initial commit of ebook 1223HEADmain

15 files changed, 69132 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/1223-0.txt b/1223-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e89da4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1223-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9099 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1223 ***
+
+URSULA
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+  To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+  It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+  book, the subject and details of which have won the
+  approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+  world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+  the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+  indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+  to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+  are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+  prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+  therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+  pleased you?
+
+  God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+  --the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+  Your uncle,
+  De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+
+Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the
+steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields
+and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little
+town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been built on the
+farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place
+will lose its present aspect of graceful originality.
+
+In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of
+the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting one
+fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at
+a glance the whole of what is called in his business a “ruban de queue.”
+ The month of September was displaying its treasures; the atmosphere
+glowed above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the blue of the
+sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed
+the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault (for that was
+the post master’s name) was obliged to shade his eyes with one hand to
+keep them from being dazzled. With the air of a man who was tired of
+waiting, he looked first to the charming meadows which lay to the
+right of the road where the aftermath was springing up, then to the
+hill-slopes covered with copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours
+to Bouron. He could hear in the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on
+the road were echoed back from the hills, the trot of his own horses and
+the crack of his postilion’s whip.
+
+None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such
+meadows, filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath
+a Raffaelle sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema.
+Whoever knows Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art,
+whose mission is to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas and
+creates thought. But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an artist
+would very likely have left the view to sketch the man, so original was
+he in his native commonness. Unite in a human being all the conditions
+of the brute and you have a Caliban, who is certainly a great thing.
+Wherever form rules, sentiment disappears. The post master, a living
+proof of that axiom, presented a physiognomy in which an observer could
+with difficulty trace, beneath the vivid carnation of its coarsely
+developed flesh, the semblance of a soul. His cap of blue cloth, with
+a small peak, and sides fluted like a melon, outlined a head of vast
+dimensions, showing that Gall’s science has not yet produced its chapter
+of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny hair which appeared below the
+cap showed that other causes than mental toil or grief had whitened
+it. Large ears stood out from the head, their edges scarred with the
+eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which seemed ready to gush at the
+least exertion. His skin was crimson under an outside layer of
+brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun. The roving gray eyes,
+deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows, were like those of the
+Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they ever sparkled it was
+only under the influence of a covetous thought. His broad pug nose was
+flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping with a repulsive double
+chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more than once a week, was
+encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted to a cord; a short
+neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of
+brute force which sculptors give to their caryatids. Minoret-Levrault
+was like those statues, with this difference, that whereas they
+supported an edifice, he had more than he could well do to support
+himself. You will meet many such Atlases in the world. The man’s torso
+was a block; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His
+vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong
+and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his
+postilions never attempted to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this
+giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary
+adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a rare thing with
+him, but it was terrible, apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though
+violent and quite incapable of reflection, the man had never done
+anything that justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence.
+To all those who felt afraid of him his postilions would reply, “Oh!
+he’s not bad.”
+
+The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country,
+wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green
+linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat’s
+skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of
+a monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without
+exception.
+
+A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
+did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had never
+set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private principles,
+he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did not forbid or
+could not prevent he considered right. He never read anything but
+the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed
+instructions relating to his business. He was considered a clever
+agriculturist; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral
+being did not belie the physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking
+he always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas,
+but words. If he had been a talker you would have felt that he was out
+of keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet
+and without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to
+agree with Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes
+ridicule and sometimes foretell characters.
+
+In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty
+thousand francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If Minoret,
+being master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the Gatinais to
+Paris, still worked at his business, it was less from habit than for the
+sake of an only son, to whom he was anxious to give a fine career. This
+son, who was now (to use an expression of the peasantry) a “monsieur,”
+ had just completed his legal studies and was about to take his degree as
+licentiate, preparatory to being called to the Bar. Monsieur and Madame
+Minoret-Levrault--for behind our colossus every one will perceive
+a woman without whom this signal good-fortune would have been
+impossible--left their son free to choose his own career; he might be a
+notary in Paris, king’s-attorney in some district, collector of customs
+no matter where, broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of
+his could they ever refuse him? to what position of life might he
+not aspire as the son of a man about whom the whole countryside, from
+Montargis to Essonne, was in the habit of saying, “Pere Minoret doesn’t
+even know how rich he is”?
+
+This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this
+history begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and a
+splendid dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand’Rue to the
+wharf. The new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs, which the
+gossip of thirty miles in circumference more than doubled. The Nemours
+mail-coach service requires a large number of horses. It goes to
+Fontainebleau on the road to Paris, and from there diverges to Montargis
+and also to Montereau. The relays are long, and the sandy soil of the
+Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, always paid for but
+never seen. A man of Minoret’s build, and Minoret’s wealth, at the head
+of such an establishment might well be called, without contradiction,
+the master of Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being
+a practical materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a
+practical egoist, and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to
+this time a life of unmixed happiness,--if we can call pure materialism
+happiness. A physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered
+the last vertebrae and pressed upon the giant’s cerebellum, and, above
+all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice which contrasted so absurdly with
+his huge body, would have understood why this ponderous, coarse being
+adored his only son, and why he had so long expected him,--a fact proved
+by the name, Desire, which was given to the child.
+
+The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+mother’s coffer and dipped into his father’s purse, making each author
+of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire,
+who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his
+father’s capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had
+gratified them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum
+of not less than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal
+studies. But for that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would
+never had come to him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial
+skin, learned the power of money and seen in the magistracy a means of
+advancement which he fancied. During the last year he had spent an extra
+sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists, journalists, and
+their mistresses. A confidential and rather disquieting letter from his
+son, asking for his consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the
+post master was now keeping on the bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault,
+busy in preparing a sumptuous breakfast to celebrate the triumphal
+return of the licentiate, had sent her husband to the mail road,
+advising him to take a horse and ride out if he saw nothing of the
+diligence. The coach which was conveying the precious son usually
+arrived at five in the morning and it was now nine! What could be the
+meaning of such delay? Was the coach overturned? Could Desire be dead?
+Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg?
+
+Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge
+of musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten
+horses neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was
+seen. The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray
+carriage-horses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the
+five diligence horses and the three other carriage-horses, and soon
+reached his master.
+
+“Have you seen the ‘Ducler’?”
+
+On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+different coaches; such, for instance, as the “Caillard,” the “Ducler”
+ (the coach between Nemours and Paris), the “Grand Bureau.” Every new
+enterprise is called the “Competition.” In the days of the Lecompte
+company their coaches were called the “Countess.”--“‘Caillard’ could not
+overtake the ‘Countess’; but ‘Grand Bureau’ caught up with her finely,”
+ you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing his horses
+and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he will
+tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space, “The
+‘Competition’ is ahead.”--“We can’t get in sight of her,” cries
+the postilion; “the vixen! she wouldn’t stop to let her passengers
+dine.”--“The question is, has she got any?” responds the conductor.
+“Give it to Polignac!” All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac.
+Such are the jokes and the basis of conversation between postilions and
+conductors on the roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each calling in
+France has its slang.
+
+“Have you seen the ‘Ducler’?” asked Minoret.
+
+“Monsieur Desire?” said the postilion, interrupting his master. “Hey!
+you must have heard us, didn’t our whips tell you? we felt you were
+somewhere along the road.”
+
+Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,--for the bells were
+pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,--a
+woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+
+“Well, cousin,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe me--Uncle is with Ursula
+in the Grand’Rue, and they are going to mass.”
+
+In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought
+from the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew sibilant,
+and his face took on the appearance of what people oddly enough call a
+sunstroke.
+
+“Is that true?” he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was
+over.
+
+The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed
+him, but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for
+his son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand’Rue with his cousin.
+
+“Didn’t I always tell you so?” she resumed. “When Doctor Minoret
+goes out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into
+religion; whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and
+she’ll have our inheritance.”
+
+“But, Madame Massin--” said the post master, dumbfounded.
+
+“There now!” exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. “You are
+going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen
+can’t invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of
+eighty-three, who has never set foot in a church except to be married,
+change his opinions,--now don’t tell me he has such a horror of priests
+that he wouldn’t even go with the girl to the parish church when she
+made her first communion. I’d like to know why, if Doctor Minoret hates
+priests, he has spent nearly every evening for the last fifteen years of
+his life with the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite never fails to give
+Ursula twenty francs for wax tapers every time she takes the sacrament.
+Have you forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to
+the cure for preparing her for her first communion? She spent all her
+money on it, and her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men!
+you don’t pay attention to things. When I heard that, I said to myself,
+‘Farewell baskets, the vintage is done!’ A rich uncle doesn’t behave
+that way to a little brat picked up in the streets without some good
+reason.”
+
+“Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door of
+the church,” replied the post master. “It is a fine day, and he is out
+for a walk.”
+
+“I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious--you’ll
+see him.”
+
+“They hide their game pretty well,” said Minoret, “La Bougival told me
+there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the
+globe; he’d give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable
+of a base action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is--”
+
+“Theft,” said Madame Massin.
+
+“Worse!” cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+gossiping neighbour.
+
+“Of course I know,” said Madame Massin, “that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we’re done
+for. My husband is absolutely beside himself.”
+
+Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and
+to the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way to
+mass. She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the post
+master.
+
+Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of
+which runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the
+stones of which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt
+in the fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised to
+a peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a
+great arch which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does
+everything. Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly
+kept square, this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect. As
+the post master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his uncle
+with the young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying prayer-books
+and just entering the church. The old man took off his hat in the porch,
+and his head, which was white as a hill-top covered with snow, shone
+among the shadows of the portal.
+
+“Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?” cried
+the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+
+“What do you expect me to say?” replied the post master, offering him a
+pinch of snuff.
+
+“Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can’t say what you think, if it is
+true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his
+words before he speaks his thoughts,” cried a young man, standing near,
+who played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+
+This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct that
+was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office when a
+career in Paris--where the clerk had wasted all the money he inherited
+from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a notary--was
+brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere sight of Goupil
+told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life, and had paid
+dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and shoulders were
+developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a man of forty.
+Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion like
+the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead, brought out still
+further the oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it
+belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularity
+of that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible
+gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many
+deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of
+dividing it down the middle. The mouth, contracted at the corners, like
+that of a Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin
+and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His
+hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too
+long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit
+for the dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his
+coat and trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt,
+his pitiful waistcoat with half the button-moulds gone, an old silk
+handkerchief which served as a cravat--in short, all his clothing
+revealed the cynical poverty to which his passions had reduced him. This
+combination of disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with
+yellow circles round the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious
+and cowardly. No one in Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more
+deferred to than Goupil. Strong in the claims made for him by his very
+ugliness, he had the odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow
+themselves all license, and he used it to gratify the bitterness of
+his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical couplets sung during the
+carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a “little journal” of
+the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for
+that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind
+and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master
+so distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to
+let him live in his house, held him at arm’s length, and never confided
+any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk fawned
+upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and watching
+Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge there. Gifted
+with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work easy.
+
+“You!” exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+hands, “making game of our misfortunes already?”
+
+As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis’ passions for the last
+five years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting
+the hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil’s heart with every
+fresh insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to him
+than it was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the whole
+bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret’s
+son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of three town
+offices,--that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of
+the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up
+with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire,
+consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each
+vacation,--devouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+
+“If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given
+God to ME for a co-heir,” retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which
+exhibited his teeth--few, black, and menacing.
+
+Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector
+of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had
+the physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as sloes
+beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without
+any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like
+a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough
+to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal
+notices.
+
+Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by
+red blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and
+supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of pretensions to
+wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle’s money to “take a certain
+stand,” decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her
+husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles
+the notary’s wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who
+caught up and retailed her “slapsus-linquies” as she called them. One
+day Madame Dionis chanced to ask what “Eau” she thought best for the
+teeth.
+
+“Try opium,” she replied.
+
+Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled
+in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so
+generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet
+umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so
+picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on
+the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between
+large villages and cities those who do not go to mass stand about in the
+square or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of
+church service was a weekly exchange, to which the owners of property
+scattered over a radius of some miles resorted.
+
+“Well, how would you have prevented it?” said the post master to Goupil
+in reply to his remark.
+
+“I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes.
+But from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance
+of a rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman--for
+want of proper care they’ll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were here
+she could tell you how true that comparison is.”
+
+“But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry
+about,” said Massin.
+
+“Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!” cried Goupil, laughing.
+“I would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace say it. If
+there is nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with your uncle,
+knows that all is lost, the proper thing for him to say to you is,
+‘Don’t be worried.’”
+
+As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin
+had let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as a
+clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin, with
+the words:--“Didn’t I tell you so?”
+
+Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was
+at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+Rouvre, a former client.
+
+“If I were sure of it!” he said.
+
+“You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis
+du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don’t you see how Bongrand
+is sprinkling him with advice?” said Goupil, slipping an idea of
+retaliation into Massin’s mind. “But you had better go easy with your
+chief; he’s a clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your
+uncle and persuade him not to leave everything to the church.”
+
+“Pooh! we sha’n’t die of it,” said Minoret-Levrault, opening his
+enormous snuff-box.
+
+“You won’t live of it, either,” said Goupil, making the two women
+tremble. More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the privations
+this loss of inheritance (so long counted on for many comforts) would
+be to them. “However,” added Goupil, “we’ll drown this little grief in
+floods of champagne in honor of Desire!--sha’n’t we, old fellow?” he
+cried, tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting himself to the
+feast for fear he should be left out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE RICH UNCLE
+
+Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like to
+read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees
+of relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted
+to religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+subject of many instructive reflections.
+
+There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the
+latter we may mention the d’Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate
+of Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the
+town had no money. Madame de Portenduere’s sole possessions were a
+farm which brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her town
+house.
+
+In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a
+group of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former
+merchants; in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived
+and moved the retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry. The
+bourgeoisie presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other
+small countries) the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain
+autochthonous families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who
+rule a whole region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants are
+cousins. Under Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made
+real names of their surnames (some of which are united with those of
+feudalism) the bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets, Massins,
+Levraults and Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four families had
+already produced the Massin-Cremieres, the Levrault-Massins, the
+Massin-Minorets, the Minoret-Minorets, the Cremiere-Levraults,
+the Levrault-Minoret-Massins, Massin-Levraults, Minoret-Massins,
+Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,--all these varied with juniors
+and diversified with the names of eldest sons, as for instance,
+Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret--enough to drive a
+Pere Anselme of the People frantic,--if the people should ever want a
+genealogist.
+
+The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of
+the bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of
+the Almanach of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they
+arrange those zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the Minorets
+occupied the tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the Massins were
+in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the
+neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending
+only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings by the expatriation
+of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for instance, there are
+Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at Montargis; Massins
+at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in Paris. Divers are the
+destinies of these bees from the parent hive. Rich Massins employ, of
+course, the poor working Massins--just as Austria and Prussia take the
+German princes into their service. It may happen that a public office is
+managed by a Minoret millionaire and guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full
+of the same blood and called by the same name (for sole likeness), these
+four roots had ceaselessly woven a human network of which each thread
+was delicate or strong, fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same
+blood was in the head and in the feet and in the heart, in the working
+hands, in the weakly lungs, in the forehead big with genius.
+
+The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the
+ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which
+happened under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France you
+may be, you will find the same thing under changed names, but without
+the poetic charm which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter Scott’s
+genius reproduced so faithfully. Let us look a little higher and
+examine humanity as it appears in history. All the noble families of the
+eleventh century, most of them (except the royal race of Capet) extinct
+to-day, will be found to have contributed to the birth of the Rohans,
+Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and Mortemarts of our time,--in fact they
+will all be found in the blood of the last gentleman who is indeed a
+gentleman. In other words, every bourgeois is cousin to a bourgeois, and
+every noble is cousin to a noble. A splendid page of biblical genealogy
+shows that in one thousand years three families, Shem, Ham, and Japhet,
+peopled the globe. One family may become a nation; unfortunately, a
+nation may become one family. To prove this we need only search back
+through our ancestors and see their accumulation, which time increases
+into a retrograde geometric progression, which multiplies of itself;
+reminding us of the calculation of the wise man who, being told to
+choose a reward from the king of Persia for inventing chess, asked
+for one ear of wheat for the first move on the board, the reward to be
+doubled for each succeeding move; when it was found that the kingdom was
+not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobility, hemmed in by
+the net-work of the bourgeoisie,--the antagonism of two protected races,
+one protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience of
+labor and the shrewdness of commerce,--produced the revolution of 1789.
+The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with collaterals
+without a heritage. What are they to do? Our political future is big
+with the answer.
+
+The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret was
+so numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose entrance
+into the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to seek
+his fortune, and seldom returned to his native town, until he came to
+receive his share of the inheritance of his grandfather. After suffering
+many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle for a place in
+the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets reached a nobler
+destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the start. He devoted
+himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a profession which demands
+both talent and a cheerful nature, but the latter qualification even
+more than talent. Backed by Dupont de Nemours, connected by a lucky
+chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and
+protected by the Encyclopedists, Doctor Minoret attached himself as
+liegeman to the famous Doctor Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D’Alembert,
+Helvetius, the Baron d’Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt
+himself a mere boy. These men, influenced by Bordeu’s example, became
+interested in Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with
+a very good practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists,
+materialists, or whatever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers
+of that period.
+
+Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous balm
+of Lelievre, so much extolled by the “Mercure de France,” the weekly
+organ of the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was permanently
+advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a stroke
+of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for the
+dispensary, and he loyally shared his profits with the doctor, who was
+a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine. Less
+than that would make a man a materialist.
+
+The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the “Nouvelle
+Heloise,” when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His
+wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet,
+a celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew.
+Minoret knew Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental
+in awarding him a gold medal for a dissertation on the following
+subject: “What is the origin of the opinion that covers a whole family
+with the shame attaching to the public punishment of a guilty member of
+it? Is that opinion more harmful than useful? If yes, in what way can
+the harm be warded off.” The Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at
+Metz, to which Minoret belonged, must possess this dissertation in the
+original. Though, thanks to this friendship, the Doctor’s wife need
+have had no fear, she was so in dread of going to the scaffold that
+her terror increased a disposition to heart disease caused by the
+over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all the precautions taken
+by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately met the tumbril of
+victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock caused her death.
+Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her nothing, and had
+given her a life of luxury, found himself after her death almost a
+poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as surgeon-in-charge of a
+hospital.
+
+Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled
+him to the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a
+destroyer of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of Doctor
+Minoret, who was induced to think of returning there to die, like the
+hare to its form, by a circumstance that was wholly accidental.
+
+Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a fresh
+cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering beneath
+a cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow? Wakened by
+the “hu! hu!” of the postilion as he walks beside his horses, we shake
+off sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream, the beautiful
+scene which is to the traveler what a noble passage in a book is to a
+reader,--a brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the sensation caused
+by a first sight of Nemours as we approach it from Burgundy. We see it
+encircled with bare rocks, gray, black, white, fantastic in shape like
+those we find in the forest of Fontainebleau; from them spring scattered
+trees, clearly defined against the sky, which give to this particular
+rock formation the dilapidated look of a crumbling wall. Here ends the
+long wooded hill which creeps from Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road.
+At the bottom of this irregular amphitheater lie meadow-lands through
+which flows the Loing, forming sheets of water with many falls. This
+delightful landscape, which continues the whole way to Montargis, is
+like an opera scene, for its effects really seem to have been studied.
+
+One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a
+rich patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having mentioned
+at the last relay the route he intended to take, he was brought without
+his knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more, on waking from a
+nap, the scenery in which his childhood had been passed. He had lately
+lost many of his old friends. The votary of the Encyclopedists had
+witnessed the conversion of La Harpe; he had buried Lebrun-Pindare and
+Marie-Joseph de Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame Helvetius. He assisted
+at the quasi-fall of Voltaire when assailed by Geoffroy, the continuator
+of Freton. For some time past he had thought of retiring, and so, when
+his post chaise stopped at the head of the Grand’Rue of Nemours, his
+heart prompted him to inquire for his family. Minoret-Levrault, the post
+master, came forward himself to see the doctor, who discovered him to
+be the son of his eldest brother. The nephew presented the doctor to
+his wife, the only daughter of the late Levrault-Cremiere, who had died
+twelve years earlier, leaving him the post business and the finest inn
+in Nemours.
+
+“Well, nephew,” said the doctor, “have I any other relatives?”
+
+“My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin--”
+
+“Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange.”
+
+“She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place.”
+
+“Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a
+bachelor, and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I am,
+that ends the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal side?
+My mother was a Jean-Massin-Levrault.”
+
+“Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault’s there’s only one left,” answered
+Minoret-Levrault, “namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur
+Cremiere-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the
+scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one
+daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is
+doing well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary’s
+clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith.”
+
+“So I’ve plenty of heirs,” said the doctor gayly, immediately proposing
+to take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+
+The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor turned
+into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the property of
+Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he said, had just
+died.
+
+“The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there’s a
+charming garden running down to the river.”
+
+“Let us go in,” said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a
+small paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the
+two neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and
+climbing-plants.
+
+“It is built over a cellar,” said the doctor, going up the steps of
+a high portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which
+geraniums were growing.
+
+Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room
+to the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the courtyard and
+two on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows
+to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended
+from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda.
+
+“Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor,” said
+old Minoret, “I could put my book there and make a very comfortable
+study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end.”
+
+On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the
+dining-room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and
+gold flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
+staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
+pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
+courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers on
+the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were
+fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and observing that
+it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the
+courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which ended in a terrace
+overlooking the river and adorned with pottery vases,--the doctor
+remarked:--
+
+“Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here.”
+
+“Ho! I should think so,” answered Minoret-Levrault. “He liked
+flowers--nonsense! ‘What do they bring in?’ says my wife. You saw inside
+there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the
+corridor. He put those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were
+all re-made with cornices which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room
+floor is in marquetry--perfect folly! The house won’t sell for a penny
+the more.”
+
+“Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here’s
+my address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?” he
+asked, as they left the house.
+
+“Emigres,” answered the post master, “named Portenduere.”
+
+The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of living
+there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was therefore
+occupied by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice
+to Dionis, his head-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house
+on the doctor’s hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was
+being decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor’s heirs, at first misled,
+had by this time decided that his thought of returning to his native
+place was merely a rich man’s fancy, and that probably he had some tie
+in Paris which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for
+inheritance. However, Minoret-Levrault’s wife seized the occasion
+to write him a letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace
+was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe communications
+established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He did, in fact, put in
+an appearance with two of his clients, the architect of his hospital and
+an upholsterer, who took charge of the repairs, the indoor arrangements,
+and the transportation of the furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault
+proposed the cook of the late notary as caretaker, and the woman was
+accepted.
+
+When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was really
+coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the political
+events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and on the
+Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising. Was
+he rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune or
+nothing? Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out
+what follows, but only by taking infinite pains and employing much
+subterraneous spying.
+
+After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years 1789
+and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician to the
+Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no one knew
+how much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than a carriage
+by the year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no guests, and dined
+out almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at not being allowed to
+go with him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the post master’s wife,
+that she knew the doctor had fourteen thousand francs a year on the
+“grand-livre.” Now, after twenty years’ exercise of a profession which
+his position as head of a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member
+of the Institute, rendered lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs a
+year showed only one hundred and sixty thousand francs laid by. To have
+saved only eight thousand francs a year the doctor must have had either
+many vices or many virtues to gratify. But neither his housekeeper
+nor Zelie nor any one else could discover the reason for such moderate
+means. Minoret, who when he left it was much regretted in the quarter
+of Paris where he had lived, was one of the most benevolent of men, and,
+like Larrey, kept his kind deeds a profound secret.
+
+The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle’s fine furniture and large
+library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being
+now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king
+a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel--perhaps on account of his
+retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the
+architect and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything in
+the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, who kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as if
+her own property was concerned, found out, through the indiscretion of a
+young man sent to arrange the books, that the doctor was taking care of
+a little orphan named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire through the
+town. At last, however, towards the middle of the month of January,
+1815, the old man actually arrived, installing himself quietly, almost
+slyly, with a little girl about ten months old, and a nurse.
+
+“The child can’t be his daughter,” said the terrified heirs; “he is
+seventy-one years old.”
+
+“Whoever she is,” remarked Madame Massin, “she’ll give us plenty of
+tintouin” (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+more literally, tingling in the ears).
+
+The doctor received his great-niece on the mother’s side somewhat
+coldly; her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court, and
+the pair began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither Massin
+nor his wife were rich. Massin’s father, a locksmith at Montargis,
+had been obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was now, at
+sixty-seven years of age, working like a young man, and had nothing to
+leave behind him. Madame Massin’s father, Levrault-Minoret, had just
+died at Montereau after the battle, in despair at seeing his farm
+burned, his fields ruined, his cattle slaughtered.
+
+“We’ll get nothing out of your great-uncle,” said Massin to his wife,
+now pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+
+The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with which
+Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began
+the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the
+peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him
+to hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+
+As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through
+his influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his
+bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his wife,
+being jealous of the uncle’s liberality to his two nieces, took her
+ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be to
+them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so much. The
+doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at the school of
+Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth class.
+
+Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+“rated without appeal” by the doctor within two months of his arrival
+in Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions
+of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a
+glance; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount of
+intellect to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his heirs, and
+thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor made a pretext
+of his occupations, his habits, and the care of the little Ursula to
+avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing his doors to them.
+He liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he got up late; he had
+returned to his native place for the very purpose of finding rest
+in solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be natural, and his
+relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly visits on Sundays
+from one to four o’clock, to which, however, he tried to put a stop by
+saying: “Don’t come and see me unless you want something.”
+
+The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over serious
+cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not serve as a
+physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared that he no
+longer practiced his profession.
+
+“I’ve killed enough people,” he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon,
+who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+
+“He’s an original!” These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the
+harmless revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects
+about him a society of persons who have many of the characteristics of
+a set of heirs. Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves entitled
+to visit this distinguished physician kept up a ferment of jealousy
+against the few privileged friends whom he did admit to his intimacy,
+which had in the long run some unfortunate results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR’S FRIENDS
+
+Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that “extremes
+meet,” the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon
+friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the
+priesthood, and the Abbe Chaperon played it with about as much skill as
+he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret was
+charitable, and the abbe was the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had had
+a wide and varied education; the man of God was the only person in all
+Nemours who was fully capable of understanding the atheist. To be able
+to argue, men must first understand each other. What pleasure is there
+in saying sharp words to one who can’t feel them? The doctor and the
+priest had far too much taste and had seen too much of good society
+not to practice its precepts; they were thus well-fitted for the little
+warfare so essential to conversation. They hated each other’s opinions,
+but they valued each other’s character. If such conflicts and such
+sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we must surely despair of
+society, which, especially in France, requires some form of antagonism.
+It is from the shock of characters, and not from the struggle of
+opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+
+The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor’s chief friend. This
+excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so
+doing, the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his
+sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without
+inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited. His
+parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life,
+was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice
+manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in
+heaven which avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon argued with his
+servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his--if indeed
+that famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good priest often sold the
+buckles off his shoes and his breeches to give their value to some poor
+person who appealed to him at a moment when he had not a penny. When he
+was seen coming out of church with the straps of his breeches tied
+into the button-holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from the
+clock-maker and jeweler of the town and return them to their pastor with
+a lecture. He never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his
+garments till they scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns,
+rubbed his skin like a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good
+souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes
+with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find
+out the difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and
+spoons. When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high
+solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed
+linen and silver from his friend the atheist.
+
+“My silver is his salvation,” the doctor would say.
+
+These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious
+because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied,
+and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable
+accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy
+of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his
+intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most
+spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was
+never priest in a salon. Until Doctor Minoret’s arrival, the good man
+kept his light under a bushel without regret. Owning a rather fine
+library and an income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours,
+he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish
+priest, nearly the whole of which he gave away during the year. The
+giver of excellent counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes,
+many persons who never went to church to obtain consolation went to the
+parsonage to get advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete
+his portrait. Sometimes the peasants,--rarely, it is true, but
+occasionally,--unprincipled men, would tell him they were sued for debt,
+or would get themselves threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe’s
+benevolence. They would even deceive their wives, who, believing their
+chattels were threatened with an execution and their cows seized,
+deceived in their turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He
+would then manage with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight
+hundred francs demanded of him--with which the peasant bought himself
+a morsel of land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud,
+begging the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to
+such cupidity, he would say:--
+
+“But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land?
+Isn’t it doing good when we prevent evil?”
+
+Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the
+fact that science and literature had filled the heart and passed through
+the strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of age the
+abbe’s hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the sorrows of
+others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed upon
+him. Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as
+he used to say, uttered in “In manus.” He was of medium height,
+neither stout nor thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite
+colorless, attracted immediate attention by the absolute tranquillity
+expressed in its shape, and by the purity of its outline, which seemed
+to be edged with light. The face of a chaste man has an unspeakable
+radiance. Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the irregular
+features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead. His glance wielded
+a power which came of a gentleness that was not devoid of strength. The
+arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by huge gray eyebrows which
+alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone his mouth had lost its
+shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this physical destruction was
+not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of pleasantness, seemed to
+smile on others. Without being gouty his feet were tender; and he walked
+with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of calf’s skin all the
+year round. He thought the fashion of trousers unsuitable for priests,
+and he always appeared in stockings of coarse black yarn, knit by his
+housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He never went out in his cassock, but
+wore a brown overcoat, and still retained the three-cornered hat he had
+worn so courageously in times of danger. This noble and beautiful old
+man, whose face was glorified by the serenity of a soul above reproach,
+will be found to have so great an influence upon the men and things of
+this history, that it was proper to show the sources of his authority
+and power.
+
+Minoret took three newspapers,--one liberal, one ministerial, one
+ultra,--a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals,
+the accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers,
+encyclopaedias, and books were an attraction to a retired captain of the
+Royal-Swedish regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean nobleman
+and an old bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of pension and
+annuity combined. Having read the gazettes for several days, by favor
+of the abbe, Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to call and thank
+the doctor in person. At this first visit the old captain, formerly a
+professor at the Military Academy, won the doctor’s heart, who returned
+the call with alacrity. Monsieur de Jordy, a spare little man much
+troubled by his blood, though his face was very pale, attracted
+attention by the resemblance of his handsome brow to that of Charles
+XII.; above it he kept his hair cropped short, like that of the
+soldier-king. His blue eyes seemed to say that “Love had passed that
+way,” so mournful were they; revealing memories about which he kept such
+utter silence that his old friends never detected even an allusion to
+his past life, nor a single exclamation drawn forth by similarity
+of circumstances. He hid the painful mystery of his past beneath a
+philosophic gayety, but when he thought himself alone his motions,
+stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter of choice than the
+result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of distressful
+thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian ignorant of his
+Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather rigid demeanor
+and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military discipline. His
+sweet and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His beautiful hands and the
+general cut of his figure, recalling that of the Comte d’Artois, showed
+how charming he must have been in his youth, and made the mystery of
+his life still more mysterious. An observer asked involuntarily what
+misfortune had blighted such beauty, courage, grace, accomplishment,
+and all the precious qualities of the heart once united in his person.
+Monsieur de Jordy shuddered if Robespierre’s name were uttered before
+him. He took much snuff, but, strange to say, he gave up the habit
+to please little Ursula, who at first showed a dislike to him on that
+account. As soon as he saw the little girl the captain fastened his eyes
+upon her with a look that was almost passionate. He loved her play so
+extravagantly and took such interest in all she did that the tie between
+himself and the doctor grew closer every day, though the latter never
+dared to say to him, “You, too, have you lost children?” There are
+beings, kind and patient as old Jordy, who pass through life with a
+bitter thought in their heart and a tender but sorrowful smile on their
+lips, carrying with them to the grave the secret of their lives; letting
+no one guess it,--through pride, through disdain, possibly through
+revenge; confiding in none but God, without other consolation than his.
+
+Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of
+his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine
+o’clock. So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed
+early, in spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore a
+great piece of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when
+he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same
+language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went to
+bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret had
+passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that the
+priest and soldier returned every night regularly at nine o’clock, the
+hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was free.
+All three would then sit up till midnight or one o’clock.
+
+After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life
+was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer,
+the indulgence, knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for
+conversation which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their
+practical dealings with the souls, diseases, and education of men, was
+added to the number. Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of
+the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor’s
+society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for ten
+years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases, according
+to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers. He became a
+widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still too active
+to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the position of
+justice of peace at Nemours, which became vacant a few months before
+the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived modestly on his
+salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he might devote his
+private income to his son, who was studying law in Paris under the
+famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired chief of a civil
+service office; he had the peculiar face of a bureaucrat, less sallow
+than pallid, on which public business, vexations, and disgust leave
+their imprint,--a face lined by thought, and also by the continual
+restraints familiar to those who are trained not to speak their minds
+freely. It was often illumined by smiles characteristic of men who
+alternately believe all and believe nothing, who are accustomed to see
+and hear all without being startled, and to fathom the abysses which
+self-interest hollows in the depths of the human heart.
+
+Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn flattened
+to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow tones of which
+harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His face, with the
+features set close together, bore some likeness to that of a fox,
+all the more because his nose was short and pointed. In speaking,
+he spluttered at the mouth, which was broad like that of most great
+talkers,--a habit which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly, “An umbrella
+would be useful when listening to him,” or, “The justice rains
+verdicts.” His eyes looked keen behind his spectacles, but if he took
+the glasses off his dulled glance seemed almost vacant. Though he was
+naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt to give himself too important
+and pompous an air. He usually kept his hands in the pockets of his
+trousers, and only took them out to settle his eye-glasses on his nose,
+with a movement that was half comic, and which announced the coming of
+a keen observation or some victorious argument. His gestures, his
+loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the provincial
+lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he redeemed
+them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist might call
+the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like a fox,
+and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or dishonest. His
+wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing results and
+protecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved
+whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbe
+learned to play in a very short time.
+
+This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet’s
+salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and
+knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor
+to the profession, came there sometimes; but his duties and also his
+fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed early and to be up early)
+prevented his being as assiduously present as the three other friends.
+This intercourse of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who
+had sufficiently wide knowledge to understand each other, explains old
+Minoret’s aversion to his relatives; if he were compelled to leave them
+his money, at least he need not admit them to his society. Whether the
+post master, the sheriff, and the collector understood this distinction,
+or whether they were reassured by the evident loyalty and benefactions
+of their uncle, certain it is that they ceased, to his great
+satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about eight months after the
+arrival of the doctor these four players of whist and backgammon made
+a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a fraternal
+aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures of which
+were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits closed
+round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his individual
+tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge imagined himself her
+guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher, and as for Minoret, he
+was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+
+After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On Ursula’s
+account he received no visitors in the morning, and never gave dinners,
+but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at six o’clock and
+stay till midnight. The first-comers found the newspapers on the table
+and read them while awaiting the rest; or they sometimes sallied forth
+to meet the doctor if he were out for a walk. This tranquil life was not
+a mere necessity of old age, it was the wise and careful scheme of a man
+of the world to keep his happiness untroubled by the curiosity of
+his heirs and the gossip of a little town. He yielded nothing to that
+capricious goddess, public opinion, whose tyranny (one of the present
+great evils of France) was just beginning to establish its power and
+to make the whole nation a mere province. So, as soon as the child was
+weaned and could walk alone, the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom
+his niece, Madame Minoret-Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered
+that she told her patroness everything that happened in his household.
+
+Ursula’s nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but a
+baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child, aged
+six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and honest
+creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris (her
+maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached herself
+naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This blind
+maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household
+devotion. Told of the doctor’s intention to send away his housekeeper,
+La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and
+discovered the old man’s ways. She took the utmost care of the house and
+furniture; in short she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor wish
+to keep his private life within four walls, as the saying is, but he
+also had certain reasons for hiding a knowledge of his business affairs
+from his relatives. At the end of the second year after his arrival La
+Bougival was the only servant in the house; on her discretion he knew he
+could count, and he disguised his real purposes by the all-powerful open
+reason of a necessary economy. To the great satisfaction of his heirs he
+became a miser. Without fawning or wheedling, solely by the influence of
+her devotion and solicitude, La Bougival, who was forty-three years old
+at the time this tale begins, was the housekeeper of the doctor and
+his protegee, the pivot on which the whole house turned, in short,
+the confidential servant. She was called La Bougival from the admitted
+impossibility of applying to her person the name that actually belonged
+to her, Antoinette--for names and forms do obey the laws of harmony.
+
+The doctor’s miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours could
+estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like most old
+men his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few. Every six
+months he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his income. In
+fifteen years he never said a single word to any one in relation to his
+affairs. His confidence in Bongrand was of slow growth; it was not until
+after the revolution of 1830 that he told him of his projects. Nothing
+further was known of the doctor’s life either by the bourgeoisie at
+large or by his heirs. As for his political opinions, he did not meddle
+in public matters seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year
+in taxes, and refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or
+liberal demands. His known horror for the priesthood, and his deism were
+so little obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner
+sent by his great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the “Cure
+Meslier” and the “Discours du General Foy.” Such tolerance seemed
+inexplicable to the liberals of Nemours.
+
+The doctor’s three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+Cremiere-Cremiere--whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is quite
+unnecessary out of the Gatinais--met together as people do in little
+towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son’s birthday, a ball
+during the carnival, another on the anniversary of his marriage, to
+all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of Nemours. The collector
+received his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the court,
+too poor, he said, to fling himself into such extravagance, lived in
+a small way in a house standing half-way down the Grand’Rue, the
+ground-floor of which was let to his sister, the letter-postmistress
+of Nemours, a situation she owed to the doctor’s kind offices.
+Nevertheless, in the course of the year these three families did meet
+together frequently, in the houses of friends, in the public promenades,
+at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a Sunday in the square, as on
+this occasion; so that one way and another they met nearly every day.
+For the last three years the doctor’s age, his economies, and his
+probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank remarks, among the
+townspeople as to the disposition of his property, a topic which made
+the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the little town. For the
+last six months not a day passed that friends and neighbours did not
+speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day the good man’s eyes
+would shut and the coffers open.
+
+“Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death, but
+none but God is eternal,” said one.
+
+“Pooh, he’ll bury us all; his health is better than ours,” replied an
+heir, hypocritically.
+
+“Well, if you don’t get the money yourselves, your children will, unless
+that little Ursula--”
+
+“He won’t leave it all to her.”
+
+Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere’s favorite
+saying, “Well, whoever lives will know,” shows that they wished at any
+rate more harm to her than good.
+
+The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the
+post master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor’s
+property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+
+“He must have got hold of some elixir of life,” said one.
+
+“He has made a bargain with the devil,” replied the other.
+
+“He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn’t need
+anything,” said Massin.
+
+“Ah! but Minoret has a son who’ll waste his substance,” answered
+Cremiere.
+
+“How much do you really think the doctor has?”
+
+“At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each year,
+that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and the
+interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he
+must, if he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of
+business, and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per
+cent from the State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand
+francs, without counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year
+from the five per cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving
+anything to Ursula we should get at least seven or eight hundred
+thousand francs, besides the house and furniture.”
+
+“Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand apiece
+to you and me, that would be fair.”
+
+“Ha, that would make us comfortable!”
+
+“If he did that,” said Massin, “I should sell my situation in court
+and buy an estate; I’d try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get myself
+elected deputy.”
+
+“As for me I should buy a brokerage business,” said the collector.
+
+“Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round him.
+I don’t believe we can do anything with him.”
+
+“Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. ZELIE
+
+The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass will
+now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to foresee a
+danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind of the
+peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground the
+stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal reasoning,
+“If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her godfather into
+the pale of the Church she will certainly have enough to make him leave
+her his property,” was now stamped in letters of fire on the brains of
+the most obtuse heir. The post master had forgotten about his son in his
+hurry to reach the square; for if the doctor were really in the church
+hearing mass it was a question of losing two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs. It must be admitted that the fears of these relations came from
+the strongest and most legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+
+“Well, Monsieur Minoret,” said the mayor (formerly a miller who had now
+become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), “when the devil gets old the
+devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us.”
+
+“Better late than never, cousin,” responded the post master, trying to
+conceal his annoyance.
+
+“How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of
+marrying his son to that damned girl--may the devil get her!” cried
+Cremiere, shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+
+“What’s Cremiere grumbling about?” said the butcher of the town, a
+Levrault-Levrault the elder. “Isn’t he pleased to see his uncle on the
+road to paradise?”
+
+“Who would ever have believed it!” ejaculated Massin.
+
+“Ha! one should never say, ‘Fountain, I’ll not drink of your water,’”
+ remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his wife
+to go to church without him.
+
+“Come, Monsieur Dionis,” said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+“what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?”
+
+“I advise you,” said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively, “to
+go to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before it gets
+cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your heads;
+in short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing had
+happened.”
+
+“You are not consoling,” said Massin.
+
+In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis
+was really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did
+business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such
+peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could
+be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their
+opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the
+profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent,
+the acquirement of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively
+interest in the doctor’s inheritance, not so much for the post master
+and the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or
+later Massin’s share in the doctor’s money would swell the capital with
+which these secret associates worked the canton.
+
+“We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+comes from,” said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to
+keep quiet.
+
+“What are you about, Minoret?” cried a little woman, suddenly descending
+upon the group in the middle of which stood the post master, as tall
+and round as a tower. “You don’t know where Desire is and there you are,
+planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing, when I thought you on
+horseback!--Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames.”
+
+This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white
+cotton with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed
+with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl
+on her flat shoulders, was Minoret’s wife, the terror of postilions,
+servants, and carters; who kept the accounts and managed the
+establishment “with finger and eye” as they say in those parts. Like the
+true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give
+in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held to the
+solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black apron, in
+the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice
+was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with
+the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips
+of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead.
+Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture and speech. “Zelie
+being obliged to have a will for two, had it for three,” said Goupil,
+who pointed out the successive reigns of three young postilions, of
+neat appearance, who had been set up in life by Zelie, each after seven
+years’ service. The malicious clerk named them Postilion I., Postilion
+II., Postilion III. But the little influence these young men had in the
+establishment, and their perfect obedience proved that Zelie was merely
+interested in worthy helpers.
+
+This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of
+her son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for
+her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family
+fortune and was wholly given up to the management of their immense
+establishment. To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the
+better of Zelie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing
+impossible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew
+nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a
+walk except to look at the hay, the oats, or the second crops. She sent
+“her man” to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales, telling
+them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should bear.
+Though she was the soul of that great body called Minoret-Levrault and
+led him about by his pug nose, she was made to feel the fears which
+occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild beasts. She
+therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did; the
+postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with him,
+for his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she
+was grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, “Where
+would Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?”
+
+“When you know what has happened,” replied the post master, “you’ll be
+over the traces yourself.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Ursula has taken the doctor to mass.”
+
+Zelie’s pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger, then,
+crying out, “I’ll see it before I believe it!” she rushed into the
+church. The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of the
+worshippers enabled her to look along each row of chairs and benches as
+she went up the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula’s place, where she
+saw old Minoret standing with bared head.
+
+If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d’Anglas, Morellet,
+Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of
+Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile,
+cold tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the
+features, shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely
+aristocratic--less perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the ideas
+than in the character. All men of this stamp have high brows retreating
+at the summit, the sign of a tendency to materialism. You will find
+these leading characteristics of the head and these points of the face
+in all the Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde, in the men
+of a period when religious ideas were almost dead, men who called
+themselves deists and were atheists. The deist is an atheist lucky in
+classification.
+
+Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles,
+which recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the manner
+in which the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman when making
+her toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of his coat. He
+persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk stockings, shoes
+with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie, and a black coat,
+adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly characterized, the
+cold whiteness of which was softened by the yellowing tones of old age,
+happened to be, just then, in the full light of a window. As Madame
+Minoret came in sight of him the doctor’s blue eyes with their reddened
+lids were raised to heaven; a new conviction had given them a new
+expression. His spectacles lay in his prayer-book and marked the place
+where he had ceased to pray. The tall and spare old man, his arms
+crossed on his breast, stood erect in an attitude which bespoke the full
+strength of his faculties and the unshakable assurance of his faith.
+He gazed at the altar humbly with a look of renewed hope, and took no
+notice of his nephew’s wife, who planted herself almost in front of him
+as if to reproach him for coming back to God.
+
+Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church
+and returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She
+had reckoned on the doctor’s money, and possession was becoming
+problematical. She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and
+their wives in greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking
+pleasure in tormenting them.
+
+“It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we
+ought to talk of our affairs,” said Zelie; “come home with me. You too,
+Monsieur Dionis,” she added to the notary; “you’ll not be in the way.”
+
+Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post
+master was the news of the day.
+
+Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which
+was only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand’Rue, made
+its usual racket.
+
+“Goodness! I’m like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire,” said
+Zelie. “Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his
+interests are mixed up in this matter.”
+
+The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes
+in late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards the
+“Ducler.”
+
+“Here’s Desire!” was the general cry.
+
+The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put the
+town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom he was
+invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence. But his
+methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that more than one
+family was very thankful to have him complete his studies and study
+law in Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth, slender and fair like his
+mother, from whom he obtained his blue eyes and pale skin, smiled from
+the window on the crowd, and jumped lightly down to kiss his mother. A
+short sketch of the young fellow will show how proud Zelie felt when she
+saw him.
+
+He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held
+under his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat, admirably
+put on and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy waistcoat, in
+the pocket of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of which hung down;
+and, finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a gray hat,--but his
+lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt buttons of the waistcoat
+and the ring worn outside of his purple kid glove. He carried a cane
+with a chased gold head.
+
+“You are losing your watch,” said his mother, kissing him.
+
+“No, it is worn that way,” he replied, letting his father hug him.
+
+“Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?” said Massin.
+
+“I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term,” said Desire,
+returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+
+“Now we shall have some fun,” said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+
+“Ha! my old wag, so here you are!” replied Desire.
+
+“You take your law license for all license,” said Goupil, affronted by
+being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+
+“You know my luggage,” cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of
+the diligence; “have it taken to the house.”
+
+“The sweat is rolling off your horses,” said Zelie sharply to the
+conductor; “you haven’t common-sense to drive them in that way. You are
+stupider than your own beasts.”
+
+“But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from
+anxiety,” explained Cabirolle.
+
+“But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?” she
+retorted.
+
+The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young
+men around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey took
+enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to issue
+from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things) Desire saw
+Ursula on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped short amazed at
+her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the relations who
+accompanied him.
+
+In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she
+did with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward
+or difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does
+truly reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that
+Ursula’s attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was
+dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and
+there with knots of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same
+ribbon run through a broad hem and tied with bows like those on the
+dress, showed the great beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure
+white, was charming in tone against the blue,--the right color for a
+fair skin. A long blue sash with floating ends defined a slender waist
+which seemed flexible,--a most seductive charm in women. She wore a
+rice-straw bonnet, modestly trimmed with ribbons like those of the gown,
+the strings of which were tied under her chin, setting off the whiteness
+of the straw and doing no despite to that of her beautiful complexion.
+Ursula dressed her own hair naturally (a la Berthe, as it was then
+called) in heavy braids of fine, fair hair, laid flat on either side
+of the head, each little strand reflecting the light as she walked.
+Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the same time, were in harmony with a
+finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge, suffusing her cheeks like a cloud,
+brightened a face which was regular without being insipid; for nature
+had given her, by some rare privilege, extreme purity of form combined
+with strength of countenance. The nobility of her life was manifest in
+the general expression of her person, which might have served as a model
+for a type of trustfulness, or of modesty. Her health, though brilliant,
+was not coarsely apparent; in fact, her whole air was distinguished.
+Beneath the little gloves of a light color it was easy to imagine
+her pretty hands. The arched and slender feet were delicately shod
+in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a brown silk fringe. Her blue sash
+holding at the waist a small flat watch and a blue purse with gilt
+tassels attracted the eyes of every woman she met.
+
+“He has given her a new watch!” said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+husband’s arm.
+
+“Heavens! is that Ursula?” cried Desire; “I didn’t recognize her.”
+
+“Well, my dear uncle,” said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let the
+doctor pass, “everybody wants to see you.”
+
+“Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+uncle,” said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+Jesuitical humility.
+
+“Ursula,” replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+annoyed.
+
+The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula,
+the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, “I intend to go to church
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Then,” said Bongrand, “your heirs won’t get another night’s rest.”
+
+The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by
+the expression of their faces. Zelie’s irruption into the church, her
+glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant
+ones in the public square, and the expression in their eyes as they
+turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly
+awakened, and their sordid fears.
+
+“It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle,” said Madame Cremiere,
+putting in her word with a humble bow,--“a miracle which will not cost
+you much.”
+
+“It is God’s doing, madame,” replied Ursula.
+
+“God!” exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; “my father-in-law used to say he
+served to blanket many horses.”
+
+“Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey,” said the doctor severely.
+
+“Come,” said Minoret to his wife and son, “why don’t you bow to my
+uncle?”
+
+“I shouldn’t be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,” cried
+Zelie, carrying off her son.
+
+“I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap,” said
+Madame Massin; “the church is very damp.”
+
+“Pooh, niece,” said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, “the
+sooner I’m put to bed the sooner you’ll flourish.”
+
+He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a
+hurry that the others dropped behind.
+
+“Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn’t right,” said Ursula,
+shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+
+“I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but
+not one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they
+know is the only day I celebrate.”
+
+At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de
+Portenduere, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She
+belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the
+last century. They wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the cut of
+which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all have black
+lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow
+and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore
+paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have
+lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their
+heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks.
+Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are
+not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts
+with flattened curls to which they cling,--and yet these ruins are all
+subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look and manner.
+
+The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to
+time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was
+really as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+
+“Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?” said Madame Massin,
+rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+doctor’s answer.
+
+“For the cure,” said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead
+as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. “I have an
+idea! I’ll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with
+Madame Minoret.”
+
+We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the
+notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire,
+locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth’s ear with
+an odious smile.
+
+“What do I care?” answered the son of the house, shrugging his
+shoulders. “I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature
+in the world.”
+
+“Florine! and who may she be?” demanded Goupil. “I’m too fond of you to
+let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures.”
+
+“Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I know
+that. She has positively refused to marry me.”
+
+“Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with
+their heads,” responded Goupil.
+
+“If you could but see her--only once,” said Desire, lackadaisically,
+“you wouldn’t say such things.”
+
+“If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than
+a fancy,” said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived
+his master, “I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+‘Kenilworth.’ Your wife must be a d’Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre, and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I
+sha’n’t let you commit any follies.”
+
+“I am rich enough to care only for happiness,” replied Desire.
+
+“What are you two plotting together?” cried Zelie, beckoning to the two
+friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come into
+the house.
+
+The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of
+a young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had
+lately taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds
+of the whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to make
+this history and the notary’s remark to the heirs perfectly intelligible
+to the reader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. URSULA
+
+The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and
+maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated
+organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age,
+whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a
+worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of
+seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and composer, having
+made his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned name, ran away with
+a young lady in Germany. The dying father commended the young man, who
+was really full of talent, to his son-in-law, proving to him, at the
+same time, that he had refused to marry the mother that he might not
+injure Madame Minoret. The doctor promised to give the unfortunate
+Joseph half of whatever his wife inherited from her father, whose
+business was purchased by the Erards. He made due search for his
+illegitimate brother-in-law; but Grimm informed him one day that after
+enlisting in a Prussian regiment Joseph had deserted and taken a false
+name and that all efforts to find him would be frustrated.
+
+Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine figure,
+a handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste and much
+brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life which Hoffman
+has so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he was reduced to
+such depths of poverty that he took advantage of the events of 1806
+to make himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he
+married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell
+in love with the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose
+to devote her life to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph
+Mirouet was unable to bear prosperity; he was naturally a spendthrift,
+and though kind to his wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years.
+The household must have dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph
+Mirouet reached the point of enlisting as a musician in a French
+regiment. In 1813 the surgeon-major of the regiment, by the merest
+chance, heard the name of Mirouet, was struck by it, and wrote to Doctor
+Minoret, to whom he was under obligations.
+
+The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the
+allied occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife
+died giving birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should
+be called Ursula after his wife. The father did not long survive the
+mother, worn out, as she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the
+unfortunate musician bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was
+already her godfather, in spite of his repugnance for what he called the
+mummeries of the Church. Having seen his own children die in succession
+either in dangerous confinements or during the first year of their
+lives, the doctor had awaited with anxiety the result of a last hope.
+When a nervous, delicate, and sickly woman begins with a miscarriage
+it is not unusual to see her go through a series of such pregnancies as
+Ursula Minoret did, in spite of the care and watchfulness and science
+of her husband. The poor man often blamed himself for their mutual
+persistence in desiring children. The last child, born after a rest
+of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim of its mother’s nervous
+condition--if we listen to physiologists, who tell us that in the
+inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child derives from the father
+by blood and from the mother in its nervous system.
+
+Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him, the
+doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied paternity.
+During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had longed more
+especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring joy to the
+house; he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet’s legacy, and gave to
+the orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams. For two years he took
+part, as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute particulars of Ursula’s
+life; he would not allow the nurse to suckle her or to take her up or
+put her to bed without him. His medical science and his experience
+were all put to use in her service. After going through many trials,
+alternations of hope and fear, and the joys and labors of a mother, he
+had the happiness of seeing this child of the fair German woman and the
+French singer a creature of vigorous health and profound sensibility.
+
+With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine and
+soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed the
+little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle through
+which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond
+of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful
+blue eyes upon some object with that serious, reflective look which
+seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would
+stay by her side for hours, seeking, with Jordy’s help, to understand
+the reasons (which most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena
+of this delicious phase of life, when childhood is both flower and
+fruit, a confused intelligence, a perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+
+Ursula’s beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He declared
+to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting hers. When old
+men love children there is no limit to their passion--they worship them.
+For these little beings they silence their own manias or recall a whole
+past in their service. Experience, patience, sympathy, the acquisitions
+of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all are spent upon that young
+life in which they live again; their intelligence does actually take the
+place of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to the
+intuition of a mother; they remember the delicate perceptions which in
+their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of
+a compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of
+the child’s unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes
+the place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is
+reduced to its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the
+mother a slave, the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote
+himself utterly. For these reasons it is not unusual to see children in
+close intimacy with old persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old
+doctor, happy in the kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were never
+weary of answering her talk and playing with her. Far from making
+them impatient her petulances charmed them; and they gratified all her
+wishes, making each the ground of some little training.
+
+The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula’s soul developed in
+a sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it
+breathed the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays that
+belonged to it.
+
+“In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?” asked the abbe
+of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+
+“In yours,” answered Minoret.
+
+An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the “Nouvelle Heloise”
+ he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered
+by the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench
+outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe’s hand on his.
+
+“Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+friend ‘Shapron,’” he said, imitating Ursula’s infant speech, “I wish to
+see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do
+nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in
+my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian.”
+
+“God will reward you, I hope,” replied the abbe, gently joining his
+hands and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief
+mental prayer.
+
+So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under
+the religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come under
+the educational training of her friend Jordy.
+
+The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a
+taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had
+studied the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man, patient as
+most old scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read and write.
+He taught her also the French language and all she needed to know of
+arithmetic. The doctor’s library afforded a choice of books which could
+be read by a child for amusement as well as instruction.
+
+The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with
+the freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula
+learned as she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left
+to follow the divine training of a nature that was led into regions of
+purity by these judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment
+than to duty; she took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own
+conscience rather than the demands of social law. In her, nobility of
+feeling and action would ever be spontaneous; her judgment would confirm
+the impulse of her heart. She was destined to do right as a pleasure
+before doing it as an obligation. This distinction is the peculiar sign
+of Christian education. These principles, altogether different from
+those that are taught to men, were suitable for a woman,--the spirit and
+the conscience of the home, the beautifier of domestic life, the queen
+of her household. All three of these old preceptors followed the same
+method with Ursula. Instead of recoiling before the bold questions of
+innocence, they explained to her the reasons of things and the best
+means of action, taking care to give her none but correct ideas.
+When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade of grass, her thoughts went
+straight to God, the doctor and the professor told her that the priest
+alone could answer her. None of them intruded on the territory of the
+others; the doctor took charge of her material well-being and the
+things of life; Jordy’s department was instruction; moral and spiritual
+questions and the ideas appertaining to the higher life belonged to
+the abbe. This noble education was not, as it often is, counteracted by
+injudicious servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject,
+and being, moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did
+nothing to injure the work of these great minds. Ursula, a privileged
+being, grew up with good geniuses round her; and her naturally fine
+disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy one. Such manly
+tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty without danger,
+such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula, when nine years
+of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+
+Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died the
+following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his work, of
+which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part. Flowers
+will bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The old
+gentleman had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a year,
+that he might leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep a place
+in her memory during her whole life. In his will, the wording of which
+was very touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five
+hundred francs that came of her little capital exclusively on her dress.
+When the justice of the peace applied the seals to the effects of his
+old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had allowed
+no one to enter, a quantity of toys, many of them broken, while all
+had been used,--toys of a past generation, reverently preserved, which
+Monsieur Bongrand was, according to the captain’s last wishes, to burn
+with his own hands.
+
+About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind
+and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another,
+needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge
+of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into
+the pious and mystical young girl whose character rose above all
+vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then
+began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the
+young girl full of faith,--long unsuspected by her who incited it,--the
+result of which had now stirred the whole town, and was destined to have
+great influence on Ursula’s future by rousing against her the antagonism
+of the doctor’s heirs.
+
+During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her
+mornings at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe’s secret
+hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him.
+The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own
+daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor; he could not fail
+to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a
+child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both
+flowers and fruit, always fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful life is
+more powerful than the strongest argument. It is impossible to resist
+the charms of certain sights. The doctor’s eyes were wet, he knew not
+how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for the church,
+wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin; her hair bound
+with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white ribbon, and
+rippling upon her shoulders; her eyes lighted by the star of a first
+hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and loving her
+godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When the doctor
+perceived that the thought of immortality was nourishing that spirit
+(until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun gives life to
+the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he remained at home
+alone.
+
+Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as
+she left him: “Why won’t you come, godfather? how can I be happy without
+you?” Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the Encyclopedist
+did not as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction from which he
+could see the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little
+Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an
+inspired look, which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on
+the corner closed to God. But still the old deist held firm. He said
+to himself: “Mummeries! if there be a maker of worlds, imagine the
+organizer of infinitude concerning himself with such trifles!” He
+laughed as he continued his walk along the heights which look down upon
+the road to the Gatinais, where the bells were ringing a joyous peal
+that told of the joy of families.
+
+The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever invented.
+Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and
+nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the
+exclamations she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old Jordy while
+living, and the doctor always waited till their child was in bed before
+they began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early
+when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on when she
+returned; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and took her
+seat at the window with her work. She had a repugnance to the game,
+which is really in the beginning very hard and unconquerable to some
+minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost impossible to
+take it up in after life.
+
+The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where
+her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before
+him.
+
+“Whose throw shall it be?” she asked.
+
+“Ursula,” said the doctor, “isn’t it a sin to make fun of your godfather
+the day of your first communion?”
+
+“I am not making fun of you,” she said, sitting down. “I want to give
+you some pleasure--you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon,
+and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to beat
+you--you shall not deprive yourself any longer for me. I have conquered
+all difficulties, and now I like the noise of the game.”
+
+Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next day
+Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to
+Paris for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher, and
+submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to him. One
+of poor Jordy’s predictions was fulfilled,--the girl became an excellent
+musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately sent to Paris for
+a master, an old German named Schmucke, a distinguished professor who
+came once a week; the doctor willingly paying for an art which he had
+formerly declared to be useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like
+music--a celestial language, developed by Catholicism, which has taken
+the names of the seven notes from one of the church hymns; every note
+being the first syllable of the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint
+John.
+
+The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula’s first communion though
+keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which prayer and
+the exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had not their due
+influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or repentance himself,
+he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own benefactions without hope of a
+celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious
+men whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.
+
+“But,” the abbe would say to him, “if all men would be so, you must
+admit that society would be regenerated; there would be no more
+misery. To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great
+philosopher; you rise to your principles through reason, you are a
+social exception; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us
+benevolent in ours. With you, it is an effort; with us, it comes
+naturally.”
+
+“In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,--that’s the whole of it.”
+
+However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did
+not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in
+providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent creature,
+the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula’s artless
+consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he
+felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute devotion has
+a horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas which it does
+not share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling’s reasonings as he
+would her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest of voices with
+the purest and most fervent feeling. Believers and unbelievers speak
+different languages and cannot understand each other. The young girl
+pleading God’s cause was unreasonable with the old man, as a spoilt
+child sometimes maltreats its mother. The abbe rebuked her gently,
+telling her that God had power to humiliate proud spirits. Ursula
+replied that David had overcome Goliath.
+
+This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life, so
+peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive eyes
+of the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time the
+modest and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as she
+left the church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her music,
+the pleasures of her godfather, and all the little cares she was able to
+give him (for she had eased La Bougival’s labors by doing everything for
+him),--these things filled the hours, the days, the months of her calm
+life. Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had felt uneasy about
+his Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost care. Sagacious and
+profoundly practical observer that he was, he thought he perceived some
+commotion in her moral being. He watched her like a mother, but seeing
+no one about her who was worthy of inspiring love, his uneasiness on the
+subject at length passed away.
+
+At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins,
+the doctor’s intellectual life was invaded by one of those events which
+plough to the very depths of a man’s convictions and turn them over. But
+this event needs a succinct narrative of certain circumstances in his
+medical career, which will give, perhaps, fresh interest to the story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+
+Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as widely
+by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck. After
+re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense the
+clarion of the world.
+
+“If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved,” said Hahnemann, recently.
+
+“Go to France,” said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, “and if they laugh
+at your bumps you will be famous.”
+
+Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific
+France was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before
+judgment was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body,
+Mesmer’s so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and
+his theory. But let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately,
+compromised his splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims. Mesmer
+was defeated by the doubtfulness of facts, by universal ignorance of the
+part played in nature by imponderable fluids then unobserved, and by his
+own inability to study on all sides a science possessing a triple
+front. Magnetism has many applications; in Mesmer’s hands it was, in
+its relation to the future, merely what cause is to effect. But, if
+the discoverer lacked genius, it is a sad thing both for France and
+for human reason to have to say that a science contemporaneous with
+civilization, cultivated by Egypt and Chaldea, by Greece and India, met
+in Paris in the eighteenth century the fate that Truth in the person of
+Galileo found in the sixteenth; and that magnetism was rejected and cast
+out by the combined attacks of science and religion, alarmed for their
+own positions. Magnetism, the favorite science of Jesus Christ and
+one of the divine powers which he gave to his disciples, was no better
+apprehended by the Church than by the disciples of Jean-Jacques,
+Voltaire, Locke, and Condillac. The Encyclopedists and the clergy were
+equally averse to the old human power which they took to be new. The
+miracles of the convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and smothered
+by the indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious writings
+of the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to make
+experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ certain
+inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward agents. But
+to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids intangible,
+invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the science of
+that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern philosophy
+there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles away! To
+materialists especially the world is full, all things hang together, are
+linked, related, organized. “The world as the result of chance,” said
+Diderot, “is more explicable than God. The multiplicity of causes, the
+incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance, explain creation.
+Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if you allow me time
+and space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters, arrive at last at
+the Eneid combination.”
+
+Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil
+before the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of
+imponderable forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the
+immense progress which natural science is now making under the great
+principle of unity due to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent
+persons, without any system, convinced by facts conscientiously studied,
+still hold to Mesmer’s doctrine, which recognizes the existence of a
+penetrative influence acting from man to man, put in motion by the will,
+curative by the abundance of the fluid, the working of which is in fact
+a duel between two forces, between an ill to be cured and the will to
+cure it.
+
+The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were revealed
+by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to their
+discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and scoffers.
+Among the small number of believers were a few physicians. They were
+persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The respectable body
+of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of religious warfare
+against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their hatred as it was
+possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance. The orthodox
+physician refused to consult with those who adopted the Mesmerian
+heresy. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The miseries and
+sorrows of the Revolution had not quenched the scientific hatred. It is
+only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate in that way.
+The official robe is terrible! But ideas are even more implacable than
+things.
+
+Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret’s friends, believed in the new faith,
+and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which
+he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief “betes
+noires” of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter of
+the Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer’s
+assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled with
+his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His conduct
+to Bouvard must have caused him the only remorse which troubled the
+serenity of his declining years. Since his retirement to Nemours the
+science of imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for magnetism,
+which, by the nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to light and
+electricity) had made immense progress, in spite of the ridicule of
+Parisian scientists. Phrenology and physiognomy, the departments of Gall
+and Lavater (which are in fact twins, for one is to the other as cause
+is to effect), proved to the minds of more than one physiologist the
+existence of an intangible fluid which is the basis of the phenomena
+of the human will, and from which result passions, habits, the shape of
+faces and of skulls. Magnetic facts, the miracles of somnambulism, those
+of divination and ecstasy, which open a way to the spiritual world, were
+fast accumulating. The strange tale of the apparitions of the farmer
+Martin, so clearly proved, and his interview with Louis XVIII.; a
+knowledge of the intercourse of Swedenborg with the departed, carefully
+investigated in Germany; the tales of Walter Scott on the effects of
+“second sight”; the extraordinary faculties of some fortune-tellers, who
+practice as a single science chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope;
+the facts of catalepsy, and those of the action of certain morbid
+affections on the properties of the diaphragm,--all such phenomena,
+curious, to say the least, each emanating from the same source, were now
+undermining many scepticisms and leading even the most indifferent minds
+to the plane of experiments. Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of
+this movement of minds, strong in the north of Europe but still weak
+in France where, however, many facts called marvelous by superficial
+observers, were happening, but falling, alas! like stones to the bottom
+of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian excitements.
+
+At the bottom of the present year the doctor’s tranquillity was shaken
+by the following letter:--
+
+
+My old comrade,--All friendship, even if lost, has rights which it is
+difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I
+remember far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel of
+Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+
+At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my heart to
+prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the most important
+of the sciences--if indeed all science is not _one_. I can overcome
+your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity the
+happiness of taking you once more by the hand--as in the days before
+Mesmer. Always yours,
+
+Bouvard.
+
+
+Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and
+left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice.
+Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written “To-morrow; nine
+o’clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption.”
+
+Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He went
+to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world
+were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school,
+if the four faculties any longer existed. The doctors reassured him,
+declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever, only,
+instead of persecuting as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and
+of Sciences rang with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the
+tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco, with jugglery and prestidigitation
+and all that now went by the name of “amusing physics.”
+
+This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment
+made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four years the
+two antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint-Honore.
+Frenchmen have too many distractions of mind to hate each other long. In
+Paris especially, politics, literature, and science render life so vast
+that every man can find new worlds to conquer where all pretensions
+may live at ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but
+public bodies can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton
+would have fallen into each other’s arms at the end of forty-four years.
+However, the two doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it.
+Bouvard spoke first:--
+
+“You seem wonderfully well.”
+
+“Yes, I am--and you?” said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now broken.
+
+“As you see.”
+
+“Does magnetism prevent people from dying?” asked Minoret in a joking
+tone, but without sharpness.
+
+“No, but it almost prevented me from living.”
+
+“Then you are not rich?” exclaimed Minoret.
+
+“Pooh!” said Bouvard.
+
+“But I am!” cried the other.
+
+“It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come,” replied
+Bouvard.
+
+“Oh! you obstinate fellow!” said Minoret.
+
+The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy
+staircase to the fourth floor.
+
+At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic
+forces in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown
+(who still lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate
+diseases, suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly,
+but he was also able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable
+phenomena of somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The
+countenance of this mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to
+God alone and to communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles
+that of a lion; concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His
+features, singularly contorted, have a terrible and even blasting
+aspect. His voice, which comes from the depths of his being, seems
+charged with some magnetic fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every
+pore. Disgusted by the ingratitude of the public after his many
+cures, he has now returned to an impenetrable solitude, a voluntary
+nothingness. His all-powerful hand, which has restored a dying daughter
+to her mother, fathers to their grief-stricken children, adored
+mistresses to lovers frenzied with love, cured the sick given over
+by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the dying when life became
+impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in synagogues, temples, and
+churches from the lips of priests recalled to the one God by the same
+miracle,--that sovereign hand, a sun of life dazzling the closed eyes
+of the somnambulist, has never been raised again even to save the
+heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his past mercies
+as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and lives for
+heaven.
+
+But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man,
+whose generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons to
+witness his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and could
+easily be revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then on the
+verge of the grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last enabled to
+witness the startling phenomena of a science he had long treasured
+in his heart. The sacrifices of the old man touched the heart of the
+mysterious stranger, who accorded him certain privileges. As Bouvard now
+went up the staircase he listened to the twittings of his old antagonist
+with malicious delight, answering only, “You shall see, you shall see!”
+ with the emphatic little nods of a man who is sure of his facts.
+
+The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than modest.
+Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon where he left
+Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but Bouvard returned
+at once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw the mysterious
+Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair. The woman did
+not rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the two old men.
+
+“What! no tub?” cried Minoret, smiling.
+
+“Nothing but the power of God,” answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+
+The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain
+and the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who
+thought he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to
+question his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently to
+be taking time to examine him.
+
+“You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur,” he said at
+last. “It is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my
+conviction, emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use
+of it, it would be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope,
+Monsieur Bouvard tells me, of changing the opinions of one who has
+opposed us, of enlightening a scientific man whose mind is candid;
+I have therefore determined to satisfy you. That woman whom you see
+there,” he continued, pointing to her, “is now in a somnambulic sleep.
+The statements and manifestations of somnambulists declare that this
+state is a delightful other life, during which the inner being, freed
+from the trammels laid upon the exercise of our faculties by the visible
+world, moves in a world which we mistakenly term invisible. Sight and
+hearing are then exercised in a manner far more perfect than any we know
+of here, possibly without the help of the organs we now employ, which
+are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight and hearing. To a
+person in that state, distance and material obstacles do not exist, or
+they can be traversed by a life within us for which our body is a
+mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail to describe
+effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the words
+imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid whose
+action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its heat,
+which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and certainly
+electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things themselves
+instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments.”
+
+“She sleeps,” said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+belong to an inferior class.
+
+“Her body is for the time being in abeyance,” said the Swedenborgian.
+“Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will prove
+to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind when
+there does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will send her
+wherever you wish to go,--a hundred miles from here or to China, as you
+will. She will tell you what is happening there.”
+
+“Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do,” said
+Minoret.
+
+He took Minoret’s hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for a
+moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that
+of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor
+in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this
+oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the
+absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus united
+by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its effects,
+was very simply done.
+
+“Obey him,” said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the
+head of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life
+from him, “and remember that what you do for him will please me.--You
+can now speak to her,” he added, addressing Minoret.
+
+“Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois,” said the doctor.
+
+“Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what
+she tells you that she is where you wish her to be,” said Bouvard to his
+old friend.
+
+“I see a river,” said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look
+within herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed eyelids.
+“I see a pretty garden--”
+
+“Why do you enter by the river and the garden?” said Minoret.
+
+“Because they are there.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of.”
+
+“What is the garden like?” said Minoret.
+
+“Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right,
+a long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular
+building,--there are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the
+left, the wall is covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia
+jessamine. In the middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots.
+Your child is looking at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse--she
+is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The
+nurse is raking the path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the
+beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn--”
+
+“Love for whom?” asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened
+to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all jugglery.
+
+“You know nothing--though you have lately been uneasy about her health,”
+ answered the woman. “Her heart has followed the dictates of nature.”
+
+“A woman of the people to talk like this!” cried the doctor.
+
+“In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary
+perception,” said Bouvard.
+
+“But who is it that Ursula loves?”
+
+“Ursula does not know that she loves,” said the woman with a shake of
+the head; “she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is
+occupied by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought;
+but she returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.--She is at the
+piano--”
+
+“But who is he?”
+
+“The son of a lady who lives opposite.”
+
+“Madame de Portenduere?”
+
+“Portenduere, did you say?” replied the sleeper. “Perhaps so. But
+there’s no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood.”
+
+“Have they spoken to each other?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He is,
+in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her window;
+they see each other in church. But the young man no longer thinks of
+her.”
+
+“His name?”
+
+“Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named Savinien;
+she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say; she has
+looked in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot against
+it,--child’s play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much strength
+as purity; she is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye her soul
+and fill it that she will reject all other sentiments.”
+
+“Where do you see that?”
+
+“In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father and
+her mother suffered much.”
+
+The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than surprised.
+It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman paused for
+several minutes, during which time her attention became more and more
+concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a singular aspect;
+an inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear or cloud by some
+mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had seen in dying persons
+at moments when they appeared to have the gift of prophecy. Several
+times she made gestures which resembled those of Ursula.
+
+“Question her,” said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, “she will tell
+you secrets you alone can know.”
+
+“Does Ursula love me?” asked Minoret.
+
+“Almost as much as she loves God,” was the answer. “But she is very
+unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause of
+her only sorrow.--Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a better
+musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is thinking, ‘If
+I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his ear when he is
+with his mother.’”
+
+Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+
+“Tell me what seeds she planted?”
+
+“Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--”
+
+“And what else?”
+
+“Larkspur.”
+
+“Where is my money?”
+
+“With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of a
+single day.”
+
+“Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?”
+
+“You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled ‘Pandects of
+Justinian, Vol. II.’ between the last two leaves; the book is on the
+shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them.
+Your money is in the last volume next to the salon--See! Vol. III. is
+before Vol. II.--but you have no money, it is all in--”
+
+“--thousand-franc notes,” said the doctor.
+
+“I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five hundred
+francs.”
+
+“You see them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How do they look?”
+
+“One is old and yellow, the other white and new.”
+
+This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at
+Bouvard with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who
+were accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together in
+a low voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to allow
+him to return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to compose his
+mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new
+test, to subject it to more decisive experiments and obtain answers to
+certain questions, the truth of which should do away with every sort of
+doubt.
+
+“Be here at nine o’clock this evening,” said the stranger. “I will
+return to meet you.”
+
+Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room without
+bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind. “Well, what
+do you say? what do you say?”
+
+“I think I am mad, Bouvard,” answered Minoret from the steps of the
+porte-cochere. “If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,--and none
+but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,--I shall say
+that _you are right_. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this minute
+and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten
+o’clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?”
+
+“What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed
+in a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents
+from an herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?”
+
+“Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o’clock. I must find
+some decisive, undeniable test!”
+
+“So be it, old comrade,” answered the other.
+
+The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which
+were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:--
+
+“If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of traversing
+space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she sees and hears
+what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic
+facts; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one
+proof which you know will satisfy you--for you might suppose that we
+obtained information to deceive you; but we cannot know, for instance,
+what will happen at nine o’clock in your goddaughter’s bedroom.
+Remember, or write down, what the sleeper will see and hear, and then go
+home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice,
+and if she tells you that she has said and done what you have written
+down--lower thy head, proud Hun!”
+
+The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and
+found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor
+Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand of the
+Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and
+she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand
+and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what
+was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. “What is Ursula
+doing?” he said.
+
+“She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on
+her prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet
+background.”
+
+“What is she saying?”
+
+“Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores
+him to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience and
+recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she has
+failed to obey his commands and those of the church--poor dear little
+soul, she lays bare her breast!” Tears were in the sleeper’s eyes.
+“She has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too much of
+Savinien. She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she prays to
+God to make him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying aloud.”
+
+“Tell me her words.” Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe
+Chaperon.
+
+  “My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will--O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us.”
+
+The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the inspired
+manner of his child that Doctor Minoret’s eyes were filled with tears.
+
+“Does she say more?” he asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Repeat it.”
+
+“‘My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.’
+She has blown out the light--her head is on the pillow--she turns to
+sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap.”
+
+Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d’Alger.
+There he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who
+seemed to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and started.
+According to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at Essonne, but
+arrived at Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to Nemours, on which
+he secured a seat, and dismissed his coachman. He reached home at five
+in the morning, and went to bed, with his life-long ideas of physiology,
+nature, and metaphysics in ruins about him, and slept till nine o’clock,
+so wearied was he with the events of his journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+
+On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of
+his house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the Pandect
+volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La Bougival.
+
+“Tell Ursula to come and speak to me,” he said, seating himself in the
+center of his library.
+
+The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her on
+his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls with
+the white hair of her old friend.
+
+“Do you want something, godfather?”
+
+“Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+evasion, the questions that I shall put to you.”
+
+Ursula colored to the temples.
+
+“Oh! I’ll ask nothing that you cannot speak of,” he said, noticing how
+the bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of
+the girl’s blue eyes.
+
+“Ask me, godfather.”
+
+“What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last evening,
+and what time was it when you said them.”
+
+“It was a quarter-past or half-past nine.”
+
+“Well, repeat your last prayer.”
+
+The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic;
+she slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+said:--
+
+“What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I shall
+ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it.”
+
+Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful
+expression. To her great astonishment her godfather took the last words
+from her mouth and finished the prayer.
+
+“Good, Ursula,” said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. “When
+you laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to
+yourself, ‘That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon with
+him in Paris’?”
+
+Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She
+gave a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with
+awful fixity.
+
+“Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?” she asked,
+imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with
+the devil.
+
+“What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?”
+
+“Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--”
+
+“And the last were larkspur?”
+
+She fell on her knees.
+
+“Do not terrify me!” she exclaimed. “Oh you must have been here--you
+were here, were you not?”
+
+“Am I not always with you?” replied the doctor, evading her question, to
+save the strain on the young girl’s mind. “Let us go to your room.”
+
+“Your legs are trembling,” she said.
+
+“Yes, I am confounded, as it were.”
+
+“Can it be that you believe in God?” she cried, with artless joy,
+letting fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+
+The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had given
+to his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very inexpensive,
+which she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were hung with a
+gray paper strewn with roses and green leaves; at the windows, which
+looked to the court, were calico curtains edged with a band of some pink
+material; between the windows and beneath a tall mirror was a pier-table
+topped with marble, on which stood a Sevres vase in which she put her
+nosegays; opposite the chimney was a little bureau-desk of charming
+marquetry. The bed, of chintz, with chintz curtains lined with pink, was
+one of those duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, which had
+a tuft of carved feathers at the top of each of the four posts, which
+were fluted on the sides. An old clock, inclosed in a sort of monument
+made of tortoise-shell inlaid with arabesques of ivory, decorated the
+mantelpiece, the marble shelf of which, with the candlesticks and
+the mirror in a frame painted in cameo on a gray ground, presented a
+remarkable harmony of color, tone, and style. A large wardrobe, the
+doors of which were inlaid with landscapes in different woods (some
+having a green tint which are no longer to be found for sale) contained,
+no doubt, her linen and her dresses. The air of the room was redolent of
+heaven. The precise arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a
+feeling for harmony, which would certainly have influenced any one, even
+a Minoret-Levrault. It was plain that the things about her were dear
+to Ursula, and that she loved a room which contained, as it were, her
+childhood and the whole of her girlish life.
+
+Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for
+his visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those
+of Madame de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to
+the course he ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this
+dawning passion. To question her now would commit him to some course.
+He must either approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his
+position would be a false one. He therefore resolved to watch and
+examine into the state of things between the two young people, and
+learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was
+irresistible. None but an old man could have shown such deliberate
+wisdom. Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these magnetic
+facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little things
+around the room; he wished to examine the almanac which was hanging at a
+corner of the chimney-piece.
+
+“These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands,” he said, taking
+up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather.
+
+He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took it,
+saying, “This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in your
+pretty room?”
+
+“Oh, please let me have it, godfather.”
+
+“No, no, you shall have another to-morrow.”
+
+So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told
+him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before
+his own saint’s day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the
+abbe’s patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin’s head, had been
+seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles!
+The old man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him
+than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence. A strong wall,
+as it were, crumbled within him; for his life had rested on two
+bases,--indifference in matters of religion and a firm disbelief in
+magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses--faculties purely
+physical, organs, the effects of which could be explained--attained to
+some of the attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it
+seemed to him to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite
+and the infinite, two incompatible elements according to that remarkable
+man, were here united, the one in the other. No matter what power
+he gave to the divisibility and mobility of matter he could not help
+recognizing that it possessed qualities that were almost divine.
+
+He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac,
+was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism
+staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic
+child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula’s side. In the dismantled
+fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center of these
+ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate old
+scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would not
+decide, he struggled on against God.
+
+But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation.
+He became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet’s sublime
+“History of Species”; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine;
+he determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late
+Saint-Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The
+edifice within him was cracking on all sides; it needed but one more
+shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall
+into the celestial vineyard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening,
+when playing with the abbe, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put
+questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest,
+who was ignorant of the inward workings by which God was remaking that
+fine conscience.
+
+“Do you believe in apparitions?” asked the sceptic of the pastor,
+stopping short in the game.
+
+“Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+some,” replied the abbe.
+
+“I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you
+think that dead men can return to the living.”
+
+“Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death,” said the abbe.
+“The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As for
+miracles, they are not lacking,” he continued, smiling. “Shall I tell
+you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century.”
+
+“Pooh!” said the doctor.
+
+“Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from
+Rome, knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father
+expired; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted
+bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff
+and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who
+brought the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours
+later.”
+
+“Jesuit!” exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, “I did not ask you for
+proofs; I asked you if you believed in apparitions.”
+
+“I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it,” said the
+abbe, still fencing with his sceptic.
+
+“My friend,” said the doctor, seriously, “I am not setting a trap for
+you. What do you really believe about it?”
+
+“I believe that the power of God is infinite,” replied the abbe.
+
+“When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+appear to you,” said the doctor, smiling.
+
+“That’s exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend,” answered the
+priest.
+
+“Ursula,” said Minoret, “if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I
+will come.”
+
+“You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of ‘Neere’ by Andre
+Chenier,” said the abbe. “Poets are sublime because they clothe both
+facts and feelings with ever-living images.”
+
+“Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?” said Ursula in a
+grieved tone. “We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of our
+souls.”
+
+“Well,” said the doctor, smiling, “we must go out of the world, and when
+I am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune.”
+
+“When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will
+be to consecrate my life to you.”
+
+“To me, dead?”
+
+“Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to
+redeem your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy, that
+he may not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon
+among the righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours.”
+
+That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certainty,
+confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul.
+A ray of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of this tenderness,
+covering his years to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden
+effect of grace had something that seemed electrical about it. The
+abbe clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl,
+astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had
+called him, looking into space as though his eyes beheld the dawn; then
+he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes
+to the ground as one humiliated.
+
+“My God,” he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, “if any one
+can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless
+creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child
+presents to thee!”
+
+He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and
+held out his hand.
+
+“My dear pastor,” he said, “I am become as a little child. I belong to
+you; I give my soul to your care.”
+
+Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took
+her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply
+moved, recited the “Veni Creator” in a species of religious ecstasy.
+The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling
+together for the first time.
+
+“What has happened?” asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+
+“My godfather believes in God at last!” replied Ursula.
+
+“Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect,” cried
+the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+
+“Dear doctor,” said the good priest, “you will soon comprehend the
+grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find
+its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest
+sceptics.”
+
+The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to
+catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the
+conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation,
+was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for
+fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart,
+though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a
+surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula’s
+evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after
+day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that
+succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the responsible
+editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His dear child
+told him that he might know by how far he had advanced already in God’s
+kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him attend, he had read the
+prayers and applied his own intelligence to them; from the first, he
+had risen to the divine idea of the communion of the faithful. The
+old neophyte understood the eternal symbol attached to that sacred
+nourishment, which faith renders needful to the soul after conveying to
+it her own profound and radiant essence. When on leaving the church he
+had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely that he might once
+more thank his dear child for having led him to “enter religion,”--the
+beautiful expression of former days. He was holding her on his knee in
+the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly at the very moment when his
+relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their shameless
+fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula. His haste to return
+home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies as he
+left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the hatred
+Ursula had excited against them in the old man’s mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFERENCE
+
+While Ursula was playing variations on Weber’s “Last Thought” to her
+godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults’ dining-room
+which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama.
+The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and enlivened by
+excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgundy
+or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent for oysters,
+salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do honor to
+Desire’s return. The dining-room, in the center of which a round table
+offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content
+with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had built a pavilion
+for the family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with
+vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything about the premises was
+solid and plain. The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to
+the town. Zelie forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The
+dining-room was, therefore, hung with varnished paper and furnished with
+walnut chairs and sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a
+barometer. Though the plates and dishes were of common white china, the
+table shone with handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie
+had served the coffee, coming and going herself like shot in a
+decanter,--for she kept but one servant,--and when Desire, the budding
+lawyer, had been told of the event of the morning and its probably
+consequences, the door was closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon
+to speak. By the silence in the room and the looks that were cast on
+that authoritative face, it was easy to see the power that such men
+exercise over families.
+
+“My dear children,” said he, “your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+folly, and that little--”
+
+“Viper!” cried Madame Massin.
+
+“Hussy!” said Zelie.
+
+“Let us call her by her own name,” said Dionis.
+
+“Well, she’s a thief,” said Madame Cremiere.
+
+“A pretty thief,” remarked Desire.
+
+“That little Ursula,” went on Dionis, “has managed to get hold of his
+heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait until
+now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have discovered
+about that young--”
+
+“Marauder,” said the collector.
+
+“Inveigler,” said the clerk of the court.
+
+“Hold your tongue, friends,” said the notary, “or I’ll take my hat and
+be off.”
+
+“Come, come, papa,” cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and
+offering it to the notary; “here, drink this, it comes from Rome itself;
+and now go on.”
+
+“Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet;
+but her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle’s
+father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the
+doctor might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if
+he leaves her his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against
+Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court
+took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the
+doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring
+about a compromise--”
+
+“The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children,” said the
+newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, “that by the
+judgment of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child can
+claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance.
+So you see the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law
+pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground
+that benefactions done to grandchildren reach the natural son through
+that medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil
+Code. The royal court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of
+last year, cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural
+son by his grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural
+grandson as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula.”
+
+“All that,” said Goupil, “seems to me to relate only to the bequests
+made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood
+relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at
+Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared
+that after the decease of a natural child his descendants could no
+longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula’s father is dead.”
+
+Goupil’s argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+legislative assemblies are wont to call “profound sensation.”
+
+“What does that signify?” cried Dionis. “The actual case of the bequest
+of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for
+trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children
+will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when
+religion is honored. I’ll answer for it that out of such a suit as I
+propose you could get a compromise,--especially if they see you are
+determined to carry Ursula to a court of appeals.”
+
+Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made manifest
+in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all
+notice of Goupil’s dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep
+silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his next word, a terrible
+“But!”
+
+As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned on
+him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+
+“_But_ no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula,” he
+continued. “As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would,
+I think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle
+with questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is
+true the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly
+surgeon to the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of
+it. Moreover, you would have due warning in case of adoption--but how
+about marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marry
+her after a year’s domicile, and give her a million by the marriage
+contract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts your property in
+danger is your uncle’s marriage with the girl.”
+
+Here the notary paused.
+
+“There’s another danger,” said Goupil, with a knowing air,--“that of
+a will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula--”
+
+“If you tease your uncle,” continued Dionis, cutting short his
+head-clerk, “if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will
+drive him into either a marriage or into making that private trust which
+Goupil speaks of,--though I don’t think him capable of that; it is a
+dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire there
+has only got to hold out a finger to the girl; she’s sure to prefer a
+handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one.”
+
+“Mother,” said Desire to Zelie’s ear, as much allured by the millions as
+by Ursula’s beauty, “If I married her we should get the whole property.”
+
+“Are you crazy?--you, who’ll some day have fifty thousand francs a year
+and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your throat
+by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed! Why, the
+mayor’s only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and they have
+already proposed her to me--”
+
+This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+extinguished in Desire’s breast all desire for a marriage with the
+beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+
+“Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis,” cried Cremiere, whose wife had
+been nudging him, “if the good man took the thing seriously and married
+his goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the property,
+good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer uncle may be
+worth a million.”
+
+“Never!” cried Zelie, “never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter
+of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son
+will represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and the
+Minorets have five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them. That’s
+equal to the nobility. Don’t be uneasy, any of you; Desire will marry
+when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies.”
+
+This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:--
+
+“Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will
+be president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office leads
+to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him.”
+
+The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence
+for the notary.
+
+“Your uncle is a worthy man,” continued Dionis. “He believes he’s
+immortal; and, like most clever men, he’ll let death overtake him before
+he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest his
+capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you,
+and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere
+is in Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand
+francs’ worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison; she is
+crying like a Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her; no doubt she wants
+to talk to him about her troubles. Well, I’ll go and see your uncle
+to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent consols, which are
+now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm
+at Bordieres and her house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal
+son. I have a right as notary to speak to him in behalf of young
+Portenduere; and it is quite natural that I should wish to make him
+change his investments; I get deeds and commissions out of the business.
+If I become his adviser I’ll propose to him other land investments for
+his surplus capital; I have some excellent ones now in my office. If his
+fortune were once invested in landed estate or in mortgage notes in this
+neighbourhood, it could not take wings to itself very easily. It is easy
+to make difficulties between the wish to realize and the realization.”
+
+The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than
+that of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+
+“You must be careful,” said the notary in conclusion, “to keep your
+uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch
+him. Find him a lover for the girl and you’ll prevent his marrying her
+himself.”
+
+“Suppose she married the lover?” said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+desire.
+
+“That wouldn’t be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the
+old man would have to say how much he gives her,” replied the notary.
+“But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till
+the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade.”
+
+“The shortest way,” said Goupil, “if the doctor is likely to live much
+longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out
+of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred
+thousand francs in hand.”
+
+Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+
+“He’d be a worm at the core,” whispered Zelie to Massin.
+
+“How did he get here?” returned the clerk.
+
+“That will just suit you!” cried Desire to Goupil. “But do you think you
+can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?”
+
+“In these days,” whispered Zelie again in Massin’s year, “notaries look
+out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula
+just to get the old man’s business?”
+
+“I am sure of him,” said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look
+out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, “because I
+hold something over him,” but he withheld the words.
+
+“I am quite of Dionis’s opinion,” he said aloud.
+
+“So am I,” cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with
+the clerk.
+
+“My wife has voted!” said the post master, sipping his brandy, though
+his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a
+notable quantity of liquids.
+
+“And very properly,” remarked the collector.
+
+“I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,” said Dionis.
+
+“If Monsieur Dionis’s advice is good,” said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, “we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every
+Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us.”
+
+“Yes, and be received as he received us!” cried Zelie. “Minoret and
+I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don’t know how to write
+prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell him
+that!”
+
+“As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,” said Madame
+Massin, rather piqued, “I don’t want to lose ten thousand.”
+
+“We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+shall see how things are going,” said Madame Cremiere; “you’ll thank us
+some day, cousin.”
+
+“Treat Ursula kindly,” said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to
+the level of his lips; “remember old Jordy left her his savings.”
+
+“You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer
+in Paris, could have done,” said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+post-house.
+
+“And now they are quarreling over my fee,” replied the notary, smiling
+bitterly.
+
+The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+Portenduere on his arm.
+
+“She dragged him to vespers, see!” cried Madame Massin to Madame
+Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the
+church.
+
+“Let us go and speak to him,” said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old
+man.
+
+The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference)
+did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this
+sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop
+and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated
+affection and forced smiles.
+
+“Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?” said Madame
+Cremiere. “We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a
+long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are
+old enough now to make dear Ursula’s acquaintance.”
+
+“Ursula is a little bear, like her name,” replied the doctor.
+
+“Let us tame her,” said Madame Massin. “And besides, uncle,” added the
+good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy,
+“they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are
+very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her
+music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a
+class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means.”
+
+“Certainly,” said the old man, “and it will be all the better for me
+because I want to give Ursula a singing-master.”
+
+“Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to
+see you; he is now a lawyer.”
+
+“Yes, to-night,” echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these
+petty souls.
+
+The two nieces pressed Ursula’s hand, saying, with affected eagerness,
+“Au revoir.”
+
+“Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!” cried Ursula, giving him a
+grateful look.
+
+“You are going to have a voice,” he said; “and I shall give you masters
+of drawing and Italian also. A woman,” added the doctor, looking at
+Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, “ought to be educated to
+the height of every position in which her marriage may place her.”
+
+Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather’s thoughts evidently
+turned in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near
+confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to
+think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him,
+she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing
+plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a distance like a
+blue and white flower.
+
+“Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes,
+they were very kind,” she repeated as he approached her, to change the
+thoughts that made him pensive.
+
+“Poor little girl!” cried the old man.
+
+He laid Ursula’s hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to
+the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+
+“Why do you say, ‘Poor little girl’?”
+
+“Don’t you see how they fear you?”
+
+“Fear me,--why?”
+
+“My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of
+their inheritance to enrich you.”
+
+“But you won’t do that?” said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+
+“Oh, divine consolation of my old age!” said the doctor, taking his
+godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. “It was for her
+and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live
+until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!--You
+will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and
+Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and
+prolong my life; they are longing for my death.”
+
+“God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is--Ah! I despise them!”
+ exclaimed Ursula.
+
+“Dinner is ready!” called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+
+Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty
+dining-room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer
+(the folly of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The
+doctor offered him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of his
+coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted, ground,
+and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+
+“Well,” said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the
+old man, “the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put
+your relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the
+priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and they are
+bestirring themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the
+square; they were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs.”
+
+“What did I tell you, Ursula?” cried the doctor. “At the risk of
+grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you
+on your guard against undeserved enmity.”
+
+“I should like to say a word to you on this subject,” said Bongrand,
+seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula’s future.
+
+The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of
+peace wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked up
+and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her
+godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis’s opinion as
+to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for
+Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter
+had been much discussed among the lawyers of the little town. Bongrand
+considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor Minoret, but he
+felt that the whole spirit of legislation was against the foisting into
+families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of the Code had foreseen
+only the weakness of fathers and mothers for their natural children,
+without considering that uncles and aunts might have a like tenderness
+and a desire to provide for such children. Evidently there was a gap in
+the law.
+
+“In all other countries,” he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the heirs,
+“Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child, and
+the disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance from
+Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy is
+unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the
+spirit of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show
+that this hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the
+legislators, who did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they
+established a principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive.
+Zelie would carry it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive
+when the case was tried.”
+
+“The best of cases is often worthless,” cried the doctor. “Here’s the
+question the lawyers will put, ‘To what degree of relationship ought the
+disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to extend?’ and
+the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad cause.”
+
+“Faith!” said Bongrand, “I dare not take upon myself to affirm that
+the judges wouldn’t interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society.”
+
+Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the
+surest means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, “Poor little
+girl! I might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!”
+
+“Well, what will you do, then?” asked Bongrand.
+
+“We’ll think about it--I’ll see,” said the old man, evidently at a loss
+for a reply.
+
+Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the
+doctor.
+
+“Already!” cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. “Yes,” he said to Ursula,
+“send him here.”
+
+“I’ll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the
+advance-guard of your heirs,” said Bongrand. “They breakfasted together
+at the post house, and something is being engineered.”
+
+The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked
+for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon.
+
+The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+remarkable. The latter deny them the “lesser” powers while recognizing
+their possession of the “higher.” It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business
+believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details
+which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of
+science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are
+mistaken! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued
+by the doctor’s silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula’s interests
+which he thought endangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs.
+He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old man
+and Dionis.
+
+“No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be,” he thought as he looked
+at her, “there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and
+their own morality. I’ll test here. The Minoret-Levraults,” he began,
+settling his spectacles, “might possibly ask you in marriage for their
+son.”
+
+The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+moment’s inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to
+the glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged
+Monsieur Bongrand’s pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he
+smiled at her and said, “Go! go!”
+
+Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at
+the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the
+blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end
+of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer
+which reached the pagoda where she was.
+
+“My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate
+or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what
+they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good
+sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs
+will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that,
+and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what
+I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall
+come back from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien
+de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I
+shall not sell my property in the Funds.”
+
+Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first
+and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head
+against the blind to steady herself.
+
+“Good God, what is the matter with her?” thought the old doctor. “She
+has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her.”
+
+He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+
+“Adieu, Monsieur,” he said to the notary, “please leave us.”
+
+He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his
+study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her
+inhale it.
+
+“Take my place,” said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; “I must
+be alone with her.”
+
+The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but
+without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+
+“I don’t know,” replied Dionis. “She was standing by the pagoda,
+listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend
+some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for
+debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand
+to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is
+there anything between them?”
+
+“At fifteen years of age? pooh!” replied Bongrand.
+
+“She was born in February, 1813; she’ll be sixteen in four months.”
+
+“I don’t believe she ever saw him,” said the judge. “No, it is only a
+nervous attack.”
+
+“Attack of the heart, more likely,” said the notary.
+
+Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the
+marriage “in extremis” which they dreaded,--the only sure means by which
+the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw
+a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying
+his son to Ursula.
+
+“If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,”
+ replied Bongrand after a pause. “Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+infatuated with her noble blood.”
+
+“Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres,” replied the notary,
+on the point of betraying himself.
+
+Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that
+before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret
+for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his
+daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he
+was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred
+thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene
+was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene
+too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.
+
+“I shall have to come down to the mayor’s daughter,” he thought.
+“But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle
+Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to
+manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really loves
+him.”
+
+The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the
+garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
+
+“What ails you, my child?” he said. “Your life is my life. Without your
+smiles what would become of me?”
+
+“Savinien in prison!” she said.
+
+With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+sob.
+
+“Saved!” thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great
+anxiety. “Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife,” he
+thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula’s heart, applying
+his ear to it. “Ah, that’s all right,” he said to himself. “I did not
+know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet,” he added, looking at
+her; “but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all
+that has passed between you.”
+
+“I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other,” she
+answered, sobbing. “But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that
+you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!”
+
+“Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you
+put that little red dot against Saint Savinien’s day just as you put one
+before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little
+love-affair.”
+
+Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was
+silence between them.
+
+“Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor,
+and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been.”
+
+“No, no, dear godfather,” she said. “I will open my heart to you. Last
+May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child,
+and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except
+perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother’s
+fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I
+had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the
+windows in Monsieur Savinien’s room open; and Monsieur Savinien was
+there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements
+there was such grace--I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed
+his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white
+throat--so round!--must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and
+face and that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when
+I watch you arranging your beard. There came--I don’t know how--a
+sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so
+violently that I sat down--I couldn’t stand, I trembled so. But I longed
+to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just for
+play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and--”
+
+“And?”
+
+“And then,” she continued, “I hid myself--I was ashamed, but happy--why
+should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling--it dazzled my soul and
+gave it some power, but I don’t know what--it came again each time I saw
+within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as it
+was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur
+Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his clothes, even the tap
+of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little
+thing about him--his hand with the delicate glove--acted like a spell
+upon me; and yet I had strength enough not to think of him during
+mass. When the service was over I stayed in the church to let Madame de
+Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind him. I couldn’t tell you
+how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round
+to fasten the iron gate--”
+
+“Where was La Bougival?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Oh, I let her go to the kitchen,” said Ursula simply. “Then I saw
+Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh! godfather,
+I was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of surprise and
+admiration--I don’t know what I would not do to make him look at me
+again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore
+but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for any good
+I do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of
+myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to Paris that evening, and I have
+not seen him since. The street seems empty; he took my heart away with
+him--but he does not know it.”
+
+“Is that all?” asked the old man.
+
+“All, dear godfather,” she said, with a sigh of regret that there was
+not more to tell.
+
+“My little girl,” said the doctor, putting her on his knee; “you are
+nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your
+blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which
+will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of
+exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child, is love,”
+ said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,--“love in its
+holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming
+like a thief who takes all--yes, all! I expected it. I have studied
+women; many need proofs and miracles of affection before love
+conquers them; but others there are, under the influence of sympathies
+explainable to-day by magnetic fluids, who are possessed by it in an
+instant. To you I can now tell all--as soon as I saw the charming woman
+whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her forever, solely and
+faithfully, without knowing whether our characters or persons suited
+each other. Is there a second-sight in love? What answer can I give to
+that, I who have seen so many unions formed under celestial auspices
+only to be ruptured later, giving rise to hatreds that are well-nigh
+eternal, to repugnances that are unconquerable. The senses sometimes
+harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some persons live more by
+their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is also true; often minds
+agree and persons displease. These phenomena, the varying and secret
+cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws which give parents
+supreme power over the marriages of their children; for a young girl is
+often duped by one or other of these hallucinations. Therefore I do not
+blame you. The sensations you feel, the rush of sensibility which has
+come from its hidden source upon your heart and upon your mind, the
+happiness with which you think of Savinien, are all natural. But,
+my darling child, society demands, as our good abbe has told us, the
+sacrifice of many natural inclinations. The destinies of men and women
+differ. I was able to choose Ursula Mirouet for my wife; I could go to
+her and say that I loved her; but a young girl is false to herself if
+she asks the love of the man she loves. A woman has not the right which
+men have to seek the accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is
+to her--above all to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which
+protects the secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me
+these first emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than
+admit to Savinien--”
+
+“Oh, yes!” she said.
+
+“But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+must forget them.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even if
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you--”
+
+“I never thought of it.”
+
+“But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to
+give him your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had
+subjected him to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been
+such as to make families distrust him and to put obstacles between
+himself and heiresses which cannot be easily overcome.”
+
+A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula’s sweet face as she said,
+“Then poverty is good sometimes.”
+
+The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+
+“What has he done, godfather?” she asked.
+
+“In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up
+in Saint-Pelagie, the debtor’s prison; an impropriety which will always
+be, in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is willing to
+plunge his poor mother into poverty and distress might cause his wife,
+as your poor father did, to die of despair.”
+
+“Don’t you think he will do better?” she asked.
+
+“If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don’t know a
+worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means.”
+
+This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:--
+
+“If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you a
+right to advise him; you can remonstrate--”
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor, imitating her, “and then he can come here, and
+the old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and--”
+
+“I was thinking only of him,” said Ursula, blushing.
+
+“Don’t think of him, my child; it would be folly,” said the doctor
+gravely. “Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to
+the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with
+whom?--with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment,
+without money, and whose father--alas! I must now tell you all--was the
+bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law.”
+
+“O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I
+will not think of him again--except in my prayers,” she said, amid the
+sobs which this painful revelation excited. “Give him what you meant to
+give me--what can a poor girl like me want?--ah, in prison, he!--”
+
+“Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us.”
+
+There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not
+dare to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply
+moved to see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks. The
+tears of old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+
+“Oh what is it?” cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and kissing
+his hands. “Are you not sure of me?”
+
+“I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to
+cause the first great sorrow of your life!” he said. “I suffer as
+much as you. I never wept before, except when I lost my children--and,
+Ursula--Yes,” he cried suddenly, “I will do all you desire!”
+
+Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning.
+She smiled.
+
+“Let us go into the salon, darling,” said the doctor. “Try to keep
+the secret of all this to yourself,” he added, leaving her alone for a
+moment in his study.
+
+He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he
+might say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+
+Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her
+frigid little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital of
+her troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her hand
+some letters which he had just returned to her after reading them; these
+letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside
+a square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lady was
+looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up
+in his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to
+valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests,--a sign of profound
+meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+
+This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished
+with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed
+the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it.
+The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady’s one servant, required,
+for comfort’s sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on
+one of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The old damask curtains
+of light green with green flowers were drawn, and the outside blinds had
+been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table, leaving the rest of
+the room in semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say that between the two
+windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing the famous Admiral de
+Portenduere, the rival of the Suffren, Guichen, Kergarouet and Simeuse
+naval heroes? On the paneled wall opposite to the fireplace were
+portraits of the Vicomte de Portenduere and of the mother of the old
+lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien’s great-uncle was therefore the
+Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the Comte de Portenduere,
+grandson of the admiral,--both of them very rich.
+
+The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de
+Portenduere at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count
+represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the
+younger. The count, who was over forty years of age and married to
+a rich wife, had three children. His fortune, increased by various
+legacies, amounted, it was said, to sixty thousand francs a year. As
+deputy from Isere he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought
+the hotel de Portenduere with the indemnities he obtained under
+the Villele law. The vice-admiral had recently married his niece by
+marriage, for the sole purpose of securing his money to her.
+
+The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy,
+young and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the
+influence of an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years
+of age, been a lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son
+should go into either naval or military service, had kept him at Nemours
+under the tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon’s assistants, hoping that
+she could keep him near her until her death. She meant to marry him to a
+demoiselle d’Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year;
+to whose hand the name of Portenduere and the farm at Bordieres enabled
+him to pretend. This narrow but judicious plan, which would have carried
+the family to a second generation, was already balked by events.
+The d’Aiglemonts were ruined, and one of the daughters, Helene, had
+disappeared, and the mystery of her disappearance was never solved.
+
+The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his mother,
+so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as they were,
+and swore that he would never live in the provinces--comprehending,
+rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the Rue des
+Bourgeois. At twenty-one years of age he left his mother’s house to make
+acquaintance with his relations, and try his luck in Paris. The contrast
+between life in Paris and life in Nemours was likely to be fatal to a
+young man of twenty-one, free, with no one to say him nay, naturally
+eager for pleasure, and for whom his name and his connections opened the
+doors of all the salons. Quite convinced that his mother had the savings
+of many years in her strong-box, Savinien soon spent the six thousand
+francs which she had given him to see Paris. That sum did not defray his
+expenses for six months, and he soon owed double that sum to his hotel,
+his tailor, his boot maker, to the man from whom he hired his
+carriages and horses, to a jeweler,--in short, to all those traders and
+shopkeepers who contribute to the luxury of young men.
+
+He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to
+wear his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his
+cravat, before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand francs,
+while still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his love for
+the sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame de Serizy,
+whose youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+
+“How is that you all manage?” asked Savinien one day, at the end of a
+gay breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate
+as the young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all
+aiming for the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality.
+“You were no richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you
+contrive to maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but
+debts.”
+
+“We all began that way,” answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh
+was echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet, and
+others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+
+“Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an exception,”
+ said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming intimate with
+these young men. “Any one but he,” added Finot bowing to that personage,
+“would have been ruined by it.”
+
+“A true remark,” said Maxime de Trailles.
+
+“And a true idea,” added Rastignac.
+
+“My dear fellow,” said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; “debts are the
+capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors for
+all branches, who don’t teach you anything, costs sixty thousand francs.
+If the education of the world does cost double, at least it teaches you
+to understand life, politics, men,--and sometimes women.”
+
+Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: “The
+world sells dearly what we think it gives.”
+
+Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest
+pilots of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a
+joke.
+
+“Take care, my dear fellow,” said de Marsay one day. “You have a great
+name; if you don’t obtain the fortune that name requires you’ll end your
+days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. ‘We have seen the fall of
+nobler heads,’” he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he took
+Savinien’s arm. “About six years ago,” he continued, “a young Comte
+d’Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the paradise
+of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket. He rose to
+the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town, where he is
+now expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a game of whist
+at two sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your situation, candidly,
+without shame; she will understand it and be very useful to you.
+Whereas, if you play the charade of first love with her she will pose
+as a Raffaelle Madonna, practice all the little games of innocence
+upon you, and take you journeying at enormous cost through the Land of
+Sentiment.”
+
+Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to
+which she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs,
+which was all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close
+of the first year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot of
+Madame de Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as the
+saying is, forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient of
+borrowing. One of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his cousin the
+Comte de Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to Gobseck or
+Gigonnet or Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother’s means, would
+give him an easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help of renewals
+enabled him to lead a happy life for nearly eighteen months. Without
+daring to leave Madame de Serizy the poor boy had fallen madly in love
+with the beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet, a prude after the fashion
+of young women who are awaiting the death of an old husband and making
+capital of their virtue in the interests of a second marriage. Quite
+incapable of understanding that calculating virtue is invulnerable,
+Savinien paid court to Emilie de Kergarouet in all the splendor of
+a rich man. He never missed either ball or theater at which she was
+present.
+
+“You haven’t powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock,” said de
+Marsay, laughing.
+
+That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely
+wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a
+prison were needed to convince Savinien.
+
+A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the
+money-lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the young
+man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default of one
+hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of his
+friends, to the debtor’s prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as the fact
+was known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to see him,
+and each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when they found
+how really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him had been seized
+except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The three young men (who
+brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed Savinien’s situation
+while drinking de Marsay’s wine, ostensibly to arrange for his future
+but really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+
+“When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere,” cried Rastignac, “and
+has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be
+put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there,
+my good fellow.”
+
+“Why didn’t you tell me?” cried de Marsay. “You could have had my
+traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction for
+Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we could
+have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what ass
+ever led you to drink of that cursed spring.”
+
+“Des Lupeaulx.”
+
+The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought
+and suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+
+“Explain all your resources; show us your hand,” said de Marsay.
+
+When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and the
+little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without other
+grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when he had
+valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish cement, and
+put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies looked at each
+other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of the abbe
+in Alfred de Musset’s “Marrons du feu” (which had then just
+appeared),--“Sad!”
+
+“Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter,” said Rastignac.
+
+“Yes, but afterwards?” cried de Marsay.
+
+“If you had merely been put in the fiacre,” said Lucien, “the government
+would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie isn’t the
+antechamber of an embassy.”
+
+“You are not strong enough for Parisian life,” said Rastignac.
+
+“Let us consider the matter,” said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as a
+jockey examines a horse. “You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a white
+forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which
+suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you’ve a foot that tells
+race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. You
+are what I call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of the style
+Louis XII., hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have the thing
+that pleases women, a something, I don’t know what it is, which men take
+no account of themselves; it is in the air, the manner, the tone of
+the voice, the dart of the eye, the gesture,--in short, in a number of
+little things which women see and to which they attach a meaning which
+escapes us. You don’t know your merits, my dear fellow. Take a certain
+tone and style and in six months you’ll captivate an English-woman with
+a hundred thousand pounds; but you must call yourself viscount, a title
+which belongs to you. My charming step-mother, Lady Dudley, who has not
+her equal for matching two hearts, will find you some such woman in the
+fens of Great Britain. What you must now do is to get the payment of
+your debts postponed for ninety days. Why didn’t you tell us about them?
+The money-lenders at Baden would have spared you--served you perhaps;
+but now, after you have once been in prison, they’ll despise you. A
+money-lender is, like society, like the masses, down on his knees before
+the man who is strong enough to trick him, and pitiless to the lambs.
+To the eyes of some persons Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the
+souls of young men. Do you want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I
+told that little d’Esgrignon: ‘Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep
+enough to live on for three years, and marry some girl in the provinces
+who can bring you an income of thirty thousand francs.’ In the course of
+three years you can surely find some virtuous heiress who is willing to
+call herself Madame la Vicomtesse de Portenduere. Such is virtue,--let’s
+drink to it. I give you a toast: ‘The girl with money!”
+
+The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to
+each other: “He’s not strong enough!” “He’s quite crushed.” “I don’t
+believe he’ll pull through it?”
+
+The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two pages.
+Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote first to
+her son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the Comte de
+Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+
+The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was holding
+in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her appeal,
+which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her heart.
+
+
+Paris, September, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+Madame,--You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I both feel
+in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de Kergarouet grieves me all
+the more because our house was a home to your son; we were proud of him.
+If Savinien had had more confidence in the admiral we could have taken
+him to live with us, and he would already have obtained some good
+situation. But, unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of
+his own accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing
+of his pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because
+Savinien has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the authorities
+to arrest him.
+
+If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed our
+relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him to travel
+in Germany while his affairs were being settled here. Monsieur de
+Kergarouet intended to get him a place in the War office; but this
+imprisonment for debt will paralyze such efforts. You must pay his
+debts; let him enter the navy; he will make his way like the true
+Portenduere that he is; he has the fire of the family in his beautiful
+black eyes, and we will all help him.
+
+Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom I
+beg you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our best
+wishes, with the respects of
+
+Your very affectionate servant, Emilie de Kergarouet.
+
+
+The second letter was as follows:--
+
+
+Portenduere, August, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+My dear aunt,--I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien’s pranks.
+As I am married and the father of two sons and one daughter, my fortune,
+already too small for my position and prospects, cannot be lessened to
+ransom a Portenduere from the hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his
+debts, and come and live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive
+the welcome we owe you, even though our views may not be entirely in
+accordance with yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to
+marry Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in this
+part of the country, where there are a number of rich girls who would be
+delighted to enter our family.
+
+My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give us,
+and I beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this plan,
+together with my affectionate respects.
+
+Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+
+
+“What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!” cried the old Breton lady,
+wiping her eyes.
+
+“The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison,” said the Abbe
+Chaperon at last; “the countess alone read your letter, and has answered
+it for him. But you must decide at once on some course,” he added after
+a pause, “and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do not sell your
+farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four years; in a few
+months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs and get a premium
+for double that amount. Borrow what you need of some honest man,--not
+from the townspeople who make a business of mortgages. Your neighbour
+here is a most worthy man; a man of good society, who knew it as it was
+before the Revolution, who was once an atheist, and is now an earnest
+Catholic. Do not let your feelings debar you from going to his house
+this very evening; he will fully understand the step you take; forget
+for a moment that you are a Kergarouet.”
+
+“Never!” said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+
+“Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will
+lend you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three
+per cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased
+with him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,--for he will
+have to go there to sell out his funds,--and he can bring the lad back
+to you.”
+
+“Are you speaking of that little Minoret?”
+
+“That little Minoret is eighty-three years old,” said the abbe, smiling.
+“My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don’t wound him,--he
+might be useful to you in other ways.”
+
+“What ways?”
+
+“He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl--”
+
+“Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?”
+
+The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant words,
+the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he was about
+to make.
+
+“I think Doctor Minoret is very rich,” he said.
+
+“So much the better for him.”
+
+“You have indirectly caused your son’s misfortunes by refusing to give
+him a profession; beware for the future,” said the abbe sternly. “Am I
+to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming?”
+
+“Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?” she replied.
+
+“Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he
+comes to you you will pay him five,” said the abbe, inventing this
+reason to influence the old lady. “And if you are forced to sell your
+farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse
+to lend you the money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you
+would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the
+Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your
+farm and know that your son is in prison.”
+
+“They know it! oh, do they know it?” she exclaimed, throwing up
+her arms. “There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold!
+Tiennette, Tiennette!”
+
+Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short
+gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe’s coffee to
+warm it.
+
+“Let be, Monsieur le recteur,” she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+drink it, “I’ll just put it into the bain-marie, it won’t spoil it.”
+
+“Well,” said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+voice, “I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will
+come--”
+
+The old mother did not yield till after an hour’s discussion, during
+which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times.
+And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the
+words, “Savinien would go.”
+
+“It is better that I should go than he,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SAVINIEN SAVED
+
+The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large door
+of Madame de Portenduere’s house closed on the abbe, who immediately
+crossed the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor’s gate. He fell
+from Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, “Why do you come so
+late, Monsieur l’abbe?” as the other had said, “Why do you leave Madame
+so early when she is in trouble?”
+
+The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown
+salon; for Dionis had stopped at Massin’s on his way home to re-assure
+the heirs by repeating their uncle’s words.
+
+“I believe Ursula has a love-affair,” said he, “which will be nothing
+but pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic” (extreme sensibility
+is so called by notaries), “and, you’ll see, she won’t marry soon.
+Therefore, don’t show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and
+very respectful to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,”
+ added the notary--without being aware that Goupil is a corruption of the
+word vulpes, a fox.
+
+So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master and
+Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual
+and noisy party in the doctor’s salon. As the abbe entered he heard
+the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of
+Beethoven’s. With girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music,
+which must be studied to be understood, for the purpose of disgusting
+these women with the thing they coveted. The finer the music the less
+ignorant persons like it. So, when the door opened and the abbe’s
+venerable head appeared they all cried out: “Ah! here’s Monsieur
+l’abbe!” in a tone of relief, delighted to jump up and put an end to
+their torture.
+
+The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the
+Nemours doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with
+which the collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had
+proposed to take the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The
+doctor rose as if to receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the
+game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency
+of his goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+
+“Good-night, my friends,” cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+
+“Ah! that’s where the money goes,” said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, as they walked on.
+
+“God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+such a din as that!” cried Madame Massin.
+
+“She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician,” said
+the collector; “he has quite a reputation.”
+
+“Not in Nemours, I’m sure of that,” said Madame Cremiere.
+
+“I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away,” said
+Massin; “for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+music-book.”
+
+“If that’s the sort of charivari they like,” said the post master, “they
+are quite right to keep it to themselves.”
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful
+racket,” said Madame Cremiere.
+
+“I shall never be able to play before persons who don’t understand
+music,” Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+
+“In natures richly organized,” said the abbe, “sentiments can be
+developed only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable to
+give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree
+dies in a clay soil, so a musician’s genius has a mental eclipse when he
+is surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from
+the souls who make the environment of our souls as much intensity as we
+convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made
+into proverbs: ‘Howl with the wolves’; ‘Like meets like.’ But the
+suffering you felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures only.”
+
+“And so, friends,” said the doctor, “a thing which would merely give
+pain to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here,
+I charge you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,--‘Ut flos,’
+etc.,--a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and
+the world.”
+
+“And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula,” said Monsieur Bongrand,
+smiling.
+
+“Flattered her grossly,” remarked the Nemours doctor.
+
+“I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is,” said old Minoret.
+“Why is that?”
+
+“A true thought has its own delicacy,” said the abbe.
+
+“Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?” asked Ursula, with a look of
+anxious curiosity.
+
+“Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may come
+to see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret.”
+
+Ursula pressed her godfather’s hand under the table.
+
+“Her son,” said Bongrand, “was rather too simple-minded to live in Paris
+without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made here about
+the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting her death.”
+
+“Is it possible you think him capable of it?” said Ursula, with such
+a terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather
+sadly, “Alas! yes, she loves him.”
+
+“Yes and no,” said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula’s question.
+“There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now in
+prison; a scamp wouldn’t have got there.”
+
+“Don’t let us talk about it any more,” said old Minoret. “The poor
+mother must not be allowed to weep if there’s a way to dry her tears.”
+
+The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the gate,
+saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and as
+soon as Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with La
+Bougival beside her.
+
+“Madame la vicomtesse,” said the abbe, who entered first into the little
+salon, “Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you should have
+the trouble of coming to him--”
+
+“I am too much of the old school, madame,” interrupted the doctor, “not
+to know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very glad to
+be able, as Monsieur l’abbe tells me, to be of service to you.”
+
+Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so
+much that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the
+notary instead, was surprised by Minoret’s attention to such a degree
+that she rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+
+“Be seated, monsieur,” she said with a regal air. “Our dear abbe has
+told you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful
+debts,--a hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him I
+would secure you on my farm at Bordieres.”
+
+“We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to
+you--if you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter.”
+
+“Very good, monsieur,” she said, bowing her head and looking at the abbe
+as if to say, “You were right; he really is a man of good society.”
+
+“You see, madame,” said the abbe, “that my friend the doctor is full of
+devotion to your family.”
+
+“We shall be grateful, monsieur,” said Madame de Portenduere, making
+a visible effort; “a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a
+prodigal, is--”
+
+“Madame, I had the honor to meet, in ‘65, the illustrious Admiral de
+Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes, and
+also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to question
+him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur de
+Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the glorious
+days of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of Great Britain,
+and its officers had their full quota of courage. With what impatience
+we awaited in ‘83 and ‘84 the news from St. Roch. I came very near
+serving as surgeon in the king’s service. Your great-uncle, who is still
+living, Admiral Kergarouet, fought his splendid battle at that time in
+the ‘Belle-Poule.’”
+
+“Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!”
+
+“He would not leave him there a day,” said old Minoret, rising.
+
+He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed him
+to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left the
+room; but returned immediately to say:--
+
+“My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+to-morrow?”
+
+The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his
+friend, who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces of
+the old lady.
+
+“He is an astonishing man for his age,” she said. “He talks of going to
+Paris and attending to my son’s affairs as if he were only twenty-five.
+He has certainly seen good society.”
+
+“The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of France
+would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if that
+idea should come into Savinien’s head!--times are so changed that the
+objections would not come from your side, especially after his late
+conduct--”
+
+The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled him
+to finish it.
+
+“You have lost your senses,” she said at last.
+
+“Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+future in a manner to win that old man’s respect.”
+
+“If it were not you, Monsieur l’abbe,” said Madame de Portenduere, “if
+it were any one else who spoke to me in that way--”
+
+“You would not see him again,” said the abbe, smiling. “Let us hope that
+your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in these
+days as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien’s good; as you
+really have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in the
+way of his making himself another position.”
+
+“And it is you who say that to me?”
+
+“If I did not say it to you, who would?” cried the abbe rising and
+making a hasty retreat.
+
+As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the
+whole coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still
+open.
+
+The next day at half-past six o’clock the old man and the young girl
+reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a
+fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between
+the press and the court was not made up. Minoret’s notary now indirectly
+approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his
+journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his shares in the
+Funds, all of which were then at a high value, depositing the proceeds
+in the Bank of France. The notary also advised his client to sell the
+stocks left to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He promised to employ an
+extremely clever broker to treat with Savinien’s creditors; but said
+that in order to succeed it would be necessary for the young man to stay
+several days longer in prison.
+
+“Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+cent,” said the notary. “Besides, you can’t get your money under seven
+or eight days.”
+
+When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week longer
+in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only once. Old
+Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel in the
+Rue Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very suitable
+apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his goddaughter
+he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at other times
+he took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards; but nothing
+seemed to amuse or interest her.
+
+“What do you want to do?” asked the old man.
+
+“See Saint-Pelagie,” she answered obstinately.
+
+Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef, where
+the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent then
+transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls, with
+every window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter without
+stooping (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in a quarter
+full of wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets like a supreme
+misery,--this assemblage of dismal things so oppressed Ursula’s heart
+that she burst into tears.
+
+“Oh!” she said, “to imprison young men in this dreadful place for money!
+How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not? _He_
+there!” she cried. “Where, godfather?” she added, looking from window to
+window.
+
+“Ursula,” said the old man, “you are making me commit great follies.
+This is not forgetting him as you promised.”
+
+“But,” she argued, “if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel an
+interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all.”
+
+“Ah!” cried the doctor, “there is so much reason in your
+unreasonableness that I am sorry I brought you.”
+
+Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the
+legal papers ready for Savinien’s release. The payings, including the
+notaries’ fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went
+himself to see Savinien released on Saturday at two o’clock. The young
+viscount, already informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked
+his liberator with sincere warmth of heart.
+
+“You must return at once to see your mother,” the old doctor said to
+him.
+
+Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted certain
+debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his friends.
+
+“I suspected there was some personal debt,” cried the doctor, smiling.
+“Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid
+out only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend it,
+monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the green
+cloth of fortune.”
+
+During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated
+hard work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of day.
+Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his time and
+required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere, which his
+mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in Paris. His cousin
+the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor figure in the Elective
+Chamber in presence of the peerage and the court; and had none too much
+credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet existed only as the husband of his
+wife. Savinien admitted to himself that he had seen orators, men from
+the middle classes, or lesser noblemen, become influential personages.
+Money was the pivot, the sole means, the only mechanism of a society
+which Louis XVIII. had tried to create in the likeness of that of
+England.
+
+On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs
+the young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which were
+certainly in keeping with de Marsay’s advice) to the old doctor.
+
+“I ought,” he said, “to go into oblivion for three or four years and
+seek a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions of
+the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady who
+could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence and
+in obscurity.”
+
+Studying the young fellow’s face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself.
+He therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+
+“My friend,” he said, “if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+(which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner,
+to find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and
+possessing from seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make
+you happy and of whom you will have every reason to be proud,--one whose
+only nobility is that of the heart!”
+
+“Ah, doctor!” cried the young man, “there is no longer a nobility in
+these days,--nothing but an aristocracy.”
+
+“Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me,” said the old man.
+
+That evening, at six o’clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien, who
+once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss
+which invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely
+forgotten the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover,
+his hopeless love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing
+a thought on a few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He did
+not recognize her when the doctor handed her into the coach and then sat
+down beside her to separate her from the young viscount.
+
+“I have some bills to give you,” said the doctor to the young man. “I
+have brought all your papers and documents.”
+
+“I came very near not getting off,” said Savinien, “for I had to order
+linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+prodigal.”
+
+However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the young
+man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain remarks
+of the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after dusk, her
+green veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+
+“Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much,” said
+Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+
+“I am glad to return to Nemours,” she answered in a trembling voice
+raising her veil.
+
+Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the heavy
+braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+
+“I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that I
+meet my charming neighbour again,” he said; “I hope, Monsieur le docteur
+that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I remember to
+have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula’s piano.”
+
+“I do not know,” replied the doctor gravely, “whether your mother would
+approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care for this
+dear child with all the solicitude of a mother.”
+
+This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great. Savinien
+and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was full
+of projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap,
+dropped upon her uncle’s shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn,
+Savinien awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally
+caused by the jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half off;
+the hair, unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed from
+the heat of the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to whom
+dress is a necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The sleep
+of innocence is always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the pretty
+teeth; the shawl, unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds of her
+muslin gown and without offence to her modesty, the gracefulness of
+her figure. The purity of the virgin spirit shone on the sleeping
+countenance all the more plainly because no other expression was there
+to interfere with it. Old Minoret, who presently woke up, placed his
+child’s head in the corner of the carriage that she might be more at
+ease; and she let him do it unconsciously, so deep was her sleep after
+the many wakeful nights she had spent in thinking of Savinien’s trouble.
+
+“Poor little girl!” said the doctor to his neighbour, “she sleeps like
+the child she is.”
+
+“You must be proud of her,” replied Savinien; “for she seems as good as
+she is beautiful.”
+
+“Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she
+were my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God grant
+that I may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make her
+happy. I wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was for
+the first time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden it.
+‘But,’ I said, ‘when you are married your husband will want you to go
+there.’ ‘I shall do what my husband wants,’ she answered. ‘If he asks me
+to do evil and I am weak enough to yield, he will be responsible before
+God--and so I shall have strength to refuse him, for his own sake.’”
+
+As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of admiration
+which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had taken the
+diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had fallen in
+love with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her soul, the beauty
+of that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy of the features;
+he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive
+sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A
+presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold of him; he saw in Ursula the
+woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words,
+“Seven or eight hundred thousand francs.”
+
+“In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be
+twenty-seven,” he thought. “The good doctor talked of probation, work,
+good conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth.”
+
+The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave
+Ursula a parting glance.
+
+Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor
+and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass.
+Savinien’s release and his return in company with the doctor had
+explained the reason of the latter’s absence to the newsmongers of the
+town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on
+the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended
+his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de
+Portenduere, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered
+her his arm and took her home. The old lady asked him to dinner that
+evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the abbe would be
+the only other guest.
+
+“He must have wished Ursula to see Paris,” said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+“Pest!” cried Cremiere; “he can’t take a step without that girl!”
+
+“Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,”
+ said Massin.
+
+“So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+released that little Savinien?” cried Goupil. “He refused Dionis, but he
+didn’t refuse Madame de Portenduere--Ha, ha! you are all done for. The
+viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and the
+doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he
+has now paid to secure the alliance.”
+
+“It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien,” said the butcher.
+“The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came
+early for a filet.”
+
+“Well, Dionis, here’s a fine to-do!” said Massin, rushing up to the
+notary, who was entering the square.
+
+“What is? It’s all going right,” returned the notary. “Your uncle has
+sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness the
+signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand francs,
+lent to her by your uncle.”
+
+“Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?”
+
+“That’s as if you said Goupil was to be my successor.”
+
+“The two things are not so impossible,” said Goupil.
+
+On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform
+her son that she wished to see him.
+
+The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame
+de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a
+large dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little
+antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other
+room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the
+street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room
+for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the court.
+Madame de Portenduere’s bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked
+into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the
+ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the kitchen built at
+the end of the court, so that this salon was made to answer the double
+purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+
+The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had
+left it on the day of his death; there was no change except that he was
+absent. Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying upon it
+the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The
+gold snuff-box from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last
+time was on the table, with his prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from
+which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed,
+hung above a crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little
+ornaments he had worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon,
+his spy-glass hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had
+stopped the hands of the clock at the hour of his death, to which they
+always pointed. The room still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of
+the deceased. The hearth was as he left it. To her, entering there, he
+was again visible in the many articles which told of his daily habits.
+His tall cane with its gold head was where he had last placed it, with
+his buckskin gloves close by. On a table against the wall stood a gold
+vase, of coarse workmanship but worth three thousand francs, a gift from
+Havana, which city, at the time of the American War of Independence, he
+had protected from an attack by the British, bringing his convoy safe
+into port after an engagement with superior forces. To recompense this
+service the King of Spain had made him a knight of his order; the
+same event gave him a right to the next promotion to the rank of
+vice-admiral, and he also received the red ribbing. He then married his
+wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred thousand francs. But
+the Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduere
+emigrated.
+
+“Where is my mother?” said Savinien to Tiennette.
+
+“She is waiting for you in your father’s room,” said the old Breton
+woman.
+
+Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother’s rigid
+principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility,
+and he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart beating
+and his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered through the
+blinds he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air of solemnity
+in keeping with that funereal room.
+
+“Monsieur le vicomte,” she said when she saw him, rising and taking his
+hand to lead him to his father’s bed, “there died your father,--a man of
+honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His spirit
+is there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son degraded by
+imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain could have been
+spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and shutting you up for a
+few days in a military prison.--But you are here; you stand before your
+father, who hears you. You know all that you did before you were sent
+to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to me before your father’s shade,
+and in presence of God who sees all, that you have done no dishonorable
+act; that your debts are the result of youthful folly, and that your
+honor is untarnished? If your blameless father were there, sitting
+in that armchair, and asking an explanation of your conduct, could he
+embrace you after having heard it?”
+
+“Yes, mother,” replied the young man, with grave respect.
+
+She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few tears.
+
+“Let us forget it all, my son,” she said; “it is only a little less
+money. I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy
+of your name, kiss me--for I have suffered much.”
+
+“I swear, mother,” he said, laying his hand upon the bed, “to give you
+no further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair these
+first faults.”
+
+“Come and breakfast, my child,” she said, turning to leave the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+
+In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs
+something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover,
+the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates
+to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied
+to the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the
+spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours,
+where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible
+marriage of her son with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social
+laws have their exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother’s
+pride before the inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once.
+As soon as they were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible
+letters, as she called them, which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres
+had written her.
+
+“There is no such thing as family in these days, mother,” replied
+Savinien, “nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, ‘What taxes does he pay?’”
+
+“But the king?” asked the old lady.
+
+“The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife
+and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without
+regard to family,--the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is
+sufficiently well brought-up--that is to say, if she has been taught in
+school.”
+
+“Oh! there’s no need to talk of that,” said the old lady.
+
+Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called
+Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he resolved to know
+at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+
+“So,” he went on, “if I loved a young girl,--take for instance your
+neighbour’s godchild, little Ursula,--would you oppose my marriage?”
+
+“Yes, as long as I live,” she replied; “and after my death you would
+be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+Portendueres.”
+
+“Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobility,
+which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of great wealth?”
+
+“You could serve France and put faith in God.”
+
+“Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?”
+
+“It would be horrible if you took it then,--that is all I have to say.”
+
+“Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu.”
+
+“Mazarin himself opposed it.”
+
+“Remember the widow Scarron.”
+
+“She was a d’Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very
+old, my son,” she said, shaking her head. “When I am no more you can, as
+you say, marry whom you please.”
+
+Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal
+to her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this
+opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of
+a forbidden thing.
+
+When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink
+and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with
+nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen
+of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the
+doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her
+eyes, and the old lady herself the social value which a duchess of the
+Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula
+measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated Vicomte
+de Portenduere from the daughter of a regimental musician, a former
+opera-singer and the natural son of an organist.
+
+“What is the matter, my dear?” said the old lady, making the girl sit
+down beside her.
+
+“Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me--”
+
+“My little girl,” said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. “I
+know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to him,
+for he has brought back my prodigal son.”
+
+“But, my dear mother,” said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the
+color fly into Ursula’s face as she struggled to keep back her tears,
+“even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret,
+I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle
+has given us by accepting your invitation.”
+
+The young man pressed the doctor’s hand in a significant manner, adding:
+“I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order
+in France, and one which confers nobility.”
+
+Ursula’s extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a depth
+which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where the
+soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduere
+suddenly, and made her suspect that the doctor’s apparent generosity
+masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien
+replied with the intention of wounding the doctor in that which was
+dearest to him; and she succeeded, though the old man could hardly
+restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a “chevalier,” amused to
+observe how the eagerness of a lover did not shrink from absurdity.
+
+“The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to
+obtain,” he said, “has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other
+privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have
+done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor
+devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order
+of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic.”
+
+After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned,
+which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when
+there was a rap at the door.
+
+“There is our dear abbe,” said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,--an honor she had not
+paid to the doctor and his niece.
+
+The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere’s
+manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid
+it. He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was
+then running by confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de
+Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid
+all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady,
+in an easy, jesting way, a packet of legal papers and receipted bills,
+together with the account of his notary.
+
+“Has my son verified them?” she said, giving Savinien a look, to which
+he replied by bending his head. “Well, then the rest is my notary’s
+business,” she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair
+with the disdain she wished to show for money.
+
+To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere’s ideas, to
+elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+
+A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for
+the accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+
+“Why do you want them?” said the old lady.
+
+“To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments.”
+
+Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance with
+offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching
+a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the
+same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name
+in any language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of
+the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to
+Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some
+way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble; but she controlled herself,
+conscious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her
+emotion.
+
+“He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis,” said Savinien, when
+Goupil had closed the door.
+
+“What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?” said
+Madame de Portenduere.
+
+“I don’t complain of his ugliness,” said the abbe, “but I do of his
+wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain.”
+
+The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and
+dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the
+kindly good-humor of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the
+dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been almost
+intolerable. At dessert, seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to her:--
+
+“If you don’t feel well, dear child, we have only the street to cross.”
+
+“What is the matter, my dear?” said the old lady to the girl.
+
+“Madame,” said the doctor severely, “her soul is chilled, accustomed as
+she is to be met by smiles.”
+
+“A very bad education, monsieur,” said Madame de Portenduere. “Is it
+not, Monsieur l’abbe?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how
+to reply. “I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic
+spirit if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die
+until I place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and
+hatred--”
+
+“Oh, godfather--I beg of you--say no more. There is nothing the matter
+with me,” cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere’s eyes rather than
+give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+
+“I cannot know, madame,” said Savinien to his mother, “whether
+Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me.”
+
+Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his
+mother’s treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de
+Portenduere to excuse her; then she took her uncle’s arm, bowed, left
+the room, and returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and sat
+down to the piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears.
+
+“Why don’t you leave the management of your affairs to my old
+experience, cruel child?” cried the doctor in despair. “Nobles never
+think themselves under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we
+do them a service they consider that we do our duty, and that’s all.
+Besides, the old lady saw that you looked favorably on Savinien; she is
+afraid he will love you.”
+
+“At any rate he is saved!” said Ursula. “But ah! to try to humiliate a
+man like you!”
+
+“Wait till I return, my child,” said the old man leaving her.
+
+When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere’s salon he found Dionis
+the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of Nemours,
+witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all communes
+where there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis aside and
+said a word in his ear, after which the notary read the deeds aloud
+officially; from which it appeared that Madame de Portenduere gave a
+mortgage on all her property to secure payment of the hundred thousand
+francs, the interest on which was fixed at five per cent. At the reading
+of this last clause the abbe looked at Minoret, who answered with an
+approving nod. The poor priest whispered something in the old lady’s ear
+to which she replied,--
+
+“I will owe nothing to such persons.”
+
+“My mother leaves me the nobler part,” said Savinien to the doctor; “she
+will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude.”
+
+“But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to meet
+the interest and the legal costs,” said the abbe.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Minoret to Dionis, “as Monsieur and Madame de
+Portenduere are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the
+amount of the mortgage and I will pay them.”
+
+Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred and
+seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret made his
+fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the notary and
+witnesses.
+
+“Madame,” said the abbe, “why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those
+debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son
+for his debts of honor?”
+
+“Your Minoret is sly,” she said, taking a pinch of snuff. “He knows what
+he is about.”
+
+“My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by
+getting hold of our farm,” said Savinien; “as if a Portenduere, son of a
+Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will.”
+
+An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor’s house, where
+all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of
+the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its
+effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and
+Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed. The mothers
+said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage. The eyes of all
+present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young
+nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box,
+for he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The
+doctor’s cold manner surprised every one.
+
+“Ursula, my child,” he said, “give us a little music.”
+
+While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her
+in countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of
+pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them,
+so eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and
+the Portendueres.
+
+In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when
+played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more
+impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all
+music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the
+performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both
+meaning and poetry to passages which are in themselves of no great
+value. Chopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the
+truth of this fact, already proved by Paganini on the violin. That
+fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt, and
+communicates itself through all species of music, even simple chords.
+Ursula, by her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged to this
+rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came every
+Saturday and who, during Ursula’s stay in Paris was with her every
+day, had brought his pupil’s talent to its full perfection. “Rousseau’s
+Dream,” the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Herold in his young
+days, is not without a certain depth which is capable of being developed
+by execution. Ursula threw into it the feelings which were agitating her
+being, and justified the term “caprice” given by Herold to the fragment.
+With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke to the young man’s soul and
+wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that were almost visible.
+
+Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and his
+head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed on the
+paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning another world.
+Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less reason. Genuine
+feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was willing to show
+her soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien entered
+that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its
+feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by
+thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness
+of heart have the same power over a man that childhood has; the same
+charm, the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest
+and candid than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+
+The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take
+a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed, all
+except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle
+and the viscount and Ursula.
+
+“You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle,” he said, when the young
+girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. “Who is your
+master?”
+
+“A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti,” said the
+doctor. “If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay
+in Paris he would have been here to-day.”
+
+“He is not only a great musician,” said Ursula, “but a man of adorable
+simplicity of nature.”
+
+“Those lessons must cost a great deal,” remarked Desire.
+
+The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who
+had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air
+of a man who fulfills a duty.
+
+“Monsieur,” he said, “I am grateful for the feeling which leads you
+to make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right
+to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here,
+in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should
+otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother that if
+I do not beg her, in my niece’s name and my own, to do us the honor of
+dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would
+find herself indisposed on that day.”
+
+The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+respectfully, saying:--
+
+“You are quite right, monsieur.”
+
+He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was
+more of sadness than disappointment.
+
+Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+house precipitately.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+
+This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk
+among the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and
+regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+
+So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality puts
+everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even
+military subordination,--that last refuge of power in France, where
+passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+antipathies, or differences of fortune,--the obstinacy of an
+old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a
+barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles often
+do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent man a
+woman’s value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a struggle,
+great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young girl was
+rendered dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps our feelings
+obey the laws of nature as to the lastingness of her creations; to a
+long life a long childhood.
+
+The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if it
+were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl parted her
+curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien’s window, she
+saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects
+on the immense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural
+and right that a tax should be levied on them. Having thus protested
+against her godfather’s harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened
+her window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue
+to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the day
+she went up to her room, always to find the young viscount writing,
+tearing up what he had written, and then writing again--to her, no
+doubt!
+
+The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following
+letter:--
+
+
+To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+
+Mademoiselle,--I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young man
+inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which your
+godfather’s kindness released me. I know that I must in future
+give greater guarantees of good conduct than other men; therefore,
+mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place myself at your feet
+and ask you to consider my love. This declaration is not dictated by
+passion; it comes from an inward certainty which involves the whole of
+life. A foolish infatuation for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was
+the cause of my going to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my
+sincere love the total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now
+effaced from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my soul
+as a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no other wife
+than you. You have every qualification I desire in her who is to bear my
+name. The education you have received and the dignity of your own mind,
+place you on the level of the highest positions. But I doubt myself
+too much to dare describe you to yourself; I can only love you. After
+listening to you yesterday I recalled certain words which seem as though
+written for you; suffer me to transcribe them:--
+
+“Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and intelligent,
+spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she had passed her
+life at court, simple as the hermit who had never known the world, the
+fire of her soul is tempered in her eyes by sacred modesty.”
+
+I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even the
+most trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage to ask you,
+provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you by my conduct and
+my devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It concerns my very life; you
+cannot doubt that all my powers will be employed, not only in trying to
+please you, but in deserving your esteem, which is more precious to me
+than any other upon earth. With this hope, Ursula--if you will suffer
+me so to call you in my heart--Nemours will be to me a paradise, the
+hardest tasks will bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is
+derived from God. Tell me that I may call myself
+
+Your Savinien.
+
+
+Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her
+uncle.
+
+“Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!” she exclaimed, turning
+back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+
+A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda. Ursula
+awaited the old man’s words, and the old man reflected long, too long
+for the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their secret
+interview appeared in the following answer, part of which the doctor
+undoubtedly dictated.
+
+
+To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+
+Monsieur,--I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the letter in
+which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and according to the rules
+of my education, I have felt bound to communicate it to my godfather,
+who is all I have, and whom I love as a father and also as a friend. I
+must now tell you the painful objections which he has made to me, and
+which must be to you my answer.
+
+Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends entirely,
+not only on my godfather’s good-will, but also on the doubtful success
+of the measures he may take to elude the schemes of his relatives
+against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet,
+band-master of the 45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my
+godfather’s natural half-brother; and therefore these relatives may,
+though without reason, being a suit against a young girl who would be
+defenceless. You see, monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not
+my greatest misfortune. I have many things to make me humble. It is for
+your sake, and not for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which
+to loving and devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg
+you to consider, monsieur, that if I did not submit them to you, I might
+be suspected of leading your tenderness to overlook obstacles which the
+world, and more especially your mother, regard as insuperable.
+
+I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we are
+both too young and too inexperienced to understand the miseries of a
+life entered upon without other fortune than that I have received
+from the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My godfather desires,
+moreover, not to marry me until I am twenty. Who knows what fate may
+have in store for you in four years, the finest years of your life? do
+not sacrifice them to a poor girl.
+
+Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear
+godfather, who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to contribute to
+it in every way, and earnestly desires that his protection, which must
+soon fail me, may be replaced by a tenderness equal to his own; there
+remains only to tell you how touched I am by your offer and by the
+compliments which accompany it. The prudence which dictates my letter
+is that of an old man to whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I
+express is that of a young girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has
+arisen.
+
+Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+
+Your servant, Ursula Mirouet.
+
+
+Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who
+suffered from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often
+to her chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting
+pensively before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At
+the end of the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him; the
+delay was explained by his increasing love.
+
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+
+Dear Ursula,--I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up nothing
+can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to us, is right;
+but does it follow that I am wrong in loving you? Therefore, all I want
+to know from you is whether you could love me. Tell me this, if only by
+a sign, and then the next four years will be the finest of my life.
+
+A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral
+Kergarouet, a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy. The
+kind old man, grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the king’s
+favor would be thwarted by the rules of the service in case I wanted
+a certain rank. Nevertheless, if I study three months at Toulon, the
+minister of war can send me to sea as master’s mate; then after a cruise
+against the Algerines, with whom we are now at war, I can go through an
+examination and become a midshipman. Moreover, if I distinguish myself
+in an expedition they are fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly
+be made ensign--but how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make
+the rules as elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again
+in the navy.
+
+I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your
+godfather; and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me. Before
+replying to the admiral, I must have an interview with the doctor; on
+his reply my whole future will depend. Whatever comes of it, know this,
+that rich or poor, the daughter of a band master or the daughter of a
+king, you are the woman whom the voice of my heart points out to me.
+Dear Ursula, we live in times when prejudices which might once have
+separated us have no power to prevent our marriage. To you, then, I
+offer the feelings of my heart, to your uncle the guarantees which
+secure to him your happiness. He has not seen that I, in a few hours,
+came to love you more than he has loved you in fifteen years.
+
+Until this evening. Savinien.
+
+
+“Here, godfather,” said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a
+proud gesture.
+
+“Ah, my child!” cried the doctor when he had read it, “I am happier than
+even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution.”
+
+After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking
+with Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river.
+The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl
+clung to her uncle’s arm as though she were saving herself from a fall
+over a precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which
+made him shudder.
+
+“Leave us, my child,” he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and
+sat upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss it
+respectfully.
+
+“Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?” he said to
+the doctor in a low voice.
+
+“No,” said Minoret, smiling; “we might have to wait too long, but--I
+will give her to a lieutenant.”
+
+Tears of joy filled the young man’s eyes as he pressed the doctor’s hand
+affectionately.
+
+“I am about to leave,” he said, “to study hard and try to learn in six
+months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire.”
+
+“You are going?” said Ursula, springing towards them from the pavilion.
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to go,
+the more I prove to you my affection.”
+
+“This is the 3rd of October,” she said, looking at him with infinite
+tenderness; “do not go till after the 19th.”
+
+“Yes,” said the old man, “we will celebrate Saint-Savinien’s day.”
+
+“Good-by, then,” cried the young man. “I must spend this week in Paris,
+to take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical instruments,
+and try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms that I can for
+myself.”
+
+Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after
+he entered his mother’s house they saw him come out again, followed by
+Tiennette carrying his valise.
+
+“If you are rich,” said Ursula to her uncle, “why do you make him serve
+in the navy?”
+
+“Presently it will be I who incurred his debts,” said the doctor,
+smiling. “I don’t oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear,
+and the cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out many
+stains. Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship, and
+that’s all I ask of him.”
+
+“But he may be killed,” she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+
+“Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own,” he said,
+laughing.
+
+That night the poor child, with La Bougival’s help, cut off a sufficient
+quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a chain; and the
+next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master, to take it to
+Paris and have the chain made and returned by the following Sunday. When
+Savinien got back he informed the doctor and Ursula that he had signed
+his articles and was to be at Brest on the 25th. The doctor asked him to
+dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly two whole days in the old man’s
+house. Notwithstanding much sage advice and many resolutions, the lovers
+could not help betraying their secret understanding to the watchful eyes
+of the abbe, Monsieur Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+
+“Children,” said the old man, “you are risking your happiness by not
+keeping it to yourselves.”
+
+On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered the
+little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind old
+man, by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the pagoda.
+
+“Dear Ursula,” said Savinien; “will you make a gift greater than my
+mother could make me even if--”
+
+“I know what you wish to ask me,” she said, interrupting him. “See, here
+is my answer,” she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the box
+containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with a
+nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. “Wear
+it,” she said, “for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by
+reminding you that my life depends on yours.”
+
+“Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair,” said the
+doctor to himself. “How did she manage to get it? what a pity to cut
+those beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life’s blood
+next.”
+
+“You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving
+you, a formal promise to have no other husband than me,” said Savinien,
+kissing the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his eyes.
+
+“Have I not said so too often--I who went to see the walls of
+Sainte-Pelagie when you were behind them?--” she replied, blushing. “I
+repeat it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be
+yours alone.”
+
+Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man could
+not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and kissing
+her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the bench,
+and when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the doctor
+standing before them.
+
+“My friend,” said the old man, “Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough
+a word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm
+of your love--Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have,
+you would have been satisfied with her word of promise,” he added, to
+revenge himself for the last sentence in Savinien’s second letter.
+
+Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which
+he wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without
+apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single
+thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first
+time her godfather asked her what she felt, she replied:--
+
+“I want to see the ocean.”
+
+“It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,”
+ answered the old man.
+
+“Shall I really go?” she said.
+
+If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite
+of the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien was
+being tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her happy for
+days with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman in uniform.
+She read the newspapers, imagining that they would give news of the
+cruiser on which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper’s sea-tales and
+learned to use sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration of feeling, often
+assumed by other women, were so genuine in Ursula that she saw in dreams
+the coming of Savinien’s letters, and never failed to announce them,
+relating the dream as a forerunner.
+
+“Now,” she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, “I
+am easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+instantly.”
+
+The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his face.
+
+“What pains you?” they said, when Ursula had left them.
+
+“Will she live?” replied the doctor. “Can so tender and delicate a
+flower endure the trials of the heart?”
+
+Nevertheless, the “little dreamer,” as the abbe called her, was working
+hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a woman of
+the world, and all the time she did not give to her singing and to the
+study of harmony and composition she spent in reading the books chosen
+for her by the abbe from her godfather’s rich library. And yet while
+leading this busy life she suffered, though without complaint. Sometimes
+she would sit for hours looking at Savinien’s window. On Sundays she
+would leave the church behind Madame de Portenduere and watch her
+tenderly; for, in spite of the old lady’s harshness, she loved her as
+Savinien’s mother. Her piety increased; she went to mass every morning,
+for she firmly believed that her dreams were the gift of God.
+
+At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to see
+the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien’s ship formed part of
+it, but he was not to be informed beforehand of their intention. The
+abbe and Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of this journey,
+said to be for Ursula’s health, which disturbed and greatly puzzled the
+relations. After beholding Savinien in his naval uniform, and going on
+board the fine flag-ship of the admiral, to whom the minister had given
+young Portenduere a special recommendation, Ursula, at her lover’s
+entreaty, went with her godfather to Nice, and along the shores of the
+Mediterranean to Genoa, where she heard of the safe arrival of the fleet
+at Algiers and the landing of the troops. The doctor would have liked to
+continue the journey through Italy, as much to distract Ursula’s mind as
+to finish, in some sense, her education, by enlarging her ideas through
+comparison with other manners and customs and countries, and by the
+fascination of a land where the masterpieces of art can still be seen,
+and where so many civilizations have left their brilliant traces. But
+the tidings of the opposition by the throne to the newly elected Chamber
+of 1830 obliged the doctor to return to France, bringing back his
+treasure in a flourishing state of health and possessed of a charming
+little model of the ship on which Savinien was serving.
+
+The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+relations,--Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours
+by whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at
+Fontainebleau. Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous
+influence over the country electors. Five of the post master’s farmers
+were electors. Dionis represented eleven votes. After a few meetings
+at the notary’s, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their adherents
+took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor returned,
+Dionis’s office and salon were the camp of his heirs. The justice of
+peace and the mayor, who had formed an alliance, backed by the nobility
+in the neighbouring castles, to resist the liberals of Nemours, now
+worsted in their efforts, were more closely united than ever by their
+defeat.
+
+By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the doctor
+by word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was defined for the
+first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving incidentally such
+importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left Rambouillet for Cherbourg.
+Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, sent for
+fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil and mounted on horses from
+his father’s stable, who arrived in Paris on the night of the 28th.
+With this troop Goupil and Desire took part in the capture of the
+Hotel-de-Veille. Desire was decorated with the Legion of honor and
+appointed deputy procureur du roi at Fontainebleau. Goupil received the
+July cross. Dionis was elected mayor of Nemours, and the city council
+was composed of the post master (now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere,
+and all the adherents of the family faction. Bongrand retained his place
+only through the influence of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose
+marriage with Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+
+Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs in
+shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about two
+hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in the
+same funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand francs a
+year. He made the same disposition of Ursula’s little capital bequeathed
+to her by de Jordy, together with the accrued interest thereon, which
+gave her about fourteen hundred francs a year in her own right. La
+Bougival, who had laid by some five thousand francs of her savings, did
+the same by the doctor’s advice, receiving in future three hundred and
+fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious transactions, agreed
+on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were carried out in perfect
+secrecy, thanks to the political troubles of the time.
+
+When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him
+a thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the
+Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new
+era in the doctor’s existence, for he now (at a period when horses and
+carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine
+horses and a caleche.
+
+When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church on
+a rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to help
+her out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,--as much to see the
+caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the goddaughter, to
+whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere, the post master,
+and their wives attributed this extravagant folly of the old man.
+
+“A caleche! Hey, Massin!” cried Goupil. “Your inheritance will go at top
+speed now!”
+
+“You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle,” said the post master to
+the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; “for it is
+to be supposed an old man of eighty-four won’t use up many horse-shoes.
+What did those horses cost?”
+
+“Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two
+thousand; but it’s a fine one, the wheels are patent.”
+
+“Yes, it’s a good carriage,” said Cremiere; “and a man must be rich to
+buy that style of thing.”
+
+“Ursula means to go at a good pace,” said Goupil. “She’s right; she’s
+showing you how to enjoy life. Why don’t you have fine carriages and
+horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn’t let myself be humiliated if I were
+you--I’d buy a carriage fit for a prince.”
+
+“Come, Cabirolle, tell us,” said Massin, “is it the girl who drives our
+uncle into such luxury?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Cabirolle; “but she is almost mistress of the
+house. There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now she
+is going to study painting.”
+
+“Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn,” said Madame
+Cremiere.
+
+In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+
+“The old German is not dismissed, is he?” said Madame Massin.
+
+“He was there yesterday,” replied Cabirolle.
+
+“Now,” said Goupil, “you may as well give up counting on your
+inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than
+ever. Travel forms young people, and the little minx has got your uncle
+in the toils. Five or six parcels come down for her by the diligence
+every week, and the dressmakers and milliners come too, to try on her
+gowns and all the rest of it. Madame Dionis is furious. Watch for Ursula
+as she comes out of church and look at the little scarf she is wearing
+round her neck,--real cashmere, and it cost six hundred francs!”
+
+If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+have been less than that of Goupil’s last words; the mischief-maker
+stood by rubbing his hands.
+
+The doctor’s old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian
+upholsterer. Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused
+of hoarding immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on Ursula.
+The heirs called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but the saying,
+“He’s an old fool!” summed upon, on the whole, the verdict of the
+neighbourhood. These mistaken judgments of the little town had the one
+advantage of misleading the heirs, who never suspected the love between
+Savinien and Ursula, which was the secret reason of the doctor’s
+expenditure. The old man took the greatest delights in accustoming his
+godchild to her future station in the world. Possessing an income of
+over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave him pleasure to adorn his
+idol.
+
+In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her
+eyes beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from her
+window when she rose in the morning.
+
+“Why didn’t I know he was coming?” she said to herself.
+
+After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an
+act of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was
+serving was many months at sea without his being able to communicate
+with the doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without
+consulting him. Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already
+illustrious in its service, the new government had profited by a general
+change of officers to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained leave
+of absence for fifteen days, the new officer arrived from Toulon by the
+mail, in time for Ursula’s fete, intending to consult the doctor at the
+same time.
+
+“He has come!” cried Ursula rushing into her godfather’s bedroom.
+
+“Very good,” he answered; “I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+stay in Nemours.”
+
+“Ah! that’s my birthday present--it is all in that sentence,” she said,
+kissing him.
+
+On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came over
+at once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so changed
+for the better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain grave
+decision to the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an erect
+bearing which enables the most superficial observer to recognize a
+military man even in plain clothes. The habit of command produces this
+result. Ursula loved Savinien the better for it, and took a childlike
+pleasure in walking round the garden with him, taking his arm, and
+hearing him relate the part he played (as midshipman) in the taking of
+Algiers. Evidently Savinien had taken the city. The doctor, who had been
+watching them from his window as he dressed, soon came down. Without
+telling the viscount everything, he did say that, in case Madame de
+Portenduere consented to his marriage with Ursula, the fortune of his
+godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+
+“Alas!” said Savinien. “It will take a great deal of time to overcome my
+mother’s opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was placed
+between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying Ursula or
+else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the
+dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go.”
+
+“But, Savinien, we shall be together,” said Ursula, taking his hand and
+shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+
+To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her; she
+saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant tone of
+her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were
+both moved by it. The resignation was written and despatched, and
+Ursula’s fete received full glory from the presence of her betrothed.
+A few months later, towards the month of May, the home-life of the
+doctor’s household had resumed the quite tenor of its way but with one
+welcome visitor the more. The attentions of the young viscount were
+soon interpreted in the town as those of a future husband,--all the more
+because his manners and those of Ursula, whether in church, or on the
+promenade, though dignified and reserved, betrayed the understanding of
+their hearts. Dionis pointed out to the heirs that the doctor had never
+asked Madame de Portenduere for the interest of his money, three years
+of which was now due.
+
+“She’ll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of
+her son,” said the notary. “If such a misfortune happens it is probable
+that the greater part of your uncle’s fortune will serve for what Basile
+calls ‘an irresistible argument.’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+
+The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved
+Ursula too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became as
+underhand as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis’s salon (as they had done
+every evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed against
+the lovers, and seldom separated without discussing some way of
+circumventing the old man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the fall
+in the Funds, as the doctor had done, to invest some, at least, of her
+enormous gains, was bitterest of them all against the orphan girl and
+the Portendueres. One evening, when Goupil, who usually avoided the
+dullness of these meetings, had come in to learn something of the
+affairs of the town which were under discussion, Zelie’s hatred was
+freshly excited; she had seen the doctor, Ursula, and Savinien returning
+in the caleche from a country drive, with an air of intimacy that told
+all.
+
+“I’d give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself
+before the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can
+take place,” she said.
+
+Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite
+alone:
+
+“Will you give me the means of buying Dionis’s practice? If you will, I
+will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula.”
+
+“How?” asked the colossus.
+
+“Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?” said the
+notary’s head clerk.
+
+“Well, my lad, separate them, and we’ll see what we can do,” said Zelie.
+
+“I don’t embark in any such business on a ‘we’ll see.’ The young man is
+a fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as good a
+hand with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business, and I’ll
+keep my word.”
+
+“Prevent the marriage and I will set you up,” said the post master.
+
+“It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur’s practice, and you expect me to
+trust you now! Nonsense; you’ll lose your uncle’s property, and serve
+you right.”
+
+“It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur’s
+practice, that might be managed,” said Zelie; “but to give security for
+you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing.”
+
+“But I’ll do my part,” said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at Zelie,
+which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+
+The effect was that of venom on steel.
+
+“We can wait,” said Zelie.
+
+“The devil’s own spirit is in you,” thought Goupil. “If I ever catch
+that pair in my power,” he said to himself as he left the yard, “I’ll
+squeeze them like lemons.”
+
+By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur
+Bongrand, Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love
+of this young man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so
+persistent, interested the three friends deeply, and they now never
+separated the lovers in their thoughts. Soon the monotony of this
+patriarchal life, and the certainty of a future before them, gave to
+their affection a fraternal character. The doctor often left the pair
+alone together. He judged the young man rightly; he saw him kiss her
+hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no kiss when alone with her,
+so deeply did the lover respect the innocence, the frankness of the
+young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried, taught him that a
+harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of gentleness and roughness
+might kill her. The only freedom between the two took place before the
+eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+
+Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,--without other events
+than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from his
+mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for hours
+together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties, other than
+by Breton silence or a positive denial.
+
+At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine musician,
+and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was perfected. The
+fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far. The doctor was
+called upon to decline the overtures of Madame d’Aiglemont, who was
+thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months later, in spite of the
+secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on this subject, Savinien
+heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he made use of the incident
+in another attempt to vanquish his mother’s obstinacy; but she merely
+replied:--
+
+“If the d’Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason
+why we should do so?”
+
+In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his
+face pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his
+approaching death. “You’ll soon know results,” said the community to the
+heirs. In truth the old man’s death had all the attraction of a problem.
+But the doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his illusions,
+and neither poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the abbe were
+willing to enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours doctor who
+came to see him every day did not venture to prescribe. Old Minoret felt
+no pain; his lamp of life was gently going out. His mind continued firm
+and clear and powerful. In old men thus constituted the soul governs
+the body, and gives it strength to die erect. The abbe, anxious not to
+hasten the fatal end, released his parishioner from the duty of hearing
+mass in church, and allowed him to read the services at home, for the
+doctor faithfully attended to all his religious duties. The nearer he
+came to the grave the more he loved God; the lights eternal shone upon
+all difficulties and explained them more and more clearly to his mind.
+Early in the year Ursula persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses
+and dismiss Cabirolle. Monsieur Bongrand, whose uneasiness about
+Ursula’s future was far from quieted by the doctor’s half-confidence,
+boldly opened the subject one evening and showed his old friend the
+importance of making Ursula legally of age. Still the old man, though
+he had often consulted the justice of peace, would not reveal to him the
+secret of his provision for Ursula, though he agreed to the necessity
+of securing her independence by majority. The more Monsieur Bongrand
+persisted in his efforts to discover the means selected by his old
+friend to provide for his darling the more wary the doctor became.
+
+“Why not secure the thing,” said Bongrand, “why run any risks?”
+
+“When you are between two risks,” replied the doctor, “avoid the most
+risky.”
+
+Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so
+promptly that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That
+anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps
+with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited
+all the young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere, Minoret, and
+Massin. Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests,
+the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere,
+together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which
+preceded the ball.
+
+“I feel I am going,” said the old man to the notary towards the close
+of the evening. “I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship
+account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my
+death. Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,--I
+have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere, Massin,
+and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council appointed for
+Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering of my account.”
+
+These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another
+round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families,
+who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes
+thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were
+disinherited.
+
+When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old
+doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress; “To
+you, my friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be here no
+longer to protect her. Put yourselves between her and the world until
+she is married,--I fear for her.”
+
+The words made a painful impression. The guardian’s account, rendered a
+day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor
+Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs
+from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital
+of gifts made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen
+years, on birthdays and other anniversaries.
+
+This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of
+the peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of
+Doctor Minoret’s death.
+
+The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which compelled
+him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always surrounded the
+doctor’s house and kept it from observation, the news of his approaching
+death spread through the town, and the heirs began to run hither and
+thither through the streets, like the pearls of a chaplet when the
+string is broken. Massin called at the house to learn the truth, and was
+told by Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed. The Nemours doctor
+had remarked that whenever old Minoret took to his bed he would die;
+and therefore in spite of the cold, the heirs took their stand in the
+street, on the square, at their own doorsteps, talking of the event so
+long looked for, and watching for the moment when the priests should
+appear, bearing the sacrament, with all the paraphernalia customary in
+the provinces, to the dying man. Accordingly, two days later, when the
+Abbe Chaperon, with an assistant and the choir-boys, preceded by the
+sacristan bearing the cross, passed along the Grand’Rue, all the heirs
+joined the procession, to get an entrance to the house and see that
+nothing was abstracted, and lay their eager hands upon its coveted
+treasures at the earliest moment.
+
+When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter than
+the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round, saw
+them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was the
+first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him. Massin,
+fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some ornament,
+joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently assembled
+one by one.
+
+“He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction,” said Cremiere; “we
+may be sure of his death now.”
+
+“Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year,” replied
+Madame Massin.
+
+“I have an idea,” said Zelie, “that for the last three years he hasn’t
+invested anything--he grew fond of hoarding.”
+
+“Perhaps the money is in the cellar,” whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+
+“I hope we shall be able to find it,” said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+“But after what he said at the ball we can’t have any doubt,” cried
+Madame Massin.
+
+“In any case,” began Cremiere, “how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know--”
+
+A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method
+of procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices,
+Zelie’s screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in
+the courtyard and even in the street.
+
+The noise reached the doctor’s ears; he heard the words, “The house--the
+house is worth thirty thousand francs. I’ll take it at that,” said, or
+rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+
+“Well, we’ll take what it’s worth,” said Zelie, sharply.
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe,” said the old man to the priest, who remained beside
+his friend after administering the communion, “help me to die in peace.
+My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging the
+house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive me. Go and tell
+them I will have none of them in my house.”
+
+The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words of
+their own.
+
+“Madame Bougival,” said the doctor, “close the iron gate and allow
+no one to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare
+mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur’s feet.”
+
+“Your uncle is not dead,” said the abbe, “and he may live some time
+longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+yours!”
+
+“Old hypocrite!” exclaimed Cremiere. “I shall keep watch of him. It is
+possible he’s plotting something against our interests.”
+
+The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending
+to watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no noise,
+for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able to
+reach the door of his uncle’s room without being heard. The abbe and the
+doctor had left the house; La Bougival was making the poultices.
+
+“Are we quite alone?” said the old man to his godchild.
+
+Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+
+“Yes,” she said; “the abbe has just closed the gate after him.”
+
+“My darling child,” said the dying man, “my hours, my minutes even, are
+counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last till
+evening. Do not cry, my Ursula,” he said, fearing to be interrupted
+by the child’s weeping, “but listen to me carefully; it concerns your
+marriage to Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back go down to the
+pagoda,--here is the key,--lift the marble top of the Boule buffet and
+you will find a letter beneath it, sealed and addressed to you; take it
+and come back here, for I cannot die easy unless I see it in your hands.
+When I am dead do not let any one know of it immediately, but send for
+Monsieur de Portenduere; read the letter together; swear to me now,
+in his name and your own, that you will carry out my last wishes. When
+Savinien has obeyed me, then announce my death, but not till then.
+The comedy of the heirs will begin. God grant those monsters may not
+ill-treat you.”
+
+“Yes godfather.”
+
+The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped away
+on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the library
+side of the door. He had been present in former days at an argument
+between the architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring that if the
+pagoda were entered by the window on the river it would be much safer to
+put the lock of the door opening into the library on the library side.
+Dazzled by his hopes, and his ears flushed with blood, Minoret sprang
+the lock with the point of his knife as rapidly as a burglar could have
+done it. He entered the study, followed the doctor’s directions,
+took the package of papers without opening it, relocked the door, put
+everything in order, and went into the dining-room and sat down, waiting
+till La Bougival had gone upstairs with the poultice before he ventured
+to leave the house. He then made his escape,--all the more easily
+because poor Ursula lingered to see that La Bougival applied the
+poultice properly.
+
+“The letter! the letter!” cried the old man, in a dying voice. “Obey me;
+take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand.”
+
+The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+Ursula:--
+
+“Do what he asks at once or you will kill him.”
+
+She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked at
+her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to speak,
+and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The poor
+girl, who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and burst into
+tears. La Bougival closed the old man’s eyes and straightened him on
+the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the
+corner of the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before
+they scratch at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked
+in with the celerity of birds of prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE DOCTOR’S WILL
+
+While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home to
+open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+
+
+To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother, Joseph
+Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:--
+
+My dear Angel,--The fatherly affection I bear you--and which you have
+so fully justified--came not only from the promise I gave your father
+to take his place, but also from your resemblance to my wife, Ursula
+Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and charm you constantly
+recall to my mind. Your position as the daughter of a natural son of my
+father-in-law might invalidate all testamentary bequests made by me in
+your favor--
+
+“The old rascal!” cried the post master.
+
+Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I
+shrank from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by marriage, for
+I might live years and thus interfere with your happiness, which is
+now delayed only by Madame de Portenduere. Having weighted these
+difficulties carefully, and wishing to leave you enough money to secure
+to you a prosperous existence--
+
+“The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!”
+
+  --without injuring my heirs--
+
+“The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!”--I
+intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for the last
+eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my notary, seeking
+to make you thereby as happy as any one can be made by riches. Without
+means, your education and your lofty ideas would cause you unhappiness.
+Besides, you ought to bring a liberal dowry to the fine young man who
+loves you. You will therefore find in the middle of the third volume
+of Pandects, folio, bound in red morocco (the last volume on the first
+shelf above the little table in the library, on the side of the room
+next the salon), three certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents,
+made out to bearer, each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year--
+
+“What depths of wickedness!” screamed the post master. “Ah! God would
+not permit me to be so defrauded.”
+
+Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this date,
+which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my darling child,
+that you must obey a wish that has made the happiness of my whole life;
+a wish that will force me to ask the intervention of God should
+you disobey me. But, to guard against all scruples in your dear
+conscience--for I well know how ready it is to torture you--you will
+find herewith a will in due form bequeathing these certificates to
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere. So, whether you possess them in your
+own name, or whether they come to you from him you love, they will be,
+in every sense, your legitimate property.
+
+Your godfather, Denis Minoret.
+
+
+To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+stamped paper.
+
+
+This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in
+Nemours, being of sound mind and body, as the date of this document will
+show, do bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to pardon my errors in
+view of my sincere repentance. Next, having found in Monsieur le Vicomte
+Savinien de Portenduere a true and honest affection for me, I bequeath
+to him the sum of thirty-six thousand francs a year from the Funds, at
+three per cent, the said bequest to take precedence of all inheritance
+accruing to my heirs.
+
+Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+Without an instant’s hesitation the post master, who had locked himself
+into his wife’s bedroom to insure being alone, looked about for the
+tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the extinction of
+two matches which obstinately refused to light. The third took fire. He
+burned the letter and the will on the hearth and buried the vestiges of
+paper and sealing-wax in the ashes by way of superfluous caution. Then,
+allured by the thought of possessing thirty-six thousand francs a year
+of which his wife knew nothing, he returned at full speed to his uncle’s
+house, spurred by the only idea, a clear-cut, simple idea, which was
+able to piece and penetrate his dull brain. Finding the house invaded by
+the three families, now masters of the place, he trembled lest he
+should be unable to accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection
+whatever, except so far as to fear the obstacles.
+
+“What are you doing here?” he said to Massin and Cremiere. “We can’t
+leave the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but
+we can’t camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him to
+come and certify to the death; I can’t draw up the mortuary certificate
+for an uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go and ask old
+Bongrand to attach the seals. As for you, ladies,” he added, turning to
+his wife and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, “go and look after Ursula;
+then nothing can be stolen. Above all, close the iron gate and don’t let
+any one leave the house.”
+
+The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula’s bedroom,
+where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her knees
+before God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting that the
+women would not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the library,
+found the volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and found in
+the other volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his brutal nature
+the colossus felt as though a peal of bells were ringing in each ear.
+The blood whistled in his temples as he committed the theft; cold as the
+weather was, his shirt was wet on his back; his legs gave way under him
+and he fell into a chair in the salon as if an axe had fallen on his
+head.
+
+“How the inheritance of money loosens a man’s tongue! Did you hear
+Minoret?” said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town. “‘Go
+here, go there,’ just as if he knew everything.”
+
+“Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of--”
+
+“Stop!” said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. “His wife is there;
+they’ve got some plan! Do you do both errands; I’ll go back.”
+
+Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the
+heated face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of death
+with the celerity of a weasel.
+
+“Well, what is it now?” asked the post master, unlocking the gate for
+his co-heir.
+
+“Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing,” answered
+Massin, giving him a savage look.
+
+“I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home,” said
+Minoret.
+
+“We shall have to put a watcher over them,” said Massin. “La Bougival
+is capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We’ll put Goupil
+there.”
+
+“Goupil!” said the post master; “put a rat in the meal!”
+
+“Well, let’s consider,” returned Massin. “To-night they’ll watch the
+body; the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after
+them. To-morrow we’ll have the funeral at twelve o’clock. But the
+inventory can’t be made under a week.”
+
+“Let’s get rid of that girl at once,” said the colossus; “then we can
+safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and
+the seals.”
+
+“Good,” cried Massin. “You are the head of the Minoret family.”
+
+“Ladies,” said Minoret, “be good enough to stay in the salon; we can’t
+think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+security of all interests.”
+
+He took his wife apart and told her Massin’s proposition about Ursula.
+The women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as they
+called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived with
+his assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the request
+was made to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend of the
+deceased, to tell Ursula to leave the house.
+
+“Go and turn her out of her father’s house, her benefactor’s house
+yourselves,” he cried. “Go! you who owe your inheritance to the
+generosity of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into
+the street before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of
+robbing you? Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to
+do that. But I tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula’s room;
+she has a right to that room, and everything in it is her own property.
+I shall tell her what her rights are, and tell her too to put everything
+that belongs to her in this house in that room--Oh! in your presence,”
+ he said, hearing a growl of dissatisfaction among the heirs.
+
+“What do you think of that?” said the collector to the post master and
+the women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+
+“Call _him_ a magistrate!” cried the post master.
+
+Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every now
+and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids swollen;
+she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical prostration which
+might have softened the hardest hearts--except those of the heirs.
+
+“Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and
+mourning,” she said, with the poetry natural to her. “You know, _you_,
+what he was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me.
+I believed he would live a hundred years. He has been my mother,” she
+cried, “my good, kind mother.”
+
+These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes,
+interrupted by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+
+“My child,” said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the
+staircase. “You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you
+have now only a moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything
+that belongs to you in this house and put it into your own room at once.
+The heirs insist on my affixing the seals.”
+
+“Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose,” cried Ursula,
+sitting upright under an impulse of savage indignation. “I have
+something here,” she added, striking her breast, “which is far more
+precious--”
+
+“What is it?” said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+showed his brutal face.
+
+“The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words--an image of
+his celestial soul,” she said, her eyes and face glowing as she raised
+her hand with a glorious gesture.
+
+“And a key!” cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a
+key which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+
+“Yes,” she said, blushing, “that is the key of his study; he sent me
+there at the moment he was dying.”
+
+The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at
+Monsieur Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula
+who intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her
+body. Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue only at
+some cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:--
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the kindness
+of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me but the
+clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to it.”
+
+She went to her godfather’s room, and no entreaties could make her leave
+it,--the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their conduct,
+endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand to engage
+two rooms for her at the “Vieille Poste” inn until she could find some
+lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She returned to
+her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night, with the abbe,
+his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying beside her uncle’s
+body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt,
+without a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him sadly, and thanked
+him for coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+
+“My child,” said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, “one of
+your uncle’s heirs has taken these necessary articles from your drawers,
+for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that you will
+recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own sake,
+placed the seals on your room.”
+
+“Thank you,” she replied, pressing his hand. “Look at him again,--he
+seems to sleep, does he not?”
+
+The old man’s face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests upon
+the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared to
+radiate from it.
+
+“Did he give you anything secretly before he died?” whispered M.
+Bongrand.
+
+“Nothing,” she said; “he spoke only of a letter.”
+
+“Good! it will certainly be found,” said Bongrand. “How fortunate for
+you that the heirs demanded the sealing.”
+
+At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love
+began. So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief
+tears of regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven.
+With one last glance at Savinien’s windows she left the room and the
+house, and went to the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the
+package, by Monsieur Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien,
+her true protector.
+
+Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the worst
+fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see Ursula
+without means and at the mercy of her benefactor’s heirs.
+
+The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor’s funeral. When
+the conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known,
+a vast majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An
+inheritance was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded;
+Ursula might think she had rights; the heirs were only defending their
+property; she had humbled them enough during their uncle’s lifetime, for
+he had treated them like dogs and sent them about their business.
+
+Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those
+who envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable to
+be present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly by
+the insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+
+“Look at that hypocrite weeping,” said some of the heirs, pointing to
+Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor’s death.
+
+“The question is,” said Goupil, “has he any good grounds for weeping.
+Don’t laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed.”
+
+“Pooh!” said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, “you are
+always frightening us about nothing.”
+
+As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery, a
+bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take Desire’s
+arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his former comrade
+in presence of all Nemours.
+
+“I won’t be angry, or I couldn’t get revenge,” thought the notary’s
+clerk, whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+
+Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time
+for the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to
+commission Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done
+the settlement of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked of
+in the town for ten days) began with all the legal formalities. Dionis
+had his pickings; Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as the
+business was profitable the sessions were many. After the first of these
+sessions all parties breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs, and
+witnesses drank the best wines in the doctor’s cellar.
+
+In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives
+in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging. When
+a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost always
+included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of removing
+Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the Grand’Rue
+at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little building had a
+front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the ground-floor with
+two windows on the street; behind this came the kitchen, with a glass
+door opening to an inner courtyard about thirty feet square. A small
+staircase, lighted on the side towards the river by small windows, led
+to the first floor where there were three chambers, and above these were
+two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand borrowed two thousand francs from
+La Bougival’s savings to pay the first instalment of the price,--six
+thousand francs,--and obtained good terms for payment of the rest.
+As Ursula wished to buy her uncle’s books, Bongrand knocked down the
+partition between two rooms on the bedroom floor, finding that their
+united length was the same as that of the doctor’s library, and gave
+room for his bookshelves.
+
+Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning, painting,
+and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the end of March
+Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in the ugly
+house; where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the one she had
+left; for it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by the justice
+of peace when the seals were removed. La Bougival, sleeping in the
+attic, could be summoned by a bell placed near the head of the
+young girl’s bed. The room intended for the books, the salon on the
+ground-floor and the kitchen, though still unfurnished, had been hung
+with fresh papers and repainted, and only awaited the purchases which
+the young girl hoped to make when her godfather’s effects were sold.
+
+Though the strength of Ursula’s character was well known to the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the comfort
+and elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this barren and
+denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in fact, make
+private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so that Ursula
+should perceive no difference between the new chamber and the old one.
+But the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in Savinien’s own
+eyes, showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared her more and more
+to her two old friends, and proved to them for the hundredth time that
+no troubles but those of the heart could make her suffer. The grief she
+felt for the loss of her godfather was far too deep to let her even feel
+the bitterness of her change of fortune, though it added fresh obstacles
+to her marriage. Savinien’s distress in seeing her thus reduced did her
+so much harm that she whispered to him, as they came from mass on the
+morning on the day when she first went to live in her new house:
+
+“Love could not exist without patience; let us wait.”
+
+As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to
+the post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay off
+the mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest accruing
+thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one hundred
+and twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs within
+twenty-four hours under pain of execution on her house. It was
+impossible for her to borrow the money. Savinien went to Fontainebleau
+to consult a lawyer.
+
+“You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise,” was
+the lawyer’s opinion. “They intend to sue in the matter and get your
+farm at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a voluntary
+sale of it and so escape costs.”
+
+This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently
+pointed out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret’s
+life-time, the doctor would have left his property to Ursula’s husband
+and they would to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now
+were, in the depths of poverty. Though said without reproach, this
+argument annihilated the poor woman even more than the thought of
+her coming ejectment. When Ursula heard of this catastrophe she was
+stupefied with grief, having scarcely recovered from her fever, and the
+blow which the heirs had already dealt her. To love and be unable to
+succor the man she loves,--that is one of the most dreadful of all
+sufferings to the soul of a noble and sensitive woman.
+
+“I wished to buy my uncle’s house,” she said, “now I will buy your
+mother’s.”
+
+“Can you?” said Savinien. “You are a minor, and you cannot sell out your
+Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your legal
+guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town will be
+glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like
+hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have ten thousand francs
+left, on which I can support my mother till this deplorable matter is
+settled. Besides, the inventory of your godfather’s property is not yet
+finished; Monsieur Bongrand still thinks he shall find something for
+you. He is as much astonished as I am that you seem to be left without
+fortune. The doctor so often spoke both to him and to me of the
+future he had prepared for you that neither of us can understand this
+conclusion.”
+
+“Pooh!” she said; “so long as I can buy my godfather’s books and
+furniture and prevent their being dispersed, I am content.”
+
+“But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything
+you want?”
+
+Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million
+for which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search
+made in every corner of the house after the seals were removed, brought
+no discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs of the
+Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in the
+three per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty thousand
+francs, and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about six
+hundred thousand francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting sum.
+But what had become of the money the doctor must have saved?
+
+Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence
+of a will, came every day at the close of each session to find out from
+Bongrand the results of the day’s search. The latter would sometimes
+exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of hearing,
+“I can’t understand the thing!” Bongrand, Savinien, and the abbe often
+declared to each other that the doctor, who received no interest from
+the Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as he did on fifteen
+thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly expressed, made the post
+master turn livid more than once.
+
+“Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere,” said Bongrand,--“they to find
+money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere. They
+have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers, bored
+into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped up the
+quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch of paper
+piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor--and I
+have urged on their devastations.”
+
+“What do you think about it?” said the abbe.
+
+“The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs.”
+
+“But where’s the property?”
+
+“We may whistle for it!”
+
+“Perhaps the will is hidden in the library,” said Savinien.
+
+“Yes, and for that reason I don’t dissuade Ursula from buying it. If it
+were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of her
+ready money into books she will never open.”
+
+At first the whole town believed the doctor’s niece had got possession
+of the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+search of the doctor’s house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank bills
+hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had slipped them
+into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a spectacle of the
+most extraordinary precautions on the part of the heirs. Dionis, who was
+doing duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each lot was cried out, that
+the heirs only sold the article (whatever it was) and not what it might
+contain; then, before allowing it to be taken away it was subjected to a
+final investigation, being thumped and sounded; and when at last it left
+the house the sellers followed with the looks a father might cast upon a
+son who was starting for India.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” cried La Bougival, returning from the first session
+in despair, “I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right, you could
+never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town is coming
+and going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is being ruined,
+they even stand upon it; the whole place is such a muddle that a hen
+couldn’t find her chicks. You’d think there had been a fire. Lots of
+things are in the courtyard; the closets are all open, and nothing in
+them. Oh! the poor dear man, it’s well he died, the sight would have
+killed him.”
+
+Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not appear
+at the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose cupidity
+might have run up the price of the books had they known he was buying
+them for Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books living in Melun
+to buy them for him. As a result of the heir’s anxiety the whole library
+was sold book by book. Three thousand volumes were examined, one by one,
+held by the two sides of the binding and shaken so that loose papers
+would infallibly fall out. The whole amount of the purchases on Ursula’s
+account amounted to six thousand five hundred francs or thereabouts.
+The book-cases were not allowed to leave the premises until carefully
+examined by a cabinet-maker, brought down from Paris to search for
+secret drawers. When at last Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the
+books and the bookcases to Mademoiselle Mirouet’s house the heirs were
+tortured with vague fears, not dissipated until in course of time they
+saw how poorly she lived.
+
+Minoret bought up his uncle’s house, the value of which his co-heirs ran
+up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master expected
+to find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold with a
+reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed of his
+post establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son of
+a rich farmer, and went to live in his uncle’s house, where he spent
+considerable sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By making
+this move he thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within sight of
+Ursula.
+
+“I hope,” he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+summoned to pay her debt, “that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+after they are gone we’ll drive out the rest.”
+
+“That old woman with fourteen quarterings,” said Goupil, “won’t want to
+witness her own disaster; she’ll go and die in Brittany, where she can
+manage to find a wife for her son.”
+
+“No,” said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale at
+Bongrand’s request. “Ursula has just bought the house she is living in.”
+
+“That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!” cried the post
+master imprudently.
+
+“What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?” asked
+Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+
+“Don’t you know,” answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, “that my
+son is fool enough to be in love with her? I’d give five hundred francs
+if I could get Ursula out of this town.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+
+Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn
+in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of
+an estate, the sale of the property, the going and coming necessitated
+by such unusual business, his discussions with his wife about the most
+trifling details, the purchase of the doctor’s house, where Zelie wished
+to live in bourgeois style to advance her son’s interests,--all this
+hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually tranquil life hindered the
+huge Minoret from thinking of his victim. But about the middle of May, a
+few days after his installation in the doctor’s house, as he was coming
+home from a walk, he heard the sound of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting
+at a window, like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly became
+aware of an importunate voice within him.
+
+To explain why to a man of Minoret’s nature the sight of Ursula, who had
+no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became intolerable;
+why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune impelled him to
+a desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and why it was that
+this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole
+treatise on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was not the real
+possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom
+they really belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied some mere chance
+might betray his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of.
+Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and
+whose owner up to that time had never done anything illegal, the
+presence of Ursula awakened remorse. Possibly this remorse goaded him
+the more because he had received his share of the property legitimately
+acquired. In his own mind he no doubt attributed these stirrings of his
+conscience to the fact of Ursula’s presence, imagining that if she were
+removed all his uncomfortable feelings would disappear with her. But
+still, after all, perhaps crime has its own doctrine of perfection. A
+beginning of evil demands its end; a first stab must be followed by the
+blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is doomed to lead to murder. Minoret
+had committed the crime without the slightest reflection, so rapidly
+had the events taken place; reflection came later. Now, if you have
+thoroughly possessed yourself of this man’s nature and bodily presence
+you will understand the mighty effect produced on him by a thought.
+Remorse is more than a thought; it comes from a feeling which can no
+more be hidden than love; like love, it has its own tyranny. But, just
+as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest
+reflection, so he now blindly longed to drive her from Nemours when he
+felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence. Being,
+in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences; he went from
+danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct, like a wild animal which
+does not foresee the huntsman’s skill, and relies on its own rapidity
+or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in Dionis’s
+salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of the man who
+had hitherto been so free of care.
+
+“I don’t know what has come to Minoret, he is all _no how_,” said his
+wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+
+Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less, ennui
+(in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui),
+caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the change
+from an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+
+While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula’s life in Nemours,
+La Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her foster child
+with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without
+comparing her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor had promised,
+and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+
+“It is not for myself I speak,” she said, “but is it likely that
+monsieur, good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me
+the merest trifle?--”
+
+“Am I not here?” replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+word on the subject.
+
+She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that
+surrounded that noble head--a sketch of which in black and white hung
+in her little salon--with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh
+and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her _see_ her
+godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more because
+surrounded with the things he loved and used,--his large duchess-sofa,
+the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and the piano he had
+chosen for her. The two old friends who still remained to her, the Abbe
+Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only visitors whom she received,
+were, in the midst of these inanimate objects representative of the
+past, like two living memories of her former life to which she attached
+her present by the love her godfather had blessed.
+
+After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave
+tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+nothings of a young girl’s life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits
+diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After
+breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and practiced; then
+she took her embroidery and sat at the window looking on the street.
+At four o’clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which he took in all
+weathers), finding the window open, would sit upon the outer casing and
+talk with her for half an hour. In the evening the abbe and Monsieur
+Bongrand came to see her, but she never allowed Savinien to accompany
+them. Neither did she accept Madame de Portenduere’s proposition, which
+Savinien had induced his mother to make, that she should visit there.
+
+Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy; they
+did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a month. The
+old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked only twice
+a week,--mistress and maid eating their food cold on other days; for
+Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still due on the
+purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with her modesty and
+her resignation to a life of poverty after the enjoyment of luxury and
+the fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply impressed certain persons.
+Ursula won the respect of others, and no voice was raised against her.
+Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her justice. Savinien admired the
+strength of character of so young a girl. From time to time Madame de
+Portenduere, when they met in church, would address a few kind words
+to her, and twice she insisted on her coming to dinner and fetched her
+herself. If all this was not happiness it was at least tranquillity.
+But a benefit which came to Ursula through the legal care and ability of
+Bongrand started the smouldering persecution which up to this time had
+laid in Minoret’s breast as a dumb desire.
+
+As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor’s estate was finished, the
+justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the Portendueres in
+hand and promised her to get them out of their trouble. In dealing with
+the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula’s happiness made him furious,
+he did not allow her to be ignorant of the fact that his devotion to her
+service was solely to give pleasure to Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose
+one of his former clerks to act for the Portendueres at Fontainebleau,
+and himself put in a motion for a stay of proceedings. He intended to
+profit by the interval which must elapse between the stoppage of the
+present suit and some new step on the part of Massin to renew the lease
+at six thousand francs, get a premium from the present tenants and the
+payment in full of the rent of the current year.
+
+At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere’s salon,
+between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded
+in quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he
+obtained a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a
+rent of six thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day
+on which this was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew to
+be puzzled as to how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her the
+farm at Bordieres for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+
+“I’d buy it at once,” said Minoret, “if I were sure the Portendueres
+would go and live somewhere else.”
+
+“Why?” said the justice of peace.
+
+“We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours.”
+
+“I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough left
+to live here. She is thinking of selling her house.”
+
+“Well, sell it to me,” said Minoret.
+
+“To you?” said Zelie. “You talk as if you were master of everything.
+What do you want with two houses in Nemours?”
+
+“If I don’t settle this matter of the farm with you to-night,” said
+Bongrand, “our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim,
+and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make.
+So if you don’t take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some
+farmers I know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut.”
+
+“Why did you come to us, then?” said Zelie.
+
+“Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me wait
+some time for the money. I don’t want difficulties.”
+
+“Get _her_ out of Nemours and I’ll pay it,” exclaimed Minoret.
+
+“You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere’s
+actions,” said Bongrand. “I can only repeat what I heard her say, but I
+feel certain they will not remain in Nemours.”
+
+On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to
+the purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to the
+doctor’s estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by Dionis.
+Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the purchase
+money to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in the Funds,
+where, joined to Savinien’s ten thousand, it would give her, at five
+per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far from losing her
+resources, the old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she
+did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had been tricked,--as though
+Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula’s presence was intolerable to him;
+and he felt a keen resentment which embittered his hatred to his victim.
+Then began a secret drama which was terrible in its effects,--the
+struggle of two determinations; one which impelled Minoret to drive his
+victim from Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to
+bear persecution, the cause of which was for a certain length of time
+undiscoverable. The situation was a strange and even unnatural one,
+and yet it was led up to by all the preceding events, which served as a
+preface to what was now to occur.
+
+Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver service
+costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner every Sunday,
+the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came from Fontainebleau,
+bringing with him certain of his friends. On these occasions Zelie
+sent to Paris for delicacies--obliging Dionis the notary to emulate
+her display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to ignore as a
+questionable person who might tarnish their splendor, was not invited
+until the end of July. The clerk, who was fully aware of this intended
+neglect, was forced to be respectful to Desire, who, since his entrance
+into office, had assumed a haughty and dignified air, even in his own
+family.
+
+“You must have forgotten Esther,” Goupil said to him, “as you are so
+much in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet.”
+
+“In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+never even thought of Ursula,” said the new magistrate.
+
+“Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?” cried Goupil, insolently.
+
+Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was,
+in fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,--Minoret having
+remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the
+marriage between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil
+hurriedly to the end of the garden.
+
+“You’ll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow,” said he, “and
+I don’t see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for
+after all you were once my son’s companion. Listen to me. If you can
+persuade that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty
+thousand francs, to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is
+Minoret, the means to buy a notary’s practice at Orleans.”
+
+“No,” said Goupil, “that’s too far out of the way; but Montargis--”
+
+“No,” said Minoret; “Sens.”
+
+“Very good,--Sens,” replied the hideous clerk. “There’s an archbishop at
+Sens, and I don’t object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there
+you are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she’ll
+succeed at Sens.”
+
+“It is to be fully understood,” continued Minoret, “that I shall not pay
+the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide, out of
+consideration for my deceased uncle.”
+
+“Why not for me too?” said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+secret motive in Minoret’s conduct. “Isn’t it through information you
+got from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land,
+without a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields and
+the mill the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more. Come,
+old fellow, do you mean to play fair with me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber--”
+
+“You’d better think twice before you do that,” said Zelie, suddenly
+intervening.
+
+“If I choose,” said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; “Massin would
+buy the whole for two hundred thousand francs.”
+
+“Leave us, wife,” said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and
+shoving her away; “I understand him. We have been so very busy,” he
+continued, returning to Goupil, “that we have had no time to think of
+you; but I rely on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me.”
+
+“It is a very ancient marquisate,” said Goupil, maliciously; “which will
+soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that means a
+capital of more than two millions as money is now.”
+
+“My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+under the government in Paris,” said Minoret, opening his huge snuff-box
+and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+
+“Very good; but will you play fair?” cried Goupil, shaking his fingers.
+
+Minoret pressed the clerk’s hands replying:--
+
+“On my word of honor.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+
+Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed that
+the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part of the
+colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was opposing them
+with Massin.
+
+“It isn’t he,” thought Goupil, “who has invented this scheme; I know my
+Zelie,--she taught him his part. Bah! I’ll let Massin go. In three years
+time I’ll be deputy from Sens.” Just then he saw Bongrand on his way to
+the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after him.
+
+“You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand,” he said. “I know you will not be indifferent to her future.
+Her relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she ought
+to marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of an
+arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy in
+three years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs on
+her.”
+
+“She can do better than that,” said Bongrand coldly. “Madame de
+Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is killing
+her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula has a
+capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it a la
+Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune.
+
+“Savinien will do a foolish thing,” said Goupil; “he can marry
+Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,--an only daughter to whom the
+uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property.”
+
+“Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says--By the bye,
+who is your notary?” added Bongrand from curiosity.
+
+“Suppose it were I?” answered Goupil.
+
+“You!” exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+
+“Well, well!--Adieu, monsieur,” replied Goupil, with a parting glance of
+gall and hatred and defiance.
+
+“Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred
+thousand francs on you?” cried Bongrand entering Madame de Portenduere’s
+little salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old lady.
+
+Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,--she smiling, he
+not daring to show his uneasiness.
+
+“I am not mistress of myself,” said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+
+“Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you.”
+
+“Why did you do that?” said Madame de Portenduere. “I think the position
+of a notary is a very good one.”
+
+“I prefer my peaceful poverty,” said Ursula, “which is really wealth
+compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my
+old nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+present, which I like, for an unknown fate.”
+
+A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of
+anonymous letters,--one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other to
+Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:--
+
+  “You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental
+  band-master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him
+  to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted.”
+
+The letter to Ursula was as follows:--
+
+  Dear Ursula,--There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival’s pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+
+Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two days
+later she received another letter in the following language:--
+
+  “You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien--you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year.”
+
+This letter agonized Ursula’s heart and afflicted her with the tortures
+of jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but which
+to this fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall over the
+present and over the future, and even over the past. From the moment
+when she received this fatal paper she lay on the doctor’s sofa, her
+eyes fixed on space, lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant the chill
+of death had come upon her warm young life. Alas, worse than that! it
+was like the awful awakening of the dead to the sense that there was
+no God,--the masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean Paul. Four
+times La Bougival called her to breakfast. When the faithful creature
+tried to remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and answered in one harsh
+word, “Hush!” said despotically, in strange contrast to her usual gentle
+manner. La Bougival, watching her mistress through the glass door, saw
+her alternately red with a consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of
+cold had succeeded that unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and
+worse up to four o’clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming,
+but he did not come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love.
+Ursula, who till then had never made one gesture by which her love could
+be guessed, now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if
+to go and meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to her
+little salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in the
+evening La Bougival met him at the door.
+
+“Ah, monsieur!” she cried; “I don’t know what’s the matter with
+mademoiselle; she is--”
+
+“I know,” said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+
+He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+
+“And Savinien too?” she asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe
+quiver as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he felt
+moreover a lasting commotion in his heart.
+
+“So we shall not go there to-night,” he said as gently as he could;
+“and, my child, it would be better if you did not go there again.
+The old lady will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur
+Bongrand and I, who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your
+marriage, have no idea from what quarter this new influence has come to
+change her, as it were in a moment.”
+
+“I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now,” said Ursula in a
+pained voice. “In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we have
+done nothing to displease God.”
+
+“Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of
+Providence,” said the abbe.
+
+“I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de
+Portenduere--”
+
+“Why do you no longer call him Savinien?” asked the priest, who detected
+a slight bitterness in Ursula’s tone.
+
+“Of my dear Savinien,” cried the girl, bursting into tears. “Yes, my
+good friend,” she said, sobbing, “a voice tells me he is as noble in
+heart as he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me alone,
+but he has proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by restraining
+heroically his ardent feelings. Lately when he took the hand I held out
+to him, that evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed to me a husband, it
+was the first time, I swear to you, that I had ever given it. He began
+with a jest when he blew me a kiss across the street, but since then our
+affection has never outwardly passed, as you well know, the narrowest
+limits. But I will tell you,--you who read my soul except in this one
+region where none but the angels see,--well, I will tell you, this love
+has been in me the secret spring of many seeming merits; it made me
+accept my poverty; it softened the bitterness of my irreparable loss,
+for my mourning is more perhaps in my clothes now than in my heart--Oh,
+was I wrong? can it be that love was stronger in me than my gratitude
+to my benefactor, and God has punished me for it? But how could it be
+otherwise? I respected in myself Savinien’s future wife; yes, perhaps
+I was too proud, perhaps it is that pride which God has humbled. God
+alone, as you have often told me, should be the end and object of all
+our actions.”
+
+The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her pallid
+face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she was now
+to fall.
+
+“But,” she said, continuing, “if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am
+I to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so
+divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You
+know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave,
+and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady’s death. If
+Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my
+entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no more be
+two loves in a woman’s heart than there can be two masters in heaven,
+and the life of a religious is attractive to me.”
+
+“He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre,” said the abbe, gently.
+
+“Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend,” she answered. “I will
+write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the windows
+of this room,” she continued, telling her old friend of the anonymous
+letters, but declaring that she would not allow any inquiries to be made
+as to who her unknown lover might be.
+
+“Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere
+to Rouvre,” cried the abbe. “You are annoyed for some object by evil
+persons.”
+
+“How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I am
+no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others.”
+
+“Well, well, my child,” said the abbe, quietly, “let us profit by this
+tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them in
+order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God, and
+remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two devoted
+friends.”
+
+“That is much, very much,” she said, going with him to the threshold of
+the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over its
+nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+
+Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+
+“Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not?
+You seem changed.”
+
+Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went
+back into the house without replying.
+
+“She is cross,” said Minoret to the abbe.
+
+“Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold
+of her door,” said the abbe; “she is too young--”
+
+“Oh!” said Goupil. “I am told she doesn’t lack lovers.”
+
+The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+Bourgeois.
+
+“Well,” said Goupil to Minoret, “the thing is working. Did you notice
+how pale she was. Within a fortnight she’ll have left the town--you’ll
+see.”
+
+“Better have you for a friend than an enemy,” cried Minoret, frightened
+at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil’s face the diabolical
+expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+
+“I should think so!” returned Goupil. “If she doesn’t marry me I’ll make
+her die of grief.”
+
+“Do it, my boy, and I’ll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in Paris.
+You can then marry a rich woman--”
+
+“Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done to
+you?” asked the clerk in surprise.
+
+“She annoys me,” said Minoret, gruffly.
+
+“Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I’ll rasp her,” said
+Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master’s face.
+
+The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+
+“I don’t know what the dear child has written to you,” she said, “but
+she is almost dead this morning.”
+
+Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+
+  My dear Savinien,--Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice--for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, “Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days.” When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you--but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+
+“Wait,” cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+scratched off hastily the following reply:--
+
+  My dear Ursula,--Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother’s consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that’s a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle’s
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.--Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then--Nothing can separate us.
+
+“Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+longer.”
+
+That afternoon at four o’clock, returning from the walk which he
+always took expressly to pass before Ursula’s house, Savinien found his
+mistress waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these sudden
+changes and excitements.
+
+“It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+seeing you is,” she said to him.
+
+“You once said to me,” replied Savinien, smiling,--“for I remember all
+your words,--‘Love lives by patience; we will wait!’ Dear, you have
+separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels; we
+will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I love
+you, but--did I ever doubt you?” he said, offering her a bouquet of
+wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+
+“You have never had any reason to doubt me,” she replied; “and, besides,
+you don’t know all,” she added, in a troubled voice.
+
+Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+found, a few moments before Savinien’s arrival, a letter tossed on her
+sofa which contained the words: “Tremble! a rejected lover can become a
+tiger.”
+
+Withstanding Savinien’s entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again,
+after she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her recover
+from the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite evil is
+torture to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the unknown,
+and the unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the pain was
+exquisite. Something without her bounded at the slightest noise; yet she
+was afraid of silence, and suspected even the walls of collusion. Even
+her sleep was restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of her nature, delicate
+as that of a flower, had found, with the instinct of evil, the poison
+that could wither and destroy her.
+
+The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano
+till very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About
+midnight she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a clarinet,
+hautboy, flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon, flageolet, and
+triangle. All the neighbours were at their windows. The poor girl,
+already frightened at seeing the people in the street, received a
+dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a man proclaiming
+in loud tones: “For the beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from her lover.”
+
+The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were
+rife on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive, determined
+not to leave the house again,--the abbe having advised her to say
+vespers in her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying in the
+passage, which was floored with brick, a letter which had evidently been
+slipped under the door. She picked it up and read it, under the idea
+that it would obtain an explanation. It was as follows:--
+
+
+“Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am resolved.
+If you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To your refusal you
+may attribute not only your own misfortunes, but those which will fall
+on others.
+
+“He who loves you, and whose wife you will be.”
+
+
+Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this
+plot was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis, and
+Cremiere were envying her lot.
+
+“She is a lucky girl,” they were saying; “people talk of her, and court
+her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was a
+cornet-a-piston.”
+
+“What’s a piston?”
+
+“A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!” replied Angelique
+Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+
+Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to
+find out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in garrison.
+But as there were two men to each instrument it was impossible to find
+out which of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel forbade them to play
+for any private person in future without his permission. Savinien had
+an interview with the procureur du roi, Ursula’s legal guardian, and
+explained to him the injury these scenes would do to a young girl
+naturally so delicate and sensitive, begging him to take some action to
+discover the author of such wrong.
+
+Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy began
+another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards Montargis, where
+there happened then to be a company of comic actors. A loud and ringing
+voice called out as they left: “To the daughter of the regimental
+bandsman Mirouet.” By this means all Nemours came to know the profession
+of Ursula’s father, a secret the old doctor had sedulously kept.
+
+Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day
+an anonymous letter containing a prophecy:--
+
+  “You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife.”
+
+The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for
+she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted her
+eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows, and
+prayed fervently.
+
+“I am glad I cannot go down into the salon,” she said to Monsieur
+Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; “_He_ would
+come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which _he_ blessed me. Do
+you think _he_ will suspect me?”
+
+“If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to
+get the assistance of the Paris police,” said Bongrand.
+
+“Whoever it is will know I am dying,” said Ursula; “and will cease to
+trouble me.”
+
+The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
+suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
+whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their
+guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil,
+whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no more
+serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed.
+Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien
+believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters
+received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an
+end to the persecution.
+
+The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just
+as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one
+morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post
+declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a
+small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried
+to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so
+fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the
+persons who frequented Dionis’s salon attributed these manoeuvres to
+the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held
+his notes to a large amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his
+daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors;
+and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything
+that would discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her
+son.
+
+So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by
+the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully overcome
+by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept
+to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult
+had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which
+was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as
+follows:--
+
+
+My child,--Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your enemies.
+Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien’s life. I will tell you
+more when I am able to go to you.
+
+Your devoted friend,
+
+Chaperon.
+
+
+When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried
+this letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so
+amazed and horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his
+own handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition
+into which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once more
+to the procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+
+“A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch,”
+ he said, “upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal
+guardian. What is to be done?”
+
+“If you can find any means of repression,” said the official, “I will
+adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the
+Adoration of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at
+Fontainebleau shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your
+own defence. I have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du
+Rouvre justly indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people
+have put upon him. Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty
+for the purchase of the estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish
+count; and Monsieur du Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I
+saw him, to avoid arrest for debt.”
+
+Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his
+thought. He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only
+man capable of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal
+code without infringing a hair’s-breadth upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+
+Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil’s audacity. He made
+Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for
+his notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens,
+and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant
+to imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their
+fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to
+Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and
+the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved
+to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to
+which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this
+last throw in the game he thought it best to have an explanation with
+Minoret, and he chose his opportunity at Rouvre, where he went with his
+patron for the first time after the deeds were signed.
+
+Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours
+with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these
+atrocities in the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his father,
+in case this persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to
+give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law
+could not punish this crime it would certainly discover the truth and
+hold it over the delinquent’s head. Minoret had now attained a great
+object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the
+Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs
+a year from the rich domains which surrounded the park. He could well
+afford to snap his fingers at Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on
+the estate, where the sight of Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+
+“My boy,” he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, “let my
+young cousin alone, now.”
+
+“Pooh!” said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.
+
+“Oh! I’m not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+chateau with the stone copings (which couldn’t be built now for two
+hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and
+gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No,
+I’m not ungrateful; I’ll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs,
+for your services, and you can buy a sheriff’s practice in Nemours. I’ll
+guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere’s daughters, the eldest.”
+
+“The one who talks piston!” cried Goupil.
+
+“She’ll have thirty thousand francs,” replied Minoret. “Don’t you see,
+my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
+post master? People should keep to their vocation.”
+
+“Very well, then,” said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes;
+“here’s a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs;
+I want the money in hand at once.”
+
+Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his
+wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to
+sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the
+face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an “au revoir,”
+ by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any
+one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent
+chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his
+shoes.
+
+“Are you not going to wait for me?” he cried, observing that Goupil was
+going away on foot.
+
+“You’ll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret,” replied Goupil,
+athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of
+Minoret’s strange conduct.
+
+Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a
+prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the
+soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking
+only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words; everything
+about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the expression of her
+forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was
+thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity, with which throughout all
+ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow.
+She heard in the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the
+malicious comments, the laughter of the little town. The trial was
+too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow her to survive the
+murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful smile was on her
+lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against
+man’s injustice.
+
+When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her
+chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor.
+A great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduere became
+really aware that the girl was dying like an ermine, though less injured
+in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and
+comfort her. The sight of her son’s anguish, who during the whole
+preceding night had seemed beside himself, made the Breton soul of the
+old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignity to revive
+the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise
+to all the evil done by the little town. Her opinion, surely more
+powerful than that of the crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought,
+the influence of race. This step, which the abbe came to announce, made
+so great a change in Ursula that the doctor, who was about to ask for a
+consultation of Parisian doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on
+her uncle’s sofa, and such was the character of her beauty that she
+lay there in her mourning garments, pale from suffering, she was
+more exquisitely lovely than in the happiest hours of her life. When
+Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the room she colored
+vividly.
+
+“Do not rise, my child,” said the old lady imperatively; “weak and ill
+as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is
+happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excellent
+girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a
+gentleman.”
+
+At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands
+of Savinien’s mother and kissed them.
+
+“Ah, madame,” she said in a faltering voice, “I should never have had
+the boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I
+love,--they have made me unworthy of him. Never!” she cried, with a ring
+in her voice which painfully affected those about her, “never will I
+consent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I
+loved too well,--yes, I can admit it in my present condition,--I love a
+creature almost as I love God, and God--”
+
+“Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter,” said the old
+lady, making an effort, “do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous
+joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will live and you
+shall be happy.”
+
+“We shall be happy!” cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and kissing
+her hand; “my mother has called you her daughter.”
+
+“Enough, enough,” said the doctor feeling his patient’s pulse; “do not
+kill her with joy.”
+
+At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of
+the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+
+“Monsieur de Portenduere,” he said, in a voice like the hissing of a
+viper forced from its hole.
+
+“What do you want?” said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+
+“I have a word to say to you.”
+
+Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+
+“Swear to me by Ursula’s life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by me
+as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I
+will reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against
+Mademoiselle Mirouet.”
+
+“Can I put a stop to them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Can I avenge them?”
+
+“On their author, yes--on his tool, no.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because--I am the tool.”
+
+Savinien turned pale.
+
+“I have just seen Ursula--” said Goupil.
+
+“Ursula?” said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+
+“Mademoiselle Mirouet,” continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinien’s
+tone; “and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done; I
+repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good
+would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison
+you.”
+
+The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager
+curiosity, calmed Savinien’s anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a
+look which made that moral deformity writhe.
+
+“Who set you at this work?” said the young man.
+
+“Will you swear?”
+
+“What,--to do you no harm?”
+
+“I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me.”
+
+“She will forgive you,--I, never!”
+
+“But at least you will forget?”
+
+What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
+self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
+standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to
+talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+
+“I will forgive you, but I shall not forget.”
+
+“The agreement is off,” said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+applied a blow upon the man’s face which echoed through the courtyard
+and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+
+“It is only what I deserve,” said Goupil, “for committing such a folly.
+I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I
+gave you. You are in my power now,” he added with a look of hatred.
+
+“You are a murderer!” said Savinien.
+
+“No more than a dagger is a murderer.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Savinien.
+
+“Are you revenged enough?” said Goupil, with ferocious irony; “will you
+stop here?”
+
+“Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness,” replied Savinien.
+
+“Give me your hand,” said the clerk, holding out his own.
+
+“It is yours,” said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula’s sake.
+“Now speak; who made you do this thing?”
+
+Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien’s
+blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was
+undecided; then a voice said to him: “You will be notary!” and he
+answered:--
+
+“Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur--”
+
+“Who is persecuting Ursula?” persisted Savinien.
+
+“Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can’t tell you
+that; but we might find out the reason. Don’t mix me up in all this;
+I could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will
+try to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him--I’ll
+crush him under foot, I’ll dance on his carcass, I’ll make his bones
+into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and
+Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, ‘Minoret is a thief!’ Yes, I’ll
+burst him like a gun--There! we’re allies now by the imprudence of that
+outbreak! If you choose I’ll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet’s pardon and tell
+her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her
+good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand
+must promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now.”
+
+“Wait a minute;” said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+
+“Ursula, my child,” he said, returning to the salon, “the author of all
+your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask
+your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+forgotten.”
+
+“What! Goupil?” cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all
+together.
+
+“Keep his secret,” said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+
+Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said in a troubled voice, “I wish that all Nemours
+could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and
+led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men. What I
+say now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the harm done
+by such miserable tricks--which may have hastened your happiness,” he
+added, rather maliciously, “for I see that Madame de Portenduere is with
+you.”
+
+“That is all very well, Goupil,” said the abbe, “Mademoiselle forgives
+you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer.”
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand,” said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. “I
+shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur’s practice; I hope the reparation
+I have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+petition to the bar and the ministry.”
+
+Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left
+the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff’s
+practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore
+the peace and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved by
+Goupil’s confession.
+
+“You see, my child, that God was not against you,” said the abbe.
+
+Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o’clock he was sitting
+in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom
+he was making plans for Desire’s future. Desire had become very sedate
+since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely
+that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau,
+who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they
+must find him a wife,--some poor girl belonging to an old and noble
+family; he would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris. Perhaps
+they could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zelie was
+proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer
+season. Minoret, inwardly congratulating himself for having managed his
+affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula, at the very
+moment when the drama so heedlessly begun by him was closing down upon
+him in a terrible manner.
+
+“Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you,” said
+Cabirolle.
+
+“Show him in,” answered Zelie.
+
+The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien’s boots on
+the floor of the gallery, where the doctor’s library used to be. A vague
+presentiment of danger ran through the robber’s veins. Savinien entered
+and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in his hand,
+and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband
+and wife.
+
+“I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret,” he said, “your
+reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who, as the
+whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to tarnish
+her honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you deliver her over
+to Goupil’s insults?--Answer!”
+
+“How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien,” said Zelie, “to come and ask us
+the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little
+about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret died I’ve
+not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I’ve never said
+one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I
+wouldn’t think of consulting about even a dog. Why don’t you speak up,
+Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in that way
+and accuse you of wickedness that’s beneath you? As if a man with
+forty-eight thousand francs a year from landed property, and a castle
+fit for a prince, would stoop to such things! Get up, and don’t sit
+there like a wet rag!”
+
+“I don’t know what monsieur means,” said Minoret in his squeaking voice,
+the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice
+was clear. “What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have
+said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My son Desire
+fell in love with her, and I didn’t want him to marry her, that’s all.”
+
+“Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence, but it was terrible, when all three
+persons examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy
+face of her colossus.
+
+“Though you are only insects,” said the young nobleman, “I will make
+you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a
+man sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek
+satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The first
+time he sets his foot in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me; he
+will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If
+he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have
+satisfaction. It shall never be said that you were tamely allowed to
+dishonor a defenceless young girl--”
+
+“But the calumnies of a Goupil--are--not--” began Minoret.
+
+“Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you had
+better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave
+it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your son.”
+
+“But this sha’n’t go one!” cried Zelie. “Do you suppose I’ll stand
+by and let Desire fight you,--a sailor whose business it is to handle
+swords and guns? If you’ve got any cause of complaint against Minoret,
+there’s Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy,
+who, by your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear
+the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman! somebody’s teeth will pin your
+legs first! Come, Minoret, don’t stand staring there like a big canary;
+you are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before
+your wife! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man’s house is
+his castle. I don’t know what you mean with your nonsense, but show
+me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you’ll have to answer to
+_me_,--you and your minx Ursula.”
+
+She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+
+“Remember what I have said to you,” repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying
+no attention to Zelie’s tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over
+their heads, he left the room.
+
+“Now, then, Minoret,” said Zelie, “you will explain to me what this all
+means. A young man doesn’t rush into a house and make an uproar like
+that and demand the blood of a family for nothing.”
+
+“It’s some mischief of that vile Goupil,” said the colossus. “I promised
+to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap.
+I gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand francs in a note,
+and I suppose he isn’t satisfied.”
+
+“Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+Ursula?”
+
+“He wanted to marry her.”
+
+“A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling me
+lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe them.
+There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me what it
+is.”
+
+“There’s nothing.”
+
+“Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out.”
+
+“Do let me alone!”
+
+“I’ll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil--whom you’re
+afraid of--and we’ll see who gets the best of it then.”
+
+“Just as you choose.”
+
+“I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to
+him, mark you, I’ll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and
+you, you haven’t any feeling about him--”
+
+A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to
+end without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his
+self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against
+himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated
+with a new and terrible adversary. The next day, when he left the house
+early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional money, the
+walls were already placarded with the words: “Minoret is a thief.” All
+those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of
+the anonymous placard. Fortunately for him, everybody made allowance for
+his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stupidity; fools get
+more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength.
+The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not
+help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose
+all. Why? Because men like to feel superior in protecting an incapable,
+and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of
+genius. A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he
+stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened
+air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever
+they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret’s conscience still
+remained.
+
+The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though
+Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he
+now impudently refused to fulfil it.
+
+“My dear Lecoeur,” he said, “I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up
+Monsieur Dionis’s practice; I am therefore in a position to help you
+to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it’s only the loss of two
+stamps,--here are seventy centimes.”
+
+Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
+before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
+to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
+against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position
+he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his
+respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him
+well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his
+leg at the first offence.
+
+The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
+the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs and
+her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his practice;
+the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One evening, towards
+midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving
+Massin’s house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notary
+kept the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman
+who saw the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him.
+
+These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who became
+convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret, and he
+determined to find out its cause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. APPARITIONS
+
+Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula’s perfect
+innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily exhaustion,
+which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium of phenomena
+the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to challenge
+science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+
+Ten days after Madame de Portenduere’s visit Ursula had a dream, with
+all the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral
+aspects as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather
+appeared to her and made a sign that she should come with him. She
+dressed herself and followed him through the darkness to their former
+house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely as
+it was on the day of her godfather’s death. The old man wore the clothes
+that were on him the evening before his death. His face was pale,
+his movements caused no sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his voice
+distinctly, though it was feeble and as if repeated by a distant echo.
+The doctor conducted his child as far as the Chinese pagoda, where he
+made her lift the marble top of the little Boule cabinet just as she had
+raised it on the day of his death; but instead of finding nothing there
+she saw the letter her godfather had told her to fetch. She opened it
+and read both the letter addressed to herself and the will in favor
+of Savinien. The writing, as she afterwards told the abbe, shone as if
+traced by sunbeams--“it burned my eyes,” she said. When she looked
+at her uncle to thank him she saw the old benevolent smile upon his
+discolored lips. Then, in a feeble voice, but still clearly, he told her
+to look at Minoret, who was listening in the corridor to what he said to
+her; and next, slipping the lock of the library door with his knife, and
+taking the papers from the study. With his right hand the old man seized
+his goddaughter and obliged her to walk at the pace of death and follow
+Minoret to his own house. Ursula crossed the town, entered the post
+house and went into Zelie’s old room, where the spectre showed her
+Minoret unfolding the letters, reading them and burning them.
+
+“He could not,” said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, “light the
+first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back to
+our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where
+he took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of twelve
+thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number of
+banknotes. ‘He is,’ said my godfather, ‘the cause of all the trouble
+which has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills that you
+shall yet be happy. You will not die now; you will marry Savinien.
+If you love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your
+fortune from my nephew. Swear it.’”
+
+Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+influence on Ursula’s soul that she promised all her uncle asked, hoping
+to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found herself
+standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather’s portrait,
+which had been placed there during her illness. She went back to bed and
+fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remembered all
+the particulars of this singular vision; but she dared not speak of it.
+Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the
+end and object of which was her pecuniary benefit. She attributed the
+vision, not unnaturally, to remarks made by La Bougival the preceding
+evening, when the old woman talked of the doctor’s intended liberality
+and of her own convictions on that subject. But the dream returned, with
+aggravated circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl. On
+the second occasion the icy hand of her godfather was laid upon her
+shoulder, causing her the most horrible distress, an indefinable
+sensation. “You must obey the dead,” he said, in a sepulchral voice.
+“Tears,” said Ursula, relating her dreams, “fell from his white,
+wide-open eyes.”
+
+The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of
+her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and
+promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided
+to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe,” she said, “do you believe that the dead reappear?”
+
+“My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have
+much testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an
+article of faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the
+idea.”
+
+“What do _you_ believe?”
+
+“That the power of God is infinite.”
+
+“Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?”
+
+“Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His conversion,
+as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in
+Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you made
+against Saint-Savinien’s day in your almanac.”
+
+Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered
+the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read her soul,
+and took away the almanac.
+
+“If that is so,” she said, “then my visions are possibly true. My
+godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was
+wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass for the
+repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these visions may
+cease, for they are destroying me.”
+
+She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting
+on the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the
+somnambulism of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from
+her body at the bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect
+ease. The thing that most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula’s veracity
+was known, was the exact description which she gave of the bedroom
+formerly occupied by Zelie at the post house, which Ursula had never
+entered and about which no one had ever spoken to her.
+
+“By what means can these singular apparitions take place?” asked Ursula.
+“What did my godfather think?”
+
+“Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized
+the possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are of
+man’s creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must have
+forms which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are perceptible
+to our inward senses when brought under certain conditions. Thus your
+godfather’s ideas might so enfold you that you would clothe them with
+his bodily presence. Then, if Minoret really committed those actions,
+they too resolve themselves into ideas; for all action is the result
+of many ideas. Now, if ideas live and move in a spiritual world, your
+spirit must be able to perceive them if it penetrates that world. These
+phenomena are not more extraordinary than those of memory; and those of
+memory are quite as amazing and inexplicable as those of the perfume of
+plants--which are perhaps the ideas of the plants.”
+
+“How you enlarge and magnify the world!” exclaimed Ursula. “But to hear
+the dead speak, to see them walk, act--do you think it possible?”
+
+“In Sweden,” replied the abbe, “Swedenborg has proved by evidence that
+he communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and
+you shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded
+at Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales,
+an adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier at
+Cardan.”
+
+Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the “History of Henri
+de Montmorency,” written by a priest of that period who had known the
+prince.
+
+“Read it,” said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had opened
+at the 175th page. “Your godfather often re-read that passage,--and see!
+here’s a little of his snuff in it.”
+
+“And he not here!” said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+
+  “The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there--namely, the
+  Marquis d’Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis’s quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  “I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved.”
+
+“If all this is so,” said Ursula, “what ought I do do?”
+
+“My child,” said the abbe, “it concerns matters so important, and which
+may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep absolutely
+silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these
+apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you are now strong
+enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and
+pray to him for the repose of your godfather’s soul. Feel quite sure
+that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands.”
+
+“If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,--what glances my godfather
+gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress--I awoke with my face
+all covered with tears.”
+
+“Be at peace; he will not come again,” said the priest.
+
+Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that
+they might be entirely alone.
+
+“Can any one hear us?” he asked.
+
+“No one,” replied Minoret.
+
+“Monsieur, my character must be known to you,” said the abbe, fastening
+a gentle but attentive look on Minoret’s face. “I have to speak to you
+of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you, and about which
+you may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy; but it is
+impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While
+your uncle lived, there stood there,” said the priest, pointing to a
+certain spot in the room, “a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble
+top” (Minoret turned livid), “and beneath the marble your uncle placed
+a letter for Ursula--” The abbe then went on to relate, without omitting
+the smallest circumstance, Minoret’s conduct to Minoret himself. When
+the last post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to
+light he felt his hair begin to writhe on his skull.
+
+“Who invented such nonsense?” he said, in a strangled voice, when the
+tale ended.
+
+“The dead man himself.”
+
+This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+doctor.
+
+“God is very good, Monsieur l’abbe, to do miracles for me,” he said,
+danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+
+“All that God does is natural,” replied the priest.
+
+“Your phantoms don’t frighten me,” said the colossus, recovering his
+coolness.
+
+“I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to any
+one in the world,” said the abbe. “You alone know the truth. The matter
+is between you and God.”
+
+“Come now, Monsieur l’abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+horrible abuse of confidence?”
+
+“I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+sinner repents,” said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+
+“Crime?” cried Minoret.
+
+“A crime frightful in its consequences.”
+
+“What consequences?”
+
+“In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself
+avenges innocence.”
+
+“Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?”
+
+“If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God.”
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have had
+these facts from my uncle?”
+
+“Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to me
+privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will never
+speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point.”
+
+“I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon.”
+
+“I hope you are,” said the old priest. “Even if I considered these
+warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man,
+and you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish
+to add to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and
+you would be tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or
+civilized, the sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to
+enjoy in peace ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the society
+in which we live,--for well-constituted societies are modeled on the
+system God has ordained for the universe. In this respect societies have
+a divine origin. Man does not originate ideas, he invents no form;
+he answers to the eternal relations that surround him on all sides.
+Therefore, see what happens! Criminals going to the scaffold, and having
+it in their power to carry their secret with them, are compelled by the
+force of some mysterious power to make confessions before their heads
+are taken off. Therefore, Monsieur Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I
+go my way satisfied.”
+
+Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way
+out. When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric
+man; the strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula’s name
+was mingled with odious language.
+
+“Why, what has she done to you?” cried Zelie, who had slipped in on
+tiptoe after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+
+For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+driven to extremities by his wife’s reiterated questions, turned
+upon her and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell
+half-dead on the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed
+himself, ashamed of his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him
+twice; when he appeared again in the streets everybody noticed a great
+change in him. He walked alone, and often roamed the town as though
+uneasy. When any one addressed him he seemed preoccupied in his mind, he
+who had never before had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he
+went up to Monsieur Bongrand in the Grand’Rue, the latter being on his
+way to take Ursula to Madame de Portenduere’s, where the whist parties
+had begun again.
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin,” he
+said, taking the justice by the arm, “and I am very glad you should be
+present, for you can advise her.”
+
+They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air, as
+soon as she saw Minoret.
+
+“My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+business,” said Bongrand. “By the bye, don’t forget to give me your
+certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+dividend and La Bougival’s.”
+
+“Cousin,” said Minoret, “our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than
+you have now.”
+
+“We can be very happy with very little money,” she replied.
+
+“I thought money might help your happiness,” continued Minoret, “and I
+have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my uncle.”
+
+“You had a natural way of showing respect for him,” said Ursula,
+sternly; “you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to
+buy it; instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find some
+hidden treasure in it.”
+
+“But,” said Minoret, evidently troubled, “if you had twelve thousand
+francs a year you would be in a position to marry well.”
+
+“I have not got them.”
+
+“But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate
+in Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,--you could then marry her son.”
+
+“Monsieur Minoret,” said Ursula, “I have no claim to that money, and I
+cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are
+we friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason have
+you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a right to
+ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider your gift
+the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to accept it.
+Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing
+except from friends, and I have no friendship for you.”
+
+“Then you refuse?” cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had
+never entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+
+“I refuse,” said Ursula.
+
+“But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+fortune?” asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. “You have an
+idea--have you an idea?--”
+
+“Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son will
+leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her.”
+
+“Well, we’ll see about it,” said Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
+“Give us time to think it over.”
+
+He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the
+father for his son’s interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her
+hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand
+went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started for
+Fontainebleau, where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was
+told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect.
+Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was playing whist with
+the wife of the procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the
+colonel of the regiment in garrison.
+
+“I come to bring you some good news,” said Bongrand to Desire; “you love
+your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged.”
+
+“I love Ursula Mirouet!” cried Desire, laughing. “Where did you get that
+idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret’s;
+she certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I certainly took
+notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled my head seriously
+for that rather insipid little blonde,” he added, smiling at the
+sub-prefect’s wife (who was a piquante brunette--to use a term of the
+last century). “You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur Bongrand; I thought
+every one knew that my father was a lord of a manor, with a rent roll
+of forty-five thousand francs a year from lands around his chateau at
+Rouvre,--good reasons why I should not love the goddaughter of my late
+great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl without a penny these ladies
+would consider me a fool.”
+
+“Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“You hear that, monsieur?” said the justice to the procureur du roi,
+who had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the
+recess of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter of
+an hour.
+
+An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula’s house, whence he
+sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus came at
+once.
+
+“Mademoiselle--” began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+room.
+
+“Accepts?” cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+
+“No, not yet,” replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. “I had scruples
+as to your son’s feelings; for Ursula has been much tried lately about a
+supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity. Can you swear
+to me that your son truly loves her and that you have no other intention
+than to preserve our dear Ursula from any further Goupilisms?”
+
+“Oh, I’ll swear to that,” cried Minoret.
+
+“Stop, papa Minoret,” said the justice, taking one hand from the pocket
+of his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus trembled);
+“Don’t swear falsely.”
+
+“Swear falsely?”
+
+“Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never
+even thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering
+this fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+Fontainebleau to question your son.”
+
+Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+
+“But where’s the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young
+relative to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness, and
+to invent pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money.”
+
+Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+
+“You know the cause of my refusal,” said Ursula; “and I request you
+never to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told
+me his reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such dislike
+even, that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is my only
+fortune,--I do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it. Monsieur de
+Portenduere is only waiting for my majority to marry me.”
+
+“Then the old saw that ‘Money does all’ is a lie,” said Minoret, looking
+at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so much.
+
+He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+oppressive as in the little salon.
+
+“There must be an end put to this,” he said to himself as he re-entered
+his own home.
+
+When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La Bougival,
+she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon with great
+strides.
+
+“Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?” he said.
+
+“None that I can tell,” she replied.
+
+Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+
+“Then we have the same idea,” he said. “Here, keep the number of
+your certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+precaution.”
+
+Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and that
+of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+
+“Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+third.”
+
+That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle’s
+grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the
+inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a
+piercing cry, but the doctor’s spectre slowly rose. First she saw his
+yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if surmounted
+by a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the eyes were like two gleams of
+light; the dead man rose as if impelled by some superior force or will.
+Ursula’s body trembled; her flesh was like a burning garment, and there
+was (as she subsequently said) another self moving within her bodily
+presence. “Mercy!” she cried, “mercy, godfather!” “It is too late,” he
+said, in the voice of death,--to use the poor girl’s own expression when
+she related this new dream to the abbe. “He has been warned; he has paid
+no heed to the warning. The days of his son are numbered. If he does not
+confess all and restore what he has taken within a certain time he must
+lose his son, who will die a violent and horrible death. Let him know
+this.” The spectre pointed to a line of figures which gleamed upon the
+side of the tomb as if written with fire, and said, “There is his doom.”
+ When her uncle lay down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of
+the stone falling back into its place, and immediately after, in the
+distance, a strange sound of horses and the cries of men.
+
+The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had
+the dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon
+and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass,
+but he was not surprised at Ursula’s revelation. He believed the robbery
+had been committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself the
+abnormal condition of his “little dreamer.” He left Ursula at once and
+went directly to Minoret’s.
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe,” said Zelie, “my husband’s temper is so soured I don’t
+know what he mightn’t do. Until now he’s been a child; but for the last
+two months he’s not the same man. To get angry enough to strike me--me,
+so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter to change him
+like that. You’ll find him among the rocks; he spends all his time
+there,--doing what, I’d like to know?”
+
+In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed the
+canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks, where
+he saw Minoret.
+
+“You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret,” said the priest going
+up to him. “You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to
+increase your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle
+lifted the stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great
+disaster in your family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but
+you ought to know what he said--”
+
+“I can’t be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these
+rocks, and I’m sure I don’t want to know anything that is going on in
+another world.”
+
+“Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+pleasure,” said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+
+“Well, what do you want to say?” demanded Minoret.
+
+“You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told
+things that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells things
+that no one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say, make
+restitution. Don’t damn your soul for a little money.”
+
+“Restitution of what?”
+
+“The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+certificates--I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies, you
+have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false steps
+every day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice Goupil has
+served you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and clear your
+mind, for you are watched by intelligent and penetrating eyes,--those of
+Ursula’s friends. Make restitution! and if you do not save your son (who
+may not really be threatened), you will save your soul, and you will
+save your honor. Do you believe that in a society like ours, in a little
+town like this, where everybody’s eyes are everywhere, and all things
+are guessed and all things are known, you can long hide a stolen
+fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man wouldn’t have let me talk so
+long.”
+
+“Go to the devil!” cried Minoret. “I don’t know what you _all_ mean by
+persecuting me. I prefer these stones--they leave me in peace.”
+
+“Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have
+said a single word about this to any living person. But take care--there
+is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!”
+
+The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The
+man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was,
+in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three
+certificates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not
+draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not wish
+to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of transferring the
+certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of
+acknowledging all to his wife and getting her advice. Zelie, who always
+managed affairs for him so well, she could get him out of his troubles.
+The three-per-cent Funds were now selling at eighty. Restitution! why,
+that meant, with arrearages, giving up a million! Give up a million,
+when there was no one who could know that he had taken it--!
+
+So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute
+and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the
+little town he grew thin and haggard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. REMORSE
+
+An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above
+their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret
+received from their son Desire the following letter:--
+
+  My dear Mother,--If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil’s
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father’s
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil’s malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father’s
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+
+After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating
+all the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even
+Ursula’s dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did
+Minoret.
+
+“You stay quietly here,” Zelie said to her husband, without the
+slightest remonstrance against his folly. “I’ll manage the whole thing.
+We’ll keep the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel.”
+
+Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son’s letter
+to Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In spite of her
+assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which the young girl
+gave her. But she took herself to task for her cowardice and assumed an
+easy air.
+
+“Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell me
+what you think of it,” she cried, giving Ursula her son’s letter.
+
+Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the letter,
+which showed her how truly she was loved and what care Savinien took
+of the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but she had too much
+charity and true religion to be willing to be the cause of death or
+suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+
+“I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly
+easy,--but I must request you to leave me this letter.”
+
+“My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,--a really
+regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we
+shall give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the
+Funds; in all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that there
+are not many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,--and
+quite right too,” added Zelie, seeing Ursula’s quick gesture of denial;
+“I have therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will bear your
+godfather’s name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you must have seen,
+is a handsome fellow; he is very much thought of at Fontainebleau, and
+he will soon be procureur du roi himself. You are a coaxing girl and
+can easily persuade him to live in Paris. We will give you a fine house
+there; you will shine; you will play a distinguished part; for, with
+seventy thousand francs a year and the salary of an office, you and
+Desire can enter the highest society. Consult your friends; you’ll see
+what they tell you.”
+
+“I need only consult my heart, madame.”
+
+“Ta, ta, ta! now don’t talk to me about that little lady-killer
+Savinien. You’d pay too high a price for his name, and for that little
+moustache curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair.
+How do you expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a
+man who made two hundred thousand francs of debt in two years?
+Besides--though this is a thing you don’t know yet--all men are alike;
+and without flattering myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the
+equal of a king’s son.”
+
+“You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which
+can, perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere’s desire to
+please me. If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals that
+danger might not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame, that I
+shall be far happier in the moderate circumstances to which you allude
+than I should be in the opulence with which you are trying to dazzle me.
+For reasons hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made known, Monsieur
+Minoret, by persecuting me in an odious manner, strengthened the
+affection that exists between Monsieur de Portenduere and myself--which
+I can now admit because his mother has blessed it. I will also tell you
+that this affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is life itself to me. No
+destiny, however brilliant, however lofty, could make me change. I love
+without the possibility of changing. It would therefore be a crime if
+I married a man to whom I could take nothing but a soul that is
+Savinien’s. But, madame, since you force me to be explicit, I must tell
+you that even if I did not love Monsieur de Portenduere I could not
+bring myself to bear the troubles and joys of life in the company of
+your son. If Monsieur Savinien made debts, you have often paid those
+of your son. Our characters have neither the similarities nor
+the differences which enable two persons to live together without
+bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the forbearance a
+wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to him. Pray cease to
+think of an alliance of which I count myself quite unworthy, and which
+I feel I can decline without pain to you; for with the great advantages
+you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl of better station,
+more wealth, and more beauty than mine.”
+
+“Will you swear to me,” said Zelie, “to prevent these young men from
+taking that journey and fighting that duel?”
+
+“It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown
+must have no blood upon it.”
+
+“Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy.”
+
+“And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your
+expectations for the future of your son.”
+
+These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+remembered the predictions of Ursula’s last dream; she stood still, her
+small eyes fixed on Ursula’s face, so white, so pure, so beautiful in
+her mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-called
+cousin’s departure.
+
+“Do you believe in dreams?” said Zelie.
+
+“I suffer from them too much not to do so.”
+
+“But if you do--” began Zelie.
+
+“Adieu, madame,” exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she heard
+the abbe’s entering step.
+
+The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+
+“Do you believe in spirits?” Zelie asked him.
+
+“What do you believe in?” he answered, smiling.
+
+“They are all sly,” thought Zelie,--“every one of them! They want to
+deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams than
+there are hairs on the palm of my hand.”
+
+With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+
+“I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau,” said Ursula to the abbe,
+telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to
+prevent it.
+
+“Did Madame Minoret offer you her son’s hand?” asked the abbe.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her,” added the priest.
+
+Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step
+taken by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He looked
+at the abbe as if to say: “Come out, I want to speak to you of Ursula
+without her hearing me.”
+
+“Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year
+and the dandy of Nemours,” he said aloud.
+
+“Is it, then, a sacrifice?” she answered, laughing. “Are there
+sacrifices when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of a
+man we all despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but that
+ought not to be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy, and the
+abbe, and my dear godfather,” she said, looking up at his portrait.
+
+Bongrand took Ursula’s hand and kissed it.
+
+“Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?” said the justice as soon
+as they were in the street.
+
+“What?” asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+merely curious.
+
+“She had some plan for restitution.”
+
+“Then you think--” began the abbe.
+
+“I don’t think, I know; I have the certainty--and see there!”
+
+So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on
+his way home.
+
+“When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts,” continued Bongrand, “I
+naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never
+seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity,
+that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and
+bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care? What has
+put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity?
+Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead? Who would
+have supposed that the brain of that colossus could be excited? The man
+has felt his heart! I am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge
+of repentance, my dear abbe. That which I have hitherto observed has
+developed in men who were awaiting punishment, or enduring it to get
+quits with the world; they were either resigned, or breathing vengeance;
+but here is remorse without expiation, remorse pure and simple,
+fastening on its prey and rending him.”
+
+The judge stopped Minoret and said: “Do you know that Mademoiselle
+Mirouet has refused your son’s hand?”
+
+“But,” interposed the abbe, “do not be uneasy; she will prevent the
+duel.”
+
+“Ah, then my wife succeeded?” said Minoret. “I am very glad, for it
+nearly killed me.”
+
+“You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,”
+ remarked Bongrand.
+
+Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+betrayed the dreams; but the abbe’s face was unmoved, expressing only a
+calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+
+“And it is the more surprising,” went on Monsieur Bongrand, “because
+you ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and
+all those farms and mills and meadows and--with your investments in the
+Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs--”
+
+“I haven’t anything in the Funds,” cried Minoret, hastily.
+
+“Pooh,” said Bongrand; “this is just as it was about your son’s love
+for Ursula,--first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage.
+After trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a
+daughter-in-law. My good friend, you have got some secret in your
+pouch.”
+
+Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+better than:--
+
+“You’re very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen”; and he turned with a
+slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+
+“He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula,” said Bongrand, “but how
+can we ever find the proof?”
+
+“God may--”
+
+“God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man;
+but all that is merely what is called ‘presumptive,’ and human justice
+requires something more.”
+
+The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in similar
+circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think of the
+robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien’s happiness,
+delayed only by Ursula’s loss of fortune--for the old lady had privately
+owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not consenting to the
+marriage in the doctor’s lifetime.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS
+             VERY EASILY STOLEN
+
+The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying mass,
+a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance
+of a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied
+her home without having breakfasted.
+
+“My child,” he said, “I want to see the two volumes your godfather
+showed you in your dreams--where he said that he placed those
+certificates and banknotes.”
+
+Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third
+volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
+without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
+still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found
+a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a package, which
+had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
+
+“Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand,” La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was putting
+on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret’s hand-writing
+on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the
+cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just discovered.
+
+“What’s the meaning of those figures?” said the abbe; “our dear doctor
+was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable
+volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded
+by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U.”
+
+“What are you talking of?” said Bongrand. “Let me see that. Good God!”
+ he cried, after a moment’s examination; “it would open the eyes of an
+atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I
+believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the
+worlds.” He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. “Oh! my child, you
+will be rich and happy, and all through me!”
+
+“What is it?” exclaimed the abbe.
+
+“Oh, monsieur,” cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand’s blue overcoat,
+“let me kiss you for what you’ve just said.”
+
+“Explain, explain! don’t give us false hopes,” said the abbe.
+
+“If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich,” said Ursula, forseeing
+a criminal trial, “I--”
+
+“Remember,” said the justice, interrupting her, “the happiness you will
+give to Savinien.”
+
+“Are you mad?” said the abbe.
+
+“No, my dear friend,” said Bongrand. “Listen; the certificates in the
+Funds are issued in series,--as many series as there are letters in
+the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+certificates which are made out ‘to bearer’ cannot have a letter; they
+are not in any person’s name. What you see there shows that the day the
+doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number
+of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears
+his initial M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to bearer; these
+are without a letter; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula’s share in
+the Funds, the number of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see,
+that of the fifteen-thousand-franc certificate with lettering. This
+goes far to prove that those numbers are those of five certificates of
+investments made on the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of
+loss. I advised him to take certificates to bearer for Ursula’s fortune,
+and he must have made his own investment and that of Ursula’s little
+property the same day. I’ll go to Dionis’s office and look at the
+inventory. If the number of the certificate for his own investment is
+23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he invested, through the same
+broker on the same day, first his own property on a single certificate;
+secondly his savings in three certificates to bearer (numbered, but
+without the series letter); thirdly, Ursula’s own property; the transfer
+books will show, of course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you
+deceiver, I have you--Motus, my children!”
+
+Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways
+by which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+
+“The finger of God is in all this,” cried the abbe.
+
+“Will they punish him?” asked Ursula.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” cried La Bougival. “I’d give the rope to hang him.”
+
+Bongrand was already at Goupil’s, now the appointed successor of Dionis,
+but he entered the office with a careless air. “I have a little matter
+to verify about the Minoret property,” he said to Goupil.
+
+“What is it?” asked the latter.
+
+“The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent Funds?”
+
+“He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year,” said Goupil; “I
+recorded it myself.”
+
+“Then just look on the inventory,” said Bongrand.
+
+Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+place, and read:--
+
+“‘Item, one certificate’--Here, read for yourself--under the number
+23,533, letter M.”
+
+“Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an
+hour,” said Bongrand.
+
+“What good is it to you?” asked Goupil.
+
+“Do you want to be a notary?” answered the justice of peace, looking
+sternly at Dionis’s proposed successor.
+
+“Of course I do,” cried Goupil. “I’ve swallowed too many affronts not to
+succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable
+creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre
+Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of
+Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no
+longer even alike. Look at me!”
+
+Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil’s clothes. The new
+notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with
+ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of
+handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
+hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
+
+“The fact is you are another man,” said Bongrand.
+
+“Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a practice;
+besides, money is the source of cleanliness--”
+
+“Morally as well as physically,” returned Bongrand, settling his
+spectacles.
+
+“Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever
+a democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what
+refinement is, and who intends to love his wife,” said Goupil; “and
+what’s more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions.”
+
+“Well, make haste,” said Bongrand. “Let me have that copy in an hour,
+and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the
+clerk.”
+
+After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he
+went back to Ursula’s house for the two important volumes and for
+her own certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the
+inventory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the
+procureur du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft
+of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs,--presumably by
+Minoret.
+
+“His conduct is explained,” said the procureur.
+
+As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury
+to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go
+to Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a
+polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence.
+
+Zelie, very uneasy about her son’s duel, dressed herself at once,
+had the horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The
+procureur’s plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the
+husband, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he
+expected to learn the truth. Zelie found the official in his private
+office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows:--
+
+“Madame,” he said; “I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft
+that has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of which
+the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of
+appearing in the prisoner’s dock by making a full confession of what
+you know about it. The punishment which your husband has incurred is,
+moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son’s career is to be
+thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be
+too late. The police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant
+is made out.”
+
+Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+
+“You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate,” he
+said. “No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any publicity
+been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a great crime,
+which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be
+considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make you
+a prisoner--oh, in my own house, on parole,” he added, seeing that
+Zelie was about to faint. “You must remember that my official duty would
+require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination; but I am
+acting now individually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and
+her best interests demand a compromise.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Zelie.
+
+“Write to your husband in the following words,” he continued, placing
+Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:--
+
+  “My Friend,--I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury.”
+
+“You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+make,” said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie’s orthography. “We will see
+that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay in
+our house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of the
+matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy.”
+
+Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate sent
+for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father’s theft, which
+was really to Ursula’s injury, but, as matters stood, legally to that of
+his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother. Desire at
+once asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his father made
+immediate restitution.
+
+“It is a very serious matter,” said the magistrate. “The will having
+been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and
+Cremiere may put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father.
+I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has
+already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To her,
+I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take
+her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you can.
+Don’t fear any one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too well to
+let the matter become known.”
+
+Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter,
+the orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule
+on a man crushed by affliction.
+
+
+To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+
+Monsieur,--God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at
+Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the
+carriage; the horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their impatience,
+jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the
+box. As he turned to resume his place in the carriage beside his mother
+the horses started; Desire did not step back against the parapet in
+time; the step of the carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the
+hind wheel passing over his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for
+the best surgeon will bring you this letter, which my son in the midst
+of his sufferings desires me to write so as to let you know our entire
+submission to your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to
+speak to me.
+
+I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you
+have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+
+Francois Minoret.
+
+
+This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds
+standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell
+Savinien that his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful than
+his own. He went at once to Ursula’s house, where he found both the abbe
+and the young girl more distressed than surprised.
+
+The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and
+surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be
+amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied by
+the abbe, to Ursula’s house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand and
+Savinien.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said; “I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that
+I can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in
+absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and
+also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him.”
+
+He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+
+“I can assure you, my dear Ursula,” said the abbe, “that you can and
+that you ought to accept a part of this gift.”
