy of Arcis by Honore de Balzac (page 6)

The latter, when he took leave of Madame de Rastignac, asked on what day he might have the honor of presenting his wife.

“Why, any day,” replied the countess, “but particularly on Fridays.”

IV

A CATECHISM

Rastignac called on Madame de l’Estorade the next day at the hour named to him by his wife. Like all those present at the scene produced by Monsieur de Ronquerolles, the minister had been struck by the emotion shown by the countess, and, without stopping to analyze the nature of the sentiment she might feel for the man who had saved her child, he was convinced of her serious interest in him.

By the suddenness and the masterly stroke of his election, Sallenauve had become an object of strong interest to the minister,–all the more because up to the last moment his candidacy was not seriously considered. It was now known that in the preparatory meeting he had given proofs of talent. To his active and dangerous party, which had but few representatives in the Chamber, he might become an organ that would echo far. By his peculiar position of birth and fortune, whatever might be the truth of it, he was one who could do without the favors of government; and all information obtained about him went to show that he was a man of grave character and opinions, who could not be turned from his chosen way.

On the other hand, the cloud upon his life might at a given moment serve to neutralize his honor; and Rastignac, while rejecting the proposal of de Trailles and Franchessini to put the mystery into the hands of the police, did not himself renounce a means which, dangerous as it seemed to him, he might use if occasion warranted.

In this situation Madame de l’Estorade could be useful to him in two ways. Through her he could meet the new deputy accidentally, without appearing to seek him, and thus study him at his ease, in order to know if he had a vulnerable point accessible to persuasion. And, secondly, if he found him unpersuadable, he could let Madame de l’Estorade know in confidence of the secret inquiry about to be carried on into Sallenauve’s antecedents, which, conveyed by her to the deputy, would have the effect of making him cautious and, consequently, less aggressive.

However, his immediate plan suffered some modification; for Madame de l’Estorade was not at home, and he was just leaving the house when Monsieur de l’Estorade returned on foot.

“My wife will be here soon,” he said; “she has gone to Ville d’Avray with her daughter, and Monsieur and Madame Octave de Camps. Monsieur Marie-Gaston, one of our good friends,–you know, the charming poet who married Louise de Chaulieu,–has a country-house in that neighborhood, where his wife died. He returned there to-day for the first time since his misfortune; and these ladies have had the charity to meet him there, and so lessen the first shock of his recollections.”

“I can therefore hardly hope to see her to-day; and it was to her, and not to you, my dear count, that I came to offer my excuses for the scene of last night which seemed to annoy her much. Say to her, if you please, that I will take another opportunity of doing so,–By the bye,” he added, “the election of your friend Sallenauve is making a devilish talk; the king spoke to me about it this morning, and I did not please him by repeating the favorable opinion you expressed of the new deputy last night.”

“Well, but you know the tribune is a reef on which reputations are often wrecked. I am sorry you represented Sallenauve to the king as being on intimate terms with us. I have nothing to do with elections; but I may say that I did all I could to dissuade this objectionable candidate from presenting himself.”

“Of course the king cannot blame you for merely knowing an Opposition deputy.”

“No; but last night, in your salon, you seemed to imply that my wife was much interested in him. I did not wish to contradict you before witnesses; besides, really, one can’t repudiate a man to whom we are under a great obligation. But my wife, ever since the day he was nominated, feels that our gratitude has become a burden. She was saying to me the other day that we had better let the acquaintance die out.”

“Not, I hope, until you have done me a service by means of it,” said Rastignac.

“At your orders, my dear minister, in all things.”

“I want to meet this man and judge him for myself. To send him an invitation to dinner would be useless; under the eye of his party, he would not dare accept it, or if he did, he would be on his guard, and I should not see him as he is. But if I met him accidentally, I should find him without armor, and I could feel for his vulnerable spots.”

“To invite you both to dine with me might be open to the same objection; but I could, one of these evenings, make sure of a visit from him, and let you know–Stop!” cried Monsieur de l’Estorade; “a bright idea has come to me.”

“If it is really bright,” thought Rastignac, “it is fortunate I did not meet the wife.”

“We are just about to give a children’s ball,–a fancy of my little girl, to which Madame de l’Estorade, weary of refusing, has at last consented; the child wishes it to be given in celebration of her rescue. Of course, therefore, the rescuer is a necessary and integral part of the affair. Come to the ball, and I promise you noise enough to cover all investigations of your man; and certainly premeditation will never be suspected at such a meeting.”

“You are too good,” replied Rastignac, pressing the peer’s hand affectionately. “Perhaps we had better say nothing about it to Madame de l’Estorade; a mere hint given to our man would put him on his guard, and I want to spring upon him suddenly, like a tiger on his prey.”

“That’s understood–complete surprise to everybody.”

“Adieu, then,” said Rastignac; “I shall make the king laugh to-morrow at the notion of children plotting politics.”

“Ah!” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade, philosophically, “but isn’t that how life itself is carried on?–great effects from little causes.”

Rastignac had scarcely departed before Madame de l’Estorade returned with Nais and Monsieur and Madame de Camps.

“My dear,” said her husband, “you have just missed a charming visitor.”

“Who was it?” asked the countess, indifferently.

“The minister of Public Works, who came to make you his excuses. He noticed with regret the disagreeable impression made upon you by the theories of that scamp de Ronquerolles.”

“He has taken a good deal of trouble for a very small matter,” said Madame de l’Estorade, not sharing her husband’s enthusiasm.

“But all the same,” he replied, “it was very gracious of him to think of your feelings.” Then, in order to change the conversation, he asked Madame de Camps about their visit.

“Oh!” she replied, “the place is enchanting; you have no idea of its elegance and _comfort_.”

“How about Gaston?” asked Monsieur de l’Estorade.

“He was, I won’t say very calm,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, “but at any rate master of himself. His condition satisfied me all the more because the day had begun by a serious annoyance to him.”

“What was it?”

“Monsieur de Sallenauve could not come with him,” replied Nais, taking upon herself to reply.

She was one of those children brought up in a hot-house, who put themselves forward much oftener than they ought to do.

“Nais,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “go to Mary and tell her to do up your hair.”

The child understood perfectly well that she was sent away for speaking improperly, and she made a face as she left the room.

“This morning,” said Madame de l’Estorade as soon as Nais had shut the door, “Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve were to start together for Ville d’Avray, and meet us there, as agreed upon. But last night they had a visit from that organist who took such an active part in the election. He came to hear the Italian housekeeper sing and judge if she were ready to go upon the stage.”

“Yes, yes,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “of course Sallenauve wants to get rid of her now that he has ceased to make statues.”

“Just so,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, with a slight tone of asperity. “In order to put a stop to all calumny Monsieur de Sallenauve wishes her to carry out her idea of going on the stage; but he wanted, in the first place, an opinion he could trust. Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve accompanied the organist to Saint-Sulpice, where, during the services of the Month of Mary, the Italian woman sings every evening. After hearing her, the organist said she had a fine contralto that was worth, at the lowest, sixty thousand francs a year.”

“Just the revenue of my iron-works,” remarked Monsieur de Camps.

“That evening,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “Monsieur de Sallenauve told his housekeeper the opinion given of her talent, and with great kindness and delicacy let her know that she must now carry out her intention of supporting herself in that way. ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘I think the time has come. We will talk of it later’; and she stopped the conversation. This morning when the breakfast hour came, there was no sign of her. Thinking she must be ill, Monsieur de Sallenauve sent an old charwoman who does the rough work of the house to her room. No answer. Much disturbed, Monsieur Gaston and Monsieur de Sallenauve went themselves to see what it meant. After knocking and calling in vain, they determined to open the door, the key of which was outside. In the room no housekeeper! but in place of her a letter addressed to Monsieur de Sallenauve, in which she said that finding herself an embarrassment to him, she had retired to the house of one of her friends, thanking him for all his goodness to her.”

“The bird has found its wings,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “and takes flight.”

“That is not Monsieur de Sallenauve’s idea,” replied the countess; “he does not believe in such ingratitude. He is confident that, feeling herself a burden to him and yielding to the desperation which is natural to her, she felt obliged to leave his house without giving him a chance in any manner to provide for her future.”

“A good riddance!” remarked Monsieur de l’Estorade.

“Neither Monsieur de Sallenauve nor Monsieur Gaston takes that stoical view of it. In view of the headstrong nature of the woman, they fear some violence to herself, which, as we know, she once attempted. Or else they dread some evil adviser. The charwoman states that two or three visits have been lately made at the house by a lady of middle age, richly dressed, in a carriage, whose manner was singular, and who seemed to desire secrecy in speaking with Luigia.”

“Some charitable woman, of course,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “the runaway is given to piety.”

“At any rate the truth must be discovered, and it was that which kept Monsieur de Sallenauve from accompanying Monsieur Gaston to Ville d’Avray.”

“Well,” remarked Monsieur de l’Estorade, “in spite of their respective virtue, it is my opinion he holds by her.”

“In any case,” returned Madame de l’Estorade, emphasizing the word, “she does not _hold_ by him.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Madame de Camps; “to avoid a man is often the greatest proof of love.”

Madame de l’Estorade looked at her friend with a vexed air, and a slight tinge of color came into her cheeks. But no one took notice of it, for at this moment the servant threw open the door and announced dinner.

After dinner, the theatre was proposed; that is one of the amusements that Parisians miss the most in the provinces. Monsieur Octave de Camps, coming from his “villanous iron-works,” as Madame de l’Estorade called them, had arrived in Paris eager for this pleasure, which his wife, more serious and sober, did not enjoy to the same extent. Therefore, when Monsieur de Camps proposed going to the Porte-Saint-Martin to see a fairy piece then much in vogue, Madame Octave replied:–

“Neither Madame de l’Estorade nor I have the least desire to go out this evening; we are very tired with our expedition. Take Rene and Nais; they will enjoy the fairies far more than we.”

