Renée Mauperin

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Title: Renée Mauperin

Author: Edmond de Goncourt
Jules de Goncourt

Translator: Alys Hallard

Release date: February 13, 2008 [eBook #24604]
Most recently updated: January 3, 2021

Language: English

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The French Classical Romances
Complete in Twenty Crown Octavo Volumes

Editor-in-Chief

EDMUND GOSSE, LL.D.

With Critical Introductions and Interpretative Essays by

HENRY JAMES PROF. RICHARD BURTON HENRY HARLAND

ANDREW LANG PROF. F. C. DE SUMICHRAST

THE EARL OF CREWE HIS EXCELLENCY M. CAMBON

PROF. WM. P. TRENT ARTHUR SYMONS MAURICE HEWLETT

DR. JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY RICHARD MANSFIELD

BOOTH TARKINGTON DR. RICHARD GARNETT

PROF. WILLIAM M. SLOANE JOHN OLIVER HOBBES

[Illustration: (signed) J. de Goncourt]

DE GONCOURT

RENÉE MAUPERIN

Translated from the French by Alys Hallard

With a Critical Introduction by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly

A Frontispiece and Numerous Other Portraits with Descriptive
Notes by Octave Uzanne

P. F. Collier & Son
New York

EDMOND AND JULES DE GONCOURT

The partnership of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt is probably the most
curious and perfect example of collaboration recorded in literary
history. The brothers worked together for twenty-two years, and the
amalgam of their diverse talents was so complete that, were it not for
the information given by the survivor, it would be difficult to guess
what each brought to the work which bears their names. Even in the light
of these confidences, it is no easy matter to attempt to separate or
disengage their literary personalities. The two are practically one.
_Jamais âme pareille n'a été mise en deux corps._ This testimony is
their own, and their testimony is true. The result is the more
perplexing when we remember that these two brothers were, so to say, men
of different races. The elder was a German from Lorraine, the younger
was an inveterate Latin Parisian: "the most absolute difference of
temperaments, tastes, and characters--and absolutely the same ideas, the
same personal likes and dislikes, the same intellectual vision." There
may be, as there probably always will be, two opinions as to the value
of their writings; there can be no difference of view concerning their
intense devotion to literature, their unhesitating rejection of all that
might distract them from their vocation. They spent a small fortune in
collecting materials for works that were not to find two hundred
readers; they passed months, and more months, in tedious researches the
results of which were condensed into a single page; they resigned most
of life's pleasures and all its joys to dedicate themselves totally to
the office of their election. So they lived--toiling, endeavouring,
undismayed, confident in their integrity and genius, unrewarded by one
accepted triumph, uncheered by a single frank success or even by any
considerable recognition. The younger Goncourt died of his failure
before he was forty; the elder underwent almost the same monotony of
defeat during nearly thirty years of life that remained to him. But both
continued undaunted, and, if we consider what manner of men they were
and how dear fame was to them, the constancy of their ambition becomes
all the more admirable.

[Illustration: Edmond de Goncourt]

Despising, or affecting to despise, the general verdict of their
contemporaries, they loved to declare that they wrote for their own
personal pleasure, for an audience of a dozen friends, or for the
delight of a distant posterity; and, when the absence of all
appreciation momentarily weighed them down, they vainly imagined that
the acquisition of a new _bibelot_ consoled them. No doubt the passion
of the collector was strong in them: so strong that Edmond half forgot
his grief for his brother and his terror of the Commune in the pursuit
of first editions: so strong that the chances of a Prussian bomb
shattering his storehouse of treasures--the _Maison d'un artiste_--at
Auteuil saddened him more than the dismemberment of France. But, even
so, the idea that the Goncourts could in any circumstances subordinate
literature to any other interest was the merest illusion. Nothing in the
world pleased them half so well as the sight of their own words in
print. The arrival of a set of proof-sheets on the 1st of January was to
them the best possible augury for the new year; the sight of their names
on the placards outside the theatres and the booksellers' shops
enraptured them; and Edmond, then well on in years, confesses that he
thrice stole downstairs, half-clad, in the March dawn, to make sure that
the opening chapters of _Chérie_ were really inserted in the _Gaulois_.
These were their few rewards, their only victories. They were fain to be
content with such small things--_la petite monnaie de la gloire_. Still
they were persuaded that time was on their side, and, assured as they
were of their literary immortality, they chafed at the suggestion that
the most splendid renown must grow dim within a hundred thousand years.
Was so poor a laurel worth the struggle? This was the whole extent of
their misgiving.

Baffled at every point, the Goncourts were unable to account for the
unbroken series of disasters which befell them; yet the explanation is
not far to seek. For one thing, they attempted so much, so continuously,
in so many directions, and in such quick succession, that their very
versatility and diligence laid them under suspicion. They were not
content to be historians, or philosophers, or novelists, or dramatists,
or art critics: they would be all and each of these at once. In every
branch of intellectual effort they asserted their claims to be regarded
as innovators, and therefore as leaders. Within a month they published
_Germinie Lacerteux_ and an elaborate study on Fragonard; and, while
they plumed themselves (as they very well might) on their feat, the
average intelligent reader joined with the average intelligent critic in
concluding that such various accomplishment must needs be superficial.
It was not credible that one and the same pair--_par nobile
fratrum_--could be not only close observers of contemporary life, but
also authorities on Watteau and Outamaro, on Marie Antoinette and Mlle.
Clairon. To admit this would be to emphasize the limitations of all
other men of letters. Again, the uncanny element of chance which enters
into every enterprise was constantly hostile to the Goncourts. They not
only published incessantly: they somehow contrived to publish at
inopportune moments--at times when the public interest was turned from
letters to politics. Their first novel appeared on the very day of
Napoleon III's _Coup d'état_, and their publisher even refused to
advertise the book lest the new authorities should see in the title of
_En 18_--a covert allusion to the 18th Brumaire. It would have been a
pleasing stroke of irony had the Ministry of the 16th of May been
supported by the country as it was supported by Edmond de Goncourt, for
that Ministry intended to prosecute him as the author of _La Fille
Élisa_. _La Faustin_ was issued on the morning of Gambetta's downfall;
and the seventh volume of the _Journal des Goncourt_ had barely been
published a few hours when the news of Carnot's assassination reached
Paris. Lastly, the personal qualities of the brothers--their ostentation
of independence, their attitude of supercilious superiority, and, most
of all, their fatal gift of irony--raised up innumerable enemies and
alienated both actual and possible friends. They gave no quarter and
they received none. All this is extremely human and natural; but the
Goncourts, being nervous invalids as well as born fighters, suffered
acutely from what they regarded as the universal disloyalty of their
comrades.

They could not realize that their writings contained much to displease
men of all parties, and, living at war with literary society, they
sullenly cultivated their morbid sensibility. The simplest trifle stung
them into frenzies of inconsistency and hallucination. To-day they
denounced the liberty of the press; to-morrow they raged at finding
themselves the victims of a Government prosecution. Withal their
ferocious wit, there was not a ray of sunshine in their humour, and,
instead of smiling at the discomfiture of a dull official, they brooded
till their imaginations magnified these petty police-court proceedings
into the tragedy of a supreme martyrdom. Years afterward they
continually return to the subject, noting with exasperated complacency
that the only four men in France who were seriously concerned with
letters and art--Baudelaire, Flaubert, and themselves--had been dragged
before the courts; and they ended by considering their little lawsuit as
one of the historic state trials of the world. Henceforth, in every
personal matter--and their art was intensely personal--they lost all
sense of proportion, believing that there was a vast Semitic plot to
stifle _Manette Salomon_ and that the President had brought pressure on
the censor to forbid an adaptation of one of their novels being put upon
the boards. Monarchy, Empire, Republic, Right, Centre, Left--no shade of
political thought, no public man, no legislative measure, ever chanced
to please them. They sought for the causes of their failure in others:
it never occurred to them that the fault lay in themselves. Their minds
were twin whirlpools of chaotic opinions. Revolutionaries in arts and
letters as they claimed to be, they detested novelties in religion,
politics, medicine, science, abstract speculation. It never struck them
that it was incongruous, not to say absurd, to claim complete liberty
for themselves and to denounce ministers for attempting to extend the
far more restricted liberty of others. And as with the ordering of their
lives, so with their art and all that touched it. Unable to conciliate
or to compromise, they were conspicuously successful in stimulating the
general prejudice against themselves. They paraded their
self-contradictions with a childish pride of paradox. In one breath they
deplored the ignorance of a public too uncultivated to appreciate them;
in another breath they proclaimed that every government which strives to
diminish illiteracy is digging its own grave. Priding themselves on the
thoroughness of their own investigations, they belittled the results of
learning in others, mocked at the superficial labour of the
Benedictines, ridiculed the inartistic surroundings of Sainte-Beuve and
Renan, and protested that antiquity was nothing but an inept invention
to enable professors to earn their daily bread. Not content with
asserting the superiority of Diderot to Voltaire, they pronounced the
Abbé Trublet to be the acutest critic who flourished during that
eighteenth century which they had come to consider as their exclusive
property. Resolute conservatives in theory, piquing themselves on their
descent, their personal elegance, their tact and refinement, these
worshippers of Marie Antoinette admired the talent shown by Hébert in
his infamous _Père Duchêne_, and then went on to lament the influence of
socialism on literature. They were _papalini_ who sympathized with
Garibaldi; they looked forward to a repetition of '93, and almost
welcomed it as a deliverance from the respectable uniformity of their
own time; they trusted to the working men--masons, house-painters,
carpenters, navvies--to regenerate an effete civilization and to save
society as the barbarians had saved it in earlier centuries. Whatever
the value of these views, they can scarcely have found favour among
those who rallied to the Second Empire and who imagined that the
Goncourts were a pair of firebrands: whereas, in fact, they were
petulant, impulsive men of talent, smarting under neglect.

If we were so ingenuous as to take their statements seriously, we might
refuse to admit their right to find any place in French literature. For,
though it would be easy to quote passages in which they contemn the
cosmopolitan spirit, it would be no less easy to set against these their
assertions that they are ashamed of being French; that they are no more
French than the Abbé Galiani, the Prince de Ligne, or Heine; that they
will renounce their nationality, settle in Holland or Belgium, and there
found a journal in which they can speak their minds. These are wild,
whirling words: the politics of literary men are on a level with the
literature of politicians. On their own showing, it does not appear that
the Goncourts were in any way fettered. The sum of their achievement, as
they saw it, is recorded in a celebrated passage of the preface to
_Chérie_: "_La recherche du vrai en littérature, la résurrection de
l'art du XVIIIe siècle, la victoire du japonisme._" These words are the
words of Jules de Goncourt, but Edmond makes them his own. If the
brothers were entitled to claim--as they repeatedly claimed--to be held
for the leaders of these "three great literary and artistic movements of
the second half of the nineteenth century," it is clear that they were
justified in thinking that the future must reckon with them. It is
equally clear that, if their title proves good, their environment was
much less unfavourable than they assumed it to be.

The conclusion is that their sublime egotism disabled them from forming
a judicial judgment on any question in which they were personally
concerned. They never attempted to reason, to compare, to balance; their
minds were filled with the vapour of tumultuous impressions which
condensed at different periods into dogmas, and were succeeded by fresh
condensations from the same source. But, amid all changes, their
self-esteem was constant. They had no hesitation in setting Dunant's
_Souvenir de Solférino_ above the _Iliad_; but when Taine implied that
he was somewhat less interested in _Madame Gervaisais_ than in the
writings of Santa Teresa, they were startled at his boldness. And, to
define their position more precisely, Edmond confidently declares (among
many other strange sayings) that the fifth act of _La Patrie en Danger_
contains scenes more dramatically poignant than anything in Shakespeare,
and that in _La Maison d'un Artiste au XIXe Siècle_ he takes under his
control--though he candidly avows that none but himself suspects it--a
capital movement in the history of mankind. These are extremely high
pretensions, repeatedly renewed in one form or another--in prefaces,
manifestos, articles, letters, conversation, and, above all, in nine
invaluable volumes which consist of extracts from a diary covering a
period of over forty years. This extraordinary record incidentally
embodies the rough sketches of the Goncourts' finished work, but its
interest is far wider and more essentially characteristic. Other men
have written confessions, memoirs, reminiscences, by the score: mostly
books composed long after the events which they relate, recollections
revised, reviewed in the light of after events. The Goncourts are
perhaps alone in daring to unbosom themselves with an absolute sincerity
of their emotions, intentions, aims. If they come forth damaged from
such a trial, it is fair to remember that the test is unique, and that
no other writers have ever approached them in courage and in what they
most valued--truth: _la recherche du vrai en littérature_.

A most authoritative critic, M. Brunetière, has laid it down that there
is more truth, more fidelity to the facts of actual life, in any single
romance by Ponson du Terrail or by Gaboriau than in all the works of the
Goncourts put together, and so long as we leave truth undefined, this
opinion may be as tenable as any other. But it may be well to observe at
the outset that the creative work of the Goncourts is not to be
condemned or praised _en bloc_, for the simple reason that it is not a
spontaneous, uniform product, but the resultant of diverse forces
varying in direction and intensity from time to time. They themselves
have recorded that there are three distinct stages in their intellectual
evolution. Beginning, under the influence of Heine and Poe, with purely
imaginative conceptions, they rebounded to the extremest point of
realism before determining on the intermediate method of presenting
realistic pictures in a poetic light. Pure imagination in the domain of
contemporary fiction seemed to them defective, inasmuch as its processes
are austerely logical, while life itself is compact of contradictions;
and their first reaction from it was entirely natural, on their own
principles. It remains to be seen what sense should be attached to the
formula--_la recherche du vrai en littérature_--in which they summarized
their position as regards their predecessors.

Obviously we have to deal with a question of interpretation. The
Goncourts did not--could not--pretend that they were the first to
introduce truth into literature: they merely professed to have attained
it by a different route. The innovation for which they claimed credit is
a matter of method, of technique. Their deliberate purpose is to
surprise us by the fidelity of their studies, to captivate and convince
us by an accumulation of exact minutiæ: in a word, to prove that truth
is more interesting than fiction. So history should be written, and so
they wrote it. First and last, whatever form they chose, they remained
historians. Alleging the example set by Plutarch and Saint-Simon, they
make their histories of the eighteenth century a mine of anecdote, a
pageant of picturesque situations. State-papers, blue-books, ministerial
despatches, are in their view the conventional means used for
hoodwinking simpletons and forwarding the interests of a triumphant
faction. The most valuable historical material is, as they believed, to
be sought in the autograph letter. They held that the secret of the
craftiest intriguer will escape him, despite himself, in the expansion
of confidential correspondence. The research for such correspondence is
to be supplemented by the study of sculpture, paintings, engravings,
furniture, broadsides, bills--all of them indispensable for the
reconstruction of a past age and for the right understanding of its
psychology. But these means are simply complementary. The chief vehicle
of authentic truth is the autograph letter, and, though they professed
to hold the historical novel in abhorrence, they applied their
historical methods to their records of contemporary life. Thus we
inevitably arrive at the famous theory of the _document humain_--a
phrase received with much derision when first publicly used in the
preface to _La Faustin_, and a theory conscientiously adopted by many
later novelists. And here, again, it is important to realize the
restricted extent of the authors' claim.

The Goncourts draw a broad, primary distinction between ancient and
modern literature: the first deals mainly with generalities, the second
with details. They then proceed to establish an analogous distinction
between novels written before and after Balzac's time, the modern novel
being based on _des documents racontés, ou relevés d'après nature_,
precisely as formal history is based on _des documents écrits_. But they
make no pretence of having initiated the revolution; their share was
limited to continuing Balzac's tradition, to enlarging the field of
observation, and especially to multiplying the instruments of research.
They declared that Gautier had, so to say, endowed literature with
vision; that Fromentin, in describing the silence of the desert, had
revealed the literary value of hearing; that with Zola, Loti--and they
might surely have added Maupassant--a fresh sense was brought into play:
_c'est le nez qui entre en scène_. Their personal contribution was their
nervous sensibility: _les premiers nous avons été les écrivains des
nerfs_. And they were prouder of this morbid quality than of their
talent. They were ever on the watch for fragments of talk caught up in
drawing-rooms, in restaurants, on omnibuses: ever ready to take notes at
death-beds, church, or taverns. Their life was one long pursuit of
_l'imprévu, le décousu, l'illogique du vrai_. These observations they
transcribed at night while the impression was still acute, and these
they utilized more or less deftly as they advanced towards what they
rightly thought to be the goal of art: the perfect adjustment of
proportion between the real and the imagined.

It would seem that we are now in a position to judge the Goncourts by
their own standard. _Le dosage juste de la littérature et de la
vie_--this formula recurs in one shape or another as a leading
principle, and it is supplemented by other still more emphatic
indications which should serve to supply a test. Unhappily, with the
Goncourts these indications are unsystematic and even contradictory. The
elder brother has naturally no hesitation in saying that the highest
gift of any writer is his power of creating on paper real beings--_comme
des êtres créés par Dieu, et comme ayant eu une vraie vie sur la
terre_--and he is bold enough to add that Shakespeare himself has failed
to create more than two or three personages. He protests energetically
against the academic virtues, and insists on the importance of forming a
personal style which shall reproduce the vivacity, brio, and feverish
activity of the best talk. It is, then, all the more disconcerting to
learn from another passage in the _Journal_ that the creation of
characters and the discovery of an original form of expression are
matters of secondary moment. The truth is that if the Goncourts had, as
they believed, something new to say, it was inevitable that they should
seek to invent a new manner of utterance. Renan was doubtless right in
thinking that they were absolutely without ideas on abstract subjects;
but they were exquisitely susceptible to every shade and tone of
concrete objects, and the endeavour to convey their innumerable
impressions taxed the resources of that French vocabulary on whose
relative poverty they so often insist. The reproaches brought against
them in the matter of verbal audacities by every prominent critic, from
Sainte-Beuve in one camp to Pontmartin in the other, are so many
testimonies to the fact that they were innovators--_apporteurs du
neuf_--and that their intrepidity cost them dear. Still their boldness
in this respect has been generally exaggerated. Setting out as imitators
of two such different models as Gautier and Jules Janin, they slowly
acquired an individual manner--the manner, say, of _Germinie Lacerteux_
or _Manette Salomon_--but they never attained the formula which they had
conceived as final. It was not given to them to realize their
ambition--to write novels which should not contain a single bookish
expression, plays which should reveal that hitherto undiscoverable
quantity--colloquial speech, raised to the level of consummate art. The
famous _écriture artiste_ remained an unfulfilled ideal. The expression,
first used in the preface to _Les Frères Zemganno_, merely foreshadows a
possible development of style which shall come into being when realism
or naturalism, ceasing to describe the ignoble, shall occupy itself with
the attempt to render refinements, reticences, subtleties, and
half-tones of a more elusive order. It is an aspiration, a counsel of
perfection offered to a younger school by an artist in experiment, who
declares the quest to be beyond his powers. It is nothing more.

Leaving on one side these questions of style and manner, it may safely
be said that in the novels of the Goncourts the characters are less
memorable, less interesting as individuals than as illustrations of an
epoch or types of a given social sphere. Charles Demailly, Madame
Gervaisais, Manette Salomon, Renée Mauperin, Soeur Philomène, are not so
much dramatic creations as figures around which is constituted the life
of a special _milieu_--the world of journalism, of Catholicism seen from
two opposite points of view, of artists, of the _bourgeoisie_, as the
case may be. There are in the best work of the Goncourts astonishingly
brilliant scenes; there is dialogue vivacious, witty, sparkling, to an
extraordinary degree. And this dialogue, as in _Charles Demailly_, is
not only supremely interesting, but intrinsically true to nature. It
could not well be otherwise, for the speeches assigned to Masson,
Lampérière, Remontville, Boisroger, and Montbaillard are, as often as
not, verbatim reports of paradoxes and epigrams thrown off a few hours
earlier by Théophile Gautier, Flaubert, Saint-Victor, Banville, and
Villemessant. But these flights, true and well worth preserving as they
are, fail to impress for the simple reason that they are mere exercises
in bravura delivered by men much less concerned with life than with
phrases, that they are allotted to subordinate characters, and that they
rather serve to diminish than to increase the interest in the central
figures. The Goncourts themselves are much less absorbed in life than in
writing about it: just as landscapes reminded them of pictures, so did
every other manifestation of existence present itself as a possible
subject for artistic treatment. They had been called the detectives of
history; they became detectives, inquisitors in real life, and, much as
they loathed the occupation, they never rested from their task of spying
and prying and "documentation." As with _Charles Demailly_, so with
their other books: each character is studied after nature with a grim,
revolting persistence. Their aunt, Mlle. de Courmont, is the model of
Mlle. de Varandeuil in _Germinie Lacerteux_; Germinie herself is drawn
from their old servant Rose, who had loved them, cheated them, blinded
them for half a lifetime; the Victor Chevassier who figures in _Quelques
créatures de ce temps_ is sketched from their father's old political
ally, Colardez, at Breuvannes; the original of the Abbé Blampoix in
_Renée Mauperin_ was the Abbé Caron; the painter Beaulieu and that
strange Bohemian Pouthier are both worked into _Manette Salomon_. And
the novel entitled _Madame Gervaisais_ is an almost exact transcription
or record of the life of the authors' aunt, Mme. Nephthalie de Courmont:
a report so literal that in three hundred pages there are but two
trifling departures from the strictest historical truth.