+
+“Will you forgive me?” said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the
+astonished girl. “The operation is about to be performed by the first
+surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely
+only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to
+restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we
+shall have the joy of saving him.”
+
+“Let us go to the church!” cried Ursula, rising.
+
+But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and
+she fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her
+friends--but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor--looking at her
+with anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled
+their hearts.
+
+“I saw my godfather standing in the doorway,” she said, “and he signed
+to me that there was no hope.”
+
+The day after the operation Desire died,--carried off by the fever and
+the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became
+insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the
+establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
+
+Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married
+Savinien with Madame de Portenduere’s consent. Minoret took part in the
+marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate
+at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds;
+keeping for himself only his uncle’s house and ten thousand francs a
+year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most religious;
+he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of
+the unfortunate.
+
+“The poor take the place of my son,” he said.
+
+If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll
+the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out
+its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you
+will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,--broken,
+emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial
+dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the beginning of
+this history; he does not even take his snuff as he once did; he carries
+something more now than the weight of his body. Beholding him, we feel
+that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful
+warning. After hating so violently his uncle’s godchild the old man now,
+like Doctor Minoret himself, has concentrated all his affections on her,
+and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours.
+
+Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year
+in Paris, where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain. Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house
+in Nemours to the Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live
+at Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter’s lodge. Cabirolle, the
+former conductor of the “Ducler,” a man sixty years of age, has married
+La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a year which she possesses
+besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur
+de Portenduere’s coachman.
+
+If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming little
+low carriages called ‘escargots,’ lined with gray silk and trimmed with
+blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire because
+her face is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as
+forget-me-nots and filled with love; if you see her bending slightly
+towards a fine young man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of
+envy--pause and reflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have
+paid their quota to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married
+lovers are the Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife. There is not another
+such home in Paris as theirs.
+
+“It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen,” said the Comtesse de
+l’Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+
+Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for
+yourselves, a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best of
+all mothers--adversity.
+
+Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he
+is punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous. Dionis,
+his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is
+one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king
+of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis
+relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of her receptions
+at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the king of the
+French. She lords it over Nemours by means of the throne, which
+therefore must be popular in the little town.
+
+Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is
+in the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+
+Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the
+occasion of her daughter’s marriage, she exhorted her to be the working
+caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with the eyes
+of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her “slapsus-linquies,”
+ which he calls a Cremiereana.
+
+“We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon,” said
+the Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter--having nursed him herself
+during his illness. “The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is
+very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the
+venerable cure of Saint-Lange.”
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bouvard, Doctor
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Dionis
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Estorade, Madame de l’
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Kergarouet, Comte de
+       The Purse
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       The Thirteen
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Twon
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Beatrix
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Beatrix
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Schmucke, Wilhelm
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Father Goriot
+       Gobseck
+       A Man of Business
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1223 ***
diff --git a/1223-h/1223-h.htm b/1223-h/1223-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..34ab8bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1223-h/1223-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,10672 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1223 ***</div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      URSULA
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Honore De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> DEDICATION </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>URSULA</b> </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE RICH
+        UNCLE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        DOCTOR&rsquo;S FRIENDS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ZELIE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;URSULA
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        TREATISE ON MESMERISM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE CONFERENCE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SAVINIEN SAVED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012">
+        CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;URSULA
+        AGAIN ORPHANED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        DOCTOR&rsquo;S WILL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        TWO ADVERSARIES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018">
+        CHAPTER XVIII. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;APPARITIONS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REMORSE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SHOWING
+        HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL<br /> THAT WHICH SEEMS VERY EASILY STOLEN<br />
+        <br /> <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> ADDENDUM </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      DEDICATION
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+  It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+  book, the subject and details of which have won the
+  approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+  world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+  the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+  indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+  to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+  are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+  prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+  therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+  pleased you?
+
+  God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+  &mdash;the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+  Your uncle,
+  De Balzac.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      URSULA
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the
+      steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields
+      and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little
+      town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been built on the
+      farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place
+      will lose its present aspect of graceful originality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of the
+      post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting one fine
+      autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at a
+      glance the whole of what is called in his business a &ldquo;ruban de queue.&rdquo; The
+      month of September was displaying its treasures; the atmosphere glowed
+      above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the blue of the sky, the
+      purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed the
+      extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault (for that was the post
+      master&rsquo;s name) was obliged to shade his eyes with one hand to keep them
+      from being dazzled. With the air of a man who was tired of waiting, he
+      looked first to the charming meadows which lay to the right of the road
+      where the aftermath was springing up, then to the hill-slopes covered with
+      copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours to Bouron. He could hear in
+      the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on the road were echoed back
+      from the hills, the trot of his own horses and the crack of his
+      postilion&rsquo;s whip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such meadows,
+      filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath a Raffaelle
+      sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema. Whoever knows
+      Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art, whose mission is
+      to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas and creates thought.
+      But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an artist would very likely
+      have left the view to sketch the man, so original was he in his native
+      commonness. Unite in a human being all the conditions of the brute and you
+      have a Caliban, who is certainly a great thing. Wherever form rules,
+      sentiment disappears. The post master, a living proof of that axiom,
+      presented a physiognomy in which an observer could with difficulty trace,
+      beneath the vivid carnation of its coarsely developed flesh, the semblance
+      of a soul. His cap of blue cloth, with a small peak, and sides fluted like
+      a melon, outlined a head of vast dimensions, showing that Gall&rsquo;s science
+      has not yet produced its chapter of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny
+      hair which appeared below the cap showed that other causes than mental
+      toil or grief had whitened it. Large ears stood out from the head, their
+      edges scarred with the eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which seemed
+      ready to gush at the least exertion. His skin was crimson under an outside
+      layer of brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun. The roving gray
+      eyes, deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows, were like those of the
+      Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they ever sparkled it was only
+      under the influence of a covetous thought. His broad pug nose was
+      flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping with a repulsive double
+      chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more than once a week, was
+      encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted to a cord; a short neck,
+      rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of brute
+      force which sculptors give to their caryatids. Minoret-Levrault was like
+      those statues, with this difference, that whereas they supported an
+      edifice, he had more than he could well do to support himself. You will
+      meet many such Atlases in the world. The man&rsquo;s torso was a block; it was
+      like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His vigorous arms ended in
+      a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle
+      whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his postilions never attempted to
+      trifle with. The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which
+      were as large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an
+      elephant. Anger was a rare thing with him, but it was terrible,
+      apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though violent and quite incapable of
+      reflection, the man had never done anything that justified the sinister
+      suggestions of his bodily presence. To all those who felt afraid of him
+      his postilions would reply, &ldquo;Oh! he&rsquo;s not bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country, wore
+      a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green linen with
+      great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat&rsquo;s skin, in the pocket
+      of which might be discerned the round outline of a monstrous snuff-box. A
+      snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
+      did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had never
+      set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private principles,
+      he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did not forbid or
+      could not prevent he considered right. He never read anything but the
+      journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed
+      instructions relating to his business. He was considered a clever
+      agriculturist; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral
+      being did not belie the physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking he
+      always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas, but
+      words. If he had been a talker you would have felt that he was out of
+      keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet and
+      without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to agree with
+      Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes ridicule and
+      sometimes foretell characters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+      thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty thousand
+      francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If Minoret, being
+      master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the Gatinais to Paris,
+      still worked at his business, it was less from habit than for the sake of
+      an only son, to whom he was anxious to give a fine career. This son, who
+      was now (to use an expression of the peasantry) a &ldquo;monsieur,&rdquo; had just
+      completed his legal studies and was about to take his degree as
+      licentiate, preparatory to being called to the Bar. Monsieur and Madame
+      Minoret-Levrault&mdash;for behind our colossus every one will perceive a
+      woman without whom this signal good-fortune would have been impossible&mdash;left
+      their son free to choose his own career; he might be a notary in Paris,
+      king&rsquo;s-attorney in some district, collector of customs no matter where,
+      broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of his could they ever
+      refuse him? to what position of life might he not aspire as the son of a
+      man about whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in
+      the habit of saying, &ldquo;Pere Minoret doesn&rsquo;t even know how rich he is&rdquo;?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this history
+      begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and a splendid
+      dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand&rsquo;Rue to the wharf. The
+      new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs, which the gossip of
+      thirty miles in circumference more than doubled. The Nemours mail-coach
+      service requires a large number of horses. It goes to Fontainebleau on the
+      road to Paris, and from there diverges to Montargis and also to Montereau.
+      The relays are long, and the sandy soil of the Montargis road calls for
+      the mythical third horse, always paid for but never seen. A man of
+      Minoret&rsquo;s build, and Minoret&rsquo;s wealth, at the head of such an
+      establishment might well be called, without contradiction, the master of
+      Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being a practical
+      materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a practical egoist,
+      and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of
+      unmixed happiness,&mdash;if we can call pure materialism happiness. A
+      physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered the last
+      vertebrae and pressed upon the giant&rsquo;s cerebellum, and, above all, hearing
+      the shrill, sharp voice which contrasted so absurdly with his huge body,
+      would have understood why this ponderous, coarse being adored his only
+      son, and why he had so long expected him,&mdash;a fact proved by the name,
+      Desire, which was given to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+      spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+      idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+      mother&rsquo;s coffer and dipped into his father&rsquo;s purse, making each author of
+      his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire, who
+      played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his father&rsquo;s
+      capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had gratified
+      them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum of not less
+      than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal studies. But for
+      that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would never had come to
+      him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial skin, learned the power
+      of money and seen in the magistracy a means of advancement which he
+      fancied. During the last year he had spent an extra sum of ten thousand
+      francs in the company of artists, journalists, and their mistresses. A
+      confidential and rather disquieting letter from his son, asking for his
+      consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the post master was now
+      keeping on the bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a
+      sumptuous breakfast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate,
+      had sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and
+      ride out if he saw nothing of the diligence. The coach which was conveying
+      the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning and it was now
+      nine! What could be the meaning of such delay? Was the coach overturned?
+      Could Desire be dead? Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge of
+      musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten horses
+      neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was seen. The best
+      mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray carriage-horses, set
+      spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the five diligence horses and
+      the three other carriage-horses, and soon reached his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen the &lsquo;Ducler&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+      different coaches; such, for instance, as the &ldquo;Caillard,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Ducler&rdquo;
+       (the coach between Nemours and Paris), the &ldquo;Grand Bureau.&rdquo; Every new
+      enterprise is called the &ldquo;Competition.&rdquo; In the days of the Lecompte
+      company their coaches were called the &ldquo;Countess.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;&lsquo;Caillard&rsquo; could
+      not overtake the &lsquo;Countess&rsquo;; but &lsquo;Grand Bureau&rsquo; caught up with her
+      finely,&rdquo; you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing his
+      horses and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he will
+      tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space, &ldquo;The
+      &lsquo;Competition&rsquo; is ahead.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t get in sight of her,&rdquo; cries the
+      postilion; &ldquo;the vixen! she wouldn&rsquo;t stop to let her passengers dine.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;The
+      question is, has she got any?&rdquo; responds the conductor. &ldquo;Give it to
+      Polignac!&rdquo; All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac. Such are the jokes
+      and the basis of conversation between postilions and conductors on the
+      roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each calling in France has its
+      slang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen the &lsquo;Ducler&rsquo;?&rdquo; asked Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Desire?&rdquo; said the postilion, interrupting his master. &ldquo;Hey! you
+      must have heard us, didn&rsquo;t our whips tell you? we felt you were somewhere
+      along the road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,&mdash;for the bells were
+      pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,&mdash;a
+      woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, cousin,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t believe me&mdash;Uncle is with
+      Ursula in the Grand&rsquo;Rue, and they are going to mass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+      impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+      mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought from
+      the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew sibilant, and
+      his face took on the appearance of what people oddly enough call a
+      sunstroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that true?&rdquo; he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed him,
+      but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for his
+      son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand&rsquo;Rue with his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I always tell you so?&rdquo; she resumed. &ldquo;When Doctor Minoret goes out
+      of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into religion;
+      whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and she&rsquo;ll have our
+      inheritance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Madame Massin&mdash;&rdquo; said the post master, dumbfounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now!&rdquo; exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. &ldquo;You are
+      going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen can&rsquo;t
+      invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of eighty-three,
+      who has never set foot in a church except to be married, change his
+      opinions,&mdash;now don&rsquo;t tell me he has such a horror of priests that he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t even go with the girl to the parish church when she made her
+      first communion. I&rsquo;d like to know why, if Doctor Minoret hates priests, he
+      has spent nearly every evening for the last fifteen years of his life with
+      the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite never fails to give Ursula twenty
+      francs for wax tapers every time she takes the sacrament. Have you
+      forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to the cure for
+      preparing her for her first communion? She spent all her money on it, and
+      her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men! you don&rsquo;t pay attention
+      to things. When I heard that, I said to myself, &lsquo;Farewell baskets, the
+      vintage is done!&rsquo; A rich uncle doesn&rsquo;t behave that way to a little brat
+      picked up in the streets without some good reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door of
+      the church,&rdquo; replied the post master. &ldquo;It is a fine day, and he is out for
+      a walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious&mdash;you&rsquo;ll
+      see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They hide their game pretty well,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;La Bougival told me
+      there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+      Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the globe;
+      he&rsquo;d give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable of a base
+      action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Theft,&rdquo; said Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worse!&rdquo; cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+      gossiping neighbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I know,&rdquo; said Madame Massin, &ldquo;that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+      honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+      must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+      into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+      believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we&rsquo;re done for.
+      My husband is absolutely beside himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+      cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and to
+      the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way to mass.
+      She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of which
+      runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the stones of
+      which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt in the
+      fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised to a
+      peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a great arch
+      which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does everything.
+      Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly kept square,
+      this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect. As the post
+      master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his uncle with the
+      young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying prayer-books and just
+      entering the church. The old man took off his hat in the porch, and his
+      head, which was white as a hill-top covered with snow, shone among the
+      shadows of the portal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?&rdquo; cried
+      the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you expect me to say?&rdquo; replied the post master, offering him a
+      pinch of snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can&rsquo;t say what you think, if it is
+      true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his words
+      before he speaks his thoughts,&rdquo; cried a young man, standing near, who
+      played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+      Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct that
+      was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office when a
+      career in Paris&mdash;where the clerk had wasted all the money he
+      inherited from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a
+      notary&mdash;was brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere
+      sight of Goupil told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life, and
+      had paid dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and
+      shoulders were developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a man
+      of forty. Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion
+      like the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead, brought out
+      still further the oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it
+      belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularity of
+      that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible
+      gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many deformed
+      persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of dividing it down
+      the middle. The mouth, contracted at the corners, like that of a
+      Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and
+      reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His hands,
+      coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too long, were
+      quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the
+      dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and
+      trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful
+      waistcoat with half the button-moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which
+      served as a cravat&mdash;in short, all his clothing revealed the cynical
+      poverty to which his passions had reduced him. This combination of
+      disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round
+      the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly. No one in
+      Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more deferred to than Goupil.
+      Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the odious
+      style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license, and he used
+      it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical
+      couplets sung during the carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a
+      &ldquo;little journal&rdquo; of the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and
+      insincere, and for that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as
+      for his keen mind and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town.
+      But the master so distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts,
+      refused to let him live in his house, held him at arm&rsquo;s length, and never
+      confided any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk
+      fawned upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and
+      watching Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge there.
+      Gifted with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work easy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+      hands, &ldquo;making game of our misfortunes already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis&rsquo; passions for the last five
+      years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting the
+      hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil&rsquo;s heart with every fresh
+      insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to him than it
+      was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the whole
+      bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret&rsquo;s
+      son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of three town
+      offices,&mdash;that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of
+      the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up with
+      the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+      Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire, consoling
+      the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each vacation,&mdash;devouring
+      the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given God
+      to ME for a co-heir,&rdquo; retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which exhibited
+      his teeth&mdash;few, black, and menacing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+      wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector of
+      Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had the
+      physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as sloes
+      beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without
+      any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like a
+      man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough to
+      say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal
+      notices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by red
+      blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and
+      supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of pretensions to
+      wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle&rsquo;s money to &ldquo;take a certain
+      stand,&rdquo; decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her
+      husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles
+      the notary&rsquo;s wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who
+      caught up and retailed her &ldquo;slapsus-linquies&rdquo; as she called them. One day
+      Madame Dionis chanced to ask what &ldquo;Eau&rdquo; she thought best for the teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try opium,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled
+      in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so
+      generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet
+      umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so
+      picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on
+      the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between large
+      villages and cities those who do not go to mass stand about in the square
+      or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of church
+      service was a weekly exchange, to which the owners of property scattered
+      over a radius of some miles resorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how would you have prevented it?&rdquo; said the post master to Goupil in
+      reply to his remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes. But
+      from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance of a
+      rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman&mdash;for want
+      of proper care they&rsquo;ll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were here she
+      could tell you how true that comparison is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry about,&rdquo;
+       said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!&rdquo; cried Goupil, laughing. &ldquo;I
+      would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace say it. If there is
+      nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with your uncle, knows that all
+      is lost, the proper thing for him to say to you is, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be worried.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+      meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin had
+      let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+      insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as a
+      clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin, with
+      the words:&mdash;&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I tell you so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+      looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was at
+      that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, a former client.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were sure of it!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don&rsquo;t you see how Bongrand is
+      sprinkling him with advice?&rdquo; said Goupil, slipping an idea of retaliation
+      into Massin&rsquo;s mind. &ldquo;But you had better go easy with your chief; he&rsquo;s a
+      clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your uncle and persuade
+      him not to leave everything to the church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! we sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t die of it,&rdquo; said Minoret-Levrault, opening his enormous
+      snuff-box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t live of it, either,&rdquo; said Goupil, making the two women tremble.
+      More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the privations this loss
+      of inheritance (so long counted on for many comforts) would be to them.
+      &ldquo;However,&rdquo; added Goupil, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll drown this little grief in floods of
+      champagne in honor of Desire!&mdash;sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t we, old fellow?&rdquo; he cried,
+      tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting himself to the feast for
+      fear he should be left out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE RICH UNCLE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like to
+      read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees of
+      relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted to
+      religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+      cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+      subject of many instructive reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+      among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+      Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+      nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the latter
+      we may mention the d&rsquo;Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate of
+      Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+      mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the town
+      had no money. Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s sole possessions were a farm which
+      brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her town house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a group
+      of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former merchants;
+      in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived and moved the
+      retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry. The bourgeoisie
+      presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other small countries)
+      the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain autochthonous
+      families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who rule a whole
+      region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants are cousins. Under
+      Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made real names of their
+      surnames (some of which are united with those of feudalism) the
+      bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets, Massins, Levraults and
+      Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four families had already produced the
+      Massin-Cremieres, the Levrault-Massins, the Massin-Minorets, the
+      Minoret-Minorets, the Cremiere-Levraults, the Levrault-Minoret-Massins,
+      Massin-Levraults, Minoret-Massins, Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,&mdash;all
+      these varied with juniors and diversified with the names of eldest sons,
+      as for instance, Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret&mdash;enough
+      to drive a Pere Anselme of the People frantic,&mdash;if the people should
+      ever want a genealogist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+      complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of the
+      bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of the Almanach
+      of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they arrange those
+      zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the Minorets occupied the
+      tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the Massins were in trade, and
+      the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the neighbourhood these
+      four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending only on their
+      tap-roots; they scattered cuttings by the expatriation of sons who sought
+      their fortune elsewhere; for instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers
+      at Melun; Levraults at Montargis; Massins at Orleans; and Cremieres of
+      some importance in Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from the
+      parent hive. Rich Massins employ, of course, the poor working Massins&mdash;just
+      as Austria and Prussia take the German princes into their service. It may
+      happen that a public office is managed by a Minoret millionaire and
+      guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full of the same blood and called by the
+      same name (for sole likeness), these four roots had ceaselessly woven a
+      human network of which each thread was delicate or strong, fine or coarse,
+      as the case might be. The same blood was in the head and in the feet and
+      in the heart, in the working hands, in the weakly lungs, in the forehead
+      big with genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the ties of
+      family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which happened
+      under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France you may be, you
+      will find the same thing under changed names, but without the poetic charm
+      which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter Scott&rsquo;s genius reproduced so
+      faithfully. Let us look a little higher and examine humanity as it appears
+      in history. All the noble families of the eleventh century, most of them
+      (except the royal race of Capet) extinct to-day, will be found to have
+      contributed to the birth of the Rohans, Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and
+      Mortemarts of our time,&mdash;in fact they will all be found in the blood
+      of the last gentleman who is indeed a gentleman. In other words, every
+      bourgeois is cousin to a bourgeois, and every noble is cousin to a noble.
+      A splendid page of biblical genealogy shows that in one thousand years
+      three families, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, peopled the globe. One family may
+      become a nation; unfortunately, a nation may become one family. To prove
+      this we need only search back through our ancestors and see their
+      accumulation, which time increases into a retrograde geometric
+      progression, which multiplies of itself; reminding us of the calculation
+      of the wise man who, being told to choose a reward from the king of Persia
+      for inventing chess, asked for one ear of wheat for the first move on the
+      board, the reward to be doubled for each succeeding move; when it was
+      found that the kingdom was not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the
+      nobility, hemmed in by the net-work of the bourgeoisie,&mdash;the
+      antagonism of two protected races, one protected by fixed institutions,
+      the other by the active patience of labor and the shrewdness of commerce,&mdash;produced
+      the revolution of 1789. The two races almost reunited are to-day face to
+      face with collaterals without a heritage. What are they to do? Our
+      political future is big with the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret was so
+      numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose entrance into
+      the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to seek his fortune,
+      and seldom returned to his native town, until he came to receive his share
+      of the inheritance of his grandfather. After suffering many things, like
+      all young men of firm will who struggle for a place in the brilliant world
+      of Paris, this son of the Minorets reached a nobler destiny than he had,
+      perhaps, dreamed of at the start. He devoted himself, in the first
+      instance, to medicine, a profession which demands both talent and a
+      cheerful nature, but the latter qualification even more than talent.
+      Backed by Dupont de Nemours, connected by a lucky chance with the Abbe
+      Morellet (whom Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the
+      Encyclopedists, Doctor Minoret attached himself as liegeman to the famous
+      Doctor Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D&rsquo;Alembert, Helvetius, the Baron
+      d&rsquo;Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere boy. These
+      men, influenced by Bordeu&rsquo;s example, became interested in Minoret, who,
+      about the year 1777, found himself with a very good practice among deists,
+      encyclopedists, sensualists, materialists, or whatever you are pleased to
+      call the rich philosophers of that period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous balm of
+      Lelievre, so much extolled by the &ldquo;Mercure de France,&rdquo; the weekly organ of
+      the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was permanently advertised. The
+      apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a stroke of business where Minoret
+      had only seen a new preparation for the dispensary, and he loyally shared
+      his profits with the doctor, who was a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as
+      well as of Bordeu in medicine. Less than that would make a man a
+      materialist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the &ldquo;Nouvelle
+      Heloise,&rdquo; when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His wife
+      was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet, a celebrated
+      musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew. Minoret knew
+      Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental in awarding him
+      a gold medal for a dissertation on the following subject: &ldquo;What is the
+      origin of the opinion that covers a whole family with the shame attaching
+      to the public punishment of a guilty member of it? Is that opinion more
+      harmful than useful? If yes, in what way can the harm be warded off.&rdquo; The
+      Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at Metz, to which Minoret belonged,
+      must possess this dissertation in the original. Though, thanks to this
+      friendship, the Doctor&rsquo;s wife need have had no fear, she was so in dread
+      of going to the scaffold that her terror increased a disposition to heart
+      disease caused by the over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all
+      the precautions taken by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately
+      met the tumbril of victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock
+      caused her death. Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her
+      nothing, and had given her a life of luxury, found himself after her death
+      almost a poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as
+      surgeon-in-charge of a hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+      mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled him to
+      the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a destroyer
+      of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of Doctor Minoret,
+      who was induced to think of returning there to die, like the hare to its
+      form, by a circumstance that was wholly accidental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+      wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+      suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a fresh
+      cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering beneath a
+      cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow? Wakened by the
+      &ldquo;hu! hu!&rdquo; of the postilion as he walks beside his horses, we shake off
+      sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream, the beautiful scene which
+      is to the traveler what a noble passage in a book is to a reader,&mdash;a
+      brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the sensation caused by a first sight
+      of Nemours as we approach it from Burgundy. We see it encircled with bare
+      rocks, gray, black, white, fantastic in shape like those we find in the
+      forest of Fontainebleau; from them spring scattered trees, clearly defined
+      against the sky, which give to this particular rock formation the
+      dilapidated look of a crumbling wall. Here ends the long wooded hill which
+      creeps from Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road. At the bottom of this
+      irregular amphitheater lie meadow-lands through which flows the Loing,
+      forming sheets of water with many falls. This delightful landscape, which
+      continues the whole way to Montargis, is like an opera scene, for its
+      effects really seem to have been studied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a rich
+      patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having mentioned at the
+      last relay the route he intended to take, he was brought without his
+      knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more, on waking from a nap, the
+      scenery in which his childhood had been passed. He had lately lost many of
+      his old friends. The votary of the Encyclopedists had witnessed the
+      conversion of La Harpe; he had buried Lebrun-Pindare and Marie-Joseph de
+      Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame Helvetius. He assisted at the quasi-fall
+      of Voltaire when assailed by Geoffroy, the continuator of Freton. For some
+      time past he had thought of retiring, and so, when his post chaise stopped
+      at the head of the Grand&rsquo;Rue of Nemours, his heart prompted him to inquire
+      for his family. Minoret-Levrault, the post master, came forward himself to
+      see the doctor, who discovered him to be the son of his eldest brother.
+      The nephew presented the doctor to his wife, the only daughter of the late
+      Levrault-Cremiere, who had died twelve years earlier, leaving him the post
+      business and the finest inn in Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, nephew,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;have I any other relatives?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+      Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a bachelor,
+      and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I am, that ends
+      the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal side? My mother
+      was a Jean-Massin-Levrault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault&rsquo;s there&rsquo;s only one left,&rdquo; answered
+      Minoret-Levrault, &ldquo;namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur
+      Cremiere-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the
+      scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one
+      daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is
+      doing well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary&rsquo;s
+      clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I&rsquo;ve plenty of heirs,&rdquo; said the doctor gayly, immediately proposing to
+      take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+      gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+      happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor turned
+      into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the property of
+      Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he said, had just
+      died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there&rsquo;s a
+      charming garden running down to the river.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go in,&rdquo; said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a small
+      paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the two
+      neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and
+      climbing-plants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is built over a cellar,&rdquo; said the doctor, going up the steps of a high
+      portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which geraniums
+      were growing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+      which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room to
+      the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the courtyard and two
+      on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows to make
+      an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended from the
+      salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor,&rdquo; said old
+      Minoret, &ldquo;I could put my book there and make a very comfortable study of
+      that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the dining-room,
+      decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and gold flowers; this
+      was separated from the kitchen by the well of the staircase. Communication
+      with the kitchen was had through a little pantry built behind the
+      staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the courtyard through windows
+      with iron railings. There were two chambers on the next floor, and above
+      them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were fairly habitable. After
+      examining the house rapidly, and observing that it was covered with
+      trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the courtyard as well as on
+      that to the garden,&mdash;which ended in a terrace overlooking the river
+      and adorned with pottery vases,&mdash;the doctor remarked:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho! I should think so,&rdquo; answered Minoret-Levrault. &ldquo;He liked flowers&mdash;nonsense!
+      &lsquo;What do they bring in?&rsquo; says my wife. You saw inside there how an artist
+      came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the corridor. He put those
+      enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were all re-made with cornices
+      which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room floor is in marquetry&mdash;perfect
+      folly! The house won&rsquo;t sell for a penny the more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here&rsquo;s my
+      address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?&rdquo; he asked, as
+      they left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Emigres,&rdquo; answered the post master, &ldquo;named Portenduere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of living there,
+      wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was therefore occupied
+      by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice to Dionis,
+      his head-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house on the
+      doctor&rsquo;s hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was being
+      decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor&rsquo;s heirs, at first misled, had by
+      this time decided that his thought of returning to his native place was
+      merely a rich man&rsquo;s fancy, and that probably he had some tie in Paris
+      which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for inheritance.
+      However, Minoret-Levrault&rsquo;s wife seized the occasion to write him a
+      letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace was signed, the roads
+      cleared of soldiers, and safe communications established, he meant to go
+      and live at Nemours. He did, in fact, put in an appearance with two of his
+      clients, the architect of his hospital and an upholsterer, who took charge
+      of the repairs, the indoor arrangements, and the transportation of the
+      furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault proposed the cook of the late notary as
+      caretaker, and the woman was accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was really
+      coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the political
+      events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and on the
+      Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising. Was he
+      rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune or nothing?
+      Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out what follows, but
+      only by taking infinite pains and employing much subterraneous spying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years 1789
+      and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician to the
+      Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no one knew how
+      much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than a carriage by the
+      year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no guests, and dined out
+      almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at not being allowed to go with
+      him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the post master&rsquo;s wife, that she knew
+      the doctor had fourteen thousand francs a year on the &ldquo;grand-livre.&rdquo; Now,
+      after twenty years&rsquo; exercise of a profession which his position as head of
+      a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member of the Institute,
+      rendered lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs a year showed only one
+      hundred and sixty thousand francs laid by. To have saved only eight
+      thousand francs a year the doctor must have had either many vices or many
+      virtues to gratify. But neither his housekeeper nor Zelie nor any one else
+      could discover the reason for such moderate means. Minoret, who when he
+      left it was much regretted in the quarter of Paris where he had lived, was
+      one of the most benevolent of men, and, like Larrey, kept his kind deeds a
+      profound secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle&rsquo;s fine furniture and large
+      library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being
+      now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king a
+      chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel&mdash;perhaps on account of his
+      retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the architect
+      and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything in the most
+      comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame Minoret-Levrault, who
+      kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as if her own property was
+      concerned, found out, through the indiscretion of a young man sent to
+      arrange the books, that the doctor was taking care of a little orphan
+      named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire through the town. At last,
+      however, towards the middle of the month of January, 1815, the old man
+      actually arrived, installing himself quietly, almost slyly, with a little
+      girl about ten months old, and a nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The child can&rsquo;t be his daughter,&rdquo; said the terrified heirs; &ldquo;he is
+      seventy-one years old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever she is,&rdquo; remarked Madame Massin, &ldquo;she&rsquo;ll give us plenty of
+      tintouin&rdquo; (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+      more literally, tingling in the ears).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor received his great-niece on the mother&rsquo;s side somewhat coldly;
+      her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court, and the pair
+      began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither Massin nor his
+      wife were rich. Massin&rsquo;s father, a locksmith at Montargis, had been
+      obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was now, at sixty-seven
+      years of age, working like a young man, and had nothing to leave behind
+      him. Madame Massin&rsquo;s father, Levrault-Minoret, had just died at Montereau
+      after the battle, in despair at seeing his farm burned, his fields ruined,
+      his cattle slaughtered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll get nothing out of your great-uncle,&rdquo; said Massin to his wife, now
+      pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with which
+      Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began the
+      business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the
+      peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him to
+      hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through his
+      influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his bondsman.
+      Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his wife, being
+      jealous of the uncle&rsquo;s liberality to his two nieces, took her ten-year old
+      son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be to them at a school
+      in Paris, where, she said, education costs so much. The doctor obtained a
+      half-scholarship for his great-nephew at the school of Louis-le-Grand,
+      where Desire was put into the fourth class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+      &ldquo;rated without appeal&rdquo; by the doctor within two months of his arrival in
+      Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+      property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+      against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions of
+      instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a glance;
+      whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount of intellect
+      to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his heirs, and thus, as it
+      were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor made a pretext of his
+      occupations, his habits, and the care of the little Ursula to avoid
+      receiving his relatives without exactly closing his doors to them. He
+      liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he got up late; he had
+      returned to his native place for the very purpose of finding rest in
+      solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be natural, and his
+      relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly visits on Sundays
+      from one to four o&rsquo;clock, to which, however, he tried to put a stop by
+      saying: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t come and see me unless you want something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over serious
+      cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not serve as a
+      physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared that he no
+      longer practiced his profession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve killed enough people,&rdquo; he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon, who,
+      knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an original!&rdquo; These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the harmless
+      revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects about him a
+      society of persons who have many of the characteristics of a set of heirs.
+      Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves entitled to visit this
+      distinguished physician kept up a ferment of jealousy against the few
+      privileged friends whom he did admit to his intimacy, which had in the
+      long run some unfortunate results.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR&rsquo;S FRIENDS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that &ldquo;extremes meet,&rdquo;
+       the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon friends. The
+      old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the priesthood, and the Abbe
+      Chaperon played it with about as much skill as he himself. The game was
+      the first tie between them. Then Minoret was charitable, and the abbe was
+      the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had had a wide and varied education; the
+      man of God was the only person in all Nemours who was fully capable of
+      understanding the atheist. To be able to argue, men must first understand
+      each other. What pleasure is there in saying sharp words to one who can&rsquo;t
+      feel them? The doctor and the priest had far too much taste and had seen
+      too much of good society not to practice its precepts; they were thus
+      well-fitted for the little warfare so essential to conversation. They
+      hated each other&rsquo;s opinions, but they valued each other&rsquo;s character. If
+      such conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we
+      must surely despair of society, which, especially in France, requires some
+      form of antagonism. It is from the shock of characters, and not from the
+      struggle of opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor&rsquo;s chief friend. This
+      excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+      Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+      attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+      those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so doing,
+      the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his sheep,
+      respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without inquiring
+      into the religious opinions of those he benefited. His parsonage, with
+      scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life, was cold and
+      shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice manifest
+      themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in heaven which
+      avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon argued with his servant over
+      expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his&mdash;if indeed that
+      famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good priest often sold the buckles
+      off his shoes and his breeches to give their value to some poor person who
+      appealed to him at a moment when he had not a penny. When he was seen
+      coming out of church with the straps of his breeches tied into the
+      button-holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from the clock-maker
+      and jeweler of the town and return them to their pastor with a lecture. He
+      never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they
+      scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like
+      a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an
+      agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones
+      after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the
+      difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons. When he
+      received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an
+      expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver
+      from his friend the atheist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My silver is his salvation,&rdquo; the doctor would say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+      done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious
+      because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied,
+      and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable
+      accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy
+      of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his
+      intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most
+      spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was never
+      priest in a salon. Until Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s arrival, the good man kept his
+      light under a bushel without regret. Owning a rather fine library and an
+      income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours, he now possessed,
+      in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish priest, nearly the
+      whole of which he gave away during the year. The giver of excellent
+      counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes, many persons who
+      never went to church to obtain consolation went to the parsonage to get
+      advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete his portrait.
+      Sometimes the peasants,&mdash;rarely, it is true, but occasionally,&mdash;unprincipled
+      men, would tell him they were sued for debt, or would get themselves
+      threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe&rsquo;s benevolence. They would
+      even deceive their wives, who, believing their chattels were threatened
+      with an execution and their cows seized, deceived in their turn the poor
+      priest with their innocent tears. He would then manage with great
+      difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs demanded of him&mdash;with
+      which the peasant bought himself a morsel of land. When pious persons and
+      vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging the abbe to consult them in future
+      before lending himself to such cupidity, he would say:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land?
+      Isn&rsquo;t it doing good when we prevent evil?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the fact
+      that science and literature had filled the heart and passed through the
+      strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of age the abbe&rsquo;s
+      hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the sorrows of others, and
+      so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed upon him. Twice
+      incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as he used to
+      say, uttered in &ldquo;In manus.&rdquo; He was of medium height, neither stout nor
+      thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite colorless, attracted
+      immediate attention by the absolute tranquillity expressed in its shape,
+      and by the purity of its outline, which seemed to be edged with light. The
+      face of a chaste man has an unspeakable radiance. Brown eyes with lively
+      pupils brightened the irregular features, which were surmounted by a broad
+      forehead. His glance wielded a power which came of a gentleness that was
+      not devoid of strength. The arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by
+      huge gray eyebrows which alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone
+      his mouth had lost its shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this
+      physical destruction was not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of
+      pleasantness, seemed to smile on others. Without being gouty his feet were
+      tender; and he walked with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of
+      calf&rsquo;s skin all the year round. He thought the fashion of trousers
+      unsuitable for priests, and he always appeared in stockings of coarse
+      black yarn, knit by his housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He never went out
+      in his cassock, but wore a brown overcoat, and still retained the
+      three-cornered hat he had worn so courageously in times of danger. This
+      noble and beautiful old man, whose face was glorified by the serenity of a
+      soul above reproach, will be found to have so great an influence upon the
+      men and things of this history, that it was proper to show the sources of
+      his authority and power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret took three newspapers,&mdash;one liberal, one ministerial, one
+      ultra,&mdash;a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals, the
+      accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers, encyclopaedias,
+      and books were an attraction to a retired captain of the Royal-Swedish
+      regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean nobleman and an old
+      bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of pension and annuity
+      combined. Having read the gazettes for several days, by favor of the abbe,
+      Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to call and thank the doctor in
+      person. At this first visit the old captain, formerly a professor at the
+      Military Academy, won the doctor&rsquo;s heart, who returned the call with
+      alacrity. Monsieur de Jordy, a spare little man much troubled by his
+      blood, though his face was very pale, attracted attention by the
+      resemblance of his handsome brow to that of Charles XII.; above it he kept
+      his hair cropped short, like that of the soldier-king. His blue eyes
+      seemed to say that &ldquo;Love had passed that way,&rdquo; so mournful were they;
+      revealing memories about which he kept such utter silence that his old
+      friends never detected even an allusion to his past life, nor a single
+      exclamation drawn forth by similarity of circumstances. He hid the painful
+      mystery of his past beneath a philosophic gayety, but when he thought
+      himself alone his motions, stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter
+      of choice than the result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of
+      distressful thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian ignorant of
+      his Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather rigid demeanor
+      and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military discipline. His sweet
+      and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His beautiful hands and the general
+      cut of his figure, recalling that of the Comte d&rsquo;Artois, showed how
+      charming he must have been in his youth, and made the mystery of his life
+      still more mysterious. An observer asked involuntarily what misfortune had
+      blighted such beauty, courage, grace, accomplishment, and all the precious
+      qualities of the heart once united in his person. Monsieur de Jordy
+      shuddered if Robespierre&rsquo;s name were uttered before him. He took much
+      snuff, but, strange to say, he gave up the habit to please little Ursula,
+      who at first showed a dislike to him on that account. As soon as he saw
+      the little girl the captain fastened his eyes upon her with a look that
+      was almost passionate. He loved her play so extravagantly and took such
+      interest in all she did that the tie between himself and the doctor grew
+      closer every day, though the latter never dared to say to him, &ldquo;You, too,
+      have you lost children?&rdquo; There are beings, kind and patient as old Jordy,
+      who pass through life with a bitter thought in their heart and a tender
+      but sorrowful smile on their lips, carrying with them to the grave the
+      secret of their lives; letting no one guess it,&mdash;through pride,
+      through disdain, possibly through revenge; confiding in none but God,
+      without other consolation than his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+      knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of his
+      parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine o&rsquo;clock.
+      So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed early, in
+      spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore a great piece
+      of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when he encountered a
+      man who had known the same world and spoken the same language as himself;
+      with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went to bed late. After
+      Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret had passed one evening
+      together they found so much pleasure in it that the priest and soldier
+      returned every night regularly at nine o&rsquo;clock, the hour at which, little
+      Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was free. All three would then sit
+      up till midnight or one o&rsquo;clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life was
+      known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer, the indulgence,
+      knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for conversation which the
+      soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their practical dealings with the
+      souls, diseases, and education of men, was added to the number. Monsieur
+      Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of the pleasure of these evenings
+      and sought admittance to the doctor&rsquo;s society. Before becoming justice of
+      peace at Nemours he had been for ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he
+      conducted his own cases, according to the custom of small towns, where
+      there are no barristers. He became a widower at forty-five years of age,
+      but felt himself still too active to lead an idle life; he therefore
+      sought and obtained the position of justice of peace at Nemours, which
+      became vacant a few months before the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur
+      Bongrand lived modestly on his salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order
+      that he might devote his private income to his son, who was studying law
+      in Paris under the famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired
+      chief of a civil service office; he had the peculiar face of a bureaucrat,
+      less sallow than pallid, on which public business, vexations, and disgust
+      leave their imprint,&mdash;a face lined by thought, and also by the
+      continual restraints familiar to those who are trained not to speak their
+      minds freely. It was often illumined by smiles characteristic of men who
+      alternately believe all and believe nothing, who are accustomed to see and
+      hear all without being startled, and to fathom the abysses which
+      self-interest hollows in the depths of the human heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn flattened
+      to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow tones of which
+      harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His face, with the
+      features set close together, bore some likeness to that of a fox, all the
+      more because his nose was short and pointed. In speaking, he spluttered at
+      the mouth, which was broad like that of most great talkers,&mdash;a habit
+      which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly, &ldquo;An umbrella would be useful when
+      listening to him,&rdquo; or, &ldquo;The justice rains verdicts.&rdquo; His eyes looked keen
+      behind his spectacles, but if he took the glasses off his dulled glance
+      seemed almost vacant. Though he was naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt
+      to give himself too important and pompous an air. He usually kept his
+      hands in the pockets of his trousers, and only took them out to settle his
+      eye-glasses on his nose, with a movement that was half comic, and which
+      announced the coming of a keen observation or some victorious argument.
+      His gestures, his loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the
+      provincial lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he
+      redeemed them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist
+      might call the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like
+      a fox, and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or dishonest.
+      His wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing results and
+      protecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved whist,
+      a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbe learned to
+      play in a very short time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet&rsquo;s salon.
+      The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and knowledge of the
+      world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor to the profession,
+      came there sometimes; but his duties and also his fatigue (which obliged
+      him to go to bed early and to be up early) prevented his being as
+      assiduously present as the three other friends. This intercourse of five
+      superior men, the only ones in Nemours who had sufficiently wide knowledge
+      to understand each other, explains old Minoret&rsquo;s aversion to his
+      relatives; if he were compelled to leave them his money, at least he need
+      not admit them to his society. Whether the post master, the sheriff, and
+      the collector understood this distinction, or whether they were reassured
+      by the evident loyalty and benefactions of their uncle, certain it is that
+      they ceased, to his great satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about
+      eight months after the arrival of the doctor these four players of whist
+      and backgammon made a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a
+      fraternal aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures of
+      which were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits closed
+      round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his individual
+      tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge imagined himself her
+      guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher, and as for Minoret, he
+      was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+      life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On Ursula&rsquo;s
+      account he received no visitors in the morning, and never gave dinners,
+      but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at six o&rsquo;clock and
+      stay till midnight. The first-comers found the newspapers on the table and
+      read them while awaiting the rest; or they sometimes sallied forth to meet
+      the doctor if he were out for a walk. This tranquil life was not a mere
+      necessity of old age, it was the wise and careful scheme of a man of the
+      world to keep his happiness untroubled by the curiosity of his heirs and
+      the gossip of a little town. He yielded nothing to that capricious
+      goddess, public opinion, whose tyranny (one of the present great evils of
+      France) was just beginning to establish its power and to make the whole
+      nation a mere province. So, as soon as the child was weaned and could walk
+      alone, the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom his niece, Madame
+      Minoret-Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered that she told her
+      patroness everything that happened in his household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula&rsquo;s nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but a
+      baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child, aged
+      six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and honest
+      creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris (her
+      maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached herself
+      naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This blind
+      maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household devotion.
+      Told of the doctor&rsquo;s intention to send away his housekeeper, La Bougival
+      secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and discovered the old
+      man&rsquo;s ways. She took the utmost care of the house and furniture; in short
+      she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor wish to keep his private
+      life within four walls, as the saying is, but he also had certain reasons
+      for hiding a knowledge of his business affairs from his relatives. At the
+      end of the second year after his arrival La Bougival was the only servant
+      in the house; on her discretion he knew he could count, and he disguised
+      his real purposes by the all-powerful open reason of a necessary economy.
+      To the great satisfaction of his heirs he became a miser. Without fawning
+      or wheedling, solely by the influence of her devotion and solicitude, La
+      Bougival, who was forty-three years old at the time this tale begins, was
+      the housekeeper of the doctor and his protegee, the pivot on which the
+      whole house turned, in short, the confidential servant. She was called La
+      Bougival from the admitted impossibility of applying to her person the
+      name that actually belonged to her, Antoinette&mdash;for names and forms
+      do obey the laws of harmony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+      object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+      subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours could
+      estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like most old men
+      his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few. Every six months
+      he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his income. In fifteen
+      years he never said a single word to any one in relation to his affairs.
+      His confidence in Bongrand was of slow growth; it was not until after the
+      revolution of 1830 that he told him of his projects. Nothing further was
+      known of the doctor&rsquo;s life either by the bourgeoisie at large or by his
+      heirs. As for his political opinions, he did not meddle in public matters
+      seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year in taxes, and
+      refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or liberal demands.
+      His known horror for the priesthood, and his deism were so little
+      obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner sent by his
+      great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the &ldquo;Cure Meslier&rdquo; and the
+      &ldquo;Discours du General Foy.&rdquo; Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the
+      liberals of Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+      Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+      Cremiere-Cremiere&mdash;whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+      Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is quite
+      unnecessary out of the Gatinais&mdash;met together as people do in little
+      towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son&rsquo;s birthday, a ball
+      during the carnival, another on the anniversary of his marriage, to all of
+      which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of Nemours. The collector received
+      his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the court, too poor,
+      he said, to fling himself into such extravagance, lived in a small way in
+      a house standing half-way down the Grand&rsquo;Rue, the ground-floor of which
+      was let to his sister, the letter-postmistress of Nemours, a situation she
+      owed to the doctor&rsquo;s kind offices. Nevertheless, in the course of the year
+      these three families did meet together frequently, in the houses of
+      friends, in the public promenades, at the market, on their doorsteps, or,
+      of a Sunday in the square, as on this occasion; so that one way and
+      another they met nearly every day. For the last three years the doctor&rsquo;s
+      age, his economies, and his probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank
+      remarks, among the townspeople as to the disposition of his property, a
+      topic which made the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the little
+      town. For the last six months not a day passed that friends and neighbours
+      did not speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day the good man&rsquo;s
+      eyes would shut and the coffers open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death, but
+      none but God is eternal,&rdquo; said one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, he&rsquo;ll bury us all; his health is better than ours,&rdquo; replied an
+      heir, hypocritically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you don&rsquo;t get the money yourselves, your children will, unless
+      that little Ursula&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t leave it all to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+      relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere&rsquo;s favorite saying,
+      &ldquo;Well, whoever lives will know,&rdquo; shows that they wished at any rate more
+      harm to her than good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the post
+      master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor&rsquo;s
+      property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+      along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have got hold of some elixir of life,&rdquo; said one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has made a bargain with the devil,&rdquo; replied the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn&rsquo;t need
+      anything,&rdquo; said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! but Minoret has a son who&rsquo;ll waste his substance,&rdquo; answered Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much do you really think the doctor has?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each year,
+      that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and the
+      interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he must, if
+      he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of business,
+      and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per cent from the
+      State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand francs, without
+      counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year from the five per
+      cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving anything to Ursula we
+      should get at least seven or eight hundred thousand francs, besides the
+      house and furniture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand apiece to
+      you and me, that would be fair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha, that would make us comfortable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he did that,&rdquo; said Massin, &ldquo;I should sell my situation in court and
+      buy an estate; I&rsquo;d try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get myself
+      elected deputy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for me I should buy a brokerage business,&rdquo; said the collector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round him. I
+      don&rsquo;t believe we can do anything with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. ZELIE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass will
+      now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to foresee a
+      danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind of the
+      peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground the
+      stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal reasoning,
+      &ldquo;If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her godfather into the
+      pale of the Church she will certainly have enough to make him leave her
+      his property,&rdquo; was now stamped in letters of fire on the brains of the
+      most obtuse heir. The post master had forgotten about his son in his hurry
+      to reach the square; for if the doctor were really in the church hearing
+      mass it was a question of losing two hundred and fifty thousand francs. It
+      must be admitted that the fears of these relations came from the strongest
+      and most legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Monsieur Minoret,&rdquo; said the mayor (formerly a miller who had now
+      become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), &ldquo;when the devil gets old the
+      devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better late than never, cousin,&rdquo; responded the post master, trying to
+      conceal his annoyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of marrying
+      his son to that damned girl&mdash;may the devil get her!&rdquo; cried Cremiere,
+      shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Cremiere grumbling about?&rdquo; said the butcher of the town, a
+      Levrault-Levrault the elder. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t he pleased to see his uncle on the
+      road to paradise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who would ever have believed it!&rdquo; ejaculated Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! one should never say, &lsquo;Fountain, I&rsquo;ll not drink of your water,&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his wife to
+      go to church without him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Monsieur Dionis,&rdquo; said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+      &ldquo;what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise you,&rdquo; said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively, &ldquo;to go
+      to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before it gets
+      cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your heads; in
+      short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing had
+      happened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not consoling,&rdquo; said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis was
+      really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did business
+      secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such peasants as
+      were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could be bought for a
+      song. The two men were in a position to choose their opportunities; none
+      that were good escaped them, and they shared the profits of
+      mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent, the acquirement
+      of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively interest in the
+      doctor&rsquo;s inheritance, not so much for the post master and the collector as
+      for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or later Massin&rsquo;s share in
+      the doctor&rsquo;s money would swell the capital with which these secret
+      associates worked the canton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+      comes from,&rdquo; said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to keep
+      quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you about, Minoret?&rdquo; cried a little woman, suddenly descending
+      upon the group in the middle of which stood the post master, as tall and
+      round as a tower. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know where Desire is and there you are,
+      planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing, when I thought you on
+      horseback!&mdash;Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white cotton
+      with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed with
+      ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl on her flat
+      shoulders, was Minoret&rsquo;s wife, the terror of postilions, servants, and
+      carters; who kept the accounts and managed the establishment &ldquo;with finger
+      and eye&rdquo; as they say in those parts. Like the true housekeeper that she
+      was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give in (to use her own
+      expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held to the solid and the
+      substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black apron, in the pocket of
+      which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice was agony to
+      the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with the soft blue of
+      her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips of a pinched mouth and
+      a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead. Sharp was the glance,
+      sharper still both gesture and speech. &ldquo;Zelie being obliged to have a will
+      for two, had it for three,&rdquo; said Goupil, who pointed out the successive
+      reigns of three young postilions, of neat appearance, who had been set up
+      in life by Zelie, each after seven years&rsquo; service. The malicious clerk
+      named them Postilion I., Postilion II., Postilion III. But the little
+      influence these young men had in the establishment, and their perfect
+      obedience proved that Zelie was merely interested in worthy helpers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of her
+      son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for her to
+      do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family fortune
+      and was wholly given up to the management of their immense establishment.
+      To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the better of Zelie in
+      even the most complicated accounts was a thing impossible, though she
+      scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew nothing of arithmetic but
+      addition and subtraction. She never took a walk except to look at the hay,
+      the oats, or the second crops. She sent &ldquo;her man&rdquo; to the mowing, and the
+      postilions to tie the bales, telling them the quantity, within a hundred
+      pounds, each field should bear. Though she was the soul of that great body
+      called Minoret-Levrault and led him about by his pug nose, she was made to
+      feel the fears which occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild
+      beasts. She therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did; the
+      postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with him, for
+      his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she was
+      grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, &ldquo;Where would
+      Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you know what has happened,&rdquo; replied the post master, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll be
+      over the traces yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula has taken the doctor to mass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie&rsquo;s pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger, then,
+      crying out, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see it before I believe it!&rdquo; she rushed into the church.
+      The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of the worshippers
+      enabled her to look along each row of chairs and benches as she went up
+      the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula&rsquo;s place, where she saw old Minoret
+      standing with bared head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d&rsquo;Anglas, Morellet,
+      Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of Doctor
+      Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+      personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+      characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile, cold
+      tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the features,
+      shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely aristocratic&mdash;less
+      perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the ideas than in the
+      character. All men of this stamp have high brows retreating at the summit,
+      the sign of a tendency to materialism. You will find these leading
+      characteristics of the head and these points of the face in all the
+      Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde, in the men of a period when
+      religious ideas were almost dead, men who called themselves deists and
+      were atheists. The deist is an atheist lucky in classification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles, which
+      recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the manner in which
+      the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman when making her
+      toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of his coat. He
+      persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk stockings, shoes
+      with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie, and a black coat,
+      adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly characterized, the cold
+      whiteness of which was softened by the yellowing tones of old age,
+      happened to be, just then, in the full light of a window. As Madame
+      Minoret came in sight of him the doctor&rsquo;s blue eyes with their reddened
+      lids were raised to heaven; a new conviction had given them a new
+      expression. His spectacles lay in his prayer-book and marked the place
+      where he had ceased to pray. The tall and spare old man, his arms crossed
+      on his breast, stood erect in an attitude which bespoke the full strength
+      of his faculties and the unshakable assurance of his faith. He gazed at
+      the altar humbly with a look of renewed hope, and took no notice of his
+      nephew&rsquo;s wife, who planted herself almost in front of him as if to
+      reproach him for coming back to God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church and
+      returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She had
+      reckoned on the doctor&rsquo;s money, and possession was becoming problematical.
+      She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and their wives in
+      greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking pleasure in tormenting
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we ought to
+      talk of our affairs,&rdquo; said Zelie; &ldquo;come home with me. You too, Monsieur
+      Dionis,&rdquo; she added to the notary; &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll not be in the way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post master
+      was the news of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+      post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which was
+      only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand&rsquo;Rue, made its
+      usual racket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness! I&rsquo;m like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire,&rdquo; said Zelie.
+      &ldquo;Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his interests
+      are mixed up in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes in
+      late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards the
+      &ldquo;Ducler.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Desire!&rdquo; was the general cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put the
+      town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom he was
+      invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence. But his
+      methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that more than one
+      family was very thankful to have him complete his studies and study law in
+      Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth, slender and fair like his mother,
+      from whom he obtained his blue eyes and pale skin, smiled from the window
+      on the crowd, and jumped lightly down to kiss his mother. A short sketch
+      of the young fellow will show how proud Zelie felt when she saw him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held under
+      his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat, admirably put on
+      and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy waistcoat, in the pocket
+      of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of which hung down; and,
+      finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a gray hat,&mdash;but his
+      lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt buttons of the waistcoat and
+      the ring worn outside of his purple kid glove. He carried a cane with a
+      chased gold head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are losing your watch,&rdquo; said his mother, kissing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it is worn that way,&rdquo; he replied, letting his father hug him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?&rdquo; said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term,&rdquo; said Desire,
+      returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we shall have some fun,&rdquo; said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! my old wag, so here you are!&rdquo; replied Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You take your law license for all license,&rdquo; said Goupil, affronted by
+      being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know my luggage,&rdquo; cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of the
+      diligence; &ldquo;have it taken to the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sweat is rolling off your horses,&rdquo; said Zelie sharply to the
+      conductor; &ldquo;you haven&rsquo;t common-sense to drive them in that way. You are
+      stupider than your own beasts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from anxiety,&rdquo;
+       explained Cabirolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?&rdquo; she retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young men
+      around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey took
+      enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to issue from
+      the church. By mere chance (which manages many things) Desire saw Ursula
+      on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped short amazed at her
+      beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the relations who
+      accompanied him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+      prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she did
+      with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward or
+      difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does truly
+      reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that Ursula&rsquo;s
+      attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was dressed in a
+      white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and there with knots
+      of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same ribbon run through a
+      broad hem and tied with bows like those on the dress, showed the great
+      beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure white, was charming in tone
+      against the blue,&mdash;the right color for a fair skin. A long blue sash
+      with floating ends defined a slender waist which seemed flexible,&mdash;a
+      most seductive charm in women. She wore a rice-straw bonnet, modestly
+      trimmed with ribbons like those of the gown, the strings of which were
+      tied under her chin, setting off the whiteness of the straw and doing no
+      despite to that of her beautiful complexion. Ursula dressed her own hair
+      naturally (a la Berthe, as it was then called) in heavy braids of fine,
+      fair hair, laid flat on either side of the head, each little strand
+      reflecting the light as she walked. Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the
+      same time, were in harmony with a finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge,
+      suffusing her cheeks like a cloud, brightened a face which was regular
+      without being insipid; for nature had given her, by some rare privilege,
+      extreme purity of form combined with strength of countenance. The nobility
+      of her life was manifest in the general expression of her person, which
+      might have served as a model for a type of trustfulness, or of modesty.
+      Her health, though brilliant, was not coarsely apparent; in fact, her
+      whole air was distinguished. Beneath the little gloves of a light color it
+      was easy to imagine her pretty hands. The arched and slender feet were
+      delicately shod in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a brown silk fringe. Her
+      blue sash holding at the waist a small flat watch and a blue purse with
+      gilt tassels attracted the eyes of every woman she met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has given her a new watch!&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+      husband&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! is that Ursula?&rdquo; cried Desire; &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t recognize her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear uncle,&rdquo; said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+      pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let the
+      doctor pass, &ldquo;everybody wants to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+      uncle,&rdquo; said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+      Jesuitical humility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+      annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula,
+      the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, &ldquo;I intend to go to church
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;your heirs won&rsquo;t get another night&rsquo;s rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+      sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by the
+      expression of their faces. Zelie&rsquo;s irruption into the church, her glance,
+      which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant ones in
+      the public square, and the expression in their eyes as they turned them on
+      Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly awakened, and their
+      sordid fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere, putting
+      in her word with a humble bow,&mdash;&ldquo;a miracle which will not cost you
+      much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is God&rsquo;s doing, madame,&rdquo; replied Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God!&rdquo; exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; &ldquo;my father-in-law used to say he served
+      to blanket many horses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey,&rdquo; said the doctor severely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said Minoret to his wife and son, &ldquo;why don&rsquo;t you bow to my uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,&rdquo; cried
+      Zelie, carrying off her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Massin; &ldquo;the church is very damp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, niece,&rdquo; said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, &ldquo;the sooner
+      I&rsquo;m put to bed the sooner you&rsquo;ll flourish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a hurry
+      that the others dropped behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn&rsquo;t right,&rdquo; said Ursula,
+      shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+      religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but not
+      one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they know is
+      the only day I celebrate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de Portenduere,
+      dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She belonged to the
+      class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the last century. They
+      wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the cut of which can be seen in
+      the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all have black lace mantles and
+      bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow and dignified
+      deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore paniers under
+      their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have lost a leg are
+      said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their heads in old lace
+      which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks. Their wan and
+      elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are not without a
+      certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts with flattened
+      curls to which they cling,&mdash;and yet these ruins are all subordinate
+      to an unspeakable dignity of look and manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+      been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+      seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to time.
+      Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was really as
+      remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?&rdquo; said Madame Massin,
+      rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+      doctor&rsquo;s answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the cure,&rdquo; said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead as
+      if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. &ldquo;I have an idea!
+      I&rsquo;ll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with Madame
+      Minoret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the notary
+      to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire, locked arm
+      in arm with him, whispered something in the youth&rsquo;s ear with an odious
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I care?&rdquo; answered the son of the house, shrugging his shoulders.
+      &ldquo;I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature in the
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Florine! and who may she be?&rdquo; demanded Goupil. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m too fond of you to
+      let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I know
+      that. She has positively refused to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with their
+      heads,&rdquo; responded Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you could but see her&mdash;only once,&rdquo; said Desire, lackadaisically,
+      &ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t say such things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than a
+      fancy,&rdquo; said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived his
+      master, &ldquo;I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+      &lsquo;Kenilworth.&rsquo; Your wife must be a d&rsquo;Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du Rouvre,
+      and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t let
+      you commit any follies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am rich enough to care only for happiness,&rdquo; replied Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you two plotting together?&rdquo; cried Zelie, beckoning to the two
+      friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come into
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of a
+      young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had lately
+      taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds of the
+      whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to make this
+      history and the notary&rsquo;s remark to the heirs perfectly intelligible to the
+      reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. URSULA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and maker
+      of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated
+      organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age,
+      whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a
+      worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of
+      seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and composer, having made
+      his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned name, ran away with a young
+      lady in Germany. The dying father commended the young man, who was really
+      full of talent, to his son-in-law, proving to him, at the same time, that
+      he had refused to marry the mother that he might not injure Madame
+      Minoret. The doctor promised to give the unfortunate Joseph half of
+      whatever his wife inherited from her father, whose business was purchased
+      by the Erards. He made due search for his illegitimate brother-in-law; but
+      Grimm informed him one day that after enlisting in a Prussian regiment
+      Joseph had deserted and taken a false name and that all efforts to find
+      him would be frustrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine figure, a
+      handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste and much
+      brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life which Hoffman has
+      so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he was reduced to such
+      depths of poverty that he took advantage of the events of 1806 to make
+      himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he married the
+      daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell in love with
+      the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose to devote her life
+      to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph Mirouet was unable to
+      bear prosperity; he was naturally a spendthrift, and though kind to his
+      wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years. The household must have
+      dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph Mirouet reached the point of
+      enlisting as a musician in a French regiment. In 1813 the surgeon-major of
+      the regiment, by the merest chance, heard the name of Mirouet, was struck
+      by it, and wrote to Doctor Minoret, to whom he was under obligations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the allied
+      occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife died giving
+      birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should be called Ursula
+      after his wife. The father did not long survive the mother, worn out, as
+      she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the unfortunate musician
+      bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was already her godfather, in
+      spite of his repugnance for what he called the mummeries of the Church.
+      Having seen his own children die in succession either in dangerous
+      confinements or during the first year of their lives, the doctor had
+      awaited with anxiety the result of a last hope. When a nervous, delicate,
+      and sickly woman begins with a miscarriage it is not unusual to see her go
+      through a series of such pregnancies as Ursula Minoret did, in spite of
+      the care and watchfulness and science of her husband. The poor man often
+      blamed himself for their mutual persistence in desiring children. The last
+      child, born after a rest of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim of
+      its mother&rsquo;s nervous condition&mdash;if we listen to physiologists, who
+      tell us that in the inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child
+      derives from the father by blood and from the mother in its nervous
+      system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him, the
+      doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied paternity.
+      During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had longed more
+      especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring joy to the house;
+      he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet&rsquo;s legacy, and gave to the
+      orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams. For two years he took part,
+      as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute particulars of Ursula&rsquo;s life; he
+      would not allow the nurse to suckle her or to take her up or put her to
+      bed without him. His medical science and his experience were all put to
+      use in her service. After going through many trials, alternations of hope
+      and fear, and the joys and labors of a mother, he had the happiness of
+      seeing this child of the fair German woman and the French singer a
+      creature of vigorous health and profound sensibility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+      growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine and
+      soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed the
+      little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle through which
+      the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond of the
+      child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful blue eyes
+      upon some object with that serious, reflective look which seems the dawn
+      of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would stay by her side
+      for hours, seeking, with Jordy&rsquo;s help, to understand the reasons (which
+      most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena of this delicious
+      phase of life, when childhood is both flower and fruit, a confused
+      intelligence, a perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula&rsquo;s beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+      would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He declared
+      to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting hers. When old
+      men love children there is no limit to their passion&mdash;they worship
+      them. For these little beings they silence their own manias or recall a
+      whole past in their service. Experience, patience, sympathy, the
+      acquisitions of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all are spent upon
+      that young life in which they live again; their intelligence does actually
+      take the place of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to
+      the intuition of a mother; they remember the delicate perceptions which in
+      their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of a
+      compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of the
+      child&rsquo;s unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes the
+      place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is reduced to
+      its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the mother a slave,
+      the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote himself utterly. For
+      these reasons it is not unusual to see children in close intimacy with old
+      persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old doctor, happy in the
+      kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were never weary of answering her
+      talk and playing with her. Far from making them impatient her petulances
+      charmed them; and they gratified all her wishes, making each the ground of
+      some little training.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+      themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+      provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula&rsquo;s soul developed in a
+      sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it breathed
+      the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays that belonged
+      to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?&rdquo; asked the abbe
+      of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In yours,&rdquo; answered Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the &ldquo;Nouvelle Heloise&rdquo;
+       he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered by
+      the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench
+      outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe&rsquo;s hand on his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+      friend &lsquo;Shapron,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said, imitating Ursula&rsquo;s infant speech, &ldquo;I wish to
+      see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do
+      nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in my
+      heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God will reward you, I hope,&rdquo; replied the abbe, gently joining his hands
+      and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief mental
+      prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under the
+      religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come under the
+      educational training of her friend Jordy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a taste
+      for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had studied
+      the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man, patient as most old
+      scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read and write. He taught
+      her also the French language and all she needed to know of arithmetic. The
+      doctor&rsquo;s library afforded a choice of books which could be read by a child
+      for amusement as well as instruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with the
+      freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula learned as
+      she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left to follow the
+      divine training of a nature that was led into regions of purity by these
+      judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment than to duty; she
+      took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own conscience rather than
+      the demands of social law. In her, nobility of feeling and action would
+      ever be spontaneous; her judgment would confirm the impulse of her heart.
+      She was destined to do right as a pleasure before doing it as an
+      obligation. This distinction is the peculiar sign of Christian education.
+      These principles, altogether different from those that are taught to men,
+      were suitable for a woman,&mdash;the spirit and the conscience of the
+      home, the beautifier of domestic life, the queen of her household. All
+      three of these old preceptors followed the same method with Ursula.
+      Instead of recoiling before the bold questions of innocence, they
+      explained to her the reasons of things and the best means of action,
+      taking care to give her none but correct ideas. When, apropos of a flower,
+      a star, a blade of grass, her thoughts went straight to God, the doctor
+      and the professor told her that the priest alone could answer her. None of
+      them intruded on the territory of the others; the doctor took charge of
+      her material well-being and the things of life; Jordy&rsquo;s department was
+      instruction; moral and spiritual questions and the ideas appertaining to
+      the higher life belonged to the abbe. This noble education was not, as it
+      often is, counteracted by injudicious servants. La Bougival, having been
+      lectured on the subject, and being, moreover, too simple in mind and
+      character to interfere, did nothing to injure the work of these great
+      minds. Ursula, a privileged being, grew up with good geniuses round her;
+      and her naturally fine disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy
+      one. Such manly tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty
+      without danger, such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula,
+      when nine years of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died the
+      following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his work, of
+      which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part. Flowers will
+      bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The old gentleman
+      had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a year, that he might
+      leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep a place in her memory
+      during her whole life. In his will, the wording of which was very
+      touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five hundred francs
+      that came of her little capital exclusively on her dress. When the justice
+      of the peace applied the seals to the effects of his old friend, they
+      found in a small room, which the captain had allowed no one to enter, a
+      quantity of toys, many of them broken, while all had been used,&mdash;toys
+      of a past generation, reverently preserved, which Monsieur Bongrand was,
+      according to the captain&rsquo;s last wishes, to burn with his own hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+      employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind and
+      heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another, needed
+      a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge of divine
+      things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into the pious and
+      mystical young girl whose character rose above all vicissitudes, and whose
+      heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then began a secret struggle
+      between the old man wedded to unbelief and the young girl full of faith,&mdash;long
+      unsuspected by her who incited it,&mdash;the result of which had now
+      stirred the whole town, and was destined to have great influence on
+      Ursula&rsquo;s future by rousing against her the antagonism of the doctor&rsquo;s
+      heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her mornings
+      at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe&rsquo;s secret hope. He meant
+      to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him. The old unbeliever,
+      loved by his godchild as though she were his own daughter, would surely
+      believe in such artless candor; he could not fail to be persuaded by the
+      beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a child, where love was like
+      those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both flowers and fruit, always
+      fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful life is more powerful than the
+      strongest argument. It is impossible to resist the charms of certain
+      sights. The doctor&rsquo;s eyes were wet, he knew not how or why, when he saw
+      the child of his heart starting for the church, wearing a frock of white
+      crape, and shoes of white satin; her hair bound with a fillet fastened at
+      the side with a knot of white ribbon, and rippling upon her shoulders; her
+      eyes lighted by the star of a first hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to
+      a first union, and loving her godfather better since her soul had risen
+      towards God. When the doctor perceived that the thought of immortality was
+      nourishing that spirit (until then within the confines of childhood) as
+      the sun gives life to the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he
+      remained at home alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+      railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as she
+      left him: &ldquo;Why won&rsquo;t you come, godfather? how can I be happy without you?&rdquo;
+       Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the Encyclopedist did not
+      as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction from which he could see
+      the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little Ursula
+      brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an inspired look,
+      which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on the corner closed to
+      God. But still the old deist held firm. He said to himself: &ldquo;Mummeries! if
+      there be a maker of worlds, imagine the organizer of infinitude concerning
+      himself with such trifles!&rdquo; He laughed as he continued his walk along the
+      heights which look down upon the road to the Gatinais, where the bells
+      were ringing a joyous peal that told of the joy of families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+      game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever invented.
+      Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and nerves
+      could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the exclamations
+      she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old Jordy while living, and the
+      doctor always waited till their child was in bed before they began their
+      favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early when she was out for a
+      walk, and the game would be going on when she returned; then she resigned
+      herself with infinite grace and took her seat at the window with her work.
+      She had a repugnance to the game, which is really in the beginning very
+      hard and unconquerable to some minds, so that unless it be learned in
+      youth it is almost impossible to take it up in after life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where
+      her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose throw shall it be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t it a sin to make fun of your godfather
+      the day of your first communion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not making fun of you,&rdquo; she said, sitting down. &ldquo;I want to give you
+      some pleasure&mdash;you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+      Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon,
+      and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to beat you&mdash;you
+      shall not deprive yourself any longer for me. I have conquered all
+      difficulties, and now I like the noise of the game.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next day
+      Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to Paris
+      for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher, and
+      submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to him. One of
+      poor Jordy&rsquo;s predictions was fulfilled,&mdash;the girl became an excellent
+      musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately sent to Paris for a
+      master, an old German named Schmucke, a distinguished professor who came
+      once a week; the doctor willingly paying for an art which he had formerly
+      declared to be useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like music&mdash;a
+      celestial language, developed by Catholicism, which has taken the names of
+      the seven notes from one of the church hymns; every note being the first
+      syllable of the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint John.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula&rsquo;s first communion though
+      keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which prayer and the
+      exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had not their due
+      influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or repentance himself,
+      he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own benefactions without hope of a
+      celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious men
+      whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; the abbe would say to him, &ldquo;if all men would be so, you must admit
+      that society would be regenerated; there would be no more misery. To be
+      benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great philosopher; you
+      rise to your principles through reason, you are a social exception;
+      whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us benevolent in ours. With
+      you, it is an effort; with us, it comes naturally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,&mdash;that&rsquo;s the whole of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+      feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+      intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+      spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did not
+      believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in
+      providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent creature,
+      the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula&rsquo;s artless
+      consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he
+      felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute devotion has a
+      horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas which it does not
+      share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling&rsquo;s reasonings as he would
+      her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest of voices with the purest
+      and most fervent feeling. Believers and unbelievers speak different
+      languages and cannot understand each other. The young girl pleading God&rsquo;s
+      cause was unreasonable with the old man, as a spoilt child sometimes
+      maltreats its mother. The abbe rebuked her gently, telling her that God
+      had power to humiliate proud spirits. Ursula replied that David had
+      overcome Goliath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+      drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life, so
+      peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive eyes of
+      the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time the modest
+      and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as she left the
+      church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her music, the pleasures
+      of her godfather, and all the little cares she was able to give him (for
+      she had eased La Bougival&rsquo;s labors by doing everything for him),&mdash;these
+      things filled the hours, the days, the months of her calm life.
+      Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had felt uneasy about his
+      Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost care. Sagacious and
+      profoundly practical observer that he was, he thought he perceived some
+      commotion in her moral being. He watched her like a mother, but seeing no
+      one about her who was worthy of inspiring love, his uneasiness on the
+      subject at length passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins, the
+      doctor&rsquo;s intellectual life was invaded by one of those events which plough
+      to the very depths of a man&rsquo;s convictions and turn them over. But this
+      event needs a succinct narrative of certain circumstances in his medical
+      career, which will give, perhaps, fresh interest to the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as widely
+      by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck. After
+      re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+      immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+      discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense the
+      clarion of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved,&rdquo; said Hahnemann, recently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to France,&rdquo; said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, &ldquo;and if they laugh at
+      your bumps you will be famous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+      theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific France
+      was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before judgment
+      was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body, Mesmer&rsquo;s
+      so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and his theory. But
+      let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately, compromised his
+      splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims. Mesmer was defeated by
+      the doubtfulness of facts, by universal ignorance of the part played in
+      nature by imponderable fluids then unobserved, and by his own inability to
+      study on all sides a science possessing a triple front. Magnetism has many
+      applications; in Mesmer&rsquo;s hands it was, in its relation to the future,
+      merely what cause is to effect. But, if the discoverer lacked genius, it
+      is a sad thing both for France and for human reason to have to say that a
+      science contemporaneous with civilization, cultivated by Egypt and
+      Chaldea, by Greece and India, met in Paris in the eighteenth century the
+      fate that Truth in the person of Galileo found in the sixteenth; and that
+      magnetism was rejected and cast out by the combined attacks of science and
+      religion, alarmed for their own positions. Magnetism, the favorite science
+      of Jesus Christ and one of the divine powers which he gave to his
+      disciples, was no better apprehended by the Church than by the disciples
+      of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire, Locke, and Condillac. The Encyclopedists and
+      the clergy were equally averse to the old human power which they took to
+      be new. The miracles of the convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and
+      smothered by the indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious
+      writings of the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to
+      make experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ
+      certain inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward
+      agents. But to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids
+      intangible, invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the
+      science of that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern
+      philosophy there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles away!
+      To materialists especially the world is full, all things hang together,
+      are linked, related, organized. &ldquo;The world as the result of chance,&rdquo; said
+      Diderot, &ldquo;is more explicable than God. The multiplicity of causes, the
+      incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance, explain creation.
+      Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if you allow me time and
+      space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters, arrive at last at the
+      Eneid combination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil before
+      the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of imponderable
+      forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the immense progress
+      which natural science is now making under the great principle of unity due
+      to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent persons, without any
+      system, convinced by facts conscientiously studied, still hold to Mesmer&rsquo;s
+      doctrine, which recognizes the existence of a penetrative influence acting
+      from man to man, put in motion by the will, curative by the abundance of
+      the fluid, the working of which is in fact a duel between two forces,
+      between an ill to be cured and the will to cure it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were revealed
+      by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to their
+      discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and scoffers.
+      Among the small number of believers were a few physicians. They were
+      persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The respectable body
+      of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of religious warfare
+      against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their hatred as it was
+      possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance. The orthodox
+      physician refused to consult with those who adopted the Mesmerian heresy.
+      In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The miseries and sorrows of
+      the Revolution had not quenched the scientific hatred. It is only priests,
+      magistrates, and physicians who can hate in that way. The official robe is
+      terrible! But ideas are even more implacable than things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret&rsquo;s friends, believed in the new faith, and
+      persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which he
+      sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief &ldquo;betes
+      noires&rdquo; of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter of the
+      Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer&rsquo;s assistant,
+      whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled with his old
+      friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His conduct to Bouvard
+      must have caused him the only remorse which troubled the serenity of his
+      declining years. Since his retirement to Nemours the science of
+      imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for magnetism, which, by the
+      nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to light and electricity) had
+      made immense progress, in spite of the ridicule of Parisian scientists.
+      Phrenology and physiognomy, the departments of Gall and Lavater (which are
+      in fact twins, for one is to the other as cause is to effect), proved to
+      the minds of more than one physiologist the existence of an intangible
+      fluid which is the basis of the phenomena of the human will, and from
+      which result passions, habits, the shape of faces and of skulls. Magnetic
+      facts, the miracles of somnambulism, those of divination and ecstasy,
+      which open a way to the spiritual world, were fast accumulating. The
+      strange tale of the apparitions of the farmer Martin, so clearly proved,
+      and his interview with Louis XVIII.; a knowledge of the intercourse of
+      Swedenborg with the departed, carefully investigated in Germany; the tales
+      of Walter Scott on the effects of &ldquo;second sight&rdquo;; the extraordinary
+      faculties of some fortune-tellers, who practice as a single science
+      chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope; the facts of catalepsy, and
+      those of the action of certain morbid affections on the properties of the
+      diaphragm,&mdash;all such phenomena, curious, to say the least, each
+      emanating from the same source, were now undermining many scepticisms and
+      leading even the most indifferent minds to the plane of experiments.
+      Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of this movement of minds, strong
+      in the north of Europe but still weak in France where, however, many facts
+      called marvelous by superficial observers, were happening, but falling,
+      alas! like stones to the bottom of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian
+      excitements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the bottom of the present year the doctor&rsquo;s tranquillity was shaken by
+      the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My old comrade,&mdash;All friendship, even if lost, has rights which it is
+      difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I remember
+      far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel of
+      Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my heart to
+      prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the most important
+      of the sciences&mdash;if indeed all science is not <i>one</i>. I can
+      overcome your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity
+      the happiness of taking you once more by the hand&mdash;as in the days
+      before Mesmer. Always yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and left
+      his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice.
+      Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written &ldquo;To-morrow; nine
+      o&rsquo;clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He went to
+      see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world were
+      turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school, if the
+      four faculties any longer existed. The doctors reassured him, declaring
+      that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever, only, instead of
+      persecuting as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and of Sciences rang
+      with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the tricks of Comus and
+      Comte and Bosco, with jugglery and prestidigitation and all that now went
+      by the name of &ldquo;amusing physics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment
+      made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four years the two
+      antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint-Honore. Frenchmen
+      have too many distractions of mind to hate each other long. In Paris
+      especially, politics, literature, and science render life so vast that
+      every man can find new worlds to conquer where all pretensions may live at
+      ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but public bodies
+      can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton would have fallen
+      into each other&rsquo;s arms at the end of forty-four years. However, the two
+      doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it. Bouvard spoke first:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem wonderfully well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am&mdash;and you?&rdquo; said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now
+      broken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does magnetism prevent people from dying?&rdquo; asked Minoret in a joking
+      tone, but without sharpness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but it almost prevented me from living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are not rich?&rdquo; exclaimed Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am!&rdquo; cried the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come,&rdquo; replied
+      Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you obstinate fellow!&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy staircase
+      to the fourth floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+      endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic forces
+      in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown (who still
+      lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate diseases,
+      suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly, but he was also
+      able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable phenomena of
+      somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The countenance of this
+      mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to God alone and to
+      communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles that of a lion;
+      concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His features, singularly
+      contorted, have a terrible and even blasting aspect. His voice, which
+      comes from the depths of his being, seems charged with some magnetic
+      fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every pore. Disgusted by the
+      ingratitude of the public after his many cures, he has now returned to an
+      impenetrable solitude, a voluntary nothingness. His all-powerful hand,
+      which has restored a dying daughter to her mother, fathers to their
+      grief-stricken children, adored mistresses to lovers frenzied with love,
+      cured the sick given over by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the
+      dying when life became impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in
+      synagogues, temples, and churches from the lips of priests recalled to the
+      one God by the same miracle,&mdash;that sovereign hand, a sun of life
+      dazzling the closed eyes of the somnambulist, has never been raised again
+      even to save the heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his
+      past mercies as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and
+      lives for heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man, whose
+      generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons to witness
+      his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and could easily be
+      revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then on the verge of the
+      grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last enabled to witness the
+      startling phenomena of a science he had long treasured in his heart. The
+      sacrifices of the old man touched the heart of the mysterious stranger,
+      who accorded him certain privileges. As Bouvard now went up the staircase
+      he listened to the twittings of his old antagonist with malicious delight,
+      answering only, &ldquo;You shall see, you shall see!&rdquo; with the emphatic little
+      nods of a man who is sure of his facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than modest.
+      Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon where he left
+      Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but Bouvard returned at
+      once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw the mysterious
+      Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair. The woman did not
+      rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the two old men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! no tub?&rdquo; cried Minoret, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing but the power of God,&rdquo; answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+      seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain and
+      the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who thought
+      he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to question
+      his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently to be taking
+      time to examine him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It
+      is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my conviction,
+      emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use of it, it would
+      be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope, Monsieur Bouvard tells
+      me, of changing the opinions of one who has opposed us, of enlightening a
+      scientific man whose mind is candid; I have therefore determined to
+      satisfy you. That woman whom you see there,&rdquo; he continued, pointing to
+      her, &ldquo;is now in a somnambulic sleep. The statements and manifestations of
+      somnambulists declare that this state is a delightful other life, during
+      which the inner being, freed from the trammels laid upon the exercise of
+      our faculties by the visible world, moves in a world which we mistakenly
+      term invisible. Sight and hearing are then exercised in a manner far more
+      perfect than any we know of here, possibly without the help of the organs
+      we now employ, which are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight
+      and hearing. To a person in that state, distance and material obstacles do
+      not exist, or they can be traversed by a life within us for which our body
+      is a mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail to
+      describe effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the words
+      imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid whose
+      action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its heat,
+      which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and certainly
+      electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things themselves
+      instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sleeps,&rdquo; said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+      belong to an inferior class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her body is for the time being in abeyance,&rdquo; said the Swedenborgian.
+      &ldquo;Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will prove
+      to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind when there
+      does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will send her wherever
+      you wish to go,&mdash;a hundred miles from here or to China, as you will.
+      She will tell you what is happening there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do,&rdquo; said
+      Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took Minoret&rsquo;s hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for a
+      moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that
+      of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor in
+      it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this oracle
+      without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the absolutely calm
+      features of the woman when their hands were thus united by the
+      Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its effects, was very
+      simply done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Obey him,&rdquo; said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the head
+      of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life from him,
+      &ldquo;and remember that what you do for him will please me.&mdash;You can now
+      speak to her,&rdquo; he added, addressing Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what she
+      tells you that she is where you wish her to be,&rdquo; said Bouvard to his old
+      friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see a river,&rdquo; said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look within
+      herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed eyelids. &ldquo;I see a
+      pretty garden&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you enter by the river and the garden?&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because they are there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the garden like?&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right, a
+      long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular building,&mdash;there
+      are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the left, the wall is
+      covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia jessamine. In the
+      middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots. Your child is looking
+      at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse&mdash;she is making holes in
+      the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The nurse is raking the
+      path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the beginning of love is
+      there, faint as the dawn&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love for whom?&rdquo; asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened to
+      no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all jugglery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know nothing&mdash;though you have lately been uneasy about her
+      health,&rdquo; answered the woman. &ldquo;Her heart has followed the dictates of
+      nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman of the people to talk like this!&rdquo; cried the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary perception,&rdquo;
+       said Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who is it that Ursula loves?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula does not know that she loves,&rdquo; said the woman with a shake of the
+      head; &ldquo;she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is occupied
+      by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought; but she
+      returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.&mdash;She is at the piano&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The son of a lady who lives opposite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame de Portenduere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Portenduere, did you say?&rdquo; replied the sleeper. &ldquo;Perhaps so. But there&rsquo;s
+      no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they spoken to each other?&rdquo; asked the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He is,
+      in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her window;
+      they see each other in church. But the young man no longer thinks of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named Savinien;
+      she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say; she has looked
+      in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot against it,&mdash;child&rsquo;s
+      play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much strength as purity; she
+      is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye her soul and fill it that
+      she will reject all other sentiments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do you see that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father and
+      her mother suffered much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than surprised.
+      It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman paused for
+      several minutes, during which time her attention became more and more
+      concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a singular aspect; an
+      inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear or cloud by some
+      mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had seen in dying persons
+      at moments when they appeared to have the gift of prophecy. Several times
+      she made gestures which resembled those of Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Question her,&rdquo; said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, &ldquo;she will tell
+      you secrets you alone can know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Ursula love me?&rdquo; asked Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost as much as she loves God,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;But she is very
+      unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+      prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause of
+      her only sorrow.&mdash;Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a
+      better musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is
+      thinking, &lsquo;If I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his ear
+      when he is with his mother.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me what seeds she planted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Larkspur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of a
+      single day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled &lsquo;Pandects of Justinian,
+      Vol. II.&rsquo; between the last two leaves; the book is on the shelf of folios
+      above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them. Your money is in the
+      last volume next to the salon&mdash;See! Vol. III. is before Vol. II.&mdash;but
+      you have no money, it is all in&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;thousand-franc notes,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five hundred
+      francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do they look?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One is old and yellow, the other white and new.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at Bouvard
+      with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who were
+      accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together in a low
+      voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to allow him to
+      return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to compose his mind and
+      shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new test, to
+      subject it to more decisive experiments and obtain answers to certain
+      questions, the truth of which should do away with every sort of doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be here at nine o&rsquo;clock this evening,&rdquo; said the stranger. &ldquo;I will return
+      to meet you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room without
+      bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind. &ldquo;Well, what do
+      you say? what do you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I am mad, Bouvard,&rdquo; answered Minoret from the steps of the
+      porte-cochere. &ldquo;If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,&mdash;and none
+      but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,&mdash;I shall
+      say that <i>you are right</i>. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this
+      minute and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten
+      o&rsquo;clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed in
+      a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents from an
+      herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o&rsquo;clock. I must find some
+      decisive, undeniable test!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it, old comrade,&rdquo; answered the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+      conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which
+      were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of traversing
+      space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she sees and hears
+      what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic facts;
+      they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one proof which
+      you know will satisfy you&mdash;for you might suppose that we obtained
+      information to deceive you; but we cannot know, for instance, what will
+      happen at nine o&rsquo;clock in your goddaughter&rsquo;s bedroom. Remember, or write
+      down, what the sleeper will see and hear, and then go home. Your little
+      Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice, and if she tells you
+      that she has said and done what you have written down&mdash;lower thy
+      head, proud Hun!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and found
+      the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor
+      Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand of the
+      Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and
+      she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand
+      and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what
+      was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. &ldquo;What is Ursula
+      doing?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on her
+      prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet background.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is she saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores him
+      to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience and
+      recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she has
+      failed to obey his commands and those of the church&mdash;poor dear little
+      soul, she lays bare her breast!&rdquo; Tears were in the sleeper&rsquo;s eyes. &ldquo;She
+      has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too much of Savinien.
+      She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she prays to God to make
+      him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying aloud.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me her words.&rdquo; Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+      uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe Chaperon.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will&mdash;O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the inspired
+      manner of his child that Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s eyes were filled with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she say more?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Repeat it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.&rsquo; She
+      has blown out the light&mdash;her head is on the pillow&mdash;she turns to
+      sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+      downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+      gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d&rsquo;Alger. There
+      he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+      Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who seemed
+      to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and started. According
+      to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at Essonne, but arrived at
+      Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to Nemours, on which he secured a
+      seat, and dismissed his coachman. He reached home at five in the morning,
+      and went to bed, with his life-long ideas of physiology, nature, and
+      metaphysics in ruins about him, and slept till nine o&rsquo;clock, so wearied
+      was he with the events of his journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of his
+      house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+      trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+      difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the Pandect
+      volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La Bougival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell Ursula to come and speak to me,&rdquo; he said, seating himself in the
+      center of his library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her on
+      his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls with the
+      white hair of her old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want something, godfather?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+      evasion, the questions that I shall put to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula colored to the temples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;ll ask nothing that you cannot speak of,&rdquo; he said, noticing how the
+      bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of the
+      girl&rsquo;s blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask me, godfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last evening,
+      and what time was it when you said them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a quarter-past or half-past nine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, repeat your last prayer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic; she
+      slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+      brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+      said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I shall
+      ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful expression.
+      To her great astonishment her godfather took the last words from her mouth
+      and finished the prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good, Ursula,&rdquo; said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. &ldquo;When you
+      laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to yourself,
+      &lsquo;That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon with him in
+      Paris&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She gave
+      a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with awful
+      fixity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?&rdquo; she asked,
+      imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with the
+      devil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the last were larkspur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She fell on her knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not terrify me!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Oh you must have been here&mdash;you
+      were here, were you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not always with you?&rdquo; replied the doctor, evading her question, to
+      save the strain on the young girl&rsquo;s mind. &ldquo;Let us go to your room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your legs are trembling,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am confounded, as it were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can it be that you believe in God?&rdquo; she cried, with artless joy, letting
+      fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had given to
+      his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very inexpensive, which
+      she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were hung with a gray paper
+      strewn with roses and green leaves; at the windows, which looked to the
+      court, were calico curtains edged with a band of some pink material;
+      between the windows and beneath a tall mirror was a pier-table topped with
+      marble, on which stood a Sevres vase in which she put her nosegays;
+      opposite the chimney was a little bureau-desk of charming marquetry. The
+      bed, of chintz, with chintz curtains lined with pink, was one of those
+      duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, which had a tuft of
+      carved feathers at the top of each of the four posts, which were fluted on
+      the sides. An old clock, inclosed in a sort of monument made of
+      tortoise-shell inlaid with arabesques of ivory, decorated the mantelpiece,
+      the marble shelf of which, with the candlesticks and the mirror in a frame
+      painted in cameo on a gray ground, presented a remarkable harmony of
+      color, tone, and style. A large wardrobe, the doors of which were inlaid
+      with landscapes in different woods (some having a green tint which are no
+      longer to be found for sale) contained, no doubt, her linen and her
+      dresses. The air of the room was redolent of heaven. The precise
+      arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a feeling for harmony,
+      which would certainly have influenced any one, even a Minoret-Levrault. It
+      was plain that the things about her were dear to Ursula, and that she
+      loved a room which contained, as it were, her childhood and the whole of
+      her girlish life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for his
+      visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those of Madame
+      de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to the course he
+      ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this dawning passion.
+      To question her now would commit him to some course. He must either
+      approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his position would be a
+      false one. He therefore resolved to watch and examine into the state of
+      things between the two young people, and learn whether it were his duty to
+      check the inclination before it was irresistible. None but an old man
+      could have shown such deliberate wisdom. Still panting from the discovery
+      of the truth of these magnetic facts, he turned about and looked at all
+      the various little things around the room; he wished to examine the
+      almanac which was hanging at a corner of the chimney-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands,&rdquo; he said, taking
+      up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took it,
+      saying, &ldquo;This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in your
+      pretty room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please let me have it, godfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, you shall have another to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+      study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told
+      him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before
+      his own saint&rsquo;s day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the
+      abbe&rsquo;s patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin&rsquo;s head, had been seen
+      by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles! The old
+      man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him than for
+      others. He was forced to yield to evidence. A strong wall, as it were,
+      crumbled within him; for his life had rested on two bases,&mdash;indifference
+      in matters of religion and a firm disbelief in magnetism. When it was
+      proved to him that the senses&mdash;faculties purely physical, organs, the
+      effects of which could be explained&mdash;attained to some of the
+      attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it seemed to him
+      to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite and the infinite,
+      two incompatible elements according to that remarkable man, were here
+      united, the one in the other. No matter what power he gave to the
+      divisibility and mobility of matter he could not help recognizing that it
+      possessed qualities that were almost divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+      them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+      belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac, was
+      in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism staggered.
+      Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic child and the
+      Voltairean old man was on Ursula&rsquo;s side. In the dismantled fortress, above
+      these ruins, shone a light; from the center of these ashes issued the path
+      of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate old scientist fought his doubts.
+      Though struck to the heart, he would not decide, he struggled on against
+      God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation. He
+      became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet&rsquo;s sublime &ldquo;History
+      of Species&rdquo;; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine; he determined also
+      to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late Saint-Martin, which the
+      mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The edifice within him was
+      cracking on all sides; it needed but one more shake, and then, his heart
+      being ripe for God, he was destined to fall into the celestial vineyard as
+      fall the fruits. Often of an evening, when playing with the abbe, his
+      goddaughter sitting by, he would put questions bearing on his opinions
+      which seemed singular to the priest, who was ignorant of the inward
+      workings by which God was remaking that fine conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in apparitions?&rdquo; asked the sceptic of the pastor, stopping
+      short in the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+      some,&rdquo; replied the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+      Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you think
+      that dead men can return to the living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death,&rdquo; said the abbe. &ldquo;The
+      Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As for
+      miracles, they are not lacking,&rdquo; he continued, smiling. &ldquo;Shall I tell you
+      the last? It took place in the eighteenth century.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from Rome,
+      knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father expired;
+      there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted bishop being in
+      ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff and repeated them
+      at the time to those about him. The courier who brought the announcement
+      of the death did not arrive till thirty hours later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jesuit!&rdquo; exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, &ldquo;I did not ask you for proofs;
+      I asked you if you believed in apparitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it,&rdquo; said the abbe,
+      still fencing with his sceptic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; said the doctor, seriously, &ldquo;I am not setting a trap for you.
+      What do you really believe about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe that the power of God is infinite,&rdquo; replied the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+      appear to you,&rdquo; said the doctor, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend,&rdquo; answered the
+      priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I will
+      come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of &lsquo;Neere&rsquo; by Andre
+      Chenier,&rdquo; said the abbe. &ldquo;Poets are sublime because they clothe both facts
+      and feelings with ever-living images.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?&rdquo; said Ursula in a grieved
+      tone. &ldquo;We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of our souls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the doctor, smiling, &ldquo;we must go out of the world, and when I
+      am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will be
+      to consecrate my life to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me, dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to redeem
+      your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy, that he may
+      not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon among the
+      righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certainty,
+      confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul. A ray
+      of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of this tenderness, covering
+      his years to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden effect of grace
+      had something that seemed electrical about it. The abbe clasped his hands
+      and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl, astonished at her triumph,
+      wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had called him, looking into
+      space as though his eyes beheld the dawn; then he bent his knee upon his
+      chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground as one
+      humiliated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God,&rdquo; he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, &ldquo;if any one can
+      obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless creature.
+      Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child presents to
+      thee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+      knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and
+      held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear pastor,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am become as a little child. I belong to
+      you; I give my soul to your care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took
+      her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply
+      moved, recited the &ldquo;Veni Creator&rdquo; in a species of religious ecstasy. The
+      hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling
+      together for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo; asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My godfather believes in God at last!&rdquo; replied Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect,&rdquo; cried
+      the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear doctor,&rdquo; said the good priest, &ldquo;you will soon comprehend the
+      grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find its
+      philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest sceptics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to catechize
+      the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the conversion
+      attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation, was the
+      spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for fourteen years
+      had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart, though all the while
+      deploring them, was now asked for help, as a surgeon is called to an
+      injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula&rsquo;s evening prayers had been said
+      in common with her godfather. Day after day the old man grew more
+      conscious of the peace within him that succeeded all his conflicts.
+      Having, as he said, God as the responsible editor of things inexplicable,
+      his mind was at ease. His dear child told him that he might know by how
+      far he had advanced already in God&rsquo;s kingdom. During the mass which we
+      have seen him attend, he had read the prayers and applied his own
+      intelligence to them; from the first, he had risen to the divine idea of
+      the communion of the faithful. The old neophyte understood the eternal
+      symbol attached to that sacred nourishment, which faith renders needful to
+      the soul after conveying to it her own profound and radiant essence. When
+      on leaving the church he had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely
+      that he might once more thank his dear child for having led him to &ldquo;enter
+      religion,&rdquo;&mdash;the beautiful expression of former days. He was holding
+      her on his knee in the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly at the very
+      moment when his relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their
+      shameless fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula. His haste
+      to return home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies
+      as he left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the
+      hatred Ursula had excited against them in the old man&rsquo;s mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFERENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While Ursula was playing variations on Weber&rsquo;s &ldquo;Last Thought&rdquo; to her
+      godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults&rsquo; dining-room which
+      was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama. The
+      breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and enlivened by
+      excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgundy or
+      Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent for oysters,
+      salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do honor to
+      Desire&rsquo;s return. The dining-room, in the center of which a round table
+      offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content with
+      the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had built a pavilion for the
+      family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with vegetables and
+      full of fruit-trees. Everything about the premises was solid and plain.
+      The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to the town. Zelie
+      forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The dining-room was,
+      therefore, hung with varnished paper and furnished with walnut chairs and
+      sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a barometer. Though the
+      plates and dishes were of common white china, the table shone with
+      handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie had served the coffee,
+      coming and going herself like shot in a decanter,&mdash;for she kept but
+      one servant,&mdash;and when Desire, the budding lawyer, had been told of
+      the event of the morning and its probably consequences, the door was
+      closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon to speak. By the silence in
+      the room and the looks that were cast on that authoritative face, it was
+      easy to see the power that such men exercise over families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear children,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+      eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+      folly, and that little&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Viper!&rdquo; cried Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hussy!&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us call her by her own name,&rdquo; said Dionis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she&rsquo;s a thief,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pretty thief,&rdquo; remarked Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That little Ursula,&rdquo; went on Dionis, &ldquo;has managed to get hold of his
+      heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait until
+      now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have discovered
+      about that young&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marauder,&rdquo; said the collector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inveigler,&rdquo; said the clerk of the court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue, friends,&rdquo; said the notary, &ldquo;or I&rsquo;ll take my hat and be
+      off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, papa,&rdquo; cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and
+      offering it to the notary; &ldquo;here, drink this, it comes from Rome itself;
+      and now go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet; but her
+      father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle&rsquo;s
+      father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the doctor
+      might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if he leaves her
+      his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against Ursula. This,
+      however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court took the view that
+      there was no relationship between Ursula and the doctor. Still, the suit
+      would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring about a compromise&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children,&rdquo; said the newly
+      fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, &ldquo;that by the judgment
+      of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child can claim
+      nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance. So you see
+      the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law pursues the
+      natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground that
+      benefactions done to grandchildren reach the natural son through that
+      medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil Code. The
+      royal court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of last year,
+      cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural son by his
+      grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural grandson as
+      the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;seems to me to relate only to the bequests made
+      by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood relation of
+      Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at Colmar,
+      rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared that after
+      the decease of a natural child his descendants could no longer be
+      prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula&rsquo;s father is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil&rsquo;s argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+      legislative assemblies are wont to call &ldquo;profound sensation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does that signify?&rdquo; cried Dionis. &ldquo;The actual case of the bequest of
+      an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for
+      trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children
+      will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when religion
+      is honored. I&rsquo;ll answer for it that out of such a suit as I propose you
+      could get a compromise,&mdash;especially if they see you are determined to
+      carry Ursula to a court of appeals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made manifest
+      in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all notice
+      of Goupil&rsquo;s dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep silence
+      and uneasiness when the notary uttered his next word, a terrible &ldquo;But!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+      people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned on
+      him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>But</i> no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula,&rdquo;
+       he continued. &ldquo;As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would, I
+      think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle with
+      questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is true the
+      doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly surgeon to
+      the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of it. Moreover,
+      you would have due warning in case of adoption&mdash;but how about
+      marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marry her after
+      a year&rsquo;s domicile, and give her a million by the marriage contract. The
+      only thing, therefore, that really puts your property in danger is your
+      uncle&rsquo;s marriage with the girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the notary paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s another danger,&rdquo; said Goupil, with a knowing air,&mdash;&ldquo;that of
+      a will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+      will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you tease your uncle,&rdquo; continued Dionis, cutting short his head-clerk,
+      &ldquo;if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will drive him into
+      either a marriage or into making that private trust which Goupil speaks
+      of,&mdash;though I don&rsquo;t think him capable of that; it is a dangerous
+      thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire there has only got
+      to hold out a finger to the girl; she&rsquo;s sure to prefer a handsome young
+      man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said Desire to Zelie&rsquo;s ear, as much allured by the millions as
+      by Ursula&rsquo;s beauty, &ldquo;If I married her we should get the whole property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you crazy?&mdash;you, who&rsquo;ll some day have fifty thousand francs a
+      year and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your
+      throat by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed! Why,
+      the mayor&rsquo;s only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and they have
+      already proposed her to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+      extinguished in Desire&rsquo;s breast all desire for a marriage with the
+      beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+      decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis,&rdquo; cried Cremiere, whose wife had been
+      nudging him, &ldquo;if the good man took the thing seriously and married his
+      goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the property,
+      good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer uncle may be
+      worth a million.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; cried Zelie, &ldquo;never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter of
+      a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son will
+      represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and the Minorets have
+      five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them. That&rsquo;s equal to the
+      nobility. Don&rsquo;t be uneasy, any of you; Desire will marry when we find a
+      chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will be
+      president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office leads to
+      the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+      tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence for
+      the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle is a worthy man,&rdquo; continued Dionis. &ldquo;He believes he&rsquo;s
+      immortal; and, like most clever men, he&rsquo;ll let death overtake him before
+      he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest his
+      capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you,
+      and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere is in
+      Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand francs&rsquo; 
+      worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison; she is crying like a
+      Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her; no doubt she wants to talk to him
+      about her troubles. Well, I&rsquo;ll go and see your uncle to-night and persuade
+      him to sell his five per cent consols, which are now at 118, and lend
+      Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm at Bordieres and her
+      house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal son. I have a right as
+      notary to speak to him in behalf of young Portenduere; and it is quite
+      natural that I should wish to make him change his investments; I get deeds
+      and commissions out of the business. If I become his adviser I&rsquo;ll propose
+      to him other land investments for his surplus capital; I have some
+      excellent ones now in my office. If his fortune were once invested in
+      landed estate or in mortgage notes in this neighbourhood, it could not
+      take wings to itself very easily. It is easy to make difficulties between
+      the wish to realize and the realization.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than that
+      of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be careful,&rdquo; said the notary in conclusion, &ldquo;to keep your uncle
+      in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch him. Find
+      him a lover for the girl and you&rsquo;ll prevent his marrying her himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose she married the lover?&rdquo; said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+      desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That wouldn&rsquo;t be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the old
+      man would have to say how much he gives her,&rdquo; replied the notary. &ldquo;But if
+      you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till the old man
+      died. Marriages are made and unmade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The shortest way,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;if the doctor is likely to live much
+      longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out of
+      your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred
+      thousand francs in hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+      company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;d be a worm at the core,&rdquo; whispered Zelie to Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he get here?&rdquo; returned the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will just suit you!&rdquo; cried Desire to Goupil. &ldquo;But do you think you
+      can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In these days,&rdquo; whispered Zelie again in Massin&rsquo;s year, &ldquo;notaries look
+      out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula
+      just to get the old man&rsquo;s business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of him,&rdquo; said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look out
+      of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, &ldquo;because I hold
+      something over him,&rdquo; but he withheld the words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite of Dionis&rsquo;s opinion,&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with the
+      clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife has voted!&rdquo; said the post master, sipping his brandy, though his
+      face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a notable
+      quantity of liquids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And very properly,&rdquo; remarked the collector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,&rdquo; said Dionis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Monsieur Dionis&rsquo;s advice is good,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+      Massin, &ldquo;we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every
+      Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and be received as he received us!&rdquo; cried Zelie. &ldquo;Minoret and I have
+      more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+      invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don&rsquo;t know how to write
+      prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he&mdash;I can tell
+      him that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Massin, rather piqued, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to lose ten thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+      shall see how things are going,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere; &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll thank us
+      some day, cousin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treat Ursula kindly,&rdquo; said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to
+      the level of his lips; &ldquo;remember old Jordy left her his savings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in
+      Paris, could have done,&rdquo; said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+      post-house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now they are quarreling over my fee,&rdquo; replied the notary, smiling
+      bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+      square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+      were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+      Portenduere on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She dragged him to vespers, see!&rdquo; cried Madame Massin to Madame Cremiere,
+      pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go and speak to him,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference) did
+      not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this sudden
+      amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop and speak
+      to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated affection
+      and forced smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?&rdquo; said Madame
+      Cremiere. &ldquo;We feared sometimes we were in your way&mdash;but it is such a
+      long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are
+      old enough now to make dear Ursula&rsquo;s acquaintance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula is a little bear, like her name,&rdquo; replied the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us tame her,&rdquo; said Madame Massin. &ldquo;And besides, uncle,&rdquo; added the
+      good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy,
+      &ldquo;they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are very
+      anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her
+      music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a
+      class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;and it will be all the better for me
+      because I want to give Ursula a singing-master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to see
+      you; he is now a lawyer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to-night,&rdquo; echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these
+      petty souls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two nieces pressed Ursula&rsquo;s hand, saying, with affected eagerness, &ldquo;Au
+      revoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!&rdquo; cried Ursula, giving him a
+      grateful look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to have a voice,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I shall give you masters of
+      drawing and Italian also. A woman,&rdquo; added the doctor, looking at Ursula as
+      he unfastened the gate of his house, &ldquo;ought to be educated to the height
+      of every position in which her marriage may place her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather&rsquo;s thoughts evidently turned in
+      the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near confessing to
+      the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to think about
+      Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him, she turned
+      aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing plants, on the
+      dark background of which she looked at a distance like a blue and white
+      flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes, they
+      were very kind,&rdquo; she repeated as he approached her, to change the thoughts
+      that made him pensive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little girl!&rdquo; cried the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laid Ursula&rsquo;s hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to the
+      terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say, &lsquo;Poor little girl&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see how they fear you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fear me,&mdash;why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+      attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of their
+      inheritance to enrich you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you won&rsquo;t do that?&rdquo; said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, divine consolation of my old age!&rdquo; said the doctor, taking his
+      godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. &ldquo;It was for her and
+      not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live until
+      the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!&mdash;You will
+      see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and Cremieres
+      and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and prolong my
+      life; they are longing for my death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is&mdash;Ah! I despise them!&rdquo;
+       exclaimed Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dinner is ready!&rdquo; called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+      garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty dining-room
+      decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer (the folly of
+      Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The doctor offered
+      him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of his coffee, a mixture
+      of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted, ground, and made by himself
+      in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the old
+      man, &ldquo;the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put your
+      relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the priests, to
+      the poor. You have roused the families, and they are bestirring
+      themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the square; they were
+      as busy as ants who have lost their eggs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I tell you, Ursula?&rdquo; cried the doctor. &ldquo;At the risk of grieving
+      you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you on your
+      guard against undeserved enmity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to say a word to you on this subject,&rdquo; said Bongrand,
+      seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula&rsquo;s future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of peace
+      wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked up and
+      down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her
+      godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis&rsquo;s opinion as to
+      the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for
+      Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter had
+      been much discussed among the lawyers of the little town. Bongrand
+      considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor Minoret, but he felt
+      that the whole spirit of legislation was against the foisting into
+      families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of the Code had foreseen
+      only the weakness of fathers and mothers for their natural children,
+      without considering that uncles and aunts might have a like tenderness and
+      a desire to provide for such children. Evidently there was a gap in the
+      law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In all other countries,&rdquo; he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+      points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the heirs,
+      &ldquo;Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child, and the
+      disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance from
+      Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy is
+      unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the spirit
+      of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show that this
+      hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the legislators, who
+      did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they established a
+      principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive. Zelie would carry
+      it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive when the case was
+      tried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best of cases is often worthless,&rdquo; cried the doctor. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the
+      question the lawyers will put, &lsquo;To what degree of relationship ought the
+      disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to extend?&rsquo; and
+      the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith!&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;I dare not take upon myself to affirm that the
+      judges wouldn&rsquo;t interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+      protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+      trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the surest
+      means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, &ldquo;Poor little girl! I
+      might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what will you do, then?&rdquo; asked Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll think about it&mdash;I&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; said the old man, evidently at a
+      loss for a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the
+      doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already!&rdquo; cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said to Ursula,
+      &ldquo;send him here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the advance-guard
+      of your heirs,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;They breakfasted together at the post
+      house, and something is being engineered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+      After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked
+      for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+      remarkable. The latter deny them the &ldquo;lesser&rdquo; powers while recognizing
+      their possession of the &ldquo;higher.&rdquo; It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+      Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business
+      believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details which
+      (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of science) go to
+      equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are mistaken! The man of
+      honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued by the doctor&rsquo;s silence,
+      but impelled by a sense of Ursula&rsquo;s interests which he thought endangered,
+      resolved to defend her against the heirs. He was wretched at not knowing
+      what was taking place between the old man and Dionis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be,&rdquo; he thought as he looked
+      at her, &ldquo;there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and
+      their own morality. I&rsquo;ll test here. The Minoret-Levraults,&rdquo; he began,
+      settling his spectacles, &ldquo;might possibly ask you in marriage for their
+      son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+      delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+      moment&rsquo;s inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+      then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+      Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to the
+      glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged
+      Monsieur Bongrand&rsquo;s pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he
+      smiled at her and said, &ldquo;Go! go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at the
+      foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the blinds
+      and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end of the
+      terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer which
+      reached the pagoda where she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate
+      or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what
+      they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good sir,
+      that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs will have
+      the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that, and to let
+      me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what I think
+      proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall come back
+      from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere
+      will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I shall not sell
+      my property in the Funds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first
+      and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head against
+      the blind to steady herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God, what is the matter with her?&rdquo; thought the old doctor. &ldquo;She has
+      no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said to the notary, &ldquo;please leave us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his study,
+      looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her inhale
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take my place,&rdquo; said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; &ldquo;I must
+      be alone with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but
+      without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied Dionis. &ldquo;She was standing by the pagoda, listening
+      to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend some money at my
+      request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for debt,&mdash;for he
+      has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand to defend him,&mdash;she
+      turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is there anything between
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At fifteen years of age? pooh!&rdquo; replied Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was born in February, 1813; she&rsquo;ll be sixteen in four months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe she ever saw him,&rdquo; said the judge. &ldquo;No, it is only a
+      nervous attack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attack of the heart, more likely,&rdquo; said the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage
+      &ldquo;in extremis&rdquo; which they dreaded,&mdash;the only sure means by which the
+      doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a
+      private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying his
+      son to Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,&rdquo;
+       replied Bongrand after a pause. &ldquo;Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+      infatuated with her noble blood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Luckily&mdash;I mean for the honor of the Portendueres,&rdquo; replied the
+      notary, on the point of betraying himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before
+      he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his
+      son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter. He
+      meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed
+      substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs
+      what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene was so loyal and
+      charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene too often, and that
+      had made the doctor distrustful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have to come down to the mayor&rsquo;s daughter,&rdquo; he thought. &ldquo;But
+      Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Cremiere
+      with a million. However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre the marriage
+      with this little Portenduere&mdash;if she really loves him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden,
+      took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ails you, my child?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Your life is my life. Without your
+      smiles what would become of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savinien in prison!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+      sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saved!&rdquo; thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great anxiety.
+      &ldquo;Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife,&rdquo; he thought,
+      fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula&rsquo;s heart, applying his ear to
+      it. &ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;I did not know, my
+      darling, that you loved any one as yet,&rdquo; he added, looking at her; &ldquo;but
+      think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all that has passed
+      between you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other,&rdquo; she
+      answered, sobbing. &ldquo;But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that you&mdash;harshly&mdash;refused
+      to get him out&mdash;you, so good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you put
+      that little red dot against Saint Savinien&rsquo;s day just as you put one
+      before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little
+      love-affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was silence
+      between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor,
+      and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, dear godfather,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will open my heart to you. Last
+      May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+      taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child, and
+      I did not see any difference between him and&mdash;all of you&mdash;except
+      perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+      Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother&rsquo;s
+      fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I had
+      said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the windows
+      in Monsieur Savinien&rsquo;s room open; and Monsieur Savinien was there, in a
+      dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements there was such
+      grace&mdash;I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed his black
+      moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white throat&mdash;so
+      round!&mdash;must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and face and
+      that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when I watch
+      you arranging your beard. There came&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how&mdash;a sort
+      of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so
+      violently that I sat down&mdash;I couldn&rsquo;t stand, I trembled so. But I
+      longed to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just
+      for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I hid myself&mdash;I was ashamed, but happy&mdash;why
+      should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling&mdash;it dazzled my soul
+      and gave it some power, but I don&rsquo;t know what&mdash;it came again each
+      time I saw within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as
+      it was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur
+      Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his clothes, even the tap
+      of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little
+      thing about him&mdash;his hand with the delicate glove&mdash;acted like a
+      spell upon me; and yet I had strength enough not to think of him during
+      mass. When the service was over I stayed in the church to let Madame de
+      Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind him. I couldn&rsquo;t tell you
+      how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round to
+      fasten the iron gate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was La Bougival?&rdquo; asked the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I let her go to the kitchen,&rdquo; said Ursula simply. &ldquo;Then I saw
+      Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh! godfather, I
+      was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of surprise and
+      admiration&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what I would not do to make him look at me
+      again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore
+      but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for any good I
+      do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of
+      myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to Paris that evening, and I have not
+      seen him since. The street seems empty; he took my heart away with him&mdash;but
+      he does not know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; asked the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All, dear godfather,&rdquo; she said, with a sigh of regret that there was not
+      more to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My little girl,&rdquo; said the doctor, putting her on his knee; &ldquo;you are
+      nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your
+      blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which will
+      make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of
+      exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child, is love,&rdquo; said
+      the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,&mdash;&ldquo;love in its holy
+      simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming like a
+      thief who takes all&mdash;yes, all! I expected it. I have studied women;
+      many need proofs and miracles of affection before love conquers them; but
+      others there are, under the influence of sympathies explainable to-day by
+      magnetic fluids, who are possessed by it in an instant. To you I can now
+      tell all&mdash;as soon as I saw the charming woman whose name you bear, I
+      felt that I should love her forever, solely and faithfully, without
+      knowing whether our characters or persons suited each other. Is there a
+      second-sight in love? What answer can I give to that, I who have seen so
+      many unions formed under celestial auspices only to be ruptured later,
+      giving rise to hatreds that are well-nigh eternal, to repugnances that are
+      unconquerable. The senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance;
+      and some persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The
+      contrary is also true; often minds agree and persons displease. These
+      phenomena, the varying and secret cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom
+      of laws which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their
+      children; for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these
+      hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel, the
+      rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon your heart
+      and upon your mind, the happiness with which you think of Savinien, are
+      all natural. But, my darling child, society demands, as our good abbe has
+      told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations. The destinies of men
+      and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula Mirouet for my wife; I could
+      go to her and say that I loved her; but a young girl is false to herself
+      if she asks the love of the man she loves. A woman has not the right which
+      men have to seek the accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is
+      to her&mdash;above all to you, my Ursula,&mdash;the insurmountable barrier
+      which protects the secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to
+      me these first emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather
+      than admit to Savinien&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+      must forget them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even if
+      Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to give him
+      your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had subjected him
+      to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been such as to make
+      families distrust him and to put obstacles between himself and heiresses
+      which cannot be easily overcome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula&rsquo;s sweet face as she said,
+      &ldquo;Then poverty is good sometimes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he done, godfather?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+      thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up in
+      Saint-Pelagie, the debtor&rsquo;s prison; an impropriety which will always be,
+      in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is willing to plunge
+      his poor mother into poverty and distress might cause his wife, as your
+      poor father did, to die of despair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think he will do better?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don&rsquo;t know a
+      worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you a
+      right to advise him; you can remonstrate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the doctor, imitating her, &ldquo;and then he can come here, and the
+      old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking only of him,&rdquo; said Ursula, blushing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think of him, my child; it would be folly,&rdquo; said the doctor
+      gravely. &ldquo;Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+      consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to the
+      marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with whom?&mdash;with
+      Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment, without money, and
+      whose father&mdash;alas! I must now tell you all&mdash;was the bastard son
+      of an organist, my father-in-law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I will
+      not think of him again&mdash;except in my prayers,&rdquo; she said, amid the
+      sobs which this painful revelation excited. &ldquo;Give him what you meant to
+      give me&mdash;what can a poor girl like me want?&mdash;ah, in prison, he!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not dare
+      to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply moved to
+      see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks. The tears of
+      old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh what is it?&rdquo; cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and kissing
+      his hands. &ldquo;Are you not sure of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to cause
+      the first great sorrow of your life!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I suffer as much as you. I
+      never wept before, except when I lost my children&mdash;and, Ursula&mdash;Yes,&rdquo;
+       he cried suddenly, &ldquo;I will do all you desire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning. She
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go into the salon, darling,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;Try to keep the
+      secret of all this to yourself,&rdquo; he added, leaving her alone for a moment
+      in his study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he might
+      say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her frigid
+      little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital of her
+      troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her hand some
+      letters which he had just returned to her after reading them; these
+      letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside a
+      square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lady was
+      looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up in
+      his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to valets on
+      the stage, mathematicians, and priests,&mdash;a sign of profound
+      meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished with
+      a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed the
+      geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it. The
+      red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady&rsquo;s one servant, required, for
+      comfort&rsquo;s sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on one
+      of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The old damask curtains of
+      light green with green flowers were drawn, and the outside blinds had been
+      closed. Two wax candles lighted the table, leaving the rest of the room in
+      semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say that between the two windows was a
+      fine pastel by Latour representing the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the
+      rival of the Suffren, Guichen, Kergarouet and Simeuse naval heroes? On the
+      paneled wall opposite to the fireplace were portraits of the Vicomte de
+      Portenduere and of the mother of the old lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat.
+      Savinien&rsquo;s great-uncle was therefore the Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and
+      his cousin was the Comte de Portenduere, grandson of the admiral,&mdash;both
+      of them very rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de Portenduere
+      at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count represented the elder
+      branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the younger. The count, who was
+      over forty years of age and married to a rich wife, had three children.
+      His fortune, increased by various legacies, amounted, it was said, to
+      sixty thousand francs a year. As deputy from Isere he passed his winters
+      in Paris, where he had bought the hotel de Portenduere with the
+      indemnities he obtained under the Villele law. The vice-admiral had
+      recently married his niece by marriage, for the sole purpose of securing
+      his money to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+      favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy, young
+      and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the influence of
+      an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years of age, been a
+      lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son should go into
+      either naval or military service, had kept him at Nemours under the
+      tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon&rsquo;s assistants, hoping that she could
+      keep him near her until her death. She meant to marry him to a demoiselle
+      d&rsquo;Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year; to whose hand
+      the name of Portenduere and the farm at Bordieres enabled him to pretend.
+      This narrow but judicious plan, which would have carried the family to a
+      second generation, was already balked by events. The d&rsquo;Aiglemonts were
+      ruined, and one of the daughters, Helene, had disappeared, and the mystery
+      of her disappearance was never solved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+      action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his mother,
+      so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as they were, and
+      swore that he would never live in the provinces&mdash;comprehending,
+      rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the Rue des Bourgeois.
+      At twenty-one years of age he left his mother&rsquo;s house to make acquaintance
+      with his relations, and try his luck in Paris. The contrast between life
+      in Paris and life in Nemours was likely to be fatal to a young man of
+      twenty-one, free, with no one to say him nay, naturally eager for
+      pleasure, and for whom his name and his connections opened the doors of
+      all the salons. Quite convinced that his mother had the savings of many
+      years in her strong-box, Savinien soon spent the six thousand francs which
+      she had given him to see Paris. That sum did not defray his expenses for
+      six months, and he soon owed double that sum to his hotel, his tailor, his
+      boot maker, to the man from whom he hired his carriages and horses, to a
+      jeweler,&mdash;in short, to all those traders and shopkeepers who
+      contribute to the luxury of young men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+      learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to wear
+      his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his cravat,
+      before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand francs, while
+      still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his love for the
+      sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame de Serizy, whose
+      youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is that you all manage?&rdquo; asked Savinien one day, at the end of a gay
+      breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate as the
+      young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all aiming for
+      the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality. &ldquo;You were no
+      richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you contrive to
+      maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but debts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all began that way,&rdquo; answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh was
+      echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet, and
+      others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an exception,&rdquo;
+       said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming intimate with
+      these young men. &ldquo;Any one but he,&rdquo; added Finot bowing to that personage,
+      &ldquo;would have been ruined by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A true remark,&rdquo; said Maxime de Trailles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a true idea,&rdquo; added Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow,&rdquo; said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; &ldquo;debts are the
+      capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors for
+      all branches, who don&rsquo;t teach you anything, costs sixty thousand francs.
+      If the education of the world does cost double, at least it teaches you to
+      understand life, politics, men,&mdash;and sometimes women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: &ldquo;The world
+      sells dearly what we think it gives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest pilots
+      of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said de Marsay one day. &ldquo;You have a great
+      name; if you don&rsquo;t obtain the fortune that name requires you&rsquo;ll end your
+      days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. &lsquo;We have seen the fall of
+      nobler heads,&rsquo;&rdquo; he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he took
+      Savinien&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;About six years ago,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;a young Comte
+      d&rsquo;Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the paradise
+      of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket. He rose to the
+      Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town, where he is now
+      expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a game of whist at two
+      sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your situation, candidly, without
+      shame; she will understand it and be very useful to you. Whereas, if you
+      play the charade of first love with her she will pose as a Raffaelle
+      Madonna, practice all the little games of innocence upon you, and take you
+      journeying at enormous cost through the Land of Sentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+      position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+      which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to which
+      she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs, which was
+      all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close of the first
+      year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot of Madame de
+      Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as the saying is,
+      forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient of borrowing. One
+      of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his cousin the Comte de
+      Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to Gobseck or Gigonnet or
+      Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother&rsquo;s means, would give him an
+      easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help of renewals enabled him to
+      lead a happy life for nearly eighteen months. Without daring to leave
+      Madame de Serizy the poor boy had fallen madly in love with the beautiful
+      Comtesse de Kergarouet, a prude after the fashion of young women who are
+      awaiting the death of an old husband and making capital of their virtue in
+      the interests of a second marriage. Quite incapable of understanding that
+      calculating virtue is invulnerable, Savinien paid court to Emilie de
+      Kergarouet in all the splendor of a rich man. He never missed either ball
+      or theater at which she was present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock,&rdquo; said de Marsay,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+      endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely wasted
+      his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a prison
+      were needed to convince Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the
+      money-lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the young
+      man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default of one
+      hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of his
+      friends, to the debtor&rsquo;s prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as the fact was
+      known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to see him, and
+      each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when they found how
+      really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him had been seized
+      except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The three young men (who
+      brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed Savinien&rsquo;s situation
+      while drinking de Marsay&rsquo;s wine, ostensibly to arrange for his future but
+      really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere,&rdquo; cried Rastignac, &ldquo;and has a
+      future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+      great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be
+      put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there, my
+      good fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me?&rdquo; cried de Marsay. &ldquo;You could have had my
+      traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction for
+      Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we could
+      have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what ass ever
+      led you to drink of that cursed spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Des Lupeaulx.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought and
+      suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explain all your resources; show us your hand,&rdquo; said de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and the
+      little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without other
+      grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when he had
+      valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish cement, and
+      put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies looked at each
+      other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of the abbe in Alfred
+      de Musset&rsquo;s &ldquo;Marrons du feu&rdquo; (which had then just appeared),&mdash;&ldquo;Sad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter,&rdquo; said Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but afterwards?&rdquo; cried de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had merely been put in the fiacre,&rdquo; said Lucien, &ldquo;the government
+      would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie isn&rsquo;t the
+      antechamber of an embassy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not strong enough for Parisian life,&rdquo; said Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us consider the matter,&rdquo; said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as a
+      jockey examines a horse. &ldquo;You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a white
+      forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which
+      suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you&rsquo;ve a foot that tells race,
+      shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. You are what I
+      call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of the style Louis XII.,
+      hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have the thing that pleases
+      women, a something, I don&rsquo;t know what it is, which men take no account of
+      themselves; it is in the air, the manner, the tone of the voice, the dart
+      of the eye, the gesture,&mdash;in short, in a number of little things
+      which women see and to which they attach a meaning which escapes us. You
+      don&rsquo;t know your merits, my dear fellow. Take a certain tone and style and
+      in six months you&rsquo;ll captivate an English-woman with a hundred thousand
+      pounds; but you must call yourself viscount, a title which belongs to you.
+      My charming step-mother, Lady Dudley, who has not her equal for matching
+      two hearts, will find you some such woman in the fens of Great Britain.
+      What you must now do is to get the payment of your debts postponed for
+      ninety days. Why didn&rsquo;t you tell us about them? The money-lenders at Baden
+      would have spared you&mdash;served you perhaps; but now, after you have
+      once been in prison, they&rsquo;ll despise you. A money-lender is, like society,
+      like the masses, down on his knees before the man who is strong enough to
+      trick him, and pitiless to the lambs. To the eyes of some persons
+      Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the souls of young men. Do you
+      want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I told that little d&rsquo;Esgrignon:
+      &lsquo;Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep enough to live on for three
+      years, and marry some girl in the provinces who can bring you an income of
+      thirty thousand francs.&rsquo; In the course of three years you can surely find
+      some virtuous heiress who is willing to call herself Madame la Vicomtesse
+      de Portenduere. Such is virtue,&mdash;let&rsquo;s drink to it. I give you a
+      toast: &lsquo;The girl with money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+      parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to each
+      other: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not strong enough!&rdquo; &ldquo;He&rsquo;s quite crushed.&rdquo; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe
+      he&rsquo;ll pull through it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two pages.
+      Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote first to her
+      son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the Comte de
+      Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was holding
+      in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her appeal,
+      which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, September, 1829.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Madame de Portenduere:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame,&mdash;You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I both
+      feel in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de Kergarouet grieves me
+      all the more because our house was a home to your son; we were proud of
+      him. If Savinien had had more confidence in the admiral we could have
+      taken him to live with us, and he would already have obtained some good
+      situation. But, unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of his
+      own accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing of his
+      pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because Savinien
+      has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the authorities to arrest
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed our
+      relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him to travel in
+      Germany while his affairs were being settled here. Monsieur de Kergarouet
+      intended to get him a place in the War office; but this imprisonment for
+      debt will paralyze such efforts. You must pay his debts; let him enter the
+      navy; he will make his way like the true Portenduere that he is; he has
+      the fire of the family in his beautiful black eyes, and we will all help
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom I beg
+      you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our best wishes,
+      with the respects of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your very affectionate servant, Emilie de Kergarouet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second letter was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Portenduere, August, 1829.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Madame de Portenduere:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear aunt,&mdash;I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien&rsquo;s pranks.
+      As I am married and the father of two sons and one daughter, my fortune,
+      already too small for my position and prospects, cannot be lessened to
+      ransom a Portenduere from the hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his
+      debts, and come and live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive the
+      welcome we owe you, even though our views may not be entirely in
+      accordance with yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to
+      marry Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+      nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in this part
+      of the country, where there are a number of rich girls who would be
+      delighted to enter our family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give us, and I
+      beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this plan, together
+      with my affectionate respects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!&rdquo; cried the old Breton lady,
+      wiping her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison,&rdquo; said the Abbe
+      Chaperon at last; &ldquo;the countess alone read your letter, and has answered
+      it for him. But you must decide at once on some course,&rdquo; he added after a
+      pause, &ldquo;and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do not sell your
+      farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four years; in a few
+      months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs and get a premium for
+      double that amount. Borrow what you need of some honest man,&mdash;not
+      from the townspeople who make a business of mortgages. Your neighbour here
+      is a most worthy man; a man of good society, who knew it as it was before
+      the Revolution, who was once an atheist, and is now an earnest Catholic.
+      Do not let your feelings debar you from going to his house this very
+      evening; he will fully understand the step you take; forget for a moment
+      that you are a Kergarouet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will lend
+      you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three per
+      cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased with
+      him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,&mdash;for he will
+      have to go there to sell out his funds,&mdash;and he can bring the lad
+      back to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you speaking of that little Minoret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That little Minoret is eighty-three years old,&rdquo; said the abbe, smiling.
+      &ldquo;My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don&rsquo;t wound him,&mdash;he
+      might be useful to you in other ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ways?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant words,
+      the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he was about to
+      make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think Doctor Minoret is very rich,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have indirectly caused your son&rsquo;s misfortunes by refusing to give him
+      a profession; beware for the future,&rdquo; said the abbe sternly. &ldquo;Am I to tell
+      Doctor Minoret that you are coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he comes
+      to you you will pay him five,&rdquo; said the abbe, inventing this reason to
+      influence the old lady. &ldquo;And if you are forced to sell your farm by Dionis
+      the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse to lend you the
+      money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you would lose half its
+      value. I have not the slightest influence on the Dionis, Massins, or
+      Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your farm and know that your
+      son is in prison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They know it! oh, do they know it?&rdquo; she exclaimed, throwing up her arms.
+      &ldquo;There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold! Tiennette,
+      Tiennette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short gown
+      and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe&rsquo;s coffee to warm it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let be, Monsieur le recteur,&rdquo; she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+      drink it, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just put it into the bain-marie, it won&rsquo;t spoil it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+      voice, &ldquo;I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will come&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old mother did not yield till after an hour&rsquo;s discussion, during which
+      the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times. And even
+      then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the words,
+      &ldquo;Savinien would go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is better that I should go than he,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. SAVINIEN SAVED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large door of
+      Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s house closed on the abbe, who immediately crossed
+      the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor&rsquo;s gate. He fell from
+      Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, &ldquo;Why do you come so late,
+      Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe?&rdquo; as the other had said, &ldquo;Why do you leave Madame so early
+      when she is in trouble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown salon;
+      for Dionis had stopped at Massin&rsquo;s on his way home to re-assure the heirs
+      by repeating their uncle&rsquo;s words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe Ursula has a love-affair,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;which will be nothing but
+      pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic&rdquo; (extreme sensibility is so
+      called by notaries), &ldquo;and, you&rsquo;ll see, she won&rsquo;t marry soon. Therefore,
+      don&rsquo;t show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and very respectful
+      to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,&rdquo; added the notary&mdash;without
+      being aware that Goupil is a corruption of the word vulpes, a fox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master and
+      Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual and
+      noisy party in the doctor&rsquo;s salon. As the abbe entered he heard the sound
+      of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of Beethoven&rsquo;s. With
+      girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music, which must be studied to
+      be understood, for the purpose of disgusting these women with the thing
+      they coveted. The finer the music the less ignorant persons like it. So,
+      when the door opened and the abbe&rsquo;s venerable head appeared they all cried
+      out: &ldquo;Ah! here&rsquo;s Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe!&rdquo; in a tone of relief, delighted to jump
+      up and put an end to their torture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the Nemours
+      doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with which the
+      collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had proposed to take
+      the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The doctor rose as if to
+      receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the game. After many
+      compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency of his
+      goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, my friends,&rdquo; cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that&rsquo;s where the money goes,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere to Madame Massin,
+      as they walked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+      such a din as that!&rdquo; cried Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician,&rdquo; said the
+      collector; &ldquo;he has quite a reputation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in Nemours, I&rsquo;m sure of that,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away,&rdquo; said
+      Massin; &ldquo;for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+      music-book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that&rsquo;s the sort of charivari they like,&rdquo; said the post master, &ldquo;they
+      are quite right to keep it to themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful racket,&rdquo;
+       said Madame Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall never be able to play before persons who don&rsquo;t understand music,&rdquo;
+       Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In natures richly organized,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;sentiments can be developed
+      only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable to give the
+      blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree dies in a
+      clay soil, so a musician&rsquo;s genius has a mental eclipse when he is
+      surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from the
+      souls who make the environment of our souls as much intensity as we convey
+      to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made into
+      proverbs: &lsquo;Howl with the wolves&rsquo;; &lsquo;Like meets like.&rsquo; But the suffering you
+      felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, friends,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;a thing which would merely give pain
+      to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here, I charge
+      you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,&mdash;&lsquo;Ut flos,&rsquo; etc.,&mdash;a
+      protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula,&rdquo; said Monsieur Bongrand,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flattered her grossly,&rdquo; remarked the Nemours doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is,&rdquo; said old Minoret.
+      &ldquo;Why is that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A true thought has its own delicacy,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?&rdquo; asked Ursula, with a look of
+      anxious curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may come to
+      see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula pressed her godfather&rsquo;s hand under the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her son,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;was rather too simple-minded to live in Paris
+      without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made here about
+      the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting her death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible you think him capable of it?&rdquo; said Ursula, with such a
+      terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather sadly,
+      &ldquo;Alas! yes, she loves him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes and no,&rdquo; said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula&rsquo;s question.
+      &ldquo;There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now in
+      prison; a scamp wouldn&rsquo;t have got there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let us talk about it any more,&rdquo; said old Minoret. &ldquo;The poor mother
+      must not be allowed to weep if there&rsquo;s a way to dry her tears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the gate,
+      saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and as soon as
+      Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with La Bougival
+      beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame la vicomtesse,&rdquo; said the abbe, who entered first into the little
+      salon, &ldquo;Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you should have
+      the trouble of coming to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am too much of the old school, madame,&rdquo; interrupted the doctor, &ldquo;not to
+      know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very glad to be
+      able, as Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe tells me, to be of service to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so much
+      that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the notary
+      instead, was surprised by Minoret&rsquo;s attention to such a degree that she
+      rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be seated, monsieur,&rdquo; she said with a regal air. &ldquo;Our dear abbe has told
+      you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful debts,&mdash;a
+      hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him I would
+      secure you on my farm at Bordieres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to you&mdash;if
+      you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, monsieur,&rdquo; she said, bowing her head and looking at the abbe
+      as if to say, &ldquo;You were right; he really is a man of good society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, madame,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;that my friend the doctor is full of
+      devotion to your family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be grateful, monsieur,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere, making a
+      visible effort; &ldquo;a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a prodigal,
+      is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I had the honor to meet, in &lsquo;65, the illustrious Admiral de
+      Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes, and
+      also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to question
+      him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur de
+      Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the glorious days
+      of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of Great Britain, and its
+      officers had their full quota of courage. With what impatience we awaited
+      in &lsquo;83 and &lsquo;84 the news from St. Roch. I came very near serving as surgeon
+      in the king&rsquo;s service. Your great-uncle, who is still living, Admiral
+      Kergarouet, fought his splendid battle at that time in the &lsquo;Belle-Poule.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not leave him there a day,&rdquo; said old Minoret, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed him
+      to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left the
+      room; but returned immediately to say:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+      to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his friend,
+      who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces of the old
+      lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an astonishing man for his age,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He talks of going to
+      Paris and attending to my son&rsquo;s affairs as if he were only twenty-five. He
+      has certainly seen good society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of France
+      would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if that idea
+      should come into Savinien&rsquo;s head!&mdash;times are so changed that the
+      objections would not come from your side, especially after his late
+      conduct&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled him
+      to finish it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have lost your senses,&rdquo; she said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+      future in a manner to win that old man&rsquo;s respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it were not you, Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere, &ldquo;if it
+      were any one else who spoke to me in that way&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not see him again,&rdquo; said the abbe, smiling. &ldquo;Let us hope that
+      your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in these days
+      as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien&rsquo;s good; as you really
+      have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in the way of his
+      making himself another position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is you who say that to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I did not say it to you, who would?&rdquo; cried the abbe rising and making
+      a hasty retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+      courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+      just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+      thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the whole
+      coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day at half-past six o&rsquo;clock the old man and the young girl
+      reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+      Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+      remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a fool
+      to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between the
+      press and the court was not made up. Minoret&rsquo;s notary now indirectly
+      approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his
+      journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his shares in the Funds,
+      all of which were then at a high value, depositing the proceeds in the
+      Bank of France. The notary also advised his client to sell the stocks left
+      to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He promised to employ an extremely clever
+      broker to treat with Savinien&rsquo;s creditors; but said that in order to
+      succeed it would be necessary for the young man to stay several days
+      longer in prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+      cent,&rdquo; said the notary. &ldquo;Besides, you can&rsquo;t get your money under seven or
+      eight days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week longer
+      in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only once. Old
+      Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel in the Rue
+      Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very suitable
+      apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his goddaughter
+      he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at other times he
+      took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards; but nothing seemed
+      to amuse or interest her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want to do?&rdquo; asked the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See Saint-Pelagie,&rdquo; she answered obstinately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef, where
+      the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent then
+      transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls, with every
+      window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter without stooping
+      (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in a quarter full of
+      wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets like a supreme misery,&mdash;this
+      assemblage of dismal things so oppressed Ursula&rsquo;s heart that she burst
+      into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to imprison young men in this dreadful place for money!
+      How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not? <i>He</i>
+      there!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Where, godfather?&rdquo; she added, looking from window to
+      window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;you are making me commit great follies. This
+      is not forgetting him as you promised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she argued, &ldquo;if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel an
+      interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; cried the doctor, &ldquo;there is so much reason in your unreasonableness
+      that I am sorry I brought you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the legal
+      papers ready for Savinien&rsquo;s release. The payings, including the notaries&rsquo; 
+      fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went himself to see
+      Savinien released on Saturday at two o&rsquo;clock. The young viscount, already
+      informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked his liberator with
+      sincere warmth of heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must return at once to see your mother,&rdquo; the old doctor said to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted certain
+      debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suspected there was some personal debt,&rdquo; cried the doctor, smiling.
+      &ldquo;Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid out
+      only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend it,
+      monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the green
+      cloth of fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+      present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated hard
+      work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+      underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of day.
+      Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his time and
+      required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere, which his
+      mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in Paris. His cousin
+      the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor figure in the Elective
+      Chamber in presence of the peerage and the court; and had none too much
+      credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet existed only as the husband of his
+      wife. Savinien admitted to himself that he had seen orators, men from the
+      middle classes, or lesser noblemen, become influential personages. Money
+      was the pivot, the sole means, the only mechanism of a society which Louis
+      XVIII. had tried to create in the likeness of that of England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs the
+      young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which were
+      certainly in keeping with de Marsay&rsquo;s advice) to the old doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to go into oblivion for three or four years and seek
+      a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+      statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions of
+      the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady who
+      could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence and in
+      obscurity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Studying the young fellow&rsquo;s face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+      serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself. He
+      therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+      (which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+      lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner, to find
+      you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and possessing from
+      seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make you happy and of
+      whom you will have every reason to be proud,&mdash;one whose only nobility
+      is that of the heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, doctor!&rdquo; cried the young man, &ldquo;there is no longer a nobility in these
+      days,&mdash;nothing but an aristocracy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+      coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me,&rdquo; said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, at six o&rsquo;clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+      Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien, who
+      once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss which
+      invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely forgotten
+      the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover, his hopeless
+      love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing a thought on a
+      few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He did not recognize her
+      when the doctor handed her into the coach and then sat down beside her to
+      separate her from the young viscount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have some bills to give you,&rdquo; said the doctor to the young man. &ldquo;I have
+      brought all your papers and documents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came very near not getting off,&rdquo; said Savinien, &ldquo;for I had to order
+      linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+      prodigal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the young
+      man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain remarks of
+      the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after dusk, her green
+      veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much,&rdquo; said
+      Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to return to Nemours,&rdquo; she answered in a trembling voice
+      raising her veil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the heavy
+      braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that I
+      meet my charming neighbour again,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I hope, Monsieur le docteur
+      that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I remember to
+      have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula&rsquo;s piano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know,&rdquo; replied the doctor gravely, &ldquo;whether your mother would
+      approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care for this
+      dear child with all the solicitude of a mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+      kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great. Savinien
+      and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was full of
+      projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+      straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap, dropped
+      upon her uncle&rsquo;s shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn, Savinien
+      awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally caused by the
+      jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half off; the hair,
+      unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed from the heat of
+      the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to whom dress is a
+      necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The sleep of innocence is
+      always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the pretty teeth; the shawl,
+      unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds of her muslin gown and without
+      offence to her modesty, the gracefulness of her figure. The purity of the
+      virgin spirit shone on the sleeping countenance all the more plainly
+      because no other expression was there to interfere with it. Old Minoret,
+      who presently woke up, placed his child&rsquo;s head in the corner of the
+      carriage that she might be more at ease; and she let him do it
+      unconsciously, so deep was her sleep after the many wakeful nights she had
+      spent in thinking of Savinien&rsquo;s trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little girl!&rdquo; said the doctor to his neighbour, &ldquo;she sleeps like the
+      child she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be proud of her,&rdquo; replied Savinien; &ldquo;for she seems as good as
+      she is beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she were
+      my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God grant that I
+      may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make her happy. I
+      wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was for the first
+      time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden it. &lsquo;But,&rsquo; I said,
+      &lsquo;when you are married your husband will want you to go there.&rsquo; &lsquo;I shall do
+      what my husband wants,&rsquo; she answered. &lsquo;If he asks me to do evil and I am
+      weak enough to yield, he will be responsible before God&mdash;and so I
+      shall have strength to refuse him, for his own sake.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+      ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of admiration
+      which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had taken the
+      diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had fallen in love
+      with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her soul, the beauty of
+      that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy of the features; he
+      recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive
+      sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A
+      presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold of him; he saw in Ursula the
+      woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words,
+      &ldquo;Seven or eight hundred thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be twenty-seven,&rdquo;
+       he thought. &ldquo;The good doctor talked of probation, work, good conduct! Sly
+      as he is I shall make him tell me the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+      homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave Ursula
+      a parting glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor and
+      Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass. Savinien&rsquo;s
+      release and his return in company with the doctor had explained the reason
+      of the latter&rsquo;s absence to the newsmongers of the town and to the heirs,
+      who were once more assembled in conventicle on the square, just as they
+      were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended his first mass. To the
+      great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de Portenduere, on leaving
+      the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered her his arm and took her
+      home. The old lady asked him to dinner that evening, also asking his niece
+      and assuring him that the abbe would be the only other guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have wished Ursula to see Paris,&rdquo; said Minoret-Levrault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pest!&rdquo; cried Cremiere; &ldquo;he can&rsquo;t take a step without that girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,&rdquo;
+       said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+      released that little Savinien?&rdquo; cried Goupil. &ldquo;He refused Dionis, but he
+      didn&rsquo;t refuse Madame de Portenduere&mdash;Ha, ha! you are all done for.
+      The viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and
+      the doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he
+      has now paid to secure the alliance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien,&rdquo; said the butcher.
+      &ldquo;The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came
+      early for a filet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Dionis, here&rsquo;s a fine to-do!&rdquo; said Massin, rushing up to the
+      notary, who was entering the square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is? It&rsquo;s all going right,&rdquo; returned the notary. &ldquo;Your uncle has sold
+      his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness the signing
+      of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand francs, lent to her
+      by your uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s as if you said Goupil was to be my successor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The two things are not so impossible,&rdquo; said Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform her
+      son that she wished to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame de
+      Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a large
+      dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little antechamber
+      which opened on the staircase. The window of the other room, occupied by
+      Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the street. The
+      staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room for a little
+      study lighted by a small round window opening on the court. Madame de
+      Portenduere&rsquo;s bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked into the
+      court; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the ground floor,
+      which communicated by a passage with the kitchen built at the end of the
+      court, so that this salon was made to answer the double purpose of
+      drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had left it
+      on the day of his death; there was no change except that he was absent.
+      Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying upon it the uniform
+      of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The gold snuff-box
+      from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last time was on the
+      table, with his prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from which he drank.
+      His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed, hung above a
+      crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little ornaments he had
+      worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon, his spy-glass
+      hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of
+      the clock at the hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room
+      still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was
+      as he left it. To her, entering there, he was again visible in the many
+      articles which told of his daily habits. His tall cane with its gold head
+      was where he had last placed it, with his buckskin gloves close by. On a
+      table against the wall stood a gold vase, of coarse workmanship but worth
+      three thousand francs, a gift from Havana, which city, at the time of the
+      American War of Independence, he had protected from an attack by the
+      British, bringing his convoy safe into port after an engagement with
+      superior forces. To recompense this service the King of Spain had made him
+      a knight of his order; the same event gave him a right to the next
+      promotion to the rank of vice-admiral, and he also received the red
+      ribbing. He then married his wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred
+      thousand francs. But the Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur
+      de Portenduere emigrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my mother?&rdquo; said Savinien to Tiennette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is waiting for you in your father&rsquo;s room,&rdquo; said the old Breton woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother&rsquo;s rigid
+      principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility, and
+      he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart beating and
+      his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered through the blinds
+      he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air of solemnity in
+      keeping with that funereal room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur le vicomte,&rdquo; she said when she saw him, rising and taking his
+      hand to lead him to his father&rsquo;s bed, &ldquo;there died your father,&mdash;a man
+      of honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His spirit is
+      there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son degraded by
+      imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain could have been
+      spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and shutting you up for a few
+      days in a military prison.&mdash;But you are here; you stand before your
+      father, who hears you. You know all that you did before you were sent to
+      that ignoble prison. Will you swear to me before your father&rsquo;s shade, and
+      in presence of God who sees all, that you have done no dishonorable act;
+      that your debts are the result of youthful folly, and that your honor is
+      untarnished? If your blameless father were there, sitting in that
+      armchair, and asking an explanation of your conduct, could he embrace you
+      after having heard it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, mother,&rdquo; replied the young man, with grave respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us forget it all, my son,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it is only a little less money.
+      I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy of your
+      name, kiss me&mdash;for I have suffered much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear, mother,&rdquo; he said, laying his hand upon the bed, &ldquo;to give you no
+      further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair these
+      first faults.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and breakfast, my child,&rdquo; she said, turning to leave the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs something
+      of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover, the
+      sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates to
+      matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied to
+      the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the spirit of
+      family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours, where, as we have
+      seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible marriage of her son
+      with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social laws have their
+      exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother&rsquo;s pride before the
+      inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once. As soon as they
+      were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible letters, as she
+      called them, which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres had written her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no such thing as family in these days, mother,&rdquo; replied
+      Savinien, &ldquo;nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+      body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+      statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, &lsquo;What taxes does he pay?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the king?&rdquo; asked the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife
+      and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without regard
+      to family,&mdash;the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is
+      sufficiently well brought-up&mdash;that is to say, if she has been taught
+      in school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! there&rsquo;s no need to talk of that,&rdquo; said the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called
+      Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he resolved to know
+      at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;if I loved a young girl,&mdash;take for instance your
+      neighbour&rsquo;s godchild, little Ursula,&mdash;would you oppose my marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, as long as I live,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;and after my death you would be
+      responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+      Portendueres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobility,
+      which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of great wealth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could serve France and put faith in God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be horrible if you took it then,&mdash;that is all I have to
+      say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mazarin himself opposed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember the widow Scarron.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was a d&rsquo;Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very
+      old, my son,&rdquo; she said, shaking her head. &ldquo;When I am no more you can, as
+      you say, marry whom you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+      silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal to her
+      own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this opposition
+      gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of a forbidden
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink and
+      white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with nervous
+      trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen of France
+      and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the doctor this
+      little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her eyes, and the
+      old lady herself the social value which a duchess of the Middle Ages might
+      have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula measured as she did
+      at that moment the distance which separated Vicomte de Portenduere from
+      the daughter of a regimental musician, a former opera-singer and the
+      natural son of an organist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, my dear?&rdquo; said the old lady, making the girl sit down
+      beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My little girl,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. &ldquo;I
+      know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to him,
+      for he has brought back my prodigal son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear mother,&rdquo; said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the color
+      fly into Ursula&rsquo;s face as she struggled to keep back her tears, &ldquo;even if
+      we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret, I think we
+      should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle has given us
+      by accepting your invitation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man pressed the doctor&rsquo;s hand in a significant manner, adding:
+      &ldquo;I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order in
+      France, and one which confers nobility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula&rsquo;s extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a depth
+      which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where the soul is
+      brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduere suddenly, and
+      made her suspect that the doctor&rsquo;s apparent generosity masked an ambitious
+      scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien replied with the
+      intention of wounding the doctor in that which was dearest to him; and she
+      succeeded, though the old man could hardly restrain a smile as he heard
+      himself styled a &ldquo;chevalier,&rdquo; amused to observe how the eagerness of a
+      lover did not shrink from absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to
+      obtain,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other
+      privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have
+      done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor
+      devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order of
+      Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned, which,
+      as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when there
+      was a rap at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is our dear abbe,&rdquo; said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+      alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,&mdash;an honor she had not
+      paid to the doctor and his niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+      Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s
+      manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+      Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid it. He
+      began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was then running by
+      confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de Polignac. When
+      sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid all appearance of
+      revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady, in an easy, jesting
+      way, a packet of legal papers and receipted bills, together with the
+      account of his notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has my son verified them?&rdquo; she said, giving Savinien a look, to which he
+      replied by bending his head. &ldquo;Well, then the rest is my notary&rsquo;s
+      business,&rdquo; she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair with
+      the disdain she wished to show for money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s ideas, to
+      elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for the
+      accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you want them?&rdquo; said the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance with
+      offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching a
+      toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the same
+      indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name in any
+      language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of the inward
+      being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to Doctor Minoret.
+      The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some way be fatal to them
+      made Ursula tremble; but she controlled herself, conscious of unspeakable
+      pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis,&rdquo; said Savinien, when
+      Goupil had closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?&rdquo; said
+      Madame de Portenduere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t complain of his ugliness,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;but I do of his
+      wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and dignified.
+      The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the kindly good-humor
+      of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the dinner, the position of the
+      doctor and his niece would have been almost intolerable. At dessert,
+      seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to her:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t feel well, dear child, we have only the street to cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, my dear?&rdquo; said the old lady to the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said the doctor severely, &ldquo;her soul is chilled, accustomed as
+      she is to be met by smiles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very bad education, monsieur,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere. &ldquo;Is it not,
+      Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how to
+      reply. &ldquo;I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic spirit
+      if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die until I
+      place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and hatred&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, godfather&mdash;I beg of you&mdash;say no more. There is nothing the
+      matter with me,&rdquo; cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s eyes rather
+      than give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot know, madame,&rdquo; said Savinien to his mother, &ldquo;whether
+      Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his mother&rsquo;s
+      treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de Portenduere
+      to excuse her; then she took her uncle&rsquo;s arm, bowed, left the room, and
+      returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and sat down to the
+      piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you leave the management of your affairs to my old experience,
+      cruel child?&rdquo; cried the doctor in despair. &ldquo;Nobles never think themselves
+      under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we do them a service they
+      consider that we do our duty, and that&rsquo;s all. Besides, the old lady saw
+      that you looked favorably on Savinien; she is afraid he will love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At any rate he is saved!&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;But ah! to try to humiliate a man
+      like you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait till I return, my child,&rdquo; said the old man leaving her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s salon he found Dionis
+      the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of Nemours,
+      witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all communes where
+      there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis aside and said a
+      word in his ear, after which the notary read the deeds aloud officially;
+      from which it appeared that Madame de Portenduere gave a mortgage on all
+      her property to secure payment of the hundred thousand francs, the
+      interest on which was fixed at five per cent. At the reading of this last
+      clause the abbe looked at Minoret, who answered with an approving nod. The
+      poor priest whispered something in the old lady&rsquo;s ear to which she
+      replied,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will owe nothing to such persons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother leaves me the nobler part,&rdquo; said Savinien to the doctor; &ldquo;she
+      will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to meet
+      the interest and the legal costs,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; said Minoret to Dionis, &ldquo;as Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere
+      are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the amount of the
+      mortgage and I will pay them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred and
+      seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret made his
+      fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the notary and
+      witnesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+      Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those debts
+      in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son for his
+      debts of honor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Minoret is sly,&rdquo; she said, taking a pinch of snuff. &ldquo;He knows what
+      he is about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by getting
+      hold of our farm,&rdquo; said Savinien; &ldquo;as if a Portenduere, son of a
+      Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor&rsquo;s house, where all
+      the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of the
+      young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its
+      effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and
+      Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed. The mothers
+      said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage. The eyes of all
+      present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young
+      nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box, for
+      he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The doctor&rsquo;s
+      cold manner surprised every one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula, my child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;give us a little music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her in
+      countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+      music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of
+      pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them, so
+      eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and the
+      Portendueres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when played by
+      a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more impression
+      than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all music there is,
+      besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the performer, who, by a
+      privilege granted to this art only, can give both meaning and poetry to
+      passages which are in themselves of no great value. Chopin proves, for
+      that unresponsive instrument the piano, the truth of this fact, already
+      proved by Paganini on the violin. That fine genius is less a musician than
+      a soul which makes itself felt, and communicates itself through all
+      species of music, even simple chords. Ursula, by her exquisite and
+      sensitive organization, belonged to this rare class of beings, and old
+      Schmucke, the master, who came every Saturday and who, during Ursula&rsquo;s
+      stay in Paris was with her every day, had brought his pupil&rsquo;s talent to
+      its full perfection. &ldquo;Rousseau&rsquo;s Dream,&rdquo; the piece now chosen by Ursula,
+      composed by Herold in his young days, is not without a certain depth which
+      is capable of being developed by execution. Ursula threw into it the
+      feelings which were agitating her being, and justified the term &ldquo;caprice&rdquo;
+       given by Herold to the fragment. With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke
+      to the young man&rsquo;s soul and wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that
+      were almost visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and his
+      head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed on the
+      paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning another world.
+      Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less reason. Genuine
+      feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was willing to show her
+      soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien entered that
+      delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its
+      feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by
+      thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness of
+      heart have the same power over a man that childhood has; the same charm,
+      the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest and candid
+      than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take a
+      fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed, all
+      except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle
+      and the viscount and Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said, when the young
+      girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. &ldquo;Who is your
+      master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti,&rdquo; said the
+      doctor. &ldquo;If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay in
+      Paris he would have been here to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not only a great musician,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;but a man of adorable
+      simplicity of nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those lessons must cost a great deal,&rdquo; remarked Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who had
+      hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air of a
+      man who fulfills a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am grateful for the feeling which leads you to
+      make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+      underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right to
+      call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here, in
+      spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should
+      otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother that if I do
+      not beg her, in my niece&rsquo;s name and my own, to do us the honor of dining
+      here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would find
+      herself indisposed on that day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+      respectfully, saying:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quite right, monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was more
+      of sadness than disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+      exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+      house precipitately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk among
+      the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and
+      regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality puts
+      everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even
+      military subordination,&mdash;that last refuge of power in France, where
+      passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+      antipathies, or differences of fortune,&mdash;the obstinacy of an
+      old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a
+      barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles often
+      do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent man a
+      woman&rsquo;s value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a struggle,
+      great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young girl was rendered
+      dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps our feelings obey the
+      laws of nature as to the lastingness of her creations; to a long life a
+      long childhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+      thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if it
+      were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl parted her
+      curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien&rsquo;s window, she
+      saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects on
+      the immense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural and
+      right that a tax should be levied on them. Having thus protested against
+      her godfather&rsquo;s harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened her
+      window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue to see
+      without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the day she went
+      up to her room, always to find the young viscount writing, tearing up what
+      he had written, and then writing again&mdash;to her, no doubt!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle,&mdash;I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young man
+      inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which your
+      godfather&rsquo;s kindness released me. I know that I must in future give
+      greater guarantees of good conduct than other men; therefore,
+      mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place myself at your feet
+      and ask you to consider my love. This declaration is not dictated by
+      passion; it comes from an inward certainty which involves the whole of
+      life. A foolish infatuation for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was
+      the cause of my going to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my
+      sincere love the total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now
+      effaced from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+      engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my soul as
+      a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no other wife than
+      you. You have every qualification I desire in her who is to bear my name.
+      The education you have received and the dignity of your own mind, place
+      you on the level of the highest positions. But I doubt myself too much to
+      dare describe you to yourself; I can only love you. After listening to you
+      yesterday I recalled certain words which seem as though written for you;
+      suffer me to transcribe them:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and intelligent,
+      spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she had passed her life
+      at court, simple as the hermit who had never known the world, the fire of
+      her soul is tempered in her eyes by sacred modesty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even the most
+      trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage to ask you,
+      provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you by my conduct and my
+      devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It concerns my very life; you
+      cannot doubt that all my powers will be employed, not only in trying to
+      please you, but in deserving your esteem, which is more precious to me
+      than any other upon earth. With this hope, Ursula&mdash;if you will suffer
+      me so to call you in my heart&mdash;Nemours will be to me a paradise, the
+      hardest tasks will bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is
+      derived from God. Tell me that I may call myself
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+      passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!&rdquo; she exclaimed, turning
+      back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+      godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+      under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda. Ursula
+      awaited the old man&rsquo;s words, and the old man reflected long, too long for
+      the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their secret interview
+      appeared in the following answer, part of which the doctor undoubtedly
+      dictated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur,&mdash;I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the letter
+      in which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and according to the
+      rules of my education, I have felt bound to communicate it to my
+      godfather, who is all I have, and whom I love as a father and also as a
+      friend. I must now tell you the painful objections which he has made to
+      me, and which must be to you my answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends entirely, not
+      only on my godfather&rsquo;s good-will, but also on the doubtful success of the
+      measures he may take to elude the schemes of his relatives against me.
+      Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet, band-master of the
+      45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my godfather&rsquo;s natural
+      half-brother; and therefore these relatives may, though without reason,
+      being a suit against a young girl who would be defenceless. You see,
+      monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not my greatest misfortune.
+      I have many things to make me humble. It is for your sake, and not for my
+      own, that I lay before you these facts, which to loving and devoted hearts
+      are sometimes of little weight. But I beg you to consider, monsieur, that
+      if I did not submit them to you, I might be suspected of leading your
+      tenderness to overlook obstacles which the world, and more especially your
+      mother, regard as insuperable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we are both
+      too young and too inexperienced to understand the miseries of a life
+      entered upon without other fortune than that I have received from the
+      kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My godfather desires, moreover,
+      not to marry me until I am twenty. Who knows what fate may have in store
+      for you in four years, the finest years of your life? do not sacrifice
+      them to a poor girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear godfather,
+      who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to contribute to it in every
+      way, and earnestly desires that his protection, which must soon fail me,
+      may be replaced by a tenderness equal to his own; there remains only to
+      tell you how touched I am by your offer and by the compliments which
+      accompany it. The prudence which dictates my letter is that of an old man
+      to whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I express is that of a young
+      girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has arisen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant, Ursula Mirouet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+      letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+      tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who suffered
+      from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often to her
+      chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting pensively
+      before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At the end of
+      the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him; the delay was
+      explained by his increasing love.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Dear Ursula,&mdash;I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up nothing
+      can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to us, is right; but
+      does it follow that I am wrong in loving you? Therefore, all I want to
+      know from you is whether you could love me. Tell me this, if only by a
+      sign, and then the next four years will be the finest of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral Kergarouet,
+      a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy. The kind old man,
+      grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the king&rsquo;s favor would be
+      thwarted by the rules of the service in case I wanted a certain rank.
+      Nevertheless, if I study three months at Toulon, the minister of war can
+      send me to sea as master&rsquo;s mate; then after a cruise against the
+      Algerines, with whom we are now at war, I can go through an examination
+      and become a midshipman. Moreover, if I distinguish myself in an
+      expedition they are fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly be made
+      ensign&mdash;but how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make the
+      rules as elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again in the
+      navy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your godfather;
+      and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me. Before replying to
+      the admiral, I must have an interview with the doctor; on his reply my
+      whole future will depend. Whatever comes of it, know this, that rich or
+      poor, the daughter of a band master or the daughter of a king, you are the
+      woman whom the voice of my heart points out to me. Dear Ursula, we live in
+      times when prejudices which might once have separated us have no power to
+      prevent our marriage. To you, then, I offer the feelings of my heart, to
+      your uncle the guarantees which secure to him your happiness. He has not
+      seen that I, in a few hours, came to love you more than he has loved you
+      in fifteen years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until this evening. Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, godfather,&rdquo; said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a proud
+      gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my child!&rdquo; cried the doctor when he had read it, &ldquo;I am happier than
+      even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking with
+      Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river. The
+      viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+      heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+      though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+      Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl clung
+      to her uncle&rsquo;s arm as though she were saving herself from a fall over a
+      precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which made him
+      shudder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave us, my child,&rdquo; he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and sat
+      upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss it
+      respectfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?&rdquo; he said to
+      the doctor in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Minoret, smiling; &ldquo;we might have to wait too long, but&mdash;I
+      will give her to a lieutenant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears of joy filled the young man&rsquo;s eyes as he pressed the doctor&rsquo;s hand
+      affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am about to leave,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to study hard and try to learn in six
+      months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going?&rdquo; said Ursula, springing towards them from the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to go,
+      the more I prove to you my affection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the 3rd of October,&rdquo; she said, looking at him with infinite
+      tenderness; &ldquo;do not go till after the 19th.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;we will celebrate Saint-Savinien&rsquo;s day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by, then,&rdquo; cried the young man. &ldquo;I must spend this week in Paris, to
+      take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical instruments, and
+      try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms that I can for
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after he
+      entered his mother&rsquo;s house they saw him come out again, followed by
+      Tiennette carrying his valise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are rich,&rdquo; said Ursula to her uncle, &ldquo;why do you make him serve in
+      the navy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presently it will be I who incurred his debts,&rdquo; said the doctor, smiling.
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear, and the
+      cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out many stains.
+      Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship, and that&rsquo;s all I
+      ask of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he may be killed,&rdquo; she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own,&rdquo; he said,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night the poor child, with La Bougival&rsquo;s help, cut off a sufficient
+      quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a chain; and the
+      next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master, to take it to Paris
+      and have the chain made and returned by the following Sunday. When
+      Savinien got back he informed the doctor and Ursula that he had signed his
+      articles and was to be at Brest on the 25th. The doctor asked him to
+      dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly two whole days in the old man&rsquo;s
+      house. Notwithstanding much sage advice and many resolutions, the lovers
+      could not help betraying their secret understanding to the watchful eyes
+      of the abbe, Monsieur Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Children,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;you are risking your happiness by not
+      keeping it to yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+      exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered the
+      little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind old man,
+      by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the pagoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Ursula,&rdquo; said Savinien; &ldquo;will you make a gift greater than my mother
+      could make me even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you wish to ask me,&rdquo; she said, interrupting him. &ldquo;See, here
+      is my answer,&rdquo; she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the box
+      containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with a
+      nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. &ldquo;Wear it,&rdquo;
+       she said, &ldquo;for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by reminding
+      you that my life depends on yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair,&rdquo; said the
+      doctor to himself. &ldquo;How did she manage to get it? what a pity to cut those
+      beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life&rsquo;s blood next.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving you,
+      a formal promise to have no other husband than me,&rdquo; said Savinien, kissing
+      the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not said so too often&mdash;I who went to see the walls of
+      Sainte-Pelagie when you were behind them?&mdash;&rdquo; she replied, blushing.
+      &ldquo;I repeat it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be
+      yours alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man could
+      not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and kissing
+      her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the bench, and
+      when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the doctor
+      standing before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough a
+      word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm of your
+      love&mdash;Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have, you would
+      have been satisfied with her word of promise,&rdquo; he added, to revenge
+      himself for the last sentence in Savinien&rsquo;s second letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which he
+      wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without apparent
+      cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single thought gnawed
+      her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first time her godfather
+      asked her what she felt, she replied:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to see the ocean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,&rdquo;
+       answered the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I really go?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite of
+      the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien was being
+      tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her happy for days
+      with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman in uniform. She
+      read the newspapers, imagining that they would give news of the cruiser on
+      which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper&rsquo;s sea-tales and learned to use
+      sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration of feeling, often assumed by other
+      women, were so genuine in Ursula that she saw in dreams the coming of
+      Savinien&rsquo;s letters, and never failed to announce them, relating the dream
+      as a forerunner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, &ldquo;I am
+      easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+      instantly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+      Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What pains you?&rdquo; they said, when Ursula had left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will she live?&rdquo; replied the doctor. &ldquo;Can so tender and delicate a flower
+      endure the trials of the heart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the &ldquo;little dreamer,&rdquo; as the abbe called her, was working
+      hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a woman of the
+      world, and all the time she did not give to her singing and to the study
+      of harmony and composition she spent in reading the books chosen for her
+      by the abbe from her godfather&rsquo;s rich library. And yet while leading this
+      busy life she suffered, though without complaint. Sometimes she would sit
+      for hours looking at Savinien&rsquo;s window. On Sundays she would leave the
+      church behind Madame de Portenduere and watch her tenderly; for, in spite
+      of the old lady&rsquo;s harshness, she loved her as Savinien&rsquo;s mother. Her piety
+      increased; she went to mass every morning, for she firmly believed that
+      her dreams were the gift of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+      nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to see
+      the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien&rsquo;s ship formed part of it,
+      but he was not to be informed beforehand of their intention. The abbe and
+      Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of this journey, said to be for
+      Ursula&rsquo;s health, which disturbed and greatly puzzled the relations. After
+      beholding Savinien in his naval uniform, and going on board the fine
+      flag-ship of the admiral, to whom the minister had given young Portenduere
+      a special recommendation, Ursula, at her lover&rsquo;s entreaty, went with her
+      godfather to Nice, and along the shores of the Mediterranean to Genoa,
+      where she heard of the safe arrival of the fleet at Algiers and the
+      landing of the troops. The doctor would have liked to continue the journey
+      through Italy, as much to distract Ursula&rsquo;s mind as to finish, in some
+      sense, her education, by enlarging her ideas through comparison with other
+      manners and customs and countries, and by the fascination of a land where
+      the masterpieces of art can still be seen, and where so many civilizations
+      have left their brilliant traces. But the tidings of the opposition by the
+      throne to the newly elected Chamber of 1830 obliged the doctor to return
+      to France, bringing back his treasure in a flourishing state of health and
+      possessed of a charming little model of the ship on which Savinien was
+      serving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+      relations,&mdash;Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours by
+      whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at Fontainebleau.
+      Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous influence over the
+      country electors. Five of the post master&rsquo;s farmers were electors. Dionis
+      represented eleven votes. After a few meetings at the notary&rsquo;s, Cremiere,
+      Massin, the post master, and their adherents took a habit of assembling
+      there. By the time the doctor returned, Dionis&rsquo;s office and salon were the
+      camp of his heirs. The justice of peace and the mayor, who had formed an
+      alliance, backed by the nobility in the neighbouring castles, to resist
+      the liberals of Nemours, now worsted in their efforts, were more closely
+      united than ever by their defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the doctor by
+      word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was defined for the
+      first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving incidentally such
+      importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left Rambouillet for Cherbourg.
+      Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, sent for
+      fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil and mounted on horses from his
+      father&rsquo;s stable, who arrived in Paris on the night of the 28th. With this
+      troop Goupil and Desire took part in the capture of the Hotel-de-Veille.
+      Desire was decorated with the Legion of honor and appointed deputy
+      procureur du roi at Fontainebleau. Goupil received the July cross. Dionis
+      was elected mayor of Nemours, and the city council was composed of the
+      post master (now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere, and all the adherents
+      of the family faction. Bongrand retained his place only through the
+      influence of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose marriage with
+      Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+      post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs in
+      shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about two
+      hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in the same
+      funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand francs a year. He
+      made the same disposition of Ursula&rsquo;s little capital bequeathed to her by
+      de Jordy, together with the accrued interest thereon, which gave her about
+      fourteen hundred francs a year in her own right. La Bougival, who had laid
+      by some five thousand francs of her savings, did the same by the doctor&rsquo;s
+      advice, receiving in future three hundred and fifty francs a year in
+      dividends. These judicious transactions, agreed on between the doctor and
+      Monsieur Bongrand, were carried out in perfect secrecy, thanks to the
+      political troubles of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+      adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+      stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him a
+      thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the Minoret
+      heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new era in the
+      doctor&rsquo;s existence, for he now (at a period when horses and carriages were
+      almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine horses and a
+      caleche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church on a
+      rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to help her
+      out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,&mdash;as much to see the
+      caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the goddaughter, to
+      whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere, the post master, and
+      their wives attributed this extravagant folly of the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A caleche! Hey, Massin!&rdquo; cried Goupil. &ldquo;Your inheritance will go at top
+      speed now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle,&rdquo; said the post master to
+      the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; &ldquo;for it is to
+      be supposed an old man of eighty-four won&rsquo;t use up many horse-shoes. What
+      did those horses cost?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two thousand;
+      but it&rsquo;s a fine one, the wheels are patent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s a good carriage,&rdquo; said Cremiere; &ldquo;and a man must be rich to buy
+      that style of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula means to go at a good pace,&rdquo; said Goupil. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s right; she&rsquo;s
+      showing you how to enjoy life. Why don&rsquo;t you have fine carriages and
+      horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn&rsquo;t let myself be humiliated if I were you&mdash;I&rsquo;d
+      buy a carriage fit for a prince.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Cabirolle, tell us,&rdquo; said Massin, &ldquo;is it the girl who drives our
+      uncle into such luxury?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Cabirolle; &ldquo;but she is almost mistress of the house.
+      There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now she is going
+      to study painting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old German is not dismissed, is he?&rdquo; said Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was there yesterday,&rdquo; replied Cabirolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;you may as well give up counting on your inheritance.
+      Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than ever. Travel forms
+      young people, and the little minx has got your uncle in the toils. Five or
+      six parcels come down for her by the diligence every week, and the
+      dressmakers and milliners come too, to try on her gowns and all the rest
+      of it. Madame Dionis is furious. Watch for Ursula as she comes out of
+      church and look at the little scarf she is wearing round her neck,&mdash;real
+      cashmere, and it cost six hundred francs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+      have been less than that of Goupil&rsquo;s last words; the mischief-maker stood
+      by rubbing his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian upholsterer.
+      Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused of hoarding
+      immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on Ursula. The heirs
+      called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but the saying, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an old
+      fool!&rdquo; summed upon, on the whole, the verdict of the neighbourhood. These
+      mistaken judgments of the little town had the one advantage of misleading
+      the heirs, who never suspected the love between Savinien and Ursula, which
+      was the secret reason of the doctor&rsquo;s expenditure. The old man took the
+      greatest delights in accustoming his godchild to her future station in the
+      world. Possessing an income of over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave
+      him pleasure to adorn his idol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her eyes
+      beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from her window
+      when she rose in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t I know he was coming?&rdquo; she said to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an act
+      of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was serving
+      was many months at sea without his being able to communicate with the
+      doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without consulting him.
+      Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already illustrious in its
+      service, the new government had profited by a general change of officers
+      to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained leave of absence for fifteen
+      days, the new officer arrived from Toulon by the mail, in time for
+      Ursula&rsquo;s fete, intending to consult the doctor at the same time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has come!&rdquo; cried Ursula rushing into her godfather&rsquo;s bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+      stay in Nemours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that&rsquo;s my birthday present&mdash;it is all in that sentence,&rdquo; she
+      said, kissing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came over at
+      once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so changed for the
+      better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain grave decision to
+      the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an erect bearing which
+      enables the most superficial observer to recognize a military man even in
+      plain clothes. The habit of command produces this result. Ursula loved
+      Savinien the better for it, and took a childlike pleasure in walking round
+      the garden with him, taking his arm, and hearing him relate the part he
+      played (as midshipman) in the taking of Algiers. Evidently Savinien had
+      taken the city. The doctor, who had been watching them from his window as
+      he dressed, soon came down. Without telling the viscount everything, he
+      did say that, in case Madame de Portenduere consented to his marriage with
+      Ursula, the fortune of his godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; said Savinien. &ldquo;It will take a great deal of time to overcome my
+      mother&rsquo;s opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was placed
+      between two alternatives,&mdash;either to consent to my marrying Ursula or
+      else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the
+      dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Savinien, we shall be together,&rdquo; said Ursula, taking his hand and
+      shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To see each other and not to part,&mdash;that was the all of love to her;
+      she saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant tone of
+      her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were both
+      moved by it. The resignation was written and despatched, and Ursula&rsquo;s fete
+      received full glory from the presence of her betrothed. A few months
+      later, towards the month of May, the home-life of the doctor&rsquo;s household
+      had resumed the quite tenor of its way but with one welcome visitor the
+      more. The attentions of the young viscount were soon interpreted in the
+      town as those of a future husband,&mdash;all the more because his manners
+      and those of Ursula, whether in church, or on the promenade, though
+      dignified and reserved, betrayed the understanding of their hearts. Dionis
+      pointed out to the heirs that the doctor had never asked Madame de
+      Portenduere for the interest of his money, three years of which was now
+      due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of her
+      son,&rdquo; said the notary. &ldquo;If such a misfortune happens it is probable that
+      the greater part of your uncle&rsquo;s fortune will serve for what Basile calls
+      &lsquo;an irresistible argument.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved Ursula
+      too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became as underhand
+      as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis&rsquo;s salon (as they had done every
+      evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed against the lovers,
+      and seldom separated without discussing some way of circumventing the old
+      man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the fall in the Funds, as the
+      doctor had done, to invest some, at least, of her enormous gains, was
+      bitterest of them all against the orphan girl and the Portendueres. One
+      evening, when Goupil, who usually avoided the dullness of these meetings,
+      had come in to learn something of the affairs of the town which were under
+      discussion, Zelie&rsquo;s hatred was freshly excited; she had seen the doctor,
+      Ursula, and Savinien returning in the caleche from a country drive, with
+      an air of intimacy that told all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself before
+      the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can take place,&rdquo;
+       she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+      great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite
+      alone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you give me the means of buying Dionis&rsquo;s practice? If you will, I
+      will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; asked the colossus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?&rdquo; said the notary&rsquo;s
+      head clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my lad, separate them, and we&rsquo;ll see what we can do,&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t embark in any such business on a &lsquo;we&rsquo;ll see.&rsquo; The young man is a
+      fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as good a hand
+      with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business, and I&rsquo;ll keep my
+      word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prevent the marriage and I will set you up,&rdquo; said the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+      fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur&rsquo;s practice, and you expect me to
+      trust you now! Nonsense; you&rsquo;ll lose your uncle&rsquo;s property, and serve you
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur&rsquo;s
+      practice, that might be managed,&rdquo; said Zelie; &ldquo;but to give security for
+      you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll do my part,&rdquo; said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at Zelie,
+      which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect was that of venom on steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can wait,&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil&rsquo;s own spirit is in you,&rdquo; thought Goupil. &ldquo;If I ever catch that
+      pair in my power,&rdquo; he said to himself as he left the yard, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll squeeze
+      them like lemons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur Bongrand,
+      Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love of this young
+      man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so persistent, interested
+      the three friends deeply, and they now never separated the lovers in their
+      thoughts. Soon the monotony of this patriarchal life, and the certainty of
+      a future before them, gave to their affection a fraternal character. The
+      doctor often left the pair alone together. He judged the young man
+      rightly; he saw him kiss her hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no
+      kiss when alone with her, so deeply did the lover respect the innocence,
+      the frankness of the young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried,
+      taught him that a harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of
+      gentleness and roughness might kill her. The only freedom between the two
+      took place before the eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,&mdash;without other
+      events than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from his
+      mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for hours
+      together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties, other than by
+      Breton silence or a positive denial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine musician,
+      and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was perfected. The
+      fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far. The doctor was
+      called upon to decline the overtures of Madame d&rsquo;Aiglemont, who was
+      thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months later, in spite of the
+      secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on this subject, Savinien heard
+      of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he made use of the incident in another
+      attempt to vanquish his mother&rsquo;s obstinacy; but she merely replied:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the d&rsquo;Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason why
+      we should do so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+      eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his face
+      pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his approaching
+      death. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll soon know results,&rdquo; said the community to the heirs. In
+      truth the old man&rsquo;s death had all the attraction of a problem. But the
+      doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his illusions, and neither
+      poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the abbe were willing to
+      enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours doctor who came to see him
+      every day did not venture to prescribe. Old Minoret felt no pain; his lamp
+      of life was gently going out. His mind continued firm and clear and
+      powerful. In old men thus constituted the soul governs the body, and gives
+      it strength to die erect. The abbe, anxious not to hasten the fatal end,
+      released his parishioner from the duty of hearing mass in church, and
+      allowed him to read the services at home, for the doctor faithfully
+      attended to all his religious duties. The nearer he came to the grave the
+      more he loved God; the lights eternal shone upon all difficulties and
+      explained them more and more clearly to his mind. Early in the year Ursula
+      persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses and dismiss Cabirolle.
+      Monsieur Bongrand, whose uneasiness about Ursula&rsquo;s future was far from
+      quieted by the doctor&rsquo;s half-confidence, boldly opened the subject one
+      evening and showed his old friend the importance of making Ursula legally
+      of age. Still the old man, though he had often consulted the justice of
+      peace, would not reveal to him the secret of his provision for Ursula,
+      though he agreed to the necessity of securing her independence by
+      majority. The more Monsieur Bongrand persisted in his efforts to discover
+      the means selected by his old friend to provide for his darling the more
+      wary the doctor became.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not secure the thing,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;why run any risks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are between two risks,&rdquo; replied the doctor, &ldquo;avoid the most
+      risky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so promptly
+      that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That anniversary was
+      the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps with a
+      presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited all the
+      young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere, Minoret, and Massin.
+      Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests, the Nemours
+      doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere, together with
+      old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which preceded the ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel I am going,&rdquo; said the old man to the notary towards the close of
+      the evening. &ldquo;I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship
+      account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my death.
+      Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,&mdash;I have
+      disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret
+      my nephew are members of the family council appointed for Ursula, and I
+      wish them to be present at the rendering of my account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another round
+      the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families, who had
+      lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes thinking they
+      were certain of wealth, oftener that they were disinherited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+      remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old doctor
+      said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress; &ldquo;To you, my
+      friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be here no longer to
+      protect her. Put yourselves between her and the world until she is
+      married,&mdash;I fear for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words made a painful impression. The guardian&rsquo;s account, rendered a
+      day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor
+      Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs from
+      the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital of gifts
+      made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen years, on
+      birthdays and other anniversaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of the
+      peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of Doctor
+      Minoret&rsquo;s death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which compelled
+      him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always surrounded the
+      doctor&rsquo;s house and kept it from observation, the news of his approaching
+      death spread through the town, and the heirs began to run hither and
+      thither through the streets, like the pearls of a chaplet when the string
+      is broken. Massin called at the house to learn the truth, and was told by
+      Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed. The Nemours doctor had remarked
+      that whenever old Minoret took to his bed he would die; and therefore in
+      spite of the cold, the heirs took their stand in the street, on the
+      square, at their own doorsteps, talking of the event so long looked for,
+      and watching for the moment when the priests should appear, bearing the
+      sacrament, with all the paraphernalia customary in the provinces, to the
+      dying man. Accordingly, two days later, when the Abbe Chaperon, with an
+      assistant and the choir-boys, preceded by the sacristan bearing the cross,
+      passed along the Grand&rsquo;Rue, all the heirs joined the procession, to get an
+      entrance to the house and see that nothing was abstracted, and lay their
+      eager hands upon its coveted treasures at the earliest moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+      instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter than
+      the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round, saw
+      them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was the
+      first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him. Massin,
+      fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some ornament,
+      joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently assembled one
+      by one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction,&rdquo; said Cremiere; &ldquo;we may
+      be sure of his death now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year,&rdquo; replied
+      Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have an idea,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;that for the last three years he hasn&rsquo;t
+      invested anything&mdash;he grew fond of hoarding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps the money is in the cellar,&rdquo; whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope we shall be able to find it,&rdquo; said Minoret-Levrault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But after what he said at the ball we can&rsquo;t have any doubt,&rdquo; cried Madame
+      Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In any case,&rdquo; began Cremiere, &ldquo;how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+      shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method of
+      procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices, Zelie&rsquo;s
+      screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in the
+      courtyard and even in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise reached the doctor&rsquo;s ears; he heard the words, &ldquo;The house&mdash;the
+      house is worth thirty thousand francs. I&rsquo;ll take it at that,&rdquo; said, or
+      rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll take what it&rsquo;s worth,&rdquo; said Zelie, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; said the old man to the priest, who remained beside his
+      friend after administering the communion, &ldquo;help me to die in peace. My
+      heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging the house
+      before my death, and I have no monkey to revive me. Go and tell them I
+      will have none of them in my house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+      message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words of
+      their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Bougival,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;close the iron gate and allow no one
+      to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare mustard
+      poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur&rsquo;s feet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle is not dead,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;and he may live some time
+      longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+      niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+      yours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old hypocrite!&rdquo; exclaimed Cremiere. &ldquo;I shall keep watch of him. It is
+      possible he&rsquo;s plotting something against our interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending to
+      watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+      assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no noise,
+      for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able to reach
+      the door of his uncle&rsquo;s room without being heard. The abbe and the doctor
+      had left the house; La Bougival was making the poultices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we quite alone?&rdquo; said the old man to his godchild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;the abbe has just closed the gate after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling child,&rdquo; said the dying man, &ldquo;my hours, my minutes even, are
+      counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last till
+      evening. Do not cry, my Ursula,&rdquo; he said, fearing to be interrupted by the
+      child&rsquo;s weeping, &ldquo;but listen to me carefully; it concerns your marriage to
+      Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back go down to the pagoda,&mdash;here
+      is the key,&mdash;lift the marble top of the Boule buffet and you will
+      find a letter beneath it, sealed and addressed to you; take it and come
+      back here, for I cannot die easy unless I see it in your hands. When I am
+      dead do not let any one know of it immediately, but send for Monsieur de
+      Portenduere; read the letter together; swear to me now, in his name and
+      your own, that you will carry out my last wishes. When Savinien has obeyed
+      me, then announce my death, but not till then. The comedy of the heirs
+      will begin. God grant those monsters may not ill-treat you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes godfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped away
+      on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the library side
+      of the door. He had been present in former days at an argument between the
+      architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring that if the pagoda were
+      entered by the window on the river it would be much safer to put the lock
+      of the door opening into the library on the library side. Dazzled by his
+      hopes, and his ears flushed with blood, Minoret sprang the lock with the
+      point of his knife as rapidly as a burglar could have done it. He entered
+      the study, followed the doctor&rsquo;s directions, took the package of papers
+      without opening it, relocked the door, put everything in order, and went
+      into the dining-room and sat down, waiting till La Bougival had gone
+      upstairs with the poultice before he ventured to leave the house. He then
+      made his escape,&mdash;all the more easily because poor Ursula lingered to
+      see that La Bougival applied the poultice properly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter! the letter!&rdquo; cried the old man, in a dying voice. &ldquo;Obey me;
+      take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+      Ursula:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do what he asks at once or you will kill him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+      recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked at
+      her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to speak,
+      and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The poor girl,
+      who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and burst into tears.
+      La Bougival closed the old man&rsquo;s eyes and straightened him on the bed;
+      then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the corner of
+      the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before they scratch
+      at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked in with the
+      celerity of birds of prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. THE DOCTOR&rsquo;S WILL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home to
+      open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother, Joseph
+      Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear Angel,&mdash;The fatherly affection I bear you&mdash;and which you
+      have so fully justified&mdash;came not only from the promise I gave your
+      father to take his place, but also from your resemblance to my wife,
+      Ursula Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and charm you
+      constantly recall to my mind. Your position as the daughter of a natural
+      son of my father-in-law might invalidate all testamentary bequests made by
+      me in your favor&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old rascal!&rdquo; cried the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I shrank
+      from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by marriage, for I might
+      live years and thus interfere with your happiness, which is now delayed
+      only by Madame de Portenduere. Having weighted these difficulties
+      carefully, and wishing to leave you enough money to secure to you a
+      prosperous existence&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &mdash;without injuring my heirs&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!&rdquo;&mdash;I
+      intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for the last
+      eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my notary, seeking to
+      make you thereby as happy as any one can be made by riches. Without means,
+      your education and your lofty ideas would cause you unhappiness. Besides,
+      you ought to bring a liberal dowry to the fine young man who loves you.
+      You will therefore find in the middle of the third volume of Pandects,
+      folio, bound in red morocco (the last volume on the first shelf above the
+      little table in the library, on the side of the room next the salon),
+      three certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents, made out to bearer,
+      each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What depths of wickedness!&rdquo; screamed the post master. &ldquo;Ah! God would not
+      permit me to be so defrauded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this date,
+      which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my darling child,
+      that you must obey a wish that has made the happiness of my whole life; a
+      wish that will force me to ask the intervention of God should you disobey
+      me. But, to guard against all scruples in your dear conscience&mdash;for I
+      well know how ready it is to torture you&mdash;you will find herewith a
+      will in due form bequeathing these certificates to Monsieur Savinien de
+      Portenduere. So, whether you possess them in your own name, or whether
+      they come to you from him you love, they will be, in every sense, your
+      legitimate property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your godfather, Denis Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+      stamped paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in Nemours,
+      being of sound mind and body, as the date of this document will show, do
+      bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to pardon my errors in view of my
+      sincere repentance. Next, having found in Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de
+      Portenduere a true and honest affection for me, I bequeath to him the sum
+      of thirty-six thousand francs a year from the Funds, at three per cent,
+      the said bequest to take precedence of all inheritance accruing to my
+      heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without an instant&rsquo;s hesitation the post master, who had locked himself
+      into his wife&rsquo;s bedroom to insure being alone, looked about for the
+      tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the extinction of two
+      matches which obstinately refused to light. The third took fire. He burned
+      the letter and the will on the hearth and buried the vestiges of paper and
+      sealing-wax in the ashes by way of superfluous caution. Then, allured by
+      the thought of possessing thirty-six thousand francs a year of which his
+      wife knew nothing, he returned at full speed to his uncle&rsquo;s house, spurred
+      by the only idea, a clear-cut, simple idea, which was able to piece and
+      penetrate his dull brain. Finding the house invaded by the three families,
+      now masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to
+      accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection whatever, except so
+      far as to fear the obstacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; he said to Massin and Cremiere. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t leave
+      the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but we can&rsquo;t
+      camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him to come and
+      certify to the death; I can&rsquo;t draw up the mortuary certificate for an
+      uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go and ask old Bongrand
+      to attach the seals. As for you, ladies,&rdquo; he added, turning to his wife
+      and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, &ldquo;go and look after Ursula; then nothing
+      can be stolen. Above all, close the iron gate and don&rsquo;t let any one leave
+      the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula&rsquo;s bedroom,
+      where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her knees before
+      God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting that the women would
+      not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the library, found the
+      volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and found in the other
+      volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his brutal nature the colossus
+      felt as though a peal of bells were ringing in each ear. The blood
+      whistled in his temples as he committed the theft; cold as the weather
+      was, his shirt was wet on his back; his legs gave way under him and he
+      fell into a chair in the salon as if an axe had fallen on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the inheritance of money loosens a man&rsquo;s tongue! Did you hear
+      Minoret?&rdquo; said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town. &ldquo;&lsquo;Go
+      here, go there,&rsquo; just as if he knew everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. &ldquo;His wife is there;
+      they&rsquo;ve got some plan! Do you do both errands; I&rsquo;ll go back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the heated
+      face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of death with the
+      celerity of a weasel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what is it now?&rdquo; asked the post master, unlocking the gate for his
+      co-heir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing,&rdquo; answered Massin,
+      giving him a savage look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home,&rdquo; said
+      Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have to put a watcher over them,&rdquo; said Massin. &ldquo;La Bougival is
+      capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We&rsquo;ll put Goupil
+      there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goupil!&rdquo; said the post master; &ldquo;put a rat in the meal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let&rsquo;s consider,&rdquo; returned Massin. &ldquo;To-night they&rsquo;ll watch the body;
+      the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after them.
+      To-morrow we&rsquo;ll have the funeral at twelve o&rsquo;clock. But the inventory
+      can&rsquo;t be made under a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s get rid of that girl at once,&rdquo; said the colossus; &ldquo;then we can
+      safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and the
+      seals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; cried Massin. &ldquo;You are the head of the Minoret family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ladies,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;be good enough to stay in the salon; we can&rsquo;t
+      think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+      security of all interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his wife apart and told her Massin&rsquo;s proposition about Ursula. The
+      women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as they
+      called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived with his
+      assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the request was made
+      to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend of the deceased, to
+      tell Ursula to leave the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and turn her out of her father&rsquo;s house, her benefactor&rsquo;s house
+      yourselves,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Go! you who owe your inheritance to the generosity
+      of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into the street
+      before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of robbing you?
+      Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to do that. But I
+      tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula&rsquo;s room; she has a right to
+      that room, and everything in it is her own property. I shall tell her what
+      her rights are, and tell her too to put everything that belongs to her in
+      this house in that room&mdash;Oh! in your presence,&rdquo; he said, hearing a
+      growl of dissatisfaction among the heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of that?&rdquo; said the collector to the post master and the
+      women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call <i>him</i> a magistrate!&rdquo; cried the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+      condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every now
+      and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids swollen;
+      she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical prostration which might
+      have softened the hardest hearts&mdash;except those of the heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and mourning,&rdquo;
+       she said, with the poetry natural to her. &ldquo;You know, <i>you</i>, what he
+      was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me. I believed he
+      would live a hundred years. He has been my mother,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;my good,
+      kind mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes, interrupted
+      by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the staircase.
+      &ldquo;You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you have now only a
+      moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything that belongs to you
+      in this house and put it into your own room at once. The heirs insist on
+      my affixing the seals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose,&rdquo; cried Ursula, sitting
+      upright under an impulse of savage indignation. &ldquo;I have something here,&rdquo;
+       she added, striking her breast, &ldquo;which is far more precious&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+      showed his brutal face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words&mdash;an image
+      of his celestial soul,&rdquo; she said, her eyes and face glowing as she raised
+      her hand with a glorious gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a key!&rdquo; cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a key
+      which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, blushing, &ldquo;that is the key of his study; he sent me there
+      at the moment he was dying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at Monsieur
+      Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula who
+      intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her body.
+      Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue only at some
+      cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the kindness
+      of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me but the
+      clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to her godfather&rsquo;s room, and no entreaties could make her leave
+      it,&mdash;the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their
+      conduct, endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand to
+      engage two rooms for her at the &ldquo;Vieille Poste&rdquo; inn until she could find
+      some lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She returned
+      to her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night, with the abbe,
+      his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying beside her uncle&rsquo;s
+      body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt, without
+      a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him sadly, and thanked him for
+      coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, &ldquo;one of
+      your uncle&rsquo;s heirs has taken these necessary articles from your drawers,
+      for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that you will
+      recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own sake, placed
+      the seals on your room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she replied, pressing his hand. &ldquo;Look at him again,&mdash;he
+      seems to sleep, does he not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man&rsquo;s face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests upon
+      the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared to
+      radiate from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he give you anything secretly before he died?&rdquo; whispered M. Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;he spoke only of a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! it will certainly be found,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;How fortunate for you
+      that the heirs demanded the sealing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+      passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love began.
+      So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief tears of
+      regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven. With one last
+      glance at Savinien&rsquo;s windows she left the room and the house, and went to
+      the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the package, by Monsieur
+      Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien, her true protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the worst
+      fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see Ursula
+      without means and at the mercy of her benefactor&rsquo;s heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor&rsquo;s funeral. When the
+      conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known, a vast
+      majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An inheritance
+      was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded; Ursula might think
+      she had rights; the heirs were only defending their property; she had
+      humbled them enough during their uncle&rsquo;s lifetime, for he had treated them
+      like dogs and sent them about their business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those who
+      envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable to be
+      present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly by the
+      insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at that hypocrite weeping,&rdquo; said some of the heirs, pointing to
+      Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor&rsquo;s death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question is,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;has he any good grounds for weeping.
+      Don&rsquo;t laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, &ldquo;you are
+      always frightening us about nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery, a
+      bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take Desire&rsquo;s
+      arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his former comrade in
+      presence of all Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be angry, or I couldn&rsquo;t get revenge,&rdquo; thought the notary&rsquo;s clerk,
+      whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time for
+      the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to commission
+      Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done the settlement
+      of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked of in the town for
+      ten days) began with all the legal formalities. Dionis had his pickings;
+      Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as the business was profitable
+      the sessions were many. After the first of these sessions all parties
+      breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs, and witnesses drank the best
+      wines in the doctor&rsquo;s cellar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives in
+      his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging. When a
+      man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost always
+      included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of removing
+      Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the Grand&rsquo;Rue at
+      the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little building had a front
+      door opening on a corridor, and one room on the ground-floor with two
+      windows on the street; behind this came the kitchen, with a glass door
+      opening to an inner courtyard about thirty feet square. A small staircase,
+      lighted on the side towards the river by small windows, led to the first
+      floor where there were three chambers, and above these were two attic
+      rooms. Monsieur Bongrand borrowed two thousand francs from La Bougival&rsquo;s
+      savings to pay the first instalment of the price,&mdash;six thousand
+      francs,&mdash;and obtained good terms for payment of the rest. As Ursula
+      wished to buy her uncle&rsquo;s books, Bongrand knocked down the partition
+      between two rooms on the bedroom floor, finding that their united length
+      was the same as that of the doctor&rsquo;s library, and gave room for his
+      bookshelves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning, painting,
+      and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the end of March
+      Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in the ugly house;
+      where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the one she had left; for
+      it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by the justice of peace when
+      the seals were removed. La Bougival, sleeping in the attic, could be
+      summoned by a bell placed near the head of the young girl&rsquo;s bed. The room
+      intended for the books, the salon on the ground-floor and the kitchen,
+      though still unfurnished, had been hung with fresh papers and repainted,
+      and only awaited the purchases which the young girl hoped to make when her
+      godfather&rsquo;s effects were sold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the strength of Ursula&rsquo;s character was well known to the abbe and
+      Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the comfort and
+      elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this barren and
+      denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in fact, make
+      private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so that Ursula
+      should perceive no difference between the new chamber and the old one. But
+      the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in Savinien&rsquo;s own eyes,
+      showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared her more and more to her
+      two old friends, and proved to them for the hundredth time that no
+      troubles but those of the heart could make her suffer. The grief she felt
+      for the loss of her godfather was far too deep to let her even feel the
+      bitterness of her change of fortune, though it added fresh obstacles to
+      her marriage. Savinien&rsquo;s distress in seeing her thus reduced did her so
+      much harm that she whispered to him, as they came from mass on the morning
+      on the day when she first went to live in her new house:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love could not exist without patience; let us wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+      Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to the
+      post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay off the
+      mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest accruing
+      thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one hundred and
+      twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs within twenty-four
+      hours under pain of execution on her house. It was impossible for her to
+      borrow the money. Savinien went to Fontainebleau to consult a lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise,&rdquo; was
+      the lawyer&rsquo;s opinion. &ldquo;They intend to sue in the matter and get your farm
+      at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a voluntary sale of it
+      and so escape costs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently pointed
+      out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret&rsquo;s life-time,
+      the doctor would have left his property to Ursula&rsquo;s husband and they would
+      to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now were, in the depths
+      of poverty. Though said without reproach, this argument annihilated the
+      poor woman even more than the thought of her coming ejectment. When Ursula
+      heard of this catastrophe she was stupefied with grief, having scarcely
+      recovered from her fever, and the blow which the heirs had already dealt
+      her. To love and be unable to succor the man she loves,&mdash;that is one
+      of the most dreadful of all sufferings to the soul of a noble and
+      sensitive woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished to buy my uncle&rsquo;s house,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;now I will buy your
+      mother&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you?&rdquo; said Savinien. &ldquo;You are a minor, and you cannot sell out your
+      Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your legal
+      guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town will be
+      glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like
+      hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have ten thousand francs left,
+      on which I can support my mother till this deplorable matter is settled.
+      Besides, the inventory of your godfather&rsquo;s property is not yet finished;
+      Monsieur Bongrand still thinks he shall find something for you. He is as
+      much astonished as I am that you seem to be left without fortune. The
+      doctor so often spoke both to him and to me of the future he had prepared
+      for you that neither of us can understand this conclusion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;so long as I can buy my godfather&rsquo;s books and furniture
+      and prevent their being dispersed, I am content.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything you
+      want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million for
+      which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search made in
+      every corner of the house after the seals were removed, brought no
+      discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs of the
+      Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in the three
+      per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty thousand francs,
+      and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about six hundred thousand
+      francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting sum. But what had become
+      of the money the doctor must have saved?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+      persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence of a
+      will, came every day at the close of each session to find out from
+      Bongrand the results of the day&rsquo;s search. The latter would sometimes
+      exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of hearing, &ldquo;I
+      can&rsquo;t understand the thing!&rdquo; Bongrand, Savinien, and the abbe often
+      declared to each other that the doctor, who received no interest from the
+      Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as he did on fifteen
+      thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly expressed, made the post
+      master turn livid more than once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere,&rdquo; said Bongrand,&mdash;&ldquo;they to
+      find money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere. They
+      have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers, bored
+      into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped up the
+      quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch of paper
+      piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor&mdash;and I
+      have urged on their devastations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think about it?&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where&rsquo;s the property?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may whistle for it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps the will is hidden in the library,&rdquo; said Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and for that reason I don&rsquo;t dissuade Ursula from buying it. If it
+      were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of her
+      ready money into books she will never open.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the whole town believed the doctor&rsquo;s niece had got possession of
+      the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+      hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+      search of the doctor&rsquo;s house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+      curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank bills
+      hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had slipped them
+      into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a spectacle of the most
+      extraordinary precautions on the part of the heirs. Dionis, who was doing
+      duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each lot was cried out, that the heirs
+      only sold the article (whatever it was) and not what it might contain;
+      then, before allowing it to be taken away it was subjected to a final
+      investigation, being thumped and sounded; and when at last it left the
+      house the sellers followed with the looks a father might cast upon a son
+      who was starting for India.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, mademoiselle,&rdquo; cried La Bougival, returning from the first session in
+      despair, &ldquo;I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right, you could
+      never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town is coming and
+      going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is being ruined, they
+      even stand upon it; the whole place is such a muddle that a hen couldn&rsquo;t
+      find her chicks. You&rsquo;d think there had been a fire. Lots of things are in
+      the courtyard; the closets are all open, and nothing in them. Oh! the poor
+      dear man, it&rsquo;s well he died, the sight would have killed him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+      cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not appear at
+      the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose cupidity might
+      have run up the price of the books had they known he was buying them for
+      Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books living in Melun to buy them
+      for him. As a result of the heir&rsquo;s anxiety the whole library was sold book
+      by book. Three thousand volumes were examined, one by one, held by the two
+      sides of the binding and shaken so that loose papers would infallibly fall
+      out. The whole amount of the purchases on Ursula&rsquo;s account amounted to six
+      thousand five hundred francs or thereabouts. The book-cases were not
+      allowed to leave the premises until carefully examined by a cabinet-maker,
+      brought down from Paris to search for secret drawers. When at last
+      Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the books and the bookcases to
+      Mademoiselle Mirouet&rsquo;s house the heirs were tortured with vague fears, not
+      dissipated until in course of time they saw how poorly she lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret bought up his uncle&rsquo;s house, the value of which his co-heirs ran
+      up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master expected to
+      find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold with a
+      reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed of his post
+      establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son of a rich
+      farmer, and went to live in his uncle&rsquo;s house, where he spent considerable
+      sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By making this move he
+      thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within sight of Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+      summoned to pay her debt, &ldquo;that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+      after they are gone we&rsquo;ll drive out the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That old woman with fourteen quarterings,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;won&rsquo;t want to
+      witness her own disaster; she&rsquo;ll go and die in Brittany, where she can
+      manage to find a wife for her son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale at
+      Bongrand&rsquo;s request. &ldquo;Ursula has just bought the house she is living in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!&rdquo; cried the post
+      master imprudently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?&rdquo; asked
+      Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know,&rdquo; answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, &ldquo;that my
+      son is fool enough to be in love with her? I&rsquo;d give five hundred francs if
+      I could get Ursula out of this town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+      shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn
+      in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of an
+      estate, the sale of the property, the going and coming necessitated by
+      such unusual business, his discussions with his wife about the most
+      trifling details, the purchase of the doctor&rsquo;s house, where Zelie wished
+      to live in bourgeois style to advance her son&rsquo;s interests,&mdash;all this
+      hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually tranquil life hindered the huge
+      Minoret from thinking of his victim. But about the middle of May, a few
+      days after his installation in the doctor&rsquo;s house, as he was coming home
+      from a walk, he heard the sound of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting at a
+      window, like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly became aware of an
+      importunate voice within him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To explain why to a man of Minoret&rsquo;s nature the sight of Ursula, who had
+      no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became intolerable; why
+      the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune impelled him to a
+      desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and why it was that this
+      desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole treatise
+      on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was not the real possessor of
+      thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom they really
+      belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied some mere chance might betray
+      his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of. Perhaps to a nature
+      in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and whose owner up to that
+      time had never done anything illegal, the presence of Ursula awakened
+      remorse. Possibly this remorse goaded him the more because he had received
+      his share of the property legitimately acquired. In his own mind he no
+      doubt attributed these stirrings of his conscience to the fact of Ursula&rsquo;s
+      presence, imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable
+      feelings would disappear with her. But still, after all, perhaps crime has
+      its own doctrine of perfection. A beginning of evil demands its end; a
+      first stab must be followed by the blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is
+      doomed to lead to murder. Minoret had committed the crime without the
+      slightest reflection, so rapidly had the events taken place; reflection
+      came later. Now, if you have thoroughly possessed yourself of this man&rsquo;s
+      nature and bodily presence you will understand the mighty effect produced
+      on him by a thought. Remorse is more than a thought; it comes from a
+      feeling which can no more be hidden than love; like love, it has its own
+      tyranny. But, just as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula
+      without the slightest reflection, so he now blindly longed to drive her
+      from Nemours when he felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged
+      innocence. Being, in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the
+      consequences; he went from danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct,
+      like a wild animal which does not foresee the huntsman&rsquo;s skill, and relies
+      on its own rapidity or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still
+      met in Dionis&rsquo;s salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior
+      of the man who had hitherto been so free of care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what has come to Minoret, he is all <i>no how</i>,&rdquo; said his
+      wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less, ennui
+      (in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui),
+      caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the change from
+      an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula&rsquo;s life in Nemours, La
+      Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her foster child with
+      some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without comparing
+      her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor had promised, and of which
+      he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for myself I speak,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but is it likely that monsieur,
+      good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me the merest
+      trifle?&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not here?&rdquo; replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+      word on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that surrounded
+      that noble head&mdash;a sketch of which in black and white hung in her
+      little salon&mdash;with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh and
+      beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her <i>see</i> her
+      godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more because
+      surrounded with the things he loved and used,&mdash;his large
+      duchess-sofa, the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and the
+      piano he had chosen for her. The two old friends who still remained to
+      her, the Abbe Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only visitors whom she
+      received, were, in the midst of these inanimate objects representative of
+      the past, like two living memories of her former life to which she
+      attached her present by the love her godfather had blessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave tone
+      to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+      indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+      symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+      nothings of a young girl&rsquo;s life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits
+      diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After
+      breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and practiced; then she
+      took her embroidery and sat at the window looking on the street. At four
+      o&rsquo;clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which he took in all weathers),
+      finding the window open, would sit upon the outer casing and talk with her
+      for half an hour. In the evening the abbe and Monsieur Bongrand came to
+      see her, but she never allowed Savinien to accompany them. Neither did she
+      accept Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s proposition, which Savinien had induced his
+      mother to make, that she should visit there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy; they
+      did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a month. The
+      old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked only twice a
+      week,&mdash;mistress and maid eating their food cold on other days; for
+      Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still due on the
+      purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with her modesty and
+      her resignation to a life of poverty after the enjoyment of luxury and the
+      fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply impressed certain persons.
+      Ursula won the respect of others, and no voice was raised against her.
+      Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her justice. Savinien admired the
+      strength of character of so young a girl. From time to time Madame de
+      Portenduere, when they met in church, would address a few kind words to
+      her, and twice she insisted on her coming to dinner and fetched her
+      herself. If all this was not happiness it was at least tranquillity. But a
+      benefit which came to Ursula through the legal care and ability of
+      Bongrand started the smouldering persecution which up to this time had
+      laid in Minoret&rsquo;s breast as a dumb desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor&rsquo;s estate was finished, the
+      justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the Portendueres in
+      hand and promised her to get them out of their trouble. In dealing with
+      the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula&rsquo;s happiness made him furious, he
+      did not allow her to be ignorant of the fact that his devotion to her
+      service was solely to give pleasure to Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose one
+      of his former clerks to act for the Portendueres at Fontainebleau, and
+      himself put in a motion for a stay of proceedings. He intended to profit
+      by the interval which must elapse between the stoppage of the present suit
+      and some new step on the part of Massin to renew the lease at six thousand
+      francs, get a premium from the present tenants and the payment in full of
+      the rent of the current year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+      whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s salon,
+      between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+      escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded in
+      quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he obtained
+      a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a rent of six
+      thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day on which this
+      was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew to be puzzled as to
+      how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her the farm at Bordieres
+      for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d buy it at once,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;if I were sure the Portendueres would
+      go and live somewhere else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said the justice of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+      should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough left to
+      live here. She is thinking of selling her house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sell it to me,&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To you?&rdquo; said Zelie. &ldquo;You talk as if you were master of everything. What
+      do you want with two houses in Nemours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t settle this matter of the farm with you to-night,&rdquo; said
+      Bongrand, &ldquo;our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim, and
+      I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make. So if
+      you don&rsquo;t take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some farmers I
+      know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you come to us, then?&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me wait
+      some time for the money. I don&rsquo;t want difficulties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get <i>her</i> out of Nemours and I&rsquo;ll pay it,&rdquo; exclaimed Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s actions,&rdquo;
+       said Bongrand. &ldquo;I can only repeat what I heard her say, but I feel certain
+      they will not remain in Nemours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to the
+      purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to the
+      doctor&rsquo;s estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by Dionis.
+      Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the purchase money
+      to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in the Funds, where,
+      joined to Savinien&rsquo;s ten thousand, it would give her, at five per cent, an
+      income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far from losing her resources, the
+      old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she did not leave
+      Nemours. Minoret thought he had been tricked,&mdash;as though Bongrand had
+      had an idea that Ursula&rsquo;s presence was intolerable to him; and he felt a
+      keen resentment which embittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a
+      secret drama which was terrible in its effects,&mdash;the struggle of two
+      determinations; one which impelled Minoret to drive his victim from
+      Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to bear persecution, the
+      cause of which was for a certain length of time undiscoverable. The
+      situation was a strange and even unnatural one, and yet it was led up to
+      by all the preceding events, which served as a preface to what was now to
+      occur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver service
+      costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner every Sunday,
+      the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came from Fontainebleau,
+      bringing with him certain of his friends. On these occasions Zelie sent to
+      Paris for delicacies&mdash;obliging Dionis the notary to emulate her
+      display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to ignore as a questionable
+      person who might tarnish their splendor, was not invited until the end of
+      July. The clerk, who was fully aware of this intended neglect, was forced
+      to be respectful to Desire, who, since his entrance into office, had
+      assumed a haughty and dignified air, even in his own family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have forgotten Esther,&rdquo; Goupil said to him, &ldquo;as you are so much
+      in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+      never even thought of Ursula,&rdquo; said the new magistrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?&rdquo; cried Goupil, insolently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+      countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was, in
+      fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,&mdash;Minoret having
+      remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the marriage
+      between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil hurriedly to
+      the end of the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and I
+      don&rsquo;t see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for after
+      all you were once my son&rsquo;s companion. Listen to me. If you can persuade
+      that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty thousand francs,
+      to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is Minoret, the means to
+      buy a notary&rsquo;s practice at Orleans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s too far out of the way; but Montargis&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Minoret; &ldquo;Sens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&mdash;Sens,&rdquo; replied the hideous clerk. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s an archbishop
+      at Sens, and I don&rsquo;t object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there you
+      are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she&rsquo;ll succeed
+      at Sens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is to be fully understood,&rdquo; continued Minoret, &ldquo;that I shall not pay
+      the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide, out of
+      consideration for my deceased uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not for me too?&rdquo; said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+      secret motive in Minoret&rsquo;s conduct. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it through information you got
+      from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land, without
+      a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields and the mill
+      the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more. Come, old fellow,
+      do you mean to play fair with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+      estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d better think twice before you do that,&rdquo; said Zelie, suddenly
+      intervening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I choose,&rdquo; said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; &ldquo;Massin would buy
+      the whole for two hundred thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave us, wife,&rdquo; said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and shoving
+      her away; &ldquo;I understand him. We have been so very busy,&rdquo; he continued,
+      returning to Goupil, &ldquo;that we have had no time to think of you; but I rely
+      on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very ancient marquisate,&rdquo; said Goupil, maliciously; &ldquo;which will
+      soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that means a
+      capital of more than two millions as money is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+      daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+      under the government in Paris,&rdquo; said Minoret, opening his huge snuff-box
+      and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good; but will you play fair?&rdquo; cried Goupil, shaking his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret pressed the clerk&rsquo;s hands replying:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On my word of honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed that
+      the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part of the
+      colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was opposing them
+      with Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t he,&rdquo; thought Goupil, &ldquo;who has invented this scheme; I know my
+      Zelie,&mdash;she taught him his part. Bah! I&rsquo;ll let Massin go. In three
+      years time I&rsquo;ll be deputy from Sens.&rdquo; Just then he saw Bongrand on his way
+      to the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+      Bongrand,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know you will not be indifferent to her future. Her
+      relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she ought to
+      marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of an
+      arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy in three
+      years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs on her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She can do better than that,&rdquo; said Bongrand coldly. &ldquo;Madame de
+      Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is killing
+      her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula has a
+      capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it a la
+      Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savinien will do a foolish thing,&rdquo; said Goupil; &ldquo;he can marry
+      Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,&mdash;an only daughter to whom
+      the uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says&mdash;By the
+      bye, who is your notary?&rdquo; added Bongrand from curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose it were I?&rdquo; answered Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&mdash;Adieu, monsieur,&rdquo; replied Goupil, with a parting glance
+      of gall and hatred and defiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred thousand
+      francs on you?&rdquo; cried Bongrand entering Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s little
+      salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,&mdash;she smiling,
+      he not daring to show his uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not mistress of myself,&rdquo; said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+      Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you do that?&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere. &ldquo;I think the position
+      of a notary is a very good one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I prefer my peaceful poverty,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;which is really wealth
+      compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my old
+      nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+      present, which I like, for an unknown fate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of anonymous
+      letters,&mdash;one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other to
+      Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental
+  band-master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him
+  to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The letter to Ursula was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Dear Ursula,&mdash;There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival&rsquo;s pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two days
+      later she received another letter in the following language:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien&mdash;you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      This letter agonized Ursula&rsquo;s heart and afflicted her with the tortures of
+      jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but which to this
+      fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall over the present and
+      over the future, and even over the past. From the moment when she received
+      this fatal paper she lay on the doctor&rsquo;s sofa, her eyes fixed on space,
+      lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant the chill of death had come upon
+      her warm young life. Alas, worse than that! it was like the awful
+      awakening of the dead to the sense that there was no God,&mdash;the
+      masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean Paul. Four times La
+      Bougival called her to breakfast. When the faithful creature tried to
+      remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and answered in one harsh word, &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo;
+       said despotically, in strange contrast to her usual gentle manner. La
+      Bougival, watching her mistress through the glass door, saw her
+      alternately red with a consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of cold
+      had succeeded that unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and worse up
+      to four o&rsquo;clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming, but he did
+      not come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love. Ursula, who
+      till then had never made one gesture by which her love could be guessed,
+      now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if to go and
+      meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to her little
+      salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in the evening La
+      Bougival met him at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, monsieur!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s the matter with
+      mademoiselle; she is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+      Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Savinien too?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe quiver
+      as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he felt moreover
+      a lasting commotion in his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we shall not go there to-night,&rdquo; he said as gently as he could; &ldquo;and,
+      my child, it would be better if you did not go there again. The old lady
+      will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur Bongrand and I,
+      who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your marriage, have no idea
+      from what quarter this new influence has come to change her, as it were in
+      a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now,&rdquo; said Ursula in a pained
+      voice. &ldquo;In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we have done
+      nothing to displease God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of Providence,&rdquo;
+       said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de Portenduere&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you no longer call him Savinien?&rdquo; asked the priest, who detected a
+      slight bitterness in Ursula&rsquo;s tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of my dear Savinien,&rdquo; cried the girl, bursting into tears. &ldquo;Yes, my good
+      friend,&rdquo; she said, sobbing, &ldquo;a voice tells me he is as noble in heart as
+      he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me alone, but he has
+      proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by restraining heroically his
+      ardent feelings. Lately when he took the hand I held out to him, that
+      evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed to me a husband, it was the first
+      time, I swear to you, that I had ever given it. He began with a jest when
+      he blew me a kiss across the street, but since then our affection has
+      never outwardly passed, as you well know, the narrowest limits. But I will
+      tell you,&mdash;you who read my soul except in this one region where none
+      but the angels see,&mdash;well, I will tell you, this love has been in me
+      the secret spring of many seeming merits; it made me accept my poverty; it
+      softened the bitterness of my irreparable loss, for my mourning is more
+      perhaps in my clothes now than in my heart&mdash;Oh, was I wrong? can it
+      be that love was stronger in me than my gratitude to my benefactor, and
+      God has punished me for it? But how could it be otherwise? I respected in
+      myself Savinien&rsquo;s future wife; yes, perhaps I was too proud, perhaps it is
+      that pride which God has humbled. God alone, as you have often told me,
+      should be the end and object of all our actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her pallid
+      face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she was now to
+      fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she said, continuing, &ldquo;if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+      shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+      mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am I to
+      bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so divine
+      that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You know I have
+      often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave, and for
+      knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady&rsquo;s death. If Savinien is
+      rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my entrance to a
+      convent, where I shall go at once. There can no more be two loves in a
+      woman&rsquo;s heart than there can be two masters in heaven, and the life of a
+      religious is attractive to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre,&rdquo; said the abbe, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I will
+      write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the windows of
+      this room,&rdquo; she continued, telling her old friend of the anonymous
+      letters, but declaring that she would not allow any inquiries to be made
+      as to who her unknown lover might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere to
+      Rouvre,&rdquo; cried the abbe. &ldquo;You are annoyed for some object by evil
+      persons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I am no
+      longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well, my child,&rdquo; said the abbe, quietly, &ldquo;let us profit by this
+      tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+      order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them in
+      order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God, and
+      remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two devoted
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is much, very much,&rdquo; she said, going with him to the threshold of
+      the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over its
+      nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+      stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not? You
+      seem changed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went back
+      into the house without replying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is cross,&rdquo; said Minoret to the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold
+      of her door,&rdquo; said the abbe; &ldquo;she is too young&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Goupil. &ldquo;I am told she doesn&rsquo;t lack lovers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+      Bourgeois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Goupil to Minoret, &ldquo;the thing is working. Did you notice how
+      pale she was. Within a fortnight she&rsquo;ll have left the town&mdash;you&rsquo;ll
+      see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better have you for a friend than an enemy,&rdquo; cried Minoret, frightened at
+      the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil&rsquo;s face the diabolical expression
+      of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so!&rdquo; returned Goupil. &ldquo;If she doesn&rsquo;t marry me I&rsquo;ll make
+      her die of grief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do it, my boy, and I&rsquo;ll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in Paris.
+      You can then marry a rich woman&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done to
+      you?&rdquo; asked the clerk in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She annoys me,&rdquo; said Minoret, gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I&rsquo;ll rasp her,&rdquo; said Goupil,
+      studying the expression of the late post master&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what the dear child has written to you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but she
+      is almost dead this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+      sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  My dear Savinien,&mdash;Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice&mdash;for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself&mdash;not to me&mdash;in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations&mdash;which we have hitherto accepted so gayly&mdash;you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, &ldquo;Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days.&rdquo; When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you&mdash;but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+      scratched off hastily the following reply:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  My dear Ursula,&mdash;Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother&rsquo;s consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that&rsquo;s a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle&rsquo;s
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.&mdash;Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then&mdash;Nothing can separate us.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+      longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon at four o&rsquo;clock, returning from the walk which he always
+      took expressly to pass before Ursula&rsquo;s house, Savinien found his mistress
+      waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these sudden changes and
+      excitements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+      seeing you is,&rdquo; she said to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You once said to me,&rdquo; replied Savinien, smiling,&mdash;&ldquo;for I remember
+      all your words,&mdash;&lsquo;Love lives by patience; we will wait!&rsquo; Dear, you
+      have separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels;
+      we will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I love
+      you, but&mdash;did I ever doubt you?&rdquo; he said, offering her a bouquet of
+      wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have never had any reason to doubt me,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;and, besides,
+      you don&rsquo;t know all,&rdquo; she added, in a troubled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+      without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+      found, a few moments before Savinien&rsquo;s arrival, a letter tossed on her
+      sofa which contained the words: &ldquo;Tremble! a rejected lover can become a
+      tiger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Withstanding Savinien&rsquo;s entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+      prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again, after
+      she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her recover from
+      the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite evil is torture
+      to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the unknown, and the
+      unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the pain was exquisite.
+      Something without her bounded at the slightest noise; yet she was afraid
+      of silence, and suspected even the walls of collusion. Even her sleep was
+      restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of her nature, delicate as that of a
+      flower, had found, with the instinct of evil, the poison that could wither
+      and destroy her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano till
+      very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About midnight
+      she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a clarinet, hautboy,
+      flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon, flageolet, and triangle. All
+      the neighbours were at their windows. The poor girl, already frightened at
+      seeing the people in the street, received a dreadful shock as she heard
+      the coarse, rough voice of a man proclaiming in loud tones: &ldquo;For the
+      beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from her lover.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+      entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+      gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+      curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were rife
+      on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive, determined not to
+      leave the house again,&mdash;the abbe having advised her to say vespers in
+      her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying in the passage, which
+      was floored with brick, a letter which had evidently been slipped under
+      the door. She picked it up and read it, under the idea that it would
+      obtain an explanation. It was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am resolved. If
+      you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To your refusal you may
+      attribute not only your own misfortunes, but those which will fall on
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He who loves you, and whose wife you will be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this plot
+      was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis, and
+      Cremiere were envying her lot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a lucky girl,&rdquo; they were saying; &ldquo;people talk of her, and court
+      her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was a
+      cornet-a-piston.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s a piston?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!&rdquo; replied Angelique
+      Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to find
+      out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in garrison. But as
+      there were two men to each instrument it was impossible to find out which
+      of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel forbade them to play for any
+      private person in future without his permission. Savinien had an interview
+      with the procureur du roi, Ursula&rsquo;s legal guardian, and explained to him
+      the injury these scenes would do to a young girl naturally so delicate and
+      sensitive, begging him to take some action to discover the author of such
+      wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy began
+      another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards Montargis, where
+      there happened then to be a company of comic actors. A loud and ringing
+      voice called out as they left: &ldquo;To the daughter of the regimental bandsman
+      Mirouet.&rdquo; By this means all Nemours came to know the profession of
+      Ursula&rsquo;s father, a secret the old doctor had sedulously kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day an
+      anonymous letter containing a prophecy:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for she
+      was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+      persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+      mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted her
+      eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows, and
+      prayed fervently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad I cannot go down into the salon,&rdquo; she said to Monsieur Bongrand
+      and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; &ldquo;<i>He</i> would come,
+      and I am now unworthy of the looks with which <i>he</i> blessed me. Do you
+      think <i>he</i> will suspect me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to
+      get the assistance of the Paris police,&rdquo; said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever it is will know I am dying,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;and will cease to
+      trouble me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and suspicions.
+      Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on whom the abbe
+      could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their guard night and
+      day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil, whose
+      machinations were known to himself only. There were no more serenades and
+      no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed. Bongrand thought
+      the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien believed that the
+      procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters received by Ursula and
+      himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an end to the persecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+      checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just
+      as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one
+      morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post
+      declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a
+      small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried to
+      pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so fast
+      that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the persons who
+      frequented Dionis&rsquo;s salon attributed these manoeuvres to the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held his notes to a large
+      amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his daughter to Savinien
+      would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors; and Madame de
+      Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything that would
+      discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by the
+      sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully overcome by
+      this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept to
+      the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult had
+      caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which was taken
+      in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My child,&mdash;Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your enemies.
+      Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien&rsquo;s life. I will tell you more
+      when I am able to go to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your devoted friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chaperon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried this
+      letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so amazed and
+      horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his own
+      handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition into
+      which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once more to the
+      procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal guardian. What
+      is to be done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can find any means of repression,&rdquo; said the official, &ldquo;I will
+      adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+      advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the Adoration
+      of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at Fontainebleau
+      shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your own defence. I
+      have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du Rouvre justly
+      indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people have put upon him.
+      Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty for the purchase of the
+      estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish count; and Monsieur du
+      Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I saw him, to avoid arrest
+      for debt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his thought.
+      He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only man capable
+      of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal code without
+      infringing a hair&rsquo;s-breadth upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil&rsquo;s audacity. He made
+      Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for his
+      notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+      Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens, and
+      then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant to imitate
+      certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their fortunes to
+      abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to Minoret, to
+      Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and the mayor of
+      Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved to throw off
+      the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to which he had
+      reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this last throw in
+      the game he thought it best to have an explanation with Minoret, and he
+      chose his opportunity at Rouvre, where he went with his patron for the
+      first time after the deeds were signed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+      asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+      Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours with
+      the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these atrocities in
+      the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his father, in case this
+      persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to give to whoever
+      it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law could not punish
+      this crime it would certainly discover the truth and hold it over the
+      delinquent&rsquo;s head. Minoret had now attained a great object. Owner of the
+      chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the Gatinais, he had also
+      a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs a year from the rich domains
+      which surrounded the park. He could well afford to snap his fingers at
+      Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on the estate, where the sight of
+      Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo; he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, &ldquo;let my
+      young cousin alone, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+      chateau with the stone copings (which couldn&rsquo;t be built now for two
+      hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and
+      gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No, I&rsquo;m
+      not ungrateful; I&rsquo;ll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs, for
+      your services, and you can buy a sheriff&rsquo;s practice in Nemours. I&rsquo;ll
+      guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere&rsquo;s daughters, the eldest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The one who talks piston!&rdquo; cried Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll have thirty thousand francs,&rdquo; replied Minoret. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see, my
+      dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a post
+      master? People should keep to their vocation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes;
+      &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs; I
+      want the money in hand at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his
+      wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to
+      sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the
+      face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an &ldquo;au revoir,&rdquo;
+       by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any
+      one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent
+      chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his
+      shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not going to wait for me?&rdquo; he cried, observing that Goupil was
+      going away on foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret,&rdquo; replied Goupil,
+      athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of
+      Minoret&rsquo;s strange conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a
+      prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the
+      soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking
+      only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words; everything about
+      her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the expression of her
+      forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was
+      thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity, with which throughout all ages
+      the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow. She heard in
+      the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the malicious comments,
+      the laughter of the little town. The trial was too heavy, her innocence
+      was too delicate to allow her to survive the murderous blow. She
+      complained no more; a sorrowful smile was on her lips; her eyes appealed
+      to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against man&rsquo;s injustice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her
+      chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor. A
+      great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduere became
+      really aware that the girl was dying like an ermine, though less injured
+      in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and comfort
+      her. The sight of her son&rsquo;s anguish, who during the whole preceding night
+      had seemed beside himself, made the Breton soul of the old woman yield.
+      Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignity to revive the courage of a
+      girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise to all the evil done
+      by the little town. Her opinion, surely more powerful than that of the
+      crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought, the influence of race. This
+      step, which the abbe came to announce, made so great a change in Ursula
+      that the doctor, who was about to ask for a consultation of Parisian
+      doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on her uncle&rsquo;s sofa, and such was
+      the character of her beauty that she lay there in her mourning garments,
+      pale from suffering, she was more exquisitely lovely than in the happiest
+      hours of her life. When Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the
+      room she colored vividly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not rise, my child,&rdquo; said the old lady imperatively; &ldquo;weak and ill as
+      I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is
+      happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excellent
+      girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands of
+      Savinien&rsquo;s mother and kissed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame,&rdquo; she said in a faltering voice, &ldquo;I should never have had the
+      boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+      encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+      bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I love,&mdash;they
+      have made me unworthy of him. Never!&rdquo; she cried, with a ring in her voice
+      which painfully affected those about her, &ldquo;never will I consent to give to
+      any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I loved too well,&mdash;yes,
+      I can admit it in my present condition,&mdash;I love a creature almost as
+      I love God, and God&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter,&rdquo; said the old
+      lady, making an effort, &ldquo;do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous
+      joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will live and you
+      shall be happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be happy!&rdquo; cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and kissing
+      her hand; &ldquo;my mother has called you her daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, enough,&rdquo; said the doctor feeling his patient&rsquo;s pulse; &ldquo;do not
+      kill her with joy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of the
+      little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+      vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur de Portenduere,&rdquo; he said, in a voice like the hissing of a viper
+      forced from its hole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a word to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear to me by Ursula&rsquo;s life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by me
+      as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I will
+      reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against Mademoiselle
+      Mirouet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I put a stop to them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I avenge them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On their author, yes&mdash;on his tool, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;I am the tool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien turned pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just seen Ursula&mdash;&rdquo; said Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula?&rdquo; said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle Mirouet,&rdquo; continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinien&rsquo;s
+      tone; &ldquo;and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done; I
+      repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good
+      would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager curiosity,
+      calmed Savinien&rsquo;s anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a look which
+      made that moral deformity writhe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who set you at this work?&rdquo; said the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you swear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What,&mdash;to do you no harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will forgive you,&mdash;I, never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But at least you will forget?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
+      self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
+      standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to
+      talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will forgive you, but I shall not forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The agreement is off,&rdquo; said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+      applied a blow upon the man&rsquo;s face which echoed through the courtyard and
+      nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only what I deserve,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;for committing such a folly. I
+      thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I gave
+      you. You are in my power now,&rdquo; he added with a look of hatred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a murderer!&rdquo; said Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more than a dagger is a murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you revenged enough?&rdquo; said Goupil, with ferocious irony; &ldquo;will you
+      stop here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness,&rdquo; replied Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your hand,&rdquo; said the clerk, holding out his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is yours,&rdquo; said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula&rsquo;s sake. &ldquo;Now
+      speak; who made you do this thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien&rsquo;s blow,
+      on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was undecided;
+      then a voice said to him: &ldquo;You will be notary!&rdquo; and he answered:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is persecuting Ursula?&rdquo; persisted Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can&rsquo;t tell you
+      that; but we might find out the reason. Don&rsquo;t mix me up in all this; I
+      could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+      annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will try
+      to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him&mdash;I&rsquo;ll
+      crush him under foot, I&rsquo;ll dance on his carcass, I&rsquo;ll make his bones into
+      dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and Rouvre
+      shall blaze with the letters, &lsquo;Minoret is a thief!&rsquo; Yes, I&rsquo;ll burst him
+      like a gun&mdash;There! we&rsquo;re allies now by the imprudence of that
+      outbreak! If you choose I&rsquo;ll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet&rsquo;s pardon and tell
+      her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her
+      good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand must
+      promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute;&rdquo; said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula, my child,&rdquo; he said, returning to the salon, &ldquo;the author of all
+      your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask your
+      pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+      forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Goupil?&rdquo; cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep his secret,&rdquo; said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said in a troubled voice, &ldquo;I wish that all Nemours
+      could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and
+      led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men. What I say
+      now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the harm done by such
+      miserable tricks&mdash;which may have hastened your happiness,&rdquo; he added,
+      rather maliciously, &ldquo;for I see that Madame de Portenduere is with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all very well, Goupil,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;Mademoiselle forgives
+      you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand,&rdquo; said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. &ldquo;I
+      shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur&rsquo;s practice; I hope the reparation I
+      have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+      petition to the bar and the ministry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left the
+      house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff&rsquo;s practice.
+      The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore the peace
+      and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved by Goupil&rsquo;s
+      confession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my child, that God was not against you,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o&rsquo;clock he was sitting in
+      the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom he was
+      making plans for Desire&rsquo;s future. Desire had become very sedate since
+      entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely that he
+      would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau, who, they
+      said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they must find
+      him a wife,&mdash;some poor girl belonging to an old and noble family; he
+      would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris. Perhaps they could get
+      him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zelie was proposing to pass
+      the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer season. Minoret, inwardly
+      congratulating himself for having managed his affairs so well, no longer
+      thought or cared about Ursula, at the very moment when the drama so
+      heedlessly begun by him was closing down upon him in a terrible manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you,&rdquo; said
+      Cabirolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show him in,&rdquo; answered Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+      pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien&rsquo;s boots on the
+      floor of the gallery, where the doctor&rsquo;s library used to be. A vague
+      presentiment of danger ran through the robber&rsquo;s veins. Savinien entered
+      and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in his hand,
+      and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband and
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;your
+      reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who, as the
+      whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to tarnish her
+      honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you deliver her over to
+      Goupil&rsquo;s insults?&mdash;Answer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;to come and ask us
+      the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little
+      about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret died I&rsquo;ve not
+      thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I&rsquo;ve never said one word
+      about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I wouldn&rsquo;t think
+      of consulting about even a dog. Why don&rsquo;t you speak up, Minoret? Are you
+      going to let monsieur box your ears in that way and accuse you of
+      wickedness that&rsquo;s beneath you? As if a man with forty-eight thousand
+      francs a year from landed property, and a castle fit for a prince, would
+      stoop to such things! Get up, and don&rsquo;t sit there like a wet rag!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what monsieur means,&rdquo; said Minoret in his squeaking voice,
+      the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice was
+      clear. &ldquo;What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have said
+      to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My son Desire fell
+      in love with her, and I didn&rsquo;t want him to marry her, that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s silence, but it was terrible, when all three persons
+      examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy face of her
+      colossus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though you are only insects,&rdquo; said the young nobleman, &ldquo;I will make you
+      feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a man sixty-eight
+      years of age, but from your son that I shall seek satisfaction for the
+      insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The first time he sets his foot
+      in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me; he will do so, or be
+      dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If he does not come to
+      Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have satisfaction. It
+      shall never be said that you were tamely allowed to dishonor a defenceless
+      young girl&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the calumnies of a Goupil&mdash;are&mdash;not&mdash;&rdquo; began Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you had
+      better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave
+      it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t go one!&rdquo; cried Zelie. &ldquo;Do you suppose I&rsquo;ll stand by and
+      let Desire fight you,&mdash;a sailor whose business it is to handle swords
+      and guns? If you&rsquo;ve got any cause of complaint against Minoret, there&rsquo;s
+      Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy, who, by
+      your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear the brunt of
+      it? No, my little gentleman! somebody&rsquo;s teeth will pin your legs first!
+      Come, Minoret, don&rsquo;t stand staring there like a big canary; you are in
+      your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before your wife! I
+      say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man&rsquo;s house is his castle. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what you mean with your nonsense, but show me your heels, and
+      if you dare touch Desire you&rsquo;ll have to answer to <i>me</i>,&mdash;you and
+      your minx Ursula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember what I have said to you,&rdquo; repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying
+      no attention to Zelie&rsquo;s tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over
+      their heads, he left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, then, Minoret,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;you will explain to me what this all
+      means. A young man doesn&rsquo;t rush into a house and make an uproar like that
+      and demand the blood of a family for nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s some mischief of that vile Goupil,&rdquo; said the colossus. &ldquo;I promised
+      to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap. I
+      gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand francs in a note, and I
+      suppose he isn&rsquo;t satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+      Ursula?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He wanted to marry her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling me
+      lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe them.
+      There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me what it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do let me alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil&mdash;whom you&rsquo;re
+      afraid of&mdash;and we&rsquo;ll see who gets the best of it then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+      foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to him,
+      mark you, I&rsquo;ll do something that may send me to the scaffold&mdash;and
+      you, you haven&rsquo;t any feeling about him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to end
+      without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his self-satisfaction
+      the foolish robber found his inward struggle against himself and against
+      Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated with a new and terrible
+      adversary. The next day, when he left the house early to find Goupil and
+      try to appease him with additional money, the walls were already placarded
+      with the words: &ldquo;Minoret is a thief.&rdquo; All those whom he met commiserated
+      him and asked him who was the author of the anonymous placard. Fortunately
+      for him, everybody made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting
+      on his utter stupidity; fools get more advantage from their weakness than
+      able men from their strength. The world looks on at a great man battling
+      against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a
+      grocer who may fail and lose all. Why? Because men like to feel superior
+      in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling themselves
+      the equal of a man of genius. A clever man would have been lost in public
+      estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers
+      with a frightened air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive
+      words wherever they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret&rsquo;s
+      conscience still remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though
+      Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he now
+      impudently refused to fulfil it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Lecoeur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up Monsieur
+      Dionis&rsquo;s practice; I am therefore in a position to help you to sell to
+      others. Tear up the agreement; it&rsquo;s only the loss of two stamps,&mdash;here
+      are seventy centimes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew before
+      night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil to buy his
+      practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges against
+      Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position he was
+      forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his respect for
+      law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him well in future;
+      assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his leg at the first
+      offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+      between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+      threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+      Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about the
+      town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs and her
+      own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his practice; the
+      union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One evening, towards
+      midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving
+      Massin&rsquo;s house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notary kept
+      the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman who saw
+      the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who became
+      convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret, and he
+      determined to find out its cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. APPARITIONS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula&rsquo;s perfect
+      innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily exhaustion,
+      which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium of phenomena
+      the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to challenge
+      science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten days after Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s visit Ursula had a dream, with all
+      the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral aspects
+      as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather appeared to
+      her and made a sign that she should come with him. She dressed herself and
+      followed him through the darkness to their former house in the Rue des
+      Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely as it was on the day of
+      her godfather&rsquo;s death. The old man wore the clothes that were on him the
+      evening before his death. His face was pale, his movements caused no
+      sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his voice distinctly, though it was
+      feeble and as if repeated by a distant echo. The doctor conducted his
+      child as far as the Chinese pagoda, where he made her lift the marble top
+      of the little Boule cabinet just as she had raised it on the day of his
+      death; but instead of finding nothing there she saw the letter her
+      godfather had told her to fetch. She opened it and read both the letter
+      addressed to herself and the will in favor of Savinien. The writing, as
+      she afterwards told the abbe, shone as if traced by sunbeams&mdash;&ldquo;it
+      burned my eyes,&rdquo; she said. When she looked at her uncle to thank him she
+      saw the old benevolent smile upon his discolored lips. Then, in a feeble
+      voice, but still clearly, he told her to look at Minoret, who was
+      listening in the corridor to what he said to her; and next, slipping the
+      lock of the library door with his knife, and taking the papers from the
+      study. With his right hand the old man seized his goddaughter and obliged
+      her to walk at the pace of death and follow Minoret to his own house.
+      Ursula crossed the town, entered the post house and went into Zelie&rsquo;s old
+      room, where the spectre showed her Minoret unfolding the letters, reading
+      them and burning them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He could not,&rdquo; said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, &ldquo;light the
+      first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+      buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back to
+      our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where he
+      took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of twelve
+      thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number of
+      banknotes. &lsquo;He is,&rsquo; said my godfather, &lsquo;the cause of all the trouble which
+      has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills that you shall yet
+      be happy. You will not die now; you will marry Savinien. If you love me,
+      and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your fortune from my
+      nephew. Swear it.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+      influence on Ursula&rsquo;s soul that she promised all her uncle asked, hoping
+      to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found herself
+      standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather&rsquo;s portrait,
+      which had been placed there during her illness. She went back to bed and
+      fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remembered all
+      the particulars of this singular vision; but she dared not speak of it.
+      Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the end
+      and object of which was her pecuniary benefit. She attributed the vision,
+      not unnaturally, to remarks made by La Bougival the preceding evening,
+      when the old woman talked of the doctor&rsquo;s intended liberality and of her
+      own convictions on that subject. But the dream returned, with aggravated
+      circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl. On the second
+      occasion the icy hand of her godfather was laid upon her shoulder, causing
+      her the most horrible distress, an indefinable sensation. &ldquo;You must obey
+      the dead,&rdquo; he said, in a sepulchral voice. &ldquo;Tears,&rdquo; said Ursula, relating
+      her dreams, &ldquo;fell from his white, wide-open eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of her
+      long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and promising
+      money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided to relate the
+      three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;do you believe that the dead reappear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have much
+      testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an article of
+      faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the idea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do <i>you</i> believe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the power of God is infinite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His conversion, as
+      he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in Paris
+      heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you made against
+      Saint-Savinien&rsquo;s day in your almanac.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered
+      the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read her soul, and
+      took away the almanac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is so,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;then my visions are possibly true. My
+      godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was
+      wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass for the
+      repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these visions may
+      cease, for they are destroying me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting on the
+      truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the somnambulism
+      of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from her body at the
+      bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect ease. The thing that
+      most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula&rsquo;s veracity was known, was the
+      exact description which she gave of the bedroom formerly occupied by Zelie
+      at the post house, which Ursula had never entered and about which no one
+      had ever spoken to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By what means can these singular apparitions take place?&rdquo; asked Ursula.
+      &ldquo;What did my godfather think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized the
+      possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are of man&rsquo;s
+      creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must have forms
+      which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are perceptible to our
+      inward senses when brought under certain conditions. Thus your godfather&rsquo;s
+      ideas might so enfold you that you would clothe them with his bodily
+      presence. Then, if Minoret really committed those actions, they too
+      resolve themselves into ideas; for all action is the result of many ideas.
+      Now, if ideas live and move in a spiritual world, your spirit must be able
+      to perceive them if it penetrates that world. These phenomena are not more
+      extraordinary than those of memory; and those of memory are quite as
+      amazing and inexplicable as those of the perfume of plants&mdash;which are
+      perhaps the ideas of the plants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How you enlarge and magnify the world!&rdquo; exclaimed Ursula. &ldquo;But to hear
+      the dead speak, to see them walk, act&mdash;do you think it possible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Sweden,&rdquo; replied the abbe, &ldquo;Swedenborg has proved by evidence that he
+      communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and you
+      shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded at
+      Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales, an
+      adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier at
+      Cardan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+      edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the &ldquo;History of Henri de
+      Montmorency,&rdquo; written by a priest of that period who had known the prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read it,&rdquo; said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had opened at
+      the 175th page. &ldquo;Your godfather often re-read that passage,&mdash;and see!
+      here&rsquo;s a little of his snuff in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he not here!&rdquo; said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there&mdash;namely, the
+  Marquis d&rsquo;Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis&rsquo;s quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  &ldquo;I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If all this is so,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;what ought I do do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;it concerns matters so important, and which
+      may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep absolutely silent
+      about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these apparitions
+      perhaps they may not return. Besides, you are now strong enough to come to
+      church; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and pray to him for the
+      repose of your godfather&rsquo;s soul. Feel quite sure that you have entrusted
+      your secret to prudent hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,&mdash;what glances my
+      godfather gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress&mdash;I awoke
+      with my face all covered with tears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be at peace; he will not come again,&rdquo; said the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+      asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that
+      they might be entirely alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can any one hear us?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one,&rdquo; replied Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur, my character must be known to you,&rdquo; said the abbe, fastening a
+      gentle but attentive look on Minoret&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;I have to speak to you of
+      serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you, and about which you
+      may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy; but it is
+      impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While
+      your uncle lived, there stood there,&rdquo; said the priest, pointing to a
+      certain spot in the room, &ldquo;a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble
+      top&rdquo; (Minoret turned livid), &ldquo;and beneath the marble your uncle placed a
+      letter for Ursula&mdash;&rdquo; The abbe then went on to relate, without
+      omitting the smallest circumstance, Minoret&rsquo;s conduct to Minoret himself.
+      When the last post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to
+      light he felt his hair begin to writhe on his skull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who invented such nonsense?&rdquo; he said, in a strangled voice, when the tale
+      ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dead man himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+      doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God is very good, Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe, to do miracles for me,&rdquo; he said,
+      danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that God does is natural,&rdquo; replied the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your phantoms don&rsquo;t frighten me,&rdquo; said the colossus, recovering his
+      coolness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to any
+      one in the world,&rdquo; said the abbe. &ldquo;You alone know the truth. The matter is
+      between you and God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come now, Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+      horrible abuse of confidence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+      sinner repents,&rdquo; said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Crime?&rdquo; cried Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crime frightful in its consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What consequences?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+      expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself avenges
+      innocence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+      take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have had
+      these facts from my uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+      repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to me
+      privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will never
+      speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are,&rdquo; said the old priest. &ldquo;Even if I considered these
+      warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+      considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man, and
+      you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish to add
+      to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and you would be
+      tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or civilized, the
+      sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to enjoy in peace
+      ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the society in which we
+      live,&mdash;for well-constituted societies are modeled on the system God
+      has ordained for the universe. In this respect societies have a divine
+      origin. Man does not originate ideas, he invents no form; he answers to
+      the eternal relations that surround him on all sides. Therefore, see what
+      happens! Criminals going to the scaffold, and having it in their power to
+      carry their secret with them, are compelled by the force of some
+      mysterious power to make confessions before their heads are taken off.
+      Therefore, Monsieur Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I go my way
+      satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way out.