The two children awaited in deep anxiety the permission which Madame de l’Estorade finally granted; and a few moments later the two friends, left to themselves, prepared for an evening of comfortable talk.

“I am not at home to any one,” said Madame de l’Estorade to Lucas, as soon as her family had departed.

“Now that we are alone,” said Madame de Camps, “I shall proceed to blows; I have not travelled two hundred miles to wrap up in cotton-wool the truth I have come to tell you.”

“Ready to hear it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing.

“Your last letter, my dear, simply frightened me.”

“Why? Because I told you I was trying to keep a man at a distance?”

“Yes. Why keep him at a distance? If Monsieur de Camps or Monsieur Gaston or Monsieur de Rastignac were to make a practice of coming here habitually, would you trouble yourself about them?”

“No; but they have not the same claim upon me: it is that I fear.”

“Tell me, do you think Monsieur de Sallenauve loves you?”

“No; I am now quite sure to the contrary; and I also think that on my side–“

“We’ll talk about that presently; now I want to ask if you desire Monsieur de Sallenauve to love you?”

“Heaven forbid!”

“Well, then, the best possible way to make him do so is to wound his self-love, and show yourself unjust and ungrateful to him; you will only force him to think the more of you.”

“But, my dear friend, isn’t that a very far-fetched observation?”

“Did you never observe that men are more taken by our snubs than by our caresses? Severity fixes their attention upon us.”

“If that were so, all the men we disdain and never think of would sigh for us.”

“Oh! my dear, don’t make me talk such nonsense. To take fire, a man must have some degree of combustibility; and if that _other_ person is lost to him forever, why shouldn’t he, as you said yourself, ricochet upon you?”

“That other person is not lost to him; he expects, more than ever, to find her by the help of a very clever seeker, the mother-superior of a convent at Arcis.”

“Very good; then why employ the delay in holding him at arm’s-length,–a proceeding which will only draw him towards you?”

“My dear moralist, I don’t admit your theory in the least. As for Monsieur de Sallenauve, he will be much too busy with his duties in the Chamber to think of me. Besides, he is a man who is full of self-respect; he will be mortified by my manner, which will seem to him both ungrateful and unjust. If I try to put two feet of distance between us, he will put four; you may rely on that.”

“And _you_, my dear?” asked Madame de Camps.

“How do you mean?–I?”

“You who are not busy, who have no Chamber to occupy your mind; you who have, I will agree, a great deal of self-respect, but who know as little about the things of the heart as the veriest school-girl,–what will become of you under the dangerous system you are imposing upon yourself?”

“If I don’t love him when near, I shall certainly love him still less at a distance.”

“So that when you see him take his ostracism coolly, your self-love as a woman will not be piqued.”

“Certainly not; that is precisely the result I desire.”

“And if you find, on the contrary, that he complains of you, or if he does not complain, that he suffers from your treatment, will your conscience tell you absolutely nothing?”

“It will tell me that I am doing right, and that I could not do otherwise.”

“And if success attends him and fame with its hundred voices talks of him, how will you think of him?”

“As I think of Monsieur Thiers and Monsieur Berryer.”

“And Nais, who adores him and will probably say, the first time he dines with you, ‘Ah! mamma, how well he talks!’–“

“If you are going to argue on the chatter of a child–“

“And Monsieur de l’Estorade, who already irritates you? He is beginning to-day to sacrifice him to the spirit of party; shall you silence him every time he makes some malevolent insinuation about Monsieur de Sallenauve, and denies his honor and his talent?–you know the judgment people make on those who do not think as we do.”

“In short,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “you are trying to make me admit that the surest way to think of a person is to put him out of sight.”

“Listen to me, my dear,” said Madame de Camps, with a slight touch of gravity. “I have read and re-read your letters. You were there your own self, more natural and less quibbling than you are now, and an impression has remained upon my mind: it is that Monsieur de Sallenauve has touched your heart, though he may not have entered it.”

Madame de l’Estorade made a gesture of denial, but the confessor went on:–

“I know that idea provokes you; you can’t very well admit to me what you have studiously denied to yourself. But what is, is. We don’t say of a man, ‘A sort of magnetism issues from him, one feels his eye without meeting it’; we don’t cry out, ‘I am invulnerable on the side of love,’ without having had some prickings of it.”

“But so many things have happened since I wrote that nonsense.”

“True, he was only a sculptor then, and before long he may be a minister,–not like Monsieur de Rastignac, but like our great poet, Canalis.”

“I like sermons with definite deductions,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a touch of impatience.

“That is what Vergniaud said to Robespierre on the 31st of May, and I reply, with Robespierre, Yes, I’ll draw my conclusion; and it is against your self-confidence as a woman, who, having reached the age of thirty-two without a suspicion of what love is, cannot admit that at this late date she may be subjected to the common law.”

“But what I want is a practical conclusion,” said Madame de l’Estorade, tapping her foot.

“My practical conclusion,–here it is,” replied Madame Octave. “If you will not persist in the folly of swimming against the current, I see no danger whatever in your being submerged. You are strong; you have principles and religion; you adore your children; you love Monsieur de l’Estorade, their father, in them. With all that ballast you cannot sink.”

“Well?” said Madame de l’Estorade, interrogatively.

“Well, there is no need to have recourse to violent measures, the success of which is very problematical. Remain as you are; build no barricades when no one attacks you. Don’t excite tempests of heart and conscience merely to pacify your conscience and quiet your heart, now ruffled only by a tiny breeze. No doubt between a man and a woman the sentiment of friendship does take something of the character ordinarily given to love; but such friendship is neither an impossible illusion nor is it a yawning gulf.”

“Then,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a thoughtful air, “do you wish me to make a friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve?”

“Yes, dear, in order not to make him a fixed idea, a regret, a struggle,–three things which poison life.”

“But my husband, who has already had a touch of jealousy?”

“As for your husband, I find him somewhat changed, and not for the better. I miss that deference he always showed to you personally, to your ideas and impressions,–a deference which honored him more than he thought, because there is true greatness in the power to admire. I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that public life is spoiling him a little. As you cannot be with him in the Chamber of peers, he is beginning to suspect that he can have a life without you. If I were you, I should watch these symptoms of independence, and not let the work of your lifetime come to nought.”

“Do you know, my dear,” said Madame de l’Estorade, laughing, “that you are giving me advice that may end in fire and slaughter?”

“Not at all. I am a woman forty-five years of age, who has always seen things on their practical side. I did not marry my husband, whom I loved, until I had convinced myself, by putting him to the test, that he was worthy of my esteem. I don’t make life; I take it as it comes, –trying to put order and _possibility_ into all the occurrences it brings to me. I an neither the frenzied passion of Louise de Chaulieu, nor the insensible reason of Renee de Maucombe. I am a Jesuit in petticoats, persuaded that rather wide sleeves are better than sleeves that are tight to the wrist; and I have never gone in search of the philosopher’s stone–“

At this instant Lucas opened the door of the salon and announced,–

“Monsieur le Comte de Sallenauve.”

His mistress gave him a look inquiring why he had disobeyed her orders, to which Lucas replied by a sign implying that he did not suppose the prohibition applied in this instance.

Madame de Camps, who had never yet seen the new deputy, now gave her closest attention to a study of him.

Sallenauve explained his visit by his great desire to know how matters had gone at Ville d’Avray, and whether Marie-Gaston had been deeply affected by his return there. As for the business which detained him in Paris, he said he had so far met with no success. He had seen the prefect of police, who had given him a letter to Monsieur de Saint-Esteve, the chief of the detective police. Aware of the antecedents of that man, Monsieur de Sallenauve expressed himself as much surprised to find a functionary with extremely good manners and bearing; but he held out faint hope of success. “A woman hiding in Paris,” he said, “is an eel in its safest hole.” He (Sallenauve) should continue the search the next day with the help of Jacques Bricheteau; but if nothing came of it, he should go in the evening to Ville d’Avray, for he did not, he said, share Madame de l’Estorade’s security as to Gaston’s state of mind.

As he was taking leave, Madame de l’Estorade said to him,–

“Do not forget Nais’ ball which takes place the day after to-morrow. You will affront her mortally if you fail to be present. Try to bring Monsieur Gaston with you. It might divert his mind a little.”

V

CHILDREN

On his return from the theatre Monsieur Octave de Camps declared that it would be long before they caught him at a _fairy_ piece again. But Nais, on the contrary, still under the spell of its marvels gave a lively recital of the scene, which showed how much her imagination was capable of being stirred.

As Madame de Camps and her husband walked away together, the former remarked,–

“That child is really very disquieting. Madame de l’Estorade develops her too much; I should not be surprised if she gave her a great deal of trouble in future years.”

It would be difficult to mark the precise moment in our contemporary habits and customs when a new species of religion, which might be called child-idolatry, appeared. Nor shall we find it easier to discover by what species of influence this worship has reached its present enormous development among us. But, although unexplained, the fact exists and ought to be recorded by every faithful historian of the great and the little movements of society. In the family of to-day children have taken the place of the household gods of the ancients, and whoever does not share this worship is not a morose and sour spirit, nor a captious and annoying reasoner,–he is simply an atheist.

Try to amuse one of these beloved adored ones, all puffed up, as they naturally are, by a sense of their importance, with dolls and toys and Punch-and-Judys, as in the days of our unsophisticated innocence! Nonsense! Boys must have ponies and cigarettes, and the reading of novelettes; and girls, the delight of playing hostess, giving afternoon dances, and evening parties at which the real Guignol of the Champs Elysees and Robert Houdin appear,–the entertainment being announced on the invitation cards. Sometimes, as now in the case of Nais de l’Estorade, these little sovereigns obtain permission to give a ball in _grown-up_ style,–so much so, that policemen are stationed about the doors, and Delisle, Nattier, and Prevost provide the toilets and the decorations.