Mommsen himself has not excelled the Goncourts in conscientious
"documentation"; and yet, for all their care, their personages do not
abide in the memory as living beings. We do not see them as individuals,
but as types; and, strangely enough, the authors, despite the remarkable
skill with which they materialize many of their impressions, are
content to deliver their characters to us as so many illustrations of a
species. Thus Marthe Mance in _Charles Demailly_ is _un type,
l'incarnation d'un âge, de son sexe et d'un rôle de son temps_;
Langibout is _le type pur de l'ancienne école_; Madame Gervaisais, too,
is _un exemple et un type_ of the intellectual _bourgeoise_ of
Louis-Philippe's time; Madame Mauperin is _le type_ of the modern
_bourgeoise_ mother; Renée is the type of the modern _bourgeoise_ girl;
the Bourjots "represent" wealth; Denoisel is a Parisian--_ou plutôt
c'était le Parisien_. The Goncourts, in their endeavour to be more
precise, resort to odd combinations of conflicting elements. Within some
twenty pages Renée Mauperin is _une mélancolique tintamarresque_; the
adjectives _bourgeoise_ and _diabolique_ are used to characterize the
same thing; the Abbé Blampoix is at once "priest and lawyer, apostle and
diplomatist, Fénelon and M. de Foy." And the same types constantly
reappear. The physician Monterone in _Madame Gervaisais_ is simply an
Italian version of Denoisel in _Renée Mauperin_; the Abbé Blampoix has
his counter-part in Father Giansanti; Honorine is Germinie, before the
fall; Nachette and Gautruche might be brothers. The procedure, too, is
almost invariable. The antecedents of each personage are given with
abundant detail. We have minute information as to the family history of
the Mauperins, the Villacourts, Germinie, Couturat, and the rest; and
the mention of Father Sibilla involves a brief account of the order of
Barefooted Trinitarians from January, 1198, to the spring of 1853! There
is a frequent repetition of the same idea with scarcely any verbal
change: _un dos d'amateur_ in _Renée Mauperin_ and _le dos du cocher_ in
_Germinie Lacerteux_. And the possibilities of the human back were
evidently not exhausted, for at Christmas, 1882, Edmond de Goncourt
makes a careful note of the _dos de jeune fille du peuple_.

It is by no means an accident that the most frequent theme of the
brothers is illness: the insanity of Demailly, the tortures of Germinie,
the consumption of Madame Gervaisais, the decay of Renée Mauperin, the
record of pain in _Soeur Philomène_, in _Les Frères Zemganno_, and in
other works of the Goncourts. Emotion in less tragic circumstances they
rarely convey; and when they attempt it they are prone to stumble into
an unimpressive sentimentalism. Their strength lay in pure observation,
not in the philosophic or psychological presentment of nature. For their
fine powers to have full play, it was necessary that they should deal
with things seen: in other words, that feeling should take a concrete
shape. Once this condition is fulfilled, they can focus their own
impressions and render them with unsurpassable skill. We shall find in
them nothing epic, nothing inventive on a grand scale: the
transfiguring, ennobling vision of the greatest creators was denied
them. But they remain consummate masters in their own restricted
province: delicate observers of externals, noting and remembering with
unmatched exactitude every detail of gesture, attitude, intonation, and
expression. The description of landscape--of the Bois de Vincennes in
_Germinie Lacerteux_, the Forest of Fontainebleau in _Manette Salomon_,
or of the Trastevere quarter in _Madame Gervaisais_--commonly affords
them an occasion for a triumph; but the description of prolonged malady
gives them a still greater opportunity. Nor is this due simply to the
fact that they, who had never known what it was to enjoy a day of
perfect health, spoke from an intimate knowledge of the subject. Each
landscape preserves at least its abstract idiosyncrasy; illness is an
essentially "typical" state in which individual characteristics diminish
till they finally disappear. And it is especially in the portraiture of
types, rather than of individuals, that the genius of the Goncourts
excels.

In their own opinion, their initiative extended over a vast field and in
all directions. They seriously maintained that they were the first to
introduce the poor into French fiction, the first to awaken the
sentiment of pity for the wretched; they admitted the priority of
Dickens, but they apparently forgot that they had likewise been
anticipated by George Sand--that George Sand whose merits it took them
twenty years to recognise. They forgot, too, that compassion is
precisely the quality in which they were most lacking. Gavarni had
killed the sentiment of pity in them, and had communicated to them his
own mocking, sardonic spirit of inhumanity, his sinister delight in
every manifestation of cruelty, baseness, and pain. In their most candid
moods they confessed that they were all brain and no heart, that they
were without real affections; and their writings naturally suffer from
this unsympathetic attitude. But when every deduction is made, it is
impossible to deny their importance and significance. For they represent
a distinct stage in an organized movement--the reaction against
romanticism in the novel and lyrism in the theatre. And there is some
basis for their bold assertion that they led the way in every other
development of the modern French novel. They believed that they had
founded the naturalistic school in _Germinie Lacerteux_, the
psychological in _Madame Gervaisais_, the symbolic in _Les Frères
Zemganno_, and the satanic in _La Faustin_. It is unnecessary to
recognise all these claims in full: to discuss them at all, even if we
deny them, is to admit that the Goncourts were men of striking
intellectual force, of singular ambition, of exceptionally rich and
diverse gifts amounting, at times, to unquestionable genius. If they
were unsuccessful in their attempt to create an entire race of beings as
real as any on the planet, their superlative talent produced, in the
form of novels, invaluable studies of manners and customs, a brilliant
series of monographs on the social history of the nineteenth century.
And Daudet and M. Zola, and a dozen others whom it would be invidious to
name, may be accounted as in some sort their literary descendants.

It is not unnatural that Edmond de Goncourt should have ended by
disliking the form of the novel, which he came to regard as an exhausted
convention. His pessimism was universal. Art was dying, literature was
perishing daily. The almost universal acceptance of Ibsen and of Tolstoi
was in itself a convincing symptom of degeneration, if the vogue of the
latter writer were not indeed the result of a cosmopolitan plot against
the native realistic school. It was some consolation to reflect that,
after all, there was more "philosophy" in Beaumarchais than in Ibsen;
that the name of Goncourt was held in honour by Scandinavians and Slavs.
Yet it could not be denied that, the world over, aristocracy of every
kind was breaking down. To the eyes of the surviving Goncourt all the
signs of a last great catastrophe grew visible. Mankind was ill,
half-mad, and on the road to become completely insane. There were
countless indications of intellectual and physical decadence. Sloping
shoulders were disappearing; the physique of the peasant was not what
it had been; good food was practically unattainable; in a hundred years
a man who had once tasted genuine meat would be pointed out as a
curiosity. The probability was, that within half a century there would
not be a man of letters in the world; the reporter, the interviewer,
would have taken possession. As it was, the younger generation of
readers no longer rallied to the Goncourts as it had rallied when
_Henriette Maréchal_ was first replayed. The weary old man buried
himself in memoirs, biographies, books of travel; then turned to his
first loves--to Poe and Heine--and found that "we are all commercial
travellers compared to them." But, threatened as he was by blindness,
despairing as were his presentiments of what the future concealed, his
confidence in the durability of his fame and his brother's fame was
undimmed. There would always be the select few interested in two such
examples of the _littérateur bien né_. There would always be the
official historians of literature to take account of them as new,
perplexing, elemental forces. There would always be the curious who must
turn to the Goncourts for positive information. "Our romances," as the
brothers had noted forty years earlier, "will supply the greatest number
of facts and absolute truths to the moral history of this century." And
Edmond de Goncourt clung to the belief, ending, happily and
characteristically enough, by conceiving himself and his brother to be
"types," and the best of all types: _le type de l'honnête homme
littéraire, du persévérant dans ses convictions, et du contempteur de
l'argent_. The praise is deserved. It is a distinction of which greater
men might well be proud.

JAMES FITZMAURICE-KELLY.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

_The Goncourts were the sons of a cavalry officer, commander of a
squadron in the Imperial army._ EDMOND _was born at Nancy, on the 26th
of May, 1822, and his brother_ JULES _in Paris, on the 17th of December,
1830. They were the grandsons of the deputy of the National Assembly of
1789, Huot de Goncourt. A very close friendship united the brothers from
their earliest youth, but it appears to have been in the younger that
the irresistible tendency to literature first displayed itself. They
were originally drawn almost exclusively to the study of the history of
art. They devoted themselves particularly to the close of the eighteenth
century, and in their earliest important volumes, "La Révolution dans
les Moeurs" (1854), "Histoire de la Société Française pendant la
Révolution" (1854), and "Pendant le Directoire" (1855), they invented a
new thing, the evolution of the history of an age from the objects and
articles of its social existence. They were encouraged to continue these
studies further, more definitely concentrating their observations around
individuals, and some very curious monographs--made up, as some one
said, of the detritus of history--were the result, "Une Voiture de
Masques," 1856; "Les Actrices (Armande)," 1856; "Sophie Arnauld," 1857.
The most ingenious efforts of the brothers in this direction were,
however, concentrated upon "Portraits Intimes du XVIIIe Siècle,"
1857-'58, and upon the "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," 1858.

Towards 1860 the Goncourts closed their exclusively historical work, and
transferred their minute observation and excessively meticulous
treatment of small aspects of life to realistic romance. Their first
novel, "Les Hommes de Lettres," 1860 (now known as "Charles Demailly"),
showed some lack of ease in using the new medium, but it was followed by
"Soeur Philomène," 1861, one of the most finished of their fictions, and
this by "Renée Mauperin," 1864; "Germinie Lacerteux," 1864; "Manette
Salomon," 1867; and "Madame Gervaisais," 1869. Meanwhile, numerous
studies of the art of the bibelot appeared under the name of the two
Goncourts, and in particular their great work on "L'Art du XVIIIe
Siècle," which began to be published in 1859, although not completed
until 1882. All this while, moreover, they were secretly composing their
splenetic "Journal." On the 20th of June, 1870, the fair companionship
was broken by the death of Jules de Goncourt, and for some years Edmond
did no more than complete and publish certain artistic works which had
been left unfinished. Of these, the most remarkable were, a monograph on
the life and work of Gavarni, 1873; a compilation called "L'Amour au
XVIIIe Siècle," 1875; studies of the Du Barry, the Pompadour, and the
Duchess of Châteauroux, 1878-'79 (these three afterward united in one
volume as "Les Maîtresses de Louis XV"); and notes of a tour in Italy,
1894.

Edmond de Goncourt, however, after several years of silence, returned
alone to the composition of prose romance. He published in 1877 "La
Fille Élisa," an ultra-realistic tragedy of low life. In 1878, in the
very curious story of two mountebanks, "Les Frères Zemganno," he
betrayed the secret of his own perennial sorrow. Two more novels, "La
Faustin," 1882, and "Chérie," the pathetic portrait of a spoiled child,
close the series of his works in fiction. He returned to a close
examination of the history of art, and published_ catalogues raisonnés
_of the entire work of Watteau (1875) and of Prud'hon (1876). His latest
interests were centred around the classical Japanese designers, and he
published elaborate monographs on Outamaro (1891) and Hokousaï (1896).
In 1885 he collected the Letters of his brother Jules, and issued from
1887 to 1896, in nine volumes, as much as has hitherto been published of
the celebrated "Journal des Goncourts."

Edmond de Goncourt died while on a visit to Alphonse Daudet, at
Champrosay, the country-house of the latter, on the 16th of July, 1896.
He left his considerable fortune, which included valuable collections of
bibelots, mainly for the purpose of endowing an Academy of Prose
Literature, in opposition to the French Academy. In spite of extreme
hostility from the members of his family, and innumerable legal
difficulties, this "Académie des Goncourts" was formed, on what seems to
be a secure basis, in 1901, and M. Joris Karl Huysmans was elected its
first president._

E. G.

CONTENTS

PAGES

Edmond and Jules de Goncourt v-xxix
_James Fitzmaurice-Kelly_

Lives of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt xxxi-xxxiii
_Edmund Gosse_

Renée Mauperin 1-349

The Portraits of Edmond and Jules de
Goncourt 351-367
_Octave Uzanne_

RENÉE MAUPERIN

"You don't care about society, then, mademoiselle?"

"You won't tell any one, will you?--but I always feel as though I've
swallowed my tongue when I go out. That's the effect society has on me.
Perhaps it is that I've had no luck. The young men I have met are all
very serious, they are my brother's friends--quotation young men, I call
them. As to the girls, one can only talk to them about the last sermon
they have heard, the last piece of music they have learned, or their
last new dress. Conversation with my contemporaries is somewhat
restricted."

"And you live in the country all the year round, do you not?"

"Yes, but we are so near to Paris. Is the piece good they have just been
playing at the Opéra Comique? Have you seen it?"

"Yes, it's charming--the music is very fine. All Paris was at the first
night--I never go to the theatre except on first nights."

"Just fancy, they never take me to any theatre except the Opéra Comique
and the Français, and only to the Français when there is a classical
piece on. I think they are terribly dull, classical pieces. Only to
think that they won't let me go to the Palais Royal! I read the pieces
though. I spent a long time learning 'The Mountebanks' by heart. You are
very lucky, for you can go anywhere. The other evening my sister and my
brother-in-law had a great discussion about the Opera Ball. Is it true
that it is quite impossible to go to it?"

"Impossible? Well----"

"I mean--for instance, if you were married, would you take your wife,
just once, to see it?"

"If I were married I would not even take----"

"Your mother-in-law. Is that what you were going to say? Is it so
dreadful--really?"

"Well, in the first place, the company is----"

"Variegated? I know what that's like. But then it's the same everywhere.
Every one goes to the Marche and the company is mixed enough there. One
sees ladies, who are rather queer, drinking champagne in their
carriages. Then, too, the Bois de Boulogne! How dull it is to be a
_young person_, don't you think so?"

"What an idea! Why should it be? On the contrary, it seems to me----"

"I should like to see you in my place. You would soon find out what a
bore it is to be always proper. We are allowed to dance, but do you
imagine that we can talk to our partner? We may say 'Yes,' 'No,' 'No,'
'Yes,' and that's all! We must always keep to monosyllables, as that is
considered proper. You see how delightful our existence is. And for
everything it is just the same. If we want to be very proper we have to
act like simpletons; and for my part I cannot do it. Then we are
supposed to stop and prattle to persons of our own sex. And if we go off
and leave them and are seen talking to men instead--oh, well, I've had
lectures enough from mamma about that! Reading is another thing that is
not at all proper. Until two years ago I was not allowed to read the
serials in the newspaper, and now I have to skip the crimes in the news
of the day, as they are not quite proper.

"Then, too, with the accomplishments we are allowed to learn, we must
not go beyond a certain average. We may learn duets and pencil drawing,
but if we want anything more, why, it's affectation on our part. I go in
for oil-painting, for instance, and that is the despair of my family. I
ought only to paint roses and in water-colours. There's quite a current
here, though, isn't there? I can scarcely stand."

This was said in an arm of the Seine just between Briche and the Île
Saint Denis. The girl and the young man who were conversing were in the
water. They had been swimming until they were tired, and now, carried
along by the current, they had caught hold of a rope which was fastened
to one of the large boats stationed along the banks of the island. The
force of the water rocked them both gently at the end of the tight,
quivering rope. They kept sinking and then rising again. The water was
beating against the young girl's breast; it filled out her woollen
bathing-dress right up to the neck, while from behind little waves kept
dashing over her which a moment later were nothing but dewdrops hanging
from her ears.

She was rather higher up than the young man and had her arms out of the
water, her wrists turned round in order to hold the rope more firmly,
and her back against the black wood of the boat. Instinctively she kept
drawing back as the young man, swayed by the strong current, approached
her. Her whole attitude, as she shrank back, suspended from the rope,
reminded one of those sea goddesses which sculptors carve upon galleys.
A slight tremor, caused partly by the cold and partly by the movement of
the river, gave her something of the undulation of the water.

"Ah, now this, for instance," she continued, "cannot be at all
proper--to be swimming here with you. If we were at the seaside it would
be quite different. We should have just the same bathing costumes as
these, and we should come out of a bathing-van just as we have come out
of the house. We should have walked across the beach just as we have
walked along the river bank, and we should be in the water to the same
depth, absolutely like this. The waves would roll us about as this
current does, but it would not be the same thing at all; simply because
the Seine water is not proper! Oh, dear! I'm getting so hungry--are
you?"

"Well, I fancy I shall do justice to dinner."

"Ah! I warn you that I eat."

"Really, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, there is nothing poetical about me at meal-times. If you imagine
that I have no appetite you are quite mistaken. You are in the same club
as my brother-in-law, are you not?"

"Yes, I am in M. Davarande's club."

"Are there many married men in it?"

"Yes, a great many."

"How odd! I cannot understand why a man marries. If I had been a man it
seems to me that I should never have thought of marrying."

"Fortunately you are a woman."

"Ah, yes, that's another of our misfortunes, we women cannot stay
unmarried. But will you tell me why a man joins a club when he is
married?"

"Oh, one has to be in a club--especially in Paris. Every man of any
standing--if only for the sake of going in there for a smoke."

"What! do you mean to say that there are any wives nowadays without
smoking-rooms? Why, I would allow--yes, I would allow a halfpenny pipe!"

"Have you any neighbours?"

"Oh, we don't visit much. There are the Bourjots at Sannois, we go there
sometimes."

"Ah, the Bourjots! But, here, there cannot be any one to visit."

"Oh, there's the curé. Ha! ha! the first time he dined with us he drank
the water in his finger-bowl! Oh, I ought not to tell you that, it's too
bad of me--and he's so kind. He's always bringing me flowers."

"You ride, don't you, mademoiselle? That must be a delightful recreation
for you."

"Yes, I love riding. It is my one pleasure. It seems to me that I could
not do without that. What I like above everything is hunting. I was
brought up to that in the part of the world where papa used to live. I'm
desperately fond of it. I was seven hours one day in my saddle without
dismounting."

"Oh, I know what it is--I go hunting every year in the Perche with M. de
Beaulieu's hounds. You've heard of his pack, perhaps; he had them over
from England. Last year we had three splendid runs. By-the-bye, you have
the Chantilly meets near here."

"Yes, I go with papa, and we never miss one. When we were all together
at the last meet there were quite forty horses, and you know how it
excites them to be together. We started off at a gallop, and you can
imagine how delightful it was. It was the day we had such a magnificent
sunset in the pool. Oh, the fresh air, and the wind blowing through my
hair, and the dogs and the bugles and the trees flying along before
you--it makes you feel quite intoxicated! At such moments I'm so brave,
oh, so brave!"

"Only at such moments, mademoiselle?"

"Well--yes--only on horseback. On foot, I own, I am very frightened at
night; then, too, I don't like thunder at all--and--well, I'm very
delighted that we shall be three persons short for dinner this evening."

"But why, mademoiselle?"

"We should have been thirteen! I should have done the meanest things for
the sake of getting a fourteenth--as you would have seen. Ah, here comes
my brother with Denoisel; they'll bring us the boat. Do look how
beautiful it all is from here, just at this time!"

She glanced round, as she spoke, at the Seine, the river banks on each
side, and the sky. Small clouds were sporting and rolling along in the
horizon. They were violet, gray, and silvery, just tipped with flashes
of white, which looked like the foam of the sea touching the lower part
of the sky.

Above them rose the heavens infinite and blue, profound and clear,
magnificent and just turning paler as they do at the hour when the
stars are beginning to kindle behind the daylight. Higher up than all
hung two or three clouds stretching over the landscape, heavy-looking
and motionless.

An immense light fell over the water, lying dormant here, flashing
there, making the silvery streaks in the shadow of the boats tremble,
touching up a mast or a rudder, or resting on the orange-coloured
handkerchief or pink jacket of a washerwoman. The country, the outskirts
of the town, and the suburbs all met together on both sides of the
river. There were rows of poplar trees to be seen between the houses,
which were few and far between, as at the extreme limit of a town.

Then there were small, tumble-down cottages, inclosure's planked round,
gardens, green shutters, wine-trade signs painted in red letters, acacia
trees in front of the doors, old summer arbors giving way on one side,
bits of walls dazzlingly white, then some straight rows of
manufactories, brick buildings with tile and zinc-covered roofs, and
factory bells. Smoke from the various workshops mounted straight upward
and the shadow of it fell in the water like the shadows of so many
columns.