+      When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric man; the
+      strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula&rsquo;s name was mingled
+      with odious language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what has she done to you?&rdquo; cried Zelie, who had slipped in on tiptoe
+      after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+      driven to extremities by his wife&rsquo;s reiterated questions, turned upon her
+      and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell half-dead on
+      the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed himself, ashamed of
+      his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him twice; when he appeared
+      again in the streets everybody noticed a great change in him. He walked
+      alone, and often roamed the town as though uneasy. When any one addressed
+      him he seemed preoccupied in his mind, he who had never before had two
+      ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he went up to Monsieur Bongrand
+      in the Grand&rsquo;Rue, the latter being on his way to take Ursula to Madame de
+      Portenduere&rsquo;s, where the whist parties had begun again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin,&rdquo; he
+      said, taking the justice by the arm, &ldquo;and I am very glad you should be
+      present, for you can advise her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air, as
+      soon as she saw Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+      business,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;By the bye, don&rsquo;t forget to give me your
+      certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+      dividend and La Bougival&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cousin,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than you
+      have now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can be very happy with very little money,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought money might help your happiness,&rdquo; continued Minoret, &ldquo;and I
+      have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had a natural way of showing respect for him,&rdquo; said Ursula, sternly;
+      &ldquo;you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to buy it;
+      instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find some hidden
+      treasure in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Minoret, evidently troubled, &ldquo;if you had twelve thousand
+      francs a year you would be in a position to marry well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not got them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate in
+      Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,&mdash;you could then marry her son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Minoret,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;I have no claim to that money, and I
+      cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are we
+      friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+      evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason have
+      you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a right to
+      ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider your gift
+      the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to accept it. Your
+      uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing except
+      from friends, and I have no friendship for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you refuse?&rdquo; cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had never
+      entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I refuse,&rdquo; said Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+      fortune?&rdquo; asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. &ldquo;You have an idea&mdash;have
+      you an idea?&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son will
+      leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll see about it,&rdquo; said Bongrand, settling his spectacles. &ldquo;Give
+      us time to think it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the father
+      for his son&rsquo;s interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her hasty
+      decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand went to the
+      post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started for Fontainebleau,
+      where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was told that he was
+      spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect. Bongrand, delighted,
+      followed him there. Desire was playing whist with the wife of the
+      procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the colonel of the
+      regiment in garrison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come to bring you some good news,&rdquo; said Bongrand to Desire; &ldquo;you love
+      your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love Ursula Mirouet!&rdquo; cried Desire, laughing. &ldquo;Where did you get that
+      idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s; she
+      certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I certainly took
+      notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled my head seriously
+      for that rather insipid little blonde,&rdquo; he added, smiling at the
+      sub-prefect&rsquo;s wife (who was a piquante brunette&mdash;to use a term of the
+      last century). &ldquo;You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur Bongrand; I thought
+      every one knew that my father was a lord of a manor, with a rent roll of
+      forty-five thousand francs a year from lands around his chateau at Rouvre,&mdash;good
+      reasons why I should not love the goddaughter of my late great-uncle. If I
+      were to marry a girl without a penny these ladies would consider me a
+      fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear that, monsieur?&rdquo; said the justice to the procureur du roi, who
+      had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the recess
+      of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter of an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula&rsquo;s house, whence he
+      sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus came at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle&mdash;&rdquo; began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Accepts?&rdquo; cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not yet,&rdquo; replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. &ldquo;I had scruples as
+      to your son&rsquo;s feelings; for Ursula has been much tried lately about a
+      supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity. Can you swear to
+      me that your son truly loves her and that you have no other intention than
+      to preserve our dear Ursula from any further Goupilisms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll swear to that,&rdquo; cried Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop, papa Minoret,&rdquo; said the justice, taking one hand from the pocket of
+      his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus trembled);
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t swear falsely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear falsely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+      presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never even
+      thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering this
+      fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+      Fontainebleau to question your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where&rsquo;s the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young relative
+      to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness, and to invent
+      pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+      admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know the cause of my refusal,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;and I request you never
+      to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told me his
+      reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such dislike even,
+      that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is my only fortune,&mdash;I
+      do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it. Monsieur de Portenduere is
+      only waiting for my majority to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the old saw that &lsquo;Money does all&rsquo; is a lie,&rdquo; said Minoret, looking
+      at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+      oppressive as in the little salon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be an end put to this,&rdquo; he said to himself as he re-entered
+      his own home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La Bougival,
+      she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon with great
+      strides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None that I can tell,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we have the same idea,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Here, keep the number of your
+      certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+      precaution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and that
+      of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+      third.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+      thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle&rsquo;s grave
+      was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the inscription,
+      opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a piercing cry, but
+      the doctor&rsquo;s spectre slowly rose. First she saw his yellow head, with its
+      fringe of white hair, which shone as if surmounted by a halo. Beneath the
+      bald forehead the eyes were like two gleams of light; the dead man rose as
+      if impelled by some superior force or will. Ursula&rsquo;s body trembled; her
+      flesh was like a burning garment, and there was (as she subsequently said)
+      another self moving within her bodily presence. &ldquo;Mercy!&rdquo; she cried,
+      &ldquo;mercy, godfather!&rdquo; &ldquo;It is too late,&rdquo; he said, in the voice of death,&mdash;to
+      use the poor girl&rsquo;s own expression when she related this new dream to the
+      abbe. &ldquo;He has been warned; he has paid no heed to the warning. The days of
+      his son are numbered. If he does not confess all and restore what he has
+      taken within a certain time he must lose his son, who will die a violent
+      and horrible death. Let him know this.&rdquo; The spectre pointed to a line of
+      figures which gleamed upon the side of the tomb as if written with fire,
+      and said, &ldquo;There is his doom.&rdquo; When her uncle lay down again in his grave
+      Ursula heard the sound of the stone falling back into its place, and
+      immediately after, in the distance, a strange sound of horses and the
+      cries of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had the
+      dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon and
+      bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass, but he
+      was not surprised at Ursula&rsquo;s revelation. He believed the robbery had been
+      committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself the abnormal
+      condition of his &ldquo;little dreamer.&rdquo; He left Ursula at once and went
+      directly to Minoret&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;my husband&rsquo;s temper is so soured I don&rsquo;t
+      know what he mightn&rsquo;t do. Until now he&rsquo;s been a child; but for the last
+      two months he&rsquo;s not the same man. To get angry enough to strike me&mdash;me,
+      so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter to change him like
+      that. You&rsquo;ll find him among the rocks; he spends all his time there,&mdash;doing
+      what, I&rsquo;d like to know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed the
+      canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks, where he
+      saw Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret,&rdquo; said the priest going up to
+      him. &ldquo;You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to increase
+      your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle lifted the
+      stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great disaster in your
+      family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but you ought to know
+      what he said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these rocks,
+      and I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t want to know anything that is going on in another
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+      pleasure,&rdquo; said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you want to say?&rdquo; demanded Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told things
+      that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells things that no
+      one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say, make restitution.
+      Don&rsquo;t damn your soul for a little money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Restitution of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+      certificates&mdash;I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+      and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies, you
+      have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false steps every
+      day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice Goupil has served
+      you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and clear your mind, for you
+      are watched by intelligent and penetrating eyes,&mdash;those of Ursula&rsquo;s
+      friends. Make restitution! and if you do not save your son (who may not
+      really be threatened), you will save your soul, and you will save your
+      honor. Do you believe that in a society like ours, in a little town like
+      this, where everybody&rsquo;s eyes are everywhere, and all things are guessed
+      and all things are known, you can long hide a stolen fortune? Come, my
+      son, an innocent man wouldn&rsquo;t have let me talk so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to the devil!&rdquo; cried Minoret. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you <i>all</i> mean
+      by persecuting me. I prefer these stones&mdash;they leave me in peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have said
+      a single word about this to any living person. But take care&mdash;there
+      is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The man
+      was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was, in fact,
+      partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three certificates
+      because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not draw the money
+      himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not wish to sell them, and
+      was still trying to find some way of transferring the certificates. In
+      this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of acknowledging all
+      to his wife and getting her advice. Zelie, who always managed affairs for
+      him so well, she could get him out of his troubles. The three-per-cent
+      Funds were now selling at eighty. Restitution! why, that meant, with
+      arrearages, giving up a million! Give up a million, when there was no one
+      who could know that he had taken it&mdash;!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute
+      and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the little
+      town he grew thin and haggard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. REMORSE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+      inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above their
+      heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret received
+      from their son Desire the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  My dear Mother,&mdash;If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil&rsquo;s
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father&rsquo;s
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil&rsquo;s malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father&rsquo;s
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+      Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating all
+      the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even Ursula&rsquo;s
+      dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stay quietly here,&rdquo; Zelie said to her husband, without the slightest
+      remonstrance against his folly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll manage the whole thing. We&rsquo;ll keep
+      the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son&rsquo;s letter to
+      Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In spite of her
+      assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which the young girl gave
+      her. But she took herself to task for her cowardice and assumed an easy
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell me
+      what you think of it,&rdquo; she cried, giving Ursula her son&rsquo;s letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the letter,
+      which showed her how truly she was loved and what care Savinien took of
+      the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but she had too much
+      charity and true religion to be willing to be the cause of death or
+      suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly easy,&mdash;but
+      I must request you to leave me this letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+      Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,&mdash;a really
+      regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we shall
+      give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the Funds; in
+      all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that there are not
+      many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,&mdash;and quite
+      right too,&rdquo; added Zelie, seeing Ursula&rsquo;s quick gesture of denial; &ldquo;I have
+      therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will bear your godfather&rsquo;s
+      name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you must have seen, is a handsome
+      fellow; he is very much thought of at Fontainebleau, and he will soon be
+      procureur du roi himself. You are a coaxing girl and can easily persuade
+      him to live in Paris. We will give you a fine house there; you will shine;
+      you will play a distinguished part; for, with seventy thousand francs a
+      year and the salary of an office, you and Desire can enter the highest
+      society. Consult your friends; you&rsquo;ll see what they tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need only consult my heart, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ta, ta, ta! now don&rsquo;t talk to me about that little lady-killer Savinien.
+      You&rsquo;d pay too high a price for his name, and for that little moustache
+      curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair. How do you
+      expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a man who made two
+      hundred thousand francs of debt in two years? Besides&mdash;though this is
+      a thing you don&rsquo;t know yet&mdash;all men are alike; and without flattering
+      myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the equal of a king&rsquo;s son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which can,
+      perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere&rsquo;s desire to please me.
+      If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals that danger might
+      not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame, that I shall be far
+      happier in the moderate circumstances to which you allude than I should be
+      in the opulence with which you are trying to dazzle me. For reasons
+      hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made known, Monsieur Minoret, by
+      persecuting me in an odious manner, strengthened the affection that exists
+      between Monsieur de Portenduere and myself&mdash;which I can now admit
+      because his mother has blessed it. I will also tell you that this
+      affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is life itself to me. No destiny,
+      however brilliant, however lofty, could make me change. I love without the
+      possibility of changing. It would therefore be a crime if I married a man
+      to whom I could take nothing but a soul that is Savinien&rsquo;s. But, madame,
+      since you force me to be explicit, I must tell you that even if I did not
+      love Monsieur de Portenduere I could not bring myself to bear the troubles
+      and joys of life in the company of your son. If Monsieur Savinien made
+      debts, you have often paid those of your son. Our characters have neither
+      the similarities nor the differences which enable two persons to live
+      together without bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the
+      forbearance a wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to him.
+      Pray cease to think of an alliance of which I count myself quite unworthy,
+      and which I feel I can decline without pain to you; for with the great
+      advantages you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl of better
+      station, more wealth, and more beauty than mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you swear to me,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;to prevent these young men from
+      taking that journey and fighting that duel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+      Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown must
+      have no blood upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your expectations
+      for the future of your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+      remembered the predictions of Ursula&rsquo;s last dream; she stood still, her
+      small eyes fixed on Ursula&rsquo;s face, so white, so pure, so beautiful in her
+      mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-called cousin&rsquo;s
+      departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in dreams?&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suffer from them too much not to do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you do&mdash;&rdquo; began Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, madame,&rdquo; exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she heard
+      the abbe&rsquo;s entering step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+      uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+      mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in spirits?&rdquo; Zelie asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you believe in?&rdquo; he answered, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are all sly,&rdquo; thought Zelie,&mdash;&ldquo;every one of them! They want to
+      deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+      Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams than
+      there are hairs on the palm of my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau,&rdquo; said Ursula to the abbe,
+      telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to prevent
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Madame Minoret offer you her son&rsquo;s hand?&rdquo; asked the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her,&rdquo; added the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step taken
+      by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He looked at the
+      abbe as if to say: &ldquo;Come out, I want to speak to you of Ursula without her
+      hearing me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year and
+      the dandy of Nemours,&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it, then, a sacrifice?&rdquo; she answered, laughing. &ldquo;Are there sacrifices
+      when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of a man we all
+      despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but that ought not to
+      be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy, and the abbe, and my
+      dear godfather,&rdquo; she said, looking up at his portrait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand took Ursula&rsquo;s hand and kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?&rdquo; said the justice as soon as
+      they were in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+      merely curious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had some plan for restitution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think&mdash;&rdquo; began the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think, I know; I have the certainty&mdash;and see there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on his
+      way home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts,&rdquo; continued Bongrand, &ldquo;I
+      naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never seen
+      any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity, that pallor
+      of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and bursting with
+      the good sound health of a man without a care? What has put those black
+      circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity? Did you ever
+      expect to see lines of care on that forehead? Who would have supposed that
+      the brain of that colossus could be excited? The man has felt his heart! I
+      am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge of repentance, my dear
+      abbe. That which I have hitherto observed has developed in men who were
+      awaiting punishment, or enduring it to get quits with the world; they were
+      either resigned, or breathing vengeance; but here is remorse without
+      expiation, remorse pure and simple, fastening on its prey and rending
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The judge stopped Minoret and said: &ldquo;Do you know that Mademoiselle Mirouet
+      has refused your son&rsquo;s hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; interposed the abbe, &ldquo;do not be uneasy; she will prevent the duel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, then my wife succeeded?&rdquo; said Minoret. &ldquo;I am very glad, for it nearly
+      killed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,&rdquo;
+       remarked Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+      betrayed the dreams; but the abbe&rsquo;s face was unmoved, expressing only a
+      calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is the more surprising,&rdquo; went on Monsieur Bongrand, &ldquo;because you
+      ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and all those
+      farms and mills and meadows and&mdash;with your investments in the Funds,
+      you have an income of one hundred thousand francs&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t anything in the Funds,&rdquo; cried Minoret, hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh,&rdquo; said Bongrand; &ldquo;this is just as it was about your son&rsquo;s love for
+      Ursula,&mdash;first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage. After
+      trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a daughter-in-law.
+      My good friend, you have got some secret in your pouch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+      better than:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen&rdquo;; and he turned with a
+      slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;but how
+      can we ever find the proof?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God may&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man; but
+      all that is merely what is called &lsquo;presumptive,&rsquo; and human justice
+      requires something more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in similar
+      circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think of the
+      robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien&rsquo;s happiness,
+      delayed only by Ursula&rsquo;s loss of fortune&mdash;for the old lady had
+      privately owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not consenting
+      to the marriage in the doctor&rsquo;s lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS VERY
+      EASILY STOLEN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying mass, a
+      thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance of
+      a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied her
+      home without having breakfasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I want to see the two volumes your godfather showed
+      you in your dreams&mdash;where he said that he placed those certificates
+      and banknotes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third volume
+      of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not without
+      surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which still kept
+      the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found a sort of
+      hollow made by the long-continued presence of a package, which had left
+      its traces on the two pages next to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand,&rdquo; La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+      justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was putting on
+      his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s hand-writing on
+      the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the cover of
+      the volume,&mdash;figures which Ursula had just discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the meaning of those figures?&rdquo; said the abbe; &ldquo;our dear doctor was
+      too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable volume. Here
+      are three numbers written between a first number preceded by the letter M
+      and a last number preceded by a U.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking of?&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;Let me see that. Good God!&rdquo; he
+      cried, after a moment&rsquo;s examination; &ldquo;it would open the eyes of an atheist
+      as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I believe, the
+      development of the divine thought which hovers over the worlds.&rdquo; He seized
+      Ursula and kissed her forehead. &ldquo;Oh! my child, you will be rich and happy,
+      and all through me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; exclaimed the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, monsieur,&rdquo; cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand&rsquo;s blue overcoat, &ldquo;let
+      me kiss you for what you&rsquo;ve just said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explain, explain! don&rsquo;t give us false hopes,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich,&rdquo; said Ursula, forseeing a
+      criminal trial, &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; said the justice, interrupting her, &ldquo;the happiness you will
+      give to Savinien.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you mad?&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my dear friend,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;Listen; the certificates in the
+      Funds are issued in series,&mdash;as many series as there are letters in
+      the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+      certificates which are made out &lsquo;to bearer&rsquo; cannot have a letter; they are
+      not in any person&rsquo;s name. What you see there shows that the day the doctor
+      placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number of his own
+      certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears his initial
+      M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to bearer; these are without a
+      letter; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula&rsquo;s share in the Funds, the
+      number of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see, that of the
+      fifteen-thousand-franc certificate with lettering. This goes far to prove
+      that those numbers are those of five certificates of investments made on
+      the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of loss. I advised him
+      to take certificates to bearer for Ursula&rsquo;s fortune, and he must have made
+      his own investment and that of Ursula&rsquo;s little property the same day. I&rsquo;ll
+      go to Dionis&rsquo;s office and look at the inventory. If the number of the
+      certificate for his own investment is 23,533, letter M, we may be sure
+      that he invested, through the same broker on the same day, first his own
+      property on a single certificate; secondly his savings in three
+      certificates to bearer (numbered, but without the series letter); thirdly,
+      Ursula&rsquo;s own property; the transfer books will show, of course, undeniable
+      proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you deceiver, I have you&mdash;Motus, my
+      children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways by
+      which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The finger of God is in all this,&rdquo; cried the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will they punish him?&rdquo; asked Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, mademoiselle,&rdquo; cried La Bougival. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d give the rope to hang him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand was already at Goupil&rsquo;s, now the appointed successor of Dionis,
+      but he entered the office with a careless air. &ldquo;I have a little matter to
+      verify about the Minoret property,&rdquo; he said to Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent Funds?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year,&rdquo; said Goupil; &ldquo;I recorded
+      it myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then just look on the inventory,&rdquo; said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+      place, and read:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Item, one certificate&rsquo;&mdash;Here, read for yourself&mdash;under the
+      number 23,533, letter M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an hour,&rdquo;
+       said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good is it to you?&rdquo; asked Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to be a notary?&rdquo; answered the justice of peace, looking
+      sternly at Dionis&rsquo;s proposed successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do,&rdquo; cried Goupil. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve swallowed too many affronts not to
+      succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable creature
+      once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre Jean-Sebastien-Marie
+      Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of Mademoiselle Massin. The two
+      beings do not know each other. They are no longer even alike. Look at me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil&rsquo;s clothes. The new
+      notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with
+      ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of
+      handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his hair,
+      carefully combed, was perfumed&mdash;in short he was metamorphosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is you are another man,&rdquo; said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice&mdash;a
+      practice; besides, money is the source of cleanliness&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morally as well as physically,&rdquo; returned Bongrand, settling his
+      spectacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever a
+      democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what refinement
+      is, and who intends to love his wife,&rdquo; said Goupil; &ldquo;and what&rsquo;s more, I
+      shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, make haste,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;Let me have that copy in an hour, and
+      notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the
+      clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he
+      went back to Ursula&rsquo;s house for the two important volumes and for her own
+      certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the inventory, he
+      drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the procureur du roi.
+      Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft of the three
+      certificates by one or other of the heirs,&mdash;presumably by Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His conduct is explained,&rdquo; said the procureur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury to
+      withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go to
+      Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a
+      polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie, very uneasy about her son&rsquo;s duel, dressed herself at once, had the
+      horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The procureur&rsquo;s
+      plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the husband, and
+      bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he expected to learn the
+      truth. Zelie found the official in his private office and was utterly
+      annihilated when he addressed her as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft that
+      has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of which the
+      law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of
+      appearing in the prisoner&rsquo;s dock by making a full confession of what you
+      know about it. The punishment which your husband has incurred is,
+      moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son&rsquo;s career is to be
+      thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be too
+      late. The police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant is made
+      out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+      everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+      accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+      either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any publicity
+      been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a great crime,
+      which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be
+      considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make you a
+      prisoner&mdash;oh, in my own house, on parole,&rdquo; he added, seeing that
+      Zelie was about to faint. &ldquo;You must remember that my official duty would
+      require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination; but I am
+      acting now individually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and
+      her best interests demand a compromise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; exclaimed Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write to your husband in the following words,&rdquo; he continued, placing
+      Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;My Friend,&mdash;I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+      make,&rdquo; said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie&rsquo;s orthography. &ldquo;We will see
+      that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay in our
+      house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of the matter
+      and not to appear anxious or unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate sent
+      for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father&rsquo;s theft, which was
+      really to Ursula&rsquo;s injury, but, as matters stood, legally to that of his
+      co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother. Desire at once
+      asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his father made
+      immediate restitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very serious matter,&rdquo; said the magistrate. &ldquo;The will having been
+      destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and Cremiere may
+      put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father. I will release
+      your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has already taken place
+      has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To her, I will seem to have
+      yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take her with you to Nemours,
+      and manage the whole matter as best you can. Don&rsquo;t fear any one. Monsieur
+      Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too well to let the matter become known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+      procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter, the
+      orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule on a
+      man crushed by affliction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur,&mdash;God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+      irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at Nemours
+      a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the carriage; the
+      horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their impatience, jumped down to
+      hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the box. As he turned
+      to resume his place in the carriage beside his mother the horses started;
+      Desire did not step back against the parapet in time; the step of the
+      carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the hind wheel passing over
+      his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for the best surgeon will bring
+      you this letter, which my son in the midst of his sufferings desires me to
+      write so as to let you know our entire submission to your decisions in the
+      matter about which he was coming to speak to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you
+      have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francois Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds standing
+      about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell Savinien that
+      his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful than his own. He went
+      at once to Ursula&rsquo;s house, where he found both the abbe and the young girl
+      more distressed than surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and surgeons
+      from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be amputated,
+      Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied by the abbe, to
+      Ursula&rsquo;s house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand and Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+      wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that I can
+      expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in absolute
+      possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and also in case
+      we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you, my dear Ursula,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;that you can and that
+      you ought to accept a part of this gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you forgive me?&rdquo; said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the astonished
+      girl. &ldquo;The operation is about to be performed by the first surgeon of the
+      Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely only on the power
+      of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to restore our son to us,
+      he will have strength to bear the agony and we shall have the joy of
+      saving him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go to the church!&rdquo; cried Ursula, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and she
+      fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her friends&mdash;but
+      not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor&mdash;looking at her with anxious
+      eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw my godfather standing in the doorway,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and he signed to
+      me that there was no hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The day after the operation Desire died,&mdash;carried off by the fever
+      and the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+      Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became
+      insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the
+      establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married Savinien
+      with Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s consent. Minoret took part in the marriage
+      contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate at Rouvre
+      and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds; keeping for
+      himself only his uncle&rsquo;s house and ten thousand francs a year. He has
+      become the most charitable of men, and the most religious; he is
+      churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of the
+      unfortunate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor take the place of my son,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll the
+      oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out its
+      twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you will
+      have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,&mdash;broken,
+      emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial
+      dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the beginning of this
+      history; he does not even take his snuff as he once did; he carries
+      something more now than the weight of his body. Beholding him, we feel
+      that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful
+      warning. After hating so violently his uncle&rsquo;s godchild the old man now,
+      like Doctor Minoret himself, has concentrated all his affections on her,
+      and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year in Paris,
+      where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
+      Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house in Nemours to the
+      Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live at Rouvre, where La
+      Bougival keeps the porter&rsquo;s lodge. Cabirolle, the former conductor of the
+      &ldquo;Ducler,&rdquo; a man sixty years of age, has married La Bougival and the twelve
+      hundred francs a year which she possesses besides the ample emoluments of
+      her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur de Portenduere&rsquo;s coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming little
+      low carriages called &lsquo;escargots,&rsquo; lined with gray silk and trimmed with
+      blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire because her face
+      is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as forget-me-nots
+      and filled with love; if you see her bending slightly towards a fine young
+      man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of envy&mdash;pause and
+      reflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have paid their quota
+      to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married lovers are the
+      Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife. There is not another such home in
+      Paris as theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen,&rdquo; said the Comtesse de
+      l&rsquo;Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for yourselves,
+      a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best of all mothers&mdash;adversity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+      wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he is
+      punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous. Dionis, his
+      predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is one of
+      the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king of the French,
+      who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis relates to the
+      whole town of Nemours the particulars of her receptions at the Tuileries
+      and the splendor of the court of the king of the French. She lords it over
+      Nemours by means of the throne, which therefore must be popular in the
+      little town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is in
+      the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the occasion
+      of her daughter&rsquo;s marriage, she exhorted her to be the working caterpillar
+      of the household, and to look into everything with the eyes of a sphinx.
+      Goupil is making a collection of her &ldquo;slapsus-linquies,&rdquo; which he calls a
+      Cremiereana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon,&rdquo; said the
+      Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter&mdash;having nursed him herself
+      during his illness. &ldquo;The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is very
+      fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the venerable
+      cure of Saint-Lange.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Bouvard, Doctor
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Dionis
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Estorade, Madame de l&rsquo; 
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Kergarouet, Comte de
+       The Purse
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       The Thirteen
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Twon
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Beatrix
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Beatrix
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Schmucke, Wilhelm
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Father Goriot
+       Gobseck
+       A Man of Business
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       A Daughter of Eve
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+  <div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1223 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10fe71b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #1223 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1223)
diff --git a/old/1223-0.txt b/old/1223-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c7994d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1223-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9489 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ursula
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February, 1997  [Etext #1223]
+Posting Date: February 21, 2010
+Last Updated: November 23, 2016
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers and Bonnie Sala
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+  To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+  It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+  book, the subject and details of which have won the
+  approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+  world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+  the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+  indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+  to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+  are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+  prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+  therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+  pleased you?
+
+  God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+  --the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+  Your uncle,
+  De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+
+Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the
+steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields
+and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little
+town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been built on the
+farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place
+will lose its present aspect of graceful originality.
+
+In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of
+the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting one
+fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at
+a glance the whole of what is called in his business a “ruban de queue.”
+ The month of September was displaying its treasures; the atmosphere
+glowed above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the blue of the
+sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed
+the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault (for that was
+the post master’s name) was obliged to shade his eyes with one hand to
+keep them from being dazzled. With the air of a man who was tired of
+waiting, he looked first to the charming meadows which lay to the
+right of the road where the aftermath was springing up, then to the
+hill-slopes covered with copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours
+to Bouron. He could hear in the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on
+the road were echoed back from the hills, the trot of his own horses and
+the crack of his postilion’s whip.
+
+None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such
+meadows, filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath
+a Raffaelle sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema.
+Whoever knows Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art,
+whose mission is to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas and
+creates thought. But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an artist
+would very likely have left the view to sketch the man, so original was
+he in his native commonness. Unite in a human being all the conditions
+of the brute and you have a Caliban, who is certainly a great thing.
+Wherever form rules, sentiment disappears. The post master, a living
+proof of that axiom, presented a physiognomy in which an observer could
+with difficulty trace, beneath the vivid carnation of its coarsely
+developed flesh, the semblance of a soul. His cap of blue cloth, with
+a small peak, and sides fluted like a melon, outlined a head of vast
+dimensions, showing that Gall’s science has not yet produced its chapter
+of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny hair which appeared below the
+cap showed that other causes than mental toil or grief had whitened
+it. Large ears stood out from the head, their edges scarred with the
+eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which seemed ready to gush at the
+least exertion. His skin was crimson under an outside layer of
+brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun. The roving gray eyes,
+deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows, were like those of the
+Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they ever sparkled it was
+only under the influence of a covetous thought. His broad pug nose was
+flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping with a repulsive double
+chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more than once a week, was
+encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted to a cord; a short
+neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of
+brute force which sculptors give to their caryatids. Minoret-Levrault
+was like those statues, with this difference, that whereas they
+supported an edifice, he had more than he could well do to support
+himself. You will meet many such Atlases in the world. The man’s torso
+was a block; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His
+vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong
+and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his
+postilions never attempted to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this
+giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary
+adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a rare thing with
+him, but it was terrible, apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though
+violent and quite incapable of reflection, the man had never done
+anything that justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence.
+To all those who felt afraid of him his postilions would reply, “Oh!
+he’s not bad.”
+
+The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country,
+wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green
+linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat’s
+skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of
+a monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without
+exception.
+
+A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
+did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had never
+set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private principles,
+he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did not forbid or
+could not prevent he considered right. He never read anything but
+the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed
+instructions relating to his business. He was considered a clever
+agriculturist; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral
+being did not belie the physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking
+he always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas,
+but words. If he had been a talker you would have felt that he was out
+of keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet
+and without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to
+agree with Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes
+ridicule and sometimes foretell characters.
+
+In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty
+thousand francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If Minoret,
+being master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the Gatinais to
+Paris, still worked at his business, it was less from habit than for the
+sake of an only son, to whom he was anxious to give a fine career. This
+son, who was now (to use an expression of the peasantry) a “monsieur,”
+ had just completed his legal studies and was about to take his degree as
+licentiate, preparatory to being called to the Bar. Monsieur and Madame
+Minoret-Levrault--for behind our colossus every one will perceive
+a woman without whom this signal good-fortune would have been
+impossible--left their son free to choose his own career; he might be a
+notary in Paris, king’s-attorney in some district, collector of customs
+no matter where, broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of
+his could they ever refuse him? to what position of life might he
+not aspire as the son of a man about whom the whole countryside, from
+Montargis to Essonne, was in the habit of saying, “Pere Minoret doesn’t
+even know how rich he is”?
+
+This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this
+history begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and a
+splendid dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand’Rue to the
+wharf. The new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs, which the
+gossip of thirty miles in circumference more than doubled. The Nemours
+mail-coach service requires a large number of horses. It goes to
+Fontainebleau on the road to Paris, and from there diverges to Montargis
+and also to Montereau. The relays are long, and the sandy soil of the
+Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, always paid for but
+never seen. A man of Minoret’s build, and Minoret’s wealth, at the head
+of such an establishment might well be called, without contradiction,
+the master of Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being
+a practical materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a
+practical egoist, and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to
+this time a life of unmixed happiness,--if we can call pure materialism
+happiness. A physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered
+the last vertebrae and pressed upon the giant’s cerebellum, and, above
+all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice which contrasted so absurdly with
+his huge body, would have understood why this ponderous, coarse being
+adored his only son, and why he had so long expected him,--a fact proved
+by the name, Desire, which was given to the child.
+
+The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+mother’s coffer and dipped into his father’s purse, making each author
+of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire,
+who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his
+father’s capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had
+gratified them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum
+of not less than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal
+studies. But for that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would
+never had come to him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial
+skin, learned the power of money and seen in the magistracy a means of
+advancement which he fancied. During the last year he had spent an extra
+sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists, journalists, and
+their mistresses. A confidential and rather disquieting letter from his
+son, asking for his consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the
+post master was now keeping on the bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault,
+busy in preparing a sumptuous breakfast to celebrate the triumphal
+return of the licentiate, had sent her husband to the mail road,
+advising him to take a horse and ride out if he saw nothing of the
+diligence. The coach which was conveying the precious son usually
+arrived at five in the morning and it was now nine! What could be the
+meaning of such delay? Was the coach overturned? Could Desire be dead?
+Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg?
+
+Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge
+of musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten
+horses neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was
+seen. The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray
+carriage-horses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the
+five diligence horses and the three other carriage-horses, and soon
+reached his master.
+
+“Have you seen the ‘Ducler’?”
+
+On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+different coaches; such, for instance, as the “Caillard,” the “Ducler”
+ (the coach between Nemours and Paris), the “Grand Bureau.” Every new
+enterprise is called the “Competition.” In the days of the Lecompte
+company their coaches were called the “Countess.”--“‘Caillard’ could not
+overtake the ‘Countess’; but ‘Grand Bureau’ caught up with her finely,”
+ you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing his horses
+and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he will
+tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space, “The
+‘Competition’ is ahead.”--“We can’t get in sight of her,” cries
+the postilion; “the vixen! she wouldn’t stop to let her passengers
+dine.”--“The question is, has she got any?” responds the conductor.
+“Give it to Polignac!” All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac.
+Such are the jokes and the basis of conversation between postilions and
+conductors on the roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each calling in
+France has its slang.
+
+“Have you seen the ‘Ducler’?” asked Minoret.
+
+“Monsieur Desire?” said the postilion, interrupting his master. “Hey!
+you must have heard us, didn’t our whips tell you? we felt you were
+somewhere along the road.”
+
+Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,--for the bells were
+pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,--a
+woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+
+“Well, cousin,” she said, “you wouldn’t believe me--Uncle is with Ursula
+in the Grand’Rue, and they are going to mass.”
+
+In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought
+from the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew sibilant,
+and his face took on the appearance of what people oddly enough call a
+sunstroke.
+
+“Is that true?” he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was
+over.
+
+The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed
+him, but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for
+his son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand’Rue with his cousin.
+
+“Didn’t I always tell you so?” she resumed. “When Doctor Minoret
+goes out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into
+religion; whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and
+she’ll have our inheritance.”
+
+“But, Madame Massin--” said the post master, dumbfounded.
+
+“There now!” exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. “You are
+going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen
+can’t invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of
+eighty-three, who has never set foot in a church except to be married,
+change his opinions,--now don’t tell me he has such a horror of priests
+that he wouldn’t even go with the girl to the parish church when she
+made her first communion. I’d like to know why, if Doctor Minoret hates
+priests, he has spent nearly every evening for the last fifteen years of
+his life with the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite never fails to give
+Ursula twenty francs for wax tapers every time she takes the sacrament.
+Have you forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to
+the cure for preparing her for her first communion? She spent all her
+money on it, and her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men!
+you don’t pay attention to things. When I heard that, I said to myself,
+‘Farewell baskets, the vintage is done!’ A rich uncle doesn’t behave
+that way to a little brat picked up in the streets without some good
+reason.”
+
+“Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door of
+the church,” replied the post master. “It is a fine day, and he is out
+for a walk.”
+
+“I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious--you’ll
+see him.”
+
+“They hide their game pretty well,” said Minoret, “La Bougival told me
+there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the
+globe; he’d give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable
+of a base action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is--”
+
+“Theft,” said Madame Massin.
+
+“Worse!” cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+gossiping neighbour.
+
+“Of course I know,” said Madame Massin, “that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we’re done
+for. My husband is absolutely beside himself.”
+
+Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and
+to the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way to
+mass. She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the post
+master.
+
+Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of
+which runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the
+stones of which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt
+in the fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised to
+a peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a
+great arch which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does
+everything. Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly
+kept square, this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect. As
+the post master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his uncle
+with the young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying prayer-books
+and just entering the church. The old man took off his hat in the porch,
+and his head, which was white as a hill-top covered with snow, shone
+among the shadows of the portal.
+
+“Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?” cried
+the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+
+“What do you expect me to say?” replied the post master, offering him a
+pinch of snuff.
+
+“Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can’t say what you think, if it is
+true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his
+words before he speaks his thoughts,” cried a young man, standing near,
+who played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+
+This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct that
+was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office when a
+career in Paris--where the clerk had wasted all the money he inherited
+from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a notary--was
+brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere sight of Goupil
+told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life, and had paid
+dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and shoulders were
+developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a man of forty.
+Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion like
+the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead, brought out still
+further the oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it
+belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularity
+of that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible
+gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many
+deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of
+dividing it down the middle. The mouth, contracted at the corners, like
+that of a Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin
+and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His
+hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too
+long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit
+for the dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his
+coat and trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt,
+his pitiful waistcoat with half the button-moulds gone, an old silk
+handkerchief which served as a cravat--in short, all his clothing
+revealed the cynical poverty to which his passions had reduced him. This
+combination of disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with
+yellow circles round the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious
+and cowardly. No one in Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more
+deferred to than Goupil. Strong in the claims made for him by his very
+ugliness, he had the odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow
+themselves all license, and he used it to gratify the bitterness of
+his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical couplets sung during the
+carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a “little journal” of
+the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for
+that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind
+and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master
+so distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to
+let him live in his house, held him at arm’s length, and never confided
+any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk fawned
+upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and watching
+Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge there. Gifted
+with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work easy.
+
+“You!” exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+hands, “making game of our misfortunes already?”
+
+As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis’ passions for the last
+five years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting
+the hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil’s heart with every
+fresh insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to him
+than it was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the whole
+bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret’s
+son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of three town
+offices,--that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of
+the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up
+with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire,
+consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each
+vacation,--devouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+
+“If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given
+God to ME for a co-heir,” retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which
+exhibited his teeth--few, black, and menacing.
+
+Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector
+of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had
+the physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as sloes
+beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without
+any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like
+a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough
+to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal
+notices.
+
+Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by
+red blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and
+supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of pretensions to
+wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle’s money to “take a certain
+stand,” decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her
+husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles
+the notary’s wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who
+caught up and retailed her “slapsus-linquies” as she called them. One
+day Madame Dionis chanced to ask what “Eau” she thought best for the
+teeth.
+
+“Try opium,” she replied.
+
+Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled
+in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so
+generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet
+umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so
+picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on
+the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between
+large villages and cities those who do not go to mass stand about in the
+square or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of
+church service was a weekly exchange, to which the owners of property
+scattered over a radius of some miles resorted.
+
+“Well, how would you have prevented it?” said the post master to Goupil
+in reply to his remark.
+
+“I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes.
+But from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance
+of a rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman--for
+want of proper care they’ll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were here
+she could tell you how true that comparison is.”
+
+“But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry
+about,” said Massin.
+
+“Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!” cried Goupil, laughing.
+“I would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace say it. If
+there is nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with your uncle,
+knows that all is lost, the proper thing for him to say to you is,
+‘Don’t be worried.’”
+
+As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin
+had let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as a
+clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin, with
+the words:--“Didn’t I tell you so?”
+
+Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was
+at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+Rouvre, a former client.
+
+“If I were sure of it!” he said.
+
+“You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis
+du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don’t you see how Bongrand
+is sprinkling him with advice?” said Goupil, slipping an idea of
+retaliation into Massin’s mind. “But you had better go easy with your
+chief; he’s a clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your
+uncle and persuade him not to leave everything to the church.”
+
+“Pooh! we sha’n’t die of it,” said Minoret-Levrault, opening his
+enormous snuff-box.
+
+“You won’t live of it, either,” said Goupil, making the two women
+tremble. More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the privations
+this loss of inheritance (so long counted on for many comforts) would
+be to them. “However,” added Goupil, “we’ll drown this little grief in
+floods of champagne in honor of Desire!--sha’n’t we, old fellow?” he
+cried, tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting himself to the
+feast for fear he should be left out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE RICH UNCLE
+
+Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like to
+read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees
+of relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted
+to religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+subject of many instructive reflections.
+
+There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the
+latter we may mention the d’Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate
+of Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the
+town had no money. Madame de Portenduere’s sole possessions were a
+farm which brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her town
+house.
+
+In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a
+group of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former
+merchants; in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived
+and moved the retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry. The
+bourgeoisie presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other
+small countries) the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain
+autochthonous families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who
+rule a whole region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants are
+cousins. Under Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made
+real names of their surnames (some of which are united with those of
+feudalism) the bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets, Massins,
+Levraults and Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four families had
+already produced the Massin-Cremieres, the Levrault-Massins, the
+Massin-Minorets, the Minoret-Minorets, the Cremiere-Levraults,
+the Levrault-Minoret-Massins, Massin-Levraults, Minoret-Massins,
+Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,--all these varied with juniors
+and diversified with the names of eldest sons, as for instance,
+Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret--enough to drive a
+Pere Anselme of the People frantic,--if the people should ever want a
+genealogist.
+
+The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of
+the bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of
+the Almanach of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they
+arrange those zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the Minorets
+occupied the tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the Massins were
+in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the
+neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending
+only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings by the expatriation
+of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for instance, there are
+Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at Montargis; Massins
+at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in Paris. Divers are the
+destinies of these bees from the parent hive. Rich Massins employ, of
+course, the poor working Massins--just as Austria and Prussia take the
+German princes into their service. It may happen that a public office is
+managed by a Minoret millionaire and guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full
+of the same blood and called by the same name (for sole likeness), these
+four roots had ceaselessly woven a human network of which each thread
+was delicate or strong, fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same
+blood was in the head and in the feet and in the heart, in the working
+hands, in the weakly lungs, in the forehead big with genius.
+
+The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the
+ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which
+happened under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France you
+may be, you will find the same thing under changed names, but without
+the poetic charm which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter Scott’s
+genius reproduced so faithfully. Let us look a little higher and
+examine humanity as it appears in history. All the noble families of the
+eleventh century, most of them (except the royal race of Capet) extinct
+to-day, will be found to have contributed to the birth of the Rohans,
+Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and Mortemarts of our time,--in fact they
+will all be found in the blood of the last gentleman who is indeed a
+gentleman. In other words, every bourgeois is cousin to a bourgeois, and
+every noble is cousin to a noble. A splendid page of biblical genealogy
+shows that in one thousand years three families, Shem, Ham, and Japhet,
+peopled the globe. One family may become a nation; unfortunately, a
+nation may become one family. To prove this we need only search back
+through our ancestors and see their accumulation, which time increases
+into a retrograde geometric progression, which multiplies of itself;
+reminding us of the calculation of the wise man who, being told to
+choose a reward from the king of Persia for inventing chess, asked
+for one ear of wheat for the first move on the board, the reward to be
+doubled for each succeeding move; when it was found that the kingdom was
+not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobility, hemmed in by
+the net-work of the bourgeoisie,--the antagonism of two protected races,
+one protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience of
+labor and the shrewdness of commerce,--produced the revolution of 1789.
+The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with collaterals
+without a heritage. What are they to do? Our political future is big
+with the answer.
+
+The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret was
+so numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose entrance
+into the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to seek
+his fortune, and seldom returned to his native town, until he came to
+receive his share of the inheritance of his grandfather. After suffering
+many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle for a place in
+the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets reached a nobler
+destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the start. He devoted
+himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a profession which demands
+both talent and a cheerful nature, but the latter qualification even
+more than talent. Backed by Dupont de Nemours, connected by a lucky
+chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and
+protected by the Encyclopedists, Doctor Minoret attached himself as
+liegeman to the famous Doctor Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D’Alembert,
+Helvetius, the Baron d’Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt
+himself a mere boy. These men, influenced by Bordeu’s example, became
+interested in Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with
+a very good practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists,
+materialists, or whatever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers
+of that period.
+
+Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous balm
+of Lelievre, so much extolled by the “Mercure de France,” the weekly
+organ of the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was permanently
+advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a stroke
+of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for the
+dispensary, and he loyally shared his profits with the doctor, who was
+a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine. Less
+than that would make a man a materialist.
+
+The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the “Nouvelle
+Heloise,” when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His
+wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet,
+a celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew.
+Minoret knew Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental
+in awarding him a gold medal for a dissertation on the following
+subject: “What is the origin of the opinion that covers a whole family
+with the shame attaching to the public punishment of a guilty member of
+it? Is that opinion more harmful than useful? If yes, in what way can
+the harm be warded off.” The Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at
+Metz, to which Minoret belonged, must possess this dissertation in the
+original. Though, thanks to this friendship, the Doctor’s wife need
+have had no fear, she was so in dread of going to the scaffold that
+her terror increased a disposition to heart disease caused by the
+over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all the precautions taken
+by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately met the tumbril of
+victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock caused her death.
+Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her nothing, and had
+given her a life of luxury, found himself after her death almost a
+poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as surgeon-in-charge of a
+hospital.
+
+Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled
+him to the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a
+destroyer of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of Doctor
+Minoret, who was induced to think of returning there to die, like the
+hare to its form, by a circumstance that was wholly accidental.
+
+Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a fresh
+cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering beneath
+a cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow? Wakened by
+the “hu! hu!” of the postilion as he walks beside his horses, we shake
+off sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream, the beautiful
+scene which is to the traveler what a noble passage in a book is to a
+reader,--a brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the sensation caused
+by a first sight of Nemours as we approach it from Burgundy. We see it
+encircled with bare rocks, gray, black, white, fantastic in shape like
+those we find in the forest of Fontainebleau; from them spring scattered
+trees, clearly defined against the sky, which give to this particular
+rock formation the dilapidated look of a crumbling wall. Here ends the
+long wooded hill which creeps from Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road.
+At the bottom of this irregular amphitheater lie meadow-lands through
+which flows the Loing, forming sheets of water with many falls. This
+delightful landscape, which continues the whole way to Montargis, is
+like an opera scene, for its effects really seem to have been studied.
+
+One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a
+rich patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having mentioned
+at the last relay the route he intended to take, he was brought without
+his knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more, on waking from a
+nap, the scenery in which his childhood had been passed. He had lately
+lost many of his old friends. The votary of the Encyclopedists had
+witnessed the conversion of La Harpe; he had buried Lebrun-Pindare and
+Marie-Joseph de Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame Helvetius. He assisted
+at the quasi-fall of Voltaire when assailed by Geoffroy, the continuator
+of Freton. For some time past he had thought of retiring, and so, when
+his post chaise stopped at the head of the Grand’Rue of Nemours, his
+heart prompted him to inquire for his family. Minoret-Levrault, the post
+master, came forward himself to see the doctor, who discovered him to
+be the son of his eldest brother. The nephew presented the doctor to
+his wife, the only daughter of the late Levrault-Cremiere, who had died
+twelve years earlier, leaving him the post business and the finest inn
+in Nemours.
+
+“Well, nephew,” said the doctor, “have I any other relatives?”
+
+“My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin--”
+
+“Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange.”
+
+“She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place.”
+
+“Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a
+bachelor, and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I am,
+that ends the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal side?
+My mother was a Jean-Massin-Levrault.”
+
+“Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault’s there’s only one left,” answered
+Minoret-Levrault, “namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur
+Cremiere-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the
+scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one
+daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is
+doing well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary’s
+clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith.”
+
+“So I’ve plenty of heirs,” said the doctor gayly, immediately proposing
+to take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+
+The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor turned
+into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the property of
+Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he said, had just
+died.
+
+“The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there’s a
+charming garden running down to the river.”
+
+“Let us go in,” said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a
+small paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the
+two neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and
+climbing-plants.
+
+“It is built over a cellar,” said the doctor, going up the steps of
+a high portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which
+geraniums were growing.
+
+Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room
+to the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the courtyard and
+two on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows
+to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended
+from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda.
+
+“Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor,” said
+old Minoret, “I could put my book there and make a very comfortable
+study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end.”
+
+On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the
+dining-room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and
+gold flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
+staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
+pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
+courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers on
+the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were
+fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and observing that
+it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the
+courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which ended in a terrace
+overlooking the river and adorned with pottery vases,--the doctor
+remarked:--
+
+“Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here.”
+
+“Ho! I should think so,” answered Minoret-Levrault. “He liked
+flowers--nonsense! ‘What do they bring in?’ says my wife. You saw inside
+there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the
+corridor. He put those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were
+all re-made with cornices which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room
+floor is in marquetry--perfect folly! The house won’t sell for a penny
+the more.”
+
+“Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here’s
+my address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?” he
+asked, as they left the house.
+
+“Emigres,” answered the post master, “named Portenduere.”
+
+The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of living
+there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was therefore
+occupied by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice
+to Dionis, his head-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house
+on the doctor’s hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was
+being decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor’s heirs, at first misled,
+had by this time decided that his thought of returning to his native
+place was merely a rich man’s fancy, and that probably he had some tie
+in Paris which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for
+inheritance. However, Minoret-Levrault’s wife seized the occasion
+to write him a letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace
+was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe communications
+established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He did, in fact, put in
+an appearance with two of his clients, the architect of his hospital and
+an upholsterer, who took charge of the repairs, the indoor arrangements,
+and the transportation of the furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault
+proposed the cook of the late notary as caretaker, and the woman was
+accepted.
+
+When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was really
+coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the political
+events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and on the
+Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising. Was
+he rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune or
+nothing? Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out
+what follows, but only by taking infinite pains and employing much
+subterraneous spying.
+
+After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years 1789
+and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician to the
+Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no one knew
+how much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than a carriage
+by the year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no guests, and dined
+out almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at not being allowed to
+go with him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the post master’s wife,
+that she knew the doctor had fourteen thousand francs a year on the
+“grand-livre.” Now, after twenty years’ exercise of a profession which
+his position as head of a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member
+of the Institute, rendered lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs a
+year showed only one hundred and sixty thousand francs laid by. To have
+saved only eight thousand francs a year the doctor must have had either
+many vices or many virtues to gratify. But neither his housekeeper
+nor Zelie nor any one else could discover the reason for such moderate
+means. Minoret, who when he left it was much regretted in the quarter
+of Paris where he had lived, was one of the most benevolent of men, and,
+like Larrey, kept his kind deeds a profound secret.
+
+The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle’s fine furniture and large
+library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being
+now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king
+a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel--perhaps on account of his
+retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the
+architect and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything in
+the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, who kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as if
+her own property was concerned, found out, through the indiscretion of a
+young man sent to arrange the books, that the doctor was taking care of
+a little orphan named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire through the
+town. At last, however, towards the middle of the month of January,
+1815, the old man actually arrived, installing himself quietly, almost
+slyly, with a little girl about ten months old, and a nurse.
+
+“The child can’t be his daughter,” said the terrified heirs; “he is
+seventy-one years old.”
+
+“Whoever she is,” remarked Madame Massin, “she’ll give us plenty of
+tintouin” (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+more literally, tingling in the ears).
+
+The doctor received his great-niece on the mother’s side somewhat
+coldly; her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court, and
+the pair began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither Massin
+nor his wife were rich. Massin’s father, a locksmith at Montargis,
+had been obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was now, at
+sixty-seven years of age, working like a young man, and had nothing to
+leave behind him. Madame Massin’s father, Levrault-Minoret, had just
+died at Montereau after the battle, in despair at seeing his farm
+burned, his fields ruined, his cattle slaughtered.
+
+“We’ll get nothing out of your great-uncle,” said Massin to his wife,
+now pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+
+The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with which
+Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began
+the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the
+peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him
+to hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+
+As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through
+his influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his
+bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his wife,
+being jealous of the uncle’s liberality to his two nieces, took her
+ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be to
+them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so much. The
+doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at the school of
+Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth class.
+
+Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+“rated without appeal” by the doctor within two months of his arrival
+in Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions
+of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a
+glance; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount of
+intellect to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his heirs, and
+thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor made a pretext
+of his occupations, his habits, and the care of the little Ursula to
+avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing his doors to them.
+He liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he got up late; he had
+returned to his native place for the very purpose of finding rest
+in solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be natural, and his
+relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly visits on Sundays
+from one to four o’clock, to which, however, he tried to put a stop by
+saying: “Don’t come and see me unless you want something.”
+
+The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over serious
+cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not serve as a
+physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared that he no
+longer practiced his profession.
+
+“I’ve killed enough people,” he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon,
+who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+
+“He’s an original!” These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the
+harmless revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects
+about him a society of persons who have many of the characteristics of
+a set of heirs. Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves entitled
+to visit this distinguished physician kept up a ferment of jealousy
+against the few privileged friends whom he did admit to his intimacy,
+which had in the long run some unfortunate results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR’S FRIENDS
+
+Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that “extremes
+meet,” the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon
+friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the
+priesthood, and the Abbe Chaperon played it with about as much skill as
+he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret was
+charitable, and the abbe was the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had had
+a wide and varied education; the man of God was the only person in all
+Nemours who was fully capable of understanding the atheist. To be able
+to argue, men must first understand each other. What pleasure is there
+in saying sharp words to one who can’t feel them? The doctor and the
+priest had far too much taste and had seen too much of good society
+not to practice its precepts; they were thus well-fitted for the little
+warfare so essential to conversation. They hated each other’s opinions,
+but they valued each other’s character. If such conflicts and such
+sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we must surely despair of
+society, which, especially in France, requires some form of antagonism.
+It is from the shock of characters, and not from the struggle of
+opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+
+The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor’s chief friend. This
+excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so
+doing, the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his
+sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without
+inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited. His
+parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life,
+was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice
+manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in
+heaven which avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon argued with his
+servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his--if indeed
+that famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good priest often sold the
+buckles off his shoes and his breeches to give their value to some poor
+person who appealed to him at a moment when he had not a penny. When he
+was seen coming out of church with the straps of his breeches tied
+into the button-holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from the
+clock-maker and jeweler of the town and return them to their pastor with
+a lecture. He never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his
+garments till they scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns,
+rubbed his skin like a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good
+souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes
+with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find
+out the difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and
+spoons. When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high
+solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed
+linen and silver from his friend the atheist.
+
+“My silver is his salvation,” the doctor would say.
+
+These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious
+because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied,
+and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable
+accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy
+of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his
+intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most
+spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was
+never priest in a salon. Until Doctor Minoret’s arrival, the good man
+kept his light under a bushel without regret. Owning a rather fine
+library and an income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours,
+he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish
+priest, nearly the whole of which he gave away during the year. The
+giver of excellent counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes,
+many persons who never went to church to obtain consolation went to the
+parsonage to get advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete
+his portrait. Sometimes the peasants,--rarely, it is true, but
+occasionally,--unprincipled men, would tell him they were sued for debt,
+or would get themselves threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe’s
+benevolence. They would even deceive their wives, who, believing their
+chattels were threatened with an execution and their cows seized,
+deceived in their turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He
+would then manage with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight
+hundred francs demanded of him--with which the peasant bought himself
+a morsel of land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud,
+begging the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to
+such cupidity, he would say:--
+
+“But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land?
+Isn’t it doing good when we prevent evil?”
+
+Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the
+fact that science and literature had filled the heart and passed through
+the strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of age the
+abbe’s hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the sorrows of
+others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed upon
+him. Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as
+he used to say, uttered in “In manus.” He was of medium height,
+neither stout nor thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite
+colorless, attracted immediate attention by the absolute tranquillity
+expressed in its shape, and by the purity of its outline, which seemed
+to be edged with light. The face of a chaste man has an unspeakable
+radiance. Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the irregular
+features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead. His glance wielded
+a power which came of a gentleness that was not devoid of strength. The
+arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by huge gray eyebrows which
+alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone his mouth had lost its
+shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this physical destruction was
+not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of pleasantness, seemed to
+smile on others. Without being gouty his feet were tender; and he walked
+with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of calf’s skin all the
+year round. He thought the fashion of trousers unsuitable for priests,
+and he always appeared in stockings of coarse black yarn, knit by his
+housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He never went out in his cassock, but
+wore a brown overcoat, and still retained the three-cornered hat he had
+worn so courageously in times of danger. This noble and beautiful old
+man, whose face was glorified by the serenity of a soul above reproach,
+will be found to have so great an influence upon the men and things of
+this history, that it was proper to show the sources of his authority
+and power.
+
+Minoret took three newspapers,--one liberal, one ministerial, one
+ultra,--a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals,
+the accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers,
+encyclopaedias, and books were an attraction to a retired captain of the
+Royal-Swedish regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean nobleman
+and an old bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of pension and
+annuity combined. Having read the gazettes for several days, by favor
+of the abbe, Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to call and thank
+the doctor in person. At this first visit the old captain, formerly a
+professor at the Military Academy, won the doctor’s heart, who returned
+the call with alacrity. Monsieur de Jordy, a spare little man much
+troubled by his blood, though his face was very pale, attracted
+attention by the resemblance of his handsome brow to that of Charles
+XII.; above it he kept his hair cropped short, like that of the
+soldier-king. His blue eyes seemed to say that “Love had passed that
+way,” so mournful were they; revealing memories about which he kept such
+utter silence that his old friends never detected even an allusion to
+his past life, nor a single exclamation drawn forth by similarity
+of circumstances. He hid the painful mystery of his past beneath a
+philosophic gayety, but when he thought himself alone his motions,
+stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter of choice than the
+result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of distressful
+thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian ignorant of his
+Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather rigid demeanor
+and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military discipline. His
+sweet and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His beautiful hands and the
+general cut of his figure, recalling that of the Comte d’Artois, showed
+how charming he must have been in his youth, and made the mystery of
+his life still more mysterious. An observer asked involuntarily what
+misfortune had blighted such beauty, courage, grace, accomplishment,
+and all the precious qualities of the heart once united in his person.
+Monsieur de Jordy shuddered if Robespierre’s name were uttered before
+him. He took much snuff, but, strange to say, he gave up the habit
+to please little Ursula, who at first showed a dislike to him on that
+account. As soon as he saw the little girl the captain fastened his eyes
+upon her with a look that was almost passionate. He loved her play so
+extravagantly and took such interest in all she did that the tie between
+himself and the doctor grew closer every day, though the latter never
+dared to say to him, “You, too, have you lost children?” There are
+beings, kind and patient as old Jordy, who pass through life with a
+bitter thought in their heart and a tender but sorrowful smile on their
+lips, carrying with them to the grave the secret of their lives; letting
+no one guess it,--through pride, through disdain, possibly through
+revenge; confiding in none but God, without other consolation than his.
+
+Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of
+his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine
+o’clock. So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed
+early, in spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore a
+great piece of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when
+he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same
+language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went to
+bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret had
+passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that the
+priest and soldier returned every night regularly at nine o’clock, the
+hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was free.
+All three would then sit up till midnight or one o’clock.
+
+After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life
+was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer,
+the indulgence, knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for
+conversation which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their
+practical dealings with the souls, diseases, and education of men, was
+added to the number. Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of
+the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor’s
+society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for ten
+years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases, according
+to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers. He became a
+widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still too active
+to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the position of
+justice of peace at Nemours, which became vacant a few months before
+the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived modestly on his
+salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he might devote his
+private income to his son, who was studying law in Paris under the
+famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired chief of a civil
+service office; he had the peculiar face of a bureaucrat, less sallow
+than pallid, on which public business, vexations, and disgust leave
+their imprint,--a face lined by thought, and also by the continual
+restraints familiar to those who are trained not to speak their minds
+freely. It was often illumined by smiles characteristic of men who
+alternately believe all and believe nothing, who are accustomed to see
+and hear all without being startled, and to fathom the abysses which
+self-interest hollows in the depths of the human heart.
+
+Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn flattened
+to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow tones of which
+harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His face, with the
+features set close together, bore some likeness to that of a fox,
+all the more because his nose was short and pointed. In speaking,
+he spluttered at the mouth, which was broad like that of most great
+talkers,--a habit which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly, “An umbrella
+would be useful when listening to him,” or, “The justice rains
+verdicts.” His eyes looked keen behind his spectacles, but if he took
+the glasses off his dulled glance seemed almost vacant. Though he was
+naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt to give himself too important
+and pompous an air. He usually kept his hands in the pockets of his
+trousers, and only took them out to settle his eye-glasses on his nose,
+with a movement that was half comic, and which announced the coming of
+a keen observation or some victorious argument. His gestures, his
+loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the provincial
+lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he redeemed
+them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist might call
+the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like a fox,
+and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or dishonest. His
+wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing results and
+protecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved
+whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbe
+learned to play in a very short time.
+
+This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet’s
+salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and
+knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor
+to the profession, came there sometimes; but his duties and also his
+fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed early and to be up early)
+prevented his being as assiduously present as the three other friends.
+This intercourse of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who
+had sufficiently wide knowledge to understand each other, explains old
+Minoret’s aversion to his relatives; if he were compelled to leave them
+his money, at least he need not admit them to his society. Whether the
+post master, the sheriff, and the collector understood this distinction,
+or whether they were reassured by the evident loyalty and benefactions
+of their uncle, certain it is that they ceased, to his great
+satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about eight months after the
+arrival of the doctor these four players of whist and backgammon made
+a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a fraternal
+aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures of which
+were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits closed
+round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his individual
+tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge imagined himself her
+guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher, and as for Minoret, he
+was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+
+After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On Ursula’s
+account he received no visitors in the morning, and never gave dinners,
+but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at six o’clock and
+stay till midnight. The first-comers found the newspapers on the table
+and read them while awaiting the rest; or they sometimes sallied forth
+to meet the doctor if he were out for a walk. This tranquil life was not
+a mere necessity of old age, it was the wise and careful scheme of a man
+of the world to keep his happiness untroubled by the curiosity of
+his heirs and the gossip of a little town. He yielded nothing to that
+capricious goddess, public opinion, whose tyranny (one of the present
+great evils of France) was just beginning to establish its power and
+to make the whole nation a mere province. So, as soon as the child was
+weaned and could walk alone, the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom
+his niece, Madame Minoret-Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered
+that she told her patroness everything that happened in his household.
+
+Ursula’s nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but a
+baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child, aged
+six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and honest
+creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris (her
+maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached herself
+naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This blind
+maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household
+devotion. Told of the doctor’s intention to send away his housekeeper,
+La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and
+discovered the old man’s ways. She took the utmost care of the house and
+furniture; in short she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor wish
+to keep his private life within four walls, as the saying is, but he
+also had certain reasons for hiding a knowledge of his business affairs
+from his relatives. At the end of the second year after his arrival La
+Bougival was the only servant in the house; on her discretion he knew he
+could count, and he disguised his real purposes by the all-powerful open
+reason of a necessary economy. To the great satisfaction of his heirs he
+became a miser. Without fawning or wheedling, solely by the influence of
+her devotion and solicitude, La Bougival, who was forty-three years old
+at the time this tale begins, was the housekeeper of the doctor and
+his protegee, the pivot on which the whole house turned, in short,
+the confidential servant. She was called La Bougival from the admitted
+impossibility of applying to her person the name that actually belonged
+to her, Antoinette--for names and forms do obey the laws of harmony.
+
+The doctor’s miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours could
+estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like most old
+men his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few. Every six
+months he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his income. In
+fifteen years he never said a single word to any one in relation to his
+affairs. His confidence in Bongrand was of slow growth; it was not until
+after the revolution of 1830 that he told him of his projects. Nothing
+further was known of the doctor’s life either by the bourgeoisie at
+large or by his heirs. As for his political opinions, he did not meddle
+in public matters seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year
+in taxes, and refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or
+liberal demands. His known horror for the priesthood, and his deism were
+so little obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner
+sent by his great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the “Cure
+Meslier” and the “Discours du General Foy.” Such tolerance seemed
+inexplicable to the liberals of Nemours.
+
+The doctor’s three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+Cremiere-Cremiere--whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is quite
+unnecessary out of the Gatinais--met together as people do in little
+towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son’s birthday, a ball
+during the carnival, another on the anniversary of his marriage, to
+all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of Nemours. The collector
+received his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the court,
+too poor, he said, to fling himself into such extravagance, lived in
+a small way in a house standing half-way down the Grand’Rue, the
+ground-floor of which was let to his sister, the letter-postmistress
+of Nemours, a situation she owed to the doctor’s kind offices.
+Nevertheless, in the course of the year these three families did meet
+together frequently, in the houses of friends, in the public promenades,
+at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a Sunday in the square, as on
+this occasion; so that one way and another they met nearly every day.
+For the last three years the doctor’s age, his economies, and his
+probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank remarks, among the
+townspeople as to the disposition of his property, a topic which made
+the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the little town. For the
+last six months not a day passed that friends and neighbours did not
+speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day the good man’s eyes
+would shut and the coffers open.
+
+“Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death, but
+none but God is eternal,” said one.
+
+“Pooh, he’ll bury us all; his health is better than ours,” replied an
+heir, hypocritically.
+
+“Well, if you don’t get the money yourselves, your children will, unless
+that little Ursula--”
+
+“He won’t leave it all to her.”
+
+Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere’s favorite
+saying, “Well, whoever lives will know,” shows that they wished at any
+rate more harm to her than good.
+
+The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the
+post master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor’s
+property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+
+“He must have got hold of some elixir of life,” said one.
+
+“He has made a bargain with the devil,” replied the other.
+
+“He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn’t need
+anything,” said Massin.
+
+“Ah! but Minoret has a son who’ll waste his substance,” answered
+Cremiere.
+
+“How much do you really think the doctor has?”
+
+“At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each year,
+that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and the
+interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he
+must, if he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of
+business, and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per
+cent from the State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand
+francs, without counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year
+from the five per cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving
+anything to Ursula we should get at least seven or eight hundred
+thousand francs, besides the house and furniture.”
+
+“Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand apiece
+to you and me, that would be fair.”
+
+“Ha, that would make us comfortable!”
+
+“If he did that,” said Massin, “I should sell my situation in court
+and buy an estate; I’d try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get myself
+elected deputy.”
+
+“As for me I should buy a brokerage business,” said the collector.
+
+“Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round him.
+I don’t believe we can do anything with him.”
+
+“Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. ZELIE
+
+The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass will
+now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to foresee a
+danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind of the
+peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground the
+stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal reasoning,
+“If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her godfather into
+the pale of the Church she will certainly have enough to make him leave
+her his property,” was now stamped in letters of fire on the brains of
+the most obtuse heir. The post master had forgotten about his son in his
+hurry to reach the square; for if the doctor were really in the church
+hearing mass it was a question of losing two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs. It must be admitted that the fears of these relations came from
+the strongest and most legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+
+“Well, Monsieur Minoret,” said the mayor (formerly a miller who had now
+become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), “when the devil gets old the
+devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us.”
+
+“Better late than never, cousin,” responded the post master, trying to
+conceal his annoyance.
+
+“How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of
+marrying his son to that damned girl--may the devil get her!” cried
+Cremiere, shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+
+“What’s Cremiere grumbling about?” said the butcher of the town, a
+Levrault-Levrault the elder. “Isn’t he pleased to see his uncle on the
+road to paradise?”
+
+“Who would ever have believed it!” ejaculated Massin.
+
+“Ha! one should never say, ‘Fountain, I’ll not drink of your water,’”
+ remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his wife
+to go to church without him.
+
+“Come, Monsieur Dionis,” said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+“what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?”
+
+“I advise you,” said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively, “to
+go to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before it gets
+cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your heads;
+in short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing had
+happened.”
+
+“You are not consoling,” said Massin.
+
+In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis
+was really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did
+business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such
+peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could
+be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their
+opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the
+profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent,
+the acquirement of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively
+interest in the doctor’s inheritance, not so much for the post master
+and the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or
+later Massin’s share in the doctor’s money would swell the capital with
+which these secret associates worked the canton.
+
+“We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+comes from,” said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to
+keep quiet.
+
+“What are you about, Minoret?” cried a little woman, suddenly descending
+upon the group in the middle of which stood the post master, as tall
+and round as a tower. “You don’t know where Desire is and there you are,
+planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing, when I thought you on
+horseback!--Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames.”
+
+This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white
+cotton with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed
+with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl
+on her flat shoulders, was Minoret’s wife, the terror of postilions,
+servants, and carters; who kept the accounts and managed the
+establishment “with finger and eye” as they say in those parts. Like the
+true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give
+in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held to the
+solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black apron, in
+the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice
+was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with
+the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips
+of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead.
+Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture and speech. “Zelie
+being obliged to have a will for two, had it for three,” said Goupil,
+who pointed out the successive reigns of three young postilions, of
+neat appearance, who had been set up in life by Zelie, each after seven
+years’ service. The malicious clerk named them Postilion I., Postilion
+II., Postilion III. But the little influence these young men had in the
+establishment, and their perfect obedience proved that Zelie was merely
+interested in worthy helpers.
+
+This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of
+her son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for
+her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family
+fortune and was wholly given up to the management of their immense
+establishment. To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the
+better of Zelie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing
+impossible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew
+nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a
+walk except to look at the hay, the oats, or the second crops. She sent
+“her man” to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales, telling
+them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should bear.
+Though she was the soul of that great body called Minoret-Levrault and
+led him about by his pug nose, she was made to feel the fears which
+occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild beasts. She
+therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did; the
+postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with him,
+for his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she
+was grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, “Where
+would Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?”
+
+“When you know what has happened,” replied the post master, “you’ll be
+over the traces yourself.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Ursula has taken the doctor to mass.”
+
+Zelie’s pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger, then,
+crying out, “I’ll see it before I believe it!” she rushed into the
+church. The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of the
+worshippers enabled her to look along each row of chairs and benches as
+she went up the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula’s place, where she
+saw old Minoret standing with bared head.
+
+If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d’Anglas, Morellet,
+Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of
+Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile,
+cold tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the
+features, shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely
+aristocratic--less perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the ideas
+than in the character. All men of this stamp have high brows retreating
+at the summit, the sign of a tendency to materialism. You will find
+these leading characteristics of the head and these points of the face
+in all the Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde, in the men
+of a period when religious ideas were almost dead, men who called
+themselves deists and were atheists. The deist is an atheist lucky in
+classification.
+
+Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles,
+which recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the manner
+in which the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman when making
+her toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of his coat. He
+persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk stockings, shoes
+with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie, and a black coat,
+adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly characterized, the
+cold whiteness of which was softened by the yellowing tones of old age,
+happened to be, just then, in the full light of a window. As Madame
+Minoret came in sight of him the doctor’s blue eyes with their reddened
+lids were raised to heaven; a new conviction had given them a new
+expression. His spectacles lay in his prayer-book and marked the place
+where he had ceased to pray. The tall and spare old man, his arms
+crossed on his breast, stood erect in an attitude which bespoke the full
+strength of his faculties and the unshakable assurance of his faith.
+He gazed at the altar humbly with a look of renewed hope, and took no
+notice of his nephew’s wife, who planted herself almost in front of him
+as if to reproach him for coming back to God.
+
+Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church
+and returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She
+had reckoned on the doctor’s money, and possession was becoming
+problematical. She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and
+their wives in greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking
+pleasure in tormenting them.
+
+“It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we
+ought to talk of our affairs,” said Zelie; “come home with me. You too,
+Monsieur Dionis,” she added to the notary; “you’ll not be in the way.”
+
+Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post
+master was the news of the day.
+
+Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which
+was only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand’Rue, made
+its usual racket.
+
+“Goodness! I’m like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire,” said
+Zelie. “Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his
+interests are mixed up in this matter.”
+
+The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes
+in late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards the
+“Ducler.”
+
+“Here’s Desire!” was the general cry.
+
+The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put the
+town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom he was
+invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence. But his
+methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that more than one
+family was very thankful to have him complete his studies and study
+law in Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth, slender and fair like his
+mother, from whom he obtained his blue eyes and pale skin, smiled from
+the window on the crowd, and jumped lightly down to kiss his mother. A
+short sketch of the young fellow will show how proud Zelie felt when she
+saw him.
+
+He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held
+under his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat, admirably
+put on and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy waistcoat, in
+the pocket of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of which hung down;
+and, finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a gray hat,--but his
+lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt buttons of the waistcoat
+and the ring worn outside of his purple kid glove. He carried a cane
+with a chased gold head.
+
+“You are losing your watch,” said his mother, kissing him.
+
+“No, it is worn that way,” he replied, letting his father hug him.
+
+“Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?” said Massin.
+
+“I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term,” said Desire,
+returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+
+“Now we shall have some fun,” said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+
+“Ha! my old wag, so here you are!” replied Desire.
+
+“You take your law license for all license,” said Goupil, affronted by
+being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+
+“You know my luggage,” cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of
+the diligence; “have it taken to the house.”
+
+“The sweat is rolling off your horses,” said Zelie sharply to the
+conductor; “you haven’t common-sense to drive them in that way. You are
+stupider than your own beasts.”
+
+“But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from
+anxiety,” explained Cabirolle.
+
+“But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?” she
+retorted.
+
+The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young
+men around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey took
+enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to issue
+from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things) Desire saw
+Ursula on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped short amazed at
+her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the relations who
+accompanied him.
+
+In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she
+did with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward
+or difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does
+truly reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that
+Ursula’s attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was
+dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and
+there with knots of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same
+ribbon run through a broad hem and tied with bows like those on the
+dress, showed the great beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure
+white, was charming in tone against the blue,--the right color for a
+fair skin. A long blue sash with floating ends defined a slender waist
+which seemed flexible,--a most seductive charm in women. She wore a
+rice-straw bonnet, modestly trimmed with ribbons like those of the gown,
+the strings of which were tied under her chin, setting off the whiteness
+of the straw and doing no despite to that of her beautiful complexion.
+Ursula dressed her own hair naturally (a la Berthe, as it was then
+called) in heavy braids of fine, fair hair, laid flat on either side
+of the head, each little strand reflecting the light as she walked.
+Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the same time, were in harmony with a
+finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge, suffusing her cheeks like a cloud,
+brightened a face which was regular without being insipid; for nature
+had given her, by some rare privilege, extreme purity of form combined
+with strength of countenance. The nobility of her life was manifest in
+the general expression of her person, which might have served as a model
+for a type of trustfulness, or of modesty. Her health, though brilliant,
+was not coarsely apparent; in fact, her whole air was distinguished.
+Beneath the little gloves of a light color it was easy to imagine
+her pretty hands. The arched and slender feet were delicately shod
+in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a brown silk fringe. Her blue sash
+holding at the waist a small flat watch and a blue purse with gilt
+tassels attracted the eyes of every woman she met.
+
+“He has given her a new watch!” said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+husband’s arm.
+
+“Heavens! is that Ursula?” cried Desire; “I didn’t recognize her.”
+
+“Well, my dear uncle,” said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let the
+doctor pass, “everybody wants to see you.”
+
+“Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+uncle,” said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+Jesuitical humility.
+
+“Ursula,” replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+annoyed.
+
+The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula,
+the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, “I intend to go to church
+to-morrow.”
+
+“Then,” said Bongrand, “your heirs won’t get another night’s rest.”
+
+The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by
+the expression of their faces. Zelie’s irruption into the church, her
+glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant
+ones in the public square, and the expression in their eyes as they
+turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly
+awakened, and their sordid fears.
+
+“It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle,” said Madame Cremiere,
+putting in her word with a humble bow,--“a miracle which will not cost
+you much.”
+
+“It is God’s doing, madame,” replied Ursula.
+
+“God!” exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; “my father-in-law used to say he
+served to blanket many horses.”
+
+“Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey,” said the doctor severely.
+
+“Come,” said Minoret to his wife and son, “why don’t you bow to my
+uncle?”
+
+“I shouldn’t be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,” cried
+Zelie, carrying off her son.
+
+“I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap,” said
+Madame Massin; “the church is very damp.”
+
+“Pooh, niece,” said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, “the
+sooner I’m put to bed the sooner you’ll flourish.”
+
+He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a
+hurry that the others dropped behind.
+
+“Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn’t right,” said Ursula,
+shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+
+“I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but
+not one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they
+know is the only day I celebrate.”
+
+At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de
+Portenduere, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She
+belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the
+last century. They wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the cut of
+which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all have black
+lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow
+and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore
+paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have
+lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their
+heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks.
+Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are
+not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts
+with flattened curls to which they cling,--and yet these ruins are all
+subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look and manner.
+
+The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to
+time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was
+really as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+
+“Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?” said Madame Massin,
+rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+doctor’s answer.
+
+“For the cure,” said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead
+as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. “I have an
+idea! I’ll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with
+Madame Minoret.”
+
+We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the
+notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire,
+locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth’s ear with
+an odious smile.
+
+“What do I care?” answered the son of the house, shrugging his
+shoulders. “I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature
+in the world.”
+
+“Florine! and who may she be?” demanded Goupil. “I’m too fond of you to
+let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures.”
+
+“Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I know
+that. She has positively refused to marry me.”
+
+“Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with
+their heads,” responded Goupil.
+
+“If you could but see her--only once,” said Desire, lackadaisically,
+“you wouldn’t say such things.”
+
+“If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than
+a fancy,” said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived
+his master, “I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+‘Kenilworth.’ Your wife must be a d’Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre, and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I
+sha’n’t let you commit any follies.”
+
+“I am rich enough to care only for happiness,” replied Desire.
+
+“What are you two plotting together?” cried Zelie, beckoning to the two
+friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come into
+the house.
+
+The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of
+a young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had
+lately taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds
+of the whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to make
+this history and the notary’s remark to the heirs perfectly intelligible
+to the reader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. URSULA
+
+The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and
+maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated
+organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age,
+whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a
+worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of
+seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and composer, having
+made his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned name, ran away with
+a young lady in Germany. The dying father commended the young man, who
+was really full of talent, to his son-in-law, proving to him, at the
+same time, that he had refused to marry the mother that he might not
+injure Madame Minoret. The doctor promised to give the unfortunate
+Joseph half of whatever his wife inherited from her father, whose
+business was purchased by the Erards. He made due search for his
+illegitimate brother-in-law; but Grimm informed him one day that after
+enlisting in a Prussian regiment Joseph had deserted and taken a false
+name and that all efforts to find him would be frustrated.
+
+Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine figure,
+a handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste and much
+brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life which Hoffman
+has so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he was reduced to
+such depths of poverty that he took advantage of the events of 1806
+to make himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he
+married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell
+in love with the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose
+to devote her life to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph
+Mirouet was unable to bear prosperity; he was naturally a spendthrift,
+and though kind to his wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years.
+The household must have dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph
+Mirouet reached the point of enlisting as a musician in a French
+regiment. In 1813 the surgeon-major of the regiment, by the merest
+chance, heard the name of Mirouet, was struck by it, and wrote to Doctor
+Minoret, to whom he was under obligations.
+
+The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the
+allied occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife
+died giving birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should
+be called Ursula after his wife. The father did not long survive the
+mother, worn out, as she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the
+unfortunate musician bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was
+already her godfather, in spite of his repugnance for what he called the
+mummeries of the Church. Having seen his own children die in succession
+either in dangerous confinements or during the first year of their
+lives, the doctor had awaited with anxiety the result of a last hope.
+When a nervous, delicate, and sickly woman begins with a miscarriage
+it is not unusual to see her go through a series of such pregnancies as
+Ursula Minoret did, in spite of the care and watchfulness and science
+of her husband. The poor man often blamed himself for their mutual
+persistence in desiring children. The last child, born after a rest
+of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim of its mother’s nervous
+condition--if we listen to physiologists, who tell us that in the
+inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child derives from the father
+by blood and from the mother in its nervous system.
+
+Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him, the
+doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied paternity.
+During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had longed more
+especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring joy to the
+house; he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet’s legacy, and gave to
+the orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams. For two years he took
+part, as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute particulars of Ursula’s
+life; he would not allow the nurse to suckle her or to take her up or
+put her to bed without him. His medical science and his experience
+were all put to use in her service. After going through many trials,
+alternations of hope and fear, and the joys and labors of a mother, he
+had the happiness of seeing this child of the fair German woman and the
+French singer a creature of vigorous health and profound sensibility.
+
+With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine and
+soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed the
+little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle through
+which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond
+of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful
+blue eyes upon some object with that serious, reflective look which
+seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would
+stay by her side for hours, seeking, with Jordy’s help, to understand
+the reasons (which most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena
+of this delicious phase of life, when childhood is both flower and
+fruit, a confused intelligence, a perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+
+Ursula’s beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He declared
+to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting hers. When old
+men love children there is no limit to their passion--they worship them.
+For these little beings they silence their own manias or recall a whole
+past in their service. Experience, patience, sympathy, the acquisitions
+of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all are spent upon that young
+life in which they live again; their intelligence does actually take the
+place of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to the
+intuition of a mother; they remember the delicate perceptions which in
+their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of
+a compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of
+the child’s unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes
+the place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is
+reduced to its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the
+mother a slave, the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote
+himself utterly. For these reasons it is not unusual to see children in
+close intimacy with old persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old
+doctor, happy in the kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were never
+weary of answering her talk and playing with her. Far from making
+them impatient her petulances charmed them; and they gratified all her
+wishes, making each the ground of some little training.
+
+The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula’s soul developed in
+a sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it
+breathed the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays that
+belonged to it.
+
+“In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?” asked the abbe
+of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+
+“In yours,” answered Minoret.
+
+An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the “Nouvelle Heloise”
+ he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered
+by the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench
+outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe’s hand on his.
+
+“Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+friend ‘Shapron,’” he said, imitating Ursula’s infant speech, “I wish to
+see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do
+nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in
+my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian.”
+
+“God will reward you, I hope,” replied the abbe, gently joining his
+hands and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief
+mental prayer.
+
+So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under
+the religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come under
+the educational training of her friend Jordy.
+
+The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a
+taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had
+studied the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man, patient as
+most old scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read and write.
+He taught her also the French language and all she needed to know of
+arithmetic. The doctor’s library afforded a choice of books which could
+be read by a child for amusement as well as instruction.
+
+The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with
+the freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula
+learned as she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left
+to follow the divine training of a nature that was led into regions of
+purity by these judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment
+than to duty; she took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own
+conscience rather than the demands of social law. In her, nobility of
+feeling and action would ever be spontaneous; her judgment would confirm
+the impulse of her heart. She was destined to do right as a pleasure
+before doing it as an obligation. This distinction is the peculiar sign
+of Christian education. These principles, altogether different from
+those that are taught to men, were suitable for a woman,--the spirit and
+the conscience of the home, the beautifier of domestic life, the queen
+of her household. All three of these old preceptors followed the same
+method with Ursula. Instead of recoiling before the bold questions of
+innocence, they explained to her the reasons of things and the best
+means of action, taking care to give her none but correct ideas.
+When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade of grass, her thoughts went
+straight to God, the doctor and the professor told her that the priest
+alone could answer her. None of them intruded on the territory of the
+others; the doctor took charge of her material well-being and the
+things of life; Jordy’s department was instruction; moral and spiritual
+questions and the ideas appertaining to the higher life belonged to
+the abbe. This noble education was not, as it often is, counteracted by
+injudicious servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject,
+and being, moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did
+nothing to injure the work of these great minds. Ursula, a privileged
+being, grew up with good geniuses round her; and her naturally fine
+disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy one. Such manly
+tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty without danger,
+such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula, when nine years
+of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+
+Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died the
+following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his work, of
+which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part. Flowers
+will bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The old
+gentleman had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a year,
+that he might leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep a place
+in her memory during her whole life. In his will, the wording of which
+was very touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five
+hundred francs that came of her little capital exclusively on her dress.
+When the justice of the peace applied the seals to the effects of his
+old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had allowed
+no one to enter, a quantity of toys, many of them broken, while all
+had been used,--toys of a past generation, reverently preserved, which
+Monsieur Bongrand was, according to the captain’s last wishes, to burn
+with his own hands.
+
+About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind
+and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another,
+needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge
+of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into
+the pious and mystical young girl whose character rose above all
+vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then
+began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the
+young girl full of faith,--long unsuspected by her who incited it,--the
+result of which had now stirred the whole town, and was destined to have
+great influence on Ursula’s future by rousing against her the antagonism
+of the doctor’s heirs.
+
+During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her
+mornings at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe’s secret
+hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him.
+The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own
+daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor; he could not fail
+to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a
+child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both
+flowers and fruit, always fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful life is
+more powerful than the strongest argument. It is impossible to resist
+the charms of certain sights. The doctor’s eyes were wet, he knew not
+how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for the church,
+wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin; her hair bound
+with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white ribbon, and
+rippling upon her shoulders; her eyes lighted by the star of a first
+hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and loving her
+godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When the doctor
+perceived that the thought of immortality was nourishing that spirit
+(until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun gives life to
+the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he remained at home
+alone.
+
+Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as
+she left him: “Why won’t you come, godfather? how can I be happy without
+you?” Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the Encyclopedist
+did not as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction from which he
+could see the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little
+Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an
+inspired look, which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on
+the corner closed to God. But still the old deist held firm. He said
+to himself: “Mummeries! if there be a maker of worlds, imagine the
+organizer of infinitude concerning himself with such trifles!” He
+laughed as he continued his walk along the heights which look down upon
+the road to the Gatinais, where the bells were ringing a joyous peal
+that told of the joy of families.
+
+The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever invented.
+Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and
+nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the
+exclamations she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old Jordy while
+living, and the doctor always waited till their child was in bed before
+they began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early
+when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on when she
+returned; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and took her
+seat at the window with her work. She had a repugnance to the game,
+which is really in the beginning very hard and unconquerable to some
+minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost impossible to
+take it up in after life.
+
+The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where
+her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before
+him.
+
+“Whose throw shall it be?” she asked.
+
+“Ursula,” said the doctor, “isn’t it a sin to make fun of your godfather
+the day of your first communion?”
+
+“I am not making fun of you,” she said, sitting down. “I want to give
+you some pleasure--you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon,
+and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to beat
+you--you shall not deprive yourself any longer for me. I have conquered
+all difficulties, and now I like the noise of the game.”
+
+Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next day
+Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to
+Paris for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher, and
+submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to him. One
+of poor Jordy’s predictions was fulfilled,--the girl became an excellent
+musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately sent to Paris for
+a master, an old German named Schmucke, a distinguished professor who
+came once a week; the doctor willingly paying for an art which he had
+formerly declared to be useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like
+music--a celestial language, developed by Catholicism, which has taken
+the names of the seven notes from one of the church hymns; every note
+being the first syllable of the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint
+John.
+
+The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula’s first communion though
+keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which prayer and
+the exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had not their due
+influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or repentance himself,
+he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own benefactions without hope of a
+celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious
+men whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.
+
+“But,” the abbe would say to him, “if all men would be so, you must
+admit that society would be regenerated; there would be no more
+misery. To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great
+philosopher; you rise to your principles through reason, you are a
+social exception; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us
+benevolent in ours. With you, it is an effort; with us, it comes
+naturally.”
+
+“In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,--that’s the whole of it.”
+
+However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did
+not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in
+providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent creature,
+the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula’s artless
+consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he
+felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute devotion has
+a horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas which it does
+not share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling’s reasonings as he
+would her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest of voices with
+the purest and most fervent feeling. Believers and unbelievers speak
+different languages and cannot understand each other. The young girl
+pleading God’s cause was unreasonable with the old man, as a spoilt
+child sometimes maltreats its mother. The abbe rebuked her gently,
+telling her that God had power to humiliate proud spirits. Ursula
+replied that David had overcome Goliath.
+
+This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life, so
+peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive eyes
+of the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time the
+modest and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as she
+left the church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her music,
+the pleasures of her godfather, and all the little cares she was able to
+give him (for she had eased La Bougival’s labors by doing everything for
+him),--these things filled the hours, the days, the months of her calm
+life. Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had felt uneasy about
+his Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost care. Sagacious and
+profoundly practical observer that he was, he thought he perceived some
+commotion in her moral being. He watched her like a mother, but seeing
+no one about her who was worthy of inspiring love, his uneasiness on the
+subject at length passed away.
+
+At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins,
+the doctor’s intellectual life was invaded by one of those events which
+plough to the very depths of a man’s convictions and turn them over. But
+this event needs a succinct narrative of certain circumstances in his
+medical career, which will give, perhaps, fresh interest to the story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+
+Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as widely
+by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck. After
+re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense the
+clarion of the world.
+
+“If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved,” said Hahnemann, recently.
+
+“Go to France,” said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, “and if they laugh
+at your bumps you will be famous.”
+
+Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific
+France was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before
+judgment was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body,
+Mesmer’s so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and
+his theory. But let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately,
+compromised his splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims. Mesmer
+was defeated by the doubtfulness of facts, by universal ignorance of the
+part played in nature by imponderable fluids then unobserved, and by his
+own inability to study on all sides a science possessing a triple
+front. Magnetism has many applications; in Mesmer’s hands it was, in
+its relation to the future, merely what cause is to effect. But, if
+the discoverer lacked genius, it is a sad thing both for France and
+for human reason to have to say that a science contemporaneous with
+civilization, cultivated by Egypt and Chaldea, by Greece and India, met
+in Paris in the eighteenth century the fate that Truth in the person of
+Galileo found in the sixteenth; and that magnetism was rejected and cast
+out by the combined attacks of science and religion, alarmed for their
+own positions. Magnetism, the favorite science of Jesus Christ and
+one of the divine powers which he gave to his disciples, was no better
+apprehended by the Church than by the disciples of Jean-Jacques,
+Voltaire, Locke, and Condillac. The Encyclopedists and the clergy were
+equally averse to the old human power which they took to be new. The
+miracles of the convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and smothered
+by the indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious writings
+of the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to make
+experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ certain
+inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward agents. But
+to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids intangible,
+invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the science of
+that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern philosophy
+there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles away! To
+materialists especially the world is full, all things hang together, are
+linked, related, organized. “The world as the result of chance,” said
+Diderot, “is more explicable than God. The multiplicity of causes, the
+incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance, explain creation.
+Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if you allow me time
+and space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters, arrive at last at
+the Eneid combination.”
+
+Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil
+before the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of
+imponderable forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the
+immense progress which natural science is now making under the great
+principle of unity due to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent
+persons, without any system, convinced by facts conscientiously studied,
+still hold to Mesmer’s doctrine, which recognizes the existence of a
+penetrative influence acting from man to man, put in motion by the will,
+curative by the abundance of the fluid, the working of which is in fact
+a duel between two forces, between an ill to be cured and the will to
+cure it.
+
+The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were revealed
+by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to their
+discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and scoffers.
+Among the small number of believers were a few physicians. They were
+persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The respectable body
+of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of religious warfare
+against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their hatred as it was
+possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance. The orthodox
+physician refused to consult with those who adopted the Mesmerian
+heresy. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The miseries and
+sorrows of the Revolution had not quenched the scientific hatred. It is
+only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate in that way.
+The official robe is terrible! But ideas are even more implacable than
+things.
+
+Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret’s friends, believed in the new faith,
+and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which
+he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief “betes
+noires” of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter of
+the Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer’s
+assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled with
+his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His conduct
+to Bouvard must have caused him the only remorse which troubled the
+serenity of his declining years. Since his retirement to Nemours the
+science of imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for magnetism,
+which, by the nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to light and
+electricity) had made immense progress, in spite of the ridicule of
+Parisian scientists. Phrenology and physiognomy, the departments of Gall
+and Lavater (which are in fact twins, for one is to the other as cause
+is to effect), proved to the minds of more than one physiologist the
+existence of an intangible fluid which is the basis of the phenomena
+of the human will, and from which result passions, habits, the shape of
+faces and of skulls. Magnetic facts, the miracles of somnambulism, those
+of divination and ecstasy, which open a way to the spiritual world, were
+fast accumulating. The strange tale of the apparitions of the farmer
+Martin, so clearly proved, and his interview with Louis XVIII.; a
+knowledge of the intercourse of Swedenborg with the departed, carefully
+investigated in Germany; the tales of Walter Scott on the effects of
+“second sight”; the extraordinary faculties of some fortune-tellers, who
+practice as a single science chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope;
+the facts of catalepsy, and those of the action of certain morbid
+affections on the properties of the diaphragm,--all such phenomena,
+curious, to say the least, each emanating from the same source, were now
+undermining many scepticisms and leading even the most indifferent minds
+to the plane of experiments. Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of
+this movement of minds, strong in the north of Europe but still weak
+in France where, however, many facts called marvelous by superficial
+observers, were happening, but falling, alas! like stones to the bottom
+of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian excitements.
+
+At the bottom of the present year the doctor’s tranquillity was shaken
+by the following letter:--
+
+
+My old comrade,--All friendship, even if lost, has rights which it is
+difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I
+remember far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel of
+Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+
+At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my heart to
+prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the most important
+of the sciences--if indeed all science is not _one_. I can overcome
+your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity the
+happiness of taking you once more by the hand--as in the days before
+Mesmer. Always yours,
+
+Bouvard.
+
+
+Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and
+left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice.
+Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written “To-morrow; nine
+o’clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption.”
+
+Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He went
+to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world
+were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school,
+if the four faculties any longer existed. The doctors reassured him,
+declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever, only,
+instead of persecuting as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and
+of Sciences rang with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the
+tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco, with jugglery and prestidigitation
+and all that now went by the name of “amusing physics.”
+
+This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment
+made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four years the
+two antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint-Honore.
+Frenchmen have too many distractions of mind to hate each other long. In
+Paris especially, politics, literature, and science render life so vast
+that every man can find new worlds to conquer where all pretensions
+may live at ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but
+public bodies can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton
+would have fallen into each other’s arms at the end of forty-four years.
+However, the two doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it.
+Bouvard spoke first:--
+
+“You seem wonderfully well.”
+
+“Yes, I am--and you?” said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now broken.
+
+“As you see.”
+
+“Does magnetism prevent people from dying?” asked Minoret in a joking
+tone, but without sharpness.
+
+“No, but it almost prevented me from living.”
+
+“Then you are not rich?” exclaimed Minoret.
+
+“Pooh!” said Bouvard.
+
+“But I am!” cried the other.
+
+“It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come,” replied
+Bouvard.
+
+“Oh! you obstinate fellow!” said Minoret.
+
+The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy
+staircase to the fourth floor.
+
+At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic
+forces in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown
+(who still lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate
+diseases, suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly,
+but he was also able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable
+phenomena of somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The
+countenance of this mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to
+God alone and to communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles
+that of a lion; concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His
+features, singularly contorted, have a terrible and even blasting
+aspect. His voice, which comes from the depths of his being, seems
+charged with some magnetic fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every
+pore. Disgusted by the ingratitude of the public after his many
+cures, he has now returned to an impenetrable solitude, a voluntary
+nothingness. His all-powerful hand, which has restored a dying daughter
+to her mother, fathers to their grief-stricken children, adored
+mistresses to lovers frenzied with love, cured the sick given over
+by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the dying when life became
+impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in synagogues, temples, and
+churches from the lips of priests recalled to the one God by the same
+miracle,--that sovereign hand, a sun of life dazzling the closed eyes
+of the somnambulist, has never been raised again even to save the
+heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his past mercies
+as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and lives for
+heaven.
+
+But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man,
+whose generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons to
+witness his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and could
+easily be revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then on the
+verge of the grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last enabled to
+witness the startling phenomena of a science he had long treasured
+in his heart. The sacrifices of the old man touched the heart of the
+mysterious stranger, who accorded him certain privileges. As Bouvard now
+went up the staircase he listened to the twittings of his old antagonist
+with malicious delight, answering only, “You shall see, you shall see!”
+ with the emphatic little nods of a man who is sure of his facts.
+
+The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than modest.
+Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon where he left
+Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but Bouvard returned
+at once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw the mysterious
+Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair. The woman did
+not rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the two old men.
+
+“What! no tub?” cried Minoret, smiling.
+
+“Nothing but the power of God,” answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+
+The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain
+and the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who
+thought he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to
+question his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently to
+be taking time to examine him.
+
+“You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur,” he said at
+last. “It is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my
+conviction, emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use
+of it, it would be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope,
+Monsieur Bouvard tells me, of changing the opinions of one who has
+opposed us, of enlightening a scientific man whose mind is candid;
+I have therefore determined to satisfy you. That woman whom you see
+there,” he continued, pointing to her, “is now in a somnambulic sleep.
+The statements and manifestations of somnambulists declare that this
+state is a delightful other life, during which the inner being, freed
+from the trammels laid upon the exercise of our faculties by the visible
+world, moves in a world which we mistakenly term invisible. Sight and
+hearing are then exercised in a manner far more perfect than any we know
+of here, possibly without the help of the organs we now employ, which
+are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight and hearing. To a
+person in that state, distance and material obstacles do not exist, or
+they can be traversed by a life within us for which our body is a
+mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail to describe
+effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the words
+imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid whose
+action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its heat,
+which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and certainly
+electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things themselves
+instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments.”
+
+“She sleeps,” said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+belong to an inferior class.
+
+“Her body is for the time being in abeyance,” said the Swedenborgian.
+“Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will prove
+to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind when
+there does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will send her
+wherever you wish to go,--a hundred miles from here or to China, as you
+will. She will tell you what is happening there.”
+
+“Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do,” said
+Minoret.
+
+He took Minoret’s hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for a
+moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that
+of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor
+in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this
+oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the
+absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus united
+by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its effects,
+was very simply done.
+
+“Obey him,” said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the
+head of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life
+from him, “and remember that what you do for him will please me.--You
+can now speak to her,” he added, addressing Minoret.
+
+“Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois,” said the doctor.
+
+“Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what
+she tells you that she is where you wish her to be,” said Bouvard to his
+old friend.
+
+“I see a river,” said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look
+within herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed eyelids.
+“I see a pretty garden--”
+
+“Why do you enter by the river and the garden?” said Minoret.
+
+“Because they are there.”
+
+“Who?”
+
+“The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of.”
+
+“What is the garden like?” said Minoret.
+
+“Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right,
+a long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular
+building,--there are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the
+left, the wall is covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia
+jessamine. In the middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots.
+Your child is looking at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse--she
+is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The
+nurse is raking the path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the
+beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn--”
+
+“Love for whom?” asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened
+to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all jugglery.
+
+“You know nothing--though you have lately been uneasy about her health,”
+ answered the woman. “Her heart has followed the dictates of nature.”
+
+“A woman of the people to talk like this!” cried the doctor.
+
+“In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary
+perception,” said Bouvard.
+
+“But who is it that Ursula loves?”
+
+“Ursula does not know that she loves,” said the woman with a shake of
+the head; “she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is
+occupied by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought;
+but she returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.--She is at the
+piano--”
+
+“But who is he?”
+
+“The son of a lady who lives opposite.”
+
+“Madame de Portenduere?”
+
+“Portenduere, did you say?” replied the sleeper. “Perhaps so. But
+there’s no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood.”
+
+“Have they spoken to each other?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He is,
+in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her window;
+they see each other in church. But the young man no longer thinks of
+her.”
+
+“His name?”
+
+“Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named Savinien;
+she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say; she has
+looked in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot against
+it,--child’s play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much strength
+as purity; she is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye her soul
+and fill it that she will reject all other sentiments.”
+
+“Where do you see that?”
+
+“In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father and
+her mother suffered much.”
+
+The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than surprised.
+It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman paused for
+several minutes, during which time her attention became more and more
+concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a singular aspect;
+an inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear or cloud by some
+mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had seen in dying persons
+at moments when they appeared to have the gift of prophecy. Several
+times she made gestures which resembled those of Ursula.
+
+“Question her,” said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, “she will tell
+you secrets you alone can know.”
+
+“Does Ursula love me?” asked Minoret.
+
+“Almost as much as she loves God,” was the answer. “But she is very
+unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause of
+her only sorrow.--Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a better
+musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is thinking, ‘If
+I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his ear when he is
+with his mother.’”
+
+Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+
+“Tell me what seeds she planted?”
+
+“Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--”
+
+“And what else?”
+
+“Larkspur.”
+
+“Where is my money?”
+
+“With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of a
+single day.”
+
+“Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?”
+
+“You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled ‘Pandects of
+Justinian, Vol. II.’ between the last two leaves; the book is on the
+shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them.
+Your money is in the last volume next to the salon--See! Vol. III. is
+before Vol. II.--but you have no money, it is all in--”
+
+“--thousand-franc notes,” said the doctor.
+
+“I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five hundred
+francs.”
+
+“You see them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“How do they look?”
+
+“One is old and yellow, the other white and new.”
+
+This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at
+Bouvard with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who
+were accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together in
+a low voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to allow
+him to return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to compose his
+mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new
+test, to subject it to more decisive experiments and obtain answers to
+certain questions, the truth of which should do away with every sort of
+doubt.
+
+“Be here at nine o’clock this evening,” said the stranger. “I will
+return to meet you.”
+
+Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room without
+bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind. “Well, what
+do you say? what do you say?”
+
+“I think I am mad, Bouvard,” answered Minoret from the steps of the
+porte-cochere. “If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,--and none
+but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,--I shall say
+that _you are right_. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this minute
+and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten
+o’clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?”
+
+“What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed
+in a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents
+from an herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?”
+
+“Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o’clock. I must find
+some decisive, undeniable test!”
+
+“So be it, old comrade,” answered the other.
+
+The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which
+were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:--
+
+“If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of traversing
+space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she sees and hears
+what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic
+facts; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one
+proof which you know will satisfy you--for you might suppose that we
+obtained information to deceive you; but we cannot know, for instance,
+what will happen at nine o’clock in your goddaughter’s bedroom.
+Remember, or write down, what the sleeper will see and hear, and then go
+home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice,
+and if she tells you that she has said and done what you have written
+down--lower thy head, proud Hun!”
+
+The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and
+found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor
+Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand of the
+Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and
+she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand
+and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what
+was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. “What is Ursula
+doing?” he said.
+
+“She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on
+her prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet
+background.”
+
+“What is she saying?”
+
+“Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores
+him to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience and
+recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she has
+failed to obey his commands and those of the church--poor dear little
+soul, she lays bare her breast!” Tears were in the sleeper’s eyes.
+“She has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too much of
+Savinien. She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she prays to
+God to make him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying aloud.”
+
+“Tell me her words.” Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe
+Chaperon.
+
+  “My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will--O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us.”
+
+The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the inspired
+manner of his child that Doctor Minoret’s eyes were filled with tears.
+
+“Does she say more?” he asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Repeat it.”
+
+“‘My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.’
+She has blown out the light--her head is on the pillow--she turns to
+sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap.”
+
+Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d’Alger.
+There he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who
+seemed to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and started.
+According to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at Essonne, but
+arrived at Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to Nemours, on which
+he secured a seat, and dismissed his coachman. He reached home at five
+in the morning, and went to bed, with his life-long ideas of physiology,
+nature, and metaphysics in ruins about him, and slept till nine o’clock,
+so wearied was he with the events of his journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+
+On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of
+his house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the Pandect
+volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La Bougival.
+
+“Tell Ursula to come and speak to me,” he said, seating himself in the
+center of his library.
+
+The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her on
+his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls with
+the white hair of her old friend.
+
+“Do you want something, godfather?”
+
+“Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+evasion, the questions that I shall put to you.”
+
+Ursula colored to the temples.
+
+“Oh! I’ll ask nothing that you cannot speak of,” he said, noticing how
+the bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of
+the girl’s blue eyes.
+
+“Ask me, godfather.”
+
+“What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last evening,
+and what time was it when you said them.”
+
+“It was a quarter-past or half-past nine.”
+
+“Well, repeat your last prayer.”
+
+The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic;
+she slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+said:--
+
+“What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I shall
+ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it.”
+
+Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful
+expression. To her great astonishment her godfather took the last words
+from her mouth and finished the prayer.
+
+“Good, Ursula,” said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. “When
+you laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to
+yourself, ‘That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon with
+him in Paris’?”
+
+Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She
+gave a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with
+awful fixity.
+
+“Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?” she asked,
+imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with
+the devil.
+
+“What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?”
+
+“Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--”
+
+“And the last were larkspur?”
+
+She fell on her knees.
+
+“Do not terrify me!” she exclaimed. “Oh you must have been here--you
+were here, were you not?”
+
+“Am I not always with you?” replied the doctor, evading her question, to
+save the strain on the young girl’s mind. “Let us go to your room.”
+
+“Your legs are trembling,” she said.
+
+“Yes, I am confounded, as it were.”
+
+“Can it be that you believe in God?” she cried, with artless joy,
+letting fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+
+The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had given
+to his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very inexpensive,
+which she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were hung with a
+gray paper strewn with roses and green leaves; at the windows, which
+looked to the court, were calico curtains edged with a band of some pink
+material; between the windows and beneath a tall mirror was a pier-table
+topped with marble, on which stood a Sevres vase in which she put her
+nosegays; opposite the chimney was a little bureau-desk of charming
+marquetry. The bed, of chintz, with chintz curtains lined with pink, was
+one of those duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, which had
+a tuft of carved feathers at the top of each of the four posts, which
+were fluted on the sides. An old clock, inclosed in a sort of monument
+made of tortoise-shell inlaid with arabesques of ivory, decorated the
+mantelpiece, the marble shelf of which, with the candlesticks and
+the mirror in a frame painted in cameo on a gray ground, presented a
+remarkable harmony of color, tone, and style. A large wardrobe, the
+doors of which were inlaid with landscapes in different woods (some
+having a green tint which are no longer to be found for sale) contained,
+no doubt, her linen and her dresses. The air of the room was redolent of
+heaven. The precise arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a
+feeling for harmony, which would certainly have influenced any one, even
+a Minoret-Levrault. It was plain that the things about her were dear
+to Ursula, and that she loved a room which contained, as it were, her
+childhood and the whole of her girlish life.
+
+Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for
+his visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those
+of Madame de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to
+the course he ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this
+dawning passion. To question her now would commit him to some course.
+He must either approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his
+position would be a false one. He therefore resolved to watch and
+examine into the state of things between the two young people, and
+learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was
+irresistible. None but an old man could have shown such deliberate
+wisdom. Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these magnetic
+facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little things
+around the room; he wished to examine the almanac which was hanging at a
+corner of the chimney-piece.
+
+“These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands,” he said, taking
+up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather.
+
+He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took it,
+saying, “This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in your
+pretty room?”
+
+“Oh, please let me have it, godfather.”
+
+“No, no, you shall have another to-morrow.”
+
+So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told
+him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before
+his own saint’s day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the
+abbe’s patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin’s head, had been
+seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles!
+The old man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him
+than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence. A strong wall,
+as it were, crumbled within him; for his life had rested on two
+bases,--indifference in matters of religion and a firm disbelief in
+magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses--faculties purely
+physical, organs, the effects of which could be explained--attained to
+some of the attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it
+seemed to him to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite
+and the infinite, two incompatible elements according to that remarkable
+man, were here united, the one in the other. No matter what power
+he gave to the divisibility and mobility of matter he could not help
+recognizing that it possessed qualities that were almost divine.
+
+He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac,
+was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism
+staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic
+child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula’s side. In the dismantled
+fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center of these
+ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate old
+scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would not
+decide, he struggled on against God.
+
+But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation.
+He became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet’s sublime
+“History of Species”; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine;
+he determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late
+Saint-Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The
+edifice within him was cracking on all sides; it needed but one more
+shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall
+into the celestial vineyard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening,
+when playing with the abbe, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put
+questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest,
+who was ignorant of the inward workings by which God was remaking that
+fine conscience.
+
+“Do you believe in apparitions?” asked the sceptic of the pastor,
+stopping short in the game.
+
+“Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+some,” replied the abbe.
+
+“I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you
+think that dead men can return to the living.”
+
+“Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death,” said the abbe.
+“The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As for
+miracles, they are not lacking,” he continued, smiling. “Shall I tell
+you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century.”
+
+“Pooh!” said the doctor.
+
+“Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from
+Rome, knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father
+expired; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted
+bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff
+and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who
+brought the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours
+later.”
+
+“Jesuit!” exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, “I did not ask you for
+proofs; I asked you if you believed in apparitions.”
+
+“I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it,” said the
+abbe, still fencing with his sceptic.
+
+“My friend,” said the doctor, seriously, “I am not setting a trap for
+you. What do you really believe about it?”
+
+“I believe that the power of God is infinite,” replied the abbe.
+
+“When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+appear to you,” said the doctor, smiling.
+
+“That’s exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend,” answered the
+priest.
+
+“Ursula,” said Minoret, “if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I
+will come.”
+
+“You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of ‘Neere’ by Andre
+Chenier,” said the abbe. “Poets are sublime because they clothe both
+facts and feelings with ever-living images.”
+
+“Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?” said Ursula in a
+grieved tone. “We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of our
+souls.”
+
+“Well,” said the doctor, smiling, “we must go out of the world, and when
+I am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune.”
+
+“When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will
+be to consecrate my life to you.”
+
+“To me, dead?”
+
+“Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to
+redeem your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy, that
+he may not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon
+among the righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours.”
+
+That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certainty,
+confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul.
+A ray of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of this tenderness,
+covering his years to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden
+effect of grace had something that seemed electrical about it. The
+abbe clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl,
+astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had
+called him, looking into space as though his eyes beheld the dawn; then
+he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes
+to the ground as one humiliated.
+
+“My God,” he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, “if any one
+can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless
+creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child
+presents to thee!”
+
+He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and
+held out his hand.
+
+“My dear pastor,” he said, “I am become as a little child. I belong to
+you; I give my soul to your care.”
+
+Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took
+her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply
+moved, recited the “Veni Creator” in a species of religious ecstasy.
+The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling
+together for the first time.
+
+“What has happened?” asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+
+“My godfather believes in God at last!” replied Ursula.
+
+“Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect,” cried
+the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+
+“Dear doctor,” said the good priest, “you will soon comprehend the
+grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find
+its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest
+sceptics.”
+
+The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to
+catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the
+conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation,
+was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for
+fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart,
+though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a
+surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula’s
+evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after
+day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that
+succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the responsible
+editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His dear child
+told him that he might know by how far he had advanced already in God’s
+kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him attend, he had read the
+prayers and applied his own intelligence to them; from the first, he
+had risen to the divine idea of the communion of the faithful. The
+old neophyte understood the eternal symbol attached to that sacred
+nourishment, which faith renders needful to the soul after conveying to
+it her own profound and radiant essence. When on leaving the church he
+had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely that he might once
+more thank his dear child for having led him to “enter religion,”--the
+beautiful expression of former days. He was holding her on his knee in
+the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly at the very moment when his
+relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their shameless
+fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula. His haste to return
+home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies as he
+left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the hatred
+Ursula had excited against them in the old man’s mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFERENCE
+
+While Ursula was playing variations on Weber’s “Last Thought” to her
+godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults’ dining-room
+which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama.
+The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and enlivened by
+excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgundy
+or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent for oysters,
+salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do honor to
+Desire’s return. The dining-room, in the center of which a round table
+offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content
+with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had built a pavilion
+for the family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with
+vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything about the premises was
+solid and plain. The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to
+the town. Zelie forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The
+dining-room was, therefore, hung with varnished paper and furnished with
+walnut chairs and sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a
+barometer. Though the plates and dishes were of common white china, the
+table shone with handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie
+had served the coffee, coming and going herself like shot in a
+decanter,--for she kept but one servant,--and when Desire, the budding
+lawyer, had been told of the event of the morning and its probably
+consequences, the door was closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon
+to speak. By the silence in the room and the looks that were cast on
+that authoritative face, it was easy to see the power that such men
+exercise over families.
+
+“My dear children,” said he, “your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+folly, and that little--”
+
+“Viper!” cried Madame Massin.
+
+“Hussy!” said Zelie.
+
+“Let us call her by her own name,” said Dionis.
+
+“Well, she’s a thief,” said Madame Cremiere.
+
+“A pretty thief,” remarked Desire.
+
+“That little Ursula,” went on Dionis, “has managed to get hold of his
+heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait until
+now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have discovered
+about that young--”
+
+“Marauder,” said the collector.
+
+“Inveigler,” said the clerk of the court.
+
+“Hold your tongue, friends,” said the notary, “or I’ll take my hat and
+be off.”
+
+“Come, come, papa,” cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and
+offering it to the notary; “here, drink this, it comes from Rome itself;
+and now go on.”
+
+“Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet;
+but her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle’s
+father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the
+doctor might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if
+he leaves her his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against
+Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court
+took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the
+doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring
+about a compromise--”
+
+“The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children,” said the
+newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, “that by the
+judgment of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child can
+claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance.
+So you see the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law
+pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground
+that benefactions done to grandchildren reach the natural son through
+that medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil
+Code. The royal court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of
+last year, cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural
+son by his grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural
+grandson as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula.”
+
+“All that,” said Goupil, “seems to me to relate only to the bequests
+made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood
+relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at
+Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared
+that after the decease of a natural child his descendants could no
+longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula’s father is dead.”
+
+Goupil’s argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+legislative assemblies are wont to call “profound sensation.”
+
+“What does that signify?” cried Dionis. “The actual case of the bequest
+of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for
+trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children
+will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when
+religion is honored. I’ll answer for it that out of such a suit as I
+propose you could get a compromise,--especially if they see you are
+determined to carry Ursula to a court of appeals.”
+
+Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made manifest
+in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all
+notice of Goupil’s dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep
+silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his next word, a terrible
+“But!”
+
+As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned on
+him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+
+“_But_ no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula,” he
+continued. “As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would,
+I think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle
+with questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is
+true the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly
+surgeon to the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of
+it. Moreover, you would have due warning in case of adoption--but how
+about marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marry
+her after a year’s domicile, and give her a million by the marriage
+contract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts your property in
+danger is your uncle’s marriage with the girl.”
+
+Here the notary paused.
+
+“There’s another danger,” said Goupil, with a knowing air,--“that of
+a will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula--”
+
+“If you tease your uncle,” continued Dionis, cutting short his
+head-clerk, “if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will
+drive him into either a marriage or into making that private trust which
+Goupil speaks of,--though I don’t think him capable of that; it is a
+dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire there
+has only got to hold out a finger to the girl; she’s sure to prefer a
+handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one.”
+
+“Mother,” said Desire to Zelie’s ear, as much allured by the millions as
+by Ursula’s beauty, “If I married her we should get the whole property.”
+
+“Are you crazy?--you, who’ll some day have fifty thousand francs a year
+and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your throat
+by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed! Why, the
+mayor’s only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and they have
+already proposed her to me--”
+
+This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+extinguished in Desire’s breast all desire for a marriage with the
+beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+
+“Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis,” cried Cremiere, whose wife had
+been nudging him, “if the good man took the thing seriously and married
+his goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the property,
+good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer uncle may be
+worth a million.”
+
+“Never!” cried Zelie, “never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter
+of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son
+will represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and the
+Minorets have five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them. That’s
+equal to the nobility. Don’t be uneasy, any of you; Desire will marry
+when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies.”
+
+This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:--
+
+“Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will
+be president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office leads
+to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him.”
+
+The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence
+for the notary.
+
+“Your uncle is a worthy man,” continued Dionis. “He believes he’s
+immortal; and, like most clever men, he’ll let death overtake him before
+he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest his
+capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you,
+and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere
+is in Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand
+francs’ worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison; she is
+crying like a Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her; no doubt she wants
+to talk to him about her troubles. Well, I’ll go and see your uncle
+to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent consols, which are
+now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm
+at Bordieres and her house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal
+son. I have a right as notary to speak to him in behalf of young
+Portenduere; and it is quite natural that I should wish to make him
+change his investments; I get deeds and commissions out of the business.
+If I become his adviser I’ll propose to him other land investments for
+his surplus capital; I have some excellent ones now in my office. If his
+fortune were once invested in landed estate or in mortgage notes in this
+neighbourhood, it could not take wings to itself very easily. It is easy
+to make difficulties between the wish to realize and the realization.”
+
+The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than
+that of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+
+“You must be careful,” said the notary in conclusion, “to keep your
+uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch
+him. Find him a lover for the girl and you’ll prevent his marrying her
+himself.”
+
+“Suppose she married the lover?” said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+desire.
+
+“That wouldn’t be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the
+old man would have to say how much he gives her,” replied the notary.
+“But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till
+the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade.”
+
+“The shortest way,” said Goupil, “if the doctor is likely to live much
+longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out
+of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred
+thousand francs in hand.”
+
+Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+
+“He’d be a worm at the core,” whispered Zelie to Massin.
+
+“How did he get here?” returned the clerk.
+
+“That will just suit you!” cried Desire to Goupil. “But do you think you
+can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?”
+
+“In these days,” whispered Zelie again in Massin’s year, “notaries look
+out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula
+just to get the old man’s business?”
+
+“I am sure of him,” said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look
+out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, “because I
+hold something over him,” but he withheld the words.
+
+“I am quite of Dionis’s opinion,” he said aloud.
+
+“So am I,” cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with
+the clerk.
+
+“My wife has voted!” said the post master, sipping his brandy, though
+his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a
+notable quantity of liquids.
+
+“And very properly,” remarked the collector.
+
+“I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,” said Dionis.
+
+“If Monsieur Dionis’s advice is good,” said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, “we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every
+Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us.”
+
+“Yes, and be received as he received us!” cried Zelie. “Minoret and
+I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don’t know how to write
+prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell him
+that!”
+
+“As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,” said Madame
+Massin, rather piqued, “I don’t want to lose ten thousand.”
+
+“We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+shall see how things are going,” said Madame Cremiere; “you’ll thank us
+some day, cousin.”
+
+“Treat Ursula kindly,” said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to
+the level of his lips; “remember old Jordy left her his savings.”
+
+“You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer
+in Paris, could have done,” said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+post-house.
+
+“And now they are quarreling over my fee,” replied the notary, smiling
+bitterly.
+
+The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+Portenduere on his arm.
+
+“She dragged him to vespers, see!” cried Madame Massin to Madame
+Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the
+church.
+
+“Let us go and speak to him,” said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old
+man.
+
+The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference)
+did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this
+sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop
+and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated
+affection and forced smiles.
+
+“Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?” said Madame
+Cremiere. “We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a
+long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are
+old enough now to make dear Ursula’s acquaintance.”
+
+“Ursula is a little bear, like her name,” replied the doctor.
+
+“Let us tame her,” said Madame Massin. “And besides, uncle,” added the
+good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy,
+“they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are
+very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her
+music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a
+class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means.”
+
+“Certainly,” said the old man, “and it will be all the better for me
+because I want to give Ursula a singing-master.”
+
+“Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to
+see you; he is now a lawyer.”
+
+“Yes, to-night,” echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these
+petty souls.
+
+The two nieces pressed Ursula’s hand, saying, with affected eagerness,
+“Au revoir.”
+
+“Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!” cried Ursula, giving him a
+grateful look.
+
+“You are going to have a voice,” he said; “and I shall give you masters
+of drawing and Italian also. A woman,” added the doctor, looking at
+Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, “ought to be educated to
+the height of every position in which her marriage may place her.”
+
+Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather’s thoughts evidently
+turned in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near
+confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to
+think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him,
+she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing
+plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a distance like a
+blue and white flower.
+
+“Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes,
+they were very kind,” she repeated as he approached her, to change the
+thoughts that made him pensive.
+
+“Poor little girl!” cried the old man.
+
+He laid Ursula’s hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to
+the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+
+“Why do you say, ‘Poor little girl’?”
+
+“Don’t you see how they fear you?”
+
+“Fear me,--why?”
+
+“My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of
+their inheritance to enrich you.”
+
+“But you won’t do that?” said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+
+“Oh, divine consolation of my old age!” said the doctor, taking his
+godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. “It was for her
+and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live
+until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!--You
+will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and
+Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and
+prolong my life; they are longing for my death.”
+
+“God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is--Ah! I despise them!”
+ exclaimed Ursula.
+
+“Dinner is ready!” called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+
+Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty
+dining-room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer
+(the folly of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The
+doctor offered him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of his
+coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted, ground,
+and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+
+“Well,” said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the
+old man, “the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put
+your relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the
+priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and they are
+bestirring themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the
+square; they were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs.”
+
+“What did I tell you, Ursula?” cried the doctor. “At the risk of
+grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you
+on your guard against undeserved enmity.”
+
+“I should like to say a word to you on this subject,” said Bongrand,
+seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula’s future.
+
+The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of
+peace wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked up
+and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her
+godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis’s opinion as
+to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for
+Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter
+had been much discussed among the lawyers of the little town. Bongrand
+considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor Minoret, but he
+felt that the whole spirit of legislation was against the foisting into
+families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of the Code had foreseen
+only the weakness of fathers and mothers for their natural children,
+without considering that uncles and aunts might have a like tenderness
+and a desire to provide for such children. Evidently there was a gap in
+the law.
+
+“In all other countries,” he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the heirs,
+“Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child, and
+the disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance from
+Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy is
+unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the
+spirit of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show
+that this hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the
+legislators, who did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they
+established a principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive.
+Zelie would carry it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive
+when the case was tried.”
+
+“The best of cases is often worthless,” cried the doctor. “Here’s the
+question the lawyers will put, ‘To what degree of relationship ought the
+disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to extend?’ and
+the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad cause.”
+
+“Faith!” said Bongrand, “I dare not take upon myself to affirm that
+the judges wouldn’t interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society.”
+
+Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the
+surest means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, “Poor little
+girl! I might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!”
+
+“Well, what will you do, then?” asked Bongrand.
+
+“We’ll think about it--I’ll see,” said the old man, evidently at a loss
+for a reply.
+
+Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the
+doctor.
+
+“Already!” cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. “Yes,” he said to Ursula,
+“send him here.”
+
+“I’ll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the
+advance-guard of your heirs,” said Bongrand. “They breakfasted together
+at the post house, and something is being engineered.”
+
+The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked
+for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon.
+
+The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+remarkable. The latter deny them the “lesser” powers while recognizing
+their possession of the “higher.” It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business
+believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details
+which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of
+science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are
+mistaken! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued
+by the doctor’s silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula’s interests
+which he thought endangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs.
+He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old man
+and Dionis.
+
+“No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be,” he thought as he looked
+at her, “there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and
+their own morality. I’ll test here. The Minoret-Levraults,” he began,
+settling his spectacles, “might possibly ask you in marriage for their
+son.”
+
+The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+moment’s inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to
+the glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged
+Monsieur Bongrand’s pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he
+smiled at her and said, “Go! go!”
+
+Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at
+the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the
+blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end
+of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer
+which reached the pagoda where she was.
+
+“My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate
+or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what
+they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good
+sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs
+will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that,
+and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what
+I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall
+come back from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien
+de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I
+shall not sell my property in the Funds.”
+
+Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first
+and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head
+against the blind to steady herself.
+
+“Good God, what is the matter with her?” thought the old doctor. “She
+has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her.”
+
+He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+
+“Adieu, Monsieur,” he said to the notary, “please leave us.”
+
+He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his
+study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her
+inhale it.
+
+“Take my place,” said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; “I must
+be alone with her.”
+
+The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but
+without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+
+“I don’t know,” replied Dionis. “She was standing by the pagoda,
+listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend
+some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for
+debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand
+to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is
+there anything between them?”
+
+“At fifteen years of age? pooh!” replied Bongrand.
+
+“She was born in February, 1813; she’ll be sixteen in four months.”
+
+“I don’t believe she ever saw him,” said the judge. “No, it is only a
+nervous attack.”
+
+“Attack of the heart, more likely,” said the notary.
+
+Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the
+marriage “in extremis” which they dreaded,--the only sure means by which
+the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw
+a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying
+his son to Ursula.
+
+“If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,”
+ replied Bongrand after a pause. “Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+infatuated with her noble blood.”
+
+“Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres,” replied the notary,
+on the point of betraying himself.
+
+Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that
+before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret
+for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his
+daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he
+was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred
+thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene
+was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene
+too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.
+
+“I shall have to come down to the mayor’s daughter,” he thought.
+“But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle
+Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to
+manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really loves
+him.”
+
+The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the
+garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
+
+“What ails you, my child?” he said. “Your life is my life. Without your
+smiles what would become of me?”
+
+“Savinien in prison!” she said.
+
+With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+sob.
+
+“Saved!” thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great
+anxiety. “Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife,” he
+thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula’s heart, applying
+his ear to it. “Ah, that’s all right,” he said to himself. “I did not
+know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet,” he added, looking at
+her; “but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all
+that has passed between you.”
+
+“I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other,” she
+answered, sobbing. “But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that
+you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!”
+
+“Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you
+put that little red dot against Saint Savinien’s day just as you put one
+before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little
+love-affair.”
+
+Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was
+silence between them.
+
+“Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor,
+and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been.”
+
+“No, no, dear godfather,” she said. “I will open my heart to you. Last
+May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child,
+and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except
+perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother’s
+fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I
+had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the
+windows in Monsieur Savinien’s room open; and Monsieur Savinien was
+there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements
+there was such grace--I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed
+his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white
+throat--so round!--must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and
+face and that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when
+I watch you arranging your beard. There came--I don’t know how--a
+sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so
+violently that I sat down--I couldn’t stand, I trembled so. But I longed
+to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just for
+play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and--”
+
+“And?”
+
+“And then,” she continued, “I hid myself--I was ashamed, but happy--why
+should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling--it dazzled my soul and
+gave it some power, but I don’t know what--it came again each time I saw
+within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as it
+was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur
+Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his clothes, even the tap
+of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little
+thing about him--his hand with the delicate glove--acted like a spell
+upon me; and yet I had strength enough not to think of him during
+mass. When the service was over I stayed in the church to let Madame de
+Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind him. I couldn’t tell you
+how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round
+to fasten the iron gate--”
+
+“Where was La Bougival?” asked the doctor.
+
+“Oh, I let her go to the kitchen,” said Ursula simply. “Then I saw
+Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh! godfather,
+I was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of surprise and
+admiration--I don’t know what I would not do to make him look at me
+again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore
+but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for any good
+I do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of
+myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to Paris that evening, and I have
+not seen him since. The street seems empty; he took my heart away with
+him--but he does not know it.”
+
+“Is that all?” asked the old man.
+
+“All, dear godfather,” she said, with a sigh of regret that there was
+not more to tell.
+
+“My little girl,” said the doctor, putting her on his knee; “you are
+nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your
+blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which
+will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of
+exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child, is love,”
+ said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,--“love in its
+holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming
+like a thief who takes all--yes, all! I expected it. I have studied
+women; many need proofs and miracles of affection before love
+conquers them; but others there are, under the influence of sympathies
+explainable to-day by magnetic fluids, who are possessed by it in an
+instant. To you I can now tell all--as soon as I saw the charming woman
+whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her forever, solely and
+faithfully, without knowing whether our characters or persons suited
+each other. Is there a second-sight in love? What answer can I give to
+that, I who have seen so many unions formed under celestial auspices
+only to be ruptured later, giving rise to hatreds that are well-nigh
+eternal, to repugnances that are unconquerable. The senses sometimes
+harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some persons live more by
+their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is also true; often minds
+agree and persons displease. These phenomena, the varying and secret
+cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws which give parents
+supreme power over the marriages of their children; for a young girl is
+often duped by one or other of these hallucinations. Therefore I do not
+blame you. The sensations you feel, the rush of sensibility which has
+come from its hidden source upon your heart and upon your mind, the
+happiness with which you think of Savinien, are all natural. But,
+my darling child, society demands, as our good abbe has told us, the
+sacrifice of many natural inclinations. The destinies of men and women
+differ. I was able to choose Ursula Mirouet for my wife; I could go to
+her and say that I loved her; but a young girl is false to herself if
+she asks the love of the man she loves. A woman has not the right which
+men have to seek the accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is
+to her--above all to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which
+protects the secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me
+these first emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than
+admit to Savinien--”
+
+“Oh, yes!” she said.
+
+“But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+must forget them.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even if
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you--”
+
+“I never thought of it.”
+
+“But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to
+give him your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had
+subjected him to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been
+such as to make families distrust him and to put obstacles between
+himself and heiresses which cannot be easily overcome.”
+
+A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula’s sweet face as she said,
+“Then poverty is good sometimes.”
+
+The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+
+“What has he done, godfather?” she asked.
+
+“In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up
+in Saint-Pelagie, the debtor’s prison; an impropriety which will always
+be, in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is willing to
+plunge his poor mother into poverty and distress might cause his wife,
+as your poor father did, to die of despair.”
+
+“Don’t you think he will do better?” she asked.
+
+“If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don’t know a
+worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means.”
+
+This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:--
+
+“If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you a
+right to advise him; you can remonstrate--”
+
+“Yes,” said the doctor, imitating her, “and then he can come here, and
+the old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and--”
+
+“I was thinking only of him,” said Ursula, blushing.
+
+“Don’t think of him, my child; it would be folly,” said the doctor
+gravely. “Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to
+the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with
+whom?--with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment,
+without money, and whose father--alas! I must now tell you all--was the
+bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law.”
+
+“O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I
+will not think of him again--except in my prayers,” she said, amid the
+sobs which this painful revelation excited. “Give him what you meant to
+give me--what can a poor girl like me want?--ah, in prison, he!--”
+
+“Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us.”
+
+There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not
+dare to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply
+moved to see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks. The
+tears of old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+
+“Oh what is it?” cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and kissing
+his hands. “Are you not sure of me?”
+
+“I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to
+cause the first great sorrow of your life!” he said. “I suffer as
+much as you. I never wept before, except when I lost my children--and,
+Ursula--Yes,” he cried suddenly, “I will do all you desire!”
+
+Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning.
+She smiled.
+
+“Let us go into the salon, darling,” said the doctor. “Try to keep
+the secret of all this to yourself,” he added, leaving her alone for a
+moment in his study.
+
+He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he
+might say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+
+Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her
+frigid little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital of
+her troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her hand
+some letters which he had just returned to her after reading them; these
+letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside
+a square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lady was
+looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up
+in his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to
+valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests,--a sign of profound
+meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+
+This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished
+with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed
+the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it.
+The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady’s one servant, required,
+for comfort’s sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on
+one of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The old damask curtains
+of light green with green flowers were drawn, and the outside blinds had
+been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table, leaving the rest of
+the room in semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say that between the two
+windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing the famous Admiral de
+Portenduere, the rival of the Suffren, Guichen, Kergarouet and Simeuse
+naval heroes? On the paneled wall opposite to the fireplace were
+portraits of the Vicomte de Portenduere and of the mother of the old
+lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien’s great-uncle was therefore the
+Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the Comte de Portenduere,
+grandson of the admiral,--both of them very rich.
+
+The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de
+Portenduere at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count
+represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the
+younger. The count, who was over forty years of age and married to
+a rich wife, had three children. His fortune, increased by various
+legacies, amounted, it was said, to sixty thousand francs a year. As
+deputy from Isere he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought
+the hotel de Portenduere with the indemnities he obtained under
+the Villele law. The vice-admiral had recently married his niece by
+marriage, for the sole purpose of securing his money to her.
+
+The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy,
+young and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the
+influence of an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years
+of age, been a lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son
+should go into either naval or military service, had kept him at Nemours
+under the tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon’s assistants, hoping that
+she could keep him near her until her death. She meant to marry him to a
+demoiselle d’Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year;
+to whose hand the name of Portenduere and the farm at Bordieres enabled
+him to pretend. This narrow but judicious plan, which would have carried
+the family to a second generation, was already balked by events.
+The d’Aiglemonts were ruined, and one of the daughters, Helene, had
+disappeared, and the mystery of her disappearance was never solved.
+
+The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his mother,
+so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as they were,
+and swore that he would never live in the provinces--comprehending,
+rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the Rue des
+Bourgeois. At twenty-one years of age he left his mother’s house to make
+acquaintance with his relations, and try his luck in Paris. The contrast
+between life in Paris and life in Nemours was likely to be fatal to a
+young man of twenty-one, free, with no one to say him nay, naturally
+eager for pleasure, and for whom his name and his connections opened the
+doors of all the salons. Quite convinced that his mother had the savings
+of many years in her strong-box, Savinien soon spent the six thousand
+francs which she had given him to see Paris. That sum did not defray his
+expenses for six months, and he soon owed double that sum to his hotel,
+his tailor, his boot maker, to the man from whom he hired his
+carriages and horses, to a jeweler,--in short, to all those traders and
+shopkeepers who contribute to the luxury of young men.
+
+He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to
+wear his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his
+cravat, before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand francs,
+while still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his love for
+the sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame de Serizy,
+whose youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+
+“How is that you all manage?” asked Savinien one day, at the end of a
+gay breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate
+as the young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all
+aiming for the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality.
+“You were no richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you
+contrive to maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but
+debts.”
+
+“We all began that way,” answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh
+was echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet, and
+others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+
+“Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an exception,”
+ said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming intimate with
+these young men. “Any one but he,” added Finot bowing to that personage,
+“would have been ruined by it.”
+
+“A true remark,” said Maxime de Trailles.
+
+“And a true idea,” added Rastignac.
+
+“My dear fellow,” said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; “debts are the
+capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors for
+all branches, who don’t teach you anything, costs sixty thousand francs.
+If the education of the world does cost double, at least it teaches you
+to understand life, politics, men,--and sometimes women.”
+
+Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: “The
+world sells dearly what we think it gives.”
+
+Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest
+pilots of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a
+joke.
+
+“Take care, my dear fellow,” said de Marsay one day. “You have a great
+name; if you don’t obtain the fortune that name requires you’ll end your
+days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. ‘We have seen the fall of
+nobler heads,’” he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he took
+Savinien’s arm. “About six years ago,” he continued, “a young Comte
+d’Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the paradise
+of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket. He rose to
+the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town, where he is
+now expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a game of whist
+at two sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your situation, candidly,
+without shame; she will understand it and be very useful to you.
+Whereas, if you play the charade of first love with her she will pose
+as a Raffaelle Madonna, practice all the little games of innocence
+upon you, and take you journeying at enormous cost through the Land of
+Sentiment.”
+
+Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to
+which she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs,
+which was all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close
+of the first year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot of
+Madame de Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as the
+saying is, forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient of
+borrowing. One of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his cousin the
+Comte de Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to Gobseck or
+Gigonnet or Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother’s means, would
+give him an easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help of renewals
+enabled him to lead a happy life for nearly eighteen months. Without
+daring to leave Madame de Serizy the poor boy had fallen madly in love
+with the beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet, a prude after the fashion
+of young women who are awaiting the death of an old husband and making
+capital of their virtue in the interests of a second marriage. Quite
+incapable of understanding that calculating virtue is invulnerable,
+Savinien paid court to Emilie de Kergarouet in all the splendor of
+a rich man. He never missed either ball or theater at which she was
+present.
+
+“You haven’t powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock,” said de
+Marsay, laughing.
+
+That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely
+wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a
+prison were needed to convince Savinien.
+
+A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the
+money-lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the young
+man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default of one
+hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of his
+friends, to the debtor’s prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as the fact
+was known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to see him,
+and each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when they found
+how really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him had been seized
+except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The three young men (who
+brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed Savinien’s situation
+while drinking de Marsay’s wine, ostensibly to arrange for his future
+but really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+
+“When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere,” cried Rastignac, “and
+has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be
+put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there,
+my good fellow.”
+
+“Why didn’t you tell me?” cried de Marsay. “You could have had my
+traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction for
+Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we could
+have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what ass
+ever led you to drink of that cursed spring.”
+
+“Des Lupeaulx.”
+
+The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought
+and suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+
+“Explain all your resources; show us your hand,” said de Marsay.
+
+When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and the
+little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without other
+grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when he had
+valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish cement, and
+put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies looked at each
+other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of the abbe
+in Alfred de Musset’s “Marrons du feu” (which had then just
+appeared),--“Sad!”
+
+“Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter,” said Rastignac.
+
+“Yes, but afterwards?” cried de Marsay.
+
+“If you had merely been put in the fiacre,” said Lucien, “the government
+would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie isn’t the
+antechamber of an embassy.”
+
+“You are not strong enough for Parisian life,” said Rastignac.
+
+“Let us consider the matter,” said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as a
+jockey examines a horse. “You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a white
+forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which
+suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you’ve a foot that tells
+race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. You
+are what I call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of the style
+Louis XII., hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have the thing
+that pleases women, a something, I don’t know what it is, which men take
+no account of themselves; it is in the air, the manner, the tone of
+the voice, the dart of the eye, the gesture,--in short, in a number of
+little things which women see and to which they attach a meaning which
+escapes us. You don’t know your merits, my dear fellow. Take a certain
+tone and style and in six months you’ll captivate an English-woman with
+a hundred thousand pounds; but you must call yourself viscount, a title
+which belongs to you. My charming step-mother, Lady Dudley, who has not
+her equal for matching two hearts, will find you some such woman in the
+fens of Great Britain. What you must now do is to get the payment of
+your debts postponed for ninety days. Why didn’t you tell us about them?
+The money-lenders at Baden would have spared you--served you perhaps;
+but now, after you have once been in prison, they’ll despise you. A
+money-lender is, like society, like the masses, down on his knees before
+the man who is strong enough to trick him, and pitiless to the lambs.
+To the eyes of some persons Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the
+souls of young men. Do you want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I
+told that little d’Esgrignon: ‘Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep
+enough to live on for three years, and marry some girl in the provinces
+who can bring you an income of thirty thousand francs.’ In the course of
+three years you can surely find some virtuous heiress who is willing to
+call herself Madame la Vicomtesse de Portenduere. Such is virtue,--let’s
+drink to it. I give you a toast: ‘The girl with money!”
+
+The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to
+each other: “He’s not strong enough!” “He’s quite crushed.” “I don’t
+believe he’ll pull through it?”
+
+The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two pages.
+Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote first to
+her son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the Comte de
+Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+
+The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was holding
+in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her appeal,
+which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her heart.
+
+
+Paris, September, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+Madame,--You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I both feel
+in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de Kergarouet grieves me all
+the more because our house was a home to your son; we were proud of him.
+If Savinien had had more confidence in the admiral we could have taken
+him to live with us, and he would already have obtained some good
+situation. But, unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of
+his own accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing
+of his pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because
+Savinien has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the authorities
+to arrest him.
+
+If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed our
+relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him to travel
+in Germany while his affairs were being settled here. Monsieur de
+Kergarouet intended to get him a place in the War office; but this
+imprisonment for debt will paralyze such efforts. You must pay his
+debts; let him enter the navy; he will make his way like the true
+Portenduere that he is; he has the fire of the family in his beautiful
+black eyes, and we will all help him.
+
+Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom I
+beg you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our best
+wishes, with the respects of
+
+Your very affectionate servant, Emilie de Kergarouet.
+
+
+The second letter was as follows:--
+
+
+Portenduere, August, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+My dear aunt,--I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien’s pranks.
+As I am married and the father of two sons and one daughter, my fortune,
+already too small for my position and prospects, cannot be lessened to
+ransom a Portenduere from the hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his
+debts, and come and live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive
+the welcome we owe you, even though our views may not be entirely in
+accordance with yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to
+marry Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in this
+part of the country, where there are a number of rich girls who would be
+delighted to enter our family.
+
+My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give us,
+and I beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this plan,
+together with my affectionate respects.
+
+Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+
+
+“What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!” cried the old Breton lady,
+wiping her eyes.
+
+“The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison,” said the Abbe
+Chaperon at last; “the countess alone read your letter, and has answered
+it for him. But you must decide at once on some course,” he added after
+a pause, “and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do not sell your
+farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four years; in a few
+months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs and get a premium
+for double that amount. Borrow what you need of some honest man,--not
+from the townspeople who make a business of mortgages. Your neighbour
+here is a most worthy man; a man of good society, who knew it as it was
+before the Revolution, who was once an atheist, and is now an earnest
+Catholic. Do not let your feelings debar you from going to his house
+this very evening; he will fully understand the step you take; forget
+for a moment that you are a Kergarouet.”
+
+“Never!” said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+
+“Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will
+lend you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three
+per cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased
+with him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,--for he will
+have to go there to sell out his funds,--and he can bring the lad back
+to you.”
+
+“Are you speaking of that little Minoret?”
+
+“That little Minoret is eighty-three years old,” said the abbe, smiling.
+“My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don’t wound him,--he
+might be useful to you in other ways.”
+
+“What ways?”
+
+“He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl--”
+
+“Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?”
+
+The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant words,
+the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he was about
+to make.
+
+“I think Doctor Minoret is very rich,” he said.
+
+“So much the better for him.”
+
+“You have indirectly caused your son’s misfortunes by refusing to give
+him a profession; beware for the future,” said the abbe sternly. “Am I
+to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming?”
+
+“Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?” she replied.
+
+“Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he
+comes to you you will pay him five,” said the abbe, inventing this
+reason to influence the old lady. “And if you are forced to sell your
+farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse
+to lend you the money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you
+would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the
+Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your
+farm and know that your son is in prison.”
+
+“They know it! oh, do they know it?” she exclaimed, throwing up
+her arms. “There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold!
+Tiennette, Tiennette!”
+
+Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short
+gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe’s coffee to
+warm it.
+
+“Let be, Monsieur le recteur,” she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+drink it, “I’ll just put it into the bain-marie, it won’t spoil it.”
+
+“Well,” said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+voice, “I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will
+come--”
+
+The old mother did not yield till after an hour’s discussion, during
+which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times.
+And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the
+words, “Savinien would go.”
+
+“It is better that I should go than he,” she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SAVINIEN SAVED
+
+The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large door
+of Madame de Portenduere’s house closed on the abbe, who immediately
+crossed the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor’s gate. He fell
+from Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, “Why do you come so
+late, Monsieur l’abbe?” as the other had said, “Why do you leave Madame
+so early when she is in trouble?”
+
+The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown
+salon; for Dionis had stopped at Massin’s on his way home to re-assure
+the heirs by repeating their uncle’s words.
+
+“I believe Ursula has a love-affair,” said he, “which will be nothing
+but pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic” (extreme sensibility
+is so called by notaries), “and, you’ll see, she won’t marry soon.
+Therefore, don’t show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and
+very respectful to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,”
+ added the notary--without being aware that Goupil is a corruption of the
+word vulpes, a fox.
+
+So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master and
+Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual
+and noisy party in the doctor’s salon. As the abbe entered he heard
+the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of
+Beethoven’s. With girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music,
+which must be studied to be understood, for the purpose of disgusting
+these women with the thing they coveted. The finer the music the less
+ignorant persons like it. So, when the door opened and the abbe’s
+venerable head appeared they all cried out: “Ah! here’s Monsieur
+l’abbe!” in a tone of relief, delighted to jump up and put an end to
+their torture.
+
+The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the
+Nemours doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with
+which the collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had
+proposed to take the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The
+doctor rose as if to receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the
+game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency
+of his goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+
+“Good-night, my friends,” cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+
+“Ah! that’s where the money goes,” said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, as they walked on.
+
+“God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+such a din as that!” cried Madame Massin.
+
+“She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician,” said
+the collector; “he has quite a reputation.”
+
+“Not in Nemours, I’m sure of that,” said Madame Cremiere.
+
+“I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away,” said
+Massin; “for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+music-book.”
+
+“If that’s the sort of charivari they like,” said the post master, “they
+are quite right to keep it to themselves.”
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful
+racket,” said Madame Cremiere.
+
+“I shall never be able to play before persons who don’t understand
+music,” Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+
+“In natures richly organized,” said the abbe, “sentiments can be
+developed only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable to
+give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree
+dies in a clay soil, so a musician’s genius has a mental eclipse when he
+is surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from
+the souls who make the environment of our souls as much intensity as we
+convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made
+into proverbs: ‘Howl with the wolves’; ‘Like meets like.’ But the
+suffering you felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures only.”
+
+“And so, friends,” said the doctor, “a thing which would merely give
+pain to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here,
+I charge you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,--‘Ut flos,’
+etc.,--a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and
+the world.”
+
+“And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula,” said Monsieur Bongrand,
+smiling.
+
+“Flattered her grossly,” remarked the Nemours doctor.
+
+“I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is,” said old Minoret.
+“Why is that?”
+
+“A true thought has its own delicacy,” said the abbe.
+
+“Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?” asked Ursula, with a look of
+anxious curiosity.
+
+“Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may come
+to see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret.”
+
+Ursula pressed her godfather’s hand under the table.
+
+“Her son,” said Bongrand, “was rather too simple-minded to live in Paris
+without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made here about
+the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting her death.”
+
+“Is it possible you think him capable of it?” said Ursula, with such
+a terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather
+sadly, “Alas! yes, she loves him.”
+
+“Yes and no,” said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula’s question.
+“There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now in
+prison; a scamp wouldn’t have got there.”
+
+“Don’t let us talk about it any more,” said old Minoret. “The poor
+mother must not be allowed to weep if there’s a way to dry her tears.”
+
+The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the gate,
+saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and as
+soon as Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with La
+Bougival beside her.
+
+“Madame la vicomtesse,” said the abbe, who entered first into the little
+salon, “Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you should have
+the trouble of coming to him--”
+
+“I am too much of the old school, madame,” interrupted the doctor, “not
+to know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very glad to
+be able, as Monsieur l’abbe tells me, to be of service to you.”
+
+Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so
+much that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the
+notary instead, was surprised by Minoret’s attention to such a degree
+that she rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+
+“Be seated, monsieur,” she said with a regal air. “Our dear abbe has
+told you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful
+debts,--a hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him I
+would secure you on my farm at Bordieres.”
+
+“We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to
+you--if you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter.”
+
+“Very good, monsieur,” she said, bowing her head and looking at the abbe
+as if to say, “You were right; he really is a man of good society.”
+
+“You see, madame,” said the abbe, “that my friend the doctor is full of
+devotion to your family.”
+
+“We shall be grateful, monsieur,” said Madame de Portenduere, making
+a visible effort; “a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a
+prodigal, is--”
+
+“Madame, I had the honor to meet, in ‘65, the illustrious Admiral de
+Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes, and
+also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to question
+him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur de
+Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the glorious
+days of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of Great Britain,
+and its officers had their full quota of courage. With what impatience
+we awaited in ‘83 and ‘84 the news from St. Roch. I came very near
+serving as surgeon in the king’s service. Your great-uncle, who is still
+living, Admiral Kergarouet, fought his splendid battle at that time in
+the ‘Belle-Poule.’”
+
+“Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!”
+
+“He would not leave him there a day,” said old Minoret, rising.
+
+He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed him
+to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left the
+room; but returned immediately to say:--
+
+“My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+to-morrow?”
+
+The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his
+friend, who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces of
+the old lady.
+
+“He is an astonishing man for his age,” she said. “He talks of going to
+Paris and attending to my son’s affairs as if he were only twenty-five.
+He has certainly seen good society.”
+
+“The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of France
+would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if that
+idea should come into Savinien’s head!--times are so changed that the
+objections would not come from your side, especially after his late
+conduct--”
+
+The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled him
+to finish it.
+
+“You have lost your senses,” she said at last.
+
+“Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+future in a manner to win that old man’s respect.”
+
+“If it were not you, Monsieur l’abbe,” said Madame de Portenduere, “if
+it were any one else who spoke to me in that way--”
+
+“You would not see him again,” said the abbe, smiling. “Let us hope that
+your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in these
+days as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien’s good; as you
+really have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in the
+way of his making himself another position.”
+
+“And it is you who say that to me?”
+
+“If I did not say it to you, who would?” cried the abbe rising and
+making a hasty retreat.
+
+As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the
+whole coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still
+open.
+
+The next day at half-past six o’clock the old man and the young girl
+reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a
+fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between
+the press and the court was not made up. Minoret’s notary now indirectly
+approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his
+journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his shares in the
+Funds, all of which were then at a high value, depositing the proceeds
+in the Bank of France. The notary also advised his client to sell the
+stocks left to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He promised to employ an
+extremely clever broker to treat with Savinien’s creditors; but said
+that in order to succeed it would be necessary for the young man to stay
+several days longer in prison.
+
+“Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+cent,” said the notary. “Besides, you can’t get your money under seven
+or eight days.”
+
+When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week longer
+in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only once. Old
+Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel in the
+Rue Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very suitable
+apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his goddaughter
+he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at other times
+he took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards; but nothing
+seemed to amuse or interest her.
+
+“What do you want to do?” asked the old man.
+
+“See Saint-Pelagie,” she answered obstinately.
+
+Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef, where
+the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent then
+transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls, with
+every window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter without
+stooping (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in a quarter
+full of wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets like a supreme
+misery,--this assemblage of dismal things so oppressed Ursula’s heart
+that she burst into tears.
+
+“Oh!” she said, “to imprison young men in this dreadful place for money!
+How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not? _He_
+there!” she cried. “Where, godfather?” she added, looking from window to
+window.
+
+“Ursula,” said the old man, “you are making me commit great follies.
+This is not forgetting him as you promised.”
+
+“But,” she argued, “if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel an
+interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all.”
+
+“Ah!” cried the doctor, “there is so much reason in your
+unreasonableness that I am sorry I brought you.”
+
+Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the
+legal papers ready for Savinien’s release. The payings, including the
+notaries’ fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went
+himself to see Savinien released on Saturday at two o’clock. The young
+viscount, already informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked
+his liberator with sincere warmth of heart.
+
+“You must return at once to see your mother,” the old doctor said to
+him.
+
+Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted certain
+debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his friends.
+
+“I suspected there was some personal debt,” cried the doctor, smiling.
+“Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid
+out only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend it,
+monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the green
+cloth of fortune.”
+
+During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated
+hard work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of day.
+Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his time and
+required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere, which his
+mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in Paris. His cousin
+the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor figure in the Elective
+Chamber in presence of the peerage and the court; and had none too much
+credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet existed only as the husband of his
+wife. Savinien admitted to himself that he had seen orators, men from
+the middle classes, or lesser noblemen, become influential personages.
+Money was the pivot, the sole means, the only mechanism of a society
+which Louis XVIII. had tried to create in the likeness of that of
+England.
+
+On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs
+the young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which were
+certainly in keeping with de Marsay’s advice) to the old doctor.
+
+“I ought,” he said, “to go into oblivion for three or four years and
+seek a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions of
+the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady who
+could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence and
+in obscurity.”
+
+Studying the young fellow’s face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself.
+He therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+
+“My friend,” he said, “if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+(which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner,
+to find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and
+possessing from seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make
+you happy and of whom you will have every reason to be proud,--one whose
+only nobility is that of the heart!”
+
+“Ah, doctor!” cried the young man, “there is no longer a nobility in
+these days,--nothing but an aristocracy.”
+
+“Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me,” said the old man.
+
+That evening, at six o’clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien, who
+once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss
+which invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely
+forgotten the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover,
+his hopeless love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing
+a thought on a few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He did
+not recognize her when the doctor handed her into the coach and then sat
+down beside her to separate her from the young viscount.
+
+“I have some bills to give you,” said the doctor to the young man. “I
+have brought all your papers and documents.”
+
+“I came very near not getting off,” said Savinien, “for I had to order
+linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+prodigal.”
+
+However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the young
+man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain remarks
+of the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after dusk, her
+green veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+
+“Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much,” said
+Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+
+“I am glad to return to Nemours,” she answered in a trembling voice
+raising her veil.
+
+Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the heavy
+braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+
+“I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that I
+meet my charming neighbour again,” he said; “I hope, Monsieur le docteur
+that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I remember to
+have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula’s piano.”
+
+“I do not know,” replied the doctor gravely, “whether your mother would
+approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care for this
+dear child with all the solicitude of a mother.”
+
+This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great. Savinien
+and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was full
+of projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap,
+dropped upon her uncle’s shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn,
+Savinien awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally
+caused by the jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half off;
+the hair, unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed from
+the heat of the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to whom
+dress is a necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The sleep
+of innocence is always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the pretty
+teeth; the shawl, unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds of her
+muslin gown and without offence to her modesty, the gracefulness of
+her figure. The purity of the virgin spirit shone on the sleeping
+countenance all the more plainly because no other expression was there
+to interfere with it. Old Minoret, who presently woke up, placed his
+child’s head in the corner of the carriage that she might be more at
+ease; and she let him do it unconsciously, so deep was her sleep after
+the many wakeful nights she had spent in thinking of Savinien’s trouble.
+
+“Poor little girl!” said the doctor to his neighbour, “she sleeps like
+the child she is.”
+
+“You must be proud of her,” replied Savinien; “for she seems as good as
+she is beautiful.”
+
+“Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she
+were my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God grant
+that I may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make her
+happy. I wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was for
+the first time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden it.
+‘But,’ I said, ‘when you are married your husband will want you to go
+there.’ ‘I shall do what my husband wants,’ she answered. ‘If he asks me
+to do evil and I am weak enough to yield, he will be responsible before
+God--and so I shall have strength to refuse him, for his own sake.’”
+
+As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of admiration
+which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had taken the
+diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had fallen in
+love with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her soul, the beauty
+of that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy of the features;
+he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive
+sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A
+presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold of him; he saw in Ursula the
+woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words,
+“Seven or eight hundred thousand francs.”
+
+“In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be
+twenty-seven,” he thought. “The good doctor talked of probation, work,
+good conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth.”
+
+The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave
+Ursula a parting glance.
+
+Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor
+and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass.
+Savinien’s release and his return in company with the doctor had
+explained the reason of the latter’s absence to the newsmongers of the
+town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on
+the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended
+his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de
+Portenduere, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered
+her his arm and took her home. The old lady asked him to dinner that
+evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the abbe would be
+the only other guest.
+
+“He must have wished Ursula to see Paris,” said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+“Pest!” cried Cremiere; “he can’t take a step without that girl!”
+
+“Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,”
+ said Massin.
+
+“So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+released that little Savinien?” cried Goupil. “He refused Dionis, but he
+didn’t refuse Madame de Portenduere--Ha, ha! you are all done for. The
+viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and the
+doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he
+has now paid to secure the alliance.”
+
+“It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien,” said the butcher.
+“The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came
+early for a filet.”
+
+“Well, Dionis, here’s a fine to-do!” said Massin, rushing up to the
+notary, who was entering the square.
+
+“What is? It’s all going right,” returned the notary. “Your uncle has
+sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness the
+signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand francs,
+lent to her by your uncle.”
+
+“Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?”
+
+“That’s as if you said Goupil was to be my successor.”
+
+“The two things are not so impossible,” said Goupil.
+
+On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform
+her son that she wished to see him.
+
+The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame
+de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a
+large dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little
+antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other
+room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the
+street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room
+for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the court.
+Madame de Portenduere’s bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked
+into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the
+ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the kitchen built at
+the end of the court, so that this salon was made to answer the double
+purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+
+The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had
+left it on the day of his death; there was no change except that he was
+absent. Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying upon it
+the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The
+gold snuff-box from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last
+time was on the table, with his prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from
+which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed,
+hung above a crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little
+ornaments he had worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon,
+his spy-glass hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had
+stopped the hands of the clock at the hour of his death, to which they
+always pointed. The room still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of
+the deceased. The hearth was as he left it. To her, entering there, he
+was again visible in the many articles which told of his daily habits.
+His tall cane with its gold head was where he had last placed it, with
+his buckskin gloves close by. On a table against the wall stood a gold
+vase, of coarse workmanship but worth three thousand francs, a gift from
+Havana, which city, at the time of the American War of Independence, he
+had protected from an attack by the British, bringing his convoy safe
+into port after an engagement with superior forces. To recompense this
+service the King of Spain had made him a knight of his order; the
+same event gave him a right to the next promotion to the rank of
+vice-admiral, and he also received the red ribbing. He then married his
+wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred thousand francs. But
+the Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduere
+emigrated.
+
+“Where is my mother?” said Savinien to Tiennette.
+
+“She is waiting for you in your father’s room,” said the old Breton
+woman.
+
+Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother’s rigid
+principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility,
+and he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart beating
+and his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered through the
+blinds he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air of solemnity
+in keeping with that funereal room.
+
+“Monsieur le vicomte,” she said when she saw him, rising and taking his
+hand to lead him to his father’s bed, “there died your father,--a man of
+honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His spirit
+is there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son degraded by
+imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain could have been
+spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and shutting you up for a
+few days in a military prison.--But you are here; you stand before your
+father, who hears you. You know all that you did before you were sent
+to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to me before your father’s shade,
+and in presence of God who sees all, that you have done no dishonorable
+act; that your debts are the result of youthful folly, and that your
+honor is untarnished? If your blameless father were there, sitting
+in that armchair, and asking an explanation of your conduct, could he
+embrace you after having heard it?”
+
+“Yes, mother,” replied the young man, with grave respect.
+
+She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few tears.
+
+“Let us forget it all, my son,” she said; “it is only a little less
+money. I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy
+of your name, kiss me--for I have suffered much.”
+
+“I swear, mother,” he said, laying his hand upon the bed, “to give you
+no further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair these
+first faults.”
+
+“Come and breakfast, my child,” she said, turning to leave the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+
+In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs
+something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover,
+the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates
+to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied
+to the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the
+spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours,
+where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible
+marriage of her son with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social
+laws have their exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother’s
+pride before the inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once.
+As soon as they were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible
+letters, as she called them, which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres
+had written her.
+
+“There is no such thing as family in these days, mother,” replied
+Savinien, “nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, ‘What taxes does he pay?’”
+
+“But the king?” asked the old lady.
+
+“The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife
+and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without
+regard to family,--the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is
+sufficiently well brought-up--that is to say, if she has been taught in
+school.”
+
+“Oh! there’s no need to talk of that,” said the old lady.
+
+Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called
+Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he resolved to know
+at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+
+“So,” he went on, “if I loved a young girl,--take for instance your
+neighbour’s godchild, little Ursula,--would you oppose my marriage?”
+
+“Yes, as long as I live,” she replied; “and after my death you would
+be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+Portendueres.”
+
+“Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobility,
+which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of great wealth?”
+
+“You could serve France and put faith in God.”
+
+“Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?”
+
+“It would be horrible if you took it then,--that is all I have to say.”
+
+“Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu.”
+
+“Mazarin himself opposed it.”
+
+“Remember the widow Scarron.”
+
+“She was a d’Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very
+old, my son,” she said, shaking her head. “When I am no more you can, as
+you say, marry whom you please.”
+
+Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal
+to her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this
+opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of
+a forbidden thing.
+
+When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink
+and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with
+nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen
+of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the
+doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her
+eyes, and the old lady herself the social value which a duchess of the
+Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula
+measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated Vicomte
+de Portenduere from the daughter of a regimental musician, a former
+opera-singer and the natural son of an organist.
+
+“What is the matter, my dear?” said the old lady, making the girl sit
+down beside her.
+
+“Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me--”
+
+“My little girl,” said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. “I
+know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to him,
+for he has brought back my prodigal son.”
+
+“But, my dear mother,” said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the
+color fly into Ursula’s face as she struggled to keep back her tears,
+“even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret,
+I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle
+has given us by accepting your invitation.”
+
+The young man pressed the doctor’s hand in a significant manner, adding:
+“I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order
+in France, and one which confers nobility.”
+
+Ursula’s extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a depth
+which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where the
+soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduere
+suddenly, and made her suspect that the doctor’s apparent generosity
+masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien
+replied with the intention of wounding the doctor in that which was
+dearest to him; and she succeeded, though the old man could hardly
+restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a “chevalier,” amused to
+observe how the eagerness of a lover did not shrink from absurdity.
+
+“The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to
+obtain,” he said, “has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other
+privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have
+done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor
+devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order
+of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic.”
+
+After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned,
+which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when
+there was a rap at the door.
+
+“There is our dear abbe,” said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,--an honor she had not
+paid to the doctor and his niece.
+
+The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere’s
+manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid
+it. He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was
+then running by confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de
+Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid
+all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady,
+in an easy, jesting way, a packet of legal papers and receipted bills,
+together with the account of his notary.
+
+“Has my son verified them?” she said, giving Savinien a look, to which
+he replied by bending his head. “Well, then the rest is my notary’s
+business,” she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair
+with the disdain she wished to show for money.
+
+To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere’s ideas, to
+elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+
+A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for
+the accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+
+“Why do you want them?” said the old lady.
+
+“To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments.”
+
+Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance with
+offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching
+a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the
+same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name
+in any language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of
+the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to
+Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some
+way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble; but she controlled herself,
+conscious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her
+emotion.
+
+“He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis,” said Savinien, when
+Goupil had closed the door.
+
+“What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?” said
+Madame de Portenduere.
+
+“I don’t complain of his ugliness,” said the abbe, “but I do of his
+wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain.”
+
+The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and
+dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the
+kindly good-humor of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the
+dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been almost
+intolerable. At dessert, seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to her:--
+
+“If you don’t feel well, dear child, we have only the street to cross.”
+
+“What is the matter, my dear?” said the old lady to the girl.
+
+“Madame,” said the doctor severely, “her soul is chilled, accustomed as
+she is to be met by smiles.”
+
+“A very bad education, monsieur,” said Madame de Portenduere. “Is it
+not, Monsieur l’abbe?”
+
+“Yes,” answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how
+to reply. “I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic
+spirit if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die
+until I place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and
+hatred--”
+
+“Oh, godfather--I beg of you--say no more. There is nothing the matter
+with me,” cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere’s eyes rather than
+give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+
+“I cannot know, madame,” said Savinien to his mother, “whether
+Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me.”
+
+Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his
+mother’s treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de
+Portenduere to excuse her; then she took her uncle’s arm, bowed, left
+the room, and returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and sat
+down to the piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears.
+
+“Why don’t you leave the management of your affairs to my old
+experience, cruel child?” cried the doctor in despair. “Nobles never
+think themselves under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we
+do them a service they consider that we do our duty, and that’s all.
+Besides, the old lady saw that you looked favorably on Savinien; she is
+afraid he will love you.”
+
+“At any rate he is saved!” said Ursula. “But ah! to try to humiliate a
+man like you!”
+
+“Wait till I return, my child,” said the old man leaving her.
+
+When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere’s salon he found Dionis
+the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of Nemours,
+witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all communes
+where there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis aside and
+said a word in his ear, after which the notary read the deeds aloud
+officially; from which it appeared that Madame de Portenduere gave a
+mortgage on all her property to secure payment of the hundred thousand
+francs, the interest on which was fixed at five per cent. At the reading
+of this last clause the abbe looked at Minoret, who answered with an
+approving nod. The poor priest whispered something in the old lady’s ear
+to which she replied,--
+
+“I will owe nothing to such persons.”
+
+“My mother leaves me the nobler part,” said Savinien to the doctor; “she
+will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude.”
+
+“But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to meet
+the interest and the legal costs,” said the abbe.
+
+“Monsieur,” said Minoret to Dionis, “as Monsieur and Madame de
+Portenduere are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the
+amount of the mortgage and I will pay them.”
+
+Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred and
+seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret made his
+fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the notary and
+witnesses.
+
+“Madame,” said the abbe, “why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those
+debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son
+for his debts of honor?”
+
+“Your Minoret is sly,” she said, taking a pinch of snuff. “He knows what
+he is about.”
+
+“My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by
+getting hold of our farm,” said Savinien; “as if a Portenduere, son of a
+Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will.”
+
+An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor’s house, where
+all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of
+the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its
+effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and
+Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed. The mothers
+said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage. The eyes of all
+present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young
+nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box,
+for he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The
+doctor’s cold manner surprised every one.
+
+“Ursula, my child,” he said, “give us a little music.”
+
+While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her
+in countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of
+pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them,
+so eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and
+the Portendueres.
+
+In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when
+played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more
+impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all
+music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the
+performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both
+meaning and poetry to passages which are in themselves of no great
+value. Chopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the
+truth of this fact, already proved by Paganini on the violin. That
+fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt, and
+communicates itself through all species of music, even simple chords.
+Ursula, by her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged to this
+rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came every
+Saturday and who, during Ursula’s stay in Paris was with her every
+day, had brought his pupil’s talent to its full perfection. “Rousseau’s
+Dream,” the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Herold in his young
+days, is not without a certain depth which is capable of being developed
+by execution. Ursula threw into it the feelings which were agitating her
+being, and justified the term “caprice” given by Herold to the fragment.
+With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke to the young man’s soul and
+wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that were almost visible.
+
+Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and his
+head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed on the
+paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning another world.
+Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less reason. Genuine
+feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was willing to show
+her soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien entered
+that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its
+feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by
+thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness
+of heart have the same power over a man that childhood has; the same
+charm, the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest
+and candid than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+
+The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take
+a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed, all
+except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle
+and the viscount and Ursula.
+
+“You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle,” he said, when the young
+girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. “Who is your
+master?”
+
+“A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti,” said the
+doctor. “If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay
+in Paris he would have been here to-day.”
+
+“He is not only a great musician,” said Ursula, “but a man of adorable
+simplicity of nature.”
+
+“Those lessons must cost a great deal,” remarked Desire.
+
+The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who
+had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air
+of a man who fulfills a duty.
+
+“Monsieur,” he said, “I am grateful for the feeling which leads you
+to make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right
+to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here,
+in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should
+otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother that if
+I do not beg her, in my niece’s name and my own, to do us the honor of
+dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would
+find herself indisposed on that day.”
+
+The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+respectfully, saying:--
+
+“You are quite right, monsieur.”
+
+He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was
+more of sadness than disappointment.
+
+Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+house precipitately.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+
+This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk
+among the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and
+regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+
+So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality puts
+everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even
+military subordination,--that last refuge of power in France, where
+passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+antipathies, or differences of fortune,--the obstinacy of an
+old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a
+barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles often
+do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent man a
+woman’s value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a struggle,
+great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young girl was
+rendered dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps our feelings
+obey the laws of nature as to the lastingness of her creations; to a
+long life a long childhood.
+
+The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if it
+were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl parted her
+curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien’s window, she
+saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects
+on the immense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural
+and right that a tax should be levied on them. Having thus protested
+against her godfather’s harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened
+her window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue
+to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the day
+she went up to her room, always to find the young viscount writing,
+tearing up what he had written, and then writing again--to her, no
+doubt!
+
+The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following
+letter:--
+
+
+To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+
+Mademoiselle,--I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young man
+inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which your
+godfather’s kindness released me. I know that I must in future
+give greater guarantees of good conduct than other men; therefore,
+mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place myself at your feet
+and ask you to consider my love. This declaration is not dictated by
+passion; it comes from an inward certainty which involves the whole of
+life. A foolish infatuation for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was
+the cause of my going to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my
+sincere love the total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now
+effaced from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my soul
+as a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no other wife
+than you. You have every qualification I desire in her who is to bear my
+name. The education you have received and the dignity of your own mind,
+place you on the level of the highest positions. But I doubt myself
+too much to dare describe you to yourself; I can only love you. After
+listening to you yesterday I recalled certain words which seem as though
+written for you; suffer me to transcribe them:--
+
+“Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and intelligent,
+spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she had passed her
+life at court, simple as the hermit who had never known the world, the
+fire of her soul is tempered in her eyes by sacred modesty.”
+
+I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even the
+most trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage to ask you,
+provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you by my conduct and
+my devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It concerns my very life; you
+cannot doubt that all my powers will be employed, not only in trying to
+please you, but in deserving your esteem, which is more precious to me
+than any other upon earth. With this hope, Ursula--if you will suffer
+me so to call you in my heart--Nemours will be to me a paradise, the
+hardest tasks will bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is
+derived from God. Tell me that I may call myself
+
+Your Savinien.
+
+
+Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her
+uncle.
+
+“Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!” she exclaimed, turning
+back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+
+A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda. Ursula
+awaited the old man’s words, and the old man reflected long, too long
+for the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their secret
+interview appeared in the following answer, part of which the doctor
+undoubtedly dictated.
+
+
+To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+
+Monsieur,--I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the letter in
+which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and according to the rules
+of my education, I have felt bound to communicate it to my godfather,
+who is all I have, and whom I love as a father and also as a friend. I
+must now tell you the painful objections which he has made to me, and
+which must be to you my answer.
+
+Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends entirely,
+not only on my godfather’s good-will, but also on the doubtful success
+of the measures he may take to elude the schemes of his relatives
+against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet,
+band-master of the 45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my
+godfather’s natural half-brother; and therefore these relatives may,
+though without reason, being a suit against a young girl who would be
+defenceless. You see, monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not
+my greatest misfortune. I have many things to make me humble. It is for
+your sake, and not for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which
+to loving and devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg
+you to consider, monsieur, that if I did not submit them to you, I might
+be suspected of leading your tenderness to overlook obstacles which the
+world, and more especially your mother, regard as insuperable.
+
+I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we are
+both too young and too inexperienced to understand the miseries of a
+life entered upon without other fortune than that I have received
+from the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My godfather desires,
+moreover, not to marry me until I am twenty. Who knows what fate may
+have in store for you in four years, the finest years of your life? do
+not sacrifice them to a poor girl.
+
+Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear
+godfather, who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to contribute to
+it in every way, and earnestly desires that his protection, which must
+soon fail me, may be replaced by a tenderness equal to his own; there
+remains only to tell you how touched I am by your offer and by the
+compliments which accompany it. The prudence which dictates my letter
+is that of an old man to whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I
+express is that of a young girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has
+arisen.
+
+Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+
+Your servant, Ursula Mirouet.
+
+
+Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who
+suffered from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often
+to her chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting
+pensively before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At
+the end of the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him; the
+delay was explained by his increasing love.
+
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+
+Dear Ursula,--I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up nothing
+can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to us, is right;
+but does it follow that I am wrong in loving you? Therefore, all I want
+to know from you is whether you could love me. Tell me this, if only by
+a sign, and then the next four years will be the finest of my life.
+
+A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral
+Kergarouet, a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy. The
+kind old man, grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the king’s
+favor would be thwarted by the rules of the service in case I wanted
+a certain rank. Nevertheless, if I study three months at Toulon, the
+minister of war can send me to sea as master’s mate; then after a cruise
+against the Algerines, with whom we are now at war, I can go through an
+examination and become a midshipman. Moreover, if I distinguish myself
+in an expedition they are fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly
+be made ensign--but how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make
+the rules as elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again
+in the navy.
+
+I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your
+godfather; and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me. Before
+replying to the admiral, I must have an interview with the doctor; on
+his reply my whole future will depend. Whatever comes of it, know this,
+that rich or poor, the daughter of a band master or the daughter of a
+king, you are the woman whom the voice of my heart points out to me.
+Dear Ursula, we live in times when prejudices which might once have
+separated us have no power to prevent our marriage. To you, then, I
+offer the feelings of my heart, to your uncle the guarantees which
+secure to him your happiness. He has not seen that I, in a few hours,
+came to love you more than he has loved you in fifteen years.
+
+Until this evening. Savinien.
+
+
+“Here, godfather,” said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a
+proud gesture.
+
+“Ah, my child!” cried the doctor when he had read it, “I am happier than
+even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution.”
+
+After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking
+with Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river.
+The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl
+clung to her uncle’s arm as though she were saving herself from a fall
+over a precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which
+made him shudder.
+
+“Leave us, my child,” he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and
+sat upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss it
+respectfully.
+
+“Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?” he said to
+the doctor in a low voice.
+
+“No,” said Minoret, smiling; “we might have to wait too long, but--I
+will give her to a lieutenant.”
+
+Tears of joy filled the young man’s eyes as he pressed the doctor’s hand
+affectionately.
+
+“I am about to leave,” he said, “to study hard and try to learn in six
+months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire.”
+
+“You are going?” said Ursula, springing towards them from the pavilion.
+
+“Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to go,
+the more I prove to you my affection.”
+
+“This is the 3rd of October,” she said, looking at him with infinite
+tenderness; “do not go till after the 19th.”
+
+“Yes,” said the old man, “we will celebrate Saint-Savinien’s day.”
+
+“Good-by, then,” cried the young man. “I must spend this week in Paris,
+to take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical instruments,
+and try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms that I can for
+myself.”
+
+Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after
+he entered his mother’s house they saw him come out again, followed by
+Tiennette carrying his valise.
+
+“If you are rich,” said Ursula to her uncle, “why do you make him serve
+in the navy?”
+
+“Presently it will be I who incurred his debts,” said the doctor,
+smiling. “I don’t oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear,
+and the cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out many
+stains. Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship, and
+that’s all I ask of him.”
+
+“But he may be killed,” she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+
+“Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own,” he said,
+laughing.
+
+That night the poor child, with La Bougival’s help, cut off a sufficient
+quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a chain; and the
+next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master, to take it to
+Paris and have the chain made and returned by the following Sunday. When
+Savinien got back he informed the doctor and Ursula that he had signed
+his articles and was to be at Brest on the 25th. The doctor asked him to
+dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly two whole days in the old man’s
+house. Notwithstanding much sage advice and many resolutions, the lovers
+could not help betraying their secret understanding to the watchful eyes
+of the abbe, Monsieur Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+
+“Children,” said the old man, “you are risking your happiness by not
+keeping it to yourselves.”
+
+On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered the
+little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind old
+man, by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the pagoda.
+
+“Dear Ursula,” said Savinien; “will you make a gift greater than my
+mother could make me even if--”
+
+“I know what you wish to ask me,” she said, interrupting him. “See, here
+is my answer,” she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the box
+containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with a
+nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. “Wear
+it,” she said, “for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by
+reminding you that my life depends on yours.”
+
+“Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair,” said the
+doctor to himself. “How did she manage to get it? what a pity to cut
+those beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life’s blood
+next.”
+
+“You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving
+you, a formal promise to have no other husband than me,” said Savinien,
+kissing the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his eyes.
+
+“Have I not said so too often--I who went to see the walls of
+Sainte-Pelagie when you were behind them?--” she replied, blushing. “I
+repeat it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be
+yours alone.”
+
+Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man could
+not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and kissing
+her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the bench,
+and when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the doctor
+standing before them.
+
+“My friend,” said the old man, “Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough
+a word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm
+of your love--Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have,
+you would have been satisfied with her word of promise,” he added, to
+revenge himself for the last sentence in Savinien’s second letter.
+
+Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which
+he wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without
+apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single
+thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first
+time her godfather asked her what she felt, she replied:--
+
+“I want to see the ocean.”
+
+“It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,”
+ answered the old man.
+
+“Shall I really go?” she said.
+
+If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite
+of the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien was
+being tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her happy for
+days with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman in uniform.
+She read the newspapers, imagining that they would give news of the
+cruiser on which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper’s sea-tales and
+learned to use sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration of feeling, often
+assumed by other women, were so genuine in Ursula that she saw in dreams
+the coming of Savinien’s letters, and never failed to announce them,
+relating the dream as a forerunner.
+
+“Now,” she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, “I
+am easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+instantly.”
+
+The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his face.
+
+“What pains you?” they said, when Ursula had left them.
+
+“Will she live?” replied the doctor. “Can so tender and delicate a
+flower endure the trials of the heart?”
+
+Nevertheless, the “little dreamer,” as the abbe called her, was working
+hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a woman of
+the world, and all the time she did not give to her singing and to the
+study of harmony and composition she spent in reading the books chosen
+for her by the abbe from her godfather’s rich library. And yet while
+leading this busy life she suffered, though without complaint. Sometimes
+she would sit for hours looking at Savinien’s window. On Sundays she
+would leave the church behind Madame de Portenduere and watch her
+tenderly; for, in spite of the old lady’s harshness, she loved her as
+Savinien’s mother. Her piety increased; she went to mass every morning,
+for she firmly believed that her dreams were the gift of God.
+
+At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to see
+the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien’s ship formed part of
+it, but he was not to be informed beforehand of their intention. The
+abbe and Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of this journey,
+said to be for Ursula’s health, which disturbed and greatly puzzled the
+relations. After beholding Savinien in his naval uniform, and going on
+board the fine flag-ship of the admiral, to whom the minister had given
+young Portenduere a special recommendation, Ursula, at her lover’s
+entreaty, went with her godfather to Nice, and along the shores of the
+Mediterranean to Genoa, where she heard of the safe arrival of the fleet
+at Algiers and the landing of the troops. The doctor would have liked to
+continue the journey through Italy, as much to distract Ursula’s mind as
+to finish, in some sense, her education, by enlarging her ideas through
+comparison with other manners and customs and countries, and by the
+fascination of a land where the masterpieces of art can still be seen,
+and where so many civilizations have left their brilliant traces. But
+the tidings of the opposition by the throne to the newly elected Chamber
+of 1830 obliged the doctor to return to France, bringing back his
+treasure in a flourishing state of health and possessed of a charming
+little model of the ship on which Savinien was serving.
+
+The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+relations,--Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours
+by whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at
+Fontainebleau. Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous
+influence over the country electors. Five of the post master’s farmers
+were electors. Dionis represented eleven votes. After a few meetings
+at the notary’s, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their adherents
+took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor returned,
+Dionis’s office and salon were the camp of his heirs. The justice of
+peace and the mayor, who had formed an alliance, backed by the nobility
+in the neighbouring castles, to resist the liberals of Nemours, now
+worsted in their efforts, were more closely united than ever by their
+defeat.
+
+By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the doctor
+by word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was defined for the
+first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving incidentally such
+importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left Rambouillet for Cherbourg.
+Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, sent for
+fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil and mounted on horses from
+his father’s stable, who arrived in Paris on the night of the 28th.
+With this troop Goupil and Desire took part in the capture of the
+Hotel-de-Veille. Desire was decorated with the Legion of honor and
+appointed deputy procureur du roi at Fontainebleau. Goupil received the
+July cross. Dionis was elected mayor of Nemours, and the city council
+was composed of the post master (now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere,
+and all the adherents of the family faction. Bongrand retained his place
+only through the influence of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose
+marriage with Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+
+Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs in
+shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about two
+hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in the
+same funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand francs a
+year. He made the same disposition of Ursula’s little capital bequeathed
+to her by de Jordy, together with the accrued interest thereon, which
+gave her about fourteen hundred francs a year in her own right. La
+Bougival, who had laid by some five thousand francs of her savings, did
+the same by the doctor’s advice, receiving in future three hundred and
+fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious transactions, agreed
+on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were carried out in perfect
+secrecy, thanks to the political troubles of the time.
+
+When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him
+a thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the
+Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new
+era in the doctor’s existence, for he now (at a period when horses and
+carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine
+horses and a caleche.
+
+When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church on
+a rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to help
+her out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,--as much to see the
+caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the goddaughter, to
+whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere, the post master,
+and their wives attributed this extravagant folly of the old man.
+
+“A caleche! Hey, Massin!” cried Goupil. “Your inheritance will go at top
+speed now!”
+
+“You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle,” said the post master to
+the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; “for it is
+to be supposed an old man of eighty-four won’t use up many horse-shoes.
+What did those horses cost?”
+
+“Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two
+thousand; but it’s a fine one, the wheels are patent.”
+
+“Yes, it’s a good carriage,” said Cremiere; “and a man must be rich to
+buy that style of thing.”
+
+“Ursula means to go at a good pace,” said Goupil. “She’s right; she’s
+showing you how to enjoy life. Why don’t you have fine carriages and
+horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn’t let myself be humiliated if I were
+you--I’d buy a carriage fit for a prince.”
+
+“Come, Cabirolle, tell us,” said Massin, “is it the girl who drives our
+uncle into such luxury?”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Cabirolle; “but she is almost mistress of the
+house. There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now she
+is going to study painting.”
+
+“Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn,” said Madame
+Cremiere.
+
+In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+
+“The old German is not dismissed, is he?” said Madame Massin.
+
+“He was there yesterday,” replied Cabirolle.
+
+“Now,” said Goupil, “you may as well give up counting on your
+inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than
+ever. Travel forms young people, and the little minx has got your uncle
+in the toils. Five or six parcels come down for her by the diligence
+every week, and the dressmakers and milliners come too, to try on her
+gowns and all the rest of it. Madame Dionis is furious. Watch for Ursula
+as she comes out of church and look at the little scarf she is wearing
+round her neck,--real cashmere, and it cost six hundred francs!”
+
+If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+have been less than that of Goupil’s last words; the mischief-maker
+stood by rubbing his hands.
+
+The doctor’s old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian
+upholsterer. Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused
+of hoarding immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on Ursula.
+The heirs called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but the saying,
+“He’s an old fool!” summed upon, on the whole, the verdict of the
+neighbourhood. These mistaken judgments of the little town had the one
+advantage of misleading the heirs, who never suspected the love between
+Savinien and Ursula, which was the secret reason of the doctor’s
+expenditure. The old man took the greatest delights in accustoming his
+godchild to her future station in the world. Possessing an income of
+over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave him pleasure to adorn his
+idol.
+
+In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her
+eyes beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from her
+window when she rose in the morning.
+
+“Why didn’t I know he was coming?” she said to herself.
+
+After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an
+act of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was
+serving was many months at sea without his being able to communicate
+with the doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without
+consulting him. Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already
+illustrious in its service, the new government had profited by a general
+change of officers to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained leave
+of absence for fifteen days, the new officer arrived from Toulon by the
+mail, in time for Ursula’s fete, intending to consult the doctor at the
+same time.
+
+“He has come!” cried Ursula rushing into her godfather’s bedroom.
+
+“Very good,” he answered; “I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+stay in Nemours.”
+
+“Ah! that’s my birthday present--it is all in that sentence,” she said,
+kissing him.
+
+On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came over
+at once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so changed
+for the better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain grave
+decision to the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an erect
+bearing which enables the most superficial observer to recognize a
+military man even in plain clothes. The habit of command produces this
+result. Ursula loved Savinien the better for it, and took a childlike
+pleasure in walking round the garden with him, taking his arm, and
+hearing him relate the part he played (as midshipman) in the taking of
+Algiers. Evidently Savinien had taken the city. The doctor, who had been
+watching them from his window as he dressed, soon came down. Without
+telling the viscount everything, he did say that, in case Madame de
+Portenduere consented to his marriage with Ursula, the fortune of his
+godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+
+“Alas!” said Savinien. “It will take a great deal of time to overcome my
+mother’s opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was placed
+between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying Ursula or
+else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the
+dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go.”
+
+“But, Savinien, we shall be together,” said Ursula, taking his hand and
+shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+
+To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her; she
+saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant tone of
+her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were
+both moved by it. The resignation was written and despatched, and
+Ursula’s fete received full glory from the presence of her betrothed.
+A few months later, towards the month of May, the home-life of the
+doctor’s household had resumed the quite tenor of its way but with one
+welcome visitor the more. The attentions of the young viscount were
+soon interpreted in the town as those of a future husband,--all the more
+because his manners and those of Ursula, whether in church, or on the
+promenade, though dignified and reserved, betrayed the understanding of
+their hearts. Dionis pointed out to the heirs that the doctor had never
+asked Madame de Portenduere for the interest of his money, three years
+of which was now due.
+
+“She’ll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of
+her son,” said the notary. “If such a misfortune happens it is probable
+that the greater part of your uncle’s fortune will serve for what Basile
+calls ‘an irresistible argument.’”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+
+The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved
+Ursula too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became as
+underhand as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis’s salon (as they had done
+every evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed against
+the lovers, and seldom separated without discussing some way of
+circumventing the old man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the fall
+in the Funds, as the doctor had done, to invest some, at least, of her
+enormous gains, was bitterest of them all against the orphan girl and
+the Portendueres. One evening, when Goupil, who usually avoided the
+dullness of these meetings, had come in to learn something of the
+affairs of the town which were under discussion, Zelie’s hatred was
+freshly excited; she had seen the doctor, Ursula, and Savinien returning
+in the caleche from a country drive, with an air of intimacy that told
+all.
+
+“I’d give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself
+before the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can
+take place,” she said.
+
+Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite
+alone:
+
+“Will you give me the means of buying Dionis’s practice? If you will, I
+will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula.”
+
+“How?” asked the colossus.
+
+“Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?” said the
+notary’s head clerk.
+
+“Well, my lad, separate them, and we’ll see what we can do,” said Zelie.
+
+“I don’t embark in any such business on a ‘we’ll see.’ The young man is
+a fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as good a
+hand with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business, and I’ll
+keep my word.”
+
+“Prevent the marriage and I will set you up,” said the post master.
+
+“It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur’s practice, and you expect me to
+trust you now! Nonsense; you’ll lose your uncle’s property, and serve
+you right.”
+
+“It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur’s
+practice, that might be managed,” said Zelie; “but to give security for
+you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing.”
+
+“But I’ll do my part,” said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at Zelie,
+which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+
+The effect was that of venom on steel.
+
+“We can wait,” said Zelie.
+
+“The devil’s own spirit is in you,” thought Goupil. “If I ever catch
+that pair in my power,” he said to himself as he left the yard, “I’ll
+squeeze them like lemons.”
+
+By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur
+Bongrand, Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love
+of this young man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so
+persistent, interested the three friends deeply, and they now never
+separated the lovers in their thoughts. Soon the monotony of this
+patriarchal life, and the certainty of a future before them, gave to
+their affection a fraternal character. The doctor often left the pair
+alone together. He judged the young man rightly; he saw him kiss her
+hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no kiss when alone with her,
+so deeply did the lover respect the innocence, the frankness of the
+young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried, taught him that a
+harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of gentleness and roughness
+might kill her. The only freedom between the two took place before the
+eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+
+Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,--without other events
+than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from his
+mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for hours
+together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties, other than
+by Breton silence or a positive denial.
+
+At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine musician,
+and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was perfected. The
+fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far. The doctor was
+called upon to decline the overtures of Madame d’Aiglemont, who was
+thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months later, in spite of the
+secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on this subject, Savinien
+heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he made use of the incident
+in another attempt to vanquish his mother’s obstinacy; but she merely
+replied:--
+
+“If the d’Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason
+why we should do so?”
+
+In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his
+face pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his
+approaching death. “You’ll soon know results,” said the community to the
+heirs. In truth the old man’s death had all the attraction of a problem.
+But the doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his illusions,
+and neither poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the abbe were
+willing to enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours doctor who
+came to see him every day did not venture to prescribe. Old Minoret felt
+no pain; his lamp of life was gently going out. His mind continued firm
+and clear and powerful. In old men thus constituted the soul governs
+the body, and gives it strength to die erect. The abbe, anxious not to
+hasten the fatal end, released his parishioner from the duty of hearing
+mass in church, and allowed him to read the services at home, for the
+doctor faithfully attended to all his religious duties. The nearer he
+came to the grave the more he loved God; the lights eternal shone upon
+all difficulties and explained them more and more clearly to his mind.
+Early in the year Ursula persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses
+and dismiss Cabirolle. Monsieur Bongrand, whose uneasiness about
+Ursula’s future was far from quieted by the doctor’s half-confidence,
+boldly opened the subject one evening and showed his old friend the
+importance of making Ursula legally of age. Still the old man, though
+he had often consulted the justice of peace, would not reveal to him the
+secret of his provision for Ursula, though he agreed to the necessity
+of securing her independence by majority. The more Monsieur Bongrand
+persisted in his efforts to discover the means selected by his old
+friend to provide for his darling the more wary the doctor became.
+
+“Why not secure the thing,” said Bongrand, “why run any risks?”
+
+“When you are between two risks,” replied the doctor, “avoid the most
+risky.”
+
+Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so
+promptly that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That
+anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps
+with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited
+all the young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere, Minoret, and
+Massin. Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests,
+the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere,
+together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which
+preceded the ball.
+
+“I feel I am going,” said the old man to the notary towards the close
+of the evening. “I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship
+account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my
+death. Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,--I
+have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere, Massin,
+and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council appointed for
+Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering of my account.”
+
+These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another
+round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families,
+who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes
+thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were
+disinherited.
+
+When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old
+doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress; “To
+you, my friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be here no
+longer to protect her. Put yourselves between her and the world until
+she is married,--I fear for her.”
+
+The words made a painful impression. The guardian’s account, rendered a
+day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor
+Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs
+from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital
+of gifts made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen
+years, on birthdays and other anniversaries.
+
+This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of
+the peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of
+Doctor Minoret’s death.
+
+The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which compelled
+him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always surrounded the
+doctor’s house and kept it from observation, the news of his approaching
+death spread through the town, and the heirs began to run hither and
+thither through the streets, like the pearls of a chaplet when the
+string is broken. Massin called at the house to learn the truth, and was
+told by Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed. The Nemours doctor
+had remarked that whenever old Minoret took to his bed he would die;
+and therefore in spite of the cold, the heirs took their stand in the
+street, on the square, at their own doorsteps, talking of the event so
+long looked for, and watching for the moment when the priests should
+appear, bearing the sacrament, with all the paraphernalia customary in
+the provinces, to the dying man. Accordingly, two days later, when the
+Abbe Chaperon, with an assistant and the choir-boys, preceded by the
+sacristan bearing the cross, passed along the Grand’Rue, all the heirs
+joined the procession, to get an entrance to the house and see that
+nothing was abstracted, and lay their eager hands upon its coveted
+treasures at the earliest moment.
+
+When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter than
+the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round, saw
+them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was the
+first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him. Massin,
+fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some ornament,
+joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently assembled
+one by one.
+
+“He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction,” said Cremiere; “we
+may be sure of his death now.”
+
+“Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year,” replied
+Madame Massin.
+
+“I have an idea,” said Zelie, “that for the last three years he hasn’t
+invested anything--he grew fond of hoarding.”
+
+“Perhaps the money is in the cellar,” whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+
+“I hope we shall be able to find it,” said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+“But after what he said at the ball we can’t have any doubt,” cried
+Madame Massin.
+
+“In any case,” began Cremiere, “how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know--”
+
+A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method
+of procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices,
+Zelie’s screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in
+the courtyard and even in the street.
+
+The noise reached the doctor’s ears; he heard the words, “The house--the
+house is worth thirty thousand francs. I’ll take it at that,” said, or
+rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+
+“Well, we’ll take what it’s worth,” said Zelie, sharply.
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe,” said the old man to the priest, who remained beside
+his friend after administering the communion, “help me to die in peace.
+My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging the
+house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive me. Go and tell
+them I will have none of them in my house.”
+
+The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words of
+their own.
+
+“Madame Bougival,” said the doctor, “close the iron gate and allow
+no one to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare
+mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur’s feet.”
+
+“Your uncle is not dead,” said the abbe, “and he may live some time
+longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+yours!”
+
+“Old hypocrite!” exclaimed Cremiere. “I shall keep watch of him. It is
+possible he’s plotting something against our interests.”
+
+The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending
+to watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no noise,
+for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able to
+reach the door of his uncle’s room without being heard. The abbe and the
+doctor had left the house; La Bougival was making the poultices.
+
+“Are we quite alone?” said the old man to his godchild.
+
+Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+
+“Yes,” she said; “the abbe has just closed the gate after him.”
+
+“My darling child,” said the dying man, “my hours, my minutes even, are
+counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last till
+evening. Do not cry, my Ursula,” he said, fearing to be interrupted
+by the child’s weeping, “but listen to me carefully; it concerns your
+marriage to Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back go down to the
+pagoda,--here is the key,--lift the marble top of the Boule buffet and
+you will find a letter beneath it, sealed and addressed to you; take it
+and come back here, for I cannot die easy unless I see it in your hands.
+When I am dead do not let any one know of it immediately, but send for
+Monsieur de Portenduere; read the letter together; swear to me now,
+in his name and your own, that you will carry out my last wishes. When
+Savinien has obeyed me, then announce my death, but not till then.
+The comedy of the heirs will begin. God grant those monsters may not
+ill-treat you.”
+
+“Yes godfather.”
+
+The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped away
+on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the library
+side of the door. He had been present in former days at an argument
+between the architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring that if the
+pagoda were entered by the window on the river it would be much safer to
+put the lock of the door opening into the library on the library side.
+Dazzled by his hopes, and his ears flushed with blood, Minoret sprang
+the lock with the point of his knife as rapidly as a burglar could have
+done it. He entered the study, followed the doctor’s directions,
+took the package of papers without opening it, relocked the door, put
+everything in order, and went into the dining-room and sat down, waiting
+till La Bougival had gone upstairs with the poultice before he ventured
+to leave the house. He then made his escape,--all the more easily
+because poor Ursula lingered to see that La Bougival applied the
+poultice properly.
+
+“The letter! the letter!” cried the old man, in a dying voice. “Obey me;
+take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand.”
+
+The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+Ursula:--
+
+“Do what he asks at once or you will kill him.”
+
+She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked at
+her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to speak,
+and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The poor
+girl, who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and burst into
+tears. La Bougival closed the old man’s eyes and straightened him on
+the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the
+corner of the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before
+they scratch at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked
+in with the celerity of birds of prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE DOCTOR’S WILL
+
+While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home to
+open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+
+
+To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother, Joseph
+Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:--
+
+My dear Angel,--The fatherly affection I bear you--and which you have
+so fully justified--came not only from the promise I gave your father
+to take his place, but also from your resemblance to my wife, Ursula
+Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and charm you constantly
+recall to my mind. Your position as the daughter of a natural son of my
+father-in-law might invalidate all testamentary bequests made by me in
+your favor--
+
+“The old rascal!” cried the post master.
+
+Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I
+shrank from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by marriage, for
+I might live years and thus interfere with your happiness, which is
+now delayed only by Madame de Portenduere. Having weighted these
+difficulties carefully, and wishing to leave you enough money to secure
+to you a prosperous existence--
+
+“The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!”
+
+  --without injuring my heirs--
+
+“The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!”--I
+intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for the last
+eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my notary, seeking
+to make you thereby as happy as any one can be made by riches. Without
+means, your education and your lofty ideas would cause you unhappiness.
+Besides, you ought to bring a liberal dowry to the fine young man who
+loves you. You will therefore find in the middle of the third volume
+of Pandects, folio, bound in red morocco (the last volume on the first
+shelf above the little table in the library, on the side of the room
+next the salon), three certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents,
+made out to bearer, each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year--
+
+“What depths of wickedness!” screamed the post master. “Ah! God would
+not permit me to be so defrauded.”
+
+Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this date,
+which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my darling child,
+that you must obey a wish that has made the happiness of my whole life;
+a wish that will force me to ask the intervention of God should
+you disobey me. But, to guard against all scruples in your dear
+conscience--for I well know how ready it is to torture you--you will
+find herewith a will in due form bequeathing these certificates to
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere. So, whether you possess them in your
+own name, or whether they come to you from him you love, they will be,
+in every sense, your legitimate property.
+
+Your godfather, Denis Minoret.
+
+
+To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+stamped paper.
+
+
+This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in
+Nemours, being of sound mind and body, as the date of this document will
+show, do bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to pardon my errors in
+view of my sincere repentance. Next, having found in Monsieur le Vicomte
+Savinien de Portenduere a true and honest affection for me, I bequeath
+to him the sum of thirty-six thousand francs a year from the Funds, at
+three per cent, the said bequest to take precedence of all inheritance
+accruing to my heirs.
+
+Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+Without an instant’s hesitation the post master, who had locked himself
+into his wife’s bedroom to insure being alone, looked about for the
+tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the extinction of
+two matches which obstinately refused to light. The third took fire. He
+burned the letter and the will on the hearth and buried the vestiges of
+paper and sealing-wax in the ashes by way of superfluous caution. Then,
+allured by the thought of possessing thirty-six thousand francs a year
+of which his wife knew nothing, he returned at full speed to his uncle’s
+house, spurred by the only idea, a clear-cut, simple idea, which was
+able to piece and penetrate his dull brain. Finding the house invaded by
+the three families, now masters of the place, he trembled lest he
+should be unable to accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection
+whatever, except so far as to fear the obstacles.
+
+“What are you doing here?” he said to Massin and Cremiere. “We can’t
+leave the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but
+we can’t camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him to
+come and certify to the death; I can’t draw up the mortuary certificate
+for an uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go and ask old
+Bongrand to attach the seals. As for you, ladies,” he added, turning to
+his wife and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, “go and look after Ursula;
+then nothing can be stolen. Above all, close the iron gate and don’t let
+any one leave the house.”
+
+The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula’s bedroom,
+where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her knees
+before God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting that the
+women would not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the library,
+found the volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and found in
+the other volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his brutal nature
+the colossus felt as though a peal of bells were ringing in each ear.
+The blood whistled in his temples as he committed the theft; cold as the
+weather was, his shirt was wet on his back; his legs gave way under him
+and he fell into a chair in the salon as if an axe had fallen on his
+head.
+
+“How the inheritance of money loosens a man’s tongue! Did you hear
+Minoret?” said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town. “‘Go
+here, go there,’ just as if he knew everything.”
+
+“Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of--”
+
+“Stop!” said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. “His wife is there;
+they’ve got some plan! Do you do both errands; I’ll go back.”
+
+Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the
+heated face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of death
+with the celerity of a weasel.
+
+“Well, what is it now?” asked the post master, unlocking the gate for
+his co-heir.
+
+“Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing,” answered
+Massin, giving him a savage look.
+
+“I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home,” said
+Minoret.
+
+“We shall have to put a watcher over them,” said Massin. “La Bougival
+is capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We’ll put Goupil
+there.”
+
+“Goupil!” said the post master; “put a rat in the meal!”
+
+“Well, let’s consider,” returned Massin. “To-night they’ll watch the
+body; the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after
+them. To-morrow we’ll have the funeral at twelve o’clock. But the
+inventory can’t be made under a week.”
+
+“Let’s get rid of that girl at once,” said the colossus; “then we can
+safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and
+the seals.”
+
+“Good,” cried Massin. “You are the head of the Minoret family.”
+
+“Ladies,” said Minoret, “be good enough to stay in the salon; we can’t
+think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+security of all interests.”
+
+He took his wife apart and told her Massin’s proposition about Ursula.
+The women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as they
+called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived with
+his assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the request
+was made to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend of the
+deceased, to tell Ursula to leave the house.
+
+“Go and turn her out of her father’s house, her benefactor’s house
+yourselves,” he cried. “Go! you who owe your inheritance to the
+generosity of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into
+the street before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of
+robbing you? Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to
+do that. But I tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula’s room;
+she has a right to that room, and everything in it is her own property.
+I shall tell her what her rights are, and tell her too to put everything
+that belongs to her in this house in that room--Oh! in your presence,”
+ he said, hearing a growl of dissatisfaction among the heirs.
+
+“What do you think of that?” said the collector to the post master and
+the women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+
+“Call _him_ a magistrate!” cried the post master.
+
+Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every now
+and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids swollen;
+she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical prostration which
+might have softened the hardest hearts--except those of the heirs.
+
+“Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and
+mourning,” she said, with the poetry natural to her. “You know, _you_,
+what he was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me.
+I believed he would live a hundred years. He has been my mother,” she
+cried, “my good, kind mother.”
+
+These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes,
+interrupted by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+
+“My child,” said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the
+staircase. “You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you
+have now only a moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything
+that belongs to you in this house and put it into your own room at once.
+The heirs insist on my affixing the seals.”
+
+“Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose,” cried Ursula,
+sitting upright under an impulse of savage indignation. “I have
+something here,” she added, striking her breast, “which is far more
+precious--”
+
+“What is it?” said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+showed his brutal face.
+
+“The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words--an image of
+his celestial soul,” she said, her eyes and face glowing as she raised
+her hand with a glorious gesture.
+
+“And a key!” cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a
+key which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+
+“Yes,” she said, blushing, “that is the key of his study; he sent me
+there at the moment he was dying.”
+
+The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at
+Monsieur Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula
+who intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her
+body. Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue only at
+some cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:--
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the kindness
+of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me but the
+clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to it.”
+
+She went to her godfather’s room, and no entreaties could make her leave
+it,--the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their conduct,
+endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand to engage
+two rooms for her at the “Vieille Poste” inn until she could find some
+lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She returned to
+her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night, with the abbe,
+his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying beside her uncle’s
+body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt,
+without a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him sadly, and thanked
+him for coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+
+“My child,” said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, “one of
+your uncle’s heirs has taken these necessary articles from your drawers,
+for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that you will
+recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own sake,
+placed the seals on your room.”
+
+“Thank you,” she replied, pressing his hand. “Look at him again,--he
+seems to sleep, does he not?”
+
+The old man’s face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests upon
+the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared to
+radiate from it.
+
+“Did he give you anything secretly before he died?” whispered M.
+Bongrand.
+
+“Nothing,” she said; “he spoke only of a letter.”
+
+“Good! it will certainly be found,” said Bongrand. “How fortunate for
+you that the heirs demanded the sealing.”
+
+At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love
+began. So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief
+tears of regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven.
+With one last glance at Savinien’s windows she left the room and the
+house, and went to the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the
+package, by Monsieur Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien,
+her true protector.
+
+Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the worst
+fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see Ursula
+without means and at the mercy of her benefactor’s heirs.
+
+The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor’s funeral. When
+the conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known,
+a vast majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An
+inheritance was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded;
+Ursula might think she had rights; the heirs were only defending their
+property; she had humbled them enough during their uncle’s lifetime, for
+he had treated them like dogs and sent them about their business.
+
+Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those
+who envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable to
+be present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly by
+the insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+
+“Look at that hypocrite weeping,” said some of the heirs, pointing to
+Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor’s death.
+
+“The question is,” said Goupil, “has he any good grounds for weeping.
+Don’t laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed.”
+
+“Pooh!” said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, “you are
+always frightening us about nothing.”
+
+As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery, a
+bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take Desire’s
+arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his former comrade
+in presence of all Nemours.
+
+“I won’t be angry, or I couldn’t get revenge,” thought the notary’s
+clerk, whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+
+Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time
+for the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to
+commission Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done
+the settlement of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked of
+in the town for ten days) began with all the legal formalities. Dionis
+had his pickings; Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as the
+business was profitable the sessions were many. After the first of these
+sessions all parties breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs, and
+witnesses drank the best wines in the doctor’s cellar.
+
+In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives
+in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging. When
+a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost always
+included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of removing
+Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the Grand’Rue
+at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little building had a
+front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the ground-floor with
+two windows on the street; behind this came the kitchen, with a glass
+door opening to an inner courtyard about thirty feet square. A small
+staircase, lighted on the side towards the river by small windows, led
+to the first floor where there were three chambers, and above these were
+two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand borrowed two thousand francs from
+La Bougival’s savings to pay the first instalment of the price,--six
+thousand francs,--and obtained good terms for payment of the rest.
+As Ursula wished to buy her uncle’s books, Bongrand knocked down the
+partition between two rooms on the bedroom floor, finding that their
+united length was the same as that of the doctor’s library, and gave
+room for his bookshelves.
+
+Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning, painting,
+and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the end of March
+Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in the ugly
+house; where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the one she had
+left; for it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by the justice
+of peace when the seals were removed. La Bougival, sleeping in the
+attic, could be summoned by a bell placed near the head of the
+young girl’s bed. The room intended for the books, the salon on the
+ground-floor and the kitchen, though still unfurnished, had been hung
+with fresh papers and repainted, and only awaited the purchases which
+the young girl hoped to make when her godfather’s effects were sold.
+
+Though the strength of Ursula’s character was well known to the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the comfort
+and elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this barren and
+denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in fact, make
+private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so that Ursula
+should perceive no difference between the new chamber and the old one.
+But the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in Savinien’s own
+eyes, showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared her more and more
+to her two old friends, and proved to them for the hundredth time that
+no troubles but those of the heart could make her suffer. The grief she
+felt for the loss of her godfather was far too deep to let her even feel
+the bitterness of her change of fortune, though it added fresh obstacles
+to her marriage. Savinien’s distress in seeing her thus reduced did her
+so much harm that she whispered to him, as they came from mass on the
+morning on the day when she first went to live in her new house:
+
+“Love could not exist without patience; let us wait.”
+
+As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to
+the post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay off
+the mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest accruing
+thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one hundred
+and twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs within
+twenty-four hours under pain of execution on her house. It was
+impossible for her to borrow the money. Savinien went to Fontainebleau
+to consult a lawyer.
+
+“You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise,” was
+the lawyer’s opinion. “They intend to sue in the matter and get your
+farm at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a voluntary
+sale of it and so escape costs.”
+
+This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently
+pointed out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret’s
+life-time, the doctor would have left his property to Ursula’s husband
+and they would to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now
+were, in the depths of poverty. Though said without reproach, this
+argument annihilated the poor woman even more than the thought of
+her coming ejectment. When Ursula heard of this catastrophe she was
+stupefied with grief, having scarcely recovered from her fever, and the
+blow which the heirs had already dealt her. To love and be unable to
+succor the man she loves,--that is one of the most dreadful of all
+sufferings to the soul of a noble and sensitive woman.
+
+“I wished to buy my uncle’s house,” she said, “now I will buy your
+mother’s.”
+
+“Can you?” said Savinien. “You are a minor, and you cannot sell out your
+Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your legal
+guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town will be
+glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like
+hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have ten thousand francs
+left, on which I can support my mother till this deplorable matter is
+settled. Besides, the inventory of your godfather’s property is not yet
+finished; Monsieur Bongrand still thinks he shall find something for
+you. He is as much astonished as I am that you seem to be left without
+fortune. The doctor so often spoke both to him and to me of the
+future he had prepared for you that neither of us can understand this
+conclusion.”
+
+“Pooh!” she said; “so long as I can buy my godfather’s books and
+furniture and prevent their being dispersed, I am content.”
+
+“But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything
+you want?”
+
+Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million
+for which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search
+made in every corner of the house after the seals were removed, brought
+no discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs of the
+Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in the
+three per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty thousand
+francs, and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about six
+hundred thousand francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting sum.
+But what had become of the money the doctor must have saved?
+
+Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence
+of a will, came every day at the close of each session to find out from
+Bongrand the results of the day’s search. The latter would sometimes
+exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of hearing,
+“I can’t understand the thing!” Bongrand, Savinien, and the abbe often
+declared to each other that the doctor, who received no interest from
+the Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as he did on fifteen
+thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly expressed, made the post
+master turn livid more than once.
+
+“Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere,” said Bongrand,--“they to find
+money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere. They
+have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers, bored
+into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped up the
+quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch of paper
+piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor--and I
+have urged on their devastations.”
+
+“What do you think about it?” said the abbe.
+
+“The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs.”
+
+“But where’s the property?”
+
+“We may whistle for it!”
+
+“Perhaps the will is hidden in the library,” said Savinien.
+
+“Yes, and for that reason I don’t dissuade Ursula from buying it. If it
+were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of her
+ready money into books she will never open.”
+
+At first the whole town believed the doctor’s niece had got possession
+of the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+search of the doctor’s house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank bills
+hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had slipped them
+into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a spectacle of the
+most extraordinary precautions on the part of the heirs. Dionis, who was
+doing duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each lot was cried out, that
+the heirs only sold the article (whatever it was) and not what it might
+contain; then, before allowing it to be taken away it was subjected to a
+final investigation, being thumped and sounded; and when at last it left
+the house the sellers followed with the looks a father might cast upon a
+son who was starting for India.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” cried La Bougival, returning from the first session
+in despair, “I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right, you could
+never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town is coming
+and going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is being ruined,
+they even stand upon it; the whole place is such a muddle that a hen
+couldn’t find her chicks. You’d think there had been a fire. Lots of
+things are in the courtyard; the closets are all open, and nothing in
+them. Oh! the poor dear man, it’s well he died, the sight would have
+killed him.”
+
+Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not appear
+at the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose cupidity
+might have run up the price of the books had they known he was buying
+them for Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books living in Melun
+to buy them for him. As a result of the heir’s anxiety the whole library
+was sold book by book. Three thousand volumes were examined, one by one,
+held by the two sides of the binding and shaken so that loose papers
+would infallibly fall out. The whole amount of the purchases on Ursula’s
+account amounted to six thousand five hundred francs or thereabouts.
+The book-cases were not allowed to leave the premises until carefully
+examined by a cabinet-maker, brought down from Paris to search for
+secret drawers. When at last Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the
+books and the bookcases to Mademoiselle Mirouet’s house the heirs were
+tortured with vague fears, not dissipated until in course of time they
+saw how poorly she lived.
+
+Minoret bought up his uncle’s house, the value of which his co-heirs ran
+up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master expected
+to find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold with a
+reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed of his
+post establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son of
+a rich farmer, and went to live in his uncle’s house, where he spent
+considerable sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By making
+this move he thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within sight of
+Ursula.
+
+“I hope,” he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+summoned to pay her debt, “that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+after they are gone we’ll drive out the rest.”
+
+“That old woman with fourteen quarterings,” said Goupil, “won’t want to
+witness her own disaster; she’ll go and die in Brittany, where she can
+manage to find a wife for her son.”
+
+“No,” said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale at
+Bongrand’s request. “Ursula has just bought the house she is living in.”
+
+“That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!” cried the post
+master imprudently.
+
+“What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?” asked
+Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+
+“Don’t you know,” answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, “that my
+son is fool enough to be in love with her? I’d give five hundred francs
+if I could get Ursula out of this town.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+
+Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn
+in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of
+an estate, the sale of the property, the going and coming necessitated
+by such unusual business, his discussions with his wife about the most
+trifling details, the purchase of the doctor’s house, where Zelie wished
+to live in bourgeois style to advance her son’s interests,--all this
+hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually tranquil life hindered the
+huge Minoret from thinking of his victim. But about the middle of May, a
+few days after his installation in the doctor’s house, as he was coming
+home from a walk, he heard the sound of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting
+at a window, like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly became
+aware of an importunate voice within him.
+
+To explain why to a man of Minoret’s nature the sight of Ursula, who had
+no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became intolerable;
+why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune impelled him to
+a desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and why it was that
+this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole
+treatise on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was not the real
+possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom
+they really belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied some mere chance
+might betray his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of.
+Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and
+whose owner up to that time had never done anything illegal, the
+presence of Ursula awakened remorse. Possibly this remorse goaded him
+the more because he had received his share of the property legitimately
+acquired. In his own mind he no doubt attributed these stirrings of his
+conscience to the fact of Ursula’s presence, imagining that if she were
+removed all his uncomfortable feelings would disappear with her. But
+still, after all, perhaps crime has its own doctrine of perfection. A
+beginning of evil demands its end; a first stab must be followed by the
+blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is doomed to lead to murder. Minoret
+had committed the crime without the slightest reflection, so rapidly
+had the events taken place; reflection came later. Now, if you have
+thoroughly possessed yourself of this man’s nature and bodily presence
+you will understand the mighty effect produced on him by a thought.
+Remorse is more than a thought; it comes from a feeling which can no
+more be hidden than love; like love, it has its own tyranny. But, just
+as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest
+reflection, so he now blindly longed to drive her from Nemours when he
+felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence. Being,
+in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences; he went from
+danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct, like a wild animal which
+does not foresee the huntsman’s skill, and relies on its own rapidity
+or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in Dionis’s
+salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of the man who
+had hitherto been so free of care.
+
+“I don’t know what has come to Minoret, he is all _no how_,” said his
+wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+
+Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less, ennui
+(in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui),
+caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the change
+from an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+
+While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula’s life in Nemours,
+La Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her foster child
+with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without
+comparing her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor had promised,
+and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+
+“It is not for myself I speak,” she said, “but is it likely that
+monsieur, good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me
+the merest trifle?--”
+
+“Am I not here?” replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+word on the subject.
+
+She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that
+surrounded that noble head--a sketch of which in black and white hung
+in her little salon--with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh
+and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her _see_ her
+godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more because
+surrounded with the things he loved and used,--his large duchess-sofa,
+the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and the piano he had
+chosen for her. The two old friends who still remained to her, the Abbe
+Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only visitors whom she received,
+were, in the midst of these inanimate objects representative of the
+past, like two living memories of her former life to which she attached
+her present by the love her godfather had blessed.
+
+After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave
+tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+nothings of a young girl’s life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits
+diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After
+breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and practiced; then
+she took her embroidery and sat at the window looking on the street.
+At four o’clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which he took in all
+weathers), finding the window open, would sit upon the outer casing and
+talk with her for half an hour. In the evening the abbe and Monsieur
+Bongrand came to see her, but she never allowed Savinien to accompany
+them. Neither did she accept Madame de Portenduere’s proposition, which
+Savinien had induced his mother to make, that she should visit there.
+
+Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy; they
+did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a month. The
+old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked only twice
+a week,--mistress and maid eating their food cold on other days; for
+Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still due on the
+purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with her modesty and
+her resignation to a life of poverty after the enjoyment of luxury and
+the fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply impressed certain persons.
+Ursula won the respect of others, and no voice was raised against her.
+Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her justice. Savinien admired the
+strength of character of so young a girl. From time to time Madame de
+Portenduere, when they met in church, would address a few kind words
+to her, and twice she insisted on her coming to dinner and fetched her
+herself. If all this was not happiness it was at least tranquillity.
+But a benefit which came to Ursula through the legal care and ability of
+Bongrand started the smouldering persecution which up to this time had
+laid in Minoret’s breast as a dumb desire.
+
+As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor’s estate was finished, the
+justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the Portendueres in
+hand and promised her to get them out of their trouble. In dealing with
+the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula’s happiness made him furious,
+he did not allow her to be ignorant of the fact that his devotion to her
+service was solely to give pleasure to Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose
+one of his former clerks to act for the Portendueres at Fontainebleau,
+and himself put in a motion for a stay of proceedings. He intended to
+profit by the interval which must elapse between the stoppage of the
+present suit and some new step on the part of Massin to renew the lease
+at six thousand francs, get a premium from the present tenants and the
+payment in full of the rent of the current year.
+
+At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere’s salon,
+between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded
+in quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he
+obtained a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a
+rent of six thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day
+on which this was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew to
+be puzzled as to how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her the
+farm at Bordieres for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+
+“I’d buy it at once,” said Minoret, “if I were sure the Portendueres
+would go and live somewhere else.”
+
+“Why?” said the justice of peace.
+
+“We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours.”
+
+“I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough left
+to live here. She is thinking of selling her house.”
+
+“Well, sell it to me,” said Minoret.
+
+“To you?” said Zelie. “You talk as if you were master of everything.
+What do you want with two houses in Nemours?”
+
+“If I don’t settle this matter of the farm with you to-night,” said
+Bongrand, “our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim,
+and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make.
+So if you don’t take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some
+farmers I know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut.”
+
+“Why did you come to us, then?” said Zelie.
+
+“Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me wait
+some time for the money. I don’t want difficulties.”
+
+“Get _her_ out of Nemours and I’ll pay it,” exclaimed Minoret.
+
+“You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere’s
+actions,” said Bongrand. “I can only repeat what I heard her say, but I
+feel certain they will not remain in Nemours.”
+
+On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to
+the purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to the
+doctor’s estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by Dionis.
+Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the purchase
+money to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in the Funds,
+where, joined to Savinien’s ten thousand, it would give her, at five
+per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far from losing her
+resources, the old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she
+did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had been tricked,--as though
+Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula’s presence was intolerable to him;
+and he felt a keen resentment which embittered his hatred to his victim.
+Then began a secret drama which was terrible in its effects,--the
+struggle of two determinations; one which impelled Minoret to drive his
+victim from Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to
+bear persecution, the cause of which was for a certain length of time
+undiscoverable. The situation was a strange and even unnatural one,
+and yet it was led up to by all the preceding events, which served as a
+preface to what was now to occur.
+
+Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver service
+costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner every Sunday,
+the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came from Fontainebleau,
+bringing with him certain of his friends. On these occasions Zelie
+sent to Paris for delicacies--obliging Dionis the notary to emulate
+her display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to ignore as a
+questionable person who might tarnish their splendor, was not invited
+until the end of July. The clerk, who was fully aware of this intended
+neglect, was forced to be respectful to Desire, who, since his entrance
+into office, had assumed a haughty and dignified air, even in his own
+family.
+
+“You must have forgotten Esther,” Goupil said to him, “as you are so
+much in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet.”
+
+“In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+never even thought of Ursula,” said the new magistrate.
+
+“Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?” cried Goupil, insolently.
+
+Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was,
+in fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,--Minoret having
+remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the
+marriage between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil
+hurriedly to the end of the garden.
+
+“You’ll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow,” said he, “and
+I don’t see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for
+after all you were once my son’s companion. Listen to me. If you can
+persuade that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty
+thousand francs, to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is
+Minoret, the means to buy a notary’s practice at Orleans.”
+
+“No,” said Goupil, “that’s too far out of the way; but Montargis--”
+
+“No,” said Minoret; “Sens.”
+
+“Very good,--Sens,” replied the hideous clerk. “There’s an archbishop at
+Sens, and I don’t object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there
+you are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she’ll
+succeed at Sens.”
+
+“It is to be fully understood,” continued Minoret, “that I shall not pay
+the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide, out of
+consideration for my deceased uncle.”
+
+“Why not for me too?” said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+secret motive in Minoret’s conduct. “Isn’t it through information you
+got from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land,
+without a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields and
+the mill the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more. Come,
+old fellow, do you mean to play fair with me?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber--”
+
+“You’d better think twice before you do that,” said Zelie, suddenly
+intervening.
+
+“If I choose,” said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; “Massin would
+buy the whole for two hundred thousand francs.”
+
+“Leave us, wife,” said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and
+shoving her away; “I understand him. We have been so very busy,” he
+continued, returning to Goupil, “that we have had no time to think of
+you; but I rely on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me.”
+
+“It is a very ancient marquisate,” said Goupil, maliciously; “which will
+soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that means a
+capital of more than two millions as money is now.”
+
+“My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+under the government in Paris,” said Minoret, opening his huge snuff-box
+and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+
+“Very good; but will you play fair?” cried Goupil, shaking his fingers.
+
+Minoret pressed the clerk’s hands replying:--
+
+“On my word of honor.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+
+Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed that
+the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part of the
+colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was opposing them
+with Massin.
+
+“It isn’t he,” thought Goupil, “who has invented this scheme; I know my
+Zelie,--she taught him his part. Bah! I’ll let Massin go. In three years
+time I’ll be deputy from Sens.” Just then he saw Bongrand on his way to
+the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after him.
+
+“You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand,” he said. “I know you will not be indifferent to her future.
+Her relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she ought
+to marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of an
+arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy in
+three years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs on
+her.”
+
+“She can do better than that,” said Bongrand coldly. “Madame de
+Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is killing
+her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula has a
+capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it a la
+Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune.
+
+“Savinien will do a foolish thing,” said Goupil; “he can marry
+Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,--an only daughter to whom the
+uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property.”
+
+“Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says--By the bye,
+who is your notary?” added Bongrand from curiosity.
+
+“Suppose it were I?” answered Goupil.
+
+“You!” exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+
+“Well, well!--Adieu, monsieur,” replied Goupil, with a parting glance of
+gall and hatred and defiance.
+
+“Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred
+thousand francs on you?” cried Bongrand entering Madame de Portenduere’s
+little salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old lady.
+
+Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,--she smiling, he
+not daring to show his uneasiness.
+
+“I am not mistress of myself,” said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+
+“Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you.”
+
+“Why did you do that?” said Madame de Portenduere. “I think the position
+of a notary is a very good one.”
+
+“I prefer my peaceful poverty,” said Ursula, “which is really wealth
+compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my
+old nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+present, which I like, for an unknown fate.”
+
+A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of
+anonymous letters,--one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other to
+Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:--
+
+  “You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental
+  band-master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him
+  to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted.”
+
+The letter to Ursula was as follows:--
+
+  Dear Ursula,--There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival’s pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+
+Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two days
+later she received another letter in the following language:--
+
+  “You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien--you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year.”
+
+This letter agonized Ursula’s heart and afflicted her with the tortures
+of jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but which
+to this fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall over the
+present and over the future, and even over the past. From the moment
+when she received this fatal paper she lay on the doctor’s sofa, her
+eyes fixed on space, lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant the chill
+of death had come upon her warm young life. Alas, worse than that! it
+was like the awful awakening of the dead to the sense that there was
+no God,--the masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean Paul. Four
+times La Bougival called her to breakfast. When the faithful creature
+tried to remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and answered in one harsh
+word, “Hush!” said despotically, in strange contrast to her usual gentle
+manner. La Bougival, watching her mistress through the glass door, saw
+her alternately red with a consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of
+cold had succeeded that unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and
+worse up to four o’clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming,
+but he did not come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love.
+Ursula, who till then had never made one gesture by which her love could
+be guessed, now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if
+to go and meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to her
+little salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in the
+evening La Bougival met him at the door.
+
+“Ah, monsieur!” she cried; “I don’t know what’s the matter with
+mademoiselle; she is--”
+
+“I know,” said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+
+He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+
+“And Savinien too?” she asked.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe
+quiver as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he felt
+moreover a lasting commotion in his heart.
+
+“So we shall not go there to-night,” he said as gently as he could;
+“and, my child, it would be better if you did not go there again.
+The old lady will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur
+Bongrand and I, who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your
+marriage, have no idea from what quarter this new influence has come to
+change her, as it were in a moment.”
+
+“I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now,” said Ursula in a
+pained voice. “In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we have
+done nothing to displease God.”
+
+“Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of
+Providence,” said the abbe.
+
+“I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de
+Portenduere--”
+
+“Why do you no longer call him Savinien?” asked the priest, who detected
+a slight bitterness in Ursula’s tone.
+
+“Of my dear Savinien,” cried the girl, bursting into tears. “Yes, my
+good friend,” she said, sobbing, “a voice tells me he is as noble in
+heart as he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me alone,
+but he has proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by restraining
+heroically his ardent feelings. Lately when he took the hand I held out
+to him, that evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed to me a husband, it
+was the first time, I swear to you, that I had ever given it. He began
+with a jest when he blew me a kiss across the street, but since then our
+affection has never outwardly passed, as you well know, the narrowest
+limits. But I will tell you,--you who read my soul except in this one
+region where none but the angels see,--well, I will tell you, this love
+has been in me the secret spring of many seeming merits; it made me
+accept my poverty; it softened the bitterness of my irreparable loss,
+for my mourning is more perhaps in my clothes now than in my heart--Oh,
+was I wrong? can it be that love was stronger in me than my gratitude
+to my benefactor, and God has punished me for it? But how could it be
+otherwise? I respected in myself Savinien’s future wife; yes, perhaps
+I was too proud, perhaps it is that pride which God has humbled. God
+alone, as you have often told me, should be the end and object of all
+our actions.”
+
+The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her pallid
+face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she was now
+to fall.
+
+“But,” she said, continuing, “if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am
+I to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so
+divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You
+know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave,
+and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady’s death. If
+Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my
+entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no more be
+two loves in a woman’s heart than there can be two masters in heaven,
+and the life of a religious is attractive to me.”
+
+“He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre,” said the abbe, gently.
+
+“Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend,” she answered. “I will
+write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the windows
+of this room,” she continued, telling her old friend of the anonymous
+letters, but declaring that she would not allow any inquiries to be made
+as to who her unknown lover might be.
+
+“Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere
+to Rouvre,” cried the abbe. “You are annoyed for some object by evil
+persons.”
+
+“How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I am
+no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others.”
+
+“Well, well, my child,” said the abbe, quietly, “let us profit by this
+tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them in
+order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God, and
+remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two devoted
+friends.”
+
+“That is much, very much,” she said, going with him to the threshold of
+the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over its
+nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+
+Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+
+“Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not?
+You seem changed.”
+
+Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went
+back into the house without replying.
+
+“She is cross,” said Minoret to the abbe.
+
+“Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold
+of her door,” said the abbe; “she is too young--”
+
+“Oh!” said Goupil. “I am told she doesn’t lack lovers.”
+
+The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+Bourgeois.
+
+“Well,” said Goupil to Minoret, “the thing is working. Did you notice
+how pale she was. Within a fortnight she’ll have left the town--you’ll
+see.”
+
+“Better have you for a friend than an enemy,” cried Minoret, frightened
+at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil’s face the diabolical
+expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+
+“I should think so!” returned Goupil. “If she doesn’t marry me I’ll make
+her die of grief.”
+
+“Do it, my boy, and I’ll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in Paris.
+You can then marry a rich woman--”
+
+“Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done to
+you?” asked the clerk in surprise.
+
+“She annoys me,” said Minoret, gruffly.
+
+“Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I’ll rasp her,” said
+Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master’s face.
+
+The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+
+“I don’t know what the dear child has written to you,” she said, “but
+she is almost dead this morning.”
+
+Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+
+  My dear Savinien,--Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice--for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, “Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days.” When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you--but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+
+“Wait,” cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+scratched off hastily the following reply:--
+
+  My dear Ursula,--Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother’s consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that’s a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle’s
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.--Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then--Nothing can separate us.
+
+“Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+longer.”
+
+That afternoon at four o’clock, returning from the walk which he
+always took expressly to pass before Ursula’s house, Savinien found his
+mistress waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these sudden
+changes and excitements.
+
+“It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+seeing you is,” she said to him.
+
+“You once said to me,” replied Savinien, smiling,--“for I remember all
+your words,--‘Love lives by patience; we will wait!’ Dear, you have
+separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels; we
+will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I love
+you, but--did I ever doubt you?” he said, offering her a bouquet of
+wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+
+“You have never had any reason to doubt me,” she replied; “and, besides,
+you don’t know all,” she added, in a troubled voice.
+
+Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+found, a few moments before Savinien’s arrival, a letter tossed on her
+sofa which contained the words: “Tremble! a rejected lover can become a
+tiger.”
+
+Withstanding Savinien’s entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again,
+after she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her recover
+from the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite evil is
+torture to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the unknown,
+and the unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the pain was
+exquisite. Something without her bounded at the slightest noise; yet she
+was afraid of silence, and suspected even the walls of collusion. Even
+her sleep was restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of her nature, delicate
+as that of a flower, had found, with the instinct of evil, the poison
+that could wither and destroy her.
+
+The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano
+till very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About
+midnight she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a clarinet,
+hautboy, flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon, flageolet, and
+triangle. All the neighbours were at their windows. The poor girl,
+already frightened at seeing the people in the street, received a
+dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a man proclaiming
+in loud tones: “For the beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from her lover.”
+
+The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were
+rife on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive, determined
+not to leave the house again,--the abbe having advised her to say
+vespers in her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying in the
+passage, which was floored with brick, a letter which had evidently been
+slipped under the door. She picked it up and read it, under the idea
+that it would obtain an explanation. It was as follows:--
+
+
+“Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am resolved.
+If you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To your refusal you
+may attribute not only your own misfortunes, but those which will fall
+on others.
+
+“He who loves you, and whose wife you will be.”
+
+
+Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this
+plot was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis, and
+Cremiere were envying her lot.
+
+“She is a lucky girl,” they were saying; “people talk of her, and court
+her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was a
+cornet-a-piston.”
+
+“What’s a piston?”
+
+“A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!” replied Angelique
+Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+
+Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to
+find out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in garrison.
+But as there were two men to each instrument it was impossible to find
+out which of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel forbade them to play
+for any private person in future without his permission. Savinien had
+an interview with the procureur du roi, Ursula’s legal guardian, and
+explained to him the injury these scenes would do to a young girl
+naturally so delicate and sensitive, begging him to take some action to
+discover the author of such wrong.
+
+Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy began
+another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards Montargis, where
+there happened then to be a company of comic actors. A loud and ringing
+voice called out as they left: “To the daughter of the regimental
+bandsman Mirouet.” By this means all Nemours came to know the profession
+of Ursula’s father, a secret the old doctor had sedulously kept.
+
+Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day
+an anonymous letter containing a prophecy:--
+
+  “You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife.”
+
+The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for
+she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted her
+eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows, and
+prayed fervently.
+
+“I am glad I cannot go down into the salon,” she said to Monsieur
+Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; “_He_ would
+come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which _he_ blessed me. Do
+you think _he_ will suspect me?”
+
+“If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to
+get the assistance of the Paris police,” said Bongrand.
+
+“Whoever it is will know I am dying,” said Ursula; “and will cease to
+trouble me.”
+
+The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
+suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
+whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their
+guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil,
+whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no more
+serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed.
+Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien
+believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters
+received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an
+end to the persecution.
+
+The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just
+as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one
+morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post
+declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a
+small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried
+to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so
+fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the
+persons who frequented Dionis’s salon attributed these manoeuvres to
+the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held
+his notes to a large amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his
+daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors;
+and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything
+that would discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her
+son.
+
+So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by
+the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully overcome
+by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept
+to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult
+had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which
+was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as
+follows:--
+
+
+My child,--Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your enemies.
+Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien’s life. I will tell you
+more when I am able to go to you.
+
+Your devoted friend,
+
+Chaperon.
+
+
+When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried
+this letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so
+amazed and horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his
+own handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition
+into which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once more
+to the procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+
+“A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch,”
+ he said, “upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal
+guardian. What is to be done?”
+
+“If you can find any means of repression,” said the official, “I will
+adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the
+Adoration of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at
+Fontainebleau shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your
+own defence. I have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du
+Rouvre justly indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people
+have put upon him. Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty
+for the purchase of the estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish
+count; and Monsieur du Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I
+saw him, to avoid arrest for debt.”
+
+Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his
+thought. He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only
+man capable of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal
+code without infringing a hair’s-breadth upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+
+Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil’s audacity. He made
+Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for
+his notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens,
+and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant
+to imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their
+fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to
+Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and
+the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved
+to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to
+which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this
+last throw in the game he thought it best to have an explanation with
+Minoret, and he chose his opportunity at Rouvre, where he went with his
+patron for the first time after the deeds were signed.
+
+Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours
+with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these
+atrocities in the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his father,
+in case this persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to
+give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law
+could not punish this crime it would certainly discover the truth and
+hold it over the delinquent’s head. Minoret had now attained a great
+object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the
+Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs
+a year from the rich domains which surrounded the park. He could well
+afford to snap his fingers at Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on
+the estate, where the sight of Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+
+“My boy,” he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, “let my
+young cousin alone, now.”
+
+“Pooh!” said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.
+
+“Oh! I’m not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+chateau with the stone copings (which couldn’t be built now for two
+hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and
+gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No,
+I’m not ungrateful; I’ll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs,
+for your services, and you can buy a sheriff’s practice in Nemours. I’ll
+guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere’s daughters, the eldest.”
+
+“The one who talks piston!” cried Goupil.
+
+“She’ll have thirty thousand francs,” replied Minoret. “Don’t you see,
+my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
+post master? People should keep to their vocation.”
+
+“Very well, then,” said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes;
+“here’s a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs;
+I want the money in hand at once.”
+
+Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his
+wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to
+sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the
+face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an “au revoir,”
+ by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any
+one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent
+chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his
+shoes.
+
+“Are you not going to wait for me?” he cried, observing that Goupil was
+going away on foot.
+
+“You’ll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret,” replied Goupil,
+athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of
+Minoret’s strange conduct.
+
+Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a
+prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the
+soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking
+only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words; everything
+about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the expression of her
+forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was
+thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity, with which throughout all
+ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow.
+She heard in the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the
+malicious comments, the laughter of the little town. The trial was
+too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow her to survive the
+murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful smile was on her
+lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against
+man’s injustice.
+
+When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her
+chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor.
+A great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduere became
+really aware that the girl was dying like an ermine, though less injured
+in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and
+comfort her. The sight of her son’s anguish, who during the whole
+preceding night had seemed beside himself, made the Breton soul of the
+old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignity to revive
+the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise
+to all the evil done by the little town. Her opinion, surely more
+powerful than that of the crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought,
+the influence of race. This step, which the abbe came to announce, made
+so great a change in Ursula that the doctor, who was about to ask for a
+consultation of Parisian doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on
+her uncle’s sofa, and such was the character of her beauty that she
+lay there in her mourning garments, pale from suffering, she was
+more exquisitely lovely than in the happiest hours of her life. When
+Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the room she colored
+vividly.
+
+“Do not rise, my child,” said the old lady imperatively; “weak and ill
+as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is
+happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excellent
+girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a
+gentleman.”
+
+At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands
+of Savinien’s mother and kissed them.
+
+“Ah, madame,” she said in a faltering voice, “I should never have had
+the boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I
+love,--they have made me unworthy of him. Never!” she cried, with a ring
+in her voice which painfully affected those about her, “never will I
+consent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I
+loved too well,--yes, I can admit it in my present condition,--I love a
+creature almost as I love God, and God--”
+
+“Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter,” said the old
+lady, making an effort, “do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous
+joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will live and you
+shall be happy.”
+
+“We shall be happy!” cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and kissing
+her hand; “my mother has called you her daughter.”
+
+“Enough, enough,” said the doctor feeling his patient’s pulse; “do not
+kill her with joy.”
+
+At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of
+the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+
+“Monsieur de Portenduere,” he said, in a voice like the hissing of a
+viper forced from its hole.
+
+“What do you want?” said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+
+“I have a word to say to you.”
+
+Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+
+“Swear to me by Ursula’s life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by me
+as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I
+will reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against
+Mademoiselle Mirouet.”
+
+“Can I put a stop to them?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Can I avenge them?”
+
+“On their author, yes--on his tool, no.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“Because--I am the tool.”
+
+Savinien turned pale.
+
+“I have just seen Ursula--” said Goupil.
+
+“Ursula?” said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+
+“Mademoiselle Mirouet,” continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinien’s
+tone; “and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done; I
+repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good
+would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison
+you.”
+
+The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager
+curiosity, calmed Savinien’s anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a
+look which made that moral deformity writhe.
+
+“Who set you at this work?” said the young man.
+
+“Will you swear?”
+
+“What,--to do you no harm?”
+
+“I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me.”
+
+“She will forgive you,--I, never!”
+
+“But at least you will forget?”
+
+What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
+self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
+standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to
+talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+
+“I will forgive you, but I shall not forget.”
+
+“The agreement is off,” said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+applied a blow upon the man’s face which echoed through the courtyard
+and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+
+“It is only what I deserve,” said Goupil, “for committing such a folly.
+I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I
+gave you. You are in my power now,” he added with a look of hatred.
+
+“You are a murderer!” said Savinien.
+
+“No more than a dagger is a murderer.”
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said Savinien.
+
+“Are you revenged enough?” said Goupil, with ferocious irony; “will you
+stop here?”
+
+“Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness,” replied Savinien.
+
+“Give me your hand,” said the clerk, holding out his own.
+
+“It is yours,” said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula’s sake.
+“Now speak; who made you do this thing?”
+
+Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien’s
+blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was
+undecided; then a voice said to him: “You will be notary!” and he
+answered:--
+
+“Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur--”
+
+“Who is persecuting Ursula?” persisted Savinien.
+
+“Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can’t tell you
+that; but we might find out the reason. Don’t mix me up in all this;
+I could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will
+try to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him--I’ll
+crush him under foot, I’ll dance on his carcass, I’ll make his bones
+into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and
+Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, ‘Minoret is a thief!’ Yes, I’ll
+burst him like a gun--There! we’re allies now by the imprudence of that
+outbreak! If you choose I’ll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet’s pardon and tell
+her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her
+good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand
+must promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now.”
+
+“Wait a minute;” said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+
+“Ursula, my child,” he said, returning to the salon, “the author of all
+your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask
+your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+forgotten.”
+
+“What! Goupil?” cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all
+together.
+
+“Keep his secret,” said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+
+Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said in a troubled voice, “I wish that all Nemours
+could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and
+led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men. What I
+say now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the harm done
+by such miserable tricks--which may have hastened your happiness,” he
+added, rather maliciously, “for I see that Madame de Portenduere is with
+you.”
+
+“That is all very well, Goupil,” said the abbe, “Mademoiselle forgives
+you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer.”
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand,” said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. “I
+shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur’s practice; I hope the reparation
+I have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+petition to the bar and the ministry.”
+
+Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left
+the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff’s
+practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore
+the peace and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved by
+Goupil’s confession.
+
+“You see, my child, that God was not against you,” said the abbe.
+
+Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o’clock he was sitting
+in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom
+he was making plans for Desire’s future. Desire had become very sedate
+since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely
+that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau,
+who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they
+must find him a wife,--some poor girl belonging to an old and noble
+family; he would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris. Perhaps
+they could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zelie was
+proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer
+season. Minoret, inwardly congratulating himself for having managed his
+affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula, at the very
+moment when the drama so heedlessly begun by him was closing down upon
+him in a terrible manner.
+
+“Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you,” said
+Cabirolle.
+
+“Show him in,” answered Zelie.
+
+The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien’s boots on
+the floor of the gallery, where the doctor’s library used to be. A vague
+presentiment of danger ran through the robber’s veins. Savinien entered
+and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in his hand,
+and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband
+and wife.
+
+“I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret,” he said, “your
+reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who, as the
+whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to tarnish
+her honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you deliver her over
+to Goupil’s insults?--Answer!”
+
+“How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien,” said Zelie, “to come and ask us
+the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little
+about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret died I’ve
+not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I’ve never said
+one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I
+wouldn’t think of consulting about even a dog. Why don’t you speak up,
+Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in that way
+and accuse you of wickedness that’s beneath you? As if a man with
+forty-eight thousand francs a year from landed property, and a castle
+fit for a prince, would stoop to such things! Get up, and don’t sit
+there like a wet rag!”
+
+“I don’t know what monsieur means,” said Minoret in his squeaking voice,
+the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice
+was clear. “What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have
+said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My son Desire
+fell in love with her, and I didn’t want him to marry her, that’s all.”
+
+“Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence, but it was terrible, when all three
+persons examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy
+face of her colossus.
+
+“Though you are only insects,” said the young nobleman, “I will make
+you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a
+man sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek
+satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The first
+time he sets his foot in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me; he
+will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If
+he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have
+satisfaction. It shall never be said that you were tamely allowed to
+dishonor a defenceless young girl--”
+
+“But the calumnies of a Goupil--are--not--” began Minoret.
+
+“Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you had
+better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave
+it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your son.”
+
+“But this sha’n’t go one!” cried Zelie. “Do you suppose I’ll stand
+by and let Desire fight you,--a sailor whose business it is to handle
+swords and guns? If you’ve got any cause of complaint against Minoret,
+there’s Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy,
+who, by your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear
+the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman! somebody’s teeth will pin your
+legs first! Come, Minoret, don’t stand staring there like a big canary;
+you are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before
+your wife! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man’s house is
+his castle. I don’t know what you mean with your nonsense, but show
+me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you’ll have to answer to
+_me_,--you and your minx Ursula.”
+
+She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+
+“Remember what I have said to you,” repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying
+no attention to Zelie’s tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over
+their heads, he left the room.
+
+“Now, then, Minoret,” said Zelie, “you will explain to me what this all
+means. A young man doesn’t rush into a house and make an uproar like
+that and demand the blood of a family for nothing.”
+
+“It’s some mischief of that vile Goupil,” said the colossus. “I promised
+to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap.
+I gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand francs in a note,
+and I suppose he isn’t satisfied.”
+
+“Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+Ursula?”
+
+“He wanted to marry her.”
+
+“A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling me
+lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe them.
+There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me what it
+is.”
+
+“There’s nothing.”
+
+“Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out.”
+
+“Do let me alone!”
+
+“I’ll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil--whom you’re
+afraid of--and we’ll see who gets the best of it then.”
+
+“Just as you choose.”
+
+“I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to
+him, mark you, I’ll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and
+you, you haven’t any feeling about him--”
+
+A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to
+end without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his
+self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against
+himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated
+with a new and terrible adversary. The next day, when he left the house
+early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional money, the
+walls were already placarded with the words: “Minoret is a thief.” All
+those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of
+the anonymous placard. Fortunately for him, everybody made allowance for
+his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stupidity; fools get
+more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength.
+The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not
+help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose
+all. Why? Because men like to feel superior in protecting an incapable,
+and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of
+genius. A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he
+stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened
+air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever
+they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret’s conscience still
+remained.
+
+The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though
+Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he
+now impudently refused to fulfil it.
+
+“My dear Lecoeur,” he said, “I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up
+Monsieur Dionis’s practice; I am therefore in a position to help you
+to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it’s only the loss of two
+stamps,--here are seventy centimes.”
+
+Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
+before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
+to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
+against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position
+he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his
+respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him
+well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his
+leg at the first offence.
+
+The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
+the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs and
+her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his practice;
+the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One evening, towards
+midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving
+Massin’s house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notary
+kept the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman
+who saw the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him.
+
+These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who became
+convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret, and he
+determined to find out its cause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. APPARITIONS
+
+Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula’s perfect
+innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily exhaustion,
+which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium of phenomena
+the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to challenge
+science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+
+Ten days after Madame de Portenduere’s visit Ursula had a dream, with
+all the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral
+aspects as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather
+appeared to her and made a sign that she should come with him. She
+dressed herself and followed him through the darkness to their former
+house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely as
+it was on the day of her godfather’s death. The old man wore the clothes
+that were on him the evening before his death. His face was pale,
+his movements caused no sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his voice
+distinctly, though it was feeble and as if repeated by a distant echo.
+The doctor conducted his child as far as the Chinese pagoda, where he
+made her lift the marble top of the little Boule cabinet just as she had
+raised it on the day of his death; but instead of finding nothing there
+she saw the letter her godfather had told her to fetch. She opened it
+and read both the letter addressed to herself and the will in favor
+of Savinien. The writing, as she afterwards told the abbe, shone as if
+traced by sunbeams--“it burned my eyes,” she said. When she looked
+at her uncle to thank him she saw the old benevolent smile upon his
+discolored lips. Then, in a feeble voice, but still clearly, he told her
+to look at Minoret, who was listening in the corridor to what he said to
+her; and next, slipping the lock of the library door with his knife, and
+taking the papers from the study. With his right hand the old man seized
+his goddaughter and obliged her to walk at the pace of death and follow
+Minoret to his own house. Ursula crossed the town, entered the post
+house and went into Zelie’s old room, where the spectre showed her
+Minoret unfolding the letters, reading them and burning them.
+
+“He could not,” said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, “light the
+first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back to
+our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where
+he took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of twelve
+thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number of
+banknotes. ‘He is,’ said my godfather, ‘the cause of all the trouble
+which has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills that you
+shall yet be happy. You will not die now; you will marry Savinien.
+If you love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your
+fortune from my nephew. Swear it.’”
+
+Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+influence on Ursula’s soul that she promised all her uncle asked, hoping
+to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found herself
+standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather’s portrait,
+which had been placed there during her illness. She went back to bed and
+fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remembered all
+the particulars of this singular vision; but she dared not speak of it.
+Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the
+end and object of which was her pecuniary benefit. She attributed the
+vision, not unnaturally, to remarks made by La Bougival the preceding
+evening, when the old woman talked of the doctor’s intended liberality
+and of her own convictions on that subject. But the dream returned, with
+aggravated circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl. On
+the second occasion the icy hand of her godfather was laid upon her
+shoulder, causing her the most horrible distress, an indefinable
+sensation. “You must obey the dead,” he said, in a sepulchral voice.
+“Tears,” said Ursula, relating her dreams, “fell from his white,
+wide-open eyes.”
+
+The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of
+her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and
+promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided
+to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe,” she said, “do you believe that the dead reappear?”
+
+“My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have
+much testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an
+article of faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the
+idea.”
+
+“What do _you_ believe?”
+
+“That the power of God is infinite.”
+
+“Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?”
+
+“Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His conversion,
+as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in
+Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you made
+against Saint-Savinien’s day in your almanac.”
+
+Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered
+the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read her soul,
+and took away the almanac.