With the character we have already seen in Nais, it may be said that no one was better fitted than she for the duties that devolved upon her by the abdication of her mother. This abdication took place before the evening of the ball itself, for it was Mademoiselle Nais de l’Estorade who, in her own name, invited her guests to do her the honor to pass the evening _chez elle_; and as Madame de l’Estorade would not allow the parody to go as far as printed cards, Nais spent several days writing her notes of invitation, taking care to put in the corner, in conspicuous letters, the sacramental word, “Dancing.”

Nothing could be more curious, or, as Madame de Camps might have said, more alarming, than the self-possession of this little girl of fourteen, behaving precisely as she had seen her mother do on like occasions; stationed, to receive her company, at the door of the salon, and marking by her manner the proper grades of welcome, from eager cordiality to a coldness that verged on disdain. To her best friends she gave her hand in truly English style; for the rest she had smiles, apportioned to the degrees of intimacy,–simple inclination of the head for unknown guests or those of less account; with little speeches now and then, and delicious mamma-like airs for the tiny children whom it is necessary to ask to these juvenile routs, however dangerous and difficult to manage that element may be.

With the fathers and mothers of her guests, as the ball was not given for them, Nais as a general thing reversed the nature of the Gospel invocation, _Sinite parvulos venire ad me_, and was careful not to pass the limit of cold though respectful politeness. But when Lucas, following the instructions he had received, reversed the natural order of things and announced, “Mesdemoiselles de la Roche-Hugon, Madame la Baronne de la Roche-Hugon, and Madame la Comtesse de Rastignac,” the little strategist laid aside her reserve, and, running up to the wife of the minister, she took her hand and pressed it to her lips with charming grace.

After the dancing began, Nais was unable to accept all the invitations which the elegant young lions vied with one another in pressing upon her; in fact, she grew sadly confused as to the number and order of her engagements,–a circumstance which very nearly led, in spite of the _entente cordiale_, to an open rupture between France and perfidious Albion. A quadrille doubly promised, to a young English peer aged ten and a pupil in the Naval School of about the same years, came very near producing unpleasant complications, inasmuch as the young British scion of nobility had assumed a boxing attitude. That fray pacified, another annoying episode occurred. A small boy, seeing a servant with a tray of refreshments and being unable to reach up to the objects of his greed, had the deplorable idea of putting his hand on the edge of the tray and bending it down to him. Result: a cascade of mingled orgeat, negus, and syrups; and happy would it have been had the young author of this mischief been the only sufferer from the sugary torrent; but, alas! nearly a dozen innocent victims were splashed and spattered by the disastrous accident,–among them four or five bacchantes, who were furious at seeing their toilets injured, and would fain have made an Orpheus of the clumsy infant. While he was being rescued with great difficulty from their clutches by the German governess, a voice was heard amid the hubbub,–that of a pretty little blonde, saying to a small Scottish youth with whom she had danced the whole evening,–

“How odd of Nais to invite little boys of that age!”

“That’s easily explained,” said the Scottish youth; “he’s a boy of the Treasury department. Nais had to ask him on account of her parents,–a matter of policy, you know.”

Then, taking the arm of one of his friends, the same youth continued:–

“Hey, Ernest,” he said, “I’d like a cigar; suppose we find a quiet corner, out of the way of all this racket?”

“I can’t, my dear fellow,” replied Ernest, in a whisper; “you know Leontine always makes me a scene when she smells I’ve been smoking, and she is charming to me to-night. See, look at what she has given me!”

“A horse-hair ring!” exclaimed the Scot, disdainfully, “with two locked hearts; all the boys at school have them.”

“What have you to show that’s better?” replied Ernest, in a piqued tone.

“Oh!” said the Scot, with a superior air, “something much better.”

And drawing from the pouch which formed an integral part of his costume a note on violet paper highly perfumed,–

“There,” he said, putting it under Ernest’s nose, “smell that!”

Indelicate friend that he was, Ernest pounced upon the note and took possession of it. The Scottish youth, furious, flung himself upon the treacherous French boy; on which Monsieur de l’Estorade, a thousand leagues from imagining the subject of the quarrel, intervened and parted the combatants, which enabled the ravisher to escape into a corner of the salon to enjoy his booty. The note contained no writing. The young scamp had probably taken the paper out of his mother’s blotting-book. A moment after, returning to his adversary and giving him the note, he said in a jeering tone,–

“There’s your note; it is awfully compromising.”

“Keep it, monsieur,” replied the Scot. “I shall ask for it to-morrow in the Tuileries, under the horse-chestnuts; meantime, you will please understand that all intercourse is at an end between us.”

Ernest was less knightly; he contented himself with putting the thumb of his right hand to his nose and spreading the fingers,–an ironical gesture he had acquired from his mother’s coachman; after which he ran to find his partner for the next quadrille.

But what details are these on which we are wasting time, when we know that interests of the highest order are moving, subterraneously, beneath the surface of the children’s ball.

Arriving from Ville d’Avray late in the afternoon, Sallenauve had brought Madame de l’Estorade ill news of Marie-Gaston. Under an appearance of resignation, he was gloomy, and, singular to say, he had not visited the grave of his wife,–as if he feared an emotion he might not have the power to master. It seemed to Sallenauve that his friend had come to the end of his strength, and that a mental prostration of the worst character was succeeding the over-excitement he had shown at his election. One thing reassured the new deputy, and enabled him to come to Paris for, at any rate, a few hours. A friend of Marie-Gaston, an English nobleman with whom he had been intimate in Florence, came out to see him, and the sad man greeted the new-comer with apparent joy.

In order to distract Sallenauve’s thoughts from this anxiety, Madame de l’Estorade introduced him to Monsieur Octave de Camps, the latter having expressed a great desire to know him. The deputy had not talked ten minutes with the iron-master before he reached his heart by the magnitude of the metallurgical knowledge his conversation indicated.

During the year in which he had been preparing for a parliamentary life, Sallenauve had busied himself by acquiring the practical knowledge which enables an orator of the Chamber to take part in all discussions and have reasons to give for his general views. He had turned his attention more especially to matters connected with the great question of the revenue and taxation; such, for instance, as the custom-house, laws of exchange, stamp duties, and taxation, direct and indirect. Approaching in this manner that problematical science–which is, nevertheless, so sure of itself!–called political economy, Sallenauve had also studied the sources which contribute to form the great current of national prosperity; and in this connection the subject of mines, the topic at this moment most interesting to Monsieur de Camps, had not been neglected by him. We can imagine the admiration of the iron-master, who had studied too exclusively the subject of iron ore to know much about the other branches of metallurgy, when the young deputy told him, apropos of the wealth of our soil, a sort of Arabian Nights tale, which, if science would only take hold of it, might become a reality.

“But, monsieur, do you really believe,” cried Monsieur de Camps, “that, besides our coal and iron mines, we possess mines of copper, lead, and, possibly, silver?”

“If you will take the trouble to consult certain specialists,” replied Sallenauve, “you will find that neither the boasted strata of Bohemia and Saxony nor even those of Russia and Hungary can be compared to those hidden in the Pyrenees, in the Alps from Briancon to the Isere, in the Cevennes on the Lozere side, in the Puy-de-Dome, Bretagne, and the Vosges. In the Vosges, more especially about the town of Saint-Die, I can point out to you a single vein of the mineral of silver which lies to the depth of fifty to eighty metres with a length of thirteen kilometres.”

“But, monsieur, why has such untold metallurgical wealth never been worked?”

“It has been, in former days,” replied Sallenauve, “especially during the Roman occupation of Gaul. After the fall of the Roman Empire, the work was abandoned; but the lords of the soil and the clergy renewed it in the middle ages; after that, during the struggle of feudality against the royal power and the long civil wars which devastated France, the work was again suspended, and has never since been taken up.”

“Are you sure of what you say?”

“Ancient authors, Strabo and others, all mention these mines, and the tradition of their existence still lingers in the regions where they are situated; decrees of emperors and the ordinances of certain of our kings bear testimony to the value of their products; in certain places more material proof may be found in excavations of considerable depth and length, in galleries and halls cut in the solid rock,–in short, in the many traces still existing of those vast works which have immortalized Roman industry. To this must be added that the modern study of geological science has confirmed and developed these irrefutable indications.”

The imagination of Monsieur Octave de Camps, hitherto limited to the development of a single iron-mine, took fire, and he was about to ask his instructor to give him his ideas on the manner of awakening a practical interest in the matter, when Lucas, throwing wide open the double doors of the salon, announced in his loudest and most pompous voice,–

“Monsieur the minister of Public Works.”

The effect produced on the elders of the assembly was electric.

“I want to see what sort of figure that little Rastignac cuts as a statesman,” said Monsieur de Camps, rising from his seat; but in his heart he was thinking of the government subsidy he wanted for his iron-mine. The new deputy, on his side, foresaw an inevitable meeting with the minister, and wondered what his friends in the Opposition would say when they read in the “National” that a representative of the Left was seen to have an interview with a minister celebrated for his art in converting political opponents. Anxious also to return to Marie-Gaston, he resolved to profit by the general stir created by the minister’s arrival to slip away; and by a masterly manoeuvre he made his way slyly to the door of the salon, expecting to escape without being seen. But he reckoned without Nais, to whom he was engaged for a quadrille. That small girl sounded the alarm at the moment when he laid his hand on the handle of the door; and Monsieur de l’Estorade, mindful of his promise to Rastignac, hastened to put a stop to the desertion. Finding his quiet retreat impossible, Sallenauve was afraid that an open departure after the arrival of the minister might be construed as an act of puritanical opposition in the worst taste; he therefore accepted the situation promptly, and decided to remain.