On one stack was written "Tobacco," and on a plaster façade could be
read "Doremus Labiche, Boats for Hire."

Over a canal which was blocked up with barges, a swing-bridge lifted
its two black arms in the air. Fishermen were throwing and drawing in
their lines. The sound of wheels could be heard, carts were coming and
going. Towing-ropes scraped along the road, which was hard, rough,
black, and dyed all colours by the unloading of coal, mineral refuse,
and chemicals.

From the candle, glucose, and fecula manufactories and sugar-refining
works which were scattered along the quay, surrounded by patches of
verdure, there was a vague odour of tallow and sugar which was carried
away by the emanations from the water and the smell of tar. The noise
from the foundries and the whistle of steam engines kept breaking the
silence of the river.

It was like Asnières, Saardam, and Puteaux combined, one of those
Parisian landscapes on the banks of the Seine such as Hervier paints,
foul and yet radiant, wretched yet gay, popular and full of life, where
Nature peeps out here and there between the buildings, the work and the
commerce, like a blade of grass held between a man's fingers.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

"Well, to tell the truth, I am not in raptures about it. It's
beautiful--in a certain degree."

"Oh, yes, it is beautiful. I assure you that it is very beautiful
indeed. About two years ago at the Exhibition there was an effect of
this kind. I don't remember the picture exactly, but it was just this.
There are certain things that I feel----"

"Ah, you have an artistic temperament, mademoiselle."

"Oh!" exclaimed the young girl, with a comic intonation, plunging
forthwith into the water. When she appeared again she began to swim
towards the boat which was advancing to meet her. Her hair had come
down, and was all wet and floating behind her. She shook it, sprinkling
the drops of water all round.

Evening was drawing near and rosy streaks were coming gradually into the
sky. A breath was stirring over the river, and at the tops of the trees
the leaves were quivering. A small windmill, which served for a sign
over the door of a tavern, began to turn round.

"Well, Renée, how have you enjoyed the water?" asked one of the rowers
as the young girl reached the steps placed at the back of the boat.

"Oh, very much, thanks, Denoisel," she answered.

"You are a nice one," said the other man, "you swim out so far--I began
to get uneasy. And what about Reverchon? Ah, yes, here he is."

Charles Louis Mauperin was born in 1787. He was the son of a barrister
who was well known and highly respected throughout Lorraine and Barrois,
and at the age of sixteen he entered the military school at
Fontainebleau. He became sublieutenant in the Thirty-fifth Regiment of
infantry, and afterward, as lieutenant in the same corps, he signalized
himself in Italy by a courage which was proof against everything. At
Pordenone, although wounded, surrounded by a troop of the enemy's
cavalry and challenged to lay down arms, he replied to the challenge by
giving the command to charge the enemy, by killing with his own hand one
of the horsemen who was threatening him and opening a passage with his
men, until, overcome by numbers and wounded on the head by two more
sword-thrusts, he fell down covered with blood and was left on the field
for dead.

After being captain in the Second Regiment of the Mediterranean, he
became captain aide-de-camp to General Roussel d'Hurbal, went through
the Russian campaign with him, and was shot through the right shoulder
the day after the battle of Moscow.

In 1813, at the age of twenty-six, he was an officer of the Legion of
Honour and major in the army. He was looked upon as one of the
commanding officers with the most brilliant prospects, when the battle
of Waterloo broke his sword for him and dashed his hopes to the ground.

He was put on half-pay, and, with Colonel Sauset and Colonel Maziau, he
entered into the Bonapartist conspiracy of the _Bazar français_.

Condemned to death by default, as a member of the managing committee, by
the Chamber of Peers, constituted into a court of justice, he was
concealed by his friends and shipped off to America.

On the voyage, not knowing how to occupy his active mind, he studied
medicine with one of his fellow-passengers who intended taking his
degree in America, and on arriving, Mauperin passed the necessary
examinations with him. After spending two years in the United States,
thanks to the friendship and influence of some of his former comrades,
who had been taken again into active service, he obtained pardon and was
allowed to return to France.

He went back to the little town of Bourmont, to the old home where his
mother was still living. This mother was one of those excellent old
ladies so frequently met with in the provincial France of the eighteenth
century. She was gay, witty, and fond of her glass of wine. Her son
adored her, and on finding her ill and under doctor's orders to avoid
all stimulants, he at once gave up wine, liqueurs, and coffee for her
sake, thinking that it would be easier for her to abstain if he shared
her privations. It was in compliance with her request, and by way of
humouring her sick fancies, that he married a cousin for whom he had no
especial liking. His mother had selected this wife for her son on
account of a joint claim to certain land, fields which touched each
other, and all the various considerations which tend to unite families
and blend together fortunes in the provinces.

After the death of his mother, the narrow life in the little town, which
had no further attraction for him, seemed irksome, and, as he was not
allowed to dwell in Paris, M. Mauperin sold his house and land in Bourmont,
with the exception of a farm at Villacourt, and went to live with his young
wife on a large estate which he bought in the heart of Bassigny, at
Morimond. There were the remains of a large abbey, a piece of land
worthy of the name which the monks had given it--"_Mort-au-monde_"--a
wild, magnificent bit of Nature with a pool of some hundred acres or
more and a forest of venerable oak trees; meadows with canals of
freestone where the spring-tide flowed along under bowers of trees, a
veritable wilderness where the vegetation had been left to itself since
the Revolution; springs babbling along in the shade; wild flowers,
cattle-tracks, the remains of a garden and the ruins of buildings. Here
and there a few stones had survived. The door was still to be seen, and
the benches were there on which the beggars used to sit while taking
their soup; here the apse of a roofless chapel and there the seven
foundations of walls _à la Montreuil_. The pavilion at the entrance,
built at the beginning of the last century, was all that was still
standing; it was complete and almost intact.

M. Mauperin took up his abode in this and lived there until 1830,
solitary and entirely absorbed in his studies. He gave himself up to
reading, educating himself on all subjects, and reaping knowledge in
every direction. He was familiar with all the great historians,
philosophers, and politicians, and was thoroughly master of the
industrial sciences. He only left his books when he felt the need of
fresh air, and then he would rest his brain and tire his body with long
walks of some fifteen miles across the fields and through the woods.

Every one was accustomed to see him walk like this, and the country
people recognised him in the distance by his step, his long frock-coat,
all buttoned up, his officer's gait, his head always slightly bent, and
the stick, made from a vine-stalk, which he used as a cane. The only
break in his secluded and laborious life was at election time. M.
Mauperin then put in an appearance everywhere from one end of the
department to the other. He drove about the country in a trap, and his
soldierly voice could be heard rousing the electors to enthusiasm at all
their meetings; he gave the word of command for the charge on the
Government candidates, and to him all this was like war once more.

When the election was over he left Chaumont and returned to his regular
routine and to the obscure tranquility of his studies.

Two children had come to him--a boy in 1826 and a girl in 1827. After
the Revolution of 1830 he was elected deputy. When he took his seat in
the chamber, his American ideas and theories were very much like those
of Armand Carrel. His animated speeches--brusque, martial, and full of
feeling--made quite a sensation. He became one of the inspirers of the
_National_ after being one of its first shareholders, and he suggested
articles attacking the budget and the finances.

The Tuileries made advances to him; some of his former comrades, who
were now aides-de-camp under the new king, sounded him with the promise
of a high military position, a generalship in the army, or some honour
for which he was still young enough. He refused everything point-blank.
In 1832 he signed the protestation of the deputies of the Opposition
against the words "Subjects of the King," which had been pronounced by
M. de Montalivet, and he fought against this system until 1835.

That year his wife presented him with a child, a little girl whose
arrival stirred him to the depths of his being. His other two children
had merely given him a calm joy, a happiness without any gaiety.
Something had always seemed wanting--just that something which brightens
a father's life and makes the home ring with laughter.

M. Mauperin loved his two children, but he did not adore them. The fond
father had hoped to delight in them, and he had been disappointed.
Instead of the son he had dreamed of--a regular boy, a mischievous
little urchin, one of those handsome little dare-devils with whom an old
soldier could live over again his own youth and hear once more, as it
were, the sound of gunpowder--M. Mauperin had to do with a most rational
sort of a child, a little boy who was always good, "quite a young lady,"
as he said himself. This had been a great trouble to him, as he felt
almost ashamed to have, as his son and heir, this miniature man who did
not even break his toys.

With his daughter, M. Mauperin had had the same disappointment. She was
one of those little girls who are women when they are born, and who play
with their parents merely to amuse them. She scarcely had any childhood,
and at the age of five, if a gentleman called to see her father, she
always ran away to wash her hands. She would be kissed on certain
spots, and she seemed to dread being ruffled or inconvenienced by a
father's caresses and love.

Thus repelled, M. Mauperin's affection, so long hoarded up, went out to
the cradle of the little newcomer whom he had named Renée after his
mother. He spent whole days with his little baby-girl in divine
nonsense. He would keep taking off her little cap to look at her silky
hair, and he taught her to make grimaces which charmed him. He would lie
down beside her on the floor when she was rolling about half naked with
all a child's delightful unconsciousness. In the night he would get up
to look at her asleep, and would pass hours listening to this first
breath of life, so like the respiration of a flower. When she woke up he
would be there to have her first smile--that smile of little girl-babies
which comes from out of the night as though from Paradise. His happiness
kept changing into perfect bliss; it seemed to him that the child he
loved so much was a little angel from heaven.

What joy he had with her at Morimond! He would wheel her all round the
house in a little carriage, and at every few steps turn round to look at
her screaming with laughter, with the sunshine playing on her cheeks,
and her little supple, pink foot curled up in her hand. Or he would take
her with him when he went for a walk, and would go as far as a village
and let the child throw kisses to the people who bowed to him, or he
would enter one of the farm-houses and show his daughter's teeth with
great pride. On the way, the child would often go to sleep in his arms,
as she did with her nurse. At other times he would take her into the
forest, and there, under the trees full of robin-redbreasts and
nightingales, towards the end of the day when there are voices overhead
in the woods, he would experience the most unutterable joy on hearing
the child, impressed by the noises around, try to imitate the sounds,
and to murmur and prattle as though she were answering the birds and
speaking to the singing heavens.

Mme. Mauperin had not given this last daughter so hearty a welcome. She
was a good wife and mother, but Mme. Mauperin was eaten up with that
pride peculiar to the provinces--namely, the pride of money. She had
made all her arrangements for two children, but the third one was not
welcome, as it would interfere with the pecuniary affairs of the other
two, and, above all, would infringe on her son's share. The division of
land which was now one estate, the partition of wealth which had
accumulated, and in consequence the lowering of social position in the
future and of the importance of the family--all this was what the second
little daughter represented to her mother.

M. Mauperin very soon had no more peace. The mother was constantly
attacking the politician, and reminding the father that it was his duty
to sacrifice himself to the interests of his children. She endeavoured
to separate him from his friends and to make him forsake his party and
his fidelity to his ideas. She made fun of what she called his
tomfoolery, which prevented him from turning his position to account.
Every day there were fresh attacks and reproaches until he was fairly
haunted by them; it was the terrible battle of all that is most prosaic
against the conscience of a Deputy of the Opposition. Finally, M.
Mauperin asked his wife for two months' truce for reflection, as he,
too, would have liked his beloved Renée to be rich. At the end of the
two months he sent his resignation in to the Chamber and opened a
sugar-refinery at Briche.

That had been twenty years ago. The children had grown up and the
business was thriving. M. Mauperin had done very well with his refinery.
His son was a barrister, his elder daughter married, and Renée's dowry
was waiting for her.

III

Every one had gone into the house, and in a corner of the drawing-room,
with its chintz hangings gay with bunches of wild flowers, Henri
Mauperin, Denoisel, and Reverchon were talking. Near to the
chimney-piece, Mme. Mauperin, with great demonstrations of affection,
was greeting her son-in-law and daughter, M. and Mme. Davarande, who had
just arrived. She felt obliged on this occasion to make a display of
family feeling and to exhibit her motherly love.

The greeting between Mme. Mauperin and Mme. Davarande was scarcely over
when a little old gentleman entered the drawing-room quietly, wished
Mme. Mauperin good-evening with his eyes as he passed, and walked
straight across to the group where Denoisel was.

This little gentleman wore a dress-coat and had white whiskers. He was
carrying a portfolio under his arm.

"Do you know that?" he asked Denoisel, taking him into a window recess
and half opening his folio.

"That? I should just think I do. It's the 'Mysterious Swing,' an
engraving after Lavrience's."

The little old gentleman smiled.

"Yes, but look," he said, and he half opened his portfolio again, but in
such a way that Denoisel could only just see inside.

"'Before letters.' It's a proof before letters! Can you see?"

"Perfectly."

"And margins!--a gem, isn't it? They didn't give it me, I can tell you,
the thieves! It was run up--and by a woman, too!"

"Oh, of course!"

"A _cocotte_, who asked to see it every time I went any higher. The
rascal of an auctioneer kept saying, 'Pass it to the lady.' At last I
got it for five pounds eight. Oh, I wouldn't have paid one halfpenny
more."

"I should think not! If I had only known--why, there's a proof like
that, exactly like it, at Spindler's, the artist's--and with larger
margins, too. He does not care about Louis Seize things, Spindler. If I
had only asked him!"

"Good heavens!--and before letters, like mine? Are you quite sure?"

"Before letters--before--Oh, yes, it's an earlier one than yours. It's
before--" and Denoisel whispered something to the old man which brought
a flush of pleasure to his face and a moisture to his lips.

Just at this moment M. Mauperin entered the drawing-room with his
daughter. She was leaning on his arm, her head slightly thrown back in
an indolent way, rubbing her hair against the sleeve of her father's
coat as a child does when it is being carried.

"How are you?" she said as she kissed her sister. She then held her
forehead to her mother's lips, shook hands with her brother-in-law, and
ran across to the little man with the portfolio.

"Can I see, god-papa?"

"No, little girl, you are not grown-up enough yet," he replied, patting
her cheek in an affectionate way.

"Ah, it's always like that with the things you buy!" said Renée, turning
her back on the old man, who tied up the ribbon of his portfolio with
the special little bow so familiar to the fingers of print collectors.

"Well, what's this I hear?" suddenly exclaimed Mme. Mauperin, turning to
her daughter.

Reverchon was sitting next her, so near that her dress touched him every
time she moved.

"You were both carried away by the current," she continued. "It was
dangerous, I am sure! Oh, that river! I really cannot understand how M.
Mauperin allows----"

"Mme. Mauperin," replied her husband, who was by the table looking
through an album with his daughter, "I do not allow anything--I
tolerate----"

"Coward!" whispered Renée to her father.

"I assure you, mamma, there was no danger," put in Henri Mauperin.
"There was no danger at all. They were just slightly carried along by
the current, and they preferred holding on to a boat to going half a
mile or so lower down the river. That was all! You see----"

"Ah, you comfort me," said Mme. Mauperin, the serenity of her expression
gradually returning at her son's words. "I know you are so prudent, but,
you see, M. Reverchon, our dear Renée is so foolish that I am always
afraid. Oh, dear, there are drops of water on her hair now. Come here
and let me brush them off."

"M. Dardouillet!" announced a servant.

"A neighbour of ours," said Mme. Mauperin in a low voice to Reverchon.

"Well, and where are you now?" asked M. Mauperin, as he shook hands with
the new arrival.

"Oh, we are getting on--we are getting on--three hundred stakes done
to-day."

"Three hundred?"

"Three hundred--I fancy it won't be bad. From the green-house, you see,
I am going straight along as far as the water, on account of the view.
Fourteen or sixteen inches of slope--not more. If we were on the spot I
shouldn't have to explain. On the other side, you know, I shall raise
the path about three feet. When all that's done, M. Mauperin, do you
know that there won't be an inch of my land that will not have been
turned over?"

"But when shall you plant anything, M. Dardouillet?" asked Mlle.
Mauperin. "For the last three years you have only had workmen in your
garden; sha'n't you have a few trees in some day?"

"Oh, as to trees, mademoiselle, that's nothing. There's plenty of time
for all that. The most important thing is the plan of the ground, the
hills and slopes, and then afterward trees--if we want them."

Some one had just come in by a door leading from another room. He had
bowed as he entered, but no one had seen him, and he was there now
without any one noticing him. He had an honest-looking face and a head
of hair like a pen-wiper. It was M. Mauperin's cashier, M. Bernard.

"We are all here; has M. Bernard come down? Ah, that's right!" said M.
Mauperin on seeing him. "Suppose we have dinner, Mme. Mauperin, these
young people must be hungry."

* * * * *

The solemnity of the first few moments when the appetite is keen had
worn off, and the buzz of conversation could be heard in place of the
silence with which a dinner usually commences, and which is followed by
the noise of spoons in the soup plates.

"M. Reverchon," began Mme. Mauperin. She had placed the young man by
her, in the seat of honour, and she was amiability itself, as far as he
was concerned. She was most attentive to him and most anxious to please.
Her smile covered her whole face, and even her voice was not her
every-day voice, but a high-pitched one which she assumed on state
occasions. She kept glancing from the young man to his plate and from
his plate to a servant. It was a case of a mother angling for a
son-in-law. "M. Reverchon, we met a lady just recently whom you
know--Mme. de Bonnières. She spoke so highly of you--oh, so highly!"

"I had the honour of meeting Mme. de Bonnières in Italy--I was even
fortunate enough to be able to render her a little service."

"Did you save her from brigands?" exclaimed Renée.

"No, it was much less romantic than that. Mme. de Bonnières had some
difficulty about the bill at her hotel. She was alone and I prevented
her from being robbed."

"It was a case of robbers, anyhow, then," said Renée.

"One might write a play on the subject," put in Denoisel, "and it would
be quite a new plot--the reduction of a bill leading to a marriage.
What a good title, too, 'The Romance of an Awkward Moment, _à la_
Rabelais!'"

"Mme. de Bonnières is a very nice woman," continued Mme. Mauperin. "I
like her face. Do you know her, M. Barousse?" she asked, turning to
Renée's godfather.

"Yes, she is very pleasant."

"Oh! why, god-papa, she's like a satyr!" exclaimed Renée.

When the word was out some of the guests smiled, and the young girl,
turning red, hastened to add: "I only mean she has a face like one."

"That's what I call mending matters!" said Denoisel.

"Did you stay long in Italy, monsieur?" asked M. Mauperin, by way of
changing the subject.

"Six months."

"And what did you think of it?"

"It's very interesting, but one has so much discomfort there. I never
could get used to drinking coffee out of glasses."

"Italy is the most wretched place to go to; it is the least practical of
all places," said Henri Mauperin. "What a state agriculture is in
there--and trade, too! One day in Florence at a masked ball I asked the
waiter at a restaurant if they would be open all night. 'Oh, no, sir,'
he said, 'we should have too many people here.' That's a fact, I heard
it myself, and that shows you what the country is. When one thinks of
England, of that wonderful initiative power of individuals and of the
whole nation, too; when one has seen the business genius of the London
citizen and the produce of a Yorkshire farm--Oh, a fine nation that!"

"I agree with Henri," said Mme. Davarande, "there is something so
distinguished about England. I like the politeness of the English
people, and I approve of their way of always introducing people. Then,
too, they wrap your change up in paper--and some of their dress
materials have quite a style of their own. My husband bought me a poplin
dress at the Exposition--Oh, mamma, I have quite decided about my cloak.
I was at Alberic's--it's most amusing. He lets one of the girls put a
cloak over your shoulders and then he walks round you and just marks
with an ebony ruler the places where it does not fit; he scarcely
touches you with it, but just gives little taps--like that--and the girl
marks each tap with chalk. Oh, he certainly has a lot of character, that
Alberic! And then he's the only one--there isn't another place--he has
such good style for cloaks. I recognised two of his yesterday at the
races. He is very expensive though."

"Oh, those people get what they like to ask," said Reverchon. "My
tailor, Edouard, has just retired--he's made over a hundred thousand
pounds."

"Oh, well, quite right," remarked M. Barousse. "I'm always very glad
when I see things like that. The workers get the money nowadays--that's
just what it is. It's the greatest revolution since the beginning of the
world."

"Yes," said Denoisel, "a revolution that makes one think of the words of
Chapon, the celebrated thief: 'Robbery, Monsieur le Président, is the
principal trade of the world!'"

"Were the races good?" asked Renée.

"Well, there were plenty of people," answered Mme. Davarande.

"Very good, mademoiselle," said Reverchon. "The Diana prize especially
was very well run. Plume de coq, that they reckoned at thirty-five, was
beaten by Basilicate by two lengths. It was very exciting. The hacks was
a very good race, too, although the ground was rather hard."

