Domestic Peace

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DOMESTIC PEACE

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translated By
Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell



Dedicated to my dear niece Valentine Surville.



The incident recorded in this sketch took place towards the end of the
month of November, 1809, the moment when Napoleon's fugitive empire
attained the apogee of its splendor. The trumpet-blasts of Wagram were
still sounding an echo in the heart of the Austrian monarchy. Peace
was being signed between France and the Coalition. Kings and princes
came to perform their orbits, like stars, round Napoleon, who gave
himself the pleasure of dragging all Europe in his train--a
magnificent experiment in the power he afterwards displayed at
Dresden. Never, as contemporaries tell us, did Paris see
entertainments more superb than those which preceded and followed the
sovereign's marriage with an Austrian archduchess. Never, in the most
splendid days of the Monarchy, had so many crowned heads thronged the
shores of the Seine, never had the French aristocracy been so rich or
so splendid. The diamonds lavishly scattered over the women's dresses,
and the gold and silver embroidery on the uniforms contrasted so
strongly with the penury of the Republic, that the wealth of the globe
seemed to be rolling through the drawing-rooms of Paris. Intoxication
seemed to have turned the brains of this Empire of a day. All the
military, not excepting their chief, reveled like parvenus in the
treasure conquered for them by a million men with worsted epaulettes,
whose demands were satisfied by a few yards of red ribbon.

At this time most women affected that lightness of conduct and
facility of morals which distinguished the reign of Louis XV. Whether
it were in imitation of the tone of the fallen monarchy, or because
certain members of the Imperial family had set the example--as certain
malcontents of the Faubourg Saint-Germain chose to say--it is certain
that men and women alike flung themselves into a life of pleasure with
an intrepidity which seemed to forbode the end of the world. But there
was at that time another cause for such license. The infatuation of
women for the military became a frenzy, and was too consonant to the
Emperor's views for him to try to check it. The frequent calls to
arms, which gave every treaty concluded between Napoleon and the rest
of Europe the character of an armistice, left every passion open to a
termination as sudden as the decisions of the Commander-in-chief of
all these busbys, pelisses, and aiguillettes, which so fascinated the
fair sex. Hearts were as nomadic as the regiments. Between the first
and fifth bulletins from the /Grand Armee/ a woman might be in
succession mistress, wife, mother, and widow.

Was it the prospect of early widowhood, the hope of a jointure, or
that of bearing a name promised to history, which made the soldiers so
attractive? Were women drawn to them by the certainty that the secret
of their passions would be buried on the field of battle? or may we
find the reason of this gentle fanaticism in the noble charm that
courage has for a woman? Perhaps all these reasons, which the future
historian of the manners of the Empire will no doubt amuse himself by
weighing, counted for something in their facile readiness to abandon
themselves to love intrigues. Be that as it may, it must here be
confessed that at that time laurels hid many errors, women showed an
ardent preference for the brave adventurers, whom they regarded as the
true fount of honor, wealth, or pleasure; and in the eyes of young
girls, an epaulette--the hieroglyphic of a future--signified happiness
and liberty.

One feature, and a characteristic one, of this unique period in our
history was an unbridled mania for everything glittering. Never were
fireworks so much in vogue, never were diamonds so highly prized. The
men, as greedy as the women of these translucent pebbles, displayed
them no less lavishly. Possibly the necessity for carrying plunder in
the most portable form made gems the fashion in the army. A man was
not ridiculous then, as he would be now, if his shirt-frill or his
fingers blazed with large diamonds. Murat, an Oriental by nature, set
the example of preposterous luxury to modern soldiers.

The Comte de Gondreville, formerly known as Citizen Malin, whose
elevation had made him famous, having become a Lucullus of the
Conservative Senate, which "conserved" nothing, had postponed an
entertainment in honor of the peace only that he might the better pay
his court to Napoleon by his efforts to eclipse those flatterers who
had been before-hand with him. The ambassadors from all the Powers
friendly with France, with an eye to favors to come, the most
important personages of the Empire, and even a few princes, were at
this hour assembled in the wealthy senator's drawing-rooms. Dancing
flagged; every one was watching for the Emperor, whose presence the
Count had promised his guests. And Napoleon would have kept his word
but for the scene which had broken out that very evening between him
and Josephine--the scene which portended the impending divorce of the
august pair. The report of this incident, at the time kept very
secret, but recorded by history, did not reach the ears of the
courtiers, and had no effect on the gaiety of Comte de Gondreville's
party beyond keeping Napoleon away.