Monsieur de l’Estorade knew that Sallenauve was far too wise to be the dupe of any artifices he might have used to bring about his introduction to the minister. He therefore went straight to the point, and soon after Rastignac’s arrival he slipped his arm through that of the statesman, and, approaching the deputy, said to him,–

“Monsieur the minister of Public Works, who, on the eve of the battle, wishes me to introduce him to a general of the enemy’s army.”

“Monsieur le ministre does me too much honor,” replied Sallenauve, ceremoniously. “Far from being a general, I am a private soldier, and a very unknown one.”

“Hum!” said the minister; “it seems to me that the battle at Arcis-sur-Aube was not an insignificant victory; you routed our ranks, monsieur, in a singular manner.”

“There was nothing wonderful in that; you must have heard that a saint fought for us.”

“Well, at any rate,” said Rastignac, “I prefer this result to the one arranged for us by a man I thought cleverer than he proved to be, whom I sent down there. It seems that Beauvisage is a perfect nonentity; he’d have rubbed off upon us; and after all, he was really as much Left centre as the other man, Giguet. Now the Left centre is our real enemy, because it is aiming to get our portfolios.”

“Oh!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, “after what we heard of the man, I think he would have done exactly what was wanted of him.”

“My dear friend, don’t believe that,” said the minister. “Fools are often more tenacious of the flag under which they enlisted than we think for. Besides, to go over to the enemy is to make a choice, and that supposes an operation of the mind; it is much easier to be obstinate.”

“I agree with the minister,” said Sallenauve; “extreme innocence and extreme rascality are equally able to defend themselves against seduction.”

Here Monsieur de l’Estorade, seeing, or pretending to see, a signal made to him, looked over his shoulder and said,–

“I’m coming.”

And the two adversaries being thus buckled together, he hastened away as if summoned to some duty as master of the house.

Sallenauve was anxious not to seem disturbed at finding himself alone with the minister. The meeting having come about, he decided to endure it with a good grace, and, taking the first word, he asked if the ministry had prepared, in view of the coming sessions, a large number of bills.

“No, very few,” replied Rastignac. “To tell the truth, we do not expect to be in power very long; we brought about an election because in the general confusion into which the press has thrown public opinion, our constitutional duty was to force that opinion to reconstitute itself; but the fact is, we did not expect the result to be favorable to us, and we are therefore taken somewhat unawares.”

“You are like the peasant,” said Sallenauve, laughing, “who, expecting the end of the world, did not sow his wheat.”

“Well, we don’t look upon our retirement as the end of the world,” said Rastignac, modestly; “there are men to come after us, and many of them well able to govern; only, as we expected to give but few more representations in that transitory abode called ‘power,’ we have not unpacked either our costumes or our scenery. Besides, the coming session, in any case, can only be a business session. The question now is, of course, between the palace, that is, personal influence, and the doctrine of parliamentary supremacy. This question will naturally come up when the vote is taken on the secret-service fund. Whenever, in one way or the other, that is settled, and the budget is voted, together with a few bills of secondary interest, Parliament has really completed its task; it will have put an end to a distressing struggle, and the country will know to which of the two parties it can look for the development of its prosperity.”

“And you think,” said Sallenauve, “that in a well-balanced system of government that question is a useful one to raise?”

“Well,” replied Rastignac, “we have not raised it. It is born perhaps of circumstances; a great deal, as I think, from the restlessness of certain ambitions, and also from the tactics of parties.”

“So that, in your opinion, one of the combatants is not guilty and has absolutely nothing to reproach himself with?”

“You are a republican,” said Rastignac, “and therefore, _a priori_, an enemy to the dynasty. I think I should lose my time in trying to change your ideas on the policy you complain of.”

“You are mistaken,” said the theoretical republican deputy; “I have no preconceived hatred to the reigning dynasty. I even think that in its past, _striped_, if I may say so, with royal affinities and revolutionary memories, it has all that is needed to respond to the liberal and monarchical instincts of the nation. But you will find it difficult to persuade me that in the present head of the dynasty we shall not find extreme ideas of personal influence, which in the long run will undermine and subvert the finest as well as the strongest institutions.”

“Yes,” said Rastignac, ironically, “and they are saved by the famous axiom of the deputy of Sancerre: ‘The king reigns, but does not govern.'”

Whether he was tired of standing to converse, or whether he wished to prove his ease in releasing himself from the trap which had evidently been laid for him, Sallenauve, before replying, drew up a chair for his interlocutor, and, taking one himself, said,–

“Will you permit me to cite the example of another royal behavior? –that of a prince who was not considered indifferent to his royal prerogative, and who was not ignorant of constitutional mechanism–“

“Louis XVIII.,” said Rastignac, “or, as the newspapers used to call him, ‘the illustrious author of the Charter’?”

“Precisely; and will you kindly tell me where he died?”

“_Parbleu_! at the Tuileries.”

“And his successor?”

“In exile–Oh! I see what you are coming to.”

“My conclusion is certainly not difficult to guess. But have you fully remarked the deduction to be drawn from that royal career?–for which I myself feel the greatest respect. Louis XVIII. was not a citizen king. He granted this Charter, but he never consented to it. Born nearer to the throne than the prince whose regrettable tendencies I mentioned just now, he might naturally share more deeply still the ideas, the prejudices, and the infatuations of the court; in person he was ridiculous (a serious princely defect in France); he bore the brunt of a new and untried regime; he succeeded a government which had intoxicated the people with that splendid gilded smoke called glory; and if he was not actually brought back to France by foreigners, at any rate he came as the result of the armed invasion of Europe. Now, shall I tell you why, in spite of all these defects and disadvantages, in spite, too, of the ceaseless conspiracy kept up against his government, it was given to him to die tranquilly in his bed at the Tuileries?”

“Because he had made himself a constitutional king,” said Rastignac, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “But do you mean to say that we are not that?”

“In the letter, yes; in the spirit, no. When Louis XVIII. gave his confidence to a minister, he gave it sincerely and wholly. He did not cheat him; he played honestly into his hand,–witness the famous ordinance of September 5, and the dissolution of the Chamber, which was more Royalist than himself,–a thing he had the wisdom not to desire. Later, a movement of public opinion shook the minister who had led him along that path; that minister was his favorite, his son, as he called him. No matter; yielding to the constitutional necessity, he bravely sent him to foreign parts, after loading him with crosses and titles,–in short, with everything that could soften the pain of his fall; and he did not watch and manoeuvre surreptitiously to bring him back to power, which that minister never regained.”

“For a man who declares he does not hate us,” said Rastignac, “you treat us rather roughly. According to you we are almost faithless to the constitutional compact, and our policy, to your thinking ambiguous and tortuous, gives us a certain distant likeness to Monsieur Doublemain in the ‘Mariage de Figaro.'”

“I do not say that the evil is as deep as that,” replied Sallenauve; “perhaps, after all, _we_ are simply a _faiseur_,–using the word, be it understood, in the sense of a meddler, one who wants to have his finger in everything.”

“Ah! monsieur, but suppose we are the ablest politician in the country.”

“If we are, it does not follow that our kingdom ought not to have the chance of becoming as able as ourselves.”

“_Parbleu_!” cried Rastignac, in the tone of a man who comes to the climax of a conversation, “I wish I had power to realize a wish–“

“And that is?”

“To see you grappling with that ability which you call meddlesome.”

“Well, you know, Monsieur le ministre, that we all spend three fourths of life in wishing for the impossible.”

“Why impossible? Would you be the first man of the Opposition to be seen at the Tuileries? An invitation to dinner given publicly, openly, which would, by bringing you into contact with one whom you misjudge at a distance–“

“I should have the honor to refuse.”

And he emphasized the words _have the honor_ in a way to show the meaning he attached to them.

“You are all alike, you men of the Opposition!” cried the minister; “you won’t let yourselves be enlightened when the opportunity presents itself; or, to put it better, you–“

“Do you call the rays of those gigantic red bottles in a chemist’s shop _light_, when they flash into your eyes as you pass them after dark? Don’t they, on the contrary, seem to blind you?”

“It is not our rays that frighten you,” said Rastignac; “it is the dark lantern of your party watchmen on their rounds.”

“There may be some truth in what you say; a party and the man who undertakes to represent it are in some degree a married couple, who in order to live peaceably together must be mutually courteous, frank, and faithful in heart as well as in principle.”

“Well, try to be moderate. Your dream is far more impossible to realize than mine; the day will come when you will have more to say about the courtesy of your chaste better half.”

“If there is an evil for which I ought to be prepared, it is that.”

“Do you think so? With the lofty and generous sentiments so apparent in your nature, shall you remain impassive under political attack, –under calumny, for instance?”

“You yourself, Monsieur le ministre, have not escaped its venom; but it did not, I think, deter you from your course.”

“But,” said Rastignac, lowering his voice, “suppose I were to tell you that I have already sternly refused to listen to a proposal to search into your private life on a certain side which, being more in the shade than the rest, seems to offer your enemies a chance to entrap you.”

“I do not thank you for the honor you have done yourself in rejecting with contempt the proposals of men who can be neither of my party nor of yours; they belong to the party of base appetites and selfish passions. But, supposing the impossible, had they found some acceptance from you, pray believe that my course, which follows the dictates of my conscience, could not be affected thereby.”

“But your party,–consider for a moment its elements: a jumble of foiled ambitions, brutal greed, plagiarists of ’93, despots disguising themselves as lovers of liberty.”