"Who is the Russian lady who drives four-in-hand, M. Reverchon?" asked
Mme. Davarande.

"Mme. de Rissleff. She has some splendid horses, some thoroughbred
Orloffs."

"You ought to join the Jockey Club, Jules, for the races," said Mme.
Davarande, turning to her husband. "I think it is so common to be with
everybody. Really if one has any respect for one's self--a woman I
mean--there is no place but the jockey stand."

"Ah, a mushroom patty!" exclaimed M. Barousse. "Your cook is surpassing
herself, she really is a veritable _cordon-bleu_. I shall have to pay
her my compliments before leaving."

"I thought you never eat that dish," said Mme. Mauperin.

"I did not eat it in 1848--and I did not eat it up to the second of
December. Do you think the police had time then to inspect mushrooms?
But now that there is order again."

"Henriette," said Mme. Mauperin to Mme. Davarande, "I must scold your
husband. He neglects us. We have not seen you for three weeks, M.
Davarande."

"Oh, my dear mother, if you only knew all I have had to do! You know I
am on very good terms with Georges. His father has his time taken up at
the Chamber and the business falls on Georges as principal. There are
hundreds of things that he can only trust to people in whom he has
confidence--friends, in fact. There was that big affair--that _début_ at
the Opéra. There was no end of interviews and parleyings and journeys
backward and forward. It would not have done to have had any strife
between the two ministries. Oh, we have been very busy lately. He is so
considerate that I could not----"

"So considerate?" put in Denoisel. "He might pay your cab-fares at
least. It's more than two years since he promised you a
sub-prefectship."

"My dear Denoisel, it's more difficult than you imagine. And then, too,
when one does not care about going too far from Paris. Besides, between
ourselves, I can tell you that it's almost arranged. In about a month
from now I have every reason to believe----"

"What _début_ were you speaking of?" asked Barousse.

"Bradizzi's," answered Davarande.

"Ah, Bradizzi! Isn't she astounding!" said Reverchon. "She has some runs
that are wonderfully light. The other day I was in the manager's box on
the stage and we couldn't hear her touch the ground when she was
dancing."

"We expected to see you yesterday evening, Henri," said Mme. Davarande
to her brother.

"Yesterday I was at my lecture," he answered.

"Henri has been appointed reporter," said Mme. Mauperin proudly.

"Ah," put in Denoisel, "the d'Aguesseau lecture? That's still going on
then, your speechifying affair? How many are there in it?"

"Two hundred."

"And all statesmen? It's quite alarming. What were you to report on?"

"A law that was proposed with reference to the National Guard."

"You go in for everything," said Denoisel.

"I am sure you do not belong to the National Guard, Denoisel?" observed
M. Barousse.

"No, indeed!"

"And yet it is an institution."

"The drums affirm that it is that, M. Barousse."

"And you do not vote either, I would wager?"

"I would not vote under any pretext."

"Denoisel, I am sorry to say so, but you are a bad citizen. You were
born as you are, I am not blaming you, but the fact remains----"

"A bad citizen--what do you mean?"

"Well, you are always in opposition to the laws."

"I am?"

"Yes, you are. Without going any farther back, take for instance the
money you came into from your Uncle Frédéric. You handed it over to his
illegitimate children----"

"What of that?"

"Well, that is what I call an illegal action, most deplorable and
blameworthy. What does the law mean? It is quite clear--the law means
that children not born in wedlock should not be able to inherit their
father's money. You were not ignorant of this, for I told you that it
was so; your lawyer told you and the code told you. What did you do?
Why, you let the children have the money. You ignored the code, the
spirit of the law, everything. To give up your uncle's fortune in that
way, Denoisel, was rendering homage to low morals. It was simply
encouraging----"

"I know your principles in the matter, M. Barousse. But what was I to
do? When I saw those three poor lads I said to myself that I should
never enjoy the cigars I smoked with their bread-money. No one is
perfect----"

"All that is not law. When there is a law there is some reason for it,
is there not? The law is against immorality. Suppose others imitated
you----"

"You need not fear that, Barousse," said M. Mauperin, smiling.

"We ought never to set a bad example," answered Barousse, sententiously.
"Do not misunderstand me," he continued, turning to Denoisel. "I do not
respect you any the less for it, on the contrary, I appreciate your
disinterestedness, but as to saying that you were right--no, I cannot
say that. It's the same with your way of living--that is not as it
should be. You ought to have your time occupied--hang it all! You ought
to do something, go in for something, take up some work, pay your debt
to your country. If you had begun in good time, with your intelligence,
you would perhaps have had a post bringing you in a thousand or
more----"

"I have had a better thing than that offered me, M. Barousse."

"More money?" asked Barousse.

"More money," answered Denoisel tranquilly.

Barousse looked at him in astonishment.

"Seriously," continued Denoisel, "I had the most brilliant
prospects--just for five minutes. It was on the twenty-fourth of
February, 1848. I did not know what to do with myself, for when one has
done the Tuileries in the morning it rather unsettles one for the rest
of the day. It occurred to me that I would go and call on one of my
friends who has a Government appointment--a Government appointment, you
know, on the other side of the water. I arrived, and there was no one
there. I went upstairs into the minister's office where my friend
worked--no friend there. I lighted a cigarette, intending to wait for
him. A gentleman came in while I was smoking, and seeing me seated,
imagined I belonged to the place. He had no hat on, so that I thought he
also did. He asked me very politely to show him the way about the house.
I took him round and then we came back. He gave me something to write
down, just telling me the sense of it. I took my friend's pen and wrote.
He then read it and was delighted. We talked; he admired my orthography.
He shook hands with me and found I had gloves on. To cut it short, at
the end of a quarter of an hour he was pressing me to be his secretary.
It was the new minister."

"And you did not accept?"

"My friend arrived and I accepted for him. He is at present quite a high
functionary in the Council of State. It was lucky for him to be
supernumerary only half a day."

They were having dessert, and M. Mauperin had pulled one of the dishes
nearer and was just helping himself in an absent-minded way.

"M. Mauperin!" exclaimed his wife, looking steadily at him.

"I beg pardon, my dear--symmetry--you are quite right. I wasn't
thinking," and he pushed the dish back to its place.

"You always do disarrange things----"

"I'm sorry, my dear, I'm very sorry. My wife is an excellent woman, you
know, gentlemen, but if you disarrange her symmetry for her--It's quite
a religion with my wife--symmetry is."

"How ridiculous you are, M. Mauperin!" said Mme. Mauperin, blushing at
being convicted of the most flagrant provincialism; and then, turning
upon her daughter, she exclaimed, "Oh, dear, Renée, how you stoop! Do
sit up, my child----"

"That's always the way," murmured the young girl, speaking to herself.
"Mamma avenges herself on me."

"Gentlemen," said M. Mauperin, when they had returned to the
drawing-room, "you can smoke here, you know. We owe that liberty to my
son. He has been lucky enough to obtain his mother's----"

"Coffee, god-papa?" asked Renée.

"No," answered M. Barousse, "I shouldn't be able to go to sleep----"

"Here," put in Renée, finishing his sentence for him.

"M. Reverchon?"

"I never take it, thank you very much."

She went backward and forward, the steam from the cup of hot coffee she
was carrying rising to her face and flushing it.

"Is every one served?" she asked, and without waiting for any reply she
sat down to the piano and struck the first notes of a polka.

"Are we going to dance?" she asked, breaking off. "Let us dance--oh, do
let us dance!"

"Let us smoke in peace!" said M. Mauperin.

"Yes, daddy," and going on with her polka she danced it herself on her
music-stool, only touching the floor with her tip-toes. She played
without looking at her notes, her face turned towards the drawing-room,
smiling and animated, her eyes lighted up and her cheeks flushed with
the excitement of the dance; like a little girl playing dance music for
other people and moving about herself as she watches them. She swung her
shoulders, her form swayed as though she were being guided along, while
her whole body marked the rhythm and her attitude seemed to indicate
the step she was dancing. Then she turned towards the piano again and
her eyes followed her hands over the black and white keys. Bending over
the music she was playing, she seemed to be striking the notes, then
caressing them, speaking to them, scolding them or smiling on them, and
then lulling them to sleep. She would sustain the loud parts, then
linger over the melody; there were movements that she would play with
tenderness and others with little bursts of passion. She bent over the
piano, then rose again, the light playing on the top of her
tortoise-shell comb one moment, while the next moment it could scarcely
be seen in her black hair. The two candles on the piano flickered to the
noise, throwing a light over her profile or sending their flame over her
forehead, her cheeks, and her chin. The shadow from her ear-rings--two
coral balls--trembled all the time on the delicate skin of her throat,
and her fingers ran so quickly over the keyboard that one could only see
something pink flying backward and forward.

"And it's her own composition," said M. Mauperin to Reverchon.

"She has had lessons from Quidant," added Mme. Mauperin.

"There--I've finished!" exclaimed Renée, suddenly leaving the piano and
planting herself in front of Denoisel. "Tell me a story now, Denoisel,
to amuse me--anything you like."

She was standing before him, her arms crossed and her head slightly
thrown back, the weight of her body supported on one leg, and a
mischievous, daring look on her face which lent additional grace to her
slightly masculine dress. She was wearing a high collar of piqué with a
cravat of black ribbon, and the revers of her white front turned back
over her jacket bodice of cloth. There were pockets on the front of her
skirt.

"When shall you cut your wisdom teeth, Renée?" asked Denoisel.

"Never!" she answered, laughing. "Well, what about my story?"

Denoisel looked round to see that no one was listening, and then
lowering his voice began:

"Once upon a time a papa and a mamma had a little daughter. The papa and
mamma wished her to marry, and they sent for some very nice-looking
gentlemen; but the little daughter, who was very nice-looking, too----"

"Oh, how stupid you are!--I'll get my work, there--" and taking her work
out of a basket on the table she went and sat down by her mother.

"Are we not going to have any whist to-night?" asked M. Mauperin.

"Yes, of course, my dear," answered Mme. Mauperin. "The table is
ready--you see there are only the candles to light."

"Going, going, gone!" called out Denoisel in M. Barousse's ear.

The old gentleman was just beginning to doze in a corner by the
chimney-piece and his head was nodding like a passenger's in a
stage-coach. M. Barousse started up and Denoisel handed him a card:

"The King of Spades! _before the letter!_ You are wanted at whist."

"You are not over-tired this evening, mademoiselle?" asked Reverchon,
approaching Renée.

"I? I could dance all night. That's how I feel."

"You are making something--very pretty----"

"This?--oh, yes, very pretty! It is a stocking--I am knitting for my
little poor children. It's warm, that's all it is. I am not very clever
with my needle, you know. With embroidery and wool-work you have to
think about what you are doing, but with this, you see, your fingers go;
it just makes itself when once you start, and you can think about
anything--the Grand Turk if you like----"

"I say, Renée," observed M. Mauperin, "it's odd; it's no good my losing,
I can't catch up again."

"Oh, that's clever--I shall remember that for my collection," answered
Renée. "Denoisel, come here," she called out, suddenly, "come here a
minute--nearer--nearer still. Will you come here at once--there
now--kneel down----"

"Are you mad, child?" exclaimed Mme. Mauperin.

"Renée," said Denoisel, "I believe you have made up your mind to prevent
my getting married."

"Come, come, Renée!" said M. Mauperin paternally from the card-table.

"Well--what is it?" asked Renée threatening Denoisel playfully with a
pair of scissors. "Now if you move! Denoisel's head always looks
untidy--his hair is badly cut--he always has a great, ugly lock that
falls over his forehead. It makes people squint when they look at him. I
want to cut that lock. There--he's afraid. Why, I cut hair very
well--you ask papa," and forthwith she gave two or three clips with her
scissors, and then crossing over to the fireplace, shook the hair into
the grate. "If you fancy it was for the sake of getting a lock of your
hair--" she said, turning round as she spoke.

She had paid no attention to the nudge her brother had given her as she
passed. Her mother, who an instant before was perfectly crimson, was now
pale, but Renée had not noticed that. Her father left the whist-table
and came across to her with an embarrassed expression, looking as though
he were vexed with her. She took the cigarette which he had lighted
from him, put it between her own lips, and drawing a puff of smoke,
blew it away again quickly, turning her head away, coughing and
blinking. "Ugh!--how horrid it is!"

"Well, really, Renée!" exclaimed Mme. Mauperin severely, and evidently
in great distress, "I really don't know--I have never seen you like
this----"

"Bring the tea in," said M. Mauperin to a servant who had entered in
answer to his peal at the bell.

"A quarter past ten already!" said Mme. Davarande. "We shall only just
have time to get to the station. Renée, tell them to bring me my hat."

Every one rose. Barousse woke up from his nap with the noise, and the
little band of guests from Paris set out for Saint-Denis.

"I'll come with you," said Denoisel. "I should like a breath of air."

Barousse was in front, arm-in-arm with Reverchon. The Davarandes
followed, and Henri Mauperin and Denoisel brought up the rear.

"Why don't you stay all night? You could go back to Paris to-morrow,"
Denoisel began.

"No," answered Henri, "I won't do that. I have some work to do to-morrow
morning. I should get to Paris late and my day would be wasted."

They were silent, and every now and then a few words from Barousse to
Reverchon in praise of Renée came to them through the silence of the
night.

"I say, Denoisel, I'm afraid it is all up with that, don't you think
so?"

"Yes, I think it is."

"Oh, dear! Will you tell me, my dear fellow, what made you humour Renée
in all the nonsense that came into her head this evening? You have a
great deal of influence over her and----"

"My dear boy," answered Denoisel, puffing at his cigar, "you must let me
give you a social, philosophical, and historical parenthesis. We have
quite finished, have we not, and when I say we, I mean the majority of
the French people, with the pretty little young ladies who used to talk
like mechanical dolls. They could say 'papa' and 'mamma,' and when they
went to a dance they never lost sight of their parents. The little
childlike young lady who was always so timid and bashful and who used to
blush and stammer, brought up to be ignorant of everything, neither
knowing how to stand up on her legs nor how to sit down on a chair--all
that sort of thing's done with, old-fashioned, worn out. That was the
marriageable young lady of the days of the Gymnase Theatre. There is
nothing of that kind nowadays. The process of culture has changed; it
used to be a case of the fruit-wall, but at present the young person
grows in the open. We ask a girl now about her impressions and we expect
her to say what she thinks naturally and originally. She is allowed to
talk, and indeed is expected to talk, about everything, as that is the
accepted thing now. She need no longer act sweet simplicity, but native
intelligence. If only she can shine in society her parents are
delighted. Her mother takes her to classes. If she should have any
talent it is encouraged and cultivated. Instead of ordinary governesses
she must have good masters, professors from the Conservatoire, or
artists whose pictures have been hung. She goes in for being an artist
and every one is delighted. Come, now, isn't that the way girls are
being educated now in middle-class society?'

"And the result?"

"Now, then," continued Denoisel without answering the question, "in the
midst of this education, which I am not criticising, remember--in the
midst of all this, let us imagine a father who is an excellent sort of
man, goodness and kindness personified, encouraging his daughter in her
new freedom by his weakness and his worship of her. Let us suppose, for
instance, that this father has countenanced all the daring and all the
mischievousness of a boy in a woman, that he has allowed his daughter
little by little to cultivate manly accomplishments, which he sees with
pride and which are after his own heart----"

"And you, my dear fellow, who know my sister so well and the way she has
been brought up, the style she has gone in for, authorized as she
considers herself (thanks to father's indulgence), you, knowing how
difficult it is to get her married, allowed her to do all kinds of
unseemly things this evening when you might have stopped her short with
just a few words such as you always find to say and which you alone can
say to her?"

* * * * *

The friend to whom Henri Mauperin was speaking, Denoisel, was the son of
a compatriot, and old school friend and brother-in-arms of M. Mauperin.
The two men had been in the same battles, they had shed their blood in
the same places, and during the retreat from Russia they had eaten the
same horse-flesh.

A year after his return to France, M. Mauperin had lost this friend, who
on his death-bed had left him guardian to his son. The boy had found a
second father in his guardian. When at college, he had spent all his
holidays at Morimond, and he looked upon the Mauperins as his own
family.

When M. Mauperin's children came it seemed to the young man that a
brother and sister had been just what he had wanted; he felt as though
he were their elder brother, and he became a child again in order to be
one with them.

His favourite was, of course, Renée, who when quite little began to
adore him. She was very lively and self-willed and he alone could make
her listen to reason and obey. As she grew up he had been the moulder of
her character, the confessor of her intellect, and the director of her
tastes. His influence over the young girl had increased day by day as
they grew more and more familiar. A room was always kept ready for
Denoisel in the house, his place was always kept for him at table, and
he came whenever he liked to spend a week with the Mauperins.

* * * * *

"There are days," continued Henri, "when Renée's nonsense does not
matter, but this evening--before that man. It will be all off with that
marriage, I'm sure! It would have been an excellent match--he has such
good prospects. He's just the man in every respect--charming, too, and
distinguished."

"Do you think so? For my part, I should have been afraid of him for your
sister. That is really the reason why I behaved as I did this evening.
That man has a sort of common distinction about him--a distinction made
up of the vulgarity of all kinds of elegancies. He's a fashion poster, a
tailor's model, morally and physically. There's nothing, absolutely
nothing, in a little fellow like that. A husband for your sister--that
man? Why, how in the world do you suppose he could ever understand her?
How is he ever to discover all the warmth of feeling and the elevation
and nobility of character hidden under her eccentricities? Can you
imagine them having a thought in common? Good heavens! if your sister
married, no matter whom, so long as the man were intelligent and had
some character and individuality, as long as there were something in him
that would either govern or appeal to a nature like hers--why, I would
say nothing. A man has often great faults which appeal to a woman's
heart. He may be a bad lot, and there is the chance that she will go on
loving him through sheer jealousy. With a busy, ambitious man like you
she would have all the thought and excitement and all the dreams about
his career to occupy her mind. But a dandy like that for life! Why, your
sister would be absolutely wretched; she would die of misery. She isn't
like other girls, you know, your sister--one must take that into
consideration. She is high-minded, untrammelled by conventionalities,
very fond of fun, and very affectionate. At bottom she is a
_mélancolique tintamarresque_."

"A _mélancolique tintamarresque_? What does that mean?"

"I'll explain. She----"

"Henri, hurry up!" called out Davarande from the platform. "They are
getting into the train. I have your ticket."

M. and Mme. Mauperin were in their bed-room. The clock had just struck
midnight, gravely and slowly, as though to emphasize the solemnity of
that confidential and conjugal moment which is both the _tête-à-tête_ of
wedded life and the secret council of the household--that moment of
transformation and magic which is both _bourgeois_ and diabolic, and
which reminds one of that story of the woman metamorphosed into a cat.
The shadow of the bed falls mysteriously over the wife, and as she lies
down there is a sort of charm about her. Something of the bewitchments
of a mistress come to her at this instant. Her will seems to be roused
there by the side of the marital will which is dormant. She sits up,
scolds, sulks, teases, struggles. She has caresses and scratches for the
man. The pillow confers on her its force, her strength comes to her with
the night.

Mme. Mauperin was putting her hair in papers in front of the glass,
which was lighted by a single candle. She was in her skirt and
dressing-jacket. Her stout figure, above which her little arms kept
moving as if she were crowning herself, threw on the wall a fantastic
outline of a woman of fifty in deshabille, and on the paper at the end
of the room could be seen wavering about one of those corpulent shadows
which one could imagine Hoffman and Daumier sketching from the back of
the beds of old married couples. M. Mauperin was already lying down.

"Louis!" said Mme. Mauperin.

"Well?" answered M. Mauperin, with that accent of indifference, regret,
and weariness of a man who, with his eyes still open, is beginning to
enjoy the delight of the horizontal position.

"Oh, if you are asleep----"

"I am not asleep. What is it?"

"Oh, nothing. I think Renée behaved most improperly this evening; that's
all. Did you notice?"

"No, I wasn't paying any attention."

"It's just a whim. There isn't the least reason in it. Hasn't she said
anything to you? Do you know anything? I'm nowhere--with all your
mysteries and secrets. I'm always the last to know about things. It's
quite different with you--you are told everything. It's very fortunate
that I was not born jealous, don't you think so?"

M. Mauperin pulled the sheet up over his shoulder without answering.

"You certainly are asleep," continued Mme. Mauperin in the sharp,
disappointed tone of a woman who is expecting a parry for her attack.

"I told you I wasn't asleep."