+
+“If that is so,” she said, “then my visions are possibly true. My
+godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was
+wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass for the
+repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these visions may
+cease, for they are destroying me.”
+
+She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting
+on the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the
+somnambulism of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from
+her body at the bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect
+ease. The thing that most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula’s veracity
+was known, was the exact description which she gave of the bedroom
+formerly occupied by Zelie at the post house, which Ursula had never
+entered and about which no one had ever spoken to her.
+
+“By what means can these singular apparitions take place?” asked Ursula.
+“What did my godfather think?”
+
+“Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized
+the possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are of
+man’s creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must have
+forms which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are perceptible
+to our inward senses when brought under certain conditions. Thus your
+godfather’s ideas might so enfold you that you would clothe them with
+his bodily presence. Then, if Minoret really committed those actions,
+they too resolve themselves into ideas; for all action is the result
+of many ideas. Now, if ideas live and move in a spiritual world, your
+spirit must be able to perceive them if it penetrates that world. These
+phenomena are not more extraordinary than those of memory; and those of
+memory are quite as amazing and inexplicable as those of the perfume of
+plants--which are perhaps the ideas of the plants.”
+
+“How you enlarge and magnify the world!” exclaimed Ursula. “But to hear
+the dead speak, to see them walk, act--do you think it possible?”
+
+“In Sweden,” replied the abbe, “Swedenborg has proved by evidence that
+he communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and
+you shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded
+at Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales,
+an adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier at
+Cardan.”
+
+Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the “History of Henri
+de Montmorency,” written by a priest of that period who had known the
+prince.
+
+“Read it,” said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had opened
+at the 175th page. “Your godfather often re-read that passage,--and see!
+here’s a little of his snuff in it.”
+
+“And he not here!” said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+
+  “The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there--namely, the
+  Marquis d’Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis’s quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  “I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved.”
+
+“If all this is so,” said Ursula, “what ought I do do?”
+
+“My child,” said the abbe, “it concerns matters so important, and which
+may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep absolutely
+silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these
+apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you are now strong
+enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and
+pray to him for the repose of your godfather’s soul. Feel quite sure
+that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands.”
+
+“If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,--what glances my godfather
+gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress--I awoke with my face
+all covered with tears.”
+
+“Be at peace; he will not come again,” said the priest.
+
+Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that
+they might be entirely alone.
+
+“Can any one hear us?” he asked.
+
+“No one,” replied Minoret.
+
+“Monsieur, my character must be known to you,” said the abbe, fastening
+a gentle but attentive look on Minoret’s face. “I have to speak to you
+of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you, and about which
+you may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy; but it is
+impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While
+your uncle lived, there stood there,” said the priest, pointing to a
+certain spot in the room, “a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble
+top” (Minoret turned livid), “and beneath the marble your uncle placed
+a letter for Ursula--” The abbe then went on to relate, without omitting
+the smallest circumstance, Minoret’s conduct to Minoret himself. When
+the last post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to
+light he felt his hair begin to writhe on his skull.
+
+“Who invented such nonsense?” he said, in a strangled voice, when the
+tale ended.
+
+“The dead man himself.”
+
+This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+doctor.
+
+“God is very good, Monsieur l’abbe, to do miracles for me,” he said,
+danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+
+“All that God does is natural,” replied the priest.
+
+“Your phantoms don’t frighten me,” said the colossus, recovering his
+coolness.
+
+“I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to any
+one in the world,” said the abbe. “You alone know the truth. The matter
+is between you and God.”
+
+“Come now, Monsieur l’abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+horrible abuse of confidence?”
+
+“I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+sinner repents,” said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+
+“Crime?” cried Minoret.
+
+“A crime frightful in its consequences.”
+
+“What consequences?”
+
+“In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself
+avenges innocence.”
+
+“Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?”
+
+“If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God.”
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have had
+these facts from my uncle?”
+
+“Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to me
+privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will never
+speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point.”
+
+“I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon.”
+
+“I hope you are,” said the old priest. “Even if I considered these
+warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man,
+and you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish
+to add to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and
+you would be tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or
+civilized, the sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to
+enjoy in peace ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the society
+in which we live,--for well-constituted societies are modeled on the
+system God has ordained for the universe. In this respect societies have
+a divine origin. Man does not originate ideas, he invents no form;
+he answers to the eternal relations that surround him on all sides.
+Therefore, see what happens! Criminals going to the scaffold, and having
+it in their power to carry their secret with them, are compelled by the
+force of some mysterious power to make confessions before their heads
+are taken off. Therefore, Monsieur Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I
+go my way satisfied.”
+
+Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way
+out. When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric
+man; the strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula’s name
+was mingled with odious language.
+
+“Why, what has she done to you?” cried Zelie, who had slipped in on
+tiptoe after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+
+For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+driven to extremities by his wife’s reiterated questions, turned
+upon her and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell
+half-dead on the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed
+himself, ashamed of his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him
+twice; when he appeared again in the streets everybody noticed a great
+change in him. He walked alone, and often roamed the town as though
+uneasy. When any one addressed him he seemed preoccupied in his mind, he
+who had never before had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he
+went up to Monsieur Bongrand in the Grand’Rue, the latter being on his
+way to take Ursula to Madame de Portenduere’s, where the whist parties
+had begun again.
+
+“Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin,” he
+said, taking the justice by the arm, “and I am very glad you should be
+present, for you can advise her.”
+
+They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air, as
+soon as she saw Minoret.
+
+“My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+business,” said Bongrand. “By the bye, don’t forget to give me your
+certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+dividend and La Bougival’s.”
+
+“Cousin,” said Minoret, “our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than
+you have now.”
+
+“We can be very happy with very little money,” she replied.
+
+“I thought money might help your happiness,” continued Minoret, “and I
+have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my uncle.”
+
+“You had a natural way of showing respect for him,” said Ursula,
+sternly; “you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to
+buy it; instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find some
+hidden treasure in it.”
+
+“But,” said Minoret, evidently troubled, “if you had twelve thousand
+francs a year you would be in a position to marry well.”
+
+“I have not got them.”
+
+“But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate
+in Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,--you could then marry her son.”
+
+“Monsieur Minoret,” said Ursula, “I have no claim to that money, and I
+cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are
+we friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason have
+you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a right to
+ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider your gift
+the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to accept it.
+Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing
+except from friends, and I have no friendship for you.”
+
+“Then you refuse?” cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had
+never entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+
+“I refuse,” said Ursula.
+
+“But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+fortune?” asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. “You have an
+idea--have you an idea?--”
+
+“Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son will
+leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her.”
+
+“Well, we’ll see about it,” said Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
+“Give us time to think it over.”
+
+He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the
+father for his son’s interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her
+hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand
+went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started for
+Fontainebleau, where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was
+told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect.
+Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was playing whist with
+the wife of the procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the
+colonel of the regiment in garrison.
+
+“I come to bring you some good news,” said Bongrand to Desire; “you love
+your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged.”
+
+“I love Ursula Mirouet!” cried Desire, laughing. “Where did you get that
+idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret’s;
+she certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I certainly took
+notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled my head seriously
+for that rather insipid little blonde,” he added, smiling at the
+sub-prefect’s wife (who was a piquante brunette--to use a term of the
+last century). “You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur Bongrand; I thought
+every one knew that my father was a lord of a manor, with a rent roll
+of forty-five thousand francs a year from lands around his chateau at
+Rouvre,--good reasons why I should not love the goddaughter of my late
+great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl without a penny these ladies
+would consider me a fool.”
+
+“Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“You hear that, monsieur?” said the justice to the procureur du roi,
+who had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the
+recess of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter of
+an hour.
+
+An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula’s house, whence he
+sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus came at
+once.
+
+“Mademoiselle--” began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+room.
+
+“Accepts?” cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+
+“No, not yet,” replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. “I had scruples
+as to your son’s feelings; for Ursula has been much tried lately about a
+supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity. Can you swear
+to me that your son truly loves her and that you have no other intention
+than to preserve our dear Ursula from any further Goupilisms?”
+
+“Oh, I’ll swear to that,” cried Minoret.
+
+“Stop, papa Minoret,” said the justice, taking one hand from the pocket
+of his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus trembled);
+“Don’t swear falsely.”
+
+“Swear falsely?”
+
+“Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never
+even thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering
+this fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+Fontainebleau to question your son.”
+
+Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+
+“But where’s the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young
+relative to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness, and
+to invent pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money.”
+
+Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+
+“You know the cause of my refusal,” said Ursula; “and I request you
+never to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told
+me his reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such dislike
+even, that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is my only
+fortune,--I do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it. Monsieur de
+Portenduere is only waiting for my majority to marry me.”
+
+“Then the old saw that ‘Money does all’ is a lie,” said Minoret, looking
+at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so much.
+
+He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+oppressive as in the little salon.
+
+“There must be an end put to this,” he said to himself as he re-entered
+his own home.
+
+When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La Bougival,
+she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon with great
+strides.
+
+“Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?” he said.
+
+“None that I can tell,” she replied.
+
+Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+
+“Then we have the same idea,” he said. “Here, keep the number of
+your certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+precaution.”
+
+Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and that
+of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+
+“Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+third.”
+
+That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle’s
+grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the
+inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a
+piercing cry, but the doctor’s spectre slowly rose. First she saw his
+yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if surmounted
+by a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the eyes were like two gleams of
+light; the dead man rose as if impelled by some superior force or will.
+Ursula’s body trembled; her flesh was like a burning garment, and there
+was (as she subsequently said) another self moving within her bodily
+presence. “Mercy!” she cried, “mercy, godfather!” “It is too late,” he
+said, in the voice of death,--to use the poor girl’s own expression when
+she related this new dream to the abbe. “He has been warned; he has paid
+no heed to the warning. The days of his son are numbered. If he does not
+confess all and restore what he has taken within a certain time he must
+lose his son, who will die a violent and horrible death. Let him know
+this.” The spectre pointed to a line of figures which gleamed upon the
+side of the tomb as if written with fire, and said, “There is his doom.”
+ When her uncle lay down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of
+the stone falling back into its place, and immediately after, in the
+distance, a strange sound of horses and the cries of men.
+
+The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had
+the dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon
+and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass,
+but he was not surprised at Ursula’s revelation. He believed the robbery
+had been committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself the
+abnormal condition of his “little dreamer.” He left Ursula at once and
+went directly to Minoret’s.
+
+“Monsieur l’abbe,” said Zelie, “my husband’s temper is so soured I don’t
+know what he mightn’t do. Until now he’s been a child; but for the last
+two months he’s not the same man. To get angry enough to strike me--me,
+so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter to change him
+like that. You’ll find him among the rocks; he spends all his time
+there,--doing what, I’d like to know?”
+
+In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed the
+canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks, where
+he saw Minoret.
+
+“You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret,” said the priest going
+up to him. “You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to
+increase your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle
+lifted the stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great
+disaster in your family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but
+you ought to know what he said--”
+
+“I can’t be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these
+rocks, and I’m sure I don’t want to know anything that is going on in
+another world.”
+
+“Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+pleasure,” said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+
+“Well, what do you want to say?” demanded Minoret.
+
+“You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told
+things that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells things
+that no one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say, make
+restitution. Don’t damn your soul for a little money.”
+
+“Restitution of what?”
+
+“The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+certificates--I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies, you
+have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false steps
+every day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice Goupil has
+served you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and clear your
+mind, for you are watched by intelligent and penetrating eyes,--those of
+Ursula’s friends. Make restitution! and if you do not save your son (who
+may not really be threatened), you will save your soul, and you will
+save your honor. Do you believe that in a society like ours, in a little
+town like this, where everybody’s eyes are everywhere, and all things
+are guessed and all things are known, you can long hide a stolen
+fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man wouldn’t have let me talk so
+long.”
+
+“Go to the devil!” cried Minoret. “I don’t know what you _all_ mean by
+persecuting me. I prefer these stones--they leave me in peace.”
+
+“Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have
+said a single word about this to any living person. But take care--there
+is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!”
+
+The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The
+man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was,
+in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three
+certificates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not
+draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not wish
+to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of transferring the
+certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of
+acknowledging all to his wife and getting her advice. Zelie, who always
+managed affairs for him so well, she could get him out of his troubles.
+The three-per-cent Funds were now selling at eighty. Restitution! why,
+that meant, with arrearages, giving up a million! Give up a million,
+when there was no one who could know that he had taken it--!
+
+So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute
+and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the
+little town he grew thin and haggard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. REMORSE
+
+An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above
+their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret
+received from their son Desire the following letter:--
+
+  My dear Mother,--If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil’s
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father’s
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil’s malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father’s
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+
+After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating
+all the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even
+Ursula’s dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did
+Minoret.
+
+“You stay quietly here,” Zelie said to her husband, without the
+slightest remonstrance against his folly. “I’ll manage the whole thing.
+We’ll keep the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel.”
+
+Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son’s letter
+to Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In spite of her
+assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which the young girl
+gave her. But she took herself to task for her cowardice and assumed an
+easy air.
+
+“Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell me
+what you think of it,” she cried, giving Ursula her son’s letter.
+
+Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the letter,
+which showed her how truly she was loved and what care Savinien took
+of the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but she had too much
+charity and true religion to be willing to be the cause of death or
+suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+
+“I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly
+easy,--but I must request you to leave me this letter.”
+
+“My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,--a really
+regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we
+shall give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the
+Funds; in all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that there
+are not many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,--and
+quite right too,” added Zelie, seeing Ursula’s quick gesture of denial;
+“I have therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will bear your
+godfather’s name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you must have seen,
+is a handsome fellow; he is very much thought of at Fontainebleau, and
+he will soon be procureur du roi himself. You are a coaxing girl and
+can easily persuade him to live in Paris. We will give you a fine house
+there; you will shine; you will play a distinguished part; for, with
+seventy thousand francs a year and the salary of an office, you and
+Desire can enter the highest society. Consult your friends; you’ll see
+what they tell you.”
+
+“I need only consult my heart, madame.”
+
+“Ta, ta, ta! now don’t talk to me about that little lady-killer
+Savinien. You’d pay too high a price for his name, and for that little
+moustache curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair.
+How do you expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a
+man who made two hundred thousand francs of debt in two years?
+Besides--though this is a thing you don’t know yet--all men are alike;
+and without flattering myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the
+equal of a king’s son.”
+
+“You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which
+can, perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere’s desire to
+please me. If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals that
+danger might not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame, that I
+shall be far happier in the moderate circumstances to which you allude
+than I should be in the opulence with which you are trying to dazzle me.
+For reasons hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made known, Monsieur
+Minoret, by persecuting me in an odious manner, strengthened the
+affection that exists between Monsieur de Portenduere and myself--which
+I can now admit because his mother has blessed it. I will also tell you
+that this affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is life itself to me. No
+destiny, however brilliant, however lofty, could make me change. I love
+without the possibility of changing. It would therefore be a crime if
+I married a man to whom I could take nothing but a soul that is
+Savinien’s. But, madame, since you force me to be explicit, I must tell
+you that even if I did not love Monsieur de Portenduere I could not
+bring myself to bear the troubles and joys of life in the company of
+your son. If Monsieur Savinien made debts, you have often paid those
+of your son. Our characters have neither the similarities nor
+the differences which enable two persons to live together without
+bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the forbearance a
+wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to him. Pray cease to
+think of an alliance of which I count myself quite unworthy, and which
+I feel I can decline without pain to you; for with the great advantages
+you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl of better station,
+more wealth, and more beauty than mine.”
+
+“Will you swear to me,” said Zelie, “to prevent these young men from
+taking that journey and fighting that duel?”
+
+“It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown
+must have no blood upon it.”
+
+“Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy.”
+
+“And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your
+expectations for the future of your son.”
+
+These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+remembered the predictions of Ursula’s last dream; she stood still, her
+small eyes fixed on Ursula’s face, so white, so pure, so beautiful in
+her mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-called
+cousin’s departure.
+
+“Do you believe in dreams?” said Zelie.
+
+“I suffer from them too much not to do so.”
+
+“But if you do--” began Zelie.
+
+“Adieu, madame,” exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she heard
+the abbe’s entering step.
+
+The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+
+“Do you believe in spirits?” Zelie asked him.
+
+“What do you believe in?” he answered, smiling.
+
+“They are all sly,” thought Zelie,--“every one of them! They want to
+deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams than
+there are hairs on the palm of my hand.”
+
+With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+
+“I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau,” said Ursula to the abbe,
+telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to
+prevent it.
+
+“Did Madame Minoret offer you her son’s hand?” asked the abbe.
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her,” added the priest.
+
+Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step
+taken by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He looked
+at the abbe as if to say: “Come out, I want to speak to you of Ursula
+without her hearing me.”
+
+“Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year
+and the dandy of Nemours,” he said aloud.
+
+“Is it, then, a sacrifice?” she answered, laughing. “Are there
+sacrifices when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of a
+man we all despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but that
+ought not to be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy, and the
+abbe, and my dear godfather,” she said, looking up at his portrait.
+
+Bongrand took Ursula’s hand and kissed it.
+
+“Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?” said the justice as soon
+as they were in the street.
+
+“What?” asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+merely curious.
+
+“She had some plan for restitution.”
+
+“Then you think--” began the abbe.
+
+“I don’t think, I know; I have the certainty--and see there!”
+
+So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on
+his way home.
+
+“When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts,” continued Bongrand, “I
+naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never
+seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity,
+that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and
+bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care? What has
+put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity?
+Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead? Who would
+have supposed that the brain of that colossus could be excited? The man
+has felt his heart! I am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge
+of repentance, my dear abbe. That which I have hitherto observed has
+developed in men who were awaiting punishment, or enduring it to get
+quits with the world; they were either resigned, or breathing vengeance;
+but here is remorse without expiation, remorse pure and simple,
+fastening on its prey and rending him.”
+
+The judge stopped Minoret and said: “Do you know that Mademoiselle
+Mirouet has refused your son’s hand?”
+
+“But,” interposed the abbe, “do not be uneasy; she will prevent the
+duel.”
+
+“Ah, then my wife succeeded?” said Minoret. “I am very glad, for it
+nearly killed me.”
+
+“You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,”
+ remarked Bongrand.
+
+Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+betrayed the dreams; but the abbe’s face was unmoved, expressing only a
+calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+
+“And it is the more surprising,” went on Monsieur Bongrand, “because
+you ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and
+all those farms and mills and meadows and--with your investments in the
+Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs--”
+
+“I haven’t anything in the Funds,” cried Minoret, hastily.
+
+“Pooh,” said Bongrand; “this is just as it was about your son’s love
+for Ursula,--first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage.
+After trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a
+daughter-in-law. My good friend, you have got some secret in your
+pouch.”
+
+Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+better than:--
+
+“You’re very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen”; and he turned with a
+slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+
+“He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula,” said Bongrand, “but how
+can we ever find the proof?”
+
+“God may--”
+
+“God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man;
+but all that is merely what is called ‘presumptive,’ and human justice
+requires something more.”
+
+The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in similar
+circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think of the
+robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien’s happiness,
+delayed only by Ursula’s loss of fortune--for the old lady had privately
+owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not consenting to the
+marriage in the doctor’s lifetime.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS
+             VERY EASILY STOLEN
+
+The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying mass,
+a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance
+of a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied
+her home without having breakfasted.
+
+“My child,” he said, “I want to see the two volumes your godfather
+showed you in your dreams--where he said that he placed those
+certificates and banknotes.”
+
+Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third
+volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
+without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
+still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found
+a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a package, which
+had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
+
+“Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand,” La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was putting
+on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret’s hand-writing
+on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the
+cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just discovered.
+
+“What’s the meaning of those figures?” said the abbe; “our dear doctor
+was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable
+volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded
+by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U.”
+
+“What are you talking of?” said Bongrand. “Let me see that. Good God!”
+ he cried, after a moment’s examination; “it would open the eyes of an
+atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I
+believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the
+worlds.” He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. “Oh! my child, you
+will be rich and happy, and all through me!”
+
+“What is it?” exclaimed the abbe.
+
+“Oh, monsieur,” cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand’s blue overcoat,
+“let me kiss you for what you’ve just said.”
+
+“Explain, explain! don’t give us false hopes,” said the abbe.
+
+“If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich,” said Ursula, forseeing
+a criminal trial, “I--”
+
+“Remember,” said the justice, interrupting her, “the happiness you will
+give to Savinien.”
+
+“Are you mad?” said the abbe.
+
+“No, my dear friend,” said Bongrand. “Listen; the certificates in the
+Funds are issued in series,--as many series as there are letters in
+the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+certificates which are made out ‘to bearer’ cannot have a letter; they
+are not in any person’s name. What you see there shows that the day the
+doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number
+of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears
+his initial M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to bearer; these
+are without a letter; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula’s share in
+the Funds, the number of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see,
+that of the fifteen-thousand-franc certificate with lettering. This
+goes far to prove that those numbers are those of five certificates of
+investments made on the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of
+loss. I advised him to take certificates to bearer for Ursula’s fortune,
+and he must have made his own investment and that of Ursula’s little
+property the same day. I’ll go to Dionis’s office and look at the
+inventory. If the number of the certificate for his own investment is
+23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he invested, through the same
+broker on the same day, first his own property on a single certificate;
+secondly his savings in three certificates to bearer (numbered, but
+without the series letter); thirdly, Ursula’s own property; the transfer
+books will show, of course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you
+deceiver, I have you--Motus, my children!”
+
+Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways
+by which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+
+“The finger of God is in all this,” cried the abbe.
+
+“Will they punish him?” asked Ursula.
+
+“Ah, mademoiselle,” cried La Bougival. “I’d give the rope to hang him.”
+
+Bongrand was already at Goupil’s, now the appointed successor of Dionis,
+but he entered the office with a careless air. “I have a little matter
+to verify about the Minoret property,” he said to Goupil.
+
+“What is it?” asked the latter.
+
+“The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent Funds?”
+
+“He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year,” said Goupil; “I
+recorded it myself.”
+
+“Then just look on the inventory,” said Bongrand.
+
+Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+place, and read:--
+
+“‘Item, one certificate’--Here, read for yourself--under the number
+23,533, letter M.”
+
+“Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an
+hour,” said Bongrand.
+
+“What good is it to you?” asked Goupil.
+
+“Do you want to be a notary?” answered the justice of peace, looking
+sternly at Dionis’s proposed successor.
+
+“Of course I do,” cried Goupil. “I’ve swallowed too many affronts not to
+succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable
+creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre
+Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of
+Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no
+longer even alike. Look at me!”
+
+Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil’s clothes. The new
+notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with
+ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of
+handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
+hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
+
+“The fact is you are another man,” said Bongrand.
+
+“Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a practice;
+besides, money is the source of cleanliness--”
+
+“Morally as well as physically,” returned Bongrand, settling his
+spectacles.
+
+“Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever
+a democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what
+refinement is, and who intends to love his wife,” said Goupil; “and
+what’s more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions.”
+
+“Well, make haste,” said Bongrand. “Let me have that copy in an hour,
+and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the
+clerk.”
+
+After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he
+went back to Ursula’s house for the two important volumes and for
+her own certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the
+inventory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the
+procureur du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft
+of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs,--presumably by
+Minoret.
+
+“His conduct is explained,” said the procureur.
+
+As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury
+to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go
+to Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a
+polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence.
+
+Zelie, very uneasy about her son’s duel, dressed herself at once,
+had the horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The
+procureur’s plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the
+husband, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he
+expected to learn the truth. Zelie found the official in his private
+office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows:--
+
+“Madame,” he said; “I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft
+that has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of which
+the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of
+appearing in the prisoner’s dock by making a full confession of what
+you know about it. The punishment which your husband has incurred is,
+moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son’s career is to be
+thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be
+too late. The police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant
+is made out.”
+
+Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+
+“You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate,” he
+said. “No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any publicity
+been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a great crime,
+which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be
+considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make you
+a prisoner--oh, in my own house, on parole,” he added, seeing that
+Zelie was about to faint. “You must remember that my official duty would
+require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination; but I am
+acting now individually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and
+her best interests demand a compromise.”
+
+“Ah!” exclaimed Zelie.
+
+“Write to your husband in the following words,” he continued, placing
+Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:--
+
+  “My Friend,--I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury.”
+
+“You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+make,” said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie’s orthography. “We will see
+that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay in
+our house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of the
+matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy.”
+
+Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate sent
+for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father’s theft, which
+was really to Ursula’s injury, but, as matters stood, legally to that of
+his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother. Desire at
+once asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his father made
+immediate restitution.
+
+“It is a very serious matter,” said the magistrate. “The will having
+been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and
+Cremiere may put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father.
+I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has
+already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To her,
+I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take
+her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you can.
+Don’t fear any one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too well to
+let the matter become known.”
+
+Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter,
+the orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule
+on a man crushed by affliction.
+
+
+To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+
+Monsieur,--God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at
+Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the
+carriage; the horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their impatience,
+jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the
+box. As he turned to resume his place in the carriage beside his mother
+the horses started; Desire did not step back against the parapet in
+time; the step of the carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the
+hind wheel passing over his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for
+the best surgeon will bring you this letter, which my son in the midst
+of his sufferings desires me to write so as to let you know our entire
+submission to your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to
+speak to me.
+
+I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you
+have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+
+Francois Minoret.
+
+
+This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds
+standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell
+Savinien that his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful than
+his own. He went at once to Ursula’s house, where he found both the abbe
+and the young girl more distressed than surprised.
+
+The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and
+surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be
+amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied by
+the abbe, to Ursula’s house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand and
+Savinien.
+
+“Mademoiselle,” he said; “I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that
+I can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in
+absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and
+also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him.”
+
+He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+
+“I can assure you, my dear Ursula,” said the abbe, “that you can and
+that you ought to accept a part of this gift.”
+
+“Will you forgive me?” said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the
+astonished girl. “The operation is about to be performed by the first
+surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely
+only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to
+restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we
+shall have the joy of saving him.”
+
+“Let us go to the church!” cried Ursula, rising.
+
+But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and
+she fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her
+friends--but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor--looking at her
+with anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled
+their hearts.
+
+“I saw my godfather standing in the doorway,” she said, “and he signed
+to me that there was no hope.”
+
+The day after the operation Desire died,--carried off by the fever and
+the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became
+insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the
+establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
+
+Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married
+Savinien with Madame de Portenduere’s consent. Minoret took part in the
+marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate
+at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds;
+keeping for himself only his uncle’s house and ten thousand francs a
+year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most religious;
+he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of
+the unfortunate.
+
+“The poor take the place of my son,” he said.
+
+If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll
+the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out
+its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you
+will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,--broken,
+emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial
+dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the beginning of
+this history; he does not even take his snuff as he once did; he carries
+something more now than the weight of his body. Beholding him, we feel
+that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful
+warning. After hating so violently his uncle’s godchild the old man now,
+like Doctor Minoret himself, has concentrated all his affections on her,
+and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours.
+
+Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year
+in Paris, where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain. Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house
+in Nemours to the Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live
+at Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter’s lodge. Cabirolle, the
+former conductor of the “Ducler,” a man sixty years of age, has married
+La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a year which she possesses
+besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur
+de Portenduere’s coachman.
+
+If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming little
+low carriages called ‘escargots,’ lined with gray silk and trimmed with
+blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire because
+her face is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as
+forget-me-nots and filled with love; if you see her bending slightly
+towards a fine young man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of
+envy--pause and reflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have
+paid their quota to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married
+lovers are the Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife. There is not another
+such home in Paris as theirs.
+
+“It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen,” said the Comtesse de
+l’Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+
+Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for
+yourselves, a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best of
+all mothers--adversity.
+
+Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he
+is punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous. Dionis,
+his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is
+one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king
+of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis
+relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of her receptions
+at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the king of the
+French. She lords it over Nemours by means of the throne, which
+therefore must be popular in the little town.
+
+Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is
+in the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+
+Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the
+occasion of her daughter’s marriage, she exhorted her to be the working
+caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with the eyes
+of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her “slapsus-linquies,”
+ which he calls a Cremiereana.
+
+“We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon,” said
+the Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter--having nursed him herself
+during his illness. “The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is
+very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the
+venerable cure of Saint-Lange.”
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bouvard, Doctor
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Dionis
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Estorade, Madame de l’
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Kergarouet, Comte de
+       The Purse
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       The Thirteen
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Twon
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Beatrix
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Beatrix
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Schmucke, Wilhelm
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Father Goriot
+       Gobseck
+       A Man of Business
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1223-0.txt or 1223-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1223/
+
+Produced by John Bickers and Bonnie Sala
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
+
+The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/1223-0.zip b/old/1223-0.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..564daa8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1223-0.zip
diff --git a/old/1223-h.zip b/old/1223-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2f22c84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1223-h.zip
diff --git a/old/1223-h/1223-h.htm b/old/1223-h/1223-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d9e1d21
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1223-h/1223-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,11077 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ursula
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February 21, 2010 [EBook #1223]
+Last Updated: November 23, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      URSULA
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By Honore De Balzac
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> DEDICATION </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2H_4_0002"> <b>URSULA</b> </a><br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE RICH
+        UNCLE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        DOCTOR&rsquo;S FRIENDS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;ZELIE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;URSULA
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A
+        TREATISE ON MESMERISM <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0008">
+        CHAPTER VIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE CONFERENCE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI.
+        </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SAVINIEN SAVED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0012">
+        CHAPTER XII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE <br /><br /> <a
+        href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;URSULA
+        AGAIN ORPHANED <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        DOCTOR&rsquo;S WILL <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        TWO ADVERSARIES <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;THE
+        MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0018">
+        CHAPTER XVIII. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;APPARITIONS
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;REMORSE
+        <br /><br /> <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI. </a>&nbsp;&nbsp;SHOWING
+        HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL<br /> THAT WHICH SEEMS VERY EASILY STOLEN<br />
+        <br /> <br /><br /> <a href="#link2H_4_0024"> ADDENDUM </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      DEDICATION
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+  It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+  book, the subject and details of which have won the
+  approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+  world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+  the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+  indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+  to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+  are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+  prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+  therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+  pleased you?
+
+  God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+  &mdash;the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+  Your uncle,
+  De Balzac.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h1>
+      URSULA
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the
+      steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields
+      and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little
+      town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been built on the
+      farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place
+      will lose its present aspect of graceful originality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of the
+      post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting one fine
+      autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at a
+      glance the whole of what is called in his business a &ldquo;ruban de queue.&rdquo; The
+      month of September was displaying its treasures; the atmosphere glowed
+      above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the blue of the sky, the
+      purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed the
+      extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault (for that was the post
+      master&rsquo;s name) was obliged to shade his eyes with one hand to keep them
+      from being dazzled. With the air of a man who was tired of waiting, he
+      looked first to the charming meadows which lay to the right of the road
+      where the aftermath was springing up, then to the hill-slopes covered with
+      copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours to Bouron. He could hear in
+      the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on the road were echoed back
+      from the hills, the trot of his own horses and the crack of his
+      postilion&rsquo;s whip.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such meadows,
+      filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath a Raffaelle
+      sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema. Whoever knows
+      Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art, whose mission is
+      to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas and creates thought.
+      But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an artist would very likely
+      have left the view to sketch the man, so original was he in his native
+      commonness. Unite in a human being all the conditions of the brute and you
+      have a Caliban, who is certainly a great thing. Wherever form rules,
+      sentiment disappears. The post master, a living proof of that axiom,
+      presented a physiognomy in which an observer could with difficulty trace,
+      beneath the vivid carnation of its coarsely developed flesh, the semblance
+      of a soul. His cap of blue cloth, with a small peak, and sides fluted like
+      a melon, outlined a head of vast dimensions, showing that Gall&rsquo;s science
+      has not yet produced its chapter of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny
+      hair which appeared below the cap showed that other causes than mental
+      toil or grief had whitened it. Large ears stood out from the head, their
+      edges scarred with the eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which seemed
+      ready to gush at the least exertion. His skin was crimson under an outside
+      layer of brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun. The roving gray
+      eyes, deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows, were like those of the
+      Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they ever sparkled it was only
+      under the influence of a covetous thought. His broad pug nose was
+      flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping with a repulsive double
+      chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more than once a week, was
+      encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted to a cord; a short neck,
+      rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of brute
+      force which sculptors give to their caryatids. Minoret-Levrault was like
+      those statues, with this difference, that whereas they supported an
+      edifice, he had more than he could well do to support himself. You will
+      meet many such Atlases in the world. The man&rsquo;s torso was a block; it was
+      like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His vigorous arms ended in
+      a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle
+      whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his postilions never attempted to
+      trifle with. The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which
+      were as large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an
+      elephant. Anger was a rare thing with him, but it was terrible,
+      apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though violent and quite incapable of
+      reflection, the man had never done anything that justified the sinister
+      suggestions of his bodily presence. To all those who felt afraid of him
+      his postilions would reply, &ldquo;Oh! he&rsquo;s not bad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country, wore
+      a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green linen with
+      great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat&rsquo;s skin, in the pocket
+      of which might be discerned the round outline of a monstrous snuff-box. A
+      snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without exception.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
+      did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had never
+      set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private principles,
+      he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did not forbid or
+      could not prevent he considered right. He never read anything but the
+      journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed
+      instructions relating to his business. He was considered a clever
+      agriculturist; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral
+      being did not belie the physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking he
+      always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas, but
+      words. If he had been a talker you would have felt that he was out of
+      keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet and
+      without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to agree with
+      Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes ridicule and
+      sometimes foretell characters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+      thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty thousand
+      francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If Minoret, being
+      master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the Gatinais to Paris,
+      still worked at his business, it was less from habit than for the sake of
+      an only son, to whom he was anxious to give a fine career. This son, who
+      was now (to use an expression of the peasantry) a &ldquo;monsieur,&rdquo; had just
+      completed his legal studies and was about to take his degree as
+      licentiate, preparatory to being called to the Bar. Monsieur and Madame
+      Minoret-Levrault&mdash;for behind our colossus every one will perceive a
+      woman without whom this signal good-fortune would have been impossible&mdash;left
+      their son free to choose his own career; he might be a notary in Paris,
+      king&rsquo;s-attorney in some district, collector of customs no matter where,
+      broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of his could they ever
+      refuse him? to what position of life might he not aspire as the son of a
+      man about whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in
+      the habit of saying, &ldquo;Pere Minoret doesn&rsquo;t even know how rich he is&rdquo;?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this history
+      begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and a splendid
+      dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand&rsquo;Rue to the wharf. The
+      new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs, which the gossip of
+      thirty miles in circumference more than doubled. The Nemours mail-coach
+      service requires a large number of horses. It goes to Fontainebleau on the
+      road to Paris, and from there diverges to Montargis and also to Montereau.
+      The relays are long, and the sandy soil of the Montargis road calls for
+      the mythical third horse, always paid for but never seen. A man of
+      Minoret&rsquo;s build, and Minoret&rsquo;s wealth, at the head of such an
+      establishment might well be called, without contradiction, the master of
+      Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being a practical
+      materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a practical egoist,
+      and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of
+      unmixed happiness,&mdash;if we can call pure materialism happiness. A
+      physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered the last
+      vertebrae and pressed upon the giant&rsquo;s cerebellum, and, above all, hearing
+      the shrill, sharp voice which contrasted so absurdly with his huge body,
+      would have understood why this ponderous, coarse being adored his only
+      son, and why he had so long expected him,&mdash;a fact proved by the name,
+      Desire, which was given to the child.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+      spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+      idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+      mother&rsquo;s coffer and dipped into his father&rsquo;s purse, making each author of
+      his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire, who
+      played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his father&rsquo;s
+      capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had gratified
+      them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum of not less
+      than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal studies. But for
+      that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would never had come to
+      him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial skin, learned the power
+      of money and seen in the magistracy a means of advancement which he
+      fancied. During the last year he had spent an extra sum of ten thousand
+      francs in the company of artists, journalists, and their mistresses. A
+      confidential and rather disquieting letter from his son, asking for his
+      consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the post master was now
+      keeping on the bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a
+      sumptuous breakfast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate,
+      had sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and
+      ride out if he saw nothing of the diligence. The coach which was conveying
+      the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning and it was now
+      nine! What could be the meaning of such delay? Was the coach overturned?
+      Could Desire be dead? Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge of
+      musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten horses
+      neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was seen. The best
+      mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray carriage-horses, set
+      spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the five diligence horses and
+      the three other carriage-horses, and soon reached his master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen the &lsquo;Ducler&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+      different coaches; such, for instance, as the &ldquo;Caillard,&rdquo; the &ldquo;Ducler&rdquo;
+       (the coach between Nemours and Paris), the &ldquo;Grand Bureau.&rdquo; Every new
+      enterprise is called the &ldquo;Competition.&rdquo; In the days of the Lecompte
+      company their coaches were called the &ldquo;Countess.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;&lsquo;Caillard&rsquo; could
+      not overtake the &lsquo;Countess&rsquo;; but &lsquo;Grand Bureau&rsquo; caught up with her
+      finely,&rdquo; you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing his
+      horses and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he will
+      tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space, &ldquo;The
+      &lsquo;Competition&rsquo; is ahead.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;We can&rsquo;t get in sight of her,&rdquo; cries the
+      postilion; &ldquo;the vixen! she wouldn&rsquo;t stop to let her passengers dine.&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;The
+      question is, has she got any?&rdquo; responds the conductor. &ldquo;Give it to
+      Polignac!&rdquo; All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac. Such are the jokes
+      and the basis of conversation between postilions and conductors on the
+      roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each calling in France has its
+      slang.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you seen the &lsquo;Ducler&rsquo;?&rdquo; asked Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Desire?&rdquo; said the postilion, interrupting his master. &ldquo;Hey! you
+      must have heard us, didn&rsquo;t our whips tell you? we felt you were somewhere
+      along the road.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,&mdash;for the bells were
+      pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,&mdash;a
+      woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, cousin,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t believe me&mdash;Uncle is with
+      Ursula in the Grand&rsquo;Rue, and they are going to mass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+      impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+      mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought from
+      the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew sibilant, and
+      his face took on the appearance of what people oddly enough call a
+      sunstroke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that true?&rdquo; he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed him,
+      but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for his
+      son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand&rsquo;Rue with his cousin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I always tell you so?&rdquo; she resumed. &ldquo;When Doctor Minoret goes out
+      of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into religion;
+      whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and she&rsquo;ll have our
+      inheritance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Madame Massin&mdash;&rdquo; said the post master, dumbfounded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now!&rdquo; exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. &ldquo;You are
+      going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen can&rsquo;t
+      invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of eighty-three,
+      who has never set foot in a church except to be married, change his
+      opinions,&mdash;now don&rsquo;t tell me he has such a horror of priests that he
+      wouldn&rsquo;t even go with the girl to the parish church when she made her
+      first communion. I&rsquo;d like to know why, if Doctor Minoret hates priests, he
+      has spent nearly every evening for the last fifteen years of his life with
+      the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite never fails to give Ursula twenty
+      francs for wax tapers every time she takes the sacrament. Have you
+      forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to the cure for
+      preparing her for her first communion? She spent all her money on it, and
+      her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men! you don&rsquo;t pay attention
+      to things. When I heard that, I said to myself, &lsquo;Farewell baskets, the
+      vintage is done!&rsquo; A rich uncle doesn&rsquo;t behave that way to a little brat
+      picked up in the streets without some good reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door of
+      the church,&rdquo; replied the post master. &ldquo;It is a fine day, and he is out for
+      a walk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious&mdash;you&rsquo;ll
+      see him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They hide their game pretty well,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;La Bougival told me
+      there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+      Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the globe;
+      he&rsquo;d give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable of a base
+      action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Theft,&rdquo; said Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Worse!&rdquo; cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+      gossiping neighbour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I know,&rdquo; said Madame Massin, &ldquo;that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+      honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+      must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+      into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+      believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we&rsquo;re done for.
+      My husband is absolutely beside himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+      cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and to
+      the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way to mass.
+      She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of which
+      runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the stones of
+      which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt in the
+      fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised to a
+      peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a great arch
+      which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does everything.
+      Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly kept square,
+      this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect. As the post
+      master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his uncle with the
+      young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying prayer-books and just
+      entering the church. The old man took off his hat in the porch, and his
+      head, which was white as a hill-top covered with snow, shone among the
+      shadows of the portal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?&rdquo; cried
+      the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you expect me to say?&rdquo; replied the post master, offering him a
+      pinch of snuff.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can&rsquo;t say what you think, if it is
+      true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his words
+      before he speaks his thoughts,&rdquo; cried a young man, standing near, who
+      played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+      Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct that
+      was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office when a
+      career in Paris&mdash;where the clerk had wasted all the money he
+      inherited from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a
+      notary&mdash;was brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere
+      sight of Goupil told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life, and
+      had paid dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and
+      shoulders were developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a man
+      of forty. Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion
+      like the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead, brought out
+      still further the oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it
+      belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularity of
+      that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible
+      gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many deformed
+      persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of dividing it down
+      the middle. The mouth, contracted at the corners, like that of a
+      Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and
+      reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His hands,
+      coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too long, were
+      quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the
+      dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and
+      trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful
+      waistcoat with half the button-moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which
+      served as a cravat&mdash;in short, all his clothing revealed the cynical
+      poverty to which his passions had reduced him. This combination of
+      disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round
+      the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly. No one in
+      Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more deferred to than Goupil.
+      Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the odious
+      style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license, and he used
+      it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical
+      couplets sung during the carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a
+      &ldquo;little journal&rdquo; of the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and
+      insincere, and for that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as
+      for his keen mind and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town.
+      But the master so distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts,
+      refused to let him live in his house, held him at arm&rsquo;s length, and never
+      confided any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk
+      fawned upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and
+      watching Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge there.
+      Gifted with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work easy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+      hands, &ldquo;making game of our misfortunes already?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis&rsquo; passions for the last five
+      years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting the
+      hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil&rsquo;s heart with every fresh
+      insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to him than it
+      was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the whole
+      bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret&rsquo;s
+      son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of three town
+      offices,&mdash;that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of
+      the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up with
+      the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+      Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire, consoling
+      the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each vacation,&mdash;devouring
+      the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given God
+      to ME for a co-heir,&rdquo; retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which exhibited
+      his teeth&mdash;few, black, and menacing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+      wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector of
+      Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had the
+      physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as sloes
+      beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without
+      any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like a
+      man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough to
+      say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal
+      notices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by red
+      blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and
+      supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of pretensions to
+      wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle&rsquo;s money to &ldquo;take a certain
+      stand,&rdquo; decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her
+      husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles
+      the notary&rsquo;s wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who
+      caught up and retailed her &ldquo;slapsus-linquies&rdquo; as she called them. One day
+      Madame Dionis chanced to ask what &ldquo;Eau&rdquo; she thought best for the teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try opium,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled
+      in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so
+      generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet
+      umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so
+      picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on
+      the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between large
+      villages and cities those who do not go to mass stand about in the square
+      or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of church
+      service was a weekly exchange, to which the owners of property scattered
+      over a radius of some miles resorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, how would you have prevented it?&rdquo; said the post master to Goupil in
+      reply to his remark.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes. But
+      from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance of a
+      rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman&mdash;for want
+      of proper care they&rsquo;ll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were here she
+      could tell you how true that comparison is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry about,&rdquo;
+       said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!&rdquo; cried Goupil, laughing. &ldquo;I
+      would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace say it. If there is
+      nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with your uncle, knows that all
+      is lost, the proper thing for him to say to you is, &lsquo;Don&rsquo;t be worried.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+      meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin had
+      let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+      insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as a
+      clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin, with
+      the words:&mdash;&ldquo;Didn&rsquo;t I tell you so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+      looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was at
+      that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, a former client.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I were sure of it!&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don&rsquo;t you see how Bongrand is
+      sprinkling him with advice?&rdquo; said Goupil, slipping an idea of retaliation
+      into Massin&rsquo;s mind. &ldquo;But you had better go easy with your chief; he&rsquo;s a
+      clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your uncle and persuade
+      him not to leave everything to the church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh! we sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t die of it,&rdquo; said Minoret-Levrault, opening his enormous
+      snuff-box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You won&rsquo;t live of it, either,&rdquo; said Goupil, making the two women tremble.
+      More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the privations this loss
+      of inheritance (so long counted on for many comforts) would be to them.
+      &ldquo;However,&rdquo; added Goupil, &ldquo;we&rsquo;ll drown this little grief in floods of
+      champagne in honor of Desire!&mdash;sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t we, old fellow?&rdquo; he cried,
+      tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting himself to the feast for
+      fear he should be left out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II. THE RICH UNCLE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like to
+      read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees of
+      relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted to
+      religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+      cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+      subject of many instructive reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+      among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+      Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+      nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the latter
+      we may mention the d&rsquo;Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate of
+      Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+      mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the town
+      had no money. Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s sole possessions were a farm which
+      brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her town house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a group
+      of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former merchants;
+      in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived and moved the
+      retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry. The bourgeoisie
+      presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other small countries)
+      the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain autochthonous
+      families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who rule a whole
+      region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants are cousins. Under
+      Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made real names of their
+      surnames (some of which are united with those of feudalism) the
+      bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets, Massins, Levraults and
+      Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four families had already produced the
+      Massin-Cremieres, the Levrault-Massins, the Massin-Minorets, the
+      Minoret-Minorets, the Cremiere-Levraults, the Levrault-Minoret-Massins,
+      Massin-Levraults, Minoret-Massins, Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,&mdash;all
+      these varied with juniors and diversified with the names of eldest sons,
+      as for instance, Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret&mdash;enough
+      to drive a Pere Anselme of the People frantic,&mdash;if the people should
+      ever want a genealogist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+      complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of the
+      bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of the Almanach
+      of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they arrange those
+      zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the Minorets occupied the
+      tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the Massins were in trade, and
+      the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the neighbourhood these
+      four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending only on their
+      tap-roots; they scattered cuttings by the expatriation of sons who sought
+      their fortune elsewhere; for instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers
+      at Melun; Levraults at Montargis; Massins at Orleans; and Cremieres of
+      some importance in Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from the
+      parent hive. Rich Massins employ, of course, the poor working Massins&mdash;just
+      as Austria and Prussia take the German princes into their service. It may
+      happen that a public office is managed by a Minoret millionaire and
+      guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full of the same blood and called by the
+      same name (for sole likeness), these four roots had ceaselessly woven a
+      human network of which each thread was delicate or strong, fine or coarse,
+      as the case might be. The same blood was in the head and in the feet and
+      in the heart, in the working hands, in the weakly lungs, in the forehead
+      big with genius.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the ties of
+      family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which happened
+      under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France you may be, you
+      will find the same thing under changed names, but without the poetic charm
+      which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter Scott&rsquo;s genius reproduced so
+      faithfully. Let us look a little higher and examine humanity as it appears
+      in history. All the noble families of the eleventh century, most of them
+      (except the royal race of Capet) extinct to-day, will be found to have
+      contributed to the birth of the Rohans, Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and
+      Mortemarts of our time,&mdash;in fact they will all be found in the blood
+      of the last gentleman who is indeed a gentleman. In other words, every
+      bourgeois is cousin to a bourgeois, and every noble is cousin to a noble.
+      A splendid page of biblical genealogy shows that in one thousand years
+      three families, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, peopled the globe. One family may
+      become a nation; unfortunately, a nation may become one family. To prove
+      this we need only search back through our ancestors and see their
+      accumulation, which time increases into a retrograde geometric
+      progression, which multiplies of itself; reminding us of the calculation
+      of the wise man who, being told to choose a reward from the king of Persia
+      for inventing chess, asked for one ear of wheat for the first move on the
+      board, the reward to be doubled for each succeeding move; when it was
+      found that the kingdom was not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the
+      nobility, hemmed in by the net-work of the bourgeoisie,&mdash;the
+      antagonism of two protected races, one protected by fixed institutions,
+      the other by the active patience of labor and the shrewdness of commerce,&mdash;produced
+      the revolution of 1789. The two races almost reunited are to-day face to
+      face with collaterals without a heritage. What are they to do? Our
+      political future is big with the answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret was so
+      numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose entrance into
+      the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to seek his fortune,
+      and seldom returned to his native town, until he came to receive his share
+      of the inheritance of his grandfather. After suffering many things, like
+      all young men of firm will who struggle for a place in the brilliant world
+      of Paris, this son of the Minorets reached a nobler destiny than he had,
+      perhaps, dreamed of at the start. He devoted himself, in the first
+      instance, to medicine, a profession which demands both talent and a
+      cheerful nature, but the latter qualification even more than talent.
+      Backed by Dupont de Nemours, connected by a lucky chance with the Abbe
+      Morellet (whom Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the
+      Encyclopedists, Doctor Minoret attached himself as liegeman to the famous
+      Doctor Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D&rsquo;Alembert, Helvetius, the Baron
+      d&rsquo;Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere boy. These
+      men, influenced by Bordeu&rsquo;s example, became interested in Minoret, who,
+      about the year 1777, found himself with a very good practice among deists,
+      encyclopedists, sensualists, materialists, or whatever you are pleased to
+      call the rich philosophers of that period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous balm of
+      Lelievre, so much extolled by the &ldquo;Mercure de France,&rdquo; the weekly organ of
+      the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was permanently advertised. The
+      apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a stroke of business where Minoret
+      had only seen a new preparation for the dispensary, and he loyally shared
+      his profits with the doctor, who was a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as
+      well as of Bordeu in medicine. Less than that would make a man a
+      materialist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the &ldquo;Nouvelle
+      Heloise,&rdquo; when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His wife
+      was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet, a celebrated
+      musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew. Minoret knew
+      Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental in awarding him
+      a gold medal for a dissertation on the following subject: &ldquo;What is the
+      origin of the opinion that covers a whole family with the shame attaching
+      to the public punishment of a guilty member of it? Is that opinion more
+      harmful than useful? If yes, in what way can the harm be warded off.&rdquo; The
+      Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at Metz, to which Minoret belonged,
+      must possess this dissertation in the original. Though, thanks to this
+      friendship, the Doctor&rsquo;s wife need have had no fear, she was so in dread
+      of going to the scaffold that her terror increased a disposition to heart
+      disease caused by the over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all
+      the precautions taken by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately
+      met the tumbril of victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock
+      caused her death. Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her
+      nothing, and had given her a life of luxury, found himself after her death
+      almost a poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as
+      surgeon-in-charge of a hospital.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+      mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled him to
+      the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a destroyer
+      of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of Doctor Minoret,
+      who was induced to think of returning there to die, like the hare to its
+      form, by a circumstance that was wholly accidental.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+      wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+      suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a fresh
+      cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering beneath a
+      cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow? Wakened by the
+      &ldquo;hu! hu!&rdquo; of the postilion as he walks beside his horses, we shake off
+      sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream, the beautiful scene which
+      is to the traveler what a noble passage in a book is to a reader,&mdash;a
+      brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the sensation caused by a first sight
+      of Nemours as we approach it from Burgundy. We see it encircled with bare
+      rocks, gray, black, white, fantastic in shape like those we find in the
+      forest of Fontainebleau; from them spring scattered trees, clearly defined
+      against the sky, which give to this particular rock formation the
+      dilapidated look of a crumbling wall. Here ends the long wooded hill which
+      creeps from Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road. At the bottom of this
+      irregular amphitheater lie meadow-lands through which flows the Loing,
+      forming sheets of water with many falls. This delightful landscape, which
+      continues the whole way to Montargis, is like an opera scene, for its
+      effects really seem to have been studied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a rich
+      patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having mentioned at the
+      last relay the route he intended to take, he was brought without his
+      knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more, on waking from a nap, the
+      scenery in which his childhood had been passed. He had lately lost many of
+      his old friends. The votary of the Encyclopedists had witnessed the
+      conversion of La Harpe; he had buried Lebrun-Pindare and Marie-Joseph de
+      Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame Helvetius. He assisted at the quasi-fall
+      of Voltaire when assailed by Geoffroy, the continuator of Freton. For some
+      time past he had thought of retiring, and so, when his post chaise stopped
+      at the head of the Grand&rsquo;Rue of Nemours, his heart prompted him to inquire
+      for his family. Minoret-Levrault, the post master, came forward himself to
+      see the doctor, who discovered him to be the son of his eldest brother.
+      The nephew presented the doctor to his wife, the only daughter of the late
+      Levrault-Cremiere, who had died twelve years earlier, leaving him the post
+      business and the finest inn in Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, nephew,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;have I any other relatives?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+      Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a bachelor,
+      and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I am, that ends
+      the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal side? My mother
+      was a Jean-Massin-Levrault.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault&rsquo;s there&rsquo;s only one left,&rdquo; answered
+      Minoret-Levrault, &ldquo;namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur
+      Cremiere-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the
+      scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one
+      daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is
+      doing well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary&rsquo;s
+      clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I&rsquo;ve plenty of heirs,&rdquo; said the doctor gayly, immediately proposing to
+      take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+      gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+      happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor turned
+      into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the property of
+      Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he said, had just
+      died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there&rsquo;s a
+      charming garden running down to the river.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go in,&rdquo; said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a small
+      paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the two
+      neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and
+      climbing-plants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is built over a cellar,&rdquo; said the doctor, going up the steps of a high
+      portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which geraniums
+      were growing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+      which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room to
+      the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the courtyard and two
+      on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows to make
+      an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended from the
+      salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor,&rdquo; said old
+      Minoret, &ldquo;I could put my book there and make a very comfortable study of
+      that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the dining-room,
+      decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and gold flowers; this
+      was separated from the kitchen by the well of the staircase. Communication
+      with the kitchen was had through a little pantry built behind the
+      staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the courtyard through windows
+      with iron railings. There were two chambers on the next floor, and above
+      them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were fairly habitable. After
+      examining the house rapidly, and observing that it was covered with
+      trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the courtyard as well as on
+      that to the garden,&mdash;which ended in a terrace overlooking the river
+      and adorned with pottery vases,&mdash;the doctor remarked:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ho! I should think so,&rdquo; answered Minoret-Levrault. &ldquo;He liked flowers&mdash;nonsense!
+      &lsquo;What do they bring in?&rsquo; says my wife. You saw inside there how an artist
+      came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the corridor. He put those
+      enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were all re-made with cornices
+      which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room floor is in marquetry&mdash;perfect
+      folly! The house won&rsquo;t sell for a penny the more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here&rsquo;s my
+      address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?&rdquo; he asked, as
+      they left the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Emigres,&rdquo; answered the post master, &ldquo;named Portenduere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of living there,
+      wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was therefore occupied
+      by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice to Dionis,
+      his head-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house on the
+      doctor&rsquo;s hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was being
+      decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor&rsquo;s heirs, at first misled, had by
+      this time decided that his thought of returning to his native place was
+      merely a rich man&rsquo;s fancy, and that probably he had some tie in Paris
+      which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for inheritance.
+      However, Minoret-Levrault&rsquo;s wife seized the occasion to write him a
+      letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace was signed, the roads
+      cleared of soldiers, and safe communications established, he meant to go
+      and live at Nemours. He did, in fact, put in an appearance with two of his
+      clients, the architect of his hospital and an upholsterer, who took charge
+      of the repairs, the indoor arrangements, and the transportation of the
+      furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault proposed the cook of the late notary as
+      caretaker, and the woman was accepted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was really
+      coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the political
+      events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and on the
+      Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising. Was he
+      rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune or nothing?
+      Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out what follows, but
+      only by taking infinite pains and employing much subterraneous spying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years 1789
+      and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician to the
+      Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no one knew how
+      much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than a carriage by the
+      year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no guests, and dined out
+      almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at not being allowed to go with
+      him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the post master&rsquo;s wife, that she knew
+      the doctor had fourteen thousand francs a year on the &ldquo;grand-livre.&rdquo; Now,
+      after twenty years&rsquo; exercise of a profession which his position as head of
+      a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member of the Institute,
+      rendered lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs a year showed only one
+      hundred and sixty thousand francs laid by. To have saved only eight
+      thousand francs a year the doctor must have had either many vices or many
+      virtues to gratify. But neither his housekeeper nor Zelie nor any one else
+      could discover the reason for such moderate means. Minoret, who when he
+      left it was much regretted in the quarter of Paris where he had lived, was
+      one of the most benevolent of men, and, like Larrey, kept his kind deeds a
+      profound secret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle&rsquo;s fine furniture and large
+      library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being
+      now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king a
+      chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel&mdash;perhaps on account of his
+      retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the architect
+      and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything in the most
+      comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame Minoret-Levrault, who
+      kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as if her own property was
+      concerned, found out, through the indiscretion of a young man sent to
+      arrange the books, that the doctor was taking care of a little orphan
+      named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire through the town. At last,
+      however, towards the middle of the month of January, 1815, the old man
+      actually arrived, installing himself quietly, almost slyly, with a little
+      girl about ten months old, and a nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The child can&rsquo;t be his daughter,&rdquo; said the terrified heirs; &ldquo;he is
+      seventy-one years old.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever she is,&rdquo; remarked Madame Massin, &ldquo;she&rsquo;ll give us plenty of
+      tintouin&rdquo; (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+      more literally, tingling in the ears).
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor received his great-niece on the mother&rsquo;s side somewhat coldly;
+      her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court, and the pair
+      began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither Massin nor his
+      wife were rich. Massin&rsquo;s father, a locksmith at Montargis, had been
+      obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was now, at sixty-seven
+      years of age, working like a young man, and had nothing to leave behind
+      him. Madame Massin&rsquo;s father, Levrault-Minoret, had just died at Montereau
+      after the battle, in despair at seeing his farm burned, his fields ruined,
+      his cattle slaughtered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll get nothing out of your great-uncle,&rdquo; said Massin to his wife, now
+      pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with which
+      Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began the
+      business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the
+      peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him to
+      hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through his
+      influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his bondsman.
+      Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his wife, being
+      jealous of the uncle&rsquo;s liberality to his two nieces, took her ten-year old
+      son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be to them at a school
+      in Paris, where, she said, education costs so much. The doctor obtained a
+      half-scholarship for his great-nephew at the school of Louis-le-Grand,
+      where Desire was put into the fourth class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+      &ldquo;rated without appeal&rdquo; by the doctor within two months of his arrival in
+      Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+      property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+      against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions of
+      instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a glance;
+      whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount of intellect
+      to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his heirs, and thus, as it
+      were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor made a pretext of his
+      occupations, his habits, and the care of the little Ursula to avoid
+      receiving his relatives without exactly closing his doors to them. He
+      liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he got up late; he had
+      returned to his native place for the very purpose of finding rest in
+      solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be natural, and his
+      relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly visits on Sundays
+      from one to four o&rsquo;clock, to which, however, he tried to put a stop by
+      saying: &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t come and see me unless you want something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over serious
+      cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not serve as a
+      physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared that he no
+      longer practiced his profession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve killed enough people,&rdquo; he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon, who,
+      knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an original!&rdquo; These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the harmless
+      revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects about him a
+      society of persons who have many of the characteristics of a set of heirs.
+      Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves entitled to visit this
+      distinguished physician kept up a ferment of jealousy against the few
+      privileged friends whom he did admit to his intimacy, which had in the
+      long run some unfortunate results.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR&rsquo;S FRIENDS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that &ldquo;extremes meet,&rdquo;
+       the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon friends. The
+      old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the priesthood, and the Abbe
+      Chaperon played it with about as much skill as he himself. The game was
+      the first tie between them. Then Minoret was charitable, and the abbe was
+      the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had had a wide and varied education; the
+      man of God was the only person in all Nemours who was fully capable of
+      understanding the atheist. To be able to argue, men must first understand
+      each other. What pleasure is there in saying sharp words to one who can&rsquo;t
+      feel them? The doctor and the priest had far too much taste and had seen
+      too much of good society not to practice its precepts; they were thus
+      well-fitted for the little warfare so essential to conversation. They
+      hated each other&rsquo;s opinions, but they valued each other&rsquo;s character. If
+      such conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we
+      must surely despair of society, which, especially in France, requires some
+      form of antagonism. It is from the shock of characters, and not from the
+      struggle of opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor&rsquo;s chief friend. This
+      excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+      Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+      attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+      those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so doing,
+      the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his sheep,
+      respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without inquiring
+      into the religious opinions of those he benefited. His parsonage, with
+      scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life, was cold and
+      shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice manifest
+      themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in heaven which
+      avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon argued with his servant over
+      expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his&mdash;if indeed that
+      famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good priest often sold the buckles
+      off his shoes and his breeches to give their value to some poor person who
+      appealed to him at a moment when he had not a penny. When he was seen
+      coming out of church with the straps of his breeches tied into the
+      button-holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from the clock-maker
+      and jeweler of the town and return them to their pastor with a lecture. He
+      never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they
+      scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like
+      a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an
+      agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones
+      after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the
+      difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons. When he
+      received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an
+      expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver
+      from his friend the atheist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My silver is his salvation,&rdquo; the doctor would say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+      done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious
+      because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied,
+      and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable
+      accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy
+      of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his
+      intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most
+      spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was never
+      priest in a salon. Until Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s arrival, the good man kept his
+      light under a bushel without regret. Owning a rather fine library and an
+      income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours, he now possessed,
+      in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish priest, nearly the
+      whole of which he gave away during the year. The giver of excellent
+      counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes, many persons who
+      never went to church to obtain consolation went to the parsonage to get
+      advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete his portrait.
+      Sometimes the peasants,&mdash;rarely, it is true, but occasionally,&mdash;unprincipled
+      men, would tell him they were sued for debt, or would get themselves
+      threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe&rsquo;s benevolence. They would
+      even deceive their wives, who, believing their chattels were threatened
+      with an execution and their cows seized, deceived in their turn the poor
+      priest with their innocent tears. He would then manage with great
+      difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs demanded of him&mdash;with
+      which the peasant bought himself a morsel of land. When pious persons and
+      vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging the abbe to consult them in future
+      before lending himself to such cupidity, he would say:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land?
+      Isn&rsquo;t it doing good when we prevent evil?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the fact
+      that science and literature had filled the heart and passed through the
+      strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of age the abbe&rsquo;s
+      hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the sorrows of others, and
+      so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed upon him. Twice
+      incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as he used to
+      say, uttered in &ldquo;In manus.&rdquo; He was of medium height, neither stout nor
+      thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite colorless, attracted
+      immediate attention by the absolute tranquillity expressed in its shape,
+      and by the purity of its outline, which seemed to be edged with light. The
+      face of a chaste man has an unspeakable radiance. Brown eyes with lively
+      pupils brightened the irregular features, which were surmounted by a broad
+      forehead. His glance wielded a power which came of a gentleness that was
+      not devoid of strength. The arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by
+      huge gray eyebrows which alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone
+      his mouth had lost its shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this
+      physical destruction was not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of
+      pleasantness, seemed to smile on others. Without being gouty his feet were
+      tender; and he walked with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of
+      calf&rsquo;s skin all the year round. He thought the fashion of trousers
+      unsuitable for priests, and he always appeared in stockings of coarse
+      black yarn, knit by his housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He never went out
+      in his cassock, but wore a brown overcoat, and still retained the
+      three-cornered hat he had worn so courageously in times of danger. This
+      noble and beautiful old man, whose face was glorified by the serenity of a
+      soul above reproach, will be found to have so great an influence upon the
+      men and things of this history, that it was proper to show the sources of
+      his authority and power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret took three newspapers,&mdash;one liberal, one ministerial, one
+      ultra,&mdash;a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals, the
+      accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers, encyclopaedias,
+      and books were an attraction to a retired captain of the Royal-Swedish
+      regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean nobleman and an old
+      bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of pension and annuity
+      combined. Having read the gazettes for several days, by favor of the abbe,
+      Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to call and thank the doctor in
+      person. At this first visit the old captain, formerly a professor at the
+      Military Academy, won the doctor&rsquo;s heart, who returned the call with
+      alacrity. Monsieur de Jordy, a spare little man much troubled by his
+      blood, though his face was very pale, attracted attention by the
+      resemblance of his handsome brow to that of Charles XII.; above it he kept
+      his hair cropped short, like that of the soldier-king. His blue eyes
+      seemed to say that &ldquo;Love had passed that way,&rdquo; so mournful were they;
+      revealing memories about which he kept such utter silence that his old
+      friends never detected even an allusion to his past life, nor a single
+      exclamation drawn forth by similarity of circumstances. He hid the painful
+      mystery of his past beneath a philosophic gayety, but when he thought
+      himself alone his motions, stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter
+      of choice than the result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of
+      distressful thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian ignorant of
+      his Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather rigid demeanor
+      and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military discipline. His sweet
+      and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His beautiful hands and the general
+      cut of his figure, recalling that of the Comte d&rsquo;Artois, showed how
+      charming he must have been in his youth, and made the mystery of his life
+      still more mysterious. An observer asked involuntarily what misfortune had
+      blighted such beauty, courage, grace, accomplishment, and all the precious
+      qualities of the heart once united in his person. Monsieur de Jordy
+      shuddered if Robespierre&rsquo;s name were uttered before him. He took much
+      snuff, but, strange to say, he gave up the habit to please little Ursula,
+      who at first showed a dislike to him on that account. As soon as he saw
+      the little girl the captain fastened his eyes upon her with a look that
+      was almost passionate. He loved her play so extravagantly and took such
+      interest in all she did that the tie between himself and the doctor grew
+      closer every day, though the latter never dared to say to him, &ldquo;You, too,
+      have you lost children?&rdquo; There are beings, kind and patient as old Jordy,
+      who pass through life with a bitter thought in their heart and a tender
+      but sorrowful smile on their lips, carrying with them to the grave the
+      secret of their lives; letting no one guess it,&mdash;through pride,
+      through disdain, possibly through revenge; confiding in none but God,
+      without other consolation than his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+      knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of his
+      parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine o&rsquo;clock.
+      So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed early, in
+      spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore a great piece
+      of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when he encountered a
+      man who had known the same world and spoken the same language as himself;
+      with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went to bed late. After
+      Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret had passed one evening
+      together they found so much pleasure in it that the priest and soldier
+      returned every night regularly at nine o&rsquo;clock, the hour at which, little
+      Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was free. All three would then sit
+      up till midnight or one o&rsquo;clock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life was
+      known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer, the indulgence,
+      knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for conversation which the
+      soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their practical dealings with the
+      souls, diseases, and education of men, was added to the number. Monsieur
+      Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of the pleasure of these evenings
+      and sought admittance to the doctor&rsquo;s society. Before becoming justice of
+      peace at Nemours he had been for ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he
+      conducted his own cases, according to the custom of small towns, where
+      there are no barristers. He became a widower at forty-five years of age,
+      but felt himself still too active to lead an idle life; he therefore
+      sought and obtained the position of justice of peace at Nemours, which
+      became vacant a few months before the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur
+      Bongrand lived modestly on his salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order
+      that he might devote his private income to his son, who was studying law
+      in Paris under the famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired
+      chief of a civil service office; he had the peculiar face of a bureaucrat,
+      less sallow than pallid, on which public business, vexations, and disgust
+      leave their imprint,&mdash;a face lined by thought, and also by the
+      continual restraints familiar to those who are trained not to speak their
+      minds freely. It was often illumined by smiles characteristic of men who
+      alternately believe all and believe nothing, who are accustomed to see and
+      hear all without being startled, and to fathom the abysses which
+      self-interest hollows in the depths of the human heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn flattened
+      to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow tones of which
+      harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His face, with the
+      features set close together, bore some likeness to that of a fox, all the
+      more because his nose was short and pointed. In speaking, he spluttered at
+      the mouth, which was broad like that of most great talkers,&mdash;a habit
+      which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly, &ldquo;An umbrella would be useful when
+      listening to him,&rdquo; or, &ldquo;The justice rains verdicts.&rdquo; His eyes looked keen
+      behind his spectacles, but if he took the glasses off his dulled glance
+      seemed almost vacant. Though he was naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt
+      to give himself too important and pompous an air. He usually kept his
+      hands in the pockets of his trousers, and only took them out to settle his
+      eye-glasses on his nose, with a movement that was half comic, and which
+      announced the coming of a keen observation or some victorious argument.
+      His gestures, his loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the
+      provincial lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he
+      redeemed them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist
+      might call the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like
+      a fox, and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or dishonest.
+      His wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing results and
+      protecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved whist,
+      a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbe learned to
+      play in a very short time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet&rsquo;s salon.
+      The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and knowledge of the
+      world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor to the profession,
+      came there sometimes; but his duties and also his fatigue (which obliged
+      him to go to bed early and to be up early) prevented his being as
+      assiduously present as the three other friends. This intercourse of five
+      superior men, the only ones in Nemours who had sufficiently wide knowledge
+      to understand each other, explains old Minoret&rsquo;s aversion to his
+      relatives; if he were compelled to leave them his money, at least he need
+      not admit them to his society. Whether the post master, the sheriff, and
+      the collector understood this distinction, or whether they were reassured
+      by the evident loyalty and benefactions of their uncle, certain it is that
+      they ceased, to his great satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about
+      eight months after the arrival of the doctor these four players of whist
+      and backgammon made a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a
+      fraternal aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures of
+      which were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits closed
+      round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his individual
+      tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge imagined himself her
+      guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher, and as for Minoret, he
+      was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+      life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On Ursula&rsquo;s
+      account he received no visitors in the morning, and never gave dinners,
+      but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at six o&rsquo;clock and
+      stay till midnight. The first-comers found the newspapers on the table and
+      read them while awaiting the rest; or they sometimes sallied forth to meet
+      the doctor if he were out for a walk. This tranquil life was not a mere
+      necessity of old age, it was the wise and careful scheme of a man of the
+      world to keep his happiness untroubled by the curiosity of his heirs and
+      the gossip of a little town. He yielded nothing to that capricious
+      goddess, public opinion, whose tyranny (one of the present great evils of
+      France) was just beginning to establish its power and to make the whole
+      nation a mere province. So, as soon as the child was weaned and could walk
+      alone, the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom his niece, Madame
+      Minoret-Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered that she told her
+      patroness everything that happened in his household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula&rsquo;s nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but a
+      baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child, aged
+      six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and honest
+      creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris (her
+      maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached herself
+      naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This blind
+      maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household devotion.
+      Told of the doctor&rsquo;s intention to send away his housekeeper, La Bougival
+      secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and discovered the old
+      man&rsquo;s ways. She took the utmost care of the house and furniture; in short
+      she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor wish to keep his private
+      life within four walls, as the saying is, but he also had certain reasons
+      for hiding a knowledge of his business affairs from his relatives. At the
+      end of the second year after his arrival La Bougival was the only servant
+      in the house; on her discretion he knew he could count, and he disguised
+      his real purposes by the all-powerful open reason of a necessary economy.
+      To the great satisfaction of his heirs he became a miser. Without fawning
+      or wheedling, solely by the influence of her devotion and solicitude, La
+      Bougival, who was forty-three years old at the time this tale begins, was
+      the housekeeper of the doctor and his protegee, the pivot on which the
+      whole house turned, in short, the confidential servant. She was called La
+      Bougival from the admitted impossibility of applying to her person the
+      name that actually belonged to her, Antoinette&mdash;for names and forms
+      do obey the laws of harmony.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+      object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+      subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours could
+      estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like most old men
+      his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few. Every six months
+      he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his income. In fifteen
+      years he never said a single word to any one in relation to his affairs.
+      His confidence in Bongrand was of slow growth; it was not until after the
+      revolution of 1830 that he told him of his projects. Nothing further was
+      known of the doctor&rsquo;s life either by the bourgeoisie at large or by his
+      heirs. As for his political opinions, he did not meddle in public matters
+      seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year in taxes, and
+      refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or liberal demands.
+      His known horror for the priesthood, and his deism were so little
+      obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner sent by his
+      great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the &ldquo;Cure Meslier&rdquo; and the
+      &ldquo;Discours du General Foy.&rdquo; Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the
+      liberals of Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+      Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+      Cremiere-Cremiere&mdash;whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+      Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is quite
+      unnecessary out of the Gatinais&mdash;met together as people do in little
+      towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son&rsquo;s birthday, a ball
+      during the carnival, another on the anniversary of his marriage, to all of
+      which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of Nemours. The collector received
+      his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the court, too poor,
+      he said, to fling himself into such extravagance, lived in a small way in
+      a house standing half-way down the Grand&rsquo;Rue, the ground-floor of which
+      was let to his sister, the letter-postmistress of Nemours, a situation she
+      owed to the doctor&rsquo;s kind offices. Nevertheless, in the course of the year
+      these three families did meet together frequently, in the houses of
+      friends, in the public promenades, at the market, on their doorsteps, or,
+      of a Sunday in the square, as on this occasion; so that one way and
+      another they met nearly every day. For the last three years the doctor&rsquo;s
+      age, his economies, and his probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank
+      remarks, among the townspeople as to the disposition of his property, a
+      topic which made the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the little
+      town. For the last six months not a day passed that friends and neighbours
+      did not speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day the good man&rsquo;s
+      eyes would shut and the coffers open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death, but
+      none but God is eternal,&rdquo; said one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, he&rsquo;ll bury us all; his health is better than ours,&rdquo; replied an
+      heir, hypocritically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, if you don&rsquo;t get the money yourselves, your children will, unless
+      that little Ursula&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He won&rsquo;t leave it all to her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+      relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere&rsquo;s favorite saying,
+      &ldquo;Well, whoever lives will know,&rdquo; shows that they wished at any rate more
+      harm to her than good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the post
+      master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor&rsquo;s
+      property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+      along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have got hold of some elixir of life,&rdquo; said one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has made a bargain with the devil,&rdquo; replied the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn&rsquo;t need
+      anything,&rdquo; said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! but Minoret has a son who&rsquo;ll waste his substance,&rdquo; answered Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How much do you really think the doctor has?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each year,
+      that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and the
+      interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he must, if
+      he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of business,
+      and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per cent from the
+      State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand francs, without
+      counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year from the five per
+      cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving anything to Ursula we
+      should get at least seven or eight hundred thousand francs, besides the
+      house and furniture.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand apiece to
+      you and me, that would be fair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha, that would make us comfortable!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he did that,&rdquo; said Massin, &ldquo;I should sell my situation in court and
+      buy an estate; I&rsquo;d try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get myself
+      elected deputy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As for me I should buy a brokerage business,&rdquo; said the collector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round him. I
+      don&rsquo;t believe we can do anything with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV. ZELIE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass will
+      now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to foresee a
+      danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind of the
+      peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground the
+      stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal reasoning,
+      &ldquo;If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her godfather into the
+      pale of the Church she will certainly have enough to make him leave her
+      his property,&rdquo; was now stamped in letters of fire on the brains of the
+      most obtuse heir. The post master had forgotten about his son in his hurry
+      to reach the square; for if the doctor were really in the church hearing
+      mass it was a question of losing two hundred and fifty thousand francs. It
+      must be admitted that the fears of these relations came from the strongest
+      and most legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Monsieur Minoret,&rdquo; said the mayor (formerly a miller who had now
+      become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), &ldquo;when the devil gets old the
+      devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better late than never, cousin,&rdquo; responded the post master, trying to
+      conceal his annoyance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of marrying
+      his son to that damned girl&mdash;may the devil get her!&rdquo; cried Cremiere,
+      shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s Cremiere grumbling about?&rdquo; said the butcher of the town, a
+      Levrault-Levrault the elder. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t he pleased to see his uncle on the
+      road to paradise?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who would ever have believed it!&rdquo; ejaculated Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! one should never say, &lsquo;Fountain, I&rsquo;ll not drink of your water,&rsquo;&rdquo;
+       remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his wife to
+      go to church without him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Monsieur Dionis,&rdquo; said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+      &ldquo;what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise you,&rdquo; said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively, &ldquo;to go
+      to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before it gets
+      cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your heads; in
+      short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing had
+      happened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not consoling,&rdquo; said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis was
+      really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did business
+      secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such peasants as
+      were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could be bought for a
+      song. The two men were in a position to choose their opportunities; none
+      that were good escaped them, and they shared the profits of
+      mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent, the acquirement
+      of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively interest in the
+      doctor&rsquo;s inheritance, not so much for the post master and the collector as
+      for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or later Massin&rsquo;s share in
+      the doctor&rsquo;s money would swell the capital with which these secret
+      associates worked the canton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+      comes from,&rdquo; said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to keep
+      quiet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you about, Minoret?&rdquo; cried a little woman, suddenly descending
+      upon the group in the middle of which stood the post master, as tall and
+      round as a tower. &ldquo;You don&rsquo;t know where Desire is and there you are,
+      planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing, when I thought you on
+      horseback!&mdash;Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white cotton
+      with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed with
+      ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl on her flat
+      shoulders, was Minoret&rsquo;s wife, the terror of postilions, servants, and
+      carters; who kept the accounts and managed the establishment &ldquo;with finger
+      and eye&rdquo; as they say in those parts. Like the true housekeeper that she
+      was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give in (to use her own
+      expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held to the solid and the
+      substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black apron, in the pocket of
+      which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice was agony to
+      the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with the soft blue of
+      her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips of a pinched mouth and
+      a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead. Sharp was the glance,
+      sharper still both gesture and speech. &ldquo;Zelie being obliged to have a will
+      for two, had it for three,&rdquo; said Goupil, who pointed out the successive
+      reigns of three young postilions, of neat appearance, who had been set up
+      in life by Zelie, each after seven years&rsquo; service. The malicious clerk
+      named them Postilion I., Postilion II., Postilion III. But the little
+      influence these young men had in the establishment, and their perfect
+      obedience proved that Zelie was merely interested in worthy helpers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of her
+      son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for her to
+      do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family fortune
+      and was wholly given up to the management of their immense establishment.
+      To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the better of Zelie in
+      even the most complicated accounts was a thing impossible, though she
+      scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew nothing of arithmetic but
+      addition and subtraction. She never took a walk except to look at the hay,
+      the oats, or the second crops. She sent &ldquo;her man&rdquo; to the mowing, and the
+      postilions to tie the bales, telling them the quantity, within a hundred
+      pounds, each field should bear. Though she was the soul of that great body
+      called Minoret-Levrault and led him about by his pug nose, she was made to
+      feel the fears which occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild
+      beasts. She therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did; the
+      postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with him, for
+      his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she was
+      grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, &ldquo;Where would
+      Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you know what has happened,&rdquo; replied the post master, &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll be
+      over the traces yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula has taken the doctor to mass.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie&rsquo;s pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger, then,
+      crying out, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll see it before I believe it!&rdquo; she rushed into the church.
+      The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of the worshippers
+      enabled her to look along each row of chairs and benches as she went up
+      the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula&rsquo;s place, where she saw old Minoret
+      standing with bared head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d&rsquo;Anglas, Morellet,
+      Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of Doctor
+      Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+      personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+      characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile, cold
+      tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the features,
+      shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely aristocratic&mdash;less
+      perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the ideas than in the
+      character. All men of this stamp have high brows retreating at the summit,
+      the sign of a tendency to materialism. You will find these leading
+      characteristics of the head and these points of the face in all the
+      Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde, in the men of a period when
+      religious ideas were almost dead, men who called themselves deists and
+      were atheists. The deist is an atheist lucky in classification.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles, which
+      recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the manner in which
+      the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman when making her
+      toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of his coat. He
+      persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk stockings, shoes
+      with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie, and a black coat,
+      adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly characterized, the cold
+      whiteness of which was softened by the yellowing tones of old age,
+      happened to be, just then, in the full light of a window. As Madame
+      Minoret came in sight of him the doctor&rsquo;s blue eyes with their reddened
+      lids were raised to heaven; a new conviction had given them a new
+      expression. His spectacles lay in his prayer-book and marked the place
+      where he had ceased to pray. The tall and spare old man, his arms crossed
+      on his breast, stood erect in an attitude which bespoke the full strength
+      of his faculties and the unshakable assurance of his faith. He gazed at
+      the altar humbly with a look of renewed hope, and took no notice of his
+      nephew&rsquo;s wife, who planted herself almost in front of him as if to
+      reproach him for coming back to God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church and
+      returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She had
+      reckoned on the doctor&rsquo;s money, and possession was becoming problematical.
+      She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and their wives in
+      greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking pleasure in tormenting
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we ought to
+      talk of our affairs,&rdquo; said Zelie; &ldquo;come home with me. You too, Monsieur
+      Dionis,&rdquo; she added to the notary; &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll not be in the way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post master
+      was the news of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+      post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which was
+      only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand&rsquo;Rue, made its
+      usual racket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goodness! I&rsquo;m like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire,&rdquo; said Zelie.
+      &ldquo;Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his interests
+      are mixed up in this matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes in
+      late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards the
+      &ldquo;Ducler.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s Desire!&rdquo; was the general cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put the
+      town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom he was
+      invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence. But his
+      methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that more than one
+      family was very thankful to have him complete his studies and study law in
+      Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth, slender and fair like his mother,
+      from whom he obtained his blue eyes and pale skin, smiled from the window
+      on the crowd, and jumped lightly down to kiss his mother. A short sketch
+      of the young fellow will show how proud Zelie felt when she saw him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held under
+      his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat, admirably put on
+      and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy waistcoat, in the pocket
+      of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of which hung down; and,
+      finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a gray hat,&mdash;but his
+      lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt buttons of the waistcoat and
+      the ring worn outside of his purple kid glove. He carried a cane with a
+      chased gold head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are losing your watch,&rdquo; said his mother, kissing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, it is worn that way,&rdquo; he replied, letting his father hug him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?&rdquo; said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term,&rdquo; said Desire,
+      returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we shall have some fun,&rdquo; said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! my old wag, so here you are!&rdquo; replied Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You take your law license for all license,&rdquo; said Goupil, affronted by
+      being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know my luggage,&rdquo; cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of the
+      diligence; &ldquo;have it taken to the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sweat is rolling off your horses,&rdquo; said Zelie sharply to the
+      conductor; &ldquo;you haven&rsquo;t common-sense to drive them in that way. You are
+      stupider than your own beasts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from anxiety,&rdquo;
+       explained Cabirolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?&rdquo; she retorted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young men
+      around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey took
+      enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to issue from
+      the church. By mere chance (which manages many things) Desire saw Ursula
+      on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped short amazed at her
+      beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the relations who
+      accompanied him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+      prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she did
+      with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward or
+      difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does truly
+      reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that Ursula&rsquo;s
+      attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was dressed in a
+      white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and there with knots
+      of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same ribbon run through a
+      broad hem and tied with bows like those on the dress, showed the great
+      beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure white, was charming in tone
+      against the blue,&mdash;the right color for a fair skin. A long blue sash
+      with floating ends defined a slender waist which seemed flexible,&mdash;a
+      most seductive charm in women. She wore a rice-straw bonnet, modestly
+      trimmed with ribbons like those of the gown, the strings of which were
+      tied under her chin, setting off the whiteness of the straw and doing no
+      despite to that of her beautiful complexion. Ursula dressed her own hair
+      naturally (a la Berthe, as it was then called) in heavy braids of fine,
+      fair hair, laid flat on either side of the head, each little strand
+      reflecting the light as she walked. Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the
+      same time, were in harmony with a finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge,
+      suffusing her cheeks like a cloud, brightened a face which was regular
+      without being insipid; for nature had given her, by some rare privilege,
+      extreme purity of form combined with strength of countenance. The nobility
+      of her life was manifest in the general expression of her person, which
+      might have served as a model for a type of trustfulness, or of modesty.
+      Her health, though brilliant, was not coarsely apparent; in fact, her
+      whole air was distinguished. Beneath the little gloves of a light color it
+      was easy to imagine her pretty hands. The arched and slender feet were
+      delicately shod in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a brown silk fringe. Her
+      blue sash holding at the waist a small flat watch and a blue purse with
+      gilt tassels attracted the eyes of every woman she met.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has given her a new watch!&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+      husband&rsquo;s arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heavens! is that Ursula?&rdquo; cried Desire; &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t recognize her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear uncle,&rdquo; said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+      pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let the
+      doctor pass, &ldquo;everybody wants to see you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+      uncle,&rdquo; said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+      Jesuitical humility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+      annoyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula,
+      the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, &ldquo;I intend to go to church
+      to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;your heirs won&rsquo;t get another night&rsquo;s rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+      sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by the
+      expression of their faces. Zelie&rsquo;s irruption into the church, her glance,
+      which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant ones in
+      the public square, and the expression in their eyes as they turned them on
+      Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly awakened, and their
+      sordid fears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere, putting
+      in her word with a humble bow,&mdash;&ldquo;a miracle which will not cost you
+      much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is God&rsquo;s doing, madame,&rdquo; replied Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God!&rdquo; exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; &ldquo;my father-in-law used to say he served
+      to blanket many horses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey,&rdquo; said the doctor severely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come,&rdquo; said Minoret to his wife and son, &ldquo;why don&rsquo;t you bow to my uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shouldn&rsquo;t be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,&rdquo; cried
+      Zelie, carrying off her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Massin; &ldquo;the church is very damp.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh, niece,&rdquo; said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, &ldquo;the sooner
+      I&rsquo;m put to bed the sooner you&rsquo;ll flourish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a hurry
+      that the others dropped behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn&rsquo;t right,&rdquo; said Ursula,
+      shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+      religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but not
+      one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they know is
+      the only day I celebrate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de Portenduere,
+      dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She belonged to the
+      class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the last century. They
+      wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the cut of which can be seen in
+      the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all have black lace mantles and
+      bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow and dignified
+      deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore paniers under
+      their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have lost a leg are
+      said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their heads in old lace
+      which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks. Their wan and
+      elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are not without a
+      certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts with flattened
+      curls to which they cling,&mdash;and yet these ruins are all subordinate
+      to an unspeakable dignity of look and manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+      been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+      seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to time.
+      Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was really as
+      remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?&rdquo; said Madame Massin,
+      rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+      doctor&rsquo;s answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the cure,&rdquo; said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead as
+      if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. &ldquo;I have an idea!
+      I&rsquo;ll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with Madame
+      Minoret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the notary
+      to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire, locked arm
+      in arm with him, whispered something in the youth&rsquo;s ear with an odious
+      smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I care?&rdquo; answered the son of the house, shrugging his shoulders.
+      &ldquo;I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature in the
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Florine! and who may she be?&rdquo; demanded Goupil. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m too fond of you to
+      let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I know
+      that. She has positively refused to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with their
+      heads,&rdquo; responded Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you could but see her&mdash;only once,&rdquo; said Desire, lackadaisically,
+      &ldquo;you wouldn&rsquo;t say such things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than a
+      fancy,&rdquo; said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived his
+      master, &ldquo;I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+      &lsquo;Kenilworth.&rsquo; Your wife must be a d&rsquo;Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du Rouvre,
+      and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t let
+      you commit any follies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am rich enough to care only for happiness,&rdquo; replied Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you two plotting together?&rdquo; cried Zelie, beckoning to the two
+      friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come into
+      the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of a
+      young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had lately
+      taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds of the
+      whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to make this
+      history and the notary&rsquo;s remark to the heirs perfectly intelligible to the
+      reader.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V. URSULA
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and maker
+      of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated
+      organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age,
+      whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a
+      worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of
+      seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and composer, having made
+      his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned name, ran away with a young
+      lady in Germany. The dying father commended the young man, who was really
+      full of talent, to his son-in-law, proving to him, at the same time, that
+      he had refused to marry the mother that he might not injure Madame
+      Minoret. The doctor promised to give the unfortunate Joseph half of
+      whatever his wife inherited from her father, whose business was purchased
+      by the Erards. He made due search for his illegitimate brother-in-law; but
+      Grimm informed him one day that after enlisting in a Prussian regiment
+      Joseph had deserted and taken a false name and that all efforts to find
+      him would be frustrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine figure, a
+      handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste and much
+      brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life which Hoffman has
+      so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he was reduced to such
+      depths of poverty that he took advantage of the events of 1806 to make
+      himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he married the
+      daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell in love with
+      the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose to devote her life
+      to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph Mirouet was unable to
+      bear prosperity; he was naturally a spendthrift, and though kind to his
+      wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years. The household must have
+      dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph Mirouet reached the point of
+      enlisting as a musician in a French regiment. In 1813 the surgeon-major of
+      the regiment, by the merest chance, heard the name of Mirouet, was struck
+      by it, and wrote to Doctor Minoret, to whom he was under obligations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the allied
+      occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife died giving
+      birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should be called Ursula
+      after his wife. The father did not long survive the mother, worn out, as
+      she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the unfortunate musician
+      bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was already her godfather, in
+      spite of his repugnance for what he called the mummeries of the Church.
+      Having seen his own children die in succession either in dangerous
+      confinements or during the first year of their lives, the doctor had
+      awaited with anxiety the result of a last hope. When a nervous, delicate,
+      and sickly woman begins with a miscarriage it is not unusual to see her go
+      through a series of such pregnancies as Ursula Minoret did, in spite of
+      the care and watchfulness and science of her husband. The poor man often
+      blamed himself for their mutual persistence in desiring children. The last
+      child, born after a rest of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim of
+      its mother&rsquo;s nervous condition&mdash;if we listen to physiologists, who
+      tell us that in the inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child
+      derives from the father by blood and from the mother in its nervous
+      system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him, the
+      doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied paternity.
+      During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had longed more
+      especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring joy to the house;
+      he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet&rsquo;s legacy, and gave to the
+      orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams. For two years he took part,
+      as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute particulars of Ursula&rsquo;s life; he
+      would not allow the nurse to suckle her or to take her up or put her to
+      bed without him. His medical science and his experience were all put to
+      use in her service. After going through many trials, alternations of hope
+      and fear, and the joys and labors of a mother, he had the happiness of
+      seeing this child of the fair German woman and the French singer a
+      creature of vigorous health and profound sensibility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+      growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine and
+      soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed the
+      little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle through which
+      the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond of the
+      child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful blue eyes
+      upon some object with that serious, reflective look which seems the dawn
+      of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would stay by her side
+      for hours, seeking, with Jordy&rsquo;s help, to understand the reasons (which
+      most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena of this delicious
+      phase of life, when childhood is both flower and fruit, a confused
+      intelligence, a perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula&rsquo;s beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+      would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He declared
+      to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting hers. When old
+      men love children there is no limit to their passion&mdash;they worship
+      them. For these little beings they silence their own manias or recall a
+      whole past in their service. Experience, patience, sympathy, the
+      acquisitions of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all are spent upon
+      that young life in which they live again; their intelligence does actually
+      take the place of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to
+      the intuition of a mother; they remember the delicate perceptions which in
+      their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of a
+      compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of the
+      child&rsquo;s unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes the
+      place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is reduced to
+      its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the mother a slave,
+      the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote himself utterly. For
+      these reasons it is not unusual to see children in close intimacy with old
+      persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old doctor, happy in the
+      kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were never weary of answering her
+      talk and playing with her. Far from making them impatient her petulances
+      charmed them; and they gratified all her wishes, making each the ground of
+      some little training.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+      themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+      provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula&rsquo;s soul developed in a
+      sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it breathed
+      the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays that belonged
+      to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?&rdquo; asked the abbe
+      of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In yours,&rdquo; answered Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the &ldquo;Nouvelle Heloise&rdquo;
+       he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered by
+      the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench
+      outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe&rsquo;s hand on his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+      friend &lsquo;Shapron,&rsquo;&rdquo; he said, imitating Ursula&rsquo;s infant speech, &ldquo;I wish to
+      see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do
+      nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in my
+      heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God will reward you, I hope,&rdquo; replied the abbe, gently joining his hands
+      and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief mental
+      prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under the
+      religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come under the
+      educational training of her friend Jordy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a taste
+      for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had studied
+      the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man, patient as most old
+      scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read and write. He taught
+      her also the French language and all she needed to know of arithmetic. The
+      doctor&rsquo;s library afforded a choice of books which could be read by a child
+      for amusement as well as instruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with the
+      freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula learned as
+      she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left to follow the
+      divine training of a nature that was led into regions of purity by these
+      judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment than to duty; she
+      took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own conscience rather than
+      the demands of social law. In her, nobility of feeling and action would
+      ever be spontaneous; her judgment would confirm the impulse of her heart.
+      She was destined to do right as a pleasure before doing it as an
+      obligation. This distinction is the peculiar sign of Christian education.
+      These principles, altogether different from those that are taught to men,
+      were suitable for a woman,&mdash;the spirit and the conscience of the
+      home, the beautifier of domestic life, the queen of her household. All
+      three of these old preceptors followed the same method with Ursula.
+      Instead of recoiling before the bold questions of innocence, they
+      explained to her the reasons of things and the best means of action,
+      taking care to give her none but correct ideas. When, apropos of a flower,
+      a star, a blade of grass, her thoughts went straight to God, the doctor
+      and the professor told her that the priest alone could answer her. None of
+      them intruded on the territory of the others; the doctor took charge of
+      her material well-being and the things of life; Jordy&rsquo;s department was
+      instruction; moral and spiritual questions and the ideas appertaining to
+      the higher life belonged to the abbe. This noble education was not, as it
+      often is, counteracted by injudicious servants. La Bougival, having been
+      lectured on the subject, and being, moreover, too simple in mind and
+      character to interfere, did nothing to injure the work of these great
+      minds. Ursula, a privileged being, grew up with good geniuses round her;
+      and her naturally fine disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy
+      one. Such manly tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty
+      without danger, such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula,
+      when nine years of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died the
+      following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his work, of
+      which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part. Flowers will
+      bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The old gentleman
+      had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a year, that he might
+      leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep a place in her memory
+      during her whole life. In his will, the wording of which was very
+      touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five hundred francs
+      that came of her little capital exclusively on her dress. When the justice
+      of the peace applied the seals to the effects of his old friend, they
+      found in a small room, which the captain had allowed no one to enter, a
+      quantity of toys, many of them broken, while all had been used,&mdash;toys
+      of a past generation, reverently preserved, which Monsieur Bongrand was,
+      according to the captain&rsquo;s last wishes, to burn with his own hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+      employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind and
+      heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another, needed
+      a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge of divine
+      things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into the pious and
+      mystical young girl whose character rose above all vicissitudes, and whose
+      heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then began a secret struggle
+      between the old man wedded to unbelief and the young girl full of faith,&mdash;long
+      unsuspected by her who incited it,&mdash;the result of which had now
+      stirred the whole town, and was destined to have great influence on
+      Ursula&rsquo;s future by rousing against her the antagonism of the doctor&rsquo;s
+      heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her mornings
+      at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe&rsquo;s secret hope. He meant
+      to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him. The old unbeliever,
+      loved by his godchild as though she were his own daughter, would surely
+      believe in such artless candor; he could not fail to be persuaded by the
+      beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a child, where love was like
+      those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both flowers and fruit, always
+      fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful life is more powerful than the
+      strongest argument. It is impossible to resist the charms of certain
+      sights. The doctor&rsquo;s eyes were wet, he knew not how or why, when he saw
+      the child of his heart starting for the church, wearing a frock of white
+      crape, and shoes of white satin; her hair bound with a fillet fastened at
+      the side with a knot of white ribbon, and rippling upon her shoulders; her
+      eyes lighted by the star of a first hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to
+      a first union, and loving her godfather better since her soul had risen
+      towards God. When the doctor perceived that the thought of immortality was
+      nourishing that spirit (until then within the confines of childhood) as
+      the sun gives life to the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he
+      remained at home alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+      railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as she
+      left him: &ldquo;Why won&rsquo;t you come, godfather? how can I be happy without you?&rdquo;
+       Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the Encyclopedist did not
+      as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction from which he could see
+      the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little Ursula
+      brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an inspired look,
+      which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on the corner closed to
+      God. But still the old deist held firm. He said to himself: &ldquo;Mummeries! if
+      there be a maker of worlds, imagine the organizer of infinitude concerning
+      himself with such trifles!&rdquo; He laughed as he continued his walk along the
+      heights which look down upon the road to the Gatinais, where the bells
+      were ringing a joyous peal that told of the joy of families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+      game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever invented.
+      Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and nerves
+      could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the exclamations
+      she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old Jordy while living, and the
+      doctor always waited till their child was in bed before they began their
+      favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early when she was out for a
+      walk, and the game would be going on when she returned; then she resigned
+      herself with infinite grace and took her seat at the window with her work.
+      She had a repugnance to the game, which is really in the beginning very
+      hard and unconquerable to some minds, so that unless it be learned in
+      youth it is almost impossible to take it up in after life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where
+      her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose throw shall it be?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;isn&rsquo;t it a sin to make fun of your godfather
+      the day of your first communion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not making fun of you,&rdquo; she said, sitting down. &ldquo;I want to give you
+      some pleasure&mdash;you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+      Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon,
+      and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to beat you&mdash;you
+      shall not deprive yourself any longer for me. I have conquered all
+      difficulties, and now I like the noise of the game.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next day
+      Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to Paris
+      for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher, and
+      submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to him. One of
+      poor Jordy&rsquo;s predictions was fulfilled,&mdash;the girl became an excellent
+      musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately sent to Paris for a
+      master, an old German named Schmucke, a distinguished professor who came
+      once a week; the doctor willingly paying for an art which he had formerly
+      declared to be useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like music&mdash;a
+      celestial language, developed by Catholicism, which has taken the names of
+      the seven notes from one of the church hymns; every note being the first
+      syllable of the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint John.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula&rsquo;s first communion though
+      keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which prayer and the
+      exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had not their due
+      influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or repentance himself,
+      he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own benefactions without hope of a
+      celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious men
+      whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; the abbe would say to him, &ldquo;if all men would be so, you must admit
+      that society would be regenerated; there would be no more misery. To be
+      benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great philosopher; you
+      rise to your principles through reason, you are a social exception;
+      whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us benevolent in ours. With
+      you, it is an effort; with us, it comes naturally.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,&mdash;that&rsquo;s the whole of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+      feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+      intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+      spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did not
+      believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in
+      providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent creature,
+      the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula&rsquo;s artless
+      consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he
+      felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute devotion has a
+      horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas which it does not
+      share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling&rsquo;s reasonings as he would
+      her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest of voices with the purest
+      and most fervent feeling. Believers and unbelievers speak different
+      languages and cannot understand each other. The young girl pleading God&rsquo;s
+      cause was unreasonable with the old man, as a spoilt child sometimes
+      maltreats its mother. The abbe rebuked her gently, telling her that God
+      had power to humiliate proud spirits. Ursula replied that David had
+      overcome Goliath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+      drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life, so
+      peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive eyes of
+      the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time the modest
+      and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as she left the
+      church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her music, the pleasures
+      of her godfather, and all the little cares she was able to give him (for
+      she had eased La Bougival&rsquo;s labors by doing everything for him),&mdash;these
+      things filled the hours, the days, the months of her calm life.
+      Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had felt uneasy about his
+      Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost care. Sagacious and
+      profoundly practical observer that he was, he thought he perceived some
+      commotion in her moral being. He watched her like a mother, but seeing no
+      one about her who was worthy of inspiring love, his uneasiness on the
+      subject at length passed away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins, the
+      doctor&rsquo;s intellectual life was invaded by one of those events which plough
+      to the very depths of a man&rsquo;s convictions and turn them over. But this
+      event needs a succinct narrative of certain circumstances in his medical
+      career, which will give, perhaps, fresh interest to the story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as widely
+      by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck. After
+      re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+      immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+      discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense the
+      clarion of the world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved,&rdquo; said Hahnemann, recently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to France,&rdquo; said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, &ldquo;and if they laugh at
+      your bumps you will be famous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+      theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific France
+      was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before judgment
+      was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body, Mesmer&rsquo;s
+      so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and his theory. But
+      let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately, compromised his
+      splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims. Mesmer was defeated by
+      the doubtfulness of facts, by universal ignorance of the part played in
+      nature by imponderable fluids then unobserved, and by his own inability to
+      study on all sides a science possessing a triple front. Magnetism has many
+      applications; in Mesmer&rsquo;s hands it was, in its relation to the future,
+      merely what cause is to effect. But, if the discoverer lacked genius, it
+      is a sad thing both for France and for human reason to have to say that a
+      science contemporaneous with civilization, cultivated by Egypt and
+      Chaldea, by Greece and India, met in Paris in the eighteenth century the
+      fate that Truth in the person of Galileo found in the sixteenth; and that
+      magnetism was rejected and cast out by the combined attacks of science and
+      religion, alarmed for their own positions. Magnetism, the favorite science
+      of Jesus Christ and one of the divine powers which he gave to his
+      disciples, was no better apprehended by the Church than by the disciples
+      of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire, Locke, and Condillac. The Encyclopedists and
+      the clergy were equally averse to the old human power which they took to
+      be new. The miracles of the convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and
+      smothered by the indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious
+      writings of the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to
+      make experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ
+      certain inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward
+      agents. But to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids
+      intangible, invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the
+      science of that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern
+      philosophy there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles away!
+      To materialists especially the world is full, all things hang together,
+      are linked, related, organized. &ldquo;The world as the result of chance,&rdquo; said
+      Diderot, &ldquo;is more explicable than God. The multiplicity of causes, the
+      incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance, explain creation.
+      Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if you allow me time and
+      space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters, arrive at last at the
+      Eneid combination.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil before
+      the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of imponderable
+      forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the immense progress
+      which natural science is now making under the great principle of unity due
+      to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent persons, without any
+      system, convinced by facts conscientiously studied, still hold to Mesmer&rsquo;s
+      doctrine, which recognizes the existence of a penetrative influence acting
+      from man to man, put in motion by the will, curative by the abundance of
+      the fluid, the working of which is in fact a duel between two forces,
+      between an ill to be cured and the will to cure it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were revealed
+      by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to their
+      discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and scoffers.
+      Among the small number of believers were a few physicians. They were
+      persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The respectable body
+      of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of religious warfare
+      against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their hatred as it was
+      possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance. The orthodox
+      physician refused to consult with those who adopted the Mesmerian heresy.
+      In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The miseries and sorrows of
+      the Revolution had not quenched the scientific hatred. It is only priests,
+      magistrates, and physicians who can hate in that way. The official robe is
+      terrible! But ideas are even more implacable than things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret&rsquo;s friends, believed in the new faith, and
+      persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which he
+      sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief &ldquo;betes
+      noires&rdquo; of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter of the
+      Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer&rsquo;s assistant,
+      whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled with his old
+      friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His conduct to Bouvard
+      must have caused him the only remorse which troubled the serenity of his
+      declining years. Since his retirement to Nemours the science of
+      imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for magnetism, which, by the
+      nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to light and electricity) had
+      made immense progress, in spite of the ridicule of Parisian scientists.
+      Phrenology and physiognomy, the departments of Gall and Lavater (which are
+      in fact twins, for one is to the other as cause is to effect), proved to
+      the minds of more than one physiologist the existence of an intangible
+      fluid which is the basis of the phenomena of the human will, and from
+      which result passions, habits, the shape of faces and of skulls. Magnetic
+      facts, the miracles of somnambulism, those of divination and ecstasy,
+      which open a way to the spiritual world, were fast accumulating. The
+      strange tale of the apparitions of the farmer Martin, so clearly proved,
+      and his interview with Louis XVIII.; a knowledge of the intercourse of
+      Swedenborg with the departed, carefully investigated in Germany; the tales
+      of Walter Scott on the effects of &ldquo;second sight&rdquo;; the extraordinary
+      faculties of some fortune-tellers, who practice as a single science
+      chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope; the facts of catalepsy, and
+      those of the action of certain morbid affections on the properties of the
+      diaphragm,&mdash;all such phenomena, curious, to say the least, each
+      emanating from the same source, were now undermining many scepticisms and
+      leading even the most indifferent minds to the plane of experiments.
+      Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of this movement of minds, strong
+      in the north of Europe but still weak in France where, however, many facts
+      called marvelous by superficial observers, were happening, but falling,
+      alas! like stones to the bottom of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian
+      excitements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the bottom of the present year the doctor&rsquo;s tranquillity was shaken by
+      the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My old comrade,&mdash;All friendship, even if lost, has rights which it is
+      difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I remember
+      far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel of
+      Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my heart to
+      prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the most important
+      of the sciences&mdash;if indeed all science is not <i>one</i>. I can
+      overcome your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity
+      the happiness of taking you once more by the hand&mdash;as in the days
+      before Mesmer. Always yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and left
+      his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice.
+      Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written &ldquo;To-morrow; nine
+      o&rsquo;clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He went to
+      see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world were
+      turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school, if the
+      four faculties any longer existed. The doctors reassured him, declaring
+      that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever, only, instead of
+      persecuting as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and of Sciences rang
+      with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the tricks of Comus and
+      Comte and Bosco, with jugglery and prestidigitation and all that now went
+      by the name of &ldquo;amusing physics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment
+      made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four years the two
+      antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint-Honore. Frenchmen
+      have too many distractions of mind to hate each other long. In Paris
+      especially, politics, literature, and science render life so vast that
+      every man can find new worlds to conquer where all pretensions may live at
+      ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but public bodies
+      can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton would have fallen
+      into each other&rsquo;s arms at the end of forty-four years. However, the two
+      doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it. Bouvard spoke first:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You seem wonderfully well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am&mdash;and you?&rdquo; said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now
+      broken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does magnetism prevent people from dying?&rdquo; asked Minoret in a joking
+      tone, but without sharpness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, but it almost prevented me from living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are not rich?&rdquo; exclaimed Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am!&rdquo; cried the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come,&rdquo; replied
+      Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! you obstinate fellow!&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy staircase
+      to the fourth floor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+      endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic forces
+      in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown (who still
+      lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate diseases,
+      suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly, but he was also
+      able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable phenomena of
+      somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The countenance of this
+      mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to God alone and to
+      communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles that of a lion;
+      concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His features, singularly
+      contorted, have a terrible and even blasting aspect. His voice, which
+      comes from the depths of his being, seems charged with some magnetic
+      fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every pore. Disgusted by the
+      ingratitude of the public after his many cures, he has now returned to an
+      impenetrable solitude, a voluntary nothingness. His all-powerful hand,
+      which has restored a dying daughter to her mother, fathers to their
+      grief-stricken children, adored mistresses to lovers frenzied with love,
+      cured the sick given over by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the
+      dying when life became impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in
+      synagogues, temples, and churches from the lips of priests recalled to the
+      one God by the same miracle,&mdash;that sovereign hand, a sun of life
+      dazzling the closed eyes of the somnambulist, has never been raised again
+      even to save the heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his
+      past mercies as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and
+      lives for heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man, whose
+      generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons to witness
+      his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and could easily be
+      revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then on the verge of the
+      grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last enabled to witness the
+      startling phenomena of a science he had long treasured in his heart. The
+      sacrifices of the old man touched the heart of the mysterious stranger,
+      who accorded him certain privileges. As Bouvard now went up the staircase
+      he listened to the twittings of his old antagonist with malicious delight,
+      answering only, &ldquo;You shall see, you shall see!&rdquo; with the emphatic little
+      nods of a man who is sure of his facts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than modest.
+      Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon where he left
+      Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but Bouvard returned at
+      once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw the mysterious
+      Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair. The woman did not
+      rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the two old men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! no tub?&rdquo; cried Minoret, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing but the power of God,&rdquo; answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+      seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain and
+      the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who thought
+      he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to question
+      his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently to be taking
+      time to examine him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur,&rdquo; he said at last. &ldquo;It
+      is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my conviction,
+      emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use of it, it would
+      be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope, Monsieur Bouvard tells
+      me, of changing the opinions of one who has opposed us, of enlightening a
+      scientific man whose mind is candid; I have therefore determined to
+      satisfy you. That woman whom you see there,&rdquo; he continued, pointing to
+      her, &ldquo;is now in a somnambulic sleep. The statements and manifestations of
+      somnambulists declare that this state is a delightful other life, during
+      which the inner being, freed from the trammels laid upon the exercise of
+      our faculties by the visible world, moves in a world which we mistakenly
+      term invisible. Sight and hearing are then exercised in a manner far more
+      perfect than any we know of here, possibly without the help of the organs
+      we now employ, which are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight
+      and hearing. To a person in that state, distance and material obstacles do
+      not exist, or they can be traversed by a life within us for which our body
+      is a mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail to
+      describe effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the words
+      imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid whose
+      action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its heat,
+      which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and certainly
+      electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things themselves
+      instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She sleeps,&rdquo; said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+      belong to an inferior class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her body is for the time being in abeyance,&rdquo; said the Swedenborgian.
+      &ldquo;Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will prove
+      to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind when there
+      does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will send her wherever
+      you wish to go,&mdash;a hundred miles from here or to China, as you will.
+      She will tell you what is happening there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do,&rdquo; said
+      Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took Minoret&rsquo;s hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for a
+      moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that
+      of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor in
+      it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this oracle
+      without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the absolutely calm
+      features of the woman when their hands were thus united by the
+      Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its effects, was very
+      simply done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Obey him,&rdquo; said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the head
+      of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life from him,
+      &ldquo;and remember that what you do for him will please me.&mdash;You can now
+      speak to her,&rdquo; he added, addressing Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what she
+      tells you that she is where you wish her to be,&rdquo; said Bouvard to his old
+      friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see a river,&rdquo; said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look within
+      herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed eyelids. &ldquo;I see a
+      pretty garden&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you enter by the river and the garden?&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because they are there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the garden like?&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right, a
+      long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular building,&mdash;there
+      are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the left, the wall is
+      covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia jessamine. In the
+      middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots. Your child is looking
+      at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse&mdash;she is making holes in
+      the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The nurse is raking the
+      path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the beginning of love is
+      there, faint as the dawn&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love for whom?&rdquo; asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened to
+      no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all jugglery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know nothing&mdash;though you have lately been uneasy about her
+      health,&rdquo; answered the woman. &ldquo;Her heart has followed the dictates of
+      nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A woman of the people to talk like this!&rdquo; cried the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary perception,&rdquo;
+       said Bouvard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who is it that Ursula loves?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula does not know that she loves,&rdquo; said the woman with a shake of the
+      head; &ldquo;she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is occupied
+      by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought; but she
+      returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.&mdash;She is at the piano&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The son of a lady who lives opposite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame de Portenduere?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Portenduere, did you say?&rdquo; replied the sleeper. &ldquo;Perhaps so. But there&rsquo;s
+      no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have they spoken to each other?&rdquo; asked the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He is,
+      in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her window;
+      they see each other in church. But the young man no longer thinks of her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named Savinien;
+      she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say; she has looked
+      in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot against it,&mdash;child&rsquo;s
+      play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much strength as purity; she
+      is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye her soul and fill it that
+      she will reject all other sentiments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where do you see that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father and
+      her mother suffered much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than surprised.
+      It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman paused for
+      several minutes, during which time her attention became more and more
+      concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a singular aspect; an
+      inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear or cloud by some
+      mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had seen in dying persons
+      at moments when they appeared to have the gift of prophecy. Several times
+      she made gestures which resembled those of Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Question her,&rdquo; said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, &ldquo;she will tell
+      you secrets you alone can know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does Ursula love me?&rdquo; asked Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almost as much as she loves God,&rdquo; was the answer. &ldquo;But she is very
+      unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+      prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause of
+      her only sorrow.&mdash;Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a
+      better musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is
+      thinking, &lsquo;If I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his ear
+      when he is with his mother.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me what seeds she planted?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what else?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Larkspur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my money?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of a
+      single day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled &lsquo;Pandects of Justinian,
+      Vol. II.&rsquo; between the last two leaves; the book is on the shelf of folios
+      above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them. Your money is in the
+      last volume next to the salon&mdash;See! Vol. III. is before Vol. II.&mdash;but
+      you have no money, it is all in&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&mdash;thousand-franc notes,&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five hundred
+      francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do they look?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One is old and yellow, the other white and new.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at Bouvard
+      with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who were
+      accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together in a low
+      voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to allow him to
+      return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to compose his mind and
+      shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new test, to
+      subject it to more decisive experiments and obtain answers to certain
+      questions, the truth of which should do away with every sort of doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be here at nine o&rsquo;clock this evening,&rdquo; said the stranger. &ldquo;I will return
+      to meet you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room without
+      bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind. &ldquo;Well, what do
+      you say? what do you say?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think I am mad, Bouvard,&rdquo; answered Minoret from the steps of the
+      porte-cochere. &ldquo;If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,&mdash;and none
+      but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,&mdash;I shall
+      say that <i>you are right</i>. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this
+      minute and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten
+      o&rsquo;clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed in
+      a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents from an
+      herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o&rsquo;clock. I must find some
+      decisive, undeniable test!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So be it, old comrade,&rdquo; answered the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+      conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which
+      were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of traversing
+      space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she sees and hears
+      what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic facts;
+      they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one proof which
+      you know will satisfy you&mdash;for you might suppose that we obtained
+      information to deceive you; but we cannot know, for instance, what will
+      happen at nine o&rsquo;clock in your goddaughter&rsquo;s bedroom. Remember, or write
+      down, what the sleeper will see and hear, and then go home. Your little
+      Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice, and if she tells you
+      that she has said and done what you have written down&mdash;lower thy
+      head, proud Hun!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and found
+      the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor
+      Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand of the
+      Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and
+      she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand
+      and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what
+      was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. &ldquo;What is Ursula
+      doing?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on her
+      prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet background.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is she saying?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores him
+      to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience and
+      recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she has
+      failed to obey his commands and those of the church&mdash;poor dear little
+      soul, she lays bare her breast!&rdquo; Tears were in the sleeper&rsquo;s eyes. &ldquo;She
+      has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too much of Savinien.
+      She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she prays to God to make
+      him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying aloud.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me her words.&rdquo; Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+      uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe Chaperon.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will&mdash;O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the inspired
+      manner of his child that Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s eyes were filled with tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Does she say more?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Repeat it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.&rsquo; She
+      has blown out the light&mdash;her head is on the pillow&mdash;she turns to
+      sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+      downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+      gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d&rsquo;Alger. There
+      he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+      Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who seemed
+      to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and started. According
+      to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at Essonne, but arrived at
+      Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to Nemours, on which he secured a
+      seat, and dismissed his coachman. He reached home at five in the morning,
+      and went to bed, with his life-long ideas of physiology, nature, and
+      metaphysics in ruins about him, and slept till nine o&rsquo;clock, so wearied
+      was he with the events of his journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of his
+      house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+      trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+      difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the Pandect
+      volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La Bougival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell Ursula to come and speak to me,&rdquo; he said, seating himself in the
+      center of his library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her on
+      his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls with the
+      white hair of her old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want something, godfather?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+      evasion, the questions that I shall put to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula colored to the temples.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;ll ask nothing that you cannot speak of,&rdquo; he said, noticing how the
+      bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of the
+      girl&rsquo;s blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ask me, godfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last evening,
+      and what time was it when you said them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a quarter-past or half-past nine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, repeat your last prayer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic; she
+      slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+      brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+      said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I shall
+      ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful expression.
+      To her great astonishment her godfather took the last words from her mouth
+      and finished the prayer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good, Ursula,&rdquo; said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. &ldquo;When you
+      laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to yourself,
+      &lsquo;That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon with him in
+      Paris&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She gave
+      a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with awful
+      fixity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?&rdquo; she asked,
+      imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with the
+      devil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the last were larkspur?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She fell on her knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not terrify me!&rdquo; she exclaimed. &ldquo;Oh you must have been here&mdash;you
+      were here, were you not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not always with you?&rdquo; replied the doctor, evading her question, to
+      save the strain on the young girl&rsquo;s mind. &ldquo;Let us go to your room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your legs are trembling,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am confounded, as it were.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can it be that you believe in God?&rdquo; she cried, with artless joy, letting
+      fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had given to
+      his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very inexpensive, which
+      she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were hung with a gray paper
+      strewn with roses and green leaves; at the windows, which looked to the
+      court, were calico curtains edged with a band of some pink material;
+      between the windows and beneath a tall mirror was a pier-table topped with
+      marble, on which stood a Sevres vase in which she put her nosegays;
+      opposite the chimney was a little bureau-desk of charming marquetry. The
+      bed, of chintz, with chintz curtains lined with pink, was one of those
+      duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, which had a tuft of
+      carved feathers at the top of each of the four posts, which were fluted on
+      the sides. An old clock, inclosed in a sort of monument made of
+      tortoise-shell inlaid with arabesques of ivory, decorated the mantelpiece,
+      the marble shelf of which, with the candlesticks and the mirror in a frame
+      painted in cameo on a gray ground, presented a remarkable harmony of
+      color, tone, and style. A large wardrobe, the doors of which were inlaid
+      with landscapes in different woods (some having a green tint which are no
+      longer to be found for sale) contained, no doubt, her linen and her
+      dresses. The air of the room was redolent of heaven. The precise
+      arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a feeling for harmony,
+      which would certainly have influenced any one, even a Minoret-Levrault. It
+      was plain that the things about her were dear to Ursula, and that she
+      loved a room which contained, as it were, her childhood and the whole of
+      her girlish life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for his
+      visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those of Madame
+      de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to the course he
+      ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this dawning passion.
+      To question her now would commit him to some course. He must either
+      approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his position would be a
+      false one. He therefore resolved to watch and examine into the state of
+      things between the two young people, and learn whether it were his duty to
+      check the inclination before it was irresistible. None but an old man
+      could have shown such deliberate wisdom. Still panting from the discovery
+      of the truth of these magnetic facts, he turned about and looked at all
+      the various little things around the room; he wished to examine the
+      almanac which was hanging at a corner of the chimney-piece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands,&rdquo; he said, taking
+      up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took it,
+      saying, &ldquo;This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in your
+      pretty room?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please let me have it, godfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, you shall have another to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+      study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told
+      him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before
+      his own saint&rsquo;s day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the
+      abbe&rsquo;s patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin&rsquo;s head, had been seen
+      by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles! The old
+      man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him than for
+      others. He was forced to yield to evidence. A strong wall, as it were,
+      crumbled within him; for his life had rested on two bases,&mdash;indifference
+      in matters of religion and a firm disbelief in magnetism. When it was
+      proved to him that the senses&mdash;faculties purely physical, organs, the
+      effects of which could be explained&mdash;attained to some of the
+      attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it seemed to him
+      to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite and the infinite,
+      two incompatible elements according to that remarkable man, were here
+      united, the one in the other. No matter what power he gave to the
+      divisibility and mobility of matter he could not help recognizing that it
+      possessed qualities that were almost divine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+      them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+      belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac, was
+      in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism staggered.
+      Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic child and the
+      Voltairean old man was on Ursula&rsquo;s side. In the dismantled fortress, above
+      these ruins, shone a light; from the center of these ashes issued the path
+      of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate old scientist fought his doubts.
+      Though struck to the heart, he would not decide, he struggled on against
+      God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation. He
+      became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet&rsquo;s sublime &ldquo;History
+      of Species&rdquo;; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine; he determined also
+      to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late Saint-Martin, which the
+      mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The edifice within him was
+      cracking on all sides; it needed but one more shake, and then, his heart
+      being ripe for God, he was destined to fall into the celestial vineyard as
+      fall the fruits. Often of an evening, when playing with the abbe, his
+      goddaughter sitting by, he would put questions bearing on his opinions
+      which seemed singular to the priest, who was ignorant of the inward
+      workings by which God was remaking that fine conscience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in apparitions?&rdquo; asked the sceptic of the pastor, stopping
+      short in the game.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+      some,&rdquo; replied the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+      Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you think
+      that dead men can return to the living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death,&rdquo; said the abbe. &ldquo;The
+      Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As for
+      miracles, they are not lacking,&rdquo; he continued, smiling. &ldquo;Shall I tell you
+      the last? It took place in the eighteenth century.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from Rome,
+      knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father expired;
+      there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted bishop being in
+      ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff and repeated them
+      at the time to those about him. The courier who brought the announcement
+      of the death did not arrive till thirty hours later.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jesuit!&rdquo; exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, &ldquo;I did not ask you for proofs;
+      I asked you if you believed in apparitions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it,&rdquo; said the abbe,
+      still fencing with his sceptic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; said the doctor, seriously, &ldquo;I am not setting a trap for you.
+      What do you really believe about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe that the power of God is infinite,&rdquo; replied the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+      appear to you,&rdquo; said the doctor, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend,&rdquo; answered the
+      priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I will
+      come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of &lsquo;Neere&rsquo; by Andre
+      Chenier,&rdquo; said the abbe. &ldquo;Poets are sublime because they clothe both facts
+      and feelings with ever-living images.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?&rdquo; said Ursula in a grieved
+      tone. &ldquo;We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of our souls.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the doctor, smiling, &ldquo;we must go out of the world, and when I
+      am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will be
+      to consecrate my life to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To me, dead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to redeem
+      your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy, that he may
+      not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon among the
+      righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certainty,
+      confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul. A ray
+      of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of this tenderness, covering
+      his years to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden effect of grace
+      had something that seemed electrical about it. The abbe clasped his hands
+      and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl, astonished at her triumph,
+      wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had called him, looking into
+      space as though his eyes beheld the dawn; then he bent his knee upon his
+      chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground as one
+      humiliated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My God,&rdquo; he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, &ldquo;if any one can
+      obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless creature.
+      Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child presents to
+      thee!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+      knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and
+      held out his hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear pastor,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am become as a little child. I belong to
+      you; I give my soul to your care.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took
+      her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply
+      moved, recited the &ldquo;Veni Creator&rdquo; in a species of religious ecstasy. The
+      hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling
+      together for the first time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has happened?&rdquo; asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My godfather believes in God at last!&rdquo; replied Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect,&rdquo; cried
+      the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear doctor,&rdquo; said the good priest, &ldquo;you will soon comprehend the
+      grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find its
+      philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest sceptics.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to catechize
+      the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the conversion
+      attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation, was the
+      spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for fourteen years
+      had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart, though all the while
+      deploring them, was now asked for help, as a surgeon is called to an
+      injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula&rsquo;s evening prayers had been said
+      in common with her godfather. Day after day the old man grew more
+      conscious of the peace within him that succeeded all his conflicts.
+      Having, as he said, God as the responsible editor of things inexplicable,
+      his mind was at ease. His dear child told him that he might know by how
+      far he had advanced already in God&rsquo;s kingdom. During the mass which we
+      have seen him attend, he had read the prayers and applied his own
+      intelligence to them; from the first, he had risen to the divine idea of
+      the communion of the faithful. The old neophyte understood the eternal
+      symbol attached to that sacred nourishment, which faith renders needful to
+      the soul after conveying to it her own profound and radiant essence. When
+      on leaving the church he had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely
+      that he might once more thank his dear child for having led him to &ldquo;enter
+      religion,&rdquo;&mdash;the beautiful expression of former days. He was holding
+      her on his knee in the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly at the very
+      moment when his relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their
+      shameless fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula. His haste
+      to return home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies
+      as he left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the
+      hatred Ursula had excited against them in the old man&rsquo;s mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFERENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While Ursula was playing variations on Weber&rsquo;s &ldquo;Last Thought&rdquo; to her
+      godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults&rsquo; dining-room which
+      was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama. The
+      breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and enlivened by
+      excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgundy or
+      Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent for oysters,
+      salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do honor to
+      Desire&rsquo;s return. The dining-room, in the center of which a round table
+      offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content with
+      the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had built a pavilion for the
+      family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with vegetables and
+      full of fruit-trees. Everything about the premises was solid and plain.
+      The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to the town. Zelie
+      forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The dining-room was,
+      therefore, hung with varnished paper and furnished with walnut chairs and
+      sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a barometer. Though the
+      plates and dishes were of common white china, the table shone with
+      handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie had served the coffee,
+      coming and going herself like shot in a decanter,&mdash;for she kept but
+      one servant,&mdash;and when Desire, the budding lawyer, had been told of
+      the event of the morning and its probably consequences, the door was
+      closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon to speak. By the silence in
+      the room and the looks that were cast on that authoritative face, it was
+      easy to see the power that such men exercise over families.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear children,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+      eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+      folly, and that little&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Viper!&rdquo; cried Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hussy!&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us call her by her own name,&rdquo; said Dionis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, she&rsquo;s a thief,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A pretty thief,&rdquo; remarked Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That little Ursula,&rdquo; went on Dionis, &ldquo;has managed to get hold of his
+      heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait until
+      now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have discovered
+      about that young&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Marauder,&rdquo; said the collector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Inveigler,&rdquo; said the clerk of the court.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue, friends,&rdquo; said the notary, &ldquo;or I&rsquo;ll take my hat and be
+      off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, come, papa,&rdquo; cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and
+      offering it to the notary; &ldquo;here, drink this, it comes from Rome itself;
+      and now go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet; but her
+      father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle&rsquo;s
+      father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the doctor
+      might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if he leaves her
+      his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against Ursula. This,
+      however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court took the view that
+      there was no relationship between Ursula and the doctor. Still, the suit
+      would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring about a compromise&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children,&rdquo; said the newly
+      fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, &ldquo;that by the judgment
+      of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child can claim
+      nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance. So you see
+      the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law pursues the
+      natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground that
+      benefactions done to grandchildren reach the natural son through that
+      medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil Code. The
+      royal court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of last year,
+      cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural son by his
+      grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural grandson as
+      the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;seems to me to relate only to the bequests made
+      by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood relation of
+      Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at Colmar,
+      rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared that after
+      the decease of a natural child his descendants could no longer be
+      prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula&rsquo;s father is dead.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil&rsquo;s argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+      legislative assemblies are wont to call &ldquo;profound sensation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does that signify?&rdquo; cried Dionis. &ldquo;The actual case of the bequest of
+      an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for
+      trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children
+      will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when religion
+      is honored. I&rsquo;ll answer for it that out of such a suit as I propose you
+      could get a compromise,&mdash;especially if they see you are determined to
+      carry Ursula to a court of appeals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made manifest
+      in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all notice
+      of Goupil&rsquo;s dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep silence
+      and uneasiness when the notary uttered his next word, a terrible &ldquo;But!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+      people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned on
+      him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;<i>But</i> no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula,&rdquo;
+       he continued. &ldquo;As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would, I
+      think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle with
+      questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is true the
+      doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly surgeon to
+      the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of it. Moreover,
+      you would have due warning in case of adoption&mdash;but how about
+      marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marry her after
+      a year&rsquo;s domicile, and give her a million by the marriage contract. The
+      only thing, therefore, that really puts your property in danger is your
+      uncle&rsquo;s marriage with the girl.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here the notary paused.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s another danger,&rdquo; said Goupil, with a knowing air,&mdash;&ldquo;that of
+      a will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+      will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you tease your uncle,&rdquo; continued Dionis, cutting short his head-clerk,
+      &ldquo;if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will drive him into
+      either a marriage or into making that private trust which Goupil speaks
+      of,&mdash;though I don&rsquo;t think him capable of that; it is a dangerous
+      thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire there has only got
+      to hold out a finger to the girl; she&rsquo;s sure to prefer a handsome young
+      man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mother,&rdquo; said Desire to Zelie&rsquo;s ear, as much allured by the millions as
+      by Ursula&rsquo;s beauty, &ldquo;If I married her we should get the whole property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you crazy?&mdash;you, who&rsquo;ll some day have fifty thousand francs a
+      year and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your
+      throat by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed! Why,
+      the mayor&rsquo;s only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and they have
+      already proposed her to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+      extinguished in Desire&rsquo;s breast all desire for a marriage with the
+      beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+      decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis,&rdquo; cried Cremiere, whose wife had been
+      nudging him, &ldquo;if the good man took the thing seriously and married his
+      goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the property,
+      good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer uncle may be
+      worth a million.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; cried Zelie, &ldquo;never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter of
+      a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son will
+      represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and the Minorets have
+      five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them. That&rsquo;s equal to the
+      nobility. Don&rsquo;t be uneasy, any of you; Desire will marry when we find a
+      chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will be
+      president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office leads to
+      the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+      tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence for
+      the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle is a worthy man,&rdquo; continued Dionis. &ldquo;He believes he&rsquo;s
+      immortal; and, like most clever men, he&rsquo;ll let death overtake him before
+      he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest his
+      capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you,
+      and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere is in
+      Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand francs&rsquo; 
+      worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison; she is crying like a
+      Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her; no doubt she wants to talk to him
+      about her troubles. Well, I&rsquo;ll go and see your uncle to-night and persuade
+      him to sell his five per cent consols, which are now at 118, and lend
+      Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm at Bordieres and her
+      house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal son. I have a right as
+      notary to speak to him in behalf of young Portenduere; and it is quite
+      natural that I should wish to make him change his investments; I get deeds
+      and commissions out of the business. If I become his adviser I&rsquo;ll propose
+      to him other land investments for his surplus capital; I have some
+      excellent ones now in my office. If his fortune were once invested in
+      landed estate or in mortgage notes in this neighbourhood, it could not
+      take wings to itself very easily. It is easy to make difficulties between
+      the wish to realize and the realization.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than that
+      of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be careful,&rdquo; said the notary in conclusion, &ldquo;to keep your uncle
+      in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch him. Find
+      him a lover for the girl and you&rsquo;ll prevent his marrying her himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose she married the lover?&rdquo; said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+      desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That wouldn&rsquo;t be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the old
+      man would have to say how much he gives her,&rdquo; replied the notary. &ldquo;But if
+      you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till the old man
+      died. Marriages are made and unmade.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The shortest way,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;if the doctor is likely to live much
+      longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out of
+      your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred
+      thousand francs in hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+      company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He&rsquo;d be a worm at the core,&rdquo; whispered Zelie to Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How did he get here?&rdquo; returned the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will just suit you!&rdquo; cried Desire to Goupil. &ldquo;But do you think you
+      can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In these days,&rdquo; whispered Zelie again in Massin&rsquo;s year, &ldquo;notaries look
+      out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula
+      just to get the old man&rsquo;s business?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure of him,&rdquo; said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look out
+      of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, &ldquo;because I hold
+      something over him,&rdquo; but he withheld the words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite of Dionis&rsquo;s opinion,&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So am I,&rdquo; cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with the
+      clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My wife has voted!&rdquo; said the post master, sipping his brandy, though his
+      face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a notable
+      quantity of liquids.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And very properly,&rdquo; remarked the collector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall go and see the doctor after dinner,&rdquo; said Dionis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Monsieur Dionis&rsquo;s advice is good,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+      Massin, &ldquo;we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every
+      Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and be received as he received us!&rdquo; cried Zelie. &ldquo;Minoret and I have
+      more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+      invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don&rsquo;t know how to write
+      prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he&mdash;I can tell
+      him that!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Massin, rather piqued, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t want to lose ten thousand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+      shall see how things are going,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere; &ldquo;you&rsquo;ll thank us
+      some day, cousin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Treat Ursula kindly,&rdquo; said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to
+      the level of his lips; &ldquo;remember old Jordy left her his savings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in
+      Paris, could have done,&rdquo; said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+      post-house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now they are quarreling over my fee,&rdquo; replied the notary, smiling
+      bitterly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+      square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+      were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+      Portenduere on his arm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She dragged him to vespers, see!&rdquo; cried Madame Massin to Madame Cremiere,
+      pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go and speak to him,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old
+      man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference) did
+      not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this sudden
+      amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop and speak
+      to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated affection
+      and forced smiles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?&rdquo; said Madame
+      Cremiere. &ldquo;We feared sometimes we were in your way&mdash;but it is such a
+      long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are
+      old enough now to make dear Ursula&rsquo;s acquaintance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula is a little bear, like her name,&rdquo; replied the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us tame her,&rdquo; said Madame Massin. &ldquo;And besides, uncle,&rdquo; added the
+      good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy,
+      &ldquo;they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are very
+      anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her
+      music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a
+      class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;and it will be all the better for me
+      because I want to give Ursula a singing-master.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to see
+      you; he is now a lawyer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, to-night,&rdquo; echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these
+      petty souls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two nieces pressed Ursula&rsquo;s hand, saying, with affected eagerness, &ldquo;Au
+      revoir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!&rdquo; cried Ursula, giving him a
+      grateful look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going to have a voice,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and I shall give you masters of
+      drawing and Italian also. A woman,&rdquo; added the doctor, looking at Ursula as
+      he unfastened the gate of his house, &ldquo;ought to be educated to the height
+      of every position in which her marriage may place her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather&rsquo;s thoughts evidently turned in
+      the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near confessing to
+      the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to think about
+      Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him, she turned
+      aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing plants, on the
+      dark background of which she looked at a distance like a blue and white
+      flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes, they
+      were very kind,&rdquo; she repeated as he approached her, to change the thoughts
+      that made him pensive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little girl!&rdquo; cried the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He laid Ursula&rsquo;s hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to the
+      terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you say, &lsquo;Poor little girl&rsquo;?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see how they fear you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fear me,&mdash;why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+      attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of their
+      inheritance to enrich you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you won&rsquo;t do that?&rdquo; said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, divine consolation of my old age!&rdquo; said the doctor, taking his
+      godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. &ldquo;It was for her and
+      not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live until
+      the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!&mdash;You will
+      see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and Cremieres
+      and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and prolong my
+      life; they are longing for my death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is&mdash;Ah! I despise them!&rdquo;
+       exclaimed Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dinner is ready!&rdquo; called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+      garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty dining-room
+      decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer (the folly of
+      Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The doctor offered
+      him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of his coffee, a mixture
+      of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted, ground, and made by himself
+      in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the old
+      man, &ldquo;the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put your
+      relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the priests, to
+      the poor. You have roused the families, and they are bestirring
+      themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the square; they were
+      as busy as ants who have lost their eggs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What did I tell you, Ursula?&rdquo; cried the doctor. &ldquo;At the risk of grieving
+      you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you on your
+      guard against undeserved enmity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should like to say a word to you on this subject,&rdquo; said Bongrand,
+      seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula&rsquo;s future.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of peace
+      wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked up and
+      down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her
+      godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis&rsquo;s opinion as to
+      the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for
+      Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter had
+      been much discussed among the lawyers of the little town. Bongrand
+      considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor Minoret, but he felt
+      that the whole spirit of legislation was against the foisting into
+      families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of the Code had foreseen
+      only the weakness of fathers and mothers for their natural children,
+      without considering that uncles and aunts might have a like tenderness and
+      a desire to provide for such children. Evidently there was a gap in the
+      law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In all other countries,&rdquo; he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+      points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the heirs,
+      &ldquo;Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child, and the
+      disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance from
+      Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy is
+      unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the spirit
+      of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show that this
+      hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the legislators, who
+      did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they established a
+      principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive. Zelie would carry
+      it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive when the case was
+      tried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best of cases is often worthless,&rdquo; cried the doctor. &ldquo;Here&rsquo;s the
+      question the lawyers will put, &lsquo;To what degree of relationship ought the
+      disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to extend?&rsquo; and
+      the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad cause.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Faith!&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;I dare not take upon myself to affirm that the
+      judges wouldn&rsquo;t interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+      protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+      trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the surest
+      means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, &ldquo;Poor little girl! I
+      might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what will you do, then?&rdquo; asked Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We&rsquo;ll think about it&mdash;I&rsquo;ll see,&rdquo; said the old man, evidently at a
+      loss for a reply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the
+      doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Already!&rdquo; cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; he said to Ursula,
+      &ldquo;send him here.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the advance-guard
+      of your heirs,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;They breakfasted together at the post
+      house, and something is being engineered.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+      After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked
+      for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+      remarkable. The latter deny them the &ldquo;lesser&rdquo; powers while recognizing
+      their possession of the &ldquo;higher.&rdquo; It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+      Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business
+      believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details which
+      (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of science) go to
+      equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are mistaken! The man of
+      honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued by the doctor&rsquo;s silence,
+      but impelled by a sense of Ursula&rsquo;s interests which he thought endangered,
+      resolved to defend her against the heirs. He was wretched at not knowing
+      what was taking place between the old man and Dionis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be,&rdquo; he thought as he looked
+      at her, &ldquo;there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and
+      their own morality. I&rsquo;ll test here. The Minoret-Levraults,&rdquo; he began,
+      settling his spectacles, &ldquo;might possibly ask you in marriage for their
+      son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+      delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+      moment&rsquo;s inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+      then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+      Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to the
+      glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged
+      Monsieur Bongrand&rsquo;s pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he
+      smiled at her and said, &ldquo;Go! go!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at the
+      foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the blinds
+      and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end of the
+      terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer which
+      reached the pagoda where she was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate
+      or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what
+      they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good sir,
+      that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs will have
+      the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that, and to let
+      me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what I think
+      proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall come back
+      from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere
+      will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I shall not sell
+      my property in the Funds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first
+      and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head against
+      the blind to steady herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good God, what is the matter with her?&rdquo; thought the old doctor. &ldquo;She has
+      no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, Monsieur,&rdquo; he said to the notary, &ldquo;please leave us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his study,
+      looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her inhale
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take my place,&rdquo; said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; &ldquo;I must
+      be alone with her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but
+      without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; replied Dionis. &ldquo;She was standing by the pagoda, listening
+      to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend some money at my
+      request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for debt,&mdash;for he
+      has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand to defend him,&mdash;she
+      turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is there anything between
+      them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At fifteen years of age? pooh!&rdquo; replied Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was born in February, 1813; she&rsquo;ll be sixteen in four months.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe she ever saw him,&rdquo; said the judge. &ldquo;No, it is only a
+      nervous attack.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Attack of the heart, more likely,&rdquo; said the notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the marriage
+      &ldquo;in extremis&rdquo; which they dreaded,&mdash;the only sure means by which the
+      doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw a
+      private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying his
+      son to Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,&rdquo;
+       replied Bongrand after a pause. &ldquo;Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+      infatuated with her noble blood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Luckily&mdash;I mean for the honor of the Portendueres,&rdquo; replied the
+      notary, on the point of betraying himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that before
+      he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret for his
+      son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his daughter. He
+      meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he was appointed
+      substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred thousand francs
+      what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene was so loyal and
+      charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene too often, and that
+      had made the doctor distrustful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall have to come down to the mayor&rsquo;s daughter,&rdquo; he thought. &ldquo;But
+      Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-Cremiere
+      with a million. However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre the marriage
+      with this little Portenduere&mdash;if she really loves him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the garden,
+      took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ails you, my child?&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Your life is my life. Without your
+      smiles what would become of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savinien in prison!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+      sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Saved!&rdquo; thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great anxiety.
+      &ldquo;Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife,&rdquo; he thought,
+      fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula&rsquo;s heart, applying his ear to
+      it. &ldquo;Ah, that&rsquo;s all right,&rdquo; he said to himself. &ldquo;I did not know, my
+      darling, that you loved any one as yet,&rdquo; he added, looking at her; &ldquo;but
+      think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all that has passed
+      between you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other,&rdquo; she
+      answered, sobbing. &ldquo;But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that you&mdash;harshly&mdash;refused
+      to get him out&mdash;you, so good!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you put
+      that little red dot against Saint Savinien&rsquo;s day just as you put one
+      before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little
+      love-affair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was silence
+      between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor,
+      and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no, dear godfather,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;I will open my heart to you. Last
+      May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+      taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child, and
+      I did not see any difference between him and&mdash;all of you&mdash;except
+      perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+      Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother&rsquo;s
+      fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I had
+      said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the windows
+      in Monsieur Savinien&rsquo;s room open; and Monsieur Savinien was there, in a
+      dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements there was such
+      grace&mdash;I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed his black
+      moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white throat&mdash;so
+      round!&mdash;must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and face and
+      that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when I watch
+      you arranging your beard. There came&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know how&mdash;a sort
+      of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so
+      violently that I sat down&mdash;I couldn&rsquo;t stand, I trembled so. But I
+      longed to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just
+      for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And then,&rdquo; she continued, &ldquo;I hid myself&mdash;I was ashamed, but happy&mdash;why
+      should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling&mdash;it dazzled my soul
+      and gave it some power, but I don&rsquo;t know what&mdash;it came again each
+      time I saw within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as
+      it was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur
+      Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his clothes, even the tap
+      of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little
+      thing about him&mdash;his hand with the delicate glove&mdash;acted like a
+      spell upon me; and yet I had strength enough not to think of him during
+      mass. When the service was over I stayed in the church to let Madame de
+      Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind him. I couldn&rsquo;t tell you
+      how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round to
+      fasten the iron gate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where was La Bougival?&rdquo; asked the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I let her go to the kitchen,&rdquo; said Ursula simply. &ldquo;Then I saw
+      Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh! godfather, I
+      was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of surprise and
+      admiration&mdash;I don&rsquo;t know what I would not do to make him look at me
+      again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore
+      but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for any good I
+      do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of
+      myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to Paris that evening, and I have not
+      seen him since. The street seems empty; he took my heart away with him&mdash;but
+      he does not know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all?&rdquo; asked the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All, dear godfather,&rdquo; she said, with a sigh of regret that there was not
+      more to tell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My little girl,&rdquo; said the doctor, putting her on his knee; &ldquo;you are
+      nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your
+      blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which will
+      make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of
+      exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child, is love,&rdquo; said
+      the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,&mdash;&ldquo;love in its holy
+      simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming like a
+      thief who takes all&mdash;yes, all! I expected it. I have studied women;
+      many need proofs and miracles of affection before love conquers them; but
+      others there are, under the influence of sympathies explainable to-day by
+      magnetic fluids, who are possessed by it in an instant. To you I can now
+      tell all&mdash;as soon as I saw the charming woman whose name you bear, I
+      felt that I should love her forever, solely and faithfully, without
+      knowing whether our characters or persons suited each other. Is there a
+      second-sight in love? What answer can I give to that, I who have seen so
+      many unions formed under celestial auspices only to be ruptured later,
+      giving rise to hatreds that are well-nigh eternal, to repugnances that are
+      unconquerable. The senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance;
+      and some persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The
+      contrary is also true; often minds agree and persons displease. These
+      phenomena, the varying and secret cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom
+      of laws which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their
+      children; for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these
+      hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel, the
+      rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon your heart
+      and upon your mind, the happiness with which you think of Savinien, are
+      all natural. But, my darling child, society demands, as our good abbe has
+      told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations. The destinies of men
+      and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula Mirouet for my wife; I could
+      go to her and say that I loved her; but a young girl is false to herself
+      if she asks the love of the man she loves. A woman has not the right which
+      men have to seek the accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is
+      to her&mdash;above all to you, my Ursula,&mdash;the insurmountable barrier
+      which protects the secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to
+      me these first emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather
+      than admit to Savinien&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, yes!&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+      must forget them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even if
+      Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to give him
+      your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had subjected him
+      to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been such as to make
+      families distrust him and to put obstacles between himself and heiresses
+      which cannot be easily overcome.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula&rsquo;s sweet face as she said,
+      &ldquo;Then poverty is good sometimes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has he done, godfather?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+      thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up in
+      Saint-Pelagie, the debtor&rsquo;s prison; an impropriety which will always be,
+      in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is willing to plunge
+      his poor mother into poverty and distress might cause his wife, as your
+      poor father did, to die of despair.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you think he will do better?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don&rsquo;t know a
+      worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you a
+      right to advise him; you can remonstrate&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the doctor, imitating her, &ldquo;and then he can come here, and the
+      old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was thinking only of him,&rdquo; said Ursula, blushing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t think of him, my child; it would be folly,&rdquo; said the doctor
+      gravely. &ldquo;Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+      consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to the
+      marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with whom?&mdash;with
+      Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment, without money, and
+      whose father&mdash;alas! I must now tell you all&mdash;was the bastard son
+      of an organist, my father-in-law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I will
+      not think of him again&mdash;except in my prayers,&rdquo; she said, amid the
+      sobs which this painful revelation excited. &ldquo;Give him what you meant to
+      give me&mdash;what can a poor girl like me want?&mdash;ah, in prison, he!&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not dare
+      to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply moved to
+      see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks. The tears of
+      old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh what is it?&rdquo; cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and kissing
+      his hands. &ldquo;Are you not sure of me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to cause
+      the first great sorrow of your life!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I suffer as much as you. I
+      never wept before, except when I lost my children&mdash;and, Ursula&mdash;Yes,&rdquo;
+       he cried suddenly, &ldquo;I will do all you desire!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning. She
+      smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go into the salon, darling,&rdquo; said the doctor. &ldquo;Try to keep the
+      secret of all this to yourself,&rdquo; he added, leaving her alone for a moment
+      in his study.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he might
+      say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her frigid
+      little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital of her
+      troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her hand some
+      letters which he had just returned to her after reading them; these
+      letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside a
+      square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lady was
+      looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up in
+      his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to valets on
+      the stage, mathematicians, and priests,&mdash;a sign of profound
+      meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished with
+      a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed the
+      geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it. The
+      red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady&rsquo;s one servant, required, for
+      comfort&rsquo;s sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on one
+      of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The old damask curtains of
+      light green with green flowers were drawn, and the outside blinds had been
+      closed. Two wax candles lighted the table, leaving the rest of the room in
+      semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say that between the two windows was a
+      fine pastel by Latour representing the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the
+      rival of the Suffren, Guichen, Kergarouet and Simeuse naval heroes? On the
+      paneled wall opposite to the fireplace were portraits of the Vicomte de
+      Portenduere and of the mother of the old lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat.
+      Savinien&rsquo;s great-uncle was therefore the Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and
+      his cousin was the Comte de Portenduere, grandson of the admiral,&mdash;both
+      of them very rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de Portenduere
+      at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count represented the elder
+      branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the younger. The count, who was
+      over forty years of age and married to a rich wife, had three children.
+      His fortune, increased by various legacies, amounted, it was said, to
+      sixty thousand francs a year. As deputy from Isere he passed his winters
+      in Paris, where he had bought the hotel de Portenduere with the
+      indemnities he obtained under the Villele law. The vice-admiral had
+      recently married his niece by marriage, for the sole purpose of securing
+      his money to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+      favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy, young
+      and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the influence of
+      an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years of age, been a
+      lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son should go into
+      either naval or military service, had kept him at Nemours under the
+      tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon&rsquo;s assistants, hoping that she could
+      keep him near her until her death. She meant to marry him to a demoiselle
+      d&rsquo;Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year; to whose hand
+      the name of Portenduere and the farm at Bordieres enabled him to pretend.
+      This narrow but judicious plan, which would have carried the family to a
+      second generation, was already balked by events. The d&rsquo;Aiglemonts were
+      ruined, and one of the daughters, Helene, had disappeared, and the mystery
+      of her disappearance was never solved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+      action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his mother,
+      so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as they were, and
+      swore that he would never live in the provinces&mdash;comprehending,
+      rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the Rue des Bourgeois.
+      At twenty-one years of age he left his mother&rsquo;s house to make acquaintance
+      with his relations, and try his luck in Paris. The contrast between life
+      in Paris and life in Nemours was likely to be fatal to a young man of
+      twenty-one, free, with no one to say him nay, naturally eager for
+      pleasure, and for whom his name and his connections opened the doors of
+      all the salons. Quite convinced that his mother had the savings of many
+      years in her strong-box, Savinien soon spent the six thousand francs which
+      she had given him to see Paris. That sum did not defray his expenses for
+      six months, and he soon owed double that sum to his hotel, his tailor, his
+      boot maker, to the man from whom he hired his carriages and horses, to a
+      jeweler,&mdash;in short, to all those traders and shopkeepers who
+      contribute to the luxury of young men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+      learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to wear
+      his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his cravat,
+      before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand francs, while
+      still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his love for the
+      sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame de Serizy, whose
+      youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How is that you all manage?&rdquo; asked Savinien one day, at the end of a gay
+      breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate as the
+      young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all aiming for
+      the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality. &ldquo;You were no
+      richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you contrive to
+      maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but debts.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all began that way,&rdquo; answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh was
+      echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet, and
+      others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an exception,&rdquo;
+       said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming intimate with
+      these young men. &ldquo;Any one but he,&rdquo; added Finot bowing to that personage,
+      &ldquo;would have been ruined by it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A true remark,&rdquo; said Maxime de Trailles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a true idea,&rdquo; added Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear fellow,&rdquo; said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; &ldquo;debts are the
+      capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors for
+      all branches, who don&rsquo;t teach you anything, costs sixty thousand francs.
+      If the education of the world does cost double, at least it teaches you to
+      understand life, politics, men,&mdash;and sometimes women.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: &ldquo;The world
+      sells dearly what we think it gives.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest pilots
+      of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a joke.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take care, my dear fellow,&rdquo; said de Marsay one day. &ldquo;You have a great
+      name; if you don&rsquo;t obtain the fortune that name requires you&rsquo;ll end your
+      days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. &lsquo;We have seen the fall of
+      nobler heads,&rsquo;&rdquo; he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he took
+      Savinien&rsquo;s arm. &ldquo;About six years ago,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;a young Comte
+      d&rsquo;Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the paradise
+      of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket. He rose to the
+      Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town, where he is now
+      expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a game of whist at two
+      sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your situation, candidly, without
+      shame; she will understand it and be very useful to you. Whereas, if you
+      play the charade of first love with her she will pose as a Raffaelle
+      Madonna, practice all the little games of innocence upon you, and take you
+      journeying at enormous cost through the Land of Sentiment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+      position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+      which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to which
+      she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs, which was
+      all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close of the first
+      year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot of Madame de
+      Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as the saying is,
+      forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient of borrowing. One
+      of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his cousin the Comte de
+      Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to Gobseck or Gigonnet or
+      Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother&rsquo;s means, would give him an
+      easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help of renewals enabled him to
+      lead a happy life for nearly eighteen months. Without daring to leave
+      Madame de Serizy the poor boy had fallen madly in love with the beautiful
+      Comtesse de Kergarouet, a prude after the fashion of young women who are
+      awaiting the death of an old husband and making capital of their virtue in
+      the interests of a second marriage. Quite incapable of understanding that
+      calculating virtue is invulnerable, Savinien paid court to Emilie de
+      Kergarouet in all the splendor of a rich man. He never missed either ball
+      or theater at which she was present.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You haven&rsquo;t powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock,&rdquo; said de Marsay,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+      endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely wasted
+      his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a prison
+      were needed to convince Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the
+      money-lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the young
+      man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default of one
+      hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of his
+      friends, to the debtor&rsquo;s prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as the fact was
+      known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to see him, and
+      each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when they found how
+      really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him had been seized
+      except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The three young men (who
+      brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed Savinien&rsquo;s situation
+      while drinking de Marsay&rsquo;s wine, ostensibly to arrange for his future but
+      really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere,&rdquo; cried Rastignac, &ldquo;and has a
+      future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+      great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be
+      put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there, my
+      good fellow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t you tell me?&rdquo; cried de Marsay. &ldquo;You could have had my
+      traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction for
+      Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we could
+      have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what ass ever
+      led you to drink of that cursed spring.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Des Lupeaulx.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought and
+      suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explain all your resources; show us your hand,&rdquo; said de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and the
+      little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without other
+      grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when he had
+      valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish cement, and
+      put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies looked at each
+      other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of the abbe in Alfred
+      de Musset&rsquo;s &ldquo;Marrons du feu&rdquo; (which had then just appeared),&mdash;&ldquo;Sad!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter,&rdquo; said Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but afterwards?&rdquo; cried de Marsay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you had merely been put in the fiacre,&rdquo; said Lucien, &ldquo;the government
+      would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie isn&rsquo;t the
+      antechamber of an embassy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not strong enough for Parisian life,&rdquo; said Rastignac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us consider the matter,&rdquo; said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as a
+      jockey examines a horse. &ldquo;You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a white
+      forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which
+      suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you&rsquo;ve a foot that tells race,
+      shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. You are what I
+      call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of the style Louis XII.,
+      hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have the thing that pleases
+      women, a something, I don&rsquo;t know what it is, which men take no account of
+      themselves; it is in the air, the manner, the tone of the voice, the dart
+      of the eye, the gesture,&mdash;in short, in a number of little things
+      which women see and to which they attach a meaning which escapes us. You
+      don&rsquo;t know your merits, my dear fellow. Take a certain tone and style and
+      in six months you&rsquo;ll captivate an English-woman with a hundred thousand
+      pounds; but you must call yourself viscount, a title which belongs to you.
+      My charming step-mother, Lady Dudley, who has not her equal for matching
+      two hearts, will find you some such woman in the fens of Great Britain.
+      What you must now do is to get the payment of your debts postponed for
+      ninety days. Why didn&rsquo;t you tell us about them? The money-lenders at Baden
+      would have spared you&mdash;served you perhaps; but now, after you have
+      once been in prison, they&rsquo;ll despise you. A money-lender is, like society,
+      like the masses, down on his knees before the man who is strong enough to
+      trick him, and pitiless to the lambs. To the eyes of some persons
+      Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the souls of young men. Do you
+      want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I told that little d&rsquo;Esgrignon:
+      &lsquo;Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep enough to live on for three
+      years, and marry some girl in the provinces who can bring you an income of
+      thirty thousand francs.&rsquo; In the course of three years you can surely find
+      some virtuous heiress who is willing to call herself Madame la Vicomtesse
+      de Portenduere. Such is virtue,&mdash;let&rsquo;s drink to it. I give you a
+      toast: &lsquo;The girl with money!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+      parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to each
+      other: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s not strong enough!&rdquo; &ldquo;He&rsquo;s quite crushed.&rdquo; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t believe
+      he&rsquo;ll pull through it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two pages.
+      Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote first to her
+      son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the Comte de
+      Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was holding
+      in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her appeal,
+      which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Paris, September, 1829.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Madame de Portenduere:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame,&mdash;You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I both
+      feel in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de Kergarouet grieves me
+      all the more because our house was a home to your son; we were proud of
+      him. If Savinien had had more confidence in the admiral we could have
+      taken him to live with us, and he would already have obtained some good
+      situation. But, unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of his
+      own accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing of his
+      pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because Savinien
+      has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the authorities to arrest
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed our
+      relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him to travel in
+      Germany while his affairs were being settled here. Monsieur de Kergarouet
+      intended to get him a place in the War office; but this imprisonment for
+      debt will paralyze such efforts. You must pay his debts; let him enter the
+      navy; he will make his way like the true Portenduere that he is; he has
+      the fire of the family in his beautiful black eyes, and we will all help
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom I beg
+      you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our best wishes,
+      with the respects of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your very affectionate servant, Emilie de Kergarouet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second letter was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Portenduere, August, 1829.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Madame de Portenduere:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear aunt,&mdash;I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien&rsquo;s pranks.
+      As I am married and the father of two sons and one daughter, my fortune,
+      already too small for my position and prospects, cannot be lessened to
+      ransom a Portenduere from the hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his
+      debts, and come and live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive the
+      welcome we owe you, even though our views may not be entirely in
+      accordance with yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to
+      marry Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+      nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in this part
+      of the country, where there are a number of rich girls who would be
+      delighted to enter our family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give us, and I
+      beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this plan, together
+      with my affectionate respects.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!&rdquo; cried the old Breton lady,
+      wiping her eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison,&rdquo; said the Abbe
+      Chaperon at last; &ldquo;the countess alone read your letter, and has answered
+      it for him. But you must decide at once on some course,&rdquo; he added after a
+      pause, &ldquo;and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do not sell your
+      farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four years; in a few
+      months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs and get a premium for
+      double that amount. Borrow what you need of some honest man,&mdash;not
+      from the townspeople who make a business of mortgages. Your neighbour here
+      is a most worthy man; a man of good society, who knew it as it was before
+      the Revolution, who was once an atheist, and is now an earnest Catholic.
+      Do not let your feelings debar you from going to his house this very
+      evening; he will fully understand the step you take; forget for a moment
+      that you are a Kergarouet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never!&rdquo; said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will lend
+      you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three per
+      cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased with
+      him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,&mdash;for he will
+      have to go there to sell out his funds,&mdash;and he can bring the lad
+      back to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you speaking of that little Minoret?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That little Minoret is eighty-three years old,&rdquo; said the abbe, smiling.
+      &ldquo;My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don&rsquo;t wound him,&mdash;he
+      might be useful to you in other ways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ways?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant words,
+      the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he was about to
+      make.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think Doctor Minoret is very rich,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So much the better for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have indirectly caused your son&rsquo;s misfortunes by refusing to give him
+      a profession; beware for the future,&rdquo; said the abbe sternly. &ldquo;Am I to tell
+      Doctor Minoret that you are coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he comes
+      to you you will pay him five,&rdquo; said the abbe, inventing this reason to
+      influence the old lady. &ldquo;And if you are forced to sell your farm by Dionis
+      the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse to lend you the
+      money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you would lose half its
+      value. I have not the slightest influence on the Dionis, Massins, or
+      Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your farm and know that your
+      son is in prison.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They know it! oh, do they know it?&rdquo; she exclaimed, throwing up her arms.
+      &ldquo;There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold! Tiennette,
+      Tiennette!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short gown
+      and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe&rsquo;s coffee to warm it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let be, Monsieur le recteur,&rdquo; she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+      drink it, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just put it into the bain-marie, it won&rsquo;t spoil it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+      voice, &ldquo;I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will come&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old mother did not yield till after an hour&rsquo;s discussion, during which
+      the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times. And even
+      then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the words,
+      &ldquo;Savinien would go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is better that I should go than he,&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI. SAVINIEN SAVED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large door of
+      Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s house closed on the abbe, who immediately crossed
+      the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor&rsquo;s gate. He fell from
+      Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, &ldquo;Why do you come so late,
+      Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe?&rdquo; as the other had said, &ldquo;Why do you leave Madame so early
+      when she is in trouble?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown salon;
+      for Dionis had stopped at Massin&rsquo;s on his way home to re-assure the heirs
+      by repeating their uncle&rsquo;s words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe Ursula has a love-affair,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;which will be nothing but
+      pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic&rdquo; (extreme sensibility is so
+      called by notaries), &ldquo;and, you&rsquo;ll see, she won&rsquo;t marry soon. Therefore,
+      don&rsquo;t show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and very respectful
+      to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,&rdquo; added the notary&mdash;without
+      being aware that Goupil is a corruption of the word vulpes, a fox.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master and
+      Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual and
+      noisy party in the doctor&rsquo;s salon. As the abbe entered he heard the sound
+      of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of Beethoven&rsquo;s. With
+      girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music, which must be studied to
+      be understood, for the purpose of disgusting these women with the thing
+      they coveted. The finer the music the less ignorant persons like it. So,
+      when the door opened and the abbe&rsquo;s venerable head appeared they all cried
+      out: &ldquo;Ah! here&rsquo;s Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe!&rdquo; in a tone of relief, delighted to jump
+      up and put an end to their torture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the Nemours
+      doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with which the
+      collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had proposed to take
+      the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The doctor rose as if to
+      receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the game. After many
+      compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency of his
+      goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-night, my friends,&rdquo; cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that&rsquo;s where the money goes,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere to Madame Massin,
+      as they walked on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+      such a din as that!&rdquo; cried Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician,&rdquo; said the
+      collector; &ldquo;he has quite a reputation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not in Nemours, I&rsquo;m sure of that,&rdquo; said Madame Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away,&rdquo; said
+      Massin; &ldquo;for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+      music-book.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that&rsquo;s the sort of charivari they like,&rdquo; said the post master, &ldquo;they
+      are quite right to keep it to themselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful racket,&rdquo;
+       said Madame Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall never be able to play before persons who don&rsquo;t understand music,&rdquo;
+       Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In natures richly organized,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;sentiments can be developed
+      only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable to give the
+      blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree dies in a
+      clay soil, so a musician&rsquo;s genius has a mental eclipse when he is
+      surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from the
+      souls who make the environment of our souls as much intensity as we convey
+      to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made into
+      proverbs: &lsquo;Howl with the wolves&rsquo;; &lsquo;Like meets like.&rsquo; But the suffering you
+      felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, friends,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;a thing which would merely give pain
+      to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here, I charge
+      you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,&mdash;&lsquo;Ut flos,&rsquo; etc.,&mdash;a
+      protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and the world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula,&rdquo; said Monsieur Bongrand,
+      smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flattered her grossly,&rdquo; remarked the Nemours doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is,&rdquo; said old Minoret.
+      &ldquo;Why is that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A true thought has its own delicacy,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?&rdquo; asked Ursula, with a look of
+      anxious curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may come to
+      see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula pressed her godfather&rsquo;s hand under the table.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her son,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;was rather too simple-minded to live in Paris
+      without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made here about
+      the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting her death.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible you think him capable of it?&rdquo; said Ursula, with such a
+      terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather sadly,
+      &ldquo;Alas! yes, she loves him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes and no,&rdquo; said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula&rsquo;s question.
+      &ldquo;There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now in
+      prison; a scamp wouldn&rsquo;t have got there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t let us talk about it any more,&rdquo; said old Minoret. &ldquo;The poor mother
+      must not be allowed to weep if there&rsquo;s a way to dry her tears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the gate,
+      saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and as soon as
+      Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with La Bougival
+      beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame la vicomtesse,&rdquo; said the abbe, who entered first into the little
+      salon, &ldquo;Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you should have
+      the trouble of coming to him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am too much of the old school, madame,&rdquo; interrupted the doctor, &ldquo;not to
+      know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very glad to be
+      able, as Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe tells me, to be of service to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so much
+      that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the notary
+      instead, was surprised by Minoret&rsquo;s attention to such a degree that she
+      rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be seated, monsieur,&rdquo; she said with a regal air. &ldquo;Our dear abbe has told
+      you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful debts,&mdash;a
+      hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him I would
+      secure you on my farm at Bordieres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to you&mdash;if
+      you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good, monsieur,&rdquo; she said, bowing her head and looking at the abbe
+      as if to say, &ldquo;You were right; he really is a man of good society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, madame,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;that my friend the doctor is full of
+      devotion to your family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be grateful, monsieur,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere, making a
+      visible effort; &ldquo;a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a prodigal,
+      is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I had the honor to meet, in &lsquo;65, the illustrious Admiral de
+      Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes, and
+      also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to question
+      him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur de
+      Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the glorious days
+      of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of Great Britain, and its
+      officers had their full quota of courage. With what impatience we awaited
+      in &lsquo;83 and &lsquo;84 the news from St. Roch. I came very near serving as surgeon
+      in the king&rsquo;s service. Your great-uncle, who is still living, Admiral
+      Kergarouet, fought his splendid battle at that time in the &lsquo;Belle-Poule.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He would not leave him there a day,&rdquo; said old Minoret, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed him
+      to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left the
+      room; but returned immediately to say:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+      to-morrow?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his friend,
+      who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces of the old
+      lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is an astonishing man for his age,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;He talks of going to
+      Paris and attending to my son&rsquo;s affairs as if he were only twenty-five. He
+      has certainly seen good society.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of France
+      would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if that idea
+      should come into Savinien&rsquo;s head!&mdash;times are so changed that the
+      objections would not come from your side, especially after his late
+      conduct&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled him
+      to finish it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have lost your senses,&rdquo; she said at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+      future in a manner to win that old man&rsquo;s respect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If it were not you, Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere, &ldquo;if it
+      were any one else who spoke to me in that way&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would not see him again,&rdquo; said the abbe, smiling. &ldquo;Let us hope that
+      your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in these days
+      as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien&rsquo;s good; as you really
+      have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in the way of his
+      making himself another position.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is you who say that to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I did not say it to you, who would?&rdquo; cried the abbe rising and making
+      a hasty retreat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+      courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+      just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+      thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the whole
+      coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day at half-past six o&rsquo;clock the old man and the young girl
+      reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+      Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+      remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a fool
+      to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between the
+      press and the court was not made up. Minoret&rsquo;s notary now indirectly
+      approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his
+      journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his shares in the Funds,
+      all of which were then at a high value, depositing the proceeds in the
+      Bank of France. The notary also advised his client to sell the stocks left
+      to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He promised to employ an extremely clever
+      broker to treat with Savinien&rsquo;s creditors; but said that in order to
+      succeed it would be necessary for the young man to stay several days
+      longer in prison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+      cent,&rdquo; said the notary. &ldquo;Besides, you can&rsquo;t get your money under seven or
+      eight days.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week longer
+      in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only once. Old
+      Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel in the Rue
+      Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very suitable
+      apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his goddaughter
+      he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at other times he
+      took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards; but nothing seemed
+      to amuse or interest her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want to do?&rdquo; asked the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;See Saint-Pelagie,&rdquo; she answered obstinately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef, where
+      the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent then
+      transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls, with every
+      window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter without stooping
+      (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in a quarter full of
+      wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets like a supreme misery,&mdash;this
+      assemblage of dismal things so oppressed Ursula&rsquo;s heart that she burst
+      into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;to imprison young men in this dreadful place for money!
+      How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not? <i>He</i>
+      there!&rdquo; she cried. &ldquo;Where, godfather?&rdquo; she added, looking from window to
+      window.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;you are making me commit great follies. This
+      is not forgetting him as you promised.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she argued, &ldquo;if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel an
+      interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; cried the doctor, &ldquo;there is so much reason in your unreasonableness
+      that I am sorry I brought you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the legal
+      papers ready for Savinien&rsquo;s release. The payings, including the notaries&rsquo; 
+      fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went himself to see
+      Savinien released on Saturday at two o&rsquo;clock. The young viscount, already
+      informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked his liberator with
+      sincere warmth of heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must return at once to see your mother,&rdquo; the old doctor said to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted certain
+      debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his friends.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suspected there was some personal debt,&rdquo; cried the doctor, smiling.
+      &ldquo;Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid out
+      only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend it,
+      monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the green
+      cloth of fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+      present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated hard
+      work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+      underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of day.
+      Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his time and
+      required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere, which his
+      mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in Paris. His cousin
+      the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor figure in the Elective
+      Chamber in presence of the peerage and the court; and had none too much
+      credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet existed only as the husband of his
+      wife. Savinien admitted to himself that he had seen orators, men from the
+      middle classes, or lesser noblemen, become influential personages. Money
+      was the pivot, the sole means, the only mechanism of a society which Louis
+      XVIII. had tried to create in the likeness of that of England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs the
+      young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which were
+      certainly in keeping with de Marsay&rsquo;s advice) to the old doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I ought,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to go into oblivion for three or four years and seek
+      a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+      statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions of
+      the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady who
+      could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence and in
+      obscurity.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Studying the young fellow&rsquo;s face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+      serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself. He
+      therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+      (which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+      lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner, to find
+      you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and possessing from
+      seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make you happy and of
+      whom you will have every reason to be proud,&mdash;one whose only nobility
+      is that of the heart!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, doctor!&rdquo; cried the young man, &ldquo;there is no longer a nobility in these
+      days,&mdash;nothing but an aristocracy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+      coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me,&rdquo; said the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That evening, at six o&rsquo;clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+      Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien, who
+      once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss which
+      invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely forgotten
+      the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover, his hopeless
+      love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing a thought on a
+      few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He did not recognize her
+      when the doctor handed her into the coach and then sat down beside her to
+      separate her from the young viscount.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have some bills to give you,&rdquo; said the doctor to the young man. &ldquo;I have
+      brought all your papers and documents.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came very near not getting off,&rdquo; said Savinien, &ldquo;for I had to order
+      linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+      prodigal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the young
+      man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain remarks of
+      the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after dusk, her green
+      veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much,&rdquo; said
+      Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad to return to Nemours,&rdquo; she answered in a trembling voice
+      raising her veil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the heavy
+      braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that I
+      meet my charming neighbour again,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I hope, Monsieur le docteur
+      that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I remember to
+      have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula&rsquo;s piano.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not know,&rdquo; replied the doctor gravely, &ldquo;whether your mother would
+      approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care for this
+      dear child with all the solicitude of a mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+      kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great. Savinien
+      and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was full of
+      projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+      straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap, dropped
+      upon her uncle&rsquo;s shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn, Savinien
+      awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally caused by the
+      jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half off; the hair,
+      unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed from the heat of
+      the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to whom dress is a
+      necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The sleep of innocence is
+      always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the pretty teeth; the shawl,
+      unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds of her muslin gown and without
+      offence to her modesty, the gracefulness of her figure. The purity of the
+      virgin spirit shone on the sleeping countenance all the more plainly
+      because no other expression was there to interfere with it. Old Minoret,
+      who presently woke up, placed his child&rsquo;s head in the corner of the
+      carriage that she might be more at ease; and she let him do it
+      unconsciously, so deep was her sleep after the many wakeful nights she had
+      spent in thinking of Savinien&rsquo;s trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor little girl!&rdquo; said the doctor to his neighbour, &ldquo;she sleeps like the
+      child she is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must be proud of her,&rdquo; replied Savinien; &ldquo;for she seems as good as
+      she is beautiful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she were
+      my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God grant that I
+      may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make her happy. I
+      wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was for the first
+      time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden it. &lsquo;But,&rsquo; I said,
+      &lsquo;when you are married your husband will want you to go there.&rsquo; &lsquo;I shall do
+      what my husband wants,&rsquo; she answered. &lsquo;If he asks me to do evil and I am
+      weak enough to yield, he will be responsible before God&mdash;and so I
+      shall have strength to refuse him, for his own sake.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+      ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of admiration
+      which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had taken the
+      diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had fallen in love
+      with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her soul, the beauty of
+      that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy of the features; he
+      recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive
+      sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A
+      presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold of him; he saw in Ursula the
+      woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words,
+      &ldquo;Seven or eight hundred thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be twenty-seven,&rdquo;
+       he thought. &ldquo;The good doctor talked of probation, work, good conduct! Sly
+      as he is I shall make him tell me the truth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+      homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave Ursula
+      a parting glance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor and
+      Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass. Savinien&rsquo;s
+      release and his return in company with the doctor had explained the reason
+      of the latter&rsquo;s absence to the newsmongers of the town and to the heirs,
+      who were once more assembled in conventicle on the square, just as they
+      were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended his first mass. To the
+      great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de Portenduere, on leaving
+      the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered her his arm and took her
+      home. The old lady asked him to dinner that evening, also asking his niece
+      and assuring him that the abbe would be the only other guest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He must have wished Ursula to see Paris,&rdquo; said Minoret-Levrault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pest!&rdquo; cried Cremiere; &ldquo;he can&rsquo;t take a step without that girl!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,&rdquo;
+       said Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+      released that little Savinien?&rdquo; cried Goupil. &ldquo;He refused Dionis, but he
+      didn&rsquo;t refuse Madame de Portenduere&mdash;Ha, ha! you are all done for.
+      The viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and
+      the doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he
+      has now paid to secure the alliance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien,&rdquo; said the butcher.
+      &ldquo;The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came
+      early for a filet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Dionis, here&rsquo;s a fine to-do!&rdquo; said Massin, rushing up to the
+      notary, who was entering the square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is? It&rsquo;s all going right,&rdquo; returned the notary. &ldquo;Your uncle has sold
+      his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness the signing
+      of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand francs, lent to her
+      by your uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That&rsquo;s as if you said Goupil was to be my successor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The two things are not so impossible,&rdquo; said Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform her
+      son that she wished to see him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame de
+      Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a large
+      dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little antechamber
+      which opened on the staircase. The window of the other room, occupied by
+      Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the street. The
+      staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room for a little
+      study lighted by a small round window opening on the court. Madame de
+      Portenduere&rsquo;s bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked into the
+      court; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the ground floor,
+      which communicated by a passage with the kitchen built at the end of the
+      court, so that this salon was made to answer the double purpose of
+      drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had left it
+      on the day of his death; there was no change except that he was absent.
+      Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying upon it the uniform
+      of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The gold snuff-box
+      from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last time was on the
+      table, with his prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from which he drank.
+      His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed, hung above a
+      crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little ornaments he had
+      worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon, his spy-glass
+      hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of
+      the clock at the hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room
+      still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was
+      as he left it. To her, entering there, he was again visible in the many
+      articles which told of his daily habits. His tall cane with its gold head
+      was where he had last placed it, with his buckskin gloves close by. On a
+      table against the wall stood a gold vase, of coarse workmanship but worth
+      three thousand francs, a gift from Havana, which city, at the time of the
+      American War of Independence, he had protected from an attack by the
+      British, bringing his convoy safe into port after an engagement with
+      superior forces. To recompense this service the King of Spain had made him
+      a knight of his order; the same event gave him a right to the next
+      promotion to the rank of vice-admiral, and he also received the red
+      ribbing. He then married his wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred
+      thousand francs. But the Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur
+      de Portenduere emigrated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my mother?&rdquo; said Savinien to Tiennette.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is waiting for you in your father&rsquo;s room,&rdquo; said the old Breton woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother&rsquo;s rigid
+      principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility, and
+      he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart beating and
+      his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered through the blinds
+      he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air of solemnity in
+      keeping with that funereal room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur le vicomte,&rdquo; she said when she saw him, rising and taking his
+      hand to lead him to his father&rsquo;s bed, &ldquo;there died your father,&mdash;a man
+      of honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His spirit is
+      there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son degraded by
+      imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain could have been
+      spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and shutting you up for a few
+      days in a military prison.&mdash;But you are here; you stand before your
+      father, who hears you. You know all that you did before you were sent to
+      that ignoble prison. Will you swear to me before your father&rsquo;s shade, and
+      in presence of God who sees all, that you have done no dishonorable act;
+      that your debts are the result of youthful folly, and that your honor is
+      untarnished? If your blameless father were there, sitting in that
+      armchair, and asking an explanation of your conduct, could he embrace you
+      after having heard it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, mother,&rdquo; replied the young man, with grave respect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us forget it all, my son,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;it is only a little less money.
+      I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy of your
+      name, kiss me&mdash;for I have suffered much.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I swear, mother,&rdquo; he said, laying his hand upon the bed, &ldquo;to give you no
+      further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair these
+      first faults.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and breakfast, my child,&rdquo; she said, turning to leave the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs something
+      of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover, the
+      sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates to
+      matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied to
+      the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the spirit of
+      family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours, where, as we have
+      seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible marriage of her son
+      with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social laws have their
+      exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother&rsquo;s pride before the
+      inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once. As soon as they
+      were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible letters, as she
+      called them, which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres had written her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no such thing as family in these days, mother,&rdquo; replied
+      Savinien, &ldquo;nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+      body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+      statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, &lsquo;What taxes does he pay?&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the king?&rdquo; asked the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife
+      and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without regard
+      to family,&mdash;the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is
+      sufficiently well brought-up&mdash;that is to say, if she has been taught
+      in school.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! there&rsquo;s no need to talk of that,&rdquo; said the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called
+      Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he resolved to know
+      at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So,&rdquo; he went on, &ldquo;if I loved a young girl,&mdash;take for instance your
+      neighbour&rsquo;s godchild, little Ursula,&mdash;would you oppose my marriage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, as long as I live,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;and after my death you would be
+      responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+      Portendueres.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobility,
+      which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of great wealth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You could serve France and put faith in God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would be horrible if you took it then,&mdash;that is all I have to
+      say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mazarin himself opposed it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember the widow Scarron.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was a d&rsquo;Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very
+      old, my son,&rdquo; she said, shaking her head. &ldquo;When I am no more you can, as
+      you say, marry whom you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+      silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal to her
+      own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this opposition
+      gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of a forbidden
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink and
+      white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with nervous
+      trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen of France
+      and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the doctor this
+      little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her eyes, and the
+      old lady herself the social value which a duchess of the Middle Ages might
+      have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula measured as she did
+      at that moment the distance which separated Vicomte de Portenduere from
+      the daughter of a regimental musician, a former opera-singer and the
+      natural son of an organist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, my dear?&rdquo; said the old lady, making the girl sit down
+      beside her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My little girl,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. &ldquo;I
+      know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to him,
+      for he has brought back my prodigal son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, my dear mother,&rdquo; said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the color
+      fly into Ursula&rsquo;s face as she struggled to keep back her tears, &ldquo;even if
+      we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret, I think we
+      should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle has given us
+      by accepting your invitation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young man pressed the doctor&rsquo;s hand in a significant manner, adding:
+      &ldquo;I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order in
+      France, and one which confers nobility.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula&rsquo;s extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a depth
+      which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where the soul is
+      brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduere suddenly, and
+      made her suspect that the doctor&rsquo;s apparent generosity masked an ambitious
+      scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien replied with the
+      intention of wounding the doctor in that which was dearest to him; and she
+      succeeded, though the old man could hardly restrain a smile as he heard
+      himself styled a &ldquo;chevalier,&rdquo; amused to observe how the eagerness of a
+      lover did not shrink from absurdity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to
+      obtain,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other
+      privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have
+      done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor
+      devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order of
+      Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned, which,
+      as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when there
+      was a rap at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is our dear abbe,&rdquo; said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+      alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,&mdash;an honor she had not
+      paid to the doctor and his niece.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+      Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s
+      manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+      Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid it. He
+      began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was then running by
+      confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de Polignac. When
+      sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid all appearance of
+      revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady, in an easy, jesting
+      way, a packet of legal papers and receipted bills, together with the
+      account of his notary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Has my son verified them?&rdquo; she said, giving Savinien a look, to which he
+      replied by bending his head. &ldquo;Well, then the rest is my notary&rsquo;s
+      business,&rdquo; she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair with
+      the disdain she wished to show for money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s ideas, to
+      elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for the
+      accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you want them?&rdquo; said the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance with
+      offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching a
+      toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the same
+      indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name in any
+      language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of the inward
+      being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to Doctor Minoret.
+      The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some way be fatal to them
+      made Ursula tremble; but she controlled herself, conscious of unspeakable
+      pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her emotion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis,&rdquo; said Savinien, when
+      Goupil had closed the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?&rdquo; said
+      Madame de Portenduere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t complain of his ugliness,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;but I do of his
+      wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and dignified.
+      The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the kindly good-humor
+      of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the dinner, the position of the
+      doctor and his niece would have been almost intolerable. At dessert,
+      seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to her:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you don&rsquo;t feel well, dear child, we have only the street to cross.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is the matter, my dear?&rdquo; said the old lady to the girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said the doctor severely, &ldquo;her soul is chilled, accustomed as
+      she is to be met by smiles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very bad education, monsieur,&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere. &ldquo;Is it not,
+      Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how to
+      reply. &ldquo;I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic spirit
+      if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die until I
+      place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and hatred&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, godfather&mdash;I beg of you&mdash;say no more. There is nothing the
+      matter with me,&rdquo; cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s eyes rather
+      than give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I cannot know, madame,&rdquo; said Savinien to his mother, &ldquo;whether
+      Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his mother&rsquo;s
+      treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de Portenduere
+      to excuse her; then she took her uncle&rsquo;s arm, bowed, left the room, and
+      returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and sat down to the
+      piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why don&rsquo;t you leave the management of your affairs to my old experience,
+      cruel child?&rdquo; cried the doctor in despair. &ldquo;Nobles never think themselves
+      under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we do them a service they
+      consider that we do our duty, and that&rsquo;s all. Besides, the old lady saw
+      that you looked favorably on Savinien; she is afraid he will love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;At any rate he is saved!&rdquo; said Ursula. &ldquo;But ah! to try to humiliate a man
+      like you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait till I return, my child,&rdquo; said the old man leaving her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s salon he found Dionis
+      the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of Nemours,
+      witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all communes where
+      there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis aside and said a
+      word in his ear, after which the notary read the deeds aloud officially;
+      from which it appeared that Madame de Portenduere gave a mortgage on all
+      her property to secure payment of the hundred thousand francs, the
+      interest on which was fixed at five per cent. At the reading of this last
+      clause the abbe looked at Minoret, who answered with an approving nod. The
+      poor priest whispered something in the old lady&rsquo;s ear to which she
+      replied,&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will owe nothing to such persons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother leaves me the nobler part,&rdquo; said Savinien to the doctor; &ldquo;she
+      will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to meet
+      the interest and the legal costs,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; said Minoret to Dionis, &ldquo;as Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere
+      are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the amount of the
+      mortgage and I will pay them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred and
+      seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret made his
+      fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the notary and
+      witnesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+      Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those debts
+      in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son for his
+      debts of honor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Minoret is sly,&rdquo; she said, taking a pinch of snuff. &ldquo;He knows what
+      he is about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by getting
+      hold of our farm,&rdquo; said Savinien; &ldquo;as if a Portenduere, son of a
+      Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor&rsquo;s house, where all
+      the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of the
+      young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its
+      effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and
+      Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed. The mothers
+      said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage. The eyes of all
+      present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young
+      nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box, for
+      he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The doctor&rsquo;s
+      cold manner surprised every one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula, my child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;give us a little music.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her in
+      countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+      music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of
+      pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them, so
+      eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and the
+      Portendueres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when played by
+      a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more impression
+      than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all music there is,
+      besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the performer, who, by a
+      privilege granted to this art only, can give both meaning and poetry to
+      passages which are in themselves of no great value. Chopin proves, for
+      that unresponsive instrument the piano, the truth of this fact, already
+      proved by Paganini on the violin. That fine genius is less a musician than
+      a soul which makes itself felt, and communicates itself through all
+      species of music, even simple chords. Ursula, by her exquisite and
+      sensitive organization, belonged to this rare class of beings, and old
+      Schmucke, the master, who came every Saturday and who, during Ursula&rsquo;s
+      stay in Paris was with her every day, had brought his pupil&rsquo;s talent to
+      its full perfection. &ldquo;Rousseau&rsquo;s Dream,&rdquo; the piece now chosen by Ursula,
+      composed by Herold in his young days, is not without a certain depth which
+      is capable of being developed by execution. Ursula threw into it the
+      feelings which were agitating her being, and justified the term &ldquo;caprice&rdquo;
+       given by Herold to the fragment. With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke
+      to the young man&rsquo;s soul and wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that
+      were almost visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and his
+      head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed on the
+      paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning another world.
+      Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less reason. Genuine
+      feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was willing to show her
+      soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien entered that
+      delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its
+      feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by
+      thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness of
+      heart have the same power over a man that childhood has; the same charm,
+      the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest and candid
+      than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take a
+      fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed, all
+      except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle
+      and the viscount and Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said, when the young
+      girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. &ldquo;Who is your
+      master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti,&rdquo; said the
+      doctor. &ldquo;If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay in
+      Paris he would have been here to-day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not only a great musician,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;but a man of adorable
+      simplicity of nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Those lessons must cost a great deal,&rdquo; remarked Desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who had
+      hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air of a
+      man who fulfills a duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am grateful for the feeling which leads you to
+      make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+      underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right to
+      call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here, in
+      spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should
+      otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother that if I do
+      not beg her, in my niece&rsquo;s name and my own, to do us the honor of dining
+      here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would find
+      herself indisposed on that day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+      respectfully, saying:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quite right, monsieur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was more
+      of sadness than disappointment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+      exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+      house precipitately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk among
+      the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and
+      regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality puts
+      everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even
+      military subordination,&mdash;that last refuge of power in France, where
+      passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+      antipathies, or differences of fortune,&mdash;the obstinacy of an
+      old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a
+      barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles often
+      do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent man a
+      woman&rsquo;s value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a struggle,
+      great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young girl was rendered
+      dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps our feelings obey the
+      laws of nature as to the lastingness of her creations; to a long life a
+      long childhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+      thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if it
+      were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl parted her
+      curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien&rsquo;s window, she
+      saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects on
+      the immense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural and
+      right that a tax should be levied on them. Having thus protested against
+      her godfather&rsquo;s harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened her
+      window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue to see
+      without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the day she went
+      up to her room, always to find the young viscount writing, tearing up what
+      he had written, and then writing again&mdash;to her, no doubt!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mademoiselle,&mdash;I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young man
+      inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which your
+      godfather&rsquo;s kindness released me. I know that I must in future give
+      greater guarantees of good conduct than other men; therefore,
+      mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place myself at your feet
+      and ask you to consider my love. This declaration is not dictated by
+      passion; it comes from an inward certainty which involves the whole of
+      life. A foolish infatuation for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was
+      the cause of my going to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my
+      sincere love the total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now
+      effaced from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+      engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my soul as
+      a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no other wife than
+      you. You have every qualification I desire in her who is to bear my name.
+      The education you have received and the dignity of your own mind, place
+      you on the level of the highest positions. But I doubt myself too much to
+      dare describe you to yourself; I can only love you. After listening to you
+      yesterday I recalled certain words which seem as though written for you;
+      suffer me to transcribe them:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and intelligent,
+      spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she had passed her life
+      at court, simple as the hermit who had never known the world, the fire of
+      her soul is tempered in her eyes by sacred modesty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even the most
+      trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage to ask you,
+      provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you by my conduct and my
+      devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It concerns my very life; you
+      cannot doubt that all my powers will be employed, not only in trying to
+      please you, but in deserving your esteem, which is more precious to me
+      than any other upon earth. With this hope, Ursula&mdash;if you will suffer
+      me so to call you in my heart&mdash;Nemours will be to me a paradise, the
+      hardest tasks will bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is
+      derived from God. Tell me that I may call myself
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+      passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her uncle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!&rdquo; she exclaimed, turning
+      back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+      godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+      under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda. Ursula
+      awaited the old man&rsquo;s words, and the old man reflected long, too long for
+      the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their secret interview
+      appeared in the following answer, part of which the doctor undoubtedly
+      dictated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur,&mdash;I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the letter
+      in which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and according to the
+      rules of my education, I have felt bound to communicate it to my
+      godfather, who is all I have, and whom I love as a father and also as a
+      friend. I must now tell you the painful objections which he has made to
+      me, and which must be to you my answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends entirely, not
+      only on my godfather&rsquo;s good-will, but also on the doubtful success of the
+      measures he may take to elude the schemes of his relatives against me.
+      Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet, band-master of the
+      45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my godfather&rsquo;s natural
+      half-brother; and therefore these relatives may, though without reason,
+      being a suit against a young girl who would be defenceless. You see,
+      monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not my greatest misfortune.
+      I have many things to make me humble. It is for your sake, and not for my
+      own, that I lay before you these facts, which to loving and devoted hearts
+      are sometimes of little weight. But I beg you to consider, monsieur, that
+      if I did not submit them to you, I might be suspected of leading your
+      tenderness to overlook obstacles which the world, and more especially your
+      mother, regard as insuperable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we are both
+      too young and too inexperienced to understand the miseries of a life
+      entered upon without other fortune than that I have received from the
+      kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My godfather desires, moreover,
+      not to marry me until I am twenty. Who knows what fate may have in store
+      for you in four years, the finest years of your life? do not sacrifice
+      them to a poor girl.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear godfather,
+      who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to contribute to it in every
+      way, and earnestly desires that his protection, which must soon fail me,
+      may be replaced by a tenderness equal to his own; there remains only to
+      tell you how touched I am by your offer and by the compliments which
+      accompany it. The prudence which dictates my letter is that of an old man
+      to whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I express is that of a young
+      girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has arisen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your servant, Ursula Mirouet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+      letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+      tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who suffered
+      from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often to her
+      chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting pensively
+      before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At the end of
+      the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him; the delay was
+      explained by his increasing love.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Dear Ursula,&mdash;I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up nothing
+      can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to us, is right; but
+      does it follow that I am wrong in loving you? Therefore, all I want to
+      know from you is whether you could love me. Tell me this, if only by a
+      sign, and then the next four years will be the finest of my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral Kergarouet,
+      a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy. The kind old man,
+      grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the king&rsquo;s favor would be
+      thwarted by the rules of the service in case I wanted a certain rank.
+      Nevertheless, if I study three months at Toulon, the minister of war can
+      send me to sea as master&rsquo;s mate; then after a cruise against the
+      Algerines, with whom we are now at war, I can go through an examination
+      and become a midshipman. Moreover, if I distinguish myself in an
+      expedition they are fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly be made
+      ensign&mdash;but how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make the
+      rules as elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again in the
+      navy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your godfather;
+      and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me. Before replying to
+      the admiral, I must have an interview with the doctor; on his reply my
+      whole future will depend. Whatever comes of it, know this, that rich or
+      poor, the daughter of a band master or the daughter of a king, you are the
+      woman whom the voice of my heart points out to me. Dear Ursula, we live in
+      times when prejudices which might once have separated us have no power to
+      prevent our marriage. To you, then, I offer the feelings of my heart, to
+      your uncle the guarantees which secure to him your happiness. He has not
+      seen that I, in a few hours, came to love you more than he has loved you
+      in fifteen years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until this evening. Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, godfather,&rdquo; said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a proud
+      gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, my child!&rdquo; cried the doctor when he had read it, &ldquo;I am happier than
+      even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking with
+      Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river. The
+      viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+      heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+      though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+      Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl clung
+      to her uncle&rsquo;s arm as though she were saving herself from a fall over a
+      precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which made him
+      shudder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave us, my child,&rdquo; he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and sat
+      upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss it
+      respectfully.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?&rdquo; he said to
+      the doctor in a low voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Minoret, smiling; &ldquo;we might have to wait too long, but&mdash;I
+      will give her to a lieutenant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Tears of joy filled the young man&rsquo;s eyes as he pressed the doctor&rsquo;s hand
+      affectionately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am about to leave,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;to study hard and try to learn in six
+      months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are going?&rdquo; said Ursula, springing towards them from the pavilion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to go,
+      the more I prove to you my affection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is the 3rd of October,&rdquo; she said, looking at him with infinite
+      tenderness; &ldquo;do not go till after the 19th.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;we will celebrate Saint-Savinien&rsquo;s day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-by, then,&rdquo; cried the young man. &ldquo;I must spend this week in Paris, to
+      take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical instruments, and
+      try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms that I can for
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after he
+      entered his mother&rsquo;s house they saw him come out again, followed by
+      Tiennette carrying his valise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you are rich,&rdquo; said Ursula to her uncle, &ldquo;why do you make him serve in
+      the navy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Presently it will be I who incurred his debts,&rdquo; said the doctor, smiling.
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear, and the
+      cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out many stains.
+      Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship, and that&rsquo;s all I
+      ask of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he may be killed,&rdquo; she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own,&rdquo; he said,
+      laughing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That night the poor child, with La Bougival&rsquo;s help, cut off a sufficient
+      quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a chain; and the
+      next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master, to take it to Paris
+      and have the chain made and returned by the following Sunday. When
+      Savinien got back he informed the doctor and Ursula that he had signed his
+      articles and was to be at Brest on the 25th. The doctor asked him to
+      dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly two whole days in the old man&rsquo;s
+      house. Notwithstanding much sage advice and many resolutions, the lovers
+      could not help betraying their secret understanding to the watchful eyes
+      of the abbe, Monsieur Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Children,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;you are risking your happiness by not
+      keeping it to yourselves.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+      exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered the
+      little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind old man,
+      by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the pagoda.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Ursula,&rdquo; said Savinien; &ldquo;will you make a gift greater than my mother
+      could make me even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know what you wish to ask me,&rdquo; she said, interrupting him. &ldquo;See, here
+      is my answer,&rdquo; she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the box
+      containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with a
+      nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. &ldquo;Wear it,&rdquo;
+       she said, &ldquo;for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by reminding
+      you that my life depends on yours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair,&rdquo; said the
+      doctor to himself. &ldquo;How did she manage to get it? what a pity to cut those
+      beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life&rsquo;s blood next.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving you,
+      a formal promise to have no other husband than me,&rdquo; said Savinien, kissing
+      the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have I not said so too often&mdash;I who went to see the walls of
+      Sainte-Pelagie when you were behind them?&mdash;&rdquo; she replied, blushing.
+      &ldquo;I repeat it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be
+      yours alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man could
+      not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and kissing
+      her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the bench, and
+      when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the doctor
+      standing before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My friend,&rdquo; said the old man, &ldquo;Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough a
+      word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm of your
+      love&mdash;Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have, you would
+      have been satisfied with her word of promise,&rdquo; he added, to revenge
+      himself for the last sentence in Savinien&rsquo;s second letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which he
+      wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without apparent
+      cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single thought gnawed
+      her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first time her godfather
+      asked her what she felt, she replied:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I want to see the ocean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,&rdquo;
+       answered the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shall I really go?&rdquo; she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite of
+      the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien was being
+      tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her happy for days
+      with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman in uniform. She
+      read the newspapers, imagining that they would give news of the cruiser on
+      which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper&rsquo;s sea-tales and learned to use
+      sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration of feeling, often assumed by other
+      women, were so genuine in Ursula that she saw in dreams the coming of
+      Savinien&rsquo;s letters, and never failed to announce them, relating the dream
+      as a forerunner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, &ldquo;I am
+      easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+      instantly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+      Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What pains you?&rdquo; they said, when Ursula had left them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will she live?&rdquo; replied the doctor. &ldquo;Can so tender and delicate a flower
+      endure the trials of the heart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nevertheless, the &ldquo;little dreamer,&rdquo; as the abbe called her, was working
+      hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a woman of the
+      world, and all the time she did not give to her singing and to the study
+      of harmony and composition she spent in reading the books chosen for her
+      by the abbe from her godfather&rsquo;s rich library. And yet while leading this
+      busy life she suffered, though without complaint. Sometimes she would sit
+      for hours looking at Savinien&rsquo;s window. On Sundays she would leave the
+      church behind Madame de Portenduere and watch her tenderly; for, in spite
+      of the old lady&rsquo;s harshness, she loved her as Savinien&rsquo;s mother. Her piety
+      increased; she went to mass every morning, for she firmly believed that
+      her dreams were the gift of God.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+      nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to see
+      the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien&rsquo;s ship formed part of it,
+      but he was not to be informed beforehand of their intention. The abbe and
+      Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of this journey, said to be for
+      Ursula&rsquo;s health, which disturbed and greatly puzzled the relations. After
+      beholding Savinien in his naval uniform, and going on board the fine
+      flag-ship of the admiral, to whom the minister had given young Portenduere
+      a special recommendation, Ursula, at her lover&rsquo;s entreaty, went with her
+      godfather to Nice, and along the shores of the Mediterranean to Genoa,
+      where she heard of the safe arrival of the fleet at Algiers and the
+      landing of the troops. The doctor would have liked to continue the journey
+      through Italy, as much to distract Ursula&rsquo;s mind as to finish, in some
+      sense, her education, by enlarging her ideas through comparison with other
+      manners and customs and countries, and by the fascination of a land where
+      the masterpieces of art can still be seen, and where so many civilizations
+      have left their brilliant traces. But the tidings of the opposition by the
+      throne to the newly elected Chamber of 1830 obliged the doctor to return
+      to France, bringing back his treasure in a flourishing state of health and
+      possessed of a charming little model of the ship on which Savinien was
+      serving.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+      relations,&mdash;Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours by
+      whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at Fontainebleau.
+      Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous influence over the
+      country electors. Five of the post master&rsquo;s farmers were electors. Dionis
+      represented eleven votes. After a few meetings at the notary&rsquo;s, Cremiere,
+      Massin, the post master, and their adherents took a habit of assembling
+      there. By the time the doctor returned, Dionis&rsquo;s office and salon were the
+      camp of his heirs. The justice of peace and the mayor, who had formed an
+      alliance, backed by the nobility in the neighbouring castles, to resist
+      the liberals of Nemours, now worsted in their efforts, were more closely
+      united than ever by their defeat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the doctor by
+      word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was defined for the
+      first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving incidentally such
+      importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left Rambouillet for Cherbourg.
+      Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, sent for
+      fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil and mounted on horses from his
+      father&rsquo;s stable, who arrived in Paris on the night of the 28th. With this
+      troop Goupil and Desire took part in the capture of the Hotel-de-Veille.
+      Desire was decorated with the Legion of honor and appointed deputy
+      procureur du roi at Fontainebleau. Goupil received the July cross. Dionis
+      was elected mayor of Nemours, and the city council was composed of the
+      post master (now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere, and all the adherents
+      of the family faction. Bongrand retained his place only through the
+      influence of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose marriage with
+      Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+      post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs in
+      shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about two
+      hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in the same
+      funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand francs a year. He
+      made the same disposition of Ursula&rsquo;s little capital bequeathed to her by
+      de Jordy, together with the accrued interest thereon, which gave her about
+      fourteen hundred francs a year in her own right. La Bougival, who had laid
+      by some five thousand francs of her savings, did the same by the doctor&rsquo;s
+      advice, receiving in future three hundred and fifty francs a year in
+      dividends. These judicious transactions, agreed on between the doctor and
+      Monsieur Bongrand, were carried out in perfect secrecy, thanks to the
+      political troubles of the time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+      adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+      stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him a
+      thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the Minoret
+      heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new era in the
+      doctor&rsquo;s existence, for he now (at a period when horses and carriages were
+      almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine horses and a
+      caleche.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church on a
+      rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to help her
+      out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,&mdash;as much to see the
+      caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the goddaughter, to
+      whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere, the post master, and
+      their wives attributed this extravagant folly of the old man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A caleche! Hey, Massin!&rdquo; cried Goupil. &ldquo;Your inheritance will go at top
+      speed now!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle,&rdquo; said the post master to
+      the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; &ldquo;for it is to
+      be supposed an old man of eighty-four won&rsquo;t use up many horse-shoes. What
+      did those horses cost?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two thousand;
+      but it&rsquo;s a fine one, the wheels are patent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, it&rsquo;s a good carriage,&rdquo; said Cremiere; &ldquo;and a man must be rich to buy
+      that style of thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula means to go at a good pace,&rdquo; said Goupil. &ldquo;She&rsquo;s right; she&rsquo;s
+      showing you how to enjoy life. Why don&rsquo;t you have fine carriages and
+      horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn&rsquo;t let myself be humiliated if I were you&mdash;I&rsquo;d
+      buy a carriage fit for a prince.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, Cabirolle, tell us,&rdquo; said Massin, &ldquo;is it the girl who drives our
+      uncle into such luxury?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know,&rdquo; said Cabirolle; &ldquo;but she is almost mistress of the house.
+      There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now she is going
+      to study painting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn,&rdquo; said Madame
+      Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old German is not dismissed, is he?&rdquo; said Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was there yesterday,&rdquo; replied Cabirolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;you may as well give up counting on your inheritance.
+      Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than ever. Travel forms
+      young people, and the little minx has got your uncle in the toils. Five or
+      six parcels come down for her by the diligence every week, and the
+      dressmakers and milliners come too, to try on her gowns and all the rest
+      of it. Madame Dionis is furious. Watch for Ursula as she comes out of
+      church and look at the little scarf she is wearing round her neck,&mdash;real
+      cashmere, and it cost six hundred francs!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+      have been less than that of Goupil&rsquo;s last words; the mischief-maker stood
+      by rubbing his hands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The doctor&rsquo;s old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian upholsterer.
+      Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused of hoarding
+      immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on Ursula. The heirs
+      called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but the saying, &ldquo;He&rsquo;s an old
+      fool!&rdquo; summed upon, on the whole, the verdict of the neighbourhood. These
+      mistaken judgments of the little town had the one advantage of misleading
+      the heirs, who never suspected the love between Savinien and Ursula, which
+      was the secret reason of the doctor&rsquo;s expenditure. The old man took the
+      greatest delights in accustoming his godchild to her future station in the
+      world. Possessing an income of over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave
+      him pleasure to adorn his idol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her eyes
+      beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from her window
+      when she rose in the morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why didn&rsquo;t I know he was coming?&rdquo; she said to herself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an act
+      of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was serving
+      was many months at sea without his being able to communicate with the
+      doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without consulting him.
+      Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already illustrious in its
+      service, the new government had profited by a general change of officers
+      to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained leave of absence for fifteen
+      days, the new officer arrived from Toulon by the mail, in time for
+      Ursula&rsquo;s fete, intending to consult the doctor at the same time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has come!&rdquo; cried Ursula rushing into her godfather&rsquo;s bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+      stay in Nemours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! that&rsquo;s my birthday present&mdash;it is all in that sentence,&rdquo; she
+      said, kissing him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came over at
+      once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so changed for the
+      better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain grave decision to
+      the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an erect bearing which
+      enables the most superficial observer to recognize a military man even in
+      plain clothes. The habit of command produces this result. Ursula loved
+      Savinien the better for it, and took a childlike pleasure in walking round
+      the garden with him, taking his arm, and hearing him relate the part he
+      played (as midshipman) in the taking of Algiers. Evidently Savinien had
+      taken the city. The doctor, who had been watching them from his window as
+      he dressed, soon came down. Without telling the viscount everything, he
+      did say that, in case Madame de Portenduere consented to his marriage with
+      Ursula, the fortune of his godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Alas!&rdquo; said Savinien. &ldquo;It will take a great deal of time to overcome my
+      mother&rsquo;s opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was placed
+      between two alternatives,&mdash;either to consent to my marrying Ursula or
+      else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the
+      dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Savinien, we shall be together,&rdquo; said Ursula, taking his hand and
+      shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To see each other and not to part,&mdash;that was the all of love to her;
+      she saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant tone of
+      her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were both
+      moved by it. The resignation was written and despatched, and Ursula&rsquo;s fete
+      received full glory from the presence of her betrothed. A few months
+      later, towards the month of May, the home-life of the doctor&rsquo;s household
+      had resumed the quite tenor of its way but with one welcome visitor the
+      more. The attentions of the young viscount were soon interpreted in the
+      town as those of a future husband,&mdash;all the more because his manners
+      and those of Ursula, whether in church, or on the promenade, though
+      dignified and reserved, betrayed the understanding of their hearts. Dionis
+      pointed out to the heirs that the doctor had never asked Madame de
+      Portenduere for the interest of his money, three years of which was now
+      due.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of her
+      son,&rdquo; said the notary. &ldquo;If such a misfortune happens it is probable that
+      the greater part of your uncle&rsquo;s fortune will serve for what Basile calls
+      &lsquo;an irresistible argument.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved Ursula
+      too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became as underhand
+      as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis&rsquo;s salon (as they had done every
+      evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed against the lovers,
+      and seldom separated without discussing some way of circumventing the old
+      man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the fall in the Funds, as the
+      doctor had done, to invest some, at least, of her enormous gains, was
+      bitterest of them all against the orphan girl and the Portendueres. One
+      evening, when Goupil, who usually avoided the dullness of these meetings,
+      had come in to learn something of the affairs of the town which were under
+      discussion, Zelie&rsquo;s hatred was freshly excited; she had seen the doctor,
+      Ursula, and Savinien returning in the caleche from a country drive, with
+      an air of intimacy that told all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself before
+      the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can take place,&rdquo;
+       she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+      great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite
+      alone:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you give me the means of buying Dionis&rsquo;s practice? If you will, I
+      will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How?&rdquo; asked the colossus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?&rdquo; said the notary&rsquo;s
+      head clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my lad, separate them, and we&rsquo;ll see what we can do,&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t embark in any such business on a &lsquo;we&rsquo;ll see.&rsquo; The young man is a
+      fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as good a hand
+      with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business, and I&rsquo;ll keep my
+      word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Prevent the marriage and I will set you up,&rdquo; said the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+      fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur&rsquo;s practice, and you expect me to
+      trust you now! Nonsense; you&rsquo;ll lose your uncle&rsquo;s property, and serve you
+      right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur&rsquo;s
+      practice, that might be managed,&rdquo; said Zelie; &ldquo;but to give security for
+      you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I&rsquo;ll do my part,&rdquo; said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at Zelie,
+      which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect was that of venom on steel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can wait,&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The devil&rsquo;s own spirit is in you,&rdquo; thought Goupil. &ldquo;If I ever catch that
+      pair in my power,&rdquo; he said to himself as he left the yard, &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll squeeze
+      them like lemons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur Bongrand,
+      Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love of this young
+      man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so persistent, interested
+      the three friends deeply, and they now never separated the lovers in their
+      thoughts. Soon the monotony of this patriarchal life, and the certainty of
+      a future before them, gave to their affection a fraternal character. The
+      doctor often left the pair alone together. He judged the young man
+      rightly; he saw him kiss her hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no
+      kiss when alone with her, so deeply did the lover respect the innocence,
+      the frankness of the young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried,
+      taught him that a harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of
+      gentleness and roughness might kill her. The only freedom between the two
+      took place before the eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,&mdash;without other
+      events than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from his
+      mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for hours
+      together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties, other than by
+      Breton silence or a positive denial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine musician,
+      and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was perfected. The
+      fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far. The doctor was
+      called upon to decline the overtures of Madame d&rsquo;Aiglemont, who was
+      thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months later, in spite of the
+      secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on this subject, Savinien heard
+      of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he made use of the incident in another
+      attempt to vanquish his mother&rsquo;s obstinacy; but she merely replied:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If the d&rsquo;Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason why
+      we should do so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+      eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his face
+      pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his approaching
+      death. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll soon know results,&rdquo; said the community to the heirs. In
+      truth the old man&rsquo;s death had all the attraction of a problem. But the
+      doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his illusions, and neither
+      poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the abbe were willing to
+      enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours doctor who came to see him
+      every day did not venture to prescribe. Old Minoret felt no pain; his lamp
+      of life was gently going out. His mind continued firm and clear and
+      powerful. In old men thus constituted the soul governs the body, and gives
+      it strength to die erect. The abbe, anxious not to hasten the fatal end,
+      released his parishioner from the duty of hearing mass in church, and
+      allowed him to read the services at home, for the doctor faithfully
+      attended to all his religious duties. The nearer he came to the grave the
+      more he loved God; the lights eternal shone upon all difficulties and
+      explained them more and more clearly to his mind. Early in the year Ursula
+      persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses and dismiss Cabirolle.
+      Monsieur Bongrand, whose uneasiness about Ursula&rsquo;s future was far from
+      quieted by the doctor&rsquo;s half-confidence, boldly opened the subject one
+      evening and showed his old friend the importance of making Ursula legally
+      of age. Still the old man, though he had often consulted the justice of
+      peace, would not reveal to him the secret of his provision for Ursula,
+      though he agreed to the necessity of securing her independence by
+      majority. The more Monsieur Bongrand persisted in his efforts to discover
+      the means selected by his old friend to provide for his darling the more
+      wary the doctor became.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not secure the thing,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;why run any risks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When you are between two risks,&rdquo; replied the doctor, &ldquo;avoid the most
+      risky.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so promptly
+      that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That anniversary was
+      the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps with a
+      presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited all the
+      young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere, Minoret, and Massin.
+      Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests, the Nemours
+      doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere, together with
+      old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which preceded the ball.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel I am going,&rdquo; said the old man to the notary towards the close of
+      the evening. &ldquo;I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship
+      account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my death.
+      Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,&mdash;I have
+      disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret
+      my nephew are members of the family council appointed for Ursula, and I
+      wish them to be present at the rendering of my account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another round
+      the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families, who had
+      lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes thinking they
+      were certain of wealth, oftener that they were disinherited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+      remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old doctor
+      said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress; &ldquo;To you, my
+      friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be here no longer to
+      protect her. Put yourselves between her and the world until she is
+      married,&mdash;I fear for her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words made a painful impression. The guardian&rsquo;s account, rendered a
+      day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor
+      Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs from
+      the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital of gifts
+      made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen years, on
+      birthdays and other anniversaries.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of the
+      peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of Doctor
+      Minoret&rsquo;s death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which compelled
+      him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always surrounded the
+      doctor&rsquo;s house and kept it from observation, the news of his approaching
+      death spread through the town, and the heirs began to run hither and
+      thither through the streets, like the pearls of a chaplet when the string
+      is broken. Massin called at the house to learn the truth, and was told by
+      Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed. The Nemours doctor had remarked
+      that whenever old Minoret took to his bed he would die; and therefore in
+      spite of the cold, the heirs took their stand in the street, on the
+      square, at their own doorsteps, talking of the event so long looked for,
+      and watching for the moment when the priests should appear, bearing the
+      sacrament, with all the paraphernalia customary in the provinces, to the
+      dying man. Accordingly, two days later, when the Abbe Chaperon, with an
+      assistant and the choir-boys, preceded by the sacristan bearing the cross,
+      passed along the Grand&rsquo;Rue, all the heirs joined the procession, to get an
+      entrance to the house and see that nothing was abstracted, and lay their
+      eager hands upon its coveted treasures at the earliest moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+      instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter than
+      the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round, saw
+      them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was the
+      first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him. Massin,
+      fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some ornament,
+      joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently assembled one
+      by one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction,&rdquo; said Cremiere; &ldquo;we may
+      be sure of his death now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year,&rdquo; replied
+      Madame Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have an idea,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;that for the last three years he hasn&rsquo;t
+      invested anything&mdash;he grew fond of hoarding.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps the money is in the cellar,&rdquo; whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope we shall be able to find it,&rdquo; said Minoret-Levrault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But after what he said at the ball we can&rsquo;t have any doubt,&rdquo; cried Madame
+      Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In any case,&rdquo; began Cremiere, &ldquo;how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+      shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method of
+      procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices, Zelie&rsquo;s
+      screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in the
+      courtyard and even in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The noise reached the doctor&rsquo;s ears; he heard the words, &ldquo;The house&mdash;the
+      house is worth thirty thousand francs. I&rsquo;ll take it at that,&rdquo; said, or
+      rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll take what it&rsquo;s worth,&rdquo; said Zelie, sharply.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; said the old man to the priest, who remained beside his
+      friend after administering the communion, &ldquo;help me to die in peace. My
+      heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging the house
+      before my death, and I have no monkey to revive me. Go and tell them I
+      will have none of them in my house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+      message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words of
+      their own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame Bougival,&rdquo; said the doctor, &ldquo;close the iron gate and allow no one
+      to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare mustard
+      poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur&rsquo;s feet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle is not dead,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;and he may live some time
+      longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+      niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+      yours!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old hypocrite!&rdquo; exclaimed Cremiere. &ldquo;I shall keep watch of him. It is
+      possible he&rsquo;s plotting something against our interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending to
+      watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+      assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no noise,
+      for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able to reach
+      the door of his uncle&rsquo;s room without being heard. The abbe and the doctor
+      had left the house; La Bougival was making the poultices.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are we quite alone?&rdquo; said the old man to his godchild.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;the abbe has just closed the gate after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling child,&rdquo; said the dying man, &ldquo;my hours, my minutes even, are
+      counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last till
+      evening. Do not cry, my Ursula,&rdquo; he said, fearing to be interrupted by the
+      child&rsquo;s weeping, &ldquo;but listen to me carefully; it concerns your marriage to
+      Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back go down to the pagoda,&mdash;here
+      is the key,&mdash;lift the marble top of the Boule buffet and you will
+      find a letter beneath it, sealed and addressed to you; take it and come
+      back here, for I cannot die easy unless I see it in your hands. When I am
+      dead do not let any one know of it immediately, but send for Monsieur de
+      Portenduere; read the letter together; swear to me now, in his name and
+      your own, that you will carry out my last wishes. When Savinien has obeyed
+      me, then announce my death, but not till then. The comedy of the heirs
+      will begin. God grant those monsters may not ill-treat you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes godfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped away
+      on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the library side
+      of the door. He had been present in former days at an argument between the
+      architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring that if the pagoda were
+      entered by the window on the river it would be much safer to put the lock
+      of the door opening into the library on the library side. Dazzled by his
+      hopes, and his ears flushed with blood, Minoret sprang the lock with the
+      point of his knife as rapidly as a burglar could have done it. He entered
+      the study, followed the doctor&rsquo;s directions, took the package of papers
+      without opening it, relocked the door, put everything in order, and went
+      into the dining-room and sat down, waiting till La Bougival had gone
+      upstairs with the poultice before he ventured to leave the house. He then
+      made his escape,&mdash;all the more easily because poor Ursula lingered to
+      see that La Bougival applied the poultice properly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The letter! the letter!&rdquo; cried the old man, in a dying voice. &ldquo;Obey me;
+      take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+      Ursula:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do what he asks at once or you will kill him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+      recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked at
+      her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to speak,
+      and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The poor girl,
+      who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and burst into tears.
+      La Bougival closed the old man&rsquo;s eyes and straightened him on the bed;
+      then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the corner of
+      the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before they scratch
+      at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked in with the
+      celerity of birds of prey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV. THE DOCTOR&rsquo;S WILL
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home to
+      open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother, Joseph
+      Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My dear Angel,&mdash;The fatherly affection I bear you&mdash;and which you
+      have so fully justified&mdash;came not only from the promise I gave your
+      father to take his place, but also from your resemblance to my wife,
+      Ursula Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and charm you
+      constantly recall to my mind. Your position as the daughter of a natural
+      son of my father-in-law might invalidate all testamentary bequests made by
+      me in your favor&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old rascal!&rdquo; cried the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I shrank
+      from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by marriage, for I might
+      live years and thus interfere with your happiness, which is now delayed
+      only by Madame de Portenduere. Having weighted these difficulties
+      carefully, and wishing to leave you enough money to secure to you a
+      prosperous existence&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &mdash;without injuring my heirs&mdash;
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!&rdquo;&mdash;I
+      intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for the last
+      eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my notary, seeking to
+      make you thereby as happy as any one can be made by riches. Without means,
+      your education and your lofty ideas would cause you unhappiness. Besides,
+      you ought to bring a liberal dowry to the fine young man who loves you.
+      You will therefore find in the middle of the third volume of Pandects,
+      folio, bound in red morocco (the last volume on the first shelf above the
+      little table in the library, on the side of the room next the salon),
+      three certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents, made out to bearer,
+      each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What depths of wickedness!&rdquo; screamed the post master. &ldquo;Ah! God would not
+      permit me to be so defrauded.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this date,
+      which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my darling child,
+      that you must obey a wish that has made the happiness of my whole life; a
+      wish that will force me to ask the intervention of God should you disobey
+      me. But, to guard against all scruples in your dear conscience&mdash;for I
+      well know how ready it is to torture you&mdash;you will find herewith a
+      will in due form bequeathing these certificates to Monsieur Savinien de
+      Portenduere. So, whether you possess them in your own name, or whether
+      they come to you from him you love, they will be, in every sense, your
+      legitimate property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your godfather, Denis Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+      stamped paper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in Nemours,
+      being of sound mind and body, as the date of this document will show, do
+      bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to pardon my errors in view of my
+      sincere repentance. Next, having found in Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de
+      Portenduere a true and honest affection for me, I bequeath to him the sum
+      of thirty-six thousand francs a year from the Funds, at three per cent,
+      the said bequest to take precedence of all inheritance accruing to my
+      heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Denis Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without an instant&rsquo;s hesitation the post master, who had locked himself
+      into his wife&rsquo;s bedroom to insure being alone, looked about for the
+      tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the extinction of two
+      matches which obstinately refused to light. The third took fire. He burned
+      the letter and the will on the hearth and buried the vestiges of paper and
+      sealing-wax in the ashes by way of superfluous caution. Then, allured by
+      the thought of possessing thirty-six thousand francs a year of which his
+      wife knew nothing, he returned at full speed to his uncle&rsquo;s house, spurred
+      by the only idea, a clear-cut, simple idea, which was able to piece and
+      penetrate his dull brain. Finding the house invaded by the three families,
+      now masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to
+      accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection whatever, except so
+      far as to fear the obstacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you doing here?&rdquo; he said to Massin and Cremiere. &ldquo;We can&rsquo;t leave
+      the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but we can&rsquo;t
+      camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him to come and
+      certify to the death; I can&rsquo;t draw up the mortuary certificate for an
+      uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go and ask old Bongrand
+      to attach the seals. As for you, ladies,&rdquo; he added, turning to his wife
+      and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, &ldquo;go and look after Ursula; then nothing
+      can be stolen. Above all, close the iron gate and don&rsquo;t let any one leave
+      the house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula&rsquo;s bedroom,
+      where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her knees before
+      God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting that the women would
+      not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the library, found the
+      volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and found in the other
+      volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his brutal nature the colossus
+      felt as though a peal of bells were ringing in each ear. The blood
+      whistled in his temples as he committed the theft; cold as the weather
+      was, his shirt was wet on his back; his legs gave way under him and he
+      fell into a chair in the salon as if an axe had fallen on his head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How the inheritance of money loosens a man&rsquo;s tongue! Did you hear
+      Minoret?&rdquo; said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town. &ldquo;&lsquo;Go
+      here, go there,&rsquo; just as if he knew everything.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. &ldquo;His wife is there;
+      they&rsquo;ve got some plan! Do you do both errands; I&rsquo;ll go back.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the heated
+      face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of death with the
+      celerity of a weasel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what is it now?&rdquo; asked the post master, unlocking the gate for his
+      co-heir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing,&rdquo; answered Massin,
+      giving him a savage look.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home,&rdquo; said
+      Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall have to put a watcher over them,&rdquo; said Massin. &ldquo;La Bougival is
+      capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We&rsquo;ll put Goupil
+      there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goupil!&rdquo; said the post master; &ldquo;put a rat in the meal!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, let&rsquo;s consider,&rdquo; returned Massin. &ldquo;To-night they&rsquo;ll watch the body;
+      the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after them.
+      To-morrow we&rsquo;ll have the funeral at twelve o&rsquo;clock. But the inventory
+      can&rsquo;t be made under a week.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let&rsquo;s get rid of that girl at once,&rdquo; said the colossus; &ldquo;then we can
+      safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and the
+      seals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good,&rdquo; cried Massin. &ldquo;You are the head of the Minoret family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ladies,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;be good enough to stay in the salon; we can&rsquo;t
+      think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+      security of all interests.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took his wife apart and told her Massin&rsquo;s proposition about Ursula. The
+      women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as they
+      called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived with his
+      assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the request was made
+      to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend of the deceased, to
+      tell Ursula to leave the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and turn her out of her father&rsquo;s house, her benefactor&rsquo;s house
+      yourselves,&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Go! you who owe your inheritance to the generosity
+      of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into the street
+      before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of robbing you?
+      Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to do that. But I
+      tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula&rsquo;s room; she has a right to
+      that room, and everything in it is her own property. I shall tell her what
+      her rights are, and tell her too to put everything that belongs to her in
+      this house in that room&mdash;Oh! in your presence,&rdquo; he said, hearing a
+      growl of dissatisfaction among the heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think of that?&rdquo; said the collector to the post master and the
+      women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call <i>him</i> a magistrate!&rdquo; cried the post master.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+      condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every now
+      and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids swollen;
+      she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical prostration which might
+      have softened the hardest hearts&mdash;except those of the heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and mourning,&rdquo;
+       she said, with the poetry natural to her. &ldquo;You know, <i>you</i>, what he
+      was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me. I believed he
+      would live a hundred years. He has been my mother,&rdquo; she cried, &ldquo;my good,
+      kind mother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes, interrupted
+      by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the staircase.
+      &ldquo;You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you have now only a
+      moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything that belongs to you
+      in this house and put it into your own room at once. The heirs insist on
+      my affixing the seals.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose,&rdquo; cried Ursula, sitting
+      upright under an impulse of savage indignation. &ldquo;I have something here,&rdquo;
+       she added, striking her breast, &ldquo;which is far more precious&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+      showed his brutal face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words&mdash;an image
+      of his celestial soul,&rdquo; she said, her eyes and face glowing as she raised
+      her hand with a glorious gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And a key!&rdquo; cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a key
+      which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; she said, blushing, &ldquo;that is the key of his study; he sent me there
+      at the moment he was dying.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at Monsieur
+      Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula who
+      intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her body.
+      Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue only at some
+      cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the kindness
+      of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me but the
+      clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She went to her godfather&rsquo;s room, and no entreaties could make her leave
+      it,&mdash;the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their
+      conduct, endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand to
+      engage two rooms for her at the &ldquo;Vieille Poste&rdquo; inn until she could find
+      some lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She returned
+      to her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night, with the abbe,
+      his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying beside her uncle&rsquo;s
+      body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt, without
+      a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him sadly, and thanked him for
+      coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, &ldquo;one of
+      your uncle&rsquo;s heirs has taken these necessary articles from your drawers,
+      for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that you will
+      recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own sake, placed
+      the seals on your room.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; she replied, pressing his hand. &ldquo;Look at him again,&mdash;he
+      seems to sleep, does he not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old man&rsquo;s face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests upon
+      the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared to
+      radiate from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did he give you anything secretly before he died?&rdquo; whispered M. Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;he spoke only of a letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good! it will certainly be found,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;How fortunate for you
+      that the heirs demanded the sealing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+      passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love began.
+      So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief tears of
+      regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven. With one last
+      glance at Savinien&rsquo;s windows she left the room and the house, and went to
+      the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the package, by Monsieur
+      Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien, her true protector.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the worst
+      fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see Ursula
+      without means and at the mercy of her benefactor&rsquo;s heirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor&rsquo;s funeral. When the
+      conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known, a vast
+      majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An inheritance
+      was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded; Ursula might think
+      she had rights; the heirs were only defending their property; she had
+      humbled them enough during their uncle&rsquo;s lifetime, for he had treated them
+      like dogs and sent them about their business.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those who
+      envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable to be
+      present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly by the
+      insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look at that hypocrite weeping,&rdquo; said some of the heirs, pointing to
+      Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor&rsquo;s death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question is,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;has he any good grounds for weeping.
+      Don&rsquo;t laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, &ldquo;you are
+      always frightening us about nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery, a
+      bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take Desire&rsquo;s
+      arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his former comrade in
+      presence of all Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won&rsquo;t be angry, or I couldn&rsquo;t get revenge,&rdquo; thought the notary&rsquo;s clerk,
+      whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time for
+      the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to commission
+      Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done the settlement
+      of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked of in the town for
+      ten days) began with all the legal formalities. Dionis had his pickings;
+      Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as the business was profitable
+      the sessions were many. After the first of these sessions all parties
+      breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs, and witnesses drank the best
+      wines in the doctor&rsquo;s cellar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives in
+      his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging. When a
+      man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost always
+      included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of removing
+      Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the Grand&rsquo;Rue at
+      the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little building had a front
+      door opening on a corridor, and one room on the ground-floor with two
+      windows on the street; behind this came the kitchen, with a glass door
+      opening to an inner courtyard about thirty feet square. A small staircase,
+      lighted on the side towards the river by small windows, led to the first
+      floor where there were three chambers, and above these were two attic
+      rooms. Monsieur Bongrand borrowed two thousand francs from La Bougival&rsquo;s
+      savings to pay the first instalment of the price,&mdash;six thousand
+      francs,&mdash;and obtained good terms for payment of the rest. As Ursula
+      wished to buy her uncle&rsquo;s books, Bongrand knocked down the partition
+      between two rooms on the bedroom floor, finding that their united length
+      was the same as that of the doctor&rsquo;s library, and gave room for his
+      bookshelves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning, painting,
+      and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the end of March
+      Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in the ugly house;
+      where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the one she had left; for
+      it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by the justice of peace when
+      the seals were removed. La Bougival, sleeping in the attic, could be
+      summoned by a bell placed near the head of the young girl&rsquo;s bed. The room
+      intended for the books, the salon on the ground-floor and the kitchen,
+      though still unfurnished, had been hung with fresh papers and repainted,
+      and only awaited the purchases which the young girl hoped to make when her
+      godfather&rsquo;s effects were sold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Though the strength of Ursula&rsquo;s character was well known to the abbe and
+      Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the comfort and
+      elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this barren and
+      denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in fact, make
+      private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so that Ursula
+      should perceive no difference between the new chamber and the old one. But
+      the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in Savinien&rsquo;s own eyes,
+      showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared her more and more to her
+      two old friends, and proved to them for the hundredth time that no
+      troubles but those of the heart could make her suffer. The grief she felt
+      for the loss of her godfather was far too deep to let her even feel the
+      bitterness of her change of fortune, though it added fresh obstacles to
+      her marriage. Savinien&rsquo;s distress in seeing her thus reduced did her so
+      much harm that she whispered to him, as they came from mass on the morning
+      on the day when she first went to live in her new house:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Love could not exist without patience; let us wait.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+      Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to the
+      post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay off the
+      mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest accruing
+      thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one hundred and
+      twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs within twenty-four
+      hours under pain of execution on her house. It was impossible for her to
+      borrow the money. Savinien went to Fontainebleau to consult a lawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise,&rdquo; was
+      the lawyer&rsquo;s opinion. &ldquo;They intend to sue in the matter and get your farm
+      at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a voluntary sale of it
+      and so escape costs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently pointed
+      out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret&rsquo;s life-time,
+      the doctor would have left his property to Ursula&rsquo;s husband and they would
+      to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now were, in the depths
+      of poverty. Though said without reproach, this argument annihilated the
+      poor woman even more than the thought of her coming ejectment. When Ursula
+      heard of this catastrophe she was stupefied with grief, having scarcely
+      recovered from her fever, and the blow which the heirs had already dealt
+      her. To love and be unable to succor the man she loves,&mdash;that is one
+      of the most dreadful of all sufferings to the soul of a noble and
+      sensitive woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wished to buy my uncle&rsquo;s house,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;now I will buy your
+      mother&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you?&rdquo; said Savinien. &ldquo;You are a minor, and you cannot sell out your
+      Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your legal
+      guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town will be
+      glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like
+      hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have ten thousand francs left,
+      on which I can support my mother till this deplorable matter is settled.
+      Besides, the inventory of your godfather&rsquo;s property is not yet finished;
+      Monsieur Bongrand still thinks he shall find something for you. He is as
+      much astonished as I am that you seem to be left without fortune. The
+      doctor so often spoke both to him and to me of the future he had prepared
+      for you that neither of us can understand this conclusion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;so long as I can buy my godfather&rsquo;s books and furniture
+      and prevent their being dispersed, I am content.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything you
+      want?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million for
+      which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search made in
+      every corner of the house after the seals were removed, brought no
+      discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs of the
+      Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in the three
+      per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty thousand francs,
+      and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about six hundred thousand
+      francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting sum. But what had become
+      of the money the doctor must have saved?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+      persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence of a
+      will, came every day at the close of each session to find out from
+      Bongrand the results of the day&rsquo;s search. The latter would sometimes
+      exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of hearing, &ldquo;I
+      can&rsquo;t understand the thing!&rdquo; Bongrand, Savinien, and the abbe often
+      declared to each other that the doctor, who received no interest from the
+      Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as he did on fifteen
+      thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly expressed, made the post
+      master turn livid more than once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere,&rdquo; said Bongrand,&mdash;&ldquo;they to
+      find money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere. They
+      have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers, bored
+      into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped up the
+      quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch of paper
+      piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor&mdash;and I
+      have urged on their devastations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you think about it?&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where&rsquo;s the property?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We may whistle for it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps the will is hidden in the library,&rdquo; said Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, and for that reason I don&rsquo;t dissuade Ursula from buying it. If it
+      were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of her
+      ready money into books she will never open.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first the whole town believed the doctor&rsquo;s niece had got possession of
+      the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+      hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+      search of the doctor&rsquo;s house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+      curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank bills
+      hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had slipped them
+      into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a spectacle of the most
+      extraordinary precautions on the part of the heirs. Dionis, who was doing
+      duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each lot was cried out, that the heirs
+      only sold the article (whatever it was) and not what it might contain;
+      then, before allowing it to be taken away it was subjected to a final
+      investigation, being thumped and sounded; and when at last it left the
+      house the sellers followed with the looks a father might cast upon a son
+      who was starting for India.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, mademoiselle,&rdquo; cried La Bougival, returning from the first session in
+      despair, &ldquo;I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right, you could
+      never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town is coming and
+      going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is being ruined, they
+      even stand upon it; the whole place is such a muddle that a hen couldn&rsquo;t
+      find her chicks. You&rsquo;d think there had been a fire. Lots of things are in
+      the courtyard; the closets are all open, and nothing in them. Oh! the poor
+      dear man, it&rsquo;s well he died, the sight would have killed him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+      cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not appear at
+      the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose cupidity might
+      have run up the price of the books had they known he was buying them for
+      Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books living in Melun to buy them
+      for him. As a result of the heir&rsquo;s anxiety the whole library was sold book
+      by book. Three thousand volumes were examined, one by one, held by the two
+      sides of the binding and shaken so that loose papers would infallibly fall
+      out. The whole amount of the purchases on Ursula&rsquo;s account amounted to six
+      thousand five hundred francs or thereabouts. The book-cases were not
+      allowed to leave the premises until carefully examined by a cabinet-maker,
+      brought down from Paris to search for secret drawers. When at last
+      Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the books and the bookcases to
+      Mademoiselle Mirouet&rsquo;s house the heirs were tortured with vague fears, not
+      dissipated until in course of time they saw how poorly she lived.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret bought up his uncle&rsquo;s house, the value of which his co-heirs ran
+      up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master expected to
+      find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold with a
+      reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed of his post
+      establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son of a rich
+      farmer, and went to live in his uncle&rsquo;s house, where he spent considerable
+      sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By making this move he
+      thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within sight of Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope,&rdquo; he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+      summoned to pay her debt, &ldquo;that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+      after they are gone we&rsquo;ll drive out the rest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That old woman with fourteen quarterings,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;won&rsquo;t want to
+      witness her own disaster; she&rsquo;ll go and die in Brittany, where she can
+      manage to find a wife for her son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale at
+      Bongrand&rsquo;s request. &ldquo;Ursula has just bought the house she is living in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!&rdquo; cried the post
+      master imprudently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?&rdquo; asked
+      Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you know,&rdquo; answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, &ldquo;that my
+      son is fool enough to be in love with her? I&rsquo;d give five hundred francs if
+      I could get Ursula out of this town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+      shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn
+      in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of an
+      estate, the sale of the property, the going and coming necessitated by
+      such unusual business, his discussions with his wife about the most
+      trifling details, the purchase of the doctor&rsquo;s house, where Zelie wished
+      to live in bourgeois style to advance her son&rsquo;s interests,&mdash;all this
+      hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually tranquil life hindered the huge
+      Minoret from thinking of his victim. But about the middle of May, a few
+      days after his installation in the doctor&rsquo;s house, as he was coming home
+      from a walk, he heard the sound of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting at a
+      window, like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly became aware of an
+      importunate voice within him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To explain why to a man of Minoret&rsquo;s nature the sight of Ursula, who had
+      no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became intolerable; why
+      the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune impelled him to a
+      desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and why it was that this
+      desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole treatise
+      on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was not the real possessor of
+      thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom they really
+      belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied some mere chance might betray
+      his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of. Perhaps to a nature
+      in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and whose owner up to that
+      time had never done anything illegal, the presence of Ursula awakened
+      remorse. Possibly this remorse goaded him the more because he had received
+      his share of the property legitimately acquired. In his own mind he no
+      doubt attributed these stirrings of his conscience to the fact of Ursula&rsquo;s
+      presence, imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable
+      feelings would disappear with her. But still, after all, perhaps crime has
+      its own doctrine of perfection. A beginning of evil demands its end; a
+      first stab must be followed by the blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is
+      doomed to lead to murder. Minoret had committed the crime without the
+      slightest reflection, so rapidly had the events taken place; reflection
+      came later. Now, if you have thoroughly possessed yourself of this man&rsquo;s
+      nature and bodily presence you will understand the mighty effect produced
+      on him by a thought. Remorse is more than a thought; it comes from a
+      feeling which can no more be hidden than love; like love, it has its own
+      tyranny. But, just as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula
+      without the slightest reflection, so he now blindly longed to drive her
+      from Nemours when he felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged
+      innocence. Being, in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the
+      consequences; he went from danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct,
+      like a wild animal which does not foresee the huntsman&rsquo;s skill, and relies
+      on its own rapidity or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still
+      met in Dionis&rsquo;s salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior
+      of the man who had hitherto been so free of care.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what has come to Minoret, he is all <i>no how</i>,&rdquo; said his
+      wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less, ennui
+      (in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui),
+      caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the change from
+      an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula&rsquo;s life in Nemours, La
+      Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her foster child with
+      some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without comparing
+      her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor had promised, and of which
+      he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for myself I speak,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but is it likely that monsieur,
+      good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me the merest
+      trifle?&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Am I not here?&rdquo; replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+      word on the subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that surrounded
+      that noble head&mdash;a sketch of which in black and white hung in her
+      little salon&mdash;with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh and
+      beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her <i>see</i> her
+      godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more because
+      surrounded with the things he loved and used,&mdash;his large
+      duchess-sofa, the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and the
+      piano he had chosen for her. The two old friends who still remained to
+      her, the Abbe Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only visitors whom she
+      received, were, in the midst of these inanimate objects representative of
+      the past, like two living memories of her former life to which she
+      attached her present by the love her godfather had blessed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave tone
+      to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+      indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+      symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+      nothings of a young girl&rsquo;s life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits
+      diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After
+      breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and practiced; then she
+      took her embroidery and sat at the window looking on the street. At four
+      o&rsquo;clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which he took in all weathers),
+      finding the window open, would sit upon the outer casing and talk with her
+      for half an hour. In the evening the abbe and Monsieur Bongrand came to
+      see her, but she never allowed Savinien to accompany them. Neither did she
+      accept Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s proposition, which Savinien had induced his
+      mother to make, that she should visit there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy; they
+      did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a month. The
+      old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked only twice a
+      week,&mdash;mistress and maid eating their food cold on other days; for
+      Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still due on the
+      purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with her modesty and
+      her resignation to a life of poverty after the enjoyment of luxury and the
+      fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply impressed certain persons.
+      Ursula won the respect of others, and no voice was raised against her.
+      Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her justice. Savinien admired the
+      strength of character of so young a girl. From time to time Madame de
+      Portenduere, when they met in church, would address a few kind words to
+      her, and twice she insisted on her coming to dinner and fetched her
+      herself. If all this was not happiness it was at least tranquillity. But a
+      benefit which came to Ursula through the legal care and ability of
+      Bongrand started the smouldering persecution which up to this time had
+      laid in Minoret&rsquo;s breast as a dumb desire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor&rsquo;s estate was finished, the
+      justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the Portendueres in
+      hand and promised her to get them out of their trouble. In dealing with
+      the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula&rsquo;s happiness made him furious, he
+      did not allow her to be ignorant of the fact that his devotion to her
+      service was solely to give pleasure to Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose one
+      of his former clerks to act for the Portendueres at Fontainebleau, and
+      himself put in a motion for a stay of proceedings. He intended to profit
+      by the interval which must elapse between the stoppage of the present suit
+      and some new step on the part of Massin to renew the lease at six thousand
+      francs, get a premium from the present tenants and the payment in full of
+      the rent of the current year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+      whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s salon,
+      between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+      escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded in
+      quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he obtained
+      a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a rent of six
+      thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day on which this
+      was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew to be puzzled as to
+      how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her the farm at Bordieres
+      for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;d buy it at once,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;if I were sure the Portendueres would
+      go and live somewhere else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why?&rdquo; said the justice of peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+      should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough left to
+      live here. She is thinking of selling her house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, sell it to me,&rdquo; said Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To you?&rdquo; said Zelie. &ldquo;You talk as if you were master of everything. What
+      do you want with two houses in Nemours?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I don&rsquo;t settle this matter of the farm with you to-night,&rdquo; said
+      Bongrand, &ldquo;our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim, and
+      I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make. So if
+      you don&rsquo;t take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some farmers I
+      know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you come to us, then?&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me wait
+      some time for the money. I don&rsquo;t want difficulties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Get <i>her</i> out of Nemours and I&rsquo;ll pay it,&rdquo; exclaimed Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s actions,&rdquo;
+       said Bongrand. &ldquo;I can only repeat what I heard her say, but I feel certain
+      they will not remain in Nemours.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to the
+      purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to the
+      doctor&rsquo;s estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by Dionis.
+      Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the purchase money
+      to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in the Funds, where,
+      joined to Savinien&rsquo;s ten thousand, it would give her, at five per cent, an
+      income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far from losing her resources, the
+      old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she did not leave
+      Nemours. Minoret thought he had been tricked,&mdash;as though Bongrand had
+      had an idea that Ursula&rsquo;s presence was intolerable to him; and he felt a
+      keen resentment which embittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a
+      secret drama which was terrible in its effects,&mdash;the struggle of two
+      determinations; one which impelled Minoret to drive his victim from
+      Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to bear persecution, the
+      cause of which was for a certain length of time undiscoverable. The
+      situation was a strange and even unnatural one, and yet it was led up to
+      by all the preceding events, which served as a preface to what was now to
+      occur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver service
+      costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner every Sunday,
+      the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came from Fontainebleau,
+      bringing with him certain of his friends. On these occasions Zelie sent to
+      Paris for delicacies&mdash;obliging Dionis the notary to emulate her
+      display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to ignore as a questionable
+      person who might tarnish their splendor, was not invited until the end of
+      July. The clerk, who was fully aware of this intended neglect, was forced
+      to be respectful to Desire, who, since his entrance into office, had
+      assumed a haughty and dignified air, even in his own family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must have forgotten Esther,&rdquo; Goupil said to him, &ldquo;as you are so much
+      in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+      never even thought of Ursula,&rdquo; said the new magistrate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?&rdquo; cried Goupil, insolently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+      countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was, in
+      fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,&mdash;Minoret having
+      remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the marriage
+      between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil hurriedly to
+      the end of the garden.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;and I
+      don&rsquo;t see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for after
+      all you were once my son&rsquo;s companion. Listen to me. If you can persuade
+      that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty thousand francs,
+      to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is Minoret, the means to
+      buy a notary&rsquo;s practice at Orleans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;that&rsquo;s too far out of the way; but Montargis&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Minoret; &ldquo;Sens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good,&mdash;Sens,&rdquo; replied the hideous clerk. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s an archbishop
+      at Sens, and I don&rsquo;t object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there you
+      are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she&rsquo;ll succeed
+      at Sens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is to be fully understood,&rdquo; continued Minoret, &ldquo;that I shall not pay
+      the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide, out of
+      consideration for my deceased uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not for me too?&rdquo; said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+      secret motive in Minoret&rsquo;s conduct. &ldquo;Isn&rsquo;t it through information you got
+      from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land, without
+      a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields and the mill
+      the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more. Come, old fellow,
+      do you mean to play fair with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+      estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;d better think twice before you do that,&rdquo; said Zelie, suddenly
+      intervening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I choose,&rdquo; said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; &ldquo;Massin would buy
+      the whole for two hundred thousand francs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave us, wife,&rdquo; said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and shoving
+      her away; &ldquo;I understand him. We have been so very busy,&rdquo; he continued,
+      returning to Goupil, &ldquo;that we have had no time to think of you; but I rely
+      on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very ancient marquisate,&rdquo; said Goupil, maliciously; &ldquo;which will
+      soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that means a
+      capital of more than two millions as money is now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+      daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+      under the government in Paris,&rdquo; said Minoret, opening his huge snuff-box
+      and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very good; but will you play fair?&rdquo; cried Goupil, shaking his fingers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret pressed the clerk&rsquo;s hands replying:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On my word of honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed that
+      the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part of the
+      colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was opposing them
+      with Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It isn&rsquo;t he,&rdquo; thought Goupil, &ldquo;who has invented this scheme; I know my
+      Zelie,&mdash;she taught him his part. Bah! I&rsquo;ll let Massin go. In three
+      years time I&rsquo;ll be deputy from Sens.&rdquo; Just then he saw Bongrand on his way
+      to the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+      Bongrand,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;I know you will not be indifferent to her future. Her
+      relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she ought to
+      marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of an
+      arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy in three
+      years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs on her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She can do better than that,&rdquo; said Bongrand coldly. &ldquo;Madame de
+      Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is killing
+      her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula has a
+      capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it a la
+      Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savinien will do a foolish thing,&rdquo; said Goupil; &ldquo;he can marry
+      Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,&mdash;an only daughter to whom
+      the uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says&mdash;By the
+      bye, who is your notary?&rdquo; added Bongrand from curiosity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose it were I?&rdquo; answered Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You!&rdquo; exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well!&mdash;Adieu, monsieur,&rdquo; replied Goupil, with a parting glance
+      of gall and hatred and defiance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred thousand
+      francs on you?&rdquo; cried Bongrand entering Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s little
+      salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,&mdash;she smiling,
+      he not daring to show his uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not mistress of myself,&rdquo; said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+      Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why did you do that?&rdquo; said Madame de Portenduere. &ldquo;I think the position
+      of a notary is a very good one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I prefer my peaceful poverty,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;which is really wealth
+      compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my old
+      nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+      present, which I like, for an unknown fate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of anonymous
+      letters,&mdash;one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other to
+      Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental
+  band-master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him
+  to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The letter to Ursula was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  Dear Ursula,&mdash;There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival&rsquo;s pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two days
+      later she received another letter in the following language:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien&mdash;you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      This letter agonized Ursula&rsquo;s heart and afflicted her with the tortures of
+      jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but which to this
+      fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall over the present and
+      over the future, and even over the past. From the moment when she received
+      this fatal paper she lay on the doctor&rsquo;s sofa, her eyes fixed on space,
+      lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant the chill of death had come upon
+      her warm young life. Alas, worse than that! it was like the awful
+      awakening of the dead to the sense that there was no God,&mdash;the
+      masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean Paul. Four times La
+      Bougival called her to breakfast. When the faithful creature tried to
+      remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and answered in one harsh word, &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo;
+       said despotically, in strange contrast to her usual gentle manner. La
+      Bougival, watching her mistress through the glass door, saw her
+      alternately red with a consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of cold
+      had succeeded that unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and worse up
+      to four o&rsquo;clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming, but he did
+      not come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love. Ursula, who
+      till then had never made one gesture by which her love could be guessed,
+      now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if to go and
+      meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to her little
+      salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in the evening La
+      Bougival met him at the door.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, monsieur!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what&rsquo;s the matter with
+      mademoiselle; she is&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know,&rdquo; said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+      Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And Savinien too?&rdquo; she asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe quiver
+      as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he felt moreover
+      a lasting commotion in his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So we shall not go there to-night,&rdquo; he said as gently as he could; &ldquo;and,
+      my child, it would be better if you did not go there again. The old lady
+      will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur Bongrand and I,
+      who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your marriage, have no idea
+      from what quarter this new influence has come to change her, as it were in
+      a moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now,&rdquo; said Ursula in a pained
+      voice. &ldquo;In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we have done
+      nothing to displease God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of Providence,&rdquo;
+       said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de Portenduere&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you no longer call him Savinien?&rdquo; asked the priest, who detected a
+      slight bitterness in Ursula&rsquo;s tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of my dear Savinien,&rdquo; cried the girl, bursting into tears. &ldquo;Yes, my good
+      friend,&rdquo; she said, sobbing, &ldquo;a voice tells me he is as noble in heart as
+      he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me alone, but he has
+      proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by restraining heroically his
+      ardent feelings. Lately when he took the hand I held out to him, that
+      evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed to me a husband, it was the first
+      time, I swear to you, that I had ever given it. He began with a jest when
+      he blew me a kiss across the street, but since then our affection has
+      never outwardly passed, as you well know, the narrowest limits. But I will
+      tell you,&mdash;you who read my soul except in this one region where none
+      but the angels see,&mdash;well, I will tell you, this love has been in me
+      the secret spring of many seeming merits; it made me accept my poverty; it
+      softened the bitterness of my irreparable loss, for my mourning is more
+      perhaps in my clothes now than in my heart&mdash;Oh, was I wrong? can it
+      be that love was stronger in me than my gratitude to my benefactor, and
+      God has punished me for it? But how could it be otherwise? I respected in
+      myself Savinien&rsquo;s future wife; yes, perhaps I was too proud, perhaps it is
+      that pride which God has humbled. God alone, as you have often told me,
+      should be the end and object of all our actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her pallid
+      face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she was now to
+      fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; she said, continuing, &ldquo;if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+      shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+      mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am I to
+      bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so divine
+      that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You know I have
+      often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave, and for
+      knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady&rsquo;s death. If Savinien is
+      rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my entrance to a
+      convent, where I shall go at once. There can no more be two loves in a
+      woman&rsquo;s heart than there can be two masters in heaven, and the life of a
+      religious is attractive to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre,&rdquo; said the abbe, gently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend,&rdquo; she answered. &ldquo;I will
+      write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the windows of
+      this room,&rdquo; she continued, telling her old friend of the anonymous
+      letters, but declaring that she would not allow any inquiries to be made
+      as to who her unknown lover might be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere to
+      Rouvre,&rdquo; cried the abbe. &ldquo;You are annoyed for some object by evil
+      persons.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I am no
+      longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well, my child,&rdquo; said the abbe, quietly, &ldquo;let us profit by this
+      tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+      order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them in
+      order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God, and
+      remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two devoted
+      friends.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is much, very much,&rdquo; she said, going with him to the threshold of
+      the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over its
+      nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+      stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not? You
+      seem changed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went back
+      into the house without replying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is cross,&rdquo; said Minoret to the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold
+      of her door,&rdquo; said the abbe; &ldquo;she is too young&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh!&rdquo; said Goupil. &ldquo;I am told she doesn&rsquo;t lack lovers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+      Bourgeois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Goupil to Minoret, &ldquo;the thing is working. Did you notice how
+      pale she was. Within a fortnight she&rsquo;ll have left the town&mdash;you&rsquo;ll
+      see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Better have you for a friend than an enemy,&rdquo; cried Minoret, frightened at
+      the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil&rsquo;s face the diabolical expression
+      of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think so!&rdquo; returned Goupil. &ldquo;If she doesn&rsquo;t marry me I&rsquo;ll make
+      her die of grief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do it, my boy, and I&rsquo;ll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in Paris.