“My party has nothing, and seeks to gain something. Yours calls itself conservative, and it is right; its chief concern is how to preserve its power, offices, and wealth,–in short, all it now monopolizes.”

“But, monsieur, we are not a closed way; we open our way, on the contrary, to all ambitions. But the higher you are in character and intellect, the less we can allow you to pass, dragging after you your train of democrats; for the day when that crew gains the upper hand it will not be a change of policy, but a revolution.”

“But what makes you think I want an opening of any kind?”

“What! follow a course without an aim?–a course that leads nowhere? A certain development of a man’s faculties not only gives him the right but makes it his duty to seek to govern.”

“To watch the governing power is a useful career, and, I may add, a very busy one.”

“You can fancy, monsieur,” said Rastignac, good-humoredly, “that if Beauvisage were in your place I should not have taken the trouble to argue with him; I may say, however, that he would have made my effort less difficult.”

“This meeting, which _chance_ has brought about between us,” said Sallenauve, “will have one beneficial result; we understand each other henceforth, and our future meetings will always therefore be courteous –which will not lessen the strength of our convictions.”

“Then I must say to the king–for I had his royal commands to–“

Rastignac did not end the sentence in which he was, so to speak, firing his last gun, for the orchestra began to play a quadrille, and Nais, running up, made him a coquettish courtesy, saying,–

“Monsieur le ministre, I am very sorry, but you have taken my partner, and you must give him up. He is down for my eleventh quadrille, and if I miss it my list gets into terrible confusion.”

“You permit me, monsieur?” said Sallenauve, laughing. “As you see, I am not a very savage republican.” So saying, he followed Nais, who led him along by the hand.

Madame de l’Estorade, comprehending that this fancy of Nais was rather compromising to the dignity of the new deputy, had arranged that several papas and mammas should figure in the same quadrille; and she herself with the Scottish lad danced _vis-a-vis_ to her daughter, who beamed with pride and joy. In the evolutions of the last figure, where Nais had to take her mother’s hand, she said, pressing it passionately,–

“Poor mamma! if it hadn’t been for _him_, you wouldn’t have me now.”

This sudden reminder so agitated Madame de l’Estorade, coming as it did unexpectedly, that she was seized with a return of the nervous trembling her daughter’s danger had originally caused, and was forced to sit down. Seeing her change color, Sallenauve, Nais, and Madame Octave de Camps ran to her to know if she were ill.

“It is nothing,” she answered, addressing Sallenauve; “only that my little girl reminded me suddenly of the utmost obligation we are under to you, monsieur. ‘Without _him_,’ she said, ‘you would not have me.’ Ah! monsieur, without your generous courage where would my child be now?”

“Come, come, don’t excite yourself,” interposed Madame Octave de Camps, observing the convulsive and almost gasping tone of her friend’s voice. “It is not reasonable to put yourself in such a state for a child’s speech.”

“She is better than the rest of us,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, taking Nais in her arms.

“Come, mamma, be reasonable,” said that young lady.

“She puts nothing in the world,” continued Madame de l’Estorade, “before her gratitude to her preserver, whereas her father and I have scarcely shown him any.”

“But, madame,” said Sallenauve, “you have courteously–“

“Courteously!” interrupted Nais, shaking her pretty head with an air of disapproval; “if any one had saved my daughter, I should be different to him from that.”

“Nais,” said Madame de Camps, sternly, “children should be silent when their opinion is not asked.”

“What is the matter,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, joining the group.

“Nothing,” said Madame de Camps; “only a giddiness Renee had in dancing.”

“Is it over?”

“Yes, I am quite well again,” said Madame de l’Estorade.

“Then come and say good-night to Madame de Rastignac, who is preparing to take leave.”

In his eagerness to get to the minister’s wife, he forgot to give his own wife his arm. Sallenauve was more thoughtful. As they walked together in the wake of her husband, Madame de l’Estorade said,–

“I saw you talking for a long time with Monsieur de Rastignac; did he practise his well-known seductions upon you?”

“Do you think he succeeded?” replied Sallenauve.

“No; but such attempts to capture are always disagreeable, and I beg you to believe that I was not a party to the plot. I am not so violently ministerial as my husband.”

“Nor I as violently revolutionary as they think.”

“I trust that these annoying politics, which have already produced a jar between you and Monsieur de l’Estorade, may not disgust you with the idea of being counted among our friends.”

“That is an honor, madame, for which I can only be grateful.”

“It is not an honor but a pleasure that I hoped you would find in it,” said Madame de l’Estorade, quickly. “I say, with Nais, if I had saved the life of a friend’s child, I should cease to be ceremonious with her.”

So saying, and without listening to his answer, she disengaged her arm quickly from that of Sallenauve, and left him rather astonished at the tone in which she had spoken.

In seeing Madame de l’Estorade so completely docile to the advice, more clever than prudent, perhaps, of Madame de Camps, the reader, we think, can scarcely be surprised. A certain attraction has been evident for some time on the part of the frigid countess not only to the preserver of her daughter, but to the man who under such romantic and singular circumstances had come before her mind. Carefully considered, Madame de l’Estorade is seen to be far from one of those impassible natures which resist all affectionate emotions except those of the family. With a beauty that was partly Spanish, she had eyes which her friend Louise de Chaulieu declared could ripen peaches. Her coldness was not what physicians call congenital; her temperament was an acquired one. Marrying from _reason_ a man whose mental insufficiency is very apparent, she made herself love him out of pity and a sense of protection. Up to the present time, by means of a certain atrophy of heart, she had succeeded, without one failure, in making Monsieur de l’Estorade perfectly happy. With the same instinct, she had exaggerated the maternal sentiment to an almost inconceivable degree, until in that way she had fairly stifled all the other cravings of her nature. It must be said, however, that the success she had had in accomplishing this hard task was due in a great measure to _the circumstance_ of Louise de Chaulieu. To her that dear mistaken one was like the drunken slave whom the Spartans made a living lesson to their children; and between the two friends a sort of tacit wager was established. Louise having taken the side of romantic passion, Renee held firmly to that of superior reason; and in order to win the game, she had maintained a courage of good sense and wisdom which might have cost her far more to practise without this incentive. At the age she had now reached, and with her long habit of self-control, we can understand how, seeing, as she believed, the approach of a love against which she had preached so vehemently, she should instantly set to work to rebuff it; but a man who did not feel that love, while thinking her ideally beautiful, and who possibly loved elsewhere,–a man who had saved her child from death and asked no recompense, who was grave, serious, and preoccupied in an absorbing enterprise,–why should she still continue to think such a man dangerous? Why not grant to him, without further hesitation, the lukewarm sentiment of friendship?

VI

CURIOSITY THAT CAME WITHIN AN ACE OF BEING FATAL

On returning to Ville d’Avray, Sallenauve was confronted by a singular event. Who does not know how sudden events upset the whole course of our lives, and place us, without our will, in compromising positions?

Sallenauve was not mistaken in feeling serious anxiety as to the mental state of his friend Marie-Gaston.

When that unfortunate man had left the scene of his cruel loss immediately after the death of his wife, he would have done a wiser thing had he then resolved never to revisit it. Nature, providentially ordered, provides that if those whose nearest and dearest are struck by the hand of death accept the decree with the resignation which ought to follow the execution of all necessary law, they will not remain too long under the influence of their grief. Rousseau has said, in his famous letter against suicide: “Sadness, weariness of spirit, regret, despair are not lasting sorrows, rooted forever in the soul; experience will always cast out that feeling of bitterness which makes us at first believe our grief eternal.”

But this truth ceases to be true for imprudent and wilful persons, who seek to escape the first anguish of sorrow by flight or some violent distraction. All mental and moral suffering is a species of illness which, taking time for its specific, will gradually wear out, in the long run, of itself. If, on the contrary, it is not allowed to consume itself slowly on the scene of its trouble, if it is fanned into flame by motion or violent remedies, we hinder the action of nature; we deprive ourselves of the blessed relief of comparative forgetfulness, promised to those who will accept their suffering, and so transform it into a chronic affection, the memories of which, though hidden, are none the less true and deep.

If we violently oppose this salutary process, we produce an acute evil, in which the imagination acts upon the heart; and as the latter from its nature is limited, while the former is infinite, it is impossible to calculate the violence of the impressions to which a man may yield himself.

When Marie-Gaston returned to the house at Ville d’Avray, after two years’ absence, he fancied that only a tender if melancholy memory awaited him; but not a step could he make without recalling his lost joys and the agony of losing them. The flowers that his wife had loved, the lawns, the trees just budding into greenness under the warm breath of May,–they were here before his eyes; but she who had created this beauteous nature was lying cold in the earth. Amid all the charms and elegances gathered to adorn this nest of their love, there was nothing for the man who rashly returned to that dangerous atmosphere but sounds of lamentation, the moans of a renewed and now ever-living grief. Alarmed himself at the vertigo of sorrow which seized him, Marie-Gaston shrank, as Sallenauve had said, from taking the last step in his ordeal; he had calmly discussed with his friend the details of the mausoleum he wished to raise above the mortal remains of his beloved Louise, but he had not yet brought himself to visit her grave in the village cemetery where he had laid them. There was everything, therefore, to fear from a grief which time had not only not assuaged, but, on the contrary, had increased by duration, until it was sharper and more intolerable than before.

The gates were opened by Philippe, the old servant, who had been constituted by Madame Gaston majordomo of the establishment.

“How is your master?” asked Sallenauve.

“He has gone away, monsieur,” replied Philippe.

“Gone away!”

“Yes, monsieur; with that English gentleman whom monsieur left here with him.”

“But without a word to me! Do you know where they have gone?”