"Then you surely don't understand. Oh, these intelligent men--it's
curious. It concerns you though, too; it's your business quite as much
as mine. This is another marriage fallen through--do you understand? A
marriage that was most suitable--money--good family--everything. I know
what these hesitations mean. We may as well give up all idea of it.
Henri was talking to me about it this evening; the young man hadn't said
anything to him; of course, he's too well-bred for that. But Henri is
quite persuaded that he's drawing out of it. One can always tell in
matters of this kind; people have a way of----"

"Well, let him draw out of it then; what do you want me to say?" M.
Mauperin sat straight up and put his two hands on his thighs. "Let him
go. There are plenty of young men like Reverchon; he is not unique, we
can find others; while girls like my daughter----"

"Good heavens! Your daughter--your daughter!"

"You don't do her justice, Thérèse."

"I? Oh, yes, I do; but I see her as she is and not with your eyes. She
has her faults, and great faults, too, which you have encouraged--yes,
you. She is as heedless and full of freaks as a child of ten. If you
imagine that it doesn't worry me--her unreasonableness, her uncertain
moods, and so many other absurdities ever since we have been trying to
get her married! And then her way of criticising every one to whom we
introduce her. She is terrible at interviews of this kind. This makes
about the tenth man she has sent about his business."

At Mme. Mauperin's last words a gleam of paternal vanity lighted up M.
Mauperin's face.

"Yes, yes," he said, smiling at the remembrance, "the fact is she is
diabolically witty. Do you recollect her words about that poor Prefect:
'Oh, he's a regular old cock!' I remember how she said it directly she
saw him."

"It really is very funny, and above all very fit and proper. Jokes of
this kind will help her to get married, take my word for it. Such things
will induce other men to come forward, don't you think so? I am quite
certain that Renée must have a reputation for being a terror. A little
more of her precious wit and you will see what proposals you will get
for your daughter! I married Henriette so easily! Renée is my cross."

M. Mauperin had picked up his snuff-box from the table by the side of
the bed and appeared to be intent on turning it round between his thumb
and first finger.

"Well," continued Mme. Mauperin, "it's her own lookout. When she is
thirty, when she has refused every one, and there is no one left who
wants her, in spite of all her wit, her good qualities and everything
else, she will have time to reflect a little--and you will, too."

There was a pause. Mme. Mauperin gave M. Mauperin time enough to imagine
that she had finished, and then changing her tone she began again:

"I want to speak to you, too, about your son----"

Hereupon M. Mauperin, whose head had been bent while his wife was
talking, looked up, and there was a half smile of mischievous humour on
his face. In the upper as well as the lower middle class there is a
certain maternal love capable of rising to the height of passion and of
sinking to mere idolatry. There are mothers who in their affection and
love will fall down and worship their son. Theirs is not that maternal
love which veils its own weaknesses, which defends its rights, is
jealous of its duties, which is careful about the hierarchy and
discipline of the family, and which commands respect and consideration.
The child, brought near to his mother by all kinds of familiarity,
receives from her attentions which are more like homage, and caresses in
which there is a certain amount of servility. All the mother's dreams
are centred in him, for he is not only the heir but the whole future of
the family. Through him the family will reap the benefits of wealth, of
all the improvements and progressive rise of the _bourgeoisie_ from one
generation to another. The mother revels in the thought of what he is
and what he will be. She loves him and is glorified herself in him. She
dedicates all her ambitions to him and worships him. This son appears to
her a superior being, and she is amazed that he should have been born of
her; she seems to feel the mingled pride and humility of the mother of a
god.

Mme. Mauperin was a typical example of one of these mothers of modern
middle-class life. The merits, the features, the intellect of her son
were for her those of a divinity. His whole person, his accomplishments,
everything he said and everything he did, all was sacred to her. She
would spend her time in contemplation of him; she saw no one else when
he was there. It seemed to her as though the whole world began and ended
in her son. He was in her eyes perfection itself, the most intelligent,
the handsomest, and, above all, the most distinguished of men. He was
short-sighted and wore an eye-glass, but she would not even own that he
was near-sighted.

When he was there she watched him talk, sit down or walk about, and she
would smile at him when his back was turned. She liked the very creases
of his coat. When he was not there she would lean back for a few minutes
in her arm-chair and some reminiscence of infinite sweetness would
gradually brighten and soften her face. It was as though light,
restfulness, and peace had suddenly come to her; her expression was
joyous at such times, her eyes were looking at something in the past,
her heart was living over again some happy moment, and if any one spoke
to her she seemed to wake up out of a dream.

It was in a certain measure hereditary, this intense maternal love. Mme.
Mauperin came of a race which had always loved its sons with a warm,
violent, and almost frenzied love. The mothers in her family had been
mothers with a vengeance. There was a story told of her grandmother in
the Haute-Marne. It was said that she had disfigured a child with a
burning coal who had been considered handsomer than her own boy.

At the time of her son's first ailments Mme. Mauperin had almost lost
her reason; she had hated all children who were well, and had hoped that
God would kill them if her son died. Once when he had been seriously ill
she had been forty-eight nights without going to bed, and her legs had
swelled with fatigue. When he was about again he had been allowed
anything and everything. If any one came to complain to her that he had
been fighting with the village children she would say feelingly: "Poor
little dear!" As the boy grew up his mother's spirit preceded him on
his walk through life, strewing his pathway with hope as he emerged into
manhood. She thought of all the heiresses in the neighbourhood whose age
would be suitable to his. She used to imagine him visiting at all the
country-houses, and she saw him on horseback, riding to the meet in a
red coat. She used to be fairly dazzled by all her dreams of the future.

Then came the time when he went away to college, the time when she had
to separate from him. Mme. Mauperin struggled for three months to keep
her son, to have him educated at home by a tutor, but M. Mauperin was
resolute on this score. All that Mme. Mauperin could obtain from him was
the permission to select the college for her son. She chose one with the
mildest discipline possible, one of those colleges for the children of
wealthy parents, where there is no severity, where the boys are allowed
to eat pastry when they are taking their walks, and where the professors
believe in more theatrical rehearsals than punishments. During the seven
years he was there, Mme. Mauperin never missed a single day going from
Saint-Denis to see him during the recreation hour. Rain, cold, fatigue,
illness, nothing prevented her. In the parlour or in the courtyard the
other mothers pointed her out to each other. The boy would kiss her,
take the cakes she had brought him, and then, telling her he had a
lesson to finish learning, he would hurry back to his games. It was
quite enough for his mother, though, for she had seen him and he was
well. She was always thinking about his health. He was weighed down with
flannel, and in the holidays she fed him well with meat, giving him all
the gravy from underdone beef so that he should grow strong and tall.
She bought him a small mat to sit on at school because the forms were so
hard. There were separate bed-rooms for the pupils, and Mme. Mauperin
furnished her son's like a man's room. At twelve years of age he had a
rosewood dressing-table and chest of drawers of his own. The boy became
a young man, the young man left college, and Mme. Mauperin's passion for
him increased with all that satisfaction which a mother feels in a tall
son when his looks begin to change and his beard makes its first
appearance. Forgetting all about the tradespeople whose bills she had
paid, she was amazed at the style in which her son dressed, at his
boots, and the way in which he did his hair. There was a certain
elegance of taste in everything that he liked, in his luxurious habits,
in his ways, and in his whole life, to which she bowed down in
astonishment and delight, as though she herself were not the mainspring
of it all and his cashier. Her son's valet did not seem to her like an
ordinary domestic; his horse was not merely a horse, it was her son's
horse. When her son went out she gave orders that she should be told so
that she might have the satisfaction of seeing him get into the
carriage and drive away.

Every day she was more and more taken up with this son. She had no
diversions, nothing to occupy her imagination; she did not read, and had
grown old living with a husband who had brought her no love and whom she
had always felt to be quite apart from her, engrossed as he had ever
been in his studies, politics, and business. She had no one left with
her but a daughter to whom she had never given her whole heart, and so
she had ended by devoting her life to Henri's interests and putting all
her vanity into his future. And her one thought--the thought which
occupied every hour of her days and nights, her fixed idea--was the
marriage of this adored son. She wanted him to marry well, to make a
match which should be rich enough and brilliant enough to make up to her
and repay her for all the dulness and obscurity of her own existence,
for her life of economy and solitude, for all her own privations as wife
and mother.

"Do you even know your son's age, M. Mauperin?" continued Mme. Mauperin.

"Henri, why, my dear, Henri must be--He was born in 1826, wasn't he?"

"Oh, that's just like a father to ask! Yes, 1826, the 12th of July,
1826."

"Well, then, he is twenty-nine. Fancy that now, he is twenty-nine!"

"And you fold your arms and take things easily! You don't trouble in the
least about his future! You say, 'Fancy that now, he's twenty-nine'--just
like that, quite calmly! Any other man would stir himself and look
round. Henri isn't like his sister, he wants to marry. Have you ever
thought of finding a suitable match for him--a wife? Oh, dear, no, not
any more than for the King of Prussia, of course not! It's just the same
as it was for your elder daughter. I should like to know what you did
towards that marriage? Whether she found any one or not, it appeared to
be all the same to you. How I did have to urge you on to do anything in
the matter! Oh, you can wipe your hands of that marriage; your
daughter's happiness can't weigh much on your conscience, I should
think! If I had not been there you would have found a husband like M.
Davarande, shouldn't you? A model husband, who adores Henriette--and
such a gentleman!"

Mme. Mauperin blew out the candle and got into bed by the side of M.
Mauperin, who had turned over with his face towards the wall.

"Yes," she went on, stretching herself out full length under the sheets,
"a model husband! Do you imagine that there are many sons-in-law who
would be so attentive to us? He would do anything to give us pleasure.
You invite him to dinner and give him meat on fasting-days and he never
says a word. Then, too, he is so obliging. I wanted to match some wools
for my tapestry-work the other day----"

"My dear, what is it we were talking about? I must tell you that I
should like to get a bit of sleep to-night. You began with your
daughter, and now you've started the chapter of M. Davarande's
perfections. I know that chapter--there's enough to last till to-morrow
morning. Come now, you want your son to marry, don't you? That's it,
isn't it? Well, I'm quite willing--let's get him married."

"Just as though I could count on you for getting him married! A lot of
trouble you'll go to about it; you are the right sort of man to
inconvenience yourself for anything."

"Oh, come, come, my dear, that's unjust. It seems to me that about a
fortnight ago I showed you what I was capable of. To go and listen to
the dullest of operas, to eat ices at night, which is a thing I detest,
and to talk about the weather with a provincial man who shouted about
his daughter's dowry on the boulevards. If you don't call that
inconveniencing myself! I suppose you'll say it didn't come to anything?
Was it my fault, though, if the gentleman wanted '_a handsome, manly
husband_,' as he put it, for his daughter? Is it my fault and mine only
if our son has not the frame of a Hercules?"

"M. Mauperin----"

"Oh, yes, it is, of course. I am to blame for everything, according to
you. You would make me pass everywhere for a selfish----"

"Oh, you are like all men!"

"Thank you on behalf of them all."

"No, it's in your character--it's no good blaming you. It's only the
mothers who worry. Ah, if you were only like I am; if at every instant
you were thinking of what might happen to a young man. I know Henri is
sensible; but a young man's fancy is so quickly caught. It might be some
worthless creature--some bad lot--one never knows--such things happen
every day. I should go mad! What do you say to sounding Mme. Rosières?
Shall we?"

There was no reply, and Mme. Mauperin was obliged to resign herself to
silence. She turned over and over, but could not sleep until daylight
appeared.

"Ah, what's that mean? Where in the world are you going?" asked M.
Mauperin in the morning as Mme. Mauperin stood at the glass putting on a
black lace cape.

"Where am I going?" said Mme. Mauperin, fastening the cape to her
shoulder with one of the two pins she was holding in her mouth. "Is my
cape too low down? Just look."

"No."

"Pull it a little."

"How fine you are!" said M. Mauperin, stepping back and examining his
wife's dress.

She was wearing a black dress of the most elegant style, in excellent
taste though somewhat severe looking.

"I am going to Paris."

"Oh! you are going to Paris? What are you going to do in Paris?"

"Oh, dear, how you do worry always with your questions: 'Where are you
going? What are you going to do?' You really want to know, do you?"

"Well, I was only asking you----"

"My dear, I am going to confession," said Mme. Mauperin, looking down.

M. Mauperin was speechless. His wife in the early days of her married
life had gone regularly on Sundays to church. Later she had accompanied
her daughters to their catechism class, and these were all the religious
duties he had ever known her to accomplish. For the last ten years it
seemed to him that she had been as indifferent as he was about such
things--naturally and frankly indifferent. When the first moment of
stupefaction had passed, he opened his mouth to speak, looked at her,
said nothing, and, turning suddenly on his heels, went out of the room
humming a kind of air to which music and words were about all that were
missing.

* * * * *

On arriving at a handsome, cheerful-looking house in the Rue de la
Madeleine, Mme. Mauperin went upstairs to the fourth story and rang at a
door where there was no attempt at any style. It was opened promptly.

"M. l'Abbé Blampoix?"

"Yes, madame," answered a servant-man in black livery.

He spoke with a Belgian accent and bowed as he spoke. He took Mme.
Mauperin across the entrance-hall, where a faint odour was just dying
away, and through a dining-room flooded with sunshine, where the cloth
was simply laid for one person. Mme. Mauperin then found herself in a
drawing-room decorated and scented with flowers. Above a harmonium with
rich inlaid work was a copy of Correggio's "Night." On another panel,
framed in black, was the Communion of Marie Antoinette and of her
gendarmes at the Conciergerie, lithographed according to a story that
was told about her. Keepsakes, a hundred little things that might have
been New Year's gifts, filled the brackets. A small bronze statue of
Canova's "Madeleine" was on a table in the middle of the room.

The tapestry chairs, each one of a different design and piously worked
by hand, were evidently presents which devoted women had done for the
abbé.

There were men and women waiting there, and each by turn went into the
abbé's room, stayed a few minutes, then came out again and went away.
The last person waiting, a woman, stayed a long time, and when she came
out of the room Mme. Mauperin could not see her face through her double
veil.

The abbé was standing by his chimney-piece when Mme. Mauperin entered.
He was holding apart the flaps of his cassock like the tails of a coat.

* * * * *

The Abbé Blampoix had neither benefice nor parish. He had a large
connection and a specialty: he was the priest of society people, of the
fashionable world, and of the aristocracy. He confessed the frequenters
of drawing-rooms, he was the spiritual director of well-born
consciences, and he comforted those souls that were worth the trouble of
comforting. He brought Jesus Christ within reach of the wealthy. "Every
one has his work to do in the Lord's vineyard," he used often to say,
appearing to groan and bend beneath the burden of saving the Faubourg
Saint-Germain, the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and the Chaussée-d'Antin.

He was a man of common sense and intellect, an obliging sort of priest
who adapted everything to the precept, "_The letter killeth, and the
spirit maketh alive._" He was tolerant and intelligent, could comprehend
things and could smile. He measured faith out according to the
temperament of the people and only gave it in small doses. He made the
penances light, he loosened the bonds of the cross and sprinkled the way
of salvation with sand. From the hard, unlovely, stern religion of the
poor he had evolved a pleasant religion for the rich; it was easy,
charming, elastic, adapting itself to things and to people, to all the
ways and manners of society, to its customs and habits, and even to its
prejudices. Of the idea of God he had made something quite comfortable
and elegant.

The Abbé Blampoix had all the fascination of the priest who is well
educated, talented, and accomplished. He could talk well during
confession, and could put some wit into his exhortations and a certain
graciousness into his unction. He knew how to move and interest his
hearers. He was well versed in words that touch the heart and in
speeches that are flattering and pleasing to the ear. His voice was
musical and his style flowery. He called the devil "_the Prince of
evil_," and the eucharist "_the Divine aliment_"! He abounded in
periphrases as highly coloured as sacred pictures. He talked of Rossini,
quoted Racine, and spoke of "_the Bois_" for the Bois de Boulogne. He
talked of divine love in words which were somewhat disconcerting, of
present-day vices with piquant details, and of society in society
language. Occasionally, expressions which were in vogue and which had
only recently been invented, expressions only known among worldly
people, would slip into his spiritual consultations and had the same
effect as extracts from a newspaper in an ascetic book. There was a
pleasant odour of the century about him. His priestly robe seemed to be
impregnated with all the pretty little sins which had approached it. He
was very well up and always to the point with regard to subtle
temptations, admirably shrewd, keen, and tactful in his discussions on
sensuality. Women doted on him.

His first step, his _début_ in the ecclesiastical career, had been
distinguished by a veritable seduction and capturing of souls, by a
success which had been a perfect triumph and indeed almost a scandal.
After taking the catechism classes for a year in the parish of B----,
the archbishop had appointed him to other work, putting another priest
in his place. The result of this was a rebellion, as all the girls who
had attended the catechism classes refused to speak or listen to the
newcomer. They had lost their young hearts and heads, and there were
tears shed by all the flock, a regular riot of wailing and sorrow, which
before long changed into revolt. The elder girls, the chief members of
the society, kept up the struggle several months. They agreed together
not to go to the classes, and they went so far as to refuse to hand over
to the curé the cash-box which had been intrusted to them. It was with
the greatest difficulty that they were appeased.

The success which all this augured to the Abbé Blampoix had not failed
him. His fame had quickly spread. That great force, Fashion, which in
Paris affects everything, even a priest's cassock, had taken him up and
launched him. People came to him from all parts. The ordinary,
commonplace confessions were heard by other priests; but all the choice
sins were brought to him. Around him was always to be heard a hubbub of
great names, of large fortunes, of pretty contritions, and the rustling
of beautiful dresses. Mothers consulted him about taking their
daughters out, and the daughters were instructed by him before going
into society. He was appealed to for permission to wear low-necked
dresses, and he was the man who regulated the modesty of ball costumes
and the propriety of reading certain books. He was also asked for titles
of novels and lists of moral plays. He prepared candidates for
confirmation and led them on to marriage. He baptized children and
listened to the confession of the adulterous in thought. Wives who
considered themselves slighted or misunderstood came to him to lament
over the materiality of their husbands, and he supplied them with a
little idealism to take back to their homes. All who were in trouble or
despair had recourse to him, and he ordered a trip to Italy for them,
with music and painting for diversions and a good confession in Rome.

Wives who were separated from their husbands addressed themselves to him
when they wanted to return quietly to their home. His conciliations came
between the love of wives and the jealousy of mothers-in-law. He found
governesses for the mothers and lady's maids of forty years of age for
young wives. Newly married wives learned from him to secure their
happiness and to keep their husband's affection by their discreet and
dainty toilettes, by cleanliness and care, by the spotlessness and
elegance of their linen. "My dear child," he would say sometimes, "a
wife should have just a faint perfume of the _lorette_ about her." His
experience intervened in questions of the hygiene of marriage. He was
consulted on such matters as maternity and pregnancy. He would decide
whether a wife should become a mother and whether a mother should suckle
her child.

This vogue and rôle, the dealings that he had with women and the
possession of all their secrets, so many confidences and so much
knowledge on all subjects, his intercourse of all kinds with the
dignitaries and lady-treasurers of various societies, and the
acquaintance he had, thanks to the steps he was obliged to take in the
interests of charity, with all the important personages of Paris, all
the influence that, as a clever, discreet, and obliging priest, he had
succeeded in obtaining, had given to the Abbé Blampoix an immense power
and authority which radiated silently and unseen. Worldly interests and
social ambitions were confessed to him. Nearly all the marriageable
individuals in society were recommended to this priest, who professed no
political preferences, who mixed with every one, and who was admirably
placed for bringing families together, for uniting houses, arranging
matches of expediency or balancing social positions, pairing off money
with money, or joining an ancient title to a newly made fortune. It was
as though marriages in Paris had an occult Providence in the person of
this rare sort of man in whom were blended the priest and the lawyer,
the apostle and the diplomatist--Fénelon and M. de Foy. The Abbé
Blampoix had an income of sixteen hundred pounds, the half of which he
gave to the poor. He had refused a bishopric for the sake of remaining
what he was--a priest.

"To whom have I the honour," began the abbé, who appeared to be
searching his memory for a name.

"Mme. Mauperin, the mother of Mme. Davarande."

"Oh, excuse me, madame, excuse me. Your family are not persons whom one
could forget. Do sit down, please--let me give you this arm-chair."

And then, taking a seat himself with his back to the light, he
continued:

"I like to think of that marriage, which gave me the opportunity of
making your acquaintance--the marriage of your daughter with M.
Davarande. You and I, madame, you, with the devotion of a mother, and
I--well, with just the feeble insight of a humble priest--brought about
a truly Christian marriage, a marriage which has satisfied the needs of
the dear child as regards her religion and her affection and which was
also in accordance with her social position. Mme. Davarande is one of my
model penitents; I am thoroughly satisfied with her. M. Davarande is an
excellent young man who shares the religious beliefs of his wife, and
that is a rare thing nowadays. One's mind is easy about such happy and
superior young couples, and I am quite convinced beforehand that you
have not come about either of these dear children----"

"You are right. I am quite satisfied as regards them, and their
happiness is a great joy in my life. It is such a responsibility to get
one's children married. No, monsieur, it is not for them that I have
come; it is for myself."

"For yourself--madame?"

And the abbé glanced quickly at her with an expression which softened
just as quickly.

"Ah, monsieur, time brings many changes. One has a hundred things to
think about before one reaches my age. There are the people one meets,
and society ties, and all that is very entertaining. We give ourselves
up to such things, enjoy them and count on them. We fancy we shall never
need anything beyond. Well, now, monsieur, I have reached the age when
one does need something beyond. You will understand me, I am sure. I
have begun to feel the emptiness of the world. Nothing interests me, and
I should like to come back to what I had given up. I know how indulgent
and charitable you are. I need your counsel and your hand to lead me
back to duties that I have neglected far too long, although I have
always remembered and respected them. You must know how wretched I am,
monsieur."

While speaking thus, with that easy flow of words so natural to a woman,
and especially to a Parisian woman, and which in Parisian slang is known
as _bagou_, Mme. Mauperin, who had avoided meeting the priest's eyes,
which she had felt fixed on her, now glanced mechanically at a light
which was being stirred by the abbé's hands and which flamed up under a
ray of sunshine, shining brightly in the midst of this room--the
severe-looking, solemn, cold room of a man of business. This light came
from a casket containing some diamonds with which the abbé was idly
playing.

"Ah, you are looking at this!" said the abbé, catching Mme. Mauperin's
eye and answering her thoughts instead of her phrases. "You are
surprised to see it, are you not? Yes, a jewel-case, a case of
diamonds--and just look at them--rather good ones, too." He passed her
the necklace. "It's odd for that to be here, isn't it? But what was I to
do? This is our modern society. We are obliged to see a little of all
sorts. Such a pitiful scene! I don't feel myself again yet, after
it--such sobs and tears! Perhaps you heard--a poor young wife throwing
herself down here at my feet--a mother of a family, madame! Alas! that's
how the world is--this is what the love of finery and the fondness of
admiration will lead to. People spend and spend, until finally they can
only pay the interest of what they owe at the shops. Yes, indeed,
madame, that happens constantly. I could mention the shops. People hope
to be able to pay the capital some day; they count on a son-in-law to
whom they can tell everything and who will only be too happy to pay his
mother-in-law's debts. But in the meantime the shops get impatient; and
at last they threaten to tell the husband everything. Then--oh, just
think of the anguish then! Do you know that this woman talked just now
of throwing herself into the river? I had to promise to find her twelve
hundred pounds. I beg your pardon, though--a thousand times. Here I am
talking of my own affairs. Let us go back to yours. You had another
daughter--a charming girl. I prepared her for confirmation. Let me see,
now, what was her name?"

"Renée."

"Oh, yes, of course, a very intelligent child, very quick--quite an
exceptional character. Tell me now, isn't she married?"

"No, monsieur, and it's a great trouble to me. You've no idea what a
headstrong girl she is. She is nothing like her sister. It's very
unfortunate for a mother to have a daughter with a character like hers.
I would rather she were a little less intelligent. We have found most
suitable matches for her, and she refuses them in the most thoughtless,
foolish way. There was another one yesterday. And her father spoils her
so."

"Ah, that's a pity. You have no idea what a maternal affection we have
for these dear children that we have led to Christ. But you don't say
anything about your son, a delightful young man, so good-looking--and
just the age to marry, it seems to me----"

"Do you know him, monsieur?"

"I had the pleasure of meeting him once at his sister's, at Mme.
Davarande's, when I went to see her during her illness; those are the
only visits we pay, you know--visits to the sick. Then, too, I have
heard all sorts of good reports about him. You are a fortunate mother,
madame. Your son goes to church, and at Easter he took communion with
the Jesuit Fathers. He has not told you, probably, but he was one of
those society men, true Christians, who waited nearly all night to get
to the confessional--there was such a crowd. Yes, people do not believe
it, but, thank God, it is quite true. Some of the young men waited until
five o'clock in the morning to confess. I need not tell you how deeply
the Church is touched by such zeal, how thankful she is to those who
give her this consolation and who pay her this homage in these sad times
of demoralization and incredulity. We are drawn towards young men who
set such a good example and who are so willing to do what is right, and
we are always ready to give them what help we can and to use any
influence that we may have in certain families in their favour."

"Oh, monsieur, you are too good. And our gratitude--mine and my
son's--if only you would interest yourself on his behalf. What a happy
thought it was to come to you! You see I came to you as a woman, but as
a mother too. My son is angelic--and then, monsieur, you can do so
much."

The abbé shook his head with a deprecatory smile of mingled modesty and
melancholy.

"No, madame, you overestimate our power. We are far from all that you
say. We are able to do a little good sometimes, but it is with great
difficulty. If only you knew how little a priest can do in these days.
People are afraid of our influence; they do not care to meet us outside
the church, nor to speak to us except in the confessional. You yourself,
madame, would be surprised if your confessor ventured to speak to you
about your daily conduct. Thanks to the deplorable prejudices of people
with regard to us, every one's object is to keep us at a distance and to
stand on the defensive."

"Oh, dear, why, it is one o'clock--and I saw that your table was laid
when I came. I'm quite ashamed of myself. May I come again in a few
days?"

"My luncheon can always wait," said the Abbé Blampoix, and turning to a
desk covered with papers at his side, he made a sign to Mme. Mauperin to
sit down again. There was a moment's silence, broken only by the rustle
of papers which the abbé was turning over. Finally he drew out a
visiting-card, turned down at the corner, from under a pile of papers,
held it to the light, and read:

"Twelve thousand pounds in deeds and preference shares. Six hundred
pounds a year from the day of marriage; father and mother dead.
Twenty-four thousand pounds on the death of some uncles and aunts who
will never marry. Young girl, nineteen, charming, much prettier than she
imagines herself to be. You see," said the abbé, putting the card back
among the papers. "Think it over. Anyhow, you will see. I have, too, at
this very moment a thousand pounds a year on her marriage--an
orphan--Ah, no, that would not do--her guardian wants to find some one
who is influential. He is sub-referendary judge on the Board of Finance
and he will only marry his ward to a son-in-law who can get him
promoted. Ah, wait a minute--this would do, perhaps," and he read aloud
from some notes: "Twenty-two years of age, not pretty, accomplished,
intelligent, dresses well, father sixty thousand pounds, three children,
substantial fortune. He owns the house in the Rue de Provence, where the
offices of the _Security_ are, an estate in the Orne, eight thousand
pounds in the Crédit Foncier. Rather an opinionated sort of man, of
Portuguese descent. The mother is a mere cipher in the house. There is
no family, and the father would be annoyed if you went to see his
relatives. I am not keeping anything back, as you see; a family dinner
party once a year and that is all. The father will give twelve thousand
pounds for the dowry; he wants his daughter to live in the same house.

"Yes," continued the abbé, looking through his notes, "that's all I see
that would do for you just now. Will you talk it over with your son,
madame, and consult your husband? I am quite at your service. When I
have the pleasure of seeing you here again, will you bring with you just
a few figures, a little note that would give me an idea of your
intentions with regard to settling your son. And bring your daughter
with you. I should be delighted to see the dear child again."

"Would you mind fixing some time when I should not disturb you quite so
much as I have done to-day, monsieur?"

"Oh, madame, my time belongs to every one who has need of me, and I am
only too much honoured. The thing is that in a fortnight's time--if you
came then, I should be in the country, and I only come one day a week to
Paris, then. Yes, it's a sheer necessity, and so I have had to make up
my mind to it. By the end of the winter I get so worn out; I have so
much to attend to, and then these four flights of stairs kill me. But
what am I to do? I am obliged to pay in some way for the right of
having my chapel, for the precious privilege of being able to have mass
in my own home. No one could sleep over a chapel, you see. Ah, an idea
has just struck me: why should you not come to see me in the country--at
Colombes? It would be a little excursion. I have plenty of fruit, and I
take a landowner's pride in my fruit. I could offer you luncheon, a very
informal luncheon. Will you come, madame--and your daughter? Would your
son give me the pleasure of his company too?"

VII

A quarter of an hour later a footman in a red coat opened the door of a
flat on a first floor in the Rue Taitbout in answer to Mme. Mauperin's
ring.

"Good-morning, Georges. Is my son in?"

"Yes, madame, monsieur is there."

Mme. Mauperin had smiled on her son's domestic, and as she walked along
she smiled on the rooms, on the furniture, and on everything she saw.
When she entered the study her son was writing and smoking at the same
time.

"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, taking his cigar out of his mouth and
leaning his head against the back of his chair for his mother to kiss
him. "It's you, is it, mamma?" he went on, continuing to smoke. "You
didn't say a word about coming to Paris to-day. What brings you here?"

"Oh, I had some shopping and some visits to pay--you know I am always
behind. How comfortable you are here!"

"Ah, yes, to be sure, you hadn't seen my new arrangements."

"Dear me, how well you do arrange everything! There's no one like you,
really. It isn't damp here is it, are you quite sure?" and Mme. Mauperin
put her hand against the wall. "Tell Georges to air the room always when
you are away, won't you?"

"Yes, yes, mother," said Henri in a bored way, as one answers a child.

"Oh, why do you have those? I don't like your having such things." Mme.
Mauperin had just caught sight of two swords above the bookcase. "The
very sight of them! When one thinks--" and Mme. Mauperin closed her eyes
for an instant and sat down. "You don't know how your dreadful bachelor
life makes us poor mothers tremble. If you were married, it seems to me
that I should not be so worried about you. I do wish you were married,
Henri!"

"I do, too, I can assure you."

"Really? Come, now--mothers, you know--well, secrets ought not to be
kept from them. I am so afraid, when I look at you, handsome as you are,
and so distinguished and clever and fascinating. You are just the sort
of man that any one would fall in love with, and I'm so afraid----"

"Of what?"

"Lest you should have some reason for not----"

"For not marrying, you mean, don't you? A chain--is that what you
mean?"

Mme. Mauperin nodded and Henri burst out laughing.

"Oh, my dear mamma, if I had one, make your mind easy, it should be a
polished one. A man who has any respect for himself would not wear any
other."

"Well, then, tell me about Mlle. Herbault. It was your fault that it all
came to nothing."

"Mlle. Herbault? The introduction at the Opéra with father? Oh, no, it
wasn't that. Yes, yes, I remember, the dinner at Mme. Marquisat's,
wasn't it--the last one? That was a trap you laid for me. I must say you
are sweetly innocent! I was announced: '_Môssieu Henri Mauperin_,' in
that grand, important sort of way which being interpreted meant:
'_Behold the future husband!_' I found all the candles in the
drawing-room lighted up. The mistress of the house, whom I had seen just
twice in my life, overpowered me with her smiles; her son, whom I did
not know at all, shook hands with me. There was a lady with her daughter
in the room, they neither of them appeared to see me. My place at dinner
was next the young person, of course; a provincial family, their money
placed in farms, simple tastes, etc. I discovered all that before the
soup was finished. The mother, on the other side of the table, was
keeping watch over us; an impossible sort of mother, in such a get-up! I
asked the daughter whether she had seen the 'Prophet' at the Opéra.
'Yes, it was superb--and then there was that wonderful effect in the
third act. Oh, yes, that effect, that wonderful effect.' She hadn't seen
it any more than I had. A fibber to begin with. I entertained myself
with keeping her to the subject, and that made her crabby. We went back
to the drawing-room and then the hostess began: 'What a pretty dress!'
she said to me. 'Did you notice it? Would you believe that Emmeline has
had that dress five years. I can remember it. She is so careful--so
orderly!' 'All right,' I thought to myself, 'a lot of miserly wretches
who mean to take me in.'"

"Do you really think so? And yet, from what we were told about them----"

"A woman who makes her dresses last five years! That speaks for itself,
that's quite enough. I can picture the dowry hoarded up in a stocking.
The money would be in land at two and a half per cent; repairs, taxes,
lawsuits, farmers who don't pay their rent, a father-in-law who makes
over to you unsalable property. No, no, I'm not quite young enough. I
want to get married, but I mean to marry well. Leave me to manage it,
and you'll see. You can make your mind easy; I'm not the sort to be
taken in with: '_She has such beautiful hair and she is so devoted to
her mother!_' You see, mamma, I've thought a great deal about marriage,
although you may not imagine I have. The most difficult thing to get in
this world, the thing we pay the most dearly for, snatch from each
other, fight for, the thing we only obtain by force of genius or by
luck, by meanness, privations, by wild efforts, perseverance,
resolution, energy, audacity or work, is money--isn't that so? Now money
means happiness and the honour of being rich, it means enjoyment, and it
brings with it the respect and esteem of the million. Well, I have
discovered that there is a way of getting it, straightforwardly and
promptly, without any fatigue, without difficulty and without genius,
quite simply, naturally, quickly and honourably; and this way is by
marriage. Another thing I have discovered is that there is no need to be
remarkably handsome nor astonishingly intelligent in order to make a
rich marriage; the only thing necessary is to will it, to will it
coolly, calmly and with all one's force of will-power, to stake all
one's chances on that card; in fact to look upon getting married as
one's object in life, one's future career. I see that in playing that
game it is no more difficult to make an extraordinary marriage than an
ordinary one, to get a dowry of fifty thousand pounds than one of five
thousand; it is merely a question of cool-headedness and luck; the stake
is the same in both cases. In our times when a good tenor can marry an
income of thirty thousand pounds arithmetic becomes a thing of the past.
All this is what I have wanted to explain to you, and I am sure you will
understand me."

Henri Mauperin took his mother's hand in his as he spoke. She was fairly
aghast with surprise, admiration, and a sentiment very near akin to
respect.

"Don't you worry yourself," continued her son. "I shall marry
well--better even perhaps than you dream of."

As soon as his mother had gone Henri took up his pen and, continuing the
article he had commenced for the _Revue économique_, wrote: "The
trajectory of humanity is a spiral and not a circle----"

VIII

Henri Mauperin's age, like that of so many present-day young men, could
not be reckoned by the years of his life; he was of the same age as the
times in which he lived. The coldness and absence of enthusiasm in the
younger generation, that distinguishing mark of the second half of the
nineteenth century, had set its seal on him entirely. He looked grave,
and one felt that he was icy cold. One recognised in him those elements,
so contrary to the French temperament, which constitute in French
history sects without ardour and political parties without enthusiasm,
such as the Jansenism of former days and the Doctrinarianism of to-day.

Henri Mauperin was a young Doctrinaire. He had belonged to that
generation of children whom nothing astonishes and nothing amuses; who
go, without the slightest excitement, to see anything to which they are
taken and who come back again perfectly unmoved. When quite young he had
always been well behaved and thoughtful. At college it had never
happened to him in the midst of his lessons to go off in a dream, his
face buried in his hands, his elbows on a dictionary and his eyes
looking into the future. He had never been assailed by temptations with
regard to the unknown and by those first visions of life which at the
age of sixteen fill the minds of young men with trouble and delight,
shut up as they are between the four walls of a courtyard with grated
windows, against which their balls bounce and over and beyond which
their thoughts soar. In his class there were two or three boys who were
sons of eminent political men and with them he made friends. While
studying classics he was thinking of the club he should join later on.
On leaving college Henri's conduct was not like that of a young man of
twenty. He was considered very steady, and was never seen in places
where drinking and gambling went on and where his reputation might have
suffered. He was to be met with in staid drawing-rooms, where he was
always extremely attentive and polite to ladies who were no longer
young. All that would have gone against him elsewhere served him there
in good stead. His reserve was considered an attraction, his seriousness
was thought fascinating.

There are fashions with regard to what finds favour in men. The reign of
Louis Philippe, with its great wealth of scholars, had just accustomed
the political and literary circles of Paris to value in a society man
that something which recalls the cap and gown, that a professor takes
about with him everywhere, even when he has become a minister.

With women of the upper middle class the taste for gay, lively,
frivolous qualities of mind had been succeeded by a taste for
conversation which savoured of the lecture-room, for science direct from
the professor's chair, for a sort of learned amiability. A pedant did
not alarm them, even though he might be old; when young he was made much
of, and it was rumoured that Henri Mauperin was a great favourite.

He had a practical mind. He set up for being a believer in all that was
useful, in mathematical truths, positive religions and the exact
sciences. He had a certain compassion for art, and maintained that Boule
furniture had never been made as well as at present. Political economy,
that science which leads on to all things, had appealed to him when he
went out into the world as a vocation and a career, consequently he had
decided to be an economist. He had brought to this dry study a
narrow-minded intelligence, but he had been patient and persevering, and
now, once a fortnight, he published in important reviews a long article
well padded with figures which the women skipped and the men said they
had read.

By the interest which it takes in the poorer classes, by its care for
their welfare and the algebraic account it keeps of all their misery and
needs, political economy had, of course, given to Henri Mauperin a
colouring of Liberalism. It was not that he belonged to a very decided
Opposition: his opinions were merely a little ahead of Government
principles, and his convictions induced him to make overtures to
whatever was likely to succeed. He limited his war against the powers
that were to the shooting of an arrow or to a veiled allusion, the key
and meaning of which he would by means of his friends convey to the
various _salons_. As a matter of fact, he was carrying on a flirtation,
rather than hostilities, with the Government in power. Drawing-room
acquaintances, people whom he met in society, brought him within reach
of Government influence and into touch with Government patronage. He
would prepare the works and correct the proofs of some high official who
was always busy and who had scarcely time to do more than sign his
books. He had managed to get on good terms with his Prefect, hoping
through him to get into the Council and afterward into the Chamber. He
excelled in playing double parts, and was clever at compromises and
arrangements which kept him in touch with everything without quarrelling
with anybody or anything. Though a liberal and political economist, he
had found a way of turning aside the distrust of the Catholics and their
enmity against himself and his doctrines. He had won the indulgence and
sympathy of some of them, and had managed to make himself agreeable to
the clergy and to flatter the church by linking together material
progress and spiritual progress, the religion of political economy and
that of Catholicism: Quesnay and Saint Augustin, Bastiat and the Gospel,
statistics and God. Then besides this programme of his, the alliance of
Religion and Political Economy, he had a reserve stock of piety, and he
observed most regularly certain religious practices, which won for him
the affectionate regard of the Abbé Blampoix and brought him into secret
communion with believers and with those who observed their religious
duties.

Henri Mauperin had taken his flat in the Rue Taitbout for the purpose of
entertaining his friends. These entertainments consisted of solemn
parties for young men, where the guests would gather round a table which
looked like a desk and talk about Natural Law, Public Charities,
Productive Forces, and the _Multiplicabilité_ of the Human Species.
Henri tried to turn these reunions into something approaching
conferences. He was selecting the men and looking for the elements he
would require for the famous _salon_ he hoped to have in Paris as soon
as he was married; he lured to his reunions the great authorities and
notabilities of economic science, and invited to a sort of honorary
presidency members of the Institute, whom he had pursued with his
politeness and his newspaper puffs and who, according to his plans,
would some day help him to take his seat among them in the moral and
political science section.

It was, however, in turning associations to account that Henri had shown
his talent and all his skill. He had from the very first clung to that
great means of getting on peculiar to ciphers--that means by which a man
is no longer one alone, but a unit joined to a number. He had gained a
footing for himself in associations of every kind. He had joined the
d'Aguesseau Debating Society and had glided in and taken his place among
all those young men who were practising speech-making, educating
themselves for the platform, doing their apprenticeship as orators and
their probation as statesmen for future parliamentary struggles. Clubs,
college reunions and banquets of old boys, barriers' lectures,
historical and geographical societies, scientific and benevolent
societies, he had neglected nothing. Everywhere, in all centres which
give to the individual an opportunity of shining and which bring him any
profit by the collective influence of a group, he appeared and was here,
there and everywhere, making fresh acquaintances, forming new
connections, cultivating friendships and interests which might lead him
on to something, thus driving in the landmarks of his various ambitions,
marching ahead, from the committee of one society to the committee of
another society, to an importance, a sort of veiled notoriety and to
one of those names which, thanks to political influence, are suddenly
brought to the front when the right time comes.

He certainly was well qualified for the part he was playing. Eloquent
and active, he could make all the noise and stir which lead a man on to
success in this century of ours. He was commonplace with plenty of show
about him. In society he rarely recited his own articles, but he usually
posed with one hand in his waistcoat, after the fashion of Guizot in
Delaroche's portrait.

"Well!" exclaimed Renée, entering the dining-room at eleven o'clock,
breathless like a child who had been running, "I thought every one would
be down. Where is mamma?"

"Gone to Paris--shopping," answered M. Mauperin.

"Oh!--and where's Denoisel?"

"He's gone to see the man with the sloping ground, who must have kept
him to luncheon. We'll begin luncheon."