+      You can then marry a rich woman&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done to
+      you?&rdquo; asked the clerk in surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She annoys me,&rdquo; said Minoret, gruffly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I&rsquo;ll rasp her,&rdquo; said Goupil,
+      studying the expression of the late post master&rsquo;s face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what the dear child has written to you,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;but she
+      is almost dead this morning.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+      sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  My dear Savinien,&mdash;Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice&mdash;for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself&mdash;not to me&mdash;in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations&mdash;which we have hitherto accepted so gayly&mdash;you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, &ldquo;Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days.&rdquo; When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you&mdash;but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+      scratched off hastily the following reply:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  My dear Ursula,&mdash;Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother&rsquo;s consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that&rsquo;s a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle&rsquo;s
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.&mdash;Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then&mdash;Nothing can separate us.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+      longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That afternoon at four o&rsquo;clock, returning from the walk which he always
+      took expressly to pass before Ursula&rsquo;s house, Savinien found his mistress
+      waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these sudden changes and
+      excitements.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+      seeing you is,&rdquo; she said to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You once said to me,&rdquo; replied Savinien, smiling,&mdash;&ldquo;for I remember
+      all your words,&mdash;&lsquo;Love lives by patience; we will wait!&rsquo; Dear, you
+      have separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels;
+      we will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I love
+      you, but&mdash;did I ever doubt you?&rdquo; he said, offering her a bouquet of
+      wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have never had any reason to doubt me,&rdquo; she replied; &ldquo;and, besides,
+      you don&rsquo;t know all,&rdquo; she added, in a troubled voice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+      without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+      found, a few moments before Savinien&rsquo;s arrival, a letter tossed on her
+      sofa which contained the words: &ldquo;Tremble! a rejected lover can become a
+      tiger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Withstanding Savinien&rsquo;s entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+      prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again, after
+      she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her recover from
+      the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite evil is torture
+      to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the unknown, and the
+      unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the pain was exquisite.
+      Something without her bounded at the slightest noise; yet she was afraid
+      of silence, and suspected even the walls of collusion. Even her sleep was
+      restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of her nature, delicate as that of a
+      flower, had found, with the instinct of evil, the poison that could wither
+      and destroy her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano till
+      very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About midnight
+      she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a clarinet, hautboy,
+      flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon, flageolet, and triangle. All
+      the neighbours were at their windows. The poor girl, already frightened at
+      seeing the people in the street, received a dreadful shock as she heard
+      the coarse, rough voice of a man proclaiming in loud tones: &ldquo;For the
+      beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from her lover.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+      entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+      gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+      curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were rife
+      on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive, determined not to
+      leave the house again,&mdash;the abbe having advised her to say vespers in
+      her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying in the passage, which
+      was floored with brick, a letter which had evidently been slipped under
+      the door. She picked it up and read it, under the idea that it would
+      obtain an explanation. It was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am resolved. If
+      you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To your refusal you may
+      attribute not only your own misfortunes, but those which will fall on
+      others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He who loves you, and whose wife you will be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this plot
+      was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis, and
+      Cremiere were envying her lot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She is a lucky girl,&rdquo; they were saying; &ldquo;people talk of her, and court
+      her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was a
+      cornet-a-piston.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s a piston?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!&rdquo; replied Angelique
+      Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to find
+      out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in garrison. But as
+      there were two men to each instrument it was impossible to find out which
+      of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel forbade them to play for any
+      private person in future without his permission. Savinien had an interview
+      with the procureur du roi, Ursula&rsquo;s legal guardian, and explained to him
+      the injury these scenes would do to a young girl naturally so delicate and
+      sensitive, begging him to take some action to discover the author of such
+      wrong.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy began
+      another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards Montargis, where
+      there happened then to be a company of comic actors. A loud and ringing
+      voice called out as they left: &ldquo;To the daughter of the regimental bandsman
+      Mirouet.&rdquo; By this means all Nemours came to know the profession of
+      Ursula&rsquo;s father, a secret the old doctor had sedulously kept.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day an
+      anonymous letter containing a prophecy:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for she
+      was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+      persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+      mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted her
+      eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows, and
+      prayed fervently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad I cannot go down into the salon,&rdquo; she said to Monsieur Bongrand
+      and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; &ldquo;<i>He</i> would come,
+      and I am now unworthy of the looks with which <i>he</i> blessed me. Do you
+      think <i>he</i> will suspect me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to
+      get the assistance of the Paris police,&rdquo; said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whoever it is will know I am dying,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;and will cease to
+      trouble me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and suspicions.
+      Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on whom the abbe
+      could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their guard night and
+      day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil, whose
+      machinations were known to himself only. There were no more serenades and
+      no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed. Bongrand thought
+      the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien believed that the
+      procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters received by Ursula and
+      himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an end to the persecution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+      checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just
+      as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one
+      morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post
+      declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a
+      small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried to
+      pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so fast
+      that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the persons who
+      frequented Dionis&rsquo;s salon attributed these manoeuvres to the Marquis du
+      Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held his notes to a large
+      amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his daughter to Savinien
+      would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors; and Madame de
+      Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything that would
+      discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by the
+      sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully overcome by
+      this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept to
+      the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult had
+      caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which was taken
+      in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My child,&mdash;Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your enemies.
+      Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien&rsquo;s life. I will tell you more
+      when I am able to go to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Your devoted friend,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chaperon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried this
+      letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so amazed and
+      horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his own
+      handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition into
+      which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once more to the
+      procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal guardian. What
+      is to be done?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you can find any means of repression,&rdquo; said the official, &ldquo;I will
+      adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+      advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the Adoration
+      of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at Fontainebleau
+      shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your own defence. I
+      have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du Rouvre justly
+      indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people have put upon him.
+      Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty for the purchase of the
+      estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish count; and Monsieur du
+      Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I saw him, to avoid arrest
+      for debt.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his thought.
+      He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only man capable
+      of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal code without
+      infringing a hair&rsquo;s-breadth upon it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil&rsquo;s audacity. He made
+      Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for his
+      notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+      Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens, and
+      then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant to imitate
+      certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their fortunes to
+      abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to Minoret, to
+      Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and the mayor of
+      Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved to throw off
+      the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to which he had
+      reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this last throw in
+      the game he thought it best to have an explanation with Minoret, and he
+      chose his opportunity at Rouvre, where he went with his patron for the
+      first time after the deeds were signed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+      asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+      Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours with
+      the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these atrocities in
+      the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his father, in case this
+      persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to give to whoever
+      it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law could not punish
+      this crime it would certainly discover the truth and hold it over the
+      delinquent&rsquo;s head. Minoret had now attained a great object. Owner of the
+      chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the Gatinais, he had also
+      a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs a year from the rich domains
+      which surrounded the park. He could well afford to snap his fingers at
+      Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on the estate, where the sight of
+      Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My boy,&rdquo; he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, &ldquo;let my
+      young cousin alone, now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh! I&rsquo;m not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+      chateau with the stone copings (which couldn&rsquo;t be built now for two
+      hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and
+      gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No, I&rsquo;m
+      not ungrateful; I&rsquo;ll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs, for
+      your services, and you can buy a sheriff&rsquo;s practice in Nemours. I&rsquo;ll
+      guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere&rsquo;s daughters, the eldest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The one who talks piston!&rdquo; cried Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She&rsquo;ll have thirty thousand francs,&rdquo; replied Minoret. &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t you see, my
+      dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a post
+      master? People should keep to their vocation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then,&rdquo; said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes;
+      &ldquo;here&rsquo;s a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs; I
+      want the money in hand at once.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his
+      wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to
+      sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the
+      face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an &ldquo;au revoir,&rdquo;
+       by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any
+      one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent
+      chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his
+      shoes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not going to wait for me?&rdquo; he cried, observing that Goupil was
+      going away on foot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret,&rdquo; replied Goupil,
+      athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of
+      Minoret&rsquo;s strange conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a
+      prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the
+      soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking
+      only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words; everything about
+      her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the expression of her
+      forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was
+      thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity, with which throughout all ages
+      the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow. She heard in
+      the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the malicious comments,
+      the laughter of the little town. The trial was too heavy, her innocence
+      was too delicate to allow her to survive the murderous blow. She
+      complained no more; a sorrowful smile was on her lips; her eyes appealed
+      to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against man&rsquo;s injustice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her
+      chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor. A
+      great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduere became
+      really aware that the girl was dying like an ermine, though less injured
+      in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and comfort
+      her. The sight of her son&rsquo;s anguish, who during the whole preceding night
+      had seemed beside himself, made the Breton soul of the old woman yield.
+      Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignity to revive the courage of a
+      girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise to all the evil done
+      by the little town. Her opinion, surely more powerful than that of the
+      crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought, the influence of race. This
+      step, which the abbe came to announce, made so great a change in Ursula
+      that the doctor, who was about to ask for a consultation of Parisian
+      doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on her uncle&rsquo;s sofa, and such was
+      the character of her beauty that she lay there in her mourning garments,
+      pale from suffering, she was more exquisitely lovely than in the happiest
+      hours of her life. When Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the
+      room she colored vividly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not rise, my child,&rdquo; said the old lady imperatively; &ldquo;weak and ill as
+      I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is
+      happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excellent
+      girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a
+      gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands of
+      Savinien&rsquo;s mother and kissed them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, madame,&rdquo; she said in a faltering voice, &ldquo;I should never have had the
+      boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+      encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+      bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I love,&mdash;they
+      have made me unworthy of him. Never!&rdquo; she cried, with a ring in her voice
+      which painfully affected those about her, &ldquo;never will I consent to give to
+      any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I loved too well,&mdash;yes,
+      I can admit it in my present condition,&mdash;I love a creature almost as
+      I love God, and God&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter,&rdquo; said the old
+      lady, making an effort, &ldquo;do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous
+      joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will live and you
+      shall be happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We shall be happy!&rdquo; cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and kissing
+      her hand; &ldquo;my mother has called you her daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, enough,&rdquo; said the doctor feeling his patient&rsquo;s pulse; &ldquo;do not
+      kill her with joy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of the
+      little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+      vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur de Portenduere,&rdquo; he said, in a voice like the hissing of a viper
+      forced from its hole.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you want?&rdquo; said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have a word to say to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear to me by Ursula&rsquo;s life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by me
+      as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I will
+      reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against Mademoiselle
+      Mirouet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I put a stop to them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I avenge them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On their author, yes&mdash;on his tool, no.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why not?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because&mdash;I am the tool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Savinien turned pale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have just seen Ursula&mdash;&rdquo; said Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula?&rdquo; said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle Mirouet,&rdquo; continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinien&rsquo;s
+      tone; &ldquo;and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done; I
+      repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good
+      would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison
+      you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager curiosity,
+      calmed Savinien&rsquo;s anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a look which
+      made that moral deformity writhe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who set you at this work?&rdquo; said the young man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you swear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What,&mdash;to do you no harm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She will forgive you,&mdash;I, never!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But at least you will forget?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
+      self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
+      standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to
+      talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will forgive you, but I shall not forget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The agreement is off,&rdquo; said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+      applied a blow upon the man&rsquo;s face which echoed through the courtyard and
+      nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is only what I deserve,&rdquo; said Goupil, &ldquo;for committing such a folly. I
+      thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I gave
+      you. You are in my power now,&rdquo; he added with a look of hatred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a murderer!&rdquo; said Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No more than a dagger is a murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg your pardon,&rdquo; said Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you revenged enough?&rdquo; said Goupil, with ferocious irony; &ldquo;will you
+      stop here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness,&rdquo; replied Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give me your hand,&rdquo; said the clerk, holding out his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is yours,&rdquo; said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula&rsquo;s sake. &ldquo;Now
+      speak; who made you do this thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien&rsquo;s blow,
+      on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was undecided;
+      then a voice said to him: &ldquo;You will be notary!&rdquo; and he answered:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who is persecuting Ursula?&rdquo; persisted Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can&rsquo;t tell you
+      that; but we might find out the reason. Don&rsquo;t mix me up in all this; I
+      could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+      annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will try
+      to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him&mdash;I&rsquo;ll
+      crush him under foot, I&rsquo;ll dance on his carcass, I&rsquo;ll make his bones into
+      dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and Rouvre
+      shall blaze with the letters, &lsquo;Minoret is a thief!&rsquo; Yes, I&rsquo;ll burst him
+      like a gun&mdash;There! we&rsquo;re allies now by the imprudence of that
+      outbreak! If you choose I&rsquo;ll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet&rsquo;s pardon and tell
+      her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her
+      good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand must
+      promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait a minute;&rdquo; said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ursula, my child,&rdquo; he said, returning to the salon, &ldquo;the author of all
+      your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask your
+      pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+      forgotten.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Goupil?&rdquo; cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep his secret,&rdquo; said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said in a troubled voice, &ldquo;I wish that all Nemours
+      could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and
+      led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men. What I say
+      now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the harm done by such
+      miserable tricks&mdash;which may have hastened your happiness,&rdquo; he added,
+      rather maliciously, &ldquo;for I see that Madame de Portenduere is with you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is all very well, Goupil,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;Mademoiselle forgives
+      you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand,&rdquo; said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. &ldquo;I
+      shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur&rsquo;s practice; I hope the reparation I
+      have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+      petition to the bar and the ministry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left the
+      house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff&rsquo;s practice.
+      The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore the peace
+      and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved by Goupil&rsquo;s
+      confession.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, my child, that God was not against you,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o&rsquo;clock he was sitting in
+      the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom he was
+      making plans for Desire&rsquo;s future. Desire had become very sedate since
+      entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely that he
+      would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau, who, they
+      said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they must find
+      him a wife,&mdash;some poor girl belonging to an old and noble family; he
+      would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris. Perhaps they could get
+      him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zelie was proposing to pass
+      the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer season. Minoret, inwardly
+      congratulating himself for having managed his affairs so well, no longer
+      thought or cared about Ursula, at the very moment when the drama so
+      heedlessly begun by him was closing down upon him in a terrible manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you,&rdquo; said
+      Cabirolle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show him in,&rdquo; answered Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+      pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien&rsquo;s boots on the
+      floor of the gallery, where the doctor&rsquo;s library used to be. A vague
+      presentiment of danger ran through the robber&rsquo;s veins. Savinien entered
+      and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in his hand,
+      and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband and
+      wife.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;your
+      reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who, as the
+      whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to tarnish her
+      honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you deliver her over to
+      Goupil&rsquo;s insults?&mdash;Answer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;to come and ask us
+      the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little
+      about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret died I&rsquo;ve not
+      thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I&rsquo;ve never said one word
+      about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I wouldn&rsquo;t think
+      of consulting about even a dog. Why don&rsquo;t you speak up, Minoret? Are you
+      going to let monsieur box your ears in that way and accuse you of
+      wickedness that&rsquo;s beneath you? As if a man with forty-eight thousand
+      francs a year from landed property, and a castle fit for a prince, would
+      stoop to such things! Get up, and don&rsquo;t sit there like a wet rag!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what monsieur means,&rdquo; said Minoret in his squeaking voice,
+      the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice was
+      clear. &ldquo;What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have said
+      to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My son Desire fell
+      in love with her, and I didn&rsquo;t want him to marry her, that&rsquo;s all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moment&rsquo;s silence, but it was terrible, when all three persons
+      examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy face of her
+      colossus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Though you are only insects,&rdquo; said the young nobleman, &ldquo;I will make you
+      feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a man sixty-eight
+      years of age, but from your son that I shall seek satisfaction for the
+      insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The first time he sets his foot
+      in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me; he will do so, or be
+      dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If he does not come to
+      Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have satisfaction. It
+      shall never be said that you were tamely allowed to dishonor a defenceless
+      young girl&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the calumnies of a Goupil&mdash;are&mdash;not&mdash;&rdquo; began Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you had
+      better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave
+      it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But this sha&rsquo;n&rsquo;t go one!&rdquo; cried Zelie. &ldquo;Do you suppose I&rsquo;ll stand by and
+      let Desire fight you,&mdash;a sailor whose business it is to handle swords
+      and guns? If you&rsquo;ve got any cause of complaint against Minoret, there&rsquo;s
+      Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy, who, by
+      your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear the brunt of
+      it? No, my little gentleman! somebody&rsquo;s teeth will pin your legs first!
+      Come, Minoret, don&rsquo;t stand staring there like a big canary; you are in
+      your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before your wife! I
+      say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man&rsquo;s house is his castle. I
+      don&rsquo;t know what you mean with your nonsense, but show me your heels, and
+      if you dare touch Desire you&rsquo;ll have to answer to <i>me</i>,&mdash;you and
+      your minx Ursula.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember what I have said to you,&rdquo; repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying
+      no attention to Zelie&rsquo;s tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over
+      their heads, he left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, then, Minoret,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;you will explain to me what this all
+      means. A young man doesn&rsquo;t rush into a house and make an uproar like that
+      and demand the blood of a family for nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It&rsquo;s some mischief of that vile Goupil,&rdquo; said the colossus. &ldquo;I promised
+      to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap. I
+      gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand francs in a note, and I
+      suppose he isn&rsquo;t satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+      Ursula?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He wanted to marry her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling me
+      lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe them.
+      There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me what it
+      is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do let me alone!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil&mdash;whom you&rsquo;re
+      afraid of&mdash;and we&rsquo;ll see who gets the best of it then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just as you choose.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+      foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to him,
+      mark you, I&rsquo;ll do something that may send me to the scaffold&mdash;and
+      you, you haven&rsquo;t any feeling about him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to end
+      without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his self-satisfaction
+      the foolish robber found his inward struggle against himself and against
+      Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated with a new and terrible
+      adversary. The next day, when he left the house early to find Goupil and
+      try to appease him with additional money, the walls were already placarded
+      with the words: &ldquo;Minoret is a thief.&rdquo; All those whom he met commiserated
+      him and asked him who was the author of the anonymous placard. Fortunately
+      for him, everybody made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting
+      on his utter stupidity; fools get more advantage from their weakness than
+      able men from their strength. The world looks on at a great man battling
+      against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a
+      grocer who may fail and lose all. Why? Because men like to feel superior
+      in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling themselves
+      the equal of a man of genius. A clever man would have been lost in public
+      estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers
+      with a frightened air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive
+      words wherever they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret&rsquo;s
+      conscience still remained.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though
+      Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he now
+      impudently refused to fulfil it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear Lecoeur,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up Monsieur
+      Dionis&rsquo;s practice; I am therefore in a position to help you to sell to
+      others. Tear up the agreement; it&rsquo;s only the loss of two stamps,&mdash;here
+      are seventy centimes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew before
+      night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil to buy his
+      practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges against
+      Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position he was
+      forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his respect for
+      law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him well in future;
+      assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his leg at the first
+      offence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+      between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+      threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+      Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about the
+      town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs and her
+      own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his practice; the
+      union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One evening, towards
+      midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving
+      Massin&rsquo;s house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notary kept
+      the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman who saw
+      the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who became
+      convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret, and he
+      determined to find out its cause.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX. APPARITIONS
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula&rsquo;s perfect
+      innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily exhaustion,
+      which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium of phenomena
+      the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to challenge
+      science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ten days after Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s visit Ursula had a dream, with all
+      the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral aspects
+      as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather appeared to
+      her and made a sign that she should come with him. She dressed herself and
+      followed him through the darkness to their former house in the Rue des
+      Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely as it was on the day of
+      her godfather&rsquo;s death. The old man wore the clothes that were on him the
+      evening before his death. His face was pale, his movements caused no
+      sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his voice distinctly, though it was
+      feeble and as if repeated by a distant echo. The doctor conducted his
+      child as far as the Chinese pagoda, where he made her lift the marble top
+      of the little Boule cabinet just as she had raised it on the day of his
+      death; but instead of finding nothing there she saw the letter her
+      godfather had told her to fetch. She opened it and read both the letter
+      addressed to herself and the will in favor of Savinien. The writing, as
+      she afterwards told the abbe, shone as if traced by sunbeams&mdash;&ldquo;it
+      burned my eyes,&rdquo; she said. When she looked at her uncle to thank him she
+      saw the old benevolent smile upon his discolored lips. Then, in a feeble
+      voice, but still clearly, he told her to look at Minoret, who was
+      listening in the corridor to what he said to her; and next, slipping the
+      lock of the library door with his knife, and taking the papers from the
+      study. With his right hand the old man seized his goddaughter and obliged
+      her to walk at the pace of death and follow Minoret to his own house.
+      Ursula crossed the town, entered the post house and went into Zelie&rsquo;s old
+      room, where the spectre showed her Minoret unfolding the letters, reading
+      them and burning them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He could not,&rdquo; said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, &ldquo;light the
+      first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+      buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back to
+      our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where he
+      took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of twelve
+      thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number of
+      banknotes. &lsquo;He is,&rsquo; said my godfather, &lsquo;the cause of all the trouble which
+      has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills that you shall yet
+      be happy. You will not die now; you will marry Savinien. If you love me,
+      and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your fortune from my
+      nephew. Swear it.&rsquo;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+      influence on Ursula&rsquo;s soul that she promised all her uncle asked, hoping
+      to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found herself
+      standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather&rsquo;s portrait,
+      which had been placed there during her illness. She went back to bed and
+      fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remembered all
+      the particulars of this singular vision; but she dared not speak of it.
+      Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the end
+      and object of which was her pecuniary benefit. She attributed the vision,
+      not unnaturally, to remarks made by La Bougival the preceding evening,
+      when the old woman talked of the doctor&rsquo;s intended liberality and of her
+      own convictions on that subject. But the dream returned, with aggravated
+      circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl. On the second
+      occasion the icy hand of her godfather was laid upon her shoulder, causing
+      her the most horrible distress, an indefinable sensation. &ldquo;You must obey
+      the dead,&rdquo; he said, in a sepulchral voice. &ldquo;Tears,&rdquo; said Ursula, relating
+      her dreams, &ldquo;fell from his white, wide-open eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of her
+      long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and promising
+      money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided to relate the
+      three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;do you believe that the dead reappear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have much
+      testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an article of
+      faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the idea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do <i>you</i> believe?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That the power of God is infinite.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His conversion, as
+      he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in Paris
+      heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you made against
+      Saint-Savinien&rsquo;s day in your almanac.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered
+      the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read her soul, and
+      took away the almanac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If that is so,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;then my visions are possibly true. My
+      godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was
+      wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass for the
+      repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these visions may
+      cease, for they are destroying me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting on the
+      truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the somnambulism
+      of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from her body at the
+      bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect ease. The thing that
+      most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula&rsquo;s veracity was known, was the
+      exact description which she gave of the bedroom formerly occupied by Zelie
+      at the post house, which Ursula had never entered and about which no one
+      had ever spoken to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;By what means can these singular apparitions take place?&rdquo; asked Ursula.
+      &ldquo;What did my godfather think?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized the
+      possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are of man&rsquo;s
+      creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must have forms
+      which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are perceptible to our
+      inward senses when brought under certain conditions. Thus your godfather&rsquo;s
+      ideas might so enfold you that you would clothe them with his bodily
+      presence. Then, if Minoret really committed those actions, they too
+      resolve themselves into ideas; for all action is the result of many ideas.
+      Now, if ideas live and move in a spiritual world, your spirit must be able
+      to perceive them if it penetrates that world. These phenomena are not more
+      extraordinary than those of memory; and those of memory are quite as
+      amazing and inexplicable as those of the perfume of plants&mdash;which are
+      perhaps the ideas of the plants.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How you enlarge and magnify the world!&rdquo; exclaimed Ursula. &ldquo;But to hear
+      the dead speak, to see them walk, act&mdash;do you think it possible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Sweden,&rdquo; replied the abbe, &ldquo;Swedenborg has proved by evidence that he
+      communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and you
+      shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded at
+      Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales, an
+      adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier at
+      Cardan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+      edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the &ldquo;History of Henri de
+      Montmorency,&rdquo; written by a priest of that period who had known the prince.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Read it,&rdquo; said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had opened at
+      the 175th page. &ldquo;Your godfather often re-read that passage,&mdash;and see!
+      here&rsquo;s a little of his snuff in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And he not here!&rdquo; said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there&mdash;namely, the
+  Marquis d&rsquo;Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis&rsquo;s quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  &ldquo;I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If all this is so,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;what ought I do do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;it concerns matters so important, and which
+      may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep absolutely silent
+      about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these apparitions
+      perhaps they may not return. Besides, you are now strong enough to come to
+      church; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and pray to him for the
+      repose of your godfather&rsquo;s soul. Feel quite sure that you have entrusted
+      your secret to prudent hands.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,&mdash;what glances my
+      godfather gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress&mdash;I awoke
+      with my face all covered with tears.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Be at peace; he will not come again,&rdquo; said the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+      asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that
+      they might be entirely alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can any one hear us?&rdquo; he asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one,&rdquo; replied Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur, my character must be known to you,&rdquo; said the abbe, fastening a
+      gentle but attentive look on Minoret&rsquo;s face. &ldquo;I have to speak to you of
+      serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you, and about which you
+      may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy; but it is
+      impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While
+      your uncle lived, there stood there,&rdquo; said the priest, pointing to a
+      certain spot in the room, &ldquo;a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble
+      top&rdquo; (Minoret turned livid), &ldquo;and beneath the marble your uncle placed a
+      letter for Ursula&mdash;&rdquo; The abbe then went on to relate, without
+      omitting the smallest circumstance, Minoret&rsquo;s conduct to Minoret himself.
+      When the last post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to
+      light he felt his hair begin to writhe on his skull.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who invented such nonsense?&rdquo; he said, in a strangled voice, when the tale
+      ended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The dead man himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+      doctor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God is very good, Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe, to do miracles for me,&rdquo; he said,
+      danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that God does is natural,&rdquo; replied the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your phantoms don&rsquo;t frighten me,&rdquo; said the colossus, recovering his
+      coolness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to any
+      one in the world,&rdquo; said the abbe. &ldquo;You alone know the truth. The matter is
+      between you and God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come now, Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+      horrible abuse of confidence?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+      sinner repents,&rdquo; said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Crime?&rdquo; cried Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A crime frightful in its consequences.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What consequences?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+      expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself avenges
+      innocence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+      take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have had
+      these facts from my uncle?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+      repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to me
+      privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will never
+      speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are,&rdquo; said the old priest. &ldquo;Even if I considered these
+      warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+      considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man, and
+      you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish to add
+      to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and you would be
+      tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or civilized, the
+      sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to enjoy in peace
+      ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the society in which we
+      live,&mdash;for well-constituted societies are modeled on the system God
+      has ordained for the universe. In this respect societies have a divine
+      origin. Man does not originate ideas, he invents no form; he answers to
+      the eternal relations that surround him on all sides. Therefore, see what
+      happens! Criminals going to the scaffold, and having it in their power to
+      carry their secret with them, are compelled by the force of some
+      mysterious power to make confessions before their heads are taken off.
+      Therefore, Monsieur Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I go my way
+      satisfied.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way out.
+      When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric man; the
+      strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula&rsquo;s name was mingled
+      with odious language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what has she done to you?&rdquo; cried Zelie, who had slipped in on tiptoe
+      after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+      driven to extremities by his wife&rsquo;s reiterated questions, turned upon her
+      and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell half-dead on
+      the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed himself, ashamed of
+      his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him twice; when he appeared
+      again in the streets everybody noticed a great change in him. He walked
+      alone, and often roamed the town as though uneasy. When any one addressed
+      him he seemed preoccupied in his mind, he who had never before had two
+      ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he went up to Monsieur Bongrand
+      in the Grand&rsquo;Rue, the latter being on his way to take Ursula to Madame de
+      Portenduere&rsquo;s, where the whist parties had begun again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin,&rdquo; he
+      said, taking the justice by the arm, &ldquo;and I am very glad you should be
+      present, for you can advise her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air, as
+      soon as she saw Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+      business,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;By the bye, don&rsquo;t forget to give me your
+      certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+      dividend and La Bougival&rsquo;s.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cousin,&rdquo; said Minoret, &ldquo;our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than you
+      have now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We can be very happy with very little money,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I thought money might help your happiness,&rdquo; continued Minoret, &ldquo;and I
+      have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had a natural way of showing respect for him,&rdquo; said Ursula, sternly;
+      &ldquo;you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to buy it;
+      instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find some hidden
+      treasure in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; said Minoret, evidently troubled, &ldquo;if you had twelve thousand
+      francs a year you would be in a position to marry well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not got them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate in
+      Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,&mdash;you could then marry her son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur Minoret,&rdquo; said Ursula, &ldquo;I have no claim to that money, and I
+      cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are we
+      friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+      evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason have
+      you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a right to
+      ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider your gift
+      the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to accept it. Your
+      uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing except
+      from friends, and I have no friendship for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you refuse?&rdquo; cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had never
+      entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I refuse,&rdquo; said Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+      fortune?&rdquo; asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. &ldquo;You have an idea&mdash;have
+      you an idea?&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son will
+      leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, we&rsquo;ll see about it,&rdquo; said Bongrand, settling his spectacles. &ldquo;Give
+      us time to think it over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the father
+      for his son&rsquo;s interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her hasty
+      decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand went to the
+      post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started for Fontainebleau,
+      where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was told that he was
+      spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect. Bongrand, delighted,
+      followed him there. Desire was playing whist with the wife of the
+      procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the colonel of the
+      regiment in garrison.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I come to bring you some good news,&rdquo; said Bongrand to Desire; &ldquo;you love
+      your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I love Ursula Mirouet!&rdquo; cried Desire, laughing. &ldquo;Where did you get that
+      idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s; she
+      certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I certainly took
+      notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled my head seriously
+      for that rather insipid little blonde,&rdquo; he added, smiling at the
+      sub-prefect&rsquo;s wife (who was a piquante brunette&mdash;to use a term of the
+      last century). &ldquo;You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur Bongrand; I thought
+      every one knew that my father was a lord of a manor, with a rent roll of
+      forty-five thousand francs a year from lands around his chateau at Rouvre,&mdash;good
+      reasons why I should not love the goddaughter of my late great-uncle. If I
+      were to marry a girl without a penny these ladies would consider me a
+      fool.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You hear that, monsieur?&rdquo; said the justice to the procureur du roi, who
+      had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the recess
+      of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter of an hour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula&rsquo;s house, whence he
+      sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus came at
+      once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle&mdash;&rdquo; began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+      room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Accepts?&rdquo; cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not yet,&rdquo; replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. &ldquo;I had scruples as
+      to your son&rsquo;s feelings; for Ursula has been much tried lately about a
+      supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity. Can you swear to
+      me that your son truly loves her and that you have no other intention than
+      to preserve our dear Ursula from any further Goupilisms?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I&rsquo;ll swear to that,&rdquo; cried Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop, papa Minoret,&rdquo; said the justice, taking one hand from the pocket of
+      his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus trembled);
+      &ldquo;Don&rsquo;t swear falsely.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Swear falsely?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+      presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never even
+      thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering this
+      fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+      Fontainebleau to question your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where&rsquo;s the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young relative
+      to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness, and to invent
+      pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+      admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know the cause of my refusal,&rdquo; said Ursula; &ldquo;and I request you never
+      to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told me his
+      reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such dislike even,
+      that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is my only fortune,&mdash;I
+      do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it. Monsieur de Portenduere is
+      only waiting for my majority to marry me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the old saw that &lsquo;Money does all&rsquo; is a lie,&rdquo; said Minoret, looking
+      at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so much.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+      oppressive as in the little salon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There must be an end put to this,&rdquo; he said to himself as he re-entered
+      his own home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La Bougival,
+      she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon with great
+      strides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None that I can tell,&rdquo; she replied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we have the same idea,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Here, keep the number of your
+      certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+      precaution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and that
+      of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+      third.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+      thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle&rsquo;s grave
+      was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the inscription,
+      opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a piercing cry, but
+      the doctor&rsquo;s spectre slowly rose. First she saw his yellow head, with its
+      fringe of white hair, which shone as if surmounted by a halo. Beneath the
+      bald forehead the eyes were like two gleams of light; the dead man rose as
+      if impelled by some superior force or will. Ursula&rsquo;s body trembled; her
+      flesh was like a burning garment, and there was (as she subsequently said)
+      another self moving within her bodily presence. &ldquo;Mercy!&rdquo; she cried,
+      &ldquo;mercy, godfather!&rdquo; &ldquo;It is too late,&rdquo; he said, in the voice of death,&mdash;to
+      use the poor girl&rsquo;s own expression when she related this new dream to the
+      abbe. &ldquo;He has been warned; he has paid no heed to the warning. The days of
+      his son are numbered. If he does not confess all and restore what he has
+      taken within a certain time he must lose his son, who will die a violent
+      and horrible death. Let him know this.&rdquo; The spectre pointed to a line of
+      figures which gleamed upon the side of the tomb as if written with fire,
+      and said, &ldquo;There is his doom.&rdquo; When her uncle lay down again in his grave
+      Ursula heard the sound of the stone falling back into its place, and
+      immediately after, in the distance, a strange sound of horses and the
+      cries of men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had the
+      dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon and
+      bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass, but he
+      was not surprised at Ursula&rsquo;s revelation. He believed the robbery had been
+      committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself the abnormal
+      condition of his &ldquo;little dreamer.&rdquo; He left Ursula at once and went
+      directly to Minoret&rsquo;s.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Monsieur l&rsquo;abbe,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;my husband&rsquo;s temper is so soured I don&rsquo;t
+      know what he mightn&rsquo;t do. Until now he&rsquo;s been a child; but for the last
+      two months he&rsquo;s not the same man. To get angry enough to strike me&mdash;me,
+      so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter to change him like
+      that. You&rsquo;ll find him among the rocks; he spends all his time there,&mdash;doing
+      what, I&rsquo;d like to know?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed the
+      canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks, where he
+      saw Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret,&rdquo; said the priest going up to
+      him. &ldquo;You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to increase
+      your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle lifted the
+      stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great disaster in your
+      family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but you ought to know
+      what he said&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these rocks,
+      and I&rsquo;m sure I don&rsquo;t want to know anything that is going on in another
+      world.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+      pleasure,&rdquo; said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, what do you want to say?&rdquo; demanded Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told things
+      that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells things that no
+      one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say, make restitution.
+      Don&rsquo;t damn your soul for a little money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Restitution of what?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+      certificates&mdash;I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+      and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies, you
+      have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false steps every
+      day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice Goupil has served
+      you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and clear your mind, for you
+      are watched by intelligent and penetrating eyes,&mdash;those of Ursula&rsquo;s
+      friends. Make restitution! and if you do not save your son (who may not
+      really be threatened), you will save your soul, and you will save your
+      honor. Do you believe that in a society like ours, in a little town like
+      this, where everybody&rsquo;s eyes are everywhere, and all things are guessed
+      and all things are known, you can long hide a stolen fortune? Come, my
+      son, an innocent man wouldn&rsquo;t have let me talk so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to the devil!&rdquo; cried Minoret. &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what you <i>all</i> mean
+      by persecuting me. I prefer these stones&mdash;they leave me in peace.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have said
+      a single word about this to any living person. But take care&mdash;there
+      is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The man
+      was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was, in fact,
+      partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three certificates
+      because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not draw the money
+      himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not wish to sell them, and
+      was still trying to find some way of transferring the certificates. In
+      this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of acknowledging all
+      to his wife and getting her advice. Zelie, who always managed affairs for
+      him so well, she could get him out of his troubles. The three-per-cent
+      Funds were now selling at eighty. Restitution! why, that meant, with
+      arrearages, giving up a million! Give up a million, when there was no one
+      who could know that he had taken it&mdash;!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute
+      and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the little
+      town he grew thin and haggard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX. REMORSE
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+      inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above their
+      heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret received
+      from their son Desire the following letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  My dear Mother,&mdash;If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil&rsquo;s
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father&rsquo;s
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil&rsquo;s malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father&rsquo;s
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+      Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating all
+      the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even Ursula&rsquo;s
+      dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You stay quietly here,&rdquo; Zelie said to her husband, without the slightest
+      remonstrance against his folly. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll manage the whole thing. We&rsquo;ll keep
+      the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son&rsquo;s letter to
+      Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In spite of her
+      assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which the young girl gave
+      her. But she took herself to task for her cowardice and assumed an easy
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell me
+      what you think of it,&rdquo; she cried, giving Ursula her son&rsquo;s letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the letter,
+      which showed her how truly she was loved and what care Savinien took of
+      the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but she had too much
+      charity and true religion to be willing to be the cause of death or
+      suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly easy,&mdash;but
+      I must request you to leave me this letter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+      Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,&mdash;a really
+      regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we shall
+      give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the Funds; in
+      all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that there are not
+      many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,&mdash;and quite
+      right too,&rdquo; added Zelie, seeing Ursula&rsquo;s quick gesture of denial; &ldquo;I have
+      therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will bear your godfather&rsquo;s
+      name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you must have seen, is a handsome
+      fellow; he is very much thought of at Fontainebleau, and he will soon be
+      procureur du roi himself. You are a coaxing girl and can easily persuade
+      him to live in Paris. We will give you a fine house there; you will shine;
+      you will play a distinguished part; for, with seventy thousand francs a
+      year and the salary of an office, you and Desire can enter the highest
+      society. Consult your friends; you&rsquo;ll see what they tell you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need only consult my heart, madame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ta, ta, ta! now don&rsquo;t talk to me about that little lady-killer Savinien.
+      You&rsquo;d pay too high a price for his name, and for that little moustache
+      curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair. How do you
+      expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a man who made two
+      hundred thousand francs of debt in two years? Besides&mdash;though this is
+      a thing you don&rsquo;t know yet&mdash;all men are alike; and without flattering
+      myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the equal of a king&rsquo;s son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which can,
+      perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere&rsquo;s desire to please me.
+      If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals that danger might
+      not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame, that I shall be far
+      happier in the moderate circumstances to which you allude than I should be
+      in the opulence with which you are trying to dazzle me. For reasons
+      hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made known, Monsieur Minoret, by
+      persecuting me in an odious manner, strengthened the affection that exists
+      between Monsieur de Portenduere and myself&mdash;which I can now admit
+      because his mother has blessed it. I will also tell you that this
+      affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is life itself to me. No destiny,
+      however brilliant, however lofty, could make me change. I love without the
+      possibility of changing. It would therefore be a crime if I married a man
+      to whom I could take nothing but a soul that is Savinien&rsquo;s. But, madame,
+      since you force me to be explicit, I must tell you that even if I did not
+      love Monsieur de Portenduere I could not bring myself to bear the troubles
+      and joys of life in the company of your son. If Monsieur Savinien made
+      debts, you have often paid those of your son. Our characters have neither
+      the similarities nor the differences which enable two persons to live
+      together without bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the
+      forbearance a wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to him.
+      Pray cease to think of an alliance of which I count myself quite unworthy,
+      and which I feel I can decline without pain to you; for with the great
+      advantages you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl of better
+      station, more wealth, and more beauty than mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you swear to me,&rdquo; said Zelie, &ldquo;to prevent these young men from
+      taking that journey and fighting that duel?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+      Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown must
+      have no blood upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your expectations
+      for the future of your son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+      remembered the predictions of Ursula&rsquo;s last dream; she stood still, her
+      small eyes fixed on Ursula&rsquo;s face, so white, so pure, so beautiful in her
+      mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-called cousin&rsquo;s
+      departure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in dreams?&rdquo; said Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I suffer from them too much not to do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if you do&mdash;&rdquo; began Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Adieu, madame,&rdquo; exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she heard
+      the abbe&rsquo;s entering step.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+      uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+      mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you believe in spirits?&rdquo; Zelie asked him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do you believe in?&rdquo; he answered, smiling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are all sly,&rdquo; thought Zelie,&mdash;&ldquo;every one of them! They want to
+      deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+      Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams than
+      there are hairs on the palm of my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau,&rdquo; said Ursula to the abbe,
+      telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to prevent
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Did Madame Minoret offer you her son&rsquo;s hand?&rdquo; asked the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her,&rdquo; added the priest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step taken
+      by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He looked at the
+      abbe as if to say: &ldquo;Come out, I want to speak to you of Ursula without her
+      hearing me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year and
+      the dandy of Nemours,&rdquo; he said aloud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it, then, a sacrifice?&rdquo; she answered, laughing. &ldquo;Are there sacrifices
+      when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of a man we all
+      despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but that ought not to
+      be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy, and the abbe, and my
+      dear godfather,&rdquo; she said, looking up at his portrait.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand took Ursula&rsquo;s hand and kissed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?&rdquo; said the justice as soon as
+      they were in the street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What?&rdquo; asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+      merely curious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She had some plan for restitution.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think&mdash;&rdquo; began the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think, I know; I have the certainty&mdash;and see there!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on his
+      way home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts,&rdquo; continued Bongrand, &ldquo;I
+      naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never seen
+      any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity, that pallor
+      of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and bursting with
+      the good sound health of a man without a care? What has put those black
+      circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity? Did you ever
+      expect to see lines of care on that forehead? Who would have supposed that
+      the brain of that colossus could be excited? The man has felt his heart! I
+      am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge of repentance, my dear
+      abbe. That which I have hitherto observed has developed in men who were
+      awaiting punishment, or enduring it to get quits with the world; they were
+      either resigned, or breathing vengeance; but here is remorse without
+      expiation, remorse pure and simple, fastening on its prey and rending
+      him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The judge stopped Minoret and said: &ldquo;Do you know that Mademoiselle Mirouet
+      has refused your son&rsquo;s hand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But,&rdquo; interposed the abbe, &ldquo;do not be uneasy; she will prevent the duel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, then my wife succeeded?&rdquo; said Minoret. &ldquo;I am very glad, for it nearly
+      killed me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,&rdquo;
+       remarked Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+      betrayed the dreams; but the abbe&rsquo;s face was unmoved, expressing only a
+      calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And it is the more surprising,&rdquo; went on Monsieur Bongrand, &ldquo;because you
+      ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and all those
+      farms and mills and meadows and&mdash;with your investments in the Funds,
+      you have an income of one hundred thousand francs&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I haven&rsquo;t anything in the Funds,&rdquo; cried Minoret, hastily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh,&rdquo; said Bongrand; &ldquo;this is just as it was about your son&rsquo;s love for
+      Ursula,&mdash;first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage. After
+      trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a daughter-in-law.
+      My good friend, you have got some secret in your pouch.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+      better than:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You&rsquo;re very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen&rdquo;; and he turned with a
+      slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula,&rdquo; said Bongrand, &ldquo;but how
+      can we ever find the proof?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God may&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man; but
+      all that is merely what is called &lsquo;presumptive,&rsquo; and human justice
+      requires something more.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in similar
+      circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think of the
+      robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien&rsquo;s happiness,
+      delayed only by Ursula&rsquo;s loss of fortune&mdash;for the old lady had
+      privately owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not consenting
+      to the marriage in the doctor&rsquo;s lifetime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS VERY
+      EASILY STOLEN
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying mass, a
+      thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance of
+      a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied her
+      home without having breakfasted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I want to see the two volumes your godfather showed
+      you in your dreams&mdash;where he said that he placed those certificates
+      and banknotes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third volume
+      of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not without
+      surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which still kept
+      the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found a sort of
+      hollow made by the long-continued presence of a package, which had left
+      its traces on the two pages next to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand,&rdquo; La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+      justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was putting on
+      his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret&rsquo;s hand-writing on
+      the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the cover of
+      the volume,&mdash;figures which Ursula had just discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What&rsquo;s the meaning of those figures?&rdquo; said the abbe; &ldquo;our dear doctor was
+      too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable volume. Here
+      are three numbers written between a first number preceded by the letter M
+      and a last number preceded by a U.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you talking of?&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;Let me see that. Good God!&rdquo; he
+      cried, after a moment&rsquo;s examination; &ldquo;it would open the eyes of an atheist
+      as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I believe, the
+      development of the divine thought which hovers over the worlds.&rdquo; He seized
+      Ursula and kissed her forehead. &ldquo;Oh! my child, you will be rich and happy,
+      and all through me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; exclaimed the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, monsieur,&rdquo; cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand&rsquo;s blue overcoat, &ldquo;let
+      me kiss you for what you&rsquo;ve just said.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Explain, explain! don&rsquo;t give us false hopes,&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich,&rdquo; said Ursula, forseeing a
+      criminal trial, &ldquo;I&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Remember,&rdquo; said the justice, interrupting her, &ldquo;the happiness you will
+      give to Savinien.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you mad?&rdquo; said the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my dear friend,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;Listen; the certificates in the
+      Funds are issued in series,&mdash;as many series as there are letters in
+      the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+      certificates which are made out &lsquo;to bearer&rsquo; cannot have a letter; they are
+      not in any person&rsquo;s name. What you see there shows that the day the doctor
+      placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number of his own
+      certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears his initial
+      M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to bearer; these are without a
+      letter; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula&rsquo;s share in the Funds, the
+      number of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see, that of the
+      fifteen-thousand-franc certificate with lettering. This goes far to prove
+      that those numbers are those of five certificates of investments made on
+      the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of loss. I advised him
+      to take certificates to bearer for Ursula&rsquo;s fortune, and he must have made
+      his own investment and that of Ursula&rsquo;s little property the same day. I&rsquo;ll
+      go to Dionis&rsquo;s office and look at the inventory. If the number of the
+      certificate for his own investment is 23,533, letter M, we may be sure
+      that he invested, through the same broker on the same day, first his own
+      property on a single certificate; secondly his savings in three
+      certificates to bearer (numbered, but without the series letter); thirdly,
+      Ursula&rsquo;s own property; the transfer books will show, of course, undeniable
+      proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you deceiver, I have you&mdash;Motus, my
+      children!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways by
+      which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The finger of God is in all this,&rdquo; cried the abbe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will they punish him?&rdquo; asked Ursula.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, mademoiselle,&rdquo; cried La Bougival. &ldquo;I&rsquo;d give the rope to hang him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand was already at Goupil&rsquo;s, now the appointed successor of Dionis,
+      but he entered the office with a careless air. &ldquo;I have a little matter to
+      verify about the Minoret property,&rdquo; he said to Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is it?&rdquo; asked the latter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent Funds?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year,&rdquo; said Goupil; &ldquo;I recorded
+      it myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then just look on the inventory,&rdquo; said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+      place, and read:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;&lsquo;Item, one certificate&rsquo;&mdash;Here, read for yourself&mdash;under the
+      number 23,533, letter M.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an hour,&rdquo;
+       said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What good is it to you?&rdquo; asked Goupil.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you want to be a notary?&rdquo; answered the justice of peace, looking
+      sternly at Dionis&rsquo;s proposed successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course I do,&rdquo; cried Goupil. &ldquo;I&rsquo;ve swallowed too many affronts not to
+      succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable creature
+      once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre Jean-Sebastien-Marie
+      Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of Mademoiselle Massin. The two
+      beings do not know each other. They are no longer even alike. Look at me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil&rsquo;s clothes. The new
+      notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with
+      ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of
+      handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his hair,
+      carefully combed, was perfumed&mdash;in short he was metamorphosed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The fact is you are another man,&rdquo; said Bongrand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice&mdash;a
+      practice; besides, money is the source of cleanliness&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Morally as well as physically,&rdquo; returned Bongrand, settling his
+      spectacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever a
+      democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what refinement
+      is, and who intends to love his wife,&rdquo; said Goupil; &ldquo;and what&rsquo;s more, I
+      shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, make haste,&rdquo; said Bongrand. &ldquo;Let me have that copy in an hour, and
+      notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the
+      clerk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he
+      went back to Ursula&rsquo;s house for the two important volumes and for her own
+      certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the inventory, he
+      drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the procureur du roi.
+      Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft of the three
+      certificates by one or other of the heirs,&mdash;presumably by Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;His conduct is explained,&rdquo; said the procureur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury to
+      withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go to
+      Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a
+      polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie, very uneasy about her son&rsquo;s duel, dressed herself at once, had the
+      horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The procureur&rsquo;s
+      plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the husband, and
+      bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he expected to learn the
+      truth. Zelie found the official in his private office and was utterly
+      annihilated when he addressed her as follows:&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madame,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft that
+      has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of which the
+      law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of
+      appearing in the prisoner&rsquo;s dock by making a full confession of what you
+      know about it. The punishment which your husband has incurred is,
+      moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son&rsquo;s career is to be
+      thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be too
+      late. The police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant is made
+      out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+      everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+      accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+      either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate,&rdquo; he
+      said. &ldquo;No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any publicity
+      been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a great crime,
+      which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be
+      considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make you a
+      prisoner&mdash;oh, in my own house, on parole,&rdquo; he added, seeing that
+      Zelie was about to faint. &ldquo;You must remember that my official duty would
+      require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination; but I am
+      acting now individually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and
+      her best interests demand a compromise.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah!&rdquo; exclaimed Zelie.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Write to your husband in the following words,&rdquo; he continued, placing
+      Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:&mdash;
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+  &ldquo;My Friend,&mdash;I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury.&rdquo;
+ </pre>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+      make,&rdquo; said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie&rsquo;s orthography. &ldquo;We will see
+      that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay in our
+      house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of the matter
+      and not to appear anxious or unhappy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate sent
+      for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father&rsquo;s theft, which was
+      really to Ursula&rsquo;s injury, but, as matters stood, legally to that of his
+      co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother. Desire at once
+      asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his father made
+      immediate restitution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a very serious matter,&rdquo; said the magistrate. &ldquo;The will having been
+      destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and Cremiere may
+      put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father. I will release
+      your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has already taken place
+      has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To her, I will seem to have
+      yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take her with you to Nemours,
+      and manage the whole matter as best you can. Don&rsquo;t fear any one. Monsieur
+      Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too well to let the matter become known.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+      procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter, the
+      orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule on a
+      man crushed by affliction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur,&mdash;God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+      irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at Nemours
+      a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the carriage; the
+      horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their impatience, jumped down to
+      hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the box. As he turned
+      to resume his place in the carriage beside his mother the horses started;
+      Desire did not step back against the parapet in time; the step of the
+      carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the hind wheel passing over
+      his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for the best surgeon will bring
+      you this letter, which my son in the midst of his sufferings desires me to
+      write so as to let you know our entire submission to your decisions in the
+      matter about which he was coming to speak to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you
+      have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Francois Minoret.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds standing
+      about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell Savinien that
+      his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful than his own. He went
+      at once to Ursula&rsquo;s house, where he found both the abbe and the young girl
+      more distressed than surprised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and surgeons
+      from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be amputated,
+      Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied by the abbe, to
+      Ursula&rsquo;s house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand and Savinien.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mademoiselle,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+      wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that I can
+      expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in absolute
+      possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and also in case
+      we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can assure you, my dear Ursula,&rdquo; said the abbe, &ldquo;that you can and that
+      you ought to accept a part of this gift.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will you forgive me?&rdquo; said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the astonished
+      girl. &ldquo;The operation is about to be performed by the first surgeon of the
+      Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely only on the power
+      of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to restore our son to us,
+      he will have strength to bear the agony and we shall have the joy of
+      saving him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us go to the church!&rdquo; cried Ursula, rising.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and she
+      fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her friends&mdash;but
+      not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor&mdash;looking at her with anxious
+      eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled their hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw my godfather standing in the doorway,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;and he signed to
+      me that there was no hope.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The day after the operation Desire died,&mdash;carried off by the fever
+      and the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+      Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became
+      insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the
+      establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married Savinien
+      with Madame de Portenduere&rsquo;s consent. Minoret took part in the marriage
+      contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate at Rouvre
+      and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds; keeping for
+      himself only his uncle&rsquo;s house and ten thousand francs a year. He has
+      become the most charitable of men, and the most religious; he is
+      churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of the
+      unfortunate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The poor take the place of my son,&rdquo; he said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll the
+      oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out its
+      twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you will
+      have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,&mdash;broken,
+      emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial
+      dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the beginning of this
+      history; he does not even take his snuff as he once did; he carries
+      something more now than the weight of his body. Beholding him, we feel
+      that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful
+      warning. After hating so violently his uncle&rsquo;s godchild the old man now,
+      like Doctor Minoret himself, has concentrated all his affections on her,
+      and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year in Paris,
+      where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
+      Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house in Nemours to the
+      Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live at Rouvre, where La
+      Bougival keeps the porter&rsquo;s lodge. Cabirolle, the former conductor of the
+      &ldquo;Ducler,&rdquo; a man sixty years of age, has married La Bougival and the twelve
+      hundred francs a year which she possesses besides the ample emoluments of
+      her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur de Portenduere&rsquo;s coachman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming little
+      low carriages called &lsquo;escargots,&rsquo; lined with gray silk and trimmed with
+      blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire because her face
+      is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as forget-me-nots
+      and filled with love; if you see her bending slightly towards a fine young
+      man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of envy&mdash;pause and
+      reflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have paid their quota
+      to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married lovers are the
+      Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife. There is not another such home in
+      Paris as theirs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen,&rdquo; said the Comtesse de
+      l&rsquo;Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for yourselves,
+      a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best of all mothers&mdash;adversity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+      wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he is
+      punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous. Dionis, his
+      predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is one of
+      the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king of the French,
+      who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis relates to the
+      whole town of Nemours the particulars of her receptions at the Tuileries
+      and the splendor of the court of the king of the French. She lords it over
+      Nemours by means of the throne, which therefore must be popular in the
+      little town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is in
+      the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the occasion
+      of her daughter&rsquo;s marriage, she exhorted her to be the working caterpillar
+      of the household, and to look into everything with the eyes of a sphinx.
+      Goupil is making a collection of her &ldquo;slapsus-linquies,&rdquo; which he calls a
+      Cremiereana.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon,&rdquo; said the
+      Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter&mdash;having nursed him herself
+      during his illness. &ldquo;The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is very
+      fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the venerable
+      cure of Saint-Lange.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      ADDENDUM
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+    </h3>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+     Bouvard, Doctor
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Dionis
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Estorade, Madame de l&rsquo; 
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Kergarouet, Comte de
+       The Purse
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       The Thirteen
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Twon
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor&rsquo;s Establishment
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Beatrix
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Beatrix
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+
+     Schmucke, Wilhelm
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan&rsquo;s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Father Goriot
+       Gobseck
+       A Man of Business
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       A Daughter of Eve
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1223-h.htm or 1223-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1223/
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and David Widger
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo;), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (&ldquo;the Foundation&rdquo;
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; appears, or with which the phrase &ldquo;Project
+Gutenberg&rdquo; is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase &ldquo;Project Gutenberg&rdquo; associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+&ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original &ldquo;Plain Vanilla ASCII&rdquo; or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, &ldquo;Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.&rdquo;
+ 
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+&ldquo;Defects,&rdquo; such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the &ldquo;Right
+of Replacement or Refund&rdquo; described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you &lsquo;AS-IS&rsquo; WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm&rsquo;s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation&rsquo;s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state&rsquo;s laws.
+
+The Foundation&rsquo;s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation&rsquo;s web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/old/1223.txt b/old/1223.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..075a525
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1223.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9489 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Ursula
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: February, 1997  [Etext #1223]
+Posting Date: February 21, 2010
+Last Updated: February 14, 2015
+
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers and Bonnie Sala
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+  To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+  It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+  book, the subject and details of which have won the
+  approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+  world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+  the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+  indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+  to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+  are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+  prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+  therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+  pleased you?
+
+  God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+  --the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+  Your uncle,
+  De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+
+Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing, the
+steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the fields
+and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that pretty little
+town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been built on the
+farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb increases, the place
+will lose its present aspect of graceful originality.
+
+In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of
+the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting one
+fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take in at
+a glance the whole of what is called in his business a "ruban de queue."
+The month of September was displaying its treasures; the atmosphere
+glowed above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the blue of the
+sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the horizon, showed
+the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault (for that was
+the post master's name) was obliged to shade his eyes with one hand to
+keep them from being dazzled. With the air of a man who was tired of
+waiting, he looked first to the charming meadows which lay to the
+right of the road where the aftermath was springing up, then to the
+hill-slopes covered with copses which extend, on the left, from Nemours
+to Bouron. He could hear in the valley of the Loing, where the sounds on
+the road were echoed back from the hills, the trot of his own horses and
+the crack of his postilion's whip.
+
+None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such
+meadows, filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath
+a Raffaelle sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema.
+Whoever knows Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art,
+whose mission is to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas and
+creates thought. But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an artist
+would very likely have left the view to sketch the man, so original was
+he in his native commonness. Unite in a human being all the conditions
+of the brute and you have a Caliban, who is certainly a great thing.
+Wherever form rules, sentiment disappears. The post master, a living
+proof of that axiom, presented a physiognomy in which an observer could
+with difficulty trace, beneath the vivid carnation of its coarsely
+developed flesh, the semblance of a soul. His cap of blue cloth, with
+a small peak, and sides fluted like a melon, outlined a head of vast
+dimensions, showing that Gall's science has not yet produced its chapter
+of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny hair which appeared below the
+cap showed that other causes than mental toil or grief had whitened
+it. Large ears stood out from the head, their edges scarred with the
+eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which seemed ready to gush at the
+least exertion. His skin was crimson under an outside layer of
+brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun. The roving gray eyes,
+deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows, were like those of the
+Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they ever sparkled it was
+only under the influence of a covetous thought. His broad pug nose was
+flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping with a repulsive double
+chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more than once a week, was
+encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted to a cord; a short
+neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed the characteristics of
+brute force which sculptors give to their caryatids. Minoret-Levrault
+was like those statues, with this difference, that whereas they
+supported an edifice, he had more than he could well do to support
+himself. You will meet many such Atlases in the world. The man's torso
+was a block; it was like that of a bull standing on his hind-legs. His
+vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick, hard hands, broad and strong
+and well able to handle whip, reins, and pitchfork; hands which his
+postilions never attempted to trifle with. The enormous stomach of this
+giant rested on thighs which were as large as the body of an ordinary
+adult, and feet like those of an elephant. Anger was a rare thing with
+him, but it was terrible, apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though
+violent and quite incapable of reflection, the man had never done
+anything that justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence.
+To all those who felt afraid of him his postilions would reply, "Oh!
+he's not bad."
+
+The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country,
+wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green
+linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's
+skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of
+a monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without
+exception.
+
+A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
+did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had never
+set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private principles,
+he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did not forbid or
+could not prevent he considered right. He never read anything but
+the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise, and a few printed
+instructions relating to his business. He was considered a clever
+agriculturist; but his knowledge was only practical. In him the moral
+being did not belie the physical. He seldom spoke, and before speaking
+he always took a pinch of snuff to give himself time, not to find ideas,
+but words. If he had been a talker you would have felt that he was out
+of keeping with himself. Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet
+and without a mind was called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to
+agree with Sterne as to the occult power of names, which sometimes
+ridicule and sometimes foretell characters.
+
+In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty
+thousand francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If Minoret,
+being master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the Gatinais to
+Paris, still worked at his business, it was less from habit than for the
+sake of an only son, to whom he was anxious to give a fine career. This
+son, who was now (to use an expression of the peasantry) a "monsieur,"
+had just completed his legal studies and was about to take his degree as
+licentiate, preparatory to being called to the Bar. Monsieur and Madame
+Minoret-Levrault--for behind our colossus every one will perceive
+a woman without whom this signal good-fortune would have been
+impossible--left their son free to choose his own career; he might be a
+notary in Paris, king's-attorney in some district, collector of customs
+no matter where, broker, or post master, as he pleased. What fancy of
+his could they ever refuse him? to what position of life might he
+not aspire as the son of a man about whom the whole countryside, from
+Montargis to Essonne, was in the habit of saying, "Pere Minoret doesn't
+even know how rich he is"?
+
+This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this
+history begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and a
+splendid dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand'Rue to the
+wharf. The new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs, which the
+gossip of thirty miles in circumference more than doubled. The Nemours
+mail-coach service requires a large number of horses. It goes to
+Fontainebleau on the road to Paris, and from there diverges to Montargis
+and also to Montereau. The relays are long, and the sandy soil of the
+Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, always paid for but
+never seen. A man of Minoret's build, and Minoret's wealth, at the head
+of such an establishment might well be called, without contradiction,
+the master of Nemours. Though he never thought of God or devil, being
+a practical materialist, just as he was a practical agriculturist, a
+practical egoist, and a practical miser, Minoret had enjoyed up to
+this time a life of unmixed happiness,--if we can call pure materialism
+happiness. A physiologist, observing the rolls of flesh which covered
+the last vertebrae and pressed upon the giant's cerebellum, and, above
+all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice which contrasted so absurdly with
+his huge body, would have understood why this ponderous, coarse being
+adored his only son, and why he had so long expected him,--a fact proved
+by the name, Desire, which was given to the child.
+
+The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+mother's coffer and dipped into his father's purse, making each author
+of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire,
+who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his
+father's capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had
+gratified them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum
+of not less than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal
+studies. But for that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would
+never had come to him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial
+skin, learned the power of money and seen in the magistracy a means of
+advancement which he fancied. During the last year he had spent an extra
+sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists, journalists, and
+their mistresses. A confidential and rather disquieting letter from his
+son, asking for his consent to a marriage, explains the watch which the
+post master was now keeping on the bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault,
+busy in preparing a sumptuous breakfast to celebrate the triumphal
+return of the licentiate, had sent her husband to the mail road,
+advising him to take a horse and ride out if he saw nothing of the
+diligence. The coach which was conveying the precious son usually
+arrived at five in the morning and it was now nine! What could be the
+meaning of such delay? Was the coach overturned? Could Desire be dead?
+Or was it nothing worse than a broken leg?
+
+Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge
+of musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten
+horses neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was
+seen. The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray
+carriage-horses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the
+five diligence horses and the three other carriage-horses, and soon
+reached his master.
+
+"Have you seen the 'Ducler'?"
+
+On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+different coaches; such, for instance, as the "Caillard," the "Ducler"
+(the coach between Nemours and Paris), the "Grand Bureau." Every new
+enterprise is called the "Competition." In the days of the Lecompte
+company their coaches were called the "Countess."--"'Caillard' could not
+overtake the 'Countess'; but 'Grand Bureau' caught up with her finely,"
+you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing his horses
+and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he will
+tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space, "The
+'Competition' is ahead."--"We can't get in sight of her," cries
+the postilion; "the vixen! she wouldn't stop to let her passengers
+dine."--"The question is, has she got any?" responds the conductor.
+"Give it to Polignac!" All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac.
+Such are the jokes and the basis of conversation between postilions and
+conductors on the roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each calling in
+France has its slang.
+
+"Have you seen the 'Ducler'?" asked Minoret.
+
+"Monsieur Desire?" said the postilion, interrupting his master. "Hey!
+you must have heard us, didn't our whips tell you? we felt you were
+somewhere along the road."
+
+Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,--for the bells were
+pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,--a
+woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+
+"Well, cousin," she said, "you wouldn't believe me--Uncle is with Ursula
+in the Grand'Rue, and they are going to mass."
+
+In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought
+from the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew sibilant,
+and his face took on the appearance of what people oddly enough call a
+sunstroke.
+
+"Is that true?" he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was
+over.
+
+The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed
+him, but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting for
+his son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand'Rue with his cousin.
+
+"Didn't I always tell you so?" she resumed. "When Doctor Minoret
+goes out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into
+religion; whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and
+she'll have our inheritance."
+
+"But, Madame Massin--" said the post master, dumbfounded.
+
+"There now!" exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. "You are
+going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen
+can't invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of
+eighty-three, who has never set foot in a church except to be married,
+change his opinions,--now don't tell me he has such a horror of priests
+that he wouldn't even go with the girl to the parish church when she
+made her first communion. I'd like to know why, if Doctor Minoret hates
+priests, he has spent nearly every evening for the last fifteen years of
+his life with the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite never fails to give
+Ursula twenty francs for wax tapers every time she takes the sacrament.
+Have you forgotten the gift Ursula made to the church in gratitude to
+the cure for preparing her for her first communion? She spent all her
+money on it, and her godfather returned it to her doubled. You men!
+you don't pay attention to things. When I heard that, I said to myself,
+'Farewell baskets, the vintage is done!' A rich uncle doesn't behave
+that way to a little brat picked up in the streets without some good
+reason."
+
+"Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door of
+the church," replied the post master. "It is a fine day, and he is out
+for a walk."
+
+"I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious--you'll
+see him."
+
+"They hide their game pretty well," said Minoret, "La Bougival told me
+there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the
+globe; he'd give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable
+of a base action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is--"
+
+"Theft," said Madame Massin.
+
+"Worse!" cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+gossiping neighbour.
+
+"Of course I know," said Madame Massin, "that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we're done
+for. My husband is absolutely beside himself."
+
+Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and
+to the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way to
+mass. She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the post
+master.
+
+Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of
+which runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the
+stones of which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt
+in the fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised to
+a peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a
+great arch which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does
+everything. Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly
+kept square, this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect. As
+the post master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his uncle
+with the young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying prayer-books
+and just entering the church. The old man took off his hat in the porch,
+and his head, which was white as a hill-top covered with snow, shone
+among the shadows of the portal.
+
+"Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?" cried
+the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+
+"What do you expect me to say?" replied the post master, offering him a
+pinch of snuff.
+
+"Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can't say what you think, if it is
+true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his
+words before he speaks his thoughts," cried a young man, standing near,
+who played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+
+This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct that
+was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office when a
+career in Paris--where the clerk had wasted all the money he inherited
+from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a notary--was
+brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere sight of Goupil
+told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life, and had paid
+dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and shoulders were
+developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a man of forty.
+Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy complexion like
+the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead, brought out still
+further the oddity of his conformation. His face seemed as though it
+belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of him. One singularity
+of that pale and sour visage confirmed the impression of an invisible
+gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of shape like those of many
+deformed persons, turned from right to left of the face instead of
+dividing it down the middle. The mouth, contracted at the corners, like
+that of a Sardinian, was always on the qui vive of irony. His hair, thin
+and reddish, fell straight, and showed the skull in many places. His
+hands, coarse and ill-joined at the wrists to arms that were far too
+long, were quick-fingered and seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit
+for the dust-heap, and raw silk stockings now of a russet black; his
+coat and trousers, all black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt,
+his pitiful waistcoat with half the button-moulds gone, an old silk
+handkerchief which served as a cravat--in short, all his clothing
+revealed the cynical poverty to which his passions had reduced him. This
+combination of disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with
+yellow circles round the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious
+and cowardly. No one in Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more
+deferred to than Goupil. Strong in the claims made for him by his very
+ugliness, he had the odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow
+themselves all license, and he used it to gratify the bitterness of
+his life-long envy. He wrote the satirical couplets sung during the
+carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of
+the gossip of the town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for
+that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind
+and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master
+so distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to
+let him live in his house, held him at arm's length, and never confided
+any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk fawned
+upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and watching
+Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge there. Gifted
+with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work easy.
+
+"You!" exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+hands, "making game of our misfortunes already?"
+
+As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis' passions for the last
+five years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting
+the hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil's heart with every
+fresh insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to him
+than it was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the whole
+bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with Minoret's
+son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of three town
+offices,--that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice of one of
+the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he put up
+with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire,
+consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each
+vacation,--devouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+
+"If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given
+God to ME for a co-heir," retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which
+exhibited his teeth--few, black, and menacing.
+
+Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector
+of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town, had
+the physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as sloes
+beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears without
+any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He spoke like
+a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly it is enough
+to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to serve his legal
+notices.
+
+Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by
+red blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis, and
+supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of pretensions to
+wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle's money to "take a certain
+stand," decorate her salon, and receive the bourgeoisie. At present her
+husband denied her Carcel lamps, lithographs, and all the other trifles
+the notary's wife possessed. She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who
+caught up and retailed her "slapsus-linquies" as she called them. One
+day Madame Dionis chanced to ask what "Eau" she thought best for the
+teeth.
+
+"Try opium," she replied.
+
+Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now assembled
+in the square; the importance of the event which brought them was so
+generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with their scarlet
+umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which make them so
+picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with their eyes fixed on
+the frightened heirs. In all little towns which are midway between
+large villages and cities those who do not go to mass stand about in the
+square or market-place. Business is talked over. In Nemours the hour of
+church service was a weekly exchange, to which the owners of property
+scattered over a radius of some miles resorted.
+
+"Well, how would you have prevented it?" said the post master to Goupil
+in reply to his remark.
+
+"I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes.
+But from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance
+of a rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman--for
+want of proper care they'll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were here
+she could tell you how true that comparison is."
+
+"But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry
+about," said Massin.
+
+"Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!" cried Goupil, laughing.
+"I would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace say it. If
+there is nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with your uncle,
+knows that all is lost, the proper thing for him to say to you is,
+'Don't be worried.'"
+
+As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin
+had let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as a
+clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin, with
+the words:--"Didn't I tell you so?"
+
+Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was
+at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+Rouvre, a former client.
+
+"If I were sure of it!" he said.
+
+"You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis
+du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don't you see how Bongrand
+is sprinkling him with advice?" said Goupil, slipping an idea of
+retaliation into Massin's mind. "But you had better go easy with your
+chief; he's a clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your
+uncle and persuade him not to leave everything to the church."
+
+"Pooh! we sha'n't die of it," said Minoret-Levrault, opening his
+enormous snuff-box.
+
+"You won't live of it, either," said Goupil, making the two women
+tremble. More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the privations
+this loss of inheritance (so long counted on for many comforts) would
+be to them. "However," added Goupil, "we'll drown this little grief in
+floods of champagne in honor of Desire!--sha'n't we, old fellow?" he
+cried, tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting himself to the
+feast for fear he should be left out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE RICH UNCLE
+
+Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like to
+read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees
+of relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted
+to religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+subject of many instructive reflections.
+
+There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the
+latter we may mention the d'Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate
+of Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the
+town had no money. Madame de Portenduere's sole possessions were a
+farm which brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her town
+house.
+
+In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a
+group of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former
+merchants; in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived
+and moved the retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry. The
+bourgeoisie presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other
+small countries) the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain
+autochthonous families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who
+rule a whole region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants are
+cousins. Under Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made
+real names of their surnames (some of which are united with those of
+feudalism) the bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets, Massins,
+Levraults and Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four families had
+already produced the Massin-Cremieres, the Levrault-Massins, the
+Massin-Minorets, the Minoret-Minorets, the Cremiere-Levraults,
+the Levrault-Minoret-Massins, Massin-Levraults, Minoret-Massins,
+Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,--all these varied with juniors
+and diversified with the names of eldest sons, as for instance,
+Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret--enough to drive a
+Pere Anselme of the People frantic,--if the people should ever want a
+genealogist.
+
+The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of
+the bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of
+the Almanach of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they
+arrange those zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the Minorets
+occupied the tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the Massins were
+in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers. Fortunately for the
+neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers instead of depending
+only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings by the expatriation
+of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for instance, there are
+Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at Montargis; Massins
+at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in Paris. Divers are the
+destinies of these bees from the parent hive. Rich Massins employ, of
+course, the poor working Massins--just as Austria and Prussia take the
+German princes into their service. It may happen that a public office is
+managed by a Minoret millionaire and guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full
+of the same blood and called by the same name (for sole likeness), these
+four roots had ceaselessly woven a human network of which each thread
+was delicate or strong, fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same
+blood was in the head and in the feet and in the heart, in the working
+hands, in the weakly lungs, in the forehead big with genius.
+
+The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the
+ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which
+happened under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France you
+may be, you will find the same thing under changed names, but without
+the poetic charm which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter Scott's
+genius reproduced so faithfully. Let us look a little higher and
+examine humanity as it appears in history. All the noble families of the
+eleventh century, most of them (except the royal race of Capet) extinct
+to-day, will be found to have contributed to the birth of the Rohans,
+Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and Mortemarts of our time,--in fact they
+will all be found in the blood of the last gentleman who is indeed a
+gentleman. In other words, every bourgeois is cousin to a bourgeois, and
+every noble is cousin to a noble. A splendid page of biblical genealogy
+shows that in one thousand years three families, Shem, Ham, and Japhet,
+peopled the globe. One family may become a nation; unfortunately, a
+nation may become one family. To prove this we need only search back
+through our ancestors and see their accumulation, which time increases
+into a retrograde geometric progression, which multiplies of itself;
+reminding us of the calculation of the wise man who, being told to
+choose a reward from the king of Persia for inventing chess, asked
+for one ear of wheat for the first move on the board, the reward to be
+doubled for each succeeding move; when it was found that the kingdom was
+not large enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobility, hemmed in by
+the net-work of the bourgeoisie,--the antagonism of two protected races,
+one protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience of
+labor and the shrewdness of commerce,--produced the revolution of 1789.
+The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with collaterals
+without a heritage. What are they to do? Our political future is big
+with the answer.
+
+The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret was
+so numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose entrance
+into the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to seek
+his fortune, and seldom returned to his native town, until he came to
+receive his share of the inheritance of his grandfather. After suffering
+many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle for a place in
+the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets reached a nobler
+destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the start. He devoted
+himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a profession which demands
+both talent and a cheerful nature, but the latter qualification even
+more than talent. Backed by Dupont de Nemours, connected by a lucky
+chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and
+protected by the Encyclopedists, Doctor Minoret attached himself as
+liegeman to the famous Doctor Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D'Alembert,
+Helvetius, the Baron d'Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt
+himself a mere boy. These men, influenced by Bordeu's example, became
+interested in Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with
+a very good practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists,
+materialists, or whatever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers
+of that period.
+
+Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous balm
+of Lelievre, so much extolled by the "Mercure de France," the weekly
+organ of the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was permanently
+advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a stroke
+of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for the
+dispensary, and he loyally shared his profits with the doctor, who was
+a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine. Less
+than that would make a man a materialist.
+
+The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the "Nouvelle
+Heloise," when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His
+wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet,
+a celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew.
+Minoret knew Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental
+in awarding him a gold medal for a dissertation on the following
+subject: "What is the origin of the opinion that covers a whole family
+with the shame attaching to the public punishment of a guilty member of
+it? Is that opinion more harmful than useful? If yes, in what way can
+the harm be warded off." The Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at
+Metz, to which Minoret belonged, must possess this dissertation in the
+original. Though, thanks to this friendship, the Doctor's wife need
+have had no fear, she was so in dread of going to the scaffold that
+her terror increased a disposition to heart disease caused by the
+over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all the precautions taken
+by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately met the tumbril of
+victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock caused her death.
+Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her nothing, and had
+given her a life of luxury, found himself after her death almost a
+poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as surgeon-in-charge of a
+hospital.
+
+Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled
+him to the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a
+destroyer of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of Doctor
+Minoret, who was induced to think of returning there to die, like the
+hare to its form, by a circumstance that was wholly accidental.
+
+Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a fresh
+cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering beneath
+a cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow? Wakened by
+the "hu! hu!" of the postilion as he walks beside his horses, we shake
+off sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream, the beautiful
+scene which is to the traveler what a noble passage in a book is to a
+reader,--a brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the sensation caused
+by a first sight of Nemours as we approach it from Burgundy. We see it
+encircled with bare rocks, gray, black, white, fantastic in shape like
+those we find in the forest of Fontainebleau; from them spring scattered
+trees, clearly defined against the sky, which give to this particular
+rock formation the dilapidated look of a crumbling wall. Here ends the
+long wooded hill which creeps from Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road.
+At the bottom of this irregular amphitheater lie meadow-lands through
+which flows the Loing, forming sheets of water with many falls. This
+delightful landscape, which continues the whole way to Montargis, is
+like an opera scene, for its effects really seem to have been studied.
+
+One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a
+rich patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having mentioned
+at the last relay the route he intended to take, he was brought without
+his knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more, on waking from a
+nap, the scenery in which his childhood had been passed. He had lately
+lost many of his old friends. The votary of the Encyclopedists had
+witnessed the conversion of La Harpe; he had buried Lebrun-Pindare and
+Marie-Joseph de Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame Helvetius. He assisted
+at the quasi-fall of Voltaire when assailed by Geoffroy, the continuator
+of Freton. For some time past he had thought of retiring, and so, when
+his post chaise stopped at the head of the Grand'Rue of Nemours, his
+heart prompted him to inquire for his family. Minoret-Levrault, the post
+master, came forward himself to see the doctor, who discovered him to
+be the son of his eldest brother. The nephew presented the doctor to
+his wife, the only daughter of the late Levrault-Cremiere, who had died
+twelve years earlier, leaving him the post business and the finest inn
+in Nemours.
+
+"Well, nephew," said the doctor, "have I any other relatives?"
+
+"My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin--"
+
+"Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange."
+
+"She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place."
+
+"Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a
+bachelor, and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I am,
+that ends the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal side?
+My mother was a Jean-Massin-Levrault."
+
+"Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault's there's only one left," answered
+Minoret-Levrault, "namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur
+Cremiere-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the
+scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one
+daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is
+doing well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary's
+clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith."
+
+"So I've plenty of heirs," said the doctor gayly, immediately proposing
+to take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+
+The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor turned
+into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the property of
+Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he said, had just
+died.
+
+"The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there's a
+charming garden running down to the river."
+
+"Let us go in," said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a
+small paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the
+two neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and
+climbing-plants.
+
+"It is built over a cellar," said the doctor, going up the steps of
+a high portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which
+geraniums were growing.
+
+Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one room
+to the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the courtyard and
+two on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of these windows
+to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick which extended
+from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible Chinese pagoda.
+
+"Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor," said
+old Minoret, "I could put my book there and make a very comfortable
+study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end."
+
+On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the
+dining-room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and
+gold flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
+staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
+pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
+courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers on
+the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which were
+fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and observing that
+it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on the side of the
+courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which ended in a terrace
+overlooking the river and adorned with pottery vases,--the doctor
+remarked:--
+
+"Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here."
+
+"Ho! I should think so," answered Minoret-Levrault. "He liked
+flowers--nonsense! 'What do they bring in?' says my wife. You saw inside
+there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the
+corridor. He put those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were
+all re-made with cornices which cost six francs a foot. The dining-room
+floor is in marquetry--perfect folly! The house won't sell for a penny
+the more."
+
+"Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here's
+my address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?" he
+asked, as they left the house.
+
+"Emigres," answered the post master, "named Portenduere."
+
+The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of living
+there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was therefore
+occupied by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold his practice
+to Dionis, his head-clerk, and died two years later, leaving the house
+on the doctor's hands, just at the time when the fate of Napoleon was
+being decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor's heirs, at first misled,
+had by this time decided that his thought of returning to his native
+place was merely a rich man's fancy, and that probably he had some tie
+in Paris which would keep him there and cheat them of their hoped-for
+inheritance. However, Minoret-Levrault's wife seized the occasion
+to write him a letter. The old man replied that as soon as peace
+was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe communications
+established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He did, in fact, put in
+an appearance with two of his clients, the architect of his hospital and
+an upholsterer, who took charge of the repairs, the indoor arrangements,
+and the transportation of the furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault
+proposed the cook of the late notary as caretaker, and the woman was
+accepted.
+
+When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was really
+coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the political
+events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and on the
+Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising. Was
+he rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune or
+nothing? Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out
+what follows, but only by taking infinite pains and employing much
+subterraneous spying.
+
+After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years 1789
+and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician to the
+Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no one knew
+how much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than a carriage
+by the year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no guests, and dined
+out almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at not being allowed to
+go with him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the post master's wife,
+that she knew the doctor had fourteen thousand francs a year on the
+"grand-livre." Now, after twenty years' exercise of a profession which
+his position as head of a hospital, physician to the Emperor, and member
+of the Institute, rendered lucrative, these fourteen thousand francs a
+year showed only one hundred and sixty thousand francs laid by. To have
+saved only eight thousand francs a year the doctor must have had either
+many vices or many virtues to gratify. But neither his housekeeper
+nor Zelie nor any one else could discover the reason for such moderate
+means. Minoret, who when he left it was much regretted in the quarter
+of Paris where he had lived, was one of the most benevolent of men, and,
+like Larrey, kept his kind deeds a profound secret.
+
+The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle's fine furniture and large
+library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming, he being
+now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed by the king
+a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel--perhaps on account of his
+retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But when the
+architect and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything in
+the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, who kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as if
+her own property was concerned, found out, through the indiscretion of a
+young man sent to arrange the books, that the doctor was taking care of
+a little orphan named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire through the
+town. At last, however, towards the middle of the month of January,
+1815, the old man actually arrived, installing himself quietly, almost
+slyly, with a little girl about ten months old, and a nurse.
+
+"The child can't be his daughter," said the terrified heirs; "he is
+seventy-one years old."
+
+"Whoever she is," remarked Madame Massin, "she'll give us plenty of
+tintouin" (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+more literally, tingling in the ears).
+
+The doctor received his great-niece on the mother's side somewhat
+coldly; her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court, and
+the pair began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither Massin
+nor his wife were rich. Massin's father, a locksmith at Montargis,
+had been obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was now, at
+sixty-seven years of age, working like a young man, and had nothing to
+leave behind him. Madame Massin's father, Levrault-Minoret, had just
+died at Montereau after the battle, in despair at seeing his farm
+burned, his fields ruined, his cattle slaughtered.
+
+"We'll get nothing out of your great-uncle," said Massin to his wife,
+now pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+
+The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with which
+Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff, began
+the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly with the
+peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil knew him
+to hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+
+As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through
+his influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his
+bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his wife,
+being jealous of the uncle's liberality to his two nieces, took her
+ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be to
+them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so much. The
+doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at the school of
+Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth class.
+
+Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+"rated without appeal" by the doctor within two months of his arrival
+in Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions
+of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a
+glance; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount of
+intellect to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his heirs, and
+thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor made a pretext
+of his occupations, his habits, and the care of the little Ursula to
+avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing his doors to them.
+He liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he got up late; he had
+returned to his native place for the very purpose of finding rest
+in solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be natural, and his
+relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly visits on Sundays
+from one to four o'clock, to which, however, he tried to put a stop by
+saying: "Don't come and see me unless you want something."
+
+The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over serious
+cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not serve as a
+physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared that he no
+longer practiced his profession.
+
+"I've killed enough people," he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon,
+who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+
+"He's an original!" These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the
+harmless revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects
+about him a society of persons who have many of the characteristics of
+a set of heirs. Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves entitled
+to visit this distinguished physician kept up a ferment of jealousy
+against the few privileged friends whom he did admit to his intimacy,
+which had in the long run some unfortunate results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE DOCTOR'S FRIENDS
+
+Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that "extremes
+meet," the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon
+friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the
+priesthood, and the Abbe Chaperon played it with about as much skill as
+he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret was
+charitable, and the abbe was the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had had
+a wide and varied education; the man of God was the only person in all
+Nemours who was fully capable of understanding the atheist. To be able
+to argue, men must first understand each other. What pleasure is there
+in saying sharp words to one who can't feel them? The doctor and the
+priest had far too much taste and had seen too much of good society
+not to practice its precepts; they were thus well-fitted for the little
+warfare so essential to conversation. They hated each other's opinions,
+but they valued each other's character. If such conflicts and such
+sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we must surely despair of
+society, which, especially in France, requires some form of antagonism.
+It is from the shock of characters, and not from the struggle of
+opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+
+The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor's chief friend. This
+excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so
+doing, the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his
+sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good without
+inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited. His
+parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of life,
+was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and avarice
+manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a treasure in
+heaven which avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon argued with his
+servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck with his--if indeed
+that famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good priest often sold the
+buckles off his shoes and his breeches to give their value to some poor
+person who appealed to him at a moment when he had not a penny. When he
+was seen coming out of church with the straps of his breeches tied
+into the button-holes, devout women would redeem the buckles from the
+clock-maker and jeweler of the town and return them to their pastor with
+a lecture. He never bought himself any clothes or linen, and wore his
+garments till they scarcely held together. His linen, thick with darns,
+rubbed his skin like a hair shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good
+souls, had an agreement with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes
+with new ones after he went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find
+out the difference. He ate his food off pewter with iron forks and
+spoons. When he received his assistants and sub-curates on days of high
+solemnity (an expense obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed
+linen and silver from his friend the atheist.
+
+"My silver is his salvation," the doctor would say.
+
+These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more meritorious
+because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was vast and varied,
+and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and grace, the inseparable
+accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an elocution that was worthy
+of a prelate. His manners, his character, and his habits gave to his
+intercourse with others the most exquisite savor of all that is most
+spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A lover of gayety, he was
+never priest in a salon. Until Doctor Minoret's arrival, the good man
+kept his light under a bushel without regret. Owning a rather fine
+library and an income of two thousand francs when he came to Nemours,
+he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at all, except his stipend as parish
+priest, nearly the whole of which he gave away during the year. The
+giver of excellent counsel in delicate matters or in great misfortunes,
+many persons who never went to church to obtain consolation went to the
+parsonage to get advice. One little anecdote will suffice to complete
+his portrait. Sometimes the peasants,--rarely, it is true, but
+occasionally,--unprincipled men, would tell him they were sued for debt,
+or would get themselves threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe's
+benevolence. They would even deceive their wives, who, believing their
+chattels were threatened with an execution and their cows seized,
+deceived in their turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He
+would then manage with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight
+hundred francs demanded of him--with which the peasant bought himself
+a morsel of land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud,
+begging the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to
+such cupidity, he would say:--
+
+"But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of land?
+Isn't it doing good when we prevent evil?"
+
+Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the
+fact that science and literature had filled the heart and passed through
+the strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of age the
+abbe's hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the sorrows of
+others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution weighed upon
+him. Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he had twice, as
+he used to say, uttered in "In manus." He was of medium height,
+neither stout nor thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed and quite
+colorless, attracted immediate attention by the absolute tranquillity
+expressed in its shape, and by the purity of its outline, which seemed
+to be edged with light. The face of a chaste man has an unspeakable
+radiance. Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the irregular
+features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead. His glance wielded
+a power which came of a gentleness that was not devoid of strength. The
+arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by huge gray eyebrows which
+alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone his mouth had lost its
+shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this physical destruction was
+not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of pleasantness, seemed to
+smile on others. Without being gouty his feet were tender; and he walked
+with so much difficulty that he wore shoes made of calf's skin all the
+year round. He thought the fashion of trousers unsuitable for priests,
+and he always appeared in stockings of coarse black yarn, knit by his
+housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He never went out in his cassock, but
+wore a brown overcoat, and still retained the three-cornered hat he had
+worn so courageously in times of danger. This noble and beautiful old
+man, whose face was glorified by the serenity of a soul above reproach,
+will be found to have so great an influence upon the men and things of
+this history, that it was proper to show the sources of his authority
+and power.
+
+Minoret took three newspapers,--one liberal, one ministerial, one
+ultra,--a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals,
+the accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers,
+encyclopaedias, and books were an attraction to a retired captain of the
+Royal-Swedish regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean nobleman
+and an old bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of pension and
+annuity combined. Having read the gazettes for several days, by favor
+of the abbe, Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to call and thank
+the doctor in person. At this first visit the old captain, formerly a
+professor at the Military Academy, won the doctor's heart, who returned
+the call with alacrity. Monsieur de Jordy, a spare little man much
+troubled by his blood, though his face was very pale, attracted
+attention by the resemblance of his handsome brow to that of Charles
+XII.; above it he kept his hair cropped short, like that of the
+soldier-king. His blue eyes seemed to say that "Love had passed that
+way," so mournful were they; revealing memories about which he kept such
+utter silence that his old friends never detected even an allusion to
+his past life, nor a single exclamation drawn forth by similarity
+of circumstances. He hid the painful mystery of his past beneath a
+philosophic gayety, but when he thought himself alone his motions,
+stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter of choice than the
+result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of distressful
+thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian ignorant of his
+Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather rigid demeanor
+and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military discipline. His
+sweet and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His beautiful hands and the
+general cut of his figure, recalling that of the Comte d'Artois, showed
+how charming he must have been in his youth, and made the mystery of
+his life still more mysterious. An observer asked involuntarily what
+misfortune had blighted such beauty, courage, grace, accomplishment,
+and all the precious qualities of the heart once united in his person.
+Monsieur de Jordy shuddered if Robespierre's name were uttered before
+him. He took much snuff, but, strange to say, he gave up the habit
+to please little Ursula, who at first showed a dislike to him on that
+account. As soon as he saw the little girl the captain fastened his eyes
+upon her with a look that was almost passionate. He loved her play so
+extravagantly and took such interest in all she did that the tie between
+himself and the doctor grew closer every day, though the latter never
+dared to say to him, "You, too, have you lost children?" There are
+beings, kind and patient as old Jordy, who pass through life with a
+bitter thought in their heart and a tender but sorrowful smile on their
+lips, carrying with them to the grave the secret of their lives; letting
+no one guess it,--through pride, through disdain, possibly through
+revenge; confiding in none but God, without other consolation than his.
+
+Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of
+his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine
+o'clock. So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed
+early, in spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore a
+great piece of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when
+he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same
+language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went to
+bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret had
+passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that the
+priest and soldier returned every night regularly at nine o'clock, the
+hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was free.
+All three would then sit up till midnight or one o'clock.
+
+After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life
+was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer,
+the indulgence, knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for
+conversation which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their
+practical dealings with the souls, diseases, and education of men, was
+added to the number. Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of
+the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor's
+society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for ten
+years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases, according
+to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers. He became a
+widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still too active
+to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the position of
+justice of peace at Nemours, which became vacant a few months before
+the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived modestly on his
+salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he might devote his
+private income to his son, who was studying law in Paris under the
+famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired chief of a civil
+service office; he had the peculiar face of a bureaucrat, less sallow
+than pallid, on which public business, vexations, and disgust leave
+their imprint,--a face lined by thought, and also by the continual
+restraints familiar to those who are trained not to speak their minds
+freely. It was often illumined by smiles characteristic of men who
+alternately believe all and believe nothing, who are accustomed to see
+and hear all without being startled, and to fathom the abysses which
+self-interest hollows in the depths of the human heart.
+
+Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn flattened
+to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow tones of which
+harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His face, with the
+features set close together, bore some likeness to that of a fox,
+all the more because his nose was short and pointed. In speaking,
+he spluttered at the mouth, which was broad like that of most great
+talkers,--a habit which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly, "An umbrella
+would be useful when listening to him," or, "The justice rains
+verdicts." His eyes looked keen behind his spectacles, but if he took
+the glasses off his dulled glance seemed almost vacant. Though he was
+naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt to give himself too important
+and pompous an air. He usually kept his hands in the pockets of his
+trousers, and only took them out to settle his eye-glasses on his nose,
+with a movement that was half comic, and which announced the coming of
+a keen observation or some victorious argument. His gestures, his
+loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the provincial
+lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he redeemed
+them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist might call
+the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little like a fox,
+and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or dishonest. His
+wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing results and
+protecting himself and others from the traps set for them. He loved
+whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which the abbe
+learned to play in a very short time.
+
+This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet's
+salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and
+knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor
+to the profession, came there sometimes; but his duties and also his
+fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed early and to be up early)
+prevented his being as assiduously present as the three other friends.
+This intercourse of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who
+had sufficiently wide knowledge to understand each other, explains old
+Minoret's aversion to his relatives; if he were compelled to leave them
+his money, at least he need not admit them to his society. Whether the
+post master, the sheriff, and the collector understood this distinction,
+or whether they were reassured by the evident loyalty and benefactions
+of their uncle, certain it is that they ceased, to his great
+satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about eight months after the
+arrival of the doctor these four players of whist and backgammon made
+a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a fraternal
+aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures of which
+were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits closed
+round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his individual
+tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge imagined himself her
+guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher, and as for Minoret, he
+was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+
+After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On Ursula's
+account he received no visitors in the morning, and never gave dinners,
+but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at six o'clock and
+stay till midnight. The first-comers found the newspapers on the table
+and read them while awaiting the rest; or they sometimes sallied forth
+to meet the doctor if he were out for a walk. This tranquil life was not
+a mere necessity of old age, it was the wise and careful scheme of a man
+of the world to keep his happiness untroubled by the curiosity of
+his heirs and the gossip of a little town. He yielded nothing to that
+capricious goddess, public opinion, whose tyranny (one of the present
+great evils of France) was just beginning to establish its power and
+to make the whole nation a mere province. So, as soon as the child was
+weaned and could walk alone, the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom
+his niece, Madame Minoret-Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered
+that she told her patroness everything that happened in his household.
+
+Ursula's nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but a
+baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child, aged
+six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and honest
+creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris (her
+maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached herself
+naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This blind
+maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household
+devotion. Told of the doctor's intention to send away his housekeeper,
+La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and
+discovered the old man's ways. She took the utmost care of the house and
+furniture; in short she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor wish
+to keep his private life within four walls, as the saying is, but he
+also had certain reasons for hiding a knowledge of his business affairs
+from his relatives. At the end of the second year after his arrival La
+Bougival was the only servant in the house; on her discretion he knew he
+could count, and he disguised his real purposes by the all-powerful open
+reason of a necessary economy. To the great satisfaction of his heirs he
+became a miser. Without fawning or wheedling, solely by the influence of
+her devotion and solicitude, La Bougival, who was forty-three years old
+at the time this tale begins, was the housekeeper of the doctor and
+his protegee, the pivot on which the whole house turned, in short,
+the confidential servant. She was called La Bougival from the admitted
+impossibility of applying to her person the name that actually belonged
+to her, Antoinette--for names and forms do obey the laws of harmony.
+
+The doctor's miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours could
+estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like most old
+men his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few. Every six
+months he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his income. In
+fifteen years he never said a single word to any one in relation to his
+affairs. His confidence in Bongrand was of slow growth; it was not until
+after the revolution of 1830 that he told him of his projects. Nothing
+further was known of the doctor's life either by the bourgeoisie at
+large or by his heirs. As for his political opinions, he did not meddle
+in public matters seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year
+in taxes, and refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or
+liberal demands. His known horror for the priesthood, and his deism were
+so little obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner
+sent by his great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the "Cure
+Meslier" and the "Discours du General Foy." Such tolerance seemed
+inexplicable to the liberals of Nemours.
+
+The doctor's three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+Cremiere-Cremiere--whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is quite
+unnecessary out of the Gatinais--met together as people do in little
+towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son's birthday, a ball
+during the carnival, another on the anniversary of his marriage, to
+all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of Nemours. The collector
+received his relations and friends twice a year. The clerk of the court,
+too poor, he said, to fling himself into such extravagance, lived in
+a small way in a house standing half-way down the Grand'Rue, the
+ground-floor of which was let to his sister, the letter-postmistress
+of Nemours, a situation she owed to the doctor's kind offices.
+Nevertheless, in the course of the year these three families did meet
+together frequently, in the houses of friends, in the public promenades,
+at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a Sunday in the square, as on
+this occasion; so that one way and another they met nearly every day.
+For the last three years the doctor's age, his economies, and his
+probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank remarks, among the
+townspeople as to the disposition of his property, a topic which made
+the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the little town. For the
+last six months not a day passed that friends and neighbours did not
+speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day the good man's eyes
+would shut and the coffers open.
+
+"Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death, but
+none but God is eternal," said one.
+
+"Pooh, he'll bury us all; his health is better than ours," replied an
+heir, hypocritically.
+
+"Well, if you don't get the money yourselves, your children will, unless
+that little Ursula--"
+
+"He won't leave it all to her."
+
+Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere's favorite
+saying, "Well, whoever lives will know," shows that they wished at any
+rate more harm to her than good.
+
+The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the
+post master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor's
+property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+
+"He must have got hold of some elixir of life," said one.
+
+"He has made a bargain with the devil," replied the other.
+
+"He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn't need
+anything," said Massin.
+
+"Ah! but Minoret has a son who'll waste his substance," answered
+Cremiere.
+
+"How much do you really think the doctor has?"
+
+"At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each year,
+that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and the
+interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he
+must, if he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of
+business, and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per
+cent from the State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand
+francs, without counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year
+from the five per cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving
+anything to Ursula we should get at least seven or eight hundred
+thousand francs, besides the house and furniture."
+
+"Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand apiece
+to you and me, that would be fair."
+
+"Ha, that would make us comfortable!"
+
+"If he did that," said Massin, "I should sell my situation in court
+and buy an estate; I'd try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get myself
+elected deputy."
+
+"As for me I should buy a brokerage business," said the collector.
+
+"Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round him.
+I don't believe we can do anything with him."
+
+"Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. ZELIE
+
+The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass will
+now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to foresee a
+danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind of the
+peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground the
+stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal reasoning,
+"If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her godfather into
+the pale of the Church she will certainly have enough to make him leave
+her his property," was now stamped in letters of fire on the brains of
+the most obtuse heir. The post master had forgotten about his son in his
+hurry to reach the square; for if the doctor were really in the church
+hearing mass it was a question of losing two hundred and fifty thousand
+francs. It must be admitted that the fears of these relations came from
+the strongest and most legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Minoret," said the mayor (formerly a miller who had now
+become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), "when the devil gets old the
+devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us."
+
+"Better late than never, cousin," responded the post master, trying to
+conceal his annoyance.
+
+"How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of
+marrying his son to that damned girl--may the devil get her!" cried
+Cremiere, shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+
+"What's Cremiere grumbling about?" said the butcher of the town, a
+Levrault-Levrault the elder. "Isn't he pleased to see his uncle on the
+road to paradise?"
+
+"Who would ever have believed it!" ejaculated Massin.
+
+"Ha! one should never say, 'Fountain, I'll not drink of your water,'"
+remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his wife
+to go to church without him.
+
+"Come, Monsieur Dionis," said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+"what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?"
+
+"I advise you," said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively, "to
+go to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before it gets
+cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your heads;
+in short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing had
+happened."
+
+"You are not consoling," said Massin.
+
+In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis
+was really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did
+business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such
+peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could
+be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their
+opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the
+profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent,
+the acquirement of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively
+interest in the doctor's inheritance, not so much for the post master
+and the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or
+later Massin's share in the doctor's money would swell the capital with
+which these secret associates worked the canton.
+
+"We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+comes from," said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to
+keep quiet.
+
+"What are you about, Minoret?" cried a little woman, suddenly descending
+upon the group in the middle of which stood the post master, as tall
+and round as a tower. "You don't know where Desire is and there you are,
+planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing, when I thought you on
+horseback!--Oh, good morning, Messieurs and Mesdames."
+
+This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white
+cotton with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed
+with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl
+on her flat shoulders, was Minoret's wife, the terror of postilions,
+servants, and carters; who kept the accounts and managed the
+establishment "with finger and eye" as they say in those parts. Like the
+true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not give
+in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held to the
+solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black apron, in
+the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her screeching voice
+was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance, conflicting with
+the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony with the thin lips
+of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very imperious forehead.
+Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture and speech. "Zelie
+being obliged to have a will for two, had it for three," said Goupil,
+who pointed out the successive reigns of three young postilions, of
+neat appearance, who had been set up in life by Zelie, each after seven
+years' service. The malicious clerk named them Postilion I., Postilion
+II., Postilion III. But the little influence these young men had in the
+establishment, and their perfect obedience proved that Zelie was merely
+interested in worthy helpers.
+
+This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of
+her son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for
+her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family
+fortune and was wholly given up to the management of their immense
+establishment. To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the
+better of Zelie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing
+impossible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew
+nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a
+walk except to look at the hay, the oats, or the second crops. She sent
+"her man" to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales, telling
+them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should bear.
+Though she was the soul of that great body called Minoret-Levrault and
+led him about by his pug nose, she was made to feel the fears which
+occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild beasts. She
+therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did; the
+postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with him,
+for his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she
+was grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, "Where
+would Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?"
+
+"When you know what has happened," replied the post master, "you'll be
+over the traces yourself."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Ursula has taken the doctor to mass."
+
+Zelie's pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger, then,
+crying out, "I'll see it before I believe it!" she rushed into the
+church. The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of the
+worshippers enabled her to look along each row of chairs and benches as
+she went up the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula's place, where she
+saw old Minoret standing with bared head.
+
+If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d'Anglas, Morellet,
+Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of
+Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile,
+cold tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the
+features, shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely
+aristocratic--less perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the ideas
+than in the character. All men of this stamp have high brows retreating
+at the summit, the sign of a tendency to materialism. You will find
+these leading characteristics of the head and these points of the face
+in all the Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde, in the men
+of a period when religious ideas were almost dead, men who called
+themselves deists and were atheists. The deist is an atheist lucky in
+classification.
+
+Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles,
+which recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the manner
+in which the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman when making
+her toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of his coat. He
+persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk stockings, shoes
+with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie, and a black coat,
+adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly characterized, the
+cold whiteness of which was softened by the yellowing tones of old age,
+happened to be, just then, in the full light of a window. As Madame
+Minoret came in sight of him the doctor's blue eyes with their reddened
+lids were raised to heaven; a new conviction had given them a new
+expression. His spectacles lay in his prayer-book and marked the place
+where he had ceased to pray. The tall and spare old man, his arms
+crossed on his breast, stood erect in an attitude which bespoke the full
+strength of his faculties and the unshakable assurance of his faith.
+He gazed at the altar humbly with a look of renewed hope, and took no
+notice of his nephew's wife, who planted herself almost in front of him
+as if to reproach him for coming back to God.
+
+Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church
+and returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She
+had reckoned on the doctor's money, and possession was becoming
+problematical. She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and
+their wives in greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking
+pleasure in tormenting them.
+
+"It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we
+ought to talk of our affairs," said Zelie; "come home with me. You too,
+Monsieur Dionis," she added to the notary; "you'll not be in the way."
+
+Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post
+master was the news of the day.
+
+Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which
+was only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand'Rue, made
+its usual racket.
+
+"Goodness! I'm like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire," said
+Zelie. "Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his
+interests are mixed up in this matter."
+
+The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes
+in late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards the
+"Ducler."
+
+"Here's Desire!" was the general cry.
+
+The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put the
+town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom he was
+invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence. But his
+methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that more than one
+family was very thankful to have him complete his studies and study
+law in Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth, slender and fair like his
+mother, from whom he obtained his blue eyes and pale skin, smiled from
+the window on the crowd, and jumped lightly down to kiss his mother. A
+short sketch of the young fellow will show how proud Zelie felt when she
+saw him.
+
+He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held
+under his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat, admirably
+put on and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy waistcoat, in
+the pocket of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of which hung down;
+and, finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a gray hat,--but his
+lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt buttons of the waistcoat
+and the ring worn outside of his purple kid glove. He carried a cane
+with a chased gold head.
+
+"You are losing your watch," said his mother, kissing him.
+
+"No, it is worn that way," he replied, letting his father hug him.
+
+"Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?" said Massin.
+
+"I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term," said Desire,
+returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+
+"Now we shall have some fun," said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+
+"Ha! my old wag, so here you are!" replied Desire.
+
+"You take your law license for all license," said Goupil, affronted by
+being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+
+"You know my luggage," cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of
+the diligence; "have it taken to the house."
+
+"The sweat is rolling off your horses," said Zelie sharply to the
+conductor; "you haven't common-sense to drive them in that way. You are
+stupider than your own beasts."
+
+"But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from
+anxiety," explained Cabirolle.
+
+"But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?" she
+retorted.
+
+The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young
+men around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey took
+enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to issue
+from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things) Desire saw
+Ursula on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped short amazed at
+her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the relations who
+accompanied him.
+
+In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she
+did with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward
+or difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does
+truly reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that
+Ursula's attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was
+dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and
+there with knots of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same
+ribbon run through a broad hem and tied with bows like those on the
+dress, showed the great beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure
+white, was charming in tone against the blue,--the right color for a
+fair skin. A long blue sash with floating ends defined a slender waist
+which seemed flexible,--a most seductive charm in women. She wore a
+rice-straw bonnet, modestly trimmed with ribbons like those of the gown,
+the strings of which were tied under her chin, setting off the whiteness
+of the straw and doing no despite to that of her beautiful complexion.
+Ursula dressed her own hair naturally (a la Berthe, as it was then
+called) in heavy braids of fine, fair hair, laid flat on either side
+of the head, each little strand reflecting the light as she walked.
+Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the same time, were in harmony with a
+finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge, suffusing her cheeks like a cloud,
+brightened a face which was regular without being insipid; for nature
+had given her, by some rare privilege, extreme purity of form combined
+with strength of countenance. The nobility of her life was manifest in
+the general expression of her person, which might have served as a model
+for a type of trustfulness, or of modesty. Her health, though brilliant,
+was not coarsely apparent; in fact, her whole air was distinguished.
+Beneath the little gloves of a light color it was easy to imagine
+her pretty hands. The arched and slender feet were delicately shod
+in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a brown silk fringe. Her blue sash
+holding at the waist a small flat watch and a blue purse with gilt
+tassels attracted the eyes of every woman she met.
+
+"He has given her a new watch!" said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+husband's arm.
+
+"Heavens! is that Ursula?" cried Desire; "I didn't recognize her."
+
+"Well, my dear uncle," said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let the
+doctor pass, "everybody wants to see you."
+
+"Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+uncle," said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+Jesuitical humility.
+
+"Ursula," replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+annoyed.
+
+The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with Ursula,
+the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, "I intend to go to church
+to-morrow."
+
+"Then," said Bongrand, "your heirs won't get another night's rest."
+
+The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by
+the expression of their faces. Zelie's irruption into the church, her
+glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the expectant
+ones in the public square, and the expression in their eyes as they
+turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now freshly
+awakened, and their sordid fears.
+
+"It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle," said Madame Cremiere,
+putting in her word with a humble bow,--"a miracle which will not cost
+you much."
+
+"It is God's doing, madame," replied Ursula.
+
+"God!" exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; "my father-in-law used to say he
+served to blanket many horses."
+
+"Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey," said the doctor severely.
+
+"Come," said Minoret to his wife and son, "why don't you bow to my
+uncle?"
+
+"I shouldn't be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite," cried
+Zelie, carrying off her son.
+
+"I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap," said
+Madame Massin; "the church is very damp."
+
+"Pooh, niece," said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, "the
+sooner I'm put to bed the sooner you'll flourish."
+
+He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a
+hurry that the others dropped behind.
+
+"Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn't right," said Ursula,
+shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+
+"I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but
+not one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they
+know is the only day I celebrate."
+
+At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de
+Portenduere, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She
+belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of the
+last century. They wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the cut of
+which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all have black
+lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping with their slow
+and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that they still wore
+paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as persons who have
+lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving. They swathe their
+heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully about their cheeks.
+Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes and faded brows, are
+not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite of the false fronts
+with flattened curls to which they cling,--and yet these ruins are all
+subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look and manner.
+
+The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to
+time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was
+really as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+
+"Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?" said Madame Massin,
+rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+doctor's answer.
+
+"For the cure," said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his forehead
+as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him. "I have an
+idea! I'll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast gayly with
+Madame Minoret."
+
+We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the
+notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire,
+locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth's ear with
+an odious smile.
+
+"What do I care?" answered the son of the house, shrugging his
+shoulders. "I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial creature
+in the world."
+
+"Florine! and who may she be?" demanded Goupil. "I'm too fond of you to
+let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures."
+
+"Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I know
+that. She has positively refused to marry me."
+
+"Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with
+their heads," responded Goupil.
+
+"If you could but see her--only once," said Desire, lackadaisically,
+"you wouldn't say such things."
+
+"If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than
+a fancy," said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived
+his master, "I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+'Kenilworth.' Your wife must be a d'Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre, and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I
+sha'n't let you commit any follies."
+
+"I am rich enough to care only for happiness," replied Desire.
+
+"What are you two plotting together?" cried Zelie, beckoning to the two
+friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come into
+the house.
+
+The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of
+a young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had
+lately taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds
+of the whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to make
+this history and the notary's remark to the heirs perfectly intelligible
+to the reader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. URSULA
+
+The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and
+maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most celebrated
+organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of his old age,
+whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who turned out a
+worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the comfort of
+seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and composer, having
+made his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned name, ran away with
+a young lady in Germany. The dying father commended the young man, who
+was really full of talent, to his son-in-law, proving to him, at the
+same time, that he had refused to marry the mother that he might not
+injure Madame Minoret. The doctor promised to give the unfortunate
+Joseph half of whatever his wife inherited from her father, whose
+business was purchased by the Erards. He made due search for his
+illegitimate brother-in-law; but Grimm informed him one day that after
+enlisting in a Prussian regiment Joseph had deserted and taken a false
+name and that all efforts to find him would be frustrated.
+
+Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine figure,
+a handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste and much
+brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life which Hoffman
+has so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he was reduced to
+such depths of poverty that he took advantage of the events of 1806
+to make himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he
+married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell
+in love with the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose
+to devote her life to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph
+Mirouet was unable to bear prosperity; he was naturally a spendthrift,
+and though kind to his wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years.
+The household must have dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph
+Mirouet reached the point of enlisting as a musician in a French
+regiment. In 1813 the surgeon-major of the regiment, by the merest
+chance, heard the name of Mirouet, was struck by it, and wrote to Doctor
+Minoret, to whom he was under obligations.
+
+The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the
+allied occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife
+died giving birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should
+be called Ursula after his wife. The father did not long survive the
+mother, worn out, as she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the
+unfortunate musician bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was
+already her godfather, in spite of his repugnance for what he called the
+mummeries of the Church. Having seen his own children die in succession
+either in dangerous confinements or during the first year of their
+lives, the doctor had awaited with anxiety the result of a last hope.
+When a nervous, delicate, and sickly woman begins with a miscarriage
+it is not unusual to see her go through a series of such pregnancies as
+Ursula Minoret did, in spite of the care and watchfulness and science
+of her husband. The poor man often blamed himself for their mutual
+persistence in desiring children. The last child, born after a rest
+of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim of its mother's nervous
+condition--if we listen to physiologists, who tell us that in the
+inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child derives from the father
+by blood and from the mother in its nervous system.
+
+Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him, the
+doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied paternity.
+During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had longed more
+especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring joy to the
+house; he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet's legacy, and gave to
+the orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams. For two years he took
+part, as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute particulars of Ursula's
+life; he would not allow the nurse to suckle her or to take her up or
+put her to bed without him. His medical science and his experience
+were all put to use in her service. After going through many trials,
+alternations of hope and fear, and the joys and labors of a mother, he
+had the happiness of seeing this child of the fair German woman and the
+French singer a creature of vigorous health and profound sensibility.
+
+With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine and
+soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed the
+little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle through
+which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was passionately fond
+of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she fixed her beautiful
+blue eyes upon some object with that serious, reflective look which
+seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended with a laugh, he would
+stay by her side for hours, seeking, with Jordy's help, to understand
+the reasons (which most people call caprices) underlying the phenomena
+of this delicious phase of life, when childhood is both flower and
+fruit, a confused intelligence, a perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+
+Ursula's beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He declared
+to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting hers. When old
+men love children there is no limit to their passion--they worship them.
+For these little beings they silence their own manias or recall a whole
+past in their service. Experience, patience, sympathy, the acquisitions
+of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all are spent upon that young
+life in which they live again; their intelligence does actually take the
+place of motherhood. Their wisdom, ever on the alert, is equal to the
+intuition of a mother; they remember the delicate perceptions which in
+their own mother were divinations, and import them into the exercise of
+a compassion which is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of
+the child's unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes
+the place of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is
+reduced to its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the
+mother a slave, the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote
+himself utterly. For these reasons it is not unusual to see children in
+close intimacy with old persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old
+doctor, happy in the kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were never
+weary of answering her talk and playing with her. Far from making
+them impatient her petulances charmed them; and they gratified all her
+wishes, making each the ground of some little training.
+
+The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula's soul developed in
+a sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it
+breathed the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays that
+belonged to it.
+
+"In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?" asked the abbe
+of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+
+"In yours," answered Minoret.
+
+An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the "Nouvelle Heloise"
+he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits offered
+by the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on a bench
+outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe's hand on his.
+
+"Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+friend 'Shapron,'" he said, imitating Ursula's infant speech, "I wish to
+see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall do
+nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul; but in
+my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian."
+
+"God will reward you, I hope," replied the abbe, gently joining his
+hands and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief
+mental prayer.
+
+So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under
+the religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come under
+the educational training of her friend Jordy.
+
+The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a
+taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages, had
+studied the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man, patient as
+most old scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read and write.
+He taught her also the French language and all she needed to know of
+arithmetic. The doctor's library afforded a choice of books which could
+be read by a child for amusement as well as instruction.
+
+The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with
+the freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula
+learned as she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left
+to follow the divine training of a nature that was led into regions of
+purity by these judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment
+than to duty; she took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own
+conscience rather than the demands of social law. In her, nobility of
+feeling and action would ever be spontaneous; her judgment would confirm
+the impulse of her heart. She was destined to do right as a pleasure
+before doing it as an obligation. This distinction is the peculiar sign
+of Christian education. These principles, altogether different from
+those that are taught to men, were suitable for a woman,--the spirit and
+the conscience of the home, the beautifier of domestic life, the queen
+of her household. All three of these old preceptors followed the same
+method with Ursula. Instead of recoiling before the bold questions of
+innocence, they explained to her the reasons of things and the best
+means of action, taking care to give her none but correct ideas.
+When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade of grass, her thoughts went
+straight to God, the doctor and the professor told her that the priest
+alone could answer her. None of them intruded on the territory of the
+others; the doctor took charge of her material well-being and the
+things of life; Jordy's department was instruction; moral and spiritual
+questions and the ideas appertaining to the higher life belonged to
+the abbe. This noble education was not, as it often is, counteracted by
+injudicious servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject,
+and being, moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did
+nothing to injure the work of these great minds. Ursula, a privileged
+being, grew up with good geniuses round her; and her naturally fine
+disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy one. Such manly
+tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty without danger,
+such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula, when nine years
+of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+
+Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died the
+following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his work, of
+which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part. Flowers
+will bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The old
+gentleman had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a year,
+that he might leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep a place
+in her memory during her whole life. In his will, the wording of which
+was very touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or five
+hundred francs that came of her little capital exclusively on her dress.
+When the justice of the peace applied the seals to the effects of his
+old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had allowed
+no one to enter, a quantity of toys, many of them broken, while all
+had been used,--toys of a past generation, reverently preserved, which
+Monsieur Bongrand was, according to the captain's last wishes, to burn
+with his own hands.
+
+About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind
+and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another,
+needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a knowledge
+of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew into
+the pious and mystical young girl whose character rose above all
+vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then
+began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the
+young girl full of faith,--long unsuspected by her who incited it,--the
+result of which had now stirred the whole town, and was destined to have
+great influence on Ursula's future by rousing against her the antagonism
+of the doctor's heirs.
+
+During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her
+mornings at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe's secret
+hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him.
+The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own
+daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor; he could not fail
+to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul of a
+child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing both
+flowers and fruit, always fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful life is
+more powerful than the strongest argument. It is impossible to resist
+the charms of certain sights. The doctor's eyes were wet, he knew not
+how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for the church,
+wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin; her hair bound
+with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white ribbon, and
+rippling upon her shoulders; her eyes lighted by the star of a first
+hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and loving her
+godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When the doctor
+perceived that the thought of immortality was nourishing that spirit
+(until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun gives life to
+the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he remained at home
+alone.
+
+Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as
+she left him: "Why won't you come, godfather? how can I be happy without
+you?" Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the Encyclopedist
+did not as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction from which he
+could see the procession of communicants, and distinguish his little
+Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her veil. She gave him an
+inspired look, which knocked, in the stony regions of his heart, on
+the corner closed to God. But still the old deist held firm. He said
+to himself: "Mummeries! if there be a maker of worlds, imagine the
+organizer of infinitude concerning himself with such trifles!" He
+laughed as he continued his walk along the heights which look down upon
+the road to the Gatinais, where the bells were ringing a joyous peal
+that told of the joy of families.
+
+The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever invented.
+Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose organs and
+nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise and the
+exclamations she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old Jordy while
+living, and the doctor always waited till their child was in bed before
+they began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors came early
+when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on when she
+returned; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and took her
+seat at the window with her work. She had a repugnance to the game,
+which is really in the beginning very hard and unconquerable to some
+minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost impossible to
+take it up in after life.
+
+The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon where
+her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board before
+him.
+
+"Whose throw shall it be?" she asked.
+
+"Ursula," said the doctor, "isn't it a sin to make fun of your godfather
+the day of your first communion?"
+
+"I am not making fun of you," she said, sitting down. "I want to give
+you some pleasure--you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in backgammon,
+and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong enough to beat
+you--you shall not deprive yourself any longer for me. I have conquered
+all difficulties, and now I like the noise of the game."
+
+Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next day
+Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to
+Paris for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher, and
+submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to him. One
+of poor Jordy's predictions was fulfilled,--the girl became an excellent
+musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately sent to Paris for
+a master, an old German named Schmucke, a distinguished professor who
+came once a week; the doctor willingly paying for an art which he had
+formerly declared to be useless in a household. Unbelievers do not like
+music--a celestial language, developed by Catholicism, which has taken
+the names of the seven notes from one of the church hymns; every note
+being the first syllable of the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint
+John.
+
+The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula's first communion though
+keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which prayer and
+the exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had not their due
+influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or repentance himself,
+he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own benefactions without hope of a
+celestial harvest, he thought himself on a nobler plane than religious
+men whom he always accused for making, as he called it, terms with God.
+
+"But," the abbe would say to him, "if all men would be so, you must
+admit that society would be regenerated; there would be no more
+misery. To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great
+philosopher; you rise to your principles through reason, you are a
+social exception; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us
+benevolent in ours. With you, it is an effort; with us, it comes
+naturally."
+
+"In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,--that's the whole of it."
+
+However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did
+not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor in
+providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent creature,
+the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula's artless
+consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed and sad he
+felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute devotion has
+a horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas which it does
+not share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling's reasonings as he
+would her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest of voices with
+the purest and most fervent feeling. Believers and unbelievers speak
+different languages and cannot understand each other. The young girl
+pleading God's cause was unreasonable with the old man, as a spoilt
+child sometimes maltreats its mother. The abbe rebuked her gently,
+telling her that God had power to humiliate proud spirits. Ursula
+replied that David had overcome Goliath.
+
+This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life, so
+peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive eyes
+of the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time the
+modest and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as she
+left the church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her music,
+the pleasures of her godfather, and all the little cares she was able to
+give him (for she had eased La Bougival's labors by doing everything for
+him),--these things filled the hours, the days, the months of her calm
+life. Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had felt uneasy about
+his Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost care. Sagacious and
+profoundly practical observer that he was, he thought he perceived some
+commotion in her moral being. He watched her like a mother, but seeing
+no one about her who was worthy of inspiring love, his uneasiness on the
+subject at length passed away.
+
+At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins,
+the doctor's intellectual life was invaded by one of those events which
+plough to the very depths of a man's convictions and turn them over. But
+this event needs a succinct narrative of certain circumstances in his
+medical career, which will give, perhaps, fresh interest to the story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+
+Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as widely
+by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck. After
+re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense the
+clarion of the world.
+
+"If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved," said Hahnemann, recently.
+
+"Go to France," said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, "and if they laugh
+at your bumps you will be famous."
+
+Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific
+France was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before
+judgment was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body,
+Mesmer's so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and
+his theory. But let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately,
+compromised his splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims. Mesmer
+was defeated by the doubtfulness of facts, by universal ignorance of the
+part played in nature by imponderable fluids then unobserved, and by his
+own inability to study on all sides a science possessing a triple
+front. Magnetism has many applications; in Mesmer's hands it was, in
+its relation to the future, merely what cause is to effect. But, if
+the discoverer lacked genius, it is a sad thing both for France and
+for human reason to have to say that a science contemporaneous with
+civilization, cultivated by Egypt and Chaldea, by Greece and India, met
+in Paris in the eighteenth century the fate that Truth in the person of
+Galileo found in the sixteenth; and that magnetism was rejected and cast
+out by the combined attacks of science and religion, alarmed for their
+own positions. Magnetism, the favorite science of Jesus Christ and
+one of the divine powers which he gave to his disciples, was no better
+apprehended by the Church than by the disciples of Jean-Jacques,
+Voltaire, Locke, and Condillac. The Encyclopedists and the clergy were
+equally averse to the old human power which they took to be new. The
+miracles of the convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and smothered
+by the indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious writings
+of the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to make
+experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ certain
+inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward agents. But
+to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids intangible,
+invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the science of
+that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern philosophy
+there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles away! To
+materialists especially the world is full, all things hang together, are
+linked, related, organized. "The world as the result of chance," said
+Diderot, "is more explicable than God. The multiplicity of causes, the
+incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance, explain creation.
+Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if you allow me time
+and space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters, arrive at last at
+the Eneid combination."
+
+Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil
+before the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of
+imponderable forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the
+immense progress which natural science is now making under the great
+principle of unity due to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent
+persons, without any system, convinced by facts conscientiously studied,
+still hold to Mesmer's doctrine, which recognizes the existence of a
+penetrative influence acting from man to man, put in motion by the will,
+curative by the abundance of the fluid, the working of which is in fact
+a duel between two forces, between an ill to be cured and the will to
+cure it.
+
+The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were revealed
+by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to their
+discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and scoffers.
+Among the small number of believers were a few physicians. They were
+persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The respectable body
+of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of religious warfare
+against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their hatred as it was
+possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance. The orthodox
+physician refused to consult with those who adopted the Mesmerian
+heresy. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The miseries and
+sorrows of the Revolution had not quenched the scientific hatred. It is
+only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate in that way.
+The official robe is terrible! But ideas are even more implacable than
+things.
+
+Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret's friends, believed in the new faith,
+and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which
+he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief "betes
+noires" of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter of
+the Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer's
+assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled with
+his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His conduct
+to Bouvard must have caused him the only remorse which troubled the
+serenity of his declining years. Since his retirement to Nemours the
+science of imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for magnetism,
+which, by the nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to light and
+electricity) had made immense progress, in spite of the ridicule of
+Parisian scientists. Phrenology and physiognomy, the departments of Gall
+and Lavater (which are in fact twins, for one is to the other as cause
+is to effect), proved to the minds of more than one physiologist the
+existence of an intangible fluid which is the basis of the phenomena
+of the human will, and from which result passions, habits, the shape of
+faces and of skulls. Magnetic facts, the miracles of somnambulism, those
+of divination and ecstasy, which open a way to the spiritual world, were
+fast accumulating. The strange tale of the apparitions of the farmer
+Martin, so clearly proved, and his interview with Louis XVIII.; a
+knowledge of the intercourse of Swedenborg with the departed, carefully
+investigated in Germany; the tales of Walter Scott on the effects of
+"second sight"; the extraordinary faculties of some fortune-tellers, who
+practice as a single science chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope;
+the facts of catalepsy, and those of the action of certain morbid
+affections on the properties of the diaphragm,--all such phenomena,
+curious, to say the least, each emanating from the same source, were now
+undermining many scepticisms and leading even the most indifferent minds
+to the plane of experiments. Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of
+this movement of minds, strong in the north of Europe but still weak
+in France where, however, many facts called marvelous by superficial
+observers, were happening, but falling, alas! like stones to the bottom
+of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian excitements.
+
+At the bottom of the present year the doctor's tranquillity was shaken
+by the following letter:--
+
+
+My old comrade,--All friendship, even if lost, has rights which it is
+difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I
+remember far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel of
+Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+
+At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my heart to
+prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the most important
+of the sciences--if indeed all science is not _one_. I can overcome
+your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to your curiosity the
+happiness of taking you once more by the hand--as in the days before
+Mesmer. Always yours,
+
+Bouvard.
+
+
+Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and
+left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-Sulpice.
+Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written "To-morrow; nine
+o'clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption."
+
+Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He went
+to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the world
+were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a school,
+if the four faculties any longer existed. The doctors reassured him,
+declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as strong as ever, only,
+instead of persecuting as heretofore, the Academies of Medicine and
+of Sciences rang with laughter as they classed magnetic facts with the
+tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco, with jugglery and prestidigitation
+and all that now went by the name of "amusing physics."
+
+This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the appointment
+made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four years the
+two antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue Saint-Honore.
+Frenchmen have too many distractions of mind to hate each other long. In
+Paris especially, politics, literature, and science render life so vast
+that every man can find new worlds to conquer where all pretensions
+may live at ease. Hatred requires too many forces fully armed. None but
+public bodies can keep alive the sentiment. Robespierre and Danton
+would have fallen into each other's arms at the end of forty-four years.
+However, the two doctors each withheld his hand and did not offer it.
+Bouvard spoke first:--
+
+"You seem wonderfully well."
+
+"Yes, I am--and you?" said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now broken.
+
+"As you see."
+
+"Does magnetism prevent people from dying?" asked Minoret in a joking
+tone, but without sharpness.
+
+"No, but it almost prevented me from living."
+
+"Then you are not rich?" exclaimed Minoret.
+
+"Pooh!" said Bouvard.
+
+"But I am!" cried the other.
+
+"It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come," replied
+Bouvard.
+
+"Oh! you obstinate fellow!" said Minoret.
+
+The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy
+staircase to the fourth floor.
+
+At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic
+forces in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown
+(who still lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate
+diseases, suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly,
+but he was also able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable
+phenomena of somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The
+countenance of this mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to
+God alone and to communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles
+that of a lion; concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His
+features, singularly contorted, have a terrible and even blasting
+aspect. His voice, which comes from the depths of his being, seems
+charged with some magnetic fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every
+pore. Disgusted by the ingratitude of the public after his many
+cures, he has now returned to an impenetrable solitude, a voluntary
+nothingness. His all-powerful hand, which has restored a dying daughter
+to her mother, fathers to their grief-stricken children, adored
+mistresses to lovers frenzied with love, cured the sick given over
+by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the dying when life became
+impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in synagogues, temples, and
+churches from the lips of priests recalled to the one God by the same
+miracle,--that sovereign hand, a sun of life dazzling the closed eyes
+of the somnambulist, has never been raised again even to save the
+heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his past mercies
+as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and lives for
+heaven.
+
+But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man,
+whose generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons to
+witness his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and could
+easily be revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then on the
+verge of the grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last enabled to
+witness the startling phenomena of a science he had long treasured
+in his heart. The sacrifices of the old man touched the heart of the
+mysterious stranger, who accorded him certain privileges. As Bouvard now
+went up the staircase he listened to the twittings of his old antagonist
+with malicious delight, answering only, "You shall see, you shall see!"
+with the emphatic little nods of a man who is sure of his facts.
+
+The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than modest.
+Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon where he left
+Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but Bouvard returned
+at once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw the mysterious
+Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair. The woman did
+not rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the two old men.
+
+"What! no tub?" cried Minoret, smiling.
+
+"Nothing but the power of God," answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+
+The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain
+and the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who
+thought he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to
+question his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently to
+be taking time to examine him.
+
+"You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur," he said at
+last. "It is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my
+conviction, emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use
+of it, it would be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope,
+Monsieur Bouvard tells me, of changing the opinions of one who has
+opposed us, of enlightening a scientific man whose mind is candid;
+I have therefore determined to satisfy you. That woman whom you see
+there," he continued, pointing to her, "is now in a somnambulic sleep.
+The statements and manifestations of somnambulists declare that this
+state is a delightful other life, during which the inner being, freed
+from the trammels laid upon the exercise of our faculties by the visible
+world, moves in a world which we mistakenly term invisible. Sight and
+hearing are then exercised in a manner far more perfect than any we know
+of here, possibly without the help of the organs we now employ, which
+are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight and hearing. To a
+person in that state, distance and material obstacles do not exist, or
+they can be traversed by a life within us for which our body is a
+mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail to describe
+effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the words
+imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid whose
+action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its heat,
+which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and certainly
+electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things themselves
+instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments."
+
+"She sleeps," said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+belong to an inferior class.
+
+"Her body is for the time being in abeyance," said the Swedenborgian.
+"Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will prove
+to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind when
+there does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will send her
+wherever you wish to go,--a hundred miles from here or to China, as you
+will. She will tell you what is happening there."
+
+"Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do," said
+Minoret.
+
+He took Minoret's hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for a
+moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took that
+of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the doctor
+in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside this
+oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the
+absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus united
+by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its effects,
+was very simply done.
+
+"Obey him," said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the
+head of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life
+from him, "and remember that what you do for him will please me.--You
+can now speak to her," he added, addressing Minoret.
+
+"Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois," said the doctor.
+
+"Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what
+she tells you that she is where you wish her to be," said Bouvard to his
+old friend.
+
+"I see a river," said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look
+within herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed eyelids.
+"I see a pretty garden--"
+
+"Why do you enter by the river and the garden?" said Minoret.
+
+"Because they are there."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of."
+
+"What is the garden like?" said Minoret.
+
+"Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right,
+a long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular
+building,--there are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the
+left, the wall is covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia
+jessamine. In the middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots.
+Your child is looking at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse--she
+is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The
+nurse is raking the path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the
+beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn--"
+
+"Love for whom?" asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened
+to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all jugglery.
+
+"You know nothing--though you have lately been uneasy about her health,"
+answered the woman. "Her heart has followed the dictates of nature."
+
+"A woman of the people to talk like this!" cried the doctor.
+
+"In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary
+perception," said Bouvard.
+
+"But who is it that Ursula loves?"
+
+"Ursula does not know that she loves," said the woman with a shake of
+the head; "she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is
+occupied by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought;
+but she returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.--She is at the
+piano--"
+
+"But who is he?"
+
+"The son of a lady who lives opposite."
+
+"Madame de Portenduere?"
+
+"Portenduere, did you say?" replied the sleeper. "Perhaps so. But
+there's no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Have they spoken to each other?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He is,
+in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her window;
+they see each other in church. But the young man no longer thinks of
+her."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named Savinien;
+she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say; she has
+looked in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot against
+it,--child's play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much strength
+as purity; she is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye her soul
+and fill it that she will reject all other sentiments."
+
+"Where do you see that?"
+
+"In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father and
+her mother suffered much."
+
+The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than surprised.
+It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman paused for
+several minutes, during which time her attention became more and more
+concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a singular aspect;
+an inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear or cloud by some
+mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had seen in dying persons
+at moments when they appeared to have the gift of prophecy. Several
+times she made gestures which resembled those of Ursula.
+
+"Question her," said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, "she will tell
+you secrets you alone can know."
+
+"Does Ursula love me?" asked Minoret.
+
+"Almost as much as she loves God," was the answer. "But she is very
+unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause of
+her only sorrow.--Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a better
+musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is thinking, 'If
+I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his ear when he is
+with his mother.'"
+
+Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+
+"Tell me what seeds she planted?"
+
+"Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--"
+
+"And what else?"
+
+"Larkspur."
+
+"Where is my money?"
+
+"With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of a
+single day."
+
+"Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?"
+
+"You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled 'Pandects of
+Justinian, Vol. II.' between the last two leaves; the book is on the
+shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them.
+Your money is in the last volume next to the salon--See! Vol. III. is
+before Vol. II.--but you have no money, it is all in--"
+
+"--thousand-franc notes," said the doctor.
+
+"I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five hundred
+francs."
+
+"You see them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How do they look?"
+
+"One is old and yellow, the other white and new."
+
+This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at
+Bouvard with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who
+were accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together in
+a low voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to allow
+him to return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to compose his
+mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast power to some new
+test, to subject it to more decisive experiments and obtain answers to
+certain questions, the truth of which should do away with every sort of
+doubt.
+
+"Be here at nine o'clock this evening," said the stranger. "I will
+return to meet you."
+
+Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room without
+bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind. "Well, what
+do you say? what do you say?"
+
+"I think I am mad, Bouvard," answered Minoret from the steps of the
+porte-cochere. "If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,--and none
+but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,--I shall say
+that _you are right_. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this minute
+and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at ten
+o'clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?"
+
+"What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease healed
+in a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in torrents
+from an herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?"
+
+"Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o'clock. I must find
+some decisive, undeniable test!"
+
+"So be it, old comrade," answered the other.
+
+The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas which
+were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:--
+
+"If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of traversing
+space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she sees and hears
+what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all other magnetic
+facts; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her for some one
+proof which you know will satisfy you--for you might suppose that we
+obtained information to deceive you; but we cannot know, for instance,
+what will happen at nine o'clock in your goddaughter's bedroom.
+Remember, or write down, what the sleeper will see and hear, and then go
+home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not know, is not our accomplice,
+and if she tells you that she has said and done what you have written
+down--lower thy head, proud Hun!"
+
+The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and
+found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize Doctor
+Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand of the
+Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little distance, and
+she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen her. When her hand
+and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked her to tell him what
+was happening in his house at Nemours at that instant. "What is Ursula
+doing?" he said.
+
+"She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on
+her prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet
+background."
+
+"What is she saying?"
+
+"Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores
+him to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience and
+recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she has
+failed to obey his commands and those of the church--poor dear little
+soul, she lays bare her breast!" Tears were in the sleeper's eyes.
+"She has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too much of
+Savinien. She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she prays to
+God to make him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying aloud."
+
+"Tell me her words." Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe
+Chaperon.
+
+  "My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will--O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us."
+
+The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the inspired
+manner of his child that Doctor Minoret's eyes were filled with tears.
+
+"Does she say more?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Repeat it."
+
+"'My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.'
+She has blown out the light--her head is on the pillow--she turns to
+sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap."
+
+Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d'Alger.
+There he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who
+seemed to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and started.
+According to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at Essonne, but
+arrived at Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to Nemours, on which
+he secured a seat, and dismissed his coachman. He reached home at five
+in the morning, and went to bed, with his life-long ideas of physiology,
+nature, and metaphysics in ruins about him, and slept till nine o'clock,
+so wearied was he with the events of his journey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+
+On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of
+his house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the Pandect
+volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La Bougival.
+
+"Tell Ursula to come and speak to me," he said, seating himself in the
+center of his library.
+
+The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her on
+his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls with
+the white hair of her old friend.
+
+"Do you want something, godfather?"
+
+"Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+evasion, the questions that I shall put to you."
+
+Ursula colored to the temples.
+
+"Oh! I'll ask nothing that you cannot speak of," he said, noticing how
+the bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of
+the girl's blue eyes.
+
+"Ask me, godfather."
+
+"What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last evening,
+and what time was it when you said them."
+
+"It was a quarter-past or half-past nine."
+
+"Well, repeat your last prayer."
+
+The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic;
+she slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+said:--
+
+"What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I shall
+ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it."
+
+Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful
+expression. To her great astonishment her godfather took the last words
+from her mouth and finished the prayer.
+
+"Good, Ursula," said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. "When
+you laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to
+yourself, 'That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon with
+him in Paris'?"
+
+Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She
+gave a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with
+awful fixity.
+
+"Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?" she asked,
+imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with
+the devil.
+
+"What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?"
+
+"Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--"
+
+"And the last were larkspur?"
+
+She fell on her knees.
+
+"Do not terrify me!" she exclaimed. "Oh you must have been here--you
+were here, were you not?"
+
+"Am I not always with you?" replied the doctor, evading her question, to
+save the strain on the young girl's mind. "Let us go to your room."
+
+"Your legs are trembling," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am confounded, as it were."
+
+"Can it be that you believe in God?" she cried, with artless joy,
+letting fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+
+The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had given
+to his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very inexpensive,
+which she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were hung with a
+gray paper strewn with roses and green leaves; at the windows, which
+looked to the court, were calico curtains edged with a band of some pink
+material; between the windows and beneath a tall mirror was a pier-table
+topped with marble, on which stood a Sevres vase in which she put her
+nosegays; opposite the chimney was a little bureau-desk of charming
+marquetry. The bed, of chintz, with chintz curtains lined with pink, was
+one of those duchess beds so common in the eighteenth century, which had
+a tuft of carved feathers at the top of each of the four posts, which
+were fluted on the sides. An old clock, inclosed in a sort of monument
+made of tortoise-shell inlaid with arabesques of ivory, decorated the
+mantelpiece, the marble shelf of which, with the candlesticks and
+the mirror in a frame painted in cameo on a gray ground, presented a
+remarkable harmony of color, tone, and style. A large wardrobe, the
+doors of which were inlaid with landscapes in different woods (some
+having a green tint which are no longer to be found for sale) contained,
+no doubt, her linen and her dresses. The air of the room was redolent of
+heaven. The precise arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a
+feeling for harmony, which would certainly have influenced any one, even
+a Minoret-Levrault. It was plain that the things about her were dear
+to Ursula, and that she loved a room which contained, as it were, her
+childhood and the whole of her girlish life.
+
+Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for
+his visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those
+of Madame de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to
+the course he ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this
+dawning passion. To question her now would commit him to some course.
+He must either approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his
+position would be a false one. He therefore resolved to watch and
+examine into the state of things between the two young people, and
+learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was
+irresistible. None but an old man could have shown such deliberate
+wisdom. Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these magnetic
+facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little things
+around the room; he wished to examine the almanac which was hanging at a
+corner of the chimney-piece.
+
+"These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands," he said, taking
+up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with leather.
+
+He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took it,
+saying, "This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in your
+pretty room?"
+
+"Oh, please let me have it, godfather."
+
+"No, no, you shall have another to-morrow."
+
+So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had told
+him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another before
+his own saint's day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint John, the
+abbe's patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin's head, had been
+seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other obstacles!
+The old man thought till evening of these events, more momentous for him
+than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence. A strong wall,
+as it were, crumbled within him; for his life had rested on two
+bases,--indifference in matters of religion and a firm disbelief in
+magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses--faculties purely
+physical, organs, the effects of which could be explained--attained to
+some of the attributes of the infinite, magnetism upset, or at least it
+seemed to him to upset, the powerful arguments of Spinoza. The finite
+and the infinite, two incompatible elements according to that remarkable
+man, were here united, the one in the other. No matter what power
+he gave to the divisibility and mobility of matter he could not help
+recognizing that it possessed qualities that were almost divine.
+
+He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac,
+was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism
+staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic
+child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula's side. In the dismantled
+fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center of these
+ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate old
+scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would not
+decide, he struggled on against God.
+
+But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation.
+He became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet's sublime
+"History of Species"; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine;
+he determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late
+Saint-Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The
+edifice within him was cracking on all sides; it needed but one more
+shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall
+into the celestial vineyard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening,
+when playing with the abbe, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put
+questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest,
+who was ignorant of the inward workings by which God was remaking that
+fine conscience.
+
+"Do you believe in apparitions?" asked the sceptic of the pastor,
+stopping short in the game.
+
+"Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+some," replied the abbe.
+
+"I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you
+think that dead men can return to the living."
+
+"Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death," said the abbe.
+"The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As for
+miracles, they are not lacking," he continued, smiling. "Shall I tell
+you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century."
+
+"Pooh!" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from
+Rome, knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father
+expired; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted
+bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff
+and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who
+brought the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours
+later."
+
+"Jesuit!" exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, "I did not ask you for
+proofs; I asked you if you believed in apparitions."
+
+"I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it," said the
+abbe, still fencing with his sceptic.
+
+"My friend," said the doctor, seriously, "I am not setting a trap for
+you. What do you really believe about it?"
+
+"I believe that the power of God is infinite," replied the abbe.
+
+"When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+appear to you," said the doctor, smiling.
+
+"That's exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend," answered the
+priest.
+
+"Ursula," said Minoret, "if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I
+will come."
+
+"You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of 'Neere' by Andre
+Chenier," said the abbe. "Poets are sublime because they clothe both
+facts and feelings with ever-living images."
+
+"Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?" said Ursula in a
+grieved tone. "We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of our
+souls."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, smiling, "we must go out of the world, and when
+I am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune."
+
+"When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will
+be to consecrate my life to you."
+
+"To me, dead?"
+
+"Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to
+redeem your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy, that
+he may not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will summon
+among the righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours."
+
+That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute certainty,
+confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God converted Saul.
+A ray of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of this tenderness,
+covering his years to come, brought tears to his eyes. This sudden
+effect of grace had something that seemed electrical about it. The
+abbe clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his seat. The girl,
+astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up as if a voice had
+called him, looking into space as though his eyes beheld the dawn; then
+he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his hands, and lowered his eyes
+to the ground as one humiliated.
+
+"My God," he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, "if any one
+can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless
+creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child
+presents to thee!"
+
+He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe and
+held out his hand.
+
+"My dear pastor," he said, "I am become as a little child. I belong to
+you; I give my soul to your care."
+
+Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man took
+her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe, deeply
+moved, recited the "Veni Creator" in a species of religious ecstasy.
+The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians kneeling
+together for the first time.
+
+"What has happened?" asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+
+"My godfather believes in God at last!" replied Ursula.
+
+"Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect," cried
+the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+
+"Dear doctor," said the good priest, "you will soon comprehend the
+grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find
+its philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest
+sceptics."
+
+The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to
+catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the
+conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation,
+was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for
+fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart,
+though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a
+surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula's
+evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after
+day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that
+succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the responsible
+editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His dear child
+told him that he might know by how far he had advanced already in God's
+kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him attend, he had read the
+prayers and applied his own intelligence to them; from the first, he
+had risen to the divine idea of the communion of the faithful. The
+old neophyte understood the eternal symbol attached to that sacred
+nourishment, which faith renders needful to the soul after conveying to
+it her own profound and radiant essence. When on leaving the church he
+had seemed in a hurry to get home, it was merely that he might once
+more thank his dear child for having led him to "enter religion,"--the
+beautiful expression of former days. He was holding her on his knee in
+the salon and kissing her forehead sacredly at the very moment when his
+relatives were degrading that saintly influence with their shameless
+fears, and casting their vulgar insults upon Ursula. His haste to return
+home, his assumed disdain for their company, his sharp replies as he
+left the church were naturally attributed by all the heirs to the hatred
+Ursula had excited against them in the old man's mind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. THE CONFERENCE
+
+While Ursula was playing variations on Weber's "Last Thought" to her
+godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults' dining-room
+which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this drama.
+The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and enlivened by
+excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either from Burgundy
+or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent for oysters,
+salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do honor to
+Desire's return. The dining-room, in the center of which a round table
+offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an inn. Content
+with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had built a pavilion
+for the family between the vast courtyard and a garden planted with
+vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything about the premises was
+solid and plain. The example of Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to
+the town. Zelie forbade her builder to lead her into such follies. The
+dining-room was, therefore, hung with varnished paper and furnished with
+walnut chairs and sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a
+barometer. Though the plates and dishes were of common white china, the
+table shone with handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie
+had served the coffee, coming and going herself like shot in a
+decanter,--for she kept but one servant,--and when Desire, the budding
+lawyer, had been told of the event of the morning and its probably
+consequences, the door was closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon
+to speak. By the silence in the room and the looks that were cast on
+that authoritative face, it was easy to see the power that such men
+exercise over families.
+
+"My dear children," said he, "your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+folly, and that little--"
+
+"Viper!" cried Madame Massin.
+
+"Hussy!" said Zelie.
+
+"Let us call her by her own name," said Dionis.
+
+"Well, she's a thief," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"A pretty thief," remarked Desire.
+
+"That little Ursula," went on Dionis, "has managed to get hold of his
+heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait until
+now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have discovered
+about that young--"
+
+"Marauder," said the collector.
+
+"Inveigler," said the clerk of the court.
+
+"Hold your tongue, friends," said the notary, "or I'll take my hat and
+be off."
+
+"Come, come, papa," cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum and
+offering it to the notary; "here, drink this, it comes from Rome itself;
+and now go on."
+
+"Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet;
+but her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle's
+father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the
+doctor might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if
+he leaves her his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against
+Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court
+took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the
+doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring
+about a compromise--"
+
+"The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children," said the
+newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, "that by the
+judgment of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child can
+claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a maintenance.
+So you see the illegitimate parentage is made retrospective. The law
+pursues the natural child even to its legitimate descent, on the ground
+that benefactions done to grandchildren reach the natural son through
+that medium. This is shown by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil
+Code. The royal court of Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of
+last year, cut off a legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural
+son by his grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural
+grandson as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula."
+
+"All that," said Goupil, "seems to me to relate only to the bequests
+made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood
+relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court at
+Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which declared
+that after the decease of a natural child his descendants could no
+longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula's father is dead."
+
+Goupil's argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+legislative assemblies are wont to call "profound sensation."
+
+"What does that signify?" cried Dionis. "The actual case of the bequest
+of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been presented for
+trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law against such children
+will be all the more firmly applied because we live in times when
+religion is honored. I'll answer for it that out of such a suit as I
+propose you could get a compromise,--especially if they see you are
+determined to carry Ursula to a court of appeals."
+
+Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made manifest
+in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and prevented all
+notice of Goupil's dissent. This elation, however, was succeeded by deep
+silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his next word, a terrible
+"But!"
+
+As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned on
+him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+
+"_But_ no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula," he
+continued. "As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would,
+I think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle
+with questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is
+true the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly
+surgeon to the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst of
+it. Moreover, you would have due warning in case of adoption--but how
+about marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and marry
+her after a year's domicile, and give her a million by the marriage
+contract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts your property in
+danger is your uncle's marriage with the girl."
+
+Here the notary paused.
+
+"There's another danger," said Goupil, with a knowing air,--"that of
+a will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula--"
+
+"If you tease your uncle," continued Dionis, cutting short his
+head-clerk, "if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will
+drive him into either a marriage or into making that private trust which
+Goupil speaks of,--though I don't think him capable of that; it is a
+dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire there
+has only got to hold out a finger to the girl; she's sure to prefer a
+handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old one."
+
+"Mother," said Desire to Zelie's ear, as much allured by the millions as
+by Ursula's beauty, "If I married her we should get the whole property."
+
+"Are you crazy?--you, who'll some day have fifty thousand francs a year
+and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your throat
+by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed! Why, the
+mayor's only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and they have
+already proposed her to me--"
+
+This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+extinguished in Desire's breast all desire for a marriage with the
+beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+
+"Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis," cried Cremiere, whose wife had
+been nudging him, "if the good man took the thing seriously and married
+his goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the property,
+good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer uncle may be
+worth a million."
+
+"Never!" cried Zelie, "never in my life shall Desire marry the daughter
+of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity. My son
+will represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and the
+Minorets have five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them. That's
+equal to the nobility. Don't be uneasy, any of you; Desire will marry
+when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies."
+
+This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:--
+
+"Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will
+be president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office leads
+to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him."
+
+The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence
+for the notary.
+
+"Your uncle is a worthy man," continued Dionis. "He believes he's
+immortal; and, like most clever men, he'll let death overtake him before
+he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to invest his
+capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to disinherit you,
+and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That little Portenduere
+is in Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and some odd thousand
+francs' worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in prison; she is
+crying like a Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her; no doubt she wants
+to talk to him about her troubles. Well, I'll go and see your uncle
+to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent consols, which are
+now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the security of her farm
+at Bordieres and her house here, enough to pay the debts of the prodigal
+son. I have a right as notary to speak to him in behalf of young
+Portenduere; and it is quite natural that I should wish to make him
+change his investments; I get deeds and commissions out of the business.
+If I become his adviser I'll propose to him other land investments for
+his surplus capital; I have some excellent ones now in my office. If his
+fortune were once invested in landed estate or in mortgage notes in this
+neighbourhood, it could not take wings to itself very easily. It is easy
+to make difficulties between the wish to realize and the realization."
+
+The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than
+that of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+
+"You must be careful," said the notary in conclusion, "to keep your
+uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch
+him. Find him a lover for the girl and you'll prevent his marrying her
+himself."
+
+"Suppose she married the lover?" said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+desire.
+
+"That wouldn't be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the
+old man would have to say how much he gives her," replied the notary.
+"But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till
+the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade."
+
+"The shortest way," said Goupil, "if the doctor is likely to live much
+longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out
+of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a hundred
+thousand francs in hand."
+
+Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+
+"He'd be a worm at the core," whispered Zelie to Massin.
+
+"How did he get here?" returned the clerk.
+
+"That will just suit you!" cried Desire to Goupil. "But do you think you
+can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?"
+
+"In these days," whispered Zelie again in Massin's year, "notaries look
+out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to Ursula
+just to get the old man's business?"
+
+"I am sure of him," said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look
+out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, "because I
+hold something over him," but he withheld the words.
+
+"I am quite of Dionis's opinion," he said aloud.
+
+"So am I," cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with
+the clerk.
+
+"My wife has voted!" said the post master, sipping his brandy, though
+his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a
+notable quantity of liquids.
+
+"And very properly," remarked the collector.
+
+"I shall go and see the doctor after dinner," said Dionis.
+
+"If Monsieur Dionis's advice is good," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, "we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do, every
+Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told us."
+
+"Yes, and be received as he received us!" cried Zelie. "Minoret and
+I have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don't know how to write
+prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell him
+that!"
+
+"As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year," said Madame
+Massin, rather piqued, "I don't want to lose ten thousand."
+
+"We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+shall see how things are going," said Madame Cremiere; "you'll thank us
+some day, cousin."
+
+"Treat Ursula kindly," said the notary, lifting his right forefinger to
+the level of his lips; "remember old Jordy left her his savings."
+
+"You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer
+in Paris, could have done," said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+post-house.
+
+"And now they are quarreling over my fee," replied the notary, smiling
+bitterly.
+
+The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+Portenduere on his arm.
+
+"She dragged him to vespers, see!" cried Madame Massin to Madame
+Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the
+church.
+
+"Let us go and speak to him," said Madame Cremiere, approaching the old
+man.
+
+The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference)
+did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this
+sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to stop
+and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with exaggerated
+affection and forced smiles.
+
+"Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?" said Madame
+Cremiere. "We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a
+long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls are
+old enough now to make dear Ursula's acquaintance."
+
+"Ursula is a little bear, like her name," replied the doctor.
+
+"Let us tame her," said Madame Massin. "And besides, uncle," added the
+good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of economy,
+"they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte that we are
+very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are inclined to take her
+music-master for our children. If there were six or eight scholars in a
+class it would bring the price of his lessons within our means."
+
+"Certainly," said the old man, "and it will be all the better for me
+because I want to give Ursula a singing-master."
+
+"Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to
+see you; he is now a lawyer."
+
+"Yes, to-night," echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of these
+petty souls.
+
+The two nieces pressed Ursula's hand, saying, with affected eagerness,
+"Au revoir."
+
+"Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!" cried Ursula, giving him a
+grateful look.
+
+"You are going to have a voice," he said; "and I shall give you masters
+of drawing and Italian also. A woman," added the doctor, looking at
+Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, "ought to be educated to
+the height of every position in which her marriage may place her."
+
+Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather's thoughts evidently
+turned in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near
+confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to
+think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon him,
+she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of climbing
+plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a distance like a
+blue and white flower.
+
+"Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes,
+they were very kind," she repeated as he approached her, to change the
+thoughts that made him pensive.
+
+"Poor little girl!" cried the old man.
+
+He laid Ursula's hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to
+the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+
+"Why do you say, 'Poor little girl'?"
+
+"Don't you see how they fear you?"
+
+"Fear me,--why?"
+
+"My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of
+their inheritance to enrich you."
+
+"But you won't do that?" said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+
+"Oh, divine consolation of my old age!" said the doctor, taking his
+godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. "It was for her
+and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me live
+until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!--You
+will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets and
+Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to brighten and
+prolong my life; they are longing for my death."
+
+"God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is--Ah! I despise them!"
+exclaimed Ursula.
+
+"Dinner is ready!" called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+
+Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty
+dining-room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer
+(the folly of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The
+doctor offered him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of his
+coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted, ground,
+and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+
+"Well," said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the
+old man, "the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put
+your relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the
+priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and they are
+bestirring themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the
+square; they were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs."
+
+"What did I tell you, Ursula?" cried the doctor. "At the risk of
+grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you
+on your guard against undeserved enmity."
+
+"I should like to say a word to you on this subject," said Bongrand,
+seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula's future.
+
+The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of
+peace wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked up
+and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula what her
+godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis's opinion as
+to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of Ursula; for
+Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that the matter
+had been much discussed among the lawyers of the little town. Bongrand
+considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor Minoret, but he
+felt that the whole spirit of legislation was against the foisting into
+families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of the Code had foreseen
+only the weakness of fathers and mothers for their natural children,
+without considering that uncles and aunts might have a like tenderness
+and a desire to provide for such children. Evidently there was a gap in
+the law.
+
+"In all other countries," he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the heirs,
+"Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child, and
+the disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance from
+Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy is
+unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the
+spirit of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show
+that this hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the
+legislators, who did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they
+established a principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive.
+Zelie would carry it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive
+when the case was tried."
+
+"The best of cases is often worthless," cried the doctor. "Here's the
+question the lawyers will put, 'To what degree of relationship ought the
+disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to extend?' and
+the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad cause."
+
+"Faith!" said Bongrand, "I dare not take upon myself to affirm that
+the judges wouldn't interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society."
+
+Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the
+surest means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, "Poor little
+girl! I might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!"
+
+"Well, what will you do, then?" asked Bongrand.
+
+"We'll think about it--I'll see," said the old man, evidently at a loss
+for a reply.
+
+Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to the
+doctor.
+
+"Already!" cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. "Yes," he said to Ursula,
+"send him here."
+
+"I'll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the
+advance-guard of your heirs," said Bongrand. "They breakfasted together
+at the post house, and something is being engineered."
+
+The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis asked
+for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the salon.
+
+The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+remarkable. The latter deny them the "lesser" powers while recognizing
+their possession of the "higher." It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of business
+believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty details
+which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts of
+science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are
+mistaken! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued
+by the doctor's silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula's interests
+which he thought endangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs.
+He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old man
+and Dionis.
+
+"No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be," he thought as he looked
+at her, "there is a point on which young girls do make their own law and
+their own morality. I'll test here. The Minoret-Levraults," he began,
+settling his spectacles, "might possibly ask you in marriage for their
+son."
+
+The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+moment's inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to
+the glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She begged
+Monsieur Bongrand's pardon for leaving him alone in the salon, but he
+smiled at her and said, "Go! go!"
+
+Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at
+the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging the
+blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the end
+of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an answer
+which reached the pagoda where she was.
+
+"My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real estate
+or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know exactly what
+they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell you, my good
+sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably made. My heirs
+will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish them to know that,
+and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to interfere with what
+I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing to Ursula) I shall
+come back from the other world and torment him. So, Monsieur Savinien
+de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on me to get him out. I
+shall not sell my property in the Funds."
+
+Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the first
+and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her head
+against the blind to steady herself.
+
+"Good God, what is the matter with her?" thought the old doctor. "She
+has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her."
+
+He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+
+"Adieu, Monsieur," he said to the notary, "please leave us."
+
+He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his
+study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made her
+inhale it.
+
+"Take my place," said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; "I must
+be alone with her."
+
+The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him, but
+without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+
+"I don't know," replied Dionis. "She was standing by the pagoda,
+listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend
+some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for
+debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur Bongrand
+to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love him? Is
+there anything between them?"
+
+"At fifteen years of age? pooh!" replied Bongrand.
+
+"She was born in February, 1813; she'll be sixteen in four months."
+
+"I don't believe she ever saw him," said the judge. "No, it is only a
+nervous attack."
+
+"Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notary.
+
+Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the
+marriage "in extremis" which they dreaded,--the only sure means by which
+the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other hand, saw
+a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought of marrying
+his son to Ursula.
+
+"If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,"
+replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+infatuated with her noble blood."
+
+"Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres," replied the notary,
+on the point of betraying himself.
+
+Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that
+before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep regret
+for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling Ursula his
+daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a year the day he
+was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give Ursula a hundred
+thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would make! His Eugene
+was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had praised his Eugene
+too often, and that had made the doctor distrustful.
+
+"I shall have to come down to the mayor's daughter," he thought.
+"But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle
+Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to
+manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really loves
+him."
+
+The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the
+garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the river.
+
+"What ails you, my child?" he said. "Your life is my life. Without your
+smiles what would become of me?"
+
+"Savinien in prison!" she said.
+
+With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+sob.
+
+"Saved!" thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great
+anxiety. "Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife," he
+thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart, applying
+his ear to it. "Ah, that's all right," he said to himself. "I did not
+know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet," he added, looking at
+her; "but think out loud to me as you think to yourself; tell me all
+that has passed between you."
+
+"I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other," she
+answered, sobbing. "But to hear that he is in prison, and to know that
+you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!"
+
+"Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you
+put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put one
+before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your little
+love-affair."
+
+Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was
+silence between them.
+
+"Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother, doctor,
+and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has been."
+
+"No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last
+May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child,
+and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except
+perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother's
+fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I
+had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the
+windows in Monsieur Savinien's room open; and Monsieur Savinien was
+there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements
+there was such grace--I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed
+his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his white
+throat--so round!--must I tell you all? I noticed that his throat and
+face and that beautiful black hair were all so different from yours when
+I watch you arranging your beard. There came--I don't know how--a
+sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my head; it came so
+violently that I sat down--I couldn't stand, I trembled so. But I longed
+to see him again, and presently I got up; he saw me then, and, just for
+play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of his fingers and--"
+
+"And?"
+
+"And then," she continued, "I hid myself--I was ashamed, but happy--why
+should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling--it dazzled my soul and
+gave it some power, but I don't know what--it came again each time I saw
+within me the same young face. I loved this feeling, violent as it
+was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me look at Monsieur
+Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his clothes, even the tap
+of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so charming. The least little
+thing about him--his hand with the delicate glove--acted like a spell
+upon me; and yet I had strength enough not to think of him during
+mass. When the service was over I stayed in the church to let Madame de
+Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind him. I couldn't tell you
+how these little things excited me. When I reached home, I turned round
+to fasten the iron gate--"
+
+"Where was La Bougival?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Oh, I let her go to the kitchen," said Ursula simply. "Then I saw
+Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh! godfather,
+I was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of surprise and
+admiration--I don't know what I would not do to make him look at me
+again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of nothing forevermore
+but pleasing him. That glance is now the best reward I have for any good
+I do. From that moment I have thought of him incessantly, in spite of
+myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to Paris that evening, and I have
+not seen him since. The street seems empty; he took my heart away with
+him--but he does not know it."
+
+"Is that all?" asked the old man.
+
+"All, dear godfather," she said, with a sigh of regret that there was
+not more to tell.
+
+"My little girl," said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are
+nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between your
+blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love, which
+will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous system of
+exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child, is love,"
+said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,--"love in its
+holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary, sudden, coming
+like a thief who takes all--yes, all! I expected it. I have studied
+women; many need proofs and miracles of affection before love
+conquers them; but others there are, under the influence of sympathies
+explainable to-day by magnetic fluids, who are possessed by it in an
+instant. To you I can now tell all--as soon as I saw the charming woman
+whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her forever, solely and
+faithfully, without knowing whether our characters or persons suited
+each other. Is there a second-sight in love? What answer can I give to
+that, I who have seen so many unions formed under celestial auspices
+only to be ruptured later, giving rise to hatreds that are well-nigh
+eternal, to repugnances that are unconquerable. The senses sometimes
+harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some persons live more by
+their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is also true; often minds
+agree and persons displease. These phenomena, the varying and secret
+cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws which give parents
+supreme power over the marriages of their children; for a young girl is
+often duped by one or other of these hallucinations. Therefore I do not
+blame you. The sensations you feel, the rush of sensibility which has
+come from its hidden source upon your heart and upon your mind, the
+happiness with which you think of Savinien, are all natural. But,
+my darling child, society demands, as our good abbe has told us, the
+sacrifice of many natural inclinations. The destinies of men and women
+differ. I was able to choose Ursula Mirouet for my wife; I could go to
+her and say that I loved her; but a young girl is false to herself if
+she asks the love of the man she loves. A woman has not the right which
+men have to seek the accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is
+to her--above all to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which
+protects the secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me
+these first emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than
+admit to Savinien--"
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said.
+
+"But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+must forget them."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even if
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you--"
+
+"I never thought of it."
+
+"But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to
+give him your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had
+subjected him to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been
+such as to make families distrust him and to put obstacles between
+himself and heiresses which cannot be easily overcome."
+
+A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula's sweet face as she said,
+"Then poverty is good sometimes."
+
+The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+
+"What has he done, godfather?" she asked.
+
+"In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up
+in Saint-Pelagie, the debtor's prison; an impropriety which will always
+be, in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is willing to
+plunge his poor mother into poverty and distress might cause his wife,
+as your poor father did, to die of despair."
+
+"Don't you think he will do better?" she asked.
+
+"If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don't know a
+worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means."
+
+This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:--
+
+"If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you a
+right to advise him; you can remonstrate--"
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, imitating her, "and then he can come here, and
+the old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and--"
+
+"I was thinking only of him," said Ursula, blushing.
+
+"Don't think of him, my child; it would be folly," said the doctor
+gravely. "Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to
+the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with
+whom?--with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment,
+without money, and whose father--alas! I must now tell you all--was the
+bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law."
+
+"O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I
+will not think of him again--except in my prayers," she said, amid the
+sobs which this painful revelation excited. "Give him what you meant to
+give me--what can a poor girl like me want?--ah, in prison, he!--"
+
+"Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not
+dare to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply
+moved to see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks. The
+tears of old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+
+"Oh what is it?" cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and kissing
+his hands. "Are you not sure of me?"
+
+"I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to
+cause the first great sorrow of your life!" he said. "I suffer as
+much as you. I never wept before, except when I lost my children--and,
+Ursula--Yes," he cried suddenly, "I will do all you desire!"
+
+Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning.
+She smiled.
+
+"Let us go into the salon, darling," said the doctor. "Try to keep
+the secret of all this to yourself," he added, leaving her alone for a
+moment in his study.
+
+He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he
+might say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+
+Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her
+frigid little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital of
+her troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her hand
+some letters which he had just returned to her after reading them; these
+letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on her sofa beside
+a square table covered with the remains of a dessert, the old lady was
+looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the table, doubled up
+in his armchair and stroking his chin with the gesture common to
+valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests,--a sign of profound
+meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+
+This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished
+with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed
+the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds it.
+The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady's one servant, required,
+for comfort's sake, before each seat small round mats of brown straw, on
+one of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The old damask curtains
+of light green with green flowers were drawn, and the outside blinds had
+been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table, leaving the rest of
+the room in semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say that between the two
+windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing the famous Admiral de
+Portenduere, the rival of the Suffren, Guichen, Kergarouet and Simeuse
+naval heroes? On the paneled wall opposite to the fireplace were
+portraits of the Vicomte de Portenduere and of the mother of the old
+lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien's great-uncle was therefore the
+Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the Comte de Portenduere,
+grandson of the admiral,--both of them very rich.
+
+The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de
+Portenduere at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count
+represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the
+younger. The count, who was over forty years of age and married to
+a rich wife, had three children. His fortune, increased by various
+legacies, amounted, it was said, to sixty thousand francs a year. As
+deputy from Isere he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought
+the hotel de Portenduere with the indemnities he obtained under
+the Villele law. The vice-admiral had recently married his niece by
+marriage, for the sole purpose of securing his money to her.
+
+The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy,
+young and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the
+influence of an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years
+of age, been a lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son
+should go into either naval or military service, had kept him at Nemours
+under the tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon's assistants, hoping that
+she could keep him near her until her death. She meant to marry him to a
+demoiselle d'Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve thousand francs a year;
+to whose hand the name of Portenduere and the farm at Bordieres enabled
+him to pretend. This narrow but judicious plan, which would have carried
+the family to a second generation, was already balked by events.
+The d'Aiglemonts were ruined, and one of the daughters, Helene, had
+disappeared, and the mystery of her disappearance was never solved.
+
+The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his mother,
+so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as they were,
+and swore that he would never live in the provinces--comprehending,
+rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the Rue des
+Bourgeois. At twenty-one years of age he left his mother's house to make
+acquaintance with his relations, and try his luck in Paris. The contrast
+between life in Paris and life in Nemours was likely to be fatal to a
+young man of twenty-one, free, with no one to say him nay, naturally
+eager for pleasure, and for whom his name and his connections opened the
+doors of all the salons. Quite convinced that his mother had the savings
+of many years in her strong-box, Savinien soon spent the six thousand
+francs which she had given him to see Paris. That sum did not defray his
+expenses for six months, and he soon owed double that sum to his hotel,
+his tailor, his boot maker, to the man from whom he hired his
+carriages and horses, to a jeweler,--in short, to all those traders and
+shopkeepers who contribute to the luxury of young men.
+
+He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to
+wear his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his
+cravat, before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand francs,
+while still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his love for
+the sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame de Serizy,
+whose youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+
+"How is that you all manage?" asked Savinien one day, at the end of a
+gay breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate
+as the young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all
+aiming for the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality.
+"You were no richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you
+contrive to maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but
+debts."
+
+"We all began that way," answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh
+was echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet, and
+others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+
+"Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an exception,"
+said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming intimate with
+these young men. "Any one but he," added Finot bowing to that personage,
+"would have been ruined by it."
+
+"A true remark," said Maxime de Trailles.
+
+"And a true idea," added Rastignac.
+
+"My dear fellow," said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; "debts are the
+capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors for
+all branches, who don't teach you anything, costs sixty thousand francs.
+If the education of the world does cost double, at least it teaches you
+to understand life, politics, men,--and sometimes women."
+
+Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: "The
+world sells dearly what we think it gives."
+
+Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest
+pilots of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a
+joke.
+
+"Take care, my dear fellow," said de Marsay one day. "You have a great
+name; if you don't obtain the fortune that name requires you'll end your
+days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. 'We have seen the fall of
+nobler heads,'" he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he took
+Savinien's arm. "About six years ago," he continued, "a young Comte
+d'Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the paradise
+of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket. He rose to
+the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town, where he is
+now expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a game of whist
+at two sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your situation, candidly,
+without shame; she will understand it and be very useful to you.
+Whereas, if you play the charade of first love with her she will pose
+as a Raffaelle Madonna, practice all the little games of innocence
+upon you, and take you journeying at enormous cost through the Land of
+Sentiment."
+
+Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to
+which she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs,
+which was all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close
+of the first year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot of
+Madame de Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as the
+saying is, forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient of
+borrowing. One of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his cousin the
+Comte de Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to Gobseck or
+Gigonnet or Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother's means, would
+give him an easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help of renewals
+enabled him to lead a happy life for nearly eighteen months. Without
+daring to leave Madame de Serizy the poor boy had fallen madly in love
+with the beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet, a prude after the fashion
+of young women who are awaiting the death of an old husband and making
+capital of their virtue in the interests of a second marriage. Quite
+incapable of understanding that calculating virtue is invulnerable,
+Savinien paid court to Emilie de Kergarouet in all the splendor of
+a rich man. He never missed either ball or theater at which she was
+present.
+
+"You haven't powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock," said de
+Marsay, laughing.
+
+That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely
+wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of a
+prison were needed to convince Savinien.
+
+A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the
+money-lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the young
+man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default of one
+hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of his
+friends, to the debtor's prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as the fact
+was known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to see him,
+and each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when they found
+how really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him had been seized
+except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The three young men (who
+brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed Savinien's situation
+while drinking de Marsay's wine, ostensibly to arrange for his future
+but really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+
+"When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere," cried Rastignac, "and
+has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to be
+put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay there,
+my good fellow."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" cried de Marsay. "You could have had my
+traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction for
+Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we could
+have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what ass
+ever led you to drink of that cursed spring."
+
+"Des Lupeaulx."
+
+The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought
+and suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+
+"Explain all your resources; show us your hand," said de Marsay.
+
+When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and the
+little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without other
+grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when he had
+valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish cement, and
+put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies looked at each
+other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of the abbe
+in Alfred de Musset's "Marrons du feu" (which had then just
+appeared),--"Sad!"
+
+"Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter," said Rastignac.
+
+"Yes, but afterwards?" cried de Marsay.
+
+"If you had merely been put in the fiacre," said Lucien, "the government
+would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie isn't the
+antechamber of an embassy."
+
+"You are not strong enough for Parisian life," said Rastignac.
+
+"Let us consider the matter," said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as a
+jockey examines a horse. "You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a white
+forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache which
+suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you've a foot that tells
+race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but solid. You
+are what I call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of the style
+Louis XII., hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have the thing
+that pleases women, a something, I don't know what it is, which men take
+no account of themselves; it is in the air, the manner, the tone of
+the voice, the dart of the eye, the gesture,--in short, in a number of
+little things which women see and to which they attach a meaning which
+escapes us. You don't know your merits, my dear fellow. Take a certain
+tone and style and in six months you'll captivate an English-woman with
+a hundred thousand pounds; but you must call yourself viscount, a title
+which belongs to you. My charming step-mother, Lady Dudley, who has not
+her equal for matching two hearts, will find you some such woman in the
+fens of Great Britain. What you must now do is to get the payment of
+your debts postponed for ninety days. Why didn't you tell us about them?
+The money-lenders at Baden would have spared you--served you perhaps;
+but now, after you have once been in prison, they'll despise you. A
+money-lender is, like society, like the masses, down on his knees before
+the man who is strong enough to trick him, and pitiless to the lambs.
+To the eyes of some persons Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the
+souls of young men. Do you want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I
+told that little d'Esgrignon: 'Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep
+enough to live on for three years, and marry some girl in the provinces
+who can bring you an income of thirty thousand francs.' In the course of
+three years you can surely find some virtuous heiress who is willing to
+call herself Madame la Vicomtesse de Portenduere. Such is virtue,--let's
+drink to it. I give you a toast: 'The girl with money!"
+
+The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to
+each other: "He's not strong enough!" "He's quite crushed." "I don't
+believe he'll pull through it?"
+
+The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two pages.
+Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote first to
+her son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the Comte de
+Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+
+The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was holding
+in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her appeal,
+which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her heart.
+
+
+Paris, September, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+Madame,--You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I both feel
+in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de Kergarouet grieves me all
+the more because our house was a home to your son; we were proud of him.
+If Savinien had had more confidence in the admiral we could have taken
+him to live with us, and he would already have obtained some good
+situation. But, unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of
+his own accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing
+of his pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because
+Savinien has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the authorities
+to arrest him.
+
+If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed our
+relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him to travel
+in Germany while his affairs were being settled here. Monsieur de
+Kergarouet intended to get him a place in the War office; but this
+imprisonment for debt will paralyze such efforts. You must pay his
+debts; let him enter the navy; he will make his way like the true
+Portenduere that he is; he has the fire of the family in his beautiful
+black eyes, and we will all help him.
+
+Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom I
+beg you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our best
+wishes, with the respects of
+
+Your very affectionate servant, Emilie de Kergarouet.
+
+
+The second letter was as follows:--
+
+
+Portenduere, August, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+My dear aunt,--I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien's pranks.
+As I am married and the father of two sons and one daughter, my fortune,
+already too small for my position and prospects, cannot be lessened to
+ransom a Portenduere from the hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his
+debts, and come and live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive
+the welcome we owe you, even though our views may not be entirely in
+accordance with yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to
+marry Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in this
+part of the country, where there are a number of rich girls who would be
+delighted to enter our family.
+
+My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give us,
+and I beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this plan,
+together with my affectionate respects.
+
+Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+
+
+"What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!" cried the old Breton lady,
+wiping her eyes.
+
+"The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison," said the Abbe
+Chaperon at last; "the countess alone read your letter, and has answered
+it for him. But you must decide at once on some course," he added after
+a pause, "and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do not sell your
+farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four years; in a few
+months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs and get a premium
+for double that amount. Borrow what you need of some honest man,--not
+from the townspeople who make a business of mortgages. Your neighbour
+here is a most worthy man; a man of good society, who knew it as it was
+before the Revolution, who was once an atheist, and is now an earnest
+Catholic. Do not let your feelings debar you from going to his house
+this very evening; he will fully understand the step you take; forget
+for a moment that you are a Kergarouet."
+
+"Never!" said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+
+"Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will
+lend you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three
+per cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased
+with him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,--for he will
+have to go there to sell out his funds,--and he can bring the lad back
+to you."
+
+"Are you speaking of that little Minoret?"
+
+"That little Minoret is eighty-three years old," said the abbe, smiling.
+"My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don't wound him,--he
+might be useful to you in other ways."
+
+"What ways?"
+
+"He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl--"
+
+"Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?"
+
+The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant words,
+the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he was about
+to make.
+
+"I think Doctor Minoret is very rich," he said.
+
+"So much the better for him."
+
+"You have indirectly caused your son's misfortunes by refusing to give
+him a profession; beware for the future," said the abbe sternly. "Am I
+to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming?"
+
+"Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?" she replied.
+
+"Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he
+comes to you you will pay him five," said the abbe, inventing this
+reason to influence the old lady. "And if you are forced to sell your
+farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse
+to lend you the money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you
+would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the
+Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your
+farm and know that your son is in prison."
+
+"They know it! oh, do they know it?" she exclaimed, throwing up
+her arms. "There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold!
+Tiennette, Tiennette!"
+
+Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short
+gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe's coffee to
+warm it.
+
+"Let be, Monsieur le recteur," she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+drink it, "I'll just put it into the bain-marie, it won't spoil it."
+
+"Well," said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+voice, "I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will
+come--"
+
+The old mother did not yield till after an hour's discussion, during
+which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times.
+And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used the
+words, "Savinien would go."
+
+"It is better that I should go than he," she said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. SAVINIEN SAVED
+
+The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large door
+of Madame de Portenduere's house closed on the abbe, who immediately
+crossed the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor's gate. He fell
+from Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, "Why do you come so
+late, Monsieur l'abbe?" as the other had said, "Why do you leave Madame
+so early when she is in trouble?"
+
+The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown
+salon; for Dionis had stopped at Massin's on his way home to re-assure
+the heirs by repeating their uncle's words.
+
+"I believe Ursula has a love-affair," said he, "which will be nothing
+but pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic" (extreme sensibility
+is so called by notaries), "and, you'll see, she won't marry soon.
+Therefore, don't show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and
+very respectful to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,"
+added the notary--without being aware that Goupil is a corruption of the
+word vulpes, a fox.
+
+So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master and
+Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an unusual
+and noisy party in the doctor's salon. As the abbe entered he heard
+the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata of
+Beethoven's. With girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music,
+which must be studied to be understood, for the purpose of disgusting
+these women with the thing they coveted. The finer the music the less
+ignorant persons like it. So, when the door opened and the abbe's
+venerable head appeared they all cried out: "Ah! here's Monsieur
+l'abbe!" in a tone of relief, delighted to jump up and put an end to
+their torture.
+
+The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the
+Nemours doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with
+which the collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had
+proposed to take the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The
+doctor rose as if to receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the
+game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful proficiency
+of his goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+
+"Good-night, my friends," cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+
+"Ah! that's where the money goes," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, as they walked on.
+
+"God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+such a din as that!" cried Madame Massin.
+
+"She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician," said
+the collector; "he has quite a reputation."
+
+"Not in Nemours, I'm sure of that," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away," said
+Massin; "for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+music-book."
+
+"If that's the sort of charivari they like," said the post master, "they
+are quite right to keep it to themselves."
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful
+racket," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"I shall never be able to play before persons who don't understand
+music," Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+
+"In natures richly organized," said the abbe, "sentiments can be
+developed only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable to
+give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-tree
+dies in a clay soil, so a musician's genius has a mental eclipse when he
+is surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must receive from
+the souls who make the environment of our souls as much intensity as we
+convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human mind, has been made
+into proverbs: 'Howl with the wolves'; 'Like meets like.' But the
+suffering you felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender natures only."
+
+"And so, friends," said the doctor, "a thing which would merely give
+pain to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here,
+I charge you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,--'Ut flos,'
+etc.,--a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished flower and
+the world."
+
+"And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula," said Monsieur Bongrand,
+smiling.
+
+"Flattered her grossly," remarked the Nemours doctor.
+
+"I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is," said old Minoret.
+"Why is that?"
+
+"A true thought has its own delicacy," said the abbe.
+
+"Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?" asked Ursula, with a look of
+anxious curiosity.
+
+"Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may come
+to see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret."
+
+Ursula pressed her godfather's hand under the table.
+
+"Her son," said Bongrand, "was rather too simple-minded to live in Paris
+without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made here about
+the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting her death."
+
+"Is it possible you think him capable of it?" said Ursula, with such
+a terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather
+sadly, "Alas! yes, she loves him."
+
+"Yes and no," said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula's question.
+"There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now in
+prison; a scamp wouldn't have got there."
+
+"Don't let us talk about it any more," said old Minoret. "The poor
+mother must not be allowed to weep if there's a way to dry her tears."
+
+The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the gate,
+saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and as
+soon as Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with La
+Bougival beside her.
+
+"Madame la vicomtesse," said the abbe, who entered first into the little
+salon, "Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you should have
+the trouble of coming to him--"
+
+"I am too much of the old school, madame," interrupted the doctor, "not
+to know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very glad to
+be able, as Monsieur l'abbe tells me, to be of service to you."
+
+Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so
+much that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the
+notary instead, was surprised by Minoret's attention to such a degree
+that she rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+
+"Be seated, monsieur," she said with a regal air. "Our dear abbe has
+told you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful
+debts,--a hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him I
+would secure you on my farm at Bordieres."
+
+"We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to
+you--if you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter."
+
+"Very good, monsieur," she said, bowing her head and looking at the abbe
+as if to say, "You were right; he really is a man of good society."
+
+"You see, madame," said the abbe, "that my friend the doctor is full of
+devotion to your family."
+
+"We shall be grateful, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduere, making
+a visible effort; "a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a
+prodigal, is--"
+
+"Madame, I had the honor to meet, in '65, the illustrious Admiral de
+Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes, and
+also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to question
+him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur de
+Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the glorious
+days of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of Great Britain,
+and its officers had their full quota of courage. With what impatience
+we awaited in '83 and '84 the news from St. Roch. I came very near
+serving as surgeon in the king's service. Your great-uncle, who is still
+living, Admiral Kergarouet, fought his splendid battle at that time in
+the 'Belle-Poule.'"
+
+"Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!"
+
+"He would not leave him there a day," said old Minoret, rising.
+
+He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed him
+to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left the
+room; but returned immediately to say:--
+
+"My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+to-morrow?"
+
+The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his
+friend, who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces of
+the old lady.
+
+"He is an astonishing man for his age," she said. "He talks of going to
+Paris and attending to my son's affairs as if he were only twenty-five.
+He has certainly seen good society."
+
+"The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of France
+would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if that
+idea should come into Savinien's head!--times are so changed that the
+objections would not come from your side, especially after his late
+conduct--"
+
+The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled him
+to finish it.
+
+"You have lost your senses," she said at last.
+
+"Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+future in a manner to win that old man's respect."
+
+"If it were not you, Monsieur l'abbe," said Madame de Portenduere, "if
+it were any one else who spoke to me in that way--"
+
+"You would not see him again," said the abbe, smiling. "Let us hope that
+your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in these
+days as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien's good; as you
+really have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in the
+way of his making himself another position."
+
+"And it is you who say that to me?"
+
+"If I did not say it to you, who would?" cried the abbe rising and
+making a hasty retreat.
+
+As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the
+whole coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still
+open.
+
+The next day at half-past six o'clock the old man and the young girl
+reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a
+fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel between
+the press and the court was not made up. Minoret's notary now indirectly
+approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took advantage of his
+journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his shares in the
+Funds, all of which were then at a high value, depositing the proceeds
+in the Bank of France. The notary also advised his client to sell the
+stocks left to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He promised to employ an
+extremely clever broker to treat with Savinien's creditors; but said
+that in order to succeed it would be necessary for the young man to stay
+several days longer in prison.
+
+"Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+cent," said the notary. "Besides, you can't get your money under seven
+or eight days."
+
+When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week longer
+in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only once. Old
+Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel in the
+Rue Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very suitable
+apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his goddaughter
+he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at other times
+he took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards; but nothing
+seemed to amuse or interest her.
+
+"What do you want to do?" asked the old man.
+
+"See Saint-Pelagie," she answered obstinately.
+
+Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef, where
+the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent then
+transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls, with
+every window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter without
+stooping (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in a quarter
+full of wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets like a supreme
+misery,--this assemblage of dismal things so oppressed Ursula's heart
+that she burst into tears.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "to imprison young men in this dreadful place for money!
+How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not? _He_
+there!" she cried. "Where, godfather?" she added, looking from window to
+window.
+
+"Ursula," said the old man, "you are making me commit great follies.
+This is not forgetting him as you promised."
+
+"But," she argued, "if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel an
+interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all."
+
+"Ah!" cried the doctor, "there is so much reason in your
+unreasonableness that I am sorry I brought you."
+
+Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the
+legal papers ready for Savinien's release. The payings, including the
+notaries' fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went
+himself to see Savinien released on Saturday at two o'clock. The young
+viscount, already informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked
+his liberator with sincere warmth of heart.
+
+"You must return at once to see your mother," the old doctor said to
+him.
+
+Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted certain
+debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his friends.
+
+"I suspected there was some personal debt," cried the doctor, smiling.
+"Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid
+out only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend it,
+monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the green
+cloth of fortune."
+
+During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated
+hard work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of day.
+Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his time and
+required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere, which his
+mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in Paris. His cousin
+the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor figure in the Elective
+Chamber in presence of the peerage and the court; and had none too much
+credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet existed only as the husband of his
+wife. Savinien admitted to himself that he had seen orators, men from
+the middle classes, or lesser noblemen, become influential personages.
+Money was the pivot, the sole means, the only mechanism of a society
+which Louis XVIII. had tried to create in the likeness of that of
+England.
+
+On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs
+the young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which were
+certainly in keeping with de Marsay's advice) to the old doctor.
+
+"I ought," he said, "to go into oblivion for three or four years and
+seek a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions of
+the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady who
+could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence and
+in obscurity."
+
+Studying the young fellow's face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself.
+He therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+
+"My friend," he said, "if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+(which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner,
+to find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and
+possessing from seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make
+you happy and of whom you will have every reason to be proud,--one whose
+only nobility is that of the heart!"
+
+"Ah, doctor!" cried the young man, "there is no longer a nobility in
+these days,--nothing but an aristocracy."
+
+"Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me," said the old man.
+
+That evening, at six o'clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien, who
+once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss
+which invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely
+forgotten the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover,
+his hopeless love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing
+a thought on a few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He did
+not recognize her when the doctor handed her into the coach and then sat
+down beside her to separate her from the young viscount.
+
+"I have some bills to give you," said the doctor to the young man. "I
+have brought all your papers and documents."
+
+"I came very near not getting off," said Savinien, "for I had to order
+linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+prodigal."
+
+However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the young
+man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain remarks
+of the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after dusk, her
+green veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+
+"Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much," said
+Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+
+"I am glad to return to Nemours," she answered in a trembling voice
+raising her veil.
+
+Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the heavy
+braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+
+"I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that I
+meet my charming neighbour again," he said; "I hope, Monsieur le docteur
+that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I remember to
+have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula's piano."
+
+"I do not know," replied the doctor gravely, "whether your mother would
+approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care for this
+dear child with all the solicitude of a mother."
+
+This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great. Savinien
+and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was full
+of projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap,
+dropped upon her uncle's shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn,
+Savinien awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally
+caused by the jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half off;
+the hair, unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed from
+the heat of the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to whom
+dress is a necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The sleep
+of innocence is always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the pretty
+teeth; the shawl, unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds of her
+muslin gown and without offence to her modesty, the gracefulness of
+her figure. The purity of the virgin spirit shone on the sleeping
+countenance all the more plainly because no other expression was there
+to interfere with it. Old Minoret, who presently woke up, placed his
+child's head in the corner of the carriage that she might be more at
+ease; and she let him do it unconsciously, so deep was her sleep after
+the many wakeful nights she had spent in thinking of Savinien's trouble.
+
+"Poor little girl!" said the doctor to his neighbour, "she sleeps like
+the child she is."
+
+"You must be proud of her," replied Savinien; "for she seems as good as
+she is beautiful."
+
+"Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she
+were my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God grant
+that I may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make her
+happy. I wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was for
+the first time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden it.
+'But,' I said, 'when you are married your husband will want you to go
+there.' 'I shall do what my husband wants,' she answered. 'If he asks me
+to do evil and I am weak enough to yield, he will be responsible before
+God--and so I shall have strength to refuse him, for his own sake.'"
+
+As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of admiration
+which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had taken the
+diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had fallen in
+love with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her soul, the beauty
+of that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy of the features;
+he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered but one expressive
+sentence, in which the poor child said all, intending to say nothing. A
+presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold of him; he saw in Ursula the
+woman the doctor had pictured to him, framed in gold by the magic words,
+"Seven or eight hundred thousand francs."
+
+"In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be
+twenty-seven," he thought. "The good doctor talked of probation, work,
+good conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth."
+
+The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave
+Ursula a parting glance.
+
+Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor
+and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass.
+Savinien's release and his return in company with the doctor had
+explained the reason of the latter's absence to the newsmongers of the
+town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on
+the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor attended
+his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups, Madame de
+Portenduere, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who offered
+her his arm and took her home. The old lady asked him to dinner that
+evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the abbe would be
+the only other guest.
+
+"He must have wished Ursula to see Paris," said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+"Pest!" cried Cremiere; "he can't take a step without that girl!"
+
+"Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,"
+said Massin.
+
+"So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+released that little Savinien?" cried Goupil. "He refused Dionis, but he
+didn't refuse Madame de Portenduere--Ha, ha! you are all done for. The
+viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage, and the
+doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the sum he
+has now paid to secure the alliance."
+
+"It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien," said the butcher.
+"The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette came
+early for a filet."
+
+"Well, Dionis, here's a fine to-do!" said Massin, rushing up to the
+notary, who was entering the square.
+
+"What is? It's all going right," returned the notary. "Your uncle has
+sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness the
+signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand francs,
+lent to her by your uncle."
+
+"Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?"
+
+"That's as if you said Goupil was to be my successor."
+
+"The two things are not so impossible," said Goupil.
+
+On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform
+her son that she wished to see him.
+
+The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame
+de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a
+large dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little
+antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other
+room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on the
+street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving room
+for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the court.
+Madame de Portenduere's bedroom, the gloomiest in the house, also looked
+into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the salon on the
+ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the kitchen built at
+the end of the court, so that this salon was made to answer the double
+purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+
+The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had
+left it on the day of his death; there was no change except that he was
+absent. Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying upon it
+the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and hat. The
+gold snuff-box from which her late husband had taken snuff for the last
+time was on the table, with his prayer-book, his watch, and the cup from
+which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one curled lock and framed,
+hung above a crucifix and the holy water in the alcove. All the little
+ornaments he had worn, his journals, his furniture, his Dutch spittoon,
+his spy-glass hanging by the mantel, were all there. The widow had
+stopped the hands of the clock at the hour of his death, to which they
+always pointed. The room still smelt of the powder and the tobacco of
+the deceased. The hearth was as he left it. To her, entering there, he
+was again visible in the many articles which told of his daily habits.
+His tall cane with its gold head was where he had last placed it, with
+his buckskin gloves close by. On a table against the wall stood a gold
+vase, of coarse workmanship but worth three thousand francs, a gift from
+Havana, which city, at the time of the American War of Independence, he
+had protected from an attack by the British, bringing his convoy safe
+into port after an engagement with superior forces. To recompense this
+service the King of Spain had made him a knight of his order; the
+same event gave him a right to the next promotion to the rank of
+vice-admiral, and he also received the red ribbing. He then married his
+wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred thousand francs. But
+the Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduere
+emigrated.
+
+"Where is my mother?" said Savinien to Tiennette.
+
+"She is waiting for you in your father's room," said the old Breton
+woman.
+
+Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother's rigid
+principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility,
+and he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart beating
+and his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered through the
+blinds he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air of solemnity
+in keeping with that funereal room.
+
+"Monsieur le vicomte," she said when she saw him, rising and taking his
+hand to lead him to his father's bed, "there died your father,--a man of
+honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His spirit
+is there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son degraded by
+imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain could have been
+spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and shutting you up for a
+few days in a military prison.--But you are here; you stand before your
+father, who hears you. You know all that you did before you were sent
+to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to me before your father's shade,
+and in presence of God who sees all, that you have done no dishonorable
+act; that your debts are the result of youthful folly, and that your
+honor is untarnished? If your blameless father were there, sitting
+in that armchair, and asking an explanation of your conduct, could he
+embrace you after having heard it?"
+
+"Yes, mother," replied the young man, with grave respect.
+
+She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few tears.
+
+"Let us forget it all, my son," she said; "it is only a little less
+money. I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy
+of your name, kiss me--for I have suffered much."
+
+"I swear, mother," he said, laying his hand upon the bed, "to give you
+no further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair these
+first faults."
+
+"Come and breakfast, my child," she said, turning to leave the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+
+In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs
+something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics. Moreover,
+the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates
+to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied
+to the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the
+spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours,
+where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible
+marriage of her son with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social
+laws have their exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother's
+pride before the inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once.
+As soon as they were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible
+letters, as she called them, which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres
+had written her.
+
+"There is no such thing as family in these days, mother," replied
+Savinien, "nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, 'What taxes does he pay?'"
+
+"But the king?" asked the old lady.
+
+"The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife
+and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without
+regard to family,--the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is
+sufficiently well brought-up--that is to say, if she has been taught in
+school."
+
+"Oh! there's no need to talk of that," said the old lady.
+
+Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called
+Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he resolved to know
+at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+
+"So," he went on, "if I loved a young girl,--take for instance your
+neighbour's godchild, little Ursula,--would you oppose my marriage?"
+
+"Yes, as long as I live," she replied; "and after my death you would
+be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+Portendueres."
+
+"Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobility,
+which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of great wealth?"
+
+"You could serve France and put faith in God."
+
+"Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?"
+
+"It would be horrible if you took it then,--that is all I have to say."
+
+"Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu."
+
+"Mazarin himself opposed it."
+
+"Remember the widow Scarron."
+
+"She was a d'Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very
+old, my son," she said, shaking her head. "When I am no more you can, as
+you say, marry whom you please."
+
+Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal
+to her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this
+opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of
+a forbidden thing.
+
+When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink
+and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with
+nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen
+of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the
+doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her
+eyes, and the old lady herself the social value which a duchess of the
+Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula
+measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated Vicomte
+de Portenduere from the daughter of a regimental musician, a former
+opera-singer and the natural son of an organist.
+
+"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady, making the girl sit
+down beside her.
+
+"Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me--"
+
+"My little girl," said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. "I
+know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to him,
+for he has brought back my prodigal son."
+
+"But, my dear mother," said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the
+color fly into Ursula's face as she struggled to keep back her tears,
+"even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret,
+I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle
+has given us by accepting your invitation."
+
+The young man pressed the doctor's hand in a significant manner, adding:
+"I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order
+in France, and one which confers nobility."
+
+Ursula's extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a depth
+which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where the
+soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduere
+suddenly, and made her suspect that the doctor's apparent generosity
+masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien
+replied with the intention of wounding the doctor in that which was
+dearest to him; and she succeeded, though the old man could hardly
+restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a "chevalier," amused to
+observe how the eagerness of a lover did not shrink from absurdity.
+
+"The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to
+obtain," he said, "has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other
+privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have
+done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor
+devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order
+of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic."
+
+After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned,
+which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when
+there was a rap at the door.
+
+"There is our dear abbe," said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,--an honor she had not
+paid to the doctor and his niece.
+
+The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere's
+manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid
+it. He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was
+then running by confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de
+Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid
+all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old lady,
+in an easy, jesting way, a packet of legal papers and receipted bills,
+together with the account of his notary.
+
+"Has my son verified them?" she said, giving Savinien a look, to which
+he replied by bending his head. "Well, then the rest is my notary's
+business," she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair
+with the disdain she wished to show for money.
+
+To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere's ideas, to
+elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+
+A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for
+the accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+
+"Why do you want them?" said the old lady.
+
+"To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments."
+
+Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance with
+offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of touching
+a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both had the
+same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which has no name
+in any language, but which is capable of explanation as the action of
+the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian had spoken to
+Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil would in some
+way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble; but she controlled herself,
+conscious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that Savinien shared her
+emotion.
+
+"He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis," said Savinien, when
+Goupil had closed the door.
+
+"What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?" said
+Madame de Portenduere.
+
+"I don't complain of his ugliness," said the abbe, "but I do of his
+wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain."
+
+The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and
+dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the
+kindly good-humor of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the
+dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been almost
+intolerable. At dessert, seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to her:--
+
+"If you don't feel well, dear child, we have only the street to cross."
+
+"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady to the girl.
+
+"Madame," said the doctor severely, "her soul is chilled, accustomed as
+she is to be met by smiles."
+
+"A very bad education, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduere. "Is it
+not, Monsieur l'abbe?"
+
+"Yes," answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how
+to reply. "I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic
+spirit if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die
+until I place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and
+hatred--"
+
+"Oh, godfather--I beg of you--say no more. There is nothing the matter
+with me," cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere's eyes rather than
+give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+
+"I cannot know, madame," said Savinien to his mother, "whether
+Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me."
+
+Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his
+mother's treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de
+Portenduere to excuse her; then she took her uncle's arm, bowed, left
+the room, and returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and sat
+down to the piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into tears.
+
+"Why don't you leave the management of your affairs to my old
+experience, cruel child?" cried the doctor in despair. "Nobles never
+think themselves under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we
+do them a service they consider that we do our duty, and that's all.
+Besides, the old lady saw that you looked favorably on Savinien; she is
+afraid he will love you."
+
+"At any rate he is saved!" said Ursula. "But ah! to try to humiliate a
+man like you!"
+
+"Wait till I return, my child," said the old man leaving her.
+
+When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere's salon he found Dionis
+the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of Nemours,
+witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all communes
+where there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis aside and
+said a word in his ear, after which the notary read the deeds aloud
+officially; from which it appeared that Madame de Portenduere gave a
+mortgage on all her property to secure payment of the hundred thousand
+francs, the interest on which was fixed at five per cent. At the reading
+of this last clause the abbe looked at Minoret, who answered with an
+approving nod. The poor priest whispered something in the old lady's ear
+to which she replied,--
+
+"I will owe nothing to such persons."
+
+"My mother leaves me the nobler part," said Savinien to the doctor; "she
+will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude."
+
+"But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to meet
+the interest and the legal costs," said the abbe.
+
+"Monsieur," said Minoret to Dionis, "as Monsieur and Madame de
+Portenduere are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the
+amount of the mortgage and I will pay them."
+
+Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred and
+seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret made his
+fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the notary and
+witnesses.
+
+"Madame," said the abbe, "why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those
+debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your son
+for his debts of honor?"
+
+"Your Minoret is sly," she said, taking a pinch of snuff. "He knows what
+he is about."
+
+"My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by
+getting hold of our farm," said Savinien; "as if a Portenduere, son of a
+Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will."
+
+An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor's house, where
+all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of
+the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because its
+effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles Cremiere and
+Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who blushed. The mothers
+said to Desire that Goupil was right about the marriage. The eyes of all
+present turned towards the doctor, who did not rise to receive the young
+nobleman, but merely bowed his head without laying down the dice-box,
+for he was playing a game of backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The
+doctor's cold manner surprised every one.
+
+"Ursula, my child," he said, "give us a little music."
+
+While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her
+in countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations of
+pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on them,
+so eager were they to find out what was going on between their uncle and
+the Portendueres.
+
+In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when
+played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more
+impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all
+music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the
+performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both
+meaning and poetry to passages which are in themselves of no great
+value. Chopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the
+truth of this fact, already proved by Paganini on the violin. That
+fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt, and
+communicates itself through all species of music, even simple chords.
+Ursula, by her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged to this
+rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came every
+Saturday and who, during Ursula's stay in Paris was with her every
+day, had brought his pupil's talent to its full perfection. "Rousseau's
+Dream," the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Herold in his young
+days, is not without a certain depth which is capable of being developed
+by execution. Ursula threw into it the feelings which were agitating her
+being, and justified the term "caprice" given by Herold to the fragment.
+With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke to the young man's soul and
+wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that were almost visible.
+
+Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and his
+head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed on the
+paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning another world.
+Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less reason. Genuine
+feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was willing to show
+her soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired. Savinien entered
+that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart, which, to interpret its
+feelings, borrowed the power of the only art that speaks to thought by
+thought, without the help of words, or color, or form. Candor, openness
+of heart have the same power over a man that childhood has; the same
+charm, the same irresistible seductions. Ursula was never more honest
+and candid than at this moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+
+The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take
+a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed, all
+except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his uncle
+and the viscount and Ursula.
+
+"You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle," he said, when the young
+girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. "Who is your
+master?"
+
+"A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti," said the
+doctor. "If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her stay
+in Paris he would have been here to-day."
+
+"He is not only a great musician," said Ursula, "but a man of adorable
+simplicity of nature."
+
+"Those lessons must cost a great deal," remarked Desire.
+
+The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who
+had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the air
+of a man who fulfills a duty.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I am grateful for the feeling which leads you
+to make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right
+to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming here,
+in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I should
+otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother that if
+I do not beg her, in my niece's name and my own, to do us the honor of
+dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that she would
+find herself indisposed on that day."
+
+The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+respectfully, saying:--
+
+"You are quite right, monsieur."
+
+He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was
+more of sadness than disappointment.
+
+Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+house precipitately.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+
+This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk
+among the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis, and
+regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+
+So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality puts
+everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks, even
+military subordination,--that last refuge of power in France, where
+passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+antipathies, or differences of fortune,--the obstinacy of an
+old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a
+barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles often
+do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent man a
+woman's value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a struggle,
+great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young girl was
+rendered dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps our feelings
+obey the laws of nature as to the lastingness of her creations; to a
+long life a long childhood.
+
+The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if it
+were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl parted her
+curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien's window, she
+saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When one reflects
+on the immense services that windows render to lovers it seems natural
+and right that a tax should be levied on them. Having thus protested
+against her godfather's harshness, Ursula dropped the curtain and opened
+her window to close the outer blinds, through which she could continue
+to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight times during the day
+she went up to her room, always to find the young viscount writing,
+tearing up what he had written, and then writing again--to her, no
+doubt!
+
+The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following
+letter:--
+
+
+To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+
+Mademoiselle,--I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young man
+inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which your
+godfather's kindness released me. I know that I must in future
+give greater guarantees of good conduct than other men; therefore,
+mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place myself at your feet
+and ask you to consider my love. This declaration is not dictated by
+passion; it comes from an inward certainty which involves the whole of
+life. A foolish infatuation for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was
+the cause of my going to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my
+sincere love the total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now
+effaced from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my soul
+as a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no other wife
+than you. You have every qualification I desire in her who is to bear my
+name. The education you have received and the dignity of your own mind,
+place you on the level of the highest positions. But I doubt myself
+too much to dare describe you to yourself; I can only love you. After
+listening to you yesterday I recalled certain words which seem as though
+written for you; suffer me to transcribe them:--
+
+"Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and intelligent,
+spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she had passed her
+life at court, simple as the hermit who had never known the world, the
+fire of her soul is tempered in her eyes by sacred modesty."
+
+I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even the
+most trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage to ask you,
+provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you by my conduct and
+my devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It concerns my very life; you
+cannot doubt that all my powers will be employed, not only in trying to
+please you, but in deserving your esteem, which is more precious to me
+than any other upon earth. With this hope, Ursula--if you will suffer
+me so to call you in my heart--Nemours will be to me a paradise, the
+hardest tasks will bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is
+derived from God. Tell me that I may call myself
+
+Your Savinien.
+
+
+Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her
+uncle.
+
+"Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!" she exclaimed, turning
+back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+
+A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda. Ursula
+awaited the old man's words, and the old man reflected long, too long
+for the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their secret
+interview appeared in the following answer, part of which the doctor
+undoubtedly dictated.
+
+
+To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+
+Monsieur,--I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the letter in
+which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and according to the rules
+of my education, I have felt bound to communicate it to my godfather,
+who is all I have, and whom I love as a father and also as a friend. I
+must now tell you the painful objections which he has made to me, and
+which must be to you my answer.
+
+Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends entirely,
+not only on my godfather's good-will, but also on the doubtful success
+of the measures he may take to elude the schemes of his relatives
+against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet,
+band-master of the 45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my
+godfather's natural half-brother; and therefore these relatives may,
+though without reason, being a suit against a young girl who would be
+defenceless. You see, monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not
+my greatest misfortune. I have many things to make me humble. It is for
+your sake, and not for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which
+to loving and devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg
+you to consider, monsieur, that if I did not submit them to you, I might
+be suspected of leading your tenderness to overlook obstacles which the
+world, and more especially your mother, regard as insuperable.
+
+I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we are
+both too young and too inexperienced to understand the miseries of a
+life entered upon without other fortune than that I have received
+from the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My godfather desires,
+moreover, not to marry me until I am twenty. Who knows what fate may
+have in store for you in four years, the finest years of your life? do
+not sacrifice them to a poor girl.
+
+Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear
+godfather, who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to contribute to
+it in every way, and earnestly desires that his protection, which must
+soon fail me, may be replaced by a tenderness equal to his own; there
+remains only to tell you how touched I am by your offer and by the
+compliments which accompany it. The prudence which dictates my letter
+is that of an old man to whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I
+express is that of a young girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has
+arisen.
+
+Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+
+Your servant, Ursula Mirouet.
+
+
+Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who
+suffered from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often
+to her chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting
+pensively before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At
+the end of the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him; the
+delay was explained by his increasing love.
+
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+
+Dear Ursula,--I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up nothing
+can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to us, is right;
+but does it follow that I am wrong in loving you? Therefore, all I want
+to know from you is whether you could love me. Tell me this, if only by
+a sign, and then the next four years will be the finest of my life.
+
+A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral
+Kergarouet, a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy. The
+kind old man, grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the king's
+favor would be thwarted by the rules of the service in case I wanted
+a certain rank. Nevertheless, if I study three months at Toulon, the
+minister of war can send me to sea as master's mate; then after a cruise
+against the Algerines, with whom we are now at war, I can go through an
+examination and become a midshipman. Moreover, if I distinguish myself
+in an expedition they are fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly
+be made ensign--but how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make
+the rules as elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again
+in the navy.
+
+I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your
+godfather; and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me. Before
+replying to the admiral, I must have an interview with the doctor; on
+his reply my whole future will depend. Whatever comes of it, know this,
+that rich or poor, the daughter of a band master or the daughter of a
+king, you are the woman whom the voice of my heart points out to me.
+Dear Ursula, we live in times when prejudices which might once have
+separated us have no power to prevent our marriage. To you, then, I
+offer the feelings of my heart, to your uncle the guarantees which
+secure to him your happiness. He has not seen that I, in a few hours,
+came to love you more than he has loved you in fifteen years.
+
+Until this evening. Savinien.
+
+
+"Here, godfather," said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a
+proud gesture.
+
+"Ah, my child!" cried the doctor when he had read it, "I am happier than
+even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution."
+
+After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking
+with Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river.
+The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl
+clung to her uncle's arm as though she were saving herself from a fall
+over a precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which
+made him shudder.
+
+"Leave us, my child," he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and
+sat upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss it
+respectfully.
+
+"Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?" he said to
+the doctor in a low voice.
+
+"No," said Minoret, smiling; "we might have to wait too long, but--I
+will give her to a lieutenant."
+
+Tears of joy filled the young man's eyes as he pressed the doctor's hand
+affectionately.
+
+"I am about to leave," he said, "to study hard and try to learn in six
+months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire."
+
+"You are going?" said Ursula, springing towards them from the pavilion.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to go,
+the more I prove to you my affection."
+
+"This is the 3rd of October," she said, looking at him with infinite
+tenderness; "do not go till after the 19th."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "we will celebrate Saint-Savinien's day."
+
+"Good-by, then," cried the young man. "I must spend this week in Paris,
+to take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical instruments,
+and try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms that I can for
+myself."
+
+Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after
+he entered his mother's house they saw him come out again, followed by
+Tiennette carrying his valise.
+
+"If you are rich," said Ursula to her uncle, "why do you make him serve
+in the navy?"
+
+"Presently it will be I who incurred his debts," said the doctor,
+smiling. "I don't oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear,
+and the cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out many
+stains. Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship, and
+that's all I ask of him."
+
+"But he may be killed," she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+
+"Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own," he said,
+laughing.
+
+That night the poor child, with La Bougival's help, cut off a sufficient
+quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a chain; and the
+next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master, to take it to
+Paris and have the chain made and returned by the following Sunday. When
+Savinien got back he informed the doctor and Ursula that he had signed
+his articles and was to be at Brest on the 25th. The doctor asked him to
+dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly two whole days in the old man's
+house. Notwithstanding much sage advice and many resolutions, the lovers
+could not help betraying their secret understanding to the watchful eyes
+of the abbe, Monsieur Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+
+"Children," said the old man, "you are risking your happiness by not
+keeping it to yourselves."
+
+On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered the
+little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind old
+man, by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the pagoda.
+
+"Dear Ursula," said Savinien; "will you make a gift greater than my
+mother could make me even if--"
+
+"I know what you wish to ask me," she said, interrupting him. "See, here
+is my answer," she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the box
+containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with a
+nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. "Wear
+it," she said, "for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by
+reminding you that my life depends on yours."
+
+"Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair," said the
+doctor to himself. "How did she manage to get it? what a pity to cut
+those beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life's blood
+next."
+
+"You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving
+you, a formal promise to have no other husband than me," said Savinien,
+kissing the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his eyes.
+
+"Have I not said so too often--I who went to see the walls of
+Sainte-Pelagie when you were behind them?--" she replied, blushing. "I
+repeat it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be
+yours alone."
+
+Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man could
+not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and kissing
+her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the bench,
+and when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the doctor
+standing before them.
+
+"My friend," said the old man, "Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough
+a word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm
+of your love--Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have,
+you would have been satisfied with her word of promise," he added, to
+revenge himself for the last sentence in Savinien's second letter.
+
+Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which
+he wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without
+apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single
+thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first
+time her godfather asked her what she felt, she replied:--
+
+"I want to see the ocean."
+
+"It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,"
+answered the old man.
+
+"Shall I really go?" she said.
+
+If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite
+of the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien was
+being tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her happy for
+days with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman in uniform.
+She read the newspapers, imagining that they would give news of the
+cruiser on which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper's sea-tales and
+learned to use sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration of feeling, often
+assumed by other women, were so genuine in Ursula that she saw in dreams
+the coming of Savinien's letters, and never failed to announce them,
+relating the dream as a forerunner.
+
+"Now," she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, "I
+am easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+instantly."
+
+The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his face.
+
+"What pains you?" they said, when Ursula had left them.
+
+"Will she live?" replied the doctor. "Can so tender and delicate a
+flower endure the trials of the heart?"
+
+Nevertheless, the "little dreamer," as the abbe called her, was working
+hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a woman of
+the world, and all the time she did not give to her singing and to the
+study of harmony and composition she spent in reading the books chosen
+for her by the abbe from her godfather's rich library. And yet while
+leading this busy life she suffered, though without complaint. Sometimes
+she would sit for hours looking at Savinien's window. On Sundays she
+would leave the church behind Madame de Portenduere and watch her
+tenderly; for, in spite of the old lady's harshness, she loved her as
+Savinien's mother. Her piety increased; she went to mass every morning,
+for she firmly believed that her dreams were the gift of God.
+
+At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to see
+the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien's ship formed part of
+it, but he was not to be informed beforehand of their intention. The
+abbe and Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of this journey,
+said to be for Ursula's health, which disturbed and greatly puzzled the
+relations. After beholding Savinien in his naval uniform, and going on
+board the fine flag-ship of the admiral, to whom the minister had given
+young Portenduere a special recommendation, Ursula, at her lover's
+entreaty, went with her godfather to Nice, and along the shores of the
+Mediterranean to Genoa, where she heard of the safe arrival of the fleet
+at Algiers and the landing of the troops. The doctor would have liked to
+continue the journey through Italy, as much to distract Ursula's mind as
+to finish, in some sense, her education, by enlarging her ideas through
+comparison with other manners and customs and countries, and by the
+fascination of a land where the masterpieces of art can still be seen,
+and where so many civilizations have left their brilliant traces. But
+the tidings of the opposition by the throne to the newly elected Chamber
+of 1830 obliged the doctor to return to France, bringing back his
+treasure in a flourishing state of health and possessed of a charming
+little model of the ship on which Savinien was serving.
+
+The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+relations,--Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours
+by whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at
+Fontainebleau. Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous
+influence over the country electors. Five of the post master's farmers
+were electors. Dionis represented eleven votes. After a few meetings
+at the notary's, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their adherents
+took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor returned,
+Dionis's office and salon were the camp of his heirs. The justice of
+peace and the mayor, who had formed an alliance, backed by the nobility
+in the neighbouring castles, to resist the liberals of Nemours, now
+worsted in their efforts, were more closely united than ever by their
+defeat.
+
+By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the doctor
+by word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was defined for the
+first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving incidentally such
+importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left Rambouillet for Cherbourg.
+Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, sent for
+fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil and mounted on horses from
+his father's stable, who arrived in Paris on the night of the 28th.
+With this troop Goupil and Desire took part in the capture of the
+Hotel-de-Veille. Desire was decorated with the Legion of honor and
+appointed deputy procureur du roi at Fontainebleau. Goupil received the
+July cross. Dionis was elected mayor of Nemours, and the city council
+was composed of the post master (now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere,
+and all the adherents of the family faction. Bongrand retained his place
+only through the influence of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose
+marriage with Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+
+Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs in
+shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about two
+hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in the
+same funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand francs a
+year. He made the same disposition of Ursula's little capital bequeathed
+to her by de Jordy, together with the accrued interest thereon, which
+gave her about fourteen hundred francs a year in her own right. La
+Bougival, who had laid by some five thousand francs of her savings, did
+the same by the doctor's advice, receiving in future three hundred and
+fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious transactions, agreed
+on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were carried out in perfect
+secrecy, thanks to the political troubles of the time.
+
+When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him
+a thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the
+Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new
+era in the doctor's existence, for he now (at a period when horses and
+carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine
+horses and a caleche.
+
+When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church on
+a rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to help
+her out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,--as much to see the
+caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the goddaughter, to
+whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere, the post master,
+and their wives attributed this extravagant folly of the old man.
+
+"A caleche! Hey, Massin!" cried Goupil. "Your inheritance will go at top
+speed now!"
+
+"You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle," said the post master to
+the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; "for it is
+to be supposed an old man of eighty-four won't use up many horse-shoes.
+What did those horses cost?"
+
+"Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two
+thousand; but it's a fine one, the wheels are patent."
+
+"Yes, it's a good carriage," said Cremiere; "and a man must be rich to
+buy that style of thing."
+
+"Ursula means to go at a good pace," said Goupil. "She's right; she's
+showing you how to enjoy life. Why don't you have fine carriages and
+horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn't let myself be humiliated if I were
+you--I'd buy a carriage fit for a prince."
+
+"Come, Cabirolle, tell us," said Massin, "is it the girl who drives our
+uncle into such luxury?"
+
+"I don't know," said Cabirolle; "but she is almost mistress of the
+house. There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now she
+is going to study painting."
+
+"Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn," said Madame
+Cremiere.
+
+In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+
+"The old German is not dismissed, is he?" said Madame Massin.
+
+"He was there yesterday," replied Cabirolle.
+
+"Now," said Goupil, "you may as well give up counting on your
+inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than
+ever. Travel forms young people, and the little minx has got your uncle
+in the toils. Five or six parcels come down for her by the diligence
+every week, and the dressmakers and milliners come too, to try on her
+gowns and all the rest of it. Madame Dionis is furious. Watch for Ursula
+as she comes out of church and look at the little scarf she is wearing
+round her neck,--real cashmere, and it cost six hundred francs!"
+
+If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+have been less than that of Goupil's last words; the mischief-maker
+stood by rubbing his hands.
+
+The doctor's old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian
+upholsterer. Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused
+of hoarding immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on Ursula.
+The heirs called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but the saying,
+"He's an old fool!" summed upon, on the whole, the verdict of the
+neighbourhood. These mistaken judgments of the little town had the one
+advantage of misleading the heirs, who never suspected the love between
+Savinien and Ursula, which was the secret reason of the doctor's
+expenditure. The old man took the greatest delights in accustoming his
+godchild to her future station in the world. Possessing an income of
+over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave him pleasure to adorn his
+idol.
+
+In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her
+eyes beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from her
+window when she rose in the morning.
+
+"Why didn't I know he was coming?" she said to herself.
+
+After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an
+act of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was
+serving was many months at sea without his being able to communicate
+with the doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without
+consulting him. Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already
+illustrious in its service, the new government had profited by a general
+change of officers to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained leave
+of absence for fifteen days, the new officer arrived from Toulon by the
+mail, in time for Ursula's fete, intending to consult the doctor at the
+same time.
+
+"He has come!" cried Ursula rushing into her godfather's bedroom.
+
+"Very good," he answered; "I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+stay in Nemours."
+
+"Ah! that's my birthday present--it is all in that sentence," she said,
+kissing him.
+
+On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came over
+at once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so changed
+for the better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain grave
+decision to the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an erect
+bearing which enables the most superficial observer to recognize a
+military man even in plain clothes. The habit of command produces this
+result. Ursula loved Savinien the better for it, and took a childlike
+pleasure in walking round the garden with him, taking his arm, and
+hearing him relate the part he played (as midshipman) in the taking of
+Algiers. Evidently Savinien had taken the city. The doctor, who had been
+watching them from his window as he dressed, soon came down. Without
+telling the viscount everything, he did say that, in case Madame de
+Portenduere consented to his marriage with Ursula, the fortune of his
+godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+
+"Alas!" said Savinien. "It will take a great deal of time to overcome my
+mother's opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was placed
+between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying Ursula or
+else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed to the
+dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go."
+
+"But, Savinien, we shall be together," said Ursula, taking his hand and
+shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+
+To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her; she
+saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant tone of
+her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the doctor were
+both moved by it. The resignation was written and despatched, and
+Ursula's fete received full glory from the presence of her betrothed.
+A few months later, towards the month of May, the home-life of the
+doctor's household had resumed the quite tenor of its way but with one
+welcome visitor the more. The attentions of the young viscount were
+soon interpreted in the town as those of a future husband,--all the more
+because his manners and those of Ursula, whether in church, or on the
+promenade, though dignified and reserved, betrayed the understanding of
+their hearts. Dionis pointed out to the heirs that the doctor had never
+asked Madame de Portenduere for the interest of his money, three years
+of which was now due.
+
+"She'll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of
+her son," said the notary. "If such a misfortune happens it is probable
+that the greater part of your uncle's fortune will serve for what Basile
+calls 'an irresistible argument.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+
+The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved
+Ursula too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became as
+underhand as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis's salon (as they had done
+every evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed against
+the lovers, and seldom separated without discussing some way of
+circumventing the old man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the fall
+in the Funds, as the doctor had done, to invest some, at least, of her
+enormous gains, was bitterest of them all against the orphan girl and
+the Portendueres. One evening, when Goupil, who usually avoided the
+dullness of these meetings, had come in to learn something of the
+affairs of the town which were under discussion, Zelie's hatred was
+freshly excited; she had seen the doctor, Ursula, and Savinien returning
+in the caleche from a country drive, with an air of intimacy that told
+all.
+
+"I'd give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself
+before the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can
+take place," she said.
+
+Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were quite
+alone:
+
+"Will you give me the means of buying Dionis's practice? If you will, I
+will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula."
+
+"How?" asked the colossus.
+
+"Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?" said the
+notary's head clerk.
+
+"Well, my lad, separate them, and we'll see what we can do," said Zelie.
+
+"I don't embark in any such business on a 'we'll see.' The young man is
+a fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as good a
+hand with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business, and I'll
+keep my word."
+
+"Prevent the marriage and I will set you up," said the post master.
+
+"It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur's practice, and you expect me to
+trust you now! Nonsense; you'll lose your uncle's property, and serve
+you right."
+
+"It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur's
+practice, that might be managed," said Zelie; "but to give security for
+you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing."
+
+"But I'll do my part," said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at Zelie,
+which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+
+The effect was that of venom on steel.
+
+"We can wait," said Zelie.
+
+"The devil's own spirit is in you," thought Goupil. "If I ever catch
+that pair in my power," he said to himself as he left the yard, "I'll
+squeeze them like lemons."
+
+By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur
+Bongrand, Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love
+of this young man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so
+persistent, interested the three friends deeply, and they now never
+separated the lovers in their thoughts. Soon the monotony of this
+patriarchal life, and the certainty of a future before them, gave to
+their affection a fraternal character. The doctor often left the pair
+alone together. He judged the young man rightly; he saw him kiss her
+hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no kiss when alone with her,
+so deeply did the lover respect the innocence, the frankness of the
+young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried, taught him that a
+harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of gentleness and roughness
+might kill her. The only freedom between the two took place before the
+eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+
+Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,--without other events
+than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from his
+mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for hours
+together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties, other than
+by Breton silence or a positive denial.
+
+At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine musician,
+and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was perfected. The
+fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far. The doctor was
+called upon to decline the overtures of Madame d'Aiglemont, who was
+thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months later, in spite of the
+secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on this subject, Savinien
+heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he made use of the incident
+in another attempt to vanquish his mother's obstinacy; but she merely
+replied:--
+
+"If the d'Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason
+why we should do so?"
+
+In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his
+face pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his
+approaching death. "You'll soon know results," said the community to the
+heirs. In truth the old man's death had all the attraction of a problem.
+But the doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his illusions,
+and neither poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the abbe were
+willing to enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours doctor who
+came to see him every day did not venture to prescribe. Old Minoret felt
+no pain; his lamp of life was gently going out. His mind continued firm
+and clear and powerful. In old men thus constituted the soul governs
+the body, and gives it strength to die erect. The abbe, anxious not to
+hasten the fatal end, released his parishioner from the duty of hearing
+mass in church, and allowed him to read the services at home, for the
+doctor faithfully attended to all his religious duties. The nearer he
+came to the grave the more he loved God; the lights eternal shone upon
+all difficulties and explained them more and more clearly to his mind.
+Early in the year Ursula persuaded him to sell the carriage and horses
+and dismiss Cabirolle. Monsieur Bongrand, whose uneasiness about
+Ursula's future was far from quieted by the doctor's half-confidence,
+boldly opened the subject one evening and showed his old friend the
+importance of making Ursula legally of age. Still the old man, though
+he had often consulted the justice of peace, would not reveal to him the
+secret of his provision for Ursula, though he agreed to the necessity
+of securing her independence by majority. The more Monsieur Bongrand
+persisted in his efforts to discover the means selected by his old
+friend to provide for his darling the more wary the doctor became.
+
+"Why not secure the thing," said Bongrand, "why run any risks?"
+
+"When you are between two risks," replied the doctor, "avoid the most
+risky."
+
+Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so
+promptly that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That
+anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized perhaps
+with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which he invited
+all the young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere, Minoret, and
+Massin. Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two assistant priests,
+the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret, Massin, and Cremiere,
+together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a grand dinner which
+preceded the ball.
+
+"I feel I am going," said the old man to the notary towards the close
+of the evening. "I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my guardianship
+account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property after my
+death. Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my heirs,--I
+have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere, Massin,
+and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council appointed for
+Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering of my account."
+
+These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another
+round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families,
+who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes
+thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were
+disinherited.
+
+When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old
+doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress; "To
+you, my friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be here no
+longer to protect her. Put yourselves between her and the world until
+she is married,--I fear for her."
+
+The words made a painful impression. The guardian's account, rendered a
+day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that Doctor
+Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred francs
+from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little capital
+of gifts made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last fifteen
+years, on birthdays and other anniversaries.
+
+This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of
+the peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of
+Doctor Minoret's death.
+
+The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which compelled
+him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always surrounded the
+doctor's house and kept it from observation, the news of his approaching
+death spread through the town, and the heirs began to run hither and
+thither through the streets, like the pearls of a chaplet when the
+string is broken. Massin called at the house to learn the truth, and was
+told by Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed. The Nemours doctor
+had remarked that whenever old Minoret took to his bed he would die;
+and therefore in spite of the cold, the heirs took their stand in the
+street, on the square, at their own doorsteps, talking of the event so
+long looked for, and watching for the moment when the priests should
+appear, bearing the sacrament, with all the paraphernalia customary in
+the provinces, to the dying man. Accordingly, two days later, when the
+Abbe Chaperon, with an assistant and the choir-boys, preceded by the
+sacristan bearing the cross, passed along the Grand'Rue, all the heirs
+joined the procession, to get an entrance to the house and see that
+nothing was abstracted, and lay their eager hands upon its coveted
+treasures at the earliest moment.
+
+When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter than
+the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round, saw
+them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was the
+first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him. Massin,
+fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some ornament,
+joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently assembled
+one by one.
+
+"He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction," said Cremiere; "we
+may be sure of his death now."
+
+"Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year," replied
+Madame Massin.
+
+"I have an idea," said Zelie, "that for the last three years he hasn't
+invested anything--he grew fond of hoarding."
+
+"Perhaps the money is in the cellar," whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+
+"I hope we shall be able to find it," said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+"But after what he said at the ball we can't have any doubt," cried
+Madame Massin.
+
+"In any case," began Cremiere, "how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know--"
+
+A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method
+of procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices,
+Zelie's screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in
+the courtyard and even in the street.
+
+The noise reached the doctor's ears; he heard the words, "The house--the
+house is worth thirty thousand francs. I'll take it at that," said, or
+rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+
+"Well, we'll take what it's worth," said Zelie, sharply.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said the old man to the priest, who remained beside
+his friend after administering the communion, "help me to die in peace.
+My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of pillaging the
+house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive me. Go and tell
+them I will have none of them in my house."
+
+The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words of
+their own.
+
+"Madame Bougival," said the doctor, "close the iron gate and allow
+no one to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare
+mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur's feet."
+
+"Your uncle is not dead," said the abbe, "and he may live some time
+longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+yours!"
+
+"Old hypocrite!" exclaimed Cremiere. "I shall keep watch of him. It is
+possible he's plotting something against our interests."
+
+The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending
+to watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no noise,
+for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able to
+reach the door of his uncle's room without being heard. The abbe and the
+doctor had left the house; La Bougival was making the poultices.
+
+"Are we quite alone?" said the old man to his godchild.
+
+Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+
+"Yes," she said; "the abbe has just closed the gate after him."
+
+"My darling child," said the dying man, "my hours, my minutes even, are
+counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last till
+evening. Do not cry, my Ursula," he said, fearing to be interrupted
+by the child's weeping, "but listen to me carefully; it concerns your
+marriage to Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back go down to the
+pagoda,--here is the key,--lift the marble top of the Boule buffet and
+you will find a letter beneath it, sealed and addressed to you; take it
+and come back here, for I cannot die easy unless I see it in your hands.
+When I am dead do not let any one know of it immediately, but send for
+Monsieur de Portenduere; read the letter together; swear to me now,
+in his name and your own, that you will carry out my last wishes. When
+Savinien has obeyed me, then announce my death, but not till then.
+The comedy of the heirs will begin. God grant those monsters may not
+ill-treat you."
+
+"Yes godfather."
+
+The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped away
+on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the library
+side of the door. He had been present in former days at an argument
+between the architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring that if the
+pagoda were entered by the window on the river it would be much safer to
+put the lock of the door opening into the library on the library side.
+Dazzled by his hopes, and his ears flushed with blood, Minoret sprang
+the lock with the point of his knife as rapidly as a burglar could have
+done it. He entered the study, followed the doctor's directions,
+took the package of papers without opening it, relocked the door, put
+everything in order, and went into the dining-room and sat down, waiting
+till La Bougival had gone upstairs with the poultice before he ventured
+to leave the house. He then made his escape,--all the more easily
+because poor Ursula lingered to see that La Bougival applied the
+poultice properly.
+
+"The letter! the letter!" cried the old man, in a dying voice. "Obey me;
+take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand."
+
+The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+Ursula:--
+
+"Do what he asks at once or you will kill him."
+
+She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked at
+her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to speak,
+and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The poor
+girl, who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and burst into
+tears. La Bougival closed the old man's eyes and straightened him on
+the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the heirs, who stood at the
+corner of the street, like crows watching till a horse is buried before
+they scratch at the ground and turn it over with beak and claw, flocked
+in with the celerity of birds of prey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE DOCTOR'S WILL
+
+While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home to
+open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+
+
+To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother, Joseph
+Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:--
+
+My dear Angel,--The fatherly affection I bear you--and which you have
+so fully justified--came not only from the promise I gave your father
+to take his place, but also from your resemblance to my wife, Ursula
+Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and charm you constantly
+recall to my mind. Your position as the daughter of a natural son of my
+father-in-law might invalidate all testamentary bequests made by me in
+your favor--
+
+"The old rascal!" cried the post master.
+
+Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I
+shrank from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by marriage, for
+I might live years and thus interfere with your happiness, which is
+now delayed only by Madame de Portenduere. Having weighted these
+difficulties carefully, and wishing to leave you enough money to secure
+to you a prosperous existence--
+
+"The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!"
+
+  --without injuring my heirs--
+
+"The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!"--I
+intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for the last
+eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my notary, seeking
+to make you thereby as happy as any one can be made by riches. Without
+means, your education and your lofty ideas would cause you unhappiness.
+Besides, you ought to bring a liberal dowry to the fine young man who
+loves you. You will therefore find in the middle of the third volume
+of Pandects, folio, bound in red morocco (the last volume on the first
+shelf above the little table in the library, on the side of the room
+next the salon), three certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents,
+made out to bearer, each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year--
+
+"What depths of wickedness!" screamed the post master. "Ah! God would
+not permit me to be so defrauded."
+
+Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this date,
+which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my darling child,
+that you must obey a wish that has made the happiness of my whole life;
+a wish that will force me to ask the intervention of God should
+you disobey me. But, to guard against all scruples in your dear
+conscience--for I well know how ready it is to torture you--you will
+find herewith a will in due form bequeathing these certificates to
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere. So, whether you possess them in your
+own name, or whether they come to you from him you love, they will be,
+in every sense, your legitimate property.
+
+Your godfather, Denis Minoret.
+
+
+To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+stamped paper.
+
+
+This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in
+Nemours, being of sound mind and body, as the date of this document will
+show, do bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to pardon my errors in
+view of my sincere repentance. Next, having found in Monsieur le Vicomte
+Savinien de Portenduere a true and honest affection for me, I bequeath
+to him the sum of thirty-six thousand francs a year from the Funds, at
+three per cent, the said bequest to take precedence of all inheritance
+accruing to my heirs.
+
+Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the post master, who had locked himself
+into his wife's bedroom to insure being alone, looked about for the
+tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the extinction of
+two matches which obstinately refused to light. The third took fire. He
+burned the letter and the will on the hearth and buried the vestiges of
+paper and sealing-wax in the ashes by way of superfluous caution. Then,
+allured by the thought of possessing thirty-six thousand francs a year
+of which his wife knew nothing, he returned at full speed to his uncle's
+house, spurred by the only idea, a clear-cut, simple idea, which was
+able to piece and penetrate his dull brain. Finding the house invaded by
+the three families, now masters of the place, he trembled lest he
+should be unable to accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection
+whatever, except so far as to fear the obstacles.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said to Massin and Cremiere. "We can't
+leave the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but
+we can't camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him to
+come and certify to the death; I can't draw up the mortuary certificate
+for an uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go and ask old
+Bongrand to attach the seals. As for you, ladies," he added, turning to
+his wife and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, "go and look after Ursula;
+then nothing can be stolen. Above all, close the iron gate and don't let
+any one leave the house."
+
+The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula's bedroom,
+where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her knees
+before God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting that the
+women would not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the library,
+found the volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and found in
+the other volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his brutal nature
+the colossus felt as though a peal of bells were ringing in each ear.
+The blood whistled in his temples as he committed the theft; cold as the
+weather was, his shirt was wet on his back; his legs gave way under him
+and he fell into a chair in the salon as if an axe had fallen on his
+head.
+
+"How the inheritance of money loosens a man's tongue! Did you hear
+Minoret?" said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town. "'Go
+here, go there,' just as if he knew everything."
+
+"Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of--"
+
+"Stop!" said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. "His wife is there;
+they've got some plan! Do you do both errands; I'll go back."
+
+Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the
+heated face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of death
+with the celerity of a weasel.
+
+"Well, what is it now?" asked the post master, unlocking the gate for
+his co-heir.
+
+"Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing," answered
+Massin, giving him a savage look.
+
+"I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home," said
+Minoret.
+
+"We shall have to put a watcher over them," said Massin. "La Bougival
+is capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We'll put Goupil
+there."
+
+"Goupil!" said the post master; "put a rat in the meal!"
+
+"Well, let's consider," returned Massin. "To-night they'll watch the
+body; the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after
+them. To-morrow we'll have the funeral at twelve o'clock. But the
+inventory can't be made under a week."
+
+"Let's get rid of that girl at once," said the colossus; "then we can
+safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and
+the seals."
+
+"Good," cried Massin. "You are the head of the Minoret family."
+
+"Ladies," said Minoret, "be good enough to stay in the salon; we can't
+think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+security of all interests."
+
+He took his wife apart and told her Massin's proposition about Ursula.
+The women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as they
+called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived with
+his assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the request
+was made to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend of the
+deceased, to tell Ursula to leave the house.
+
+"Go and turn her out of her father's house, her benefactor's house
+yourselves," he cried. "Go! you who owe your inheritance to the
+generosity of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into
+the street before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of
+robbing you? Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to
+do that. But I tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula's room;
+she has a right to that room, and everything in it is her own property.
+I shall tell her what her rights are, and tell her too to put everything
+that belongs to her in this house in that room--Oh! in your presence,"
+he said, hearing a growl of dissatisfaction among the heirs.
+
+"What do you think of that?" said the collector to the post master and
+the women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+
+"Call _him_ a magistrate!" cried the post master.
+
+Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every now
+and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids swollen;
+she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical prostration which
+might have softened the hardest hearts--except those of the heirs.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and
+mourning," she said, with the poetry natural to her. "You know, _you_,
+what he was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me.
+I believed he would live a hundred years. He has been my mother," she
+cried, "my good, kind mother."
+
+These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes,
+interrupted by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+
+"My child," said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the
+staircase. "You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you
+have now only a moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything
+that belongs to you in this house and put it into your own room at once.
+The heirs insist on my affixing the seals."
+
+"Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose," cried Ursula,
+sitting upright under an impulse of savage indignation. "I have
+something here," she added, striking her breast, "which is far more
+precious--"
+
+"What is it?" said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+showed his brutal face.
+
+"The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words--an image of
+his celestial soul," she said, her eyes and face glowing as she raised
+her hand with a glorious gesture.
+
+"And a key!" cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a
+key which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+
+"Yes," she said, blushing, "that is the key of his study; he sent me
+there at the moment he was dying."
+
+The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at
+Monsieur Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula
+who intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left her
+body. Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue only at
+some cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:--
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the kindness
+of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me but the
+clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to it."
+
+She went to her godfather's room, and no entreaties could make her leave
+it,--the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their conduct,
+endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand to engage
+two rooms for her at the "Vieille Poste" inn until she could find some
+lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She returned to
+her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night, with the abbe,
+his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying beside her uncle's
+body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to bed, and knelt,
+without a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him sadly, and thanked
+him for coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+
+"My child," said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, "one of
+your uncle's heirs has taken these necessary articles from your drawers,
+for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that you will
+recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own sake,
+placed the seals on your room."
+
+"Thank you," she replied, pressing his hand. "Look at him again,--he
+seems to sleep, does he not?"
+
+The old man's face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests upon
+the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared to
+radiate from it.
+
+"Did he give you anything secretly before he died?" whispered M.
+Bongrand.
+
+"Nothing," she said; "he spoke only of a letter."
+
+"Good! it will certainly be found," said Bongrand. "How fortunate for
+you that the heirs demanded the sealing."
+
+At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love
+began. So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief
+tears of regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven.
+With one last glance at Savinien's windows she left the room and the
+house, and went to the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the
+package, by Monsieur Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien,
+her true protector.
+
+Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the worst
+fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see Ursula
+without means and at the mercy of her benefactor's heirs.
+
+The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor's funeral. When
+the conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known,
+a vast majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An
+inheritance was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded;
+Ursula might think she had rights; the heirs were only defending their
+property; she had humbled them enough during their uncle's lifetime, for
+he had treated them like dogs and sent them about their business.
+
+Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those
+who envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable to
+be present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly by
+the insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+
+"Look at that hypocrite weeping," said some of the heirs, pointing to
+Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor's death.
+
+"The question is," said Goupil, "has he any good grounds for weeping.
+Don't laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed."
+
+"Pooh!" said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, "you are
+always frightening us about nothing."
+
+As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery, a
+bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take Desire's
+arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his former comrade
+in presence of all Nemours.
+
+"I won't be angry, or I couldn't get revenge," thought the notary's
+clerk, whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+
+Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time
+for the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to
+commission Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done
+the settlement of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked of
+in the town for ten days) began with all the legal formalities. Dionis
+had his pickings; Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as the
+business was profitable the sessions were many. After the first of these
+sessions all parties breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs, and
+witnesses drank the best wines in the doctor's cellar.
+
+In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives
+in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging. When
+a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost always
+included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of removing
+Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the Grand'Rue
+at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little building had a
+front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the ground-floor with
+two windows on the street; behind this came the kitchen, with a glass
+door opening to an inner courtyard about thirty feet square. A small
+staircase, lighted on the side towards the river by small windows, led
+to the first floor where there were three chambers, and above these were
+two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand borrowed two thousand francs from
+La Bougival's savings to pay the first instalment of the price,--six
+thousand francs,--and obtained good terms for payment of the rest.
+As Ursula wished to buy her uncle's books, Bongrand knocked down the
+partition between two rooms on the bedroom floor, finding that their
+united length was the same as that of the doctor's library, and gave
+room for his bookshelves.
+
+Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning, painting,
+and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the end of March
+Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in the ugly
+house; where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the one she had
+left; for it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by the justice
+of peace when the seals were removed. La Bougival, sleeping in the
+attic, could be summoned by a bell placed near the head of the
+young girl's bed. The room intended for the books, the salon on the
+ground-floor and the kitchen, though still unfurnished, had been hung
+with fresh papers and repainted, and only awaited the purchases which
+the young girl hoped to make when her godfather's effects were sold.
+
+Though the strength of Ursula's character was well known to the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the comfort
+and elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this barren and
+denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in fact, make
+private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so that Ursula
+should perceive no difference between the new chamber and the old one.
+But the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in Savinien's own
+eyes, showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared her more and more
+to her two old friends, and proved to them for the hundredth time that
+no troubles but those of the heart could make her suffer. The grief she
+felt for the loss of her godfather was far too deep to let her even feel
+the bitterness of her change of fortune, though it added fresh obstacles
+to her marriage. Savinien's distress in seeing her thus reduced did her
+so much harm that she whispered to him, as they came from mass on the
+morning on the day when she first went to live in her new house:
+
+"Love could not exist without patience; let us wait."
+
+As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to
+the post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay off
+the mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest accruing
+thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one hundred
+and twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs within
+twenty-four hours under pain of execution on her house. It was
+impossible for her to borrow the money. Savinien went to Fontainebleau
+to consult a lawyer.
+
+"You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise," was
+the lawyer's opinion. "They intend to sue in the matter and get your
+farm at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a voluntary
+sale of it and so escape costs."
+
+This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently
+pointed out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret's
+life-time, the doctor would have left his property to Ursula's husband
+and they would to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now
+were, in the depths of poverty. Though said without reproach, this
+argument annihilated the poor woman even more than the thought of
+her coming ejectment. When Ursula heard of this catastrophe she was
+stupefied with grief, having scarcely recovered from her fever, and the
+blow which the heirs had already dealt her. To love and be unable to
+succor the man she loves,--that is one of the most dreadful of all
+sufferings to the soul of a noble and sensitive woman.
+
+"I wished to buy my uncle's house," she said, "now I will buy your
+mother's."
+
+"Can you?" said Savinien. "You are a minor, and you cannot sell out your
+Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your legal
+guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town will be
+glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These bourgeois are like
+hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have ten thousand francs
+left, on which I can support my mother till this deplorable matter is
+settled. Besides, the inventory of your godfather's property is not yet
+finished; Monsieur Bongrand still thinks he shall find something for
+you. He is as much astonished as I am that you seem to be left without
+fortune. The doctor so often spoke both to him and to me of the
+future he had prepared for you that neither of us can understand this
+conclusion."
+
+"Pooh!" she said; "so long as I can buy my godfather's books and
+furniture and prevent their being dispersed, I am content."
+
+"But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything
+you want?"
+
+Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million
+for which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search
+made in every corner of the house after the seals were removed, brought
+no discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs of the
+Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in the
+three per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty thousand
+francs, and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about six
+hundred thousand francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting sum.
+But what had become of the money the doctor must have saved?
+
+Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence
+of a will, came every day at the close of each session to find out from
+Bongrand the results of the day's search. The latter would sometimes
+exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of hearing,
+"I can't understand the thing!" Bongrand, Savinien, and the abbe often
+declared to each other that the doctor, who received no interest from
+the Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as he did on fifteen
+thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly expressed, made the post
+master turn livid more than once.
+
+"Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere," said Bongrand,--"they to find
+money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere. They
+have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers, bored
+into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped up the
+quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch of paper
+piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor--and I
+have urged on their devastations."
+
+"What do you think about it?" said the abbe.
+
+"The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs."
+
+"But where's the property?"
+
+"We may whistle for it!"
+
+"Perhaps the will is hidden in the library," said Savinien.
+
+"Yes, and for that reason I don't dissuade Ursula from buying it. If it
+were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of her
+ready money into books she will never open."