“After dinner, which went off very well, monsieur suddenly gave orders to pack his travelling-trunk; he did part of it himself. During that time the Englishman, who said he would go into the park and smoke, asked me privately where he could go to write a letter without monsieur seeing him. I took him to my room; but I did not dare question him about this journey, for I never saw any one with such forbidding and uncommunicative manners. By the time the letter was written monsieur was ready, and without giving me any explanation they both got into the Englishman’s carriage, and I heard one of them say to the coachman, ‘Paris.'”

“What became of the letter?” asked Sallenauve.

“It is there in my room, where the Englishman gave it me secretly. It is addressed to monsieur.”

“Fetch it at once, my dear man,” cried Sallenauve.

After reading the letter, his face seemed to Philippe convulsed.

“Tell them not to unharness,” he said; and he read the letter through a second time.

When the old servant returned after executing the order, Sallenauve asked him at what hour they had started.

“About nine,” answered Philippe.

“Three hours in advance!” muttered the deputy, looking at his watch, and returning to the carriage which had brought him. As he was getting into it, the old majordomo forced himself to say,–

“Monsieur found no bad news in that letter, did he?”

“No; but your master may be absent for some time; keep the house in good order.” Then he said to the coachman, “Paris!”

The next day, quite early in the morning, Monsieur de l’Estorade was in his study, employed in a rather singular manner. It will be remembered that on the day when Sallenauve, then Dorlange the sculptor, had sent him the bust of Madame de l’Estorade, he had not found a place where, as he thought, the little masterpiece had a proper light. From the moment that Rastignac hinted to him that his intercourse with the sculptor, now deputy, might injure him at court, he had agreed with his son Armand that the artist had given to Madame de l’Estorade the air of a grisette; but now that Sallenauve, by his resistance to ministerial blandishments, had taken an openly hostile attitude to the government, that bust seemed to the peer of France no longer worthy of exhibition, and the worthy man was now engaged in finding some dark corner where, without recourse to the absurdity of actually hiding it, it would be out of range to the eyes of visitors, whose questions as to its maker he should no longer be forced to answer. He was therefore perched on the highest step of his library ladder, holding in his hands the gift of the sculptor, and preparing to relegate it to the top of a bookcase, where it was destined to keep company with an owl and a cormorant shot by Armand during the recent holidays and stuffed by paternal pride, when the door of the study opened and Lucas announced,–

“Monsieur Philippe.”

The age of the old majordomo and the confidential post he occupied in Marie-Gaston’s establishment seemed to the factotum of the house of l’Estorade to authorize the designation of “monsieur,”–a civility expectant of return, be it understood.

Descending from his eminence, the peer of France asked Philippe what brought him, and whether anything had happened at Ville d’Avray. The old servant related the singular departure of his master, and the no less singular departure of Sallenauve without a word of explanation; then he added,–

“This morning, while putting monsieur’s room in order, a letter addressed to Madame le comtesse fell out of a book. As the letter was sealed and all ready to be sent, I supposed that monsieur, in the hurry of departure, had forgotten to tell me to put it in the post. I thought therefore I had better bring it here myself. Perhaps Madame la comtesse will find in it some explanation of this sudden journey, about which I have dreamed all night.”

Monsieur de l’Estorade took the letter.

“Three black seals!” he said.

“The color doesn’t surprise me,” replied Philippe; “for since Madame’s death monsieur has not laid off his mourning; but I do think three seals are rather strange.”

“Very well,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “I will give the letter to my wife.”

“If there should be anything in it to ease my mind about monsieur, would Monsieur le comte be so kind as to let me know?” said Philippe.

“You can rely on that, my good fellow. _Au revoir_.”

“I beg Monsieur le comte’s pardon for offering an opinion,” said the majordomo, not accepting the leave just given him to depart; “but in case the letter contained some bad news, doesn’t Monsieur le comte think that it would be best for him to know of it, in order to prepare Madame la comtesse for the shock?”

“What! Do you suppose–” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, not finishing his idea.

“I don’t know; but monsieur has been very gloomy the last few days.”

“To break the seal of a letter not addressed to us is always a serious thing to do,” remarked the peer of France. “This bears my wife’s address, but–in point of fact–it was never sent to her; in short, it is most embarrassing.”

“But if by reading it some misfortune might be averted?”

“Yes, yes; that is just what keeps me in doubt.”

Here Madame de l’Estorade cut the matter short by entering the room. Lucas had told her of the unexpected arrival of Philippe.

“Is anything the matter?” she asked with anxious curiosity.

The apprehensions Sallenauve had expressed the night before as to Marie-Gaston’s condition returned to her mind. As soon as Philippe had repeated the explanations he had already given to her husband, she broke the seals of the letter.

Whatever may have been the contents of that disquieting epistle, nothing was reflected on Madame de l’Estorade’s face.

“You say that your master left Ville d’Avray in company with an English gentleman,” she said to Philippe. “Did he seem to go unwillingly, as if yielding to violence?”

“No, far from that, madame; he seemed to be rather cheerful.”

“Well, there is nothing that need make us uneasy. This letter was written some days ago, and, in spite of its three black seals, it has no reference to anything that has happened since.”

Philippe bowed and went away. As soon as husband and wife were alone together, Monsieur de l’Estorade said, stretching out his hand for the letter,–

“What did he write about?”

“No, don’t read it,” said the countess, not giving him the letter.

“Why not?”

“It would pain you. It is enough for me to have had the shock; I could scarcely control myself before that old servant.”

“Does it refer to suicide?”

Madame de l’Estorade nodded her head in affirmation.

“A real, immediate intention?”

“The letter is dated yesterday morning; and apparently, if it had not been for the providential arrival of that Englishman, the poor fellow would have taken advantage of Monsieur de Sallenauve’s absence last night to kill himself.”

“The Englishman must have suspected his intention, and carried him off to divert him from it. If that is so, he won’t let him out of his sight.”

“And we may also count on Monsieur Sallenauve, who has probably joined them by this time.”

“Then I don’t see that there is anything so terrible in the letter”; and again he offered to take it.

“No,” said Madame de l’Estorade, drawing back, “if I ask you not to read it. Why give yourself painful emotions? The letter not only expresses the intention of suicide, but it shows that our poor friend is completely out of his mind.”

At this instant piercing screams from Rene, her youngest child, put Madame de l’Estorade into one of those material agitations which she less than any other woman was able to control.

“My God!” she cried, as she rushed from the study, “what has happened?”

Less ready to be alarmed, Monsieur de l’Estorade contented himself by going to the door and asking a servant what was the matter.

“Oh, nothing, Monsieur le comte,” replied the man. “Monsieur Rene in shutting a drawer pinched his finger; that is all.”

The peer of France thought it unnecessary to convey himself to the scene of action; he knew, by experience in like cases, that he must let his wife’s exaggerated maternal solicitude have free course, on pain of being sharply snubbed himself. As he returned to his desk, he noticed lying on the ground the famous letter, which Madame de l’Estorade had evidently dropped in her hasty flight. Opportunity and a certain fatality which appears to preside over the conduct of all human affairs, impelled Monsieur de l’Estorade, who thought little of the shock his wife had dreaded for him, to satisfy his curiosity by reading the letter.

Marie-Gaston wrote as follows:–

Madame,–This letter will seem to you less amusing than those I addressed to you from Arcis-sur-Aube. But I trust you will not be alarmed by the decision which I now announce. I am going to rejoin my wife, from whom I have been too long separated; and this evening, shortly after midnight, I shall be with her, never to part again.

You have, no doubt, said to yourselves–you and Sallenauve–that I was acting strangely in not visiting her grave; that is a remark that two of my servants made the other day, not being aware that I overheard them. I should certainly be a great fool to go and look at a stone in the cemetery which can make me no response, when every night, at twelve o’clock, I hear a little rap on the door of my room, and our dear Louise comes in, not changed at all, except, as I think, more plump and beautiful. She has had great trouble in obtaining permission from Marie, queen of angels, to withdraw me from earth. But last night she brought me formal leave, sealed with green wax; and she also gave me a tiny vial of hydrocyanic acid. A single drop of that acid puts us to sleep, and on waking up we find ourselves on the other side.

Louise desired me to give you a message from her. I am to tell you that Monsieur de l’Estorade has a disease of the liver and will not live long, and that after his death you are to marry Sallenauve, because, on the _other side_, husbands and wives who really love each other are reunited; and she thinks we shall all four–she and I and you and Sallenauve–be much happier together than if we had your present husband, who is very dull, and whom you married reluctantly.

My message given, nothing remains for me, madame, but to wish you all the patience you need to continue for your allotted time in this low world, and to subscribe myself Your very affectionately devoted

Marie-Gaston.

If, after reading this letter, it had occurred to Monsieur de l’Estorade to look at himself in the glass, he would have seen, in the sudden convulsion and discoloration of his face, the outward and visible signs of the terrible blow which his unfortunate curiosity had brought down upon him. His heart, his mind, his self-respect staggered under one and the same shock; the madness evident in the sort of prediction made about him only added to his sense of its horror. Presently convincing himself, like a mussulman, that madmen have the gift of second sight, he believed he was a lost man, and instantly a stabbing pain began on his liver side, while in the direction of Sallenauve, his predicted successor, an awful hatred succeeded to his mild good-will. But at the same time, conscious of the total want of reason and even of the absurdity of the impression which had suddenly surged into his mind, he was afraid lest its existence should be suspected, and he looked about him to see in what way he could conceal from his wife his fatal indiscretion, the consequences of which must forever weigh upon his life. It was certain, he thought, that if she found the paper in his study she would deduce therefrom the fact that he had read it. Rising from his desk, he softly opened the door leading from the study to the salon, crossed the latter room on tiptoe, and dropped the letter at the farther end of it, as Madame de l’Estorade might suppose she had herself done in her hasty departure. Then returning to his study, he scattered his papers over his desk, like a school-boy up to mischief, who wants to mislead his master by a show of application, intending to appear absorbed in his accounts when his wife returned. Useless to add that he listened with keen anxiety lest some other person than she should come into the salon; in which case he determined to rush out and prevent other eyes from reading the dreadful secrets contained in that paper.

Presently, however, the voice of Madame de l’Estorade, speaking to some one at the door of the salon, reassured him as to the success of his trick, and a moment later she entered the study accompanied by Monsieur Octave de Camps. Going forward to receive his visitor, he was able to see through the half-opened door the place where he had thrown the letter. Not only had it disappeared, but he detected a movement which assured him that Madame de l’Estorade had tucked it away in that part of her gown where Louis XIV. did not dare to search for the secrets of Mademoiselle d’Hautefort.

“I have come, my dear friend,” said Monsieur de Camps, “to get you to go with me to Rastignac’s, as agreed on last night.”

“Very good,” said the peer, putting away his papers with a feverish haste that plainly indicated he was not in his usual state of mind.

“Don’t you feel well?” asked Madame de l’Estorade, who knew her husband by heart too well not to be struck by the singular stupefaction of his manner, while at the same time, looking in his face, she saw the signs of internal convulsion.

“True,” said Monsieur de Camps, “you certainly do not look so well as usual. If you prefer it, we will put off this visit.”

“No, not at all,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade. “I have tired myself with this work, and I need the air. But what was the matter with Rene?” he inquired of his wife, whose attention he felt was unpleasantly fixed upon him. “What made him cry like that?”

“Oh, a mere nothing!” she replied, not relaxing her attention.

“Well, my dear fellow,” said the peer, trying to take an easy tone, “just let me change my coat and I’ll be with you.”

When the countess was alone with Monsieur de Camps, she said, rather anxiously,–

“Don’t you think Monsieur de l’Estorade seems very much upset?”

“Yes; as I said just now, he does not look like himself. But the explanation he gave seems sufficient. This office life is bad for the health. I have never been as well as since I am actively engaged about my iron-works.”

“Yes, certainly,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with a heavy sigh; “he ought to have a more active life. It seems plain that there is something amiss with his liver.”

“What! because he is so yellow? He has been so ever since I have known him.”

“Oh, monsieur, I can’t be mistaken! There is something seriously the matter with him; and if you would kindly do me a service–“

“Madame, I am always at your orders.”

“When Monsieur de l’Estorade returns, speak of the injury to Rene’s finger, and tell me that little wounds like that sometimes have serious consequences if not attended to at once, and that will give me an excuse to send for Doctor Bianchon.”

“Certainly,” replied Monsieur de Camps; “but I really don’t think a physician is necessary. Still, if it reassures you–“

At this moment Monsieur de l’Estorade reappeared. He had almost recovered his usual expression of face, but he exhaled a strong odor of _melisse des Carmes_, which indicated that he had felt the need of that tonic. Monsieur de Camps played his part admirably, and as for Madame de l’Estorade it did not cost her much trouble to simulate maternal anxiety.

“My dear,” she said to her husband, when Monsieur de Camps had delivered himself of his medical opinion, “as you return from Monsieur de Rastignac’s, please call on Doctor Bianchon and ask him to come here.”

“Pooh!” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, shrugging his shoulders, “the idea of disturbing a busy man like him for what you yourself said was a mere nothing!”

“If you won’t go, I shall send Lucas; Monsieur de Camps’ opinion has completely upset me.”

“If it pleases you to be ridiculous,” said the peer of France, crossly, “I have no means of preventing it; but I beg you to remark one thing: if people disturb physicians for mere nonsense, they often can’t get them when they are really wanted.”

“Then you won’t go for the doctor?”

“Not I,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade; “and if I had the honor of being anything in my own house, I should forbid you to send anybody in my place.”

“My dear, you are the master here, and since you put so much feeling into your refusal, let us say no more; I will bear my anxiety as best I can.”

“Come, de Camps,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade; “for if this goes on, I shall be sent to order that child’s funeral.”

“But, my dear husband,” said the countess, taking his hand, “you must be ill, to say such dreadful things in that cool way. Where is your usual patience with my little maternal worries, or your exquisite politeness for every one, your wife included?”

“But,” said Monsieur de l’Estorade, getting more excited instead of calmer, under this form of studied though friendly reproach, “your maternal feelings are turning into monomania, and you make life intolerable to every one but your children. The devil! suppose they are your children; I am their father, and, though I am not adored as they are, I have the right to request that my house be not made uninhabitable!”

While Monsieur de l’Estorade, striding about the room, delivered himself of this philippic, the countess made a despairing sign to Monsieur de Camps, as if to ask him whether he did not see most alarming symptoms in such a scene. In order to cut short the quarrel of which he had been the involuntary cause, the latter said, as if hurried,–

“Come, let us go!”

“Yes,” replied Monsieur de l’Estorade, passing out first and neglecting to say good-bye to his wife.

“Ah! stay; I have forgotten a message my wife gave me,” said Monsieur de Camps, turning back to Madame de l’Estorade. “She told me to say she would come for you at two o’clock to go and see the spring things at the ‘Jean de Paris,’ and she has arranged that after that we shall all four go to the flower-show. When we leave Rastignac, l’Estorade and I will come back here, and wait for you if you have not returned before us.”

Madame de l’Estorade paid little attention to this programme, for a flash of light had illumined her mind. As soon as she was alone, she took Marie-Gaston’s letter from her gown, and, finding it folded in the proper manner, she exclaimed,–

“Not a doubt of it! I remember perfectly that I folded it with the writing outside, as I put it back into the envelope; he must have read it!”

An hour later, Madame de l’Estorade and Madame de Camps met in the same salon where they had talked of Sallenauve a few days earlier.

“Good heavens! what is the matter with you?” cried Madame de Camps, seeing tears on the face of her friend, who was finishing a letter she had written.

Madame de l’Estorade told her all that had happened, and showed her Marie-Gaston’s letter.

“Are you very sure,” asked Madame de Camps, “that your husband has read the luckless scrawl?”

“How can I doubt it?” returned Madame de l’Estorade. “The paper can’t have turned of itself; besides, in recalling the circumstances, I have a dim recollection that at the moment when I started to run to Rene I felt something drop,–fate willed that I should not stop to pick it up.”

“Often, when people strain their memories in that way they fasten on some false indication.”

“But, my dear friend, the extraordinary change in the face and behavior of Monsieur de l’Estorade, coming so suddenly as it did, must have been the result of some sudden shock. He looked like a man struck by lightning.”

“But if you account for the change in his appearance in that way, why look for symptoms of something wrong with his liver?”

“Ah! this is not the first time I have seen symptoms of that,” replied Madame de l’Estorade. “But you know when sick people don’t complain, we forget about their illness. See,” and she pointed to a volume lying open beside her; “just before you came in, I found in this medical dictionary that persons who suffer from diseases of the liver are apt to be morose, irritable, impatient. Well, for some time past, I have noticed a great change in my husband’s disposition. You yourself mentioned it to me the other day. Besides, the scene Monsieur de Camps has just witnessed–which is, I may truly say, unprecedented in our household–is enough to prove it.”

“My dear love, you are like those unpleasant persons who are resolved to torture themselves. In the first place, you have looked into medical books, which is the very height of imprudence. I defy you to read a description of any sort of disease without fancying that either you or some friends of yours have the symptoms of it. In the next place, you are mixing up things; the effects of fear and of a chronic malady are totally different.”

“No, I am not mixing them up; I know what I am talking about. You don’t need to be told that if in our poor human machine some one part gets out of order, it is on _that_ that any strong emotion will strike.”

“Well,” said Madame de Camps, not pursuing the medical discussion, “if the letter of that unhappy madman has really fallen into the hands of your husband, the peace of your home is seriously endangered; that is the point to be discussed.”

“There are not two ways to be followed as to that,” said Madame de l’Estorade. “Monsieur de Sallenauve must never set foot in this house again.”

“That is precisely what I came to speak about to-day. Do you know that last night I did not think you showed the composure which is so marked a trait in your character?”

“When?” asked Madame de l’Estorade.

“Why, when you expressed so effusively your gratitude to Monsieur de Sallenauve. When I advised you not to avoid him, for fear it would induce him to keep at your heels, I never intended that you should shower your regard upon his head in a way to turn it. The wife of so zealous a dynastic partisan as Monsieur de l’Estorade ought to know what the _juste milieu_ is by this time.”

“Ah! my dear, I entreat you, don’t make fun of my poor husband.”

“I am not talking of your husband, I am talking of you. Last night you so surprised me that I have come here to take back my words. I like people to follow my advice, but I don’t like them to go beyond it.”

“At any other time I should make you explain what horrible impropriety I have committed under your counsel; but fate has interposed and settled everything. Monsieur de Sallenauve will, at any cost, disappear from our path, and therefore why discuss the degree of kindness one might have shown him?”

“But,” said Madame de Camps, “since I must tell you all, I have come to think him a dangerous acquaintance,–less for you than for some one else.”

“Who?” asked Madame de l’Estorade.

“Nais. That child, with her passion for her ‘preserver,’ makes me really uneasy.”

“Oh!” said the countess, smiling rather sadly, “are you not giving too much importance to childish nonsense?”

“Nais is, of course, a child, but a child who will ripen quickly into a woman. Did you not tell me yourself that you were sometimes frightened at the intuition she showed in matters beyond her years?”

“That is true. But what you call her passion for Monsieur de Sallenauve, besides being perfectly natural, is expressed by the dear little thing with such freedom and publicity that the sentiment is, it seems to me, obviously childlike.”

“Well, don’t trust to that; especially not after this troublesome being ceases to come to your house. Suppose that when the time comes to marry your daughter, this fancy should have smouldered in her heart and increased; imagine your difficulty!”

