An Old Maid

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These restorations destroyed all the venerable dignity, cordiality,
and patriarchal air of the old house. Like the Chevalier de Valois,
whose personal neglect might be called an abdication, the bourgeois
dignity of the Cormon salon no longer existed when it was turned to
white and gold, with mahogany ottomans covered in blue satin. The
dining-room, adorned in modern taste, was colder in tone than it used
to be, and the dinners were eaten with less appetite than formerly.
Monsieur du Coudrai declared that he felt his puns stick in his throat
as he glanced at the figures painted on the walls, which looked him
out of countenance. Externally, the house was still provincial; but
internally everything revealed the purveyor of the Directory and the
bad taste of the money-changer,--for instance, columns in stucco,
glass doors, Greek mouldings, meaningless outlines, all styles
conglomerated, magnificence out of place and out of season.

The town of Alencon gabbled for two weeks over this luxury, which
seemed unparalleled; but a few months later the community was proud of
it, and several rich manufacturers restored their houses and set up
fine salons. Modern furniture came into the town, and astral lamps
were seen!

The Abbe de Sponde was among the first to perceive the secret
unhappiness this marriage now brought to the private life of his
beloved niece. The character of noble simplicity which had hitherto
ruled their lives was lost during the first winter, when du Bousquier
gave two balls every month. Oh, to hear violins and profane music at
these worldly entertainments in the sacred old house! The abbe prayed
on his knees while the revels lasted. Next the political system of the
sober salon was slowly perverted. The abbe fathomed du Bousquier; he
shuddered at his imperious tone; he saw the tears in his niece's eyes
when she felt herself losing all control over her own property; for
her husband now left nothing in her hands but the management of the
linen, the table, and things of a kind which are the lot of women.
Rose had no longer any orders to give. Monsieur's will was alone
regarded by Jacquelin, now become coachman, by Rene, the groom, and by
the chef, who came from Paris, Mariette being reduced to kitchen maid.
Madame du Bousquier had no one to rule but Josette. Who knows what it
costs to relinquish the delights of power? If the triumph of the will
is one of the intoxicating pleasures in the lives of great men, it is
the ALL of life to narrow minds. One must needs have been a minister
dismissed from power to comprehend the bitter pain which came upon
Madame du Bousquier when she found herself reduced to this absolute
servitude. She often got into the carriage against her will; she saw
herself surrounded by servants who were distasteful to her; she no
longer had the handling of her dear money,--she who had known herself
free to spend money, and did not spend it.

All imposed limits make the human being desire to go beyond them. The
keenest sufferings come from the thwarting of self-will. The beginning
of this state of things was, however, rose-colored. Every concession
made to marital authority was an effect of the love which the poor
woman felt for her husband. Du Bousquier behaved, in the first
instance, admirably to his wife: he was wise; he was excellent; he
gave her the best of reasons for each new encroachment. So for the
first two years of her marriage Madame du Bousquier appeared to be
satisfied. She had that deliberate, demure little air which
distinguishes young women who have married for love. The rush of blood
to her head no longer tormented her. This appearance of satisfaction
routed the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier,
and puzzled all observers of the human heart. Rose-Marie-Victoire was
so afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she would
lose his affection and be deprived of his company, that she would
willingly have sacrificed all to him, even her uncle. Her silly little
forms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who endured
his own trials all the better for thinking that his niece was happy,
after all.

Alencon at first thought the same. But there was one man more
difficult to deceive than the whole town put together. The Chevalier
de Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upper
aristocracy, now passed his life at the d'Esgrignons. He listened to
the gossip and the gabble, and he thought day and night upon his
vengeance. He meant to strike du Bousquier to the heart.