The prettiest women in Paris, eager to be at the Count's on the
strength of mere hearsay, at this moment were a besieging force of
luxury, coquettishness, elegance, and beauty. The financial world,
proud of its riches, challenged the splendor of the generals and high
officials of the Empire, so recently gorged with orders, titles, and
honors. These grand balls were always an opportunity seized upon by
wealthy families for introducing their heiresses to Napoleon's
Praetorian Guard, in the foolish hope of exchanging their splendid
fortunes for uncertain favors. The women who believed themselves
strong enough in their beauty alone came to test their power. There,
as elsewhere, amusement was but a blind. Calm and smiling faces and
placid brows covered sordid interests, expressions of friendship were
a lie, and more than one man was less distrustful of his enemies than
of his friends.

These remarks are necessary to explain the incidents of the little
imbroglio which is the subject of this study, and the picture,
softened as it is, of the tone then dominant in Paris drawing-rooms.

"Turn your eyes a little towards the pedestal supporting that
candelabrum--do you see a young lady with her hair drawn back /a la
Chinoise/!--There, in the corner to the left; she has bluebells in the
knot of chestnut curls which fall in clusters on her head. Do not you
see her? She is so pale you might fancy she was ill, delicate-looking,
and very small; there--now she is turning her head this way; her
almond-shaped blue eyes, so delightfully soft, look as if they were
made expressly for tears. Look, look! She is bending forward to see
Madame de Vaudremont below the crowd of heads in constant motion; the
high head-dresses prevent her having a clear view."

"I see her now, my dear fellow. You had only to say that she had the
whitest skin of all the women here; I should have known whom you
meant. I had noticed her before; she has the loveliest complexion I
ever admired. From hence I defy you to see against her throat the
pearls between the sapphires of her necklace. But she is a prude or a
coquette, for the tucker of her bodice scarcely lets one suspect the
beauty of her bust. What shoulders! what lily-whiteness!"

"Who is she?" asked the first speaker.

"Ah! that I do not know."

"Aristocrat!--Do you want to keep them all to yourself, Montcornet?"

"You of all men to banter me!" replied Montcornet, with a smile. "Do
you think you have a right to insult a poor general like me because,
being a happy rival of Soulanges, you cannot even turn on your heel
without alarming Madame de Vaudremont? Or is it because I came only a
month ago into the Promised Land? How insolent you can be, you men in
office, who sit glued to your chairs while we are dodging shot and
shell! Come, Monsieur le Maitre des Requetes, allow us to glean in the
field of which you can only have precarious possession from the moment
when we evacuate it. The deuce is in it! We have a right to live! My
good friend, if you knew the German women, you would, I believe, do me
a good turn with the Parisian you love best."

"Well, General, since you have vouchsafed to turn your attention to
that lady, whom I never saw till now, have the charity to tell me if
you have seen her dance."

"Why, my dear Martial, where have you dropped from? If you are ever
sent with an embassy, I have small hopes of your success. Do not you
see a triple rank of the most undaunted coquettes of Paris between her
and the swarm of dancing men that buzz under the chandelier? And was
it not only by the help of your eyeglass that you were able to
discover her at all in the corner by that pillar, where she seems
buried in the gloom, in spite of the candles blazing above her head?
Between her and us there is such a sparkle of diamonds and glances, so
many floating plumes, such a flutter of lace, of flowers and curls,
that it would be a real miracle if any dancer could detect her among
those stars. Why, Martial, how is it that you have not understood her
to be the wife of some sous-prefet from Lippe or Dyle, who has come to
try to get her husband promoted?"

"Oh, he will be!" exclaimed the Master of Appeals quickly.

"I doubt it," replied the Colonel of Cuirassiers, laughing. "She seems
as raw in intrigue as you are in diplomacy. I dare bet, Martial, that
you do not know how she got into that place."

The lawyer looked at the Colonel of Cuirassiers with an expression as
much of contempt as of curiosity.