“Oh! between now and then, thank Heaven! there’s time enough,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, in a tone of incredulity.

“Between now and then,” said Madame de Camps, “Monsieur de Sallenauve may have reached a distinction which will put his name on every lip; and Nais, with her lively imagination, is more likely than other girls to be dazzled by it.”

“But, my dear love, look at the disproportion in their ages.”

“Monsieur de Sallenauve is thirty, and Nais will soon be fourteen; that is precisely the difference between you and Monsieur de l’Estorade.”

“Well, you may be right,” said Madame de l’Estorade, “and the sort of marriage I made from reason Nais may want to make from folly. But you needn’t be afraid; I will ruin that idol in her estimation.”

“But there again, as in the comedy of hatred you mean to play for Monsieur de l’Estorade’s benefit, you need moderation. If you do not manage it by careful transitions, you may miss your end. Never allow the influence of circumstances to appear when it is desirable than an impulse or an action should seem spontaneous.”

“But,” said Madame de l’Estorade, excitedly, “do you think that my hatred, as you call it, will be acted? I do hate him, that man; he is our evil genius!”

“Come, come, my dear, be calm! I don’t know you–you, you have always been Reason incarnate.”

At this moment Lucas entered the room and asked his mistress if she would receive _a_ Monsieur Jacques Bricheteau. Madame de l’Estorade looked at her friend, as if to consult her.

“He is that organist who was so useful to Monsieur de Sallenauve during the election. I don’t know what he can want of me.”

“Never mind,” said Madame de Camps, “receive him. Before beginning hostilities it is always well to know what is going on in the enemy’s camp.”

“Show him in,” said the countess.

Jacques Bricheteau entered. Expecting to be received in a friendly country, he had not taken any particular pains with his dress. An old maroon frock-coat to the cut of which it would have been difficult to assign a date, a plaid waistcoat buttoned to the throat, surmounted by a black cravat worn without a collar and twisted round the neck, yellowish trousers, gray stockings, and laced shoes,–such was the more than negligent costume in which the organist allowed himself to appear in a countess’s salon.

Requested briefly to sit down, he said,–

“Madame, I hope I am not indiscreet in thus presenting myself without having the honor of being known to you, but Monsieur Marie-Gaston told me of your desire that I should give music-lessons to your daughter. At first I replied that it was impossible, for all my time was occupied; but the prefect of police has just afforded me some leisure by dismissing me from a place I filled in his department; therefore I am now happy to place myself at your disposal.”

“Your dismissal, monsieur, was caused by your activity in Monsieur de Sallenauve’s election, was it not?” asked Madame de Camps.

“As no reason was assigned for it, I think your conjecture is probably correct; especially as in twenty years I have had no trouble whatever with my chiefs.”

“It can’t be denied,” said Madame de l’Estorade, sharply, “that you have opposed the views of the government by this proceeding.”

“Consequently, madame, I have accepted this dismissal as an expected evil. What interest, after all, had I in retaining my paltry post, compared to that of Monsieur de Sallenauve’s election?”

“I am very sorry,” resumed Madame de l’Estorade, “to be unable to accept the offer you are good enough to make me. But I have not yet considered the question of a music-master for my daughter; and, in any case, I fear that, in view of your great and recognized talent, your instruction would be too advanced for a little girl of fourteen.”

“Well,” said Jacques Bricheteau, smiling, “no one has recognized my talent, madame. Monsieur de Sallenauve and Monsieur Marie-Gaston have only heard me once or twice. Apart from that I am the most obscure of professors, and perhaps the dullest. But setting aside the question of your daughter’s master, I wish to speak of a far more important interest, which has, in fact, brought me here. I mean Monsieur de Sallenauve.”

“Has Monsieur de Sallenauve,” said Madame de l’Estorade, with marked coldness of manner, “sent you here with a message to my husband?”

“No, madame,” replied Jacques Bricheteau, “he has unfortunately given me no message. I cannot find him. I went to Ville d’Avray this morning, and was told that he had started on a journey with Monsieur Marie-Gaston. The servant having told me that the object and direction of this journey were probably known to you–“

“Not in any way,” interrupted Madame de l’Estorade.

Not as yet perceiving that his visit was unacceptable and that no explanation was desired, Jacques Bricheteau persisted in his statement:–

“This morning, I received a letter from the notary at Arcis-sur-Aube, who informs me that my aunt, Mother Marie-des-Anges, desires me to be told of a scandalous intrigue now being organized for the purpose of ousting Monsieur de Sallenauve from his post as deputy. The absence of our friend will seriously complicate the matter. We can take no steps without him; and I cannot understand why he should disappear without informing those who take the deepest interest in him.”

“That he has not informed you is certainly singular,” replied Madame de l’Estorade, in the same freezing tone; “but as for my husband or me, there is nothing to be surprised about.”

The meaning of this discourteous answer was too plain for Jacques Bricheteau not to perceive it. He looked straight at the countess, who lowered her eyes; but the whole expression of her countenance, due north, confirmed the meaning he could no longer mistake in her words.

“Pardon me, madame,” he said, rising. “I was not aware that the future and the reputation of Monsieur de Sallenauve had become indifferent to you. Only a moment ago, in your antechamber, when your servant hesitated to take in my name, Mademoiselle, your daughter, as soon as she heard I was the friend of Monsieur de Sallenauve, took my part warmly; and I had the stupidity to suppose that such friendliness was the tone of the family.”

After this remark, which gave Madame de l’Estorade the full change for her coin, Jacques Bricheteau bowed ceremoniously and was about to leave the room, when a sudden contradiction of the countess’s comedy of indifference appeared in the person of Nais, who rushed in exclaiming triumphantly,–

“Mamma, a letter from Monsieur de Sallenauve!”

The countess turned crimson.

“What do you mean by running in here like a crazy girl?” she said sternly; “and how do you know that this letter is from the person you mention?”

“Oh!” replied Nais, twisting the knife in the wound, “when he wrote you those letters from Arcis-sur-Aube, I saw his handwriting.”

“You are a silly, inquisitive little girl,” said her mother, driven by these aggravating circumstances quite outside of her usual habits of indulgence. “Go to your room.” Then she added to Jacques Bricheteau, who lingered after the arrival of the letter,–

“Permit me, monsieur.”

“It is for me, madame, to ask permission to remain until you have read that letter. If _by chance_ Monsieur de Sallenauve gives you any particulars about his journey, you will, perhaps, allow me to profit by them.”

“Monsieur de Sallenauve,” said the countess, after reading the letter, “requests me to inform my husband that he has gone to Hanwell, county of Middlesex, England. You can address him there, monsieur, to the care of Doctor Ellis.”

Jacques Bricheteau made a second ceremonious bow and left the room.

“Nais has just given you a taste of her quality,” said Madame de Camps; “but you deserved it,–you really treated that poor man too harshly.”

“I could not help it,” replied Madame de l’Estorade; “the day began wrong, and all the rest follows suit.”

“Well, about the letter?”

“It is dreadful; read it yourself.”

Madame,–I was able to overtake Lord Lewin, the Englishman of whom I spoke to you, a few miles out of Paris. Providence sent him to Ville d’Avray to save us from an awful misfortune. Possessing an immense fortune, he is, like so many of his countrymen, a victim to _spleen_, and it is only his natural force of character which has saved him from the worst results of that malady. His indifference to life and the perfect coolness with which he spoke of suicide won him Marie-Gaston’s friendship in Florence. Lord Lewin, having studied the subject of violent emotions, is very intimate with Doctor Ellis, a noted alienist, and it not infrequently happens that he spends two or three weeks with him at Hanwell, Middlesex Co., one of the best-managed lunatic asylums in England,–Doctor Ellis being in charge of it.

When he arrived at Ville d’Avray, Lord Lewin saw at once that Marie-Gaston had all the symptoms of incipient mania. Invisible to other eyes, they were apparent to those of Lord Lewin. In speaking to me of our poor friend, he used the word _chiffonait_,–meaning that he picked up rubbish as he walked, bits of straw, scraps of paper, rusty nails, and put them carefully into his pocket. That, he informed me, is a marked symptom well known to those who study the first stages of insanity. Enticing him to the subject of their conversations in Florence, he obtained the fact that the poor fellow meditated suicide, and the reason for it. Every night, Gaston told him, his wife appeared to him, and he had now resolved to _rejoin_ her, to use his own expression. Instead of opposing this idea, Lord Lewin took a tone of approval. “But,” he said, “men such as we ought not to die in a common way. I myself have always had the idea of going to South America, where, not far from Paraguay, there is one of the greatest cataracts in the world, –the Saut de Gayra. The mists rising from it can be seen at a distance of many miles. An enormous volume of water is suddenly forced through a narrow channel, and rushes with terrific force and the noise of a hundred thunder-claps into the gulf below. There, indeed, one could find a noble death.”

“Let us go there,” said Gaston.

“Yes,” said Lord Lewin, “I am ready to go at once; we must sail from England; it will take a few weeks to get there.”

In this way, madame, he enticed our poor friend to England, where, as you will already have supposed, he has placed him in charge of Doctor Ellis, who, they say, has not his equal in Europe for the treatment of this particular form of mental aberration.

I joined them at Beauvais, and have followed them to Hanwell, taking care not to be seen by Marie-Gaston. Here I shall be detained until the doctor is able to give a decided opinion as to the probable results of our friend’s condition. I greatly fear, however, that I cannot possibly return to Paris in time for the opening of the session. But I shall write to the president of the Chamber, and in case any questions regarding my absence should arise, may I ask Monsieur de l’Estorade to do me the favor of stating that, to his knowledge, I have been absolutely forced by