The poor abbe fully understood the baseness of this first and last
love of his niece; he shuddered as, little by little, he perceived the
hypocritical nature of his nephew and his treacherous manoeuvres.
Though du Bousquier restrained himself, as he thought of the abbe's
property, and wished not to cause him vexation, it was his hand that
dealt the blow that sent the old priest to his grave. If you will
interpret the word /intolerance/ as /firmness of principle/, if you do
not wish to condemn in the catholic soul of the Abbe de Sponde the
stoicism which Walter Scott has made you admire in the puritan soul of
Jeanie Deans' father; if you are willing to recognize in the Roman
Church the Potius mori quam foedari that you admire in republican
tenets,--you will understand the sorrow of the Abbe de Sponde when he
saw in his niece's salon the apostate priest, the renegade, the
pervert, the heretic, that enemy of the Church, the guilty taker of
the Constitutional oath. Du Bousquier, whose secret ambition was to
lay down the law to the town, wished, as a first proof of his power,
to reconcile the minister of Saint-Leonard with the rector of the
parish, and he succeeded. His wife thought he had accomplished a work
of peace where the immovable abbe saw only treachery. The bishop came
to visit du Bousquier, and seemed glad of the cessation of
hostilities. The virtues of the Abbe Francois had conquered prejudice,
except that of the aged Roman Catholic, who exclaimed with Cornelle,
"Alas! what virtues do you make me hate!"

The abbe died when orthodoxy thus expired in the diocese.

In 1819, the property of the Abbe de Sponde increased Madame du
Bousquier's income from real estate to twenty-five thousand francs
without counting Prebaudet or the house in the Val-Noble. About this
time du Bousquier returned to his wife the capital of her savings
which she had yielded to him; and he made her use it in purchasing
lands contiguous to Prebaudet, which made that domain one of the most
considerable in the department, for the estates of the Abbe de Sponde
also adjoined it. Du Bousquier thus passed for one of the richest men
of the department. This able man, the constant candidate of the
liberals, missing by seven or eight votes only in all the electoral
battles fought under the Restoration, and who ostensibly repudiated
the liberals by trying to be elected as a ministerial royalist
(without ever being able to conquer the aversion of the
administration),--this rancorous republican, mad with ambition,
resolved to rival the royalism and aristocracy of Alencon at the
moment when they once more had the upper hand. He strengthened himself
with the Church by the deceitful appearance of a well-feigned piety:
he accompanied his wife to mass; he gave money for the convents of the
town; he assisted the congregation of the Sacre-Coeur; he took sides
with the clergy on all occasions when the clergy came into collision
with the town, the department, or the State. Secretly supported by the
liberals, protected by the Church, calling himself a constitutional
royalist, he kept beside the aristocracy of the department in the one
hope of ruining it,--and he did ruin it. Ever on the watch for the
faults and blunders of the nobility and the government, he laid plans
for his vengeance against the "chateau-people," and especially against
the d'Esgrignons, in whose bosom he was one day to thrust a poisoned
dagger.

Among other benefits to the town he gave money liberally to revive the
manufacture of point d'Alencon; he renewed the trade in linens, and
the town had a factory. Inscribing himself thus upon the interests and
heart of the masses, by doing what the royalists did not do, du
Bousquier did not really risk a farthing. Backed by his fortune, he
could afford to wait results which enterprising persons who involve
themselves are forced to abandon to luckier successors.

Du Bousquier now posed as a banker. This miniature Lafitte was a
partner in all new enterprises, taking good security. He served
himself while apparently serving the interests of the community. He
was the prime mover of insurance companies, the protector of new
enterprises for public conveyance; he suggested petitions for asking
the administration for the necessary roads and bridges. Thus warned,
the government considered this action an encroachment of its own
authority. A struggle was begun injudiciously, for the good of the
community compelled the authorities to yield in the end. Du Bousquier
embittered the provincial nobility against the court nobility and the
peerage; and finally he brought about the shocking adhesion of a
strong party of constitutional royalists to the warfare sustained by
the "Journal des Debats," and M. de Chateaubriand against the throne,
--an ungrateful opposition based on ignoble interests, which was one
cause of the triumph of the bourgeoisie and journalism in 1830.

Thus du Bousquier, in common with the class he represented, had the
satisfaction of beholding the funeral of royalty. The old republican,
smothered with masses, who for fifteen years had played that comedy to
satisfy his vendetta, himself threw down with his own hand the white
flag of the mayoralty to the applause of the multitude. No man in
France cast upon the new throne raised in August, 1830, a glance of
more intoxicated, joyous vengeance. The accession of the Younger
Branch was the triumph of the Revolution. To him the victory of the
tricolor meant the resurrection of Montagne, which this time should
surely bring the nobility down to the dust by means more certain than
that of the guillotine, because less violent. The peerage without
heredity; the National Guard, which puts on the same camp-bed the
corner grocer and the marquis; the abolition of the entails demanded
by a bourgeois lawyer; the Catholic Church deprived of its supremacy;
and all the other legislative inventions of August, 1830,--were to du
Bousquier the wisest possible application of the principles of 1793.