+
+At first the whole town believed the doctor's niece had got possession
+of the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+search of the doctor's house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank bills
+hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had slipped them
+into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a spectacle of the
+most extraordinary precautions on the part of the heirs. Dionis, who was
+doing duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each lot was cried out, that
+the heirs only sold the article (whatever it was) and not what it might
+contain; then, before allowing it to be taken away it was subjected to a
+final investigation, being thumped and sounded; and when at last it left
+the house the sellers followed with the looks a father might cast upon a
+son who was starting for India.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival, returning from the first session
+in despair, "I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right, you could
+never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town is coming
+and going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is being ruined,
+they even stand upon it; the whole place is such a muddle that a hen
+couldn't find her chicks. You'd think there had been a fire. Lots of
+things are in the courtyard; the closets are all open, and nothing in
+them. Oh! the poor dear man, it's well he died, the sight would have
+killed him."
+
+Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not appear
+at the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose cupidity
+might have run up the price of the books had they known he was buying
+them for Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books living in Melun
+to buy them for him. As a result of the heir's anxiety the whole library
+was sold book by book. Three thousand volumes were examined, one by one,
+held by the two sides of the binding and shaken so that loose papers
+would infallibly fall out. The whole amount of the purchases on Ursula's
+account amounted to six thousand five hundred francs or thereabouts.
+The book-cases were not allowed to leave the premises until carefully
+examined by a cabinet-maker, brought down from Paris to search for
+secret drawers. When at last Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the
+books and the bookcases to Mademoiselle Mirouet's house the heirs were
+tortured with vague fears, not dissipated until in course of time they
+saw how poorly she lived.
+
+Minoret bought up his uncle's house, the value of which his co-heirs ran
+up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master expected
+to find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold with a
+reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed of his
+post establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son of
+a rich farmer, and went to live in his uncle's house, where he spent
+considerable sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By making
+this move he thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within sight of
+Ursula.
+
+"I hope," he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+summoned to pay her debt, "that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+after they are gone we'll drive out the rest."
+
+"That old woman with fourteen quarterings," said Goupil, "won't want to
+witness her own disaster; she'll go and die in Brittany, where she can
+manage to find a wife for her son."
+
+"No," said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale at
+Bongrand's request. "Ursula has just bought the house she is living in."
+
+"That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!" cried the post
+master imprudently.
+
+"What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?" asked
+Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+
+"Don't you know," answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, "that my
+son is fool enough to be in love with her? I'd give five hundred francs
+if I could get Ursula out of this town."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+
+Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a thorn
+in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the settlement of
+an estate, the sale of the property, the going and coming necessitated
+by such unusual business, his discussions with his wife about the most
+trifling details, the purchase of the doctor's house, where Zelie wished
+to live in bourgeois style to advance her son's interests,--all this
+hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually tranquil life hindered the
+huge Minoret from thinking of his victim. But about the middle of May, a
+few days after his installation in the doctor's house, as he was coming
+home from a walk, he heard the sound of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting
+at a window, like a dragon guarding a treasure, and suddenly became
+aware of an importunate voice within him.
+
+To explain why to a man of Minoret's nature the sight of Ursula, who had
+no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became intolerable;
+why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune impelled him to
+a desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and why it was that
+this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would require a whole
+treatise on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was not the real
+possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as she to whom
+they really belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied some mere chance
+might betray his theft if the person despoiled was not got rid of.
+Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost uncivilized, and
+whose owner up to that time had never done anything illegal, the
+presence of Ursula awakened remorse. Possibly this remorse goaded him
+the more because he had received his share of the property legitimately
+acquired. In his own mind he no doubt attributed these stirrings of his
+conscience to the fact of Ursula's presence, imagining that if she were
+removed all his uncomfortable feelings would disappear with her. But
+still, after all, perhaps crime has its own doctrine of perfection. A
+beginning of evil demands its end; a first stab must be followed by the
+blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is doomed to lead to murder. Minoret
+had committed the crime without the slightest reflection, so rapidly
+had the events taken place; reflection came later. Now, if you have
+thoroughly possessed yourself of this man's nature and bodily presence
+you will understand the mighty effect produced on him by a thought.
+Remorse is more than a thought; it comes from a feeling which can no
+more be hidden than love; like love, it has its own tyranny. But, just
+as Minoret had committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest
+reflection, so he now blindly longed to drive her from Nemours when he
+felt himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence. Being,
+in a sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences; he went from
+danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct, like a wild animal which
+does not foresee the huntsman's skill, and relies on its own rapidity
+or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in Dionis's
+salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of the man who
+had hitherto been so free of care.
+
+"I don't know what has come to Minoret, he is all _no how_," said his
+wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+
+Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less, ennui
+(in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble ennui),
+caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the change
+from an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+
+While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula's life in Nemours,
+La Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her foster child
+with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had, or without
+comparing her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor had promised,
+and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+
+"It is not for myself I speak," she said, "but is it likely that
+monsieur, good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me
+the merest trifle?--"
+
+"Am I not here?" replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+word on the subject.
+
+She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that
+surrounded that noble head--a sketch of which in black and white hung
+in her little salon--with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh
+and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her _see_ her
+godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more because
+surrounded with the things he loved and used,--his large duchess-sofa,
+the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and the piano he had
+chosen for her. The two old friends who still remained to her, the Abbe
+Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only visitors whom she received,
+were, in the midst of these inanimate objects representative of the
+past, like two living memories of her former life to which she attached
+her present by the love her godfather had blessed.
+
+After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave
+tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+nothings of a young girl's life, the tranquillity which her quiet habits
+diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little home. After
+breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and practiced; then
+she took her embroidery and sat at the window looking on the street.
+At four o'clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which he took in all
+weathers), finding the window open, would sit upon the outer casing and
+talk with her for half an hour. In the evening the abbe and Monsieur
+Bongrand came to see her, but she never allowed Savinien to accompany
+them. Neither did she accept Madame de Portenduere's proposition, which
+Savinien had induced his mother to make, that she should visit there.
+
+Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy; they
+did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a month. The
+old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked only twice
+a week,--mistress and maid eating their food cold on other days; for
+Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still due on the
+purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with her modesty and
+her resignation to a life of poverty after the enjoyment of luxury and
+the fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply impressed certain persons.
+Ursula won the respect of others, and no voice was raised against her.
+Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her justice. Savinien admired the
+strength of character of so young a girl. From time to time Madame de
+Portenduere, when they met in church, would address a few kind words
+to her, and twice she insisted on her coming to dinner and fetched her
+herself. If all this was not happiness it was at least tranquillity.
+But a benefit which came to Ursula through the legal care and ability of
+Bongrand started the smouldering persecution which up to this time had
+laid in Minoret's breast as a dumb desire.
+
+As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor's estate was finished, the
+justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the Portendueres in
+hand and promised her to get them out of their trouble. In dealing with
+the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula's happiness made him furious,
+he did not allow her to be ignorant of the fact that his devotion to her
+service was solely to give pleasure to Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose
+one of his former clerks to act for the Portendueres at Fontainebleau,
+and himself put in a motion for a stay of proceedings. He intended to
+profit by the interval which must elapse between the stoppage of the
+present suit and some new step on the part of Massin to renew the lease
+at six thousand francs, get a premium from the present tenants and the
+payment in full of the rent of the current year.
+
+At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere's salon,
+between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded
+in quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he
+obtained a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a
+rent of six thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day
+on which this was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew to
+be puzzled as to how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her the
+farm at Bordieres for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+
+"I'd buy it at once," said Minoret, "if I were sure the Portendueres
+would go and live somewhere else."
+
+"Why?" said the justice of peace.
+
+"We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours."
+
+"I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough left
+to live here. She is thinking of selling her house."
+
+"Well, sell it to me," said Minoret.
+
+"To you?" said Zelie. "You talk as if you were master of everything.
+What do you want with two houses in Nemours?"
+
+"If I don't settle this matter of the farm with you to-night," said
+Bongrand, "our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim,
+and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to make.
+So if you don't take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where some
+farmers I know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut."
+
+"Why did you come to us, then?" said Zelie.
+
+"Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me wait
+some time for the money. I don't want difficulties."
+
+"Get _her_ out of Nemours and I'll pay it," exclaimed Minoret.
+
+"You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere's
+actions," said Bongrand. "I can only repeat what I heard her say, but I
+feel certain they will not remain in Nemours."
+
+On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to
+the purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to the
+doctor's estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by Dionis.
+Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the purchase
+money to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in the Funds,
+where, joined to Savinien's ten thousand, it would give her, at five
+per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far from losing her
+resources, the old lady actually gained by the transaction. But she
+did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had been tricked,--as though
+Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula's presence was intolerable to him;
+and he felt a keen resentment which embittered his hatred to his victim.
+Then began a secret drama which was terrible in its effects,--the
+struggle of two determinations; one which impelled Minoret to drive his
+victim from Nemours, the other which gave Ursula the strength to
+bear persecution, the cause of which was for a certain length of time
+undiscoverable. The situation was a strange and even unnatural one,
+and yet it was led up to by all the preceding events, which served as a
+preface to what was now to occur.
+
+Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver service
+costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner every Sunday,
+the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came from Fontainebleau,
+bringing with him certain of his friends. On these occasions Zelie
+sent to Paris for delicacies--obliging Dionis the notary to emulate
+her display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to ignore as a
+questionable person who might tarnish their splendor, was not invited
+until the end of July. The clerk, who was fully aware of this intended
+neglect, was forced to be respectful to Desire, who, since his entrance
+into office, had assumed a haughty and dignified air, even in his own
+family.
+
+"You must have forgotten Esther," Goupil said to him, "as you are so
+much in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet."
+
+"In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+never even thought of Ursula," said the new magistrate.
+
+"Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?" cried Goupil, insolently.
+
+Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was,
+in fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,--Minoret having
+remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the
+marriage between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil
+hurriedly to the end of the garden.
+
+"You'll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow," said he, "and
+I don't see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for
+after all you were once my son's companion. Listen to me. If you can
+persuade that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty
+thousand francs, to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is
+Minoret, the means to buy a notary's practice at Orleans."
+
+"No," said Goupil, "that's too far out of the way; but Montargis--"
+
+"No," said Minoret; "Sens."
+
+"Very good,--Sens," replied the hideous clerk. "There's an archbishop at
+Sens, and I don't object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there
+you are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she'll
+succeed at Sens."
+
+"It is to be fully understood," continued Minoret, "that I shall not pay
+the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide, out of
+consideration for my deceased uncle."
+
+"Why not for me too?" said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+secret motive in Minoret's conduct. "Isn't it through information you
+got from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land,
+without a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields and
+the mill the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more. Come,
+old fellow, do you mean to play fair with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber--"
+
+"You'd better think twice before you do that," said Zelie, suddenly
+intervening.
+
+"If I choose," said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; "Massin would
+buy the whole for two hundred thousand francs."
+
+"Leave us, wife," said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and
+shoving her away; "I understand him. We have been so very busy," he
+continued, returning to Goupil, "that we have had no time to think of
+you; but I rely on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me."
+
+"It is a very ancient marquisate," said Goupil, maliciously; "which will
+soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that means a
+capital of more than two millions as money is now."
+
+"My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+under the government in Paris," said Minoret, opening his huge snuff-box
+and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+
+"Very good; but will you play fair?" cried Goupil, shaking his fingers.
+
+Minoret pressed the clerk's hands replying:--
+
+"On my word of honor."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+
+Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed that
+the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part of the
+colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was opposing them
+with Massin.
+
+"It isn't he," thought Goupil, "who has invented this scheme; I know my
+Zelie,--she taught him his part. Bah! I'll let Massin go. In three years
+time I'll be deputy from Sens." Just then he saw Bongrand on his way to
+the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after him.
+
+"You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand," he said. "I know you will not be indifferent to her future.
+Her relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she ought
+to marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of an
+arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy in
+three years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs on
+her."
+
+"She can do better than that," said Bongrand coldly. "Madame de
+Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is killing
+her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula has a
+capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it a la
+Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little fortune.
+
+"Savinien will do a foolish thing," said Goupil; "he can marry
+Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,--an only daughter to whom the
+uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property."
+
+"Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says--By the bye,
+who is your notary?" added Bongrand from curiosity.
+
+"Suppose it were I?" answered Goupil.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+
+"Well, well!--Adieu, monsieur," replied Goupil, with a parting glance of
+gall and hatred and defiance.
+
+"Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred
+thousand francs on you?" cried Bongrand entering Madame de Portenduere's
+little salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old lady.
+
+Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,--she smiling, he
+not daring to show his uneasiness.
+
+"I am not mistress of myself," said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+
+"Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you."
+
+"Why did you do that?" said Madame de Portenduere. "I think the position
+of a notary is a very good one."
+
+"I prefer my peaceful poverty," said Ursula, "which is really wealth
+compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my
+old nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+present, which I like, for an unknown fate."
+
+A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of
+anonymous letters,--one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other to
+Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:--
+
+  "You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental
+  band-master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him
+  to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted."
+
+The letter to Ursula was as follows:--
+
+  Dear Ursula,--There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival's pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+
+Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two days
+later she received another letter in the following language:--
+
+  "You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien--you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year."
+
+This letter agonized Ursula's heart and afflicted her with the tortures
+of jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but which
+to this fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall over the
+present and over the future, and even over the past. From the moment
+when she received this fatal paper she lay on the doctor's sofa, her
+eyes fixed on space, lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant the chill
+of death had come upon her warm young life. Alas, worse than that! it
+was like the awful awakening of the dead to the sense that there was
+no God,--the masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean Paul. Four
+times La Bougival called her to breakfast. When the faithful creature
+tried to remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and answered in one harsh
+word, "Hush!" said despotically, in strange contrast to her usual gentle
+manner. La Bougival, watching her mistress through the glass door, saw
+her alternately red with a consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of
+cold had succeeded that unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and
+worse up to four o'clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming,
+but he did not come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love.
+Ursula, who till then had never made one gesture by which her love could
+be guessed, now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if
+to go and meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to her
+little salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in the
+evening La Bougival met him at the door.
+
+"Ah, monsieur!" she cried; "I don't know what's the matter with
+mademoiselle; she is--"
+
+"I know," said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+
+He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+
+"And Savinien too?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe
+quiver as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he felt
+moreover a lasting commotion in his heart.
+
+"So we shall not go there to-night," he said as gently as he could;
+"and, my child, it would be better if you did not go there again.
+The old lady will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur
+Bongrand and I, who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your
+marriage, have no idea from what quarter this new influence has come to
+change her, as it were in a moment."
+
+"I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now," said Ursula in a
+pained voice. "In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we have
+done nothing to displease God."
+
+"Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of
+Providence," said the abbe.
+
+"I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de
+Portenduere--"
+
+"Why do you no longer call him Savinien?" asked the priest, who detected
+a slight bitterness in Ursula's tone.
+
+"Of my dear Savinien," cried the girl, bursting into tears. "Yes, my
+good friend," she said, sobbing, "a voice tells me he is as noble in
+heart as he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me alone,
+but he has proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by restraining
+heroically his ardent feelings. Lately when he took the hand I held out
+to him, that evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed to me a husband, it
+was the first time, I swear to you, that I had ever given it. He began
+with a jest when he blew me a kiss across the street, but since then our
+affection has never outwardly passed, as you well know, the narrowest
+limits. But I will tell you,--you who read my soul except in this one
+region where none but the angels see,--well, I will tell you, this love
+has been in me the secret spring of many seeming merits; it made me
+accept my poverty; it softened the bitterness of my irreparable loss,
+for my mourning is more perhaps in my clothes now than in my heart--Oh,
+was I wrong? can it be that love was stronger in me than my gratitude
+to my benefactor, and God has punished me for it? But how could it be
+otherwise? I respected in myself Savinien's future wife; yes, perhaps
+I was too proud, perhaps it is that pride which God has humbled. God
+alone, as you have often told me, should be the end and object of all
+our actions."
+
+The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her pallid
+face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she was now
+to fall.
+
+"But," she said, continuing, "if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am
+I to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so
+divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You
+know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a grave,
+and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady's death. If
+Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay for my
+entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no more be
+two loves in a woman's heart than there can be two masters in heaven,
+and the life of a religious is attractive to me."
+
+"He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre," said the abbe, gently.
+
+"Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend," she answered. "I will
+write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the windows
+of this room," she continued, telling her old friend of the anonymous
+letters, but declaring that she would not allow any inquiries to be made
+as to who her unknown lover might be.
+
+"Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere
+to Rouvre," cried the abbe. "You are annoyed for some object by evil
+persons."
+
+"How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I am
+no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others."
+
+"Well, well, my child," said the abbe, quietly, "let us profit by this
+tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them in
+order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God, and
+remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two devoted
+friends."
+
+"That is much, very much," she said, going with him to the threshold of
+the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over its
+nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+
+Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+
+"Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not?
+You seem changed."
+
+Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went
+back into the house without replying.
+
+"She is cross," said Minoret to the abbe.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the threshold
+of her door," said the abbe; "she is too young--"
+
+"Oh!" said Goupil. "I am told she doesn't lack lovers."
+
+The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+Bourgeois.
+
+"Well," said Goupil to Minoret, "the thing is working. Did you notice
+how pale she was. Within a fortnight she'll have left the town--you'll
+see."
+
+"Better have you for a friend than an enemy," cried Minoret, frightened
+at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil's face the diabolical
+expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+
+"I should think so!" returned Goupil. "If she doesn't marry me I'll make
+her die of grief."
+
+"Do it, my boy, and I'll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in Paris.
+You can then marry a rich woman--"
+
+"Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done to
+you?" asked the clerk in surprise.
+
+"She annoys me," said Minoret, gruffly.
+
+"Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I'll rasp her," said
+Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master's face.
+
+The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+
+"I don't know what the dear child has written to you," she said, "but
+she is almost dead this morning."
+
+Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+
+  My dear Savinien,--Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice--for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, "Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days." When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you--but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+
+"Wait," cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+scratched off hastily the following reply:--
+
+  My dear Ursula,--Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother's consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that's a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle's
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.--Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then--Nothing can separate us.
+
+"Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+longer."
+
+That afternoon at four o'clock, returning from the walk which he
+always took expressly to pass before Ursula's house, Savinien found his
+mistress waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these sudden
+changes and excitements.
+
+"It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+seeing you is," she said to him.
+
+"You once said to me," replied Savinien, smiling,--"for I remember all
+your words,--'Love lives by patience; we will wait!' Dear, you have
+separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels; we
+will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I love
+you, but--did I ever doubt you?" he said, offering her a bouquet of
+wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+
+"You have never had any reason to doubt me," she replied; "and, besides,
+you don't know all," she added, in a troubled voice.
+
+Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+found, a few moments before Savinien's arrival, a letter tossed on her
+sofa which contained the words: "Tremble! a rejected lover can become a
+tiger."
+
+Withstanding Savinien's entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again,
+after she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her recover
+from the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite evil is
+torture to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the unknown,
+and the unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the pain was
+exquisite. Something without her bounded at the slightest noise; yet she
+was afraid of silence, and suspected even the walls of collusion. Even
+her sleep was restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of her nature, delicate
+as that of a flower, had found, with the instinct of evil, the poison
+that could wither and destroy her.
+
+The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano
+till very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About
+midnight she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a clarinet,
+hautboy, flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon, flageolet, and
+triangle. All the neighbours were at their windows. The poor girl,
+already frightened at seeing the people in the street, received a
+dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a man proclaiming
+in loud tones: "For the beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from her lover."
+
+The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were
+rife on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive, determined
+not to leave the house again,--the abbe having advised her to say
+vespers in her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying in the
+passage, which was floored with brick, a letter which had evidently been
+slipped under the door. She picked it up and read it, under the idea
+that it would obtain an explanation. It was as follows:--
+
+
+"Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am resolved.
+If you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To your refusal you
+may attribute not only your own misfortunes, but those which will fall
+on others.
+
+"He who loves you, and whose wife you will be."
+
+
+Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this
+plot was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis, and
+Cremiere were envying her lot.
+
+"She is a lucky girl," they were saying; "people talk of her, and court
+her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was a
+cornet-a-piston."
+
+"What's a piston?"
+
+"A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!" replied Angelique
+Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+
+Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to
+find out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in garrison.
+But as there were two men to each instrument it was impossible to find
+out which of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel forbade them to play
+for any private person in future without his permission. Savinien had
+an interview with the procureur du roi, Ursula's legal guardian, and
+explained to him the injury these scenes would do to a young girl
+naturally so delicate and sensitive, begging him to take some action to
+discover the author of such wrong.
+
+Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy began
+another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards Montargis, where
+there happened then to be a company of comic actors. A loud and ringing
+voice called out as they left: "To the daughter of the regimental
+bandsman Mirouet." By this means all Nemours came to know the profession
+of Ursula's father, a secret the old doctor had sedulously kept.
+
+Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day
+an anonymous letter containing a prophecy:--
+
+  "You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife."
+
+The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for
+she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted her
+eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows, and
+prayed fervently.
+
+"I am glad I cannot go down into the salon," she said to Monsieur
+Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; "_He_ would
+come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which _he_ blessed me. Do
+you think _he_ will suspect me?"
+
+"If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means to
+get the assistance of the Paris police," said Bongrand.
+
+"Whoever it is will know I am dying," said Ursula; "and will cease to
+trouble me."
+
+The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
+suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
+whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on their
+guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray Goupil,
+whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no more
+serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch relaxed.
+Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened; Savinien
+believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the letters
+received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps to put an
+end to the persecution.
+
+The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and just
+as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early one
+morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the mail-post
+declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of the night a
+small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and though he tried
+to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him down the hill so
+fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped them. Some of the
+persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed these manoeuvres to
+the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in means, for Massin held
+his notes to a large amount. It was said that a prompt marriage of his
+daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du Rouvre from his creditors;
+and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips added, would approve of anything
+that would discredit and degrade Ursula and lead to this marriage of her
+son.
+
+So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by
+the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully overcome
+by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself and was kept
+to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this last insult
+had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the abbe, which
+was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the handwriting. It was as
+follows:--
+
+
+My child,--Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your enemies.
+Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien's life. I will tell you
+more when I am able to go to you.
+
+Your devoted friend,
+
+Chaperon.
+
+
+When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried
+this letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so
+amazed and horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his
+own handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition
+into which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once more
+to the procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+
+"A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch,"
+he said, "upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal
+guardian. What is to be done?"
+
+"If you can find any means of repression," said the official, "I will
+adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the
+Adoration of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at
+Fontainebleau shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your
+own defence. I have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du
+Rouvre justly indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people
+have put upon him. Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty
+for the purchase of the estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish
+count; and Monsieur du Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I
+saw him, to avoid arrest for debt."
+
+Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his
+thought. He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only
+man capable of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal
+code without infringing a hair's-breadth upon it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+
+Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil's audacity. He made
+Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for
+his notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens,
+and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant
+to imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their
+fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to
+Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and
+the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He resolved
+to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the condition to
+which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But before risking this
+last throw in the game he thought it best to have an explanation with
+Minoret, and he chose his opportunity at Rouvre, where he went with his
+patron for the first time after the deeds were signed.
+
+Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours
+with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these
+atrocities in the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his father,
+in case this persecution should be the work of any of their friends, to
+give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for even if the law
+could not punish this crime it would certainly discover the truth and
+hold it over the delinquent's head. Minoret had now attained a great
+object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of the finest estates in the
+Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some forty odd thousand francs
+a year from the rich domains which surrounded the park. He could well
+afford to snap his fingers at Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on
+the estate, where the sight of Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+
+"My boy," he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, "let my
+young cousin alone, now."
+
+"Pooh!" said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct meant.
+
+"Oh! I'm not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+chateau with the stone copings (which couldn't be built now for two
+hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park and
+gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs. No,
+I'm not ungrateful; I'll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand francs,
+for your services, and you can buy a sheriff's practice in Nemours. I'll
+guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere's daughters, the eldest."
+
+"The one who talks piston!" cried Goupil.
+
+"She'll have thirty thousand francs," replied Minoret. "Don't you see,
+my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
+post master? People should keep to their vocation."
+
+"Very well, then," said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his hopes;
+"here's a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand francs;
+I want the money in hand at once."
+
+Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which his
+wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil was to
+sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial fever on the
+face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him an "au revoir,"
+by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which would have made any
+one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation of the magnificent
+chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis XIII., tremble in his
+shoes.
+
+"Are you not going to wait for me?" he cried, observing that Goupil was
+going away on foot.
+
+"You'll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret," replied Goupil,
+athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the zigzags of
+Minoret's strange conduct.
+
+Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula, a
+prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in the
+soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale, speaking
+only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words; everything
+about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the expression of her
+forehead, all revealed the presence of some consuming thought. She was
+thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity, with which throughout all
+ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had fallen from her brow.
+She heard in the void and in the silence the dishonoring words, the
+malicious comments, the laughter of the little town. The trial was
+too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow her to survive the
+murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful smile was on her
+lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign of angels, against
+man's injustice.
+
+When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from her
+chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the doctor.
+A great event was about to take place. When Madame de Portenduere became
+really aware that the girl was dying like an ermine, though less injured
+in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she resolved to go to her and
+comfort her. The sight of her son's anguish, who during the whole
+preceding night had seemed beside himself, made the Breton soul of the
+old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of her own dignity to revive
+the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw in her visit a counterpoise
+to all the evil done by the little town. Her opinion, surely more
+powerful than that of the crowd, ought to carry with it, she thought,
+the influence of race. This step, which the abbe came to announce, made
+so great a change in Ursula that the doctor, who was about to ask for a
+consultation of Parisian doctors, recovered hope. They placed her on
+her uncle's sofa, and such was the character of her beauty that she
+lay there in her mourning garments, pale from suffering, she was
+more exquisitely lovely than in the happiest hours of her life. When
+Savinien, with his mother on his arm, entered the room she colored
+vividly.
+
+"Do not rise, my child," said the old lady imperatively; "weak and ill
+as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what is
+happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and excellent
+girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the happiness of a
+gentleman."
+
+At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands
+of Savinien's mother and kissed them.
+
+"Ah, madame," she said in a faltering voice, "I should never have had
+the boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I
+love,--they have made me unworthy of him. Never!" she cried, with a ring
+in her voice which painfully affected those about her, "never will I
+consent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained reputation. I
+loved too well,--yes, I can admit it in my present condition,--I love a
+creature almost as I love God, and God--"
+
+"Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter," said the old
+lady, making an effort, "do not exaggerate the harm done by an infamous
+joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will live and you
+shall be happy."
+
+"We shall be happy!" cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and kissing
+her hand; "my mother has called you her daughter."
+
+"Enough, enough," said the doctor feeling his patient's pulse; "do not
+kill her with joy."
+
+At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of
+the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+
+"Monsieur de Portenduere," he said, in a voice like the hissing of a
+viper forced from its hole.
+
+"What do you want?" said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+
+"I have a word to say to you."
+
+Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+
+"Swear to me by Ursula's life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by me
+as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I
+will reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against
+Mademoiselle Mirouet."
+
+"Can I put a stop to them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I avenge them?"
+
+"On their author, yes--on his tool, no."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--I am the tool."
+
+Savinien turned pale.
+
+"I have just seen Ursula--" said Goupil.
+
+"Ursula?" said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mirouet," continued Goupil, made respectful by Savinien's
+tone; "and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has been done; I
+repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or otherwise, what good
+would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this moment it would poison
+you."
+
+The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager
+curiosity, calmed Savinien's anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a
+look which made that moral deformity writhe.
+
+"Who set you at this work?" said the young man.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+"What,--to do you no harm?"
+
+"I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me."
+
+"She will forgive you,--I, never!"
+
+"But at least you will forget?"
+
+What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
+self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
+standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled to
+talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+
+"I will forgive you, but I shall not forget."
+
+"The agreement is off," said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+applied a blow upon the man's face which echoed through the courtyard
+and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+
+"It is only what I deserve," said Goupil, "for committing such a folly.
+I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the advantage I
+gave you. You are in my power now," he added with a look of hatred.
+
+"You are a murderer!" said Savinien.
+
+"No more than a dagger is a murderer."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Savinien.
+
+"Are you revenged enough?" said Goupil, with ferocious irony; "will you
+stop here?"
+
+"Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness," replied Savinien.
+
+"Give me your hand," said the clerk, holding out his own.
+
+"It is yours," said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula's sake.
+"Now speak; who made you do this thing?"
+
+Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien's
+blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was
+undecided; then a voice said to him: "You will be notary!" and he
+answered:--
+
+"Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur--"
+
+"Who is persecuting Ursula?" persisted Savinien.
+
+"Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can't tell you
+that; but we might find out the reason. Don't mix me up in all this;
+I could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will
+try to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him--I'll
+crush him under foot, I'll dance on his carcass, I'll make his bones
+into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and Fontainebleau and
+Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, 'Minoret is a thief!' Yes, I'll
+burst him like a gun--There! we're allies now by the imprudence of that
+outbreak! If you choose I'll beg Mademoiselle Mirouet's pardon and tell
+her I curse the madness which impelled me to injure her. It may do her
+good; the abbe and the justice are both there; but Monsieur Bongrand
+must promise on his honor not to injure my career. I have a career now."
+
+"Wait a minute;" said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+
+"Ursula, my child," he said, returning to the salon, "the author of all
+your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask
+your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+forgotten."
+
+"What! Goupil?" cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all
+together.
+
+"Keep his secret," said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+
+Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said in a troubled voice, "I wish that all Nemours
+could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain and
+led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men. What I
+say now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the harm done
+by such miserable tricks--which may have hastened your happiness," he
+added, rather maliciously, "for I see that Madame de Portenduere is with
+you."
+
+"That is all very well, Goupil," said the abbe, "Mademoiselle forgives
+you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer."
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand," said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. "I
+shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur's practice; I hope the reparation
+I have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+petition to the bar and the ministry."
+
+Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left
+the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff's
+practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to restore
+the peace and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved by
+Goupil's confession.
+
+"You see, my child, that God was not against you," said the abbe.
+
+Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o'clock he was sitting
+in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom
+he was making plans for Desire's future. Desire had become very sedate
+since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely
+that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau,
+who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that they
+must find him a wife,--some poor girl belonging to an old and noble
+family; he would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris. Perhaps
+they could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where Zelie was
+proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the summer
+season. Minoret, inwardly congratulating himself for having managed his
+affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula, at the very
+moment when the drama so heedlessly begun by him was closing down upon
+him in a terrible manner.
+
+"Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you," said
+Cabirolle.
+
+"Show him in," answered Zelie.
+
+The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien's boots on
+the floor of the gallery, where the doctor's library used to be. A vague
+presentiment of danger ran through the robber's veins. Savinien entered
+and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in his hand,
+and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before the husband
+and wife.
+
+"I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret," he said, "your
+reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who, as the
+whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to tarnish
+her honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you deliver her over
+to Goupil's insults?--Answer!"
+
+"How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien," said Zelie, "to come and ask us
+the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as little
+about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret died I've
+not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I've never said
+one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer rogue whom I
+wouldn't think of consulting about even a dog. Why don't you speak up,
+Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in that way
+and accuse you of wickedness that's beneath you? As if a man with
+forty-eight thousand francs a year from landed property, and a castle
+fit for a prince, would stoop to such things! Get up, and don't sit
+there like a wet rag!"
+
+"I don't know what monsieur means," said Minoret in his squeaking voice,
+the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the voice
+was clear. "What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I may have
+said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My son Desire
+fell in love with her, and I didn't want him to marry her, that's all."
+
+"Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret."
+
+There was a moment's silence, but it was terrible, when all three
+persons examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy
+face of her colossus.
+
+"Though you are only insects," said the young nobleman, "I will make
+you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a
+man sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek
+satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The first
+time he sets his foot in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight me; he
+will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face again. If
+he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for I will have
+satisfaction. It shall never be said that you were tamely allowed to
+dishonor a defenceless young girl--"
+
+"But the calumnies of a Goupil--are--not--" began Minoret.
+
+"Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you had
+better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me. Leave
+it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your son."
+
+"But this sha'n't go one!" cried Zelie. "Do you suppose I'll stand
+by and let Desire fight you,--a sailor whose business it is to handle
+swords and guns? If you've got any cause of complaint against Minoret,
+there's Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy,
+who, by your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear
+the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman! somebody's teeth will pin your
+legs first! Come, Minoret, don't stand staring there like a big canary;
+you are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat on before
+your wife! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man's house is
+his castle. I don't know what you mean with your nonsense, but show
+me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you'll have to answer to
+_me_,--you and your minx Ursula."
+
+She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+
+"Remember what I have said to you," repeated Savinien to Minoret, paying
+no attention to Zelie's tirade. Suspending the sword of Damocles over
+their heads, he left the room.
+
+"Now, then, Minoret," said Zelie, "you will explain to me what this all
+means. A young man doesn't rush into a house and make an uproar like
+that and demand the blood of a family for nothing."
+
+"It's some mischief of that vile Goupil," said the colossus. "I promised
+to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre property cheap.
+I gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand francs in a note,
+and I suppose he isn't satisfied."
+
+"Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+Ursula?"
+
+"He wanted to marry her."
+
+"A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling me
+lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe them.
+There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me what it
+is."
+
+"There's nothing."
+
+"Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out."
+
+"Do let me alone!"
+
+"I'll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil--whom you're
+afraid of--and we'll see who gets the best of it then."
+
+"Just as you choose."
+
+"I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to
+him, mark you, I'll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and
+you, you haven't any feeling about him--"
+
+A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to
+end without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his
+self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against
+himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated
+with a new and terrible adversary. The next day, when he left the house
+early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional money, the
+walls were already placarded with the words: "Minoret is a thief." All
+those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was the author of
+the anonymous placard. Fortunately for him, everybody made allowance for
+his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter stupidity; fools get
+more advantage from their weakness than able men from their strength.
+The world looks on at a great man battling against fate, and does not
+help him, but it supplies the capital of a grocer who may fail and lose
+all. Why? Because men like to feel superior in protecting an incapable,
+and are displeased at not feeling themselves the equal of a man of
+genius. A clever man would have been lost in public estimation had he
+stammered, as Minoret did, evasive and foolish answers with a frightened
+air. Zelie sent her servants to efface the vindictive words wherever
+they were found; but the effect of them on Minoret's conscience still
+remained.
+
+The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent. Though
+Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night before, he
+now impudently refused to fulfil it.
+
+"My dear Lecoeur," he said, "I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up
+Monsieur Dionis's practice; I am therefore in a position to help you
+to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it's only the loss of two
+stamps,--here are seventy centimes."
+
+Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
+before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
+to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
+against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new position
+he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also by his
+respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to treat him
+well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and would break his
+leg at the first offence.
+
+The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
+the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs and
+her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his practice;
+the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One evening, towards
+midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street as he was leaving
+Massin's house, gave him a sound beating, and disappeared. The notary
+kept the matter a profound secret, and even contradicted an old woman
+who saw the scene from her window and thought that she recognized him.
+
+These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who became
+convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret, and he
+determined to find out its cause.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. APPARITIONS
+
+Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula's perfect
+innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily exhaustion,
+which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium of phenomena
+the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to challenge
+science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+
+Ten days after Madame de Portenduere's visit Ursula had a dream, with
+all the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral
+aspects as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather
+appeared to her and made a sign that she should come with him. She
+dressed herself and followed him through the darkness to their former
+house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely as
+it was on the day of her godfather's death. The old man wore the clothes
+that were on him the evening before his death. His face was pale,
+his movements caused no sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his voice
+distinctly, though it was feeble and as if repeated by a distant echo.
+The doctor conducted his child as far as the Chinese pagoda, where he
+made her lift the marble top of the little Boule cabinet just as she had
+raised it on the day of his death; but instead of finding nothing there
+she saw the letter her godfather had told her to fetch. She opened it
+and read both the letter addressed to herself and the will in favor
+of Savinien. The writing, as she afterwards told the abbe, shone as if
+traced by sunbeams--"it burned my eyes," she said. When she looked
+at her uncle to thank him she saw the old benevolent smile upon his
+discolored lips. Then, in a feeble voice, but still clearly, he told her
+to look at Minoret, who was listening in the corridor to what he said to
+her; and next, slipping the lock of the library door with his knife, and
+taking the papers from the study. With his right hand the old man seized
+his goddaughter and obliged her to walk at the pace of death and follow
+Minoret to his own house. Ursula crossed the town, entered the post
+house and went into Zelie's old room, where the spectre showed her
+Minoret unfolding the letters, reading them and burning them.
+
+"He could not," said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, "light the
+first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back to
+our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library, where
+he took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of twelve
+thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number of
+banknotes. 'He is,' said my godfather, 'the cause of all the trouble
+which has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills that you
+shall yet be happy. You will not die now; you will marry Savinien.
+If you love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to demand your
+fortune from my nephew. Swear it.'"
+
+Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+influence on Ursula's soul that she promised all her uncle asked, hoping
+to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found herself
+standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather's portrait,
+which had been placed there during her illness. She went back to bed and
+fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again she remembered all
+the particulars of this singular vision; but she dared not speak of it.
+Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from revealing a dream the
+end and object of which was her pecuniary benefit. She attributed the
+vision, not unnaturally, to remarks made by La Bougival the preceding
+evening, when the old woman talked of the doctor's intended liberality
+and of her own convictions on that subject. But the dream returned, with
+aggravated circumstances which made it fearful to the poor girl. On
+the second occasion the icy hand of her godfather was laid upon her
+shoulder, causing her the most horrible distress, an indefinable
+sensation. "You must obey the dead," he said, in a sepulchral voice.
+"Tears," said Ursula, relating her dreams, "fell from his white,
+wide-open eyes."
+
+The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of
+her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and
+promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided
+to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," she said, "do you believe that the dead reappear?"
+
+"My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have
+much testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an
+article of faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the
+idea."
+
+"What do _you_ believe?"
+
+"That the power of God is infinite."
+
+"Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?"
+
+"Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His conversion,
+as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day when a woman in
+Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw the red dot you made
+against Saint-Savinien's day in your almanac."
+
+Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she remembered
+the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read her soul,
+and took away the almanac.
+
+"If that is so," she said, "then my visions are possibly true. My
+godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He was
+wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass for the
+repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these visions may
+cease, for they are destroying me."
+
+She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting
+on the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the
+somnambulism of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from
+her body at the bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect
+ease. The thing that most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula's veracity
+was known, was the exact description which she gave of the bedroom
+formerly occupied by Zelie at the post house, which Ursula had never
+entered and about which no one had ever spoken to her.
+
+"By what means can these singular apparitions take place?" asked Ursula.
+"What did my godfather think?"
+
+"Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized
+the possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are of
+man's creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must have
+forms which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are perceptible
+to our inward senses when brought under certain conditions. Thus your
+godfather's ideas might so enfold you that you would clothe them with
+his bodily presence. Then, if Minoret really committed those actions,
+they too resolve themselves into ideas; for all action is the result
+of many ideas. Now, if ideas live and move in a spiritual world, your
+spirit must be able to perceive them if it penetrates that world. These
+phenomena are not more extraordinary than those of memory; and those of
+memory are quite as amazing and inexplicable as those of the perfume of
+plants--which are perhaps the ideas of the plants."
+
+"How you enlarge and magnify the world!" exclaimed Ursula. "But to hear
+the dead speak, to see them walk, act--do you think it possible?"
+
+"In Sweden," replied the abbe, "Swedenborg has proved by evidence that
+he communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and
+you shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded
+at Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales,
+an adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier at
+Cardan."
+
+Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the "History of Henri
+de Montmorency," written by a priest of that period who had known the
+prince.
+
+"Read it," said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had opened
+at the 175th page. "Your godfather often re-read that passage,--and see!
+here's a little of his snuff in it."
+
+"And he not here!" said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+
+  "The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there--namely, the
+  Marquis d'Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis's quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  "I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved."
+
+"If all this is so," said Ursula, "what ought I do do?"
+
+"My child," said the abbe, "it concerns matters so important, and which
+may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep absolutely
+silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the secret of these
+apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you are now strong
+enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow and thank God and
+pray to him for the repose of your godfather's soul. Feel quite sure
+that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands."
+
+"If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,--what glances my godfather
+gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress--I awoke with my face
+all covered with tears."
+
+"Be at peace; he will not come again," said the priest.
+
+Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting that
+they might be entirely alone.
+
+"Can any one hear us?" he asked.
+
+"No one," replied Minoret.
+
+"Monsieur, my character must be known to you," said the abbe, fastening
+a gentle but attentive look on Minoret's face. "I have to speak to you
+of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you, and about which
+you may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest secrecy; but it is
+impossible for me to do otherwise than give you this information. While
+your uncle lived, there stood there," said the priest, pointing to a
+certain spot in the room, "a small buffet made by Boule, with a marble
+top" (Minoret turned livid), "and beneath the marble your uncle placed
+a letter for Ursula--" The abbe then went on to relate, without omitting
+the smallest circumstance, Minoret's conduct to Minoret himself. When
+the last post master heard the detail of the two matches refusing to
+light he felt his hair begin to writhe on his skull.
+
+"Who invented such nonsense?" he said, in a strangled voice, when the
+tale ended.
+
+"The dead man himself."
+
+This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+doctor.
+
+"God is very good, Monsieur l'abbe, to do miracles for me," he said,
+danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+
+"All that God does is natural," replied the priest.
+
+"Your phantoms don't frighten me," said the colossus, recovering his
+coolness.
+
+"I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to any
+one in the world," said the abbe. "You alone know the truth. The matter
+is between you and God."
+
+"Come now, Monsieur l'abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+horrible abuse of confidence?"
+
+"I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+sinner repents," said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+
+"Crime?" cried Minoret.
+
+"A crime frightful in its consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself
+avenges innocence."
+
+"Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?"
+
+"If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God."
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have had
+these facts from my uncle?"
+
+"Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to me
+privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will never
+speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point."
+
+"I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon."
+
+"I hope you are," said the old priest. "Even if I considered these
+warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man,
+and you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish
+to add to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and
+you would be tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or
+civilized, the sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to
+enjoy in peace ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the society
+in which we live,--for well-constituted societies are modeled on the
+system God has ordained for the universe. In this respect societies have
+a divine origin. Man does not originate ideas, he invents no form;
+he answers to the eternal relations that surround him on all sides.
+Therefore, see what happens! Criminals going to the scaffold, and having
+it in their power to carry their secret with them, are compelled by the
+force of some mysterious power to make confessions before their heads
+are taken off. Therefore, Monsieur Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I
+go my way satisfied."
+
+Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way
+out. When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric
+man; the strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula's name
+was mingled with odious language.
+
+"Why, what has she done to you?" cried Zelie, who had slipped in on
+tiptoe after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+
+For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+driven to extremities by his wife's reiterated questions, turned
+upon her and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell
+half-dead on the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed
+himself, ashamed of his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him
+twice; when he appeared again in the streets everybody noticed a great
+change in him. He walked alone, and often roamed the town as though
+uneasy. When any one addressed him he seemed preoccupied in his mind, he
+who had never before had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he
+went up to Monsieur Bongrand in the Grand'Rue, the latter being on his
+way to take Ursula to Madame de Portenduere's, where the whist parties
+had begun again.
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin," he
+said, taking the justice by the arm, "and I am very glad you should be
+present, for you can advise her."
+
+They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air, as
+soon as she saw Minoret.
+
+"My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+business," said Bongrand. "By the bye, don't forget to give me your
+certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+dividend and La Bougival's."
+
+"Cousin," said Minoret, "our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than
+you have now."
+
+"We can be very happy with very little money," she replied.
+
+"I thought money might help your happiness," continued Minoret, "and I
+have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my uncle."
+
+"You had a natural way of showing respect for him," said Ursula,
+sternly; "you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to
+buy it; instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find some
+hidden treasure in it."
+
+"But," said Minoret, evidently troubled, "if you had twelve thousand
+francs a year you would be in a position to marry well."
+
+"I have not got them."
+
+"But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate
+in Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,--you could then marry her son."
+
+"Monsieur Minoret," said Ursula, "I have no claim to that money, and I
+cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are
+we friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason have
+you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a right to
+ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider your gift
+the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to accept it.
+Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can accept nothing
+except from friends, and I have no friendship for you."
+
+"Then you refuse?" cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had
+never entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+
+"I refuse," said Ursula.
+
+"But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+fortune?" asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. "You have an
+idea--have you an idea?--"
+
+"Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son will
+leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry her."
+
+"Well, we'll see about it," said Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
+"Give us time to think it over."
+
+He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the
+father for his son's interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her
+hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand
+went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started for
+Fontainebleau, where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was
+told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect.
+Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was playing whist with
+the wife of the procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the
+colonel of the regiment in garrison.
+
+"I come to bring you some good news," said Bongrand to Desire; "you love
+your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged."
+
+"I love Ursula Mirouet!" cried Desire, laughing. "Where did you get that
+idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor Minoret's;
+she certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I certainly took
+notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled my head seriously
+for that rather insipid little blonde," he added, smiling at the
+sub-prefect's wife (who was a piquante brunette--to use a term of the
+last century). "You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur Bongrand; I thought
+every one knew that my father was a lord of a manor, with a rent roll
+of forty-five thousand francs a year from lands around his chateau at
+Rouvre,--good reasons why I should not love the goddaughter of my late
+great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl without a penny these ladies
+would consider me a fool."
+
+"Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"You hear that, monsieur?" said the justice to the procureur du roi,
+who had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the
+recess of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter of
+an hour.
+
+An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula's house, whence he
+sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus came at
+once.
+
+"Mademoiselle--" began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+room.
+
+"Accepts?" cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+
+"No, not yet," replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. "I had scruples
+as to your son's feelings; for Ursula has been much tried lately about a
+supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity. Can you swear
+to me that your son truly loves her and that you have no other intention
+than to preserve our dear Ursula from any further Goupilisms?"
+
+"Oh, I'll swear to that," cried Minoret.
+
+"Stop, papa Minoret," said the justice, taking one hand from the pocket
+of his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus trembled);
+"Don't swear falsely."
+
+"Swear falsely?"
+
+"Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never
+even thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering
+this fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+Fontainebleau to question your son."
+
+Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+
+"But where's the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young
+relative to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness, and
+to invent pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money."
+
+Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+
+"You know the cause of my refusal," said Ursula; "and I request you
+never to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told
+me his reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such dislike
+even, that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is my only
+fortune,--I do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it. Monsieur de
+Portenduere is only waiting for my majority to marry me."
+
+"Then the old saw that 'Money does all' is a lie," said Minoret, looking
+at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so much.
+
+He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+oppressive as in the little salon.
+
+"There must be an end put to this," he said to himself as he re-entered
+his own home.
+
+When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La Bougival,
+she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon with great
+strides.
+
+"Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?" he said.
+
+"None that I can tell," she replied.
+
+Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+
+"Then we have the same idea," he said. "Here, keep the number of
+your certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+precaution."
+
+Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and that
+of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+
+"Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+third."
+
+That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle's
+grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the
+inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a
+piercing cry, but the doctor's spectre slowly rose. First she saw his
+yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if surmounted
+by a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the eyes were like two gleams of
+light; the dead man rose as if impelled by some superior force or will.
+Ursula's body trembled; her flesh was like a burning garment, and there
+was (as she subsequently said) another self moving within her bodily
+presence. "Mercy!" she cried, "mercy, godfather!" "It is too late," he
+said, in the voice of death,--to use the poor girl's own expression when
+she related this new dream to the abbe. "He has been warned; he has paid
+no heed to the warning. The days of his son are numbered. If he does not
+confess all and restore what he has taken within a certain time he must
+lose his son, who will die a violent and horrible death. Let him know
+this." The spectre pointed to a line of figures which gleamed upon the
+side of the tomb as if written with fire, and said, "There is his doom."
+When her uncle lay down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of
+the stone falling back into its place, and immediately after, in the
+distance, a strange sound of horses and the cries of men.
+
+The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had
+the dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon
+and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said mass,
+but he was not surprised at Ursula's revelation. He believed the robbery
+had been committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself the
+abnormal condition of his "little dreamer." He left Ursula at once and
+went directly to Minoret's.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said Zelie, "my husband's temper is so soured I don't
+know what he mightn't do. Until now he's been a child; but for the last
+two months he's not the same man. To get angry enough to strike me--me,
+so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter to change him
+like that. You'll find him among the rocks; he spends all his time
+there,--doing what, I'd like to know?"
+
+In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed the
+canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks, where
+he saw Minoret.
+
+"You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret," said the priest going
+up to him. "You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to
+increase your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle
+lifted the stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great
+disaster in your family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but
+you ought to know what he said--"
+
+"I can't be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these
+rocks, and I'm sure I don't want to know anything that is going on in
+another world."
+
+"Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+pleasure," said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+
+"Well, what do you want to say?" demanded Minoret.
+
+"You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told
+things that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells things
+that no one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say, make
+restitution. Don't damn your soul for a little money."
+
+"Restitution of what?"
+
+"The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+certificates--I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies, you
+have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false steps
+every day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice Goupil has
+served you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and clear your
+mind, for you are watched by intelligent and penetrating eyes,--those of
+Ursula's friends. Make restitution! and if you do not save your son (who
+may not really be threatened), you will save your soul, and you will
+save your honor. Do you believe that in a society like ours, in a little
+town like this, where everybody's eyes are everywhere, and all things
+are guessed and all things are known, you can long hide a stolen
+fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man wouldn't have let me talk so
+long."
+
+"Go to the devil!" cried Minoret. "I don't know what you _all_ mean by
+persecuting me. I prefer these stones--they leave me in peace."
+
+"Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have
+said a single word about this to any living person. But take care--there
+is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!"
+
+The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The
+man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was,
+in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three
+certificates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared not
+draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not wish
+to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of transferring the
+certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty he bethought him of
+acknowledging all to his wife and getting her advice. Zelie, who always
+managed affairs for him so well, she could get him out of his troubles.
+The three-per-cent Funds were now selling at eighty. Restitution! why,
+that meant, with arrearages, giving up a million! Give up a million,
+when there was no one who could know that he had taken it--!
+
+So Minoret continued through September and a part of October irresolute
+and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise of the
+little town he grew thin and haggard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. REMORSE
+
+An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above
+their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret
+received from their son Desire the following letter:--
+
+  My dear Mother,--If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil's
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father's
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil's malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father's
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+
+After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating
+all the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even
+Ursula's dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did
+Minoret.
+
+"You stay quietly here," Zelie said to her husband, without the
+slightest remonstrance against his folly. "I'll manage the whole thing.
+We'll keep the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel."
+
+Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son's letter
+to Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In spite of her
+assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which the young girl
+gave her. But she took herself to task for her cowardice and assumed an
+easy air.
+
+"Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell me
+what you think of it," she cried, giving Ursula her son's letter.
+
+Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the letter,
+which showed her how truly she was loved and what care Savinien took
+of the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but she had too much
+charity and true religion to be willing to be the cause of death or
+suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+
+"I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly
+easy,--but I must request you to leave me this letter."
+
+"My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,--a really
+regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we
+shall give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the
+Funds; in all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that there
+are not many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,--and
+quite right too," added Zelie, seeing Ursula's quick gesture of denial;
+"I have therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will bear your
+godfather's name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you must have seen,
+is a handsome fellow; he is very much thought of at Fontainebleau, and
+he will soon be procureur du roi himself. You are a coaxing girl and
+can easily persuade him to live in Paris. We will give you a fine house
+there; you will shine; you will play a distinguished part; for, with
+seventy thousand francs a year and the salary of an office, you and
+Desire can enter the highest society. Consult your friends; you'll see
+what they tell you."
+
+"I need only consult my heart, madame."
+
+"Ta, ta, ta! now don't talk to me about that little lady-killer
+Savinien. You'd pay too high a price for his name, and for that little
+moustache curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair.
+How do you expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a
+man who made two hundred thousand francs of debt in two years?
+Besides--though this is a thing you don't know yet--all men are alike;
+and without flattering myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the
+equal of a king's son."
+
+"You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which
+can, perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere's desire to
+please me. If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals that
+danger might not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame, that I
+shall be far happier in the moderate circumstances to which you allude
+than I should be in the opulence with which you are trying to dazzle me.
+For reasons hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made known, Monsieur
+Minoret, by persecuting me in an odious manner, strengthened the
+affection that exists between Monsieur de Portenduere and myself--which
+I can now admit because his mother has blessed it. I will also tell you
+that this affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is life itself to me. No
+destiny, however brilliant, however lofty, could make me change. I love
+without the possibility of changing. It would therefore be a crime if
+I married a man to whom I could take nothing but a soul that is
+Savinien's. But, madame, since you force me to be explicit, I must tell
+you that even if I did not love Monsieur de Portenduere I could not
+bring myself to bear the troubles and joys of life in the company of
+your son. If Monsieur Savinien made debts, you have often paid those
+of your son. Our characters have neither the similarities nor
+the differences which enable two persons to live together without
+bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the forbearance a
+wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to him. Pray cease to
+think of an alliance of which I count myself quite unworthy, and which
+I feel I can decline without pain to you; for with the great advantages
+you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl of better station,
+more wealth, and more beauty than mine."
+
+"Will you swear to me," said Zelie, "to prevent these young men from
+taking that journey and fighting that duel?"
+
+"It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown
+must have no blood upon it."
+
+"Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy."
+
+"And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your
+expectations for the future of your son."
+
+These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+remembered the predictions of Ursula's last dream; she stood still, her
+small eyes fixed on Ursula's face, so white, so pure, so beautiful in
+her mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-called
+cousin's departure.
+
+"Do you believe in dreams?" said Zelie.
+
+"I suffer from them too much not to do so."
+
+"But if you do--" began Zelie.
+
+"Adieu, madame," exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she heard
+the abbe's entering step.
+
+The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+
+"Do you believe in spirits?" Zelie asked him.
+
+"What do you believe in?" he answered, smiling.
+
+"They are all sly," thought Zelie,--"every one of them! They want to
+deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams than
+there are hairs on the palm of my hand."
+
+With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+
+"I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau," said Ursula to the abbe,
+telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to
+prevent it.
+
+"Did Madame Minoret offer you her son's hand?" asked the abbe.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her," added the priest.
+
+Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step
+taken by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He looked
+at the abbe as if to say: "Come out, I want to speak to you of Ursula
+without her hearing me."
+
+"Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year
+and the dandy of Nemours," he said aloud.
+
+"Is it, then, a sacrifice?" she answered, laughing. "Are there
+sacrifices when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of a
+man we all despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but that
+ought not to be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy, and the
+abbe, and my dear godfather," she said, looking up at his portrait.
+
+Bongrand took Ursula's hand and kissed it.
+
+"Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?" said the justice as soon
+as they were in the street.
+
+"What?" asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+merely curious.
+
+"She had some plan for restitution."
+
+"Then you think--" began the abbe.
+
+"I don't think, I know; I have the certainty--and see there!"
+
+So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on
+his way home.
+
+"When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts," continued Bongrand, "I
+naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never
+seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity,
+that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum and
+bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care? What has
+put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic vivacity?
+Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead? Who would
+have supposed that the brain of that colossus could be excited? The man
+has felt his heart! I am a judge of remorse, just as you are a judge
+of repentance, my dear abbe. That which I have hitherto observed has
+developed in men who were awaiting punishment, or enduring it to get
+quits with the world; they were either resigned, or breathing vengeance;
+but here is remorse without expiation, remorse pure and simple,
+fastening on its prey and rending him."
+
+The judge stopped Minoret and said: "Do you know that Mademoiselle
+Mirouet has refused your son's hand?"
+
+"But," interposed the abbe, "do not be uneasy; she will prevent the
+duel."
+
+"Ah, then my wife succeeded?" said Minoret. "I am very glad, for it
+nearly killed me."
+
+"You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,"
+remarked Bongrand.
+
+Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+betrayed the dreams; but the abbe's face was unmoved, expressing only a
+calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+
+"And it is the more surprising," went on Monsieur Bongrand, "because
+you ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and
+all those farms and mills and meadows and--with your investments in the
+Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs--"
+
+"I haven't anything in the Funds," cried Minoret, hastily.
+
+"Pooh," said Bongrand; "this is just as it was about your son's love
+for Ursula,--first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage.
+After trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a
+daughter-in-law. My good friend, you have got some secret in your
+pouch."
+
+Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+better than:--
+
+"You're very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen"; and he turned with a
+slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+
+"He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula," said Bongrand, "but how
+can we ever find the proof?"
+
+"God may--"
+
+"God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man;
+but all that is merely what is called 'presumptive,' and human justice
+requires something more."
+
+The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in similar
+circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think of the
+robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien's happiness,
+delayed only by Ursula's loss of fortune--for the old lady had privately
+owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not consenting to the
+marriage in the doctor's lifetime.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT WHICH SEEMS
+             VERY EASILY STOLEN
+
+The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying mass,
+a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the utterance
+of a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and accompanied
+her home without having breakfasted.
+
+"My child," he said, "I want to see the two volumes your godfather
+showed you in your dreams--where he said that he placed those
+certificates and banknotes."
+
+Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third
+volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
+without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
+still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he found
+a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a package, which
+had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
+
+"Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand," La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was putting
+on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret's hand-writing
+on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder had lined the
+cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just discovered.
+
+"What's the meaning of those figures?" said the abbe; "our dear doctor
+was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable
+volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded
+by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U."
+
+"What are you talking of?" said Bongrand. "Let me see that. Good God!"
+he cried, after a moment's examination; "it would open the eyes of an
+atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I
+believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the
+worlds." He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. "Oh! my child, you
+will be rich and happy, and all through me!"
+
+"What is it?" exclaimed the abbe.
+
+"Oh, monsieur," cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand's blue overcoat,
+"let me kiss you for what you've just said."
+
+"Explain, explain! don't give us false hopes," said the abbe.
+
+"If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich," said Ursula, forseeing
+a criminal trial, "I--"
+
+"Remember," said the justice, interrupting her, "the happiness you will
+give to Savinien."
+
+"Are you mad?" said the abbe.
+
+"No, my dear friend," said Bongrand. "Listen; the certificates in the
+Funds are issued in series,--as many series as there are letters in
+the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+certificates which are made out 'to bearer' cannot have a letter; they
+are not in any person's name. What you see there shows that the day the
+doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the number
+of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest which bears
+his initial M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to bearer; these
+are without a letter; and thirdly, the certificate of Ursula's share in
+the Funds, the number of which is 23,534, and which follows, as you see,
+that of the fifteen-thousand-franc certificate with lettering. This
+goes far to prove that those numbers are those of five certificates of
+investments made on the same day and noted down by the doctor in case of
+loss. I advised him to take certificates to bearer for Ursula's fortune,
+and he must have made his own investment and that of Ursula's little
+property the same day. I'll go to Dionis's office and look at the
+inventory. If the number of the certificate for his own investment is
+23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he invested, through the same
+broker on the same day, first his own property on a single certificate;
+secondly his savings in three certificates to bearer (numbered, but
+without the series letter); thirdly, Ursula's own property; the transfer
+books will show, of course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you
+deceiver, I have you--Motus, my children!"
+
+Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways
+by which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+
+"The finger of God is in all this," cried the abbe.
+
+"Will they punish him?" asked Ursula.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival. "I'd give the rope to hang him."
+
+Bongrand was already at Goupil's, now the appointed successor of Dionis,
+but he entered the office with a careless air. "I have a little matter
+to verify about the Minoret property," he said to Goupil.
+
+"What is it?" asked the latter.
+
+"The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent Funds?"
+
+"He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year," said Goupil; "I
+recorded it myself."
+
+"Then just look on the inventory," said Bongrand.
+
+Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+place, and read:--
+
+"'Item, one certificate'--Here, read for yourself--under the number
+23,533, letter M."
+
+"Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an
+hour," said Bongrand.
+
+"What good is it to you?" asked Goupil.
+
+"Do you want to be a notary?" answered the justice of peace, looking
+sternly at Dionis's proposed successor.
+
+"Of course I do," cried Goupil. "I've swallowed too many affronts not to
+succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable
+creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre
+Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of
+Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no
+longer even alike. Look at me!"
+
+Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil's clothes. The new
+notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned with
+ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat of
+handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
+hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
+
+"The fact is you are another man," said Bongrand.
+
+"Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a practice;
+besides, money is the source of cleanliness--"
+
+"Morally as well as physically," returned Bongrand, settling his
+spectacles.
+
+"Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever
+a democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what
+refinement is, and who intends to love his wife," said Goupil; "and
+what's more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty actions."
+
+"Well, make haste," said Bongrand. "Let me have that copy in an hour,
+and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil the
+clerk."
+
+After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet, he
+went back to Ursula's house for the two important volumes and for
+her own certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the
+inventory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the
+procureur du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft
+of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs,--presumably by
+Minoret.
+
+"His conduct is explained," said the procureur.
+
+As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the Treasury
+to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told Bongrand to go
+to Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been sold. He then wrote a
+polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her presence.
+
+Zelie, very uneasy about her son's duel, dressed herself at once,
+had the horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The
+procureur's plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the
+husband, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he
+expected to learn the truth. Zelie found the official in his private
+office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows:--
+
+"Madame," he said; "I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft
+that has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of which
+the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the shame of
+appearing in the prisoner's dock by making a full confession of what
+you know about it. The punishment which your husband has incurred is,
+moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son's career is to be
+thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an hour hence will be
+too late. The police are already under orders for Nemours, the warrant
+is made out."
+
+Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+
+"You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate," he
+said. "No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any publicity
+been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a great crime,
+which may be brought before a judge less inclined than myself to be
+considerate. In the present state of the affair I am obliged to make you
+a prisoner--oh, in my own house, on parole," he added, seeing that
+Zelie was about to faint. "You must remember that my official duty would
+require me to issue a warrant at once and begin an examination; but I am
+acting now individually, as guardian of Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and
+her best interests demand a compromise."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Zelie.
+
+"Write to your husband in the following words," he continued, placing
+Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:--
+
+  "My Friend,--I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury."
+
+"You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+make," said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie's orthography. "We will see
+that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay in
+our house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of the
+matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy."
+
+Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate sent
+for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father's theft, which
+was really to Ursula's injury, but, as matters stood, legally to that of
+his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother. Desire at
+once asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his father made
+immediate restitution.
+
+"It is a very serious matter," said the magistrate. "The will having
+been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and
+Cremiere may put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father.
+I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has
+already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To her,
+I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her. Take
+her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you can.
+Don't fear any one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too well to
+let the matter become known."
+
+Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter,
+the orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring ridicule
+on a man crushed by affliction.
+
+
+To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+
+Monsieur,--God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at
+Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the
+carriage; the horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their impatience,
+jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the coachman leave the
+box. As he turned to resume his place in the carriage beside his mother
+the horses started; Desire did not step back against the parapet in
+time; the step of the carriage cut through both legs and he fell, the
+hind wheel passing over his body. The messenger who goes to Paris for
+the best surgeon will bring you this letter, which my son in the midst
+of his sufferings desires me to write so as to let you know our entire
+submission to your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to
+speak to me.
+
+I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which you
+have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+
+Francois Minoret.
+
+
+This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds
+standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell
+Savinien that his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful than
+his own. He went at once to Ursula's house, where he found both the abbe
+and the young girl more distressed than surprised.
+
+The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and
+surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be
+amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied by
+the abbe, to Ursula's house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand and
+Savinien.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said; "I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that
+I can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in
+absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and
+also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him."
+
+He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+
+"I can assure you, my dear Ursula," said the abbe, "that you can and
+that you ought to accept a part of this gift."
+
+"Will you forgive me?" said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the
+astonished girl. "The operation is about to be performed by the first
+surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely
+only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to
+restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we
+shall have the joy of saving him."
+
+"Let us go to the church!" cried Ursula, rising.
+
+But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and
+she fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her
+friends--but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor--looking at her
+with anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled
+their hearts.
+
+"I saw my godfather standing in the doorway," she said, "and he signed
+to me that there was no hope."
+
+The day after the operation Desire died,--carried off by the fever and
+the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity, became
+insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her husband to the
+establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in 1841.
+
+Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married
+Savinien with Madame de Portenduere's consent. Minoret took part in the
+marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his estate
+at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the Funds;
+keeping for himself only his uncle's house and ten thousand francs a
+year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most religious;
+he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the providence of
+the unfortunate.
+
+"The poor take the place of my son," he said.
+
+If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll
+the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing out
+its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe, you
+will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,--broken,
+emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of the jovial
+dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the beginning of
+this history; he does not even take his snuff as he once did; he carries
+something more now than the weight of his body. Beholding him, we feel
+that the hand of God was laid upon that figure to make it an awful
+warning. After hating so violently his uncle's godchild the old man now,
+like Doctor Minoret himself, has concentrated all his affections on her,
+and has made himself the manager of her property in Nemours.
+
+Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year
+in Paris, where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain. Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house
+in Nemours to the Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live
+at Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter's lodge. Cabirolle, the
+former conductor of the "Ducler," a man sixty years of age, has married
+La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a year which she possesses
+besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle is Monsieur
+de Portenduere's coachman.
+
+If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming little
+low carriages called 'escargots,' lined with gray silk and trimmed with
+blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire because
+her face is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes luminous as
+forget-me-nots and filled with love; if you see her bending slightly
+towards a fine young man, and, if you are, for a moment, conscious of
+envy--pause and reflect that this handsome couple, beloved of God, have
+paid their quota to the sorrows of life in times now past. These married
+lovers are the Vicomte de Portenduere and his wife. There is not another
+such home in Paris as theirs.
+
+"It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen," said the Comtesse de
+l'Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+
+Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for
+yourselves, a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best of
+all mothers--adversity.
+
+Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he
+is punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous. Dionis,
+his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of which he is
+one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of the king
+of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls. Madame Dionis
+relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of her receptions
+at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the king of the
+French. She lords it over Nemours by means of the throne, which
+therefore must be popular in the little town.
+
+Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is
+in the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+
+Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the
+occasion of her daughter's marriage, she exhorted her to be the working
+caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with the eyes
+of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her "slapsus-linquies,"
+which he calls a Cremiereana.
+
+"We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon," said
+the Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter--having nursed him herself
+during his illness. "The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is
+very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the
+venerable cure of Saint-Lange."
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Bouvard, Doctor
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+     Dionis
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Estorade, Madame de l'
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Kergarouet, Comte de
+       The Purse
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+
+     Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       The Thirteen
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Twon
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modeste Mignon
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+     Nathan, Madame Raoul
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       The Government Clerks
+       A Bachelor's Establishment
+       Eugenie Grandet
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Beatrix
+
+     Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+       Another Study of Woman
+       Beatrix
+
+     Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Peasantry
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Thirteen
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Rouvre, Marquis du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       A Start in Life
+
+     Rouvre, Chevalier du
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       The Government Clerks
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+     Schmucke, Wilhelm
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Cousin Pons
+
+     Serizy, Comtesse de
+       A Start in Life
+       The Thirteen
+       A Woman of Thirty
+       Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+
+     Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Father Goriot
+       Gobseck
+       A Man of Business
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Secrets of a Princess
+       Cousin Betty
+       Beatrix
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1223.txt or 1223.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1223/
+
+Produced by John Bickers and Bonnie Sala
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/1223.zip b/old/1223.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..382e5bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/1223.zip
diff --git a/old/old/20051020-1223.txt b/old/old/20051020-1223.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..483d988
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/20051020-1223.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9699 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+
+Title: Ursula
+
+Author: Honore de Balzac
+
+Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+Release Date: October 20, 2005 [EBook #1223]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny
+
+
+
+
+
+                               URSULA
+
+                                 BY
+
+                          HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+                           Translated by
+                    Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+                             DEDICATION
+
+  To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+  It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+  book, the subject and details of which have won the
+  approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+  world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+  the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+  indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+  to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+  are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+  prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+  therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+  pleased you?
+
+  God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+  --the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+  Your uncle,
+  De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+                               URSULA
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER I
+
+                        THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+
+Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing,
+the steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the
+fields and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that
+pretty little town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been
+built on the farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb
+increases, the place will lose its present aspect of graceful
+originality.
+
+In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of
+the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting
+one fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take
+in at a glance the whole of what is called in his business a "ruban de
+queue." The month of September was displaying its treasures; the
+atmosphere glowed above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the
+blue of the sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the
+horizon, showed the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-Levrault
+(for that was the post master's name) was obliged to shade his eyes
+with one hand to keep them from being dazzled. With the air of a man
+who was tired of waiting, he looked first to the charming meadows
+which lay to the right of the road where the aftermath was springing
+up, then to the hill-slopes covered with copses which extend, on the
+left, from Nemours to Bouron. He could hear in the valley of the Loing,
+where the sounds on the road were echoed back from the hills, the trot
+of his own horses and the crack of his postilion's whip.
+
+None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such
+meadows, filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath
+a Raffaelle sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema.
+Whoever knows Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art,
+whose mission is to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas
+and creates thought. But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an
+artist would very likely have left the view to sketch the man, so
+original was his in his native commonness. Unite in a human being all
+the conditions of the brute and you have a Caliban, who is certainly a
+great thing. Wherever form rules, sentiment disappears. The post
+master, a living proof of that axiom, presented a physiognomy in which
+an observer could with difficulty trace, beneath the vivid carnation
+of its coarsely developed flesh, the semblance of a soul. His cap of
+blue cloth, with a small peak, and sides fluted like a melon, outlined
+a head of vast dimensions, showing that Gall's science has not yet
+produced its chapter of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny hair
+which appeared below the cap showed that other causes than mental toil
+or grief had whitened it. Large ears stood out from the head, their
+edges scarred with the eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which
+seemed ready to gush at the least exertion. His skin was crimson under
+an outside layer of brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun.
+The roving gray eyes, deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows,
+were like those of the Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they
+ever sparkled it was only under the influence of a covetous thought.
+His broad pug nose was flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping
+with a repulsive double chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more
+than once a week, was encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted
+to a cord; a short neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed
+the characteristics of brute force which sculptors give to their
+caryatids. Minoret-Levrault was like those statues, with this
+difference, that whereas they supported an edifice, he had more than
+he could well do to support himself. You will meet many such Atlases
+in the world. The man's torso was a block; it was like that of a bull
+standing on his hind-legs. His vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick,
+hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle whip, reins, and
+pitchfork; hands which his postilions never attempted to trifle with.
+The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which were as
+large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an
+elephant. Anger was a rare thing with him, but it was terrible,
+apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though violent and quite
+incapable of reflection, the man had never done anything that
+justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence. To all
+those who felt afraid of him his postilions would reply, "Oh! he's not
+bad."
+
+The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country,
+wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green
+linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's
+skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of a
+monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without
+exception.
+
+A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-Levrault
+did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions, he had
+never set foot in a church except to be married; as to his private
+principles, he kept them within the civil code; all that the law did
+not forbid or could not prevent he considered right. He never read
+anything but the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise,
+and a few printed instructions relating to his business. He was
+considered a clever agriculturist; but his knowledge was only
+practical. In him the moral being did not belie the physical. He
+seldom spoke, and before speaking he always took a pinch of snuff to
+give himself time, not to find ideas, but words. If he had been a
+talker you would have felt that he was out of keeping with himself.
+Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet and without a mind was
+called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to agree with Sterne as to
+the occult power of names, which sometimes ridicule and sometimes
+foretell characters.
+
+In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty
+thousand francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If
+Minoret, being master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the
+Gatinais to Paris, still worked at his business, it was less from
+habit than for the sake of an only son, to whom he was anxious to give
+a fine career. This son, who was now (to use an expression of the
+peasantry) a "monsieur," had just completed his legal studies and was
+about to take his degree as licentiate, preparatory to being called to
+the Bar. Monsieur and Madame Minoret-Levrault--for behind our colossus
+every one will perceive a woman without whom this signal good-fortune
+would have been impossible--left their son free to choose his own
+career; he might be a notary in Paris, king's-attorney in some
+district, collector of customs no matter where, broker, or post
+master, as he pleased. What fancy of his could they ever refuse him?
+to what position of life might he not aspire as the son of a man about
+whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in the
+habit of saying, "Pere Minoret doesn't even know how rich he is"?
+
+This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this
+history begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and
+a splendid dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand'Rue to
+the wharf. The new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs,
+which the gossip of thirty miles in circumference more than doubled.
+The Nemours mail-coach service requires a large number of horses. It
+goes to Fontainebleau on the road to Paris, and from there diverges to
+Montargis and also to Montereau. The relays are long, and the sandy
+soil of the Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, always
+paid for but never seen. A man of Minoret's build, and Minoret's
+wealth, at the head of such an establishment might well be called,
+without contradiction, the master of Nemours. Though he never thought
+of God or devil, being a practical materialist, just as he was a
+practical agriculturist, a practical egoist, and a practical miser,
+Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of unmixed happiness,--if
+we can call pure materialism happiness. A physiologist, observing the
+rolls of flesh which covered the last vertebrae and pressed upon the
+giant's cerebellum, and, above all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice
+which contrasted so absurdly with his huge body, would have understood
+why this ponderous, coarse being adored his only son, and why he had
+so long expected him,--a fact proved by the name, Desire, which was
+given to the child.
+
+The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+mother's coffer and dipped into his father's purse, making each author
+of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire,
+who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his
+father's capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had
+gratified them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum
+of not less than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal
+studies. But for that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would
+never had come to him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial
+skin, learned the power of money and seen in the magistracy a means of
+advancement which he fancied. During the last year he had spent an
+extra sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists,
+journalists, and their mistresses. A confidential and rather
+disquieting letter from his son, asking for his consent to a marriage,
+explains the watch which the post master was now keeping on the
+bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a sumptuous
+breakfast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate, had
+sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and
+ride out if he saw nothing of the diligence. The coach which was
+conveying the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning and
+it was now nine! What could be the meaning of such delay? Was the
+coach overturned? Could Desire be dead? Or was it nothing worse than a
+broken leg?
+
+Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge
+of musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten
+horses neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was
+seen. The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray
+carriage-horses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the
+five diligence horses and the three other carriage-horses, and soon
+reached his master.
+
+"Have you seen the 'Ducler'?"
+
+On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+different coaches; such, for instance, as the "Caillard," the "Ducler"
+(the coach between Nemours and Paris), the "Grand Bureau." Every new
+enterprise is called the "Competition." In the days of the Lecompte
+company their coaches were called the "Countess."--"'Caillard' could
+not overtake the 'Countess'; but 'Grand Bureau' caught up with her
+finely," you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing
+his horses and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he
+will tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space,
+"The 'Competition' is ahead."--"We can't get in sight of her," cries
+the postilion; "the vixen! she wouldn't stop to let her passengers
+dine."--"The question is, has she got any?" responds the conductor.
+"Give it to Polignac!" All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac.
+Such are the jokes and the basis of conversation between postilions
+and conductors on the roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each
+calling in France has its slang.
+
+"Have you seen the 'Ducler'?" asked Minoret.
+
+"Monsieur Desire?" said the postilion, interrupting his master. "Hey!
+you must have heard us, didn't our whips tell you? we felt you were
+somewhere along the road."
+
+Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,--for the bells were
+pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,--a
+woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+
+"Well, cousin," she said, "you wouldn't believe me-- Uncle is with
+Ursula in the Grand'Rue, and they are going to mass."
+
+In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought
+from the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew
+sibilant, and his face took on the appearance of what people oddly
+enough call a sunstroke.
+
+"Is that true?" he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was
+over.
+
+The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed
+him, but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting
+for his son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand'Rue with his
+cousin.
+
+"Didn't I always tell you so?" she resumed. "When Doctor Minoret goes
+out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into
+religion; whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and
+she'll have our inheritance."
+
+"But, Madame Massin--" said the post master, dumbfounded.
+
+"There now!" exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. "You
+are going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen
+can't invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of
+eighty-three, who has never set foot in a church except to be married,
+change his opinions,--now don't tell me he has such a horror of
+priests that he wouldn't even go with the girl to the parish church
+when she made her first communion. I'd like to know why, if Doctor
+Minoret hates priests, he has spent nearly every evening for the last
+fifteen years of his life with the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite
+never fails to give Ursula twenty francs for wax tapers every time she
+takes the sacrament. Have you forgotten the gift Ursula made to the
+church in gratitude to the cure for preparing her for her first
+communion? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather returned
+it to her doubled. You men! you don't pay attention to things. When I
+heard that, I said to myself, 'Farewell baskets, the vintage is done!'
+A rich uncle doesn't behave that way to a little brat picked up in the
+streets without some good reason."
+
+"Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door
+of the church," replied the post master. "It is a fine day, and he is
+out for a walk."
+
+"I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious
+--you'll see him."
+
+"They hide their game pretty well," said Minoret, "La Bougival told me
+there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the
+globe; he'd give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable
+of a base action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is--"
+
+"Theft," said Madame Massin.
+
+"Worse!" cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+gossiping neighbour.
+
+"Of course I know," said Madame Massin, "that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we're done
+for. My husband is absolutely beside himself."
+
+Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and
+to the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way
+to mass. She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the
+post master.
+
+Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of
+which runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the
+stones of which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt
+in the fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised
+to a peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a
+great arch which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does
+everything. Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly
+kept square, this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect.
+As the post master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his
+uncle with the young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying
+prayer-books and just entering the church. The old man took off his
+hat in the porch, and his head, which was white as a hill-top covered
+with snow, shone among the shadows of the portal.
+
+"Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?"
+cried the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+
+"What do you expect me to say?" replied the post master, offering him
+a pinch of snuff.
+
+"Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can't say what you think, if it is
+true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his
+words before he speaks his thoughts," cried a young man, standing
+near, who played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+
+This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct
+that was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office
+when a career in Paris--where the clerk had wasted all the money he
+inherited from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a
+notary--was brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere
+sight of Goupil told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life,
+and had paid dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and
+shoulders were developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a
+man of forty. Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy
+complexion like the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead,
+brought out still further the oddity of his conformation. His face
+seemed as though it belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of
+him. One singularity of that pale and sour visage confirmed the
+impression of an invisible gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of
+shape like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left
+of the face instead of dividing it down the middle. The mouth,
+contracted at the corners, like that of a Sardinian, was always on the
+qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and
+showed the skull in many places. His hands, coarse and ill-joined at
+the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and
+seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the dust-heap, and raw
+silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and trousers, all
+black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful waistcoat with
+half the button-moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which served as
+a cravat--in short, all his clothing revealed the cynical poverty to
+which his passions had reduced him. This combination of disreputable
+signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round the
+pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly. No one in
+Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more deferred to than Goupil.
+Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the
+odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license,
+and he used it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He
+wrote the satirical couplets sung during the carnival, organized
+charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of the gossip of the
+town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for that reason timid,
+kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind and thorough
+knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master so
+distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to let
+him live in his house, held him at arm's length, and never confided
+any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk
+fawned upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and
+watching Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge
+there. Gifted with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work
+easy.
+
+"You!" exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+hands, "making game of our misfortunes already?"
+
+As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis' passions for the last
+five years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting
+the hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil's heart with every
+fresh insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to
+him than it was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the
+whole bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with
+Minoret's son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of
+three town offices,--that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice
+of one of the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he
+put up with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire,
+consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each
+vacation,--devouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+
+"If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given
+God to ME for a co-heir," retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which
+exhibited his teeth--few, black, and menacing.
+
+Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector
+of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town,
+had the physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as
+sloes beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears
+without any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He
+spoke like a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly
+it is enough to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to
+serve his legal notices.
+
+Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by
+red blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis,
+and supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of
+pretensions to wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle's money to
+"take a certain stand," decorate her salon, and receive the
+bourgeoisie. At present her husband denied her Carcel lamps,
+lithographs, and all the other trifles the notary's wife possessed.
+She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who caught up and retailed her
+"slapsus-linquies" as she called them. One day Madame Dionis chanced
+to ask what "Eau" she thought best for the teeth.
+
+"Try opium," she replied.
+
+Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now
+assembled in the square; the importance of the event which brought
+them was so generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with
+their scarlet umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which
+make them so picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with
+their eyes fixed on the frightened heirs. In all little towns which
+are midway between large villages and cities those who do not go to
+mass stand about in the square or market-place. Business is talked
+over. In Nemours the hour of church service was a weekly exchange, to
+which the owners of property scattered over a radius of some miles
+resorted.
+
+"Well, how would you have prevented it?" said the post master to
+Goupil in reply to his remark.
+
+"I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes.
+But from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance
+of a rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman--for
+want of proper care they'll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were
+here she could tell you how true that comparison is."
+
+"But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry
+about," said Massin.
+
+"Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!" cried Goupil,
+laughing. "I would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace
+say it. If there is nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with
+your uncle, knows that all is lost, the proper thing for him to say to
+you is, 'Don't be worried.'"
+
+As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin
+had let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as
+a clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin,
+with the words:--"Didn't I tell you so?"
+
+Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was
+at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+Rouvre, a former client.
+
+"If I were sure of it!" he said.
+
+"You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis
+du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don't you see how Bongrand
+is sprinkling him with advice?" said Goupil, slipping an idea of
+retaliation into Massin's mind. "But you had better go easy with your
+chief; he's a clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your
+uncle and persuade him not to leave everything to the church."
+
+"Pooh! we sha'n't die of it," said Minoret-Levrault, opening his
+enormous snuff-box.
+
+"You won't live of it, either," said Goupil, making the two women
+tremble. More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the
+privations this loss of inheritance (so long counted on for many
+comforts) would be to them. "However," added Goupil, "we'll drown this
+little grief in floods of champagne in honor of Desire!--sha'n't we,
+old fellow?" he cried, tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting
+himself to the feast for fear he should be left out.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER II
+
+                           THE RICH UNCLE
+
+Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like
+to read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees
+of relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted to
+religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+subject of many instructive reflections.
+
+There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the
+latter we may mention the d'Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate
+of Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the
+town had no money. Madame de Portenduere's sole possessions were a
+farm which brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her
+town house.
+
+In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a
+group of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former
+merchants; in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived
+and moved the retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry.
+The bourgeoisie presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other
+small countries) the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain
+autochthonous families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who
+rule a whole region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants
+are cousins. Under Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made
+real names of their surnames (some of which are united with those of
+feudalism) the bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets,
+Massins, Levraults and Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four
+families had already produced the Massin-Cremieres, the
+Levrault-Massins, the Massin-Minorets, the Minoret-Minorets, the
+Cremiere-Levraults, the Levrault-Minoret-Massins, Massin-Levraults,
+Minoret-Massins, Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,--all these
+varied with juniors and diversified with the names of eldest sons, as
+for instance, Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret--enough
+to drive a Pere Anselme of the People frantic,--if the people should
+ever want a genealogist.
+
+The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of the
+bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of the
+Almanach of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they
+arrange those zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the
+Minorets occupied the tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the
+Massins were in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers.
+Fortunately for the neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers
+instead of depending only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings
+by the expatriation of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for
+instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at
+Montargis; Massins at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in
+Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from the parent hive.
+Rich Massins employ, of course, the poor working Massins--just as
+Austria and Prussia take the German princes into their service. It may
+happen that a public office is managed by a Minoret millionaire and
+guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full of the same blood and called by
+the same name (for sole likeness), these four roots had ceaselessly
+woven a human network of which each thread was delicate or strong,
+fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same blood was in the head
+and in the feet and in the heart, in the working hands, in the weakly
+lungs, in the forehead big with genius.
+
+The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the
+ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which
+happened under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France
+you may be, you will find the same thing under changed names, but
+without the poetic charm which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter
+Scott's genius reproduced so faithfully. Let us look a little higher
+and examine humanity as it appears in history. All the noble families
+of the eleventh century, most of them (except the royal race of Capet)
+extinct to-day, will be found to have contributed to the birth of the
+Rohans, Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and Mortemarts of our time,--in
+fact they will all be found in the blood of the last gentleman who is
+indeed a gentleman. In other words, every bourgeois is cousin to a
+bourgeois, and every noble is cousin to a noble. A splendid page of
+biblical genealogy shows that in one thousand years three families,
+Shem, Ham, and Japhet, peopled the globe. One family may become a
+nation; unfortunately, a nation may become one family. To prove this
+we need only search back through our ancestors and see their
+accumulation, which time increases into a retrograde geometric
+progression, which multiplies of itself; reminding us of the
+calculation of the wise man who, being told to choose a reward from
+the king of Persia for inventing chess, asked for one ear of wheat for
+the first move on the board, the reward to be doubled for each
+succeeding move; when it was found that the kingdom was not large
+enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobility, hemmed in by the
+net-work of the bourgeoisie,--the antagonism of two protected races,
+one protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience
+of labor and the shrewdness of commerce,--produced the revolution of
+1789. The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with
+collaterals without a heritage. What are they to do? Our political
+future is big with the answer.
+
+The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret
+was so numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose
+entrance into the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to
+seek his fortune, and seldom returned to his native town, until he
+came to receive his share of the inheritance of his grandfather. After
+suffering many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle
+for a place in the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets
+reached a nobler destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the
+start. He devoted himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a
+profession which demands both talent and a cheerful nature, but the
+latter qualification even more than talent. Backed by Dupont de
+Nemours, connected by a lucky chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom
+Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the Encyclopedists,
+Doctor Minoret attached himself as liegeman to the famous Doctor
+Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, the Baron
+d'Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere boy.
+These men, influenced by Bordeu's example, became interested in
+Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with a very good
+practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists, materialists, or
+whatever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers of that period.
+
+Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous
+balm of Lelievre, so much extolled by the "Mercure de France," the
+weekly organ of the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was
+permanently advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a
+stroke of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for
+the dispensary, and he loyally shared his profits with the doctor, who
+was a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine.
+Less than that would make a man a materialist.
+
+The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the "Nouvelle
+Heloise," when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His
+wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet, a
+celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew.
+Minoret knew Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental
+in awarding him a gold medal for a dissertation on the following
+subject: "What is the origin of the opinion that covers a whole family
+with the shame attaching to the public punishment of a guilty member
+of it? Is that opinion more harmful than useful? If yes, in what way
+can the harm be warded off." The Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at
+Metz, to which Minoret belonged, must possess this dissertation in the
+original. Though, thanks to this friendship, the Doctor's wife need
+have had no fear, she was so in dread of going to the scaffold that
+her terror increased a disposition to heart disease caused by the
+over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all the precautions
+taken by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately met the
+tumbril of victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock caused
+her death. Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her
+nothing, and had given her a life of luxury, found himself after her
+death almost a poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as
+surgeon-in-charge of a hospital.
+
+Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled
+him to the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a
+destroyer of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of
+Doctor Minoret, who was induced to think of returning there to die,
+like the hare to its form, by a circumstance that was wholly
+accidental.
+
+Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a
+fresh cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering
+beneath a cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow?
+Wakened by the "hu! hu!" of the postilion as he walks beside his
+horses, we shake off sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream,
+the beautiful scene which is to the traveler what a noble passage in a
+book is to a reader,--a brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the
+sensation caused by a first sight of Nemours as we approach it from
+Burgundy. We see it encircled with bare rocks, gray, black, white,
+fantastic in shape like those we find in the forest of Fontainebleau;
+from them spring scattered trees, clearly defined against the sky,
+which give to this particular rock formation the dilapidated look of a
+crumbling wall. Here ends the long wooded hill which creeps from
+Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road. At the bottom of this irregular
+ampitheater lie meadow-lands through which flows the Loing, forming
+sheets of water with many falls. This delightful landscape, which
+continues the whole way to Montargis, is like an opera scene, for its
+effects really seem to have been studied.
+
+One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a
+rich patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having
+mentioned at the last relay the route he intended to take, he was
+brought without his knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more,
+on waking from a nap, the scenery in which his childhood had been
+passed. He had lately lost many of his old friends. The votary of the
+Encyclopedists had witnessed the conversion of La Harpe; he had buried
+Lebrun-Pindare and Marie-Joseph de Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame
+Helvetius. He assisted at the quasi-fall of Voltaire when assailed by
+Geoffroy, the continuator of Freton. For some time past he had thought
+of retiring, and so, when his post chaise stopped at the head of the
+Grand'Rue of Nemours, his heart prompted him to inquire for his
+family. Minoret-Levrault, the post master, came forward himself to see
+the doctor, who discovered him to be the son of his eldest brother.
+The nephew presented the doctor to his wife, the only daughter of the
+late Levrault-Cremiere, who had died twelve years earlier, leaving him
+the post business and the finest inn in Nemours.
+
+"Well, nephew," said the doctor, "have I any other relatives?"
+
+"My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin--"
+
+"Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange."
+
+"She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place."
+
+"Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a
+bachelor, and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I
+am, that ends the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal
+side? My mother was a Jean-Massin-Levrault."
+
+"Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault's there's only one left," answered
+Minoret-Levrault, "namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur
+Cremiere-Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the
+scaffold. His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one
+daughter, married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is
+doing well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault,
+notary's clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith."
+
+"So I've plenty of heirs," said the doctor gayly, immediately
+proposing to take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+
+The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor
+turned into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the
+property of Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he
+said, had just died.
+
+"The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there's
+a charming garden running down to the river."
+
+"Let us go in," said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a small
+paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the two
+neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and
+climbing-plants.
+
+"It is built over a cellar," said the doctor, going up the steps of a
+high portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which
+geraniums were growing.
+
+Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one
+room to the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the
+courtyard and two on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of
+these windows to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick
+which extended from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible
+Chinese pagoda.
+
+"Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor," said
+old Minoret, "I could put my book there and make a very comfortable
+study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end."
+
+On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the
+dining-room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and
+gold flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
+staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
+pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
+courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers
+on the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which
+were fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and
+observing that it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on
+the side of the courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which
+ended in a terrace overlooking the river and adorned with pottery
+vases,--the doctor remarked:--
+
+"Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here."
+
+"Ho! I should think so," answered Minoret-Levrault. "He liked flowers
+--nonsense! 'What do they bring in?' says my wife. You saw inside
+there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the
+corridor. He put those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were
+all re-made with cornices which cost six francs a foot. The
+dining-room floor is in marquetry--perfect folly! The house won't sell
+for a penny the more."
+
+"Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here's
+my address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?" he
+asked, as they left the house.
+
+"Emigres," answered the post master, "named Portenduere."
+
+The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of leaving
+there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was
+therefore occupied by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold
+his practice to Dionis, his head-clerk, and died two years later,
+leaving the house on the doctor's hands, just at the time when the
+fate of Napoleon was being decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor's
+heirs, at first misled, had by this time decided that his thought of
+returning to his native place was merely a rich man's fancy, and that
+probably he had some tie in Paris which would keep him there and cheat
+them of their hoped-for inheritance. However, Minoret-Levrault's wife
+seized the occasion to write him a letter. The old man replied that as
+soon as peace was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe
+communications established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He
+did, in fact, put in an appearance with two of his clients, the
+architect of his hospital and an upholsterer, who took charge of the
+repairs, the indoor arrangements, and the transportation of the
+furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault proposed the cook of the late
+notary as caretaker, and the woman was accepted.
+
+When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was
+really coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the
+political events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and
+on the Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising.
+Was he rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune
+or nothing? Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out
+what follows, but only by taking infinite pains and employing much
+subterraneous spying.
+
+After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years
+1789 and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician
+to the Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no
+one knew how much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than
+a carriage by the year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no
+guests, and dined out almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at
+not being allowed to go with him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the
+post master's wife, that she knew the doctor had fourteen thousand
+francs a year on the "grand-livre." Now, after twenty years' exercise
+of a profession which his position as head of a hospital, physician to
+the Emperor, and member of the Institute, rendered lucrative, these
+fourteen thousand francs a year showed only one hundred and sixty
+thousand francs laid by. To have saved only eight thousand francs a
+year the doctor must have had either many vices or many virtues to
+gratify. But neither his housekeeper nor Zelie nor any one else could
+discover the reason for such moderate means. Minoret, who when he left
+it was much regretted in the quarter of Paris where he had lived, was
+one of the most benevolent of men, and, like Larrey, kept his kind
+deeds a profound secret.
+
+The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle's fine furniture and
+large library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming,
+he being now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed
+by the king a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel--perhaps on
+account of his retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But
+when the architect and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything
+in the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, who kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as
+if her own property was concerned, found out, through the indiscretion
+of a young man sent to arrange the books, that the doctor was taking
+care of a little orphan named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire
+through the town. At last, however, towards the middle of the month of
+January, 1815, the old man actually arrived, installing himself
+quietly, almost slyly, with a little girl about ten months old, and a
+nurse.
+
+"The child can't be his daughter," said the terrified heirs; "he is
+seventy-one years old."
+
+"Whoever she is," remarked Madame Massin, "she'll give us plenty of
+tintouin" (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+more literally, tingling in the ears).
+
+The doctor received his great-niece on the mother's side somewhat
+coldly; her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court,
+and the pair began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither
+Massin nor his wife were rich. Massin's father, a locksmith at
+Montargis, had been obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was
+now, at sixty-seven years of age, working like a young man, and had
+nothing to leave behind him. Madame Massin's father, Levrault-Minoret,
+had just died at Montereau after the battle, in despair at seeing his
+farm burned, his fields ruined, his cattle slaughtered.
+
+"We'll get nothing out of your great-uncle," said Massin to his wife,
+now pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+
+The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with
+which Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff,
+began the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly
+with the peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil
+knew him to hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+
+As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through
+his influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his
+bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his
+wife, being jealous of the uncle's liberality to his two nieces, took
+her ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be
+to them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so
+much. The doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at
+the school of Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth
+class.
+
+Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+"rated without appeal" by the doctor within two months of his arrival
+in Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions
+of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a
+glance; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount
+of intellect to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his
+heirs, and thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor
+made a pretext of his occupations, his habits, and the care of the
+little Ursula to avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing
+his doors to them. He liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he
+got up late; he had returned to his native place for the very purpose
+of finding rest in solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be
+natural, and his relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly
+visits on Sundays from one to four o'clock, to which, however, he
+tried to put a stop by saying: "Don't come and see me unless you want
+something."
+
+The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over
+serious cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not
+serve as a physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared
+that he no longer practiced his profession.
+
+"I've killed enough people," he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon,
+who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+
+"He's an original!" These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the
+harmless revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects
+about him a society of persons who have many of the characteristics of
+a set of heirs. Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves
+entitled to visit this distinguished physician kept up a ferment of
+jealousy against the few privileged friends whom he did admit to his
+intimacy, which had in the long run some unfortunate results.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER III
+
+                       THE DOCTOR'S FRIENDS
+
+Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that "extremes
+meet," the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon
+friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the
+priesthood, and the Abbe Chaperon played it with about as much skill
+as he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret
+was charitable, and the abbe was the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had
+had a wide and varied education; the man of God was the only person in
+all Nemours who was fully capable of understanding the atheist. To be
+able to argue, men must first understand each other. What pleasure is
+there in saying sharp words to one who can't feel them? The doctor and
+the priest had far too much taste and had seen too much of good
+society not to practice its precepts; they were thus well-fitted for
+the little warfare so essential to conversation. They hated each
+other's opinions, but they valued each other's character. If such
+conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we
+must surely despair of society, which, especially in France, requires
+some form of antagonism. It is from the shock of characters, and not
+from the struggle of opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+
+The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor's chief friend. This
+excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so
+doing, the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his
+sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good
+without inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited.
+His parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of
+life, was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and
+avarice manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a
+treasure in heaven which avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon
+argued with his servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck
+with his--if indeed that famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good
+priest often sold the buckles off his shoes and his breeches to give
+their value to some poor person who appealed to him at a moment when
+he had not a penny. When he was seen coming out of church with the
+straps of his breeches tied into the button-holes, devout women would
+redeem the buckles from the clock-maker and jeweler of the town and
+return them to their pastor with a lecture. He never bought himself
+any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they scarcely held
+together. His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair
+shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an agreement
+with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones after he
+went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the difference. He
+ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons. When he received
+his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an expense
+obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver from
+his friend the atheist.
+
+"My silver is his salvation," the doctor would say.
+
+These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more
+meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was
+vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and
+grace, the inseparable accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an
+elocution that was worthy of a prelate. His manners, his character,
+and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the most exquisite
+savor of all that is most spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A
+lover of gayety, he was never priest in a salon. Until Doctor
+Minoret's arrival, the good man kept his light under a bushel without
+regret. Owning a rather fine library and an income of two thousand
+francs when he came to Nemours, he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at
+all, except his stipend as parish priest, nearly the whole of which he
+gave away during the year. The giver of excellent counsel in delicate
+matters or in great misfortunes, many persons who never went to church
+to obtain consolation went to the parsonage to get advice. One little
+anecdote will suffice to complete his portrait. Sometimes the
+peasants,--rarely, it is true, but occasionally,--unprincipled men,
+would tell him they were sued for debt, or would get themselves
+threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe's benevolence. They
+would even deceive their wives, who, believing their chattels were
+threatened with an execution and their cows seized, deceived in their
+turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He would then manage
+with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs
+demanded of him--with which the peasant bought himself a morsel of
+land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging
+the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to such
+cupidity, he would say:--
+
+"But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of
+land? Isn't it doing good when we prevent evil?"
+
+Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the
+fact that science and literature had filled the heart and passed
+through the strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of
+age the abbe's hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the
+sorrows of others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution
+weighed upon him. Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he
+had twice, as he used to say, uttered in "In manus." He was of medium
+height, neither stout nor thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed
+and quite colorless, attracted immediate attention by the absolute
+tranquillity expressed in its shape, and by the purity of its outline,
+which seemed to be edged with light. The face of a chaste man has an
+unspeakable radiance. Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the
+irregular features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead. His
+glance wielded a power which came of a gentleness that was not devoid
+of strength. The arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by huge gray
+eyebrows which alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone his
+mouth had lost its shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this
+physical destruction was not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of
+pleasantness, seemed to smile on others. Without being gouty his feet
+were tender; and he walked with so much difficulty that he wore shoes
+made of calf's skin all the year round. He thought the fashion of
+trousers unsuitable for priests, and he always appeared in stockings
+of coarse black yarn, knit by his housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He
+never went out in his cassock, but wore a brown overcoat, and still
+retained the three-cornered hat he had worn so courageously in times
+of danger. This noble and beautiful old man, whose face was glorified
+by the serenity of a soul above reproach, will be found to have so
+great an influence upon the men and things of this history, that it
+was proper to show the sources of his authority and power.
+
+Minoret took three newspapers,--one liberal, one ministerial, one
+ultra,--a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals, the
+accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers,
+encyclopaedias, and books were an attraction to a retired captain of
+the Royal-Swedish regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean
+nobleman and an old bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of
+pension and annuity combined. Having read the gazettes for several
+days, by favor of the abbe, Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to
+call and thank the doctor in person. At this first visit the old
+captain, formerly a professor at the Military Academy, won the
+doctor's heart, who returned the call with alacrity. Monsieur de
+Jordy, a spare little man much troubled by his blood, though his face
+was very pale, attracted attention by the resemblance of his handsome
+brow to that of Charles XII.; above it he kept his hair cropped short,
+like that of the soldier-king. His blue eyes seemed to say that "Love
+had passed that way," so mournful were they; revealing memories about
+which he kept such utter silence that his old friends never detected
+even an allusion to his past life, nor a single exclamation drawn
+forth by similarity of circumstances. He hid the painful mystery of
+his past beneath a philosophic gayety, but when he thought himself
+alone his motions, stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter of
+choice than the result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of
+distressful thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian
+ignorant of his Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather
+rigid demeanor and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military
+discipline. His sweet and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His
+beautiful hands and the general cut of his figure, recalling that of
+the Comte d'Artois, showed how charming he must have been in his
+youth, and made the mystery of his life still more mysterious. An
+observer asked involuntarily what misfortune had blighted such beauty,
+courage, grace, accomplishment, and all the precious qualities of the
+heart once united in his person. Monsieur de Jordy shuddered if
+Robespierre's name were uttered before him. He took much snuff, but,
+strange to say, he gave up the habit to please little Ursula, who at
+first showed a dislike to him on that account. As soon as he saw the
+little girl the captain fastened his eyes upon her with a look that
+was almost passionate. He loved her play so extravagantly and took
+such interest in all she did that the tie between himself and the
+doctor grew closer every day, though the latter never dared to say to
+him, "You, too, have you lost children?" There are beings, kind and
+patient as old Jordy, who pass through life with a bitter thought in
+their heart and a tender but sorrowful smile on their lips, carrying
+with them to the grave the secret of their lives; letting no one guess
+it,--through pride, through disdain, possibly through revenge;
+confiding in none but God, without other consolation than his.
+
+Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of
+his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine
+o'clock. So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed
+early, in spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore
+a great piece of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when
+he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same
+language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went
+to bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret
+had passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that
+the priest and soldier returned every night regularly at nine o'clock,
+the hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was
+free. All three would then sit up till midnight or one o'clock.
+
+After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life
+was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer, the
+indulgence, knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for
+conversation which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their
+practical dealings with the souls, diseases, and education of men, was
+added to the number. Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of
+the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor's
+society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for
+ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases,
+according to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers.
+He became a widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still
+too active to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the
+position of justice of peace at Nemours, which became vacant a few
+months before the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived
+modestly on his salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he
+might devote his private income to his son, who was studying law in
+Paris under the famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired
+chief of a civil service office; he had the peculiar face of a
+bureaucrat, less sallow than pallid, on which public business,
+vexations, and disgust leave their imprint,--a face lined by thought,
+and also by the continual restraints familiar to those who are trained
+not to speak their minds freely. It was often illumined by smiles
+characteristic of men who alternately believe all and believe nothing,
+who are accustomed to see and hear all without being startled, and to
+fathom the abysses which self-interest hollows in the depths of the
+human heart.
+
+Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn
+flattened to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow
+tones of which harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His
+face, with the features set close together, bore some likeness to that
+of a fox, all the more because his nose was short and pointed. In
+speaking, he spluttered at the mouth, which was broad like that of
+most great talkers,--a habit which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly,
+"An umbrella would be useful when listening to him," or, "The justice
+rains verdicts." His eyes looked keen behind his spectacles, but if he
+took the glasses off his dulled glance seemed almost vacant. Though he
+was naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt to give himself too
+important and pompous an air. He usually kept his hands in the pockets
+of his trousers, and only took them out to settle his eye-glasses on
+his nose, with a movement that was half comic, and which announced the
+coming of a keen observation or some victorious argument. His
+gestures, his loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the
+provincial lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he
+redeemed them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist
+might call the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little
+like a fox, and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or
+dishonest. His wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing
+results and protecting himself and others from the traps set for them.
+He loved whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which
+the abbe learned to play in a very short time.
+
+This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet's
+salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and
+knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor
+to the profession, came there sometimes; but his duties and also his
+fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed early and to be up early)
+prevented his being as assiduously present as the three other friends.
+This intercourse of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who
+had sufficiently wide knowledge to understand each other, explains old
+Minoret's aversion to his relatives; if he were compelled to leave
+them his money, at least he need not admit them to his society.
+Whether the post master, the sheriff, and the collector understood
+this distinction, or whether they were reassured by the evident
+loyalty and benefactions of their uncle, certain it is that they
+ceased, to his great satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about eight
+months after the arrival of the doctor these four players of whist and
+backgammon made a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a
+fraternal aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures
+of which were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits
+closed round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his
+individual tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge
+imagined himself her guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher,
+and as for Minoret, he was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+
+After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On
+Ursula's account he received no visitors in the morning, and never
+gave dinners, but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at
+six o'clock and stay till midnight. The first-comers found the
+newspapers on the table and read them while awaiting the rest; or they
+sometimes sallied forth to meet the doctor if he were out for a walk.
+This tranquil life was not a mere necessity of old age, it was the
+wise and careful scheme of a man of the world to keep his happiness
+untroubled by the curiosity of his heirs and the gossip of a little
+town. He yielded nothing to that capricious goddess, public opinion,
+whose tyranny (one of the present great evils of France) was just
+beginning to establish its power and to make the whole nation a mere
+province. So, as soon as the child was weaned and could walk alone,
+the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom his niece, Madame
+Minoret-Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered that she told
+her patroness everything that happened in his household.
+
+Ursula's nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but
+a baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child,
+aged six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and
+honest creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris
+(her maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached
+herself naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This
+blind maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household
+devotion. Told of the doctor's intention to send away his housekeeper,
+La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and
+discovered the old man's ways. She took the utmost care of the house
+and furniture; in short she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor
+wish to keep his private life within four walls, as the saying is, but
+he also had certain reasons for hiding a knowledge of his business
+affairs from his relatives. At the end of the second year after his
+arrival La Bougival was the only servant in the house; on her
+discretion he knew he could count, and he disguised his real purposes
+by the all-powerful open reason of a necessary economy. To the great
+satisfaction of his heirs he became a miser. Without fawning or
+wheedling, solely by the influence of her devotion and solicitude, La
+Bougival, who was forty-three years old at the time this tale begins,
+was the housekeeper of the doctor and his protegee, the pivot on which
+the whole house turned, in short, the confidential servant. She was
+called La Bougival from the admitted impossibility of applying to her
+person the name that actually belonged to her, Antoinette--for names
+and forms do obey the laws of harmony.
+
+The doctor's miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours
+could estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like
+most old men his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few.
+Every six months he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his
+income. In fifteen years he never said a single word to any one in
+relation to his affairs. His confidence in Bongrand was of slow
+growth; it was not until after the revolution of 1830 that he told him
+of his projects. Nothing further was known of the doctor's life either
+by the bourgeoisie at large or by his heirs. As for his political
+opinions, he did not meddle in public matters seeing that he paid less
+than a hundred francs a year in taxes, and refused, impartially, to
+subscribe to either royalist or liberal demands. His known horror for
+the priesthood, and his deism were so little obtrusive that he turned
+out of his house a commercial runner sent by his great-nephew Desire
+to ask a subscription to the "Cure Meslier" and the "Discours du
+General Foy." Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the liberals of
+Nemours.
+
+The doctor's three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+Cremiere-Cremiere--whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is
+quite unnecessary out of the Gatinais--met together as people do in
+little towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son's
+birthday, a ball during the carnival, another on the anniversary of
+his marriage, to all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of
+Nemours. The collector received his relations and friends twice a
+year. The clerk of the court, too poor, he said, to fling himself into
+such extravagance, lived in a small way in a house standing half-way
+down the Grand'Rue, the ground-floor of which was let to his sister,
+the letter-postmistress of Nemours, a situation she owed to the
+doctor's kind offices. Nevertheless, in the course of the year these
+three families did meet together frequently, in the houses of friends,
+in the public promenades, at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a
+Sunday in the square, as on this occasion; so that one way and another
+they met nearly every day. For the last three years the doctor's age,
+his economies, and his probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank
+remarks, among the townspeople as to the disposition of his property,
+a topic which made the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the
+little town. For the last six months not a day passed that friends and
+neighbours did not speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day
+the good man's eyes would shut and the coffers open.
+
+"Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death,
+but none but God is eternal," said one.
+
+"Pooh, he'll bury us all; his health is better than ours," replied an
+heir, hypocritically.
+
+"Well, if you don't get the money yourselves, your children will,
+unless that little Ursula--"
+
+"He won't leave it all to her."
+
+Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere's favorite
+saying, "Well, whoever lives will know," shows that they wished at any
+rate more harm to her than good.
+
+The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the
+post master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor's
+property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+
+"He must have got hold of some elixir of life," said one.
+
+"He has made a bargain with the devil," replied the other.
+
+"He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn't need
+anything," said Massin.
+
+"Ah! but Minoret has a son who'll waste his substance," answered
+Cremiere.
+
+"How much do you really think the doctor has?"
+
+"At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each
+year, that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and
+the interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he
+must, if he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of
+business, and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per
+cent from the State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand
+francs, without counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year
+from the five per cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving
+anything to Ursula we should get at least seven or eight hundred
+thousand francs, besides the house and furniture."
+
+"Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand
+apiece to you and me, that would be fair."
+
+"Ha, that would make us comfortable!"
+
+"If he did that," said Massin, "I should sell my situation in court
+and buy an estate; I'd try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get
+myself elected deputy."
+
+"As for me I should buy a brokerage business," said the collector.
+
+"Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round
+him. I don't believe we can do anything with him."
+
+"Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church."
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IV
+
+                               ZELIE
+
+The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass
+will now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to
+foresee a danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind
+of the peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground
+the stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal
+reasoning, "If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her
+godfather into the pale of the Church she will certainly have enough
+to make him leave her his property," was now stamped in letters of
+fire on the brains of the most obtuse heir. The post master had
+forgotten about his son in his hurry to reach the square; for if the
+doctor were really in the church hearing mass it was a question of
+losing two hundred and fifty thousand francs. It must be admitted that
+the fears of these relations came from the strongest and most
+legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Minoret," said the mayor (formerly a miller who had
+now become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), "when the devil gets
+old the devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us."
+
+"Better late than never, cousin," responded the post master, trying to
+conceal his annoyance.
+
+"How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of
+marrying his son to that damned girl--may the devil get her!" cried
+Cremiere, shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+
+"What's Cremiere grumbling about?" said the butcher of the town, a
+Levrault-Levrault the elder. "Isn't he pleased to see his uncle on the
+road to paradise?"
+
+"Who would ever have believed it!" ejaculated Massin.
+
+"Ha! one should never say, 'Fountain, I'll not drink of your water,'"
+remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his
+wife to go to church without him.
+
+"Come, Monsieur Dionis," said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+"what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?"
+
+"I advise you," said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively,
+"to go to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before
+it gets cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your
+heads; in short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing
+had happened."
+
+"You are not consoling," said Massin.
+
+In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis
+was really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did
+business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such
+peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could
+be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their
+opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the
+profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent,
+the acquirement of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively
+interest in the doctor's inheritance, not so much for the post master
+and the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or
+later Massin's share in the doctor's money would swell the capital
+with which these secret associates worked the canton.
+
+"We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+comes from," said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to
+keep quiet.
+
+"What are you about, Minoret?" cried a little woman, suddenly
+descending upon the group in the middle of which stood the post
+master, as tall and round as a tower. "You don't know where Desire is
+and there you are, planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing,
+when I thought you on horseback!--Oh, good morning, Messieurs and
+Mesdames."
+
+This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white
+cotton with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed
+with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl on
+her flat shoulders, was Minoret's wife, the terror of postilions,
+servants, and carters; who kept the accounts and managed the
+establishment "with finger and eye" as they say in those parts. Like
+the true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not
+give in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held
+to the solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black
+apron, in the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her
+screeching voice was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance,
+conflicting with the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony
+with the thin lips of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very
+imperious forehead. Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture
+and speech. "Zelie being obliged to have a will for two, had it for
+three," said Goupil, who pointed out the successive reigns of three
+young postilions, of neat appearance, who had been set up in life by
+Zelie, each after seven years' service. The malicious clerk named them
+Postilion I., Postilion II., Postilion III. But the little influence
+these young men had in the establishment, and their perfect obedience
+proved that Zelie was merely interested in worthy helpers.
+
+This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of
+her son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for
+her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family
+fortune and was wholly given up to the management of their immense
+establishment. To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the
+better of Zelie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing
+impossible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew
+nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a
+walk except to look at the hay, the oats, or the second crops. She
+sent "her man" to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales,
+telling them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should
+bear. Though she was the soul of that great body called Minoret-Levrault
+and led him about by his pug nose, she was made to feel the fears which
+occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild beasts. She
+therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did; the
+postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with him,
+for his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as she
+was grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town, "Where
+would Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?"
+
+"When you know what has happened," replied the post master, "you'll be
+over the traces yourself."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Ursula has taken the doctor to mass."
+
+Zelie's pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger,
+then, crying out, "I'll see it before I believe it!" she rushed into
+the church. The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of
+the worshippers enabled her to look along each row of chairs and
+benches as she went up the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula's place,
+where she saw old Minoret standing with bared head.
+
+If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d'Anglas, Morellet,
+Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of
+Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile,
+cold tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the
+features, shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely
+aristocratic--less perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the
+ideas than in the character. All men of this stamp have high brows
+retreating at the summit, the sigh of a tendency to materialism. You
+will find these leading characteristics of the head and these points
+of the face in all the Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde,
+in the men of a period when religious ideas were almost dead, men who
+called themselves deists and were atheists. The deist is an atheist
+lucky in classification.
+
+Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles,
+which recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the
+manner in which the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman
+when making her toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of
+his coat. He persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk
+stockings, shoes with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie,
+and a black coat, adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly
+characterized, the cold whiteness of which was softened by the
+yellowing tones of old age, happened to be, just then, in the full
+light of a window. As Madame Minoret came in sight of him the doctor's
+blue eyes with their reddened lids were raised to heaven; a new
+conviction had given them a new expression. His spectacles lay in his
+prayer-book and marked the place where he had ceased to pray. The tall
+and spare old man, his arms crossed on his breast, stood erect in an
+attitude which bespoke the full strength of his faculties and the
+unshakable assurance of his faith. He gazed at the altar humbly with a
+look of renewed hope, and took no notice of his nephew's wife, who
+planted herself almost in front of him as if to reproach him for
+coming back to God.
+
+Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church
+and returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She
+had reckoned on the doctor's money, and possession was becoming
+problematical. She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and
+their wives in greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking
+pleasure in tormenting them.
+
+"It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we
+ought to talk of our affairs," said Zelie; "come home with me. You
+too, Monsieur Dionis," she added to the notary; "you'll not be in the
+way."
+
+Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post
+master was the news of the day.
+
+Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which
+was only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand'Rue,
+made its usual racket.
+
+"Goodness! I'm like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire," said
+Zelie. "Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his
+interests are mixed up in this matter."
+
+The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes
+in late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards
+the "Ducler."
+
+"Here's Desire!" was the general cry.
+
+The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put
+the town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom
+he was invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence.
+But his methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that
+more than one family was very thankful to have him complete his
+studies and study law in Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth,
+slender and fair like his mother, from whom he obtained his blue eyes
+and pale skin, smiled from the window on the crowd, and jumped lightly
+down to kiss his mother. A short sketch of the young fellow will show
+how proud Zelie felt when she saw him.
+
+He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held
+under his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat,
+admirably put on and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy
+waistcoat, in the pocket of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of
+which hung down; and, finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a
+gray hat,--but his lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt
+buttons of the waistcoat and the ring worn outside of his purple kid
+glove. He carried a cane with a chased gold head.
+
+"You are losing your watch," said his mother, kissing him.
+
+"No, it is worn that way," he replied, letting his father hug him.
+
+"Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?" said Massin.
+
+"I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term," said Desire,
+returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+
+"Now we shall have some fun," said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+
+"Ha! my old wag, so here you are!" replied Desire.
+
+"You take your law license for all license," said Goupil, affronted by
+being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+
+"You know my luggage," cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of
+the diligence; "have it taken to the house."
+
+"The sweat is rolling off your horses," said Zelie sharply to the
+conductor; "you haven't common-sense to drive them in that way. You
+are stupider than your own beasts."
+
+"But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from
+anxiety," explained Cabirolle.
+
+"But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?" she
+retorted.
+
+The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young
+men around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey
+took enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to
+issue from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things)
+Desire saw Ursula on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped
+short amazed at her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the
+relations who accompanied him.
+
+In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she did
+with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward or
+difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does
+truly reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that
+Ursula's attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was
+dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and
+there with knots of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same
+ribbon run through a broad hem and tied with bows like those on the
+dress, showed the great beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure
+white, was charming in tone against the blue,--the right color for a
+fair skin. A long blue sash with floating ends defined a slender waist
+which seemed flexible,--a most seductive charm in women. She wore a
+rice-straw bonnet, modestly trimmed with ribbons like those of the
+gown, the strings of which were tied under her chin, setting off the
+whiteness of the straw and doing no despite to that of her beautiful
+complexion. Ursula dressed her own hair naturally (a la Berthe, as it
+was then called) in heavy braids of fine, fair hair, laid flat on
+either side of the head, each little strand reflecting the light as
+she walked. Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the same time, were in
+harmony with a finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge, suffusing her
+cheeks like a cloud, brightened a face which was regular without being
+insipid; for nature had given her, by some rare privilege, extreme
+purity of form combined with strength of countenance. The nobility of
+her life was manifest in the general expression of her person, which
+might have served as a model for a type of trustfulness, or of
+modesty. Her health, though brilliant, was not coarsely apparent; in
+fact, her whole air was distinguished. Beneath the little gloves of a
+light color it was easy to imagine her pretty hands. The arched and
+slender feet were delicately shod in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a
+brown silk fringe. Her blue sash holding at the waist a small flat
+watch and a blue purse with gilt tassels attracted the eyes of every
+woman she met.
+
+"He has given her a new watch!" said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+husband's arm.
+
+"Heavens! is that Ursula?" cried Desire; "I didn't recognize her."
+
+"Well, my dear uncle," said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let
+the doctor pass, "everybody wants to see you."
+
+"Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+uncle," said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+Jesuitical humility.
+
+"Ursula," replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+annoyed.
+
+The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with
+Ursula, the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, "I intend to go
+to church to-morrow."
+
+"Then," said Bongrand, "your heirs won't get another night's rest."
+
+The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by
+the expression of their faces. Zelie's irruption into the church, her
+glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the
+expectant ones in the public square, and the expression in their eyes
+as they turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now
+freshly awakened, and their sordid fears.
+
+"It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle," said Madame Cremiere,
+putting in her word with a humble bow,--"a miracle which will not cost
+you much."
+
+"It is God's doing, madame," replied Ursula.
+
+"God!" exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; "my father-in-law used to say he
+served to blanket many horses."
+
+"Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey," said the doctor
+severely.
+
+"Come," said Minoret to his wife and son, "why don't you bow to my
+uncle?"
+
+"I shouldn't be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,"
+cried Zelie, carrying off her son.
+
+"I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap," said
+Madame Massin; "the church is very damp."
+
+"Pooh, niece," said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, "the
+sooner I'm put to bed the sooner you'll flourish."
+
+He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a
+hurry that the others dropped behind.
+
+"Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn't right," said
+Ursula, shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+
+"I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but
+not one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they
+know is the only day I celebrate."
+
+At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de
+Portenduere, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She
+belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of
+the last century. They wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the
+cut of which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all
+have black lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping
+with their slow and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that
+they still wore paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as
+persons who have lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving.
+They swathe their heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully
+about their cheeks. Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes
+and faded brows, are not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite
+of the false fronts with flattened curls to which they cling,--and yet
+these ruins are all subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look and
+manner.
+
+The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to
+time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was
+really as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+
+"Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?" said Madame Massin,
+rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+doctor's answer.
+
+"For the cure," said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his
+forehead as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him.
+"I have an idea! I'll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast
+gayly with Madame Minoret."
+
+We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the
+notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire,
+locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth's ear
+with an odious smile.
+
+"What do I care?" answered the son of the house, shrugging his
+shoulders. "I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial
+creature in the world."
+
+"Florine! and who may she be?" demanded Goupil. "I'm too fond of you
+to let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures."
+
+"Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I
+know that. She has positively refused to marry me."
+
+"Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with
+their heads," responded Goupil.
+
+"If you could but see her--only once," said Desire, lackadaisically,
+"you wouldn't say such things."
+
+"If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than
+a fancy," said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived
+his master, "I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+'Kenilworth.' Your wife must be a d'Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre, and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I
+sha'n't let you commit any follies."
+
+"I am rich enough to care only for happiness," replied Desire.
+
+"What are you two plotting together?" cried Zelie, beckoning to the
+two friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come
+into the house.
+
+The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of
+a young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had
+lately taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds
+of the whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to
+make this history and the notary's remark to the heirs perfectly
+intelligible to the reader.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER V
+
+                               URSULA
+
+The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and
+maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most
+celebrated organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of
+his old age, whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who
+turned out a worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the
+comfort of seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and
+composer, having made his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned
+name, ran away with a young lady in Germany. The dying father
+commended the young man, who was really full of talent, to his
+son-in-law, proving to him, at the same time, that he had refused to
+marry the mother that he might not injure Madame Minoret. The doctor
+promised to give the unfortunate Joseph half of whatever his wife
+inherited from her father, whose business was purchased by the Erards.
+He made due search for his illegitimate brother-in-law; but Grimm
+informed him one day that after enlisting in a Prussian regiment
+Joseph had deserted and taken a false name and that all efforts to
+find him would be frustrated.
+
+Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine
+figure, a handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste
+and much brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life
+which Hoffman has so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he
+was reduced to such depths of poverty that he took advantage of the
+events of 1806 to make himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in
+Hamburg, where he married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted
+to music, who fell in love with the singer (whose fame was ever
+prospective) and chose to devote her life to him. But after fifteen
+years of Bohemia, Joseph Mirouet was unable to bear prosperity; he was
+naturally a spendthrift, and though kind to his wife, he wasted her
+fortune in a very few years. The household must have dragged on a
+wretched existence before Joseph Mirouet reached the point of
+enlisting as a musician in a French regiment. In 1813 the
+surgeon-major of the regiment, by the merest chance, heard the name of
+Mirouet, was struck by it, and wrote to Doctor Minoret, to whom he was
+under obligations.
+
+The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the
+allied occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife
+died giving birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should be
+called Ursula after his wife. The father did not long survive the
+mother, worn out, as she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the
+unfortunate musician bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was
+already her godfather, in spite of his repugnance for what he called
+the mummeries of the Church. Having seen his own children die in
+succession either in dangerous confinements or during the first year
+of their lives, the doctor had awaited with anxiety the result of a
+last hope. When a nervous, delicate, and sickly woman begins with a
+miscarriage it is not unusual to see her go through a series of such
+pregnancies as Ursula Minoret did, in spite of the care and
+watchfulness and science of her husband. The poor man often blamed
+himself for their mutual persistence in desiring children. The last
+child, born after a rest of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim
+of its mother's nervous condition--if we listen to physiologists, who
+tell us that in the inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child
+derives from the father by blood and from the mother in its nervous
+system.
+
+Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him,
+the doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied
+paternity. During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had
+longed more especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring
+joy to the house; he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet's
+legacy, and gave to the orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams.
+For two years he took part, as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute
+particulars of Ursula's life; he would not allow the nurse to suckle
+her or to take her up or put her to bed without him. His medical
+science and his experience were all put to use in her service. After
+going through many trials, alternations of hope and fear, and the joys
+and labors of a mother, he had the happiness of seeing this child of
+the fair German woman and the French singer a creature of vigorous
+health and profound sensibility.
+
+With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine
+and soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed
+the little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle
+through which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was
+passionately fond of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she
+fixed her beautiful blue eyes upon some object with that serious,
+reflective look which seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended
+with a laugh, he would stay by her side for hours, seeking, with
+Jordy's help, to understand the reasons (which most people call
+caprices) underlying the phenomena of this delicious phase of life,
+when childhood is both flower and fruit, a confused intelligence, a
+perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+
+Ursula's beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He
+declared to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting
+hers. When old men love children there is no limit to their passion
+--they worship them. For these little beings they silence their own
+manias or recall a whole past in their service. Experience, patience,
+sympathy, the acquisitions of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all
+are spent upon that young life in which they live again; their
+intelligence does actually take the place of motherhood. Their wisdom,
+ever on the alert, is equal to the intuition of a mother; they
+remember the delicate perceptions which in their own mother were
+divinations, and import them into the exercise of a compassion which
+is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of the child's
+unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes the place
+of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is reduced to
+its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the mother a
+slave, the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote himself
+utterly. For these reasons it is not unusual to see children in close
+intimacy with old persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old
+doctor, happy in the kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were
+never weary of answering her talk and playing with her. Far from
+making them impatient her petulances charmed them; and they gratified
+all her wishes, making each the ground of some little training.
+
+The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula's soul developed in a
+sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it
+breathed the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays
+that belonged to it.
+
+"In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?" asked the
+abbe of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+
+"In yours," answered Minoret.
+
+An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the "Nouvelle
+Heloise" he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits
+offered by the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on
+a bench outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe's
+hand on his.
+
+"Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+friend 'Shapron,'" he said, imitating Ursula's infant speech, "I wish
+to see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall
+do nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul;
+but in my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian."
+
+"God will reward you, I hope," replied the abbe, gently joining his
+hands and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief
+mental prayer.
+
+So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under
+the religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come
+under the educational training of her friend Jordy.
+
+The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a
+taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages,
+had studied the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man,
+patient as most old scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read
+and write. He taught her also the French language and all she needed
+to know of arithmetic. The doctor's library afforded a choice of books
+which could be read by a child for amusement as well as instruction.
+
+The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with
+the freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula
+learned as she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left to
+follow the divine training of a nature that was led into regions of
+purity by these judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment
+than to duty; she took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own
+conscience rather than the demands of social law. In her, nobility of
+feeling and action would ever be spontaneous; her judgment would
+confirm the impulse of her heart. She was destined to do right as a
+pleasure before doing it as an obligation. This distinction is the
+peculiar sign of Christian education. These principles, altogether
+different from those that are taught to men, were suitable for a
+woman,--the spirit and the conscience of the home, the beautifier of
+domestic life, the queen of her household. All three of these old
+preceptors followed the same method with Ursula. Instead of recoiling
+before the bold questions of innocence, they explained to her the
+reasons of things and the best means of action, taking care to give
+her none but correct ideas. When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade
+of grass, her thoughts went straight to God, the doctor and the
+professor told her that the priest alone could answer her. None of
+them intruded on the territory of the others; the doctor took charge
+of her material well-being and the things of life; Jordy's department
+was instruction; moral and spiritual questions and the ideas
+appertaining to the higher life belonged to the abbe. This noble
+education was not, as it often is, counteracted by injudicious
+servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject, and being,
+moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did nothing
+to injure the work of these great minds. Ursula, a privileged being,
+grew up with good geniuses round her; and her naturally fine
+disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy one. Such manly
+tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty without
+danger, such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula, when
+nine years of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+
+Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died
+the following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his
+work, of which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part.
+Flowers will bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The
+old gentleman had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a
+year, that he might leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep
+a place in her memory during her whole life. In his will, the wording
+of which was very touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or
+five hundred francs that came of her little capital exclusively on her
+dress. When the justice of the peace applied the seals to the effects
+of his old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had
+allowed no one to enter, a quantity of toys, many of them broken,
+while all had been used,--toys of a past generation, reverently
+preserved, which Monsieur Bongrand was, according to the captain's
+last wishes, to burn with his own hands.
+
+About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind
+and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another,
+needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a
+knowledge of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew
+into the pious and mystical young girl whose character rose above all
+vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then
+began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the
+young girl full of faith,--long unsuspected by her who incited it,
+--the result of which had now stirred the whole town, and was destined
+to have great influence on Ursula's future by rousing against her the
+antagonism of the doctor's heirs.
+
+During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her
+mornings at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe's secret
+hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him.
+The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own
+daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor; he could not
+fail to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul
+of a child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing
+both flowers and fruit, always fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful
+life is more powerful than the strongest argument. It is impossible to
+resist the charms of certain sights. The doctor's eyes were wet, he
+knew not how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for
+the church, wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin;
+her hair bound with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white
+ribbon, and rippling upon her shoulders; her eyes lighted by the star
+of a first hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and
+loving her godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When
+the doctor perceived that the thought of immortality was nourishing
+that spirit (until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun
+gives life to the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he
+remained at home alone.
+
+Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as
+she left him: "Why won't you come, godfather? how can I be happy
+without you?" Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the
+Encyclopedist did not as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction
+from which he could see the procession of communicants, and
+distinguish his little Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her
+veil. She gave him an inspired look, which knocked, in the stony
+regions of his heart, on the corner closed to God. But still the old
+deist held firm. He said to himself: "Mummeries! if there be a maker
+of worlds, imagine the organizer of infinitude concerning himself with
+such trifles!" He laughed as he continued his walk along the heights
+which look down upon the road to the Gatinais, where the bells were
+ringing a joyous peal that told of the joy of families.
+
+The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever
+invented. Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose
+organs and nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise
+and the exclamations she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old
+Jordy while living, and the doctor always waited till their child was
+in bed before they began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors
+came early when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on
+when she returned; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and
+took her seat at the window with her work. She had a repugnance to the
+game, which is really in the beginning very hard and unconquerable to
+some minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost
+impossible to take it up in after life.
+
+The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon
+where her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board
+before him.
+
+"Whose throw shall it be?" she asked.
+
+"Ursula," said the doctor, "isn't it a sin to make fun of your
+godfather the day of your first communion?"
+
+"I am not making fun of you," she said, sitting down. "I want to give
+you some pleasure--you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in
+backgammon, and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong
+enough to beat you--you shall not deprive yourself any longer for me.
+I have conquered all difficulties, and now I like the noise of the
+game."
+
+Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next
+day Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to
+Paris for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher,
+and submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to
+him. One of poor Jordy's predictions was fulfilled,--the girl became
+an excellent musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately
+sent to Paris for a master, an old German named Schmucke, a
+distinguished professor who came once a week; the doctor willingly
+paying for an art which he had formerly declared to be useless in a
+household. Unbelievers do not like music--a celestial language,
+developed by Catholicism, which has taken the names of the seven notes
+from one of the church hymns; every note being the first syllable of
+the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint John.
+
+The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula's first communion
+though keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which
+prayer and the exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had
+not their due influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or
+repentance himself, he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own
+benefactions without hope of a celestial harvest, he thought himself
+on a nobler plane than religious men whom he always accused for
+making, as he called it, terms with God.
+
+"But," the abbe would say to him, "if all men would be so, you must
+admit that society would be regenerated; there would be no more
+misery. To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great
+philosopher; you rise to your principles through reason, you are a
+social exception; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us
+benevolent in ours. With you, it is an effort; with us, it comes
+naturally."
+
+"In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,--that's the whole of
+it."
+
+However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did
+not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor
+in providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent
+creature, the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula's
+artless consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed
+and sad he felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute
+devotion has a horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas
+which it does not share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling's
+reasonings as he would her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest
+of voices with the purest and most fervent feeling. Believers and
+unbelievers speak different languages and cannot understand each
+other. The young girl pleading God's cause was unreasonable with the
+old man, as a spoilt child sometimes maltreats its mother. The abbe
+rebuked her gently, telling her that God had power to humiliate proud
+spirits. Ursula replied that David had overcome Goliath.
+
+This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life,
+so peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive
+eyes of the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time
+the modest and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as
+she left the church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her
+music, the pleasures of her godfather, and all the little cares she
+was able to give him (for she had eased La Bougival's labors by doing
+everything for him),--these things filled the hours, the days, the
+months of her calm life. Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had
+felt uneasy about his Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost
+care. Sagacious and profoundly practical observer that he was, he
+thought he perceived some commotion in her moral being. He watched her
+like a mother, but seeing no one about her who was worthy of inspiring
+love, his uneasiness on the subject at length passed away.
+
+At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins,
+the doctor's intellectual life was invaded by one of those events
+which plough to the very depths of a man's convictions and turn them
+over. But this event needs a succinct narrative of certain
+circumstances in his medical career, which will give, perhaps, fresh
+interest to the story.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VI
+
+                      A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+
+Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as
+widely by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck.
+After re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense
+the clarion of the world.
+
+"If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved," said Hahnemann, recently.
+
+"Go to France," said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, "and if they
+laugh at your bumps you will be famous."
+
+Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific
+France was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before
+judgment was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body,
+Mesmer's so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and
+his theory. But let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately,
+compromised his splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims.
+Mesmer was defeated by the doubtfulness of facts, by universal
+ignorance of the part played in nature by imponderable fluids then
+unobserved, and by his own inability to study on all sides a science
+possessing a triple front. Magnetism has many applications; in
+Mesmer's hands it was, in its relation to the future, merely what
+cause is to effect. But, if the discoverer lacked genius, it is a sad
+thing both for France and for human reason to have to say that a
+science contemporaneous with civilization, cultivated by Egypt and
+Chaldea, by Greece and India, met in Paris in the eighteenth century
+the fate that Truth in the person of Galileo found in the sixteenth;
+and that magnetism was rejected and cast out by the combined attacks
+of science and religion, alarmed for their own positions. Magnetism,
+the favorite science of Jesus Christ and one of the divine powers
+which he gave to his disciples, was no better apprehended by the
+Church than by the disciples of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire, Locke, and
+Condillac. The Encyclopedists and the clergy were equally averse to
+the old human power which they took to be new. The miracles of the
+convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and smothered by the
+indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious writings of
+the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to make
+experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ certain
+inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward agents.
+But to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids
+intangible, invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the
+science of that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern
+philosophy there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles
+away! To materialists especially the world is full, all things hang
+together, are linked, related, organized. "The world as the result of
+chance," said Diderot, "is more explicable than God. The multiplicity
+of causes, the incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance,
+explain creation. Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if
+you allow me time and space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters,
+arrive at last at the Eneid combination."
+
+Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil
+before the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of
+imponderable forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the
+immense progress which natural science is now making under the great
+principle of unity due to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent
+persons, without any system, convinced by facts conscientiously
+studied, still hold to Mesmer's doctrine, which recognizes the
+existence of a penetrative influence acting from man to man, put in
+motion by the will, curative by the abundance of the fluid, the
+working of which is in fact a duel between two forces, between an ill
+to be cured and the will to cure it.
+
+The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were
+revealed by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to
+their discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and
+scoffers. Among the small number of believers were a few physicians.
+They were persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The
+respectable body of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of
+religious warfare against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their
+hatred as it was possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance.
+The orthodox physician refused to consult with those who adopted the
+Mesmerian heresy. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The
+miseries and sorrows of the Revolution had not quenched the scientific
+hatred. It is only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate
+in that way. The official robe is terrible! But ideas are even more
+implacable than things.
+
+Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret's friends, believed in the new faith,
+and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which
+he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief
+"betes noires" of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter
+of the Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer's
+assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled
+with his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His
+conduct to Bouvard must have caused him the only remorse which
+troubled the serenity of his declining years. Since his retirement to
+Nemours the science of imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for
+magnetism, which, by the nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to
+light and electricity) had made immense progress, in spite of the
+ridicule of Parisian scientists. Phrenology and physiognomy, the
+departments of Gall and Lavater (which are in fact twins, for one is
+to the other as cause is to effect), proved to the minds of more than
+one physiologist the existence of an intangible fluid which is the
+basis of the phenomena of the human will, and from which result
+passions, habits, the shape of faces and of skulls. Magnetic facts,
+the miracles of somnambulism, those of divination and ecstasy, which
+open a way to the spiritual world, were fast accumulating. The strange
+tale of the apparitions of the farmer Martin, so clearly proved, and
+his interview with Louis XVIII.; a knowledge of the intercourse of
+Swedenborg with the departed, carefully investigated in Germany; the
+tales of Walter Scott on the effects of "second sight"; the
+extraordinary faculties of some fortune-tellers, who practice as a
+single science chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope; the facts of
+catalepsy, and those of the action of certain morbid affections on the
+properties of the diaphragm,--all such phenomena, curious, to say the
+least, each emanating from the same source, were now undermining many
+scepticisms and leading even the most indifferent minds to the plane
+of experiments. Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of this
+movement of minds, strong in the north of Europe but still weak in
+France where, however, many facts called marvelous by superficial
+observers, were happening, but falling, alas! like stones to the
+bottom of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian excitements.
+
+At the bottom of the present year the doctor's tranquillity was shaken
+by the following letter:--
+
+
+My old comrade,--All friendship, even if lost, as rights which it
+is difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I
+remember far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel
+of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+
+At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my
+heart to prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the
+most important of the sciences--if indeed all science is not _one_.
+I can overcome your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to
+your curiosity the happiness of taking you once more by the hand
+--as in the days before Mesmer.         Always yours,
+
+Bouvard.
+
+
+Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and
+left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near
+Saint-Sulpice. Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written
+"To-morrow; nine o'clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption."
+
+Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He
+went to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the
+world were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a
+school, if the four faculties any longer existed. The doctors
+reassured him, declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as
+strong as ever, only, instead of persecuting as heretofore, the
+Academies of Medicine and of Sciences rang with laughter as they
+classed magnetic facts with the tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco,
+with jugglery and prestidigitation and all that now went by the name
+of "amusing physics."
+
+This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the
+appointment made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four
+years the two antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue
+Saint-Honore. Frenchmen have too many distractions of mind to hate
+each other long. In Paris especially, politics, literature, and
+science render life so vast that every man can find new worlds to
+conquer where all pretensions may live at ease. Hatred requires too
+many forces fully armed. None but public bodies can keep alive the
+sentiment. Robespierre and Danton would have fallen into each other's
+arms at the end of forty-four years. However, the two doctors each
+withheld his hand and did not offer it. Bouvard spoke first:--
+
+"You seem wonderfully well."
+
+"Yes, I am--and you?" said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now
+broken.
+
+"As you see."
+
+"Does magnetism prevent people from dying?" asked Minoret in a joking
+tone, but without sharpness.
+
+"No, but it almost prevented me from living."
+
+"Then you are not rich?" exclaimed Minoret.
+
+"Pooh!" said Bouvard.
+
+"But I am!" cried the other.
+
+"It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come," replied
+Bouvard.
+
+"Oh! you obstinate fellow!" said Minoret.
+
+The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy
+staircase to the fourth floor.
+
+At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic
+forces in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown (who
+still lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate
+diseases, suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly,
+but he was also able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable
+phenomena of somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The
+countenance of this mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to
+God alone and to communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles
+that of a lion; concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His
+features, singularly contorted, have a terrible and even blasting
+aspect. His voice, which comes from the depths of his being, seems
+charged with some magnetic fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every
+pore. Disgusted by the ingratitude of the public after his many cures,
+he has now returned to an impenetrable solitude, a voluntary
+nothingness. His all-powerful hand, which has restored a dying
+daughter to her mother, fathers to their grief-stricken children,
+adored mistresses to lovers frenzied with love, cured the sick given
+over by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the dying when life
+became impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in synagogues,
+temples, and churches from the lips of priests recalled to the one God
+by the same miracle,--that sovereign hand, a sun of life dazzling the
+closed eyes of the somnambulist, has never been raised again even to
+save the heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his past
+mercies as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and
+lives for heaven.
+
+But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man,
+whose generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons
+to witness his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and
+could easily be revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then
+on the verge of the grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last
+enabled to witness the startling phenomena of a science he had long
+treasured in his heart. The sacrifices of the old man touched the
+heart of the mysterious stranger, who accorded him certain privileges.
+As Bouvard now went up the staircase he listened to the twittings of
+his old antagonist with malicious delight, answering only, "You shall
+see, you shall see!" with the emphatic little nods of a man who is
+sure of his facts.
+
+The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than
+modest. Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon
+where he left Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but
+Bouvard returned at once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw
+the mysterious Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair.
+The woman did not rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the
+two old men.
+
+"What! no tub?" cried Minoret, smiling.
+
+"Nothing but the power of God," answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+
+The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain
+and the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who
+thought he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to
+question his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently
+to be taking time to examine him.
+
+"You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur," he said at last.
+"It is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my
+conviction, emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use
+of it, it would be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope,
+Monsieur Bouvard tells me, of changing the opinions of one who has
+opposed us, of enlightening a scientific man whose mind is candid; I
+have therefore determined to satisfy you. That woman whom you see
+there," he continued, pointing to her, "is now in a somnambulic sleep.
+The statements and manifestations of somnambulists declare that this
+state is a delightful other life, during which the inner being, freed
+from the trammels laid upon the exercise of our faculties by the
+visible world, moves in a world which we mistakenly term invisible.
+Sight and hearing are then exercised in a manner far more perfect than
+any we know of here, possibly without the help of the organs we now
+employ, which are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight and
+hearing. To a person in that state, distance and material obstacles do
+not exist, or they can be traversed by a life within us for which our
+body is a mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail
+to describe effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the
+words imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid
+whose action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its
+heat, which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and
+certainly electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things
+themselves instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments."
+
+"She sleeps," said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+belong to an inferior class.
+
+"Her body is for the time being in abeyance," said the Swedenborgian.
+"Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will
+prove to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind
+when there does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will
+send her wherever you wish to go,--a hundred miles from here or to
+China, as you will. She will tell you what is happening there."
+
+"Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do,"
+said Minoret.
+
+He took Minoret's hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for
+a moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took
+that of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the
+doctor in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside
+this oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the
+absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus
+united by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its
+effects, was very simply done.
+
+"Obey him," said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the
+head of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life
+from him, "and remember that what you do for him will please me.--You
+can now speak to her," he added, addressing Minoret.
+
+"Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois," said the doctor.
+
+"Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what
+she tells you that she is where you wish her to be," said Bouvard to
+his old friend.
+
+"I see a river," said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look
+within herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed
+eyelids. "I see a pretty garden--"
+
+"Why do you enter by the river and the garden?" said Minoret.
+
+"Because they are there."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of."
+
+"What is the garden like?" said Minoret.
+
+"Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right,
+a long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular
+building,--there are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the
+left, the wall is covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia
+jessamine. In the middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots.
+Your child is looking at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse--she
+is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The
+nurse is raking the path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the
+beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn--"
+
+"Love for whom?" asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened
+to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all
+jugglery.
+
+"You know nothing--though you have lately been uneasy about her
+health," answered the woman. "Her heart has followed the dictates of
+nature."
+
+"A woman of the people to talk like this!" cried the doctor.
+
+"In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary
+perception," said Bouvard.
+
+"But who is it that Ursula loves?"
+
+"Ursula does not know that she loves," said the woman with a shake of
+the head; "she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is
+occupied by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought;
+but she returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.--She is at the
+piano--"
+
+"But who is he?"
+
+"The son of a lady who lives opposite."
+
+"Madame de Portenduere?"
+
+"Portenduere, did you say?" replied the sleeper. "Perhaps so. But
+there's no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Have they spoken to each other?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He
+is, in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her
+window; they see each other in church. But the young man no longer
+thinks of her."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named
+Savinien; she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say;
+she has looked in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot
+against it,--child's play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much
+strength as purity; she is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye
+her soul and fill it that she will reject all other sentiments."
+
+"Where do you see that?"
+
+"In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father
+and her mother suffered much."
+
+The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than
+surprised. It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman
+paused for several minutes, during which time her attention became
+more and more concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a
+singular aspect; an inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear
+or cloud by some mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had
+seen in dying persons at moments when they appeared to have the gift
+of prophecy. Several times she made gestures which resembled those of
+Ursula.
+
+"Question her," said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, "she will
+tell you secrets you alone can know."
+
+"Does Ursula love me?" asked Minoret.
+
+"Almost as much as she loves God," was the answer. "But she is very
+unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause
+of her only sorrow.--Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a
+better musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is
+thinking, 'If I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his
+ear when he is with his mother.'"
+
+Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+
+"Tell me what seeds she planted?"
+
+"Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--"
+
+"And what else?"
+
+"Larkspur."
+
+"Where is my money?"
+
+"With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of
+a single day."
+
+"Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?"
+
+"You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled 'Pandects of
+Justinian, Vol. II.' between the last two leaves; the book is on the
+shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them.
+Your money is in the last volume next to the salon-- See! Vol. III. is
+before Vol. II.--but you have no money, it is all in--"
+
+"--thousand-franc notes," said the doctor.
+
+"I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five
+hundred francs."
+
+"You see them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How do they look?"
+
+"One is old and yellow, the other white and new."
+
+This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at
+Bouvard with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who
+were accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together
+in a low voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to
+allow him to return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to
+compose his mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast
+power to some new test, to subject it to more decisive experiments and
+obtain answers to certain questions, the truth of which should do away
+with every sort of doubt.
+
+"Be here at nine o'clock this evening," said the stranger. "I will
+return to meet you."
+
+Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room
+without bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind.
+"Well, what do you say? what do you say?"
+
+"I think I am mad, Bouvard," answered Minoret from the steps of the
+porte-cochere. "If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,--and none
+but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,--I shall
+say that _you are right_. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this
+minute and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at
+ten o'clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?"
+
+"What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease
+healed in a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in
+torrents from an herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?"
+
+"Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o'clock. I must find
+some decisive, undeniable test!"
+
+"So be it, old comrade," answered the other.
+
+The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas
+which were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:--
+
+"If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of
+traversing space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she
+sees and hears what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all
+other magnetic facts; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her
+for some one proof which you know will satisfy you--for you might
+suppose that we obtained information to deceive you; but we cannot
+know, for instance, what will happen at nine o'clock in your
+goddaughter's bedroom. Remember, or write down, what the sleeper will
+see and hear, and then go home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not
+know, is not our accomplice, and if she tells you that she has said
+and done what you have written down--lower thy head, proud Hun!"
+
+The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and
+found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize
+Doctor Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand
+of the Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little
+distance, and she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen
+her. When her hand and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked
+her to tell him what was happening in his house at Nemours at that
+instant. "What is Ursula doing?" he said.
+
+"She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on
+her prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet
+background."
+
+"What is she saying?"
+
+"Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores
+him to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience
+and recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she
+has failed to obey his commands and those of the church--poor dear
+little soul, she lays bare her breast!" Tears were in the sleeper's
+eyes. "She has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too
+much of Savinien. She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she
+prays to God to make him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying
+aloud."
+
+"Tell me her words." Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe
+Chaperon.
+
+  "My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will--O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us."
+
+The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the
+inspired manner of his child that Doctor Minoret's eyes were filled
+with tears.
+
+"Does she say more?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Repeat it."
+
+"'My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.'
+She has blown out the light--her head is on the pillow--she turns to
+sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap."
+
+Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d'Alger.
+There he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who
+seemed to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and
+started. According to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at
+Essonne, but arrived at Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to
+Nemours, on which he secured a seat, and dismissed his coachman. He
+reached home at five in the morning, and went to bed, with his
+life-long ideas of physiology, nature, and metaphysics in ruins about
+him, and slept till nine o'clock, so wearied was he with the events of
+his journey.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VII
+
+                       A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+
+On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of
+his house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the
+Pandect volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La
+Bougival.
+
+"Tell Ursula to come and speak to me," he said, seating himself in the
+center of his library.
+
+The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her
+on his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls
+with the white hair of her old friend.
+
+"Do you want something, godfather?"
+
+"Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+evasion, the questions that I shall put to you."
+
+Ursula colored to the temples.
+
+"Oh! I'll ask nothing that you cannot speak of," he said, noticing how
+the bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of
+the girl's blue eyes.
+
+"Ask me, godfather."
+
+"What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last
+evening, and what time was it when you said them."
+
+"It was a quarter-past or half-past nine."
+
+"Well, repeat your last prayer."
+
+The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic;
+she slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+said:--
+
+"What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I
+shall ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it."
+
+Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful
+expression. To her great astonishment her godfather took the last
+words from her mouth and finished the prayer.
+
+"Good, Ursula," said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. "When
+you laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to
+yourself, 'That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon
+with him in Paris'?"
+
+Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She
+gave a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with
+awful fixity.
+
+"Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?" she asked,
+imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with
+the devil.
+
+"What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?"
+
+"Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--"
+
+"And the last were larkspur?"
+
+She fell on her knees.
+
+"Do not terrify me!" she exclaimed. "Oh you must have been here--you
+were here, were you not?"
+
+"Am I not always with you?" replied the doctor, evading her question,
+to save the strain on the young girl's mind. "Let us go to your room."
+
+"Your legs are trembling," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am confounded, as it were."
+
+"Can it be that you believe in God?" she cried, with artless joy,
+letting fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+
+The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had
+given to his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very
+inexpensive, which she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were
+hung with a gray paper strewn with roses and green leaves; at the
+windows, which looked to the court, were calico curtains edged with a
+band of some pink material; between the windows and beneath a tall
+mirror was a pier-table topped with marble, on which stood a Sevres
+vase in which she put her nosegays; opposite the chimney was a little
+bureau-desk of charming marquetry. The bed, of chintz, with chintz
+curtains lined with pink, was one of those duchess beds so common in
+the eighteenth century, which had a tuft of carved feathers at the top
+of each of the four posts, which were fluted on the sides. An old
+clock, inclosed in a sort of monument made of tortoise-shell inlaid
+with arabesques of ivory, decorated the mantelpiece, the marble shelf
+of which, with the candlesticks and the mirror in a frame painted in
+cameo on a gray ground, presented a remarkable harmony of color, tone,
+and style. A large wardrobe, the doors of which were inlaid with
+landscapes in different woods (some having a green tint which are no
+longer to be found for sale) contained, no doubt, her linen and her
+dresses. The air of the room was redolent of heaven. The precise
+arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a feeling for
+harmony, which would certainly have influenced any one, even a
+Minoret-Levrault. It was plain that the things about her were dear to
+Ursula, and that she loved a room which contained, as it were, her
+childhood and the whole of her girlish life.
+
+Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for his
+visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those of
+Madame de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to the
+course he ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this
+dawning passion. To question her now would commit him to some course.
+He must either approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his
+position would be a false one. He therefore resolved to watch and
+examine into the state of things between the two young people, and
+learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was
+irresistible. None but an old man could have shown such deliberate
+wisdom. Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these
+magnetic facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little
+things around the room; he wished to examine the almanac which was
+hanging at a corner of the chimney-piece.
+
+"These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands," he said,
+taking up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with
+leather.
+
+He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took
+it, saying, "This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in
+your pretty room?"
+
+"Oh, please let me have it, godfather."
+
+"No, no, you shall have another to-morrow."
+
+So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had
+told him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another
+before his own saint's day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint
+John, the abbe's patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin's head,
+had been seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other
+obstacles! The old man thought till evening of these events, more
+momentous for him than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence.
+A strong wall, as it were, crumbled within him; for his life had
+rested on two bases,--indifference in matters of religion and a firm
+disbelief in magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses
+--faculties purely physical, organs, the effects of which could be
+explained--attained to some of the attributes of the infinite,
+magnetism upset, or at least it seemed to him to upset, the powerful
+arguments of Spinoza. The finite and the infinite, two incompatible
+elements according to that remarkable man, were here united, the one
+in the other. No matter what power he gave to the divisibility and
+mobility of matter he could not help recognizing that it possessed
+qualities that were almost divine.
+
+He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac,
+was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism
+staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic
+child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula's side. In the
+dismantled fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center
+of these ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate
+old scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would
+not decide, he struggled on against God.
+
+But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation. He
+became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet's sublime
+"History of Species"; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine; he
+determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late
+Saint-Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The
+edifice within him was cracking on all sides; it needed but one more
+shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall
+into the celestial vineyard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening,
+when playing with the abbe, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put
+questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest,
+who was ignorant of the inward workings by which God was remaking that
+fine conscience.
+
+"Do you believe in apparitions?" asked the sceptic of the pastor,
+stopping short in the game.
+
+"Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+some," replied the abbe.
+
+"I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you
+think that dead men can return to the living."
+
+"Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death," said the abbe.
+"The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As
+for miracles, they are not lacking," he continued, smiling. "Shall I
+tell you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century."
+
+"Pooh!" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from Rome,
+knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father
+expired; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted
+bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff
+and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who
+brought the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours
+later."
+
+"Jesuit!" exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, "I did not ask you for
+proofs; I asked you if you believed in apparitions."
+
+"I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it," said the
+abbe, still fencing with his sceptic.
+
+"My friend," said the doctor, seriously, "I am not setting a trap for
+you. What do you really believe about it?"
+
+"I believe that the power of God is infinite," replied the abbe.
+
+"When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+appear to you," said the doctor, smiling.
+
+"That's exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend," answered
+the priest.
+
+"Ursula," said Minoret, "if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I
+will come."
+
+"You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of 'Neere' by
+Andre Chenier," said the abbe. "Poets are sublime because they clothe
+both facts and feelings with ever-living images."
+
+"Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?" said Ursula in a
+grieved tone. "We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of
+our souls."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, smiling, "we must go out of the world, and
+when I am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune."
+
+"When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will
+be to consecrate my life to you."
+
+"To me, dead?"
+
+"Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to
+redeem your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy,
+that he may not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will
+summon among the righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours."
+
+That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute
+certainty, confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God
+converted Saul. A ray of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of
+this tenderness, covering his years to come, brought tears to his
+eyes. This sudden effect of grace had something that seemed electrical
+about it. The abbe clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his
+seat. The girl, astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up
+as if a voice had called him, looking into space as though his eyes
+beheld the dawn; then he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his
+hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground as one humiliated.
+
+"My God," he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, "if any one
+can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless
+creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child
+presents to thee!"
+
+He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe
+and held out his hand.
+
+"My dear pastor," he said, "I am become as a little child. I belong to
+you; I give my soul to your care."
+
+Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man
+took her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe,
+deeply moved, recited the "Veni Creator" in a species of religious
+ecstasy. The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians
+kneeling together for the first time.
+
+"What has happened?" asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+
+"My godfather believes in God at last!" replied Ursula.
+
+"Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect,"
+cried the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+
+"Dear doctor," said the good priest, "you will soon comprehend the
+grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find its
+philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest
+sceptics."
+
+The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to
+catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the
+conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation,
+was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for
+fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart,
+though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a
+surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula's
+evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after
+day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that
+succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the
+responsible editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His
+dear child told him that he might know by how far he had advanced
+already in God's kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him
+attend, he had read the prayers and applied his own intelligence to
+them; from the first, he had risen to the divine idea of the communion
+of the faithful. The old neophyte understood the eternal symbol
+attached to that sacred nourishment, which faith renders needful to
+the soul after conveying to it her own profound and radiant essence.
+When on leaving the church he had seemed in a hurry to get home, it
+was merely that he might once more thank his dear child for having led
+him to "enter religion,"--the beautiful expression of former days. He
+was holding her on his knee in the salon and kissing her forehead
+sacredly at the very moment when his relatives were degrading that
+saintly influence with their shameless fears, and casting their vulgar
+insults upon Ursula. His haste to return home, his assumed disdain for
+their company, his sharp replies as he left the church were naturally
+attributed by all the heirs to the hatred Ursula had excited against
+them in the old man's mind.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER VIII
+
+                           THE CONFERENCE
+
+While Ursula was playing variations on Weber's "Last Thought" to her
+godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults' dining-room
+which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this
+drama. The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and
+enlivened by excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either
+from Burgundy or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent
+for oysters, salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do
+honor to Desire's return. The dining-room, in the center of which a
+round table offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an
+inn. Content with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had
+built a pavilion for the family between the vast courtyard and a
+garden planted with vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything
+about the premises was solid and plain. The example of
+Levrault-Levrault had been a warning to the town. Zelie forbade her
+builder to lead her into such follies. The dining-room was, therefore,
+hung with varnished paper and furnished with walnut chairs and
+sideboards, a porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a barometer. Though
+the plates and dishes were of common white china, the table shone with
+handsome linen and abundant silverware. After Zelie had served the
+coffee, coming and going herself like shot in a decanter,--for she kept
+but one servant, --and when Desire, the budding lawyer, had been told
+of the event of the morning and its probably consequences, the door was
+closed, and the notary Dionis was called upon to speak. By the silence
+in the room and the looks that were cast on that authoritative face, it
+was easy to see the power that such men exercise over families.
+
+"My dear children," said he, "your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+folly, and that little--"
+
+"Viper!" cried Madame Massin.
+
+"Hussy!" said Zelie.
+
+"Let us call her by her own name," said Dionis.
+
+"Well, she's a thief," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"A pretty thief," remarked Desire.
+
+"That little Ursula," went on Dionis, "has managed to get hold of his
+heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait
+until now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have
+discovered about that young--"
+
+"Marauder," said the collector.
+
+"Inveigler," said the clerk of the court.
+
+"Hold your tongue, friends," said the notary, "or I'll take my hat and
+be off."
+
+"Come, come, papa," cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum
+and offering it to the notary; "here, drink this, it comes from Rome
+itself; and now go on."
+
+"Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet; but
+her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle's
+father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the
+doctor might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if he
+leaves her his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against
+Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court
+took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the
+doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring
+about a compromise--"
+
+"The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children," said the
+newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, "that by the
+judgment of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child
+can claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a
+maintenance. So you see the illegitimate parentage is made
+retrospective. The law pursues the natural child even to its
+legitimate descent, on the ground that benefactions done to
+grandchildren reach the natural son through that medium. This is shown
+by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil Code. The royal court of
+Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of last year, cut off a
+legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural son by his
+grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural grandson
+as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula."
+
+"All that," said Goupil, "seems to me to relate only to the bequests
+made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood
+relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court
+at Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which
+declared that after the decease of a natural child his descendants
+could no longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula's father is
+dead."
+
+Goupil's argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+legislative assemblies are wont to call "profound sensation."
+
+"What does that signify?" cried Dionis. "The actual case of the
+bequest of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been
+presented for trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law
+against such children will be all the more firmly applied because we
+live in times when religion is honored. I'll answer for it that out of
+such a suit as I propose you could get a compromise,--especially if
+they see you are determined to carry Ursula to a court of appeals."
+
+Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made
+manifest in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and
+prevented all notice of Goupil's dissent. This elation, however, was
+succeeded by deep silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his
+next word, a terrible "But!"
+
+As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned
+on him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+
+"_But_ no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula," he
+continued. "As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would, I
+think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle
+with questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is true
+the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly
+surgeon to the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst
+of it. Moreover, you would have due warning in case of adoption--but
+how about marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and
+marry her after a year's domicile, and give her a million by the
+marriage contract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts your
+property in danger is your uncle's marriage with the girl."
+
+Here the notary paused.
+
+"There's another danger," said Goupil, with a knowing air,--"that of a
+will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula--"
+
+"If you tease your uncle," continued Dionis, cutting short his
+head-clerk, "if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will
+drive him into either a marriage or into making that private trust
+which Goupil speaks of,--though I don't think him capable of that; it
+is a dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire
+there has only got to hold out a finger to the girl; she's sure to
+prefer a handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old
+one."
+
+"Mother," said Desire to Zelie's ear, as much allured by the millions
+as by Ursula's beauty, "If I married her we should get the whole
+property."
+
+"Are you crazy?--you, who'll some day have fifty thousand francs a
+year and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your
+throat by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed!
+Why, the mayor's only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and
+they have already proposed her to me--"
+
+This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+extinguished in Desire's breast all desire for a marriage with the
+beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+
+"Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis," cried Cremiere, whose wife had
+been nudging him, "if the good man took the thing seriously and
+married his goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the
+property, good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer
+uncle may be worth a million."
+
+"Never!" cried Zelie, "never in my life shall Desire marry the
+daughter of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity.
+My son will represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and
+the Minorets have five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them.
+That's equal to the nobility. Don't be uneasy, any of you; Desire will
+marry when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies."
+
+This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:--
+
+"Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will
+be president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office
+leads to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him."
+
+The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence
+for the notary.
+
+"Your uncle is a worthy man," continued Dionis. "He believes he's
+immortal; and, like most clever men, he'll let death overtake him
+before he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to
+invest his capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to
+disinherit you, and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That
+little Portenduere is in Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and
+some odd thousand francs' worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in
+prison; she is crying like a Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her;
+no doubt she wants to talk to him about her troubles. Well, I'll go
+and see your uncle to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent
+consols, which are now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the
+security of her farm at Bordieres and her house here, enough to pay
+the debts of the prodigal son. I have a right as notary to speak to
+him in behalf of young Portenduere; and it is quite natural that I
+should wish to make him change his investments; I get deeds and
+commissions out of the business. If I become his adviser I'll propose
+to him other land investments for his surplus capital; I have some
+excellent ones now in my office. If his fortune were once invested in
+landed estate or in mortgage notes in this neighbourhood, it could not
+take wings to itself very easily. It is easy to make difficulties
+between the wish to realize and the realization."
+
+The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than
+that of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+
+"You must be careful," said the notary in conclusion, "to keep your
+uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch
+him. Find him a lover for the girl and you'll prevent his marrying her
+himself."
+
+"Suppose she married the lover?" said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+desire.
+
+"That wouldn't be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the
+old man would have to say how much he gives her," replied the notary.
+"But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till
+the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade."
+
+"The shortest way," said Goupil, "if the doctor is likely to live much
+longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out
+of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a
+hundred thousand francs in hand."
+
+Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+
+"He'd be a worm at the core," whispered Zelie to Massin.
+
+"How did he get here?" returned the clerk.
+
+"That will just suit you!" cried Desire to Goupil. "But do you think
+you can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?"
+
+"In these days," whispered Zelie again in Massin's year, "notaries
+look out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to
+Ursula just to get the old man's business?"
+
+"I am sure of him," said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look
+out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, "because I
+hold something over him," but he withheld the words.
+
+"I am quite of Dionis's opinion," he said aloud.
+
+"So am I," cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with
+the clerk.
+
+"My wife has voted!" said the post master, sipping his brandy, though
+his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a
+notable quantity of liquids.
+
+"And very properly," remarked the collector.
+
+"I shall go and see the doctor after dinner," said Dionis.
+
+"If Monsieur Dionis's advice is good," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, "we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do,
+every Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told
+us."
+
+"Yes, and be received as he received us!" cried Zelie. "Minoret and I
+have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don't know how to write
+prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell
+him that!"
+
+"As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year," said Madame
+Massin, rather piqued, "I don't want to lose ten thousand."
+
+"We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+shall see how things are going," said Madame Cremiere; "you'll thank
+us some day, cousin."
+
+"Treat Ursula kindly," said the notary, lifting his right forefinger
+to the level of his lips; "remember old Jordy left her his savings."
+
+"You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in
+Paris, could have done," said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+post-house.
+
+"And now they are quarreling over my fee," replied the notary, smiling
+bitterly.
+
+The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+Portenduere on his arm.
+
+"She dragged him to vespers, see!" cried Madame Massin to Madame
+Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the
+church.
+
+"Let us go and speak to him," said Madame Cremiere, approaching the
+old man.
+
+The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference)
+did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this
+sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to
+stop and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with
+exaggerated affection and forced smiles.
+
+"Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?" said Madame
+Cremiere. "We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a
+long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls
+are old enough now to make dear Ursula's acquaintance."
+
+"Ursula is a little bear, like her name," replied the doctor.
+
+"Let us tame her," said Madame Massin. "And besides, uncle," added the
+good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of
+economy, "they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte
+that we are very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are
+inclined to take her music-master for our children. If there were six
+or eight scholars in a class it would bring the price of his lessons
+within our means."
+
+"Certainly," said the old man, "and it will be all the better for me
+because I want to give Ursula a singing-master."
+
+"Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to
+see you; he is now a lawyer."
+
+"Yes, to-night," echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of
+these petty souls.
+
+The two nieces pressed Ursula's hand, saying, with affected eagerness,
+"Au revoir."
+
+"Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!" cried Ursula, giving him a
+grateful look.
+
+"You are going to have a voice," he said; "and I shall give you
+masters of drawing and Italian also. A woman," added the doctor,
+looking at Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, "ought to be
+educated to the height of every position in which her marriage may
+place her."
+
+Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather's thoughts evidently turned
+in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near
+confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to
+think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon
+him, she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of
+climbing plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a
+distance like a blue and white flower.
+
+"Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes,
+they were very kind," she repeated as he approached her, to change the
+thoughts that made him pensive.
+
+"Poor little girl!" cried the old man.
+
+He laid Ursula's hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to
+the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+
+"Why do you say, 'Poor little girl'?"
+
+"Don't you see how they fear you?"
+
+"Fear me,--why?"
+
+"My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of
+their inheritance to enrich you."
+
+"But you won't do that?" said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+
+"Oh, divine consolation of my old age!" said the doctor, taking his
+godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. "It was for her
+and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me
+live until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!
+--You will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets
+and Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to
+brighten and prolong my life; they are longing for my death."
+
+"God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is-- Ah! I despise them!"
+exclaimed Ursula.
+
+"Dinner is ready!" called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER IX
+
+                         A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+
+Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty
+dining-room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer
+(the folly of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The
+doctor offered him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of
+his coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted,
+ground, and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+
+"Well," said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the
+old man, "the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put
+your relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the
+priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and they are
+bestirring themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the
+square; they were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs."
+
+"What did I tell you, Ursula?" cried the doctor. "At the risk of
+grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you
+on your guard against undeserved enmity."
+
+"I should like to say a word to you on this subject," said Bongrand,
+seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula's future.
+
+The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of
+peace wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked
+up and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula
+what her godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis's
+opinion as to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of
+Ursula; for Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that
+the matter had been much discussed among the lawyers of the little
+town. Bongrand considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor
+Minoret, but he felt that the whole spirit of legislation was against
+the foisting into families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of
+the Code had foreseen only the weakness of fathers and mothers for
+their natural children, without considering that uncles and aunts
+might have a like tenderness and a desire to provide for such
+children. Evidently there was a gap in the law.
+
+"In all other countries," he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the
+heirs, "Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child,
+and the disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance
+from Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy
+is unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the
+spirit of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show
+that this hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the
+legislators, who did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they
+established a principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive.
+Zelie would carry it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive
+when the case was tried."
+
+"The best of cases is often worthless," cried the doctor. "Here's the
+question the lawyers will put, 'To what degree of relationship ought
+the disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to
+extend?' and the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad
+cause."
+
+"Faith!" said Bongrand, "I dare not take upon myself to affirm that
+the judges wouldn't interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society."
+
+Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the
+surest means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, "Poor
+little girl! I might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!"
+
+"Well, what will you do, then?" asked Bongrand.
+
+"We'll think about it--I'll see," said the old man, evidently at a
+loss for a reply.
+
+Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to
+the doctor.
+
+"Already!" cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. "Yes," he said to
+Ursula, "send him here."
+
+"I'll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the
+advance-guard of your heirs," said Bongrand. "They breakfasted
+together at the post house, and something is being engineered."
+
+The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis
+asked for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the
+salon.
+
+The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+remarkable. The latter deny them the "lesser" powers while recognizing
+their possession of the "higher." It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of
+business believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty
+details which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts
+of science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are
+mistaken! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued by
+the doctor's silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula's interests
+which he thought endangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs.
+He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old
+man and Dionis.
+
+"No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be," he thought as he
+looked at her, "there is a point on which young girls do make their
+own law and their own morality. I'll test here. The Minoret-Levraults,"
+he began, settling his spectacles, "might possibly ask you in marriage
+for their son."
+
+The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+moment's inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to
+the glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She
+begged Monsieur Bongrand's pardon for leaving him alone in the salon,
+but he smiled at her and said, "Go! go!"
+
+Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at
+the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging
+the blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the
+end of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an
+answer which reached the pagoda where she was.
+
+"My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real
+estate or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know
+exactly what they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell
+you, my good sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably
+made. My heirs will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish
+them to know that, and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to
+interfere with what I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing
+to Ursula) I shall come back from the other world and torment him. So,
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on
+me to get him out. I shall not sell my property in the Funds."
+
+Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the
+first and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her
+head against the blind to steady herself.
+
+"Good God, what is the matter with her?" thought the old doctor. "She
+has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her."
+
+He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+
+"Adieu, Monsieur," he said to the notary, "please leave us."
+
+He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his
+study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made
+her inhale it.
+
+"Take my place," said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; "I
+must be alone with her."
+
+The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him,
+but without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+
+"I don't know," replied Dionis. "She was standing by the pagoda,
+listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend
+some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for
+debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur
+Bongrand to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love
+him? Is there anything between them?"
+
+"At fifteen years of age? pooh!" replied Bongrand.
+
+"She was born in February, 1813; she'll be sixteen in four months."
+
+"I don't believe she ever saw him," said the judge. "No, it is only a
+nervous attack."
+
+"Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notary.
+
+Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the
+marriage "in extremis" which they dreaded,--the only sure means by
+which the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other
+hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought
+of marrying his son to Ursula.
+
+"If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,"
+replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+infatuated with her noble blood."
+
+"Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres," replied the
+notary, on the point of betraying himself.
+
+Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that
+before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep
+regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling
+Ursula his daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a
+year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give
+Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would
+make! His Eugene was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had
+praised his Eugene too often, and that had made the doctor
+distrustful.
+
+"I shall have to come down to the mayor's daughter," he thought.
+"But Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle
+Levrault-Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is
+to manoeuvre the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really
+loves him."
+
+The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the
+garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the
+river.
+
+"What ails you, my child?" he said. "Your life is my life. Without
+your smiles what would become of me?"
+
+"Savinien in prison!" she said.
+
+With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+sob.
+
+"Saved!" thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great
+anxiety. "Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife," he
+thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart,
+applying his ear to it. "Ah, that's all right," he said to himself. "I
+did not know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet," he added,
+looking at her; "but think out loud to me as you think to yourself;
+tell me all that has passed between you."
+
+"I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other,"
+she answered, sobbing. "But to hear that he is in prison, and to know
+that you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!"
+
+"Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you
+put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put
+one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your
+little love-affair."
+
+Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was
+silence between them.
+
+"Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother,
+doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has
+been."
+
+"No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last
+May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child,
+and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except
+perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother's
+fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I
+had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the
+windows in Monsieur Savinien's room open; and Monsieur Savinien was
+there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements
+there was such grace--I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed
+his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his
+white throat--so round!--must I tell you all? I noticed that his
+throat and face and that beautiful black hair were all so different
+from yours when I watch you arranging your beard. There came--I don't
+know how--a sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my
+head; it came so violently that I sat down--I couldn't stand, I
+trembled so. But I longed to see him again, and presently I got up; he
+saw me then, and, just for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of
+his fingers and--"
+
+"And?"
+
+"And then," she continued, "I hid myself--I was ashamed, but happy
+--why should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling--it dazzled my
+soul and gave it some power, but I don't know what--it came again each
+time I saw within me the same young face. I loved this feeling,
+violent as it was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me
+look at Monsieur Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his
+clothes, even the tap of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so
+charming. The least little thing about him--his hand with the delicate
+glove--acted like a spell upon me; and yet I had strength enough not
+to think of him during mass. When the service was over I stayed in the
+church to let Madame de Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind
+him. I couldn't tell you how these little things excited me. When I
+reached home, I turned round to fasten the iron gate--"
+
+"Where was La Bougival?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Oh, I let her go to the kitchen," said Ursula simply. "Then I saw
+Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh!
+godfather, I was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of
+surprise and admiration--I don't know what I would not do to make him
+look at me again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of
+nothing forevermore but pleasing him. That glance is now the best
+reward I have for any good I do. From that moment I have thought of
+him incessantly, in spite of myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to
+Paris that evening, and I have not seen him since. The street seems
+empty; he took my heart away with him--but he does not know it."
+
+"Is that all?" asked the old man.
+
+"All, dear godfather," she said, with a sigh of regret that there was
+not more to tell.
+
+"My little girl," said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are
+nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between
+your blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love,
+which will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous
+system of exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child,
+is love," said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,
+--"love in its holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary,
+sudden, coming like a thief who takes all--yes, all! I expected it. I
+have studied women; many need proofs and miracles of affection before
+love conquers them; but others there are, under the influence of
+sympathies explainable to-day by magnetic fluids, who are possessed by
+it in an instant. To you I can now tell all--as soon as I saw the
+charming woman whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her
+forever, solely and faithfully, without knowing whether our characters
+or persons suited each other. Is there a second-sight in love? What
+answer can I give to that, I who have seen so many unions formed under
+celestial auspices only to be ruptured later, giving rise to hatreds
+that are well-nigh eternal, to repugnances that are unconquerable. The
+senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some
+persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is
+also true; often minds agree and persons displease. These phenomena,
+the varying and secret cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws
+which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their children;
+for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these
+hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel,
+the rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon
+your heart and upon your mind, the happiness with which you think of
+Savinien, are all natural. But, my darling child, society demands, as
+our good abbe has told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations.
+The destinies of men and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula
+Mirouet for my wife; I could go to her and say that I loved her; but a
+young girl is false to herself if she asks the love of the man she
+loves. A woman has not the right which men have to seek the
+accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is to her--above all
+to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which protects the
+secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me these first
+emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than admit to
+Savinien--"
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said.
+
+"But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+must forget them."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even
+if Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you--"
+
+"I never thought of it."
+
+"But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to give
+him your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had
+subjected him to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been
+such as to make families distrust him and to put obstacles between
+himself and heiresses which cannot be easily overcome."
+
+A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula's sweet face as she
+said, "Then poverty is good sometimes."
+
+The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+
+"What has he done, godfather?" she asked.
+
+"In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up
+in Saint-Pelagie, the debtor's prison; an impropriety which will
+always be, in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is
+willing to plunge his poor mother into poverty and distress might
+cause his wife, as your poor father did, to die of despair."
+
+"Don't you think he will do better?" she asked.
+
+"If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don't know a
+worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means."
+
+This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:--
+
+"If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you
+a right to advise him; you can remonstrate--"
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, imitating her, "and then he can come here, and
+the old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and--"
+
+"I was thinking only of him," said Ursula, blushing.
+
+"Don't think of him, my child; it would be folly," said the doctor
+gravely. "Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to
+the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with
+whom?--with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment,
+without money, and whose father--alas! I must now tell you all--was
+the bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law."
+
+"O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I
+will not think of him again--except in my prayers," she said, amid the
+sobs which this painful revelation excited. "Give him what you meant
+to give me--what can a poor girl like me want?--ah, in prison, he!--"
+
+"Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not
+dare to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply
+moved to see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks.
+The tears of old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+
+"Oh what is it?" cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and
+kissing his hands. "Are you not sure of me?"
+
+"I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to
+cause the first great sorrow of your life!" he said. "I suffer as much
+as you. I never wept before, except when I lost my children--and,
+Ursula-- Yes," he cried suddenly, "I will do all you desire!"
+
+Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning.
+She smiled.
+
+"Let us go into the salon, darling," said the doctor. "Try to keep the
+secret of all this to yourself," he added, leaving her alone for a
+moment in his study.
+
+He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he
+might say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER X
+
+                     THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+
+Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her
+frigid little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital
+of her troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her
+hand some letters which he had just returned to her after reading
+them; these letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on
+her sofa beside a square table covered with the remains of a dessert,
+the old lady was looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the
+table, doubled up in his armchair and stroking his chin with the
+gesture common to valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests,--a
+sign of profound meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+
+This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished
+with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed
+the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds
+it. The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady's one servant,
+required, for comfort's sake, before each seat small round mats of
+brown straw, on one of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The
+old damask curtains of light green with green flowers were drawn, and
+the outside blinds had been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table,
+leaving the rest of the room in semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say
+that between the two windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing
+the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the rival of the Suffren, Guichen,
+Kergarouet and Simeuse naval heroes? On the paneled wall opposite to
+the fireplace were portraits of the Vicomte de Portenduere and of the
+mother of the old lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien's great-uncle
+was therefore the Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the
+Comte de Portenduere, grandson of the admiral,--both of them very
+rich.
+
+The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de
+Portenduere at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count
+represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the
+younger. The count, who was over forty years of age and married to a
+rich wife, had three children. His fortune, increased by various
+legacies, amounted, it was said, to sixty thousand francs a year. As
+deputy from Isere he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought
+the hotel de Portenduere with the indemnities he obtained under the
+Villele law. The vice-admiral had recently married his niece by
+marriage, for the sole purpose of securing his money to her.
+
+The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy,
+young and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the
+influence of an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years
+of age, been a lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son
+should go into either naval or military service, had kept him at
+Nemours under the tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon's assistants,
+hoping that she could keep him near her until her death. She meant to
+marry him to a demoiselle d'Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve
+thousand francs a year; to whose hand the name of Portenduere and the
+farm at Bordieres enabled him to pretend. This narrow but judicious
+plan, which would have carried the family to a second generation, was
+already balked by events. The d'Aiglemonts were ruined, and one of the
+daughters, Helene, had disappeared, and the mystery of her
+disappearance was never solved.
+
+The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his
+mother, so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as
+they were, and swore that he would never live in the provinces
+--comprehending, rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the
+Rue des Bourgeois. At twenty-one years of age he left his mother's
+house to make acquaintance with his relations, and try his luck in
+Paris. The contrast between life in Paris and life in Nemours was
+likely to be fatal to a young man of twenty-one, free, with no one to
+say him nay, naturally eager for pleasure, and for whom his name and
+his connections opened the doors of all the salons. Quite convinced
+that his mother had the savings of many years in her strong-box,
+Savinien soon spent the six thousand francs which she had given him to
+see Paris. That sum did not defray his expenses for six months, and he
+soon owed double that sum to his hotel, his tailor, his boot maker, to
+the man from whom he hired his carriages and horses, to a jeweler,
+--in short, to all those traders and shopkeepers who contribute to the
+luxury of young men.
+
+He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to
+wear his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his
+cravat, before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand
+francs, while still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his
+love for the sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame
+de Serizy, whose youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+
+"How is that you all manage?" asked Savinien one day, at the end of a
+gay breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate
+as the young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all
+aiming for the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality.
+"You were no richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you
+contrive to maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but
+debts."
+
+"We all began that way," answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh
+was echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet,
+and others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+
+"Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an
+exception," said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming
+intimate with these young men. "Any one but he," added Finot bowing to
+that personage, "would have been ruined by it."
+
+"A true remark," said Maxime de Trailles.
+
+"And a true idea," added Rastignac.
+
+"My dear fellow," said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; "debts are the
+capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors
+for all branches, who don't teach you anything, costs sixty thousand
+francs. If the education of the world does cost double, at least it
+teaches you to understand life, politics, men,--and sometimes women."
+
+Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: "The
+world sells dearly what we think it gives."
+
+Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest
+pilots of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a
+joke.
+
+"Take care, my dear fellow," said de Marsay one day. "You have a great
+name; if you don't obtain the fortune that name requires you'll end
+your days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. 'We have seen the fall
+of nobler heads,'" he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he
+took Savinien's arm. "About six years ago," he continued, "a young
+Comte d'Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the
+paradise of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket.
+He rose to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town,
+where he is now expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a
+game of whist at two sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your
+situation, candidly, without shame; she will understand it and be very
+useful to you. Whereas, if you play the charade of first love with her
+she will pose as a Raffaelle Madonna, practice all the little games of
+innocence upon you, and take you journeying at enormous cost through
+the Land of Sentiment."
+
+Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to
+which she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs,
+which was all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close
+of the first year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot
+of Madame de Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as
+the saying is, forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient
+of borrowing. One of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his
+cousin the Comte de Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to
+Gobseck or Gigonnet or Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother's
+means, would give him an easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help
+of renewals enabled him to lead a happy life for nearly eighteen
+months. Without daring to leave Madame de Serizy the poor boy had
+fallen madly in love with the beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet, a
+prude after the fashion of young women who are awaiting the death of
+an old husband and making capital of their virtue in the interests of
+a second marriage. Quite incapable of understanding that calculating
+virtue is invulnerable, Savinien paid court to Emilie de Kergarouet in
+all the splendor of a rich man. He never missed either ball or theater
+at which she was present.
+
+"You haven't powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock," said de
+Marsay, laughing.
+
+That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely
+wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of
+a prison were needed to convince Savinien.
+
+A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the
+money-lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the
+young man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default
+of one hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge
+of his friends, to the debtor's prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as
+the fact was known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to
+see him, and each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when
+they found how really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him
+had been seized except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The
+three young men (who brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed
+Savinien's situation while drinking de Marsay's wine, ostensibly to
+arrange for his future but really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+
+"When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere," cried Rastignac, "and
+has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to
+be put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay
+there, my good fellow."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" cried de Marsay. "You could have had my
+traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction
+for Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we
+could have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what
+ass ever led you to drink of that cursed spring."
+
+"Des Lupeaulx."
+
+The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought
+and suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+
+"Explain all your resources; show us your hand," said de Marsay.
+
+When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and
+the little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without
+other grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when
+he had valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish
+cement, and put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies
+looked at each other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of
+the abbe in Alfred de Musset's "Marrons du feu" (which had then just
+appeared),--"Sad!"
+
+"Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter," said Rastignac.
+
+"Yes, but afterwards?" cried de Marsay.
+
+"If you had merely been put in the fiacre," said Lucien, "the
+government would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie
+isn't the antechamber of an embassy."
+
+"You are not strong enough for Parisian life," said Rastignac.
+
+"Let us consider the matter," said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as
+a jockey examines a horse. "You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a
+white forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache
+which suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you've a foot that
+tells race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but
+solid. You are what I call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of
+the style Louis XII., hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have
+the thing that pleases women, a something, I don't know what it is,
+which men take no account of themselves; it is in the air, the manner,
+the tone of the voice, the dart of the eye, the gesture,--in short, in
+a number of little things which women see and to which they attach a
+meaning which escapes us. You don't know your merits, my dear fellow.
+Take a certain tone and style and in six months you'll captivate an
+English-woman with a hundred thousand pounds; but you must call
+yourself viscount, a title which belongs to you. My charming
+step-mother, Lady Dudley, who has not her equal for matching two hearts,
+will find you some such woman in the fens of Great Britain. What you
+must now do is to get the payment of your debts postponed for ninety
+days. Why didn't you tell us about them? The money-lenders at Baden
+would have spared you--served you perhaps; but now, after you have
+once been in prison, they'll despise you. A money-lender is, like
+society, like the masses, down on his knees before the man who is
+strong enough to trick him, and pitiless to the lambs. To the eyes of
+some persons Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the souls of
+young men. Do you want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I told
+that little d'Esgrignon: 'Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep
+enough to live on for three years, and marry some girl in the
+provinces who can bring you an income of thirty thousand francs.' In
+the course of three years you can surely find some virtuous heiress
+who is willing to call herself Madame la Vicomtesse de Portenduere.
+Such is virtue,--let's drink to it. I give you a toast: 'The girl with
+money!"
+
+The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to
+each other: "He's not strong enough!" "He's quite crushed." "I don't
+believe he'll pull through it?"
+
+The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two
+pages. Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote
+first to her son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the
+Comte de Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+
+The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was
+holding in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her
+appeal, which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her
+heart.
+
+
+Paris, September, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+Madame,--You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I
+both feel in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de
+Kergarouet grieves me all the more because our house was a home to
+your son; we were proud of him. If Savinien had had more
+confidence in the admiral we could have taken him to live with us,
+and he would already have obtained some good situation. But,
+unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of his own
+accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing of his
+pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because
+Savinien has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the
+authorities to arrest him.
+
+If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed
+our relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him
+to travel in Germany while his affairs were being settled here.
+Monsieur de Kergarouet intended to get him a place in the War
+office; but this imprisonment for debt will paralyze such efforts.
+You must pay his debts; let him enter the navy; he will make his
+way like the true Portenduere that he is; he has the fire of the
+family in his beautiful black eyes, and we will all help him.
+
+Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom
+I beg you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our
+best wishes, with the respects of
+
+Your very affectionate servant,
+Emilie de Kergarouet.
+
+
+The second letter was as follows:--
+
+
+Portenduere, August, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+My dear aunt,--I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien's
+pranks. As I am married and the father of two sons and one
+daughter, my fortune, already too small for my position and
+prospects, cannot be lessened to ransom a Portenduere from the
+hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his debts, and come and
+live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive the welcome we owe
+you, even though our views may not be entirely in accordance with
+yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to marry
+Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in
+this part of the country, where there are a number of rich girls
+who would be delighted to enter our family.
+
+My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give
+us, and I beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this
+plan, together with my affectionate respects.
+
+Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+
+
+"What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!" cried the old Breton lady,
+wiping her eyes.
+
+"The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison," said the Abbe
+Chaperon at last; "the countess alone read your letter, and has
+answered it for him. But you must decide at once on some course," he
+added after a pause, "and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do
+not sell your farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four
+years; in a few months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs
+and get a premium for double that amount. Borrow what you need of some
+honest man,--not from the townspeople who make a business of
+mortgages. Your neighbour here is a most worthy man; a man of good
+society, who knew it as it was before the Revolution, who was once an
+atheist, and is now an earnest Catholic. Do not let your feelings
+debar you from going to his house this very evening; he will fully
+understand the step you take; forget for a moment that you are a
+Kergarouet."
+
+"Never!" said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+
+"Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will
+lend you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three
+per cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased
+with him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,--for he
+will have to go there to sell out his funds,--and he can bring the lad
+back to you."
+
+"Are you speaking of that little Minoret?"
+
+"That little Minoret is eighty-three years old," said the abbe,
+smiling. "My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don't
+wound him,--he might be useful to you in other ways."
+
+"What ways?"
+
+"He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl--"
+
+"Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?"
+
+The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant
+words, the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he
+was about to make.
+
+"I think Doctor Minoret is very rich," he said.
+
+"So much the better for him."
+
+"You have indirectly caused your son's misfortunes by refusing to give
+him a profession; beware for the future," said the abbe sternly. "Am I
+to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming?"
+
+"Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?" she replied.
+
+"Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he
+comes to you you will pay him five," said the abbe, inventing this
+reason to influence the old lady. "And if you are forced to sell your
+farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse to
+lend you the money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you
+would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the
+Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your
+farm and know that your son is in prison."
+
+"They know it! oh, do they know it?" she exclaimed, throwing up her
+arms. "There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold!
+Tiennette, Tiennette!"
+
+Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short
+gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe's coffee to
+warm it.
+
+"Let be, Monsieur le recteur," she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+drink it, "I'll just put it into the bain-marie, it won't spoil it."
+
+"Well," said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+voice, "I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will
+come--"
+
+The old mother did not yield till after an hour's discussion, during
+which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times.
+And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used
+the words, "Savinien would go."
+
+"It is better that I should go than he," she said.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XI
+
+                           SAVINIEN SAVED
+
+The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large
+door of Madame de Portenduere's house closed on the abbe, who
+immediately crossed the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor's
+gate. He fell from Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, "Why
+do you come so late, Monsieur l'abbe?" as the other had said, "Why do
+you leave Madame so early when she is in trouble?"
+
+The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown
+salon; for Dionis had stopped at Massin's on his way home to re-assure
+the heirs by repeating their uncle's words.
+
+"I believe Ursula has a love-affair," said he, "which will be nothing
+but pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic" (extreme sensibility
+is so called by notaries), "and, you'll see, she won't marry soon.
+Therefore, don't show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and
+very respectful to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,"
+added the notary--without being aware that Goupil is a corruption of
+the word vulpes, a fox.
+
+So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master
+and Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an
+unusual and noisy party in the doctor's salon. As the abbe entered he
+heard the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata
+of Beethoven's. With girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music,
+which must be studied to be understood, for the purpose of disgusting
+these women with the thing they coveted. The finer the music the less
+ignorant persons like it. So, when the door opened and the abbe's
+venerable head appeared they all cried out: "Ah! here's Monsieur
+l'abbe!" in a tone of relief, delighted to jump up and put an end to
+their torture.
+
+The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the
+Nemours doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with
+which the collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had
+proposed to take the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The
+doctor rose as if to receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the
+game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful
+proficiency of his goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+
+"Good-night, my friends," cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+
+"Ah! that's where the money goes," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, as they walked on.
+
+"God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+such a din as that!" cried Madame Massin.
+
+"She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician," said
+the collector; "he has quite a reputation."
+
+"Not in Nemours, I'm sure of that," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away," said
+Massin; "for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+music-book."
+
+"If that's the sort of charivari they like," said the post master,
+"they are quite right to keep it to themselves."
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful
+racket," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"I shall never be able to play before persons who don't understand
+music," Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+
+"In natures richly organized," said the abbe, "sentiments can be
+developed only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable
+to give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a
+chestnut-tree dies in a clay soil, so a musician's genius has a mental
+eclipse when he is surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we
+must receive from the souls who make the environment of our souls as
+much intensity as we convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human
+mind, has been made into proverbs: 'Howl with the wolves'; 'Like meets
+like.' But the suffering you felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender
+natures only."
+
+"And so, friends," said the doctor, "a thing which would merely give
+pain to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here,
+I charge you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,--'Ut
+flos,' etc.,--a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished
+flower and the world."
+
+"And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula," said Monsieur Bongrand,
+smiling.
+
+"Flattered her grossly," remarked the Nemours doctor.
+
+"I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is," said old
+Minoret. "Why is that?"
+
+"A true thought has its own delicacy," said the abbe.
+
+"Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?" asked Ursula, with a look
+of anxious curiosity.
+
+"Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may
+come to see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret."
+
+Ursula pressed her godfather's hand under the table.
+
+"Her son," said Bongrand, "was rather too simple-minded to live in
+Paris without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made
+here about the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting
+her death."
+
+"Is it possible you think him capable of it?" said Ursula, with such a
+terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather
+sadly, "Alas! yes, she loves him."
+
+"Yes and no," said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula's question.
+"There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now
+in prison; a scamp wouldn't have got there."
+
+"Don't let us talk about it any more," said old Minoret. "The poor
+mother must not be allowed to weep if there's a way to dry her tears."
+
+The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the
+gate, saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and
+as soon as Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with
+La Bougival beside her.
+
+"Madame la vicomtesse," said the abbe, who entered first into the
+little salon, "Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you
+should have the trouble of coming to him--"
+
+"I am too much of the old school, madame," interrupted the doctor,
+"not to know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very
+glad to be able, as Monsieur l'abbe tells me, to be of service to
+you."
+
+Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so
+much that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the
+notary instead, was surprised by Minoret's attention to such a degree
+that she rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+
+"Be seated, monsieur," she said with a regal air. "Our dear abbe has
+told you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful
+debts,--a hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him
+I would secure you on my farm at Bordieres."
+
+"We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to
+you--if you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter."
+
+"Very good, monsieur," she said, bowing her head and looking at the
+abbe as if to say, "You were right; he really is a man of good
+society."
+
+"You see, madame," said the abbe, "that my friend the doctor is full
+of devotion to your family."
+
+"We shall be grateful, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduere, making a
+visible effort; "a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a
+prodigal, is--"
+
+"Madame, I had the honor to meet, in '65, the illustrious Admiral de
+Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes,
+and also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to
+question him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur
+de Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the
+glorious days of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of
+Great Britain, and its officers had their full quota of courage. With
+what impatience we awaited in '83 and '84 the news from St. Roch. I
+came very near serving as surgeon in the king's service. Your
+great-uncle, who is still living, Admiral Kergarouet, fought his
+splendid battle at that time in the 'Belle-Poule.'"
+
+"Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!"
+
+"He would not leave him there a day," said old Minoret, rising.
+
+He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed
+him to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left
+the room; but returned immediately to say:--
+
+"My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+to-morrow?"
+
+The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his
+friend, who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces
+of the old lady.
+
+"He is an astonishing man for his age," she said. "He talks of going
+to Paris and attending to my son's affairs as if he were only
+twenty-five. He has certainly seen good society."
+
+"The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of
+France would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if
+that idea should come into Savinien's head!--times are so changed that
+the objections would not come from your side, especially after his
+late conduct--"
+
+The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled
+him to finish it.
+
+"You have lost your senses," she said at last.
+
+"Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+future in a manner to win that old man's respect."
+
+"If it were not you, Monsieur l'abbe," said Madame de Portenduere, "if
+it were any one else who spoke to me in that way--"
+
+"You would not see him again," said the abbe, smiling. "Let us hope
+that your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in
+these days as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien's good; as
+you really have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in
+the way of his making himself another position."
+
+"And it is you who say that to me?"
+
+"If I did not say it to you, who would?" cried the abbe rising and
+making a hasty retreat.
+
+As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the
+whole coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still
+open.
+
+The next day at half-past six o'clock the old man and the young girl
+reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a
+fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel
+between the press and the court was not made up. Minoret's notary now
+indirectly approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took
+advantage of his journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his
+shares in the Funds, all of which were then at a high value,
+depositing the proceeds in the Bank of France. The notary also advised
+his client to sell the stocks left to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He
+promised to employ an extremely clever broker to treat with Savinien's
+creditors; but said that in order to succeed it would be necessary for
+the young man to stay several days longer in prison.
+
+"Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+cent," said the notary. "Besides, you can't get your money under seven
+or eight days."
+
+When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week
+longer in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only
+once. Old Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel
+in the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very
+suitable apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his
+goddaughter he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at
+other times he took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards;
+but nothing seemed to amuse or interest her.
+
+"What do you want to do?" asked the old man.
+
+"See Saint-Pelagie," she answered obstinately.
+
+Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef,
+where the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent
+then transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls,
+with every window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter
+without stooping (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in
+a quarter full of wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets
+like a supreme misery,--this assemblage of dismal things so oppressed
+Ursula's heart that she burst into tears.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "to imprison young men in this dreadful place for
+money! How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not?
+_He_ there!" she cried. "Where, godfather?" she added, looking from
+window to window.
+
+"Ursula," said the old man, "you are making me commit great follies.
+This is not forgetting him as you promised."
+
+"But," she argued, "if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel
+an interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all."
+
+"Ah!" cried the doctor, "there is so much reason in your
+unreasonableness that I am sorry I brought you."
+
+Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the
+legal papers ready for Savinien's release. The payings, including the
+notaries' fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went
+himself to see Savinien released on Saturday at two o'clock. The young
+viscount, already informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked
+his liberator with sincere warmth of heart.
+
+"You must return at once to see your mother," the old doctor said to
+him.
+
+Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted
+certain debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his
+friends.
+
+"I suspected there was some personal debt," cried the doctor, smiling.
+"Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid
+out only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend
+it, monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the
+green cloth of fortune."
+
+During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated
+hard work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of
+day. Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his
+time and required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere,
+which his mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in
+Paris. His cousin the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor
+figure in the Elective Chamber in presence of the peerage and the
+court; and had none too much credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet
+existed only as the husband of his wife. Savinien admitted to himself
+that he had seen orators, men from the middle classes, or lesser
+noblemen, become influential personages. Money was the pivot, the sole
+means, the only mechanism of a society which Louis XVIII. had tried to
+create in the likeness of that of England.
+
+On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs
+the young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which
+were certainly in keeping with de Marsay's advice) to the old doctor.
+
+"I ought," he said, "to go into oblivion for three or four years and
+seek a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions
+of the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady
+who could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence
+and in obscurity."
+
+Studying the young fellow's face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself.
+He therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+
+"My friend," he said, "if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+(which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner, to
+find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and
+possessing from seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make
+you happy and of whom you will have every reason to be proud,--one
+whose only nobility is that of the heart!"
+
+"Ah, doctor!" cried the young man, "there is no longer a nobility in
+these days,--nothing but an aristocracy."
+
+"Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me," said the old man.
+
+That evening, at six o'clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien,
+who once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss
+which invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely
+forgotten the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover,
+his hopeless love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing
+a thought on a few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He
+did not recognize her when the doctor handed her into the coach and
+then sat down beside her to separate her from the young viscount.
+
+"I have some bills to give you," said the doctor to the young man. "I
+have brought all your papers and documents."
+
+"I came very near not getting off," said Savinien, "for I had to order
+linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+prodigal."
+
+However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the
+young man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain
+remarks of the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after
+dusk, her green veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+
+"Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much," said
+Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+
+"I am glad to return to Nemours," she answered in a trembling voice
+raising her veil.
+
+Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the
+heavy braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+
+"I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that
+I meet my charming neighbour again," he said; "I hope, Monsieur le
+docteur that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I
+remember to have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula's piano."
+
+"I do not know," replied the doctor gravely, "whether your mother
+would approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care
+for this dear child with all the solicitude of a mother."
+
+This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great.
+Savinien and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was
+full of projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap,
+dropped upon her uncle's shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn,
+Savinien awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally
+caused by the jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half
+off; the hair, unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed
+from the heat of the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to
+whom dress is a necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The
+sleep of innocence is always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the
+pretty teeth; the shawl, unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds
+of her muslin gown and without offence to her modesty, the
+gracefulness of her figure. The purity of the virgin spirit shone on
+the sleeping countenance all the more plainly because no other
+expression was there to interfere with it. Old Minoret, who presently
+woke up, placed his child's head in the corner of the carriage that
+she might be more at ease; and she let him do it unconsciously, so
+deep was her sleep after the many wakeful nights she had spent in
+thinking of Savinien's trouble.
+
+"Poor little girl!" said the doctor to his neighbour, "she sleeps like
+the child she is."
+
+"You must be proud of her," replied Savinien; "for she seems as good
+as she is beautiful."
+
+"Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she
+were my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God
+grant that I may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make
+her happy. I wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was
+for the first time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden
+it. 'But,' I said, 'when you are married your husband will want you to
+go there.' 'I shall do what my husband wants,' she answered. 'If he
+asks me to do evil and I am weak enough to yield, he will be
+responsible before God--and so I shall have strength to refuse him,
+for his own sake.'"
+
+As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of
+admiration which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had
+taken the diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had
+fallen in love with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her
+soul, the beauty of that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy
+of the features; he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered
+but one expressive sentence, in which the poor child said all,
+intending to say nothing. A presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold
+of him; he saw in Ursula the woman the doctor had pictured to him,
+framed in gold by the magic words, "Seven or eight hundred thousand
+francs."
+
+"In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be
+twenty-seven," he thought. "The good doctor talked of probation, work,
+good conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth."
+
+The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave
+Ursula a parting glance.
+
+Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor
+and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass.
+Savinien's release and his return in company with the doctor had
+explained the reason of the latter's absence to the newsmongers of the
+town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on
+the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor
+attended his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups,
+Madame de Portenduere, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who
+offered her his arm and took her home. The old lady asked him to
+dinner that evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the
+abbe would be the only other guest.
+
+"He must have wished Ursula to see Paris," said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+"Pest!" cried Cremiere; "he can't take a step without that girl!"
+
+"Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,"
+said Massin.
+
+"So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+released that little Savinien?" cried Goupil. "He refused Dionis, but
+he didn't refuse Madame de Portenduere-- Ha, ha! you are all done for.
+The viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage,
+and the doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the
+sum he has now paid to secure the alliance."
+
+"It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien," said the butcher.
+"The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette
+came early for a filet."
+
+"Well, Dionis, here's a fine to-do!" said Massin, rushing up to the
+notary, who was entering the square.
+
+"What is? It's all going right," returned the notary. "Your uncle has
+sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness
+the signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand
+francs, lent to her by your uncle."
+
+"Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?"
+
+"That's as if you said Goupil was to be my successor."
+
+"The two things are not so impossible," said Goupil.
+
+On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform
+her son that she wished to see him.
+
+The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame
+de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a large
+dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little
+antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other
+room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on
+the street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving
+room for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the
+court. Madame de Portenduere's bedroom, the gloomiest in the house,
+also looked into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the
+salon on the ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the
+kitchen built at the end of the court, so that this salon was made to
+answer the double purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+
+The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had
+left it on the day of his death; there was no change except that he
+was absent. Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying
+upon it the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and
+hat. The gold snuff-box from which her late husband had taken snuff
+for the last time was on the table, with his prayer-book, his watch,
+and the cup from which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one
+curled lock and framed, hung above a crucifix and the holy water in
+the alcove. All the little ornaments he had worn, his journals, his
+furniture, his Dutch spittoon, his spy-glass hanging by the mantel,
+were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of the clock at the
+hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room still smelt
+of the powder and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was as he
+left it. To her, entering there, he was again visible in the many
+articles which told of his daily habits. His tall cane with its gold
+head was where he had last placed it, with his buckskin gloves close
+by. On a table against the wall stood a gold vase, of coarse
+workmanship but worth three thousand francs, a gift from Havana, which
+city, at the time of the American War of Independence, he had
+protected from an attack by the British, bringing his convoy safe into
+port after an engagement with superior forces. To recompense this
+service the King of Spain had made him a knight of his order; the same
+event gave him a right to the next promotion to the rank of
+vice-admiral, and he also received the red ribbing. He then married his
+wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred thousand francs. But the
+Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduere
+emigrated.
+
+"Where is my mother?" said Savinien to Tiennette.
+
+"She is waiting for you in your father's room," said the old Breton
+woman.
+
+Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother's rigid
+principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility,
+and he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart
+beating and his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered
+through the blinds he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air
+of solemnity in keeping with that funereal room.
+
+"Monsieur le vicomte," she said when she saw him, rising and taking
+his hand to lead him to his father's bed, "there died your father,--a
+man of honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His
+spirit is there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son
+degraded by imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain
+could have been spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and
+shutting you up for a few days in a military prison.--But you are
+here; you stand before your father, who hears you. You know all that
+you did before you were sent to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to
+me before your father's shade, and in presence of God who sees all,
+that you have done no dishonorable act; that your debts are the result
+of youthful folly, and that your honor is untarnished? If your
+blameless father were there, sitting in that armchair, and asking an
+explanation of your conduct, could he embrace you after having heard
+it?"
+
+"Yes, mother," replied the young man, with grave respect.
+
+She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few
+tears.
+
+"Let us forget it all, my son," she said; "it is only a little less
+money. I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy
+of your name, kiss me--for I have suffered much."
+
+"I swear, mother," he said, laying his hand upon the bed, "to give you
+no further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair
+these first faults."
+
+"Come and breakfast, my child," she said, turning to leave the room.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XII
+
+                      OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+
+In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs
+something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics.
+Moreover, the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all
+that relates to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment,
+closely allied to the very existence of civilized societies and
+springing from the spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna
+and in Nemours, where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her
+consent to a possible marriage of her son with the daughter of a
+bastard. Still, all social laws have their exceptions. Savinien
+thought he might bend his mother's pride before the inborn nobility of
+Ursula. The struggle began at once. As soon as they were seated at
+table his mother told him of the horrible letters, as she called them,
+which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres had written her.
+
+"There is no such thing as family in these days, mother," replied
+Savinien, "nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, 'What taxes does he pay?'"
+
+"But the king?" asked the old lady.
+
+"The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his
+wife and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without
+regard to family,--the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and
+is sufficiently well brought-up--that is to say, if she has been
+taught in school."
+
+"Oh! there's no need to talk of that," said the old lady.
+
+Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will,
+called Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he
+resolved to know at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+
+"So," he went on, "if I loved a young girl,--take for instance your
+neighbour's godchild, little Ursula,--would you oppose my marriage?"
+
+"Yes, as long as I live," she replied; "and after my death you would
+be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+Portendueres."
+
+"Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of
+nobility, which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of
+great wealth?"
+
+"You could serve France and put faith in God."
+
+"Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?"
+
+"It would be horrible if you took it then,--that is all I have to
+say."
+
+"Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu."
+
+"Mazarin himself opposed it."
+
+"Remember the widow Scarron."
+
+"She was a d'Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am
+very old, my son," she said, shaking her head. "When I am no more you
+can, as you say, marry whom you please."
+
+Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal to
+her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this
+opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value
+of a forbidden thing.
+
+When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink
+and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with
+nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen
+of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the
+doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in
+her eyes, and the old lady herself the social value which a duchess of
+the Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had
+Ursula measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated
+Vicomte de Portenduere from the daughter of a regimental musician, a
+former opera-singer and the natural son of an organist.
+
+"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady, making the girl sit
+down beside her.
+
+"Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me--"
+
+"My little girl," said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. "I
+know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to
+him, for he has brought back my prodigal son."
+
+"But, my dear mother," said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the
+color fly into Ursula's face as she struggled to keep back her tears,
+"even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier
+Minoret, I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure
+Mademoiselle has given us by accepting your invitation."
+
+The young man pressed the doctor's hand in a significant manner,
+adding: "I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the
+oldest order in France, and one which confers nobility."
+
+Ursula's extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a
+depth which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where
+the soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de
+Portenduere suddenly, and made her suspect that the doctor's apparent
+generosity masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to
+which Savinien replied with the intention of wounding the doctor in
+that which was dearest to him; and she succeeded, though the old man
+could hardly restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a
+"chevalier," amused to observe how the eagerness of a lover did not
+shrink from absurdity.
+
+"The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies
+to obtain," he said, "has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of
+other privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The
+kings have done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I
+believe, a poor devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point
+of view the order of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of
+us, symbolic."
+
+After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned,
+which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward,
+when there was a rap at the door.
+
+"There is our dear abbe," said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,--an honor she had not
+paid to the doctor and his niece.
+
+The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere's
+manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid it.
+He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was then
+running by confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de
+Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid
+all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old
+lady, in an easy, jesting way, a packet of legal papers and receipted
+bills, together with the account of his notary.
+
+"Has my son verified them?" she said, giving Savinien a look, to which
+he replied by bending his head. "Well, then the rest is my notary's
+business," she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair
+with the disdain she wished to show for money.
+
+To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere's ideas, to
+elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+
+A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for
+the accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+
+"Why do you want them?" said the old lady.
+
+"To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments."
+
+Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance
+with offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of
+touching a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both
+had the same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which
+has no name in any language, but which is capable of explanation as
+the action of the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian
+had spoken to Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil
+would in some way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble; but she
+controlled herself, conscious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that
+Savinien shared her emotion.
+
+"He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis," said Savinien,
+when Goupil had closed the door.
+
+"What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?" said
+Madame de Portenduere.
+
+"I don't complain of his ugliness," said the abbe, "but I do of his
+wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain."
+
+The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and
+dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the
+kindly good-humor of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the
+dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been
+almost intolerable. At dessert, seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to
+her:--
+
+"If you don't feel well, dear child, we have only the street to
+cross."
+
+"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady to the girl.
+
+"Madame," said the doctor severely, "her soul is chilled, accustomed
+as she is to be met by smiles."
+
+"A very bad education, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduere. "Is it
+not, Monsieur l'abbe?"
+
+"Yes," answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how to
+reply. "I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic
+spirit if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die
+until I place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and
+hatred--"
+
+"Oh, godfather--I beg of you--say no more. There is nothing the matter
+with me," cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere's eyes rather
+than give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+
+"I cannot know, madame," said Savinien to his mother, "whether
+Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me."
+
+Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his
+mother's treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de
+Portenduere to excuse her; then she took her uncle's arm, bowed, left
+the room, and returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and
+sat down to the piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into
+tears.
+
+"Why don't you leave the management of your affairs to my old
+experience, cruel child?" cried the doctor in despair. "Nobles never
+think themselves under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we do
+them a service they consider that we do our duty, and that's all.
+Besides, the old lady saw that you looked favorably on Savinien; she
+is afraid he will love you."
+
+"At any rate he is saved!" said Ursula. "But ah! to try to humiliate a
+man like you!"
+
+"Wait till I return, my child," said the old man leaving her.
+
+When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere's salon he found
+Dionis the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of
+Nemours, witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all
+communes where there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis
+aside and said a word in his ear, after which the notary read the
+deeds aloud officially; from which it appeared that Madame de
+Portenduere gave a mortgage on all her property to secure payment of
+the hundred thousand francs, the interest on which was fixed at five
+per cent. At the reading of this last clause the abbe looked at
+Minoret, who answered with an approving nod. The poor priest whispered
+something in the old lady's ear to which she replied,--
+
+"I will owe nothing to such persons."
+
+"My mother leaves me the nobler part," said Savinien to the doctor;
+"she will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude."
+
+"But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to
+meet the interest and the legal costs," said the abbe.
+
+"Monsieur," said Minoret to Dionis, "as Monsieur and Madame de
+Portenduere are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the
+amount of the mortgage and I will pay them."
+
+Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred
+and seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret
+made his fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the
+notary and witnesses.
+
+"Madame," said the abbe, "why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those
+debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your
+son for his debts of honor?"
+
+"Your Minoret is sly," she said, taking a pinch of snuff. "He knows
+what he is about."
+
+"My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by
+getting hold of our farm," said Savinien; "as if a Portenduere, son of
+a Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will."
+
+An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor's house, where
+all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of
+the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because
+its effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles
+Cremiere and Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who
+blushed. The mothers said to Desire that Goupil was right about the
+marriage. The eyes of all present turned towards the doctor, who did
+not rise to receive the young nobleman, but merely bowed his head
+without laying down the dice-box, for he was playing a game of
+backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The doctor's cold manner surprised
+every one.
+
+"Ursula, my child," he said, "give us a little music."
+
+While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her in
+countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations
+of pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on
+them, so eager were they to find out what was going on between their
+uncle and the Portendueres.
+
+In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when
+played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more
+impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all
+music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the
+performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both
+meaning and poetry to passages which are in themselves of no great
+value. Chopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the
+truth of this fact, already proved by Paganini on the violin. That
+fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt,
+and communicates itself through all species of music, even simple
+chords. Ursula, by her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged
+to this rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came
+every Saturday and who, during Ursula's stay in Paris was with her
+every day, had brought his pupil's talent to its full perfection.
+"Rousseau's Dream," the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Herold
+in his young days, is not without a certain depth which is capable of
+being developed by execution. Ursula threw into it the feelings which
+were agitating her being, and justified the term "caprice" given by
+Herold to the fragment. With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke to
+the young man's soul and wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that
+were almost visible.
+
+Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and
+his head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed
+on the paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning
+another world. Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less
+reason. Genuine feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was
+willing to show her soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired.
+Savinien entered that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart,
+which, to interpret its feelings, borrowed the power of the only art
+that speaks to thought by thought, without the help of words, or
+color, or form. Candor, openness of heart have the same power over a
+man that childhood has; the same charm, the same irresistible
+seductions. Ursula was never more honest and candid than at this
+moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+
+The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take
+a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed,
+all except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his
+uncle and the viscount and Ursula.
+
+"You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle," he said, when the
+young girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. "Who is
+your master?"
+
+"A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti," said
+the doctor. "If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her
+stay in Paris he would have been here to-day."
+
+"He is not only a great musician," said Ursula, "but a man of adorable
+simplicity of nature."
+
+"Those lessons must cost a great deal," remarked Desire.
+
+The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who
+had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the
+air of a man who fulfills a duty.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I am grateful for the feeling which leads you to
+make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right
+to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming
+here, in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I
+should otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother
+that if I do not beg her, in my niece's name and my own, to do us the
+honor of dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that
+she would find herself indisposed on that day."
+
+The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+respectfully, saying:--
+
+"You are quite right, monsieur."
+
+He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was
+more of sadness than disappointment.
+
+Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+house precipitately.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIII
+
+                        BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+
+This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk
+among the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis,
+and regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+
+So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality
+puts everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks,
+even military subordination,--that last refuge of power in France,
+where passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+antipathies, or differences of fortune,--the obstinacy of an
+old-fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created
+a barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles
+often do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent
+man a woman's value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a
+struggle, great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young
+girl was rendered dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps
+our feelings obey the laws of nature as to the lastingness of her
+creations; to a long life a long childhood.
+
+The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if
+it were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl
+parted her curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien's
+window, she saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When
+one reflects on the immense services that windows render to lovers it
+seems natural and right that a tax should be levied on them. Having
+thus protested against her godfather's harshness, Ursula dropped the
+curtain and opened her window to close the outer blinds, through which
+she could continue to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight
+times during the day she went up to her room, always to find the young
+viscount writing, tearing up what he had written, and then writing
+again--to her, no doubt!
+
+The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following
+letter:--
+
+
+To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+
+Mademoiselle,--I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young
+man inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which
+your godfather's kindness released me. I know that I must in
+future give greater guarantees of good conduct than other men;
+therefore, mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place
+myself at your feet and ask you to consider my love. This
+declaration is not dictated by passion; it comes from an inward
+certainty which involves the whole of life. A foolish infatuation
+for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was the cause of my going
+to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my sincere love the
+total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now effaced
+from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my
+soul as a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no
+other wife than you. You have every qualification I desire in her
+who is to bear my name. The education you have received and the
+dignity of your own mind, place you on the level of the highest
+positions. But I doubt myself too much to dare describe you to
+yourself; I can only love you. After listening to you yesterday I
+recalled certain words which seem as though written for you;
+suffer me to transcribe them:--
+
+"Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and
+intelligent, spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she
+had passed her life at court, simple as the hermit who had never
+known the world, the fire of her soul is tempered in her eyes by
+sacred modesty."
+
+I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even
+the most trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage
+to ask you, provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you
+by my conduct and my devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It
+concerns my very life; you cannot doubt that all my powers will be
+employed, not only in trying to please you, but in deserving your
+esteem, which is more precious to me than any other upon earth.
+With this hope, Ursula--if you will suffer me so to call you in my
+heart--Nemours will be to me a paradise, the hardest tasks will
+bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is derived from
+God. Tell me that I may call myself
+
+Your Savinien.
+
+
+Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her
+uncle.
+
+"Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!" she exclaimed,
+turning back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+
+A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda.
+Ursula awaited the old man's words, and the old man reflected long,
+too long for the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their
+secret interview appeared in the following answer, part of which the
+doctor undoubtedly dictated.
+
+
+To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+
+Monsieur,--I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the
+letter in which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and
+according to the rules of my education, I have felt bound to
+communicate it to my godfather, who is all I have, and whom I love
+as a father and also as a friend. I must now tell you the painful
+objections which he has made to me, and which must be to you my
+answer.
+
+Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends
+entirely, not only on my godfather's good-will, but also on the
+doubtful success of the measures he may take to elude the schemes
+of his relatives against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter
+of Joseph Mirouet, band-master of the 45th regiment of infantry,
+my father himself was my godfather's natural half-brother; and
+therefore these relatives may, though without reason, being a suit
+against a young girl who would be defenceless. You see, monsieur,
+that the smallness of my fortune is not my greatest misfortune. I
+have many things to make me humble. It is for your sake, and not
+for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which to loving and
+devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg you to
+consider, monsieur, that if I did not submit them to you, I might
+be suspected of leading your tenderness to overlook obstacles
+which the world, and more especially your mother, regard as
+insuperable.
+
+I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we
+are both too young and too inexperienced to understand the
+miseries of a life entered upon without other fortune than that I
+have received from the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My
+godfather desires, moreover, not to marry me until I am twenty.
+Who knows what fate may have in store for you in four years, the
+finest years of your life? do not sacrifice them to a poor girl.
+
+Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear
+godfather, who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to
+contribute to it in every way, and earnestly desires that his
+protection, which must soon fail me, may be replaced by a
+tenderness equal to his own; there remains only to tell you how
+touched I am by your offer and by the compliments which accompany
+it. The prudence which dictates my letter is that of an old man to
+whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I express is that of a
+young girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has arisen.
+
+Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+
+Your servant,
+Ursula Mirouet.
+
+
+Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who
+suffered from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often
+to her chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting
+pensively before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At
+the end of the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him;
+the delay was explained by his increasing love.
+
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+
+Dear Ursula,--I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up
+nothing can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to
+us, is right; but does it follow that I am wrong in loving you?
+Therefore, all I want to know from you is whether you could love
+me. Tell me this, if only by a sign, and then the next four years
+will be the finest of my life.
+
+A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral
+Kergarouet, a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy.
+The kind old man, grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the
+king's favor would be thwarted by the rules of the service in case
+I wanted a certain rank. Nevertheless, if I study three months at
+Toulon, the minister of war can send me to sea as master's mate;
+then after a cruise against the Algerines, with whom we are now at
+war, I can go through an examination and become a midshipman.
+Moreover, if I distinguish myself in an expedition they are
+fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly be made ensign--but
+how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make the rules as
+elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again in the navy.
+
+I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your
+godfather; and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me.
+Before replying to the admiral, I must have an interview with the
+doctor; on his reply my whole future will depend. Whatever comes
+of it, know this, that rich or poor, the daughter of a band master
+or the daughter of a king, you are the woman whom the voice of my
+heart points out to me. Dear Ursula, we live in times when
+prejudices which might once have separated us have no power to
+prevent our marriage. To you, then, I offer the feelings of my
+heart, to your uncle the guarantees which secure to him your
+happiness. He has not seen that I, in a few hours, came to love
+you more than he has loved you in fifteen years.
+
+Until this evening.
+Savinien.
+
+
+"Here, godfather," said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a
+proud gesture.
+
+"Ah, my child!" cried the doctor when he had read it, "I am happier
+than even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution."
+
+After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking
+with Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river.
+The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl
+clung to her uncle's arm as though she were saving herself from a fall
+over a precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which
+made him shudder.
+
+"Leave us, my child," he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and
+sat upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss
+it respectfully.
+
+"Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?" he said
+to the doctor in a low voice.
+
+"No," said Minoret, smiling; "we might have to wait too long, but--I
+will give her to a lieutenant."
+
+Tears of joy filled the young man's eyes as he pressed the doctor's
+hand affectionately.
+
+"I am about to leave," he said, "to study hard and try to learn in six
+months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire."
+
+"You are going?" said Ursula, springing towards them from the
+pavilion.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to
+go, the more I prove to you my affection."
+
+"This is the 3rd of October," she said, looking at him with infinite
+tenderness; "do not go till after the 19th."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "we will celebrate Saint-Savinien's day."
+
+"Good-by, then," cried the young man. "I must spend this week in
+Paris, to take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical
+instruments, and try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms
+that I can for myself."
+
+Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after
+he entered his mother's house they saw him come out again, followed by
+Tiennette carrying his valise.
+
+"If you are rich," said Ursula to her uncle, "why do you make him
+serve in the navy?"
+
+"Presently it will be I who incurred his debts," said the doctor,
+smiling. "I don't oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear,
+and the cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out
+many stains. Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship,
+and that's all I ask of him."
+
+"But he may be killed," she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+
+"Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own," he said,
+laughing.
+
+That night the poor child, with La Bougival's help, cut off a
+sufficient quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a
+chain; and the next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master,
+to take it to Paris and have the chain made and returned by the
+following Sunday. When Savinien got back he informed the doctor and
+Ursula that he had signed his articles and was to be at Brest on the
+25th. The doctor asked him to dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly
+two whole days in the old man's house. Notwithstanding much sage
+advice and many resolutions, the lovers could not help betraying their
+secret understanding to the watchful eyes of the abbe, Monsieur
+Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+
+"Children," said the old man, "you are risking your happiness by not
+keeping it to yourselves."
+
+On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered
+the little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind
+old man, by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the
+pagoda.
+
+"Dear Ursula," said Savinien; "will you make a gift greater than my
+mother could make me even if--"
+
+"I know what you wish to ask me," she said, interrupting him. "See,
+here is my answer," she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the
+box containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with
+a nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. "Wear
+it," she said, "for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by
+reminding you that my life depends on yours."
+
+"Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair," said
+the doctor to himself. "How did she manage to get it? what a pity to
+cut those beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life's
+blood next."
+
+"You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving
+you, a formal promise to have no other husband than me," said
+Savinien, kissing the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his
+eyes.
+
+"Have I not said so too often--I who went to see the walls of
+Sainte-Pelagie when you were behind them?--" she replied, blushing. "I
+repeat it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be
+yours alone."
+
+Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man
+could not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and
+kissing her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the
+bench, and when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the
+doctor standing before them.
+
+"My friend," said the old man, "Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough
+a word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm
+of your love--Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have,
+you would have been satisfied with her word of promise," he added, to
+revenge himself for the last sentence in Savinien's second letter.
+
+Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which
+he wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without
+apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single
+thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first
+time her godfather asked her what she felt, she replied:--
+
+"I want to see the ocean."
+
+"It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,"
+answered the old man.
+
+"Shall I really go?" she said.
+
+If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite
+of the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien
+was being tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her
+happy for days with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman
+in uniform. She read the newspapers, imagining that they would give
+news of the cruiser on which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper's
+sea-tales and learned to use sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration
+of feeling, often assumed by other women, were so genuine in Ursula
+that she saw in dreams the coming of Savinien's letters, and never
+failed to announce them, relating the dream as a forerunner.
+
+"Now," she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, "I
+am easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+instantly."
+
+The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his
+face.
+
+"What pains you?" they said, when Ursula had left them.
+
+"Will she live?" replied the doctor. "Can so tender and delicate a
+flower endure the trials of the heart?"
+
+Nevertheless, the "little dreamer," as the abbe called her, was
+working hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a
+woman of the world, and all the time she did not give to her singing
+and to the study of harmony and composition she spent in reading the
+books chosen for her by the abbe from her godfather's rich library.
+And yet while leading this busy life she suffered, though without
+complaint. Sometimes she would sit for hours looking at Savinien's
+window. On Sundays she would leave the church behind Madame de
+Portenduere and watch her tenderly; for, in spite of the old lady's
+harshness, she loved her as Savinien's mother. Her piety increased;
+she went to mass every morning, for she firmly believed that her
+dreams were the gift of God.
+
+At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to
+see the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien's ship formed
+part of it, but he was not to be informed beforehand of their
+intention. The abbe and Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of
+this journey, said to be for Ursula's health, which disturbed and
+greatly puzzled the relations. After beholding Savinien in his naval
+uniform, and going on board the fine flag-ship of the admiral, to whom
+the minister had given young Portenduere a special recommendation,
+Ursula, at her lover's entreaty, went with her godfather to Nice, and
+along the shores of the Mediterranean to Genoa, where she heard of the
+safe arrival of the fleet at Algiers and the landing of the troops.
+The doctor would have liked to continue the journey through Italy, as
+much to distract Ursula's mind as to finish, in some sense, her
+education, by enlarging her ideas through comparison with other
+manners and customs and countries, and by the fascination of a land
+where the masterpieces of art can still be seen, and where so many
+civilizations have left their brilliant traces. But the tidings of the
+opposition by the throne to the newly elected Chamber of 1830 obliged
+the doctor to return to France, bringing back his treasure in a
+flourishing state of health and possessed of a charming little model
+of the ship on which Savinien was serving.
+
+The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+relations,--Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours by
+whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at
+Fontainebleau. Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous
+influence over the country electors. Five of the post master's farmers
+were electors. Dionis represented eleven votes. After a few meetings
+at the notary's, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their
+adherents took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor
+returned, Dionis's office and salon were the camp of his heirs. The
+justice of peace and the mayor, who had formed an alliance, backed by
+the nobility in the neighbouring castles, to resist the liberals of
+Nemours, now worsted in their efforts, were more closely united than
+ever by their defeat.
+
+By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the
+doctor by word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was
+defined for the first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving
+incidentally such importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left
+Rambouillet for Cherbourg. Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those
+of the Paris bar, sent for fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil
+and mounted on horses from his father's stable, who arrived in Paris
+on the night of the 28th. With this troop Goupil and Desire took part
+in the capture of the Hotel-de-Veille. Desire was decorated with the
+Legion of honor and appointed deputy procureur du roi at
+Fontainebleau. Goupil received the July cross. Dionis was elected
+mayor of Nemours, and the city council was composed of the post master
+(now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere, and all the adherents of the
+family faction. Bongrand retained his place only through the influence
+of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose marriage with
+Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+
+Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs
+in shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about
+two hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in
+the same funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand
+francs a year. He made the same disposition of Ursula's little capital
+bequeathed to her by de Jordy, together with the accrued interest
+thereon, which gave her about fourteen hundred francs a year in her
+own right. La Bougival, who had laid by some five thousand francs of
+her savings, did the same by the doctor's advice, receiving in future
+three hundred and fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious
+transactions, agreed on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were
+carried out in perfect secrecy, thanks to the political troubles of
+the time.
+
+When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him a
+thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the
+Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new
+era in the doctor's existence, for he now (at a period when horses and
+carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine
+horses and a caleche.
+
+When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church
+on a rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to
+help her out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,--as much to
+see the caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the
+goddaughter, to whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere,
+the post master, and their wives attributed this extravagant folly of
+the old man.
+
+"A caleche! Hey, Massin!" cried Goupil. "Your inheritance will go at
+top speed now!"
+
+"You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle," said the post master
+to the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; "for it
+is to be supposed an old man of eighty-four won't use up many
+horse-shoes. What did those horses cost?"
+
+"Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two
+thousand; but it's a fine one, the wheels are patent."
+
+"Yes, it's a good carriage," said Cremiere; "and a man must be rich to
+buy that style of thing."
+
+"Ursula means to go at a good pace," said Goupil. "She's right; she's
+showing you how to enjoy life. Why don't you have fine carriages and
+horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn't let myself be humiliated if I were
+you--I'd buy a carriage fit for a prince."
+
+"Come, Cabirolle, tell us," said Massin, "is it the girl who drives
+our uncle into such luxury?"
+
+"I don't know," said Cabirolle; "but she is almost mistress of the
+house. There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now
+she is going to study painting."
+
+"Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn," said
+Madame Cremiere.
+
+In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+
+"The old German is not dismissed, is he?" said Madame Massin.
+
+"He was there yesterday," replied Cabirolle.
+
+"Now," said Goupil, "you may as well give up counting on your
+inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than
+ever. Travel forms young people, and the little minx has got your
+uncle in the toils. Five or six parcels come down for her by the
+diligence every week, and the dressmakers and milliners come too, to
+try on her gowns and all the rest of it. Madame Dionis is furious.
+Watch for Ursula as she comes out of church and look at the little
+scarf she is wearing round her neck,--real cashmere, and it cost six
+hundred francs!"
+
+If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+have been less than that of Goupil's last words; the mischief-maker
+stood by rubbing his hands.
+
+The doctor's old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian
+upholsterer. Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused
+of hoarding immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on
+Ursula. The heirs called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but
+the saying, "He's an old fool!" summed upon, on the whole, the verdict
+of the neighbourhood. These mistaken judgments of the little town had
+the one advantage of misleading the heirs, who never suspected the
+love between Savinien and Ursula, which was the secret reason of the
+doctor's expenditure. The old man took the greatest delights in
+accustoming his godchild to her future station in the world.
+Possessing an income of over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave him
+pleasure to adorn his idol.
+
+In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her
+eyes beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from
+her window when she rose in the morning.
+
+"Why didn't I know he was coming?" she said to herself.
+
+After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an
+act of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was
+serving was many months at sea without his being able to communicate
+with the doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without
+consulting him. Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already
+illustrious in its service, the new government had profited by a
+general change of officers to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained
+leave of absence for fifteen days, the new officer arrived from Toulon
+by the mail, in time for Ursula's fete, intending to consult the
+doctor at the same time.
+
+"He has come!" cried Ursula rushing into her godfather's bedroom.
+
+"Very good," he answered; "I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+stay in Nemours."
+
+"Ah! that's my birthday present--it is all in that sentence," she
+said, kissing him.
+
+On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came
+over at once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so
+changed for the better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain
+grave decision to the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an
+erect bearing which enables the most superficial observer to recognize
+a military man even in plain clothes. The habit of command produces
+this result. Ursula loved Savinien the better for it, and took a
+childlike pleasure in walking round the garden with him, taking his
+arm, and hearing him relate the part he played (as midshipman) in the
+taking of Algiers. Evidently Savinien had taken the city. The doctor,
+who had been watching them from his window as he dressed, soon came
+down. Without telling the viscount everything, he did say that, in
+case Madame de Portenduere consented to his marriage with Ursula, the
+fortune of his godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+
+"Alas!" said Savinien. "It will take a great deal of time to overcome
+my mother's opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was
+placed between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying
+Ursula or else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed
+to the dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go."
+
+"But, Savinien, we shall be together," said Ursula, taking his hand
+and shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+
+To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her;
+she saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant
+tone of her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the
+doctor were both moved by it. The resignation was written and
+despatched, and Ursula's fete received full glory from the presence of
+her betrothed. A few months later, towards the month of May, the
+home-life of the doctor's household had resumed the quite tenor of its
+way but with one welcome visitor the more. The attentions of the young
+viscount were soon interpreted in the town as those of a future
+husband,--all the more because his manners and those of Ursula,
+whether in church, or on the promenade, though dignified and reserved,
+betrayed the understanding of their hearts. Dionis pointed out to the
+heirs that the doctor had never asked Madame de Portenduere for the
+interest of his money, three years of which was now due.
+
+"She'll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of
+her son," said the notary. "If such a misfortune happens it is
+probable that the greater part of your uncle's fortune will serve for
+what Basile calls 'an irresistible argument.'"
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIV
+
+                       URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+
+The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved
+Ursula too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became
+as underhand as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis's salon (as they had
+done every evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed
+against the lovers, and seldom separated without discussing some way
+of circumventing the old man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the
+fall in the Funds, as the doctor had done, to invest some, at least,
+of her enormous gains, was bitterest of them all against the orphan
+girl and the Portendueres. One evening, when Goupil, who usually
+avoided the dullness of these meetings, had come in to learn something
+of the affairs of the town which were under discussion, Zelie's hatred
+was freshly excited; she had seen the doctor, Ursula, and Savinien
+returning in the caleche from a country drive, with an air of intimacy
+that told all.
+
+"I'd give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself
+before the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can
+take place," she said.
+
+Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were
+quite alone:
+
+"Will you give me the means of buying Dionis's practice? If you will,
+I will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula."
+
+"How?" asked the colossus.
+
+"Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?" said the
+notary's head clerk.
+
+"Well, my lad, separate them, and we'll see what we can do," said
+Zelie.
+
+"I don't embark in any such business on a 'we'll see.' The young man
+is a fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as
+good a hand with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business,
+and I'll keep my word."
+
+"Prevent the marriage and I will set you up," said the post master.
+
+"It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur's practice, and you expect me
+to trust you now! Nonsense; you'll lose your uncle's property, and
+serve you right."
+
+"It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur's
+practice, that might be managed," said Zelie; "but to give security
+for you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing."
+
+"But I'll do my part," said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at
+Zelie, which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+
+The effect was that of venom on steel.
+
+"We can wait," said Zelie.
+
+"The devil's own spirit is in you," thought Goupil. "If I ever catch
+that pair in my power," he said to himself as he left the yard, "I'll
+squeeze them like lemons."
+
+By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur
+Bongrand, Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love of
+this young man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so
+persistent, interested the three friends deeply, and they now never
+separated the lovers in their thoughts. Soon the monotony of this
+patriarchal life, and the certainty of a future before them, gave to
+their affection a fraternal character. The doctor often left the pair
+alone together. He judged the young man rightly; he saw him kiss her
+hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no kiss when alone with
+her, so deeply did the lover respect the innocence, the frankness of
+the young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried, taught him
+that a harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of gentleness and
+roughness might kill her. The only freedom between the two took place
+before the eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+
+Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,--without other
+events than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from
+his mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for
+hours together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties,
+other than by Breton silence or a positive denial.
+
+At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine
+musician, and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was
+perfected. The fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far.
+The doctor was called upon to decline the overtures of Madame
+d'Aiglemont, who was thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months
+later, in spite of the secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on
+this subject, Savinien heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he
+made use of the incident in another attempt to vanquish his mother's
+obstinacy; but she merely replied:--
+
+"If the d'Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason
+why we should do so?"
+
+In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his
+face pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his
+approaching death. "You'll soon know results," said the community to
+the heirs. In truth the old man's death had all the attraction of a
+problem. But the doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his
+illusions, and neither poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the
+abbe were willing to enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours
+doctor who came to see him every day did not venture to prescribe. Old
+Minoret felt no pain; his lamp of life was gently going it. His mind
+continued firm and clear and powerful. In old men thus constituted the
+soul governs the body, and gives it strength to die erect. The abbe,
+anxious not to hasten the fatal end, released his parishioner from the
+duty of hearing mass in church, and allowed him to read the services
+at home, for the doctor faithfully attended to all his religious
+duties. The nearer he came to the grave the more he loved God; the
+lights eternal shone upon all difficulties and explained them more and
+more clearly to his mind. Early in the year Ursula persuaded him to
+sell the carriage and horses and dismiss Cabirolle. Monsieur Bongrand,
+whose uneasiness about Ursula's future was far from quieted by the
+doctor's half-confidence, boldly opened the subject one evening and
+showed his old friend the importance of making Ursula legally of age.
+Still the old man, though he had often consulted the justice of peace,
+would not reveal to him the secret of his provision for Ursula, though
+he agreed to the necessity of securing her independence by majority.
+The more Monsieur Bongrand persisted in his efforts to discover the
+means selected by his old friend to provide for his darling the more
+wary the doctor became.
+
+"Why not secure the thing," said Bongrand, "why run any risks?"
+
+"When you are between two risks," replied the doctor, "avoid the most
+risky."
+
+Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so
+promptly that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That
+anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized
+perhaps with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which
+he invited all the young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere,
+Minoret, and Massin. Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two
+assistant priests, the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret,
+Massin, and Cremiere, together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a
+grand dinner which preceded the ball.
+
+"I feel I am going," said the old man to the notary towards the close
+of the evening. "I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my
+guardianship account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property
+after my death. Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my
+heirs,--I have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council
+appointed for Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering
+of my account."
+
+These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another
+round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families,
+who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes
+thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were
+disinherited.
+
+When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old
+doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress;
+"To you, my friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be
+here no longer to protect her. Put yourselves between her and the
+world until she is married,--I fear for her."
+
+The words made a painful impression. The guardian's account, rendered
+a day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that
+Doctor Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred
+francs from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little
+capital of gifts made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last
+fifteen years, on birthdays and other anniversaries.
+
+This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of
+the peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of
+Doctor Minoret's death.
+
+The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which
+compelled him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always
+surrounded the doctor's house and kept it from observation, the news
+of his approaching death spread through the town, and the heirs began
+to run hither and thither through the streets, like the pearls of a
+chaplet when the string is broken. Massin called at the house to learn
+the truth, and was told by Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed.
+The Nemours doctor had remarked that whenever old Minoret took to his
+bed he would die; and therefore in spite of the cold, the heirs took
+their stand in the street, on the square, at their own doorsteps,
+talking of the event so long looked for, and watching for the moment
+when the priests should appear, bearing the sacrament, with all the
+paraphernalia customary in the provinces, to the dying man.
+Accordingly, two days later, when the Abbe Chaperon, with an assistant
+and the choir-boys, preceded by the sacristan bearing the cross,
+passed along the Grand'Rue, all the heirs joined the procession, to
+get an entrance to the house and see that nothing was abstracted, and
+lay their eager hands upon its coveted treasures at the earliest
+moment.
+
+When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter
+than the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round,
+saw them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was
+the first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him.
+Massin, fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some
+ornament, joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently
+assembled one by one.
+
+"He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction," said Cremiere; "we
+may be sure of his death now."
+
+"Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year," replied
+Madame Massin.
+
+"I have an idea," said Zelie, "that for the last three years he hasn't
+invested anything--he grew fond of hoarding."
+
+"Perhaps the money is in the cellar," whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+
+"I hope we shall be able to find it," said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+"But after what he said at the ball we can't have any doubt," cried
+Madame Massin.
+
+"In any case," began Cremiere, "how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know--"
+
+A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method of
+procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices,
+Zelie's screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in
+the courtyard and even in the street.
+
+The noise reached the doctor's ears; he heard the words, "The house
+--the house is worth thirty thousand francs. I'll take it at that,"
+said, or rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+
+"Well, we'll take what it's worth," said Zelie, sharply.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said the old man to the priest, who remained beside
+his friend after administering the communion, "help me to die in
+peace. My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of
+pillaging the house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive
+me. Go and tell them I will have none of them in my house."
+
+The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words
+of their own.
+
+"Madame Bougival," said the doctor, "close the iron gate and allow no
+one to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare
+mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur's feet."
+
+"Your uncle is not dead," said the abbe, "and he may live some time
+longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+yours!"
+
+"Old hypocrite!" exclaimed Cremiere. "I shall keep watch of him. It is
+possible he's plotting something against our interests."
+
+The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending to
+watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no
+noise, for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able
+to reach the door of his uncle's room without being heard. The abbe
+and the doctor had left the house; La Bougival was making the
+poultices.
+
+"Are we quite alone?" said the old man to his godchild.
+
+Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+
+"Yes," she said; "the abbe has just closed the gate after him."
+
+"My darling child," said the dying man, "my hours, my minutes even,
+are counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last
+till evening. Do not cry, my Ursula," he said, fearing to be
+interrupted by the child's weeping, "but listen to me carefully; it
+concerns your marriage to Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back
+go down to the pagoda,--here is the key,--lift the marble top of the
+Boule buffet and you will find a letter beneath it, sealed and
+addressed to you; take it and come back here, for I cannot die easy
+unless I see it in your hands. When I am dead do not let any one know
+of it immediately, but send for Monsieur de Portenduere; read the
+letter together; swear to me now, in his name and your own, that you
+will carry out my last wishes. When Savinien has obeyed me, then
+announce my death, but not till then. The comedy of the heirs will
+begin. God grant those monsters may not ill-treat you."
+
+"Yes godfather."
+
+The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped
+away on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the
+library side of the door. He had been present in former days at an
+argument between the architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring
+that if the pagoda were entered by the window on the river it would be
+much safer to put the lock of the door opening into the library on the
+library side. Dazzled by his hopes, and his ears flushed with blood,
+Minoret sprang the lock with the point of his knife as rapidly as a
+burglar could have done it. He entered the study, followed the
+doctor's directions, took the package of papers without opening it,
+relocked the door, put everything in order, and went into the
+dining-room and sat down, waiting till La Bougival had gone upstairs
+with the poultice before he ventured to leave the house. He then made
+his escape,--all the more easily because poor Ursula lingered to see
+that La Bougival applied the poultice properly.
+
+"The letter! the letter!" cried the old man, in a dying voice. "Obey
+me; take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand."
+
+The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+Ursula:--
+
+"Do what he asks at once or you will kill him."
+
+She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked
+at her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to
+speak, and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The
+poor girl, who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and
+burst into tears. La Bougival closed the old man's eyes and
+straightened him on the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the
+heirs, who stood at the corner of the street, like crows watching till
+a horse is buried before they scratch at the ground and turn it over
+with beak and claw, flocked in with the celerity of birds of prey.
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XV
+
+                         THE DOCTOR'S WILL
+
+While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home
+to open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+
+
+To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother,
+Joseph Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:--
+
+My dear Angel,--The fatherly affection I bear you--and which you
+have so fully justified--came not only from the promise I gave
+your father to take his place, but also from your resemblance to
+my wife, Ursula Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and
+charm you constantly recall to my mind. Your position as the
+daughter of a natural son of my father-in-law might invalidate all
+testamentary bequests made by me in your favor--
+
+"The old rascal!" cried the post master.
+
+Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I
+shrank from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by
+marriage, for I might live years and thus interfere with your
+happiness, which is now delayed only by Madame de Portenduere.
+Having weighted these difficulties carefully, and wishing to leave
+you enough money to secure to you a prosperous existence--
+
+"The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!"
+
+  --without injuring my heirs--
+
+"The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!"
+
+--I intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for
+the last eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my
+notary, seeking to make you thereby as happy as any one can be
+made by riches. Without means, your education and your lofty ideas
+would cause you unhappiness. Besides, you ought to bring a liberal
+dowry to the fine young man who loves you. You will therefore find
+in the middle of the third volume of Pandects, folio, bound in red
+morocco (the last volume on the first shelf above the little table
+in the library, on the side of the room next the salon), three
+certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents, made out to bearer,
+each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year--
+
+"What depths of wickedness!" screamed the post master. "Ah! God would
+not permit me to be so defrauded."
+
+Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this
+date, which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my
+darling child, that you must obey a wish that has made the
+happiness of my whole life; a wish that will force me to ask the
+intervention of God should you disobey me. But, to guard against
+all scruples in your dear conscience--for I well know how ready it
+is to torture you--you will find herewith a will in due form
+bequeathing these certificates to Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere.
+So, whether you possess them in your own name, or whether they come
+to you from him you love, they will be, in every sense, your
+legitimate property.
+
+Your godfather,
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+stamped paper.
+
+
+This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in
+Nemours, being of sound mind and body, as the date of this
+document will show, do bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to
+pardon my errors in view of my sincere repentance. Next, having
+found in Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere a true and
+honest affection for me, I bequeath to him the sum of thirty-six
+thousand francs a year from the Funds, at three per cent, the said
+bequest to take precedence of all inheritance accruing to my
+heirs.
+
+Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the post master, who had locked
+himself into his wife's bedroom to insure being alone, looked about
+for the tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the
+extinction of two matches which obstinately refused to light. The
+third took fire. He burned the letter and the will on the hearth and
+buried the vestiges of paper and sealing-wax in the ashes by way of
+superfluous caution. Then, allured by the thought of possessing
+thirty-six thousand francs a year of which his wife knew nothing, he
+returned at full speed to his uncle's house, spurred by the only idea,
+a clear-cut, simple idea, which was able to piece and penetrate his
+dull brain. Finding the house invaded by the three families, now
+masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to
+accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection whatever, except
+so far as to fear the obstacles.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said to Massin and Cremiere. "We can't
+leave the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but
+we can't camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him
+to come and certify to the death; I can't draw up the mortuary
+certificate for an uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go
+and ask old Bongrand to attach the seals. As for you, ladies," he
+added, turning to his wife and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, "go and
+look after Ursula; then nothing can be stolen. Above all, close the
+iron gate and don't let any one leave the house."
+
+The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula's
+bedroom, where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her
+knees before God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting
+that the women would not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the
+library, found the volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and
+found in the other volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his
+brutal nature the colossus felt as though a peal of bells were ringing
+in each ear. The blood whistled in his temples as he committed the
+theft; cold as the weather was, his shirt was wet on his back; his
+legs gave way under him and he fell into a chair in the salon as if an
+axe had fallen on his head.
+
+"How the inheritance of money loosens a man's tongue! Did you hear
+Minoret?" said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town.
+"'Go here, go there,' just as if he knew everything."
+
+"Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of--"
+
+"Stop!" said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. "His wife is there;
+they've got some plan! Do you do both errands; I'll go back."
+
+Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the
+heated face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of
+death with the celerity of a weasel.
+
+"Well, what is it now?" asked the post master, unlocking the gate for
+his co-heir.
+
+"Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing," answered
+Massin, giving him a savage look.
+
+"I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home," said
+Minoret.
+
+"We shall have to put a watcher over them," said Massin. "La Bougival
+is capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We'll put Goupil
+there."
+
+"Goupil!" said the post master; "put a rat in the meal!"
+
+"Well, let's consider," returned Massin. "To-night they'll watch the
+body; the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after
+them. To-morrow we'll have the funeral at twelve o'clock. But the
+inventory can't be made under a week."
+
+"Let's get rid of that girl at once," said the colossus; "then we can
+safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and
+the seals."
+
+"Good," cried Massin. "You are the head of the Minoret family."
+
+"Ladies," said Minoret, "be good enough to stay in the salon; we can't
+think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+security of all interests."
+
+He took his wife apart and told her Massin's proposition about Ursula.
+The women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as
+they called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived
+with his assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the
+request was made to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend
+of the deceased, to tell Ursula to leave the house.
+
+"Go and turn her out of her father's house, her benefactor's house
+yourselves," he cried. "Go! you who owe your inheritance to the
+generosity of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into
+the street before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of
+robbing you? Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to
+do that. But I tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula's room;
+she has a right to that room, and everything in it is her own
+property. I shall tell her what her rights are, and tell her too to
+put everything that belongs to her in this house in that room-- Oh! in
+your presence," he said, hearing a growl of dissatisfaction among the
+heirs.
+
+"What do you think of that?" said the collector to the post master and
+the women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+
+"Call _him_ a magistrate!" cried the post master.
+
+Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every
+now and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids
+swollen; she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical
+prostration which might have softened the hardest hearts--except those
+of the heirs.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and
+mourning," she said, with the poetry natural to her. "You know, _you_,
+what he was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me. I
+believed he would live a hundred years. He has been my mother," she
+cried, "my good, kind mother."
+
+These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes,
+interrupted by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+
+"My child," said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the
+staircase. "You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you
+have now only a moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything
+that belongs to you in this house and put it into your own room at
+once. The heirs insist on my affixing the seals."
+
+"Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose," cried Ursula,
+sitting upright under an impulse of savage indignation. "I have
+something here," she added, striking her breast, "which is far more
+precious--"
+
+"What is it?" said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+showed his brutal face.
+
+"The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words--an image
+of his celestial soul," she said, her eyes and face glowing as she
+raised her hand with a glorious gesture.
+
+"And a key!" cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a
+key which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+
+"Yes," she said, blushing, "that is the key of his study; he sent me
+there at the moment he was dying."
+
+The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at
+Monsieur Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula
+who intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left
+her body. Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue
+only at some cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:--
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the
+kindness of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me
+but the clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to
+it."
+
+She went to her godfather's room, and no entreaties could make her
+leave it,--the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their
+conduct, endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand
+to engage two rooms for her at the "Vieille Poste" inn until she could
+find some lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She
+returned to her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night,
+with the abbe, his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying
+beside her uncle's body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to
+bed, and knelt, without a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him
+sadly, and thanked him for coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+
+"My child," said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, "one of
+your uncle's heirs has taken these necessary articles from your
+drawers, for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that
+you will recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own
+sake, placed the seals on your room."
+
+"Thank you," she replied, pressing his hand. "Look at him again,--he
+seems to sleep, does he not?"
+
+The old man's face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests
+upon the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared
+to radiate from it.
+
+"Did he give you anything secretly before he died?" whispered M.
+Bongrand.
+
+"Nothing," she said; "he spoke only of a letter."
+
+"Good! it will certainly be found," said Bongrand. "How fortunate for
+you that the heirs demanded the sealing."
+
+At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love
+began. So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief
+tears of regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven.
+With one last glance at Savinien's windows she left the room and the
+house, and went to the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the
+package, by Monsieur Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien,
+her true protector.
+
+Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the
+worst fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see
+Ursula without means and at the mercy of her benefactor's heirs.
+
+The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor's funeral. When
+the conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known, a
+vast majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An
+inheritance was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded;
+Ursula might think she had rights; the heirs were only defending their
+property; she had humbled them enough during their uncle's lifetime,
+for he had treated them like dogs and sent them about their business.
+
+Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those
+who envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable
+to be present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly
+by the insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+
+"Look at that hypocrite weeping," said some of the heirs, pointing to
+Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor's death.
+
+"The question is," said Goupil, "has he any good grounds for weeping.
+Don't laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed."
+
+"Pooh!" said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, "you are
+always frightening us about nothing."
+
+As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery,
+a bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take
+Desire's arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his
+former comrade in presence of all Nemours.
+
+"I won't be angry, or I couldn't get revenge," thought the notary's
+clerk, whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+
+Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time
+for the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to
+commission Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done
+the settlement of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked
+of in the town for ten days) began with all the legal formalities.
+Dionis had his pickings; Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as
+the business was profitable the sessions were many. After the first of
+these sessions all parties breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs,
+and witnesses drank the best wines in the doctor's cellar.
+
+In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives
+in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging.
+When a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost
+always included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of
+removing Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the
+Grand'Rue at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little
+building had a front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the
+ground-floor with two windows on the street; behind this came the
+kitchen, with a glass door opening to an inner courtyard about thirty
+feet square. A small staircase, lighted on the side towards the river
+by small windows, led to the first floor where there were three
+chambers, and above these were two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand
+borrowed two thousand francs from La Bougival's savings to pay the
+first instalment of the price,--six thousand francs,--and obtained
+good terms for payment of the rest. As Ursula wished to buy her
+uncle's books, Bongrand knocked down the partition between two rooms
+on the bedroom floor, finding that their united length was the same as
+that of the doctor's library, and gave room for his bookshelves.
+
+Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning,
+painting, and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the
+end of March Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in
+the ugly house; where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the
+one she had left; for it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by
+the justice of peace when the seals were removed. La Bougival,
+sleeping in the attic, could be summoned by a bell placed near the
+head of the young girl's bed. The room intended for the books, the
+salon on the ground-floor and the kitchen, though still unfurnished,
+had been hung with fresh papers and repainted, and only awaited the
+purchases which the young girl hoped to make when her godfather's
+effects were sold.
+
+Though the strength of Ursula's character was well known to the abbe
+and Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the
+comfort and elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this
+barren and denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in
+fact, make private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so
+that Ursula should perceive no difference between the new chamber and
+the old one. But the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in
+Savinien's own eyes, showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared
+her more and more to her two old friends, and proved to them for the
+hundredth time that no troubles but those of the heart could make her
+suffer. The grief she felt for the loss of her godfather was far too
+deep to let her even feel the bitterness of her change of fortune,
+though it added fresh obstacles to her marriage. Savinien's distress
+in seeing her thus reduced did her so much harm that she whispered to
+him, as they came from mass on the morning on the day when she first
+went to live in her new house:
+
+"Love could not exist without patience; let us wait."
+
+As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to
+the post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay
+off the mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest
+accruing thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one
+hundred and twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs
+within twenty-four hours under pain of execution on her house. It was
+impossible for her to borrow the money. Savinien went to
+Fontainebleau to consult a lawyer.
+
+"You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise,"
+was the lawyer's opinion. "They intend to sue in the matter and get
+your farm at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a
+voluntary sale of it and so escape costs."
+
+This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently
+pointed out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret's
+life-time, the doctor would have left his property to Ursula's husband
+and they would to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now
+were, in the depths of poverty. Though said without reproach, this
+argument annihilated the poor woman even more than the thought of her
+coming ejectment. When Ursula heard of this catastrophe she was
+stupefied with grief, having scarcely recovered from her fever, and
+the blow which the heirs had already dealt her. To love and be unable
+to succor the man she loves,--that is one of the most dreadful of all
+sufferings to the soul of a noble and sensitive woman.
+
+"I wished to buy my uncle's house," she said, "now I will buy your
+mother's."
+
+"Can you?" said Savinien. "You are a minor, and you cannot sell out
+your Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your
+legal guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town
+will be glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These
+bourgeois are like hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have
+ten thousand francs left, on which I can support my mother till this
+deplorable matter is settled. Besides, the inventory of your
+godfather's property is not yet finished; Monsieur Bongrand still
+thinks he shall find something for you. He is as much astonished as I
+am that you seem to be left without fortune. The doctor so often spoke
+both to him and to me of the future he had prepared for you that
+neither of us can understand this conclusion."
+
+"Pooh!" she said; "so long as I can buy my godfather's books and
+furniture and prevent their being dispersed, I am content."
+
+"But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything
+you want?"
+
+Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million
+for which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search
+made in every corner of the house after the seals were removed,
+brought no discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs
+of the Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in
+the three per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty
+thousand francs, and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about
+six hundred thousand francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting
+sum. But what had become of the money the doctor must have saved?
+
+Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence
+of a will, came every day at the close of each session to find out
+from Bongrand the results of the day's search. The latter would
+sometimes exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of
+hearing, "I can't understand the thing!" Bongrand, Savinien, and the
+abbe often declared to each other that the doctor, who received no
+interest from the Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as
+he did on fifteen thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly
+expressed, made the post master turn livid more than once.
+
+"Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere," said Bongrand,--"they to
+find money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere.
+They have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers,
+bored into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped
+up the quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch
+of paper piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor
+--and I have urged on their devastations."
+
+"What do you think about it?" said the abbe.
+
+"The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs."
+
+"But where's the property?"
+
+"We may whistle for it!"
+
+"Perhaps the will is hidden in the library," said Savinien.
+
+"Yes, and for that reason I don't dissuade Ursula from buying it. If
+it were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of
+her ready money into books she will never open."
+
+At first the whole town believed the doctor's niece had got possession
+of the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+search of the doctor's house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank
+bills hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had
+slipped them into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a
+spectacle of the most extraordinary precautions on the part of the
+heirs. Dionis, who was doing duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each
+lot was cried out, that the heirs only sold the article (whatever it
+was) and not what it might contain; then, before allowing it to be
+taken away it was subjected to a final investigation, being thumped
+and sounded; and when at last it left the house the sellers followed
+with the looks a father might cast upon a son who was starting for
+India.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival, returning from the first
+session in despair, "I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right,
+you could never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town
+is coming and going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is
+being ruined, they even stand upon it; the whole place is such a
+muddle that a hen couldn't find her chicks. You'd think there had been
+a fire. Lots of things are in the courtyard; the closets are all open,
+and nothing in them. Oh! the poor dear man, it's well he died, the
+sight would have killed him."
+
+Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not
+appear at the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose
+cupidity might have run up the price of the books had they known he
+was buying them for Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books
+living in Melun to buy them for him. As a result of the heir's anxiety
+the whole library was sold book by book. Three thousand volumes were
+examined, one by one, held by the two sides of the binding and shaken
+so that loose papers would infallibly fall out. The whole amount of
+the purchases on Ursula's account amounted to six thousand five
+hundred francs or thereabouts. The book-cases were not allowed to
+leave the premises until carefully examined by a cabinet-maker,
+brought down from Paris to search for secret drawers. When at last
+Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the books and the bookcases to
+Mademoiselle Mirouet's house the heirs were tortured with vague fears,
+not dissipated until in course of time they saw how poorly she lived.
+
+Minoret bought up his uncle's house, the value of which his co-heirs
+ran up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master
+expected to find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold
+with a reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed
+of his post establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son
+of a rich farmer, and went to live in his uncle's house, where he
+spent considerable sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By
+making this move he thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within
+sight of Ursula.
+
+"I hope," he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+summoned to pay her debt, "that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+after they are gone we'll drive out the rest."
+
+"That old woman with fourteen quarterings," said Goupil, "won't want
+to witness her own disaster; she'll go and die in Brittany, where she
+can manage to find a wife for her son."
+
+"No," said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale
+at Bongrand's request. "Ursula has just bought the house she is living
+in."
+
+"That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!" cried the post
+master imprudently.
+
+"What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?"
+asked Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+
+"Don't you know," answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, "that
+my son is fool enough to be in love with her? I'd give five hundred
+francs if I could get Ursula out of this town."
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVI
+
+                        THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+
+Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a
+thorn in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the
+settlement of an estate, the sale of the property, the going and
+coming necessitated by such unusual business, his discussions with his
+wife about the most trifling details, the purchase of the doctor's
+house, where Zelie wished to live in bourgeois style to advance her
+son's interests,--all this hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually
+tranquil life hindered the huge Minoret from thinking of his victim.
+But about the middle of May, a few days after his installation in the
+doctor's house, as he was coming home from a walk, he heard the sound
+of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting at a window, like a dragon
+guarding a treasure, and suddenly became aware of an importunate voice
+within him.
+
+To explain why to a man of Minoret's nature the sight of Ursula, who
+had no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became
+intolerable; why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune
+impelled him to a desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and
+why it was that this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would
+require a whole treatise on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was
+not the real possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as
+she to whom they really belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied
+some mere chance might betray his theft if the person despoiled was
+not got rid of. Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost
+uncivilized, and whose owner up to that time had never done anything
+illegal, the presence of Ursula awakened remorse. Possibly this
+remorse goaded him the more because he had received his share of the
+property legitimately acquired. In his own mind he no doubt attributed
+these stirrings of his conscience to the fact of Ursula's presence,
+imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable feelings
+would disappear with her. But still, after all, perhaps crime has its
+own doctrine of perfection. A beginning of evil demands its end; a
+first stab must be followed by the blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is
+doomed to lead to murder. Minoret had committed the crime without the
+slightest reflection, so rapidly had the events taken place;
+reflection came later. Now, if you have thoroughly possessed yourself
+of this man's nature and bodily presence you will understand the
+mighty effect produced on him by a thought. Remorse is more than a
+thought; it comes from a feeling which can no more be hidden than
+love; like love, it has its own tyranny. But, just as Minoret had
+committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest reflection,
+so he now blindly longed to drive her from Nemours when he felt
+himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence. Being, in a
+sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences; he went from
+danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct, like a wild animal
+which does not foresee the huntsman's skill, and relies on its own
+rapidity or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in
+Dionis's salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of
+the man who had hitherto been so free of care.
+
+"I don't know what has come to Minoret, he is all _no how_," said his
+wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+
+Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less,
+ennui (in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble
+ennui), caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the
+change from an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+
+While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula's life in
+Nemours, La Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her
+foster child with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had,
+or without comparing her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor
+had promised, and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+
+"It is not for myself I speak," she said, "but is it likely that
+monsieur, good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me
+the merest trifle?--"
+
+"Am I not here?" replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+word on the subject.
+
+She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that
+surrounded that noble head--a sketch of which in black and white hung
+in her little salon--with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh
+and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her _see_ her
+godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more
+because surrounded with the things he loved and used,--his large
+duchess-sofa, the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and
+the piano he had chosen for her. The two old friends who still
+remained to her, the Abbe Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only
+visitors whom she received, were, in the midst of these inanimate
+objects representative of the past, like two living memories of her
+former life to which she attached her present by the love her
+godfather had blessed.
+
+After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave
+tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+nothings of a young girl's life, the tranquillity which her quiet
+habits diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little
+home. After breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and
+practiced; then she took her embroidery and sat at the window looking
+on the street. At four o'clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which
+he took in all weathers), finding the window open, would sit upon the
+outer casing and talk with her for half an hour. In the evening the
+abbe and Monsieur Bongrand came to see her, but she never allowed
+Savinien to accompany them. Neither did she accept Madame de
+Portenduere's proposition, which Savinien had induced his mother to
+make, that she should visit there.
+
+Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy;
+they did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a
+month. The old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked
+only twice a week,--mistress and maid eating their food cold on other
+days; for Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still
+due on the purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with
+her modesty and her resignation to a life of poverty after the
+enjoyment of luxury and the fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply
+impressed certain persons. Ursula won the respect of others, and no
+voice was raised against her. Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her
+justice. Savinien admired the strength of character of so young a
+girl. From time to time Madame de Portenduere, when they met in
+church, would address a few kind words to her, and twice she insisted
+on her coming to dinner and fetched her herself. If all this was not
+happiness it was at least tranquillity. But a benefit which came to
+Ursula through the legal care and ability of Bongrand started the
+smouldering persecution which up to this time had laid in Minoret's
+breast as a dumb desire.
+
+As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor's estate was finished,
+the justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the
+Portendueres in hand and promised her to get them out of their
+trouble. In dealing with the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula's
+happiness made him furious, he did not allow her to be ignorant of the
+fact that his devotion to her service was solely to give pleasure to
+Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose one of his former clerks to act for the
+Portendueres at Fontainebleau, and himself put in a motion for a stay
+of proceedings. He intended to profit by the interval which must
+elapse between the stoppage of the present suit and some new step on
+the part of Massin to renew the lease at six thousand francs, get a
+premium from the present tenants and the payment in full of the rent
+of the current year.
+
+At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere's salon,
+between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded in
+quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he
+obtained a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a
+rent of six thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day
+on which this was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew
+to be puzzled as to how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her
+the farm at Bordieres for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+
+"I'd buy it at once," said Minoret, "if I were sure the Portendueres
+would go and live somewhere else."
+
+"Why?" said the justice of peace.
+
+"We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours."
+
+"I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough
+left to live her. She is thinking of selling her house."
+
+"Well, sell it to me," said Minoret.
+
+"To you?" said Zelie. "You talk as if you were master of everything.
+What do you want with two houses in Nemours?"
+
+"If I don't settle this matter of the farm with you to-night," said
+Bongrand, "our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim,
+and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to
+make. So if you don't take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where
+some farmers I know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut."
+
+"Why did you come to us, then?" said Zelie.
+
+"Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me
+wait some time for the money. I don't want difficulties."
+
+"Get _her_ out of Nemours and I'll pay it," exclaimed Minoret.
+
+"You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere's
+actions," said Bongrand. "I can only repeat what I heard her say, but
+I feel certain they will not remain in Nemours."
+
+On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to
+the purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to
+the doctor's estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by
+Dionis. Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the
+purchase money to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in
+the Funds, where, joined to Savinien's ten thousand, it would give
+her, at five per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far
+from losing her resources, the old lady actually gained by the
+transaction. But she did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had
+been tricked,--as though Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula's
+presence was intolerable to him; and he felt a keen resentment which
+embittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a secret drama which
+was terrible in its effects,--the struggle of two determinations; one
+which impelled Minoret to drive his victim from Nemours, the other
+which gave Ursula the strength to bear persecution, the cause of which
+was for a certain length of time undiscoverable. The situation was a
+strange and even unnatural one, and yet it was led up to by all the
+preceding events, which served as a preface to what was now to occur.
+
+Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver
+service costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner
+every Sunday, the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came
+from Fontainebleau, bringing with him certain of his friends. On these
+occasions Zelie sent to Paris for delicacies--obliging Dionis the
+notary to emulate her display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to
+ignore as a questionable person who might tarnish their splendor, was
+not invited until the end of July. The clerk, who was fully aware of
+this intended neglect, was forced to be respectful to Desire, who,
+since his entrance into office, had assumed a haughty and dignified
+air, even in his own family.
+
+"You must have forgotten Esther," Goupil said to him, "as you are so
+much in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet."
+
+"In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+never even thought of Ursula," said the new magistrate.
+
+"Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?" cried Goupil, insolently.
+
+Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was,
+in fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,--Minoret having
+remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the
+marriage between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil
+hurriedly to the end of the garden.
+
+"You'll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow," said he, "and
+I don't see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for
+after all you were once my son's companion. Listen to me. If you can
+persuade that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty
+thousand francs, to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is
+Minoret, the means to buy a notary's practice at Orleans."
+
+"No," said Goupil, "that's too far out of the way; but Montargis--"
+
+"No," said Minoret; "Sens."
+
+"Very good,--Sens," replied the hideous clerk. "There's an archbishop
+at Sens, and I don't object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there
+you are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she'll
+succeed at Sens."
+
+"It is to be fully understood," continued Minoret, "that I shall not
+pay the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide,
+out of consideration for my deceased uncle."
+
+"Why not for me too?" said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+secret motive in Minoret's conduct. "Isn't it through information you
+got from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land,
+without a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields
+and the mill the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more.
+Come, old fellow, do you mean to play fair with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber--"
+
+"You'd better think twice before you do that," said Zelie, suddenly
+intervening.
+
+"If I choose," said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; "Massin would
+buy the whole for two hundred thousand francs."
+
+"Leave us, wife," said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and
+shoving her away; "I understand him. We have been so very busy," he
+continued, returning to Goupil, "that we have had no time to think of
+you; but I rely on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me."
+
+"It is a very ancient marquisate," said Goupil, maliciously; "which
+will soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that
+means a capital of more than two millions as money is now."
+
+"My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+under the government in Paris," said Minoret, opening his huge
+snuff-box and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+
+"Very good; but will you play fair?" cried Goupil, shaking his
+fingers.
+
+Minoret pressed the clerk's hands replying:--
+
+"On my word of honor."
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XVII
+
+                 THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+
+Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed
+that the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part
+of the colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was
+opposing them with Massin.
+
+"It isn't he," thought Goupil, "who has invented this scheme; I know
+my Zelie,--she taught him his part. Bah! I'll let Massin go. In three
+years time I'll be deputy from Sens." Just then he saw Bongrand on his
+way to the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after
+him.
+
+"You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand," he said. "I know you will not be indifferent to her future.
+Her relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she
+ought to marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of
+an arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy
+in three years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs
+on her."
+
+"She can do better than that," said Bongrand coldly. "Madame de
+Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is
+killing her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula
+has a capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it
+a la Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little
+fortune.
+
+"Savinien will do a foolish thing," said Goupil; "he can marry
+Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,--an only daughter to whom
+the uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property."
+
+"Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says-- By the
+bye, who is your notary?" added Bongrand from curiosity.
+
+"Suppose it were I?" answered Goupil.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+
+"Well, well!--Adieu, monsieur," replied Goupil, with a parting glance
+of gall and hatred and defiance.
+
+"Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred
+thousand francs on you?" cried Bongrand entering Madame de
+Portenduere's little salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old
+lady.
+
+Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,--she smiling,
+he not daring to show his uneasiness.
+
+"I am not mistress of myself," said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+
+"Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you."
+
+"Why did you do that?" said Madame de Portenduere. "I think the
+position of a notary is a very good one."
+
+"I prefer my peaceful poverty," said Ursula, "which is really wealth
+compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my
+old nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+present, which I like, for an unknown fate."
+
+A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of
+anonymous letters,--one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other
+to Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:--
+
+  "You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental
+  band-master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him
+  to Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted."
+
+The letter to Ursula was as follows:--
+
+  Dear Ursula,--There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival's pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+
+Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two
+days later she received another letter in the following language:--
+
+  "You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien--you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year."
+
+This letter agonized Ursula's heart and afflicted her with the
+tortures of jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but
+which to this fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall
+over the present and over the future, and even over the past. From the
+moment when she received this fatal paper she lay on the doctor's
+sofa, her eyes fixed on space, lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant
+the chill of death had come upon her warm young life. Alas, worse than
+that! it was like the awful awakening of the dead to the sense that
+there was no God,--the masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean
+Paul. Four times La Bougival called her to breakfast. When the
+faithful creature tried to remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and
+answered in one harsh word, "Hush!" said despotically, in strange
+contrast to her usual gentle manner. La Bougival, watching her
+mistress through the glass door, saw her alternately red with a
+consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of cold had succeeded that
+unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and worse up to four
+o'clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming, but he did not
+come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love. Ursula, who
+till then had never made one gesture by which her love could be
+guessed, now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if
+to go and meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to
+her little salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in
+the evening La Bougival met him at the door.
+
+"Ah, monsieur!" she cried; "I don't know what's the matter with
+mademoiselle; she is--"
+
+"I know," said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+
+He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+
+"And Savinien too?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe
+quiver as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he
+felt moreover a lasting commotion in his heart.
+
+"So we shall not go there to-night," he said as gently as he could;
+"and, my child, it would be better if you did not go there again. The
+old lady will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur
+Bongrand and I, who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your
+marriage, have no idea from what quarter this new influence has come
+to change her, as it were in a moment."
+
+"I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now," said Ursula in a
+pained voice. "In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we
+have done nothing to displease God."
+
+"Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of
+Providence," said the abbe.
+
+"I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de
+Portenduere--"
+
+"Why do you no longer call him Savinien?" asked the priest, who
+detected a slight bitterness in Ursula's tone.
+
+"Of my dear Savinien," cried the girl, bursting into tears. "Yes, my
+good friend," she said, sobbing, "a voice tells me he is as noble in
+heart as he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me
+alone, but he has proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by
+restraining heroically his ardent feelings. Lately when he took the
+hand I held out to him, that evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed
+to me a husband, it was the first time, I swear to you, that I had
+ever given it. He began with a jest when he blew me a kiss across the
+street, but since then our affection has never outwardly passed, as
+you well know, the narrowest limits. But I will tell you,--you who
+read my soul except in this one region where none but the angels see,
+--well, I will tell you, this love has been in me the secret spring of
+many seeming merits; it made me accept my poverty; it softened the
+bitterness of my irreparable loss, for my mourning is more perhaps in
+my clothes now than in my heart-- Oh, was I wrong? can it be that love
+was stronger in me than my gratitude to my benefactor, and God has
+punished me for it? But how could it be otherwise? I respected in
+myself Savinien's future wife; yes, perhaps I was too proud, perhaps
+it is that pride which God has humbled. God alone, as you have often
+told me, should be the end and object of all our actions."
+
+The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her
+pallid face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she
+was now to fall.
+
+"But," she said, continuing, "if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am I
+to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so
+divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You
+know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a
+grave, and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady's
+death. If Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay
+for my entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no
+more be two loves in a woman's heart than there can be two masters in
+heaven, and the life of a religious is attractive to me."
+
+"He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre," said the abbe,
+gently.
+
+"Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend," she answered. "I
+will write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the
+windows of this room," she continued, telling her old friend of the
+anonymous letters, but declaring that she would not allow any
+inquiries to be made as to who her unknown lover might be.
+
+"Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere
+to Rouvre," cried the abbe. "You are annoyed for some object by evil
+persons."
+
+"How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I
+am no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others."
+
+"Well, well, my child," said the abbe, quietly, "let us profit by this
+tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them
+in order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God,
+and remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two
+devoted friends."
+
+"That is much, very much," she said, going with him to the threshold
+of the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over
+its nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+
+Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+
+"Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not?
+You seem changed."
+
+Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went
+back into the house without replying.
+
+"She is cross," said Minoret to the abbe.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the
+threshold of her door," said the abbe; "she is too young--"
+
+"Oh!" said Goupil. "I am told she doesn't lack lovers."
+
+The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+Bourgeois.
+
+"Well," said Goupil to Minoret, "the thing is working. Did you notice
+how pale she was. Within a fortnight she'll have left the town--you'll
+see."
+
+"Better have you for a friend than an enemy," cried Minoret,
+frightened at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil's face the
+diabolical expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+
+"I should think so!" returned Goupil. "If she doesn't marry me I'll
+make her die of grief."
+
+"Do it, my boy, and I'll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in
+Paris. You can then marry a rich woman--"
+
+"Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done
+to you?" asked the clerk in surprise.
+
+"She annoys me," said Minoret, gruffly.
+
+"Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I'll rasp her," said
+Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master's face.
+
+The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+
+"I don't know what the dear child has written to you," she said, "but
+she is almost dead this morning."
+
+Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+
+  My dear Savinien,--Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice--for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, "Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days." When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you--but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+
+"Wait," cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+scratched off hastily the following reply:--
+
+  My dear Ursula,--Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother's consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that's a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle's
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.--Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then-- Nothing can separate us.
+
+"Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+longer."
+
+That afternoon at four o'clock, returning from the walk which he
+always took expressly to pass before Ursula's house, Savinien found
+his mistress waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these
+sudden changes and excitements.
+
+"It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+seeing you is," she said to him.
+
+"You once said to me," replied Savinien, smiling,--"for I remember all
+your words,--'Love lives by patience; we will wait!' Dear, you have
+separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels;
+we will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I
+love you, but--did I ever doubt you?" he said, offering her a bouquet
+of wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+
+"You have never had any reason to doubt me," she replied; "and,
+besides, you don't know all," she added, in a troubled voice.
+
+Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+found, a few moments before Savinien's arrival, a letter tossed on her
+sofa which contained the words: "Tremble! a rejected lover can become
+a tiger."
+
+Withstanding Savinien's entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again,
+after she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her
+recover from the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite
+evil is torture to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the
+unknown, and the unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the
+pain was exquisite. Something without her bounded at the slightest
+noise; yet she was afraid of silence, and suspected even the walls of
+collusion. Even her sleep was restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of
+her nature, delicate as that of a flower, had found, with the instinct
+of evil, the poison that could wither and destroy her.
+
+The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano
+till very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About
+midnight she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a
+clarinet, hautboy, flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon,
+flageolet, and triangle. All the neighbours were at their windows. The
+poor girl, already frightened at seeing the people in the street,
+received a dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a
+man proclaiming in loud tones: "For the beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from
+her lover."
+
+The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were
+rife on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive,
+determined not to leave the house again,--the abbe having advised her
+to say vespers in her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying
+in the passage, which was floored with brick, a letter which had
+evidently been slipped under the door. She picked it up and read it,
+under the idea that it would obtain an explanation. It was as
+follows:--
+
+
+"Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am
+resolved. If you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To
+your refusal you may attribute not only your own misfortunes, but
+those which will fall on others.
+
+"He who loves you, and whose wife you will be."
+
+
+Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this
+plot was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis,
+and Cremiere were envying her lot.
+
+"She is a lucky girl," they were saying; "people talk of her, and
+court her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was
+a cornet-a-piston."
+
+"What's a piston?"
+
+"A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!" replied Angelique
+Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+
+Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to
+find out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in
+garrison. But as there were two men to each instrument it was
+impossible to find out which of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel
+forbade them to play for any private person in future without his
+permission. Savinien had an interview with the procureur du roi,
+Ursula's legal guardian, and explained to him the injury these scenes
+would do to a young girl naturally so delicate and sensitive, begging
+him to take some action to discover the author of such wrong.
+
+Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy
+began another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards
+Montargis, where there happened then to be a company of comic actors.
+A loud and ringing voice called out as they left: "To the daughter of
+the regimental bandsman Mirouet." By this means all Nemours came to
+know the profession of Ursula's father, a secret the old doctor had
+sedulously kept.
+
+Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day
+an anonymous letter containing a prophecy:--
+
+  "You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife."
+
+The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for
+she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted
+her eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows,
+and prayed fervently.
+
+"I am glad I cannot go down into the salon," she said to Monsieur
+Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; "_He_ would
+come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which _he_ blessed me. Do
+you think _he_ will suspect me?"
+
+"If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means
+to get the assistance of the Paris police," said Bongrand.
+
+"Whoever it is will know I am dying," said Ursula; "and will cease to
+trouble me."
+
+The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
+suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
+whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on
+their guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray
+Goupil, whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no
+more serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch
+relaxed. Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened;
+Savinien believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the
+letters received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps
+to put an end to the persecution.
+
+The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and
+just as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early
+one morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the
+mail-post declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of
+the night a small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and
+though he tried to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him
+down the hill so fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped
+them. Some of the persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed
+these manoeuvres to the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in
+means, for Massin held his notes to a large amount. It was said that a
+prompt marriage of his daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du
+Rouvre from his creditors; and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips
+added, would approve of anything that would discredit and degrade
+Ursula and lead to this marriage of her son.
+
+So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by
+the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully
+overcome by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself
+and was kept to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this
+last insult had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the
+abbe, which was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the
+handwriting. It was as follows:--
+
+
+My child,--Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your
+enemies. Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien's life. I
+will tell you more when I am able to go to you.
+
+Your devoted friend,
+
+Chaperon.
+
+
+When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried
+this letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so
+amazed and horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his
+own handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition
+into which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once
+more to the procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+
+"A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch," he
+said, "upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal
+guardian. What is to be done?"
+
+"If you can find any means of repression," said the official, "I will
+adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the
+Adoration of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at
+Fontainebleau shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your
+own defence. I have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du
+Rouvre justly indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people
+have put upon him. Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty
+for the purchase of the estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish
+count; and Monsieur du Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I
+saw him, to avoid arrest for debt."
+
+Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his
+thought. He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only
+man capable of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal
+code without infringing a hair's-breadth upon it.
+
+
+
+                           CHAPTER XVIII
+
+                       A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+
+Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil's audacity. He made
+Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for his
+notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens,
+and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant to
+imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their
+fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to
+Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and
+the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He
+resolved to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the
+condition to which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But
+before risking this last throw in the game he thought it best to have
+an explanation with Minoret, and he chose his opportunity at Rouvre,
+where he went with his patron for the first time after the deeds were
+signed.
+
+Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours
+with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these
+atrocities in the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his
+father, in case this persecution should be the work of any of their
+friends, to give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for
+even if the law could not punish this crime it would certainly
+discover the truth and hold it over the delinquent's head. Minoret had
+now attained a great object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of
+the finest estates in the Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some
+forty odd thousand francs a year from the rich domains which
+surrounded the park. He could well afford to snap his fingers at
+Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on the estate, where the sight of
+Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+
+"My boy," he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, "let my
+young cousin alone, now."
+
+"Pooh!" said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct
+meant.
+
+"Oh! I'm not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+chateau with the stone copings (which couldn't be built now for two
+hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park
+and gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs.
+No, I'm not ungrateful; I'll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand
+francs, for your services, and you can buy a sheriff's practice in
+Nemours. I'll guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere's
+daughters, the eldest."
+
+"The one who talks piston!" cried Goupil.
+
+"She'll have thirty thousand francs," replied Minoret. "Don't you see,
+my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
+post master? People should keep to their vocation."
+
+"Very well, then," said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his
+hopes; "here's a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand
+francs; I want the money in hand at once."
+
+Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which
+his wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil
+was to sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial
+fever on the face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him
+an "au revoir," by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which
+would have made any one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation
+of the magnificent chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis
+XIII., tremble in his shoes.
+
+"Are you not going to wait for me?" he cried, observing that Goupil
+was going away on foot.
+
+"You'll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret," replied
+Goupil, athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the
+zigzags of Minoret's strange conduct.
+
+Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula,
+a prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in
+the soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale,
+speaking only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words;
+everything about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the
+expression of her forehead, all revealed the presence of some
+consuming thought. She was thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity,
+with which throughout all ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had
+fallen from her brow. She heard in the void and in the silence the
+dishonoring words, the malicious comments, the laughter of the little
+town. The trial was too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow
+her to survive the murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful
+smile was on her lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign
+of angels, against man's injustice.
+
+When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from
+her chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the
+doctor. A great event was about to take place. When Madame de
+Portenduere became really aware that the girl was dying like an
+ermine, though less injured in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she
+resolved to go to her and comfort her. The sight of her son's anguish,
+who during the whole preceding night had seemed beside himself, made
+the Breton soul of the old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of
+her own dignity to revive the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw
+in her visit a counterpoise to all the evil done by the little town.
+Her opinion, surely more powerful than that of the crowd, ought to
+carry with it, she thought, the influence of race. This step, which
+the abbe came to announce, made so great a change in Ursula that the
+doctor, who was about to ask for a consultation of Parisian doctors,
+recovered hope. They placed her on her uncle's sofa, and such was the
+character of her beauty that she lay there in her mourning garments,
+pale from suffering, she was more exquisitely lovely than in the
+happiest hours of her life. When Savinien, with his mother on his arm,
+entered the room she colored vividly.
+
+"Do not rise, my child," said the old lady imperatively; "weak and ill
+as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what
+is happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and
+excellent girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the
+happiness of a gentleman."
+
+At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands
+of Savinien's mother and kissed them.
+
+"Ah, madame," she said in a faltering voice, "I should never have had
+the boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I
+love,--they have made me unworthy of him. Never!" she cried, with a
+ring in her voice which painfully affected those about her, "never
+will I consent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained
+reputation. I loved too well,--yes, I can admit it in my present
+condition,--I love a creature almost as I love God, and God--"
+
+"Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter," said the
+old lady, making an effort, "do not exaggerate the harm done by an
+infamous joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will
+live and you shall be happy."
+
+"We shall be happy!" cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and
+kissing her hand; "my mother has called you her daughter."
+
+"Enough, enough," said the doctor feeling his patient's pulse; "do not
+kill her with joy."
+
+At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of
+the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+
+"Monsieur de Portenduere," he said, in a voice like the hissing of a
+viper forced from its hole.
+
+"What do you want?" said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+
+"I have a word to say to you."
+
+Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+
+"Swear to me by Ursula's life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by
+me as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I
+will reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against
+Mademoiselle Mirouet."
+
+"Can I put a stop to them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I avenge them?"
+
+"On their author, yes--on his tool, no."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--I am the tool."
+
+Savinien turned pale.
+
+"I have just seen Ursula--" said Goupil.
+
+"Ursula?" said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mirouet," continued Goupil, made respectful by
+Savinien's tone; "and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has
+been done; I repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or
+otherwise, what good would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this
+moment it would poison you."
+
+The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager
+curiosity, calmed Savinien's anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a
+look which made that moral deformity writhe.
+
+"Who set you at this work?" said the young man.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+"What,--to do you no harm?"
+
+"I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me."
+
+"She will forgive you,--I, never!"
+
+"But at least you will forget?"
+
+What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further
+self-interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in
+pieces, standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other,
+compelled to talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+
+"I will forgive you, but I shall not forget."
+
+"The agreement is off," said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+applied a blow upon the man's face which echoed through the courtyard
+and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+
+"It is only what I deserve," said Goupil, "for committing such a
+folly. I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the
+advantage I gave you. You are in my power now," he added with a look
+of hatred.
+
+"You are a murderer!" said Savinien.
+
+"No more than a dagger is a murderer."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Savinien.
+
+"Are you revenged enough?" said Goupil, with ferocious irony; "will
+you stop here?"
+
+"Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness," replied Savinien.
+
+"Give me your hand," said the clerk, holding out his own.
+
+"It is yours," said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula's sake.
+"Now speak; who made you do this thing?"
+
+Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien's
+blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was
+undecided; then a voice said to him: "You will be notary!" and he
+answered:--
+
+"Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur--"
+
+"Who is persecuting Ursula?" persisted Savinien.
+
+"Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can't tell you
+that; but we might find out the reason. Don't mix me up in all this; I
+could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will
+try to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him
+--I'll crush him under foot, I'll dance on his carcass, I'll make his
+bones into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and
+Fontainebleau and Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, 'Minoret is a
+thief!' Yes, I'll burst him like a gun--There! we're allies now by the
+imprudence of that outbreak! If you choose I'll beg Mademoiselle
+Mirouet's pardon and tell her I curse the madness which impelled me to
+injure her. It may do her good; the abbe and the justice are both
+there; but Monsieur Bongrand must promise on his honor not to injure
+my career. I have a career now."
+
+"Wait a minute;" said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+
+"Ursula, my child," he said, returning to the salon, "the author of
+all your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask
+your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+forgotten."
+
+"What! Goupil?" cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all
+together.
+
+"Keep his secret," said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+
+Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said in a troubled voice, "I wish that all Nemours
+could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain
+and led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men.
+What I say now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the
+harm done by such miserable tricks--which may have hastened your
+happiness," he added, rather maliciously, "for I see that Madame de
+Portenduere is with you."
+
+"That is all very well, Goupil," said the abbe, "Mademoiselle forgives
+you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer."
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand," said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. "I
+shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur's practice; I hope the reparation
+I have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+petition to the bar and the ministry."
+
+Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left
+the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff's
+practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to
+restore the peace and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved
+by Goupil's confession.
+
+"You see, my child, that God was not against you," said the abbe.
+
+Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o'clock he was sitting
+in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom
+he was making plans for Desire's future. Desire had become very sedate
+since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely
+that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau,
+who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that
+they must find him a wife,--some poor girl belonging to an old and
+noble family; he would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris.
+Perhaps they could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where
+Zelie was proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the
+summer season. Minoret, inwardly congratulating himself for having
+managed his affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula,
+at the very moment when the drama so heedlessly begun by him was
+closing down upon him in a terrible manner.
+
+"Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you," said
+Cabirolle.
+
+"Show him in," answered Zelie.
+
+The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien's boots on
+the floor of the gallery, where the doctor's library used to be. A
+vague presentiment of danger ran through the robber's veins. Savinien
+entered and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in
+his hand, and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before
+the husband and wife.
+
+"I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret," he said,
+"your reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who,
+as the whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to
+tarnish her honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you
+deliver her over to Goupil's insults?--Answer!"
+
+"How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien," said Zelie, "to come and ask
+us the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as
+little about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret
+died I've not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I've
+never said one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer
+rogue whom I wouldn't think of consulting about even a dog. Why don't
+you speak up, Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in
+that way and accuse you of wickedness that's beneath you? As if a man
+with forty-eight thousand francs a year from landed property, and a
+castle fit for a prince, would stoop to such things! Get up, and don't
+sit there like a wet rag!"
+
+"I don't know what monsieur means," said Minoret in his squeaking
+voice, the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the
+voice was clear. "What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I
+may have said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My
+son Desire fell in love with her, and I didn't want him to marry her,
+that's all."
+
+"Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret."
+
+There was a moment's silence, but it was terrible, when all three
+persons examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy
+face of her colossus.
+
+"Though you are only insects," said the young nobleman, "I will make
+you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a man
+sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek
+satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The
+first time he sets his foot in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight
+me; he will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face
+again. If he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for
+I will have satisfaction. It shall never be said that you were tamely
+allowed to dishonor a defenceless young girl--"
+
+"But the calumnies of a Goupil--are--not--" began Minoret.
+
+"Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you
+had better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me.
+Leave it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your
+son."
+
+"But this sha'n't go one!" cried Zelie. "Do you suppose I'll stand by
+and let Desire fight you,--a sailor whose business it is to handle
+swords and guns? If you've got any cause of complaint against Minoret,
+there's Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy,
+who, by your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear
+the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman! somebody's teeth will pin
+your legs first! Come, Minoret, don't stand staring there like a big
+canary; you are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat
+on before your wife! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man's
+house is his castle. I don't know what you mean with your nonsense,
+but show me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you'll have to
+answer to _me_,--you and your minx Ursula."
+
+She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+
+"Remember what I have said to you," repeated Savinien to Minoret,
+paying no attention to Zelie's tirade. Suspending the sword of
+Damocles over their heads, he left the room.
+
+"Now, then, Minoret," said Zelie, "you will explain to me what this
+all means. A young man doesn't rush into a house and make an uproar
+like that and demand the blood of a family for nothing."
+
+"It's some mischief of that vile Goupil," said the colossus. "I
+promised to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre
+property cheap. I gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand
+francs in a note, and I suppose he isn't satisfied."
+
+"Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+Ursula?"
+
+"He wanted to marry her."
+
+"A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling
+me lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe
+them. There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me
+what it is."
+
+"There's nothing."
+
+"Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out."
+
+"Do let me alone!"
+
+"I'll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil--whom you're
+afraid of--and we'll see who gets the best of it then."
+
+"Just as you choose."
+
+"I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to
+him, mark you, I'll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and
+you, you haven't any feeling about him--"
+
+A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to
+end without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his
+self-satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against
+himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated
+with a new and terrible adversary. The next day, when he left the
+house early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional
+money, the walls were already placarded with the words: "Minoret is a
+thief." All those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was
+the author of the anonymous placard. Fortunately for him, everybody
+made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter
+stupidity; fools get more advantage from their weakness than able men
+from their strength. The world looks on at a great man battling
+against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a
+grocer who may fail and lose all. Why? Because men like to feel
+superior in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling
+themselves the equal of a man of genius. A clever man would have been
+lost in public estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive
+and foolish answers with a frightened air. Zelie sent her servants to
+efface the vindictive words wherever they were found; but the effect
+of them on Minoret's conscience still remained.
+
+The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent.
+Though Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night
+before, he now impudently refused to fulfil it.
+
+"My dear Lecoeur," he said, "I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up
+Monsieur Dionis's practice; I am therefore in a position to help you
+to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it's only the loss of two
+stamps,--here are seventy centimes."
+
+Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
+before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
+to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
+against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new
+position he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also
+by his respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to
+treat him well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and
+would break his leg at the first offence.
+
+The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
+the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs
+and her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his
+practice; the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One
+evening, towards midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street
+as he was leaving Massin's house, gave him a sound beating, and
+disappeared. The notary kept the matter a profound secret, and even
+contradicted an old woman who saw the scene from her window and
+thought that she recognized him.
+
+These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who
+became convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret,
+and he determined to find out its cause.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XIX
+
+                            APPARITIONS
+
+Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula's
+perfect innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily
+exhaustion, which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium
+of phenomena the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to
+challenge science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+
+Ten days after Madame de Portenduere's visit Ursula had a dream, with
+all the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral
+aspects as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather
+appeared to her and made a sign that she should come with him. She
+dressed herself and followed him through the darkness to their former
+house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely
+as it was on the day of her godfather's death. The old man wore the
+clothes that were on him the evening before his death. His face was
+pale, his movements caused no sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his
+voice distinctly, though it was feeble and as if repeated by a distant
+echo. The doctor conducted his child as far as the Chinese pagoda,
+where he made her lift the marble top of the little Boule cabinet just
+as she had raised it on the day of his death; but instead of finding
+nothing there she saw the letter her godfather had told her to fetch.
+She opened it and read both the letter addressed to herself and the
+will in favor of Savinien. The writing, as she afterwards told the
+abbe, shone as if traced by sunbeams--"it burned my eyes," she said.
+When she looked at her uncle to thank him she saw the old benevolent
+smile upon his discolored lips. Then, in a feeble voice, but still
+clearly, he told her to look at Minoret, who was listening in the
+corridor to what he said to her; and next, slipping the lock of the
+library door with his knife, and taking the papers from the study.
+With his right hand the old man seized his goddaughter and obliged her
+to walk at the pace of death and follow Minoret to his own house.
+Ursula crossed the town, entered the post house and went into Zelie's
+old room, where the spectre showed her Minoret unfolding the letters,
+reading them and burning them.
+
+"He could not," said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, "light the
+first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back
+to our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library,
+where he took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of
+twelve thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number
+of banknotes. 'He is,' said my godfather, 'the cause of all the
+trouble which has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills
+that you shall yet be happy. You will not die now; you will marry
+Savinien. If you love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to
+demand your fortune from my nephew. Swear it.'"
+
+Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+influence on Ursula's soul that she promised all her uncle asked,
+hoping to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found
+herself standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather's
+portrait, which had been placed there during her illness. She went
+back to bed and fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again
+she remembered all the particulars of this singular vision; but she
+dared not speak of it. Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from
+revealing a dream the end and object of which was her pecuniary
+benefit. She attributed the vision, not unnaturally, to remarks made
+by La Bougival the preceding evening, when the old woman talked of the
+doctor's intended liberality and of her own convictions on that
+subject. But the dream returned, with aggravated circumstances which
+made it fearful to the poor girl. On the second occasion the icy hand
+of her godfather was laid upon her shoulder, causing her the most
+horrible distress, an indefinable sensation. "You must obey the dead,"
+he said, in a sepulchral voice. "Tears," said Ursula, relating her
+dreams, "fell from his white, wide-open eyes."
+
+The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of
+her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and
+promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided
+to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," she said, "do you believe that the dead reappear?"
+
+"My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have
+much testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an
+article of faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the
+idea."
+
+"What do _you_ believe?"
+
+"That the power of God is infinite."
+
+"Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?"
+
+"Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His
+conversion, as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day
+when a woman in Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw
+the red dot you made against Saint-Savinien's day in your almanac."
+
+Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she
+remembered the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read
+her soul, and took away the almanac.
+
+"If that is so," she said, "then my visions are possibly true. My
+godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He
+was wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass
+for the repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these
+visions may cease, for they are destroying me."
+
+She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting on
+the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the
+somnambulism of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from
+her body at the bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect
+ease. The thing that most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula's
+veracity was known, was the exact description which she gave of the
+bedroom formerly occupied by Zelie at the post house, which Ursula had
+never entered and about which no one had ever spoken to her.
+
+"By what means can these singular apparitions take place?" asked
+Ursula. "What did my godfather think?"
+
+"Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized
+the possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are
+of man's creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must
+have forms which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are
+perceptible to our inward senses when brought under certain
+conditions. Thus your godfather's ideas might so enfold you that you
+would clothe them with his bodily presence. Then, if Minoret really
+committed those actions, they too resolve themselves into ideas; for
+all action is the result of many ideas. Now, if ideas live and move in
+a spiritual world, your spirit must be able to perceive them if it
+penetrates that world. These phenomena are not more extraordinary than
+those of memory; and those of memory are quite as amazing and
+inexplicable as those of the perfume of plants--which are perhaps the
+ideas of the plants."
+
+"How you enlarge and magnify the world!" exclaimed Ursula. "But to
+hear the dead speak, to see them walk, act--do you think it possible?"
+
+"In Sweden," replied the abbe, "Swedenborg has proved by evidence that
+he communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and
+you shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded
+at Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales,
+an adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier
+at Cardan."
+
+Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the "History of Henri de
+Montmorency," written by a priest of that period who had known the
+prince.
+
+"Read it," said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had
+opened at the 175th page. "Your godfather often re-read that passage,
+--and see! here's a little of his snuff in it."
+
+"And he not here!" said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+
+  "The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there--namely, the
+  Marquis d'Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis's quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  "I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved."
+
+"If all this is so," said Ursula, "what ought I do do?"
+
+"My child," said the abbe, "it concerns matters so important, and
+which may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep
+absolutely silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the
+secret of these apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you
+are now strong enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow
+and thank God and pray to him for the repose of your godfather's soul.
+Feel quite sure that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands."
+
+"If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,--what glances my
+godfather gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress--I awoke
+with my face all covered with tears."
+
+"Be at peace; he will not come again," said the priest.
+
+Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting
+that they might be entirely alone.
+
+"Can any one hear us?" he asked.
+
+"No one," replied Minoret.
+
+"Monsieur, my character must be known to you," said the abbe,
+fastening a gentle but attentive look on Minoret's face. "I have to
+speak to you of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you,
+and about which you may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest
+secrecy; but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than give you
+this information. While your uncle lived, there stood there," said the
+priest, pointing to a certain spot in the room, "a small buffet made
+by Boule, with a marble top" (Minoret turned livid), "and beneath the
+marble your uncle placed a letter for Ursula--" The abbe then went on
+to relate, without omitting the smallest circumstance, Minoret's
+conduct to Minoret himself. When the last post master heard the detail
+of the two matches refusing to light he felt his hair begin to writhe
+on his skull.
+
+"Who invented such nonsense?" he said, in a strangled voice, when the
+tale ended.
+
+"The dead man himself."
+
+This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+doctor.
+
+"God is very good, Monsieur l'abbe, to do miracles for me," he said,
+danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+
+"All that God does is natural," replied the priest.
+
+"Your phantoms don't frighten me," said the colossus, recovering his
+coolness.
+
+"I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to
+any one in the world," said the abbe. "You alone know the truth. The
+matter is between you and God."
+
+"Come now, Monsieur l'abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+horrible abuse of confidence?"
+
+"I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+sinner repents," said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+
+"Crime?" cried Minoret.
+
+"A crime frightful in its consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself
+avenges innocence."
+
+"Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?"
+
+"If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God."
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have
+had these facts from my uncle?"
+
+"Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to
+me privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will
+never speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point."
+
+"I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon."
+
+"I hope you are," said the old priest. "Even if I considered these
+warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man,
+and you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish
+to add to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and
+you would be tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or
+civilized, the sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to
+enjoy in peace ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the
+society in which we live,--for well-constituted societies are modeled
+on the system God has ordained for the universe. In this respect
+societies have a divine origin. Man does not originate ideas, he
+invents no form; he answers to the eternal relations that surround him
+on all sides. Therefore, see what happens! Criminals going to the
+scaffold, and having it in their power to carry their secret with
+them, are compelled by the force of some mysterious power to make
+confessions before their heads are taken off. Therefore, Monsieur
+Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I go my way satisfied."
+
+Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way
+out. When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric
+man; the strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula's
+name was mingled with odious language.
+
+"Why, what has she done to you?" cried Zelie, who had slipped in on
+tiptoe after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+
+For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+driven to extremities by his wife's reiterated questions, turned upon
+her and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell
+half-dead on the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed
+himself, ashamed of his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him
+twice; when he appeared again in the streets everybody noticed a great
+change in him. He walked alone, and often roamed the town as though
+uneasy. When any one addressed him he seemed preoccupied in his mind,
+he who had never before had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening,
+he went up to Monsieur Bongrand in the Grand'Rue, the latter being on his
+way to take Ursula to Madame de Portenduere's, where the whist parties
+had begun again.
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin,"
+he said, taking the justice by the arm, "and I am very glad you should
+be present, for you can advise her."
+
+They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air,
+as soon as she saw Minoret.
+
+"My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+business," said Bongrand. "By the bye, don't forget to give me your
+certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+dividend and La Bougival's."
+
+"Cousin," said Minoret, "our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than
+you have now."
+
+"We can be very happy with very little money," she replied.
+
+"I thought money might help your happiness," continued Minoret, "and I
+have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my
+uncle."
+
+"You had a natural way of showing respect for him," said Ursula,
+sternly; "you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to
+buy it; instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find
+some hidden treasure in it."
+
+"But," said Minoret, evidently troubled, "if you had twelve thousand
+francs a year you would be in a position to marry well."
+
+"I have not got them."
+
+"But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate
+in Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,--you could then marry her
+son."
+
+"Monsieur Minoret," said Ursula, "I have no claim to that money, and I
+cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are
+we friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason
+have you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a
+right to ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider
+your gift the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to
+accept it. Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can
+accept nothing except from friends, and I have no friendship for you."
+
+"Then you refuse?" cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had
+never entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+
+"I refuse," said Ursula.
+
+"But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+fortune?" asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. "You have an
+idea--have you an idea?--"
+
+"Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son
+will leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry
+her."
+
+"Well, we'll see about it," said Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
+"Give us time to think it over."
+
+He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the
+father for his son's interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her
+hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand
+went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started
+for Fontainebleau, where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was
+told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect.
+Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was playing whist with
+the wife of the procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the
+colonel of the regiment in garrison.
+
+"I come to bring you some good news," said Bongrand to Desire; "you
+love your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged."
+
+"I love Ursula Mirouet!" cried Desire, laughing. "Where did you get
+that idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor
+Minoret's; she certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I
+certainly took notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled
+my head seriously for that rather insipid little blonde," he added,
+smiling at the sub-prefect's wife (who was a piquante brunette--to use
+a term of the last century). "You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand; I thought every one knew that my father was a lord of a
+manor, with a rent roll of forty-five thousand francs a year from
+lands around his chateau at Rouvre,--good reasons why I should not
+love the goddaughter of my late great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl
+without a penny these ladies would consider me a fool."
+
+"Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"You hear that, monsieur?" said the justice to the procureur du roi,
+who had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the
+recess of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter
+of an hour.
+
+An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula's house, whence
+he sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus
+came at once.
+
+"Mademoiselle--" began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+room.
+
+"Accepts?" cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+
+"No, not yet," replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. "I had
+scruples as to your son's feelings; for Ursula has been much tried
+lately about a supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity.
+Can you swear to me that your son truly loves her and that you have no
+other intention than to preserve our dear Ursula from any further
+Goupilisms?"
+
+"Oh, I'll swear to that," cried Minoret.
+
+"Stop, papa Minoret," said the justice, taking one hand from the
+pocket of his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus
+trembled); "Don't swear falsely."
+
+"Swear falsely?"
+
+"Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never
+even thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering
+this fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+Fontainebleau to question your son."
+
+Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+
+"But where's the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young
+relative to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness,
+and to invent pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money."
+
+Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+
+"You know the cause of my refusal," said Ursula; "and I request you
+never to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told
+me his reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such
+dislike even, that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is
+my only fortune,--I do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it.
+Monsieur de Portenduere is only waiting for my majority to marry me."
+
+"Then the old saw that 'Money does all' is a lie," said Minoret,
+looking at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so
+much.
+
+He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+oppressive as in the little salon.
+
+"There must be an end put to this," he said to himself as he
+re-entered his own home.
+
+When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La
+Bougival, she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon
+with great strides.
+
+"Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?" he said.
+
+"None that I can tell," she replied.
+
+Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+
+"Then we have the same idea," he said. "Here, keep the number of your
+certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+precaution."
+
+Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and
+that of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+
+"Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+third."
+
+That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle's
+grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the
+inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a
+piercing cry, but the doctor's spectre slowly rose. First she saw his
+yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if
+surmounted by a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the eyes were like two
+gleams of light; the dead man rose as if impelled by some superior
+force or will. Ursula's body trembled; her flesh was like a burning
+garment, and there was (as she subsequently said) another self moving
+within her bodily presence. "Mercy!" she cried, "mercy, godfather!"
+"It is too late," he said, in the voice of death,--to use the poor
+girl's own expression when she related this new dream to the abbe. "He
+has been warned; he has paid no heed to the warning. The days of his
+son are numbered. If he does not confess all and restore what he has
+taken within a certain time he must lose his son, who will die a
+violent and horrible death. Let him know this." The spectre pointed to
+a line of figures which gleamed upon the side of the tomb as if
+written with fire, and said, "There is his doom." When her uncle lay
+down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of the stone falling
+back into its place, and immediately after, in the distance, a strange
+sound of horses and the cries of men.
+
+The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had
+the dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon
+and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said
+mass, but he was not surprised at Ursula's revelation. He believed the
+robbery had been committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself
+the abnormal condition of his "little dreamer." He left Ursula at once
+and went directly to Minoret's.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said Zelie, "my husband's temper is so soured I
+don't know what he mightn't do. Until now he's been a child; but for
+the last two months he's not the same man. To get angry enough to
+strike me--me, so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter
+to change him like that. You'll find him among the rocks; he spends
+all his time there,--doing what, I'd like to know?"
+
+In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed
+the canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks,
+where he saw Minoret.
+
+"You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret," said the priest going up
+to him. "You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to
+increase your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle
+lifted the stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great
+disaster in your family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but
+you ought to know what he said--"
+
+"I can't be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these
+rocks, and I'm sure I don't want to know anything that is going on in
+another world."
+
+"Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+pleasure," said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+
+"Well, what do you want to say?" demanded Minoret.
+
+"You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told
+things that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells
+things that no one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say,
+make restitution. Don't damn your soul for a little money."
+
+"Restitution of what?"
+
+"The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+certificates--I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies,
+you have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false
+steps every day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice
+Goupil has served you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and
+clear your mind, for you are watched by intelligent and penetrating
+eyes,--those of Ursula's friends. Make restitution! and if you do not
+save your son (who may not really be threatened), you will save your
+soul, and you will save your honor. Do you believe that in a society
+like ours, in a little town like this, where everybody's eyes are
+everywhere, and all things are guessed and all things are known, you
+can long hide a stolen fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man wouldn't
+have let me talk so long."
+
+"Go to the devil!" cried Minoret. "I don't know what you _all_ mean by
+persecuting me. I prefer these stones--they leave me in peace."
+
+"Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have
+said a single word about this to any living person. But take care
+--there is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!"
+
+The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The
+man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was,
+in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three
+certificates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared
+not draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not
+wish to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of
+transferring the certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty
+he bethought him of acknowledging all to his wife and getting her
+advice. Zelie, who always managed affairs for him so well, she could
+get him out of his troubles. The three-per-cent Funds were now selling
+at eighty. Restitution! why, that meant, with arrearages, giving up a
+million! Give up a million, when there was no one who could know that
+he had taken it!--
+
+So Minoret continued through September and a part of October
+irresolute and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise
+of the little town he grew thin and haggard.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XX
+
+                             REMORSE
+
+An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above
+their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret
+received from their son Desire the following letter:--
+
+  My dear Mother,--If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil's
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father's
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil's malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father's
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+
+After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating
+all the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even
+Ursula's dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did
+Minoret.
+
+"You stay quietly here," Zelie said to her husband, without the
+slightest remonstrance against his folly. "I'll manage the whole
+thing. We'll keep the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel."
+
+Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son's
+letter to Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In
+spite of her assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which
+the young girl gave her. But she took herself to task for her
+cowardice and assumed an easy air.
+
+"Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell
+me what you think of it," she cried, giving Ursula her son's letter.
+
+Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the
+letter, which showed her how truly she was loved and what care
+Savinien took of the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but
+she had too much charity and true religion to be willing to be the
+cause of death or suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+
+"I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly easy,
+--but I must request you to leave me this letter."
+
+"My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,--a really
+regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we
+shall give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the
+Funds; in all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that
+there are not many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,
+--and quite right too," added Zelie, seeing Ursula's quick gesture of
+denial; "I have therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will
+bear your godfather's name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you
+must have seen, is a handsome fellow; he is very much thought of at
+Fontainebleau, and he will soon be procureur du roi himself. You are a
+coaxing girl and can easily persuade him to live in Paris. We will
+give you a fine house there; you will shine; you will play a
+distinguished part; for, with seventy thousand francs a year and the
+salary of an office, you and Desire can enter the highest society.
+Consult your friends; you'll see what they tell you."
+
+"I need only consult my heart, madame."
+
+"Ta, ta, ta! now don't talk to me about that little lady-killer
+Savinien. You'd pay too high a price for his name, and for that little
+moustache curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair.
+How do you expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a
+man who made two hundred thousand francs of debt in two years? Besides
+--though this is a thing you don't know yet--all men are alike; and
+without flattering myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the
+equal of a king's son."
+
+"You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which
+can, perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere's desire to
+please me. If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals
+that danger might not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame,
+that I shall be far happier in the moderate circumstances to which you
+allude than I should be in the opulence with which you are trying to
+dazzle me. For reasons hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made
+known, Monsieur Minoret, by persecuting me in an odious manner,
+strengthened the affection that exists between Monsieur de Portenduere
+and myself--which I can now admit because his mother has blessed it. I
+will also tell you that this affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is
+life itself to me. No destiny, however brilliant, however lofty, could
+make me change. I love without the possibility of changing. It would
+therefore be a crime if I married a man to whom I could take nothing
+but a soul that is Savinien's. But, madame, since you force me to be
+explicit, I must tell you that even if I did not love Monsieur de
+Portenduere I could not bring myself to bear the troubles and joys of
+life in the company of your son. If Monsieur Savinien made debts, you
+have often paid those of your son. Our characters have neither the
+similarities nor the differences which enable two persons to live
+together without bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the
+forbearance a wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to
+him. Pray cease to think of an alliance of which I count myself quite
+unworthy, and which I fell I can decline without pain to you; for with
+the great advantages you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl
+of better station, more wealth, and more beauty than mine."
+
+"Will you swear to me," said Zelie, "to prevent these young men from
+taking that journey and fighting that duel?"
+
+"It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown
+must have no blood upon it."
+
+"Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy."
+
+"And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your
+expectations for the future of your son."
+
+These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+remembered the predictions of Ursula's last dream; she stood still,
+her small eyes fixed on Ursula's face, so white, so pure, so beautiful
+in her mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her
+so-called cousin's departure.
+
+"Do you believe in dreams?" said Zelie.
+
+"I suffer from them too much not to do so."
+
+"But if you do--" began Zelie.
+
+"Adieu, madame," exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she
+heard the abbe's entering step.
+
+The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+
+"Do you believe in spirits?" Zelie asked him.
+
+"What do you believe in?" he answered, smiling.
+
+"They are all sly," thought Zelie,--"every one of them! They want to
+deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams
+than there are hairs on the palm of my hand."
+
+With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+
+"I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau," said Ursula to the abbe,
+telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to
+prevent it.
+
+"Did Madame Minoret offer you her son's hand?" asked the abbe.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her," added the priest.
+
+Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step
+taken by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He
+looked at the abbe as if to say: "Come out, I want to speak to you of
+Ursula without her hearing me."
+
+"Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year
+and the dandy of Nemours," he said aloud.
+
+"Is it, then, a sacrifice?" she answered, laughing. "Are there
+sacrifices when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of
+a man we all despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but
+that ought not to be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy,
+and the abbe, and my dear godfather," she said, looking up at his
+portrait.
+
+Bongrand took Ursula's hand and kissed it.
+
+"Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?" said the justice as soon
+as they were in the street.
+
+"What?" asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+merely curious.
+
+"She had some plan for restitution."
+
+"Then you think--" began the abbe.
+
+"I don't think, I know; I have the certainty--and see there!"
+
+So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on
+his way home.
+
+"When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts," continued Bongrand, "I
+naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never
+seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity,
+that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum
+and bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care? What
+has put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic
+vivacity? Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead?
+Who would have supposed that the brain of that colossus could be
+excited? The man has felt his heart! I am a judge of remorse, just as
+you are a judge of repentance, my dear abbe. That which I have
+hitherto observed has developed in men who were awaiting punishment,
+or enduring it to get quits with the world; they were either resigned,
+or breathing vengeance; but here is remorse without expiation, remorse
+pure and simple, fastening on its prey and rending him."
+
+The judge stopped Minoret and said: "Do you know that Mademoiselle
+Mirouet has refused your son's hand?"
+
+"But," interposed the abbe, "do not be uneasy; she will prevent the
+duel."
+
+"Ah, then my wife succeeded?" said Minoret. "I am very glad, for it
+nearly killed me."
+
+"You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,"
+remarked Bongrand.
+
+Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+betrayed the dreams; but the abbe's face was unmoved, expressing only
+a calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+
+"And it is the more surprising," went on Monsieur Bongrand, "because
+you ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and
+all those farms and mills and meadows and--with your investments in
+the Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs--"
+
+"I haven't anything in the Funds," cried Minoret, hastily.
+
+"Pooh," said Bongrand; "this is just as it was about your son's love
+for Ursula,--first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage.
+After trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a
+daughter-in-law. My good friend, you have got some secret in your
+pouch."
+
+Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+better than:--
+
+"You're very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen"; and he turned with
+a slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+
+"He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula," said Bongrand, "but
+how can we ever find the proof?"
+
+"God may--"
+
+"God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man;
+but all that is merely what is called 'presumptive,' and human justice
+requires something more."
+
+The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in
+similar circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think
+of the robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien's
+happiness, delayed only by Ursula's loss of fortune--for the old lady
+had privately owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not
+consenting to the marriage in the doctor's lifetime.
+
+
+
+                            CHAPTER XXI
+
+             SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT
+                   WHICH SEEMS VERY EASILY STOLEN
+
+The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying
+mass, a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the
+utterance of a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and
+accompanied her home without having breakfasted.
+
+"My child," he said, "I want to see the two volumes your godfather
+showed you in your dreams--where he said that he placed those
+certificates and banknotes."
+
+Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third
+volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
+without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
+still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he
+found a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a
+package, which had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
+
+"Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand," La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was
+putting on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret's
+hand-writing on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder
+had lined the cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just
+discovered.
+
+"What's the meaning of those figures?" said the abbe; "our dear doctor
+was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable
+volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded
+by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U."
+
+"What are you talking of?" said Bongrand. "Let me see that. Good God!"
+he cried, after a moment's examination; "it would open the eyes of an
+atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I
+believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the
+worlds." He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. "Oh! my child, you
+will be rich and happy, and all through me!"
+
+"What is it?" exclaimed the abbe.
+
+"Oh, monsieur," cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand's blue overcoat,
+"let me kiss you for what you've just said."
+
+"Explain, explain! don't give us false hopes," said the abbe.
+
+"If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich," said Ursula,
+forseeing a criminal trial, "I--"
+
+"Remember," said the justice, interrupting her, "the happiness you
+will give to Savinien."
+
+"Are you mad?" said the abbe.
+
+"No, my dear friend," said Bongrand. "Listen; the certificates in the
+Funds are issued in series,--as many series as there are letters in
+the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+certificates which are made out 'to bearer' cannot have a letter; they
+are not in any person's name. What you see there shows that the day
+the doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the
+number of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest
+which bears his initial M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to
+bearer; these are without a letter; and thirdly, the certificate of
+Ursula's share in the Funds, the number of which is 23,534, and which
+follows, as you see, that of the fifteen-thousand-franc certificate
+with lettering. This goes far to prove that those numbers are those of
+five certificates of investments made on the same day and noted down
+by the doctor in case of loss. I advised him to take certificates to
+bearer for Ursula's fortune, and he must have made his own investment
+and that of Ursula's little property the same day. I'll go to Dionis's
+office and look at the inventory. If the number of the certificate for
+his own investment is 23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he
+invested, through the same broker on the same day, first his own
+property on a single certificate; secondly his savings in three
+certificates to bearer (numbered, but without the series letter);
+thirdly, Ursula's own property; the transfer books will show, of
+course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you deceiver, I have
+you-- Motus, my children!"
+
+Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways
+by which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+
+"The finger of God is in all this," cried the abbe.
+
+"Will they punish him?" asked Ursula.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival. "I'd give the rope to hang
+him."
+
+Bongrand was already at Goupil's, now the appointed successor of
+Dionis, but he entered the office with a careless air. "I have a
+little matter to verify about the Minoret property," he said to
+Goupil.
+
+"What is it?" asked the latter.
+
+"The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent
+Funds?"
+
+"He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year," said Goupil; "I
+recorded it myself."
+
+"Then just look on the inventory," said Bongrand.
+
+Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+place, and read:--
+
+"'Item, one certificate'-- Here, read for yourself--under the number
+23,533, letter M."
+
+"Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an
+hour," said Bongrand.
+
+"What good is it to you?" asked Goupil.
+
+"Do you want to be a notary?" answered the justice of peace, looking
+sternly at Dionis's proposed successor.
+
+"Of course I do," cried Goupil. "I've swallowed too many affronts not
+to succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable
+creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre
+Jean-Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of
+Mademoiselle Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are
+no longer even alike. Look at me!"
+
+Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil's clothes. The
+new notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned
+with ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat
+of handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
+hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
+
+"The fact is you are another man," said Bongrand.
+
+"Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a
+practice; besides, money is the source of cleanliness--"
+
+"Morally as well as physically," returned Bongrand, settling his
+spectacles.
+
+"Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever a
+democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what
+refinement is, and who intends to love his wife," said Goupil; "and
+what's more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty
+actions."
+
+"Well, make haste," said Bongrand. "Let me have that copy in an hour,
+and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil
+the clerk."
+
+After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet,
+he went back to Ursula's house for the two important volumes and for
+her own certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the
+inventory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the
+procureur du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft
+of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs,--presumably by
+Minoret.
+
+"His conduct is explained," said the procureur.
+
+As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the
+Treasury to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told
+Bongrand to go to Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been
+sold. He then wrote a polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her
+presence.
+
+Zelie, very uneasy about her son's duel, dressed herself at once, had
+the horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The
+procureur's plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the
+husband, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he
+expected to learn the truth. Zelie found the official in his private
+office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows:--
+
+"Madame," he said; "I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft
+that has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of
+which the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the
+shame of appearing in the prisoner's dock by making a full confession
+of what you know about it. The punishment which your husband has
+incurred is, moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son's
+career is to be thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an
+hour hence will be too late. The police are already under orders for
+Nemours, the warrant is made out."
+
+Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+
+"You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate," he
+said. "No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any
+publicity been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a
+great crime, which may be brought before a judge less inclined than
+myself to be considerate. In the present state of the affair I am
+obliged to make you a prisoner--oh, in my own house, on parole," he
+added, seeing that Zelie was about to faint. "You must remember that
+my official duty would require me to issue a warrant at once and begin
+an examination; but I am acting now individually, as guardian of
+Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and her best interests demand a
+compromise."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Zelie.
+
+"Write to your husband in the following words," he continued, placing
+Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:--
+
+  "My Friend,--I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury."
+
+"You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+make," said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie's orthography. "We will
+see that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay
+in our house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of
+the matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy."
+
+Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate
+sent for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father's theft,
+which was really to Ursula's injury, but, as matters stood, legally to
+that of his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother.
+Desire at once asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his
+father made immediate restitution.
+
+"It is a very serious matter," said the magistrate. "The will having
+been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and
+Cremiere may put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father.
+I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has
+already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To
+her, I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her.
+Take her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you
+can. Don't fear any one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too
+well to let the matter become known."
+
+Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter,
+the orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring
+ridicule on a man crushed by affliction.
+
+
+To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+
+Monsieur,--God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at
+Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the
+carriage; the horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their
+impatience, jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the
+coachman leave the box. As he turned to resume his place in the
+carriage beside his mother the horses started; Desire did not step
+back against the parapet in time; the step of the carriage cut
+through both legs and he fell, the hind wheel passing over his
+body. The messenger who goes to Paris for the best surgeon will
+bring you this letter, which my son in the midst of his sufferings
+desires me to write so as to let you know our entire submission to
+your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to speak to me.
+
+I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which
+you have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+
+Francois Minoret.
+
+
+This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds
+standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell
+Savinien that his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful
+than his own. He went at once to Ursula's house, where he found both
+the abbe and the young girl more distressed than surprised.
+
+The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and
+surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be
+amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied
+by the abbe, to Ursula's house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand
+and Savinien.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said; "I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that I
+can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in
+absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and
+also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him."
+
+He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+
+"I can assure you, my dear Ursula," said the abbe, "that you can and
+that you ought to accept a part of this gift."
+
+"Will you forgive me?" said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the
+astonished girl. "The operation is about to be performed by the first
+surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely
+only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to
+restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we
+shall have the joy of saving him."
+
+"Let us go to the church!" cried Ursula, rising.
+
+But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and she
+fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her friends
+--but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor--looking at her with
+anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled
+their hearts.
+
+"I saw my godfather standing in the doorway," she said, "and he signed
+to me that there was no hope."
+
+The day after the operation Desire died,--carried off by the fever and
+the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity,
+became insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her
+husband to the establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in
+1841.
+
+Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married
+Savinien with Madame de Portenduere's consent. Minoret took part in
+the marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his
+estate at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the
+Funds; keeping for himself only his uncle's house and ten thousand
+francs a year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most
+religious; he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the
+providence of the unfortunate.
+
+"The poor take the place of my son," he said.
+
+If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll
+the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing
+out its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe,
+you will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,
+--broken, emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace
+of the jovial dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the
+beginning of this history; he does not even take his snuff as he once
+did; he carries something more now than the weight of his body.
+Beholding him, we feel that the hand of God was laid upon that figure
+to make it an awful warning. After hating so violently his uncle's
+godchild the old man now, like Doctor Minoret himself, has
+concentrated all his affections on her, and has made himself the
+manager of her property in Nemours.
+
+Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year in
+Paris, where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg
+Saint-Germain. Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house
+in Nemours to the Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live at
+Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter's lodge. Cabirolle, the
+former conductor of the "Ducler," a man sixty years of age, has
+married La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a year which she
+possesses besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle
+is Monsieur de Portenduere's coachman.
+
+If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming
+little low carriages called 'escargots,' lined with gray silk and
+trimmed with blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire
+because her face is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes
+luminous as forget-me-nots and filled with love; if you see her
+bending slightly towards a fine young man, and, if you are, for a
+moment, conscious of envy--pause and reflect that this handsome
+couple, beloved of God, have paid their quota to the sorrows of life
+in times now past. These married lovers are the Vicomte de Portenduere
+and his wife. There is not another such home in Paris as theirs.
+
+"It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen," said the Comtesse de
+l'Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+
+Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for
+yourselves, a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best
+of all mothers--adversity.
+
+Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he
+is punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous.
+Dionis, his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of
+which he is one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of
+the king of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls.
+Madame Dionis relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of
+her receptions at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the
+king of the French. She lords it over Nemours by means of the throne,
+which therefore must be popular in the little town.
+
+Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is
+in the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+
+Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the
+occasion of her daughter's marriage, she exhorted her to be the
+working caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with
+the eyes of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her
+"slapsus-linquies," which he calls a Cremiereana.
+
+"We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon," said
+the Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter--having nursed him herself
+during his illness. "The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is
+very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the
+venerable cure of Saint-Lange."
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bouvard, Doctor
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Dionis
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Estorade, Madame de l'
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Kergarouet, Comte de
+  The Purse
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+
+Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Government Clerks
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Marsay, Henri de
+  The Thirteen
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Father Goriot
+  Jealousies of a Country Twon
+  A Marriage Settlement
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+Nathan, Madame Raoul
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Government Clerks
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Beatrix
+
+Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+  Another Study of Woman
+  Beatrix
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Rouvre, Marquis du
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  A Start in Life
+
+Rouvre, Chevalier du
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Government Clerks
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Schmucke, Wilhelm
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Cousin Pons
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de
+  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Father Goriot
+  Gobseck
+  A Man of Business
+  The Member for Arcis
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Cousin Betty
+  Beatrix
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK URSULA ***
+
+***** This file should be named 1223.txt or 1223.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/2/1223/
+
+Produced by John Bickers, Bonnie Sala, and Dagny
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.net/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.net),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.net
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/old/old/20051020-1223.zip b/old/old/20051020-1223.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e54d070
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/20051020-1223.zip
diff --git a/old/old/rsula10.txt b/old/old/rsula10.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..51985b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/rsula10.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,9591 @@
+***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ursula, by Honore de Balzac***
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+#6 in our series by Balzac
+
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
+the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!
+
+Please take a look at the important information in this header.
+We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
+electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.
+
+
+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*
+
+Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
+further information is included below.  We need your donations.
+
+
+Ursula
+
+by Honore de Balzac (transl. Katharine Prescott Wormeley)
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+February, 1997  [Etext #1223]
+
+
+***The Project Gutenberg Etext of Ursula by Honore de Balzac****
+******This file should be named rsula10.txt or rsula10.zip******
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, rsula11.txt.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, rsula10a.txt.
+
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+      and Bonnie Sala
+
+
+Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
+all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
+copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we do NOT keep these books
+in compliance with any particular paper edition, usually otherwise.
+
+
+We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
+of the official release dates, for time for better editing.
+
+Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
+midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
+The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
+Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
+preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
+and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
+up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
+in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
+a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
+look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
+new copy has at least one byte more or less.
+
+
+Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)
+
+We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
+fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
+to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
+searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
+projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
+per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
+million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-two text
+files per month, or 384 more Etexts in 1997 for a total of 1000+
+If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
+total should reach over 100 billion Etexts given away.
+
+The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
+Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
+This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
+which is only 10% of the present number of computer users.  2001
+should have at least twice as many computer users as that, so it
+will require us reaching less than 5% of the users in 2001.
+
+
+We need your donations more than ever!
+
+
+All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
+tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
+Mellon University).
+
+For these and other matters, please mail to:
+
+Project Gutenberg
+P. O. Box  2782
+Champaign, IL 61825
+
+When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
+Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>
+
+We would prefer to send you this information by email
+(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail).
+
+******
+If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please
+FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives:
+[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type]
+
+ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu
+login:  anonymous
+password:  your@login
+cd etext/etext90 through /etext96
+or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information]
+dir [to see files]
+get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
+GET INDEX?00.GUT
+for a list of books
+and
+GET NEW GUT for general information
+and
+MGET GUT* for newsletters.
+
+**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**
+(Three Pages)
+
+
+***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
+Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
+They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
+your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
+someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
+fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
+disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
+you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.
+
+*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
+By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
+etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
+this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
+a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
+sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
+you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
+medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.
+
+ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
+This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
+tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
+Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
+Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
+things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
+on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
+distribute it in the United States without permission and
+without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
+below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
+under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.
+
+To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
+efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
+works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
+medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
+things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
+intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
+disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
+codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.
+
+LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
+But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
+[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
+etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
+legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
+UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
+INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
+OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
+POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
+
+If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
+receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
+you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
+time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
+on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
+such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
+copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
+choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
+receive it electronically.
+
+THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
+TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
+LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
+PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
+
+Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
+the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
+above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
+may have other legal rights.
+
+INDEMNITY
+You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
+officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
+and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
+indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
+[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
+or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.
+
+DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
+You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
+disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
+"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
+or:
+
+[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
+     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
+     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
+     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
+     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
+     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
+     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
+     *EITHER*:
+
+     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
+          does *not* contain characters other than those
+          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
+          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
+          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
+          author, and additional characters may be used to
+          indicate hypertext links; OR
+
+     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
+          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
+          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
+          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
+          OR
+
+     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
+          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
+          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
+          or other equivalent proprietary form).
+
+[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
+     "Small Print!" statement.
+
+[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
+     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
+     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
+     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
+     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
+     University" within the 60 days following each
+     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
+     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.
+
+WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
+The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
+scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
+free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
+you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
+Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".
+
+*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+by Honore de Balzac
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+
+
+Etext prepared by John Bickers, jbickers@templar.actrix.gen.nz
+and Bonnie Sala
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+BY
+
+HONORE DE BALZAC
+
+
+
+Translated By
+Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+DEDICATION
+
+To Mademoiselle Sophie Surville,
+
+It is a true pleasure, my dear niece, to dedicate to you this
+book, the subject and details of which have won the
+approbation, so difficult to win, of a young girl to whom the
+world is still unknown, and who has compromised with none of
+the lofty principles of a saintly education. Young girls are
+indeed a formidable public, for they ought not to be allowed
+to read books less pure than the purity of their souls; they
+are forbidden certain reading, just as they are carefully
+prevented from seeing social life as it is. Must it not
+therefore be a source of pride to a writer to find that he has
+pleased you?
+
+God grant that your affection for me has not misled you. Who can tell?
+--the future; which you, I hope, will see, though not, perhaps.
+
+
+Your uncle,
+De Balzac.
+
+
+
+
+
+URSULA
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE FRIGHTENED HEIRS
+
+Entering Nemours by the road to Paris, we cross the canal du Loing,
+the steep banks of which serve the double purpose of ramparts to the
+fields and of picturesque promenades for the inhabitants of that
+pretty little town. Since 1830 several houses had unfortunately been
+built on the farther side of the bridge. If this sort of suburb
+increases, the place will lose its present aspect of graceful
+originality.
+
+In 1829, however, both sides of the road were clear, and the master of
+the post route, a tall, stout man about sixty years of age, sitting
+one fine autumn morning at the highest part of the bridge, could take
+in at a glance the whole of what is called in his business a "ruban de
+queue." The month of September was displaying its treasures; the
+atmosphere glowed above the grass and the pebbles; no cloud dimmed the
+blue of the sky, the purity of which in all parts, even close to the
+horizon, showed the extreme rarefaction of the air. So Minoret-
+Levrault (for that was the post master's name) was obliged to shade
+his eyes with one hand to keep them from being dazzled. With the air
+of a man who was tired of waiting, he looked first to the charming
+meadows which lay to the right of the road where the aftermath was
+springing up, then to the hill-slopes covered with copses which
+extend, on the left, from Nemours to Bouron. He could hear in the
+valley of the Loing, where the sounds on the road were echoed back
+from the hills, the trot of his own horses and the crack of his
+postilion's whip.
+
+None but a post master could feel impatient within sight of such
+meadows, filled with cattle worthy of Paul Potter and glowing beneath
+a Raffaelle sky, and beside a canal shaded with trees after Hobbema.
+Whoever knows Nemours knows that nature is there as beautiful as art,
+whose mission is to spiritualize it; there, the landscape has ideas
+and creates thought. But, on catching sight of Minoret-Levrault an
+artist would very likely have left the view to sketch the man, so
+original was his in his native commonness. Unite in a human being all
+the conditions of the brute and you have a Caliban, who is certainly a
+great thing. Wherever form rules, sentiment disappears. The post
+master, a living proof of that axiom, presented a physiognomy in which
+an observer could with difficulty trace, beneath the vivid carnation
+of its coarsely developed flesh, the semblance of a soul. His cap of
+blue cloth, with a small peak, and sides fluted like a melon, outlined
+a head of vast dimensions, showing that Gall's science has not yet
+produced its chapter of exceptions. The gray and rather shiny hair
+which appeared below the cap showed that other causes than mental toil
+or grief had whitened it. Large ears stood out from the head, their
+edges scarred with the eruptions of his over-abundant blood, which
+seemed ready to gush at the least exertion. His skin was crimson under
+an outside layer of brown, due to the habit of standing in the sun.
+The roving gray eyes, deep-sunken, and hidden by bushy black brows,
+were like those of the Kalmucks who entered France in 1815; if they
+ever sparkled it was only under the influence of a covetous thought.
+His broad pug nose was flattened at the base. Thick lips, in keeping
+with a repulsive double chin, the beard of which, rarely cleaned more
+than once a week, was encircled with a dirty silk handkerchief twisted
+to a cord; a short neck, rolling in fat, and heavy cheeks completed
+the characteristics of brute force which sculptors give to their
+caryatids. Minoret-Levrault was like those statues, with this
+difference, that whereas they supported an edifice, he had more than
+he could well do to support himself. You will meet many such Atlases
+in the world. The man's torso was a block; it was like that of a bull
+standing on his hind-legs. His vigorous arms ended in a pair of thick,
+hard hands, broad and strong and well able to handle whip, reins, and
+pitchfork; hands which his postilions never attempted to trifle with.
+The enormous stomach of this giant rested on thighs which were as
+large as the body of an ordinary adult, and feet like those of an
+elephant. Anger was a rare thing with him, but it was terrible,
+apoplectic, when it did burst forth. Though violent and quite
+incapable of reflection, the man had never done anything that
+justified the sinister suggestions of his bodily presence. To all
+those who felt afraid of him his postilions would reply, "Oh! he's not
+bad."
+
+The master of Nemours, to use the common abbreviation of the country,
+wore a velveteen shooting-jacket of bottle-green, trousers of green
+linen with great stripes, and an ample yellow waistcoat of goat's
+skin, in the pocket of which might be discerned the round outline of a
+monstrous snuff-box. A snuff-box to a pug nose is a law without
+exception.
+
+A son of the Revolution and a spectator of the Empire, Minoret-
+Levrault did not meddle with politics; as to his religious opinions,
+he had never set foot in a church except to be married; as to his
+private principles, he kept them within the civil code; all that the
+law did not forbid or could not prevent he considered right. He never
+read anything but the journal of the department of the Seine-et-Oise,
+and a few printed instructions relating to his business. He was
+considered a clever agriculturist; but his knowledge was only
+practical. In him the moral being did not belie the physical. He
+seldom spoke, and before speaking he always took a pinch of snuff to
+give himself time, not to find ideas, but words. If he had been a
+talker you would have felt that he was out of keeping with himself.
+Reflecting that this elephant minus a trumpet and without a mind was
+called Minoret-Levrault, we are compelled to agree with Sterne as to
+the occult power of names, which sometimes ridicule and sometimes
+foretell characters.
+
+In spite of his visible incapacity he had acquired during the last
+thirty-six years (the Revolution helping him) an income of thirty
+thousand francs, derived from farm lands, woods and meadows. If
+Minoret, being master of the coach-lines of Nemours and those of the
+Gatinais to Paris, still worked at his business, it was less from
+habit than for the sake of an only son, to whom he was anxious to give
+a fine career. This son, who was now (to use an expression of the
+peasantry) a "monsieur," had just completed his legal studies and was
+about to take his degree as licentiate, preparatory to being called to
+the Bar. Monsieur and Madame Minoret-Levrault--for behind our colossus
+every one will perceive a woman without whom this signal good-fortune
+would have been impossible--left their son free to choose his own
+career; he might be a notary in Paris, king's-attorney in some
+district, collector of customs no matter where, broker, or post
+master, as he pleased. What fancy of his could they ever refuse him?
+to what position of life might he not aspire as the son of a man about
+whom the whole countryside, from Montargis to Essonne, was in the
+habit of saying, "Pere Minoret doesn't even know how rich he is"?
+
+This saying had obtained fresh force about four years before this
+history begins, when Minoret, after selling his inn, built stables and
+a splendid dwelling, and removed the post-house from the Grand'Rue to
+the wharf. The new establishment cost two hundred thousand francs,
+which the gossip of thirty miles in circumference more than doubled.
+The Nemours mail-coach service requires a large number of horses. It
+goes to Fontainebleau on the road to Paris, and from there diverges to
+Montargis and also to Montereau. The relays are long, and the sandy
+soil of the Montargis road calls for the mythical third horse, always
+paid for but never seen. A man of Minoret's build, and Minoret's
+wealth, at the head of such an establishment might well be called,
+without contradiction, the master of Nemours. Though he never thought
+of God or devil, being a practical materialist, just as he was a
+practical agriculturist, a practical egoist, and a practical miser,
+Minoret had enjoyed up to this time a life of unmixed happiness,--if
+we can call pure materialism happiness. A physiologist, observing the
+rolls of flesh which covered the last vertebrae and pressed upon the
+giant's cerebellum, and, above all, hearing the shrill, sharp voice
+which contrasted so absurdly with his huge body, would have understood
+why this ponderous, coarse being adored his only son, and why he had
+so long expected him,--a fact proved by the name, Desire, which was
+given to the child.
+
+The mother, whom the boy fortunately resembled, rivaled the father in
+spoiling him. No child could long have resisted the effects of such
+idolatry. As soon as Desire knew the extent of his power he milked his
+mother's coffer and dipped into his father's purse, making each author
+of his being believe that he, or she, alone was petitioned. Desire,
+who played a part in Nemours far beyond that of a prince royal in his
+father's capital, chose to gratify his fancies in Paris just as he had
+gratified them in his native town; he had therefore spent a yearly sum
+of not less than twelve thousand francs during the time of his legal
+studies. But for that money he had certainly acquired ideas that would
+never had come to him in Nemours; he had stripped off the provincial
+skin, learned the power of money and seen in the magistracy a means of
+advancement which he fancied. During the last year he had spent an
+extra sum of ten thousand francs in the company of artists,
+journalists, and their mistresses. A confidential and rather
+disquieting letter from his son, asking for his consent to a marriage,
+explains the watch which the post master was now keeping on the
+bridge; for Madame Minoret-Levrault, busy in preparing a sumptuous
+breakfast to celebrate the triumphal return of the licentiate, had
+sent her husband to the mail road, advising him to take a horse and
+ride out if he saw nothing of the diligence. The coach which was
+conveying the precious son usually arrived at five in the morning and
+it was now nine! What could be the meaning of such delay? Was the
+coach overturned? Could Desire be dead? Or was it nothing worse than a
+broken leg?
+
+Three distinct volleys of cracking whips rent the air like a discharge
+of musketry; the red waistcoats of the postilions dawned in sight, ten
+horses neighed. The master pulled off his cap and waved it; he was
+seen. The best mounted postilion, who was returning with two gray
+carriage-horses, set spurs to his beast and came on in advance of the
+five diligence horses and the three other carriage-horses, and soon
+reached his master.
+
+"Have you seen the 'Ducler'?"
+
+On the great mail routes names, often fantastic, are given to the
+different coaches; such, for instance, as the "Caillard," the "Ducler"
+(the coach between Nemours and Paris), the "Grand Bureau." Every new
+enterprise is called the "Competition." In the days of the Lecompte
+company their coaches were called the "Countess."--"'Caillard' could
+not overtake the 'Countess'; but 'Grand Bureau' caught up with her
+finely," you will hear the men say. If you see a postilion pressing
+his horses and refusing a glass of wine, question the conductor and he
+will tell you, snuffing the air while his eye gazes far into space,
+"The 'Competition' is ahead."--"We can't get in sight of her," cries
+the postilion; "the vixen! she wouldn't stop to let her passengers
+dine."--"The question is, has she got any?" responds the conductor.
+"Give it to Polignac!" All lazy and bad horses are called Polignac.
+Such are the jokes and the basis of conversation between postilions
+and conductors on the roofs of the coaches. Each profession, each
+calling in France has its slang.
+
+"Have you seen the 'Ducler'?" asked Minoret.
+
+"Monsieur Desire?" said the postilion, interrupting his master. "Hay!
+you must have heard us, didn't our whips tell you? we felt you were
+somewhere along the road."
+
+Just then a woman dressed in her Sunday clothes,--for the bells were
+pealing from the clock tower and calling the inhabitants to mass,--a
+woman about thirty-six years of age came up to the post master.
+
+"Well, cousin," she said, "you wouldn't believe me-- Uncle is with
+Ursula in the Grand'Rue, and they are going to mass."
+
+In spite of the modern poetic canons as to local color, it is quite
+impossible to push realism so far as to repeat the horrible blasphemy
+mingled with oaths which this news, apparently so unexciting, brought
+from the huge mouth of Minoret-Levrault; his shrill voice grew
+sibilant, and his face took on the appearance of what people oddly
+enough call a sunstroke.
+
+"Is that true?" he asked, after the first explosion of his wrath was
+over.
+
+The postilions bowed to their master as they and their horses passed
+him, but he seemed to neither see nor hear them. Instead of waiting
+for his son, Minoret-Levrault hurried up to the Grand'Rue with his
+cousin.
+
+"Didn't I always tell you so?" she resumed. "When Doctor Minoret goes
+out of his head that demure little hypocrite will drag him into
+religion; whoever lays hold of the mind gets hold of the purse, and
+she'll have our inheritance."
+
+"But, Madame Massin--" said the post master, dumbfounded.
+
+"There now!" exclaimed Madame Massin, interrupting her cousin. "You
+are going to say, just as Massin does, that a little girl of fifteen
+can't invent such plans and carry them out, or make an old man of
+eighty-three, who has never set foot in a church except to be married,
+change his opinions,--now don't tell me he has such a horror of
+priests that he wouldn't even go with the girl to the parish church
+when she made her first communion. I'd like to know why, if Doctor
+Minoret hates priests, he has spent nearly every evening for the last
+fifteen years of his life with the Abbe Chaperon. The old hypocrite
+never fails to give Ursula twenty francs for wax tapers every time she
+takes the sacrament. Have you forgotten the gift Ursula made to the
+church in gratitude to the cure for preparing her for her first
+communion? She spent all her money on it, and her godfather returned
+it to her doubled. You men! you don't pay attention to things. When I
+heard that, I said to myself, 'Farewell baskets, the vintage is done!'
+A rich uncle doesn't behave that way to a little brat picked up in the
+streets without some good reason."
+
+"Pooh, cousin; I dare say the good man is only taking her to the door
+of the church," replied the post master. "It is a fine day, and he is
+out for a walk."
+
+"I tell you he is holding a prayer-book, and looks sanctimonious--
+you'll see him."
+
+"They hide their game pretty well," said Minoret, "La Bougival told me
+there was never any talk of religion between the doctor and the abbe.
+Besides, the abbe is one of the most honest men on the face of the
+globe; he'd give the shirt off his back to a poor man; he is incapable
+of a base action, and to cheat a family out of their inheritance is--"
+
+"Theft," said Madame Massin.
+
+"Worse!" cried Minoret-Levrault, exasperated by the tongue of his
+gossiping neighbour.
+
+"Of course I know," said Madame Massin, "that the Abbe Chaperon is an
+honest man; but he is capable of anything for the sake of his poor. He
+must have mined and undermined uncle, and the old man has just tumbled
+into piety. We did nothing, and here he is perverted! A man who never
+believed in anything, and had principles of his own! Well! we're done
+for. My husband is absolutely beside himself."
+
+Madame Massin, whose sentences were so many arrows stinging her fat
+cousin, made him walk as fast as herself, in spite of his obesity and
+to the great astonishment of the church-goers, who were on their way
+to mass. She was determined to overtake this uncle and show him to the
+post master.
+
+Nemours is commanded on the Gatinais side by a hill, at the foot of
+which runs the road to Montargis and the Loing. The church, on the
+stones of which time has cast a rich discolored mantle (it was rebuilt
+in the fourteenth century by the Guises, for whom Nemours was raised
+to a peerage-duchy), stands at the end of the little town close to a
+great arch which frames it. For buildings, as for men, position does
+everything. Shaded by a few trees, and thrown into relief by a neatly
+kept square, this solitary church produces a really grandiose effect.
+As the post master of Nemours entered the open space, he beheld his
+uncle with the young girl called Ursula on his arm, both carrying
+prayer-books and just entering the church. The old man took off his
+hat in the porch, and his head, which was white as a hill-top covered
+with snow, shone among the shadows of the portal.
+
+"Well, Minoret, what do you say to the conversion of your uncle?"
+cried the tax-collector of Nemours, named Cremiere.
+
+"What do you expect me to say?" replied the post master, offering him
+a pinch of snuff.
+
+"Well answered, Pere Levrault. You can't say what you think, if it is
+true, as an illustrious author says it is, that a man must think his
+words before he speaks his thoughts," cried a young man, standing
+near, who played the part of Mephistopheles in the little town.
+
+This ill-conditioned youth, named Goupil, was head clerk to Monsieur
+Cremiere-Dionis, the Nemours notary. Notwithstanding a past conduct
+that was almost debauched, Dionis had taken Goupil into his office
+when a career in Paris--where the clerk had wasted all the money he
+inherited from his father, a well-to-do farmer, who educated him for a
+notary--was brought to a close by his absolute pauperism. The mere
+sight of Goupil told an observer that he had made haste to enjoy life,
+and had paid dear for his enjoyments. Though very short, his chest and
+shoulders were developed at twenty-seven years of age like those of a
+man of forty. Legs small and weak, and a broad face, with a cloudy
+complexion like the sky before a storm, surmounted by a bald forehead,
+brought out still further the oddity of his conformation. His face
+seemed as though it belonged to a hunchback whose hunch was inside of
+him. One singularity of that pale and sour visage confirmed the
+impression of an invisible gobbosity; the nose, crooked and out of
+shape like those of many deformed persons, turned from right to left
+of the face instead of dividing it down the middle. The mouth,
+contracted at the corners, like that of a Sardinian, was always on the
+qui vive of irony. His hair, thin and reddish, fell straight, and
+showed the skull in many places. His hands, coarse and ill-joined at
+the wrists to arms that were far too long, were quick-fingered and
+seldom clean. Goupil wore boots only fit for the dust-heap, and raw
+silk stockings now of a russet black; his coat and trousers, all
+black, and threadbare and greasy with dirt, his pitiful waistcoat with
+half the button-moulds gone, an old silk handkerchief which served as
+a cravat--in short, all his clothing revealed the cynical poverty to
+which his passions had reduced him. This combination of disreputable
+signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round the
+pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly. No one in
+Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more deferred to than Goupil.
+Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the
+odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license,
+and he used it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy. He
+wrote the satirical couplets sung during the carnival, organized
+charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of the gossip of the
+town. Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for that reason timid,
+kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind and thorough
+knowledge of all the interests of the town. But the master so
+distrusted his clerk that he himself kept the accounts, refused to let
+him live in his house, held him at arm's length, and never confided
+any secret or delicate affair to his keeping. In return the clerk
+fawned upon the notary, hiding his resentment at this conduct, and
+watching Madame Dionis in the hope that he might get his revenge
+there. Gifted with a ready mind and quick comprehension he found work
+easy.
+
+"You!" exclaimed the post master to the clerk, who stood rubbing his
+hands, "making game of our misfortunes already?"
+
+As Goupil was known to have pandered to Dionis' passions for the last
+five years, the post master treated him cavalierly, without suspecting
+the hoard of ill-feeling he was piling up in Goupil's heart with every
+fresh insult. The clerk, convinced that money was more necessary to
+him than it was to others, and knowing himself superior in mind to the
+whole bourgeoisie of Nemours, was now counting on his intimacy with
+Minoret's son Desire to obtain the means of buying one or the other of
+three town offices,--that of clerk of the court, or the legal practice
+of one of the sheriffs, or that of Dionis himself. For this reason he
+put up with the affronts of the post master and the contempt of Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, and played a contemptible part towards Desire,
+consoling the fair victims whom that youth left behind him after each
+vacation,--devouring the crumbs of the loaves he had kneaded.
+
+"If I were the nephew of a rich old fellow, he never would have given
+God to ME for a co-heir," retorted Goupil, with a hideous grin which
+exhibited his teeth--few, black, and menacing.
+
+Just then Massin-Levrault, junior, the clerk of the court, joined his
+wife, bringing with him Madame Cremiere, the wife of the tax-collector
+of Nemours. This man, one of the hardest natures of the little town,
+had the physical characteristics of a Tartar: eyes small and round as
+sloes beneath a retreating brow, crimped hair, an oily skin, huge ears
+without any rim, a mouth almost without lips, and a scanty beard. He
+spoke like a man who was losing his voice. To exhibit him thoroughly
+it is enough to say that he employed his wife and eldest daughter to
+serve his legal notices.
+
+Madame Cremiere was a stout woman, with a fair complexion injured by
+red blotches, always too tightly laced, intimate with Madame Dionis,
+and supposed to be educated because she read novels. Full of
+pretensions to wit and elegance, she was awaiting her uncle's money to
+"take a certain stand," decorate her salon, and receive the
+bourgeoisie. At present her husband denied her Carcel lamps,
+lithographs, and all the other trifles the notary's wife possessed.
+She was excessively afraid of Goupil, who caught up and retailed her
+"slapsus-linquies" as she called them. One day Madame Dionis chanced
+to ask what "Eau" she thought best for the teeth.
+
+"Try opium," she replied.
+
+Nearly all the collateral heirs of old Doctor Minoret were now
+assembled in the square; the importance of the event which brought
+them was so generally felt that even groups of peasants, armed with
+their scarlet umbrellas and dressed in those brilliant colors which
+make them so picturesque on Sundays and fete-days, stood by, with
+their eyes fixed on the frightened heirs. In all little towns which
+are midway between large villages and cities those who do not go to
+mass stand about in the square or market-place. Business is talked
+over. In Nemours the hour of church service was a weekly exchange, to
+which the owners of property scattered over a radius of some miles
+resorted.
+
+"Well, how would you have prevented it?" said the post master to
+Goupil in reply to his remark.
+
+"I should have made myself as important to him as the air he breathes.
+But from the very first you failed to get hold of him. The inheritance
+of a rich uncle should be watched as carefully as a pretty woman--for
+want of proper care they'll both escape you. If Madame Dionis were
+here she could tell you how true that comparison is."
+
+"But Monsieur Bongrand has just told me there is nothing to worry
+about," said Massin.
+
+"Oh! there are plenty of ways of saying that!" cried Goupil,
+laughing. "I would like to have heard your sly justice of the peace
+say it. If there is nothing to be done, if he, being intimate with
+your uncle, knows that all is lost, the proper thing for him to say to
+you is, 'Don't be worried.'"
+
+As Goupil spoke, a satirical smile overspread his face, and gave such
+meaning to his words that the other heirs began to feel that Massin
+had let Bongrand deceive him. The tax-collector, a fat little man, as
+insignificant as a tax-collector should be, and as much of a cipher as
+a clever woman could wish, hereupon annihilated his co-heir, Massin,
+with the words:--"Didn't I tell you so?"
+
+Tricky people always attribute trickiness to others. Massin therefore
+looked askance at Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of the peace, who was
+at that moment talking near the door of the church with the Marquis du
+Rouvre, a former client.
+
+"If I were sure of it!" he said.
+
+"You could neutralize the protection he is now giving to the Marquis
+du Rouvre, who is threatened with arrest. Don't you see how Bongrand
+is sprinkling him with advice?" said Goupil, slipping an idea of
+retaliation into Massin's mind. "But you had better go easy with your
+chief; he's a clever old fellow; he might use his influence with your
+uncle and persuade him not to leave everything to the church."
+
+"Pooh! we sha'n't die of it," said Minoret-Levrault, opening his
+enormous snuff-box.
+
+"You won't live of it, either," said Goupil, making the two women
+tremble. More quick-witted than their husbands, they saw the
+privations this loss of inheritance (so long counted on for many
+comforts) would be to them. "However," added Goupil, "we'll drown this
+little grief in floods of champagne in honor of Desire!--sha'n't we,
+old fellow?" he cried, tapping the stomach of the giant, and inviting
+himself to the feast for fear he should be left out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE RICH UNCLE
+
+Before proceeding further, persons of an exact turn of mind may like
+to read a species of family inventory, so as to understand the degrees
+of relationship which connected the old man thus suddenly converted to
+religion with these three heads of families or their wives. This
+cross-breeding of families in the remote provinces might be made the
+subject of many instructive reflections.
+
+There are but three or four houses of the lesser nobility in Nemours;
+among them, at the period of which we write, that of the family of
+Portenduere was the most important. These exclusives visited none but
+nobles who possessed lands or chateaus in the neighbourhood; of the
+latter we may mention the d'Aiglemonts, owners of the beautiful estate
+of Saint-Lange, and the Marquis du Rouvre, whose property, crippled by
+mortgages, was closely watched by the bourgeoisie. The nobles of the
+town had no money. Madame de Portenduere's sole possessions were a
+farm which brought a rental of forty-seven hundred francs, and her
+town house.
+
+In opposition to this very insignificant Faubourg St. Germain was a
+group of a dozen rich families, those of retired millers, or former
+merchants; in short a miniature bourgeoisie; below which, again, lived
+and moved the retail shopkeepers, the proletaries and the peasantry.
+The bourgeoisie presented (like that of the Swiss cantons and of other
+small countries) the curious spectacle of the ramifications of certain
+autochthonous families, old-fashioned and unpolished perhaps, but who
+rule a whole region and pervade it, until nearly all its inhabitants
+are cousins. Under Louis XI., an epoch at which the commons first made
+real names of their surnames (some of which are united with those of
+feudalism) the bourgeoisie of Nemours was made up of Minorets,
+Massins, Levraults and Cremieres. Under Louis XIII. these four
+families had already produced the Massin-Cremieres, the Levrault-
+Massins, the Massin-Minorets, the Minoret-Minorets, the Cremiere-
+Levraults, the Levrault-Minoret-Massins, Massin-Levraults, Minoret-
+Massins, Massin-Massins, and Cremiere-Massins,--all these varied with
+juniors and diversified with the names of eldest sons, as for
+instance, Cremiere-Francois, Levrault-Jacques, Jean-Minoret--enough to
+drive a Pere Anselme of the People frantic,--if the people should ever
+want a genealogist.
+
+The variations of this family kaleidoscope of four branches was now so
+complicated by births and marriages that the genealogical tree of the
+bourgeoisie of Nemours would have puzzled the Benedictines of the
+Almanach of Gotha, in spite of the atomic science with which they
+arrange those zigzags of German alliances. For a long time the
+Minorets occupied the tanneries, the Cremieres kept the mills, the
+Massins were in trade, and the Levraults continued farmers.
+Fortunately for the neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers
+instead of depending only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings
+by the expatriation of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for
+instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at
+Montargis; Massins at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in
+Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from the parent hive.
+Rich Massins employ, of course, the poor working Massins--just as
+Austria and Prussia take the German princes into their service. It may
+happen that a public office is managed by a Minoret millionaire and
+guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full of the same blood and called by
+the same name (for sole likeness), these four roots had ceaselessly
+woven a human network of which each thread was delicate or strong,
+fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same blood was in the head
+and in the feet and in the heart, in the working hands, in the weakly
+lungs, in the forehead big with genius.
+
+The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the
+ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which
+happened under this curious cognomenism. In whatever part of France
+you may be, you will find the same thing under changed names, but
+without the poetic charm which feudalism gave to it, and which Walter
+Scott's genius reproduced so faithfully. Let us look a little higher
+and examine humanity as it appears in history. All the noble families
+of the eleventh century, most of them (except the royal race of Capet)
+extinct to-day, will be found to have contributed to the birth of the
+Rohans, Montmorencys, Beauffremonts, and Mortemarts of our time,--in
+fact they will all be found in the blood of the last gentleman who is
+indeed a gentleman. In other words, every bourgeois is cousin to a
+bourgeois, and every noble is cousin to a noble. A splendid page of
+biblical genealogy shows that in one thousand years three families,
+Shem, Ham, and Japhet, peopled the globe. One family may become a
+nation; unfortunately, a nation may become one family. To prove this
+we need only search back through our ancestors and see their
+accumulation, which time increases into a retrograde geometric
+progression, which multiplies of itself; reminding us of the
+calculation of the wise man who, being told to choose a reward from
+the king of Persia for inventing chess, asked for one ear of wheat for
+the first move on the board, the reward to be doubled for each
+succeeding move; when it was found that the kingdom was not large
+enough to pay it. The net-work of the nobility, hemmed in by the net-
+work of the bourgeoisie,--the antagonism of two protected races, one
+protected by fixed institutions, the other by the active patience of
+labor and the shrewdness of commerce,--produced the revolution of
+1789. The two races almost reunited are to-day face to face with
+collaterals without a heritage. What are they to do? Our political
+future is big with the answer.
+
+The family of the man who under Louis XV. was simply called Minoret
+was so numerous that one of the five children (the Minoret whose
+entrance into the parish church caused such interest) went to Paris to
+seek his fortune, and seldom returned to his native town, until he
+came to receive his share of the inheritance of his grandfather. After
+suffering many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle
+for a place in the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets
+reached a nobler destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the
+start. He devoted himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a
+profession which demands both talent and a cheerful nature, but the
+latter qualification even more than talent. Backed by Dupont de
+Nemours, connected by a lucky chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom
+Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the Encyclopedists,
+Doctor Minoret attached himself as liegeman to the famous Doctor
+Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, the Baron
+d'Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere boy.
+These men, influenced by Bordeu's example, became interested in
+Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with a very good
+practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists, materialists, or
+whatever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers of that period.
+
+Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous
+balm of Lelievre, so much extolled by the "Mercure de France," the
+weekly organ of the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was
+permanently advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a
+stroke of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for
+the dispensary, and he loyally shared his profits with the doctor, who
+was a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine.
+Less than that would make a man a materialist.
+
+The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the "Nouvelle
+Heloise," when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His
+wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet, a
+celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew.
+Minoret knew Robespierre intimately, for he had once been instrumental
+in awarding him a gold medal for a dissertation on the following
+subject: "What is the origin of the opinion that covers a whole family
+with the shame attaching to the public punishment of a guilty member
+of it? Is that opinion more harmful than useful? If yes, in what way
+can the harm be warded off." The Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences at
+Metz, to which Minoret belonged, must possess this dissertation in the
+original. Though, thanks to this friendship, the Doctor's wife need
+have had no fear, she was so in dread of going to the scaffold that
+her terror increased a disposition to heart disease caused by the
+over-sensitiveness of her nature. In spite of all the precautions
+taken by the man who idolized her, Ursula unfortunately met the
+tumbril of victims among whom was Madame Roland, and the shock caused
+her death. Minoret, who in tenderness to his wife had refused her
+nothing, and had given her a life of luxury, found himself after her
+death almost a poor man. Robespierre gave him an appointment as
+surgeon-in-charge of a hospital.
+
+Though the name of Minoret obtained during the lively debates to which
+mesmerism gave rise a certain celebrity which occasionally recalled
+him to the minds of his relatives, still the Revolution was so great a
+destroyer of family relations that in 1813 Nemours knew little of
+Doctor Minoret, who was induced to think of returning there to die,
+like the hare to its form, by a circumstance that was wholly
+accidental.
+
+Who has not felt in traveling through France, where the eye is often
+wearied by the monotony of plains, the charming sensation of coming
+suddenly, when the eye is prepared for a barren landscape, upon a
+fresh cool valley, watered by a river, with a little town sheltering
+beneath a cliff like a swarm of bees in the hollow of an old willow?
+Wakened by the "hu! hu!" of the postilion as he walks beside his
+horses, we shake off sleep and admire, like a dream within a dream,
+the beautiful scene which is to the traveler what a noble passage in a
+book is to a reader,--a brilliant thought of Nature. Such is the
+sensation caused by a first sight of Nemours as we approach it from
+Burgundy. We see it encircled with bare rocks, gray, black, white,
+fantastic in shape like those we find in the forest of Fontainebleau;
+from them spring scattered trees, clearly defined against the sky,
+which give to this particular rock formation the dilapidated look of a
+crumbling wall. Here ends the long wooded hill which creeps from
+Nemours to Bouron, skirting the road. At the bottom of this irregular
+ampitheater lie meadow-lands through which flows the Loing, forming
+sheets of water with many falls. This delightful landscape, which
+continues the whole way to Montargis, is like an opera scene, for its
+effects really seem to have been studied.
+
+One morning Doctor Minoret, who had been summoned into Burgundy by a
+rich patient, was returning in all haste to Paris. Not having
+mentioned at the last relay the route he intended to take, he was
+brought without his knowledge through Nemours, and beheld once more,
+on waking from a nap, the scenery in which his childhood had been
+passed. He had lately lost many of his old friends. The votary of the
+Encyclopedists had witnessed the conversion of La Harpe; he had buried
+Lebrun-Pindare and Marie-Joseph de Chenier, and Morellet, and Madame
+Helvetius. He assisted at the quasi-fall of Voltaire when assailed by
+Geoffroy, the continuator of Freton. For some time past he had thought
+of retiring, and so, when his post chaise stopped at the head of the
+Grand'Rue of Nemours, his heart prompted him to inquire for his
+family. Minoret-Levrault, the post master, came forward himself to see
+the doctor, who discovered him to be the son of his eldest brother.
+The nephew presented the doctor to his wife, the only daughter of the
+late Levrault-Cremiere, who had died twelve years earlier, leaving him
+the post business and the finest inn in Nemours.
+
+"Well, nephew," said the doctor, "have I any other relatives?"
+
+"My aunt Minoret, your sister, married a Massin-Massin--"
+
+"Yes, I know, the bailiff of Saint-Lange."
+
+"She died a widow leaving an only daughter, who has lately married a
+Cremiere-Cremiere, a fine young fellow, still without a place."
+
+"Ah! she is my own niece. Now, as my brother, the sailor, died a
+bachelor, and Captain Minoret was killed at Monte-Legino, and here I
+am, that ends the paternal line. Have I any relations on the maternal
+side? My mother was a Jean-Massin-Levrault."
+
+"Of the Jean-Massin-Levrault's there's only one left," answered
+Minoret-Levrault, "namely, Jean-Massin, who married Monsieur Cremiere-
+Levrault-Dionis, a purveyor of forage, who perished on the scaffold.
+His wife died of despair and without a penny, leaving one daughter,
+married to a Levrault-Minoret, a farmer at Montereau, who is doing
+well; their daughter has just married a Massin-Levrault, notary's
+clerk at Montargis, where his father is a locksmith."
+
+"So I've plenty of heirs," said the doctor gayly, immediately
+proposing to take a walk through Nemours accompanied by his nephew.
+
+The Loing runs through the town in a waving line, banked by terraced
+gardens and neat houses, the aspect of which makes one fancy that
+happiness must abide there sooner than elsewhere. When the doctor
+turned into the Rue des Bourgeois, Minoret-Levrault pointed out the
+property of Levrault-Levrault, a rich iron merchant in Paris who, he
+said, had just died.
+
+"The place is for sale, uncle, and a very pretty house it is; there's
+a charming garden running down to the river."
+
+"Let us go in," said the doctor, seeing, at the farther end of a small
+paved courtyard, a house standing between the walls of the two
+neighbouring houses which were masked by clumps of trees and climbing-
+plants.
+
+"It is built over a cellar," said the doctor, going up the steps of a
+high portico adorned with vases of blue and white pottery in which
+geraniums were growing.
+
+Cut in two, like the majority of provincial houses, by a long passage
+which led from the courtyard to the garden, the house had only one
+room to the right, a salon lighted by four windows, two on the
+courtyard and two on the garden; but Levrault-Levrault had used one of
+these windows to make an entrance to a long greenhouse built of brick
+which extended from the salon towards the river, ending in a horrible
+Chinese pagoda.
+
+"Good! by building a roof to that greenhouse and laying a floor," said
+old Minoret, "I could put my book there and make a very comfortable
+study of that extraordinary bit of architecture at the end."
+
+On the other side of the passage, toward the garden, was the dining-
+room, decorated in imitation of black lacquer with green and gold
+flowers; this was separated from the kitchen by the well of the
+staircase. Communication with the kitchen was had through a little
+pantry built behind the staircase, the kitchen itself looking into the
+courtyard through windows with iron railings. There were two chambers
+on the next floor, and above them, attic rooms sheathed in wood, which
+were fairly habitable. After examining the house rapidly, and
+observing that it was covered with trellises from top to bottom, on
+the side of the courtyard as well as on that to the garden,--which
+ended in a terrace overlooking the river and adorned with pottery
+vases,--the doctor remarked:--
+
+"Levrault-Levrault must have spend a good deal of money here."
+
+"Ho! I should think so," answered Minoret-Levrault. "He liked flowers
+--nonsense! 'What do they bring in?' says my wife. You saw inside
+there how an artist came from Paris to paint flowers in fresco in the
+corridor. He put those enormous mirrors everywhere. The ceilings were
+all re-made with cornices which cost six francs a foot. The dining-
+room floor is in marquetry--perfect folly! The house won't sell for a
+penny the more."
+
+"Well, nephew, buy it for me: let me know what you do about it; here's
+my address. The rest I leave to my notary. Who lives opposite?" he
+asked, as they left the house.
+
+"Emigres," answered the post master, "named Portenduere."
+
+The house once bought, the illustrious doctor, instead of leaving
+there, wrote to his nephew to let it. The Folie-Levraught was
+therefore occupied by the notary of Nemours, who about that time sold
+his practice to Dionis, his head-clerk, and died two years later,
+leaving the house on the doctor's hands, just at the time when the
+fate of Napoleon was being decided in the neighbourhood. The doctor's
+heirs, at first misled, had by this time decided that his thought of
+returning to his native place was merely a rich man's fancy, and that
+probably he had some tie in Paris which would keep him there and cheat
+them of their hoped-for inheritance. However, Minoret-Levrault's wife
+seized the occasion to write him a letter. The old man replied that as
+soon as peace was signed, the roads cleared of soldiers, and safe
+communications established, he meant to go and live at Nemours. He
+did, in fact, put in an appearance with two of his clients, the
+architect of his hospital and an upholsterer, who took charge of the
+repairs, the indoor arrangements, and the transportation of the
+furniture. Madame Minoret-Levrault proposed the cook of the late
+notary as caretaker, and the woman was accepted.
+
+When the heirs heard that their uncle and great-uncle Minoret was
+really coming to live in Nemours, they were seized (in spite of the
+political events which were just then weighing so heavily on Brie and
+on the Gatinais) with a devouring curiosity, which was not surprising.
+Was he rich? Economical or spendthrift? Would he leave a fine fortune
+or nothing? Was his property in annuities? In the end they found out
+what follows, but only by taking infinite pains and employing much
+subterraneous spying.
+
+After the death of his wife, Ursula Mirouet, and between the years
+1789 and 1813, the doctor (who had been appointed consulting physician
+to the Emperor in 1805) must have made a good deal of money; but no
+one knew how much. He lived simply, without other extravagancies than
+a carriage by the year and a sumptuous apartment. He received no
+guests, and dined out almost every day. His housekeeper, furious at
+not being allowed to go with him to Nemours, told Zelie Levrault, the
+post master's wife, that she knew the doctor had fourteen thousand
+francs a year on the "grand-livre." Now, after twenty years' exercise
+of a profession which his position as head of a hospital, physician to
+the Emperor, and member of the Institute, rendered lucrative, these
+fourteen thousand francs a year showed only one hundred and sixty
+thousand francs laid by. To have saved only eight thousand francs a
+year the doctor must have had either many vices or many virtues to
+gratify. But neither his housekeeper nor Zelie nor any one else could
+discover the reason for such moderate means. Minoret, who when he left
+it was much regretted in the quarter of Paris where he had lived, was
+one of the most benevolent of men, and, like Larrey, kept his kind
+deeds a profound secret.
+
+The heirs watched the arrival of their uncle's fine furniture and
+large library with complacency, and looked forward to his own coming,
+he being now an officer of the Legion of honor, and lately appointed
+by the king a chevalier of the order of Saint-Michel--perhaps on
+account of his retirement, which left a vacancy for some favorite. But
+when the architect and painter and upholsterer had arranged everything
+in the most comfortable manner, the doctor did not come. Madame
+Minoret-Levrault, who kept an eye on the upholsterer and architect as
+if her own property was concerned, found out, through the indiscretion
+of a young man sent to arrange the books, that the doctor was taking
+care of a little orphan named Ursula. The news flew like wild-fire
+through the town. At last, however, towards the middle of the month of
+January, 1815, the old man actually arrived, installing himself
+quietly, almost slyly, with a little girl about ten months old, and a
+nurse.
+
+"The child can't be his daughter," said the terrified heirs; "he is
+seventy-one years old."
+
+"Whoever she is," remarked Madame Massin, "she'll give us plenty of
+tintouin" (a word peculiar to Nemours, meaning uneasiness, anxiety, or
+more literally, tingling in the ears).
+
+The doctor received his great-niece on the mother's side somewhat
+coldly; her husband had just bought the place of clerk of the court,
+and the pair began at once to tell him of their difficulties. Neither
+Massin nor his wife were rich. Massin's father, a locksmith at
+Montargis, had been obliged to compromise with his creditors, and was
+now, at sixty-seven years of age, working like a young man, and had
+nothing to leave behind him. Madame Massin's father, Levrault-Minoret,
+had just died at Montereau after the battle, in despair at seeing his
+farm burned, his fields ruined, his cattle slaughtered.
+
+"We'll get nothing out of your great-uncle," said Massin to his wife,
+now pregnant with her second child, after the interview.
+
+The doctor, however, gave them privately ten thousand francs, with
+which Massin, who was a great friend of the notary and of the sheriff,
+began the business of money-lending, and carried matters so briskly
+with the peasantry that by the time of which we are now writing Goupil
+knew him to hold at least eighty thousand francs on their property.
+
+As to his other niece, the doctor obtained for her husband, through
+his influence in Paris, the collectorship of Nemours, and became his
+bondsman. Though Minoret-Levrault needed no assistance, Zelie, his
+wife, being jealous of the uncle's liberality to his two nieces, took
+her ten-year old son to see him, and talked of the expense he would be
+to them at a school in Paris, where, she said, education costs so
+much. The doctor obtained a half-scholarship for his great-nephew at
+the school of Louis-le-Grand, where Desire was put into the fourth
+class.
+
+Cremiere, Massin, and Minoret-Levrault, extremely common persons, were
+"rated without appeal" by the doctor within two months of his arrival
+in Nemours, during which time they courted, less their uncle than his
+property. Persons who are led by instinct have one great disadvantage
+against others with ideas. They are quickly found out; the suggestions
+of instinct are too natural, too open to the eye not to be seen at a
+glance; whereas, the conceptions of the mind require an equal amount
+of intellect to discover them. After buying the gratitude of his
+heirs, and thus, as it were, shutting their mouths, the wily doctor
+made a pretext of his occupations, his habits, and the care of the
+little Ursula to avoid receiving his relatives without exactly closing
+his doors to them. He liked to dine alone; he went to bed late and he
+got up late; he had returned to his native place for the very purpose
+of finding rest in solitude. These whims of an old man seemed to be
+natural, and his relatives contented themselves with paying him weekly
+visits on Sundays from one to four o'clock, to which, however, he
+tried to put a stop by saying: "Don't come and see me unless you want
+something."
+
+The doctor, while not refusing to be called in consultation over
+serious cases, especially if the patients were indigent, would not
+serve as a physician in the little hospital of Nemours, and declared
+that he no longer practiced his profession.
+
+"I've killed enough people," he said, laughing, to the Abbe Chaperon,
+who, knowing his benevolence, would often get him to attend the poor.
+
+"He's an original!" These words, said of Doctor Minoret, were the
+harmless revenge of various wounded vanities; for a doctor collects
+about him a society of persons who have many of the characteristics of
+a set of heirs. Those of the bourgeoisie who thought themselves
+entitled to visit this distinguished physician kept up a ferment of
+jealousy against the few privileged friends whom he did admit to his
+intimacy, which had in the long run some unfortunate results.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE DOCTOR'S FRIENDS
+
+Curiously enough, though it explains the old proverb that "extremes
+meet," the materialistic doctor and the cure of Nemours were soon
+friends. The old man loved backgammon, a favorite game of the
+priesthood, and the Abbe Chaperon played it with about as much skill
+as he himself. The game was the first tie between them. Then Minoret
+was charitable, and the abbe was the Fenelon of the Gatinais. Both had
+had a wide and varied education; the man of God was the only person in
+all Nemours who was fully capable of understanding the atheist. To be
+able to argue, men must first understand each other. What pleasure is
+there in saying sharp words to one who can't feel them? The doctor and
+the priest had far too much taste and had seen too much of good
+society not to practice its precepts; they were thus well-fitted for
+the little warfare so essential to conversation. They hated each
+other's opinions, but they valued each other's character. If such
+conflicts and such sympathies are not true elements of intimacy we
+must surely despair of society, which, especially in France, requires
+some form of antagonism. It is from the shock of characters, and not
+from the struggle of opinions, that antipathies are generated.
+
+The Abbe Chaperon became, therefore, the doctor's chief friend. This
+excellent ecclesiastic, then sixty years of age, had been curate of
+Nemours ever since the re-establishment of Catholic worship. Out of
+attachment to his flock he had refused the vicariat of the diocese. If
+those who were indifferent to religion thought well of him for so
+doing, the faithful loved him the more for it. So, revered by his
+sheep, respected by the inhabitants at large, the abbe did good
+without inquiring into the religious opinions of those he benefited.
+His parsonage, with scarcely furniture enough for the common needs of
+life, was cold and shabby, like the lodging of a miser. Charity and
+avarice manifest themselves in the same way; charity lays up a
+treasure in heaven which avarice lays up on earth. The Abbe Chaperon
+argued with his servant over expenses even more sharply than Gobseck
+with his--if indeed that famous Jew kept a servant at all. The good
+priest often sold the buckles off his shoes and his breeches to give
+their value to some poor person who appealed to him at a moment when
+he had not a penny. When he was seen coming out of church with the
+straps of his breeches tied into the button-holes, devout women would
+redeem the buckles from the clock-maker and jeweler of the town and
+return them to their pastor with a lecture. He never bought himself
+any clothes or linen, and wore his garments till they scarcely held
+together. His linen, thick with darns, rubbed his skin like a hair
+shirt. Madame de Portenduere, and other good souls, had an agreement
+with his housekeeper to replace the old clothes with new ones after he
+went to sleep, and the abbe did not always find out the difference. He
+ate his food off pewter with iron forks and spoons. When he received
+his assistants and sub-curates on days of high solemnity (an expense
+obligatory on the heads of parishes) he borrowed linen and silver from
+his friend the atheist.
+
+"My silver is his salvation," the doctor would say.
+
+These noble deeds, always accompanied by spiritual encouragement, were
+done with a beautiful naivete. Such a life was all the more
+meritorious because the abbe was possessed of an erudition that was
+vast and varied, and of great and precious faculties. Delicacy and
+grace, the inseparable accompaniments of simplicity, lent charm to an
+elocution that was worthy of a prelate. His manners, his character,
+and his habits gave to his intercourse with others the most exquisite
+savor of all that is most spiritual, most sincere in the human mind. A
+lover of gayety, he was never priest in a salon. Until Doctor
+Minoret's arrival, the good man kept his light under a bushel without
+regret. Owning a rather fine library and an income of two thousand
+francs when he came to Nemours, he now possessed, in 1829, nothing at
+all, except his stipend as parish priest, nearly the whole of which he
+gave away during the year. The giver of excellent counsel in delicate
+matters or in great misfortunes, many persons who never went to church
+to obtain consolation went to the parsonage to get advice. One little
+anecdote will suffice to complete his portrait. Sometimes the
+peasants,--rarely, it is true, but occasionally,--unprincipled men,
+would tell him they were sued for debt, or would get themselves
+threatened fictitiously to stimulate the abbe's benevolence. They
+would even deceive their wives, who, believing their chattels were
+threatened with an execution and their cows seized, deceived in their
+turn the poor priest with their innocent tears. He would then manage
+with great difficulty to provide the seven or eight hundred francs
+demanded of him--with which the peasant bought himself a morsel of
+land. When pious persons and vestrymen denounced the fraud, begging
+the abbe to consult them in future before lending himself to such
+cupidity, he would say:--
+
+"But suppose they had done something wrong to obtain their bit of
+land? Isn't it doing good when we prevent evil?"
+
+Some persons may wish for a sketch of this figure, remarkable for the
+fact that science and literature had filled the heart and passed
+through the strong head without corrupting either. At sixty years of
+age the abbe's hair was white as snow, so keenly did he feel the
+sorrows of others, and so heavily had the events of the Revolution
+weighed upon him. Twice incarcerated for refusing to take the oath he
+had twice, as he used to say, uttered in "In manus." He was of medium
+height, neither stout nor thin. His face, much wrinkled and hollowed
+and quite colorless, attracted immediate attention by the absolute
+tranquillity expressed in its shape, and by the purity of its outline,
+which seemed to be edged with light. The face of a chaste man has an
+unspeakable radiance. Brown eyes with lively pupils brightened the
+irregular features, which were surmounted by a broad forehead. His
+glance wielded a power which came of a gentleness that was not devoid
+of strength. The arches of his brow formed caverns shaded by huge gray
+eyebrows which alarmed no one. As most of his teeth were gone his
+mouth had lost its shape and his cheeks had fallen in; but this
+physical destruction was not without charm; even the wrinkles, full of
+pleasantness, seemed to smile on others. Without being gouty his feet
+were tender; and he walked with so much difficulty that he wore shoes
+made of calf's skin all the year round. He thought the fashion of
+trousers unsuitable for priests, and he always appeared in stockings
+of coarse black yarn, knit by his housekeeper, and cloth breeches. He
+never went out in his cassock, but wore a brown overcoat, and still
+retained the three-cornered hat he had worn so courageously in times
+of danger. This noble and beautiful old man, whose face was glorified
+by the serenity of a soul above reproach, will be found to have so
+great an influence upon the men and things of this history, that it
+was proper to show the sources of his authority and power.
+
+Minoret took three newspapers,--one liberal, one ministerial, one
+ultra,--a few periodicals, and certain scientific journals, the
+accumulation of which swelled his library. The newspapers,
+encyclopaedias, and books were an attraction to a retired captain of
+the Royal-Swedish regiment, named Monsieur de Jordy, a Voltairean
+nobleman and an old bachelor, who lived on sixteen hundred francs of
+pension and annuity combined. Having read the gazettes for several
+days, by favor of the abbe, Monsieur de Jordy thought it proper to
+call and thank the doctor in person. At this first visit the old
+captain, formerly a professor at the Military Academy, won the
+doctor's heart, who returned the call with alacrity. Monsieur de
+Jordy, a spare little man much troubled by his blood, though his face
+was very pale, attracted attention by the resemblance of his handsome
+brow to that of Charles XII.; above it he kept his hair cropped short,
+like that of the soldier-king. His blue eyes seemed to say that "Love
+had passed that way," so mournful were they; revealing memories about
+which he kept such utter silence that his old friends never detected
+even an allusion to his past life, nor a single exclamation drawn
+forth by similarity of circumstances. He hid the painful mystery of
+his past beneath a philosophic gayety, but when he thought himself
+alone his motions, stiffened by a slowness which was more a matter of
+choice than the result of old age, betrayed the constant presence of
+distressful thoughts. The Abbe Chaperon called him a Christian
+ignorant of his Christianity. Dressed always in blue cloth, his rather
+rigid demeanor and his clothes bespoke the old habits of military
+discipline. His sweet and harmonious voice stirred the soul. His
+beautiful hands and the general cut of his figure, recalling that of
+the Comte d'Artois, showed how charming he must have been in his
+youth, and made the mystery of his life still more mysterious. An
+observer asked involuntarily what misfortune had blighted such beauty,
+courage, grace, accomplishment, and all the precious qualities of the
+heart once united in his person. Monsieur de Jordy shuddered if
+Robespierre's name were uttered before him. He took much snuff, but,
+strange to say, he gave up the habit to please little Ursula, who at
+first showed a dislike to him on that account. As soon as he saw the
+little girl the captain fastened his eyes upon her with a look that
+was almost passionate. He loved her play so extravagantly and took
+such interest in all she did that the tie between himself and the
+doctor grew closer every day, though the latter never dared to say to
+him, "You, too, have you lost children?" There are beings, kind and
+patient as old Jordy, who pass through life with a bitter thought in
+their heart and a tender but sorrowful smile on their lips, carrying
+with them to the grave the secret of their lives; letting no one guess
+it,--through pride, through disdain, possibly through revenge;
+confiding in none but God, without other consolation than his.
+
+Monsieur de Jordy, like the doctor, had come to die in Nemours, but he
+knew no one except the abbe, who was always at the beck and call of
+his parishioners, and Madame de Portenduere, who went to bed at nine
+o'clock. So, much against his will, he too had taken to going to bed
+early, in spite of the thorns that beset his pillow. It was therefore
+a great piece of good fortune for him (as well as for the doctor) when
+he encountered a man who had known the same world and spoken the same
+language as himself; with whom he could exchange ideas, and who went
+to bed late. After Monsieur de Jordy, the Abbe Chaperon, and Minoret
+had passed one evening together they found so much pleasure in it that
+the priest and soldier returned every night regularly at nine o'clock,
+the hour at which, little Ursula having gone to bed, the doctor was
+free. All three would then sit up till midnight or one o'clock.
+
+After a time this trio became a quartette. Another man to whom life
+was known, and who owed to his practical training as a lawyer, the
+indulgence, knowledge, observation, shrewdness, and talent for
+conversation which the soldier, doctor, and priest owed to their
+practical dealings with the souls, diseases, and education of men, was
+added to the number. Monsieur Bongrand, the justice of peace, heard of
+the pleasure of these evenings and sought admittance to the doctor's
+society. Before becoming justice of peace at Nemours he had been for
+ten years a solicitor at Melun, where he conducted his own cases,
+according to the custom of small towns, where there are no barristers.
+He became a widower at forty-five years of age, but felt himself still
+too active to lead an idle life; he therefore sought and obtained the
+position of justice of peace at Nemours, which became vacant a few
+months before the arrival of Doctor Minoret. Monsieur Bongrand lived
+modestly on his salary of fifteen hundred francs, in order that he
+might devote his private income to his son, who was studying law in
+Paris under the famous Derville. He bore some resemblance to a retired
+chief of a civil service office; he had the peculiar face of a
+bureaucrat, less sallow than pallid, on which public business,
+vexations, and disgust leave their imprint,--a face lined by thought,
+and also by the continual restraints familiar to those who are trained
+not to speak their minds freely. It was often illumined by smiles
+characteristic of men who alternately believe all and believe nothing,
+who are accustomed to see and hear all without being startled, and to
+fathom the abysses which self-interest hollows in the depths of the
+human heart.
+
+Below the hair, which was less white than discolored, and worn
+flattened to the head, was a fine, sagacious forehead, the yellow
+tones of which harmonized well with the scanty tufts of thin hair. His
+face, with the features set close together, bore some likeness to that
+of a fox, all the more because his nose was short and pointed. In
+speaking, he spluttered at the mouth, which was broad like that of
+most great talkers,--a habit which led Goupil to say, ill-naturedly,
+"An umbrella would be useful when listening to him," or, "The justice
+rains verdicts." His eyes looked keen behind his spectacles, but if he
+took the glasses off his dulled glance seemed almost vacant. Though he
+was naturally gay, even jovial, he was apt to give himself too
+important and pompous an air. He usually kept his hands in the pockets
+of his trousers, and only took them out to settle his eye-glasses on
+his nose, with a movement that was half comic, and which announced the
+coming of a keen observation or some victorious argument. His
+gestures, his loquacity, his innocent self-assertion, proclaimed the
+provincial lawyer. These slight defects were, however, superficial; he
+redeemed them by an exquisite kind-heartedness which a rigid moralist
+might call the indulgence natural to superiority. He looked a little
+like a fox, and he was thought to be very wily, but never false or
+dishonest. His wiliness was perspicacity; and consisted in foreseeing
+results and protecting himself and others from the traps set for them.
+He loved whist, a game known to the captain and the doctor, and which
+the abbe learned to play in a very short time.
+
+This little circle of friends made for itself an oasis in Mironet's
+salon. The doctor of Nemours, who was not without education and
+knowledge of the world, and who greatly respected Minoret as an honor
+to the profession, came there sometimes; but his duties and also his
+fatigue (which obliged him to go to bed early and to be up early)
+prevented his being as assiduously present as the three other friends.
+This intercourse of five superior men, the only ones in Nemours who
+had sufficiently wide knowledge to understand each other, explains old
+Minoret's aversion to his relatives; if he were compelled to leave
+them his money, at least he need not admit them to his society.
+Whether the post master, the sheriff, and the collector understood
+this distinction, or whether they were reassured by the evident
+loyalty and benefactions of their uncle, certain it is that they
+ceased, to his great satisfaction, to see much of him. So, about eight
+months after the arrival of the doctor these four players of whist and
+backgammon made a solid and exclusive little world which was to each a
+fraternal aftermath, an unlooked for fine season, the gentle pleasures
+of which were the more enjoyed. This little circle of choice spirits
+closed round Ursula, a child whom each adopted according to his
+individual tendencies; the abbe thought of her soul, the judge
+imagined himself her guardian, the soldier intended to be her teacher,
+and as for Minoret, he was father, mother, and physician, all in one.
+
+After he became acclimated old Minoret settled into certain habits of
+life, under fixed rules, after the manner of the provinces. On
+Ursula's account he received no visitors in the morning, and never
+gave dinners, but his friends were at liberty to come to his house at
+six o'clock and stay till midnight. The first-comers found the
+newspapers on the table and read them while awaiting the rest; or they
+sometimes sallied forth to meet the doctor if he were out for a walk.
+This tranquil life was not a mere necessity of old age, it was the
+wise and careful scheme of a man of the world to keep his happiness
+untroubled by the curiosity of his heirs and the gossip of a little
+town. He yielded nothing to that capricious goddess, public opinion,
+whose tyranny (one of the present great evils of France) was just
+beginning to establish its power and to make the whole nation a mere
+province. So, as soon as the child was weaned and could walk alone,
+the doctor sent away the housekeeper whom his niece, Madame Minoret-
+Levrault had chosen for him, having discovered that she told her
+patroness everything that happened in his household.
+
+Ursula's nurse, the widow of a poor workman (who possessed no name but
+a baptismal one, and who came from Bougival) had lost her last child,
+aged six months, just as the doctor, who knew her to be a good and
+honest creature, engaged her as wetnurse for Ursula. Antoinette Patris
+(her maiden name), widow of Pierre, called Le Bougival, attached
+herself naturally to Ursula, as wetmaids do to their nurslings. This
+blind maternal affection was accompanied in this instance by household
+devotion. Told of the doctor's intention to send away his housekeeper,
+La Bougival secretly learned to cook, became neat and handy, and
+discovered the old man's ways. She took the utmost care of the house
+and furniture; in short she was indefatigable. Not only did the doctor
+wish to keep his private life within four walls, as the saying is, but
+he also had certain reasons for hiding a knowledge of his business
+affairs from his relatives. At the end of the second year after his
+arrival La Bougival was the only servant in the house; on her
+discretion he knew he could count, and he disguised his real purposes
+by the all-powerful open reason of a necessary economy. To the great
+satisfaction of his heirs he became a miser. Without fawning or
+wheedling, solely by the influence of her devotion and solicitude, La
+Bougival, who was forty-three years old at the time this tale begins,
+was the housekeeper of the doctor and his protegee, the pivot on which
+the whole house turned, in short, the confidential servant. She was
+called La Bougival from the admitted impossibility of applying to her
+person the name that actually belonged to her, Antoinette--for names
+and forms do obey the laws of harmony.
+
+The doctor's miserliness was not mere talk; it was real, and it had an
+object. From the year 1817 he cut off two of his newspapers and ceased
+subscribing to periodicals. His annual expenses, which all Nemours
+could estimate, did not exceed eighteen hundred francs a year. Like
+most old men his wants in linen, boots, and clothing, were very few.
+Every six months he went to Paris, no doubt to draw and reinvest his
+income. In fifteen years he never said a single word to any one in
+relation to his affairs. His confidence in Bongrand was of slow
+growth; it was not until after the revolution of 1830 that he told him
+of his projects. Nothing further was known of the doctor's life either
+by the bourgeoisie at large or by his heirs. As for his political
+opinions, he did not meddle in public matters seeing that he paid less
+than a hundred francs a year in taxes, and refused, impartially, to
+subscribe to either royalist or liberal demands. His known horror for
+the priesthood, and his deism were so little obtrusive that he turned
+out of his house a commercial runner sent by his great-nephew Desire
+to ask a subscription to the "Cure Meslier" and the "Discours du
+General Foy." Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the liberals of
+Nemours.
+
+The doctor's three collateral heirs, Minoret-Levrault and his wife,
+Monsieur and Madame Massin-Levrault, junior, Monsieur and Madame
+Cremiere-Cremiere--whom we shall in future call simply Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret, because these distinctions among homonyms is
+quite unnecessary out of the Gatinais--met together as people do in
+little towns. The post master gave a grand dinner on his son's
+birthday, a ball during the carnival, another on the anniversary of
+his marriage, to all of which he invited the whole bourgeoisie of
+Nemours. The collector received his relations and friends twice a
+year. The clerk of the court, too poor, he said, to fling himself into
+such extravagance, lived in a small way in a house standing half-way
+down the Grand'Rue, the ground-floor of which was let to his sister,
+the letter-postmistress of Nemours, a situation she owed to the
+doctor's kind offices. Nevertheless, in the course of the year these
+three families did meet together frequently, in the houses of friends,
+in the public promenades, at the market, on their doorsteps, or, of a
+Sunday in the square, as on this occasion; so that one way and another
+they met nearly every day. For the last three years the doctor's age,
+his economies, and his probable wealth had led to allusions, or frank
+remarks, among the townspeople as to the disposition of his property,
+a topic which made the doctor and his heirs of deep interest to the
+little town. For the last six months not a day passed that friends and
+neighbours did not speak to the heirs, with secret envy, of the day
+the good man's eyes would shut and the coffers open.
+
+"Doctor Minoret may be an able physician, on good terms with death,
+but none but God is eternal," said one.
+
+"Pooh, he'll bury us all; his health is better than ours," replied an
+heir, hypocritically.
+
+"Well, if you don't get the money yourselves, your children will,
+unless that little Ursula--"
+
+"He won't leave it all to her."
+
+Ursula, as Madame Massin had predicted, was the bete noire of the
+relations, their sword of Damocles; and Madame Cremiere's favorite
+saying, "Well, whoever lives will know," shows that they wished at any
+rate more harm to her than good.
+
+The collector and the clerk of the court, poor in comparison with the
+post master, had often estimated, by way of conversation, the doctor's
+property. If they met their uncle walking on the banks of the canal or
+along the road they would look at each other piteously.
+
+"He must have got hold of some elixir of life," said one.
+
+"He has made a bargain with the devil," replied the other.
+
+"He ought to give us the bulk of it; that fat Minoret doesn't need
+anything," said Massin.
+
+"Ah! but Minoret has a son who'll waste his substance," answered
+Cremiere.
+
+"How much do you really think the doctor has?"
+
+"At the end of twelve years, say twelve thousand francs saved each
+year, that would give one hundred and forty-four thousand francs, and
+the interest brings in at least one hundred thousand more. But as he
+must, if he consults a notary in Paris, have made some good strokes of
+business, and we know that up to 1822 he could get seven or eight per
+cent from the State, he must now have at least four hundred thousand
+francs, without counting the capital of his fourteen thousand a year
+from the five per cents. If he were to die to-morrow without leaving
+anything to Ursula we should get at least seven or eight hundred
+thousand francs, besides the house and furniture."
+
+"Well, a hundred thousand to Minoret, and three hundred thousand
+apiece to you and me, that would be fair."
+
+"Ha, that would make us comfortable!"
+
+"If he did that," said Massin, "I should sell my situation in court
+and buy an estate; I'd try to be judge at Fontainebleau, and get
+myself elected deputy."
+
+"As for me I should buy a brokerage business," said the collector.
+
+"Unluckily, that girl he has on his arm and the abbe have got round
+him. I don't believe we can do anything with him."
+
+"Still, we know very well he will never leave anything to the Church."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+ZELIE
+
+The fright of the heirs at beholding their uncle on his way to mass
+will now be understood. The dullest persons have mind enough to
+foresee a danger to self-interests. Self-interest constitutes the mind
+of the peasant as well as that of the diplomatist, and on that ground
+the stupidest of men is sometimes the most powerful. So the fatal
+reasoning, "If that little Ursula has influence enough to drag her
+godfather into the pale of the Church she will certainly have enough
+to make him leave her his property," was now stamped in letters of
+fire on the brains of the most obtuse heir. The post master had
+forgotten about his son in his hurry to reach the square; for if the
+doctor were really in the church hearing mass it was a question of
+losing two hundred and fifty thousand francs. It must be admitted that
+the fears of these relations came from the strongest and most
+legitimate of social feelings, family interests.
+
+"Well, Monsieur Minoret," said the mayor (formerly a miller who had
+now become royalist, named Levrault-Cremiere), "when the devil gets
+old the devil a monk would be. Your uncle, they say, is one of us."
+
+"Better late than never, cousin," responded the post master, trying to
+conceal his annoyance.
+
+"How that fellow will grin if we are defrauded! He is capable of
+marrying his son to that damned girl--may the devil get her!" cried
+Cremiere, shaking his fists at the mayor as he entered the porch.
+
+"What's Cremiere grumbling about?" said the butcher of the town, a
+Levrault-Levrault the elder. "Isn't he pleased to see his uncle on the
+road to paradise?"
+
+"Who would ever have believed it!" ejaculated Massin.
+
+"Ha! one should never say, 'Fountain, I'll not drink of your water,'"
+remarked the notary, who, seeing the group from afar, had left his
+wife to go to church without him.
+
+"Come, Monsieur Dionis," said Cremiere, taking the notary by the arm,
+"what do you advise me to do under the circumstances?"
+
+"I advise you," said the notary, addressing the heirs collectively,
+"to go to bed and get up at your usual hour; to eat your soup before
+it gets cold; to put your feet in your shoes and your hats on your
+heads; in short, to continue your ways of life precisely as if nothing
+had happened."
+
+"You are not consoling," said Massin.
+
+In spite of his squat, dumpy figure and heavy face, Cremiere-Dionis
+was really as keen as a blade. In pursuit of usurious fortune he did
+business secretly with Massin, to whom he no doubt pointed out such
+peasants as were hampered in means, and such pieces of land as could
+be bought for a song. The two men were in a position to choose their
+opportunities; none that were good escaped them, and they shared the
+profits of mortgage-usury, which retards, though it does not prevent,
+the acquirement of the soil by the peasantry. So Dionis took a lively
+interest in the doctor's inheritance, not so much for the post master
+and the collector as for his friend the clerk of the court; sooner or
+later Massin's share in the doctor's money would swell the capital
+with which these secret associates worked the canton.
+
+"We must try to find out through Monsieur Bongrand where the influence
+comes from," said the notary in a low voice, with a sign to Massin to
+keep quiet.
+
+"What are you about, Minoret?" cried a little woman, suddenly
+descending upon the group in the middle of which stood the post
+master, as tall and round as a tower. "You don't know where Desire is
+and there you are, planted on your two legs, gossiping about nothing,
+when I thought you on horseback!--Oh, good morning, Messieurs and
+Mesdames."
+
+This little woman, thin, pale, and fair, dressed in a gown of white
+cotton with pattern of large, chocolate-colored flowers, a cap trimmed
+with ribbon and frilled with lace, and wearing a small green shawl on
+her flat shoulders, was Minoret's wife, the terror of postilions,
+servants, and carters; who kept the accounts and managed the
+establishment "with finger and eye" as they say in those parts. Like
+the true housekeeper that she was, she wore no ornaments. She did not
+give in (to use her own expression) to gew-gaws and trumpery; she held
+to the solid and the substantial, and wore, even on Sundays, a black
+apron, in the pocket of which she jingled her household keys. Her
+screeching voice was agony to the drums of all ears. Her rigid glance,
+conflicting with the soft blue of her eyes, was in visible harmony
+with the thin lips of a pinched mouth and a high, projecting, and very
+imperious forehead. Sharp was the glance, sharper still both gesture
+and speech. "Zelie being obliged to have a will for two, had it for
+three," said Goupil, who pointed out the successive reigns of three
+young postilions, of neat appearance, who had been set up in life by
+Zelie, each after seven years' service. The malicious clerk named them
+Postilion I., Postilion II., Postilion III. But the little influence
+these young men had in the establishment, and their perfect obedience
+proved that Zelie was merely interested in worthy helpers.
+
+This attempt at scandal was against probabilities. Since the birth of
+her son (nursed by her without any evidence of how it was possible for
+her to do so) Madame Minoret had thought only of increasing the family
+fortune and was wholly given up to the management of their immense
+establishment. To steal a bale of hay or a bushel of oats or get the
+better of Zelie in even the most complicated accounts was a thing
+impossible, though she scribbled hardly better than a cat, and knew
+nothing of arithmetic but addition and subtraction. She never took a
+walk except to look at the hay, the oats, or the second crops. She
+sent "her man" to the mowing, and the postilions to tie the bales,
+telling them the quantity, within a hundred pounds, each field should
+bear. Though she was the soul of that great body called Minoret-
+Levrault and led him about by his pug nose, she was made to feel the
+fears which occasionally (we are told) assail all tamers of wild
+beasts. She therefore made it a rule to get into a rage before he did;
+the postilions knew very well when his wife had been quarreling with
+him, for his anger ricocheted on them. Madame Minoret was as clever as
+she was grasping; and it was a favorite remark in the whole town,
+"Where would Minoret-Levrault be without his wife?"
+
+"When you know what has happened," replied the post master, "you'll be
+over the traces yourself."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Ursula has taken the doctor to mass."
+
+Zelie's pupils dilated; she stood for a moment yellow with anger,
+then, crying out, "I'll see it before I believe it!" she rushed into
+the church. The service had reached the Elevation. The stillness of
+the worshippers enabled her to look along each row of chairs and
+benches as she went up the aisle beside the chapels to Ursula's place,
+where she saw old Minoret standing with bared head.
+
+If you recall the heads of Barbe-Marbois, Boissy d'Anglas, Morellet,
+Helvetius, or Frederick the Great, you will see the exact image of
+Doctor Minoret, whose green old age resembled that of those celebrated
+personages. Their heads coined in the same mint (for each had the
+characteristics of a medal) showed a stern and quasi-puritan profile,
+cold tones, a mathematical brain, a certain narrowness about the
+features, shrewd eyes, grave lips, and a something that was surely
+aristocratic--less perhaps in sentiment than in habit, more in the
+ideas than in the character. All men of this stamp have high brows
+retreating at the summit, the sigh of a tendency to materialism. You
+will find these leading characteristics of the head and these points
+of the face in all the Encyclopedists, in the orators of the Gironde,
+in the men of a period when religious ideas were almost dead, men who
+called themselves deists and were atheists. The deist is an atheist
+lucky in classification.
+
+Minoret had a forehead of this description, furrowed with wrinkles,
+which recovered in his old age a sort of artless candor from the
+manner in which the silvery hair, brushed back like that of a woman
+when making her toilet, curled in light flakes upon the blackness of
+his coat. He persisted in dressing, as in his youth, in black silk
+stockings, shoes with gold buckles, breeches of black poult-de-soie,
+and a black coat, adorned with the red rosette. This head, so firmly
+characterized, the cold whiteness of which was softened by the
+yellowing tones of old age, happened to be, just then, in the full
+light of a window. As Madame Minoret came in sight of him the doctor's
+blue eyes with their reddened lids were raised to heaven; a new
+conviction had given them a new expression. His spectacles lay in his
+prayer-book and marked the place where he had ceased to pray. The tall
+and spare old man, his arms crossed on his breast, stood erect in an
+attitude which bespoke the full strength of his faculties and the
+unshakable assurance of his faith. He gazed at the altar humbly with a
+look of renewed hope, and took no notice of his nephew's wife, who
+planted herself almost in front of him as if to reproach him for
+coming back to God.
+
+Zelie, seeing all eyes turned upon her, made haste to leave the church
+and returned to the square less hurriedly than she had left it. She
+had reckoned on the doctor's money, and possession was becoming
+problematical. She found the clerk of the court, the collector, and
+their wives in greater consternation than ever. Goupil was taking
+pleasure in tormenting them.
+
+"It is not in the public square and before the whole town that we
+ought to talk of our affairs," said Zelie; "come home with me. You
+too, Monsieur Dionis," she added to the notary; "you'll not be in the
+way."
+
+Thus the probable disinheritance of Massin, Cremiere, and the post
+master was the news of the day.
+
+Just as the heirs and the notary were crossing the square to go to the
+post house the noise of the diligence rattling up to the office, which
+was only a few steps from the church, at the top of the Grand'Rue,
+made its usual racket.
+
+"Goodness! I'm like you, Minoret; I forgot all about Desire," said
+Zelie. "Let us go and see him get down. He is almost a lawyer; and his
+interests are mixed up in this matter."
+
+The arrival of the diligence is always an amusement, but when it comes
+in late some unusual event is expected. The crowd now moved towards
+the "Ducler."
+
+"Here's Desire!" was the general cry.
+
+The tyrant, and yet the life and soul of Nemours, Desire always put
+the town in a ferment when he came. Loved by the young men, with whom
+he was invariably generous, he stimulated them by his very presence.
+But his methods of amusement were so dreaded by older persons that
+more than one family was very thankful to have him complete his
+studies and study law in Paris. Desire Minoret, a slight youth,
+slender and fair like his mother, from whom he obtained his blue eyes
+and pale skin, smiled from the window on the crowd, and jumped lightly
+down to kiss his mother. A short sketch of the young fellow will show
+how proud Zelie felt when she saw him.
+
+He wore very elegant boots, trousers of white English drilling held
+under his feet by straps of varnished leather, a rich cravat,
+admirably put on and still more admirably fastened, a pretty fancy
+waistcoat, in the pocket of said waistcoat a flat watch, the chain of
+which hung down; and, finally, a short frock-coat of blue cloth, and a
+gray hat,--but his lack of the manner-born was shown in the gilt
+buttons of the waistcoat and the ring worn outside of his purple kid
+glove. He carried a cane with a chased gold head.
+
+"You are losing your watch," said his mother, kissing him.
+
+"No, it is worn that way," he replied, letting his father hug him.
+
+"Well, cousin, so we shall soon see you a lawyer?" said Massin.
+
+"I shall take the oaths at the beginning of next term," said Desire,
+returning the friendly nods he was receiving on all sides.
+
+"Now we shall have some fun," said Goupil, shaking him by the hand.
+
+"Ha! my old wag, so here you are!" replied Desire.
+
+"You take your law license for all license," said Goupil, affronted by
+being treated so cavalierly in presence of others.
+
+"You know my luggage," cried Desire to the red-faced old conductor of
+the diligence; "have it taken to the house."
+
+"The sweat is rolling off your horses," said Zelie sharply to the
+conductor; "you haven't common-sense to drive them in that way. You
+are stupider than your own beasts."
+
+"But Monsieur Desire was in a hurry to get here to save you from
+anxiety," explained Cabirolle.
+
+"But if there was no accident why risk killing the horses?" she
+retorted.
+
+The greetings of friends and acquaintances, the crowding of the young
+men around Desire, and the relating of the incidents of the journey
+took enough time for the mass to be concluded and the worshippers to
+issue from the church. By mere chance (which manages many things)
+Desire saw Ursula on the porch as he passed along, and he stopped
+short amazed at her beauty. His action also stopped the advance of the
+relations who accompanied him.
+
+In giving her arm to her godfather, Ursula was obliged to hold her
+prayer-book in one hand and her parasol in the other; and this she did
+with the innate grace which graceful women put into the awkward or
+difficult things of their charming craft of womanhood. If mind does
+truly reveal itself in all things, we may be permitted to say that
+Ursula's attitude and bearing suggested divine simplicity. She was
+dressed in a white cambric gown made like a wrapper, trimmed here and
+there with knots of blue ribbon. The pelerine, edged with the same
+ribbon run through a broad hem and tied with bows like those on the
+dress, showed the great beauty of her shape. Her throat, of a pure
+white, was charming in tone against the blue,--the right color for a
+fair skin. A long blue sash with floating ends defined a slender waist
+which seemed flexible,--a most seductive charm in women. She wore a
+rice-straw bonnet, modestly trimmed with ribbons like those of the
+gown, the strings of which were tied under her chin, setting off the
+whiteness of the straw and doing no despite to that of her beautiful
+complexion. Ursula dressed her own hair naturally (a la Berthe, as it
+was then called) in heavy braids of fine, fair hair, laid flat on
+either side of the head, each little strand reflecting the light as
+she walked. Her gray eyes, soft and proud at the same time, were in
+harmony with a finely modeled brow. A rosy tinge, suffusing her
+cheeks like a cloud, brightened a face which was regular without being
+insipid; for nature had given her, by some rare privilege, extreme
+purity of form combined with strength of countenance. The nobility of
+her life was manifest in the general expression of her person, which
+might have served as a model for a type of trustfulness, or of
+modesty. Her health, though brilliant, was not coarsely apparent; in
+fact, her whole air was distinguished. Beneath the little gloves of a
+light color it was easy to imagine her pretty hands. The arched and
+slender feet were delicately shod in bronzed kid boots trimmed with a
+brown silk fringe. Her blue sash holding at the waist a small flat
+watch and a blue purse with gilt tassels attracted the eyes of every
+woman she met.
+
+"He has given her a new watch!" said Madame Cremiere, pinching her
+husband's arm.
+
+"Heavens! is that Ursula?" cried Desire; "I didn't recognize her."
+
+"Well, my dear uncle," said the post master, addressing the doctor and
+pointing to the whole population drawn up in parallel hedges to let
+the doctor pass, "everybody wants to see you."
+
+"Was it the Abbe Chaperon or Mademoiselle Ursula who converted you,
+uncle," said Massin, bowing to the doctor and his protegee, with
+Jesuitical humility.
+
+"Ursula," replied the doctor, laconically, continuing to walk on as if
+annoyed.
+
+The night before, as the old man finished his game of whist with
+Ursula, the Nemours doctor, and Bongrand, he remarked, "I intend to go
+to church to-morrow."
+
+"Then," said Bongrand, "your heirs won't get another night's rest."
+
+The speech was superfluous, however, for a single glance sufficed the
+sagacious and clear-sighted doctor to read the minds of his heirs by
+the expression of their faces. Zelie's irruption into the church, her
+glance, which the doctor intercepted, this meeting of all the
+expectant ones in the public square, and the expression in their eyes
+as they turned them on Ursula, all proved to him their hatred, now
+freshly awakened, and their sordid fears.
+
+"It is a feather in your cap, Mademoiselle," said Madame Cremiere,
+putting in her word with a humble bow,--"a miracle which will not cost
+you much."
+
+"It is God's doing, madame," replied Ursula.
+
+"God!" exclaimed Minoret-Levrault; "my father-in-law used to say he
+served to blanket many horses."
+
+"Your father-in-law had the mind of a jockey," said the doctor
+severely.
+
+"Come," said Minoret to his wife and son, "why don't you bow to my
+uncle?"
+
+"I shouldn't be mistress of myself before that little hypocrite,"
+cried Zelie, carrying off her son.
+
+"I advise you, uncle, not to go to mass without a velvet cap," said
+Madame Massin; "the church is very damp."
+
+"Pooh, niece," said the doctor, looking round on the assembly, "the
+sooner I'm put to bed the sooner you'll flourish."
+
+He walked on quickly, drawing Ursula with him, and seemed in such a
+hurry that the others dropped behind.
+
+"Why do you say such harsh things to them? it isn't right," said
+Ursula, shaking his arm in a coaxing way.
+
+"I shall always hate hypocrites, as much after as before I became
+religious. I have done good to them all, and I asked no gratitude; but
+not one of my relatives sent you a flower on your birthday, which they
+know is the only day I celebrate."
+
+At some distance behind the doctor and Ursula came Madame de
+Portenduere, dragging herself along as if overcome with trouble. She
+belonged to the class of old women whose dress recalls the style of
+the last century. They wear puce-colored gowns with flat sleeves, the
+cut of which can be seen in the portraits of Madame Lebrun; they all
+have black lace mantles and bonnets of a shape gone by, in keeping
+with their slow and dignified deportment; one might almost fancy that
+they still wore paniers under their petticoats or felt them there, as
+persons who have lost a leg are said to fancy that the foot is moving.
+They swathe their heads in old lace which declines to drape gracefully
+about their cheeks. Their wan and elongated faces, their haggard eyes
+and faded brows, are not without a certain melancholy grace, in spite
+of the false fronts with flattened curls to which they cling,--and yet
+these ruins are all subordinate to an unspeakable dignity of look and
+manner.
+
+The red and wrinkled eyes of this old lady showed plainly that she had
+been crying during the service. She walked like a person in trouble,
+seemed to be expecting some one, and looked behind her from time to
+time. Now, the fact of Madame de Portenduere looking behind her was
+really as remarkable in its way as the conversion of Doctor Minoret.
+
+"Who can Madame de Portenduere be looking for?" said Madame Massin,
+rejoining the other heirs, who were for the moment struck dumb by the
+doctor's answer.
+
+"For the cure," said Dionis, the notary, suddenly striking his
+forehead as if some forgotten thought or memory had occurred to him.
+"I have an idea! I'll save your inheritance! Let us go and breakfast
+gayly with Madame Minoret."
+
+We can well imagine the alacrity with which the heirs followed the
+notary to the post house. Goupil, who accompanied his friend Desire,
+locked arm in arm with him, whispered something in the youth's ear
+with an odious smile.
+
+"What do I care?" answered the son of the house, shrugging his
+shoulders. "I am madly in love with Florine, the most celestial
+creature in the world."
+
+"Florine! and who may she be?" demanded Goupil. "I'm too fond of you
+to let you make a goose of yourself wish such creatures."
+
+"Florine is the idol of the famous Nathan; my passion is wasted, I
+know that. She has positively refused to marry me."
+
+"Sometimes those girls who are fools with their bodies are wise with
+their heads," responded Goupil.
+
+"If you could but see her--only once," said Desire, lackadaisically,
+"you wouldn't say such things."
+
+"If I saw you throwing away your whole future for nothing better than
+a fancy," said Goupil, with a warmth which might even have deceived
+his master, "I would break your doll as Varney served Amy Robsart in
+'Kenilworth.' Your wife must be a d'Aiglement or a Mademoiselle du
+Rouvre, and get you made a deputy. My future depends on yours, and I
+sha'n't let you commit any follies."
+
+"I am rich enough to care only for happiness," replied Desire.
+
+"What are you two plotting together?" cried Zelie, beckoning to the
+two friends, who were standing in the middle of the courtyard, to come
+into the house.
+
+The doctor disappeared into the Rue des Bourgeois with the activity of
+a young man, and soon reached his own house, where strange events had
+lately taken place, the visible results of which now filled the minds
+of the whole community of Nemours. A few explanations are needed to
+make this history and the notary's remark to the heirs perfectly
+intelligible to the reader.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+URSULA
+
+The father-in-law of Doctor Minoret, the famous harpsichordist and
+maker of instruments, Valentin Mirouet, also one of our most
+celebrated organists, died in 1785 leaving a natural son, the child of
+his old age, whom he acknowledged and called by his own name, but who
+turned out a worthless fellow. He was deprived on his death bed of the
+comfort of seeing this petted son. Joseph Mirouet, a singer and
+composer, having made his debut at the Italian opera under a feigned
+name, ran away with a young lady in Germany. The dying father
+commended the young man, who was really full of talent, to his son-in-
+law, proving to him, at the same time, that he had refused to marry
+the mother that he might not injure Madame Minoret. The doctor
+promised to give the unfortunate Joseph half of whatever his wife
+inherited from her father, whose business was purchased by the Erards.
+He made due search for his illegitimate brother-in-law; but Grimm
+informed him one day that after enlisting in a Prussian regiment
+Joseph had deserted and taken a false name and that all efforts to
+find him would be frustrated.
+
+Joseph Mirouet, gifted by nature with a delightful voice, a fine
+figure, a handsome face, and being moreover a composer of great taste
+and much brilliancy, led for over fifteen years the Bohemian life
+which Hoffman has so well described. So, by the time he was forty, he
+was reduced to such depths of poverty that he took advantage of the
+events of 1806 to make himself once more a Frenchman. He settled in
+Hamburg, where he married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted
+to music, who fell in love with the singer (whose fame was ever
+prospective) and chose to devote her life to him. But after fifteen
+years of Bohemia, Joseph Mirouet was unable to bear prosperity; he was
+naturally a spendthrift, and though kind to his wife, he wasted her
+fortune in a very few years. The household must have dragged on a
+wretched existence before Joseph Mirouet reached the point of
+enlisting as a musician in a French regiment. In 1813 the surgeon-
+major of the regiment, by the merest chance, heard the name of
+Mirouet, was struck by it, and wrote to Doctor Minoret, to whom he was
+under obligations.
+
+The answer was not long in coming. As a result, in 1814, before the
+allied occupation, Joseph Mirouet had a home in Paris, where his wife
+died giving birth to a little girl, whom the doctor desired should be
+called Ursula after his wife. The father did not long survive the
+mother, worn out, as she was, by hardship and poverty. When dying the
+unfortunate musician bequeathed his daughter to the doctor, who was
+already her godfather, in spite of his repugnance for what he called
+the mummeries of the Church. Having seen his own children die in
+succession either in dangerous confinements or during the first year
+of their lives, the doctor had awaited with anxiety the result of a
+last hope. When a nervous, delicate, and sickly woman begins with a
+miscarriage it is not unusual to see her go through a series of such
+pregnancies as Ursula Minoret did, in spite of the care and
+watchfulness and science of her husband. The poor man often blamed
+himself for their mutual persistence in desiring children. The last
+child, born after a rest of nearly two years, died in 1792, a victim
+of its mother's nervous condition--if we listen to physiologists, who
+tell us that in the inexplicable phenomenon of generation the child
+derives from the father by blood and from the mother in its nervous
+system.
+
+Compelled to renounce the joys of a feeling all powerful within him,
+the doctor turned to benevolence as a substitute for his denied
+paternity. During his married life, thus cruelly disappointed, he had
+longed more especially for a fair little daughter, a flower to bring
+joy to the house; he therefore gladly accepted Joseph Mirouet's
+legacy, and gave to the orphan all the hopes of his vanished dreams.
+For two years he took part, as Cato for Pompey, in the most minute
+particulars of Ursula's life; he would not allow the nurse to suckle
+her or to take her up or put her to bed without him. His medical
+science and his experience were all put to use in her service. After
+going through many trials, alternations of hope and fear, and the joys
+and labors of a mother, he had the happiness of seeing this child of
+the fair German woman and the French singer a creature of vigorous
+health and profound sensibility.
+
+With all the eager feelings of a mother the happy old man watched the
+growth of the pretty hair, first down, then silk, at last hair, fine
+and soft and clinging to the fingers that caressed it. He often kissed
+the little naked feet the toes of which, covered with a pellicle
+through which the blood was seen, were like rosebuds. He was
+passionately fond of the child. When she tried to speak, or when she
+fixed her beautiful blue eyes upon some object with that serious,
+reflective look which seems the dawn of thought, and which she ended
+with a laugh, he would stay by her side for hours, seeking, with
+Jordy's help, to understand the reasons (which most people call
+caprices) underlying the phenomena of this delicious phase of life,
+when childhood is both flower and fruit, a confused intelligence, a
+perpetual movement, a powerful desire.
+
+Ursula's beauty and gentleness made her so dear to the doctor that he
+would have liked to change the laws of nature in her behalf. He
+declared to old Jordy that his teeth ached when Ursula was cutting
+hers. When old men love children there is no limit to their passion--
+they worship them. For these little beings they silence their own
+manias or recall a whole past in their service. Experience, patience,
+sympathy, the acquisitions of life, treasures laboriously amassed, all
+are spent upon that young life in which they live again; their
+intelligence does actually take the place of motherhood. Their wisdom,
+ever on the alert, is equal to the intuition of a mother; they
+remember the delicate perceptions which in their own mother were
+divinations, and import them into the exercise of a compassion which
+is carried to an extreme in their minds by a sense of the child's
+unutterable weakness. The slowness of their movements takes the place
+of maternal gentleness. In them, as in children, life is reduced to
+its simplest expression; if maternal sentiment makes the mother a
+slave, the abandonment of self allows an old man to devote himself
+utterly. For these reasons it is not unusual to see children in close
+intimacy with old persons. The old soldier, the old abbe, the old
+doctor, happy in the kisses and cajoleries of little Ursula, were
+never weary of answering her talk and playing with her. Far from
+making them impatient her petulances charmed them; and they gratified
+all her wishes, making each the ground of some little training.
+
+The child grew up surrounded by old men, who smiled at her and made
+themselves mothers for her sake, all three equally attentive and
+provident. Thanks to this wise education, Ursula's soul developed in a
+sphere that suited it. This rare plant found its special soil; it
+breathed the elements of its true life and assimilated the sun rays
+that belonged to it.
+
+"In what faith do you intend to bring up the little one?" asked the
+abbe of the doctor, when Ursula was six years old.
+
+"In yours," answered Minoret.
+
+An atheist after the manner of Monsieur Wolmar in the "Nouvelle
+Heloise" he did not claim the right to deprive Ursula of the benefits
+offered by the Catholic religion. The doctor, sitting at the moment on
+a bench outside the Chinese pagoda, felt the pressure of the abbe's
+hand on his.
+
+"Yes, abbe, every time she talks to me of God I shall send her to her
+friend 'Shapron,'" he said, imitating Ursula's infant speech, "I wish
+to see whether religious sentiment is inborn or not. Therefore I shall
+do nothing either for or against the tendencies of that young soul;
+but in my heart I have appointed you her spiritual guardian."
+
+"God will reward you, I hope," replied the abbe, gently joining his
+hands and raising them towards heaven as if he were making a brief
+mental prayer.
+
+So, from the time she was six years old the little orphan lived under
+the religious influence of the abbe, just as she had already come
+under the educational training of her friend Jordy.
+
+The captain, formerly a professor in a military academy, having a
+taste for grammar and for the differences among European languages,
+had studied the problem of a universal tongue. This learned man,
+patient as most old scholars are, delighted in teaching Ursula to read
+and write. He taught her also the French language and all she needed
+to know of arithmetic. The doctor's library afforded a choice of books
+which could be read by a child for amusement as well as instruction.
+
+The abbe and the soldier allowed the young mind to enrich itself with
+the freedom and comfort which the doctor gave to the body. Ursula
+learned as she played. Religion was given with due reflection. Left to
+follow the divine training of a nature that was led into regions of
+purity by these judicious educators, Ursula inclined more to sentiment
+than to duty; she took as her rule of conduct the voice of her own
+conscience rather than the demands of social law. In her, nobility of
+feeling and action would ever be spontaneous; her judgment would
+confirm the impulse of her heart. She was destined to do right as a
+pleasure before doing it as an obligation. This distinction is the
+peculiar sign of Christian education. These principles, altogether
+different from those that are taught to men, were suitable for a
+woman,--the spirit and the conscience of the home, the beautifier of
+domestic life, the queen of her household. All three of these old
+preceptors followed the same method with Ursula. Instead of recoiling
+before the bold questions of innocence, they explained to her the
+reasons of things and the best means of action, taking care to give
+her none but correct ideas. When, apropos of a flower, a star, a blade
+of grass, her thoughts went straight to God, the doctor and the
+professor told her that the priest alone could answer her. None of
+them intruded on the territory of the others; the doctor took charge
+of her material well-being and the things of life; Jordy's department
+was instruction; moral and spiritual questions and the ideas
+appertaining to the higher life belonged to the abbe. This noble
+education was not, as it often is, counteracted by injudicious
+servants. La Bougival, having been lectured on the subject, and being,
+moreover, too simple in mind and character to interfere, did nothing
+to injure the work of these great minds. Ursula, a privileged being,
+grew up with good geniuses round her; and her naturally fine
+disposition made the task of each a sweet and easy one. Such manly
+tenderness, such gravity lighted by smiles, such liberty without
+danger, such perpetual care of soul and body made little Ursula, when
+nine years of age, a well-trained child and delightful to behold.
+
+Unhappily, this paternal trinity was broken up. The old captain died
+the following year, leaving the abbe and the doctor to finish his
+work, of which, however, he had accomplished the most difficult part.
+Flowers will bloom of themselves if grown in a soil thus prepared. The
+old gentleman had laid by for ten years past one thousand francs a
+year, that he might leave ten thousand to his little Ursula, and keep
+a place in her memory during her whole life. In his will, the wording
+of which was very touching, he begged his legatee to spend the four or
+five hundred francs that came of her little capital exclusively on her
+dress. When the justice of the peace applied the seals to the effects
+of his old friend, they found in a small room, which the captain had
+allowed no one to enter, a quantity of toys, many of them broken,
+while all had been used,--toys of a past generation, reverently
+preserved, which Monsieur Bongrand was, according to the captain's
+last wishes, to burn with his own hands.
+
+About this time it was that Ursula made her first communion. The abbe
+employed one whole year in duly instructing the young girl, whose mind
+and heart, each well developed, yet judiciously balancing one another,
+needed a special spiritual nourishment. The initiation into a
+knowledge of divine things which he gave her was such that Ursula grew
+into the pious and mystical young girl whose character rose above all
+vicissitudes, and whose heart was enabled to conquer adversity. Then
+began a secret struggle between the old man wedded to unbelief and the
+young girl full of faith,--long unsuspected by her who incited it,--
+the result of which had now stirred the whole town, and was destined
+to have great influence on Ursula's future by rousing against her the
+antagonism of the doctor's heirs.
+
+During the first six months of the year 1824 Ursula spent all her
+mornings at the parsonage. The old doctor guessed the abbe's secret
+hope. He meant to make Ursula an unanswerable argument against him.
+The old unbeliever, loved by his godchild as though she were his own
+daughter, would surely believe in such artless candor; he could not
+fail to be persuaded by the beautiful effects of religion on the soul
+of a child, where love was like those trees of Eastern climes, bearing
+both flowers and fruit, always fragrant, always fertile. A beautiful
+life is more powerful than the strongest argument. It is impossible to
+resist the charms of certain sights. The doctor's eyes were wet, he
+knew not how or why, when he saw the child of his heart starting for
+the church, wearing a frock of white crape, and shoes of white satin;
+her hair bound with a fillet fastened at the side with a knot of white
+ribbon, and rippling upon her shoulders; her eyes lighted by the star
+of a first hope; hurrying, tall and beautiful, to a first union, and
+loving her godfather better since her soul had risen towards God. When
+the doctor perceived that the thought of immortality was nourishing
+that spirit (until then within the confines of childhood) as the sun
+gives life to the earth without knowing why, he felt sorry that he
+remained at home alone.
+
+Sitting on the steps of his portico he kept his eyes fixed on the iron
+railing of the gate through which the child had disappeared, saying as
+she left him: "Why won't you come, godfather? how can I be happy
+without you?" Though shaken to his very center, the pride of the
+Encyclopedist did not as yet give way. He walked slowly in a direction
+from which he could see the procession of communicants, and
+distinguish his little Ursula brilliant with exaltation beneath her
+veil. She gave him an inspired look, which knocked, in the stony
+regions of his heart, on the corner closed to God. But still the old
+deist held firm. He said to himself: "Mummeries! if there be a maker
+of worlds, imagine the organizer of infinitude concerning himself with
+such trifles!" He laughed as he continued his walk along the heights
+which look down upon the road to the Gatinais, where the bells were
+ringing a joyous peal that told of the joy of families.
+
+The noise of backgammon is intolerable to persons who do not know the
+game, which is really one of the most difficult that was ever
+invented. Not to annoy his godchild, the extreme delicacy of whose
+organs and nerves could not bear, he thought, without injury the noise
+and the exclamations she did not know the meaning of, the abbe, old
+Jordy while living, and the doctor always waited till their child was
+in bed before they began their favorite game. Sometimes the visitors
+came early when she was out for a walk, and the game would be going on
+when she returned; then she resigned herself with infinite grace and
+took her seat at the window with her work. She had a repugnance to the
+game, which is really in the beginning very hard and unconquerable to
+some minds, so that unless it be learned in youth it is almost
+impossible to take it up in after life.
+
+The night of her first communion, when Ursula came into the salon
+where her godfather was sitting alone, she put the backgammon-board
+before him.
+
+"Whose throw shall it be?" she asked.
+
+"Ursula," said the doctor, "isn't it a sin to make fun of your
+godfather the day of your first communion?"
+
+"I am not making fun of you," she said, sitting down. "I want to give
+you some pleasure--you who are always on the look-out for mine. When
+Monsieur Chaperon was pleased with me he gave me a lesson in
+backgammon, and he has given me so many that now I am quite strong
+enough to beat you--you shall not deprive yourself any longer for me.
+I have conquered all difficulties, and now I like the noise of the
+game."
+
+Ursula won. The abbe had slipped in to enjoy his triumph. The next
+day Minoret, who had always refused to let Ursula learn music, sent to
+Paris for a piano, made arrangements at Fontainebleau for a teacher,
+and submitted to the annoyance that her constant practicing was to
+him. One of poor Jordy's predictions was fulfilled,--the girl became
+an excellent musician. The doctor, proud of her talent, had lately
+sent to Paris for a master, an old German named Schmucke, a
+distinguished professor who came once a week; the doctor willingly
+paying for an art which he had formerly declared to be useless in a
+household. Unbelievers do not like music--a celestial language,
+developed by Catholicism, which has taken the names of the seven notes
+from one of the church hymns; every note being the first syllable of
+the seven first lines in the hymn to Saint John.
+
+The impression produced on the doctor by Ursula's first communion
+though keen was not lasting. The calm and sweet contentment which
+prayer and the exercise of resolution produced in that young soul had
+not their due influence upon him. Having no reasons for remorse or
+repentance himself, he enjoyed a serene peace. Doing his own
+benefactions without hope of a celestial harvest, he thought himself
+on a nobler plane than religious men whom he always accused for
+making, as he called it, terms with God.
+
+"But," the abbe would say to him, "if all men would be so, you must
+admit that society would be regenerated; there would be no more
+misery. To be benevolent after your fashion one must needs be a great
+philosopher; you rise to your principles through reason, you are a
+social exception; whereas it suffices to be a Christian to make us
+benevolent in ours. With you, it is an effort; with us, it comes
+naturally."
+
+"In other words, abbe, I think, and you feel,--that's the whole of
+it."
+
+However, at twelve years of age, Ursula, whose quickness and natural
+feminine perceptions were trained by her superior education, and whose
+intelligence in its dawn was enlightened by a religious spirit (of all
+spirits the most refined), came to understand that her godfather did
+not believe in a future life, nor in the immortality of the soul, nor
+in providence, nor in God. Pressed with questions by the innocent
+creature, the doctor was unable to hide the fatal secret. Ursula's
+artless consternation made him smile, but when he saw her depressed
+and sad he felt how deep an affection her sadness revealed. Absolute
+devotion has a horror of every sort of disagreement, even in ideas
+which it does not share. Sometimes the doctor accepted his darling's
+reasonings as he would her kisses, said as they were in the sweetest
+of voices with the purest and most fervent feeling. Believers and
+unbelievers speak different languages and cannot understand each
+other. The young girl pleading God's cause was unreasonable with the
+old man, as a spoilt child sometimes maltreats its mother. The abbe
+rebuked her gently, telling her that God had power to humiliate proud
+spirits. Ursula replied that David had overcome Goliath.
+
+This religious difference, these complaints of the child who wished to
+drag her godfather to God, were the only troubles of this happy life,
+so peaceful, yet so full, and wholly withdrawn from the inquisitive
+eyes of the little town. Ursula grew and developed, and became in time
+the modest and religiously trained young woman whom Desire admired as
+she left the church. The cultivation of flowers in the garden, her
+music, the pleasures of her godfather, and all the little cares she
+was able to give him (for she had eased La Bougival's labors by doing
+everything for him),--these things filled the hours, the days, the
+months of her calm life. Nevertheless, for about a year the doctor had
+felt uneasy about his Ursula, and watched her health with the utmost
+care. Sagacious and profoundly practical observer that he was, he
+thought he perceived some commotion in her moral being. He watched her
+like a mother, but seeing no one about her who was worthy of inspiring
+love, his uneasiness on the subject at length passed away.
+
+At this conjuncture, one month before the day when this drama begins,
+the doctor's intellectual life was invaded by one of those events
+which plough to the very depths of a man's convictions and turn them
+over. But this event needs a succinct narrative of certain
+circumstances in his medical career, which will give, perhaps, fresh
+interest to the story.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A TREATISE ON MESMERISM
+
+Towards the end of the eighteenth century science was sundered as
+widely by the apparition of Mesmer as art had been by that of Gluck.
+After re-discovering magnetism Mesmer came to France, where, from time
+immemorial, inventors have flocked to obtain recognition for their
+discoveries. France, thanks to her lucid language, is in some sense
+the clarion of the world.
+
+"If homoeopathy gets to Paris it is saved," said Hahnemann, recently.
+
+"Go to France," said Monsieur de Metternich to Gall, "and if they
+laugh at your bumps you will be famous."
+
+Mesmer had disciples and antagonists as ardent for and against his
+theories as the Piccinists and the Gluckists for theirs. Scientific
+France was stirred to its center; a solemn conclave was opened. Before
+judgment was rendered, the medical faculty proscribed, in a body,
+Mesmer's so-called charlatanism, his tub, his conducting wires, and
+his theory. But let us at once admit that the German, unfortunately,
+compromised his splendid discovery by enormous pecuniary claims.
+Mesmer was defeated by the doubtfulness of facts, by universal
+ignorance of the part played in nature by imponderable fluids then
+unobserved, and by his own inability to study on all sides a science
+possessing a triple front. Magnetism has many applications; in
+Mesmer's hands it was, in its relation to the future, merely what
+cause is to effect. But, if the discoverer lacked genius, it is a sad
+thing both for France and for human reason to have to say that a
+science contemporaneous with civilization, cultivated by Egypt and
+Chaldea, by Greece and India, met in Paris in the eighteenth century
+the fate that Truth in the person of Galileo found in the sixteenth;
+and that magnetism was rejected and cast out by the combined attacks
+of science and religion, alarmed for their own positions. Magnetism,
+the favorite science of Jesus Christ and one of the divine powers
+which he gave to his disciples, was no better apprehended by the
+Church than by the disciples of Jean-Jacques, Voltaire, Locke, and
+Condillac. The Encyclopedists and the clergy were equally averse to
+the old human power which they took to be new. The miracles of the
+convulsionaries, suppressed by the Church and smothered by the
+indifference of scientific men (in spite of the precious writings of
+the Councilor, Carre de Montgeron) were the first summons to make
+experiments with those human fluids which give power to employ certain
+inward forces to neutralize the sufferings caused by outward agents.
+But to do this it was necessary to admit the existence of fluids
+intangible, invisible, imponderable, three negative terms in which the
+science of that day chose to see a definition of the void. In modern
+philosophy there is no void. Ten feet of void and the world crumbles
+away! To materialists especially the world is full, all things hang
+together, are linked, related, organized. "The world as the result of
+chance," said Diderot, "is more explicable than God. The multiplicity
+of causes, the incalculable number of issues presupposed by chance,
+explain creation. Take the Eneid and all the letters composing it; if
+you allow me time and space, I can, by continuing to cast the letters,
+arrive at last at the Eneid combination."
+
+Those foolish persons who deify all rather than admit a God recoil
+before the infinite divisibility of matter which is in the nature of
+imponderable forces. Locke and Condillac retarded by fifty years the
+immense progress which natural science is now making under the great
+principle of unity due to Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire. Some intelligent
+persons, without any system, convinced by facts conscientiously
+studied, still hold to Mesmer's doctrine, which recognizes the
+existence of a penetrative influence acting from man to man, put in
+motion by the will, curative by the abundance of the fluid, the
+working of which is in fact a duel between two forces, between an ill
+to be cured and the will to cure it.
+
+The phenomena of somnambulism, hardly perceived by Mesmer, were
+revealed by du Puysegur and Deleuze; but the Revolution put a stop to
+their discoveries and played into the hands of the scientists and
+scoffers. Among the small number of believers were a few physicians.
+They were persecuted by their brethren as long as they lived. The
+respectable body of Parisian doctors displayed all the bitterness of
+religious warfare against the Mesmerists, and were as cruel in their
+hatred as it was possible to be in those days of Voltairean tolerance.
+The orthodox physician refused to consult with those who adopted the
+Mesmerian heresy. In 1820 these heretics were still proscribed. The
+miseries and sorrows of the Revolution had not quenched the scientific
+hatred. It is only priests, magistrates, and physicians who can hate
+in that way. The official robe is terrible! But ideas are even more
+implacable than things.
+
+Doctor Bouvard, one of Minoret's friends, believed in the new faith,
+and persevered to the day of his death in studying a science to which
+he sacrificed the peace of his life, for he was one of the chief
+"betes noires" of the Parisian faculty. Minoret, a valiant supporter
+of the Encyclopedists, and a formidable adversary of Desion, Mesmer's
+assistant, whose pen had great weight in the controversy, quarreled
+with his old friend, and not only that, but he persecuted him. His
+conduct to Bouvard must have caused him the only remorse which
+troubled the serenity of his declining years. Since his retirement to
+Nemours the science of imponderable fluids (the only name suitable for
+magnetism, which, by the nature of its phenomena, is closely allied to
+light and electricity) had made immense progress, in spite of the
+ridicule of Parisian scientists. Phrenology and physiognomy, the
+departments of Gall and Lavater (which are in fact twins, for one is
+to the other as cause is to effect), proved to the minds of more than
+one physiologist the existence of an intangible fluid which is the
+basis of the phenomena of the human will, and from which result
+passions, habits, the shape of faces and of skulls. Magnetic facts,
+the miracles of somnambulism, those of divination and ecstasy, which
+open a way to the spiritual world, were fast accumulating. The strange
+tale of the apparitions of the farmer Martin, so clearly proved, and
+his interview with Louis XVIII.; a knowledge of the intercourse of
+Swedenborg with the departed, carefully investigated in Germany; the
+tales of Walter Scott on the effects of "second sight"; the
+extraordinary faculties of some fortune-tellers, who practice as a
+single science chiromancy, cartomancy, and the horoscope; the facts of
+catalepsy, and those of the action of certain morbid affections on the
+properties of the diaphragm,--all such phenomena, curious, to say the
+least, each emanating from the same source, were now undermining many
+scepticisms and leading even the most indifferent minds to the plane
+of experiments. Minoret, buried in Nemours, was ignorant of this
+movement of minds, strong in the north of Europe but still weak in
+France where, however, many facts called marvelous by superficial
+observers, were happening, but falling, alas! like stones to the
+bottom of the sea, in the vortex of Parisian excitements.
+
+At the bottom of the present year the doctor's tranquillity was shaken
+by the following letter:--
+
+
+My old comrade,--All friendship, even if lost, as rights which it
+is difficult to set aside. I know that you are still living, and I
+remember far less our enmity than our happy days in that old hovel
+of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre.
+
+At a time when I expect to soon leave the world I have it on my
+heart to prove to you that magnetism is about to become one of the
+most important of the sciences--if indeed all science is not ONE.
+I can overcome your incredulity by proof. Perhaps I shall owe to
+your curiosity the happiness of taking you once more by the hand--
+as in the days before Mesmer.         Always yours,
+
+Bouvard.
+
+
+Stung like a lion by a gadfly the old scientist rushed to Paris and
+left his card on Bouvard, who lived in the Rue Ferou near Saint-
+Sulpice. Bouvard sent a card to his hotel on which was written "To-
+morrow; nine o'clock, Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Assumption."
+
+Minoret, who seemed to have renewed his youth, could not sleep. He
+went to see some of his friends among the faculty to inquire if the
+world were turned upside down, if the science of medicine still had a
+school, if the four faculties any longer existed. The doctors
+reassured him, declaring that the old spirit of opposition was as
+strong as ever, only, instead of persecuting as heretofore, the
+Academies of Medicine and of Sciences rang with laughter as they
+classed magnetic facts with the tricks of Comus and Comte and Bosco,
+with jugglery and prestidigitation and all that now went by the name
+of "amusing physics."
+
+This assurance did not prevent old Minoret from keeping the
+appointment made for him by Bouvard. After an enmity of forty-four
+years the two antagonists met beneath a porte-cochere in the Rue
+Saint-Honore. Frenchmen have too many distractions of mind to hate
+each other long. In Paris especially, politics, literature, and
+science render life so vast that every man can find new worlds to
+conquer where all pretensions may live at ease. Hatred requires too
+many forces fully armed. None but public bodies can keep alive the
+sentiment. Robespierre and Danton would have fallen into each other's
+arms at the end of forty-four years. However, the two doctors each
+withheld his hand and did not offer it. Bouvard spoke first:--
+
+"You seem wonderfully well."
+
+"Yes, I am--and you?" said Minoret, feeling that the ice was now
+broken.
+
+"As you see."
+
+"Does magnetism prevent people from dying?" asked Minoret in a joking
+tone, but without sharpness.
+
+"No, but it almost prevented me from living."
+
+"Then you are not rich?" exclaimed Minoret.
+
+"Pooh!" said Bouvard.
+
+"But I am!" cried the other.
+
+"It is not your money but your convictions that I want. Come," replied
+Bouvard.
+
+"Oh! you obstinate fellow!" said Minoret.
+
+The Mesmerist led his sceptic, with some precaution, up a dingy
+staircase to the fourth floor.
+
+At this particular time an extraordinary man had appeared in Paris,
+endowed by faith with incalculable power, and controlling magnetic
+forces in all their applications. Not only did this great unknown (who
+still lives) heal from a distance the worst and most inveterate
+diseases, suddenly and radically, as the Savior of men did formerly,
+but he was also able to call forth instantaneously the most remarkable
+phenomena of somnambulism and conquer the most rebellious will. The
+countenance of this mysterious being, who claims to be responsible to
+God alone and to communicate, like Swedenborg, with angels, resembles
+that of a lion; concentrated, irresistible energy shines in it. His
+features, singularly contorted, have a terrible and even blasting
+aspect. His voice, which comes from the depths of his being, seems
+charged with some magnetic fluid; it penetrates the hearer at every
+pore. Disgusted by the ingratitude of the public after his many cures,
+he has now returned to an impenetrable solitude, a voluntary
+nothingness. His all-powerful hand, which has restored a dying
+daughter to her mother, fathers to their grief-stricken children,
+adored mistresses to lovers frenzied with love, cured the sick given
+over by physicians, soothed the sufferings of the dying when life
+became impossible, wrung psalms of thanksgiving in synagogues,
+temples, and churches from the lips of priests recalled to the one God
+by the same miracle,--that sovereign hand, a sun of life dazzling the
+closed eyes of the somnambulist, has never been raised again even to
+save the heir-apparent of a kingdom. Wrapped in the memory of his past
+mercies as in a luminous shroud, he denies himself to the world and
+lives for heaven.
+
+But, at the dawn of his reign, surprised by his own gift, this man,
+whose generosity equaled his power, allowed a few interested persons
+to witness his miracles. The fame of his work, which was mighty, and
+could easily be revived to-morrow, reached Dr. Bouvard, who was then
+on the verge of the grave. The persecuted mesmerist was at last
+enabled to witness the startling phenomena of a science he had long
+treasured in his heart. The sacrifices of the old man touched the
+heart of the mysterious stranger, who accorded him certain privileges.
+As Bouvard now went up the staircase he listened to the twittings of
+his old antagonist with malicious delight, answering only, "You shall
+see, you shall see!" with the emphatic little nods of a man who is
+sure of his facts.
+
+The two physicians entered a suite of rooms that were more than
+modest. Bouvard went alone into a bedroom which adjoined the salon
+where he left Minoret, whose distrust was instantly awakened; but
+Bouvard returned at once and took him into the bedroom, where he saw
+the mysterious Swedenborgian, and also a woman sitting in an armchair.
+The woman did not rise, and seemed not to notice the entrance of the
+two old men.
+
+"What! no tub?" cried Minoret, smiling.
+
+"Nothing but the power of God," answered the Swedenborgian gravely. He
+seemed to Minoret to be about fifty years of age.
+
+The three men sat down and the mysterious stranger talked of the rain
+and the coming fine weather, to the great astonishment of Minoret, who
+thought he was being hoaxed. The Swedenborgian soon began, however, to
+question his visitor on his scientific opinions, and seemed evidently
+to be taking time to examine him.
+
+"You have come here solely from curiosity, monsieur," he said at last.
+"It is not my habit to prostitute a power which, according to my
+conviction, emanates from God; if I made a frivolous or unworthy use
+of it, it would be taken from me. Nevertheless, there is some hope,
+Monsieur Bouvard tells me, of changing the opinions of one who has
+opposed us, of enlightening a scientific man whose mind is candid; I
+have therefore determined to satisfy you. That woman whom you see
+there," he continued, pointing to her, "is now in a somnambulic sleep.
+The statements and manifestations of somnambulists declare that this
+state is a delightful other life, during which the inner being, freed
+from the trammels laid upon the exercise of our faculties by the
+visible world, moves in a world which we mistakenly term invisible.
+Sight and hearing are then exercised in a manner far more perfect than
+any we know of here, possibly without the help of the organs we now
+employ, which are the scabbard of the luminous blades called sight and
+hearing. To a person in that state, distance and material obstacles do
+not exist, or they can be traversed by a life within us for which our
+body is a mere receptacle, a necessary shelter, a casing. Terms fail
+to describe effects that have lately been rediscovered, for to-day the
+words imponderable, intangible, invisible have no meaning to the fluid
+whose action is demonstrated by magnetism. Light is ponderable by its
+heat, which, by penetrating bodies, increases their volume; and
+certainly electricity is only too tangible. We have condemned things
+themselves instead of blaming the imperfection of our instruments."
+
+"She sleeps," said Minoret, examining the woman, who seemed to him to
+belong to an inferior class.
+
+"Her body is for the time being in abeyance," said the Swedenborgian.
+"Ignorant persons suppose that condition to be sleep. But she will
+prove to you that there is a spiritual universe, and that the mind
+when there does not obey the laws of this material universe. I will
+send her wherever you wish to go,--a hundred miles from here or to
+China, as you will. She will tell you what is happening there."
+
+"Send her to my house in Nemours, Rue des Bourgeois; that will do,"
+said Minoret.
+
+He took Minoret's hand, which the doctor let him take, and held it for
+a moment seeming to collect himself; then with his other hand he took
+that of the woman sitting in the arm-chair and placed the hand of the
+doctor in it, making a sign to the old sceptic to seat himself beside
+this oracle without a tripod. Minoret observed a slight tremor on the
+absolutely calm features of the woman when their hands were thus
+united by the Swedenborgian, but the action, though marvelous in its
+effects, was very simply done.
+
+"Obey him," said the unknown personage, extending his hand above the
+head of the sleeping woman, who seemed to imbibe both light and life
+from him, "and remember that what you do for him will please me.--You
+can now speak to her," he added, addressing Minoret.
+
+"Go to Nemours, to my house, Rue des Bourgeois," said the doctor.
+
+"Give her time; put your hand in hers until she proves to you by what
+she tells you that she is where you wish her to be," said Bouvard to
+his old friend.
+
+"I see a river," said the woman in a feeble voice, seeming to look
+within herself with deep attention, notwithstanding her closed
+eyelids. "I see a pretty garden--"
+
+"Why do you enter by the river and the garden?" said Minoret.
+
+"Because they are there."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The young girl and her nurse, whom you are thinking of."
+
+"What is the garden like?" said Minoret.
+
+"Entering by the steps which go down to the river, there is the right,
+a long brick gallery, in which I see books; it ends in a singular
+building,--there are wooden bells, and a pattern of red eggs. To the
+left, the wall is covered with climbing plants, wild grapes, Virginia
+jessamine. In the middle is a sun-dial. There are many plants in pots.
+Your child is looking at the flowers. She shows them to her nurse--she
+is making holes in the earth with her trowel, and planting seeds. The
+nurse is raking the path. The young girl is pure as an angel, but the
+beginning of love is there, faint as the dawn--"
+
+"Love for whom?" asked the doctor, who, until now, would have listened
+to no word said to him by somnambulists. He considered it all
+jugglery.
+
+"You know nothing--though you have lately been uneasy about her
+health," answered the woman. "Her heart has followed the dictates of
+nature."
+
+"A woman of the people to talk like this!" cried the doctor.
+
+"In the state she is in all persons speak with extraordinary
+perception," said Bouvard.
+
+"But who is it that Ursula loves?"
+
+"Ursula does not know that she loves," said the woman with a shake of
+the head; "she is too angelic to know what love is; but her mind is
+occupied by him; she thinks of him; she tries to escape the thought;
+but she returns to it in spite of her will to abstain.--She is at the
+piano--"
+
+"But who is he?"
+
+"The son of a lady who lives opposite."
+
+"Madame de Portenduere?"
+
+"Portenduere, did you say?" replied the sleeper. "Perhaps so. But
+there's no danger; he is not in the neighbourhood."
+
+"Have they spoken to each other?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Never. They have looked at one another. She thinks him charming. He
+is, in fact, a fine man; he has a good heart. She sees him from her
+window; they see each other in church. But the young man no longer
+thinks of her."
+
+"His name?"
+
+"Ah! to tell you that I must read it, or hear it. He is named
+Savinien; she has just spoken his name; she thinks it sweet to say;
+she has looked in the almanac for his fete-day and marked a red dot
+against it,--child's play, that. Ah! she will love well, with as much
+strength as purity; she is not a girl to love twice; love will so dye
+her soul and fill it that she will reject all other sentiments."
+
+"Where do you see that?"
+
+"In her. She will know how to suffer; she inherits that; her father
+and her mother suffered much."
+
+The last words overcame the doctor, who felt less shaken than
+surprised. It is proper to state that between her sentences the woman
+paused for several minutes, during which time her attention became
+more and more concentrated. She was seen to see; her forehead had a
+singular aspect; an inward effort appeared there; it seemed to clear
+or cloud by some mysterious power, the effects of which Minoret had
+seen in dying persons at moments when they appeared to have the gift
+of prophecy. Several times she made gestures which resembled those of
+Ursula.
+
+"Question her," said the mysterious stranger, to Minoret, "she will
+tell you secrets you alone can know."
+
+"Does Ursula love me?" asked Minoret.
+
+"Almost as much as she loves God," was the answer. "But she is very
+unhappy at your unbelief. You do not believe in God; as if you could
+prevent his existence! His word fills the universe. You are the cause
+of her only sorrow.--Hear! she is playing scales; she longs to be a
+better musician than she is; she is provoked with herself. She is
+thinking, 'If I could sing, if my voice were fine, it would reach his
+ear when he is with his mother.'"
+
+Doctor Minoret took out his pocket-book and noted the hour.
+
+"Tell me what seeds she planted?"
+
+"Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--"
+
+"And what else?"
+
+"Larkspur."
+
+"Where is my money?"
+
+"With your notary; but you invest it so as not to lose the interest of
+a single day."
+
+"Yes, but where is the money that I keep for my monthly expenses?"
+
+"You put it in a large book bound in red, entitled 'Pandects of
+Justinian, Vol. II.' between the last two leaves; the book is on the
+shelf of folios above the glass buffet. You have a whole row of them.
+Your money is in the last volume next to the salon-- See! Vol. III. is
+before Vol. II.--but you have no money, it is all in--"
+
+"--thousand-franc notes," said the doctor.
+
+"I cannot see, they are folded. No, there are two notes of five
+hundred francs."
+
+"You see them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How do they look?"
+
+"One is old and yellow, the other white and new."
+
+This last phase of the inquiry petrified the doctor. He looked at
+Bouvard with a bewildered air; but Bouvard and the Swedenborgian, who
+were accustomed to the amazement of sceptics, were speaking together
+in a low voice and appeared not to notice him. Minoret begged them to
+allow him to return after dinner. The old philosopher wished to
+compose his mind and shake off this terror, so as to put this vast
+power to some new test, to subject it to more decisive experiments and
+obtain answers to certain questions, the truth of which should do away
+with every sort of doubt.
+
+"Be here at nine o'clock this evening," said the stranger. "I will
+return to meet you."
+
+Doctor Minoret was in so convulsed a state that he left the room
+without bowing, followed by Bouvard, who called to him from behind.
+"Well, what do you say? what do you say?"
+
+"I think I am mad, Bouvard," answered Minoret from the steps of the
+porte-cochere. "If that woman tells the truth about Ursula,--and none
+but Ursula can know the things that sorceress has told me,--I shall
+say that YOU ARE RIGHT. I wish I had wings to fly to Nemours this
+minute and verify her words. But I shall hire a carriage and start at
+ten o'clock to-night. Ah! am I losing my senses?"
+
+"What would you say if you knew of a life-long incurable disease
+healed in a moment; if you saw that great magnetizer bring sweat in
+torrents from an herpetic patient, or make a paralyzed woman walk?"
+
+"Come and dine, Bouvard; stay with me till nine o'clock. I must find
+some decisive, undeniable test!"
+
+"So be it, old comrade," answered the other.
+
+The reconciled enemies dined in the Palais-Royal. After a lively
+conversation, which helped Minoret to evade the fever of the ideas
+which were ravaging his brain, Bouvard said to him:--
+
+"If you admit in that woman the faculty of annihilating or of
+traversing space, if you obtain a certainty that here, in Paris, she
+sees and hears what is said and done in Nemours, you must admit all
+other magnetic facts; they are not more incredible than these. Ask her
+for some one proof which you know will satisfy you--for you might
+suppose that we obtained information to deceive you; but we cannot
+know, for instance, what will happen at nine o'clock in your
+goddaughter's bedroom. Remember, or write down, what the sleeper will
+see and hear, and then go home. Your little Ursula, whom I do not
+know, is not our accomplice, and if she tells you that she has said
+and done what you have written down--lower thy head, proud Hun!"
+
+The two friends returned to the house opposite to the Assumption and
+found the somnambulist, who in her waking state did not recognize
+Doctor Minoret. The eyes of this woman closed gently before the hand
+of the Swedenborgian, which was stretched towards her at a little
+distance, and she took the attitude in which Minoret had first seen
+her. When her hand and that of the doctor were again joined, he asked
+her to tell him what was happening in his house at Nemours at that
+instant. "What is Ursula doing?" he said.
+
+"She is undressed; she has just curled her hair; she is kneeling on
+her prie-Dieu, before an ivory crucifix fastened to a red velvet
+background."
+
+"What is she saying?"
+
+"Her evening prayers; she is commending herself to God; she implores
+him to save her soul from evil thoughts; she examines her conscience
+and recalls what she has done during the day; that she may know if she
+has failed to obey his commands and those of the church--poor dear
+little soul, she lays bare her breast!" Tears were in the sleeper's
+eyes. "She has done no sin, but she blames herself for thinking too
+much of Savinien. She stops to wonder what he is doing in Paris; she
+prays to God to make him happy. She speaks of you; she is praying
+aloud."
+
+"Tell me her words." Minoret took his pencil and wrote, as the sleeper
+uttered it, the following prayer, evidently composed by the Abbe
+Chaperon.
+
+  "My God, if thou art content with thine handmaid, who worships
+  thee and prays to thee with a love that is equal to her devotion,
+  who strives not to wander from thy sacred paths, who would gladly
+  die as thy Son died to glorify thy name, who desires to live in
+  the shadow of thy will--O God, who knoweth the heart, open the
+  eyes of my godfather, lead him in the way of salvation, grant him
+  thy Divine grace, that he may live for thee in his last days; save
+  him from evil, and let me suffer in his stead. Kind Saint Ursula,
+  dear protectress, and you, Mother of God, queen of heaven,
+  archangels, and saints in Paradise, hear me! join your
+  intercessions to mine and have mercy upon us."
+
+The sleeper imitated so perfectly the artless gestures and the
+inspired manner of his child that Doctor Minoret's eyes were filled
+with tears.
+
+"Does she say more?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Repeat it."
+
+"'My dear godfather; I wonder who plays backgammon with him in Paris.'
+She has blown out the light--her head is on the pillow--she turns to
+sleep! Ah! she is off! How pretty she looks in her little night-cap."
+
+Minoret bowed to the great Unknown, wrung Bouvard by the hand, ran
+downstairs and hastened to a cab-stand which at that time was near the
+gates of a house since pulled down to make room for the Rue d'Alger.
+There he found a coachman who was willing to start immediately for
+Fontainebleau. The moment the price was agreed on, the old man, who
+seemed to have renewed his youth, jumped into the carriage and
+started. According to agreement, he stopped to rest the horse at
+Essonne, but arrived at Fontainebleau in time for the diligence to
+Nemours, on which he secured a seat, and dismissed his coachman. He
+reached home at five in the morning, and went to bed, with his life-
+long ideas of physiology, nature, and metaphysics in ruins about him,
+and slept till nine o'clock, so wearied was he with the events of his
+journey.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A TWO-FOLD CONVERSION
+
+On rising, the doctor, sure that no one had crossed the threshold of
+his house since he re-entered it, proceeded (but not without extreme
+trepidation) to verify his facts. He was himself ignorant of any
+difference in the bank-notes and also of the misplacement of the
+Pandect volumes. The somnambulist was right. The doctor rang for La
+Bougival.
+
+"Tell Ursula to come and speak to me," he said, seating himself in the
+center of his library.
+
+The girl came; she ran up to him and kissed him. The doctor took her
+on his knee, where she sat contentedly, mingling her soft fair curls
+with the white hair of her old friend.
+
+"Do you want something, godfather?"
+
+"Yes; but promise me, on your salvation, to answer frankly, without
+evasion, the questions that I shall put to you."
+
+Ursula colored to the temples.
+
+"Oh! I'll ask nothing that you cannot speak of," he said, noticing how
+the bashfulness of young love clouded the hitherto childlike purity of
+the girl's blue eyes.
+
+"Ask me, godfather."
+
+"What thought was in your mind when you ended your prayers last
+evening, and what time was it when you said them."
+
+"It was a quarter-past or half-past nine."
+
+"Well, repeat your last prayer."
+
+The girl fancied that her voice might convey her faith to the sceptic;
+she slid from his knee and knelt down, clasping her hands fervently; a
+brilliant light illumined her face as she turned it on the old man and
+said:--
+
+"What I asked of God last night I asked again this morning, and I
+shall ask it till he vouchsafes to grant it."
+
+Then she repeated her prayer with new and still more powerful
+expression. To her great astonishment her godfather took the last
+words from her mouth and finished the prayer.
+
+"Good, Ursula," said the doctor, taking her again on his knee. "When
+you laid your head on the pillow and went to sleep did you think to
+yourself, 'That dear godfather; I wonder who is playing backgammon
+with him in Paris'?"
+
+Ursula sprang up as if the last trumpet had sounded in her ears. She
+gave a cry of terror; her eyes, wide open, gazed at the old man with
+awful fixity.
+
+"Who are you, godfather? From whom do you get such power?" she asked,
+imagining that in his desire to deny God he had made some compact with
+the devil.
+
+"What seeds did you plant yesterday in the garden?"
+
+"Mignonette, sweet-peas, balsams--"
+
+"And the last were larkspur?"
+
+She fell on her knees.
+
+"Do not terrify me!" she exclaimed. "Oh you must have been here--you
+were here, were you not?"
+
+"Am I not always with you?" replied the doctor, evading her question,
+to save the strain on the young girl's mind. "Let us go to your room."
+
+"Your legs are trembling," she said.
+
+"Yes, I am confounded, as it were."
+
+"Can it be that you believe in God?" she cried, with artless joy,
+letting fall the tears that gathered in her eyes.
+
+The old man looked round the simple but dainty little room he had
+given to his Ursula. On the floor was a plain green carpet, very
+inexpensive, which she herself kept exquisitely clean; the walls were
+hung with a gray paper strewn with roses and green leaves; at the
+windows, which looked to the court, were calico curtains edged with a
+band of some pink material; between the windows and beneath a tall
+mirror was a pier-table topped with marble, on which stood a Sevres
+vase in which she put her nosegays; opposite the chimney was a little
+bureau-desk of charming marquetry. The bed, of chintz, with chintz
+curtains lined with pink, was one of those duchess beds so common in
+the eighteenth century, which had a tuft of carved feathers at the top
+of each of the four posts, which were fluted on the sides. An old
+clock, inclosed in a sort of monument made of tortoise-shell inlaid
+with arabesques of ivory, decorated the mantelpiece, the marble shelf
+of which, with the candlesticks and the mirror in a frame painted in
+cameo on a gray ground, presented a remarkable harmony of color, tone,
+and style. A large wardrobe, the doors of which were inlaid with
+landscapes in different woods (some having a green tint which are no
+longer to be found for sale) contained, no doubt, her linen and her
+dresses. The air of the room was redolent of heaven. The precise
+arrangement of everything showed a sense of order, a feeling for
+harmony, which would certainly have influenced any one, even a
+Minoret-Levrault. It was plain that the things about her were dear to
+Ursula, and that she loved a room which contained, as it were, her
+childhood and the whole of her girlish life.
+
+Looking the room well over that he might seem to have a reason for his
+visit, the doctor saw at once how the windows looked into those of
+Madame de Portenduere. During the night he had meditated as to the
+course he ought to pursue with Ursula about his discovery of this
+dawning passion. To question her now would commit him to some course.
+He must either approve or disapprove of her love; in either case his
+position would be a false one. He therefore resolved to watch and
+examine into the state of things between the two young people, and
+learn whether it were his duty to check the inclination before it was
+irresistible. None but an old man could have shown such deliberate
+wisdom. Still panting from the discovery of the truth of these
+magnetic facts, he turned about and looked at all the various little
+things around the room; he wished to examine the almanac which was
+hanging at a corner of the chimney-piece.
+
+"These ugly things are too heavy for your little hands," he said,
+taking up the marble candlesticks which were partly covered with
+leather.
+
+He weighed them in his hand; then he looked at the almanac and took
+it, saying, "This is ugly too. Why do you keep such a common thing in
+your pretty room?"
+
+"Oh, please let me have it, godfather."
+
+"No, no, you shall have another to-morrow."
+
+So saying he carried off this possible proof, shut himself up in his
+study, looked for Saint Savinien and found, as the somnambulist had
+told him, a little red dot at the 19th of October; he also saw another
+before his own saint's day, Saint Denis, and a third before Saint
+John, the abbe's patron. This little dot, no larger than a pin's head,
+had been seen by the sleeping woman in spite of distance and other
+obstacles! The old man thought till evening of these events, more
+momentous for him than for others. He was forced to yield to evidence.
+A strong wall, as it were, crumbled within him; for his life had
+rested on two bases,--indifference in matters of religion and a firm
+disbelief in magnetism. When it was proved to him that the senses--
+faculties purely physical, organs, the effects of which could be
+explained--attained to some of the attributes of the infinite,
+magnetism upset, or at least it seemed to him to upset, the powerful
+arguments of Spinoza. The finite and the infinite, two incompatible
+elements according to that remarkable man, were here united, the one
+in the other. No matter what power he gave to the divisibility and
+mobility of matter he could not help recognizing that it possessed
+qualities that were almost divine.
+
+He was too old now to connect those phenomena to a system, and compare
+them with those of sleep, of vision, of light. His whole scientific
+belief, based on the assertions of the school of Locke and Condillac,
+was in ruins. Seeing his hollow ideas in pieces, his scepticism
+staggered. Thus the advantage in this struggle between the Catholic
+child and the Voltairean old man was on Ursula's side. In the
+dismantled fortress, above these ruins, shone a light; from the center
+of these ashes issued the path of prayer! Nevertheless, the obstinate
+old scientist fought his doubts. Though struck to the heart, he would
+not decide, he struggled on against God.
+
+But he was no longer the same man; his mind showed its vacillation. He
+became unnaturally dreamy; he read Pascal, and Bossuet's sublime
+"History of Species"; he read Bonald, he read Saint-Augustine; he
+determined also to read the works of Swedenborg, and the late Saint-
+Martin, which the mysterious stranger had mentioned to him. The
+edifice within him was cracking on all sides; it needed but one more
+shake, and then, his heart being ripe for God, he was destined to fall
+into the celestial vineyard as fall the fruits. Often of an evening,
+when playing with the abbe, his goddaughter sitting by, he would put
+questions bearing on his opinions which seemed singular to the priest,
+who was ignorant of the inward workings by which God was remaking that
+fine conscience.
+
+"Do you believe in apparitions?" asked the sceptic of the pastor,
+stopping short in the game.
+
+"Cardan, a great philosopher of the sixteenth century said he had seen
+some," replied the abbe.
+
+"I know all those that scholars have discussed, for I have just reread
+Plotinus. I am questioning you as a Catholic might, and I ask if you
+think that dead men can return to the living."
+
+"Jesus reappeared to his disciples after his death," said the abbe.
+"The Church ought to have faith in the apparitions of the Savior. As
+for miracles, they are not lacking," he continued, smiling. "Shall I
+tell you the last? It took place in the eighteenth century."
+
+"Pooh!" said the doctor.
+
+"Yes, the blessed Marie-Alphonse of Ligouri, being very far from Rome,
+knew of the death of the Pope at the very moment the Holy Father
+expired; there were numerous witnesses of this miracle. The sainted
+bishop being in ecstasy, heard the last words of the sovereign pontiff
+and repeated them at the time to those about him. The courier who
+brought the announcement of the death did not arrive till thirty hours
+later."
+
+"Jesuit!" exclaimed old Minoret, laughing, "I did not ask you for
+proofs; I asked you if you believed in apparitions."
+
+"I think an apparition depends a good deal on who sees it," said the
+abbe, still fencing with his sceptic.
+
+"My friend," said the doctor, seriously, "I am not setting a trap for
+you. What do you really believe about it?"
+
+"I believe that the power of God is infinite," replied the abbe.
+
+"When I am dead, if I am reconciled to God, I will ask Him to let me
+appear to you," said the doctor, smiling.
+
+"That's exactly the agreement Cardan made with his friend," answered
+the priest.
+
+"Ursula," said Minoret, "if danger ever threatens you, call me, and I
+will come."
+
+"You have put into one sentence that beautiful elegy of 'Neere' by
+Andre Chenier," said the abbe. "Poets are sublime because they clothe
+both facts and feelings with ever-living images."
+
+"Why do you speak of your death, dear godfather?" said Ursula in a
+grieved tone. "We Christians do not die; the grave is the cradle of
+our souls."
+
+"Well," said the doctor, smiling, "we must go out of the world, and
+when I am no longer here you will be astonished at your fortune."
+
+"When you are here no longer, my kind friend, my only consolation will
+be to consecrate my life to you."
+
+"To me, dead?"
+
+"Yes. All the good works that I can do will be done in your name to
+redeem your sins. I will pray God every day for his infinite mercy,
+that he may not punish eternally the errors of a day. I know he will
+summon among the righteous a soul so pure, so beautiful, as yours."
+
+That answer, said with angelic candor, in a tone of absolute
+certainty, confounded error and converted Denis Minoret as God
+converted Saul. A ray of inward light overawed him; the knowledge of
+this tenderness, covering his years to come, brought tears to his
+eyes. This sudden effect of grace had something that seemed electrical
+about it. The abbe clasped his hands and rose, troubled, from his
+seat. The girl, astonished at her triumph, wept. The old man stood up
+as if a voice had called him, looking into space as though his eyes
+beheld the dawn; then he bent his knee upon his chair, clasped his
+hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground as one humiliated.
+
+"My God," he said in a trembling voice, raising his head, "if any one
+can obtain my pardon and lead me to thee, surely it is this spotless
+creature. Have mercy on the repentant old age that this pure child
+presents to thee!"
+
+He lifted his soul to God; mentally praying for the light of divine
+knowledge after the gift of divine grace; then he turned to the abbe
+and held out his hand.
+
+"My dear pastor," he said, "I am become as a little child. I belong to
+you; I give my soul to your care."
+
+Ursula kissed his hands and bathed them with her tears. The old man
+took her on his knee and called her gayly his godmother. The abbe,
+deeply moved, recited the "Veni Creator" in a species of religious
+ecstasy. The hymn served as the evening prayer of the three Christians
+kneeling together for the first time.
+
+"What has happened?" asked La Bougival, amazed at the sight.
+
+"My godfather believes in God at last!" replied Ursula.
+
+"Ah! so much the better; he only needed that to make him perfect,"
+cried the old woman, crossing herself with artless gravity.
+
+"Dear doctor," said the good priest, "you will soon comprehend the
+grandeur of religion and the value of its practices; you will find its
+philosophy in human aspects far higher than that of the boldest
+sceptics."
+
+The abbe, who showed a joy that was almost infantine, agreed to
+catechize the old man and confer with him twice a week. Thus the
+conversion attributed to Ursula and to a spirit of sordid calculation,
+was the spontaneous act of the doctor himself. The abbe, who for
+fourteen years had abstained from touching the wounds of that heart,
+though all the while deploring them, was now asked for help, as a
+surgeon is called to an injured man. Ever since this scene Ursula's
+evening prayers had been said in common with her godfather. Day after
+day the old man grew more conscious of the peace within him that
+succeeded all his conflicts. Having, as he said, God as the
+responsible editor of things inexplicable, his mind was at ease. His
+dear child told him that he might know by how far he had advanced
+already in God's kingdom. During the mass which we have seen him
+attend, he had read the prayers and applied his own intelligence to
+them; from the first, he had risen to the divine idea of the communion
+of the faithful. The old neophyte understood the eternal symbol
+attached to that sacred nourishment, which faith renders needful to
+the soul after conveying to it her own profound and radiant essence.
+When on leaving the church he had seemed in a hurry to get home, it
+was merely that he might once more thank his dear child for having led
+him to "enter religion,"--the beautiful expression of former days. He
+was holding her on his knee in the salon and kissing her forehead
+sacredly at the very moment when his relatives were degrading that
+saintly influence with their shameless fears, and casting their vulgar
+insults upon Ursula. His haste to return home, his assumed disdain for
+their company, his sharp replies as he left the church were naturally
+attributed by all the heirs to the hatred Ursula had excited against
+them in the old man's mind.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE CONFERENCE
+
+While Ursula was playing variations on Weber's "Last Thought" to her
+godfather, a plot was hatching in the Minoret-Levraults' dining-room
+which was destined to have a lasting effect on the events of this
+drama. The breakfast, noisy as all provincial breakfasts are, and
+enlivened by excellent wines brought to Nemours by the canal either
+from Burgundy or Touraine, lasted more than two hours. Zelie had sent
+for oysters, salt-water fish, and other gastronomical delicacies to do
+honor to Desire's return. The dining-room, in the center of which a
+round table offered a most appetizing sight, was like the hall of an
+inn. Content with the size of her kitchens and offices, Zelie had
+built a pavilion for the family between the vast courtyard and a
+garden planted with vegetables and full of fruit-trees. Everything
+about the premises was solid and plain. The example of Levrault-
+Levrault had been a warning to the town. Zelie forbade her builder to
+lead her into such follies. The dining-room was, therefore, hung with
+varnished paper and furnished with walnut chairs and sideboards, a
+porcelain stove, a tall clock, and a barometer. Though the plates and
+dishes were of common white china, the table shone with handsome linen
+and abundant silverware. After Zelie had served the coffee, coming and
+going herself like shot in a decanter,--for she kept but one servant,
+--and when Desire, the budding lawyer, had been told of the event of
+the morning and its probably consequences, the door was closed, and
+the notary Dionis was called upon to speak. By the silence in the room
+and the looks that were cast on that authoritative face, it was easy
+to see the power that such men exercise over families.
+
+"My dear children," said he, "your uncle having been born in 1746, is
+eighty-three years old at the present time; now, old men are given to
+folly, and that little--"
+
+"Viper!" cried Madame Massin.
+
+"Hussy!" said Zelie.
+
+"Let us call her by her own name," said Dionis.
+
+"Well, she's a thief," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"A pretty thief," remarked Desire.
+
+"That little Ursula," went on Dionis, "has managed to get hold of his
+heart. I have been thinking of your interests, and I did not wait
+until now before making certain inquiries; now this is what I have
+discovered about that young--"
+
+"Marauder," said the collector.
+
+"Inveigler," said the clerk of the court.
+
+"Hold your tongue, friends," said the notary, "or I'll take my hat and
+be off."
+
+"Come, come, papa," cried Minoret, pouring out a little glass of rum
+and offering it to the notary; "here, drink this, it comes from Rome
+itself; and now go on."
+
+"Ursula is, it is true, the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet; but
+her father was the natural son of Valentin Mirouet, your uncle's
+father-in-law. Being therefore an illegitimate niece, any will the
+doctor might make in her favor could probably be contested; and if he
+leaves her his fortune in that way you could bring a suit against
+Ursula. This, however, might turn out ill for you, in case the court
+took the view that there was no relationship between Ursula and the
+doctor. Still, the suit would frighten an unprotected girl, and bring
+about a compromise--"
+
+"The law is so rigid as to the rights of natural children," said the
+newly fledged licentiate, eager to parade his knowledge, "that by the
+judgment of the court of appeals dated July 7, 1817, a natural child
+can claim nothing from his natural grandfather, not even a
+maintenance. So you see the illegitimate parentage is made
+retrospective. The law pursues the natural child even to its
+legitimate descent, on the ground that benefactions done to
+grandchildren reach the natural son through that medium. This is shown
+by articles 757, 908, and 911 of the civil Code. The royal court of
+Paris, by a decision of the 26th of January of last year, cut off a
+legacy made to the legitimate child of a natural son by his
+grandfather, who, as grandfather, was as distant to a natural grandson
+as the doctor, being an uncle, is to Ursula."
+
+"All that," said Goupil, "seems to me to relate only to the bequests
+made by grandfathers to natural descendants. Ursula is not a blood
+relation of Doctor Minoret. I remember a decision of the royal court
+at Colmar, rendered in 1825, just before I took my degree, which
+declared that after the decease of a natural child his descendants
+could no longer be prohibited from inheriting. Now, Ursula's father is
+dead."
+
+Goupil's argument produced what journalists who report the sittings of
+legislative assemblies are wont to call "profound sensation."
+
+"What does that signify?" cried Dionis. "The actual case of the
+bequest of an uncle to an illegitimate child may not yet have been
+presented for trial; but when it is, the sternness of French law
+against such children will be all the more firmly applied because we
+live in times when religion is honored. I'll answer for it that out of
+such a suit as I propose you could get a compromise,--especially if
+they see you are determined to carry Ursula to a court of appeals."
+
+Here the joy of the heirs already fingering their gold was made
+manifest in smiles, shrugs, and gestures round the table, and
+prevented all notice of Goupil's dissent. This elation, however, was
+succeeded by deep silence and uneasiness when the notary uttered his
+next word, a terrible "But!"
+
+As if he had pulled the string of a puppet-show, starting the little
+people in jerks by means of machinery, Dionis beheld all eyes turned
+on him and all faces rigid in one and the same pose.
+
+"BUT no law prevents your uncle from adopting or marrying Ursula," he
+continued. "As for adoption, that could be contested, and you would, I
+think, have equity on your side. The royal courts would never trifle
+with questions of adoptions; you would get a hearing there. It is true
+the doctor is an officer of the Legion of honor, and was formerly
+surgeon to the ex-emperor; but, nevertheless, he would get the worst
+of it. Moreover, you would have due warning in case of adoption--but
+how about marriage? Old Minoret is shrewd enough to go to Paris and
+marry her after a year's domicile, and give her a million by the
+marriage contract. The only thing, therefore, that really puts your
+property in danger is your uncle's marriage with the girl."
+
+Here the notary paused.
+
+"There's another danger," said Goupil, with a knowing air,--"that of a
+will made in favor of a third person, old Bongrand for instance, who
+will hold the property in trust for Mademoiselle Ursula--"
+
+"If you tease your uncle," continued Dionis, cutting short his head-
+clerk, "if you are not all of you very polite to Ursula, you will
+drive him into either a marriage or into making that private trust
+which Goupil speaks of,--though I don't think him capable of that; it
+is a dangerous thing. As for marriage, that is easy to prevent. Desire
+there has only got to hold out a finger to the girl; she's sure to
+prefer a handsome young man, cock of the walk in Nemours, to an old
+one."
+
+"Mother," said Desire to Zelie's ear, as much allured by the millions
+as by Ursula's beauty, "If I married her we should get the whole
+property."
+
+"Are you crazy?--you, who'll some day have fifty thousand francs a
+year and be made a deputy! As long as I live you never shall cut your
+throat by a foolish marriage. Seven hundred thousand francs, indeed!
+Why, the mayor's only daughter will have fifty thousand a year, and
+they have already proposed her to me--"
+
+This reply, the first rough speech his mother had ever made to him,
+extinguished in Desire's breast all desire for a marriage with the
+beautiful Ursula; for his father and he never got the better of any
+decision once written in the terrible blue eyes of Zelie Minoret.
+
+"Yes, but see here, Monsieur Dionis," cried Cremiere, whose wife had
+been nudging him, "if the good man took the thing seriously and
+married his goddaughter to Desire, giving her the reversion of all the
+property, good-by to our share in it; if he lives five years longer
+uncle may be worth a million."
+
+"Never!" cried Zelie, "never in my life shall Desire marry the
+daughter of a bastard, a girl picked up in the streets out of charity.
+My son will represent the Minorets after the death of his uncle, and
+the Minorets have five hundred years of good bourgeoisie behind them.
+That's equal to the nobility. Don't be uneasy, any of you; Desire will
+marry when we find a chance to put him in the Chamber of deputies."
+
+This lofty declaration was backed by Goupil, who said:--
+
+"Desire, with an allowance of twenty-four thousand francs a year, will
+be president of a royal court or solicitor-general; either office
+leads to the peerage. A foolish marriage would ruin him."
+
+The heirs were now all talking at once; but they suddenly held their
+tongues when Minoret rapped on the table with his fist to keep silence
+for the notary.
+
+"Your uncle is a worthy man," continued Dionis. "He believes he's
+immortal; and, like most clever men, he'll let death overtake him
+before he has made a will. My advice therefore is to induce him to
+invest his capital in a way that will make it difficult for him to
+disinherit you, and I know of an opportunity, made to hand. That
+little Portenduere is in Saint-Pelagie, locked-up for one hundred and
+some odd thousand francs' worth of debt. His old mother knows he is in
+prison; she is crying like a Magdalen. The abbe is to dine with her;
+no doubt she wants to talk to him about her troubles. Well, I'll go
+and see your uncle to-night and persuade him to sell his five per cent
+consols, which are now at 118, and lend Madame de Portenduere, on the
+security of her farm at Bordieres and her house here, enough to pay
+the debts of the prodigal son. I have a right as notary to speak to
+him in behalf of young Portenduere; and it is quite natural that I
+should wish to make him change his investments; I get deeds and
+commissions out of the business. If I become his adviser I'll propose
+to him other land investments for his surplus capital; I have some
+excellent ones now in my office. If his fortune were once invested in
+landed estate or in mortgage notes in this neighbourhood, it could not
+take wings to itself very easily. It is easy to make difficulties
+between the wish to realize and the realization."
+
+The heirs, struck with the truth of this argument (much cleverer than
+that of Monsieur Josse), murmured approval.
+
+"You must be careful," said the notary in conclusion, "to keep your
+uncle in Nemours, where his habits are known, and where you can watch
+him. Find him a lover for the girl and you'll prevent his marrying her
+himself."
+
+"Suppose she married the lover?" said Goupil, seized by an ambitious
+desire.
+
+"That wouldn't be a bad thing; then you could figure up the loss; the
+old man would have to say how much he gives her," replied the notary.
+"But if you set Desire at her he could keep the girl dangling on till
+the old man died. Marriages are made and unmade."
+
+"The shortest way," said Goupil, "if the doctor is likely to live much
+longer, is to marry her to some worthy young man who will get her out
+of your way by settling at Sens, or Montargis, or Orleans with a
+hundred thousand francs in hand."
+
+Dionis, Massin, Zelie, and Goupil, the only intelligent heads in the
+company, exchanged four thoughtful smiles.
+
+"He'd be a worm at the core," whispered Zelie to Massin.
+
+"How did he get here?" returned the clerk.
+
+"That will just suit you!" cried Desire to Goupil. "But do you think
+you can behave decently enough to satisfy the old man and the girl?"
+
+"In these days," whispered Zelie again in Massin's year, "notaries
+look out for no interests but their own. Suppose Dionis went over to
+Ursula just to get the old man's business?"
+
+"I am sure of him," said the clerk of the court, giving her a sly look
+out of his spiteful little eyes. He was just going to add, "because I
+hold something over him," but he withheld the words.
+
+"I am quite of Dionis's opinion," he said aloud.
+
+"So am I," cried Zelie, who now suspected the notary of collusion with
+the clerk.
+
+"My wife has voted!" said the post master, sipping his brandy, though
+his face was already purple from digesting his meal and absorbing a
+notable quantity of liquids.
+
+"And very properly," remarked the collector.
+
+"I shall go and see the doctor after dinner," said Dionis.
+
+"If Monsieur Dionis's advice is good," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, "we had better go and call on our uncle, as we used to do,
+every Sunday evening, and behave exactly as Monsieur Dionis has told
+us."
+
+"Yes, and be received as he received us!" cried Zelie. "Minoret and I
+have more than forty thousand francs a year, and yet he refused our
+invitations! We are quite his equals. If I don't know how to write
+prescriptions I know how to paddle my boat as well as he--I can tell
+him that!"
+
+"As I am far from having forty thousand francs a year," said Madame
+Massin, rather piqued, "I don't want to lose ten thousand."
+
+"We are his nieces; we ought to take care of him, and then besides we
+shall see how things are going," said Madame Cremiere; "you'll thank
+us some day, cousin."
+
+"Treat Ursula kindly," said the notary, lifting his right forefinger
+to the level of his lips; "remember old Jordy left her his savings."
+
+"You have managed those fools as well as Desroches, the best lawyer in
+Paris, could have done," said Goupil to his patron as they left the
+post-house.
+
+"And now they are quarreling over my fee," replied the notary, smiling
+bitterly.
+
+The heirs, after parting with Dionis and his clerk, met again in the
+square, with face rather flushed from their breakfast, just as vespers
+were over. As the notary predicted, the Abbe Chaperon had Madame de
+Portenduere on his arm.
+
+"She dragged him to vespers, see!" cried Madame Massin to Madame
+Cremiere, pointing to Ursula and the doctor, who were leaving the
+church.
+
+"Let us go and speak to him," said Madame Cremiere, approaching the
+old man.
+
+The change in the faces of his relatives (produced by the conference)
+did not escape Doctor Minoret. He tried to guess the reason of this
+sudden amiability, and out of sheer curiosity encouraged Ursula to
+stop and speak to the two women, who were eager to greet her with
+exaggerated affection and forced smiles.
+
+"Uncle, will you permit me to come and see you to-night?" said Madame
+Cremiere. "We feared sometimes we were in your way--but it is such a
+long time since our children have paid you their respects; our girls
+are old enough now to make dear Ursula's acquaintance."
+
+"Ursula is a little bear, like her name," replied the doctor.
+
+"Let us tame her," said Madame Massin. "And besides, uncle," added the
+good housewife, trying to hide her real motive under a mask of
+economy, "they tell us the dear girl has such talent for the forte
+that we are very anxious to hear her. Madame Cremiere and I are
+inclined to take her music-master for our children. If there were six
+or eight scholars in a class it would bring the price of his lessons
+within our means."
+
+"Certainly," said the old man, "and it will be all the better for me
+because I want to give Ursula a singing-master."
+
+"Well, to-night then, uncle. We will bring your great-nephew Desire to
+see you; he is now a lawyer."
+
+"Yes, to-night," echoed Minoret, meaning to fathom the motives of
+these petty souls.
+
+The two nieces pressed Ursula's hand, saying, with affected eagerness,
+"Au revoir."
+
+"Oh, godfather, you have read my heart!" cried Ursula, giving him a
+grateful look.
+
+"You are going to have a voice," he said; "and I shall give you
+masters of drawing and Italian also. A woman," added the doctor,
+looking at Ursula as he unfastened the gate of his house, "ought to be
+educated to the height of every position in which her marriage may
+place her."
+
+Ursula grew red as a cherry; her godfather's thoughts evidently turned
+in the same direction as her own. Feeling that she was too near
+confessing to the doctor the involuntary attraction which led her to
+think about Savinien and to center all her ideas of affection upon
+him, she turned aside and sat down in front of a great cluster of
+climbing plants, on the dark background of which she looked at a
+distance like a blue and white flower.
+
+"Now you see, godfather, that your nieces were very kind to me; yes,
+they were very kind," she repeated as he approached her, to change the
+thoughts that made him pensive.
+
+"Poor little girl!" cried the old man.
+
+He laid Ursula's hand upon his arm, tapping it gently, and took her to
+the terraces beside the river, where no one could hear them.
+
+"Why do you say, 'Poor little girl'?"
+
+"Don't you see how they fear you?"
+
+"Fear me,--why?"
+
+"My next of kin are very uneasy about my conversion. They no doubt
+attribute it to your influence over me; they fancy I deprive them of
+their inheritance to enrich you."
+
+"But you won't do that?" said Ursula naively, looking up at him.
+
+"Oh, divine consolation of my old age!" said the doctor, taking his
+godchild in his arms and kissing her on both cheeks. "It was for her
+and not for myself, oh God! that I besought thee just now to let me
+live until the day I give her to some good being who is worthy of her!
+--You will see comedies, my little angel, comedies which the Minorets
+and Cremieres and Massins will come and play here. You want to
+brighten and prolong my life; they are longing for my death."
+
+"God forbids us to hate any one, but if that is-- Ah! I despise them!"
+exclaimed Ursula.
+
+"Dinner is ready!" called La Bougival from the portico, which, on the
+garden side, was at the end of the corridor.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+A FIRST CONFIDENCE
+
+Ursula and her godfather were sitting at dessert in the pretty dining-
+room decorated with Chinese designs in black and gold lacquer (the
+folly of Levrault-Levrault) when the justice of peace arrived. The
+doctor offered him (and this was a great mark of intimacy) a cup of
+his coffee, a mixture of Mocha with Bourbon and Martinique, roasted,
+ground, and made by himself in a silver apparatus called a Chaptal.
+
+"Well," said Bongrand, pushing up his glasses and looking slyly at the
+old man, "the town is in commotion; your appearance in church has put
+your relatives beside themselves. You have left your fortune to the
+priests, to the poor. You have roused the families, and they are
+bestirring themselves. Ha! ha! I saw their first irruption into the
+square; they were as busy as ants who have lost their eggs."
+
+"What did I tell you, Ursula?" cried the doctor. "At the risk of
+grieving you, my child, I must teach you to know the world and put you
+on your guard against undeserved enmity."
+
+"I should like to say a word to you on this subject," said Bongrand,
+seizing the occasion to speak to his old friend of Ursula's future.
+
+The doctor put a black velvet cap on his white head, the justice of
+peace wore his hat to protect him from the night air, and they walked
+up and down the terrace discussing the means of securing to Ursula
+what her godfather intended to bequeath her. Bongrand knew Dionis's
+opinion as to the invalidity of a will made by the doctor in favor of
+Ursula; for Nemours was so preoccupied with the Minoret affairs that
+the matter had been much discussed among the lawyers of the little
+town. Bongrand considered that Ursula was not a relative of Doctor
+Minoret, but he felt that the whole spirit of legislation was against
+the foisting into families of illegitimate off-shoots. The makers of
+the Code had foreseen only the weakness of fathers and mothers for
+their natural children, without considering that uncles and aunts
+might have a like tenderness and a desire to provide for such
+children. Evidently there was a gap in the law.
+
+"In all other countries," he said, ending an explanation of the legal
+points which Dionis, Goupil, and Desire had just explained to the
+heirs, "Ursula would have nothing to fear; she is a legitimate child,
+and the disability of her father ought only to affect the inheritance
+from Valentine Mirouet, her grandfather. But in France the magistracy
+is unfortunately overwise and very consequential; it inquires into the
+spirit of the law. Some lawyers talk morality, and might try to show
+that this hiatus in the Code came from the simple-mindedness of the
+legislators, who did not foresee the case, though, none the less, they
+established a principle. To bring a suit would be long and expensive.
+Zelie would carry it to the court of appeals, and I might not be alive
+when the case was tried."
+
+"The best of cases is often worthless," cried the doctor. "Here's the
+question the lawyers will put, 'To what degree of relationship ought
+the disability of natural children in matters of inheritance to
+extend?' and the credit of a good lawyer will lie in gaining a bad
+cause."
+
+"Faith!" said Bongrand, "I dare not take upon myself to affirm that
+the judges wouldn't interpret the meaning of the law as increasing the
+protection given to marriage, the eternal base of society."
+
+Without explaining his intentions, the doctor rejected the idea of a
+trust. When Bongrand suggested to him a marriage with Ursula as the
+surest means of securing his property to her, he exclaimed, "Poor
+little girl! I might live fifteen years; what a fate for her!"
+
+"Well, what will you do, then?" asked Bongrand.
+
+"We'll think about it--I'll see," said the old man, evidently at a
+loss for a reply.
+
+Just then Ursula came to say that Monsieur Dionis wished to speak to
+the doctor.
+
+"Already!" cried Minoret, looking at Bongrand. "Yes," he said to
+Ursula, "send him here."
+
+"I'll bet my spectacles to a bunch of matches that he is the advance-
+guard of your heirs," said Bongrand. "They breakfasted together at the
+post house, and something is being engineered."
+
+The notary, conducted by Ursula, came to the lower end of the garden.
+After the usual greetings and a few insignificant remarks, Dionis
+asked for a private interview; Ursula and Bongrand retired to the
+salon.
+
+The distrust which superior men excite in men of business is very
+remarkable. The latter deny them the "lesser" powers while recognizing
+their possession of the "higher." It is, perhaps, a tribute to them.
+Seeing them always on the higher plane of human things, men of
+business believe them incapable of descending to the infinitely petty
+details which (like the dividends of finance and the microscopic facts
+of science) go to equalize capital and to form the worlds. They are
+mistaken! The man of honor and of genius sees all. Bongrand, piqued by
+the doctor's silence, but impelled by a sense of Ursula's interests
+which he thought endangered, resolved to defend her against the heirs.
+He was wretched at not knowing what was taking place between the old
+man and Dionis.
+
+"No matter how pure and innocent Ursula may be," he thought as he
+looked at her, "there is a point on which young girls do make their
+own law and their own morality. I'll test here. The Minoret-
+Levraults," he began, settling his spectacles, "might possibly ask you
+in marriage for their son."
+
+The poor child turned pale. She was too well trained, and had too much
+delicacy to listen to what Dionis was saying to her uncle; but after a
+moment's inward deliberation, she thought she might show herself, and
+then, if she was in the way, her godfather would let her know it. The
+Chinese pagoda which the doctor made his study had outside blinds to
+the glass doors; Ursula invented the excuse of shutting them. She
+begged Monsieur Bongrand's pardon for leaving him alone in the salon,
+but he smiled at her and said, "Go! go!"
+
+Ursula went down the steps of the portico which led to the pagoda at
+the foot of the garden. She stood for some minutes slowly arranging
+the blinds and watching the sunset. The doctor and notary were at the
+end of the terrace, but as they turned she heard the doctor make an
+answer which reached the pagoda where she was.
+
+"My heirs would be delighted to see me invest my property in real
+estate or mortgages; they imagine it would be safer there. I know
+exactly what they are saying; perhaps you come from them. Let me tell
+you, my good sir, that my disposition of my property is irrevocably
+made. My heirs will have the capital I brought here with me; I wish
+them to know that, and to let me alone. If any one of them attempts to
+interfere with what I think proper to do for that young girl (pointing
+to Ursula) I shall come back from the other world and torment him. So,
+Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere will stay in prison if they count on
+me to get him out. I shall not sell my property in the Funds."
+
+Hearing this last fragment of the sentence Ursula experienced the
+first and only pain which so far had ever touched her. She laid her
+head against the blind to steady herself.
+
+"Good God, what is the matter with her?" thought the old doctor. "She
+has no color; such an emotion after dinner might kill her."
+
+He went to her with open arms, and she fell into them almost fainting.
+
+"Adieu, Monsieur," he said to the notary, "please leave us."
+
+He carried his child to an immense Louis XV. sofa which was in his
+study, looked for a phial of hartshorn among his remedies, and made
+her inhale it.
+
+"Take my place," said the doctor to Bongrand, who was terrified; "I
+must be alone with her."
+
+The justice of peace accompanied the notary to the gate, asking him,
+but without showing any eagerness, what was the matter with Ursula.
+
+"I don't know," replied Dionis. "She was standing by the pagoda,
+listening to us, and just as her uncle (so-called) refused to lend
+some money at my request to young de Portenduere who is in prison for
+debt,--for he has not had, like Monsieur du Rouvre, a Monsieur
+Bongrand to defend him,--she turned pale and staggered. Can she love
+him? Is there anything between them?"
+
+"At fifteen years of age? pooh!" replied Bongrand.
+
+"She was born in February, 1813; she'll be sixteen in four months."
+
+"I don't believe she ever saw him," said the judge. "No, it is only a
+nervous attack."
+
+"Attack of the heart, more likely," said the notary.
+
+Dionis was delighted with this discovery, which would prevent the
+marriage "in extremis" which they dreaded,--the only sure means by
+which the doctor could defraud his relatives. Bongrand, on the other
+hand, saw a private castle of his own demolished; he had long thought
+of marrying his son to Ursula.
+
+"If the poor girl loves that youth it will be a misfortune for her,"
+replied Bongrand after a pause. "Madame de Portenduere is a Breton and
+infatuated with her noble blood."
+
+"Luckily--I mean for the honor of the Portendueres," replied the
+notary, on the point of betraying himself.
+
+Let us do the faithful and upright Bongrand the justice to say that
+before he re-entered the salon he had abandoned, not without deep
+regret for his son, the hope he had cherished of some day calling
+Ursula his daughter. He meant to give his son six thousand francs a
+year the day he was appointed substitute, and if the doctor would give
+Ursula a hundred thousand francs what a pearl of a home the pair would
+make! His Eugene was so loyal and charming a fellow! Perhaps he had
+praised his Eugene too often, and that had made the doctor
+distrustful.
+
+"I shall have to come down to the mayor's daughter," he thought. "But
+Ursula without any money is worth more than Mademoiselle Levrault-
+Cremiere with a million. However, the thing to be done is to manoeuvre
+the marriage with this little Portenduere--if she really loves him."
+
+The doctor, after closing the door to the library and that to the
+garden, took his goddaughter to the window which opened upon the
+river.
+
+"What ails you, my child?" he said. "Your life is my life. Without
+your smiles what would become of me?"
+
+"Savinien in prison!" she said.
+
+With these words a shower of tears fell from her eyes and she began to
+sob.
+
+"Saved!" thought the doctor, who was holding her pulse with great
+anxiety. "Alas! she has all the sensitiveness of my poor wife," he
+thought, fetching a stethoscope which he put to Ursula's heart,
+applying his ear to it. "Ah, that's all right," he said to himself. "I
+did not know, my darling, that you loved any one as yet," he added,
+looking at her; "but think out loud to me as you think to yourself;
+tell me all that has passed between you."
+
+"I do not love him, godfather; we have never spoken to each other,"
+she answered, sobbing. "But to hear that he is in prison, and to know
+that you--harshly--refused to get him out--you, so good!"
+
+"Ursula, my dear little good angel, if you do not love him why did you
+put that little red dot against Saint Savinien's day just as you put
+one before that of Saint Denis? Come, tell me everything about your
+little love-affair."
+
+Ursula blushed, swallowed a few tears, and for a moment there was
+silence between them.
+
+"Surely you are not afraid of your father, your friend, mother,
+doctor, and godfather, whose heart is now more tender than it ever has
+been."
+
+"No, no, dear godfather," she said. "I will open my heart to you. Last
+May, Monsieur Savinien came to see his mother. Until then I had never
+taken notice of him. When he left home to live in Paris I was a child,
+and I did not see any difference between him and--all of you--except
+perhaps that I loved you, and never thought of loving any one else.
+Monsieur Savinien came by the mail-post the night before his mother's
+fete-day; but we did not know it. At seven the next morning, after I
+had said my prayers, I opened the window to air my room and I saw the
+windows in Monsieur Savinien's room open; and Monsieur Savinien was
+there, in a dressing gown, arranging his beard; in all his movements
+there was such grace--I mean, he seemed to me so charming. He combed
+his black moustache and the little tuft on his chin, and I saw his
+white throat--so round!--must I tell you all? I noticed that his
+throat and face and that beautiful black hair were all so different
+from yours when I watch you arranging your beard. There came--I don't
+know how--a sort of glow into my heart, and up into my throat, my
+head; it came so violently that I sat down--I couldn't stand, I
+trembled so. But I longed to see him again, and presently I got up; he
+saw me then, and, just for play, he sent me a kiss from the tips of
+his fingers and--"
+
+"And?"
+
+"And then," she continued, "I hid myself--I was ashamed, but happy--
+why should I be ashamed of being happy? That feeling--it dazzled my
+soul and gave it some power, but I don't know what--it came again each
+time I saw within me the same young face. I loved this feeling,
+violent as it was. Going to mass, some unconquerable power made me
+look at Monsieur Savinien with his mother on his arm; his walk, his
+clothes, even the tap of his boots on the pavement, seemed to me so
+charming. The least little thing about him--his hand with the delicate
+glove--acted like a spell upon me; and yet I had strength enough not
+to think of him during mass. When the service was over I stayed in the
+church to let Madame de Portenduere go first, and then I walked behind
+him. I couldn't tell you how these little things excited me. When I
+reached home, I turned round to fasten the iron gate--"
+
+"Where was La Bougival?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Oh, I let her go to the kitchen," said Ursula simply. "Then I saw
+Monsieur Savinien standing quite still and looking at me. Oh!
+godfather, I was so proud, for I thought I saw a look in his eyes of
+surprise and admiration--I don't know what I would not do to make him
+look at me again like that. It seemed to me I ought to think of
+nothing forevermore but pleasing him. That glance is now the best
+reward I have for any good I do. From that moment I have thought of
+him incessantly, in spite of myself. Monsieur Savinien went back to
+Paris that evening, and I have not seen him since. The street seems
+empty; he took my heart away with him--but he does not know it."
+
+"Is that all?" asked the old man.
+
+"All, dear godfather," she said, with a sigh of regret that there was
+not more to tell.
+
+"My little girl," said the doctor, putting her on his knee; "you are
+nearly sixteen and your womanhood is beginning. You are now between
+your blessed childhood, which is ending, and the emotions of love,
+which will make your life a tumultuous one; for you have a nervous
+system of exquisite sensibility. What has happened to you, my child,
+is love," said the old man with an expression of deepest sadness,--
+"love in its holy simplicity; love as it ought to be; involuntary,
+sudden, coming like a thief who takes all--yes, all! I expected it. I
+have studied women; many need proofs and miracles of affection before
+love conquers them; but others there are, under the influence of
+sympathies explainable to-day by magnetic fluids, who are possessed by
+it in an instant. To you I can now tell all--as soon as I saw the
+charming woman whose name you bear, I felt that I should love her
+forever, solely and faithfully, without knowing whether our characters
+or persons suited each other. Is there a second-sight in love? What
+answer can I give to that, I who have seen so many unions formed under
+celestial auspices only to be ruptured later, giving rise to hatreds
+that are well-nigh eternal, to repugnances that are unconquerable. The
+senses sometimes harmonize while ideas are at variance; and some
+persons live more by their minds than by their bodies. The contrary is
+also true; often minds agree and persons displease. These phenomena,
+the varying and secret cause of many sorrows, show the wisdom of laws
+which give parents supreme power over the marriages of their children;
+for a young girl is often duped by one or other of these
+hallucinations. Therefore I do not blame you. The sensations you feel,
+the rush of sensibility which has come from its hidden source upon
+your heart and upon your mind, the happiness with which you think of
+Savinien, are all natural. But, my darling child, society demands, as
+our good abbe has told us, the sacrifice of many natural inclinations.
+The destinies of men and women differ. I was able to choose Ursula
+Mirouet for my wife; I could go to her and say that I loved her; but a
+young girl is false to herself if she asks the love of the man she
+loves. A woman has not the right which men have to seek the
+accomplishment of her hopes in open day. Modesty is to her--above all
+to you, my Ursula,--the insurmountable barrier which protects the
+secrets of her heart. Your hesitation in confiding to me these first
+emotions shows me you would suffer cruel torture rather than admit to
+Savinien--"
+
+"Oh, yes!" she said.
+
+"But, my child, you must do more. You must repress these feelings; you
+must forget them."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Because, my darling, you must love only the man you marry; and, even
+if Monsieur Savinien de Portenduere loved you--"
+
+"I never thought of it."
+
+"But listen: even if he loved you, even if his mother asked me to give
+him your hand, I should not consent to the marriage until I had
+subjected him to a long and thorough probation. His conduct has been
+such as to make families distrust him and to put obstacles between
+himself and heiresses which cannot be easily overcome."
+
+A soft smile came in place of tears on Ursula's sweet face as she
+said, "Then poverty is good sometimes."
+
+The doctor could find no answer to such innocence.
+
+"What has he done, godfather?" she asked.
+
+"In two years, my treasure, he has incurred one hundred and twenty
+thousand francs of debt. He has had the folly to get himself locked up
+in Saint-Pelagie, the debtor's prison; an impropriety which will
+always be, in these days, a discredit to him. A spendthrift who is
+willing to plunge his poor mother into poverty and distress might
+cause his wife, as your poor father did, to die of despair."
+
+"Don't you think he will do better?" she asked.
+
+"If his mother pays his debts he will be penniless, and I don't know a
+worse punishment than to be a nobleman without means."
+
+This answer made Ursula thoughtful; she dried her tears, and said:--
+
+"If you can save him, save him, godfather; that service will give you
+a right to advise him; you can remonstrate--"
+
+"Yes," said the doctor, imitating her, "and then he can come here, and
+the old lady will come here, and we shall see them, and--"
+
+"I was thinking only of him," said Ursula, blushing.
+
+"Don't think of him, my child; it would be folly," said the doctor
+gravely. "Madame de Portenduere, who was a Kergarouet, would never
+consent, even if she had to live on three hundred francs a year, to
+the marriage of her son, the Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere, with
+whom?--with Ursula Mirouet, daughter of a bandsman in a regiment,
+without money, and whose father--alas! I must now tell you all--was
+the bastard son of an organist, my father-in-law."
+
+"O godfather! you are right; we are equal only in the sight of God. I
+will not think of him again--except in my prayers," she said, amid the
+sobs which this painful revelation excited. "Give him what you meant
+to give me--what can a poor girl like me want?--ah, in prison, he!--"
+
+"Offer to God your disappointments, and perhaps he will help us."
+
+There was silence for some minutes. When Ursula, who at first did not
+dare to look at her godfather, raised her eyes, her heart was deeply
+moved to see the tears which were rolling down his withered cheeks.
+The tears of old men are as terrible as those of children are natural.
+
+"Oh what is it?" cried Ursula, flinging herself at his feet and
+kissing his hands. "Are you not sure of me?"
+
+"I, who longed to gratify all your wishes, it is I who am obliged to
+cause the first great sorrow of your life!" he said. "I suffer as much
+as you. I never wept before, except when I lost my children--and,
+Ursula-- Yes," he cried suddenly, "I will do all you desire!"
+
+Ursula gave him, through her tears a look that was vivid as lightning.
+She smiled.
+
+"Let us go into the salon, darling," said the doctor. "Try to keep the
+secret of all this to yourself," he added, leaving her alone for a
+moment in his study.
+
+He felt himself so weak before that heavenly smile that he feared he
+might say a word of hope and thus mislead her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE FAMILY OF PORTENDUERE
+
+Madame de Portenduere was at this moment alone with the abbe in her
+frigid little salon on the ground floor, having finished the recital
+of her troubles to the good priest, her only friend. She held in her
+hand some letters which he had just returned to her after reading
+them; these letters had brought her troubles to a climax. Seated on
+her sofa beside a square table covered with the remains of a dessert,
+the old lady was looking at the abbe, who sat on the other side of the
+table, doubled up in his armchair and stroking his chin with the
+gesture common to valets on the stage, mathematicians, and priests,--a
+sign of profound meditation on a problem that was difficult to solve.
+
+This little salon, lighted by two windows on the street and finished
+with a wainscot painted gray, was so damp that the lower panels showed
+the geometrical cracks of rotten wood when the paint no longer binds
+it. The red-tiled floor, polished by the old lady's one servant,
+required, for comfort's sake, before each seat small round mats of
+brown straw, on one of which the abbe was now resting his feet. The
+old damask curtains of light green with green flowers were drawn, and
+the outside blinds had been closed. Two wax candles lighted the table,
+leaving the rest of the room in semi-obscurity. Is it necessary to say
+that between the two windows was a fine pastel by Latour representing
+the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the rival of the Suffren, Guichen,
+Kergarouet and Simeuse naval heroes? On the paneled wall opposite to
+the fireplace were portraits of the Vicomte de Portenduere and of the
+mother of the old lady, a Kergarouet-Ploegat. Savinien's great-uncle
+was therefore the Vice-admiral de Kergarouet, and his cousin was the
+Comte de Portenduere, grandson of the admiral,--both of them very
+rich.
+
+The Vice-admiral de Kergarouet lived in Paris and the Comte de
+Portenduere at the chateau of that name in Dauphine. The count
+represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only scion of the
+younger. The count, who was over forty years of age and married to a
+rich wife, had three children. His fortune, increased by various
+legacies, amounted, it was said, to sixty thousand francs a year. As
+deputy from Isere he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought
+the hotel de Portenduere with the indemnities he obtained under the
+Villele law. The vice-admiral had recently married his niece by
+marriage, for the sole purpose of securing his money to her.
+
+The faults of the young viscount were therefore likely to cost him the
+favor of two powerful protectors. If Savinien had entered the navy,
+young and handsome as he was, with a famous name, and backed by the
+influence of an admiral and a deputy, he might, at twenty-three years
+of age, been a lieutenant; but his mother, unwilling that her only son
+should go into either naval or military service, had kept him at
+Nemours under the tutelage of one of the Abbe Chaperon's assistants,
+hoping that she could keep him near her until her death. She meant to
+marry him to a demoiselle d'Aiglemont with a fortune of twelve
+thousand francs a year; to whose hand the name of Portenduere and the
+farm at Bordieres enabled him to pretend. This narrow but judicious
+plan, which would have carried the family to a second generation, was
+already balked by events. The d'Aiglemonts were ruined, and one of the
+daughters, Helene, had disappeared, and the mystery of her
+disappearance was never solved.
+
+The weariness of a life without atmosphere, without prospects, without
+action, without other nourishment than the love of a son for his
+mother, so worked upon Savinien that he burst his chains, gentle as
+they were, and swore that he would never live in the provinces--
+comprehending, rather late, that his future fate was not to be in the
+Rue des Bourgeois. At twenty-one years of age he left his mother's
+house to make acquaintance with his relations, and try his luck in
+Paris. The contrast between life in Paris and life in Nemours was
+likely to be fatal to a young man of twenty-one, free, with no one to
+say him nay, naturally eager for pleasure, and for whom his name and
+his connections opened the doors of all the salons. Quite convinced
+that his mother had the savings of many years in her strong-box,
+Savinien soon spent the six thousand francs which she had given him to
+see Paris. That sum did not defray his expenses for six months, and he
+soon owed double that sum to his hotel, his tailor, his boot maker, to
+the man from whom he hired his carriages and horses, to a jeweler,--
+in short, to all those traders and shopkeepers who contribute to the
+luxury of young men.
+
+He had only just succeeded in making himself known, and had scarcely
+learned how to converse, how to present himself in a salon, how to
+wear his waistcoats and choose them and to order his coats and tie his
+cravat, before he found himself in debt for over thirty thousand
+francs, while still seeking the right phrases in which to declare his
+love for the sister of the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the elegant Madame
+de Serizy, whose youth had been at its climax during the Empire.
+
+"How is that you all manage?" asked Savinien one day, at the end of a
+gay breakfast with a knot of young dandies, with whom he was intimate
+as the young men of the present day are intimate with each other, all
+aiming for the same thing and all claiming an impossible equality.
+"You were no richer than I and yet you get along without anxiety; you
+contrive to maintain yourselves, while as for me I make nothing but
+debts."
+
+"We all began that way," answered Rastignac, laughing, and the laugh
+was echoed by Lucien de Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Emile Blondet,
+and others of the fashionable young men of the day.
+
+"Though de Marsay was rich when he started in life he was an
+exception," said the host, a parvenu named Finot, ambitious of seeming
+intimate with these young men. "Any one but he," added Finot bowing to
+that personage, "would have been ruined by it."
+
+"A true remark," said Maxime de Trailles.
+
+"And a true idea," added Rastignac.
+
+"My dear fellow," said de Marsay, gravely, to Savinien; "debts are the
+capital stock of experience. A good university education with tutors
+for all branches, who don't teach you anything, costs sixty thousand
+francs. If the education of the world does cost double, at least it
+teaches you to understand life, politics, men,--and sometimes women."
+
+Blondet concluded the lesson by a paraphrase from La Fontaine: "The
+world sells dearly what we think it gives."
+
+Instead of laying to heart the sensible advice which the cleverest
+pilots of the Parisian archipelago gave him, Savinien took it all as a
+joke.
+
+"Take care, my dear fellow," said de Marsay one day. "You have a great
+name; if you don't obtain the fortune that name requires you'll end
+your days in the uniform of a cavalry-sergeant. 'We have seen the fall
+of nobler heads,'" he added, declaiming the line of Corneille as he
+took Savinien's arm. "About six years ago," he continued, "a young
+Comte d'Esgrignon came among us; but he did not stay two years in the
+paradise of the great world. Alas! he lived and moved like a rocket.
+He rose to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and fell to his native town,
+where he is now expiating his faults with a wheezy old father and a
+game of whist at two sous a point. Tell Madame de Serizy your
+situation, candidly, without shame; she will understand it and be very
+useful to you. Whereas, if you play the charade of first love with her
+she will pose as a Raffaelle Madonna, practice all the little games of
+innocence upon you, and take you journeying at enormous cost through
+the Land of Sentiment."
+
+Savinien, still too young and too pure in honor, dared not confess his
+position as to money to Madame de Serizy. At a moment when he knew not
+which way to turn he had written his mother an appealing letter, to
+which she replied by sending him the sum of twenty thousand francs,
+which was all she possessed. This assistance brought him to the close
+of the first year. During the second, being harnessed to the chariot
+of Madame de Serizy, who was seriously taken with him, and who was, as
+the saying is, forming him, he had recourse to the dangerous expedient
+of borrowing. One of his friends, a deputy and the friend of his
+cousin the Comte de Portenduere, advised him in his distress to go to
+Gobseck or Gigonnet or Palma, who, if duly informed as to his mother's
+means, would give him an easy discount. Usury and the deceptive help
+of renewals enabled him to lead a happy life for nearly eighteen
+months. Without daring to leave Madame de Serizy the poor boy had
+fallen madly in love with the beautiful Comtesse de Kergarouet, a
+prude after the fashion of young women who are awaiting the death of
+an old husband and making capital of their virtue in the interests of
+a second marriage. Quite incapable of understanding that calculating
+virtue is invulnerable, Savinien paid court to Emilie de Kergarouet in
+all the splendor of a rich man. He never missed either ball or theater
+at which she was present.
+
+"You haven't powder enough, my boy, to blow up that rock," said de
+Marsay, laughing.
+
+That young king of fashion, who did, out of commiseration for the lad,
+endeavor to explain to him the nature of Emilie de Fontaine, merely
+wasted his words; the gloomy lights of misfortune and the twilight of
+a prison were needed to convince Savinien.
+
+A note, imprudently given to a jeweler in collusion with the money-
+lenders, who did not wish to have the odium of arresting the young
+man, was the means of sending Savinien de Portenduere, in default of
+one hundred and seventeen thousand francs and without the knowledge of
+his friends, to the debtor's prison at Sainte-Pelagie. So soon as the
+fact was known Rastignac, de Marsay, and Lucien de Rubempre went to
+see him, and each offered him a banknote of a thousand francs when
+they found how really destitute he was. Everything belonging to him
+had been seized except the clothes and the few jewels he wore. The
+three young men (who brought an excellent dinner with them) discussed
+Savinien's situation while drinking de Marsay's wine, ostensibly to
+arrange for his future but really, no doubt, to judge of him.
+
+"When a man is named Savinien de Portenduere," cried Rastignac, "and
+has a future peer of France for a cousin and Admiral Kergarouet for a
+great-uncle, and commits the enormous blunder of allowing himself to
+be put in Sainte-Pelagie, it is very certain that he must not stay
+there, my good fellow."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me?" cried de Marsay. "You could have had my
+traveling-carriage, ten thousand francs, and letters of introduction
+for Germany. We know Gobseck and Gigonnet and the other crocodiles; we
+could have made them capitulate. But tell me, in the first place, what
+ass ever led you to drink of that cursed spring."
+
+"Des Lupeaulx."
+
+The three young men looked at each other with one and the same thought
+and suspicion, but they did not utter it.
+
+"Explain all your resources; show us your hand," said de Marsay.
+
+When Savinien had told of his mother and her old-fashioned ways, and
+the little house with three windows in the Rue des Bourgeois, without
+other grounds than a court for the well and a shed for the wood; when
+he had valued the house, built of sandstone and pointed in reddish
+cement, and put a price on the farm at Bordieres, the three dandies
+looked at each other, and all three said with a solemn air the word of
+the abbe in Alfred de Musset's "Marrons du feu" (which had then just
+appeared),--"Sad!"
+
+"Your mother will pay if you write a clever letter," said Rastignac.
+
+"Yes, but afterwards?" cried de Marsay.
+
+"If you had merely been put in the fiacre," said Lucien, "the
+government would find you a place in diplomacy, but Saint-Pelagie
+isn't the antechamber of an embassy."
+
+"You are not strong enough for Parisian life," said Rastignac.
+
+"Let us consider the matter," said de Marsay, looking Savinien over as
+a jockey examines a horse. "You have fine blue eyes, well opened, a
+white forehead well shaped, magnificent black hair, a little moustache
+which suits those pale cheeks, and a slim figure; you've a foot that
+tells race, shoulders and chest not quite those of a porter, but
+solid. You are what I call an elegant male brunette. Your face is of
+the style Louis XII., hardly any color, well-formed nose; and you have
+the thing that pleases women, a something, I don't know what it is,
+which men take no account of themselves; it is in the air, the manner,
+the tone of the voice, the dart of the eye, the gesture,--in short, in
+a number of little things which women see and to which they attach a
+meaning which escapes us. You don't know your merits, my dear fellow.
+Take a certain tone and style and in six months you'll captivate an
+English-woman with a hundred thousand pounds; but you must call
+yourself viscount, a title which belongs to you. My charming step-
+mother, Lady Dudley, who has not her equal for matching two hearts,
+will find you some such woman in the fens of Great Britain. What you
+must now do is to get the payment of your debts postponed for ninety
+days. Why didn't you tell us about them? The money-lenders at Baden
+would have spared you--served you perhaps; but now, after you have
+once been in prison, they'll despise you. A money-lender is, like
+society, like the masses, down on his knees before the man who is
+strong enough to trick him, and pitiless to the lambs. To the eyes of
+some persons Sainte-Pelagie is a she-devil who burns the souls of
+young men. Do you want my candid advice? I shall tell you as I told
+that little d'Esgrignon: 'Arrange to pay your debts leisurely; keep
+enough to live on for three years, and marry some girl in the
+provinces who can bring you an income of thirty thousand francs.' In
+the course of three years you can surely find some virtuous heiress
+who is willing to call herself Madame la Vicomtesse de Portenduere.
+Such is virtue,--let's drink to it. I give you a toast: 'The girl with
+money!"
+
+The young men did not leave their ex-friend till the official hour for
+parting. The gate was no sooner closed behind them than they said to
+each other: "He's not strong enough!" "He's quite crushed." "I don't
+believe he'll pull through it?"
+
+The next day Savinien wrote his mother a confession in twenty-two
+pages. Madame de Portenduere, after weeping for one whole day, wrote
+first to her son, promising to get him out of prison, and then to the
+Comte de Portenduere and to Admiral Kergarouet.
+
+The letters the abbe had just read and which the poor mother was
+holding in her hand and moistening with tears, were the answers to her
+appeal, which had arrived that morning, and had almost broken her
+heart.
+
+
+Paris, September, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+Madame,--You cannot doubt the interest which the admiral and I
+both feel in your troubles. What you ask of Monsieur de
+Kergarouet grieves me all the more because our house was a home to
+your son; we were proud of him. If Savinien had had more
+confidence in the admiral we could have taken him to live with us,
+and he would already have obtained some good situation. But,
+unfortunately, he told us nothing; he ran into debt of his own
+accord, and even involved himself for me, who knew nothing of his
+pecuniary position. It is all the more to be regretted because
+Savinien has, for the moment, tied our hands by allowing the
+authorities to arrest him.
+
+If my nephew had not shown a foolish passion for me and sacrificed
+our relationship to the vanity of a lover, we could have sent him
+to travel in Germany while his affairs were being settled here.
+Monsieur de Kergarouet intended to get him a place in the War
+office; but this imprisonment for debt will paralyze such efforts.
+You must pay his debts; let him enter the navy; he will make his
+way like the true Portenduere that he is; he has the fire of the
+family in his beautiful black eyes, and we will all help him.
+
+Do not be disheartened, madame; you have many friends, among whom
+I beg you to consider me as one of the most sincere; I send you our
+best wishes, with the respects of
+
+Your very affectionate servant,
+Emilie de Kergarouet.
+
+
+The second letter was as follows:--
+
+
+Portenduere, August, 1829.
+
+To Madame de Portenduere:
+
+My dear aunt,--I am more annoyed than surprised at Savinien's
+pranks. As I am married and the father of two sons and one
+daughter, my fortune, already too small for my position and
+prospects, cannot be lessened to ransom a Portenduere from the
+hands of the Jews. Sell your farm, pay his debts, and come and
+live with us at Portenduere. You shall receive the welcome we owe 
+you, even though our views may not be entirely in accordance with
+yours. You shall be made happy, and we will manage to marry
+Savinien, whom my wife thinks charming. This little outbreak is
+nothing; do not make yourself unhappy; it will never be known in
+this part of the country, where there are a number of rich girls
+who would be delighted to enter our family.
+
+My wife joins me in assuring you of the happiness you would give
+us, and I beg you to accept her wishes for the realization of this
+plan, together with my affectionate respects.
+
+Luc-Savinien, Comte de Portenduere.
+
+
+"What letters for a Kergarouet to receive!" cried the old Breton lady,
+wiping her eyes.
+
+"The admiral does not know his nephew is in prison," said the Abbe
+Chaperon at last; "the countess alone read your letter, and has
+answered it for him. But you must decide at once on some course," he
+added after a pause, "and this is what I have the honor to advise. Do
+not sell your farm. The lease is just out, having lasted twenty-four
+years; in a few months you can raise the rent to six thousand francs
+and get a premium for double that amount. Borrow what you need of some
+honest man,--not from the townspeople who make a business of
+mortgages. Your neighbour here is a most worthy man; a man of good
+society, who knew it as it was before the Revolution, who was once an
+atheist, and is now an earnest Catholic. Do not let your feelings
+debar you from going to his house this very evening; he will fully
+understand the step you take; forget for a moment that you are a
+Kergarouet."
+
+"Never!" said the old mother, in a sharp voice.
+
+"Well, then, be an amiable Kergarouet; come when he is alone. He will
+lend you the money at three and a half per cent, perhaps even at three
+per cent, and will do you this service delicately; you will be pleased
+with him. He can go to Paris and release Savinien himself,--for he
+will have to go there to sell out his funds,--and he can bring the lad
+back to you."
+
+"Are you speaking of that little Minoret?"
+
+"That little Minoret is eighty-three years old," said the abbe,
+smiling. "My dear lady, do have a little Christian charity; don't
+wound him,--he might be useful to you in other ways."
+
+"What ways?"
+
+"He has an angel in his house; a precious young girl--"
+
+"Oh! that little Ursula. What of that?"
+
+The poor abbe did not pursue the subject after these significant
+words, the laconic sharpness of which cut through the proposition he
+was about to make.
+
+"I think Doctor Minoret is very rich," he said.
+
+"So much the better for him."
+
+"You have indirectly caused your son's misfortunes by refusing to give
+him a profession; beware for the future," said the abbe sternly. "Am I
+to tell Doctor Minoret that you are coming?"
+
+"Why cannot he come to me if he knows I want him?" she replied.
+
+"Ah, madame, if you go to him you will pay him three per cent; if he
+comes to you you will pay him five," said the abbe, inventing this
+reason to influence the old lady. "And if you are forced to sell your
+farm by Dionis the notary, or by Massin the clerk (who would refuse to
+lend you the money, knowing it was more their interest to buy), you
+would lose half its value. I have not the slightest influence on the
+Dionis, Massins, or Levraults, or any of those rich men who covet your
+farm and know that your son is in prison."
+
+"They know it! oh, do they know it?" she exclaimed, throwing up her
+arms. "There! my poor abbe, you have let your coffee get cold!
+Tiennette, Tiennette!"
+
+Tiennette, an old Breton servant sixty years of age, wearing a short
+gown and a Breton cap, came quickly in and took the abbe's coffee to
+warm it.
+
+"Let be, Monsieur le recteur," she said, seeing that the abbe meant to
+drink it, "I'll just put it into the bain-marie, it won't spoil it."
+
+"Well," said the abbe to Madame de Portenduere in his most insinuating
+voice, "I shall go and tell the doctor of your visit, and you will
+come--"
+
+The old mother did not yield till after an hour's discussion, during
+which the abbe was forced to repeat his arguments at least ten times.
+And even then the proud Kergarouet was not vanquished until he used
+the words, "Savinien would go."
+
+"It is better that I should go than he," she said.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+SAVINIEN SAVED
+
+The clock was striking nine when the little door made in the large
+door of Madame de Portenduere's house closed on the abbe, who
+immediately crossed the road and hastily rang the bell at the doctor's
+gate. He fell from Tiennette to La Bougival; the one said to him, "Why
+do you come so late, Monsieur l'abbe?" as the other had said, "Why do
+you leave Madame so early when she is in trouble?"
+
+The abbe found a numerous company assembled in the green and brown
+salon; for Dionis had stopped at Massin's on his way home to re-assure
+the heirs by repeating their uncle's words.
+
+"I believe Ursula has a love-affair," said he, "which will be nothing
+but pain and trouble to her; she seems romantic" (extreme sensibility
+is so called by notaries), "and, you'll see, she won't marry soon.
+Therefore, don't show her any distrust; be very attentive to her and
+very respectful to your uncle, for he is slyer than fifty Goupils,"
+added the notary--without being aware that Goupil is a corruption of
+the word vulpes, a fox.
+
+So Mesdames Massin and Cremiere with their husbands, the post master
+and Desire, together with the Nemours doctor and Bongrand, made an
+unusual and noisy party in the doctor's salon. As the abbe entered he
+heard the sound of the piano. Poor Ursula was just finishing a sonata
+of Beethoven's. With girlish mischief she had chosen that grand music,
+which must be studied to be understood, for the purpose of disgusting
+these women with the thing they coveted. The finer the music the less
+ignorant persons like it. So, when the door opened and the abbe's
+venerable head appeared they all cried out: "Ah! here's Monsieur
+l'abbe!" in a tone of relief, delighted to jump up and put an end to
+their torture.
+
+The exclamation was echoed at the card-table, where Bongrand, the
+Nemours doctor, and old Minoret were victims to the presumption with
+which the collector, in order to propitiate his great-uncle, had
+proposed to take the fourth hand at whist. Ursula left the piano. The
+doctor rose as if to receive the abbe, but really to put an end to the
+game. After many compliments to their uncle on the wonderful
+proficiency of his goddaughter, the heirs made their bow and retired.
+
+"Good-night, my friends," cried the doctor as the iron gate clanged.
+
+"Ah! that's where the money goes," said Madame Cremiere to Madame
+Massin, as they walked on.
+
+"God forbid that I should spend money to teach my little Aline to make
+such a din as that!" cried Madame Massin.
+
+"She said it was Beethoven, who is thought to be fine musician," said
+the collector; "he has quite a reputation."
+
+"Not in Nemours, I'm sure of that," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"I believe uncle made her play it expressly to drive us away," said
+Massin; "for I saw him give that little minx a wink as she opened the
+music-book."
+
+"If that's the sort of charivari they like," said the post master,
+"they are quite right to keep it to themselves."
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand must be fond of whist to stand such a dreadful
+racket," said Madame Cremiere.
+
+"I shall never be able to play before persons who don't understand
+music," Ursula was saying as she sat down beside the whist-table.
+
+"In natures richly organized," said the abbe, "sentiments can be
+developed only in a congenial atmosphere. Just as a priest is unable
+to give the blessing in presence of an evil spirit, or as a chestnut-
+tree dies in a clay soil, so a musician's genius has a mental eclipse
+when he is surrounded by ignorant persons. In all the arts we must
+receive from the souls who make the environment of our souls as much
+intensity as we convey to them. This axiom, which rules the human
+mind, has been made into proverbs: 'Howl with the wolves'; 'Like meets
+like.' But the suffering you felt, Ursula, affects delicate and tender
+natures only."
+
+"And so, friends," said the doctor, "a thing which would merely give
+pain to most women might kill my Ursula. Ah! when I am no longer here,
+I charge you to see that the hedge of which Catullus spoke,--"Ut
+flos," etc.,--a protecting hedge is raised between this cherished
+flower and the world."
+
+"And yet those ladies flattered you, Ursula," said Monsieur Bongrand,
+smiling.
+
+"Flattered her grossly," remarked the Nemours doctor.
+
+"I have always noticed how vulgar forced flattery is," said old
+Minoret. "Why is that?"
+
+"A true thought has its own delicacy," said the abbe.
+
+"Did you dine with Madame de Portenduere?" asked Ursula, with a look
+of anxious curiosity.
+
+"Yes; the poor lady is terribly distressed. It is possible she may
+come to see you this evening, Monsieur Minoret."
+
+Ursula pressed her godfather's hand under the table.
+
+"Her son," said Bongrand, "was rather too simple-minded to live in
+Paris without a mentor. When I heard that inquiries were being made
+here about the property of the old lady I feared he was discounting
+her death."
+
+"Is it possible you think him capable of it?" said Ursula, with such a
+terrible glance at Monsieur Bongrand that he said to himself rather
+sadly, "Alas! yes, she loves him."
+
+"Yes and no," said the Nemours doctor, replying to Ursula's question.
+"There is a great deal of good in Savinien, and that is why he is now
+in prison; a scamp wouldn't have got there."
+
+"Don't let us talk about it any more," said old Minoret. "The poor
+mother must not be allowed to weep if there's a way to dry her tears."
+
+The four friends rose and went out; Ursula accompanied them to the
+gate, saw her godfather and the abbe knock at the opposite door, and
+as soon as Tiennette admitted them she sat down on the outer wall with
+La Bougival beside her.
+
+"Madame la vicomtesse," said the abbe, who entered first into the
+little salon, "Monsieur le docteur Minoret was not willing that you
+should have the trouble of coming to him--"
+
+"I am too much of the old school, madame," interrupted the doctor,
+"not to know what a man owes to a woman of your rank, and I am very
+glad to be able, as Monsieur l'abbe tells me, to be of service to
+you."
+
+Madame de Portenduere, who disliked the step the abbe had advised so
+much that she had almost decided, after he left her, to apply to the
+notary instead, was surprised by Minoret's attention to such a degree
+that she rose to receive him and signed to him to take a chair.
+
+"Be seated, monsieur," she said with a regal air. "Our dear abbe has
+told you that the viscount is in prison on account of some youthful
+debts,--a hundred thousand francs or so. If you could lend them to him
+I would secure you on my farm at Bordieres."
+
+"We will talk of that, madame, when I have brought your son back to
+you--if you will allow me to be your emissary in the matter."
+
+"Very good, monsieur," she said, bowing her head and looking at the
+abbe as if to say, "You were right; he really is a man of good
+society."
+
+"You see, madame," said the abbe, "that my friend the doctor is full
+of devotion to your family."
+
+"We shall be grateful, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduere, making a
+visible effort; "a journey to Paris, at your age, in quest of a
+prodigal, is--"
+
+"Madame, I had the honor to meet, in '65, the illustrious Admiral de
+Portenduere in the house of that excellent Monsieur de Malesherbes,
+and also in that of Monsieur le Comte de Buffon, who was anxious to
+question him on some curious results of his voyages. Possibly Monsieur
+de Portenduere, your late husband, was present. Those were the
+glorious days of the French navy; it bore comparison with that of
+Great Britain, and its officers had their full quota of courage. With
+what impatience we awaited in '83 and '84 the news from St. Roch. I
+came very near serving as surgeon in the king's service. Your great-
+uncle, who is still living, Admiral Kergarouet, fought his splendid
+battle at that time in the 'Belle-Poule.'"
+
+"Ah! if he did but know his great-nephew is in prison!"
+
+"He would not leave him there a day," said old Minoret, rising.
+
+He held out his hand to take that of the old lady, which she allowed
+him to do; then he kissed it respectfully, bowed profoundly, and left
+the room; but returned immediately to say:--
+
+"My dear abbe, may I ask you to engage a place in the diligence for me
+to-morrow?"
+
+The abbe stayed behind for half an hour to sing the praises of his
+friend, who meant to win and had succeeded in winning the good graces
+of the old lady.
+
+"He is an astonishing man for his age," she said. "He talks of going
+to Paris and attending to my son's affairs as if he were only twenty-
+five. He has certainly seen good society."
+
+"The very best, madame; and to-day more than one son of a peer of
+France would be glad to marry his goddaughter with a million. Ah! if
+that idea should come into Savinien's head!--times are so changed that
+the objections would not come from your side, especially after his
+late conduct--"
+
+The amazement into which the speech threw the old lady alone enabled
+him to finish it.
+
+"You have lost your senses," she said at last.
+
+"Think it over, madame; God grant that your son may conduct himself in
+future in a manner to win that old man's respect."
+
+"If it were not you, Monsieur l'abbe," said Madame de Portenduere, "if
+it were any one else who spoke to me in that way--"
+
+"You would not see him again," said the abbe, smiling. "Let us hope
+that your dear son will enlighten you as to what occurs in Paris in
+these days as to marriages. You will think only of Savinien's good; as
+you really have helped to compromise his future you will not stand in
+the way of his making himself another position."
+
+"And it is you who say that to me?"
+
+"If I did not say it to you, who would?" cried the abbe rising and
+making a hasty retreat.
+
+As he left the house he saw Ursula and her godfather standing in their
+courtyard. The weak doctor had been so entreated by Ursula that he had
+just yielded to her. She wanted to go with him to Paris, and gave a
+thousand reasons. He called to the abbe and begged him to engage the
+whole coupe for him that very evening if the booking-office were still
+open.
+
+The next day at half-past six o'clock the old man and the young girl
+reached Paris, and the doctor went at once to consult his notary.
+Political events were then very threatening. Monsieur Bongrand had
+remarked in the course of the preceding evening that a man must be a
+fool to keep a penny in the public funds so long as the quarrel
+between the press and the court was not made up. Minoret's notary now
+indirectly approved of this opinion. The doctor therefore took
+advantage of his journey to sell out his manufacturing stocks and his
+shares in the Funds, all of which were then at a high value,
+depositing the proceeds in the Bank of France. The notary also advised
+his client to sell the stocks left to Ursula by Monsieur de Jordy. He
+promised to employ an extremely clever broker to treat with Savinien's
+creditors; but said that in order to succeed it would be necessary for
+the young man to stay several days longer in prison.
+
+"Haste in such matters always means the loss of at least fifteen per
+cent," said the notary. "Besides, you can't get your money under seven
+or eight days."
+
+When Ursula heard that Savinien would have to say at least a week
+longer in jail she begged her godfather to let her go there, if only
+once. Old Minoret refused. The uncle and niece were staying at a hotel
+in the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs where the doctor had taken a very
+suitable apartment. Knowing the scrupulous honor and propriety of his
+goddaughter he made her promise not to go out while he was away; at
+other times he took her to see the arcades, the shops, the boulevards;
+but nothing seemed to amuse or interest her.
+
+"What do you want to do?" asked the old man.
+
+"See Saint-Pelagie," she answered obstinately.
+
+Minoret called a hackney-coach and took her to the Rue de la Clef,
+where the carriage drew up before the shabby front of an old convent
+then transformed into a prison. The sight of those high gray walls,
+with every window barred, of the wicket through which none can enter
+without stooping (horrible lesson!), of the whole gloomy structure in
+a quarter full of wretchedness, where it rises amid squalid streets
+like a supreme misery,--this assemblage of dismal things so oppressed
+Ursula's heart that she burst into tears.
+
+"Oh!" she said, "to imprison young men in this dreadful place for
+money! How can a debt to a money-lender have a power the king has not?
+HE there!" she cried. "Where, godfather?" she added, looking from
+window to window.
+
+"Ursula," said the old man, "you are making me commit great follies.
+This is not forgetting him as you promised."
+
+"But," she argued, "if I must renounce him must I also cease to feel
+an interest in him? I can love him and not marry at all."
+
+"Ah!" cried the doctor, "there is so much reason in your
+unreasonableness that I am sorry I brought you."
+
+Three days later the worthy man had all the receipts signed, and the
+legal papers ready for Savinien's release. The payings, including the
+notaries' fees, amounted to eighty thousand francs. The doctor went
+himself to see Savinien released on Saturday at two o'clock. The young
+viscount, already informed of what had happened by his mother, thanked
+his liberator with sincere warmth of heart.
+
+"You must return at once to see your mother," the old doctor said to
+him.
+
+Savinien answered in a sort of confusion that he had contracted
+certain debts of honor while in prison, and related the visit of his
+friends.
+
+"I suspected there was some personal debt," cried the doctor, smiling.
+"Your mother borrowed a hundred thousand francs of me, but I have paid
+out only eighty thousand. Here is the rest; be careful how you spend
+it, monsieur; consider what you have left of it as your stake on the
+green cloth of fortune."
+
+During the last eight days Savinien had made many reflections on the
+present conditions of life. Competition in everything necessitated
+hard work on the part of whoever sought a fortune. Illegal methods and
+underhand dealing demanded more talent than open efforts in face of
+day. Success in society, far from giving a man position, wasted his
+time and required an immense deal of money. The name of Portenduere,
+which his mother considered all-powerful, had no power at all in
+Paris. His cousin the deputy, Comte de Portenduere, cut a very poor
+figure in the Elective Chamber in presence of the peerage and the
+court; and had none too much credit personally. Admiral Kergarouet
+existed only as the husband of his wife. Savinien admitted to himself
+that he had seen orators, men from the middle classes, or lesser
+noblemen, become influential personages. Money was the pivot, the sole
+means, the only mechanism of a society which Louis XVIII. had tried to
+create in the likeness of that of England.
+
+On his way from the Rue de la Clef to the Rue Croix des Petits-Champs
+the young gentleman divulged the upshot of these meditations (which
+were certainly in keeping with de Marsay's advice) to the old doctor.
+
+"I ought," he said, "to go into oblivion for three or four years and
+seek a career. Perhaps I could make myself a name by writing a book on
+statesmanship or morals, or a treatise on some of the great questions
+of the day. While I am looking out for a marriage with some young lady
+who could make me eligible to the Chamber, I will work hard in silence
+and in obscurity."
+
+Studying the young fellow's face with a keen eye, the doctor saw the
+serious purpose of a wounded man who was anxious to vindicate himself.
+He therefore cordially approved of the scheme.
+
+"My friend," he said, "if you strip off the skin of the old nobility
+(which is no longer worn these days) I will undertake, after you have
+lived for three or four years in a steady and industrious manner, to
+find you a superior young girl, beautiful, amiable, pious, and
+possessing from seven to eight hundred thousand francs, who will make
+you happy and of whom you will have every reason to be proud,--one
+whose only nobility is that of the heart!"
+
+"Ah, doctor!" cried the young man, "there is no longer a nobility in
+these days,--nothing but an aristocracy."
+
+"Go and pay your debts of honor and come back here. I shall engage the
+coupe of the diligence, for my niece is with me," said the old man.
+
+That evening, at six o'clock, the three travelers started from the Rue
+Dauphine. Ursula had put on a veil and did not say a word. Savinien,
+who once, in a moment of superficial gallantry, had sent her that kiss
+which invaded and conquered her soul like a love-poem, had completely
+forgotten the young girl in the hell of his Parisian debts; moreover,
+his hopeless love for Emilie de Kergarouet hindered him from bestowing
+a thought on a few glances exchanged with a little country girl. He
+did not recognize her when the doctor handed her into the coach and
+then sat down beside her to separate her from the young viscount.
+
+"I have some bills to give you," said the doctor to the young man. "I
+have brought all your papers and documents."
+
+"I came very near not getting off," said Savinien, "for I had to order
+linen and clothes; the Philistines took all; I return like a true
+prodigal."
+
+However interesting were the subjects of conversation between the
+young man and the old one, and however witty and clever were certain
+remarks of the viscount, the young girl continued silent till after
+dusk, her green veil lowered, and her hands crossed on her shawl.
+
+"Mademoiselle does not seem to have enjoyed Paris very much," said
+Savinien at last, somewhat piqued.
+
+"I am glad to return to Nemours," she answered in a trembling voice
+raising her veil.
+
+Notwithstanding the dim light Savinien then recognized her by the
+heavy braids of her hair and the brilliancy of her blue eyes.
+
+"I, too, leave Paris to bury myself in Nemours without regret now that
+I meet my charming neighbour again," he said; "I hope, Monsieur le
+docteur that you will receive me in your house; I love music, and I
+remember to have listened to Mademoiselle Ursula's piano."
+
+"I do not know," replied the doctor gravely, "whether your mother
+would approve of your visits to an old man whose duty it is to care
+for this dear child with all the solicitude of a mother."
+
+This reserved answer made Savinien reflect, and he then remembered the
+kisses so thoughtlessly wafted. Night came; the heat was great.
+Savinien and the doctor went to sleep first. Ursula, whose head was
+full of projects, did not succumb till midnight. She had taken off her
+straw-bonnet, and her head, covered with a little embroidered cap,
+dropped upon her uncle's shoulder. When they reached Bouron at dawn,
+Savinien awoke. He then saw Ursula in the slight disarray naturally
+caused by the jolting of the vehicle; her cap was rumpled and half
+off; the hair, unbound, had fallen each side of her face, which glowed
+from the heat of the night; in this situation, dreadful for women to
+whom dress is a necessary auxiliary, youth and beauty triumphed. The
+sleep of innocence is always lovely. The half-opened lips showed the
+pretty teeth; the shawl, unfastened, gave to view, beneath the folds
+of her muslin gown and without offence to her modesty, the
+gracefulness of her figure. The purity of the virgin spirit shone on
+the sleeping countenance all the more plainly because no other
+expression was there to interfere with it. Old Minoret, who presently
+woke up, placed his child's head in the corner of the carriage that
+she might be more at ease; and she let him do it unconsciously, so
+deep was her sleep after the many wakeful nights she had spent in
+thinking of Savinien's trouble.
+
+"Poor little girl!" said the doctor to his neighbour, "she sleeps like
+the child she is."
+
+"You must be proud of her," replied Savinien; "for she seems as good
+as she is beautiful."
+
+"Ah! she is the joy of the house. I could not love her better if she
+were my own daughter. She will be sixteen on the 5th February. God
+grant that I may live long enough to marry her to a man who will make
+her happy. I wanted to take her to the theater in Paris, where she was
+for the first time, but she refused, the Abbe Chaperon had forbidden
+it. 'But,' I said, 'when you are married your husband will want you to
+go there.' 'I shall do what my husband wants,' she answered. 'If he
+asks me to do evil and I am weak enough to yield, he will be
+responsible before God--and so I shall have strength to refuse him,
+for his own sake.'"
+
+As the coach entered Nemours, at five in the morning, Ursula woke up,
+ashamed at her rumpled condition, and confused by the look of
+admiration which she encountered from Savinien. During the hour it had
+taken the diligence to come from Bouron to Nemours the young man had
+fallen in love with Ursula; he had studied the pure candor of her
+soul, the beauty of that body, the whiteness of the skin, the delicacy
+of the features; he recalled the charm of the voice which had uttered
+but one expressive sentence, in which the poor child said all,
+intending to say nothing. A presentiment suddenly seemed to take hold
+of him; he saw in Ursula the woman the doctor had pictured to him,
+framed in gold by the magic words, "Seven or eight hundred thousand
+francs."
+
+"In three of four years she will be twenty, and I shall be twenty-
+seven," he thought. "The good doctor talked of probation, work, good
+conduct! Sly as he is I shall make him tell me the truth."
+
+The three neighbours parted in the street in front of their respective
+homes, and Savinien put a little courting into his eyes as he gave
+Ursula a parting glance.
+
+Madame de Portenduere let her son sleep till midday; but the doctor
+and Ursula, in spite of their fatiguing journey, went to high mass.
+Savinien's release and his return in company with the doctor had
+explained the reason of the latter's absence to the newsmongers of the
+town and to the heirs, who were once more assembled in conventicle on
+the square, just as they were two weeks earlier when the doctor
+attended his first mass. To the great astonishment of all the groups,
+Madame de Portenduere, on leaving the church, stopped old Minoret, who
+offered her his arm and took her home. The old lady asked him to
+dinner that evening, also asking his niece and assuring him that the
+abbe would be the only other guest.
+
+"He must have wished Ursula to see Paris," said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+"Pest!" cried Cremiere; "he can't take a step without that girl!"
+
+"Something must have happened to make old Portenduere accept his arm,"
+said Massin.
+
+"So none of you have guessed that your uncle has sold his Funds and
+released that little Savinien?" cried Goupil. "He refused Dionis, but
+he didn't refuse Madame de Portenduere-- Ha, ha! you are all done for.
+The viscount will propose a marriage-contract instead of a mortgage,
+and the doctor will make the husband settle on his jewel of a girl the
+sum he has now paid to secure the alliance."
+
+"It is not a bad thing to marry Ursula to Savinien," said the butcher.
+"The old lady gives a dinner to-day to Monsieur Minoret. Tiennette
+came early for a filet."
+
+"Well, Dionis, here's a fine to-do!" said Massin, rushing up to the
+notary, who was entering the square.
+
+"What is? It's all going right," returned the notary. "Your uncle has
+sold his Funds and Madame de Portenduere has sent for me to witness
+the signing of a mortgage on her property for one hundred thousand
+francs, lent to her by your uncle."
+
+"Yes, but suppose the young people should marry?"
+
+"That's as if you said Goupil was to be my successor."
+
+"The two things are not so impossible," said Goupil.
+
+On returning from mass Madame de Portenduere told Tiennette to inform
+her son that she wished to see him.
+
+The little house had three bedrooms on the first floor. That of Madame
+de Portenduere and that of her late husband were separated by a large
+dressing-room lighted by a skylight, and connected by a little
+antechamber which opened on the staircase. The window of the other
+room, occupied by Savinien, looked, like that of his late father, on
+the street. The staircase went up at the back of the house, leaving
+room for a little study lighted by a small round window opening on the
+court. Madame de Portenduere's bedroom, the gloomiest in the house,
+also looked into the court; but the widow spent all her time in the
+salon on the ground floor, which communicated by a passage with the
+kitchen built at the end of the court, so that this salon was made to
+answer the double purpose of drawing-room and dining-room combined.
+
+The bedroom of the late Monsieur de Portenduere remained as he had
+left it on the day of his death; there was no change except that he
+was absent. Madame de Portenduere had made the bed herself; laying
+upon it the uniform of a naval captain, his sword, cordon, orders, and
+hat. The gold snuff-box from which her late husband had taken snuff
+for the last time was on the table, with his prayer-book, his watch,
+and the cup from which he drank. His white hair, arranged in one
+curled lock and framed, hung above a crucifix and the holy water in
+the alcove. All the little ornaments he had worn, his journals, his
+furniture, his Dutch spittoon, his spy-glass hanging by the mantel,
+were all there. The widow had stopped the hands of the clock at the
+hour of his death, to which they always pointed. The room still smelt
+of the powder and the tobacco of the deceased. The hearth was as he
+left it. To her, entering there, he was again visible in the many
+articles which told of his daily habits. His tall cane with its gold
+head was where he had last placed it, with his buckskin gloves close
+by. On a table against the wall stood a gold vase, of coarse
+workmanship but worth three thousand francs, a gift from Havana, which
+city, at the time of the American War of Independence, he had
+protected from an attack by the British, bringing his convoy safe into
+port after an engagement with superior forces. To recompense this
+service the King of Spain had made him a knight of his order; the same
+event gave him a right to the next promotion to the rank of vice-
+admiral, and he also received the red ribbing. He then married his
+wife, who had a fortune of about two hundred thousand francs. But the
+Revolution hindered his promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduere
+emigrated.
+
+"Where is my mother?" said Savinien to Tiennette.
+
+"She is waiting for you in your father's room," said the old Breton
+woman.
+
+Savinien could not repress a shudder. He knew his mother's rigid
+principles, her worship of honor, her loyalty, her faith in nobility,
+and he foresaw a scene. He went up to the assault with his heart
+beating and his face rather pale. In the dim light which filtered
+through the blinds he saw his mother dressed in black, and with an air
+of solemnity in keeping with that funereal room.
+
+"Monsieur le vicomte," she said when she saw him, rising and taking
+his hand to lead him to his father's bed, "there died your father,--a
+man of honor; he died without reproach from his own conscience. His
+spirit is there. Surely he groaned in heaven when he saw his son
+degraded by imprisonment for debt. Under the old monarchy that stain
+could have been spared you by obtaining a lettre de cachet and
+shutting you up for a few days in a military prison.--But you are
+here; you stand before your father, who hears you. You know all that
+you did before you were sent to that ignoble prison. Will you swear to
+me before your father's shade, and in presence of God who sees all,
+that you have done no dishonorable act; that your debts are the result
+of youthful folly, and that your honor is untarnished? If your
+blameless father were there, sitting in that armchair, and asking an
+explanation of your conduct, could he embrace you after having heard
+it?"
+
+"Yes, mother," replied the young man, with grave respect.
+
+She opened her arms and pressed him to her heart, shedding a few
+tears.
+
+"Let us forget it all, my son," she said; "it is only a little less
+money. I shall pray God to let us recover it. As you are indeed worthy
+of your name, kiss me--for I have suffered much."
+
+"I swear, mother," he said, laying his hand upon the bed, "to give you
+no further unhappiness of that kind, and to do all I can to repair
+these first faults."
+
+"Come and breakfast, my child," she said, turning to leave the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+OBSTACLES TO YOUNG LOVE
+
+In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs
+something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics.
+Moreover, the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all
+that relates to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment,
+closely allied to the very existence of civilized societies and
+springing from the spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna
+and in Nemours, where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her
+consent to a possible marriage of her son with the daughter of a
+bastard. Still, all social laws have their exceptions. Savinien
+thought he might bend his mother's pride before the inborn nobility of
+Ursula. The struggle began at once. As soon as they were seated at
+table his mother told him of the horrible letters, as she called them,
+which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres had written her.
+
+"There is no such thing as family in these days, mother," replied
+Savinien, "nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact
+body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a
+statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, 'What taxes does he pay?'"
+
+"But the king?" asked the old lady.
+
+"The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his
+wife and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without
+regard to family,--the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and
+is sufficiently well brought-up--that is to say, if she has been
+taught in school."
+
+"Oh! there's no need to talk of that," said the old lady.
+
+Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will,
+called Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he
+resolved to know at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
+
+"So," he went on, "if I loved a young girl,--take for instance your
+neighbour's godchild, little Ursula,--would you oppose my marriage?"
+
+"Yes, as long as I live," she replied; "and after my death you would
+be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the
+Portendueres."
+
+"Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of
+nobility, which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of
+great wealth?"
+
+"You could serve France and put faith in God."
+
+"Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?"
+
+"It would be horrible if you took it then,--that is all I have to
+say."
+
+"Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu."
+
+"Mazarin himself opposed it."
+
+"Remember the widow Scarron."
+
+"She was a d'Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am
+very old, my son," she said, shaking her head. "When I am no more you
+can, as you say, marry whom you please."
+
+Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though
+silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal to
+her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this
+opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value
+of a forbidden thing.
+
+When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink
+and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with
+nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen
+of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the
+doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in
+her eyes, and the old lady herself the social value which a duchess of
+the Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had
+Ursula measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated
+Vicomte de Portenduere from the daughter of a regimental musician, a
+former opera-singer and the natural son of an organist.
+
+"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady, making the girl sit
+down beside her.
+
+"Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me--"
+
+"My little girl," said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. "I
+know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to
+him, for he has brought back my prodigal son."
+
+"But, my dear mother," said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the
+color fly into Ursula's face as she struggled to keep back her tears,
+"even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier
+Minoret, I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure
+Mademoiselle has given us by accepting your invitation."
+
+The young man pressed the doctor's hand in a significant manner,
+adding: "I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the
+oldest order in France, and one which confers nobility."
+
+Ursula's extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a
+depth which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where
+the soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de
+Portenduere suddenly, and made her suspect that the doctor's apparent
+generosity masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to
+which Savinien replied with the intention of wounding the doctor in
+that which was dearest to him; and she succeeded, though the old man
+could hardly restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a
+"chevalier," amused to observe how the eagerness of a lover did not
+shrink from absurdity.
+
+"The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies
+to obtain," he said, "has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of
+other privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The
+kings have done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I
+believe, a poor devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point
+of view the order of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of
+us, symbolic."
+
+After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned,
+which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward,
+when there was a rap at the door.
+
+"There is our dear abbe," said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula
+alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,--an honor she had not
+paid to the doctor and his niece.
+
+The old man smiled to himself as he looked from his goddaughter to
+Savinien. To show offence or to complain of Madame de Portenduere's
+manners was a rock on which a man of small mind might have struck, but
+Minoret was too accomplished in the ways of the world not to avoid it.
+He began to talk to the viscount of the danger Charles X. was then
+running by confiding the affairs of the nation to the Prince de
+Polignac. When sufficient time had been spent on the subject to avoid
+all appearance of revenging himself by so doing, he handed the old
+lady, in an easy, jesting way, a packet of legal papers and receipted
+bills, together with the account of his notary.
+
+"Has my son verified them?" she said, giving Savinien a look, to which
+he replied by bending his head. "Well, then the rest is my notary's
+business," she added, pushing away the papers and treating the affair
+with the disdain she wished to show for money.
+
+To abase wealth was, according to Madame de Portenduere's ideas, to
+elevate the nobility and rob the bourgeoisie of their importance.
+
+A few moments later Goupil came from his employer, Dionis, to ask for
+the accounts of the transaction between the doctor and Savinien.
+
+"Why do you want them?" said the old lady.
+
+"To put the matter in legal form; there have been no cash payments."
+
+Ursula and Savinien, who both for the first time exchanged a glance
+with offensive personage, were conscious of a sensation like that of
+touching a toad, aggravated by a dark presentiment of evil. They both
+had the same indefinable and confused vision into the future, which
+has no name in any language, but which is capable of explanation as
+the action of the inward being of which the mysterious Swedenborgian
+had spoken to Doctor Minoret. The certainty that the venomous Goupil
+would in some way be fatal to them made Ursula tremble; but she
+controlled herself, conscious of unspeakable pleasure in seeing that
+Savinien shared her emotion.
+
+"He is not handsome, that clerk of Monsieur Dionis," said Savinien,
+when Goupil had closed the door.
+
+"What does it signify whether such persons are handsome or ugly?" said
+Madame de Portenduere.
+
+"I don't complain of his ugliness," said the abbe, "but I do of his
+wickedness, which passes all bounds; he is a villain."
+
+The doctor, in spite of his desire to be amiable, grew cold and
+dignified. The lovers were embarrassed. If it had not been for the
+kindly good-humor of the abbe, whose gentle gayety enlivened the
+dinner, the position of the doctor and his niece would have been
+almost intolerable. At dessert, seeing Ursula turn pale, he said to
+her:--
+
+"If you don't feel well, dear child, we have only the street to
+cross."
+
+"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady to the girl.
+
+"Madame," said the doctor severely, "her soul is chilled, accustomed
+as she is to be met by smiles."
+
+"A very bad education, monsieur," said Madame de Portenduere. "Is it
+not, Monsieur l'abbe?"
+
+"Yes," answered Minoret, with a look at the abbe, who knew not how to
+reply. "I have, it is true, rendered life unbearable to an angelic
+spirit if she has to pass it in the world; but I trust I shall not die
+until I place her in security, safe from coldness, indifference, and
+hatred--"
+
+"Oh, godfather--I beg of you--say no more. There is nothing the matter
+with me," cried Ursula, meeting Madame de Portenduere's eyes rather
+than give too much meaning to her words by looking at Savinien.
+
+"I cannot know, madame," said Savinien to his mother, "whether
+Mademoiselle Ursula suffers, but I do know that you are torturing me."
+
+Hearing these words, dragged from the generous young man by his
+mother's treatment of herself, Ursula turned pale and begged Madame de
+Portenduere to excuse her; then she took her uncle's arm, bowed, left
+the room, and returned home. Once there, she rushed to the salon and
+sat down to the piano, put her head in her hands, and burst into
+tears.
+
+"Why don't you leave the management of your affairs to my old
+experience, cruel child?" cried the doctor in despair. "Nobles never
+think themselves under any obligations to the bourgeoisie. When we do
+them a service they consider that we do our duty, and that's all.
+Besides, the old lady saw that you looked favorably on Savinien; she
+is afraid he will love you."
+
+"At any rate he is saved!" said Ursula. "But ah! to try to humiliate a
+man like you!"
+
+"Wait till I return, my child," said the old man leaving her.
+
+When the doctor re-entered Madame de Portenduere's salon he found
+Dionis the notary, accompanied by Monsieur Bongrand and the mayor of
+Nemours, witnesses required by law for the validity of deeds in all
+communes where there is but one notary. Minoret took Monsieur Dionis
+aside and said a word in his ear, after which the notary read the
+deeds aloud officially; from which it appeared that Madame de
+Portenduere gave a mortgage on all her property to secure payment of
+the hundred thousand francs, the interest on which was fixed at five
+per cent. At the reading of this last clause the abbe looked at
+Minoret, who answered with an approving nod. The poor priest whispered
+something in the old lady's ear to which she replied,--
+
+"I will owe nothing to such persons."
+
+"My mother leaves me the nobler part," said Savinien to the doctor;
+"she will repay the money and charges me to show our gratitude."
+
+"But you will have to pay eleven thousand francs the first year to
+meet the interest and the legal costs," said the abbe.
+
+"Monsieur," said Minoret to Dionis, "as Monsieur and Madame de
+Portenduere are not in a condition to pay those costs, add them to the
+amount of the mortgage and I will pay them."
+
+Dionis made the change and the sum borrowed was fixed at one hundred
+and seven thousand francs. When the papers were all signed, Minoret
+made his fatigue an excuse to leave the house at the same time as the
+notary and witnesses.
+
+"Madame," said the abbe, "why did you affront the excellent Monsieur
+Minoret, who saved you at least twenty-five thousand francs on those
+debts in Paris, and had the delicacy to give twenty thousand to your
+son for his debts of honor?"
+
+"Your Minoret is sly," she said, taking a pinch of snuff. "He knows
+what he is about."
+
+"My mother thinks he wishes to force me into marrying his niece by
+getting hold of our farm," said Savinien; "as if a Portenduere, son of
+a Kergarouet, could be made to marry against his will."
+
+An hour later, Savinien presented himself at the doctor's house, where
+all the relatives had assembled, enticed by curiosity. The arrival of
+the young viscount produced a lively sensation, all the more because
+its effect was different on each person present. Mesdemoiselles
+Cremiere and Massin whispered together and looked at Ursula, who
+blushed. The mothers said to Desire that Goupil was right about the
+marriage. The eyes of all present turned towards the doctor, who did
+not rise to receive the young nobleman, but merely bowed his head
+without laying down the dice-box, for he was playing a game of
+backgammon with Monsieur Bongrand. The doctor's cold manner surprised
+every one.
+
+"Ursula, my child," he said, "give us a little music."
+
+While the young girl, delighted to have something to do to keep her in
+countenance, went to the piano and began to move the green-covered
+music-books, the heirs resigned themselves, with many demonstrations
+of pleasure, to the torture and the silence about to be inflicted on
+them, so eager were they to find out what was going on between their
+uncle and the Portendueres.
+
+In sometimes happens that a piece of music, poor in itself, when
+played by a young girl under the influence of deep feeling, makes more
+impression than a fine overture played by a full orchestra. In all
+music there is, besides the thought of the composer, the soul of the
+performer, who, by a privilege granted to this art only, can give both
+meaning and poetry to passages which are in themselves of no great
+value. Chopin proves, for that unresponsive instrument the piano, the
+truth of this fact, already proved by Paganini on the violin. That
+fine genius is less a musician than a soul which makes itself felt,
+and communicates itself through all species of music, even simple
+chords. Ursula, by her exquisite and sensitive organization, belonged
+to this rare class of beings, and old Schmucke, the master, who came
+every Saturday and who, during Ursula's stay in Paris was with her
+every day, had brought his pupil's talent to its full perfection.
+"Rousseau's Dream," the piece now chosen by Ursula, composed by Herold
+in his young days, is not without a certain depth which is capable of
+being developed by execution. Ursula threw into it the feelings which
+were agitating her being, and justified the term "caprice" given by
+Herold to the fragment. With soft and dreamy touch her soul spoke to
+the young man's soul and wrapped it, as in a cloud, with ideas that
+were almost visible.
+
+Sitting at the end of the piano, his elbow resting on the cover and
+his head on his left hand, Savinien admired Ursula, whose eyes, fixed
+on the paneling of the wall beyond him, seemed to be questioning
+another world. Many a man would have fallen deeply in love for a less
+reason. Genuine feelings have a magnetism of their own, and Ursula was
+willing to show her soul, as a coquette her dresses to be admired.
+Savinien entered that delightful kingdom, led by this pure heart,
+which, to interpret its feelings, borrowed the power of the only art
+that speaks to thought by thought, without the help of words, or
+color, or form. Candor, openness of heart have the same power over a
+man that childhood has; the same charm, the same irresistible
+seductions. Ursula was never more honest and candid than at this
+moment, when she was born again into a new life.
+
+The abbe came to tear Savinien from his dream, requesting him to take
+a fourth hand at whist. Ursula went on playing; the heirs departed,
+all except Desire, who was resolved to find out the intentions of his
+uncle and the viscount and Ursula.
+
+"You have as much talent as soul, mademoiselle," he said, when the
+young girl closed the piano and sat down beside her godfather. "Who is
+your master?"
+
+"A German, living close to the Rue Dauphine on the quai Conti," said
+the doctor. "If he had not given Ursula a lesson every day during her
+stay in Paris he would have been here to-day."
+
+"He is not only a great musician," said Ursula, "but a man of adorable
+simplicity of nature."
+
+"Those lessons must cost a great deal," remarked Desire.
+
+The players smiled ironically. When the game was over the doctor, who
+had hitherto seemed anxious and pensive, turned to Savinien with the
+air of a man who fulfills a duty.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "I am grateful for the feeling which leads you to
+make me this early visit; but your mother attributes unworthy and
+underhand motives to what I have done, and I should give her the right
+to call them true if I did not request you to refrain from coming
+here, in spite of the honor your visits are to me, and the pleasure I
+should otherwise feel in cultivating your society. Tell your mother
+that if I do not beg her, in my niece's name and my own, to do us the
+honor of dining here next Sunday it is because I am very certain that
+she would find herself indisposed on that day."
+
+The old man held out his hand to the young viscount, who pressed it
+respectfully, saying:--
+
+"You are quite right, monsieur."
+
+He then withdrew; but not without a bow to Ursula, in which there was
+more of sadness than disappointment.
+
+Desire left the house at the same time; but he found it impossible to
+exchange even a word with the young nobleman, who rushed into his own
+house precipitately.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+BETROTHAL OF HEARTS
+
+This rupture between the Portendueres and Doctor Minoret gave talk
+among the heirs for a week; they did homage to the genius of Dionis,
+and regarded their inheritance as rescued.
+
+So, in an age when ranks are leveled, when the mania for equality
+puts everybody on one footing and threatens to destroy all bulwarks,
+even military subordination,--that last refuge of power in France,
+where passions have now no other obstacles to overcome than personal
+antipathies, or differences of fortune,--the obstinacy of an old-
+fashioned Breton woman and the dignity of Doctor Minoret created a
+barrier between these lovers, which was to end, as such obstacles
+often do, not in destroying but in strengthening love. To an ardent
+man a woman's value is that which she costs him; Savinien foresaw a
+struggle, great efforts, many uncertainties, and already the young
+girl was rendered dearer to him; he was resolved to win her. Perhaps
+our feelings obey the laws of nature as to the lastingness of her
+creations; to a long life a long childhood.
+
+The next morning, when they woke, Ursula and Savinien had the same
+thought. An intimate understanding of this kind would create love if
+it were not already its most precious proof. When the young girl
+parted her curtains just far enough to let her eyes take in Savinien's
+window, she saw the face of her lover above the fastening of his. When
+one reflects on the immense services that windows render to lovers it
+seems natural and right that a tax should be levied on them. Having
+thus protested against her godfather's harshness, Ursula dropped the
+curtain and opened her window to close the outer blinds, through which
+she could continue to see without being seen herself. Seven or eight
+times during the day she went up to her room, always to find the young
+viscount writing, tearing up what he had written, and then writing
+again--to her, no doubt!
+
+The next morning when she woke La Bougival gave her the following
+letter:--
+
+
+To Mademoiselle Ursula:
+
+Mademoiselle,--I do not conceal from myself the distrust a young
+man inspires when he has placed himself in the position from which
+your godfather's kindness released me. I know that I must in
+future give greater guarantees of good conduct than other men;
+therefore, mademoiselle, it is with deep humility that I place
+myself at your feet and ask you to consider my love. This
+declaration is not dictated by passion; it comes from an inward
+certainty which involves the whole of life. A foolish infatuation
+for my young aunt, Madame de Kergarouet, was the cause of my going
+to prison; will you not regard as a proof of my sincere love the
+total disappearance of those wishes, of that image, now effaced
+from my heart by yours? No sooner did I see you, asleep and so
+engaging in your childlike slumber at Bouron, than you occupied my
+soul as a queen takes possession of her empire. I will have no
+other wife than you. You have every qualification I desire in her
+who is to bear my name. The education you have received and the
+dignity of your own mind, place you on the level of the highest
+positions. But I doubt myself too much to dare describe you to
+yourself; I can only love you. After listening to you yesterday I
+recalled certain words which seem as though written for you;
+suffer me to transcribe them:--
+
+"Made to draw all hearts and charm all eyes, gentle and
+intelligent, spiritual yet able to reason, courteous as though she
+had passed her life at court, simple as the hermit who had never
+known the world, the fire of her soul is tempered in her eyes by
+sacred modesty."
+
+I feel the value of the noble soul revealed in you by many, even
+the most trifling, things. This it is which gives me the courage
+to ask you, provided you love no one else, to let me prove to you
+by my conduct and my devotion that I am not unworthy of you. It
+concerns my very life; you cannot doubt that all my powers will be
+employed, not only in trying to please you, but in deserving your
+esteem, which is more precious to me than any other upon earth.
+With this hope, Ursula--if you will suffer me so to call you in my
+heart--Nemours will be to me a paradise, the hardest tasks will
+bring me joys derived through you, as life itself is derived from
+God. Tell me that I may call myself
+
+Your Savinien.
+
+
+Ursula kissed the letter; then, having re-read it and clasped it with
+passionate motions, she dressed herself eagerly to carry it to her
+uncle.
+
+"Ah, my God! I nearly forgot to say my prayers!" she exclaimed,
+turning back to kneel on her prie-Dieu.
+
+A few moments later she went down to the garden, where she found her
+godfather and made him read the letter. They both sat down on a bench
+under the arch of climbing plants opposite to the Chinese pagoda.
+Ursula awaited the old man's words, and the old man reflected long,
+too long for the impatient young girl. At last, the result of their
+secret interview appeared in the following answer, part of which the
+doctor undoubtedly dictated.
+
+
+To Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere:
+
+Monsieur,--I cannot be otherwise than greatly honored by the
+letter in which you offer me your hand; but, at my age, and
+according to the rules of my education, I have felt bound to
+communicate it to my godfather, who is all I have, and whom I love
+as a father and also as a friend. I must now tell you the painful
+objections which he has made to me, and which must be to you my
+answer.
+
+Monsieur le vicomte, I am a poor girl, whose fortune depends
+entirely, not only on my godfather's good-will, but also on the
+doubtful success of the measures he may take to elude the schemes
+of his relatives against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter
+of Joseph Mirouet, band-master of the 45th regiment of infantry,
+my father himself was my godfather's natural half-brother; and
+therefore these relatives may, though without reason, being a suit
+against a young girl who would be defenceless. You see, monsieur,
+that the smallness of my fortune is not my greatest misfortune. I
+have many things to make me humble. It is for your sake, and not
+for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which to loving and
+devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg you to
+consider, monsieur, that if I did not submit them to you, I might
+be suspected of leading your tenderness to overlook obstacles
+which the world, and more especially your mother, regard as
+insuperable.
+
+I shall be sixteen in four months. Perhaps you will admit that we
+are both too young and too inexperienced to understand the
+miseries of a life entered upon without other fortune than that I
+have received from the kindness of the late Monsieur de Jordy. My
+godfather desires, moreover, not to marry me until I am twenty.
+Who knows what fate may have in store for you in four years, the
+finest years of your life? do not sacrifice them to a poor girl.
+
+Having thus explained to you, monsieur, the opinions of my dear
+godfather, who, far from opposing my happiness, seeks to
+contribute to it in every way, and earnestly desires that his
+protection, which must soon fail me, may be replaced by a
+tenderness equal to his own; there remains only to tell you how
+touched I am by your offer and by the compliments which accompany
+it. The prudence which dictates my letter is that of an old man to
+whom life is well-known; but the gratitude I express is that of a
+young girl, in whose soul no other sentiment has arisen.
+
+Therefore, monsieur, I can sign myself, in all sincerity,
+
+Your servant,
+Ursula Mirouet.
+
+
+Savinien made no reply. Was he trying to soften his mother? Had this
+letter put an end to his love? Many such questions, all insoluble,
+tormented poor Ursula, and, by repercussion, the doctor too, who
+suffered from every agitation of his darling child. Ursula went often
+to her chamber to look at Savinien, whom she usually found sitting
+pensively before his table with his eyes turned towards her window. At
+the end of the week, but no sooner, she received a letter from him;
+the delay was explained by his increasing love.
+
+  To Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet:
+
+Dear Ursula,--I am a Breton, and when my mind is once made up
+nothing can change me. Your godfather, whom may God preserve to
+us, is right; but does it follow that I am wrong in loving you?
+Therefore, all I want to know from you is whether you could love
+me. Tell me this, if only by a sign, and then the next four years
+will be the finest of my life.
+
+A friend of mine has delivered to my great-uncle, Vice-admiral
+Kergarouet, a letter in which I asked his help to enter the navy.
+The kind old man, grieved at my misfortune, replies that even the
+king's favor would be thwarted by the rules of the service in case
+I wanted a certain rank. Nevertheless, if I study three months at
+Toulon, the minister of war can send me to sea as master's mate;
+then after a cruise against the Algerines, with whom we are now at
+war, I can go through an examination and become a midshipman.
+Moreover, if I distinguish myself in an expedition they are
+fitting out against Algiers, I shall certainly be made ensign--but
+how soon? that no one can tell. Only, they will make the rules as
+elastic as possible to have the name of Portenduere again in the navy.
+
+I see very plainly that I can only hope to obtain you from your
+godfather; and your respect for him makes you still dearer to me.
+Before replying to the admiral, I must have an interview with the
+doctor; on his reply my whole future will depend. Whatever comes
+of it, know this, that rich or poor, the daughter of a band master
+or the daughter of a king, you are the woman whom the voice of my
+heart points out to me. Dear Ursula, we live in times when
+prejudices which might once have separated us have no power to
+prevent our marriage. To you, then, I offer the feelings of my
+heart, to your uncle the guarantees which secure to him your
+happiness. He has not seen that I, in a few hours, came to love
+you more than he has loved you in fifteen years.
+
+Until this evening.
+Savinien.
+
+
+"Here, godfather," said Ursula, holding the letter out to him with a
+proud gesture.
+
+"Ah, my child!" cried the doctor when he had read it, "I am happier
+than even you. He repairs all his faults by this resolution."
+
+After dinner Savinien presented himself, and found the doctor walking
+with Ursula by the balustrade of the terrace overlooking the river.
+The viscount had received his clothes from Paris, and had not missed
+heightening his natural advantages by a careful toilet, as elegant as
+though he were striving to please the proud and beautiful Comtesse de
+Kergarouet. Seeing him approach her from the portico, the poor girl
+clung to her uncle's arm as though she were saving herself from a fall
+over a precipice, and the doctor heard the beating of her heart, which
+made him shudder.
+
+"Leave us, my child," he said to the girl, who went to the pagoda and
+sat upon the steps, after allowing Savinien to take her hand and kiss
+it respectfully.
+
+"Monsieur, will you give this dear hand to a naval captain?" he said
+to the doctor in a low voice.
+
+"No," said Minoret, smiling; "we might have to wait too long, but--I
+will give her to a lieutenant."
+
+Tears of joy filled the young man's eyes as he pressed the doctor's
+hand affectionately.
+
+"I am about to leave," he said, "to study hard and try to learn in six
+months what the pupils of the Naval School take six years to acquire."
+
+"You are going?" said Ursula, springing towards them from the
+pavilion.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, to deserve you. Therefore the more eager I am to
+go, the more I prove to you my affection."
+
+"This is the 3rd of October," she said, looking at him with infinite
+tenderness; "do not go till after the 19th."
+
+"Yes," said the old man, "we will celebrate Saint-Savinien's day."
+
+"Good-by, then," cried the young man. "I must spend this week in
+Paris, to take the preliminary steps, buy books and mathematical
+instruments, and try to conciliate the minister and get the best terms
+that I can for myself."
+
+Ursula and her godfather accompanied Savinien to the gate. Soon after
+he entered his mother's house they saw him come out again, followed by
+Tiennette carrying his valise.
+
+"If you are rich," said Ursula to her uncle, "why do you make him
+serve in the navy?"
+
+"Presently it will be I who incurred his debts," said the doctor,
+smiling. "I don't oblige him to do anything; but the uniform, my dear,
+and the cross of the Legion of honor, won in battle, will wipe out
+many stains. Before six years are over he may be in command of a ship,
+and that's all I ask of him."
+
+"But he may be killed," she said, turning a pale face upon the doctor.
+
+"Lovers, like drunkards, have a providence of their own," he said,
+laughing.
+
+That night the poor child, with La Bougival's help, cut off a
+sufficient quantity of her long and beautiful blond hair to make a
+chain; and the next day she persuaded old Schmucke, the music-master,
+to take it to Paris and have the chain made and returned by the
+following Sunday. When Savinien got back he informed the doctor and
+Ursula that he had signed his articles and was to be at Brest on the
+25th. The doctor asked him to dinner on the 18th, and he passed nearly
+two whole days in the old man's house. Notwithstanding much sage
+advice and many resolutions, the lovers could not help betraying their
+secret understanding to the watchful eyes of the abbe, Monsieur
+Bongrand, the Nemours doctor, and La Bougival.
+
+"Children," said the old man, "you are risking your happiness by not
+keeping it to yourselves."
+
+On the fete-day, after mass, during which several glances had been
+exchanged, Savinien, watched by Ursula, crossed the road and entered
+the little garden where the pair were practically alone; for the kind
+old man, by way of indulgence, was reading his newspapers in the
+pagoda.
+
+"Dear Ursula," said Savinien; "will you make a gift greater than my
+mother could make me even if--"
+
+"I know what you wish to ask me," she said, interrupting him. "See,
+here is my answer," she added, taking from the pocket of her apron the
+box containing the chain made of her hair, and offering it to him with
+a nervous tremor which testified to her illimitable happiness. "Wear
+it," she said, "for love of me. May it shield you from all dangers by
+reminding you that my life depends on yours."
+
+"Naughty little thing! she is giving him a chain of her hair," said
+the doctor to himself. "How did she manage to get it? what a pity to
+cut those beautiful fair tresses; she will be giving him my life's
+blood next."
+
+"You will not blame me if I ask you to give me, now that I am leaving
+you, a formal promise to have no other husband than me," said
+Savinien, kissing the chain and looking at Ursula with tears in his
+eyes.
+
+"Have I not said so too often--I who went to see the walls of Sainte-
+Pelagie when you were behind them?--" she replied, blushing. "I repeat
+it, Savinien; I shall never love any one but you, and I will be yours
+alone."
+
+Seeing that Ursula was half-hidden by the creepers, the young man
+could not deny himself the happiness of pressing her to his heart and
+kissing her forehead; but she gave a feeble cry and dropped upon the
+bench, and when Savinien sat beside her, entreating pardon, he saw the
+doctor standing before them.
+
+"My friend," said the old man, "Ursula is a born sensitive; too rough
+a word might kill her. For her sake you must moderate the enthusiasm
+of your love--Ah! if you had loved her for sixteen years as I have,
+you would have been satisfied with her word of promise," he added, to
+revenge himself for the last sentence in Savinien's second letter.
+
+Two days later the young man departed. In spite of the letters which
+he wrote regularly to Ursula, she fell a prey to an illness without
+apparent cause. Like a fine fruit with a worm at the core, a single
+thought gnawed her heart. She lost both appetite and color. The first
+time her godfather asked her what she felt, she replied:--
+
+"I want to see the ocean."
+
+"It is difficult to take you to a sea-port in the depth of winter,"
+answered the old man.
+
+"Shall I really go?" she said.
+
+If the wind was high, Ursula was inwardly convulsed, certain, in spite
+of the learned assurances of the doctor and the abbe, that Savinien
+was being tossed about in a whirlwind. Monsieur Bongrand made her
+happy for days with the gift of an engraving representing a midshipman
+in uniform. She read the newspapers, imagining that they would give
+news of the cruiser on which her lover sailed. She devoured Cooper's
+sea-tales and learned to use sea-terms. Such proofs of concentration
+of feeling, often assumed by other women, were so genuine in Ursula
+that she saw in dreams the coming of Savinien's letters, and never
+failed to announce them, relating the dream as a forerunner.
+
+"Now," she said to the doctor the fourth time that this happened, "I
+am easy; wherever Savinien may be, if he is wounded I shall know it
+instantly."
+
+The old doctor thought over this remark so anxiously that the abbe and
+Monsieur Bongrand were troubled by the sorrowful expression of his
+face.
+
+"What pains you?" they said, when Ursula had left them.
+
+"Will she live?" replied the doctor. "Can so tender and delicate a
+flower endure the trials of the heart?"
+
+Nevertheless, the "little dreamer," as the abbe called her, was
+working hard. She understood the importance of a fine education to a
+woman of the world, and all the time she did not give to her singing
+and to the study of harmony and composition she spent in reading the
+books chosen for her by the abbe from her godfather's rich library.
+And yet while leading this busy life she suffered, though without
+complaint. Sometimes she would sit for hours looking at Savinien's
+window. On Sundays she would leave the church behind Madame de
+Portenduere and watch her tenderly; for, in spite of the old lady's
+harshness, she loved her as Savinien's mother. Her piety increased;
+she went to mass every morning, for she firmly believed that her
+dreams were the gift of God.
+
+At last her godfather, frightened by the effects produced by this
+nostalgia of love, promised on her birthday to take her to Toulon to
+see the departure of the fleet for Algiers. Savinien's ship formed
+part of it, but he was not to be informed beforehand of their
+intention. The abbe and Monsieur Bongrand kept secret the object of
+this journey, said to be for Ursula's health, which disturbed and
+greatly puzzled the relations. After beholding Savinien in his naval
+uniform, and going on board the fine flag-ship of the admiral, to whom
+the minister had given young Portenduere a special recommendation,
+Ursula, at her lover's entreaty, went with her godfather to Nice, and
+along the shores of the Mediterranean to Genoa, where she heard of the
+safe arrival of the fleet at Algiers and the landing of the troops.
+The doctor would have liked to continue the journey through Italy, as
+much to distract Ursula's mind as to finish, in some sense, her
+education, by enlarging her ideas through comparison with other
+manners and customs and countries, and by the fascination of a land
+where the masterpieces of art can still be seen, and where so many
+civilizations have left their brilliant traces. But the tidings of the
+opposition by the throne to the newly elected Chamber of 1830 obliged
+the doctor to return to France, bringing back his treasure in a
+flourishing state of health and possessed of a charming little model
+of the ship on which Savinien was serving.
+
+The elections of 1830 united into an active body the various Minoret
+relations,--Desire and Goupil having formed a committee in Nemours by
+whose efforts a liberal candidate was put in nomination at
+Fontainebleau. Massin, as collector of taxes, exercised an enormous
+influence over the country electors. Five of the post master's farmers
+were electors. Dionis represented eleven votes. After a few meetings
+at the notary's, Cremiere, Massin, the post master, and their
+adherents took a habit of assembling there. By the time the doctor
+returned, Dionis's office and salon were the camp of his heirs. The
+justice of peace and the mayor, who had formed an alliance, backed by
+the nobility in the neighbouring castles, to resist the liberals of
+Nemours, now worsted in their efforts, were more closely united than
+ever by their defeat.
+
+By the time Bongrand and the Abbe Chaperon were able to tell the
+doctor by word of mouth the result of the antagonism, which was
+defined for the first time, between the two classes in Nemours (giving
+incidentally such importance to his heirs) Charles X. had left
+Rambouillet for Cherbourg. Desire Minoret, whose opinions were those
+of the Paris bar, sent for fifteen of his friends, commanded by Goupil
+and mounted on horses from his father's stable, who arrived in Paris
+on the night of the 28th. With this troop Goupil and Desire took part
+in the capture of the Hotel-de-Veille. Desire was decorated with the
+Legion of honor and appointed deputy procureur du roi at
+Fontainebleau. Goupil received the July cross. Dionis was elected
+mayor of Nemours, and the city council was composed of the post master
+(now assistant-mayor), Massin, Cremiere, and all the adherents of the
+family faction. Bongrand retained his place only through the influence
+of his son, procureur du roi at Melun, whose marriage with
+Mademoiselle Levrault was then on the tapis.
+
+Seeing the three-per-cents quoted at forty-five, the doctor started by
+post for Paris, and invested five hundred and forty thousand francs
+in shares to bearer. The rest of his fortune which amounted to about
+two hundred and seventy thousand francs, standing in his own name in
+the same funds, gave him ostensibly an income of fifteen thousand
+francs a year. He made the same disposition of Ursula's little capital
+bequeathed to her by de Jordy, together with the accrued interest
+thereon, which gave her about fourteen hundred francs a year in her
+own right. La Bougival, who had laid by some five thousand francs of
+her savings, did the same by the doctor's advice, receiving in future
+three hundred and fifty francs a year in dividends. These judicious
+transactions, agreed on between the doctor and Monsieur Bongrand, were
+carried out in perfect secrecy, thanks to the political troubles of
+the time.
+
+When quiet was again restored the doctor bought the little house which
+adjoined his own and pulled it down so as to build a coach-house and
+stables on its side. To employ a capital which would have given him a
+thousand francs a year on outbuildings seemed actual folly to the
+Minoret heirs. This folly, if it were one, was the beginning of a new
+era in the doctor's existence, for he now (at a period when horses and
+carriages were almost given away) brought back from Paris three fine
+horses and a caleche.
+
+When, in the early part of November, 1830, the old man came to church
+on a rainy day in the new carriage, and gave his hand to Ursula to
+help her out, all the inhabitants flocked to the square,--as much to
+see the caleche and question the coachman, as to criticize the
+goddaughter, to whose excessive pride and ambition Massin, Cremiere,
+the post master, and their wives attributed this extravagant folly of
+the old man.
+
+"A caleche! Hey, Massin!" cried Goupil. "Your inheritance will go at
+top speed now!"
+
+"You ought to be getting good wages, Cabirolle," said the post master
+to the son of one of his conductors, who stood by the horses; "for it
+is to be supposed an old man of eighty-four won't use up many horse-
+shoes. What did those horses cost?"
+
+"Four thousand francs. The caleche, though second-hand, was two
+thousand; but it's a fine one, the wheels are patent."
+
+"Yes, it's a good carriage," said Cremiere; "and a man must be rich to
+buy that style of thing."
+
+"Ursula means to go at a good pace," said Goupil. "She's right; she's
+showing you how to enjoy life. Why don't you have fine carriages and
+horses, papa Minoret? I wouldn't let myself be humiliated if I were
+you--I'd buy a carriage fit for a prince."
+
+"Come, Cabirolle, tell us," said Massin, "is it the girl who drives
+our uncle into such luxury?"
+
+"I don't know," said Cabirolle; "but she is almost mistress of the
+house. There are masters upon masters down from Paris. They say now
+she is going to study painting."
+
+"Then I shall seize the occasion to have my portrait drawn," said
+Madame Cremiere.
+
+In the provinces they always say a picture is drawn, not painted.
+
+"The old German is not dismissed, is he?" said Madame Massin.
+
+"He was there yesterday," replied Cabirolle.
+
+"Now," said Goupil, "you may as well give up counting on your
+inheritance. Ursula is seventeen years old, and she is prettier than
+ever. Travel forms young people, and the little minx has got your
+uncle in the toils. Five or six parcels come down for her by the
+diligence every week, and the dressmakers and milliners come too, to
+try on her gowns and all the rest of it. Madame Dionis is furious.
+Watch for Ursula as she comes out of church and look at the little
+scarf she is wearing round her neck,--real cashmere, and it cost six
+hundred francs!"
+
+If a thunderbolt had fallen in the midst of the heirs the effect would
+have been less than that of Goupil's last words; the mischief-maker
+stood by rubbing his hands.
+
+The doctor's old green salon had been renovated by a Parisian
+upholsterer. Judged by the luxury displayed, he was sometimes accused
+of hoarding immense wealth, sometimes of spending his capital on
+Ursula. The heirs called him in turn a miser and a spendthrift, but
+the saying, "He's an old fool!" summed upon, on the whole, the verdict
+of the neighbourhood. These mistaken judgments of the little town had
+the one advantage of misleading the heirs, who never suspected the
+love between Savinien and Ursula, which was the secret reason of the
+doctor's expenditure. The old man took the greatest delights in
+accustoming his godchild to her future station in the world.
+Possessing an income of over fifty thousand francs a year, it gave him
+pleasure to adorn his idol.
+
+In the month of February, 1832, the day when Ursula was eighteen, her
+eyes beheld Savinien in the uniform of an ensign as she looked from
+her window when she rose in the morning.
+
+"Why didn't I know he was coming?" she said to herself.
+
+After the taking of Algiers, Savinien had distinguished himself by an
+act of courage which won him the cross. The corvette on which he was
+serving was many months at sea without his being able to communicate
+with the doctor; and he did not wish to leave the service without
+consulting him. Desirous of retaining in the navy a name already
+illustrious in its service, the new government had profited by a
+general change of officers to make Savinien an ensign. Having obtained
+leave of absence for fifteen days, the new officer arrived from Toulon
+by the mail, in time for Ursula's fete, intending to consult the
+doctor at the same time.
+
+"He has come!" cried Ursula rushing into her godfather's bedroom.
+
+"Very good," he answered; "I can guess what brings him, and he may now
+stay in Nemours."
+
+"Ah! that's my birthday present--it is all in that sentence," she
+said, kissing him.
+
+On a sign, which she ran up to make from her window, Savinien came
+over at once; she longed to admire him, for he seemed to her so
+changed for the better. Military service does, in fact, give a certain
+grave decision to the air and carriage and gestures of a man, and an
+erect bearing which enables the most superficial observer to recognize
+a military man even in plain clothes. The habit of command produces
+this result. Ursula loved Savinien the better for it, and took a
+childlike pleasure in walking round the garden with him, taking his
+arm, and hearing him relate the part he played (as midshipman) in the
+taking of Algiers. Evidently Savinien had taken the city. The doctor,
+who had been watching them from his window as he dressed, soon came
+down. Without telling the viscount everything, he did say that, in
+case Madame de Portenduere consented to his marriage with Ursula, the
+fortune of his godchild would make his naval pay superfluous.
+
+"Alas!" said Savinien. "It will take a great deal of time to overcome
+my mother's opposition. Before I left her to enter the navy she was
+placed between two alternatives,--either to consent to my marrying
+Ursula or else to see me only from time to time and to know me exposed
+to the dangers of the profession; and you see she chose to let me go."
+
+"But, Savinien, we shall be together," said Ursula, taking his hand
+and shaking it with a sort of impatience.
+
+To see each other and not to part,--that was the all of love to her;
+she saw nothing beyond it; and her pretty gesture and the petulant
+tone of her voice expressed such innocence that Savinien and the
+doctor were both moved by it. The resignation was written and
+despatched, and Ursula's fete received full glory from the presence of
+her betrothed. A few months later, towards the month of May, the home-
+life of the doctor's household had resumed the quite tenor of its way
+but with one welcome visitor the more. The attentions of the young
+viscount were soon interpreted in the town as those of a future
+husband,--all the more because his manners and those of Ursula,
+whether in church, or on the promenade, though dignified and reserved,
+betrayed the understanding of their hearts. Dionis pointed out to the
+heirs that the doctor had never asked Madame de Portenduere for the
+interest of his money, three years of which was now due.
+
+"She'll be forced to yield, and consent to this derogatory marriage of
+her son," said the notary. "If such a misfortune happens it is
+probable that the greater part of your uncle's fortune will serve for
+what Basile calls 'an irresistible argument.'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+URSULA AGAIN ORPHANED
+
+The irritation of the heirs, when convinced that their uncle loved
+Ursula too well not to secure her happiness at their expense, became
+as underhand as it was bitter. Meeting in Dionis's salon (as they had
+done every evening since the revolution of 1830) they inveighed
+against the lovers, and seldom separated without discussing some way
+of circumventing the old man. Zelie, who had doubtless profited by the
+fall in the Funds, as the doctor had done, to invest some, at least,
+of her enormous gains, was bitterest of them all against the orphan
+girl and the Portendueres. One evening, when Goupil, who usually
+avoided the dullness of these meetings, had come in to learn something
+of the affairs of the town which were under discussion, Zelie's hatred
+was freshly excited; she had seen the doctor, Ursula, and Savinien
+returning in the caleche from a country drive, with an air of intimacy
+that told all.
+
+"I'd give thirty thousand francs if God would call uncle to himself
+before the marriage of young Portenduere with that affected minx can
+take place," she said.
+
+Goupil accompanied Monsieur and Madame Minoret to the middle of their
+great courtyard, and there said, looking round to see if they were
+quite alone:
+
+"Will you give me the means of buying Dionis's practice? If you will,
+I will break off the marriage between Portenduere and Ursula."
+
+"How?" asked the colossus.
+
+"Do you think I am such a fool as to tell you my plan?" said the
+notary's head clerk.
+
+"Well, my lad, separate them, and we'll see what we can do," said
+Zelie.
+
+"I don't embark in any such business on a 'we'll see.' The young man
+is a fire-eater who might kill me; I ought to be rough-shod and as
+good a hand with a sword or a pistol as he is. Set me up in business,
+and I'll keep my word."
+
+"Prevent the marriage and I will set you up," said the post master.
+
+"It is nine months since you have been thinking of lending me a paltry
+fifteen thousand francs to buy Lecoeur's practice, and you expect me
+to trust you now! Nonsense; you'll lose your uncle's property, and
+serve you right."
+
+"It if were only a matter of fifteen thousand francs and Lecoeur's
+practice, that might be managed," said Zelie; "but to give security
+for you in a hundred and fifty thousand is another thing."
+
+"But I'll do my part," said Goupil, flinging a seductive look at
+Zelie, which encountered the imperious glance of the post mistress.
+
+The effect was that of venom on steel.
+
+"We can wait," said Zelie.
+
+"The devil's own spirit is in you," thought Goupil. "If I ever catch
+that pair in my power," he said to himself as he left the yard, "I'll
+squeeze them like lemons."
+
+By cultivating the society of the doctor, the abbe, and Monsieur
+Bongrand, Savinien proved the excellence of his character. The love of
+this young man for Ursula, so devoid of self-interest, and so
+persistent, interested the three friends deeply, and they now never
+separated the lovers in their thoughts. Soon the monotony of this
+patriarchal life, and the certainty of a future before them, gave to
+their affection a fraternal character. The doctor often left the pair
+alone together. He judged the young man rightly; he saw him kiss her
+hand on arriving, but he knew he would ask no kiss when alone with
+her, so deeply did the lover respect the innocence, the frankness of
+the young girl, whose excessive sensibility, often tried, taught him
+that a harsh word, a cold look, or the alternations of gentleness and
+roughness might kill her. The only freedom between the two took place
+before the eyes of the old man in the evenings.
+
+Two years, full of secret happiness, passed thus,--without other
+events than the fruitless efforts made by the young man to obtain from
+his mother her consent to his marriage. He talked to her sometimes for
+hours together. She listened and made no answer to his entreaties,
+other than by Breton silence or a positive denial.
+
+At nineteen years of age Ursula, elegant in appearance, a fine
+musician, and well brought up, had nothing more to learn; she was
+perfected. The fame of her beauty and grace and education spread far.
+The doctor was called upon to decline the overtures of Madame
+d'Aiglemont, who was thinking of Ursula for her eldest son. Six months
+later, in spite of the secrecy the doctor and Ursula maintained on
+this subject, Savinien heard of it. Touched by so much delicacy, he
+made use of the incident in another attempt to vanquish his mother's
+obstinacy; but she merely replied:--
+
+"If the d'Aiglemonts choose to ally themselves ill, is that any reason
+why we should do so?"
+
+In December, 1834, the kind and now truly pious old doctor, then
+eighty-eight years old, declined visibly. When seen out of doors, his
+face pinched and wan and his eyes pale, all the town talked of his
+approaching death. "You'll soon know results," said the community to
+the heirs. In truth the old man's death had all the attraction of a
+problem. But the doctor himself did not know he was ill; he had his
+illusions, and neither poor Ursula nor Savinien nor Bongrand nor the
+abbe were willing to enlighten him as to his condition. The Nemours
+doctor who came to see him every day did not venture to prescribe. Old
+Minoret felt no pain; his lamp of life was gently going it. His mind
+continued firm and clear and powerful. In old men thus constituted the
+soul governs the body, and gives it strength to die erect. The abbe,
+anxious not to hasten the fatal end, released his parishioner from the
+duty of hearing mass in church, and allowed him to read the services
+at home, for the doctor faithfully attended to all his religious
+duties. The nearer he came to the grave the more he loved God; the
+lights eternal shone upon all difficulties and explained them more and
+more clearly to his mind. Early in the year Ursula persuaded him to
+sell the carriage and horses and dismiss Cabirolle. Monsieur Bongrand,
+whose uneasiness about Ursula's future was far from quieted by the
+doctor's half-confidence, boldly opened the subject one evening and
+showed his old friend the importance of making Ursula legally of age.
+Still the old man, though he had often consulted the justice of peace,
+would not reveal to him the secret of his provision for Ursula, though
+he agreed to the necessity of securing her independence by majority.
+The more Monsieur Bongrand persisted in his efforts to discover the
+means selected by his old friend to provide for his darling the more
+wary the doctor became.
+
+"Why not secure the thing," said Bongrand, "why run any risks?"
+
+"When you are between two risks," replied the doctor, "avoid the most
+risky."
+
+Bongrand carried through the business of making Ursula of age so
+promptly that the papers were ready by the day she was twenty. That
+anniversary was the last pleasure of the old doctor who, seized
+perhaps with a presentiment of his end, gave a little ball, to which
+he invited all the young people in the families of Dionis, Cremiere,
+Minoret, and Massin. Savinien, Bongrand, the abbe and his two
+assistant priests, the Nemours doctor, and Mesdames Zelie Minoret,
+Massin, and Cremiere, together with old Schmucke, were the guests at a
+grand dinner which preceded the ball.
+
+"I feel I am going," said the old man to the notary towards the close
+of the evening. "I beg you to come to-morrow and draw up my
+guardianship account with Ursula, so as not to complicate my property
+after my death. Thank God! I have not withdrawn one penny from my
+heirs,--I have disposed of nothing but my income. Messieurs Cremiere,
+Massin, and Minoret my nephew are members of the family council
+appointed for Ursula, and I wish them to be present at the rendering
+of my account."
+
+These words, heard by Massin and quickly passed from one to another
+round the ball-room, poured balm into the minds of the three families,
+who had lived in perpetual alternations of hope and fear, sometimes
+thinking they were certain of wealth, oftener that they were
+disinherited.
+
+When, about two in the morning, the guests were all gone and no one
+remained in the salon but Savinien, Bongrand, and the abbe, the old
+doctor said, pointing to Ursula, who was charming in her ball dress;
+"To you, my friends, I confide her! A few days more, and I shall be
+here no longer to protect her. Put yourselves between her and the
+world until she is married,--I fear for her."
+
+The words made a painful impression. The guardian's account, rendered
+a day or two later in presence of the family council, showed that
+Doctor Minoret owed a balance to his ward of ten thousand six hundred
+francs from the bequest of Monsieur de Jordy, and also from a little
+capital of gifts made by the doctor himself to Ursula during the last
+fifteen years, on birthdays and other anniversaries.
+
+This formal rendering of the account was insisted on by the justice of
+the peace, who feared (unhappily, with too much reason) the results of
+Doctor Minoret's death.
+
+The following day the old man was seized with a weakness which
+compelled him to keep his bed. In spite of the reserve which always
+surrounded the doctor's house and kept it from observation, the news
+of his approaching death spread through the town, and the heirs began
+to run hither and thither through the streets, like the pearls of a
+chaplet when the string is broken. Massin called at the house to learn
+the truth, and was told by Ursula herself that the doctor was in bed.
+The Nemours doctor had remarked that whenever old Minoret took to his
+bed he would die; and therefore in spite of the cold, the heirs took
+their stand in the street, on the square, at their own doorsteps,
+talking of the event so long looked for, and watching for the moment
+when the priests should appear, bearing the sacrament, with all the
+paraphernalia customary in the provinces, to the dying man.
+Accordingly, two days later, when the Abbe Chaperon, with an assistant
+and the choir-boys, preceded by the sacristan bearing the cross,
+passed along the Grand'Rue, all the heirs joined the procession, to
+get an entrance to the house and see that nothing was abstracted, and
+lay their eager hands upon its coveted treasures at the earliest
+moment.
+
+When the doctor saw, behind the clergy, the row of kneeling heirs, who
+instead of praying were looking at him with eyes that were brighter
+than the tapers, he could not restrain a smile. The abbe turned round,
+saw them, and continued to say the prayers slowly. The post master was
+the first to abandon the kneeling posture; his wife followed him.
+Massin, fearing that Zelie and her husband might lay hands on some
+ornament, joined them in the salon, where all the heirs were presently
+assembled one by one.
+
+"He is too honest a man to steal extreme unction," said Cremiere; "we
+may be sure of his death now."
+
+"Yes, we shall each get about twenty thousand francs a year," replied
+Madame Massin.
+
+"I have an idea," said Zelie, "that for the last three years he hasn't
+invested anything--he grew fond of hoarding."
+
+"Perhaps the money is in the cellar," whispered Massin to Cremiere.
+
+"I hope we shall be able to find it," said Minoret-Levrault.
+
+"But after what he said at the ball we can't have any doubt," cried
+Madame Massin.
+
+"In any case," began Cremiere, "how shall we manage? Shall we divide;
+shall we go to law; or could we draw lots? We are adults, you know--"
+
+A discussion, which soon became angry, now arose as to the method of
+procedure. At the end of half an hour a perfect uproar of voices,
+Zelie's screeching organ detaching itself from the rest, resounded in
+the courtyard and even in the street.
+
+The noise reached the doctor's ears; he heard the words, "The house--
+the house is worth thirty thousand francs. I'll take it at that,"
+said, or rather bellowed by Cremiere.
+
+"Well, we'll take what it's worth," said Zelie, sharply.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said the old man to the priest, who remained beside
+his friend after administering the communion, "help me to die in
+peace. My heirs, like those of Cardinal Ximenes, are capable of
+pillaging the house before my death, and I have no monkey to revive
+me. Go and tell them I will have none of them in my house."
+
+The priest and the doctor of the town went downstairs and repeated the
+message of the dying man, adding, in their indignation, strong words
+of their own.
+
+"Madame Bougival," said the doctor, "close the iron gate and allow no
+one to enter; even the dying, it seems, can have no peace. Prepare
+mustard poultices and apply them to the soles of Monsieur's feet."
+
+"Your uncle is not dead," said the abbe, "and he may live some time
+longer. He wishes for absolute silence, and no one beside him but his
+niece. What a difference between the conduct of that young girl and
+yours!"
+
+"Old hypocrite!" exclaimed Cremiere. "I shall keep watch of him. It is
+possible he's plotting something against our interests."
+
+The post master had already disappeared into the garden, intending to
+watch there and wait his chance to be admitted to the house as an
+assistant. He now returned to it very softly, his boots making no
+noise, for there were carpets on the stairs and corridors. He was able
+to reach the door of his uncle's room without being heard. The abbe
+and the doctor had left the house; La Bougival was making the
+poultices.
+
+"Are we quite alone?" said the old man to his godchild.
+
+Ursula stood on tiptoe and looked into the courtyard.
+
+"Yes," she said; "the abbe has just closed the gate after him."
+
+"My darling child," said the dying man, "my hours, my minutes even,
+are counted. I have not been a doctor for nothing; I shall not last
+till evening. Do not cry, my Ursula," he said, fearing to be
+interrupted by the child's weeping, "but listen to me carefully; it
+concerns your marriage to Savinien. As soon as La Bougival comes back
+go down to the pagoda,--here is the key,--lift the marble top of the
+Boule buffet and you will find a letter beneath it, sealed and
+addressed to you; take it and come back here, for I cannot die easy
+unless I see it in your hands. When I am dead do not let any one know
+of it immediately, but send for Monsieur de Portenduere; read the
+letter together; swear to me now, in his name and your own, that you
+will carry out my last wishes. When Savinien has obeyed me, then
+announce my death, but not till then. The comedy of the heirs will
+begin. God grant those monsters may not ill-treat you."
+
+"Yes godfather."
+
+The post master did not listen to the end of this scene; he slipped
+away on tip-toe, remembering that the lock of the study was on the
+library side of the door. He had been present in former days at an
+argument between the architect and a locksmith, the latter declaring
+that if the pagoda were entered by the window on the river it would be
+much safer to put the lock of the door opening into the library on the
+library side. Dazzled by his hopes, and his ears flushed with blood,
+Minoret sprang the lock with the point of his knife as rapidly as a
+burglar could have done it. He entered the study, followed the
+doctor's directions, took the package of papers without opening it,
+relocked the door, put everything in order, and went into the dining-
+room and sat down, waiting till La Bougival had gone upstairs with the
+poultice before he ventured to leave the house. He then made his
+escape,--all the more easily because poor Ursula lingered to see that
+La Bougival applied the poultice properly.
+
+"The letter! the letter!" cried the old man, in a dying voice. "Obey
+me; take the key. I must see you with that letter in your hand."
+
+The words were said with so wild a look that La Bougival exclaimed to
+Ursula:--
+
+"Do what he asks at once or you will kill him."
+
+She kissed his forehead, took the key and went down. A moment later,
+recalled by a cry from La Bougival, she ran back. The old man looked
+at her eagerly. Seeing her hands empty, he rose in his bed, tried to
+speak, and died with a horrible gasp, his eyes haggard with fear. The
+poor girl, who saw death for the first time, fell on her knees and
+burst into tears. La Bougival closed the old man's eyes and
+straightened him on the bed; then she ran to call Savinien; but the
+heirs, who stood at the corner of the street, like crows watching till
+a horse is buried before they scratch at the ground and turn it over
+with beak and claw, flocked in with the celerity of birds of prey.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+THE DOCTOR'S WILL
+
+While these events were taking place the post master had hurried home
+to open the mysterious package and know its contents.
+
+
+To my dear Ursula Mirouet, daughter of my natural half-brother,
+Joseph Mirouet, and Dinah Grollman:--
+
+My dear Angel,--The fatherly affection I bear you--and which you
+have so fully justified--came not only from the promise I gave
+your father to take his place, but also from your resemblance to
+my wife, Ursula Mirouet, whose grace, intelligence, frankness, and
+charm you constantly recall to my mind. Your position as the
+daughter of a natural son of my father-in-law might invalidate all
+testamentary bequests made by me in your favor--
+
+"The old rascal!" cried the post master.
+
+Had I adopted you the result might also have been a lawsuit, and I
+shrank from the idea of transmitting my fortune to you by
+marriage, for I might live years and thus interfere with your
+happiness, which is now delayed only by Madame de Portenduere.
+Having weighted these difficulties carefully, and wishing to leave
+you enough money to secure to you a prosperous existence--
+
+"The scoundrel, he has thought of everything!"
+
+  --without injuring my heirs--
+
+"The Jesuit! as if he did not owe us every penny of his money!"
+
+--I intend you to have the savings from my income which I have for
+the last eighteen years steadily invested, by the help of my
+notary, seeking to make you thereby as happy as any one can be
+made by riches. Without means, your education and your lofty ideas
+would cause you unhappiness. Besides, you ought to bring a liberal
+dowry to the fine young man who loves you. You will therefore find
+in the middle of the third volume of Pandects, folio, bound in red
+morocco (the last volume on the first shelf above the little table
+in the library, on the side of the room next the salon), three
+certificates of Funds in the three-per-cents, made out to bearer,
+each amounting to twelve thousand francs a year--
+
+"What depths of wickedness!" screamed the post master. "Ah! God would
+not permit me to be so defrauded."
+
+Take these at once, and also some uninvested savings made to this
+date, which you will find in the preceding volume. Remember, my
+darling child, that you must obey a wish that has made the
+happiness of my whole life; a wish that will force me to ask the
+intervention of God should you disobey me. But, to guard against
+all scruples in your dear conscience--for I well know how ready it
+is to torture you--you will find herewith a will in due form
+bequeathing these certificates to Monsieur Savinien de
+Portenduere. So, whether you possess them in your own name, or
+whether they come to you from him you love, they will be, in every
+sense, your legitimate property.
+
+Your godfather,
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+To this letter was annexed the following paper written on a sheet of
+stamped paper.
+
+
+This is my will: I, Denis Minoret, doctor of medicine, settled in
+Nemours, being of sound mind and body, as the date of this
+document will show, do bequeath my soul to God, imploring him to
+pardon my errors in view of my sincere repentance. Next, having
+found in Monsieur le Vicomte Savinien de Portenduere a true and
+honest affection for me, I bequeath to him the sum of thirty-six
+thousand francs a year from the Funds, at three per cent, the said
+bequest to take precedence of all inheritance accruing to my
+heirs.
+
+Written by my own hand, at Nemours, on the 11th of January, 1831.
+
+Denis Minoret.
+
+
+Without an instant's hesitation the post master, who had locked
+himself into his wife's bedroom to insure being alone, looked about
+for the tinder-box, and received two warnings from heaven by the
+extinction of two matches which obstinately refused to light. The
+third took fire. He burned the letter and the will on the hearth and
+buried the vestiges of paper and sealing-wax in the ashes by way of
+superfluous caution. Then, allured by the thought of possessing
+thirty-six thousand francs a year of which his wife knew nothing, he
+returned at full speed to his uncle's house, spurred by the only idea,
+a clear-cut, simple idea, which was able to piece and penetrate his
+dull brain. Finding the house invaded by the three families, now
+masters of the place, he trembled lest he should be unable to
+accomplish a project to which he gave no reflection whatever, except
+so far as to fear the obstacles.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he said to Massin and Cremiere. "We can't
+leave the house and the property to be pillaged. We are the heirs, but
+we can't camp here. You, Cremiere, go to Dionis at once and tell him
+to come and certify to the death; I can't draw up the mortuary
+certificate for an uncle, though I am assistant-mayor. You, Massin, go
+and ask old Bongrand to attach the seals. As for you, ladies," he
+added, turning to his wife and Mesdames Cremiere and Massin, "go and
+look after Ursula; then nothing can be stolen. Above all, close the
+iron gate and don't let any one leave the house."
+
+The women, who felt the justice of this remark, ran to Ursula's
+bedroom, where they found the noble girl, so cruelly suspected, on her
+knees before God, her face covered with tears. Minoret, suspecting
+that the women would not long remain with Ursula, went at once to the
+library, found the volume, opened it, took the three certificates, and
+found in the other volume about thirty bank notes. In spite of his
+brutal nature the colossus felt as though a peal of bells were ringing
+in each ear. The blood whistled in his temples as he committed the
+theft; cold as the weather was, his shirt was wet on his back; his
+legs gave way under him and he fell into a chair in the salon as if an
+axe had fallen on his head.
+
+"How the inheritance of money loosens a man's tongue! Did you hear
+Minoret?" said Massin to Cremiere as they hurried through the town.
+"'Go here, go there,' just as if he knew everything."
+
+"Yes, for a dull beast like him he had a certain air of--"
+
+"Stop!" said Massin, alarmed at a sudden thought. "His wife is there;
+they've got some plan! Do you do both errands; I'll go back."
+
+Just as the post master fell into the chair he saw at the gate the
+heated face of the clerk of the court who returned to the house of
+death with the celerity of a weasel.
+
+"Well, what is it now?" asked the post master, unlocking the gate for
+his co-heir.
+
+"Nothing; I have come back to be present at the sealing," answered
+Massin, giving him a savage look.
+
+"I wish those seals were already on, so that we could go home," said
+Minoret.
+
+"We shall have to put a watcher over them," said Massin. "La Bougival
+is capable of anything in the interests of that minx. We'll put Goupil
+there."
+
+"Goupil!" said the post master; "put a rat in the meal!"
+
+"Well, let's consider," returned Massin. "To-night they'll watch the
+body; the seals can be affixed in an hour; our wives could look after
+them. To-morrow we'll have the funeral at twelve o'clock. But the
+inventory can't be made under a week."
+
+"Let's get rid of that girl at once," said the colossus; "then we can
+safely leave the watchman of the town-hall to look after the house and
+the seals."
+
+"Good," cried Massin. "You are the head of the Minoret family."
+
+"Ladies," said Minoret, "be good enough to stay in the salon; we can't
+think of our dinner to-day; the seals must be put on at once for the
+security of all interests."
+
+He took his wife apart and told her Massin's proposition about Ursula.
+The women, whose hearts were full of vengeance against the minx, as
+they called her, hailed the idea of turning her out. Bongrand arrived
+with his assistants to apply the seals, and was indignant when the
+request was made to him, by Zelie and Madame Massin, as a near friend
+of the deceased, to tell Ursula to leave the house.
+
+"Go and turn her out of her father's house, her benefactor's house
+yourselves," he cried. "Go! you who owe your inheritance to the
+generosity of her soul; take her by the shoulders and fling her into
+the street before the eyes of the whole town! You think her capable of
+robbing you? Well, appoint a watcher of the seals; you have a right to
+do that. But I tell you at once I shall put no seals on Ursula's room;
+she has a right to that room, and everything in it is her own
+property. I shall tell her what her rights are, and tell her too to
+put everything that belongs to her in this house in that room-- Oh! in
+your presence," he said, hearing a growl of dissatisfaction among the
+heirs.
+
+"What do you think of that?" said the collector to the post master and
+the women, who seemed stupefied by the angry address of Bongrand.
+
+"Call HIM a magistrate!" cried the post master.
+
+Ursula meanwhile was sitting on her little sofa in a half-fainting
+condition, her head thrown back, her braids unfastened, while every
+now and then her sobs broke forth. Her eyes were dim and their lids
+swollen; she was, in fact, in a state of moral and physical
+prostration which might have softened the hardest hearts--except those
+of the heirs.
+
+"Ah! Monsieur Bongrand, after my happy birthday comes death and
+mourning," she said, with the poetry natural to her. "You know, YOU,
+what he was. In twenty years he never said an impatient word to me. I
+believed he would live a hundred years. He has been my mother," she
+cried, "my good, kind mother."
+
+These simple thoughts brought torrents of tears from her eyes,
+interrupted by sobs; then she fell back exhausted.
+
+"My child," said the justice of peace, hearing the heirs on the
+staircase. "You have a lifetime before you in which to weep, but you
+have now only a moment to attend to your interests. Gather everything
+that belongs to you in this house and put it into your own room at
+once. The heirs insist on my affixing the seals."
+
+"Ah! his heirs may take everything if they choose," cried Ursula,
+sitting upright under an impulse of savage indignation. "I have
+something here," she added, striking her breast, "which is far more
+precious--"
+
+"What is it?" said the post master, who with Massin at his heels now
+showed his brutal face.
+
+"The remembrances of his virtues, of his life, of his words--an image
+of his celestial soul," she said, her eyes and face glowing as she
+raised her hand with a glorious gesture.
+
+"And a key!" cried Massin, creeping up to her like a cat and seizing a
+key which fell from the bosom of her dress in her sudden movement.
+
+"Yes," she said, blushing, "that is the key of his study; he sent me
+there at the moment he was dying."
+
+The two men glanced at each other with horrid smiles, and then at
+Monsieur Bongrand, with a meaning look of degrading suspicion. Ursula
+who intercepted it, rose to her feet, pale as if the blood had left
+her body. Her eyes sent forth the lightnings that perhaps can issue
+only at some cost of life, as she said in a choking voice:--
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand, everything in this room is mine through the
+kindness of my godfather; they may have it all; I have nothing on me
+but the clothes I wear. I shall leave the house and never return to
+it."
+
+She went to her godfather's room, and no entreaties could make her
+leave it,--the heirs, who now began to be slightly ashamed of their
+conduct, endeavoring to persuade her. She requested Monsieur Bongrand
+to engage two rooms for her at the "Vieille Poste" inn until she could
+find some lodging in town where she could live with La Bougival. She
+returned to her own room for her prayer-book, and spent the night,
+with the abbe, his assistant, and Savinien, in weeping and praying
+beside her uncle's body. Savinien came, after his mother had gone to
+bed, and knelt, without a word, beside his Ursula. She smiled at him
+sadly, and thanked him for coming faithfully to share her troubles.
+
+"My child," said Monsieur Bongrand, bring her a large package, "one of
+your uncle's heirs has taken these necessary articles from your
+drawers, for the seals cannot be opened for several days; after that
+you will recover everything that belongs to you. I have, for your own
+sake, placed the seals on your room."
+
+"Thank you," she replied, pressing his hand. "Look at him again,--he
+seems to sleep, does he not?"
+
+The old man's face wore that flower of fleeting beauty which rests
+upon the features of the dead who die a painless death; light appeared
+to radiate from it.
+
+"Did he give you anything secretly before he died?" whispered M.
+Bongrand.
+
+"Nothing," she said; "he spoke only of a letter."
+
+"Good! it will certainly be found," said Bongrand. "How fortunate for
+you that the heirs demanded the sealing."
+
+At daybreak Ursula bade adieu to the house where her happy youth was
+passed; more particularly, to the modest chamber in which her love
+began. So dear to her was it that even in this hour of darkest grief
+tears of regret rolled down her face for the dear and peaceful haven.
+With one last glance at Savinien's windows she left the room and the
+house, and went to the inn accompanied by La Bougival, who carried the
+package, by Monsieur Bongrand, who gave her his arm, and by Savinien,
+her true protector.
+
+Thus it happened that in spite of all his efforts and cautions the
+worst fears of the justice of peace were realized; he was now to see
+Ursula without means and at the mercy of her benefactor's heirs.
+
+The next afternoon the whole town attended the doctor's funeral. When
+the conduct of the heirs to his adopted daughter was publicly known, a
+vast majority of the people thought it natural and necessary. An
+inheritance was involved; the good man was known to have hoarded;
+Ursula might think she had rights; the heirs were only defending their
+property; she had humbled them enough during their uncle's lifetime,
+for he had treated them like dogs and sent them about their business.
+
+Desire Minoret, who was not going to do wonders in life (so said those
+who envied his father), came down for the funeral. Ursula was unable
+to be present, for she was in bed with a nervous fever, caused partly
+by the insults of the heirs and partly by her heavy affliction.
+
+"Look at that hypocrite weeping," said some of the heirs, pointing to
+Savinien, who was deeply affected by the doctor's death.
+
+"The question is," said Goupil, "has he any good grounds for weeping.
+Don't laugh too soon, my friends; the seals are not yet removed."
+
+"Pooh!" said Minoret, who had good reason to know the truth, "you are
+always frightening us about nothing."
+
+As the funeral procession left the church to proceed to the cemetery,
+a bitter mortification was inflicted on Goupil; he tried to take
+Desire's arm, but the latter withdrew it and turned away from his
+former comrade in presence of all Nemours.
+
+"I won't be angry, or I couldn't get revenge," thought the notary's
+clerk, whose dry heart swelled in his bosom like a sponge.
+
+Before breaking the seals and making the inventory, it took some time
+for the procureur du roi, who is the legal guardian of orphans, to
+commission Monsieur Bongrand to act in his place. After that was done
+the settlement of the Minoret inheritance (nothing else being talked
+of in the town for ten days) began with all the legal formalities.
+Dionis had his pickings; Goupil enjoyed some mischief-making; and as
+the business was profitable the sessions were many. After the first of
+these sessions all parties breakfasted together; notary, clerk, heirs,
+and witnesses drank the best wines in the doctor's cellar.
+
+In the provinces, and especially in little towns where every one lives
+in his own house, it is sometimes very difficult to find a lodging.
+When a man buys a business of any kind the dwelling-house is almost
+always included in the purchase. Monsieur Bongrand saw no other way of
+removing Ursula from the village inn than to buy a small house on the
+Grand'Rue at the corner of the bridge over the Loing. The little
+building had a front door opening on a corridor, and one room on the
+ground-floor with two windows on the street; behind this came the
+kitchen, with a glass door opening to an inner courtyard about thirty
+feet square. A small staircase, lighted on the side towards the river
+by small windows, led to the first floor where there were three
+chambers, and above these were two attic rooms. Monsieur Bongrand
+borrowed two thousand francs from La Bougival's savings to pay the
+first instalment of the price,--six thousand francs,--and obtained
+good terms for payment of the rest. As Ursula wished to buy her
+uncle's books, Bongrand knocked down the partition between two rooms
+on the bedroom floor, finding that their united length was the same as
+that of the doctor's library, and gave room for his bookshelves.
+
+Savinien and Bongrand urged on the workmen who were cleaning,
+painting, and otherwise renewing the tiny place, so that before the
+end of March Ursula was able to leave the inn and take up her abode in
+the ugly house; where, however, she found a bedroom exactly like the
+one she had left; for it was filled with all her furniture, claimed by
+the justice of peace when the seals were removed. La Bougival,
+sleeping in the attic, could be summoned by a bell placed near the
+head of the young girl's bed. The room intended for the books, the
+salon on the ground-floor and the kitchen, though still unfurnished,
+had been hung with fresh papers and repainted, and only awaited the
+purchases which the young girl hoped to make when her godfather's
+effects were sold.
+
+Though the strength of Ursula's character was well known to the abbe
+and Monsieur Bongrand, they both feared the sudden change from the
+comfort and elegancies to which her uncle had accustomed her to this
+barren and denuded life. As for Savinien he wept over it. He did, in
+fact, make private payments to the workman and to the upholsterer, so
+that Ursula should perceive no difference between the new chamber and
+the old one. But the young girl herself, whose happiness now lay in
+Savinien's own eyes, showed the gentlest resignation, which endeared
+her more and more to her two old friends, and proved to them for the
+hundredth time that no troubles but those of the heart could make her
+suffer. The grief she felt for the loss of her godfather was far too
+deep to let her even feel the bitterness of her change of fortune,
+though it added fresh obstacles to her marriage. Savinien's distress
+in seeing her thus reduced did her so much harm that she whispered to
+him, as they came from mass on the morning on the day when she first
+went to live in her new house:
+
+"Love could not exist without patience; let us wait."
+
+As soon as the form of the inventory was drawn up, Massin, advised by
+Goupil (who turned to him under the influence of his secret hatred to
+the post master), summoned Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere to pay
+off the mortgage which had now elapsed, together with the interest
+accruing thereon. The old lady was bewildered at a summons to pay one
+hundred and twenty-nine thousand five hundred and seventeen francs
+within twenty-four hours under pain of execution on her house. It was
+impossible for her to borrow the money. Savinien went to
+Fontainebleau to consult a lawyer.
+
+"You are dealing with a bad set of people who will not compromise,"
+was the lawyer's opinion. "They intend to sue in the matter and get
+your farm at Bordieres. The best way for you would be to make a
+voluntary sale of it and so escape costs."
+
+This dreadful news broke down the old lady. Her son very gently
+pointed out to her that had she consented to his marriage in Minoret's
+life-time, the doctor would have left his property to Ursula's husband
+and they would to-day have been opulent instead of being, as they now
+were, in the depths of poverty. Though said without reproach, this
+argument annihilated the poor woman even more than the thought of her
+coming ejectment. When Ursula heard of this catastrophe she was
+stupefied with grief, having scarcely recovered from her fever, and
+the blow which the heirs had already dealt her. To love and be unable
+to succor the man she loves,--that is one of the most dreadful of all
+sufferings to the soul of a noble and sensitive woman.
+
+"I wished to buy my uncle's house," she said, "now I will buy your
+mother's."
+
+"Can you?" said Savinien. "You are a minor, and you cannot sell out
+your Funds without formalities to which the procureur du roi, now your
+legal guardian, would not agree. We shall not resist. The whole town
+will be glad to see the discomfiture of a noble family. These
+bourgeois are like hounds after a quarry. Fortunately, I still have
+ten thousand francs left, on which I can support my mother till this
+deplorable matter is settled. Besides, the inventory of your
+godfather's property is not yet finished; Monsieur Bongrand still
+thinks he shall find something for you. He is as much astonished as I
+am that you seem to be left without fortune. The doctor so often spoke
+both to him and to me of the future he had prepared for you that
+neither of us can understand this conclusion."
+
+"Pooh!" she said; "so long as I can buy my godfather's books and
+furniture and prevent their being dispersed, I am content."
+
+"But who knows the price these infamous creatures will set on anything
+you want?"
+
+Nothing was talked of from Montargis to Fontainebleau but the million
+for which the Minoret heirs were searching. But the most minute search
+made in every corner of the house after the seals were removed,
+brought no discovery. The one hundred and twenty-nine thousand francs
+of the Portenduere debt, the capital of the fifteen thousand a year in
+the three per cents (then quoted at 76), the house, valued at forty
+thousand francs, and its handsome furniture, produced a total of about
+six hundred thousand francs, which to most persons seemed a comforting
+sum. But what had become of the money the doctor must have saved?
+
+Minoret began to have gnawing anxieties. La Bougival and Savinien, who
+persisted in believing, as did the justice of peace, in the existence
+of a will, came every day at the close of each session to find out
+from Bongrand the results of the day's search. The latter would
+sometimes exclaim, before the agents and the heirs were fairly out of
+hearing, "I can't understand the thing!" Bongrand, Savinien, and the
+abbe often declared to each other that the doctor, who received no
+interest from the Portenduere loan, could not have kept his house as
+he did on fifteen thousand francs a year. This opinion, openly
+expressed, made the post master turn livid more than once.
+
+"Yet they and I have rummaged everywhere," said Bongrand,--"they to
+find money, and I to find a will in favor of Monsieur de Portenduere.
+They have sifted the ashes, lifted the marbles, felt of the slippers,
+bored into the wood-work of the beds, emptied the mattresses, ripped
+up the quilts, turned his eider-down inside-out, examined every inch
+of paper piece by piece, searched the drawers, dug up the cellar floor
+--and I have urged on their devastations."
+
+"What do you think about it?" said the abbe.
+
+"The will has been suppressed by one of the heirs."
+
+"But where's the property?"
+
+"We may whistle for it!"
+
+"Perhaps the will is hidden in the library," said Savinien.
+
+"Yes, and for that reason I don't dissuade Ursula from buying it. If
+it were not for that, it would be absurd to let her put every penny of
+her ready money into books she will never open."
+
+At first the whole town believed the doctor's niece had got possession
+of the unfound capital; but when it was known positively that fourteen
+hundred francs a year and her gifts constituted her whole fortune the
+search of the doctor's house and furniture excited a more wide-spread
+curiosity than before. Some said the money would be found in bank
+bills hidden away in the furniture, others that the old man had
+slipped them into his books. The sale of the effects exhibited a
+spectacle of the most extraordinary precautions on the part of the
+heirs. Dionis, who was doing duty as auctioneeer, declared, as each
+lot was cried out, that the heirs only sold the article (whatever it
+was) and not what it might contain; then, before allowing it to be
+taken away it was subjected to a final investigation, being thumped
+and sounded; and when at last it left the house the sellers followed
+with the looks a father might cast upon a son who was starting for
+India.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival, returning from the first
+session in despair, "I shall not go again. Monsieur Bongrand is right,
+you could never bear the sight. Everything is ticketed. All the town
+is coming and going just as in the street; the handsome furniture is
+being ruined, they even stand upon it; the whole place is such a
+muddle that a hen couldn't find her chicks. You'd think there had been
+a fire. Lots of things are in the courtyard; the closets are all open,
+and nothing in them. Oh! the poor dear man, it's well he died, the
+sight would have killed him."
+
+Bongrand, who bought for Ursula certain articles which her uncle
+cherished, and which were suitable for her little house, did not
+appear at the sale of the library. Shrewder than the heirs, whose
+cupidity might have run up the price of the books had they known he
+was buying them for Ursula, he commissioned a dealer in old books
+living in Melun to buy them for him. As a result of the heir's anxiety
+the whole library was sold book by book. Three thousand volumes were
+examined, one by one, held by the two sides of the binding and shaken
+so that loose papers would infallibly fall out. The whole amount of
+the purchases on Ursula's account amounted to six thousand five
+hundred francs or thereabouts. The book-cases were not allowed to
+leave the premises until carefully examined by a cabinet-maker,
+brought down from Paris to search for secret drawers. When at last
+Monsieur Bongrand gave orders to take the books and the bookcases to
+Mademoiselle Mirouet's house the heirs were tortured with vague fears,
+not dissipated until in course of time they saw how poorly she lived.
+
+Minoret bought up his uncle's house, the value of which his co-heirs
+ran up to fifty thousand francs, imagining that the post master
+expected to find a treasure in the walls; in fact the house was sold
+with a reservation on this subject. Two weeks later Minoret disposed
+of his post establishment, with all the coaches and horses, to the son
+of a rich farmer, and went to live in his uncle's house, where he
+spent considerable sums in repairing and refurnishing the rooms. By
+making this move he thoughtlessly condemned himself to live within
+sight of Ursula.
+
+"I hope," he said to Dionis the day when Madame de Portenduere was
+summoned to pay her debt, "that we shall soon be rid of those nobles;
+after they are gone we'll drive out the rest."
+
+"That old woman with fourteen quarterings," said Goupil, "won't want
+to witness her own disaster; she'll go and die in Brittany, where she
+can manage to find a wife for her son."
+
+"No," said the notary, who had that morning drawn out a deed of sale
+at Bongrand's request. "Ursula has just bought the house she is living
+in."
+
+"That cursed fool does everything she can to annoy me!" cried the post
+master imprudently.
+
+"What does it signify to you whether she lives in Nemours or not?"
+asked Goupil, surprised at the annoyance which the colossus betrayed.
+
+"Don't you know," answered Minoret, turning as red as a poppy, "that
+my son is fool enough to be in love with her? I'd give five hundred
+francs if I could get Ursula out of this town."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE TWO ADVERSARIES
+
+Perhaps the foregoing conduct on the part of the post master will have
+shown already that Ursula, poor and resigned, was destined to be a
+thorn in the side of the rich Minoret. The bustle attending the
+settlement of an estate, the sale of the property, the going and
+coming necessitated by such unusual business, his discussions with his
+wife about the most trifling details, the purchase of the doctor's
+house, where Zelie wished to live in bourgeois style to advance her
+son's interests,--all this hurly-burly, contrasting with his usually
+tranquil life hindered the huge Minoret from thinking of his victim.
+But about the middle of May, a few days after his installation in the
+doctor's house, as he was coming home from a walk, he heard the sound
+of a piano, saw La Bougival sitting at a window, like a dragon
+guarding a treasure, and suddenly became aware of an importunate voice
+within him.
+
+To explain why to a man of Minoret's nature the sight of Ursula, who
+had no suspicion of the theft committed upon her, now became
+intolerable; why the spectacle of so much fortitude under misfortune
+impelled him to a desire to drive the girl out of town; and how and
+why it was that this desire took the form of hatred and revenge, would
+require a whole treatise on moral philosophy. Perhaps he felt he was
+not the real possessor of thirty-six thousand francs a year so long as
+she to whom they really belonged lived near him. Perhaps he fancied
+some mere chance might betray his theft if the person despoiled was
+not got rid of. Perhaps to a nature in some sort primitive, almost
+uncivilized, and whose owner up to that time had never done anything
+illegal, the presence of Ursula awakened remorse. Possibly this
+remorse goaded him the more because he had received his share of the
+property legitimately acquired. In his own mind he no doubt attributed
+these stirrings of his conscience to the fact of Ursula's presence,
+imagining that if she were removed all his uncomfortable feelings
+would disappear with her. But still, after all, perhaps crime has its
+own doctrine of perfection. A beginning of evil demands its end; a
+first stab must be followed by the blow that kills. Perhaps robbery is
+doomed to lead to murder. Minoret had committed the crime without the
+slightest reflection, so rapidly had the events taken place;
+reflection came later. Now, if you have thoroughly possessed yourself
+of this man's nature and bodily presence you will understand the
+mighty effect produced on him by a thought. Remorse is more than a
+thought; it comes from a feeling which can no more be hidden than
+love; like love, it has its own tyranny. But, just as Minoret had
+committed the crime against Ursula without the slightest reflection,
+so he now blindly longed to drive her from Nemours when he felt
+himself disturbed by the sight of that wronged innocence. Being, in a
+sense, imbecile, he never thought of the consequences; he went from
+danger to danger, driven by a selfish instinct, like a wild animal
+which does not foresee the huntsman's skill, and relies on its own
+rapidity or strength. Before long the rich bourgeois, who still met in
+Dionis's salon, noticed a great change in the manners and behavior of
+the man who had hitherto been so free of care.
+
+"I don't know what has come to Minoret, he is all NO HOW," said his
+wife, from whom he was resolved to hide his daring deed.
+
+Everybody explained his condition as being, neither more nor less,
+ennui (in fact the thought now expressed on his face did resemble
+ennui), caused, they said, by the sudden cessation of business and the
+change from an active life to one of well-to-do leisure.
+
+While Minoret was thinking only of destroying Ursula's life in
+Nemours, La Bougival never let a day go by without torturing her
+foster child with some allusion to the fortune she ought to have had,
+or without comparing her miserable lot with the prospects the doctor
+had promised, and of which he had often spoken to her, La Bougival.
+
+"It is not for myself I speak," she said, "but is it likely that
+monsieur, good and kind as he was, would have died without leaving me
+the merest trifle?--"
+
+"Am I not here?" replied Ursula, forbidding La Bougival to say another
+word on the subject.
+
+She could not endure to soil the dear and tender memories that
+surrounded that noble head--a sketch of which in black and white hung
+in her little salon--with thoughts of selfish interest. To her fresh
+and beautiful imagination that sketch sufficed to make her SEE her
+godfather, on whom her thoughts continually dwelt, all the more
+because surrounded with the things he loved and used,--his large
+duchess-sofa, the furniture from his study, his backgammon-table, and
+the piano he had chosen for her. The two old friends who still
+remained to her, the Abbe Chaperon and Monsieur Bongrand, the only
+visitors whom she received, were, in the midst of these inanimate
+objects representative of the past, like two living memories of her
+former life to which she attached her present by the love her
+godfather had blessed.
+
+After a while the sadness of her thoughts, softening gradually, gave
+tone to the general tenor of her life and united all its parts in an
+indefinable harmony, expressed by the exquisite neatness, the exact
+symmetry of her room, the few flowers sent by Savinien, the dainty
+nothings of a young girl's life, the tranquillity which her quiet
+habits diffused about her, giving peace and composure to the little
+home. After breakfast and after mass she continued her studies and
+practiced; then she took her embroidery and sat at the window looking
+on the street. At four o'clock Savinien, returning from a walk (which
+he took in all weathers), finding the window open, would sit upon the
+outer casing and talk with her for half an hour. In the evening the
+abbe and Monsieur Bongrand came to see her, but she never allowed
+Savinien to accompany them. Neither did she accept Madame de
+Portenduere's proposition, which Savinien had induced his mother to
+make, that she should visit there.
+
+Ursula and La Bougival lived, moreover, with the strictest economy;
+they did not spend, counting everything, more than sixty francs a
+month. The old nurse was indefatigable; she washed and ironed; cooked
+only twice a week,--mistress and maid eating their food cold on other
+days; for Ursula was determined to save the seven hundred francs still
+due on the purchase of the house. This rigid conduct, together with
+her modesty and her resignation to a life of poverty after the
+enjoyment of luxury and the fond indulgence of all her wishes, deeply
+impressed certain persons. Ursula won the respect of others, and no
+voice was raised against her. Even the heirs, once satisfied, did her
+justice. Savinien admired the strength of character of so young a
+girl. From time to time Madame de Portenduere, when they met in
+church, would address a few kind words to her, and twice she insisted
+on her coming to dinner and fetched her herself. If all this was not
+happiness it was at least tranquillity. But a benefit which came to
+Ursula through the legal care and ability of Bongrand started the
+smouldering persecution which up to this time had laid in Minoret's
+breast as a dumb desire.
+
+As soon as the legal settlement of the doctor's estate was finished,
+the justice of peace, urged by Ursula, took the cause of the
+Portendueres in hand and promised her to get them out of their
+trouble. In dealing with the old lady, whose opposition to Ursula's
+happiness made him furious, he did not allow her to be ignorant of the
+fact that his devotion to her service was solely to give pleasure to
+Mademoiselle Mirouet. He chose one of his former clerks to act for the
+Portendueres at Fontainebleau, and himself put in a motion for a stay
+of proceedings. He intended to profit by the interval which must
+elapse between the stoppage of the present suit and some new step on
+the part of Massin to renew the lease at six thousand francs, get a
+premium from the present tenants and the payment in full of the rent
+of the current year.
+
+At this time, when these matters had to be discussed, the former
+whist-parties were again organized in Madame de Portenduere's salon,
+between himself, the abbe, Savinien, and Ursula, whom the abbe and he
+escorted there and back every evening. In June, Bongrand succeeded in
+quashing the proceedings; whereupon the new lease was signed; he
+obtained a premium of thirty-two thousand francs from the farmer and a
+rent of six thousand a year for eighteen years. The evening of the day
+on which this was finally settled he went to see Zelie, whom he knew
+to be puzzled as to how to invest her money, and proposed to sell her
+the farm at Bordieres for two hundred and twenty thousand francs.
+
+"I'd buy it at once," said Minoret, "if I were sure the Portendueres
+would go and live somewhere else."
+
+"Why?" said the justice of peace.
+
+"We want to get rid of the nobles in Nemours."
+
+"I did hear the old lady say that if she could settle her affairs she
+should go and live in Brittany, as she would not have means enough
+left to live her. She is thinking of selling her house."
+
+"Well, sell it to me," said Minoret.
+
+"To you?" said Zelie. "You talk as if you were master of everything.
+What do you want with two houses in Nemours?"
+
+"If I don't settle this matter of the farm with you to-night," said
+Bongrand, "our lease will get known, Massin will put in a fresh claim,
+and I shall lose this chance of liquidation which I am anxious to
+make. So if you don't take my offer I shall go at once to Melun, where
+some farmers I know are ready to buy the farm with their eyes shut."
+
+"Why did you come to us, then?" said Zelie.
+
+"Because you can pay me in cash, and my other clients would make me
+wait some time for the money. I don't want difficulties."
+
+"Get HER out of Nemours and I'll pay it," exclaimed Minoret.
+
+"You understand that I cannot answer for Madame de Portenduere's
+actions," said Bongrand. "I can only repeat what I heard her say, but
+I feel certain they will not remain in Nemours."
+
+On this assurance, enforced by a nudge from Zelie, Minoret agreed to
+the purchase, and furnished the funds to pay off the mortgage due to
+the doctor's estate. The deed of sale was immediately drawn up by
+Dionis. Towards the end of June Bongrand brought the balance of the
+purchase money to Madame de Portenduere, advising her to invest it in
+the Funds, where, joined to Savinien's ten thousand, it would give
+her, at five per cent, an income of six thousand francs. Thus, so far
+from losing her resources, the old lady actually gained by the
+transaction. But she did not leave Nemours. Minoret thought he had
+been tricked,--as though Bongrand had had an idea that Ursula's
+presence was intolerable to him; and he felt a keen resentment which
+embittered his hatred to his victim. Then began a secret drama which
+was terrible in its effects,--the struggle of two determinations; one
+which impelled Minoret to drive his victim from Nemours, the other
+which gave Ursula the strength to bear persecution, the cause of which
+was for a certain length of time undiscoverable. The situation was a
+strange and even unnatural one, and yet it was led up to by all the
+preceding events, which served as a preface to what was now to occur.
+
+Madame Minoret, to whom her husband had given a handsome silver
+service costing twenty thousand francs, gave a magnificent dinner
+every Sunday, the day on which her son, the deputy procureur, came
+from Fontainebleau, bringing with him certain of his friends. On these
+occasions Zelie sent to Paris for delicacies--obliging Dionis the
+notary to emulate her display. Goupil, whom the Minorets endeavored to
+ignore as a questionable person who might tarnish their splendor, was
+not invited until the end of July. The clerk, who was fully aware of
+this intended neglect, was forced to be respectful to Desire, who,
+since his entrance into office, had assumed a haughty and dignified
+air, even in his own family.
+
+"You must have forgotten Esther," Goupil said to him, "as you are so
+much in love with Mademoiselle Mirouet."
+
+"In the first place, Esther is dead, monsieur; and in the next I have
+never even thought of Ursula," said the new magistrate.
+
+"Why, what did you tell me, papa Minoret?" cried Goupil, insolently.
+
+Minoret, caught in a lie by a man whom he feared, would have lost
+countenance if it had not been for a project in his head, which was,
+in fact, the reason why Goupil was invited to dinner,--Minoret having
+remembered the proposition the clerk had once made to prevent the
+marriage between Savinien and Ursula. For all answer, he led Goupil
+hurriedly to the end of the garden.
+
+"You'll soon be twenty-eight years old, my good fellow," said he, "and
+I don't see that you are on the road to fortune. I wish you well, for
+after all you were once my son's companion. Listen to me. If you can
+persuade that little Mirouet, who possesses in her own right forty
+thousand francs, to marry you, I will give you, as true as my name is
+Minoret, the means to buy a notary's practice at Orleans."
+
+"No," said Goupil, "that's too far out of the way; but Montargis--"
+
+"No," said Minoret; "Sens."
+
+"Very good,--Sens," replied the hideous clerk. "There's an archbishop
+at Sens, and I don't object to devotion; a little hypocrisy and there
+you are, on the way to fortune. Besides, the girl is pious, and she'll
+succeed at Sens."
+
+"It is to be fully understood," continued Minoret, "that I shall not
+pay the money till you marry my cousin, for whom I wish to provide,
+out of consideration for my deceased uncle."
+
+"Why not for me too?" said Goupil maliciously, instantly suspecting a
+secret motive in Minoret's conduct. "Isn't it through information you
+got from me that you make twenty-four thousand a year from that land,
+without a single enclosure, around the Chateau du Rouvre? The fields
+and the mill the other side of the Loing make sixteen thousand more.
+Come, old fellow, do you mean to play fair with me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"If I wanted to show my teeth I could coax Massin to buy the Rouvre
+estate, park, gardens, preserves, and timber--"
+
+"You'd better think twice before you do that," said Zelie, suddenly
+intervening.
+
+"If I choose," said Goupil, giving her a viperish look; "Massin would
+buy the whole for two hundred thousand francs."
+
+"Leave us, wife," said the colossus, taking Zelie by the arm, and
+shoving her away; "I understand him. We have been so very busy," he
+continued, returning to Goupil, "that we have had no time to think of
+you; but I rely on your friendship to buy the Rouvre estate for me."
+
+"It is a very ancient marquisate," said Goupil, maliciously; "which
+will soon be worth in your hands fifty thousand francs a year; that
+means a capital of more than two millions as money is now."
+
+"My son could then marry the daughter of a marshal of France, or the
+daughter of some old family whose influence would get him a fine place
+under the government in Paris," said Minoret, opening his huge snuff-
+box and offering a pinch to Goupil.
+
+"Very good; but will you play fair?" cried Goupil, shaking his
+fingers.
+
+Minoret pressed the clerk's hands replying:--
+
+"On my word of honor."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE MALIGNITY OF PROVINCIAL MINDS
+
+Like all crafty persons, Goupil, fortunately for Minoret, believed
+that the proposed marriage with Ursula was only a pretext on the part
+of the colossus and Zelie for making up with him, now that he was
+opposing them with Massin.
+
+"It isn't he," thought Goupil, "who has invented this scheme; I know
+my Zelie,--she taught him his part. Bah! I'll let Massin go. In three
+years time I'll be deputy from Sens." Just then he saw Bongrand on his
+way to the opposite house for his whist, and he rushed hastily after
+him.
+
+"You take a great interest in Mademoiselle Mirouet, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand," he said. "I know you will not be indifferent to her future.
+Her relations are considering it, and there is the programme; she
+ought to marry a notary whose practice should be in the chief town of
+an arrondisement. This notary, who would of course be elected deputy
+in three years, should settle on a dower of a hundred thousand francs
+on her."
+
+"She can do better than that," said Bongrand coldly. "Madame de
+Portenduere is greatly changed since her misfortunes; trouble is
+killing her. Savinien will have six thousand francs a year, and Ursula
+has a capital of forty thousand. I shall show them how to increase it
+a la Massin, but honestly, and in ten years they will have a little
+fortune.
+
+"Savinien will do a foolish thing," said Goupil; "he can marry
+Mademoiselle du Rouvre whenever he likes,--an only daughter to whom
+the uncle and aunt intend to leave a fine property."
+
+"Where love enters farewell prudence, as La Fontaine says-- By the
+bye, who is your notary?" added Bongrand from curiosity.
+
+"Suppose it were I?" answered Goupil.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Bongrand, without hiding his disgust.
+
+"Well, well!--Adieu, monsieur," replied Goupil, with a parting glance
+of gall and hatred and defiance.
+
+"Do you wish to be the wife of a notary who will settle a hundred
+thousand francs on you?" cried Bongrand entering Madame de
+Portenduere's little salon, where Ursula was seated beside the old
+lady.
+
+Ursula and Savinien trembled and looked at each other,--she smiling,
+he not daring to show his uneasiness.
+
+"I am not mistress of myself," said Ursula, holding out her hand to
+Savinien in such a way that the old lady did not perceive the gesture.
+
+"Well, I have refused the offer without consulting you."
+
+"Why did you do that?" said Madame de Portenduere. "I think the
+position of a notary is a very good one."
+
+"I prefer my peaceful poverty," said Ursula, "which is really wealth
+compared with what my station in life might have given me. Besides, my
+old nurse spares me a great deal of care, and I shall not exchange the
+present, which I like, for an unknown fate."
+
+A few weeks later the post poured into two hearts the poison of
+anonymous letters,--one addressed to Madame de Portenduere, the other
+to Ursula. The following is the one to the old lady:--
+
+  "You love your son, you wish to marry him in a manner conformable
+  with the name he bears; and yet you encourage his fancy for an
+  ambitious girl without money and the daughter of a regimental band-
+  master, by inviting her to your house. You ought to marry him to
+  Mademoiselle du Rouvre, on whom her two uncles, the Marquis de
+  Ronquerolles and the Chevalier du Rouvre, who are worth money, would
+  settle a handsome sum rather than leave it to that old fool the
+  Marquis du Rouvre, who runs through everything. Madame de Serizy,
+  aunt of Clementine du Rouvre, who has just lost her only son in the
+  campaign in Algiers, will no doubt adopt her niece. A person who is
+  your well-wisher assures you that Savinien will be accepted."
+
+The letter to Ursula was as follows:--
+
+  Dear Ursula,--There is a young man in Nemours who idolizes you. He
+  cannot see you working at your window without emotions which prove
+  to him that his love will last through life. This young man is
+  gifted with an iron will and a spirit of perseverance which
+  nothing can discourage. Receive his addresses favorably, for his
+  intentions are pure, and he humbly asks your hand with a sincere
+  desire to make you happy. His fortune, already suitable, is
+  nothing to that which he will make for you when you are once his
+  wife. You shall be received at court as the wife of a minister and
+  one of the first ladies in the land.
+
+  As he sees you every day (without your being able to see him) put
+  a pot of La Bougival's pinks in your window and he will understand
+  from that that he has your permission to present himself.
+
+Ursula burned the letter and said nothing about it to Savinien. Two
+days later she received another letter in the following language:--
+
+  "You do wrong, my dear Ursula, not to answer one who loves you
+  better than life itself. You think you will marry Savinien--you
+  are very much mistaken. That marriage will not take place. Madame
+  de Portenduere went this morning to Rouvre to ask for the hand of
+  Mademoiselle Clementine for her son. Savinien will yield in the
+  end. What objection can he make? The uncles of the young lady are
+  willing to guarantee their fortune to her; it amounts to over
+  sixty thousand francs a year."
+
+This letter agonized Ursula's heart and afflicted her with the
+tortures of jealousy, a form of suffering hitherto unknown to her, but
+which to this fine organization, so sensitive to pain, threw a pall
+over the present and over the future, and even over the past. From the
+moment when she received this fatal paper she lay on the doctor's
+sofa, her eyes fixed on space, lost in a dreadful dream. In an instant
+the chill of death had come upon her warm young life. Alas, worse than
+that! it was like the awful awakening of the dead to the sense that
+there was no God,--the masterpiece of that strange genius called Jean
+Paul. Four times La Bougival called her to breakfast. When the
+faithful creature tried to remonstrate, Ursula waved her hand and
+answered in one harsh word, "Hush!" said despotically, in strange
+contrast to her usual gentle manner. La Bougival, watching her
+mistress through the glass door, saw her alternately red with a
+consuming fever, and blue as if a shudder of cold had succeeded that
+unnatural heat. This condition grew worse and worse up to four
+o'clock; then she rose to see if Savinien were coming, but he did not
+come. Jealousy and distrust tear all reserves from love. Ursula, who
+till then had never made one gesture by which her love could be
+guessed, now took her hat and shawl and rushed into the passage as if
+to go and meet him. But an afterthought of modesty sent her back to
+her little salon, where she stayed and wept. When the abbe arrived in
+the evening La Bougival met him at the door.
+
+"Ah, monsieur!" she cried; "I don't know what's the matter with
+mademoiselle; she is--"
+
+"I know," said the abbe sadly, stopping the words of the poor nurse.
+
+He then told Ursula (what she had not dared to verify) that Madame de
+Portenduere had gone to dine at Rouvre.
+
+"And Savinien too?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Ursula was seized with a little nervous tremor which made the abbe
+quiver as though a whole Leyden jar had been discharged at him; he
+felt moreover a lasting commotion in his heart.
+
+"So we shall not go there to-night," he said as gently as he could;
+"and, my child, it would be better if you did not go there again. The
+old lady will receive you in a way to wound your pride. Monsieur
+Bongrand and I, who had succeeded in bringing her to consider your
+marriage, have no idea from what quarter this new influence has come
+to change her, as it were in a moment."
+
+"I expect the worst; nothing can surprise me now," said Ursula in a
+pained voice. "In such extremities it is a comfort to feel that we
+have done nothing to displease God."
+
+"Submit, dear daughter, and do not seek to fathom the ways of
+Providence," said the abbe.
+
+"I shall not unjustly distrust the character of Monsieur de
+Portenduere--"
+
+"Why do you no longer call him Savinien?" asked the priest, who
+detected a slight bitterness in Ursula's tone.
+
+"Of my dear Savinien," cried the girl, bursting into tears. "Yes, my
+good friend," she said, sobbing, "a voice tells me he is as noble in
+heart as he is in race. He has not only told me that he loves me
+alone, but he has proved it in a hundred delicate ways, and by
+restraining heroically his ardent feelings. Lately when he took the
+hand I held out to him, that evening when Monsieur Bongrand proposed
+to me a husband, it was the first time, I swear to you, that I had
+ever given it. He began with a jest when he blew me a kiss across the
+street, but since then our affection has never outwardly passed, as
+you well know, the narrowest limits. But I will tell you,--you who
+read my soul except in this one region where none but the angels see,
+--well, I will tell you, this love has been in me the secret spring of
+many seeming merits; it made me accept my poverty; it softened the
+bitterness of my irreparable loss, for my mourning is more perhaps in
+my clothes now than in my heart-- Oh, was I wrong? can it be that love
+was stronger in me than my gratitude to my benefactor, and God has
+punished me for it? But how could it be otherwise? I respected in
+myself Savinien's future wife; yes, perhaps I was too proud, perhaps
+it is that pride which God has humbled. God alone, as you have often
+told me, should be the end and object of all our actions."
+
+The abbe was deeply touched as he watched the tears roll down her
+pallid face. The higher her sense of security had been, the lower she
+was now to fall.
+
+"But," she said, continuing, "if I return to my orphaned condition, I
+shall know how to take up its feelings. After all, could I have tied a
+mill-stone round the neck of him I love? What can he do here? Who am I
+to bind him to me? Besides, do I not love him with a friendship so
+divine that I can bear the loss of my own happiness and my hopes? You
+know I have often blamed myself for letting my hopes rest upon a
+grave, and for knowing they were waiting on that poor old lady's
+death. If Savinien is rich and happy with another I have enough to pay
+for my entrance to a convent, where I shall go at once. There can no
+more be two loves in a woman's heart than there can be two masters in
+heaven, and the life of a religious is attractive to me."
+
+"He could not let his mother go alone to Rouvre," said the abbe,
+gently.
+
+"Do not let us talk of that, my dear good friend," she answered. "I
+will write to-night and set him free. I am glad to have to close the
+windows of this room," she continued, telling her old friend of the
+anonymous letters, but declaring that she would not allow any
+inquiries to be made as to who her unknown lover might be.
+
+"Why! it was an anonymous letter that first took Madame de Portenduere
+to Rouvre," cried the abbe. "You are annoyed for some object by evil
+persons."
+
+"How can that be? Neither Savinien nor I have injured any one; and I
+am no longer an obstacle to the prosperity of others."
+
+"Well, well, my child," said the abbe, quietly, "let us profit by this
+tempest, which has scattered our little circle, to put the library in
+order. The books are still in heaps. Bongrand and I want to get them
+in order; we wish to make a search among them. Put your trust in God,
+and remember also that in our good Bongrand and in me you have two
+devoted friends."
+
+"That is much, very much," she said, going with him to the threshold
+of the door, where she stretched out her neck like a bird looking over
+its nest, hoping against hope to see Savinien.
+
+Just then Minoret and Goupil, returning from a walk in the meadows,
+stopped as they passed, and the colossus spoke to Ursula.
+
+"Is anything the matter, cousin; for we are still cousins, are we not?
+You seem changed."
+
+Goupil looked so ardently at Ursula that she was frightened, and went
+back into the house without replying.
+
+"She is cross," said Minoret to the abbe.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mirouet is quite right not to talk to men on the
+threshold of her door," said the abbe; "she is too young--"
+
+"Oh!" said Goupil. "I am told she doesn't lack lovers."
+
+The abbe bowed hurriedly and went as fast as he could to the Rue des
+Bourgeois.
+
+"Well," said Goupil to Minoret, "the thing is working. Did you notice
+how pale she was. Within a fortnight she'll have left the town--you'll
+see."
+
+"Better have you for a friend than an enemy," cried Minoret,
+frightened at the atrocious grin which gave to Goupil's face the
+diabolical expression of the Mephistopheles of Joseph Brideau.
+
+"I should think so!" returned Goupil. "If she doesn't marry me I'll
+make her die of grief."
+
+"Do it, my boy, and I'll GIVE you the money to buy a practice in
+Paris. You can then marry a rich woman--"
+
+"Poor Ursula! what makes you so bitter against her? what has she done
+to you?" asked the clerk in surprise.
+
+"She annoys me," said Minoret, gruffly.
+
+"Well, wait till Monday and you shall see how I'll rasp her," said
+Goupil, studying the expression of the late post master's face.
+
+The next day La Bougival carried the following letter to Savinien.
+
+"I don't know what the dear child has written to you," she said, "but
+she is almost dead this morning."
+
+Who, reading this letter to her lover, could fail to understand the
+sufferings the poor girl had gone through during the night.
+
+  My dear Savinien,--Your mother wishes you to marry Mademoiselle du
+  Rouvre, and perhaps she is right. You are placed between a life
+  that is almost poverty-stricken and a life of opulence; between
+  the betrothed of your heart and a wife in conformity with the
+  demands of the world; between obedience to your mother and the
+  fulfilment of your own choice--for I still believe that you have
+  chosen me. Savinien, if you have now to make your decision I wish
+  you to do so in absolute freedom; I give you back the promise you
+  made to yourself--not to me--in a moment which can never fade from
+  my memory, for it was, like other days that have succeeded it, of
+  angelic purity and sweetness. That memory will suffice me for my
+  life. If you should persist in your pledge to me, a dark and
+  terrible idea would henceforth trouble my happiness. In the midst
+  of our privations--which we have hitherto accepted so gayly--you
+  might reflect, too late, that life would have been to you a better
+  thing had you now conformed to the laws of the world. If you were
+  a man to express that thought, it would be to me the sentence of
+  an agonizing death; if you did not express it, I should watch
+  suspiciously every cloud upon your brow.
+
+  Dear Savinien, I have preferred you to all else on earth. I was
+  right to do so, for my godfather, though jealous of you, used to
+  say to me, "Love him, my child; you will certainly belong to each
+  other one of these days." When I went to Paris I loved you
+  hopelessly, and the feeling contented me. I do not know if I can
+  now return to it, but I shall try. What are we, after all, at this
+  moment? Brother and sister. Let us stay so. Marry that happy girl
+  who can have the joy of giving to your name the lustre it ought to
+  have, and which your mother thinks I should diminish. You will not
+  hear of me again. The world will approve of you; I shall never
+  blame you--but I shall love you ever. Adieu, then!
+
+"Wait," cried the young man. Signing to La Bougival to sit down, he
+scratched off hastily the following reply:--
+
+  My dear Ursula,--Your letter cuts me to the heart, inasmuch as you
+  have needlessly felt such pain; and also because our hearts, for
+  the first time, have failed to understand each other. If you are
+  not my wife now, it is solely because I cannot marry without my
+  mother's consent. Dear, eight thousand francs a year and a pretty
+  cottage on the Loing, why, that's a fortune, is it not? You know
+  we calculated that if we kept La Bougival we could lay by half our
+  income every year. You allowed me that evening, in your uncle's
+  garden, to consider you mine; you cannot now of yourself break
+  those ties which are common to both of us.--Ursula, need I tell
+  you that I yesterday informed Monsieur du Rouvre that even if I 
+  were free I could not receive a fortune from a young person whom I
+  did not know? My mother refuses to see you again; I must therefore
+  lose the happiness of our evenings; but surely you will not
+  deprive me of the brief moments I can spend at your window? This
+  evening, then-- Nothing can separate us.
+
+"Take this to her, my old woman; she must not be unhappy one moment
+longer."
+
+That afternoon at four o'clock, returning from the walk which he
+always took expressly to pass before Ursula's house, Savinien found
+his mistress waiting for him, her face a little pallid from these
+sudden changes and excitements.
+
+"It seems to me that until now I have never known what the pleasure of
+seeing you is," she said to him.
+
+"You once said to me," replied Savinien, smiling,--"for I remember all
+your words,--'Love lives by patience; we will wait!' Dear, you have
+separated love from faith. Ah! this shall be the end of our quarrels;
+we will never have another. You have claimed to love me better than I
+love you, but--did I ever doubt you?" he said, offering her a bouquet
+of wild-flowers arranged to express his thoughts.
+
+"You have never had any reason to doubt me," she replied; "and,
+besides, you don't know all," she added, in a troubled voice.
+
+Ursula had refused to receive letters by the post. But that afternoon,
+without being able even to guess at the nature of the trick, she had
+found, a few moments before Savinien's arrival, a letter tossed on her
+sofa which contained the words: "Tremble! a rejected lover can become
+a tiger."
+
+Withstanding Savinien's entreaties, she refused to tell him, out of
+prudence, the secret of her fears. The delight of seeing him again,
+after she had thought him lost to her, could alone have made her
+recover from the mortal chill of terror. The expectation of indefinite
+evil is torture to every one; suffering assumes the proportions of the
+unknown, and the unknown is the infinite of the soul. To Ursula the
+pain was exquisite. Something without her bounded at the slightest
+noise; yet she was afraid of silence, and suspected even the walls of
+collusion. Even her sleep was restless. Goupil, who knew nothing of
+her nature, delicate as that of a flower, had found, with the instinct
+of evil, the poison that could wither and destroy her.
+
+The next day passed without a shock. Ursula sat playing on her piano
+till very late; and went to bed easier in mind and very sleepy. About
+midnight she was awakened by the music of a band composed of a
+clarinet, hautboy, flute, cornet a piston, trombone, bassoon,
+flageolet, and triangle. All the neighbours were at their windows. The
+poor girl, already frightened at seeing the people in the street,
+received a dreadful shock as she heard the coarse, rough voice of a
+man proclaiming in loud tones: "For the beautiful Ursula Mirouet, from
+her lover."
+
+The next day, Sunday, the whole town had heard of it; and as Ursula
+entered and left the church she saw the groups of people who stood
+gossiping about her, and felt herself the object of their terrible
+curiosity. The serenade set all tongues wagging, and conjectures were
+rife on all sides. Ursula reached home more dead than alive,
+determined not to leave the house again,--the abbe having advised her
+to say vespers in her own room. As she entered the house she saw lying
+in the passage, which was floored with brick, a letter which had
+evidently been slipped under the door. She picked it up and read it,
+under the idea that it would obtain an explanation. It was as
+follows:--
+
+
+"Resign yourself to becoming my wife, rich and idolized. I am
+resolved. If you are not mine living you shall be mine dead. To
+your refusal you may attribute not only your own misfortunes, but
+those which will fall on others.
+
+"He who loves you, and whose wife you will be."
+
+
+Curiously enough, at the very moment that the gentle victim of this
+plot was drooping like a cut flower, Mesdemoiselles Massin, Dionis,
+and Cremiere were envying her lot.
+
+"She is a lucky girl," they were saying; "people talk of her, and
+court her, and quarrel about her. The serenade was charming; there was
+a cornet-a-piston."
+
+"What's a piston?"
+
+"A new musical instrument, as big as this, see!" replied Angelique
+Cremiere to Pamela Massin.
+
+Early that morning Savinien had gone to Fontainebleau to endeavor to
+find out who had engaged the musicians of the regiment then in
+garrison. But as there were two men to each instrument it was
+impossible to find out which of them had gone to Nemours. The colonel
+forbade them to play for any private person in future without his
+permission. Savinien had an interview with the procureur du roi,
+Ursula's legal guardian, and explained to him the injury these scenes
+would do to a young girl naturally so delicate and sensitive, begging
+him to take some action to discover the author of such wrong.
+
+Three nights later three violins, a flute, a guitar, and a hautboy
+began another serenade. This time the musicians fled towards
+Montargis, where there happened then to be a company of comic actors.
+A loud and ringing voice called out as they left: "To the daughter of
+the regimental bandsman Mirouet." By this means all Nemours came to
+know the profession of Ursula's father, a secret the old doctor had
+sedulously kept.
+
+Savinien did not go to Montargis. He received in the course of the day
+an anonymous letter containing a prophecy:--
+
+  "You will never marry Ursula. If you wish her to live, give her up
+  at once to a man who loves her more than you love her. He has made
+  himself a musician and an artist to please her, and he would
+  rather see her dead than let her be your wife."
+
+The doctor came to Ursula three times in the course of that day, for
+she was really in danger of death from the horror of this mysterious
+persecution. Feeling that some infernal hand had plunged her into the
+mire, the poor girl lay like a martyr; she said nothing, but lifted
+her eyes to heaven, and wept no more; she seemed awaiting other blows,
+and prayed fervently.
+
+"I am glad I cannot go down into the salon," she said to Monsieur
+Bongrand and the abbe, who left her as little as possible; "HE would
+come, and I am now unworthy of the looks with which HE blessed me. Do
+you think HE will suspect me?"
+
+"If Savinien does not discover the author of these infamies he means
+to get the assistance of the Paris police," said Bongrand.
+
+"Whoever it is will know I am dying," said Ursula; "and will cease to
+trouble me."
+
+The abbe, Bongrand, and Savinien were lost in conjectures and
+suspicions. Together with Tiennette, La Bougival, and two persons on
+whom the abbe could rely, they kept the closest watch and were on
+their guard night and day for a week; but no indiscretion could betray
+Goupil, whose machinations were known to himself only. There were no
+more serenades and no more letters, and little by little the watch
+relaxed. Bongrand thought the author of the wrong was frightened;
+Savinien believed that the procureur du roi to whom he had sent the
+letters received by Ursula and himself and his mother, had taken steps
+to put an end to the persecution.
+
+The armistice was not of long duration, however. When the doctor had
+checked the nervous fever from which poor Ursula was suffering, and
+just as she was recovering her courage, a rope-ladder was found, early
+one morning in July, attached to her window. The postilion of the
+mail-post declared that as he drove past the house in the middle of
+the night a small man was in the act of coming down the ladder, and
+though he tried to pull up, his horses, being startled, carried him
+down the hill so fast that he was out of Nemours before he stopped
+them. Some of the persons who frequented Dionis's salon attributed
+these manoeuvres to the Marquis du Rouvre, then much hampered in
+means, for Massin held his notes to a large amount. It was said that a
+prompt marriage of his daughter to Savinien would save Chateau du
+Rouvre from his creditors; and Madame de Portenduere, the gossips
+added, would approve of anything that would discredit and degrade
+Ursula and lead to this marriage of her son.
+
+So far from this being true, the old lady was well-nigh vanquished by
+the sufferings of the innocent girl. The abbe was so painfully
+overcome by this act of infernal wickedness that he fell ill himself
+and was kept to the house for several days. Poor Ursula, to whom this
+last insult had caused a relapse, received by post a letter from the
+abbe, which was taken in by La Bougival on recognizing the
+handwriting. It was as follows:--
+
+
+My child,--Leave Nemours, and thus evade the malice of your
+enemies. Perhaps they are seeking to endanger Savinien's life. I
+will tell you more when I am able to go to you.
+
+Your devoted friend,
+
+Chaperon.
+
+
+When Savinien, who was almost maddened by these proceedings, carried
+this letter to the abbe, the poor priest read it and re-read it; so
+amazed and horror-stricken was he to see the perfection with which his
+own handwriting and signature were imitated. The dangerous condition
+into which this last atrocity threw poor Ursula sent Savinien once
+more to the procureur du roi with the forged letter.
+
+"A murder is being committed by means that the law cannot touch," he
+said, "upon an orphan whom the Code places in your care as legal
+guardian. What is to be done?"
+
+"If you can find any means of repression," said the official, "I will
+adopt them; but I know of none. That infamous wretch gives the best
+advice. Mademoiselle Mirouet must be sent to the sisters of the
+Adoration of the Sacred Heart. Meanwhile the commissary of police at
+Fontainebleau shall at my request authorize you to carry arms in your
+own defence. I have been myself to Rouvre, and I found Monsieur du
+Rouvre justly indignant at the suspicions some of the Nemours people
+have put upon him. Minoret, the father of my assistant, is in treaty
+for the purchase of the estate. Mademoiselle is to marry a rich Polish
+count; and Monsieur du Rouvre himself left the neighbourhood the day I
+saw him, to avoid arrest for debt."
+
+Desire Minoret, when questioned by his chief, dared not tell his
+thought. He recognized Goupil. Goupil, he fully believed, was the only
+man capable of carrying a persecution to the very verge of the penal
+code without infringing a hair's-breadth upon it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+A TWO-FOLD VENGEANCE
+
+Impunity, secrecy, and success increased Goupil's audacity. He made
+Massin, who was completely his dupe, sue the Marquis du Rouvre for his
+notes, so as to force him to sell the remainder of his property to
+Minoret. Thus prepared, he opened negotiations for a practice at Sens,
+and then resolved to strike a last blow to obtain Ursula. He meant to
+imitate certain young men in Paris who owed their wives and their
+fortunes to abduction. He knew that the services he had rendered to
+Minoret, to Massin, and to Cremiere, and the protection of Dionis and
+the mayor of Nemours would enable him to hush up the affair. He
+resolved to throw off the mask, believing Ursula too feeble in the
+condition to which he had reduced her to make any resistance. But
+before risking this last throw in the game he thought it best to have
+an explanation with Minoret, and he chose his opportunity at Rouvre,
+where he went with his patron for the first time after the deeds were
+signed.
+
+Minoret had that morning received a confidential letter from his son
+asking him for information as to what was happening in connection with
+Ursula, information that he desired to obtain before going to Nemours
+with the procureur du roi to place her under shelter from these
+atrocities in the convent of the Adoration. Desire exhorted his
+father, in case this persecution should be the work of any of their
+friends, to give to whoever it might be warning and good advice; for
+even if the law could not punish this crime it would certainly
+discover the truth and hold it over the delinquent's head. Minoret had
+now attained a great object. Owner of the chateau du Rouvre, one of
+the finest estates in the Gatinais, he had also a rent-roll of some
+forty odd thousand francs a year from the rich domains which
+surrounded the park. He could well afford to snap his fingers at
+Goupil. Besides, he intended to live on the estate, where the sight of
+Ursula would no longer trouble him.
+
+"My boy," he said to Goupil, as they walked along the terrace, "let my
+young cousin alone, now."
+
+"Pooh!" said the clerk, unable to imagine what capricious conduct
+meant.
+
+"Oh! I'm not ungrateful; you have enabled me to get this fine brick
+chateau with the stone copings (which couldn't be built now for two
+hundred thousand francs) and those farms and preserves and the park
+and gardens and woods, all for two hundred and eighty thousand francs.
+No, I'm not ungrateful; I'll give you ten per cent, twenty thousand
+francs, for your services, and you can buy a sheriff's practice in
+Nemours. I'll guarantee you a marriage with one of Cremiere's
+daughters, the eldest."
+
+"The one who talks piston!" cried Goupil.
+
+"She'll have thirty thousand francs," replied Minoret. "Don't you see,
+my dear boy, that you are cut out for a sheriff, just as I was to be a
+post master? People should keep to their vocation."
+
+"Very well, then," said Goupil, falling from the pinnacle of his
+hopes; "here's a stamped cheque; write me an order for twenty thousand
+francs; I want the money in hand at once."
+
+Minoret had eighteen thousand francs by him at that moment of which
+his wife knew nothing. He thought the best way to get rid of Goupil
+was to sign the draft. The clerk, seeing the flush of seigniorial
+fever on the face of the imbecile and colossal Machiavelli, threw him
+an "au revoir," by way of farewell, accompanied with a glance which
+would have made any one but an idiotic parvenu, lost in contemplation
+of the magnificent chateau built in the style in vogue under Louis
+XIII., tremble in his shoes.
+
+"Are you not going to wait for me?" he cried, observing that Goupil
+was going away on foot.
+
+"You'll find me on our path, never fear, papa Minoret," replied
+Goupil, athirst for vengeance and resolved to know the meaning of the
+zigzags of Minoret's strange conduct.
+
+Since the day when the last vile calumny had sullied her life Ursula,
+a prey to one of those inexplicable maladies the seat of which is in
+the soul, seemed to be rapidly nearing death. She was deathly pale,
+speaking only at rare intervals and then in slow and feeble words;
+everything about her, her glance of gentle indifference, even the
+expression of her forehead, all revealed the presence of some
+consuming thought. She was thinking how the ideal wreath of chastity,
+with which throughout all ages the Peoples crowned their virgins, had
+fallen from her brow. She heard in the void and in the silence the
+dishonoring words, the malicious comments, the laughter of the little
+town. The trial was too heavy, her innocence was too delicate to allow
+her to survive the murderous blow. She complained no more; a sorrowful
+smile was on her lips; her eyes appealed to heaven, to the Sovereign
+of angels, against man's injustice.
+
+When Goupil reached Nemours, Ursula had just been carried down from
+her chamber to the ground-floor in the arms of La Bougival and the
+doctor. A great event was about to take place. When Madame de
+Portenduere became really aware that the girl was dying like an
+ermine, though less injured in her honor than Clarissa Harlowe, she
+resolved to go to her and comfort her. The sight of her son's anguish,
+who during the whole preceding night had seemed beside himself, made
+the Breton soul of the old woman yield. Moreover, it seemed worthy of
+her own dignity to revive the courage of a girl so pure, and she saw
+in her visit a counterpoise to all the evil done by the little town.
+Her opinion, surely more powerful than that of the crowd, ought to
+carry with it, she thought, the influence of race. This step, which
+the abbe came to announce, made so great a change in Ursula that the
+doctor, who was about to ask for a consultation of Parisian doctors,
+recovered hope. They placed her on her uncle's sofa, and such was the
+character of her beauty that she lay there in her mourning garments,
+pale from suffering, she was more exquisitely lovely than in the
+happiest hours of her life. When Savinien, with his mother on his arm,
+entered the room she colored vividly.
+
+"Do not rise, my child," said the old lady imperatively; "weak and ill
+as I am myself, I wished to come and tell you my feelings about what
+is happening. I respect you as the purest, the most religious and
+excellent girl in the Gatinais; and I think you worthy to make the
+happiness of a gentleman."
+
+At first poor Ursula was unable to answer; she took the withered hands
+of Savinien's mother and kissed them.
+
+"Ah, madame," she said in a faltering voice, "I should never have had
+the boldness to think of rising above my condition if I had not been
+encouraged by promises; my only claim was that of an affection without
+bounds; but now they have found the means to separate me from him I
+love,--they have made me unworthy of him. Never!" she cried, with a
+ring in her voice which painfully affected those about her, "never
+will I consent to give to any man a degraded hand, a stained
+reputation. I loved too well,--yes, I can admit it in my present
+condition,--I love a creature almost as I love God, and God--"
+
+"Hush, my child! do not calumniate God. Come, my daughter," said the
+old lady, making an effort, "do not exaggerate the harm done by an
+infamous joke in which no one believes. I give you my word, you will
+live and you shall be happy."
+
+"We shall be happy!" cried Savinien, kneeling beside Ursula and
+kissing her hand; "my mother has called you her daughter."
+
+"Enough, enough," said the doctor feeling his patient's pulse; "do not
+kill her with joy."
+
+At that moment Goupil, who found the street door ajar, opened that of
+the little salon, and showed his hideous face blazing with thoughts of
+vengeance which had crowded into his mind as he hurried along.
+
+"Monsieur de Portenduere," he said, in a voice like the hissing of a
+viper forced from its hole.
+
+"What do you want?" said Savinien, rising from his knees.
+
+"I have a word to say to you."
+
+Savinien left the room, and Goupil took him into the little courtyard.
+
+"Swear to me by Ursula's life, by your honor as a gentleman, to do by
+me as if I had never told you what I am about to tell. Do this, and I
+will reveal to you the cause of the persecutions directed against
+Mademoiselle Mirouet."
+
+"Can I put a stop to them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Can I avenge them?"
+
+"On their author, yes--on his tool, no."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because--I am the tool."
+
+Savinien turned pale.
+
+"I have just seen Ursula--" said Goupil.
+
+"Ursula?" said the lover, looking fixedly at the clerk.
+
+"Mademoiselle Mirouet," continued Goupil, made respectful by
+Savinien's tone; "and I would undo with my blood the wrong that has
+been done; I repent of it. If you were to kill me, in a duel or
+otherwise, what good would my blood do you? can you drink it? At this
+moment it would poison you."
+
+The cold reasoning of the man, together with a feeling of eager
+curiosity, calmed Savinien's anger. He fixed his eyes on Goupil with a
+look which made that moral deformity writhe.
+
+"Who set you at this work?" said the young man.
+
+"Will you swear?"
+
+"What,--to do you no harm?"
+
+"I wish that you and Mademoiselle Mirouet should not forgive me."
+
+"She will forgive you,--I, never!"
+
+"But at least you will forget?"
+
+What terrible power the reason has when it is used to further self-
+interest. Here were two men, longing to tear one another in pieces,
+standing in that courtyard within two inches of each other, compelled
+to talk together and united by a single sentiment.
+
+"I will forgive you, but I shall not forget."
+
+"The agreement is off," said Goupil coldly. Savinien lost patience. He
+applied a blow upon the man's face which echoed through the courtyard
+and nearly knocked him down, making Savinien himself stagger.
+
+"It is only what I deserve," said Goupil, "for committing such a
+folly. I thought you more noble than you are. You have abused the
+advantage I gave you. You are in my power now," he added with a look
+of hatred.
+
+"You are a murderer!" said Savinien.
+
+"No more than a dagger is a murderer."
+
+"I beg your pardon," said Savinien.
+
+"Are you revenged enough?" said Goupil, with ferocious irony; "will
+you stop here?"
+
+"Reciprocal pardon and forgetfulness," replied Savinien.
+
+"Give me your hand," said the clerk, holding out his own.
+
+"It is yours," said Savinien, swallowing the shame for Ursula's sake.
+"Now speak; who made you do this thing?"
+
+Goupil looked into the scales as it were; on one side was Savinien's
+blow, on the other his hatred against Minoret. For a second he was
+undecided; then a voice said to him: "You will be notary!" and he
+answered:--
+
+"Pardon and forgetfulness? Yes, on both sides, monsieur--"
+
+"Who is persecuting Ursula?" persisted Savinien.
+
+"Minoret. He would have liked to see her buried. Why? I can't tell you
+that; but we might find out the reason. Don't mix me up in all this; I
+could do nothing to help you if the others distrusted me. Instead of
+annoying Ursula I will defend her; instead of serving Minoret I will
+try to defeat his schemes. I live only to ruin him, to destroy him--
+I'll crush him under foot, I'll dance on his carcass, I'll make his
+bones into dominoes! To-morrow, every wall in Nemours and
+Fontainebleau and Rouvre shall blaze with the letters, 'Minoret is a
+thief!' Yes, I'll burst him like a gun--There! we're allies now by the
+imprudence of that outbreak! If you choose I'll beg Mademoiselle
+Mirouet's pardon and tell her I curse the madness which impelled me to
+injure her. It may do her good; the abbe and the justice are both
+there; but Monsieur Bongrand must promise on his honor not to injure
+my career. I have a career now."
+
+"Wait a minute;" said Savinien, bewildered by the revelation.
+
+"Ursula, my child," he said, returning to the salon, "the author of
+all your troubles is ashamed of his work; he repents and wishes to ask
+your pardon in presence of these gentlemen, on condition that all be
+forgotten."
+
+"What! Goupil?" cried the abbe, the justice, and the doctor, all
+together.
+
+"Keep his secret," said Ursula, putting a finger on her lips.
+
+Goupil heard the words, saw the gesture, and was touched.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said in a troubled voice, "I wish that all Nemours
+could hear me tell you that a fatal passion has bewildered my brain
+and led me to commit a crime punishable by the blame of honest men.
+What I say now I would be willing to say everywhere, deploring the
+harm done by such miserable tricks--which may have hastened your
+happiness," he added, rather maliciously, "for I see that Madame de
+Portenduere is with you."
+
+"That is all very well, Goupil," said the abbe, "Mademoiselle forgives
+you; but you must not forget that you came near being her murderer."
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand," said Goupil, addressing the justice of peace. "I
+shall negotiate to-night for Lecoeur's practice; I hope the reparation
+I have now made will not injure me with you, and that you will back my
+petition to the bar and the ministry."
+
+Bongrand made a thoughtful inclination of his head; and Goupil left
+the house to negotiate on the best terms he could for the sheriff's
+practice. The others remained with Ursula and did their best to
+restore the peace and tranquillity of her mind, already much relieved
+by Goupil's confession.
+
+"You see, my child, that God was not against you," said the abbe.
+
+Minoret came home late from Rouvre. About nine o'clock he was sitting
+in the Chinese pagoda digesting his dinner beside his wife, with whom
+he was making plans for Desire's future. Desire had become very sedate
+since entering the magistracy; he worked hard, and it was not unlikely
+that he would succeed the present procureur du roi at Fontainebleau,
+who, they said, was to be advanced to Melun. His parents felt that
+they must find him a wife,--some poor girl belonging to an old and
+noble family; he would then make his way to the magistracy of Paris.
+Perhaps they could get him elected deputy from Fontainebleau, where
+Zelie was proposing to pass the winter after living at Rouvre for the
+summer season. Minoret, inwardly congratulating himself for having
+managed his affairs so well, no longer thought or cared about Ursula,
+at the very moment when the drama so heedlessly begun by him was
+closing down upon him in a terrible manner.
+
+"Monsieur de Portenduere is here and wishes to speak to you," said
+Cabirolle.
+
+"Show him in," answered Zelie.
+
+The twilight shadows prevented Madame Minoret from noticing the sudden
+pallor of her husband, who shuddered as he heard Savinien's boots on
+the floor of the gallery, where the doctor's library used to be. A
+vague presentiment of danger ran through the robber's veins. Savinien
+entered and remaining standing, with his hat on his head, his cane in
+his hand, and both hands crossed in front of him, motionless before
+the husband and wife.
+
+"I have come to ascertain, Monsieur and Madame Minoret," he said,
+"your reasons for tormenting in an infamous manner a young lady who,
+as the whole town knows, is to be my wife. Why have you endeavored to
+tarnish her honor? why have you wished to kill her? why did you
+deliver her over to Goupil's insults?--Answer!"
+
+"How absurd you are, Monsieur Savinien," said Zelie, "to come and ask
+us the meaning of a thing we think inexplicable. I bother myself as
+little about Ursula as I do about the year one. Since Uncle Minoret
+died I've not thought of her more than I do of my first tooth. I've
+never said one word about her to Goupil, who is, moreover, a queer
+rogue whom I wouldn't think of consulting about even a dog. Why don't
+you speak up, Minoret? Are you going to let monsieur box your ears in
+that way and accuse you of wickedness that's beneath you? As if a man
+with forty-eight thousand francs a year from landed property, and a
+castle fit for a prince, would stoop to such things! Get up, and don't
+sit there like a wet rag!"
+
+"I don't know what monsieur means," said Minoret in his squeaking
+voice, the trembling of which was all the more noticeable because the
+voice was clear. "What object could I have in persecuting the girl? I
+may have said to Goupil how annoyed I was at seeing her in Nemours. My
+son Desire fell in love with her, and I didn't want him to marry her,
+that's all."
+
+"Goupil has confessed everything, Monsieur Minoret."
+
+There was a moment's silence, but it was terrible, when all three
+persons examined one another. Zelie saw a nervous quiver on the heavy
+face of her colossus.
+
+"Though you are only insects," said the young nobleman, "I will make
+you feel my vengeance. It is not from you, Monsieur Minoret, a man
+sixty-eight years of age, but from your son that I shall seek
+satisfaction for the insults offered to Mademoiselle Mirouet. The
+first time he sets his foot in Nemours we shall meet. He must fight
+me; he will do so, or be dishonored and never dare to show his face
+again. If he does not come to Nemours I shall go to Fontainebleau, for
+I will have satisfaction. It shall never be said that you were tamely
+allowed to dishonor a defenceless young girl--"
+
+"But the calumnies of a Goupil--are--not--" began Minoret.
+
+"Do you wish me to bring him face to face with you? Believe me, you
+had better hush up this affair; it lies between you and Goupil and me.
+Leave it as it is; God will decide between us and when I meet your
+son."
+
+"But this sha'n't go one!" cried Zelie. "Do you suppose I'll stand by
+and let Desire fight you,--a sailor whose business it is to handle
+swords and guns? If you've got any cause of complaint against Minoret,
+there's Minoret; take Minoret, fight Minoret! But do you think my boy,
+who, by your own account, knew nothing of all this, is going to bear
+the brunt of it? No, my little gentleman! somebody's teeth will pin
+your legs first! Come, Minoret, don't stand staring there like a big
+canary; you are in your own house, and you allow a man to keep his hat
+on before your wife! I say he shall go. Now, monsieur, be off! a man's
+house is his castle. I don't know what you mean with your nonsense,
+but show me your heels, and if you dare touch Desire you'll have to
+answer to ME,--you and your minx Ursula."
+
+She rang the bell violently and called to the servants.
+
+"Remember what I have said to you," repeated Savinien to Minoret,
+paying no attention to Zelie's tirade. Suspending the sword of
+Damocles over their heads, he left the room.
+
+"Now, then, Minoret," said Zelie, "you will explain to me what this
+all means. A young man doesn't rush into a house and make an uproar
+like that and demand the blood of a family for nothing."
+
+"It's some mischief of that vile Goupil," said the colossus. "I
+promised to help him buy a practice if he would get me the Rouvre
+property cheap. I gave him ten per cent on the cost, twenty thousand
+francs in a note, and I suppose he isn't satisfied."
+
+"Yes, but why did he get up those serenades and the scandals against
+Ursula?"
+
+"He wanted to marry her."
+
+"A girl without a penny! the sly thing! Now Minoret, you are telling
+me lies, and you are too much of a fool, my son, to make me believe
+them. There is something under all this, and you are going to tell me
+what it is."
+
+"There's nothing."
+
+"Nothing? I tell you you lie, and I shall find it out."
+
+"Do let me alone!"
+
+"I'll turn the faucet of that fountain of venom, Goupil--whom you're
+afraid of--and we'll see who gets the best of it then."
+
+"Just as you choose."
+
+"I know very well it will be as I choose! and what I choose first and
+foremost is that no harm shall come to Desire. If anything happens to
+him, mark you, I'll do something that may send me to the scaffold--and
+you, you haven't any feeling about him--"
+
+A quarrel thus begun between Minoret and his wife was sure not to end
+without a long and angry strife. So at the moment of his self-
+satisfaction the foolish robber found his inward struggle against
+himself and against Ursula revived by his own fault, and complicated
+with a new and terrible adversary. The next day, when he left the
+house early to find Goupil and try to appease him with additional
+money, the walls were already placarded with the words: "Minoret is a
+thief." All those whom he met commiserated him and asked him who was
+the author of the anonymous placard. Fortunately for him, everybody
+made allowance for his equivocal replies by reflecting on his utter
+stupidity; fools get more advantage from their weakness than able men
+from their strength. The world looks on at a great man battling
+against fate, and does not help him, but it supplies the capital of a
+grocer who may fail and lose all. Why? Because men like to feel
+superior in protecting an incapable, and are displeased at not feeling
+themselves the equal of a man of genius. A clever man would have been
+lost in public estimation had he stammered, as Minoret did, evasive
+and foolish answers with a frightened air. Zelie sent her servants to
+efface the vindictive words wherever they were found; but the effect
+of them on Minoret's conscience still remained.
+
+The result of his interview with his assailant was soon apparent.
+Though Goupil had concluded his bargain with the sheriff the night
+before, he now impudently refused to fulfil it.
+
+"My dear Lecoeur," he said, "I am unexpectedly enabled to buy up
+Monsieur Dionis's practice; I am therefore in a position to help you
+to sell to others. Tear up the agreement; it's only the loss of two
+stamps,--here are seventy centimes."
+
+Lecoeur was too much afraid of Goupil to complain. All Nemours knew
+before night that Minoret had given Dionis security to enable Goupil
+to buy his practice. The latter wrote to Savinien denying his charges
+against Minoret, and telling the young nobleman that in his new
+position he was forbidden by the rules of the supreme court, and also
+by his respect for law, to fight a duel. But he warned Savinien to
+treat him well in future; assuring him he was a capital boxer, and
+would break his leg at the first offence.
+
+The walls of Nemours were cleared of the inscription; but the quarrel
+between Minoret and his wife went on; and Savinien maintained a
+threatening silence. Ten days after these events the marriage of
+Mademoiselle Massin, the elder, to the future notary was bruited about
+the town. Mademoiselle Massin had a dowry of eighty thousand francs
+and her own peculiar ugliness; Goupil had his deformities and his
+practice; the union therefore seemed suitable and probable. One
+evening, towards midnight, two unknown men seized Goupil in the street
+as he was leaving Massin's house, gave him a sound beating, and
+disappeared. The notary kept the matter a profound secret, and even
+contradicted an old woman who saw the scene from her window and
+thought that she recognized him.
+
+These great little events were carefully studied by Bongrand, who
+became convinced that Goupil held some mysterious power over Minoret,
+and he determined to find out its cause.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+APPARITIONS
+
+Though the public opinion of the little town recognized Ursula's
+perfect innocence, she recovered slowly. While in a state of bodily
+exhaustion, which left her mind and spirit free, she became the medium
+of phenomena the effects of which were astounding, and of a nature to
+challenge science, if science had been brought into contact with them.
+
+Ten days after Madame de Portenduere's visit Ursula had a dream, with
+all the characteristics of a supernatural vision, as much in its moral
+aspects as in the, so to speak, physical circumstances. Her godfather
+appeared to her and made a sign that she should come with him. She
+dressed herself and followed him through the darkness to their former
+house in the Rue des Bourgeois, where she found everything precisely
+as it was on the day of her godfather's death. The old man wore the
+clothes that were on him the evening before his death. His face was
+pale, his movements caused no sound; nevertheless, Ursula heard his
+voice distinctly, though it was feeble and as if repeated by a distant
+echo. The doctor conducted his child as far as the Chinese pagoda,
+where he made her lift the marble top of the little Boule cabinet just
+as she had raised it on the day of his death; but instead of finding
+nothing there she saw the letter her godfather had told her to fetch.
+She opened it and read both the letter addressed to herself and the
+will in favor of Savinien. The writing, as she afterwards told the
+abbe, shone as if traced by sunbeams--"it burned my eyes," she said.
+When she looked at her uncle to thank him she saw the old benevolent
+smile upon his discolored lips. Then, in a feeble voice, but still
+clearly, he told her to look at Minoret, who was listening in the
+corridor to what he said to her; and next, slipping the lock of the
+library door with his knife, and taking the papers from the study.
+With his right hand the old man seized his goddaughter and obliged her
+to walk at the pace of death and follow Minoret to his own house.
+Ursula crossed the town, entered the post house and went into Zelie's
+old room, where the spectre showed her Minoret unfolding the letters,
+reading them and burning them.
+
+"He could not," said Ursula, telling her dream to the abbe, "light the
+first two matches, but the third took fire; he burned the papers and
+buried their remains in the ashes. Then my godfather brought me back
+to our house, and I saw Minoret-Levrault slipping into the library,
+where he took from the third volume of Pandects three certificates of
+twelve thousand francs each; also, from the preceding volume, a number
+of banknotes. 'He is,' said my godfather, 'the cause of all the
+trouble which has brought you to the verge of the tomb; but God wills
+that you shall yet be happy. You will not die now; you will marry
+Savinien. If you love me, and if you love Savinien, I charge you to
+demand your fortune from my nephew. Swear it.'"
+
+Resplendent as though transfigured, the spectre had so powerful an
+influence on Ursula's soul that she promised all her uncle asked,
+hoping to put an end to the nightmare. She woke suddenly and found
+herself standing in the middle of her bedroom, facing her godfather's
+portrait, which had been placed there during her illness. She went
+back to bed and fell asleep after much agitation, and on waking again
+she remembered all the particulars of this singular vision; but she
+dared not speak of it. Her judgment and her delicacy both shrank from
+revealing a dream the end and object of which was her pecuniary
+benefit. She attributed the vision, not unnaturally, to remarks made
+by La Bougival the preceding evening, when the old woman talked of the
+doctor's intended liberality and of her own convictions on that
+subject. But the dream returned, with aggravated circumstances which
+made it fearful to the poor girl. On the second occasion the icy hand
+of her godfather was laid upon her shoulder, causing her the most
+horrible distress, an indefinable sensation. "You must obey the dead,"
+he said, in a sepulchral voice. "Tears," said Ursula, relating her
+dreams, "fell from his white, wide-open eyes."
+
+The third time the vision came the dead man took her by the braids of
+her long hair and showed her the post master talking with Goupil and
+promising money if he would remove Ursula to Sens. Ursula then decided
+to relate the three dreams to the Abbe Chaperon.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," she said, "do you believe that the dead reappear?"
+
+"My child, sacred history, profane history, and modern history, have
+much testimony to that effect; but the Church has never made it an
+article of faith; and as for science, in France science laughs at the
+idea."
+
+"What do YOU believe?"
+
+"That the power of God is infinite."
+
+"Did my godfather ever speak to you of such matters?"
+
+"Yes, often. He had entirely changed his views of them. His
+conversion, as he told me at least twenty times, dated from the day
+when a woman in Paris heard you praying for him in Nemours, and saw
+the red dot you made against Saint-Savinien's day in your almanac."
+
+Ursula uttered a piercing cry, which alarmed the priest; she
+remembered the scene when, on returning to Nemours, her godfather read
+her soul, and took away the almanac.
+
+"If that is so," she said, "then my visions are possibly true. My
+godfather has appeared to me, as Jesus appeared to his disciples. He
+was wrapped in yellow light; he spoke to me. I beg you to say a mass
+for the repose of his soul and to implore the help of God that these
+visions may cease, for they are destroying me."
+
+She then related the three dreams with all their details, insisting on
+the truth of what she said, on her own freedom of action, on the
+somnambulism of her inner being, which, she said, detached itself from
+her body at the bidding of the spectre and followed him with perfect
+ease. The thing that most surprised the abbe, to whom Ursula's
+veracity was known, was the exact description which she gave of the
+bedroom formerly occupied by Zelie at the post house, which Ursula had
+never entered and about which no one had ever spoken to her.
+
+"By what means can these singular apparitions take place?" asked
+Ursula. "What did my godfather think?"
+
+"Your godfather, my dear child, argued my hypothesis. He recognized
+the possibility of a spiritual world, a world of ideas. If ideas are
+of man's creation, if they subsist in a life of their own, they must
+have forms which our external senses cannot grasp, but which are
+perceptible to our inward senses when brought under certain
+conditions. Thus your godfather's ideas might so enfold you that you
+would clothe them with his bodily presence. Then, if Minoret really
+committed those actions, they too resolve themselves into ideas; for
+all action is the result of many ideas. Now, if ideas live and move in
+a spiritual world, your spirit must be able to perceive them if it
+penetrates that world. These phenomena are not more extraordinary than
+those of memory; and those of memory are quite as amazing and
+inexplicable as those of the perfume of plants--which are perhaps the
+ideas of the plants."
+
+"How you enlarge and magnify the world!" exclaimed Ursula. "But to
+hear the dead speak, to see them walk, act--do you think it possible?"
+
+"In Sweden," replied the abbe, "Swedenborg has proved by evidence that
+he communicated with the dead. But come with me into the library and
+you shall read in the life of the famous Duc de Montmorency, beheaded
+at Toulouse, and who certainly was not a man to invent foolish tales,
+an adventure very like yours, which happened a hundred years earlier
+at Cardan."
+
+Ursula and the abbe went upstairs, and the good man hunted up a little
+edition in 12mo, printed in Paris in 1666, of the "History of Henri de
+Montmorency," written by a priest of that period who had known the
+prince.
+
+"Read it," said the abbe, giving Ursula the volume, which he had
+opened at the 175th page. "Your godfather often re-read that passage,
+--and see! here's a little of his snuff in it."
+
+"And he not here!" said Ursula, taking the volume to read the passage.
+
+  "The siege of Privat was remarkable for the loss of a great number
+  of officers. Two brigadier-generals died there--namely, the
+  Marquis d'Uxelles, of a wound received at the outposts, and the
+  Marquis de Portes, from a musket-shot through the head. The day
+  the latter was killed he was to have been made a marshal of
+  France. About the moment when the marquis expired the Duc de
+  Montmorency, who was sleeping in his tent, was awakened by a voice
+  like that of the marquis bidding him farewell. The affection he
+  felt for a friend so near made him attribute the illusion of this
+  dream to the force of his own imagination; and owing to the
+  fatigues of the night, which he had spent, according to his
+  custom, in the trenches, he fell asleep once more without any
+  sense of dread. But the same voice disturbed him again, and the
+  phantom obliged him to wake up and listen to the same words it had
+  said as it first passed. The duke then recollected that he had
+  heard the philosopher Pitrat discourse on the possibility of the
+  separation of the soul from the body, and that he and the marquis
+  had agreed that the first who died should bid adieu to the other.
+  On which, not being able to restrain his fears as to the truth of
+  this warning, he sent a servant to the marquis's quarters, which
+  were distant from him. But before the man could get back, the king
+  sent to inform the duke, by persons fitted to console him, of the
+  great loss he had sustained.
+
+  "I leave learned men to discuss the cause of this event, which I
+  have frequently heard the Duc de Montmorency relate: I think that
+  the truth and singularity of the fact itself ought to be recorded
+  and preserved."
+
+"If all this is so," said Ursula, "what ought I do do?"
+
+"My child," said the abbe, "it concerns matters so important, and
+which may prove so profitable to you, that you ought to keep
+absolutely silent about it. Now that you have confided to me the
+secret of these apparitions perhaps they may not return. Besides, you
+are now strong enough to come to church; well, then, come to-morrow
+and thank God and pray to him for the repose of your godfather's soul.
+Feel quite sure that you have entrusted your secret to prudent hands."
+
+"If you knew how afraid I am to go to sleep,--what glances my
+godfather gives me! The last time he caught hold of my dress--I awoke
+with my face all covered with tears."
+
+"Be at peace; he will not come again," said the priest.
+
+Without losing a moment the Abbe Chaperon went straight to Minoret and
+asked for a few moments interview in the Chinese pagoda, requesting
+that they might be entirely alone.
+
+"Can any one hear us?" he asked.
+
+"No one," replied Minoret.
+
+"Monsieur, my character must be known to you," said the abbe,
+fastening a gentle but attentive look on Minoret's face. "I have to
+speak to you of serious and extraordinary matters, which concern you,
+and about which you may be sure that I shall keep the profoundest
+secrecy; but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than give you
+this information. While your uncle lived, there stood there," said the
+priest, pointing to a certain spot in the room, "a small buffet made
+by Boule, with a marble top" (Minoret turned livid), "and beneath the
+marble your uncle placed a letter for Ursula--" The abbe then went on
+to relate, without omitting the smallest circumstance, Minoret's
+conduct to Minoret himself. When the last post master heard the detail
+of the two matches refusing to light he felt his hair begin to writhe
+on his skull.
+
+"Who invented such nonsense?" he said, in a strangled voice, when the
+tale ended.
+
+"The dead man himself."
+
+This answer made Minoret tremble, for he himself had dreamed of the
+doctor.
+
+"God is very good, Monsieur l'abbe, to do miracles for me," he said,
+danger inspiring him to make the sole jest of his life.
+
+"All that God does is natural," replied the priest.
+
+"Your phantoms don't frighten me," said the colossus, recovering his
+coolness.
+
+"I did not come to frighten you, for I shall never speak of this to
+any one in the world," said the abbe. "You alone know the truth. The
+matter is between you and God."
+
+"Come now, Monsieur l'abbe, do you really think me capable of such a
+horrible abuse of confidence?"
+
+"I believe only in crimes which are confessed to me, and of which the
+sinner repents," said the priest, in an apostolic tone.
+
+"Crime?" cried Minoret.
+
+"A crime frightful in its consequences."
+
+"What consequences?"
+
+"In the fact that it escapes human justice. The crimes which are not
+expiated here below will be punished in another world. God himself
+avenges innocence."
+
+"Do you think God concerns himself with such trifles?"
+
+"If he did not see the worlds in all their details at a glance, as you
+take a landscape into your eye, he would not be God."
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe, will you give me your word of honor that you have
+had these facts from my uncle?"
+
+"Your uncle has appeared three times to Ursula and has told them and
+repeated them to her. Exhausted by such visions she revealed them to
+me privately; she considers them so devoid of reason that she will
+never speak of them. You may make yourself easy on that point."
+
+"I am easy on all points, Monsieur Chaperon."
+
+"I hope you are," said the old priest. "Even if I considered these
+warnings absurd, I should still feel bound to inform you of them,
+considering the singular nature of the details. You are an honest man,
+and you have obtained your handsome fortune in too legal a way to wish
+to add to it by theft. Besides, you are an almost primitive man, and
+you would be tortured by remorse. We have within us, be we savage or
+civilized, the sense of what is right, and this will not permit us to
+enjoy in peace ill-gotten gains acquired against the laws of the
+society in which we live,--for well-constituted societies are modeled
+on the system God has ordained for the universe. In this respect
+societies have a divine origin. Man does not originate ideas, he
+invents no form; he answers to the eternal relations that surround him
+on all sides. Therefore, see what happens! Criminals going to the
+scaffold, and having it in their power to carry their secret with
+them, are compelled by the force of some mysterious power to make
+confessions before their heads are taken off. Therefore, Monsieur
+Minoret, if your mind is at ease, I go my way satisfied."
+
+Minoret was so stupefied that he allowed the abbe to find his own way
+out. When he thought himself alone he flew into the fury of a choleric
+man; the strangest blasphemies escaped his lips, in which Ursula's
+name was mingled with odious language.
+
+"Why, what has she done to you?" cried Zelie, who had slipped in on
+tiptoe after seeing the abbe out of the house.
+
+For the first and only time in his life, Minoret, drunk with anger and
+driven to extremities by his wife's reiterated questions, turned upon
+her and beat her so violently that he was obliged, when she fell half-
+dead on the floor, to take her in his arms and put her to bed himself,
+ashamed of his act. He was taken ill and the doctor bled him twice;
+when he appeared again in the streets everybody noticed a great change
+in him. He walked alone, and often roamed the town as though uneasy.
+When any one addressed him he seemed preoccupied in his mind, he who
+had never before had two ideas in his head. At last, one evening, he
+went up to Monsieur Bongrand in the Grand'Rue, the latter being on his
+way to take Ursula to Madame de Portenduere's, where the whist parties
+had begun again.
+
+"Monsieur Bongrand, I have something important to say to my cousin,"
+he said, taking the justice by the arm, "and I am very glad you should
+be present, for you can advise her."
+
+They found Ursula studying; she rose, with a cold and dignified air,
+as soon as she saw Minoret.
+
+"My child, Monsieur Minoret wants to speak to you on a matter of
+business," said Bongrand. "By the bye, don't forget to give me your
+certificates; I shall go to Paris in the morning and will draw your
+dividend and La Bougival's."
+
+"Cousin," said Minoret, "our uncle accustomed you to more luxury than
+you have now."
+
+"We can be very happy with very little money," she replied.
+
+"I thought money might help your happiness," continued Minoret, "and I
+have come to offer you some, out of respect for the memory of my
+uncle."
+
+"You had a natural way of showing respect for him," said Ursula,
+sternly; "you could have left his house as it was, and allowed me to
+buy it; instead of that you put it at a high price, hoping to find
+some hidden treasure in it."
+
+"But," said Minoret, evidently troubled, "if you had twelve thousand
+francs a year you would be in a position to marry well."
+
+"I have not got them."
+
+"But suppose I give them to you, on condition of your buying an estate
+in Brittany near Madame de Portenduere,--you could then marry her
+son."
+
+"Monsieur Minoret," said Ursula, "I have no claim to that money, and I
+cannot accept it from you. We are scarcely relations, still less are
+we friends. I have suffered too much from calumny to give a handle for
+evil-speaking. What have I done to deserve that money? What reason
+have you to make me such a present? These questions, which I have a
+right to ask, persons will answer as they see fit; some would consider
+your gift the reparation of a wrong, and, as such, I choose not to
+accept it. Your uncle did not bring me up to ignoble feelings. I can
+accept nothing except from friends, and I have no friendship for you."
+
+"Then you refuse?" cried the colossus, into whose head the idea had
+never entered that a fortune could be rejected.
+
+"I refuse," said Ursula.
+
+"But what grounds have you for offering Mademoiselle Ursula such a
+fortune?" asked Bongrand, looking fixedly at Minoret. "You have an
+idea--have you an idea?--"
+
+"Well, yes, the idea of getting her out of Nemours, so that my son
+will leave me in peace; he is in love with her and wants to marry
+her."
+
+"Well, we'll see about it," said Bongrand, settling his spectacles.
+"Give us time to think it over."
+
+He walked home with Minoret, applauding the solicitude shown by the
+father for his son's interests, and slightly blaming Ursula for her
+hasty decision. As soon as Minoret was within his own gate, Bongrand
+went to the post house, borrowed a horse and cabriolet, and started
+for Fontainebleau, where he went to see the deputy procureur, and was
+told that he was spending the evening at the house of the sub-prefect.
+Bongrand, delighted, followed him there. Desire was playing whist with
+the wife of the procureur du roi, the wife of the sub-prefect, and the
+colonel of the regiment in garrison.
+
+"I come to bring you some good news," said Bongrand to Desire; "you
+love your cousin Ursula, and the marriage can be arranged."
+
+"I love Ursula Mirouet!" cried Desire, laughing. "Where did you get
+that idea? I do remember seeing her sometimes at the late Doctor
+Minoret's; she certainly is a beauty; but she is dreadfully pious. I
+certainly took notice of her charms, but I must say I never troubled
+my head seriously for that rather insipid little blonde," he added,
+smiling at the sub-prefect's wife (who was a piquante brunette--to use
+a term of the last century). "You are dreaming, my dear Monsieur
+Bongrand; I thought every one knew that my father was a lord of a
+manor, with a rent roll of forty-five thousand francs a year from
+lands around his chateau at Rouvre,--good reasons why I should not
+love the goddaughter of my late great-uncle. If I were to marry a girl
+without a penny these ladies would consider me a fool."
+
+"Have you never tormented your father to let you marry Ursula?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"You hear that, monsieur?" said the justice to the procureur du roi,
+who had been listening to the conversation, leading him aside into the
+recess of a window, where they remained in conversation for a quarter
+of an hour.
+
+An hour later Bongrand was back in Nemours, at Ursula's house, whence
+he sent La Bougival to Minoret to beg his attendance. The colossus
+came at once.
+
+"Mademoiselle--" began Bongrand, addressing Minoret as he entered the
+room.
+
+"Accepts?" cried Minoret, interrupting him.
+
+"No, not yet," replied Bongrand, fingering his glasses. "I had
+scruples as to your son's feelings; for Ursula has been much tried
+lately about a supposed lover. We know the importance of tranquillity.
+Can you swear to me that your son truly loves her and that you have no
+other intention than to preserve our dear Ursula from any further
+Goupilisms?"
+
+"Oh, I'll swear to that," cried Minoret.
+
+"Stop, papa Minoret," said the justice, taking one hand from the
+pocket of his trousers to slap Minoret on the shoulder (the colossus
+trembled); "Don't swear falsely."
+
+"Swear falsely?"
+
+"Yes, either you or your son, who has just sworn at Fontainebleau, in
+presence of four persons and the procureur du roi, that he has never
+even thought of his cousin Ursula. You have other reasons for offering
+this fortune. I saw you were inventing that tale, and went myself to
+Fontainebleau to question your son."
+
+Minoret was dumbfounded at his own folly.
+
+"But where's the harm, Monsieur Bongrand, in proposing to a young
+relative to help on a marriage which seems to be for her happiness,
+and to invent pretexts to conquer her reluctance to accept the money."
+
+Minoret, whose danger suggested to him an excuse which was almost
+admissible, wiped his forehead, wet with perspiration.
+
+"You know the cause of my refusal," said Ursula; "and I request you
+never to come here again. Though Monsieur de Portenduere has not told
+me his reason, I know that he feels such contempt for you, such
+dislike even, that I cannot receive you into my house. My happiness is
+my only fortune,--I do not blush to say so; I shall not risk it.
+Monsieur de Portenduere is only waiting for my majority to marry me."
+
+"Then the old saw that 'Money does all' is a lie," said Minoret,
+looking at the justice of peace, whose observing eyes annoyed him so
+much.
+
+He rose and left the house, but, once outside, he found the air as
+oppressive as in the little salon.
+
+"There must be an end put to this," he said to himself as he re-
+entered his own home.
+
+When Ursula came down, bring her certificates and those of La
+Bougival, she found Monsieur Bongrand walking up and down the salon
+with great strides.
+
+"Have you no idea what the conduct of that huge idiot means?" he said.
+
+"None that I can tell," she replied.
+
+Bongrand looked at her with inquiring surprise.
+
+"Then we have the same idea," he said. "Here, keep the number of your
+certificates, in case I lose them; you should always take that
+precaution."
+
+Bongrand himself wrote the number of the two certificates, hers and
+that of La Bougival, and gave them to her.
+
+"Adieu, my child, I shall be gone two days, but you will see me on the
+third."
+
+That night the apparition appeared to Ursula in a singular manner. She
+thought her bed was in the cemetery of Nemours, and that her uncle's
+grave was at the foot of it. The white stone, on which she read the
+inscription, opened, like the cover of an oblong album. She uttered a
+piercing cry, but the doctor's spectre slowly rose. First she saw his
+yellow head, with its fringe of white hair, which shone as if
+surmounted by a halo. Beneath the bald forehead the eyes were like two
+gleams of light; the dead man rose as if impelled by some superior
+force or will. Ursula's body trembled; her flesh was like a burning
+garment, and there was (as she subsequently said) another self moving
+within her bodily presence. "Mercy!" she cried, "mercy, godfather!"
+"It is too late," he said, in the voice of death,--to use the poor
+girl's own expression when she related this new dream to the abbe. "He
+has been warned; he has paid no heed to the warning. The days of his
+son are numbered. If he does not confess all and restore what he has
+taken within a certain time he must lose his son, who will die a
+violent and horrible death. Let him know this." The spectre pointed to
+a line of figures which gleamed upon the side of the tomb as if
+written with fire, and said, "There is his doom." When her uncle lay
+down again in his grave Ursula heard the sound of the stone falling
+back into its place, and immediately after, in the distance, a strange
+sound of horses and the cries of men.
+
+The next day Ursula was prostrate. She could not rise, so terribly had
+the dream overcome her. She begged her nurse to find the Abbe Chaperon
+and bring him to her. The good priest came as soon as he had said
+mass, but he was not surprised at Ursula's revelation. He believed the
+robbery had been committed, and no longer tried to explain to himself
+the abnormal condition of his "little dreamer." He left Ursula at once
+and went directly to Minoret's.
+
+"Monsieur l'abbe," said Zelie, "my husband's temper is so soured I
+don't know what he mightn't do. Until now he's been a child; but for
+the last two months he's not the same man. To get angry enough to
+strike me--me, so gentle! There must be something dreadful the matter
+to change him like that. You'll find him among the rocks; he spends
+all his time there,--doing what, I'd like to know?"
+
+In spite of the heat (it was then September, 1836), the abbe crossed
+the canal and took a path which led to the base of one of the rocks,
+where he saw Minoret.
+
+"You are greatly troubled, Monsieur Minoret," said the priest going up
+to him. "You belong to me because you suffer. Unhappily, I come to
+increase your pain. Ursula had a terrible dream last night. Your uncle
+lifted the stone from his grave and came forth to prophecy a great
+disaster in your family. I certainly am not here to frighten you; but
+you ought to know what he said--"
+
+"I can't be easy anywhere, Monsieur Chaperon, not even among these
+rocks, and I'm sure I don't want to know anything that is going on in
+another world."
+
+"Then I will leave you, monsieur; I did not take this hot walk for
+pleasure," said the abbe, mopping his forehead.
+
+"Well, what do you want to say?" demanded Minoret.
+
+"You are threatened with the loss of your son. If the dead man told
+things that you alone know, one must needs tremble when he tells
+things that no one can know till they happen. Make restitution, I say,
+make restitution. Don't damn your soul for a little money."
+
+"Restitution of what?"
+
+"The fortune the doctor intended for Ursula. You took those three
+certificates--I know it now. You began by persecuting that poor girl,
+and you end by offering her a fortune; you have stumbled into lies,
+you have tangled yourself up in this net, and you are taking false
+steps every day. You are very clumsy and unskilful; your accomplice
+Goupil has served you ill; he simply laughs at you. Make haste and
+clear your mind, for you are watched by intelligent and penetrating
+eyes,--those of Ursula's friends. Make restitution! and if you do not
+save your son (who may not really be threatened), you will save your
+soul, and you will save your honor. Do you believe that in a society
+like ours, in a little town like this, where everybody's eyes are
+everywhere, and all things are guessed and all things are known, you
+can long hide a stolen fortune? Come, my son, an innocent man wouldn't
+have let me talk so long."
+
+"Go to the devil!" cried Minoret. "I don't know what you ALL mean by
+persecuting me. I prefer these stones--they leave me in peace."
+
+"Farewell, then; I have warned you. Neither the poor girl nor I have
+said a single word about this to any living person. But take care--
+there is a man who has his eye upon you. May God have pity upon you!"
+
+The abbe departed; presently he turned back to look at Minoret. The
+man was holding his head in his hands as if it troubled him; he was,
+in fact, partly crazy. In the first place, he had kept the three
+certificates because he did not know what to do with them. He dared
+not draw the money himself for fear it should be noticed; he did not
+wish to sell them, and was still trying to find some way of
+transferring the certificates. In this horrible state of uncertainty
+he bethought him of acknowledging all to his wife and getting her
+advice. Zelie, who always managed affairs for him so well, she could
+get him out of his troubles. The three-per-cent Funds were now selling
+at eighty. Restitution! why, that meant, with arrearages, giving up a
+million! Give up a million, when there was no one who could know that
+he had taken it!--
+
+So Minoret continued through September and a part of October
+irresolute and a prey to his torturing thoughts. To the great surprise
+of the little town he grew thin and haggard.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+REMORSE
+
+An alarming circumstance hastened the confession which Minoret was
+inclined to make to Zelie; the sword of Damocles began to move above
+their heads. Towards the middle of October Monsieur and Madame Minoret
+received from their son Desire the following letter:--
+
+  My dear Mother,--If I have not been to see you since vacation, it
+  is partly because I have been on duty during the absence of my
+  chief, but also because I knew that Monsieur de Portenduere was
+  waiting my arrival at Nemours, to pick a quarrel with me. Tired,
+  perhaps, of seeing his vengeance on our family delayed, the
+  viscount came to Fontainebleau, where he had appointed one of his
+  Parisian friends to meet him, having already obtained the help of
+  the Vicomte de Soulanges commanding the troop of cavalry here in
+  garrison.
+
+  He called upon me, very politely, accompanied by the two
+  gentlemen, and told me that my father was undoubtedly the
+  instigator of the malignant persecutions against Ursula Mirouet,
+  his future wife; he gave me proofs, and told me of Goupil's
+  confession before witnesses. He also told me of my father's
+  conduct, first in refusing to pay Goupil the price agreed on for
+  his wicked invention, and next, out of fear of Goupil's malignity,
+  going security to Monsieur Dionis for the price of his practice
+  which Goupil is to have.
+
+  The viscount, not being able to fight a man sixty-seven years of
+  age, and being determined to have satisfaction for the insults
+  offered to Ursula, demanded it formally of me. His determination,
+  having been well-weighed and considered, could not be shaken. If I
+  refused, he was resolved to meet me in society before persons
+  whose esteem I value, and insult me openly. In France, a coward is
+  unanimously scorned. Besides, the motives for demanding reparation
+  should be explained by honorable men. He said he was sorry to
+  resort to such extremities. His seconds declared it would be wiser
+  in me to arrange a meeting in the usual manner among men of honor,
+  so that Ursula Mirouet might not be known as the cause of the
+  quarrel; to avoid all scandal it was better to make a journey to
+  the nearest frontier. In short, my seconds met his yesterday, and
+  they unanimously agreed that I owed him reparation. A week from
+  to-day I leave for Geneva with my two friends. Monsieur de
+  Portenduere, Monsieur de Soulanges, and Monsieur de Trailles will
+  meet me there.
+
+  The preliminaries of the duel are settled; we shall fight with
+  pistols; each fires three times, and after that, no matter what
+  happens, the affair terminates. To keep this degrading matter from
+  public knowledge (for I find it impossible to justify my father's
+  conduct) I do not go to see you now, because I dread the violence
+  of the emotion to which you would yield and which would not be
+  seemly. If I am to make my way in the world I must conform to the
+  rules of society. If the son of a viscount has a dozen reasons for
+  fighting a duel the son of a post master has a hundred. I shall
+  pass the night in Nemours on my way to Geneva, and I will bid you
+  good-by then.
+
+After the reading of this letter a scene took place between Zelie and
+Minoret which ended in the latter confessing the theft and relating
+all the circumstances and the strange scenes connected with it, even
+Ursula's dreams. The million fascinated Zelie quite as much as it did
+Minoret.
+
+"You stay quietly here," Zelie said to her husband, without the
+slightest remonstrance against his folly. "I'll manage the whole
+thing. We'll keep the money, and Desire shall not fight a duel."
+
+Madame Minoret put on her bonnet and shawl and carried her son's
+letter to Ursula, whom she found alone, as it was about midday. In
+spite of her assurance Zelie was discomfited by the cold look which
+the young girl gave her. But she took herself to task for her
+cowardice and assumed an easy air.
+
+"Here, Mademoiselle Mirouet, do me the kindness to read that and tell
+me what you think of it," she cried, giving Ursula her son's letter.
+
+Ursula went through various conflicting emotions as she read the
+letter, which showed her how truly she was loved and what care
+Savinien took of the honor of the woman who was to be his wife; but
+she had too much charity and true religion to be willing to be the
+cause of death or suffering to her most cruel enemy.
+
+"I promise, madame, to prevent the duel; you may feel perfectly easy,
+--but I must request you to leave me this letter."
+
+"My dear little angel, can we not come to some better arrangement.
+Monsieur Minoret and I have acquired property about Rouvre,--a really
+regal castle, which gives us forty-eight thousand francs a year; we
+shall give Desire twenty-four thousand a year which we have in the
+Funds; in all, seventy thousand francs a year. You will admit that
+there are not many better matches than he. You are an ambitious girl,
+--and quite right too," added Zelie, seeing Ursula's quick gesture of
+denial; "I have therefore come to ask your hand for Desire. You will
+bear your godfather's name, and that will honor it. Desire, as you
+must have seen, is a handsome fellow; he is very much thought of at
+Fontainebleau, and he will soon be procureur du roi himself. You are a
+coaxing girl and can easily persuade him to live in Paris. We will
+give you a fine house there; you will shine; you will play a
+distinguished part; for, with seventy thousand francs a year and the
+salary of an office, you and Desire can enter the highest society.
+Consult your friends; you'll see what they tell you."
+
+"I need only consult my heart, madame."
+
+"Ta, ta, ta! now don't talk to me about that little lady-killer
+Savinien. You'd pay too high a price for his name, and for that little
+moustache curled up at the points like two hooks, and his black hair.
+How do you expect to manage on seven thousand francs a year, with a
+man who made two hundred thousand francs of debt in two years? Besides
+--though this is a thing you don't know yet--all men are alike; and
+without flattering myself too much, I may say that my Desire is the
+equal of a king's son."
+
+"You forget, madame, the danger your son is in at this moment; which
+can, perhaps, be averted only by Monsieur de Portenduere's desire to
+please me. If he knew that you had made me these unworthy proposals
+that danger might not be escaped. Besides, let me tell you, madame,
+that I shall be far happier in the moderate circumstances to which you
+allude than I should be in the opulence with which you are trying to
+dazzle me. For reasons hitherto unknown, but which will yet be made
+known, Monsieur Minoret, by persecuting me in an odious manner,
+strengthened the affection that exists between Monsieur de Portenduere
+and myself--which I can now admit because his mother has blessed it. I
+will also tell you that this affection, sanctioned and legitimate, is
+life itself to me. No destiny, however brilliant, however lofty, could
+make me change. I love without the possibility of changing. It would
+therefore be a crime if I married a man to whom I could take nothing
+but a soul that is Savinien's. But, madame, since you force me to be
+explicit, I must tell you that even if I did not love Monsieur de
+Portenduere I could not bring myself to bear the troubles and joys of
+life in the company of your son. If Monsieur Savinien made debts, you
+have often paid those of your son. Our characters have neither the
+similarities nor the differences which enable two persons to live
+together without bitterness. Perhaps I should not have towards him the
+forbearance a wife owes to her husband; I should then be a trial to
+him. Pray cease to think of an alliance of which I count myself quite
+unworthy, and which I fell I can decline without pain to you; for with
+the great advantages you name to me, you cannot fail to find some girl
+of better station, more wealth, and more beauty than mine."
+
+"Will you swear to me," said Zelie, "to prevent these young men from
+taking that journey and fighting that duel?"
+
+"It will be, I foresee, the greatest sacrifice that Monsieur de
+Portenduere can make to me, but I shall tell him that my bridal crown
+must have no blood upon it."
+
+"Well, I thank you, cousin, and I can only hope you will be happy."
+
+"And I, madame, sincerely wish that you may realize all your
+expectations for the future of your son."
+
+These words struck a chill to the heart of the mother, who suddenly
+remembered the predictions of Ursula's last dream; she stood still,
+her small eyes fixed on Ursula's face, so white, so pure, so beautiful
+in her mourning dress, for Ursula had risen too to hasten her so-
+called cousin's departure.
+
+"Do you believe in dreams?" said Zelie.
+
+"I suffer from them too much not to do so."
+
+"But if you do--" began Zelie.
+
+"Adieu, madame," exclaimed Ursula, bowing to Madame Minoret as she
+heard the abbe's entering step.
+
+The priest was surprised to find Madame Minoret with Ursula. The
+uneasiness depicted on the thin and wrinkled face of the former post
+mistress induced him to take note of the two women.
+
+"Do you believe in spirits?" Zelie asked him.
+
+"What do you believe in?" he answered, smiling.
+
+"They are all sly," thought Zelie,--"every one of them! They want to
+deceive us. That old priest and the old justice and that young scamp
+Savinien have got some plan in their heads. Dreams! no more dreams
+than there are hairs on the palm of my hand."
+
+With two stiff, curt bows she left the room.
+
+"I know why Savinien went to Fontainebleau," said Ursula to the abbe,
+telling him about the duel and begging him to use his influence to
+prevent it.
+
+"Did Madame Minoret offer you her son's hand?" asked the abbe.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Minoret has no doubt confessed his crime to her," added the priest.
+
+Monsieur Bongrand, who came in at this moment, was told of the step
+taken by Zelie, whose hatred to Ursula was well known to him. He
+looked at the abbe as if to say: "Come out, I want to speak to you of
+Ursula without her hearing me."
+
+"Savinien must be told that you refused eighty thousand francs a year
+and the dandy of Nemours," he said aloud.
+
+"Is it, then, a sacrifice?" she answered, laughing. "Are there
+sacrifices when one truly loves? Is it any merit to refuse the son of
+a man we all despise? Others may make virtues of their dislikes, but
+that ought not to be the morality of a girl brought up by a de Jordy,
+and the abbe, and my dear godfather," she said, looking up at his
+portrait.
+
+Bongrand took Ursula's hand and kissed it.
+
+"Do you know what Madame Minoret came about?" said the justice as soon
+as they were in the street.
+
+"What?" asked the priest, looking at Bongrand with an air that seemed
+merely curious.
+
+"She had some plan for restitution."
+
+"Then you think--" began the abbe.
+
+"I don't think, I know; I have the certainty--and see there!"
+
+So saying, Bongrand pointed to Minoret, who was coming towards them on
+his way home.
+
+"When I was a lawyer in the criminal courts," continued Bongrand, "I
+naturally had many opportunities to study remorse; but I have never
+seen any to equal that of this man. What gives him that flaccidity,
+that pallor of the cheeks where the skin was once as tight as a drum
+and bursting with the good sound health of a man without a care? What
+has put those black circles round his eyes and dulled their rustic
+vivacity? Did you ever expect to see lines of care on that forehead?
+Who would have supposed that the brain of that colossus could be
+excited? The man has felt his heart! I am a judge of remorse, just as
+you are a judge of repentance, my dear abbe. That which I have
+hitherto observed has developed in men who were awaiting punishment,
+or enduring it to get quits with the world; they were either resigned,
+or breathing vengeance; but here is remorse without expiation, remorse
+pure and simple, fastening on its prey and rending him."
+
+The judge stopped Minoret and said: "Do you know that Mademoiselle
+Mirouet has refused your son's hand?"
+
+"But," interposed the abbe, "do not be uneasy; she will prevent the
+duel."
+
+"Ah, then my wife succeeded?" said Minoret. "I am very glad, for it
+nearly killed me."
+
+"You are, indeed, so changed that you are no longer like yourself,"
+remarked Bongrand.
+
+Minoret looked alternately at the two men to see if the priest had
+betrayed the dreams; but the abbe's face was unmoved, expressing only
+a calm sadness which reassured the guilty man.
+
+"And it is the more surprising," went on Monsieur Bongrand, "because
+you ought to be filled with satisfaction. You are lord of Rouvre and
+all those farms and mills and meadows and--with your investments in
+the Funds, you have an income of one hundred thousand francs--"
+
+"I haven't anything in the Funds," cried Minoret, hastily.
+
+"Pooh," said Bongrand; "this is just as it was about your son's love
+for Ursula,--first he denied it, and now he asks her in marriage.
+After trying to kill Ursula with sorrow you now want her for a
+daughter-in-law. My good friend, you have got some secret in your
+pouch."
+
+Minoret tried to answer; he searched for words and could find nothing
+better than:--
+
+"You're very queer, monsieur. Good-day, gentlemen"; and he turned with
+a slow step into the Rue des Bourgeois.
+
+"He has stolen the fortune of our poor Ursula," said Bongrand, "but
+how can we ever find the proof?"
+
+"God may--"
+
+"God has put into us the sentiment that is now appealing to that man;
+but all that is merely what is called 'presumptive,' and human justice
+requires something more."
+
+The abbe maintained the silence of a priest. As often happens in
+similar circumstances, he thought much oftener than he wished to think
+of the robbery, now almost admitted by Minoret, and of Savinien's
+happiness, delayed only by Ursula's loss of fortune--for the old lady
+had privately owned to him that she knew she had done wrong in not
+consenting to the marriage in the doctor's lifetime.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+SHOWING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STEAL THAT
+WHICH SEEMS VERY EASILY STOLEN
+
+The following day, as the abbe was leaving the altar after saying
+mass, a thought struck him with such force that it seemed to him the
+utterance of a voice. He made a sign to Ursula to wait for him, and
+accompanied her home without having breakfasted.
+
+"My child," he said, "I want to see the two volumes your godfather
+showed you in your dreams--where he said that he placed those
+certificates and banknotes."
+
+Ursula and the abbe went up to the library and took down the third
+volume of the Pandects. When the old man opened it he noticed, not
+without surprise, a mark left by some enclosure upon the pages, which
+still kept the outline of the certificate. In the other volume he
+found a sort of hollow made by the long-continued presence of a
+package, which had left its traces on the two pages next to it.
+
+"Yes, go up, Monsieur Bongrand," La Bougival was heard to say, and the
+justice of the peace came into the library just as the abbe was
+putting on his spectacles to read three numbers in Doctor Minoret's
+hand-writing on the fly-leaf of colored paper with which the binder
+had lined the cover of the volume,--figures which Ursula had just
+discovered.
+
+"What's the meaning of those figures?" said the abbe; "our dear doctor
+was too much of a bibliophile to spoil the fly-leaf of a valuable
+volume. Here are three numbers written between a first number preceded
+by the letter M and a last number preceded by a U."
+
+"What are you talking of?" said Bongrand. "Let me see that. Good God!"
+he cried, after a moment's examination; "it would open the eyes of an
+atheist as an actual demonstration of Providence! Human justice is, I
+believe, the development of the divine thought which hovers over the
+worlds." He seized Ursula and kissed her forehead. "Oh! my child, you
+will be rich and happy, and all through me!"
+
+"What is it?" exclaimed the abbe.
+
+"Oh, monsieur," cried La Bougival, catching Bongrand's blue overcoat,
+"let me kiss you for what you've just said."
+
+"Explain, explain! don't give us false hopes," said the abbe.
+
+"If I bring trouble on others by becoming rich," said Ursula,
+forseeing a criminal trial, "I--"
+
+"Remember," said the justice, interrupting her, "the happiness you
+will give to Savinien."
+
+"Are you mad?" said the abbe.
+
+"No, my dear friend," said Bongrand. "Listen; the certificates in the
+Funds are issued in series,--as many series as there are letters in
+the alphabet; and each number bears the letter of its series. But the
+certificates which are made out 'to bearer' cannot have a letter; they
+are not in any person's name. What you see there shows that the day
+the doctor placed his money in the Funds, he noted down, first, the
+number of his own certificate for fifteen thousand francs interest
+which bears his initial M; next, the numbers of three inscriptions to
+bearer; these are without a letter; and thirdly, the certificate of
+Ursula's share in the Funds, the number of which is 23,534, and which
+follows, as you see, that of the fifteen-thousand-franc certificate
+with lettering. This goes far to prove that those numbers are those of
+five certificates of investments made on the same day and noted down
+by the doctor in case of loss. I advised him to take certificates to
+bearer for Ursula's fortune, and he must have made his own investment
+and that of Ursula's little property the same day. I'll go to Dionis's
+office and look at the inventory. If the number of the certificate for
+his own investment is 23,533, letter M, we may be sure that he
+invested, through the same broker on the same day, first his own
+property on a single certificate; secondly his savings in three
+certificates to bearer (numbered, but without the series letter);
+thirdly, Ursula's own property; the transfer books will show, of
+course, undeniable proofs of this. Ha! Minoret, you deceiver, I have
+you-- Motus, my children!"
+
+Whereupon he left them abruptly to reflect with admiration on the ways
+by which Providence had brought the innocent to victory.
+
+"The finger of God is in all this," cried the abbe.
+
+"Will they punish him?" asked Ursula.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle," cried La Bougival. "I'd give the rope to hang
+him."
+
+Bongrand was already at Goupil's, now the appointed successor of
+Dionis, but he entered the office with a careless air. "I have a
+little matter to verify about the Minoret property," he said to
+Goupil.
+
+"What is it?" asked the latter.
+
+"The doctor left one or more certificates in the three-per-cent
+Funds?"
+
+"He left one for fifteen thousand francs a year," said Goupil; "I
+recorded it myself."
+
+"Then just look on the inventory," said Bongrand.
+
+Goupil took down a box, hunted through it, drew out a paper, found the
+place, and read:--
+
+"'Item, one certificate'-- Here, read for yourself--under the number
+23,533, letter M."
+
+"Do me the kindness to let me have a copy of that clause within an
+hour," said Bongrand.
+
+"What good is it to you?" asked Goupil.
+
+"Do you want to be a notary?" answered the justice of peace, looking
+sternly at Dionis's proposed successor.
+
+"Of course I do," cried Goupil. "I've swallowed too many affronts not
+to succeed now. I beg you to believe, monsieur, that the miserable
+creature once called Goupil has nothing in common with Maitre Jean-
+Sebastien-Marie Goupil, notary of Nemours and husband of Mademoiselle
+Massin. The two beings do not know each other. They are no longer even
+alike. Look at me!"
+
+Thus adjured Monsieur Bongrand took notice of Goupil's clothes. The
+new notary wore a white cravat, a shirt of dazzling whiteness adorned
+with ruby buttons, a waistcoat of red velvet, with trousers and coat
+of handsome black broad-cloth, made in Paris. His boots were neat; his
+hair, carefully combed, was perfumed--in short he was metamorphosed.
+
+"The fact is you are another man," said Bongrand.
+
+"Morally as well as physically. Virtue comes with practice--a
+practice; besides, money is the source of cleanliness--"
+
+"Morally as well as physically," returned Bongrand, settling his
+spectacles.
+
+"Ha! monsieur, is a man worth a hundred thousand francs a year ever a
+democrat? Consider me in future as an honest man who knows what
+refinement is, and who intends to love his wife," said Goupil; "and
+what's more, I shall prevent my clients from ever doing dirty
+actions."
+
+"Well, make haste," said Bongrand. "Let me have that copy in an hour,
+and notary Goupil will have undone some of the evil deeds of Goupil
+the clerk."
+
+After asking the Nemours doctor to lend him his horse and cabriolet,
+he went back to Ursula's house for the two important volumes and for
+her own certificate of Funds; then, armed with the extract from the
+inventory, he drove to Fontainebleau and had an interview with the
+procureur du roi. Bongrand easily convinced that official of the theft
+of the three certificates by one or other of the heirs,--presumably by
+Minoret.
+
+"His conduct is explained," said the procureur.
+
+As a measure of precaution the magistrate at once notified the
+Treasury to withhold transfer of the said certificates, and told
+Bongrand to go to Paris and ascertain if the shares had ever been
+sold. He then wrote a polite note to Madame Minoret requesting her
+presence.
+
+Zelie, very uneasy about her son's duel, dressed herself at once, had
+the horses put to her carriage and hurried to Fontainebleau. The
+procureur's plan was simple enough. By separating the wife from the
+husband, and bringing the terrors of the law to bear upon her, he
+expected to learn the truth. Zelie found the official in his private
+office and was utterly annihilated when he addressed her as follows:--
+
+"Madame," he said; "I do not believe you are an accomplice in a theft
+that has been committed upon the Minoret property, on the track of
+which the law is now proceeding. But you can spare your husband the
+shame of appearing in the prisoner's dock by making a full confession
+of what you know about it. The punishment which your husband has
+incurred is, moreover, not the only thing to be dreaded. Your son's
+career is to be thought of; you must avoid destroying that. Half an
+hour hence will be too late. The police are already under orders for
+Nemours, the warrant is made out."
+
+Zelie nearly fainted; when she recovered her senses she confessed
+everything. After proving to her that she was in point of fact an
+accomplice, the magistrate told her that if she did not wish to injure
+either son or husband she must behave with the utmost prudence.
+
+"You have now to do with me as an individual, not as a magistrate," he
+said. "No complaint has been lodged by the victim, nor has any
+publicity been given to the theft. But your husband has committed a
+great crime, which may be brought before a judge less inclined than
+myself to be considerate. In the present state of the affair I am
+obliged to make you a prisoner--oh, in my own house, on parole," he
+added, seeing that Zelie was about to faint. "You must remember that
+my official duty would require me to issue a warrant at once and begin
+an examination; but I am acting now individually, as guardian of
+Mademoiselle Ursula Mirouet, and her best interests demand a
+compromise."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Zelie.
+
+"Write to your husband in the following words," he continued, placing
+Zelie at his desk and proceeding to dictate the letter:--
+
+  "My Friend,--I am arrested, and I have told all. Return the
+  certificates which uncle left to Monsieur de Portenduere in the
+  will which you burned; for the procureur du roi has stopped
+  payment at the Treasury."
+
+"You will thus save him from the denials he would otherwise attempt to
+make," said the magistrate, smiling at Zelie's orthography. "We will
+see that the restitution is properly made. My wife will make your stay
+in our house as agreeable as possible. I advise you to say nothing of
+the matter and not to appear anxious or unhappy."
+
+Now that Zelie had confessed and was safely immured, the magistrate
+sent for Desire, told him all the particulars of his father's theft,
+which was really to Ursula's injury, but, as matters stood, legally to
+that of his co-heirs, and showed him the letter written by his mother.
+Desire at once asked to be allowed to go to Nemours and see that his
+father made immediate restitution.
+
+"It is a very serious matter," said the magistrate. "The will having
+been destroyed, if the matter gets wind, the co-heirs, Massin and
+Cremiere may put in a claim. I have proof enough against your father.
+I will release your mother, for I think the little ceremony that has
+already taken place has been sufficient warning as to her duty. To
+her, I will seem to have yielded to your entreaties in releasing her.
+Take her with you to Nemours, and manage the whole matter as best you
+can. Don't fear any one. Monsieur Bongrand loves Ursula Mirouet too
+well to let the matter become known."
+
+Zelie and Desire started soon after for Nemours. Three hours later the
+procureur du roi received by a mounted messenger the following letter,
+the orthography of which has been corrected so as not to bring
+ridicule on a man crushed by affliction.
+
+
+To Monsieur le procureur du roi at Fontainebleau:
+
+Monsieur,--God is less kind to us than you; we have met with an
+irreparable misfortune. When my wife and son reached the bridge at
+Nemours a trace became unhooked. There was no servant behind the
+carriage; the horses smelt the stable; my son, fearing their
+impatience, jumped down to hook the trace rather than have the
+coachman leave the box. As he turned to resume his place in the
+carriage beside his mother the horses started; Desire did not step
+back against the parapet in time; the step of the carriage cut
+through both legs and he fell, the hind wheel passing over his
+body. The messenger who goes to Paris for the best surgeon will
+bring you this letter, which my son in the midst of his sufferings
+desires me to write so as to let you know our entire submission to
+your decisions in the matter about which he was coming to speak to me.
+
+I shall be grateful to you to my dying day for the manner in which
+you have acted, and I will deserve your goodness.
+
+Francois Minoret.
+
+
+This cruel event convulsed the whole town of Nemours. The crowds
+standing about the gate of the Minoret house were the first to tell
+Savinien that his vengeance had been taken by a hand more powerful
+than his own. He went at once to Ursula's house, where he found both
+the abbe and the young girl more distressed than surprised.
+
+The next day, after the wounds were dressed, and the doctors and
+surgeons from Paris had given their opinion that both legs must be
+amputated, Minoret went, pale, humbled, and broken down, accompanied
+by the abbe, to Ursula's house, where he found also Monsieur Bongrand
+and Savinien.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said; "I am very guilty towards you; but if all the
+wrongs I have done you are not wholly reparable, there are some that I
+can expiate. My wife and I have made a vow to make over to you in
+absolute possession our estate at Rouvre in case our son recovers, and
+also in case we have the dreadful sorrow of losing him."
+
+He burst into tears as he said the last words.
+
+"I can assure you, my dear Ursula," said the abbe, "that you can and
+that you ought to accept a part of this gift."
+
+"Will you forgive me?" said Minoret, humbly kneeling before the
+astonished girl. "The operation is about to be performed by the first
+surgeon of the Hotel-Dieu; but I do not trust to human science, I rely
+only on the power of God. If you will forgive us, if you ask God to
+restore our son to us, he will have strength to bear the agony and we
+shall have the joy of saving him."
+
+"Let us go to the church!" cried Ursula, rising.
+
+But as she gained her feet, a piercing cry came from her lips, and she
+fell backward fainting. When her senses returned, she saw her friends
+--but not Minoret who had rushed for a doctor--looking at her with
+anxious eyes, seeking an explanation. As she gave it, terror filled
+their hearts.
+
+"I saw my godfather standing in the doorway," she said, "and he signed
+to me that there was no hope."
+
+The day after the operation Desire died,--carried off by the fever and
+the shock to the system that succeed operations of this nature. Madame
+Minoret, whose heart had no other tender feeling than maternity,
+became insane after the burial of her son, and was taken by her
+husband to the establishment of Doctor Blanche, where she died in
+1841.
+
+Three months after these events, in January, 1837, Ursula married
+Savinien with Madame de Portenduere's consent. Minoret took part in
+the marriage contract and insisted on giving Mademoiselle Mirouet his
+estate at Rouvre and an income of twenty-four thousand francs from the
+Funds; keeping for himself only his uncle's house and ten thousand
+francs a year. He has become the most charitable of men, and the most
+religious; he is churchwarden of the parish, and has made himself the
+providence of the unfortunate.
+
+"The poor take the place of my son," he said.
+
+If you have ever noticed by the wayside, in countries where they poll
+the oaks, some old tree, whitened and as if blasted, still throwing
+out its twigs though its trunk is riven and seems to implore the axe,
+you will have an idea of the old post master, with his white hair,--
+broken, emaciated, in whom the elders of the town can see no trace of
+the jovial dullard whom you first saw watching for his son at the
+beginning of this history; he does not even take his snuff as he once
+did; he carries something more now than the weight of his body.
+Beholding him, we feel that the hand of God was laid upon that figure
+to make it an awful warning. After hating so violently his uncle's
+godchild the old man now, like Doctor Minoret himself, has
+concentrated all his affections on her, and has made himself the
+manager of her property in Nemours.
+
+Monsieur and Madame de Portenduere pass five months of the year in
+Paris, where they have bought a handsome house in the Faubourg Saint-
+Germain. Madame de Portenduere the elder, after giving her house in
+Nemours to the Sisters of Charity for a free school, went to live at
+Rouvre, where La Bougival keeps the porter's lodge. Cabirolle, the
+former conductor of the "Ducler," a man sixty years of age, has
+married La Bougival and the twelve hundred francs a year which she
+possesses besides the ample emoluments of her place. Young Cabirolle
+is Monsieur de Portenduere's coachman.
+
+If you happen to see in the Champs-Elysees one of those charming
+little low carriages called 'escargots,' lined with gray silk and
+trimmed with blue, and containing a pretty young woman whom you admire
+because her face is wreathed in innumerable fair curls, her eyes
+luminous as forget-me-nots and filled with love; if you see her
+bending slightly towards a fine young man, and, if you are, for a
+moment, conscious of envy--pause and reflect that this handsome
+couple, beloved of God, have paid their quota to the sorrows of life
+in times now past. These married lovers are the Vicomte de Portenduere
+and his wife. There is not another such home in Paris as theirs.
+
+"It is the sweetest happiness I have ever seen," said the Comtesse de
+l'Estorade, speaking of them lately.
+
+Bless them, therefore, and be not envious; seek an Ursula for
+yourselves, a young girl brought up by three old men, and by the best
+of all mothers--adversity.
+
+Goupil, who does service to everybody and is justly considered the
+wittiest man in Nemours, has won the esteem of the little town, but he
+is punished in his children, who are rickety and hydrocephalous.
+Dionis, his predecessor, flourishes in the Chamber of Deputies, of
+which he is one of the finest ornaments, to the great satisfaction of
+the king of the French, who sees Madame Dionis at all his balls.
+Madame Dionis relates to the whole town of Nemours the particulars of
+her receptions at the Tuileries and the splendor of the court of the
+king of the French. She lords it over Nemours by means of the throne,
+which therefore must be popular in the little town.
+
+Bongrand is chief-justice of the court of appeals at Melun. His son is
+in the way of becoming an honest attorney-general.
+
+Madame Cremiere continues to make her delightful speeches. On the
+occasion of her daughter's marriage, she exhorted her to be the
+working caterpillar of the household, and to look into everything with
+the eyes of a sphinx. Goupil is making a collection of her "slapsus-
+linquies," which he calls a Cremiereana.
+
+"We have had the great sorrow of losing our good Abbe Chaperon," said
+the Vicomtesse de Portenduere this winter--having nursed him herself
+during his illness. "The whole canton came to his funeral. Nemours is
+very fortunate, however, for the successor of that dear saint is the
+venerable cure of Saint-Lange."
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+Bouvard, Doctor
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Dionis
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Estorade, Madame de l'
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Kergarouet, Comte de
+  The Purse
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+
+Lupeaulx, Clement Chardin des
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Government Clerks
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Marsay, Henri de
+  The Thirteen
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Lily of the Valley
+  Father Goriot
+  Jealousies of a Country Twon
+  A Marriage Settlement
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Letters of Two Brides
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Modeste Mignon
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  The Gondreville Mystery
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+Mirouet, Ursule (see Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de)
+
+Nathan, Madame Raoul
+  The Muse of the Department
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  The Government Clerks
+  A Bachelor's Establishment
+  Eugenie Grandet
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  A Prince of Bohemia
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Portenduere, Vicomte Savinien de
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Beatrix
+
+Portenduere, Vicomtesse Savinien de
+  Another Study of Woman
+  Beatrix
+
+Ronquerolles, Marquis de
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  The Peasantry
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Thirteen
+  The Member for Arcis
+
+Rouvre, Marquis du
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+  A Start in Life
+
+Rouvre, Chevalier du
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Rubempre, Lucien-Chardon de
+  Lost Illusions
+  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+  The Government Clerks
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+
+Schmucke, Wilhelm
+  A Daughter of Eve
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Cousin Pons
+
+Serizy, Comtesse de
+  A Start in Life
+  The Thirteen
+  A Woman of Thirty
+  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
+  Another Study of Woman
+  The Imaginary Mistress
+
+Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  Father Goriot
+  Gobseck
+  A Man of Business
+  The Member for Arcis
+  The Secrets of a Princess
+  Cousin Betty
+  Beatrix
+  The Unconscious Humorists
+
+Vandenesse, Marquise Charles de
+  Cesar Birotteau
+  The Ball at Sceaux
+  A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Ursula by Honore de Balzac
+
diff --git a/old/old/rsula10.zip b/old/old/rsula10.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..127b365
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/old/rsula10.zip