"Good-morning, papa!" And instead of taking her seat Renée went across
to her father and putting her arms round his neck began to kiss him.

"There, there, that's enough--you silly child!" said M. Mauperin,
smiling as he endeavoured to free himself.

"Let me kiss you _tong-fashion_--there--like that," and she pinched his
cheeks and kissed him again.

"What a child you are, to be sure."

"Now look at me. I want to see whether you care for me."

And Renée, standing up after kissing him once more, moved back from her
father, still holding his head between her hands. They gazed at each
other lovingly and earnestly, looking into one another's eyes. The
French window was open and the light, the scents and the various noises
from the garden penetrated into the room. A beam of sunshine darted on
to the table, lighted on the china and made the glass glitter. It was
bright, cheerful weather and a faint breeze was stirring; the shadows of
the leaves trembled slightly on the floor. A vague sound of wings
fluttering in the trees and of birds sporting among the flowers could be
heard in the distance.

"Only we two; how nice!" exclaimed Renée, unfolding her serviette. "Oh,
the table is too large; I am too far away," and taking her knife and
fork she went and sat next her father. "As I have my father all to
myself to-day I'm going to enjoy my father," and so saying she drew her
chair still nearer to him.

"Ah, you remind me of the time when you always wanted to have your
dinner in my pocket. But you were eight years old then."

Renée began to laugh.

"I was scolded yesterday," said M. Mauperin, after a minute's silence,
putting his knife and fork down on his plate.

"Oh!" remarked Renée, looking up at the ceiling in an innocent way and
then letting her eyes fall on her father with a sly look in them such as
one sees in the eyes of a cat. "Really, poor papa! Why were you scolded?
What had you done?"

"Yes, I should advise _you_ to ask me that again; you know better than I
do myself why I was scolded. What do you mean, you dreadful child?"

"Oh, if you are going to lecture me, papa, I shall get up and--I shall
kiss you."

She half rose as she said this, but M. Mauperin interrupted her,
endeavouring to speak in a severe tone:

"Sit down again, Renée, please. You must own, my dear child, that
yesterday----"

"Oh, papa, are you going to talk to me like this on such a beautiful
day?"

"Well, but will you explain?" persisted M. Mauperin, trying to remain
dignified in face of the rebellious expression, made up of smiles
mingled with defiance, in his daughter's eyes. "It was very evident that
you behaved in the way you did purposely."

Renée winked mischievously and nodded her head two or three times
affirmatively.

"I want to speak to you seriously, Renée."

"But I am quite serious, I assure you. I have told you that I was like
that on purpose."

"And why--will you tell me that?"

"Why? Oh, yes, I'll tell you, but on condition that you won't be too
conceited. It was because--because----"

"Because of what?"

"Because I love you much more than that gentleman who was here
yesterday--there now--very much more--it's quite true!"

"But, then, we ought not to have allowed him to come if you did not care
for this young man. We didn't force you into it. It was you yourself who
agreed that he should be invited. On the contrary, your mother and I
believed that this match----"

"Excuse me, papa, but if I had refused M. Reverchon at first sight,
point-blank, you would have said I was unreasonable, mad, senseless. I
fancy I can hear mamma now on the subject. Whereas, as things were, what
is there to reproach me with? I saw M. Reverchon once, and I saw him
again, I had plenty of time to judge him and I knew that I disliked him.
It is very silly, perhaps, but it is nevertheless----"

"But why did you not tell us? We could have found a hundred ways of
getting out of it."

"You are very ungrateful, papa. I have saved you all that worry. The
young man is drawing out of it himself and it is not your fault at all;
I alone am responsible. And this is all the gratitude I get for my
self-sacrifice! Another time----"

"Listen to me, my dear. If I speak to you like this it is because it is
a question of your marriage. Your marriage--ah, it took me a long time
to get reconciled to the idea that--to the idea of being separated from
you. Fathers are selfish, you see; they would like it better if you
never took to yourself wings. They have the greatest difficulty in
making up their minds to it all. They think they cannot be happy without
your smiles, and that the house will be very different when your dress
is not flitting about. But we have to submit to what must be, and now it
seems to me that I shall like my son-in-law. I am getting old, you know,
my dear little Renée," and M. Mauperin took his daughter's hands in his.
"Your father is sixty-eight, my child, he has only just time enough left
to see you settled and happy. Your future, if only you knew it, is my
one thought, my one torment. Your mother loves you dearly, too, I know,
but your character and hers are different; and then, if anything
happened to me. You know we must face things; and at my age. You see the
thought of leaving you without a husband--and children--without any love
which would make up to you for your old father's when he is no longer
with you----"

M. Mauperin could not finish; his daughter had thrown her arms round
him, stifling down her sobs, and her tears were flowing freely on his
waistcoat.

"Oh, it's dreadful of you, dreadful!" she said in a choking voice. "Why
do you talk about it? Never--never!" and with a gesture she waved back
the dark shadow called up by her imagination.

M. Mauperin had taken her on his knee. He put his arms round her, kissed
her forehead and said, "Don't cry, Renée, don't cry!"

"How dreadful! Never!" she repeated once more, as though she were just
rousing herself from some bad dream, and then, wiping her eyes with the
back of her hand, she said to her father: "I must go away and have my
cry out," and with that she escaped.

* * * * *

"That Dardouillet is certainly mad," remarked Denoisel, as he entered
the room. "Just fancy, I could not possibly get rid of him. Ah, you are
alone?"

"Yes, my wife is in Paris, and Renée has just gone upstairs."

"Why, what's the matter, M. Mauperin? You look----"

"Oh, it's nothing--a little scene with Renée that I've just had--about
this marriage--this Reverchon. I was silly enough to tell her that I am
in a hurry to see my grandchildren, that fathers of my age are not
immortal, and thereupon--the child is so sensitive, you know. She is up
in her room now, crying. Don't go up; it will take her a little time to
recover. I'll go and look after my work people."

Denoisel, left to himself, lighted a cigar, picked up a book and went
out to one of the garden seats to read. He had been there about two
hours when he saw Renée coming towards him. She had her hat on and her
animated face shone with joy and a sort of serene excitement.

"Well, have you been out? Where have you come from?"

"Where have I come from?" repeated Renée, unfastening her hat. "Well,
I'll tell you, as you are my friend," and she took her hat off and threw
her head back with that pretty gesture women have for shaking their hair
into place. "I've come from church, and if you want to know what I've
been doing there, why, I've been asking God to let me die before papa. I
was in front of a large statue of the Virgin--you are not to laugh--it
would make me unhappy if you laughed. Perhaps it was the sun or the
effect of gazing at her all the time, I don't know, but it seemed to me
all in a minute that she did like this--" and Renée nodded her head.
"Anyhow, I am very happy and my knees ache, too, I can tell you; for all
the time I was praying I was on my knees, and not on a chair or a
cushion either--but on the stone floor. Ah, I prayed in earnest; God
can't surely refuse me that!"

A few days after this M. and Mme. Mauperin, Henri, Renée, and Denoisel
were sitting together after dinner in the little garden which stretched
out at the back of the house, between the walls of the refinery and its
outbuildings. The largest tree in the garden was a fir, and the
rose-trees had been allowed to climb up to its lowest branches, so that
its green arms stirred the roses. Under the tree was a swing, and at the
back of it a sort of thicket of lilacs and witch-elms; there was a round
plot of grass, with a garden bench and a very small pool with a white
curbstone round it and a fountain that did not play. The pool was full
of aquatic plants and a few black newts were swimming in it.

"You don't intend to have any theatricals, then, Renée?" Henri was
saying to his sister. "You've quite given up that idea?"

"Given up--no; but what can I do? It isn't my fault, for I would act
anything--I'd stand on my head. But I can't find any one else, so that,
unless I give a monologue--Denoisel has refused, and as for you, a
sober man like you--well, I suppose it's no use asking."

"I, why, I would act right enough," answered Henri.

"You, Henri?" exclaimed Mme. Mauperin in astonishment.

"And then, too, we are not short of men," continued Renée, "there are
always men to act. It's for the women's parts. Ah, that's the
difficulty--to find ladies. I don't see who is to act with me."

"Oh," said Henri, "if we look about among all the people we know, I'll
wager----"

"Well, let's see: there's M. Durand's daughter. Why, yes--what do you
think? M. Durand's daughter? They are at Saint-Denis; that will be
convenient for the rehearsals. She's rather a simpleton, but I should
think for the rôle of Mme. de Chavigny----"

"Ah," put in Denoisel, "you still want to act 'The Caprice'?"

"Now for a lecture, I suppose? But as I'm going to act with my
brother----"

"And the performance will be for the benefit of the poor, I hope?"
continued Denoisel.

"Why?"

"It would make the audience more disposed to be charitable."

"We'll see about that, sir, we'll see about it. Well, Emma Durand--will
that do? What do you think, mamma?"

"They are not our sort of people, my dear," answered Mme. Mauperin
quickly; "they are all very well at a distance, people like that, but
every one knows where they sprang from--the Rue St. Honoré. Mme. Durand
used to go and receive the ladies at their carriage-door, and M. Durand
would slip out at the back and take the servant-men to have a glass at
the wine-shop round the corner. That's how the Durands made their
fortune."

Although at bottom Mme. Mauperin was an excellent sort of woman she
rarely lost an opportunity of depreciating, in this way and with the
most superb contempt and disgust, the wealth, birth and position of all
the people she knew. It was not out of spite, nor was it for the
pleasure of slandering and backbiting, nor yet because she was envious.
She would refuse to believe in the respectability and uprightness of
people, or even in the wealth they were said to have, simply from a
prodigious _bourgeois_ pride, from a conviction that outside her own
family there could be no good blood, and no integrity; that, with the
exception of her own people, every one was an upstart; that nothing was
substantial except what she possessed, and that what she had not was not
worth having.

"And to think that my wife has tales like that to tell about all the
people we know!" said M. Mauperin.

"Come now, papa--shall we have the pretty little Remoli girl--shall we?"

"Ask your mother. Say on, Mme. Mauperin."

"The Remoli girl? But, my dear, you know--"

"I know nothing."

"Oh! do you mean to say that you don't know her father's history? A poor
Italian stucco worker. He came to Paris without a sou and bought a bit
of ground with a wretched little house at Montparnasse. I don't know
where he got the money from to buy it. Well, this land turned out to be
a regular Montfaucon! He sold thirty thousand pounds' worth of his
precious stuff--and then he's been mixed up with Stock Exchange affairs.
Disgusting!"

"Oh, well," put in Henri, "I fancy you are going out of your way to find
folks. Why don't you ask Mlle. Bourjot? They happen to be at Sannois
now."

"Mlle. Bourjot?" repeated Mme. Mauperin.

"Noémi?" said Renée quickly, "I should just think I should like to ask
her. But this winter I thought her so distant with me. She has something
or other--I don't know----"

"She has, or rather she will have, twelve thousand pounds a year,"
interrupted Denoisel, "and mothers are apt to watch over their
daughters when such is the case. They will not allow them to get too
intimate with a sister who has a brother. They have made her understand
this; that's about the long and short of it."

"Then, too, they are so high and mighty, those folks are; they might
have descended from--And yet," continued Mme. Mauperin, breaking off and
turning to her son, "they have always been very pleasant with you,
Henri, haven't they? Mme. Bourjot is always very nice to you?"

"Yes, and she has complained several times of your not going to her
soirées; she says you don't take Renée often enough to see her
daughter."

"Really?" exclaimed Renée, very delighted.

"My dear," said Mme. Mauperin, "what do you think of what Henri
says--Mlle. Bourjot?"

"What objection do you want me to make?"

"Well, then," said Mme. Mauperin, "Henri's idea shall be carried out.
We'll go on Saturday, shall we, my dear? And you'll come with us,
Henri?"

A few hours later every one was in bed with the exception of Henri
Mauperin. He was walking up and down in his room puffing on a cigar that
had gone out, and every now and then he appeared to be smiling at his
own thoughts.

Renée often went during the day to paint in a little studio, built out
of an old green-house at the bottom of the garden. It was very
rustic-looking, half hidden with verdure and walled with ivy, something
between an old ruin and a nest.

On a table covered with an Algerian cloth there were, on this particular
day in the little studio, a Japanese box with a blue design, a lemon, an
old red almanac with the French coat of arms, and two or three other
bright-coloured objects grouped together as naturally as possible to
make a picture, with the light from the glass roof falling on them.
Seated in front of the table, Renée was painting all this with brushes
as fine as pins on a canvas which already had something on the under
side. The skirt of her white piqué dress hung in ample folds on each
side of the stool on which she was seated. She had gathered a white rose
as she came through the garden and had fastened it in her loosely
arranged hair just above her ear. Her foot, visible below her dress, in
a low shoe which showed her white stocking, was resting on the
cross-bar of the easel. Denoisel was seated near her, watching her work
and making a bad sketch of her profile in an album he had picked up in
the studio.

"Oh, you do pose well," he remarked, as he sharpened his pencil again;
"I would just as soon try to catch an omnibus as your expression. You
never cease. If you always move like that----"

"Ah, now, Denoisel, no nonsense with your portrait. I hope you'll
flatter me a little."

"No more than the sun does. I am as conscientious as a photograph."

"Let me look," she said, leaning back towards Denoisel and holding her
maulstick and palette out in front of her. "Oh! I am not beautiful.
Truly, now," she continued, as she went on with her painting, "am I like
that?"

"Something. Come, Renée--honestly now--what do you think you are like
yourself--beautiful?"

"No."

"Pretty?"

"No--no----"

"Ah, you took the trouble to think the matter over this time."

"Yes, but I said it twice."

"Good! If you think you are neither beautiful nor pretty, you don't
fancy either that you are----"

"Ugly? No, that's quite true. It's very difficult to explain. Sometimes,
now, when I look at myself, I think--how am I to explain? Well, I like
my looks; it isn't my face, I know, it's just a sort of expression I
have at such times, a something that is within me and which I can feel
passing over my features. I don't know what it is--happiness, pleasure,
a sort of emotion or whatever you like to call it. I get moments like
that when it seems to me as though I am taking all my people in finely.
All the same, though, I should have liked to be beautiful."

"Really!"

"It must be very pleasant for one's own sake, it seems to me. Now, for
instance, I should have liked to be tall, with very black hair. It's
stupid to be almost blonde. It's the same with white skin; I should have
chosen a skin--well, like Mme. Stavelot, rather orange-coloured. I like
that, but it's a matter of taste. And then I should have enjoyed looking
in my glass. It's like when I get up in the morning and walk about the
carpet with bare feet. I should love to have feet like a statue I once
saw--it's just an idea!"

"If that's how you feel you wouldn't care about being beautiful for the
sake of other people?"

"Yes and no. Not for every one--only for those I care for. We ought to
be ugly for people about whom we are indifferent, for all the people we
don't love--don't you think so? They would have just what they deserved
then."

Denoisel began sketching again.

"How odd it is, your ideal, to wish to be dark!" he said, after a
moment's silence.

"What should you like to be?"

"If I were a woman? I should like to be small and neither very fair nor
very dark----"

"Auburn then?"

"And plump--Oh, as plump as a quail."

"Plump? Ah, I can breathe again. Just for a moment I was afraid of a
declaration--If the light had not shown up your hair I should have
forgotten you were forty."

"Oh, you don't make me out any older than I am, Renée; that is exactly
my age. But do you know what yours is for me?"

"No----"

"Twelve--and you will always be that age to me."

"Thanks--I am very glad," said Renée. "If that's it I shall always be
able to tell you all the nonsense that comes into my head. Denoisel,"
she continued, after a short silence, "have you ever been in love?" She
had drawn back slightly from her canvas and was looking at it sideways,
her head leaning over her shoulder to see the effect of the colour she
had just put on.

"Oh, well! that's a good start," answered Denoisel. "What a question!"

"What's the matter with my question? I'm asking you that just as I might
ask you anything else. I don't see anything in it. Would there be any
harm in asking such a thing in society? Come now, Denoisel! you say I am
twelve years old and I agree to be twelve; but I'm twenty all the same.
I'm a _young person_, that's true, but if you imagine that _young
persons_ of my age have never read any novels nor sung any
love-songs--why, it's all humbug--it's just posing as sweet innocents.
After all, just as you like. If you think I am not old enough I'll take
back my question. I thought we were to consider ourselves men when we
talked about things together."

"Well, since you want to know, yes--I have been in love."

"Ah! And what effect did it have on you--being in love?"

"You have only to read over again the novels you have read, my dear, and
you will find the effect described on every page."

"There, now, that's just what puzzles me; all the books one reads are
full of love--there's nothing but that! And then in real life one sees
nothing of it--at least I don't see anything of it; on the contrary, I
see every one doing without it, and quite easily, too. Sometimes I
wonder whether it is not just invented for books, whether it is not all
imagined by authors--really."

Denoisel laughed at the young girl's words.

"Tell me, Renée," he said, "since we are men for the time being, as you
just said and as we talk to each other of what we feel, quite frankly
like two old friends, I should like to ask you in my turn whether you
have ever--well, not been in love with any one, but whether you have
ever cared for any one?"

"No, never," answered Renée, after a moment's reflection, "but then I am
not a fair example. I fancy that such things happen to people who have
an empty heart, no one to think about; people who are not taken up,
absorbed, possessed and, as it were, protected by one of those
affections which take hold of you wholly and entirely--the affection one
has for one's father, for instance."

Denoisel did not answer.

"You don't believe that that does preserve you?" said Renée. "Well, but
I can assure you I have tried in vain to remember. Oh, I'm examining my
conscience thoroughly, I promise you. Well, from my very childhood, I
cannot remember anything--no, nothing at all. And yet some of my little
friends, who were no older than I was, would kiss the inside of the caps
of the little boys who used to play with us; and they would collect the
peach-stones from the plates the little boys had used and put them into
a box and then take the box to bed with them. Yes, I remember all that.
Noémi, for instance, Mlle. Bourjot, was very great at all that. But as
for me, I simply went on with my games."

"And later on when you were no longer a child?"

"Later on? I have always been a child as regards all that. No, there is
nothing at all--I cannot remember a single impression. I mean--well, I'm
going to be quite frank with you--I had just a slight, a very slight
commencement of what you were talking about--just a sensation of that
feeling that I recognised later on in novels--and can you guess for
whom?"

"No."

"For you. Oh, it was only for an instant. I soon liked you in quite a
different way--and better, too. I respected you and was grateful to you.
I liked you for correcting my faults as a spoiled child, for enlarging
my mind, for teaching me to appreciate all that is beautiful, elevated
and noble; and all, too, in a joking way by making fun of everything
that is ugly and worthless and of everything that is dull or mean and
cowardly. You taught me how to play ball and how to endure being bored
to death with imbeciles. I have to thank you for much of what I think
about, for much of what I am and for a little of any good there is in
me. I wanted to pay my debt with a true and lasting friendship, and by
giving you cordially, as a comrade, some of the affection I have for
father."

As Renée said these last words she raised her voice slightly and spoke
in a graver tone.

"What in the world is that?" exclaimed M. Mauperin, who had just entered
and had caught sight of Denoisel's sketch. "Is that intended for my
daughter! Why, it's a frightful libel," and M. Mauperin picked up the
album and began to tear the page up.

"Oh, papa!" exclaimed Renée, "and I wanted it--for a keepsake!"

XII

A light carriage, drawn by one horse, was conveying the Mauperin family
along the Sannois road. Renée had taken the reins and the whip from her
brother, who was seated at her side smoking. Animated by the drive, the
air, and the movement, M. Mauperin was joking about the people they met
and bowing gaily to any acquaintances they passed. Mme. Mauperin was
silent and absorbed. She was buried in herself, thinking out and
preparing her amiability for the approaching visit.

"Why, mamma," remarked Renée, "you don't say a word. Are you not well?"

"Oh, yes, very well, quite well," answered Mme. Mauperin; "but the fact
is I'm worrying rather about this visit--and if it had not been for
Henri--There's something so stiff and cold about Mme. Bourjot--they are
all so high and mighty. Oh, it isn't that they impress me at all--their
money indeed! I know too well where they had it from. They made their
money from some invention they bought from an unfortunate working-man
for a mere nothing--a few coppers."

"Come, come, Mme. Mauperin," put in her husband, "they must have bought
more than----"

"Well, anyhow, I don't feel at ease with these people."

"You are very foolish to trouble yourself----"

"We can tell them we don't care a hang for their fine airs!" said Mlle.
Mauperin, whipping up the horse so that her slang was lost in the sound
of the animal's gallop.