Since 1830 this man has been a receiver-general. He relied for his
advancement on his relations with the Duc d'Orleans, father of Louis
Philippe, and with Monsieur de Folmon, formerly steward to the
Duchess-dowager of Orleans. He receives about eighty thousand francs a
year. In the eyes of the people about him Monsieur du Bousquier is a
man of means,--a respectable man, steady in his principles, upright,
and obliging. Alencon owes to him its connection with the industrial
movement by which Brittany may possibly some day be joined to what is
popularly called modern civilization. Alencon, which up to 1816 could
boast of only two private carriages, saw, without amazement, in the
course of ten years, coupes, landaus, tilburies, and cabriolets
rolling through her streets. The burghers and the land-owners, alarmed
at first lest the price of everything should increase, recognized
later that this increase in the style of living had a contrary effect
upon their revenues. The prophetic remark of du Ronceret, "Du
Bousquier is a very strong man," was adopted by the whole
country-side.

But, unhappily for the wife, that saying has a double meaning. The
husband does not in any way resemble the public politician. This great
citizen, so liberal to the world about him, so kindly inspired with
love for his native place, is a despot in his own house, and utterly
devoid of conjugal affection. This man, so profoundly astute,
hypocritical, and sly; this Cromwell of the Val-Noble,--behaves in his
home as he behaves to the aristocracy, whom he caresses in hopes to
throttle them. Like his friend Bernadotte, he wears a velvet glove
upon his iron hand. His wife has given him no children. Suzanne's
remark and the chevalier's insinuations were therefore justified. But
the liberal bourgeoisie, the constitutional-royalist-bourgeoisie, the
country-squires, the magistracy, and the "church party" laid the blame
on Madame du Bousquier. "She was too old," they said; "Monsieur du
Bousquier had married her too late. Besides, it was very lucky for the
poor woman; it was dangerous at her age to bear children!" When Madame
du Bousquier confided, weeping, her periodic despair to Mesdames du
Coudrai and du Ronceret, those ladies would reply,--

"But you are crazy, my dear; you don't know what you are wishing for;
a child would be your death."

Many men, whose hopes were fastened on du Bousquier's triumph, sang
his praises to their wives, who in turn repeated them to the poor wife
in some such speech as this:--

"You are very lucky, dear, to have married such an able man; you'll
escape the misery of women whose husbands are men without energy,
incapable of managing their property, or bringing up their children."

"Your husband is making you queen of the department, my love. He'll
never leave you embarrassed, not he! Why, he leads all Alencon."

"But I wish," said the poor wife, "that he gave less time to the
public and--"

"You are hard to please, my dear Madame du Bousquier. I assure you
that all the women in town envy you your husband."

Misjudged by society, which began by blaming her, the pious woman
found ample opportunity in her home to display her virtues. She lived
in tears, but she never ceased to present to others a placid face. To
so Christian a soul a certain thought which pecked forever at her
heart was a crime: "I loved the Chevalier de Valois," it said; "but I
have married du Bousquier." The love of poor Athanase Granson also
rose like a phantom of remorse, and pursued her even in her dreams.
The death of her uncle, whose griefs at the last burst forth, made her
life still more sorrowful; for she now felt the suffering her uncle
must have endured in witnessing the change of political and religious
opinion in the old house. Sorrow often falls like a thunderbolt, as it
did on Madame Granson; but in this old maid it slowly spread like a
drop of oil, which never leaves the stuff that slowly imbibes it.

The Chevalier de Valois was the malicious manipulator who brought
about the crowning misfortune of Madame du Bousquier's life. His heart
was set on undeceiving her pious simplicity; for the chevalier, expert
in love, divined du Bousquier, the married man, as he had divined du
Bousquier, the bachelor. But the wary republican was difficult of
attack. His salon was, of course, closed to the Chevalier de Valois,
as to all those who, in the early days of his marriage, had slighted
the Cormon mansion. He was, moreover, impervious to ridicule; he
possessed a vast fortune; he reigned in Alencon; he cared as little
for his wife as Richard III. cared for the dead horse which had helped
him win a battle. To please her husband, Madame du Bousquier had
broken off relations with the d'Esgrignon household, where she went no
longer, except that sometimes when her husband left her during his
trips to Paris, she would pay a brief visit to Mademoiselle Armande.