"Well," proceeded Montcornet, "she arrived, I have no doubt,
punctually at nine, the first of the company perhaps, and probably she
greatly embarrassed the Comtesse de Gondreville, who cannot put two
ideas together. Repulsed by the mistress of the house, routed from
chair to chair by each newcomer, and driven into the darkness of this
little corner, she allowed herself to be walled in, the victim of the
jealousy of the other ladies, who would gladly have buried that
dangerous beauty. She had, of course, no friend to encourage her to
maintain the place she first held in the front rank; then each of
those treacherous fair ones would have enjoined on the men of her
circle on no account to take out our poor friend, under pain of the
severest punishment. That, my dear fellow, is the way in which those
sweet faces, in appearance so tender and so artless, would have formed
a coalition against the stranger, and that without a word beyond the
question, 'Tell me, dear, do you know that little woman in blue?'
--Look here, Martial, if you care to run the gauntlet of more
flattering glances and inviting questions than you will ever again
meet in the whole of your life, just try to get through the triple
rampart which defends that Queen of Dyle, or Lippe, or Charente. You
will see whether the dullest woman of them all will not be equal to
inventing some wile that would hinder the most determined man from
bringing the plaintive stranger to the light. Does it not strike you
that she looks like an elegy?"

"Do you think so, Montcornet? Then she must be a married woman?"

"Why not a widow?"

"She would be less passive," said the lawyer, laughing.

"She is perhaps the widow of a man who is gambling," replied the
handsome Colonel.

"To be sure; since the peace there are so many widows of that class!"
said Martial. "But my dear Montcornet, we are a couple of simpletons.
That face is still too ingenuous, there is too much youth and
freshness on the brow and temples for her to be married. What splendid
flesh-tints! Nothing has sunk in the modeling of the nose. Lips, chin,
everything in her face is as fresh as a white rosebud, though the
expression is veiled, as it were, by the clouds of sadness. Who can it
be that makes that young creature weep?"

"Women cry for so little," said the Colonel.

"I do not know," replied Martial; "but she does not cry because she is
left there without a partner; her grief is not of to-day. It is
evident that she has beautified herself for this evening with
intention. I would wager that she is in love already."

"Bah! She is perhaps the daughter of some German princeling; no one
talks to her," said Montcornet.

"Dear! how unhappy a poor child may be!" Martial went on. "Can there
be anything more graceful and refined than our little stranger? Well,
not one of those furies who stand round her, and who believe that they
can feel, will say a word to her. If she would but speak, we should
see if she has fine teeth.

"Bless me, you boil over like milk at the least increase of
temperature!" cried the Colonel, a little nettled at so soon finding a
rival in his friend.

"What!" exclaimed the lawyer, without heeding the Colonel's question.
"Can nobody here tell us the name of this exotic flower?"

"Some lady companion!" said Montcornet.

"What next? A companion! wearing sapphires fit for a queen, and a
dress of Malines lace? Tell that to the marines, General. You, too,
would not shine in diplomacy if, in the course of your conjectures,
you jump in a breath from a German princess to a lady companion."

Montcornet stopped a man by taking his arm--a fat little man, whose
iron-gray hair and clever eyes were to be seen at the lintel of every
doorway, and who mingled unceremoniously with the various groups which
welcomed him respectfully.

"Gondreville, my friend," said Montcornet, "who is that quite charming
little woman sitting out there under that huge candelabrum?"

"The candelabrum? Ravrio's work; Isabey made the design."

"Oh, I recognized your lavishness and taste; but the lady?"

"Ah! I do not know. Some friend of my wife's, no doubt."

"Or your mistress, you old rascal."

"No, on my honor. The Comtesse de Gondreville is the only person
capable of inviting people whom no one knows."

In spite of this very acrimonious comment, the fat little man's lips
did not lose the smile which the Colonel's suggestion had brought to
them. Montcornet returned to the lawyer, who had rejoined a
neighboring group, intent on asking, but in vain, for information as
to the fair unknown. He grasped Martial's arm, and said in his ear:

"My dear Martial, mind what you are about. Madame de Vaudremont has
been watching you for some minutes with ominous attentiveness; she is
a woman who can guess by the mere movement of your lips what you say
to me; our eyes have already told her too much; she has perceived and
followed their direction, and I suspect that at this moment she is
thinking even more than we are of the little blue lady."

"That is too old a trick in warfare, my dear Montcornet! However, what
do I care? Like the Emperor, when I have made a conquest, I keep it."

"Martial, your fatuity cries out for a lesson. What! you, a civilian,
and so lucky as to be the husband-designate of Madame de Vaudremont, a
widow of two-and-twenty, burdened with four thousand napoleons a year
--a woman who slips such a diamond as this on your finger," he added,
taking the lawyer's left hand, which the young man complacently
allowed; "and, to crown all, you affect the Lovelace, just as if you
were a colonel and obliged to keep up the reputation of the military
in home quarters! Fie, fie! Only think of all you may lose."