* * * * *

There was some reason for Mme. Mauperin's uneasiness. Her feeling of
constraint was certainly justified. Everything in the house to which she
was going was calculated to intimidate people, to set them down, crush
them, penetrate and overwhelm them with a sense of their own
inferiority. There was an ostentatious and studied show of money, a
clever display of wealth. Opulence aimed at the humiliation of less
fortunate beings, by all possible means of intimidation, by outrageous
or refined forms of luxury, by the height of the ceilings, by the
impertinent airs of the lackeys, by the footman with his silver chain,
stationed in the entrance-hall, by the silver plate on which everything
was served, by all kinds of princely ways and customs, such as the
strict observance of evening dress, even when mother and daughter were
dining alone, by an etiquette as rigid as that of a small German court.
The master and mistress were in harmony with and maintained the style
of their house. The spirit of their home and life was as it were
incarnate in them.

The man, with all that he had copied from the English gentry, his
manners, his dress, his curled whiskers, his outward distinction; the
woman, with her grand manners, her supreme elegance, all the stiffness
and formality of the upper middle class, represented admirably the pride
of money. Their disdainful politeness, their haughty amiability, seemed
to come down to people. There was a kind of insolence which was visible
in their tastes even. M. Bourjot had neither any pictures nor any
objects of art; his collection was a collection of precious stones,
among which he pointed out a ruby worth a thousand pounds, one of the
finest in Europe.

People had overlooked all this display of wealth, and the Bourjot's
_salon_ was now very much in vogue and conspicuous on account of its
pronounced tendencies in favour of the Opposition party. It had become,
in fact, one of the three or four important _salons_ of Paris. It had
been peopled after two or three winters which Mme. Bourjot had spent in
Nice under pretext of benefitting her health. She had converted her
house there into a kind of hotel on the road to Italy, open to all who
passed by provided they were great, wealthy, celebrated, or that they
had a name. At her musical evenings, when Mme. Bourjot gave every one
an opportunity for admiring her beautiful voice and her great musical
talent, the celebrities of Europe and Parisians of repute met in her
drawing-room. Scientists, great philosophers and æsthetes mingled with
politicians. The latter were represented by a compact group of
Orleanists and a band of Liberals not pledged to any party, in whose
ranks Henri Mauperin had figured most assiduously for the past year. A
few Legitimists whom the husband brought to his wife's _salon_ were also
to be seen, M. Bourjot himself being a Legitimist.

Under the Restoration he had been a Carbonaro. He was the son of a
draper, and his birth and name of Bourjot had from his earliest
childhood exasperated him against the nobility, grand houses, and the
Bourbons. He had been in various conspiracies, and had met with M.
Mauperin at Carbonari reunions. He had figured in all the tumults, and
had been fond of quoting Berville, Saint-Just, and Dupin the elder.
After 1830 he had calmed down and had contented himself with sulking
with royalty for having cheated him of his republic. He read the
_National_, pitied the people of all lands, despised the Chambers,
railed at M. Guizot, and was eloquent about the Pritchard affair.

The events of 1848 came upon him suddenly, and the landowner then woke
up alarmed and rose erect in the person of the Carbonaro of the
Restoration, the Liberal of Louis Philippe's reign. The fall in stocks,
the unproductiveness of houses, socialism, the proposed taxes, the
dangers to which State creditors were exposed, the eventful days of
June, and indeed everything which is calculated to strike terror to the
heart of a moneyed man during a revolution, disturbed M. Bourjot's
equanimity, and at the same time enlightened him. His ideas suddenly
underwent a change, and his political conscience veered completely
round. He hastened to adopt the doctrines of order, and turned to the
Church as he might have done to the police authorities, to the Divine
right as the supreme power and a providential security for his bills.

Unfortunately, in M. Bourjot's brusque but sincere conversion, his
education, his youth, his past, his whole life rose in revolt. He had
returned to the Bourbons, but he had not been able to come back to Jesus
Christ, and, old man as he now was, he would make all kinds of slips and
give utterance to the attacks and refrains to which he had been
accustomed. One felt, the nearer one came to him, that he was still
quite a Voltairean on certain points, and Beranger was constantly taking
the place of de Maistre with him.

* * * * *

"Give the reins to your brother, Renée," said Mme. Mauperin. "I
shouldn't like them to see you driving."

They were in front of a magnificent large gateway, opposite which were
two lamps that were always lighted and left burning all night. The
carriage turned up a drive, covered with red gravel and planted on each
side with huge clumps of rhododendrons, and drew up before a flight of
stone steps. Two footmen threw open the glass doors leading into a hall
paved with marble and with high windows nearly hidden by the verdure of
a wide screen of exotic shrubs.

The Mauperins were then introduced into a drawing-room, the walls of
which were covered with crimson silk. A portrait of Mme. Bourjot in
evening dress, signed by Ingres, was the only picture in the room.
Through the open windows could be seen a pool of water, and near it a
stork, the only creature that M. Bourjot would tolerate in his park, and
that on account of its heraldic form.

When the Mauperins entered the large drawing-room, Mme. Bourjot, seated
by herself on the divan, was listening to her daughter's governess who
was reading aloud. M. Bourjot was leaning against the chimney-piece
playing with his watch-chain. Mlle. Bourjot, near her governess, was
working at some tapestry on a frame.

Mme. Bourjot, with her large, rather hard blue eyes, her arched
eye-brows, and the lines of her eye-lids, her haughty and pronounced
nose, the supercilious prominence of the lower part of the face, and her
imperious grace, reminded one of Georges, when young, in the rôle of
Agrippina. Mlle. Bourjot had strongly marked brown eye-brows. Between
her long, curly lashes could be seen two blue eyes with an intense,
profound, dreamy expression in them. A slight down almost white could be
seen when the light was full on her, just above her lip at the two
corners. The governess was one of those retiring creatures, one of those
elderly women who have been knocked about and worn out in the battle of
life, outwardly and inwardly, and who finally have no more effigy left
than an old copper coin.

"Why, this is really charming!" said Mme. Bourjot, getting up and
advancing as far as a line of the polished floor in the centre of the
room. "What kind neighbours--and what a delightful surprise! It seems an
age since I had the pleasure of seeing you, dear madame, and if it were
not for your son, who is good enough not to forsake us, and who comes to
my Monday Evenings, we should not have known what had become of you--of
this charming girl--and her mamma----"

As she spoke Mme. Bourjot shook hands with Henri.

"Oh! you are very kind," began Mme. Mauperin, taking a seat at some
distance from Mme. Bourjot.

"But please come over here," said Mme. Bourjot, making room at her side.

"We have postponed our visit from day to day," continued Mme. Mauperin,
"as we wanted to come together."

"Oh! well, it's very bad of you," continued Mme. Bourjot. "We are not a
hundred miles away; and it is cruel to keep these two children apart,
when they grew up together. Why, how's this, they haven't kissed each
other yet?"

Noémi, who was still standing, presented her cheek coldly to Renée, who
kissed her as eagerly, as a child bites into fruit.

"What a long time ago it seems," observed Mme. Bourjot to Mme. Mauperin,
as she looked at the two girls, "since we used to take them to the Rue
de la Chaussée d'Antin to those lectures, that bored us as much as they
did the poor children. I can see them now, playing together. Yours was
just like quicksilver, a regular little turk, and mine--Oh, they were
like night and day! But yours always led mine on. Oh, dear, what a rage
they had at one time for charades--do you remember? They used to carry
off all the towels in the house to dress up with."

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Renée, laughing and turning to Noémi, "our finest
one was when we did _Marabout_; with _Marat_ in a bath that was too hot,
calling out, '_Je bous, je bous_!' Do you remember?"

"Yes, indeed," answered Noémi, trying to keep back a smile, "but it was
your idea."

"I am so glad, madame, to find you quite inclined beforehand for what I
wanted to ask you--for my visit is a selfish one. It was chiefly with
the idea of letting our daughters see something of each other that I
came. Renée wants to get up a play, and she naturally thought of her old
school-friend. If you would allow your daughter to take part in a piece
with my daughter--it would be just a little family affair--quite
informal."

As Mme. Mauperin made this request, Noémi, who had been talking to Renée
and had put her hand in her friend's, drew it away again abruptly.

"Thank you so much for the idea," answered Mme. Bourjot, "thanks, too,
to Renée. You could not have asked me anything that would have suited me
better and given me so much pleasure. I think it would be very good for
Noémi--the poor child is so shy that I am in despair! It would make her
talk and come out of herself. For her mind, too, it would be an
excellent stimulant----"

"Oh! but, mother, you know very well--why, I've no memory. And then,
too--why, the very idea of acting frightens me. Oh, no--I can't act----"

Mme. Bourjot glanced coldly at her daughter.

"But, mother, if I could--No, I should spoil the whole play, I'm sure."

"You will act--I wish you to do so."

Noémi looked down, and Mme. Mauperin, slightly embarrassed and by way of
changing the subject, glanced at a Review that was lying open on a
work-table at her side.

"Ah!" said Mme. Bourjot, turning to her again, "you've found something
you know there--that is your son's last article. And when do you intend
having this play?"

"Oh, but I should be so sorry to be the cause--to oblige your
daughter----"

"Oh! don't mention it. My daughter is always afraid of undertaking
anything."

"Well, but if Noémi really dislikes it," put in M. Bourjot, who had been
talking to M. Mauperin and Henri on the other side of the room.

"On the contrary she will be grateful to you," said Mme. Bourjot,
addressing Mme. Mauperin without answering M. Bourjot. "We are always
obliged to insist on her doing anything for her own enjoyment. Well,
when is this play?"

"Renée, when do you think?" asked Mme. Mauperin.

"Why, I should think about--well, we should want a month for the
rehearsals, with two a week. We could fix the days and the time that
would suit Noémi."

Renée turned towards Noémi, who remained silent.

"Very well, then," said Mme. Bourjot, "let us say Monday and Friday at
two o'clock, if that will suit you--shall we?" And turning to the
governess she continued: "Mlle. Gogois, you will accompany Noémi. M.
Bourjot--you hear--will you give orders for the horses and carriage and
the footman to take them to Briche? You can keep Terror for me, and
Jean. There, that's all settled. Now, then, you will stay and dine with
us, won't you?"

"Oh! we should like to very much; but it is quite impossible. We have
some people coming to us to-day," answered Mme. Mauperin.

"Oh, dear, how tiresome of them to come to-day! But I don't think you
have seen my husband's new conservatories. I'll make you a bouquet,
Renée. We have a flower--there are only two of them anywhere, and the
other is at Ferrières--it's a--it's very ugly anyhow--this way."

"Suppose we were to go in here," said M. Bourjot, pointing to the
billiard-room, which could be seen through the glass door. "M. Henri,
we'll leave you with the ladies. We can smoke here," added M. Bourjot,
offering a _cabanas_ to M. Mauperin. "Shall we have cannoning?"

"Yes," replied M. Mauperin.

M. Bourjot closed the pockets of the billiard-table.

"Twenty-four?"

"Yes, twenty-four."

"Have you billiards at home, M. Mauperin?"

"No, I haven't. My son doesn't play."

"Are you looking for the chalk?"

"Thanks. And as my wife doesn't think it a suitable game for girls----"

"It's your turn."

"Oh! I'm quite out of practice--I always was a duffer at it though."

"Well, but you are not giving me the game at all. There, it's all up
with my play--I was used to that cue," and M. Bourjot gave vent to his
feelings in an oath. "These rascals of workmen--they haven't any
conscience at all. There's no getting anything well made in these days.
Well, you _are_ scoring: three, I'll mark it. The fact is we are at
their service. The other day, now, I wanted some chandeliers put up.
Well, would you believe it, M. Mauperin, I couldn't get a man? It was a
holiday--I forget what holiday it was--and they would not come--they are
the lords of creation, nowadays. Do you imagine that they ever bring us
anything of what they shoot or fish? Oh, no, when they get anything
dainty they eat it themselves. I know what it is in Paris--four? Oh,
come now! Every penny they earn is spent at the wine-shop. On Sundays
they spend at least a sovereign. The locksmith here has a Lefaucheux gun
and takes out a shooting license. Ah, two for me at last! And the money
they ask now for their work! Why, they want four shillings a day for
mowing! I have vineyards in Burgundy, and they proposed to see to them
for me for three years, and then the third year they would be their own.
This is what we are coming to! Luckily for me I'm an old man, so that it
won't be in my time; but in a hundred years from now there will be no
such thing as being waited on--there'll be no servants. I often say to
my wife and daughter: 'You'll see--the day will come when you will have
to make your own beds. Five?--six?--- you _do_ know how to play. The
Revolution has done for us, you know." And M. Bourjot began to hum:

"'Et zonzon, zonzon, zonzon,
Zonzon, zonzon---- '"

"These were not exactly your ideas some thirty years ago, when we met
for the first time; do you remember?" said M. Mauperin with a smile.

"That's true. I had some fine ideas in those days--too fine!" replied M.
Bourjot, resting his left hand on his cue. "Ah, we were young--I should
just think I do remember. It was at Lallemand's funeral.--By Jove! that
was the best blow I ever gave in my life--a regular knock-you-down. I
can see the nails in that police inspector's boots now, when I had
landed him on the ground so that I could cross the boulevards. At the
corner of the Rue Poissonnière I came upon a patrol--they set about me
with a vengeance. I was with Caminade--you knew Caminade, didn't you? He
was a lively one. He was the man who used to go and smoke his pipe at
the mission service belonging to the Church of the Petits-Pères. He went
with his meerschaum pipe that cost nearly sixty pounds, and he took a
girl from the Palais-Royal. He was lucky, for he managed to escape, but
they took me to the police station, belabouring me with the butt-end of
their guns. Fortunately Dulaurens caught sight of me----"

"Ah--Dulaurens!" said M. Mauperin. "We were in the same Carbonari
society. He had a shawl shop, it seems to me."

"Yes, and do you know what became of him?"

"No. I lost sight of him."

"Well, one fine day--it was after all this business--his partner went
off to Belgium, taking with him eight thousand pounds. They put the
police on his track, but they could hear nothing of him. Our friend
Dulaurens goes into a church and makes a vow to get converted if he
finds his money again. They find his money for him and now his piety is
simply sickening. I never see him now; but in the old days he was a
lively one, I can tell you. Well, when I saw him I gave him a look and
he understood. You see, I had twenty-five guns in my house and five
hundred cartridges. When the police went there to search he had cleared
them away. All the same I was kept three months shut up in the new
building, and two or three times was fetched up in the night to be
cross-examined, and I always went with a vague idea in my mind that I
was going to be shot. You've gone through it all, and you know what it
is.--And all that was for the sake of Socialism! And yet I heard a few
words that ought to have enlightened me. When I was free again one of my
prison friends came to see me at Sedan. 'Why, what's this,' he said,
'that I am told at the hotel? It seems that your father has land and
money, and yet you have joined us! Why, I thought you hadn't anything!'
Just fancy now, M. Mauperin--and when I think that even that did not
open my eyes! You see I was convinced in those days that all those with
whom I was in league wanted simply what I wanted: laws for rich and poor
alike, the abolition of privileges, the end of the Revolution of '89
against the nobility--I thought we should stop there--eleven? Did I mark
your last? I don't think I did--let us say twelve. But, good heavens!
when I saw my republic I was disgusted with it, when I heard two men,
who had just come down from the barricades in February, say, 'We ought
not to have left them until we had made sure of two hundred a year!' And
then the system of taxes according to the income; it's an iniquity--the
hypocrisy of communism. But with taxes regulated by the income,"
continued M. Bourjot, eloquently breaking off in the midst of his own
phrase, "I challenge them to find any one who will care to take the
trouble of making a large fortune--thirteen, fourteen, fifteen--very
good! Oh, you are too strong a player. All that has made me turn
round--you understand?"

"Perfectly," replied M. Mauperin.

"Where's my ball--there? Yes, it has made me turn completely round; it
has positively made a Legitimist of me. There--a bad cue again! But----"

"But what?"

"Well, there is one thing--Oh, on that subject, now, I have the same
opinions still. I don't mind telling you. Anything approaching a
parson--eighteen?--Oh, come, I'm done for! We invite the one here in
this place--he's a very decent fellow; but as to priests--when you've
known one as I have, who broke his leg getting over the college wall at
night--they are a pack of Jesuits, you know, M. Mauperin!

"'Hommes noirs, d'où sortez-vous?
Nous sortons de dessous, terre.'"

"Ah, that's my man! The god of simple folks!

"'Mes amis, parlons plus bas:
Je vois Judas, je vois Judas!'"

"Twenty-one! You've only three more. Now, at the place where my
iron-works are, there's a bishop who is very easy-going. Well, all the
bigots detest him. Now, if he pretended to be a bigot, if he were a
hypocrite and spent all his time at church----"

* * * * *

"I never saw Mme. Bourjot so amiable," remarked Mme. Mauperin, when she
and her family were all back in the carriage.

"An odd chap, that Bourjot," observed M. Mauperin. "It isn't much good
having a billiard-table of his own either--I could have given him a
start of twelve."

"I think Noémi is very strange," said Renée. "Did you see, Henri, how
she wanted to get out of acting?"

Henri did not answer.

XIII

Noémi had just entered Mme. Mauperin's drawing-room followed by her
governess. She looked uncomfortable and ill at ease, almost shy, in
fact, but on glancing round she appeared to be somewhat reassured. She
advanced to speak to Mme. Mauperin, who kissed her. Renée then embraced
her, and, joking and laughing all the time, proceeded to take off her
friend's cape and hat.

"Ah, I'm forgetting," she exclaimed, turning the dainty white hat
trimmed with pink flowers round on her hand, "let me introduce M.
Denoisel again. You have met him before in the old days--that sounds as
though we were quite aged, doesn't it?--and he is our theatrical
manager, our professor of elocution, our prompter--scene
shifter--everything."

"I have not forgotten how kind M. Denoisel used to be to me when I was a
little girl," and Noémi, flushing with emotion as her thoughts went back
to her childhood, held out her hand somewhat awkwardly and with such
timidity that her fingers all clung together.

"Oh, but what a pretty costume!" continued Renée, walking round her.
"You look sweet," and then patting her own taffeta dress, which was
rather the worse for wear, she held out her skirt and made a low
reverence. "You'll make a rather pretty Mathilde--I shall be jealous,
you know.--But look, mamma," she continued, drawing herself up to her
full height. "I told you so--she makes me quite small.--Now, then--you
see you are much taller than I am." As she spoke she placed herself side
by side with Noémi and, putting her arm round her waist, led her to the
glass and put her shoulder against her friend's. "There, now!" she
exclaimed.

The governess was keeping in the background at the other end of the
_salon_. She was looking at some pictures in a book that she had only
dared to half open.

"Come, my dears, shall we begin to read the play?" said Mme. Mauperin.
"It's no use waiting for Henri; he will only come to the last rehearsals
when the actresses are well on."

"Oh, just now, mamma, let us talk first. Come and sit here, Noémi.
There--we have a lot of little secrets, so many things that have
happened since we last met to tell each other about--it is ages ago."

And Renée began prattling and chirping away with Noémi. Their
conversation sounded like the fresh, clear, never-ending babbling of a
brook, breaking off now and again in a peal of laughter and dying away
in a whisper. Noémi, who was very guarded at first, soon gave herself up
to the delight of confiding in her friend and of listening to this voice
which brought back so many memories of the past. They asked each other,
as one does after a long absence, about all that had happened and what
they had each been doing. At the end of half an hour, to judge by their
conversation, one would have said they were two young women who had
suddenly become children again together.

"I go in for painting," said Renée, "what do you do? You used to have a
beautiful voice."

"Oh, don't mention that," said Noémi. "They make me sing. Mamma insists
on my singing at her big parties--and you've no idea how dreadful it is.
When I see every one looking at me, a shiver runs through me. Oh, I'm so
frightened--the first few times I burst out crying----"

"Well, we'll have a little refreshment now. I've saved a green apple for
you that I was going to eat myself. I hope you still like green apples?"

"No, thanks, Renée dear, I'm not hungry, really."

"I say, Denoisel, what can you see that is so interesting--through that
window?"

Denoisel was watching the Bourjot's footman in the garden. He had seen
him dust the bench with a fine cambric handkerchief, spread the
handkerchief over the green laths, sit down on it in a gingerly way in
his red velvet breeches, cross his legs, take a cigar out of his pocket
and light it. He was now looking at this man as he sat there smoking in
an insolent, majestic way, glancing round at this small estate with the
supercilious expression of a servant whose master lives in a mansion and
owns a park.

"Why, nothing at all," said Denoisel, coming away from the window; "I
was afraid of intruding."

"We have told each other all our secrets now; so you can come and talk
to us."

"You know what time it is, Renée?" put in Mme. Mauperin. "If you want to
begin the rehearsal to-day----"

"Oh, mamma, please--it's so warm to-day--and then, too, it's Friday."

"And the year began on a 13th," remarked Denoisel gravely.

"Ah!" said Noémi, looking at him with her trustful eyes.

"Don't listen to him--he's taking you in. He pl

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