About three years after her marriage, at the time of the Abbe de
Sponde's death, Mademoiselle Armande joined Madame du Bousquier as
they were leaving Saint-Leonard's, where they had gone to hear a
requiem said for him. The generous demoiselle thought that on this
occasion she owed her sympathy to the niece in trouble. They walked
together, talking of the dear deceased, until they reached the
forbidden house, into which Mademoiselle Armande enticed Madame du
Bousquier by the charm of her manner and conversation. The poor
desolate woman was glad to talk of her uncle with one whom he truly
loved. Moreover, she wanted to receive the condolences of the old
marquis, whom she had not seen for nearly three years. It was
half-past one o'clock, and she found at the hotel d'Esgrignon the
Chevalier de Valois, who had come to dinner. As he bowed to her, he
took her by the hands.

"Well, dear, virtuous, and beloved lady," he said, in a tone of
emotion, "we have lost our sainted friend; we share your grief. Yes,
your loss is as keenly felt here as in your own home,--more so," he
added, alluding to du Bousquier.

After a few more words of funeral oration, in which all present spoke
from the heart, the chevalier took Madame du Bousquier's arm, and,
gallantly placing it within his own, pressed it adoringly as he led
her to the recess of a window.

"Are you happy?" he said in a fatherly voice.

"Yes," she said, dropping her eyes.

Hearing that "Yes," Madame de Troisville, the daughter of the Princess
Scherbellof, and the old Marquise de Casteran came up and joined the
chevalier, together with Mademoiselle Armande. They all went to walk
in the garden until dinner was served, without any perception on the
part of Madame du Bousquier that a little conspiracy was afoot. "We
have her! now let us find out the secret of the case," were the words
written in the eyes of all present.

"To make your happiness complete," said Mademoiselle Armande, "you
ought to have children,--a fine lad like my nephew--"

Tears seemed to start in Madame du Bousquier's eyes.

"I have heard it said that you were the one to blame in the matter,
and that you feared the dangers of a pregnancy," said the chevalier.

"I!" she said artlessly. "I would buy a child with a hundred years of
purgatory if I could."

On the question thus started a discussion arose, conducted by Madame
de Troisville and the old Marquise de Casteran with such delicacy and
adroitness that the poor victim revealed, without being aware of it,
the secrets of her house. Mademoiselle Armande had taken the
chevalier's arm, and walked away so as to leave the three women free
to discuss wedlock. Madame du Bousquier was then enlightened on the
various deceptions of her marriage; and as she was still the same
simpleton she had always been, she amused her advisers by delightful
naivetes.

Although at first the deceptive marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon made a
laugh throughout the town, which was soon initiated into the story of
the case, before long Madame du Bousquier won the esteem and sympathy
of all the women. The fact that Mademoiselle Cormon had flung herself
headlong into marriage without succeeding in being married, made
everybody laugh at her; but when they learned the exceptional position
in which the sternness of her religious principles placed her, all the
world admired her. "That poor Madame du Bousquier" took the place of
"That good Mademoiselle Cormon."

Thus the chevalier contrived to render du Bousquier both ridiculous
and odious for a time; but ridicule ends by weakening; when all had
said their say about him, the gossip died out. Besides, at fifty-seven
years of age the dumb republican seemed to many people to have a right
to retire. This affair, however, envenomed the hatred which du
Bousquier already bore to the house of Esgrignon to such a degree that
it made him pitiless when the day of vengeance came. [See "The Gallery
of Antiquities."] Madame du Bousquier received orders never again to
set foot into that house. By way of reprisals upon the chevalier for
the trick thus played him, du Bousquier, who had just created the
journal called the "Courrier de l'Orne," caused the following notice
to be inserted in it:--

"Bonds to the amount of one thousand francs a year will be paid to
any person who can prove the existence of one Monsieur de
Pombreton before, during, or after the Emigration."