"At any rate, I shall not lose my liberty," replied Martial, with a
forced laugh.

He cast a passionate glance at Madame de Vaudremont, who responded
only by a smile of some uneasiness, for she had seen the Colonel
examining the lawyer's ring.

"Listen to me, Martial. If you flutter round my young stranger, I
shall set to work to win Madame de Vaudremont."

"You have my full permission, my dear Cuirassier, but you will not
gain this much," and the young Maitre des Requetes put his polished
thumb-nail under an upper tooth with a little mocking click.

"Remember that I am unmarried," said the Colonel; "that my sword is my
whole fortune; and that such a challenge is setting Tantalus down to a
banquet which he will devour."

"Prrr."

This defiant roll of consonants was the only reply to the Colonel's
declaration, as Martial looked him from head to foot before turning
away.

The fashion of the time required men to wear at a ball white
kerseymere breeches and silk stockings. This pretty costume showed to
great advantage the perfection of Montcornet's fine shape. He was
five-and-thirty, and attracted attention by his stalwart height,
insisted on for the Cuirassiers of the Imperial Guard whose handsome
uniform enhanced the dignity of his figure, still youthful in spite of
the stoutness occasioned by living on horseback. A black moustache
emphasized the frank expression of a thoroughly soldierly countenance,
with a broad, high forehead, an aquiline nose, and bright red lips.
Montcornet's manner, stamped with a certain superiority due to the
habit of command, might please a woman sensible enough not to aim at
making a slave of her husband. The Colonel smiled as he looked at the
lawyer, one of his favorite college friends, whose small figure made
it necessary for Montcornet to look down a little as he answered his
raillery with a friendly glance.

Baron Martial de la Roche-Hugon was a young Provencal patronized by
Napoleon; his fate might probably be some splendid embassy. He had won
the Emperor by his Italian suppleness and a genius for intrigue, a
drawing-room eloquence, and a knowledge of manners, which are so good
a substitute for the higher qualities of a sterling man. Through young
and eager, his face had already acquired the rigid brilliancy of
tinned iron, one of the indispensable characteristics of diplomatists,
which allows them to conceal their emotions and disguise their
feelings, unless, indeed, this impassibility indicates an absence of
all emotion and the death of every feeling. The heart of a diplomate
may be regarded as an insoluble problem, for the three most
illustrious ambassadors of the time have been distinguished by
perdurable hatreds and most romantic attachments.

Martial, however, was one of those men who are capable of reckoning on
the future in the midst of their intensest enjoyment; he had already
learned to judge the world, and hid his ambition under the fatuity of
a lady-killer, cloaking his talent under the commonplace of mediocrity
as soon as he observed the rapid advancement of those men who gave the
master little umbrage.

The two friends now had to part with a cordial grasp of hands. The
introductory tune, warning the ladies to form in squares for a fresh
quadrille, cleared the men away from the space they had filled while
talking in the middle of the large room. This hurried dialogue had
taken place during the usual interval between two dances, in front of
the fireplace of the great drawing-room of Gondreville's mansion. The
questions and answers of this very ordinary ballroom gossip had been
almost whispered by each of the speakers into his neighbor's ear. At
the same time, the chandeliers and the flambeaux on the chimney-shelf
shed such a flood of light on the two friends that their faces,
strongly illuminated, failed, in spite of their diplomatic discretion,
to conceal the faint expression of their feelings either from the
keen-sighted countess or the artless stranger. This espionage of
people's thoughts is perhaps to idle persons one of the pleasures they
find in society, while numbers of disappointed numskulls are bored
there without daring to own it.



Fully to appreciate the interest of this conversation, it is necessary
to relate an incident which would presently serve as an invisible
bond, drawing together the actors in this little drama, who were at
present scattered through the rooms.

At about eleven o'clock, just as the dancers were returning to their
seats, the company had observed the entrance of the handsomest woman
in Paris, the queen of fashion, the only person wanting to the
brilliant assembly. She made it a rule never to appear till the moment
when a party had reached that pitch of excited movement which does not
allow the women to preserve much longer the freshness of their faces
or of their dress. This brief hour is, as it were, the springtime of a
ball. An hour after, when pleasure falls flat and fatigue is
encroaching, everything is spoilt. Madame de Vaudremont never
committed the blunder of remaining at a party to be seen with drooping
flowers, hair out of curl, tumbled frills, and a face like every other
that sleep is courting--not always without success. She took good care
not to let her beauty be seen drowsy, as her rivals did; she was so
clever as to keep up her reputation for smartness by always leaving a
ballroom in brilliant order, as she had entered it. Women whispered to
each other with a feeling of envy that she planned and wore as many
different dresses as the parties she went to in one evening.