Although her marriage was essentially negative, Madame du Bousquier
saw some advantages in it: was it not better to interest herself in
the most remarkable man in the town than to live alone? Du Bousquier
was preferable to a dog, or cat, or those canaries that spinsters
love. He showed for his wife a sentiment more real and less selfish
than that which is felt by servants, confessors, and hopeful heirs.
Later in life she came to consider her husband as the instrument of
divine wrath; for she then saw innumerable sins in her former desires
for marriage; she regarded herself as justly punished for the sorrow
she had brought on Madame Granson, and for the hastened death of her
uncle. Obedient to that religion which commands us to kiss the rod
with which the punishment is inflicted, she praised her husband, and
publicly approved him. But in the confessional, or at night, when
praying, she wept often, imploring God's forgiveness for the apostasy
of the man who thought the contrary of what he professed, and who
desired the destruction of the aristocracy and the Church,--the two
religions of the house of Cormon.

With all her feelings bruised and immolated within her, compelled by
duty to make her husband happy, attached to him by a certain
indefinable affection, born, perhaps, of habit, her life became one
perpetual contradiction. She had married a man whose conduct and
opinions she hated, but whom she was bound to care for with dutiful
tenderness. Often she walked with the angels when du Bousquier ate her
preserves or thought the dinner good. She watched to see that his
slightest wish was satisfied. If he tore off the cover of his
newspaper and left it on a table, instead of throwing it away, she
would say:--

"Rene, leave that where it is; monsieur did not place it there without
intention."

If du Bousquier had a journey to take, she was anxious about his
trunk, his linen; she took the most minute precautions for his
material benefit. If he went to Prebaudet, she consulted the barometer
the evening before to know if the weather would be fine. She watched
for his will in his eyes, like a dog which hears and sees its master
while sleeping. When the stout du Bousquier, touched by this
scrupulous love, would take her round the waist and kiss her forehead,
saying, "What a good woman you are!" tears of pleasure would come into
the eyes of the poor creature. It is probably that du Bousquier felt
himself obliged to make certain concessions which obtained for him the
respect of Rose-Marie-Victoire; for Catholic virtue does not require a
dissimulation as complete as that of Madame du Bousquier. Often the
good saint sat mutely by and listened to the hatred of men who
concealed themselves under the cloak of constitutional royalists. She
shuddered as she foresaw the ruin of the Church. Occasionally she
risked a stupid word, an observation which du Bousquier cut short with
a glance.

The worries of such an existence ended by stupefying Madame du
Bousquier, who found it easier and also more dignified to concentrate
her intelligence on her own thoughts and resign herself to lead a life
that was purely animal. She then adopted the submission of a slave,
and regarded it as a meritorious deed to accept the degradation in
which her husband placed her. The fulfilment of his will never once
caused her to murmur. The timid sheep went henceforth in the way the
shepherd led her; she gave herself up to the severest religious
practices, and thought no more of Satan and his works and vanities.
Thus she presented to the eyes of the world a union of all Christian
virtues; and du Bousquier was certainly one of the luckiest men in the
kingdom of France and of Navarre.

"She will be a simpleton to her last breath," said the former
collector, who, however, dined with her twice a week.

This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made of
the coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois's death occurring at the
same time as that of Suzanne's mother. The chevalier died with the
monarchy, in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at
Nonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles,
Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had taken
with him fifty thousand francs,--the sum to which his savings then
amounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the king
for transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, and
declaring that the money came originally from the goodness of the
king, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valois
belonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor of
his zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned his
fine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, and
who ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier. It is
certain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary legate of the old man,
received from his estate only six hundred francs a year. The chevalier
returned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he died
on the very day when Charles X. arrived on a foreign shore.

Madame du Val-Noble and her protector, who was just then afraid of the
vengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remain
incognito in the village where Suzanne's mother died. At the sale of
the chevalier's effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne,
anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed up
the price of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down to
her for a thousand francs. The portrait of the Princess Goritza was
alone worth that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was making a
collection of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained from
Madame du Val-Noble the chevalier's treasure. The charming confidant
of many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition in
a species of private museum. If the dead could know what happens after
them, the chevalier's head would surely blush upon its left cheek.