On the present occasion Madame de Vaudremont was not destined to be
free to leave when she would the ballroom she had entered in triumph.
Pausing for a moment on the threshold, she shot swift but observant
glances on the women present, hastily scrutinizing their dresses to
assure herself that her own eclipsed them all.

The illustrious beauty presented herself to the admiration of the
crowd at the same moment with one of the bravest colonels of the
Guards' Artillery and the Emperor's favorite, the Comte de Soulanges.
The transient and fortuitous association of these two had about it a
certain air of mystery. On hearing the names announced of Monsieur de
Soulanges and the Comtesse de Vaudremont, a few women sitting by the
wall rose, and men, hurrying in from the side-rooms, pressed forward
to the principal doorway. One of the jesters who are always to be
found in any large assembly said, as the Countess and her escort came
in, that "women had quite as much curiosity about seeing a man who was
faithful to his passion as men had in studying a woman who was
difficult to enthrall."

Though the Comte de Soulanges, a young man of about two-and-thirty,
was endowed with the nervous temperament which in a man gives rise to
fine qualities, his slender build and pale complexion were not at
first sight attractive; his black eyes betrayed great vivacity, but he
was taciturn in company, and there was nothing in his appearance to
reveal the gift for oratory which subsequently distinguished him, on
the Right, in the legislative assembly under the Restoration.

The Comtesse de Vaudremont, a tall woman, rather fat, with a skin of
dazzling whiteness, a small head that she carried well, and the
immense advantage of inspiring love by the graciousness of her manner,
was one of those beings who keep all the promise of their beauty.

The pair, who for a few minutes were the centre of general
observation, did not for long give curiosity an opportunity of
exercising itself about them. The Colonel and the Countess seemed
perfectly to understand that accident had placed them in an awkward
position. Martial, as they came forward, had hastened to join the
group of men by the fireplace, that he might watch Madame de
Vaudremont with the jealous anxiety of the first flame of passion,
from behind the heads which formed a sort of rampart; a secret voice
seemed to warn him that the success on which he prided himself might
perhaps be precarious. But the coldly polite smile with which the
Countess thanked Monsieur de Soulanges, and her little bow of
dismissal as she sat down by Madame de Gondreville, relaxed the
muscles of his face which jealousy had made rigid. Seeing Soulanges,
however, still standing quite near the sofa on which Madame de
Vaudremont was seated, not apparently having understood the glance by
which the lady had conveyed to him that they were both playing a
ridiculous part, the volcanic Provencal again knit the black brows
that overshadowed his blue eyes, smoothed his chestnut curls to keep
himself in countenance, and without betraying the agitation which made
his heart beat, watched the faces of the Countess and of M. de
Soulanges while still chatting with his neighbors. He then took the
hand of Colonel Montcornet, who had just renewed their old
acquaintance, but he listened to him without hearing him; his mind was
elsewhere.

Soulanges was gazing calmly at the women, sitting four ranks deep all
round the immense ballroom, admiring this dado of diamonds, rubies,
masses of gold and shining hair, of which the lustre almost outshone
the blaze of waxlights, the cutglass of the chandeliers, and the
gilding. His rival's stolid indifference put the lawyer out of
countenance. Quite incapable of controlling his secret transports of
impatience, Martial went towards Madame de Vaudremont with a bow. On
seeing the Provencal, Soulanges gave him a covert glance, and
impertinently turned away his head. Solemn silence now reigned in the
room, where curiosity was at the highest pitch. All these eager faces
wore the strangest mixed expressions; every one apprehended one of
those outbreaks which men of breeding carefully avoid. Suddenly the
Count's pale face turned as red as the scarlet facings of his coat,
and he fixed his gaze on the floor that the cause of his agitation
might not be guessed. On catching sight of the unknown lady humbly
seated by the pedestal of the candelabrum, he moved away with a
melancholy air, passing in front of the lawyer, and took refuge in one
of the cardrooms. Martial and all the company thought that Soulanges
had publicly surrendered the post, out of fear of the ridicule which
invariably attaches to a discarded lover. The lawyer proudly raised
his head and looked at the strange lady; then, as he took his seat at
his ease near Madame de Vaudremont, he listened to her so
inattentively that he did not catch these words spoken behind her fan: