1 files changed, 2342 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/1344-0.txt b/1344-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4701001
--- /dev/null
+++ b/1344-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2342 @@
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1344 ***
+
+THE SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN
+
+
+By Honore De Balzac
+
+
+
+Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley
+
+
+
+                            DEDICATION
+
+                       To Theophile Gautier
+
+
+
+
+
+THE SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. THE LAST WORD OF TWO GREAT COQUETTES
+
+
+After the disasters of the revolution of July, which destroyed so many
+aristocratic fortunes dependent on the court, Madame la Princesse de
+Cadignan was clever enough to attribute to political events the total
+ruin she had caused by her own extravagance. The prince left France
+with the royal family, and never returned to it, leaving the princess in
+Paris, protected by the fact of his absence; for their debts, which
+the sale of all their salable property had not been able to extinguish,
+could only be recovered through him. The revenues of the entailed
+estates had been seized. In short, the affairs of this great family were
+in as bad a state as those of the elder branch of the Bourbons.
+
+This woman, so celebrated under her first name of Duchesse de
+Maufrigneuse, very wisely decided to live in retirement, and to make
+herself, if possible, forgotten. Paris was then so carried away by the
+whirling current of events that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, buried in
+the Princesse de Cadignan, a change of name unknown to most of the new
+actors brought upon the stage of society by the revolution of July, did
+really become a stranger in her own city.
+
+In Paris the title of duke ranks all others, even that of prince;
+though, in heraldic theory, free of all sophism, titles signify nothing;
+there is absolute equality among gentlemen. This fine equality was
+formerly maintained by the House of France itself; and in our day it is
+so still, at least, nominally; witness the care with which the kings of
+France give to their sons the simple title of count. It was in virtue of
+this system that Francois I. crushed the splendid titles assumed by the
+pompous Charles the Fifth, by signing his answer: “Francois, seigneur
+de Vanves.” Louis XI. did better still by marrying his daughter to
+an untitled gentleman, Pierre de Beaujeu. The feudal system was so
+thoroughly broken up by Louis XIV. that the title of duke became, during
+his reign, the supreme honor of the aristocracy, and the most coveted.
+
+Nevertheless there are two or three families in France in which the
+principality, richly endowed in former times, takes precedence of
+the duchy. The house of Cadignan, which possesses the title of Duc de
+Maufrigneuse for its eldest sons, is one of these exceptional families.
+Like the princes of the house of Rohan in earlier days, the princes of
+Cadignan had the right to a throne in their own domain; they could have
+pages and gentlemen in their service. This explanation is necessary,
+as much to escape foolish critics who know nothing, as to record the
+customs of a world which, we are told, is about to disappear, and which,
+evidently, so many persons are assisting to push away without knowing
+what it is.
+
+The Cadignans bear: or, five lozenges sable appointed, placed fess-wise,
+with the word “Memini” for motto, a crown with a cap of maintenance,
+no supporters or mantle. In these days the great crowd of strangers
+flocking to Paris, and the almost universal ignorance of the science of
+heraldry, are beginning to bring the title of prince into fashion.
+There are no real princes but those possessed of principalities, to whom
+belongs the title of highness. The disdain shown by the French nobility
+for the title of prince, and the reasons which caused Louis XIV. to give
+supremacy to the title of duke, have prevented Frenchmen from claiming
+the appellation of “highness” for the few princes who exist in France,
+those of Napoleon excepted. This is why the princes of Cadignan hold an
+inferior position, nominally, to the princes of the continent.
+
+The members of the society called the faubourg Saint-Germain protected
+the princess by a respectful silence due to her name, which is one
+of those that all men honor, to her misfortunes, which they ceased to
+discuss, and to her beauty, the only thing she saved of her departed
+opulence. Society, of which she had once been the ornament, was thankful
+to her for having, as it were, taken the veil, and cloistered herself
+in her own home. This act of good taste was for her, more than for any
+other woman, an immense sacrifice. Great deeds are always so keenly felt
+in France that the princess gained, by her retreat, as much as she had
+lost in public opinion in the days of her splendor.
+
+She now saw only one of her old friends, the Marquise d’Espard, and even
+to her she never went on festive occasions or to parties. The princess
+and the marquise visited each other in the forenoons, with a certain
+amount of secrecy. When the princess went to dine with her friend,
+the marquise closed her doors. Madame d’Espard treated the princess
+charmingly; she changed her box at the opera, leaving the first tier for
+a baignoire on the ground-floor, so that Madame de Cadignan could come
+to the theatre unseen, and depart incognito. Few women would have been
+capable of a delicacy which deprived them of the pleasure of bearing in
+their train a fallen rival, and of publicly being her benefactress. Thus
+relieved of the necessity for costly toilets, the princess could enjoy
+the theatre, whither she went in Madame d’Espard’s carriage, which she
+would never have accepted openly in the daytime. No one has ever
+known Madame d’Espard’s reasons for behaving thus to the Princesse de
+Cadignan; but her conduct was admirable, and for a long time included a
+number of little acts which, viewed single, seem mere trifles, but taken
+in the mass become gigantic.
+
+In 1832, three years had thrown a mantle of snow over the follies and
+adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and had whitened them so
+thoroughly that it now required a serious effort of memory to recall
+them. Of the queen once adored by so many courtiers, and whose follies
+might have given a theme to a variety of novels, there remained a woman
+still adorably beautiful, thirty-six years of age, but quite justified
+in calling herself thirty, although she was the mother of Duc Georges
+de Maufrigneuse, a young man of eighteen, handsome as Antinous, poor as
+Job, who was expected to obtain great successes, and for whom his mother
+desired, above all things, to find a rich wife. Perhaps this hope was
+the secret of the intimacy she still kept up with the marquise, in whose
+salon, which was one of the first in Paris, she might eventually be able
+to choose among many heiresses for Georges’ wife. The princess saw five
+years between the present moment and her son’s marriage,--five solitary
+and desolate years; for, in order to obtain such a marriage for her
+son, she knew that her own conduct must be marked in the corner with
+discretion.
+
+The princess lived in the rue de Miromesnil, in a small house, of which
+she occupied the ground-floor at a moderate rent. There she made the
+most of the relics of her past magnificence. The elegance of the great
+lady was still redolent about her. She was still surrounded by beautiful
+things which recalled her former existence. On her chimney-piece was a
+fine miniature portrait of Charles X., by Madame Mirbel, beneath which
+were engraved the words, “Given by the King”; and, as a pendant, the
+portrait of “Madame”, who was always her kind friend. On a table lay an
+album of costliest price, such as none of the bourgeoises who now lord
+it in our industrial and fault-finding society would have dared to
+exhibit. This album contained portraits, about thirty in number, of
+her intimate friends, whom the world, first and last, had given her as
+lovers. The number was a calumny; but had rumor said ten, it might have
+been, as her friend Madame d’Espard remarked, good, sound gossip. The
+portraits of Maxime de Trailles, de Marsay, Rastignac, the Marquis
+d’Esgrignon, General Montriveau, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and
+d’Ajuda-Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the young Ducs de Grandlieu and de
+Rhetore, the Vicomte de Serizy, and the handsome Lucien de Rubempre,
+had all been treated with the utmost coquetry of brush and pencil by
+celebrated artists. As the princess now received only two or three of
+these personages, she called the book, jokingly, the collection of her
+errors.
+
+Misfortune had made this woman a good mother. During the fifteen years
+of the Restoration she had amused herself far too much to think of
+her son; but on taking refuge in obscurity, this illustrious egoist
+bethought her that the maternal sentiment, developed to its extreme,
+might be an absolution for her past follies in the eyes of sensible
+persons, who pardon everything to a good mother. She loved her son all
+the more because she had nothing else to love. Georges de Maufrigneuse
+was, moreover, one of those children who flatter the vanities of a
+mother; and the princess had, accordingly, made all sorts of sacrifices
+for him. She hired a stable and coach-house, above which he lived in a
+little entresol with three rooms looking on the street, and charmingly
+furnished; she had even borne several privations to keep a saddle-horse,
+a cab-horse, and a little groom for his use. For herself, she had only
+her own maid, and as cook, a former kitchen-maid. The duke’s groom
+had, therefore, rather a hard place. Toby, formerly tiger to the “late”
+ Beaudenord (such was the jesting term applied by the gay world to that
+ruined gentleman),--Toby, who at twenty-five years of age was still
+considered only fourteen, was expected to groom the horses, clean the
+cabriolet, or the tilbury, and the harnesses, accompany his master, take
+care of the apartments, and be in the princess’s antechamber to announce
+a visitor, if, by chance, she happened to receive one.
+
+When one thinks of what the beautiful Duchesse de Maufrigneuse had been
+under the Restoration,--one of the queens of Paris, a dazzling queen,
+whose luxurious existence equalled that of the richest women of fashion
+in London,--there was something touching in the sight of her in that
+humble little abode in the rue de Miromesnil, a few steps away from her
+splendid mansion, which no amount of fortune had enabled her to keep,
+and which the hammer of speculators has since demolished. The woman who
+thought she was scarcely well served by thirty servants, who possessed
+the most beautiful reception-rooms in all Paris, and the loveliest
+little private apartments, and who made them the scene of such
+delightful fetes, now lived in a small apartment of five rooms,--an
+antechamber, dining-room, salon, one bed-chamber, and a dressing-room,
+with two women-servants only.
+
+“Ah! she is devoted to her son,” said that clever creature, Madame
+d’Espard, “and devoted without ostentation; she is happy. Who would
+ever have believed so frivolous a woman was capable of such persistent
+resolution! Our good archbishop has, consequently, greatly encouraged
+her; he is most kind to her, and has just induced the old Comtesse de
+Cinq-Cygne to pay her a visit.”
+
+Let us admit a truth! One must be a queen to know how to abdicate, and
+to descend with dignity from a lofty position which is never wholly
+lost. Those only who have an inner consciousness of being nothing in
+themselves, show regrets in falling, or struggle, murmuring, to return
+to a past which can never return,--a fact of which they themselves are
+well aware. Compelled to do without the choice exotics in the midst of
+which she had lived, and which set off so charmingly her whole being
+(for it is impossible not to compare her to a flower), the princess
+had wisely chosen a ground-floor apartment; there she enjoyed a pretty
+little garden which belonged to it,--a garden full of shrubs, and an
+always verdant turf, which brightened her peaceful retreat. She had
+about twelve thousand francs a year; but that modest income was partly
+made up of an annual stipend sent her by the old Duchesse de Navarreins,
+paternal aunt of the young duke, and another stipend given by her
+mother, the Duchesse d’Uxelles, who was living on her estate in the
+country, where she economized as old duchesses alone know how to
+economize; for Harpagon is a mere novice compared to them. The princess
+still retained some of her past relations with the exiled royal family;
+and it was in her house that the marshal to whom we owe the conquest of
+Africa had conferences, at the time of “Madame’s” attempt in La Vendee,
+with the principal leaders of legitimist opinion,--so great was the
+obscurity in which the princess lived, and so little distrust did the
+government feel for her in her present distress.
+
+Beholding the approach of that terrible fortieth year, the bankruptcy of
+love, beyond which there is so little for a woman as woman, the princess
+had flung herself into the kingdom of philosophy. She took to reading,
+she who for sixteen years had felt a cordial horror for serious things.
+Literature and politics are to-day what piety and devotion once were
+to her sex,--the last refuge of their feminine pretensions. In her
+late social circle it was said that Diane was writing a book. Since
+her transformation from a queen and beauty to a woman of intellect, the
+princess had contrived to make a reception in her little house a great
+honor which distinguished the favored person. Sheltered by her supposed
+occupation, she was able to deceive one of her former adorers, de
+Marsay, the most influential personage of the political bourgeoisie
+brought to the fore in July 1830. She received him sometimes in the
+evenings, and, occupied his attention while the marshal and a few
+legitimists were talking, in a low voice, in her bedroom, about
+the recovery of power, which could be attained only by a general
+co-operation of ideas,--the one element of success which all
+conspirators overlook. It was the clever vengeance of the pretty woman,
+who thus inveigled the prime minister, and made him act as screen for a
+conspiracy against his own government.
+
+This adventure, worthy of the finest days of the Fronde, was the text
+of a very witty letter, in which the princess rendered to “Madame” an
+account of the negotiations. The Duc de Maufrigneuse went to La Vendee,
+and was able to return secretly without being compromised, but not
+without taking part in “Madame’s” perils; the latter, however, sent
+him home the moment she saw that her cause was lost. Perhaps, had he
+remained, the eager vigilance of the young man might have foiled that
+treachery. However great the faults of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse may
+have seemed in the eyes of the bourgeoisie, the behavior of her son on
+this occasion certainly effaced them in the eyes of the aristocracy.
+There was great nobility and grandeur in thus risking her only son, and
+the heir of an historic name. Some persons are said to intentionally
+cover the faults of their private life by public services, and vice
+versa; but the Princesse de Cadignan made no such calculation. Possibly
+those who apparently so conduct themselves make none. Events count for
+much in such cases.
+
+On one of the first fine days in the month of May, 1833, the Marquise
+d’Espard and the princess were turning about--one could hardly call
+it walking--in the single path which wound round the grass-plat in
+the garden, about half-past two in the afternoon, just as the sun was
+leaving it. The rays reflected on the walls gave a warm atmosphere
+to the little space, which was fragrant with flowers, the gift of the
+marquise.
+
+“We shall soon lose de Marsay,” said the marquise; “and with him will
+disappear your last hope of fortune for your son. Ever since you played
+him that clever trick, he has returned to his affection for you.”
+
+“My son will never capitulate to the younger branch,” returned the
+princess, “if he has to die of hunger, or I have to work with my hands
+to feed him. Besides, Berthe de Cinq-Cygne has no aversion to him.”
+
+“Children don’t bind themselves to their parents’ principles,” said
+Madame d’Espard.
+
+“Don’t let us talk about it,” said the princess. “If I can’t coax over
+the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne, I shall marry Georges to the daughter of
+some iron-founderer, as that little d’Esgrignon did.”
+
+“Did you love Victurnien?” asked the marquise.
+
+“No,” replied the princess, gravely, “d’Esgrignon’s simplicity was
+really only a sort of provincial silliness, which I perceived rather too
+late--or, if you choose, too soon.”
+
+“And de Marsay?”
+
+“De Marsay played with me as if I were a doll. I was so young at the
+time! We never love men who pretend to teach us; they rub up all our
+little vanities.”
+
+“And that wretched boy who hanged himself?”
+
+“Lucien? An Antinous and a great poet. I worshiped him in all
+conscience, and I might have been happy. But he was in love with a girl
+of the town; and I gave him up to Madame de Serizy.... If he had cared
+to love me, should I have given him up?”
+
+“What an odd thing, that you should come into collision with an Esther!”
+
+“She was handsomer than I,” said the Princess.--“Very soon it shall be
+three years that I have lived in solitude,” she resumed, after a pause,
+“and this tranquillity has nothing painful to me about it. To you
+alone can I dare to say that I feel I am happy. I was surfeited with
+adoration, weary of pleasure, emotional on the surface of things, but
+conscious that emotion itself never reached my heart. I have found all
+the men whom I have known petty, paltry, superficial; none of them ever
+caused me a surprise; they had no innocence, no grandeur, no delicacy. I
+wish I could have met with one man able to inspire me with respect.”
+
+“Then are you like me, my dear?” asked the marquise; “have you never
+felt the emotion of love while trying to love?”
+
+“Never,” replied the princess, laying her hand on the arm of her friend.
+
+They turned and seated themselves on a rustic bench beneath a jasmine
+then coming into flower. Each had uttered one of those sayings that are
+solemn to women who have reached their age.
+
+“Like you,” resumed the princess, “I have received more love than most
+women; but through all my many adventures, I have never found happiness.
+I committed great follies, but they had an object, and that object
+retreated as fast as I approached it. I feel to-day in my heart, old
+as it is, an innocence which has never been touched. Yes, under all my
+experience, lies a first love intact,--just as I myself, in spite of all
+my losses and fatigues, feel young and beautiful. We may love and not
+be happy; we may be happy and never love; but to love and be happy, to
+unite those two immense human experiences, is a miracle. That miracle
+has not taken place for me.”
+
+“Nor for me,” said Madame d’Espard.
+
+“I own I am pursued in this retreat by dreadful regret: I have amused
+myself all through life, but I have never loved.”
+
+“What an incredible secret!” cried the marquise.
+
+“Ah! my dear,” replied the princess, “such secrets we can tell to
+ourselves, you and I, but nobody in Paris would believe us.”
+
+“And,” said the marquise, “if we were not both over thirty-six years of
+age, perhaps we would not tell them to each other.”
+
+“Yes; when women are young they have so many stupid conceits,” replied
+the princess. “We are like those poor young men who play with a
+toothpick to pretend they have dined.”
+
+“Well, at any rate, here we are!” said Madame d’Espard, with coquettish
+grace, and a charming gesture of well-informed innocence; “and, it seems
+to me, sufficiently alive to think of taking our revenge.”
+
+“When you told me, the other day, that Beatrix had gone off with Conti,
+I thought of it all night long,” said the princess, after a pause. “I
+suppose there was happiness in sacrificing her position, her future, and
+renouncing society forever.”
+
+“She was a little fool,” said Madame d’Espard, gravely. “Mademoiselle
+des Touches was delighted to get rid of Conti. Beatrix never perceived
+how that surrender, made by a superior woman who never for a moment
+defended her claims, proved Conti’s nothingness.”
+
+“Then you think she will be unhappy?”
+
+“She is so now,” replied Madame d’Espard. “Why did she leave her
+husband? What an acknowledgment of weakness!”
+
+“Then you think that Madame de Rochefide was not influenced by the
+desire to enjoy a true love in peace?” asked the princess.
+
+“No; she was simply imitating Madame de Beausant and Madame de Langeais,
+who, be it said, between you and me, would have been, in a less vulgar
+period than ours, the La Villiere, the Diane de Poitiers, the Gabrielle
+d’Estrees of history.”
+
+“Less the king, my dear. Ah! I wish I could evoke the shades of those
+women, and ask them--”
+
+“But,” said the marquise, interrupting the princess, “why ask the dead?
+We know living women who have been happy. I have talked on this very
+subject a score of times with Madame de Montcornet since she married
+that little Emile Blondet, who makes her the happiest woman in the
+world; not an infidelity, not a thought that turns aside from her; they
+are as happy as they were the first day. These long attachments, like
+that of Rastignac and Madame de Nucingen, and your cousin, Madame de
+Camps, for her Octave, have a secret, and that secret you and I don’t
+know, my dear. The world has paid us the extreme compliment of thinking
+we are two rakes worthy of the court of the regent; whereas we are, in
+truth, as innocent as a couple of school-girls.”
+
+“I should like that sort of innocence,” cried the princess, laughing;
+“but ours is worse, and it is very humiliating. Well, it is a
+mortification we offer up in expiation of our fruitless search; yes,
+my dear, fruitless, for it isn’t probable we shall find in our autumn
+season the fine flower we missed in the spring and summer.”
+
+“That’s not the question,” resumed the marquise, after a meditative
+pause. “We are both still beautiful enough to inspire love, but we could
+never convince any one of our innocence and virtue.”
+
+“If it were a lie, how easy to dress it up with commentaries, and
+serve it as some delicious fruit to be eagerly swallowed! But how is
+it possible to get a truth believed? Ah! the greatest of men have been
+mistaken there!” added the princess, with one of those meaning smiles
+which the pencil of Leonardo da Vinci alone has rendered.
+
+“Fools love well, sometimes,” returned the marquise.
+
+“But in this case,” said the princess, “fools wouldn’t have enough
+credulity in their nature.”
+
+“You are right,” said the marquise. “But what we ought to look for is
+neither a fool nor even a man of talent. To solve our problem we need a
+man of genius. Genius alone has the faith of childhood, the religion of
+love, and willingly allows us to band its eyes. Look at Canalis and the
+Duchesse de Chaulieu! Though we have both encountered men of genius,
+they were either too far removed from us or too busy, and we too
+absorbed, too frivolous.”
+
+“Ah! how I wish I might not leave this world without knowing the
+happiness of true love,” exclaimed the princess.
+
+“It is nothing to inspire it,” said Madame d’Espard; “the thing is to
+feel it. I see many women who are only the pretext for a passion without
+being both its cause and its effect.”
+
+“The last love I inspired was a beautiful and sacred thing,” said the
+princess. “It had a future in it. Chance had brought me, for once in a
+way, the man of genius who is due to us, and yet so difficult to obtain;
+there are more pretty women than men of genius. But the devil interfered
+with the affair.”
+
+“Tell me about it, my dear; this is all news to me.”
+
+“I first noticed this beautiful passion about the middle of the winter
+of 1829. Every Friday, at the opera, I observed a young man, about
+thirty years of age, in the orchestra stalls, who evidently came there
+for me. He was always in the same stall, gazing at me with eyes of fire,
+but, seemingly, saddened by the distance between us, perhaps by the
+hopelessness of reaching me.”
+
+“Poor fellow! When a man loves he becomes eminently stupid,” said the
+marquise.
+
+“Between every act he would slip into the corridor,” continued the
+princess, smiling at her friend’s epigrammatic remark. “Once or twice,
+either to see me or to make me see him, he looked through the glass
+sash of the box exactly opposite to mine. If I received a visit, I was
+certain to see him in the corridor close to my door, casting a furtive
+glance upon me. He had apparently learned to know the persons belonging
+to my circle; and he followed them when he saw them turning in the
+direction of my box, in order to obtain the benefit of the opening door.
+I also found my mysterious adorer at the Italian opera-house; there he
+had a stall directly opposite to my box, where he could gaze at me in
+naive ecstasy--oh! it was pretty! On leaving either house I always found
+him planted in the lobby, motionless; he was elbowed and jostled, but
+he never moved. His eyes grew less brilliant if he saw me on the arm of
+some favorite. But not a word, not a letter, no demonstration. You must
+acknowledge that was in good taste. Sometimes, on getting home late
+at night, I found him sitting upon one of the stone posts of the
+porte-cochere. This lover of mine had very handsome eyes, a long, thick,
+fan-shaped beard, with a moustache and side-whiskers; nothing could be
+seen of his skin but his white cheek-bones, and a noble forehead; it was
+truly an antique head. The prince, as you know, defended the Tuileries
+on the riverside, during the July days. He returned to Saint-Cloud that
+night, when all was lost, and said to me: ‘I came near being killed at
+four o’clock. I was aimed at by one of the insurgents, when a young
+man, with a long beard, whom I have often seen at the opera, and who was
+leading the attack, threw up the man’s gun, and saved me.’ So my adorer
+was evidently a republican! In 1831, after I came to lodge in this
+house, I found him, one day, leaning with his back against the wall of
+it; he seemed pleased with my disasters; possibly he may have thought
+they drew us nearer together. But after the affair of Saint-Merri I
+saw him no more; he was killed there. The evening before the funeral of
+General Lamarque, I had gone out on foot with my son, and my republican
+accompanied us, sometimes behind, sometimes in front, from the Madeleine
+to the Passage des Panoramas, where I was going.”
+
+“Is that all?” asked the marquise.
+
+“Yes, all,” replied the princess. “Except that on the morning
+Saint-Merri was taken, a gamin came here and insisted on seeing me. He
+gave me a letter, written on common paper, signed by my republican.”
+
+“Show it to me,” said the marquise.
+
+“No, my dear. Love was too great and too sacred in the heart of that
+man to let me violate its secrets. The letter, short and terrible, still
+stirs my soul when I think of it. That dead man gives me more emotions
+than all the living men I ever coquetted with; he constantly recurs to
+my mind.”
+
+“What was his name?” asked the marquise.
+
+“Oh! a very common one: Michel Chrestien.”
+
+“You have done well to tell me,” said Madame d’Espard, eagerly. “I have
+often heard of him. This Michel Chrestien was the intimate friend of
+a remarkable man you have already expressed a wish to see,--Daniel
+d’Arthez, who comes to my house some two or three times a year.
+Chrestien, who was really killed at Saint-Merri, had no lack of friends.
+I have heard it said that he was one of those born statesmen to whom,
+like de Marsay, nothing is wanting but opportunity to become all they
+might be.”
+
+“Then he had better be dead,” said the princess, with a melancholy air,
+under which she concealed her thoughts.
+
+“Will you come to my house some evening and meet d’Arthez?” said the
+marquise. “You can talk of your ghost.”
+
+“Yes, I will,” replied the princess.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. DANIEL D’ARTHEZ
+
+
+A few days after this conversation Blondet and Rastignac, who knew
+d’Arthez, promised Madame d’Espard that they would bring him to dine
+with her. This promise might have proved rash had it not been for
+the name of the princess, a meeting with whom was not a matter of
+indifference to the great writer.
+
+Daniel d’Arthez, one of the rare men who, in our day, unite a noble
+character with great talent, had already obtained, not all the
+popularity his works deserve, but a respectful esteem to which souls
+of his own calibre could add nothing. His reputation will certainly
+increase; but in the eyes of connoisseurs it had already attained its
+full development. He is one of those authors who, sooner or later, are
+put in their right place, and never lose it. A poor nobleman, he had
+understood his epoch well enough to seek personal distinction only. He
+had struggled long in the Parisian arena, against the wishes of a rich
+uncle who, by a contradiction which vanity must explain, after leaving
+his nephew a prey to the utmost penury, bequeathed to the man who had
+reached celebrity the fortune so pitilessly refused to the unknown
+writer. This sudden change in his position made no change in Daniel
+d’Arthez’s habits; he continued to work with a simplicity worthy of
+the antique past, and even assumed new toils by accepting a seat in the
+Chamber of Deputies, where he took his seat on the Right.
+
+Since his accession to fame he had sometimes gone into society. One of
+his old friends, the now-famous physician, Horace Bianchon, persuaded
+him to make the acquaintance of the Baron de Rastignac, under-secretary
+of State, and a friend of de Marsay, the prime minister. These two
+political officials acquiesced, rather nobly, in the strong wish of
+d’Arthez, Bianchon, and other friends of Michel Chrestien for the
+removal of the body of that republican to the church of Saint-Merri for
+the purpose of giving it funeral honors. Gratitude for a service which
+contrasted with the administrative rigor displayed at a time when
+political passions were so violent, had bound, so to speak, d’Arthez to
+Rastignac. The latter and de Marsay were much too clever not to profit
+by that circumstance; and thus they won over other friends of Michel
+Chrestien, who did not share his political opinions, and who now
+attached themselves to the new government. One of them, Leon Giraud,
+appointed in the first instance master of petitions, became eventually a
+Councillor of State.
+
+The whole existence of Daniel d’Arthez is consecrated to work; he sees
+society only by snatches; it is to him a sort of dream. His house is a
+convent, where he leads the life of a Benedictine; the same sobriety of
+regimen, the same regularity of occupation. His friends knew that up to
+the present time woman had been to him no more than an always dreaded
+circumstance; he had observed her too much not to fear her; but by dint
+of studying her he had ceased to understand her,--like, in this, to
+those deep strategists who are always beaten on unexpected ground,
+where their scientific axioms are either modified or contradicted. In
+character he still remains a simple-hearted child, all the while
+proving himself an observer of the first rank. This contrast, apparently
+impossible, is explainable to those who know how to measure the depths
+which separate faculties from feelings; the former proceed from the
+head, the latter from the heart. A man can be a great man and a wicked
+one, just as he can be a fool and a devoted lover. D’Arthez is one of
+those privileged beings in whom shrewdness of mind and a broad expanse
+of the qualities of the brain do not exclude either the strength or
+the grandeur of sentiments. He is, by rare privilege, equally a man of
+action and a man of thought. His private life is noble and generous. If
+he carefully avoided love, it was because he knew himself, and felt a
+premonition of the empire such a passion would exercise upon him.
+
+For several years the crushing toil by which he prepared the solid
+ground of his subsequent works, and the chill of poverty, were
+marvellous preservatives. But when ease with his inherited fortune came
+to him, he formed a vulgar and most incomprehensible connection with a
+rather handsome woman, belonging to the lower classes, without education
+or manners, whom he carefully concealed from every eye. Michel Chrestien
+attributed to men of genius the power of transforming the most
+massive creatures into sylphs, fools into clever women, peasants into
+countesses; the more accomplished a woman was, the more she lost her
+value in their eyes, for, according to Michel, their imagination had the
+less to do. In his opinion love, a mere matter of the senses to inferior
+beings, was to great souls the most immense of all moral creations
+and the most binding. To justify d’Arthez, he instanced the example of
+Raffaele and the Fornarina. He might have offered himself as an
+instance for this theory, he who had seen an angel in the Duchesse
+de Maufrigneuse. This strange fancy of d’Arthez might, however, be
+explained in other ways; perhaps he had despaired of meeting here below
+with a woman who answered to that delightful vision which all men of
+intellect dream of and cherish; perhaps his heart was too sensitive, too
+delicate, to yield itself to a woman of society; perhaps he thought best
+to let nature have her way, and keep his illusions by cultivating his
+ideal; perhaps he had laid aside love as being incompatible with his
+work and the regularity of a monastic life which love would have wholly
+upset.
+
+For several months past d’Arthez had been subjected to the jests and
+satire of Blondet and Rastignac, who reproached him with knowing neither
+the world nor women. According to them, his authorship was sufficiently
+advanced, and his works numerous enough, to allow him a few
+distractions; he had a fine fortune, and here he was living like a
+student; he enjoyed nothing,--neither his money nor his fame; he was
+ignorant of the exquisite enjoyments of the noble and delicate love
+which well-born and well-bred women could inspire and feel; he knew
+nothing of the charming refinements of language, nothing of the proofs
+of affection incessantly given by refined women to the commonest things.
+He might, perhaps, know woman; but he knew nothing of the divinity.
+Why not take his rightful place in the world, and taste the delights of
+Parisian society?
+
+“Why doesn’t a man who bears party per bend gules and or, a bezant and
+crab counterchanged,” cried Rastignac, “display that ancient escutcheon
+of Picardy on the panels of a carriage? You have thirty thousand francs
+a year, and the proceeds of your pen; you have justified your motto:
+Ars thesaurusque virtus, that punning device our ancestors were always
+seeking, and yet you never appear in the Bois de Boulogne! We live in
+times when virtue ought to show itself.”
+
+“If you read your works to that species of stout Laforet, whom you seem
+to fancy, I would forgive you,” said Blondet. “But, my dear fellow, you
+are living on dry bread, materially speaking; in the matter of intellect
+you haven’t even bread.”
+
+This friendly little warfare had been going on for several months
+between Daniel and his friends, when Madame d’Espard asked Rastignac and
+Blondet to induce d’Arthez to come and dine with her, telling them that
+the Princesse de Cadignan had a great desire to see that celebrated
+man. Such curiosities are to certain women what magic lanterns are
+to children,--a pleasure to the eyes, but rather shallow and full
+of disappointments. The more sentiments a man of talent excites at
+a distance, the less he responds to them on nearer view; the more
+brilliant fancy has pictured him, the duller he will seem in reality.
+Consequently, disenchanted curiosity is often unjust.
+
+Neither Blondet nor Rastignac could deceive d’Arthez; but they told
+him, laughing, that they now offered him a most seductive opportunity
+to polish up his heart and know the supreme fascinations which love
+conferred on a Parisian great lady. The princess was evidently in love
+with him; he had nothing to fear but everything to gain by accepting the
+interview; it was quite impossible he could descend from the pedestal on
+which madame de Cadignan had placed him. Neither Blondet nor Rastignac
+saw any impropriety in attributing this love to the princess; she whose
+past had given rise to so many anecdotes could very well stand that
+lesser calumny. Together they began to relate to d’Arthez the adventures
+of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse: her first affair with de Marsay; her
+second with d’Ajuda, whom she had, they said, distracted from his wife,
+thus avenging Madame de Beausant; also her later connection with young
+d’Esgrignon, who had travelled with her in Italy, and had horribly
+compromised himself on her account; after that they told him how unhappy
+she had been with a certain celebrated ambassador, how happy with a
+Russian general, besides becoming the Egeria of two ministers of Foreign
+affairs, and various other anecdotes. D’Arthez replied that he knew a
+great deal more than they could tell him about her through their poor
+friend, Michel Chrestien, who adored her secretly for four years, and
+had well-nigh gone mad about her.
+
+“I have often accompanied him,” said Daniel, “to the opera. He would
+make me run through the streets as far as her horses that he might see
+the princess through the window of her coupe.”
+
+“Well, there you have a topic all ready for you,” said Blondet, smiling.
+“This is the very woman you need; she’ll initiate you most gracefully
+into the mysteries of elegance; but take care! she has wasted many
+fortunes. The beautiful Diane is one of those spendthrifts who don’t
+cost a penny, but for whom a man spends millions. Give yourself up to
+her, body and soul, if you choose; but keep your money in your hand,
+like the old fellow in Girodet’s ‘Deluge.’”
+
+From the tenor of these remarks it was to be inferred that the princess
+had the depth of a precipice, the grace of a queen, the corruption
+of diplomatists, the mystery of a first initiation, and the dangerous
+qualities of a siren. The two clever men of the world, incapable of
+foreseeing the denouement of their joke, succeeded in presenting Diane
+d’Uxelles as a consummate specimen of the Parisian woman, the cleverest
+of coquettes, the most enchanting mistress in the world. Right or wrong,
+the woman whom they thus treated so lightly was sacred to d’Arthez; his
+desire to meet her needed no spur; he consented to do so at the first
+word, which was all the two friends wanted of him.
+
+Madame d’Espard went to see the princess as soon as she had received
+this answer.
+
+“My dear, do you feel yourself in full beauty and coquetry?” she said.
+“If so, come and dine with me a few days hence, and I’ll serve up
+d’Arthez. Our man of genius is by nature, it seems, a savage; he
+fears women, and has never loved! Make your plans on that. He is
+all intellect, and so simple that he’ll mislead you into feeling no
+distrust. But his penetration, which is wholly retrospective, acts
+later, and frustrates calculation. You may hoodwink him to-day, but
+to-morrow nothing can dupe him.”
+
+“Ah!” cried the princess, “if I were only thirty years old what
+amusement I might have with him! The one enjoyment I have lacked up to
+the present is a man of intellect to fool. I have had only partners,
+never adversaries. Love was a mere game instead of being a battle.”
+
+“Dear princess, admit that I am very generous; for, after all, you
+know!--charity begins at home.”
+
+The two women looked at each other, laughing, and clasped hands in a
+friendly way. Assuredly they both knew each other’s secrets, and this
+was not the first man nor the first service that one had given to the
+other; for sincere and lasting friendships between women of the world
+need to be cemented by a few little crimes. When two friends are liable
+to kill each other reciprocally, and see a poisoned dagger in each
+other’s hand, they present a touching spectacle of harmony, which is
+never troubled, unless, by chance, one of them is careless enough to
+drop her weapon.
+
+So, eight days later, a little dinner such as are given to intimates by
+verbal invitation only, during which the doors are closed to all other
+visitors, took place at Madame d’Espard’s house. Five persons were
+invited,--Emile Blondet and Madame de Montcornet, Daniel d’Arthez,
+Rastignac, and the Princesse de Cadignan. Counting the mistress of the
+house, there were as many men as women.
+
+Chance never exerted itself to make wiser preparations than those which
+opened the way to a meeting between d’Arthez and Madame de Cadignan.
+The princess is still considered one of the chief authorities on dress,
+which, to women, is the first of arts. On this occasion she wore a gown
+of blue velvet with flowing white sleeves, and a tulle guimpe, slightly
+frilled and edged with blue, covering the shoulders, and rising nearly
+to the throat, as we see in several of Raffaele’s portraits. Her maid
+had dressed her hair with white heather, adroitly placed among its blond
+cascades, which were one of the great beauties to which she owed her
+celebrity.
+
+Certainly Diane did not look to be more than twenty-five years old.
+Four years of solitude and repose had restored the freshness of her
+complexion. Besides, there are moments when the desire to please gives
+an increase of beauty to women. The will is not without influence on the
+variations of the face. If violent emotions have the power to yellow
+the white tones of persons of bilious and melancholy temperament, and to
+green lymphatic faces, shall we not grant to desire, hope, and joy,
+the faculty of clearing the skin, giving brilliancy to the eye, and
+brightening the glow of beauty with a light as jocund as that of a
+lovely morning? The celebrated faintness of the princess had taken on
+a ripeness which now made her seem more august. At this moment of her
+life, impressed by her many vicissitudes and by serious reflections,
+her noble, dreamy brow harmonized delightfully with the slow, majestic
+glance of her blue eyes. It was impossible for the ablest physiognomist
+to imagine calculation or self-will beneath that unspeakable delicacy of
+feature. There were faces of women which deceive knowledge, and mislead
+observation by their calmness and delicacy; it is necessary to examine
+such faces when passions speak, and that is difficult, or after they
+have spoken, which is no longer of any use, for then the woman is old
+and has ceased to dissimulate.
+
+The princess is one of those impenetrable women; she can make herself
+what she pleases to be: playful, childlike, distractingly innocent; or
+reflective, serious, and profound enough to excite anxiety. She came to
+Madame d’Espard’s dinner with the intention of being a gentle, simple
+woman, to whom life was known only through its deceptions: a woman full
+of soul, and calumniated, but resigned,--in short, a wounded angel.
+
+She arrived early, so as to pose on a sofa near the fire beside Madame
+d’Espard, as she wished to be first seen: that is, in one of
+those attitudes in which science is concealed beneath an exquisite
+naturalness; a studied attitude, putting in relief the beautiful
+serpentine outline which, starting from the foot, rises gracefully to
+the hip, and continues with adorable curves to the shoulder, presenting,
+in fact, a profile of the whole body. With a subtlety which few women
+would have dreamed of, Diane, to the great amazement of the marquise,
+had brought her son with her. After a moment’s reflection, Madame
+d’Espard pressed the princess’s hand, with a look of intelligence that
+seemed to say:--
+
+“I understand you! By making d’Arthez accept all the difficulties at
+once you will not have to conquer them later.”
+
+Rastignac brought d’Arthez. The princess made none of those compliments
+to the celebrated author with which vulgar persons overwhelmed him; but
+she treated him with a kindness full of graceful respect, which, with
+her, was the utmost extent of her concessions. Her manner was doubtless
+the same with the King of France and the royal princes. She seemed happy
+to see this great man, and glad that she had sought him. Persons of
+taste, like the princess, are especially distinguished for their manner
+of listening, for an affability without superciliousness, which is to
+politeness what practice is to virtue. When the celebrated man spoke,
+she took an attentive attitude, a thousand times more flattering than
+the best-seasoned compliments. The mutual presentation was made quietly,
+without emphasis, and in perfectly good taste, by the marquise.
+
+At dinner d’Arthez was placed beside the princess, who, far from
+imitating the eccentricities of diet which many affected women display,
+ate her dinner with a very good appetite, making it a point of honor
+to seem a natural woman, without strange ways or fancies. Between two
+courses she took advantage of the conversation becoming general to say
+to d’Arthez, in a sort of aside:--
+
+“The secret of the pleasure I take in finding myself beside you, is
+the desire I feel to learn something of an unfortunate friend of yours,
+monsieur. He died for another cause greater than ours; but I was under
+the greatest obligations to him, although unable to acknowledge or thank
+him for them. I know that you were one of his best friends. Your mutual
+friendship, pure and unalterable, is a claim upon me. You will not, I am
+sure, think it extraordinary, that I have wished to know all you could
+tell me of a man so dear to you. Though I am attached to the exiled
+family, and bound, of course, to hold monarchical opinions, I am not
+among those who think it is impossible to be both republican and noble
+in heart. Monarchy and the republic are two forms of government which do
+not stifle noble sentiments.”
+
+“Michel Chrestien was an angel, madame,” replied Daniel, in a voice of
+emotion. “I don’t know among the heroes of antiquity a greater than he.
+Be careful not to think him one of those narrow-minded republicans who
+would like to restore the Convention and the amenities of the Committee
+of Public Safety. No, Michel dreamed of the Swiss federation applied
+to all Europe. Let us own, between ourselves, that _after_ the glorious
+government of one man only, which, as I think, is particularly suited to
+our nation, Michel’s system would lead to the suppression of war in this
+old world, and its reconstruction on bases other than those of conquest,
+which formerly feudalized it. From this point of view the republicans
+came nearest to his idea. That is why he lent them his arm in July, and
+was killed at Saint-Merri. Though completely apart in opinion, he and I
+were closely bound together as friends.”
+
+“That is noble praise for both natures,” said Madame de Cadignan,
+timidly.
+
+“During the last four years of his life,” continued Daniel, “he made to
+me alone a confidence of his love for you, and this confidence knitted
+closer than ever the already strong ties of brotherly affection. He
+alone, madame, can have loved you as you ought to be loved. Many a time
+I have been pelted with rain as we accompanied your carriage at the pace
+of the horses, to keep at a parallel distance, and see you--admire you.”
+
+“Ah! monsieur,” said the princess, “how can I repay such feelings!”
+
+“Why is Michel not here!” exclaimed Daniel, in melancholy accents.
+
+“Perhaps he would not have loved me long,” said the princess, shaking
+her head sadly. “Republicans are more absolute in their ideas than we
+absolutists, whose fault is indulgence. No doubt he imagined me perfect,
+and society would have cruelly undeceived him. We are pursued, we women,
+by as many calumnies as you authors are compelled to endure in your
+literary life; but we, alas! cannot defend ourselves either by our works
+or by our fame. The world will not believe us to be what we are, but
+what it thinks us to be. It would soon have hidden from his eyes the
+real but unknown woman that is in me, behind the false portrait of the
+imaginary woman which the world considers true. He would have come to
+think me unworthy of the noble feelings he had for me, and incapable of
+comprehending him.”
+
+Here the princess shook her head, swaying the beautiful blond curls,
+full of heather, with a touching gesture. This plaintive expression of
+grievous doubts and hidden sorrows is indescribable. Daniel understood
+them all; and he looked at the princess with keen emotion.
+
+“And yet, the night on which I last saw him, after the revolution of
+July, I was on the point of giving way to the desire I felt to take
+his hand and press it before all the world, under the peristyle of the
+opera-house. But the thought came to me that such a proof of gratitude
+might be misinterpreted; like so many other little things done
+from noble motives which are called to-day the follies of Madame de
+Maufrigneuse--things which I can never explain, for none but my son and
+God have understood me.”
+
+These words, breathed into the ear of the listener, in tones inaudible
+to the other guests, and with accents worthy of the cleverest actress,
+were calculated to reach the heart; and they did reach that of d’Arthez.
+There was no question of himself in the matter; this woman was seeking
+to rehabilitate herself in favor of the dead. She had been calumniated;
+and she evidently wanted to know if anything had tarnished her in the
+eyes of him who had loved her; had he died with all his illusions?
+
+“Michel,” replied d’Arthez, “was one of those men who love absolutely,
+and who, if they choose ill, can suffer without renouncing the woman
+they have once elected.”
+
+“Was I loved thus?” she said, with an air of exalted beatitude.
+
+“Yes, madame.”
+
+“I made his happiness?”
+
+“For four years.”
+
+“A woman never hears of such a thing without a sentiment of proud
+satisfaction,” she said, turning her sweet and noble face to d’Arthez
+with a movement full of modest confusion.
+
+One of the most skilful manoeuvres of these actresses is to veil their
+manner when words are too expressive, and speak with their eyes when
+language is restrained. These clever discords, slipped into the music of
+their love, be it false or true, produce irresistible attractions.
+
+“Is it not,” she said, lowering her voice and her eyes, after feeling
+well assured they had produced her effect,--“is it not fulfilling one’s
+destiny to have rendered a great man happy?”
+
+“Did he not write that to you?”
+
+“Yes; but I wanted to be sure, quite sure; for, believe me, monsieur, in
+putting me so high he was not mistaken.”
+
+Women know how to give a peculiar sacredness to their words; they
+communicate something vibrant to them, which extends the meaning
+of their ideas, and gives them depth; though later their fascinated
+listener may not remember precisely what they said, their end has been
+completely attained,--which is the object of all eloquence. The princess
+might at that moment have been wearing the diadem of France, and her
+brow could not have seemed more imposing than it was beneath that crown
+of golden hair, braided like a coronet, and adorned with heather. She
+was simple and calm; nothing betrayed a sense of any necessity to appear
+so, nor any desire to seem grand or loving. D’Arthez, the solitary
+toiler, to whom the ways of the world were unknown, whom study had
+wrapped in its protecting veils, was the dupe of her tones and words. He
+was under the spell of those exquisite manners; he admired that perfect
+beauty, ripened by misfortune, placid in retirement; he adored the union
+of so rare a mind and so noble a soul; and he longed to become, himself,
+the heir of Michel Chrestien.
+
+The beginning of this passion was, as in the case of almost all deep
+thinkers, an idea. Looking at the princess, studying the shape of her
+head, the arrangement of those sweet features, her figure, her hand,
+so finely modelled, closer than when he accompanied his friend in
+their wild rush through the streets, he was struck by the surprising
+phenomenon of the moral second-sight which a man exalted by love
+invariably finds within him. With what lucidity had Michel Chrestien
+read into that soul, that heart, illumined by the fires of love! Thus
+the princess acquired, in d’Arthez’s eyes, another charm; a halo of
+poesy surrounded her.
+
+As the dinner proceeded, Daniel called to mind the various confidences
+of his friend, his despair, his hopes, the noble poems of a true
+sentiment sung to his ear alone, in honor of this woman. It is rare that
+a man passes without remorse from the position of confidant to that of
+rival, and d’Arthez was free to do so without dishonor. He had suddenly,
+in a moment, perceived the enormous differences existing between a
+well-bred woman, that flower of the great world, and common women,
+though of the latter he did not know beyond one specimen. He was thus
+captured on the most accessible and sensitive sides of his soul and of
+his genius. Impelled by his simplicity, and by the impetuosity of his
+ideas, to lay immediate claim to this woman, he found himself restrained
+by society, also by the barrier which the manners and, let us say the
+word, the majesty of the princess placed between them. The conversation,
+which remained upon the topic of Michel Chrestien until the dessert, was
+an excellent pretext for both to speak in a low voice: love, sympathy,
+comprehension! she could pose as a maligned and misunderstood woman; he
+could slip his feet into the shoes of the dead republican. Perhaps his
+candid mind detected itself in regretting his dead friend less. The
+princess, at the moment when the dessert appeared upon the table, and
+the guests were separated by a brilliant hedge of fruits and sweetmeats,
+thought best to put an end to this flow of confidences by a charming
+little speech, in which she delicately expressed the idea that Daniel
+and Michel were twin souls.
+
+After this d’Arthez threw himself into the general conversation with
+the gayety of a child, and a self-conceited air that was worthy of a
+schoolboy. When they left the dining-room, the princess took d’Arthez’s
+arm, in the simplest manner, to return to Madame d’Espard’s little
+salon. As they crossed the grand salon she walked slowly, and when
+sufficiently separated from the marquise, who was on Blondet’s arm, she
+stopped.
+
+“I do not wish to be inaccessible to the friend of that poor man,”
+ she said to d’Arthez; “and though I have made it a rule to receive no
+visitors, you will always be welcome in my house. Do not think this a
+favor. A favor is only for strangers, and to my mind you and I seem old
+friends; I see in you the brother of Michel.”
+
+D’Arthez could only press her arm, unable to make other reply.
+
+After coffee was served, Diane de Cadignan wrapped herself, with
+coquettish motions, in a large shawl, and rose. Blondet and Rastignac
+were too much men of the world, and too polite to make the least
+remonstrance, or try to detain her; but Madame d’Espard compelled her
+friend to sit down again, whispering in her ear:--
+
+“Wait till the servants have had their dinner; the carriage is not ready
+yet.”
+
+So saying, the marquise made a sign to the footman, who was taking away
+the coffee-tray. Madame de Montcornet perceived that the princess and
+Madame d’Espard had a word to say to each other, and she drew around her
+d’Arthez, Rastignac, and Blondet, amusing them with one of those clever
+paradoxical attacks which Parisian women understand so thoroughly.
+
+“Well,” said the marquise to Diane, “what do you think of him?”
+
+“He is an adorable child, just out of swaddling-clothes! This time, like
+all other times, it will only be a triumph without a struggle.”
+
+“Well, it is disappointing,” said Madame d’Espard. “But we might evade
+it.”
+
+“How?”
+
+“Let me be your rival.”
+
+“Just as you please,” replied the princess. “I’ve decided on my course.
+Genius is a condition of the brain; I don’t know what the heart gets out
+of it; we’ll talk about that later.”
+
+Hearing the last few words, which were wholly incomprehensible to her,
+Madame d’Espard returned to the general conversation, showing neither
+offence at that indifferent “As you please,” nor curiosity as to the
+outcome of the interview. The princess stayed an hour longer, seated on
+the sofa near the fire, in the careless, nonchalant attitude of Guerin’s
+Dido, listening with the attention of an absorbed mind, and looking
+at Daniel now and then, without disguising her admiration, which never
+went, however, beyond due limits. She slipped away when the carriage
+was announced, with a pressure of the hand to the marquise, and an
+inclination of the head to Madame de Montcornet.
+
+The evening concluded without any allusion to the princess. The other
+guests profited by the sort of exaltation which d’Arthez had reached,
+for he put forth the treasures of his mind. In Blondet and Rastignac
+he certainly had two acolytes of the first quality to bring forth the
+delicacy of his wit and the breadth of his intellect. As for the two
+women, they had long been counted among the cleverest in society. This
+evening was like a halt in the oasis of a desert,--a rare enjoyment,
+and well appreciated by these four persons, habitually victimized to the
+endless caution entailed by the world of salons and politics. There
+are beings who have the privilege of passing among men like beneficent
+stars, whose light illumines the mind, while its rays send a glow to
+the heart. D’Arthez was one of those beings. A writer who rises to his
+level, accustoms himself to free thought, and forgets that in society
+all things cannot be said; it is impossible for such a man to observe
+the restraint of persons who live in the world perpetually; but as his
+eccentricities of thought bore the mark of originality, no one felt
+inclined to complain. This zest, this piquancy, rare in mere talent,
+this youthfulness and simplicity of soul which made d’Arthez so nobly
+original, gave a delightful charm to this evening. He left the house
+with Rastignac, who, as they drove home, asked him how he liked the
+princess.
+
+“Michel did well to love her,” replied d’Arthez; “she is, indeed, an
+extraordinary woman.”
+
+“Very extraordinary,” replied Rastignac, dryly. “By the tone of your
+voice I should judge you were in love with her already. You will be in
+her house within three days; and I am too old a denizen of Paris not to
+know what will be the upshot of that. Well, my dear Daniel, I do entreat
+you not to allow yourself to be drawn into any confusion of interests,
+so to speak. Love the princess if you feel any love for her in your
+heart, but keep an eye on your fortune. She has never taken or asked a
+penny from any man on earth, she is far too much of a d’Uxelles and a
+Cadignan for that; but, to my knowledge, she has not only spent her
+own fortune, which was very considerable, but she has made others
+waste millions. How? why? by what means? No one knows; she doesn’t
+know herself. I myself saw her swallow up, some thirteen years ago, the
+entire fortune of a charming young fellow, and that of an old notary, in
+twenty months.”
+
+“Thirteen years ago!” exclaimed d’Arthez,--“why, how old is she now?”
+
+“Didn’t you see, at dinner,” replied Rastignac, laughing, “her son, the
+Duc de Maufrigneuse. That young man is nineteen years old; nineteen and
+seventeen make--”
+
+“Thirty-six!” cried the amazed author. “I gave her twenty.”
+
+“She’ll accept them,” said Rastignac; “but don’t be uneasy, she will
+always be twenty to you. You are about to enter the most fantastic
+of worlds. Good-night, here you are at home,” said the baron, as they
+entered the rue de Bellefond, where d’Arthez lived in a pretty little
+house of his own. “We shall meet at Mademoiselle des Touches’s in the
+course of the week.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE PRINCESS GOES TO WORK
+
+
+D’Arthez allowed love to enter his heart after the manner of my Uncle
+Toby, without making the slightest resistance; he proceeded by adoration
+without criticism, and by exclusive admiration. The princess, that noble
+creature, one of the most remarkable creations of our monstrous Paris,
+where all things are possible, good as well as evil, became--whatever
+vulgarity the course of time may have given to the expression--the angel
+of his dreams. To fully understand the sudden transformation of this
+illustrious author, it is necessary to realize the simplicity that
+constant work and solitude leave in the heart; all that love--reduced
+to a mere need, and now repugnant, beside an ignoble woman--excites of
+regret and longings for diviner sentiments in the higher regions of the
+soul. D’Arthez was, indeed, the child, the boy that Madame de Cadignan
+had recognized. An illumination something like his own had taken place
+in the beautiful Diane. At last she had met that superior man whom all
+women desire and seek, if only to make a plaything of him,--that power
+which they consent to obey, if only for the pleasure of subduing it;
+at last she had found the grandeurs of the intellect united with
+the simplicity of a heart all new to love; and she saw, with untold
+happiness, that these merits were contained in a form that pleased her.
+She thought d’Arthez handsome, and perhaps he was. Though he had reached
+the age of gravity (for he was now thirty-eight), he still preserved
+a flower of youth, due to the sober and ascetic life which he had led.
+Like all men of sedentary habits, and statesmen, he had acquired
+a certainly reasonable embonpoint. When very young, he bore some
+resemblance to Bonaparte; and the likeness still continued, as much as a
+man with black eyes and thick, dark hair could resemble a sovereign
+with blue eyes and scanty, chestnut hair. But whatever there once was of
+ardent and noble ambition in the great author’s eyes had been somewhat
+quenched by successes. The thoughts with which that brow once teemed had
+flowered; the lines of the hollow face were filling out. Ease now spread
+its golden tints where, in youth, poverty had laid the yellow tones
+of the class of temperament whose forces band together to support a
+crushing and long-continued struggle. If you observe carefully the noble
+faces of ancient philosophers, you will always find those deviations
+from the type of a perfect human face which show the characteristic to
+which each countenance owes its originality, chastened by the habit of
+meditation, and by the calmness necessary for intellectual labor. The
+most irregular features, like those of Socrates, for instance, become,
+after a time, expressive of an almost divine serenity.
+
+To the noble simplicity which characterized his head, d’Arthez added a
+naive expression, the naturalness of a child, and a touching kindliness.
+He did not have that politeness tinged with insincerity with which, in
+society, the best-bred persons and the most amiable assume qualities in
+which they are often lacking, leaving those they have thus duped wounded
+and distressed. He might, indeed, fail to observe certain rules of
+social life, owing to his isolated mode of living; but he never shocked
+the sensibilities, and therefore this perfume of savagery made the
+peculiar affability of a man of great talent the more agreeable; such
+men know how to leave their superiority in their studies, and come
+down to the social level, lending their backs, like Henry IV., to the
+children’s leap-frog, and their minds to fools.
+
+If d’Arthez did not brace himself against the spell which the princess
+had cast about him, neither did she herself argue the matter in her own
+mind, on returning home. It was settled for her. She loved with all her
+knowledge and all her ignorance. If she questioned herself at all, it
+was to ask whether she deserved so great a happiness, and what she had
+done that Heaven should send her such an angel. She wanted to be worthy
+of that love, to perpetuate it, to make it her own forever, and to
+gently end her career of frivolity in the paradise she now foresaw. As
+for coquetting, quibbling, resisting, she never once thought of it. She
+was thinking of something very different!--of the grandeur of men of
+genius, and the certainty which her heart divined that they would never
+subject the woman they chose to ordinary laws.
+
+Here begins one of those unseen comedies, played in the secret regions
+of the consciousness between two beings of whom one will be the dupe of
+the other, though it keeps on this side of wickedness; one of those
+dark and comic dramas to which that of _Tartuffe_ is mere child’s
+play,--dramas that do not enter the scenic domain, although they are
+natural, conceivable, and even justifiable by necessity; dramas which
+may be characterized as not vice, only the other side of it.
+
+The princess began by sending for d’Arthez’s books, of which she had
+never, as yet, read a single word, although she had managed to maintain
+a twenty minutes’ eulogism and discussion of them without a blunder. She
+now read them all. Then she wanted to compare these books with the best
+that contemporary literature had produced. By the time d’Arthez came to
+see her she was having an indigestion of mind. Expecting this visit, she
+had daily made a toilet of what may be called the superior order; that
+is, a toilet which expresses an idea, and makes it accepted by the eye
+without the owner of the eye knowing why or wherefore. She presented an
+harmonious combination of shades of gray, a sort of semi-mourning, full
+of graceful renunciation,--the garments of a woman who holds to life
+only through a few natural ties,--her child, for instance,--but who is
+weary of life. Those garments bore witness to an elegant disgust, not
+reaching, however, as far as suicide; no, she would live out her days in
+these earthly galleys.
+
+She received d’Arthez as a woman who expected him, and as if he had
+already been to see her a hundred times; she did him the honor to treat
+him like an old acquaintance, and she put him at his ease by pointing
+to a seat on a sofa, while she finished a note she was then writing. The
+conversation began in a commonplace manner: the weather, the ministry,
+de Marsay’s illness, the hopes of the legitimists. D’Arthez was an
+absolutist; the princess could not be ignorant of the opinions of a
+man who sat in the Chamber among the fifteen or twenty persons who
+represented the legitimist party; she found means to tell him how she
+had fooled de Marsay to the top of his bent, then, by an easy transition
+to the royal family and to “Madame,” and the devotion of the Prince
+de Cadignan to their service, she drew d’Arthez’s attention to the
+prince:--
+
+“There is this to be said for him: he loved his masters, and was
+faithful to them. His public character consoles me for the sufferings
+his private life has inflicted upon me--Have you never remarked,” she
+went on, cleverly leaving the prince aside, “you who observe so much,
+that men have two natures: one of their homes, their wives, their
+private lives,--this is their true self; here no mask, no dissimulation;
+they do not give themselves the trouble to disguise a feeling; they are
+what they ARE, and it is often horrible! The other man is for others,
+for the world, for salons; the court, the sovereign, the public often
+see them grand, and noble, and generous, embroidered with virtues,
+adorned with fine language, full of admirable qualities. What a horrible
+jest it is!--and the world is surprised, sometimes, at the caustic smile
+of certain women, at their air of superiority to their husbands, and
+their indifference--”
+
+She let her hand fall along the arm of her chair, without ending her
+sentence, but the gesture admirably completed the speech. She saw
+d’Arthez watching her flexible figure, gracefully bending in the depths
+of her easy-chair, noting the folds of her gown, and the pretty little
+ruffle which sported on her breast,--one of those audacities of the
+toilet that are suited only to slender waists,--and she resumed the
+thread of her thoughts as if she were speaking to herself:--
+
+“But I will say no more. You writers have ended by making ridiculous
+all women who think they are misunderstood, or ill-mated, and who try to
+make themselves dramatically interesting,--attempts which seem to me, I
+must say, intolerably vulgar. There are but two things for women in that
+plight to do,--yield, and all is over; resist, and amuse themselves; in
+either case they should keep silence. It is true that I neither yielded
+wholly, nor resisted wholly; but, perhaps, that was only the more reason
+why I should be silent. What folly for women to complain! If they
+have not proved the stronger, they have failed in sense, in tact, in
+capacity, and they deserve their fate. Are they not queens in France?
+They can play with you as they like, when they like, and as much as they
+like.” Here she danced her vinaigrette with an airy movement of feminine
+impertinence and mocking gayety. “I have often heard miserable little
+specimens of my sex regretting that they were women, wishing they were
+men; I have always regarded them with pity. If I had to choose, I should
+still elect to be a woman. A fine pleasure, indeed, to owe one’s triumph
+to force, and to all those powers which you give yourselves by the
+laws you make! But to see you at our feet, saying and doing foolish
+things,--ah! it is an intoxicating pleasure to feel within our souls
+that weakness triumphs! But when we triumph, we ought to keep silence,
+under pain of losing our empire. Beaten, a woman’s pride should gag her.
+The slave’s silence alarms the master.”
+
+This chatter was uttered in a voice so softly sarcastic, so dainty, and
+with such coquettish motions of the head, that d’Arthez, to whom this
+style of woman was totally unknown, sat before her exactly like a
+partridge charmed by a setter.
+
+“I entreat you, madame,” he said, at last, “to tell me how it was
+possible that a man could make you suffer? Be assured that where, as you
+say, other women are common and vulgar, you can only seem distinguished;
+your manner of saying things would make a cook-book interesting.”
+
+“You go fast in friendship,” she said, in a grave voice which made
+d’Arthez extremely uneasy.
+
+The conversation changed; the hour was late, and the poor man of genius
+went away contrite for having seemed curious, and for wounding the
+sensitive heart of that rare woman who had so strangely suffered. As
+for her, she had passed her life in amusing herself with men, and was
+another Don Juan in female attire, with this difference: she would
+certainly not have invited the Commander to supper, and would have got
+the better of any statue.
+
+It is impossible to continue this tale without saying a word about
+the Prince de Cadignan, better known under the name of the Duc de
+Maufrigneuse, otherwise the spice of the princess’s confidences would
+be lost, and strangers would not understand the Parisian comedy she was
+about to play for her man of genius.
+
+The Duc de Maufrigneuse, like a true son of the old Prince de Cadignan,
+is a tall, lean man, of elegant shape, very graceful, a sayer of witty
+things, colonel by the grace of God, and a good soldier by accident;
+brave as a Pole, which means without sense or discernment, and hiding
+the emptiness of his mind under the jargon of good society. After the
+age of thirty-six he was forced to be as absolutely indifferent to
+the fair sex as his master Charles X., punished, like that master, for
+having pleased it too well. For eighteen years the idol of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain, he had, like other heirs of great families led a
+dissipated life, spent solely on pleasure. His father, ruined by the
+revolution, had somewhat recovered his position on the return of the
+Bourbons, as governor of a royal domain, with salary and perquisites;
+but this uncertain fortune the old prince spent, as it came, in keeping
+up the traditions of a great seigneur before the revolution; so that
+when the law of indemnity was passed, the sums he received were all
+swallowed up in the luxury he displayed in his vast hotel.
+
+The old prince died some little time before the revolution of July aged
+eighty-seven. He had ruined his wife, and had long been on bad terms
+with the Duc de Navarreins, who had married his daughter for a first
+wife, and to whom he very reluctantly rendered his accounts. The Duc
+de Maufrigneuse, early in life, had had relations with the Duchesse
+d’Uxelles. About the year 1814, when Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was
+forty-six years of age, the duchess, pitying his poverty, and seeing
+that he stood very well at court, gave him her daughter Diane, then in
+her seventeenth year, and possessing, in her own right, some fifty or
+sixty thousand francs a year, not counting her future expectations.
+Mademoiselle d’Uxelles thus became a duchess, and, as her mother very
+well knew, she enjoyed the utmost liberty. The duke, after obtaining
+the unexpected happiness of an heir, left his wife entirely to her
+own devices, and went off to amuse himself in the various garrisons of
+France, returning occasionally to Paris, where he made debts which his
+father paid. He professed the most entire conjugal indulgence, always
+giving the duchess a week’s warning of his return; he was adored by
+his regiment, beloved by the Dauphin, an adroit courtier, somewhat of
+a gambler, and totally devoid of affectation. Having succeeded to his
+father’s office as governor of one of the royal domains, he managed to
+please the two kings, Louis XVIII. and Charles X., which proves he made
+the most of his nonentity; and even the liberals liked him; but his
+conduct and life were covered with the finest varnish; language, noble
+manners, and deportment were brought by him to a state of perfection.
+But, as the old prince said, it was impossible for him to continue the
+traditions of the Cadignans, who were all well known to have ruined
+their wives, for the duchess was running through her property on her own
+account.
+
+These particulars were so well understood in the court circles and
+in the faubourg Saint-Germain, that during the last five years of
+the Restoration they were considered ancient history, and any one who
+mentioned them would have been laughed at. Women never spoke of the
+charming duke without praising him; he was excellent, they said, to his
+wife; could a man be better? He had left her the entire disposal of her
+own property, and had always defended her on every occasion. It is
+true that, whether from pride, kindliness, or chivalry, Monsieur de
+Maufrigneuse had saved the duchess under various circumstances which
+might have ruined other women, in spite of Diane’s surroundings, and
+the influence of her mother and that of the Duc de Navarreins, her
+father-in-law, and her husband’s aunt.
+
+For several ensuing days the princess revealed herself to d’Arthez as
+remarkable for her knowledge of literature. She discussed with perfect
+fearlessness the most difficult questions, thanks to her daily and
+nightly reading, pursued with an intrepidity worthy of the highest
+praise. D’Arthez, amazed, and incapable of suspecting that Diane
+d’Uxelles merely repeated at night that which she read in the morning
+(as some writers do), regarded her as a most superior woman. These
+conversations, however, led away from Diane’s object, and she tried to
+get back to the region of confidences from which d’Arthez had prudently
+retired after her coquettish rebuff; but it was not as easy as she
+expected to bring back a man of his nature who had once been startled
+away.
+
+However, after a month of literary campaigning and the finest platonic
+discourses, d’Arthez grew bolder, and arrived every day at three
+o’clock. He retired at six, and returned at nine, to remain until
+midnight, or one in the morning, with the regularity of an ardent and
+impatient lover. The princess was always dressed with more or less
+studied elegance at the hour when d’Arthez presented himself. This
+mutual fidelity, the care they each took of their appearance, in fact,
+all about them expressed sentiments that neither dared avow, for the
+princess discerned very plainly that the great child with whom she had
+to do shrank from the combat as much as she desired it. Nevertheless
+d’Arthez put into his mute declarations a respectful awe which was
+infinitely pleasing to her. Both felt, every day, all the more united
+because nothing acknowledged or definite checked the course of their
+ideas, as occurs between lovers when there are formal demands on one
+side, and sincere or coquettish refusals on the other.
+
+Like all men younger than their actual age, d’Arthez was a prey to those
+agitating irresolutions which are caused by the force of desires and
+the terror of displeasing,--a situation which a young woman does not
+comprehend when she shares it, but which the princess had too often
+deliberately produced not to enjoy its pleasures. In fact, Diane enjoyed
+these delightful juvenilities all the more keenly because she knew that
+she could put an end to them at any moment. She was like a great artist
+delighting in the vague, undecided lines of his sketch, knowing well
+that in a moment of inspiration he can complete the masterpiece still
+waiting to come to birth. Many a time, seeing d’Arthez on the point
+of advancing, she enjoyed stopping him short, with an imposing air and
+manner. She drove back the hidden storms of that still young heart,
+raised them again, and stilled them with a look, holding out her hand
+to be kissed, or saying some trifling insignificant words in a tender
+voice.
+
+These manoeuvres, planned in cold blood, but enchantingly executed,
+carved her image deeper and deeper on the soul of that great writer and
+thinker whom she revelled in making childlike, confiding, simple, and
+almost silly beside her. And yet she had moments of repulsion against
+her own act, moments in which she could not help admiring the grandeur
+of such simplicity. This game of choicest coquetry attached her,
+insensibly, to her slave. At last, however, Diane grew impatient with
+an Epictetus of love; and when she thought she had trained him to the
+utmost credulity, she set to work to tie a thicker bandage still over
+his eyes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE CONFESSION OF A PRETTY WOMAN
+
+
+One evening Daniel found the princess thoughtful, one elbow resting on
+a little table, her beautiful blond head bathed in light from the lamp.
+She was toying with a letter which lay on the table-cloth. When d’Arthez
+had seen the paper distinctly, she folded it up, and stuck it in her
+belt.
+
+“What is the matter?” asked d’Arthez; “you seem distressed.”
+
+“I have received a letter from Monsieur de Cadignan,” she replied.
+“However great the wrongs he has done me, I cannot help thinking of his
+exile--without family, without son--from his native land.”
+
+These words, said in a soulful voice, betrayed angelic sensibility.
+D’Arthez was deeply moved. The curiosity of the lover became, so to
+speak, a psychological and literary curiosity. He wanted to know the
+height that woman had attained, and what were the injuries she thus
+forgave; he longed to know how these women of the world, taxed with
+frivolity, cold-heartedness, and egotism, could be such angels.
+Remembering how the princess had already repulsed him when he first
+tried to read that celestial heart, his voice, and he himself, trembled
+as he took the transparent, slender hand of the beautiful Diane with its
+curving finger-tips, and said,--
+
+“Are we now such friends that you will tell me what you have suffered?”
+
+“Yes,” she said, breathing forth the syllable like the most mellifluous
+note that Tulou’s flute had ever sighed.
+
+Then she fell into a revery, and her eyes were veiled. Daniel remained
+in a state of anxious expectation, impressed with the solemnity of the
+occasion. His poetic imagination made him see, as it were, clouds slowly
+dispersing and disclosing to him the sanctuary where the wounded lamb
+was kneeling at the divine feet.
+
+“Well?” he said, in a soft, still voice.
+
+Diane looked at the tender petitioner; then she lowered her eyes slowly,
+dropping their lids with a movement of noble modesty. None but a
+monster would have been capable of imagining hypocrisy in the graceful
+undulation of the neck with which the princess again lifted her charming
+head, to look once more into the eager eyes of that great man.
+
+“Can I? ought I?” she murmured, with a gesture of hesitation, gazing at
+d’Arthez with a sublime expression of dreamy tenderness. “Men have so
+little faith in things of this kind; they think themselves so little
+bound to be discreet!”
+
+“Ah! if you distrust me, why am I here?” cried d’Arthez.
+
+“Oh, friend!” she said, giving to the exclamation the grace of an
+involuntary avowal, “when a woman attaches herself for life, think you
+she calculates? It is not question of refusal (how could I refuse you
+anything?), but the idea of what you may think of me if I speak. I would
+willingly confide to you the strange position in which I am at my age;
+but what would you think of a woman who could reveal the secret wounds
+of her married life? Turenne kept his word to robbers; do I not owe to
+my torturers the honor of a Turenne?”
+
+“Have you passed your word to say nothing?”
+
+“Monsieur de Cadignan did not think it necessary to bind me to
+secrecy--You are asking more than my soul! Tyrant! you want me to bury
+my honor itself in your breast,” she said, casting upon d’Arthez a
+look, by which she gave more value to her coming confidence than to her
+personal self.
+
+“You must think me a very ordinary man, if you fear any evil, no matter
+what, from me,” he said, with ill-concealed bitterness.
+
+“Forgive me, friend,” she replied, taking his hand in hers caressingly,
+and letting her fingers wander gently over it. “I know your worth. You
+have related to me your whole life; it is noble, it is beautiful, it is
+sublime, and worthy of your name; perhaps, in return, I owe you mine.
+But I fear to lower myself in your eyes by relating secrets which
+are not wholly mine. How can you believe--you, a man of solitude and
+poesy--the horrors of social life? Ah! you little think when you invent
+your dramas that they are far surpassed by those that are played in
+families apparently united. You are wholly ignorant of certain gilded
+sorrows.”
+
+“I know all!” he cried.
+
+“No, you know nothing.”
+
+D’Arthez felt like a man lost on the Alps of a dark night, who sees,
+at the first gleam of dawn, a precipice at his feet. He looked at the
+princess with a bewildered air, and felt a cold chill running down his
+back. Diane thought for a moment that her man of genius was a weakling,
+but a flash from his eyes reassured her.
+
+“You have become to me almost my judge,” she said, with a desperate air.
+“I must speak now, in virtue of the right that all calumniated beings
+have to show their innocence. I have been, I am still (if a poor recluse
+forced by the world to renounce the world is still remembered) accused
+of such light conduct, and so many evil things, that it may be allowed
+me to find in one strong heart a haven from which I cannot be driven.
+Hitherto I have always considered self-justification an insult to
+innocence; and that is why I have disdained to defend myself. Besides,
+to whom could I appeal? Such cruel things can be confided to none but
+God or to one who seems to us very near Him--a priest, or another self.
+Well! I do know this, if my secrets are not as safe there,” she said,
+laying her hand on d’Arthez’s heart, “as they are here” (pressing the
+upper end of her busk beneath her fingers), “then you are not the grand
+d’Arthez I think you--I shall have been deceived.”
+
+A tear moistened d’Arthez’s eyes, and Diane drank it in with a side
+look, which, however, gave no motion either to the pupils or the lids of
+her eyes. It was quick and neat, like the action of a cat pouncing on a
+mouse.
+
+D’Arthez, for the first time, after sixty days of protocols, ventured
+to take that warm and perfumed hand, and press it to his lips with a
+long-drawn kiss, extending from the wrist to the tip of the fingers,
+which made the princess augur well of literature. She thought to herself
+that men of genius must know how to love with more perfection than
+conceited fops, men of the world, diplomatists, and even soldiers,
+although such beings have nothing else to do. She was a connoisseur, and
+knew very well that the capacity for love reveals itself chiefly in mere
+nothings. A woman well informed in such matters can read her future in
+a simple gesture; just as Cuvier could say from the fragment of a bone:
+This belonged to an animal of such or such dimensions, with or without
+horns, carnivorous, herbivorous, amphibious, etc., age, so many thousand
+years. Sure now of finding in d’Arthez as much imagination in love as
+there was in his written style, she thought it wise to bring him up at
+once to the highest pitch of passion and belief.
+
+She withdrew her hand hastily, with a magnificent movement full of
+varied emotions. If she had said in words: “Stop, or I shall die,” she
+could not have spoken more plainly. She remained for a moment with
+her eyes in d’Arthez’s eyes, expressing in that one glance happiness,
+prudery, fear, confidence, languor, a vague longing, and virgin modesty.
+She was twenty years old! but remember, she had prepared for this hour
+of comic falsehood by the choicest art of dress; she was there in her
+armchair like a flower, ready to blossom at the first kiss of sunshine.
+True or false, she intoxicated Daniel.
+
+It if is permissible to risk a personal opinion we must avow that it
+would be delightful to be thus deceived for a good long time. Certainly
+Talma on the stage was often above and beyond nature, but the Princesse
+de Cadignan is the greatest true comedian of our day. Nothing was
+wanting to this woman but an attentive audience. Unfortunately, at
+epochs perturbed by political storms, women disappear like water-lilies
+which need a cloudless sky and balmy zephyrs to spread their bloom to
+our enraptured eyes.
+
+The hour had come; Diane was now to entangle that great man in the
+inextricable meshes of a romance carefully prepared, to which he was
+fated to listen as the neophyte of early Christian times listened to the
+epistles of an apostle.
+
+“My friend,” began Diane, “my mother, who still lives at Uxelles,
+married me in 1814, when I was seventeen years old (you see how old I am
+now!) to Monsieur de Maufrigneuse, not out of affection for me, but out
+of regard for him. She discharged her debt to the only man she had ever
+loved, for the happiness she had once received from him. Oh! you need
+not be astonished at so horrible a conspiracy; it frequently takes
+place. Many women are more lovers than mothers, though the majority
+are more mothers than wives. The two sentiments, love and motherhood,
+developed as they are by our manners and customs, often struggle
+together in the hearts of women; one or other must succumb when they
+are not of equal strength; when they are, they produce some exceptional
+women, the glory of our sex. A man of your genius must surely comprehend
+many things that bewilder fools but are none the less true; indeed I may
+go further and call them justifiable through difference of characters,
+temperaments, attachments, situations. I, for example, at this moment,
+after twenty years of misfortunes, of deceptions, of calumnies endured,
+and weary days and hollow pleasures, is it not natural that I should
+incline to fall at the feet of a man who would love me sincerely and
+forever? And yet, the world would condemn me. But twenty years of
+suffering might well excuse a few brief years which may still remain to
+me of youth given to a sacred and real love. This will not happen. I am
+not so rash as to sacrifice my hopes of heaven. I have borne the burden
+and heat of the day, I shall finish my course and win my recompense.”
+
+“Angel!” thought d’Arthez.
+
+“After all, I have never blamed my mother; she knew little of me.
+Mothers who lead a life like that of the Duchesse d’Uxelles keep their
+children at a distance. I saw and knew nothing of the world until my
+marriage. You can judge of my innocence! I knew nothing; I was incapable
+of understanding the causes of my marriage. I had a fine fortune; sixty
+thousand francs a year in forests, which the Revolution overlooked (or
+had not been able to sell) in the Nivernais, with the noble chateau of
+d’Anzy. Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was steeped in debt. Later I learned
+what it was to have debts, but then I was too utterly ignorant of life
+to suspect my position; the money saved out of my fortune went to pacify
+my husband’s creditors. Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was forty-eight years
+of age when I married him; but those years were like military campaigns,
+they ought to count for twice what they were. Ah! what a life I led for
+ten years! If any one had known the suffering of this poor, calumniated
+little woman! To be watched by a mother jealous of her daughter!
+Heavens! You who make dramas, you will never invent anything as direful
+as that. Ordinarily, according to the little that I know of literature,
+a drama is a suite of actions, speeches, movements which hurry to a
+catastrophe; but what I speak of was a catastrophe in action. It was an
+avalanche fallen in the morning and falling again at night only to
+fall again the next day. I am cold now as I speak to you of that cavern
+without an opening, cold, sombre, in which I lived. I, poor little thing
+that I was! brought up in a convent like a mystic rose, knowing nothing
+of marriage, developing late, I was happy at first; I enjoyed the
+goodwill and harmony of our family. The birth of my poor boy, who is
+all me--you must have been struck by the likeness? my hair, my eyes, the
+shape of my face, my mouth, my smile, my teeth!--well, his birth was a
+relief to me; my thoughts were diverted by the first joys of maternity
+from my husband, who gave me no pleasure and did nothing for me that
+was kind or amiable; those joys were all the keener because I knew no
+others. It had been so often rung into my ears that a mother should
+respect herself. Besides, a young girl loves to play the mother. I was
+so proud of my flower--for Georges was beautiful, a miracle, I thought!
+I saw and thought of nothing but my son, I lived with my son. I never
+let his nurse dress or undress him. Such cares, so wearing to mothers
+who have a regiment of children, were all my pleasure. But after three
+or four years, as I was not an actual fool, light came to my eyes in
+spite of the pains taken to blindfold me. Can you see me at that
+final awakening, in 1819? The drama of ‘The Brothers at enmity’ is a
+rose-water tragedy beside that of a mother and daughter placed as we
+then were. But I braved them all, my mother, my husband, the world,
+by public coquetries which society talked of,--and heaven knows how it
+talked! You can see, my friend, how the men with whom I was accused of
+folly were to me the dagger with which to stab my enemies. Thinking only
+of my vengeance, I did not see or feel the wounds I was inflicting on
+myself. Innocent as a child, I was thought a wicked woman, the worst of
+women, and I knew nothing of it! The world is very foolish, very blind,
+very ignorant; it can penetrate no secrets but those which amuse it and
+serve its malice: noble things, great things, it puts its hand before
+its eyes to avoid seeing. But, as I look back, it seems to me that I had
+an attitude and aspect of indignant innocence, with movements of pride,
+which a great painter would have recognized. I must have enlivened many
+a ball with my tempests of anger and disdain. Lost poesy! such sublime
+poems are only made in the glowing indignation which seizes us at
+twenty. Later, we are wrathful no longer, we are too weary, vice no
+longer amazes us, we are cowards, we fear. But then--oh! I kept a great
+pace! For all that I played the silliest personage in the world; I was
+charged with crimes by which I never benefited. But I had such pleasure
+in compromising myself. That was my revenge! Ah! I have played many
+childish tricks! I went to Italy with a thoughtless youth, whom I
+crushed when he spoke to me of love, but later, when I herd that he was
+compromised on my account (he had committed a forgery to get money) I
+rushed to save him. My mother and husband kept me almost without means;
+but, this time, I went to the king. Louis XVIII., that man without a
+heart, was touched; he gave me a hundred thousand francs from his privy
+purse. The Marquis d’Esgrignon--you must have seen him in society for he
+ended by making a rich marriage--was saved from the abyss into which he
+had plunged for my sake. That adventure, caused by my own folly, led me
+to reflect. I saw that I myself was the first victim of my vengeance.
+My mother, who knew I was too proud, too d’Uxelles, to conduct
+myself really ill, began to see the harm that she had done me and was
+frightened by it. She was then fifty-two years of age; she left Paris
+and went to live at Uxelles. There she expiates her wrong-doing by a
+life of devotion and expresses the utmost affection for me. After her
+departure I was face to face, alone, with Monsieur de Maufrigneuse. Oh!
+my friend, you men can never know what an old man of gallantry can be.
+What a home is that of a man accustomed to the adulation of women of the
+world, when he finds neither incense nor censer in his own house! dead
+to all! and yet, perhaps for that very reason, jealous. I wished--when
+Monsieur de Maufrigneuse was wholly mine--I wished to be a good wife,
+but I found myself repulsed with the harshness of a soured spirit by
+a man who treated me like a child and took pleasure in humiliating
+my self-respect at every turn, in crushing me under the scorn of his
+experience, and in convicting me of total ignorance. He wounded me on
+all occasions. He did everything to make me detest him and to give me
+the right to betray him; but I was still the dupe of my own hope and of
+my desire to do right through several years. Shall I tell you the cruel
+saying that drove me to further follies? ‘The Duchesse de Maufrigneuse
+has gone back to her husband,’ said the world. ‘Bah! it is always a
+triumph to bring the dead to life; it is all she can now do,’ replied my
+best friend, a relation, she, at whose house I met you--”
+
+“Madame d’Espard!” cried Daniel, with a gesture of horror.
+
+“Oh! I have forgiven her. Besides, it was very witty; and I have myself
+made just as cruel epigrams on other poor women as innocent as myself.”
+
+D’Arthez again kissed the hand of that saintly woman who, having hacked
+her mother in pieces, and turned the Prince de Cadignan into an Othello,
+now proceeded to accuse herself in order to appear in the eyes of that
+innocent great man as immaculate as the silliest or the wisest of women
+desire to seem at all costs to their lovers.
+
+“You will readily understand, my friend, that I returned to society for
+the purpose of excitement and I may say of notoriety. I felt that I must
+conquer my independence. I led a life of dissipation. To divert my mind,
+to forget my real life in fictitious enjoyments I was gay, I shone, I
+gave fetes, I played the princess, and I ran in debt. At home I could
+forget myself in the sleep of weariness, able to rise the next day gay,
+and frivolous for the world; but in that sad struggle to escape my real
+life I wasted my fortune. The revolution of 1830 came; it came at the
+very moment when I had met, at the end of that _Arabian Nights’_ life, a
+pure and sacred love which (I desire to be honest) I had longed to know.
+Was it not natural in a woman whose heart, repressed by many causes and
+accidents, was awakening at an age when a woman feels herself cheated
+if she has never known, like the women she sees about her, a happy love?
+Ah! why was Michel Chrestien so respectful? Why did he not seek to meet
+me? There again was another mockery! But what of that? in falling, I
+have lost everything; I have no illusions left; I had tasted of all
+things except the one fruit for which I have no longer teeth. Yes, I
+found myself disenchanted with the world at the very moment when I was
+forced to leave it. Providential, was it not? like all those strange
+insensibilities which prepare us for death” (she made a gesture full
+of pious unction). “All things served me then,” she continued; “the
+disasters of the monarchy and its ruin helped me to bury myself. My son
+consoles me for much. Maternal love takes the place of all frustrated
+feelings. The world is surprised at my retirement, but to me it has
+brought peace. Ah! if you knew how happy the poor creature before you is
+in this little place. In sacrificing all to my son I forget to think of
+joys of which I am and ever must be ignorant. Yes, hope has flown, I
+now fear everything; no doubt I should repulse the truest sentiment,
+the purest and most veritable love, in memory of the deceptions and the
+miseries of my life. It is all horrible, is it not? and yet, what I have
+told you is the history of many women.”
+
+The last few words were said in a tone of easy pleasantry which recalled
+the presence of the woman of the world. D’Arthez was dumbfounded. In his
+eyes convicts sent to the galleys for murder, or aggravated robbery, or
+for putting a wrong name to checks, were saints compared to the men and
+women of society. This atrocious elegy, forged in the arsenal of lies,
+and steeped in the waters of the Parisian Styx, had been poured into his
+ears with the inimitable accent of truth. The grave author contemplated
+for a moment that adorable woman lying back in her easy-chair, her two
+hands pendant from its arms like dewdrops from a rose-leaf, overcome
+by her own revelation, living over again the sorrows of her life as she
+told them--in short an angel of melancholy.
+
+“And judge,” she cried, suddenly lifting herself with a spring and
+raising her hand, while lightning flashed from eyes where twenty chaste
+years shone--“judge of the impression the love of a man like Michel
+must have made upon me. But by some irony of fate--or was it the hand of
+God?--well, he died; died in saving the life of, whom do you suppose? of
+Monsieur de Cadignan. Are you now surprised to find me thoughtful?”
+
+This was the last drop; poor d’Arthez could bear no more. He fell upon
+his knees, and laid his head on Diane’s hand, weeping soft tears such
+as the angels shed,--if angels weep. As Daniel was in that bent posture,
+Madame de Cadignan could safely let a malicious smile of triumph flicker
+on her lips, a smile such as the monkeys wear after playing a sly
+trick--if monkeys smile.
+
+“Ah! I have him,” thought she; and, indeed, she had him fast.
+
+“But you are--” he said, raising his fine head and looking at her with
+eyes of love.
+
+“Virgin and martyr,” she replied, smiling at the commonness of that
+hackneyed expression, but giving it a freshness of meaning by her smile,
+so full of painful gayety. “If I laugh,” she continued, “it is that I am
+thinking of that princess whom the world thinks it knows, that Duchesse
+de Maufrigneuse to whom it gives as lovers de Marsay, that infamous de
+Trailles (a political cutthroat), and that little fool of a d’Esgrignon,
+and Rastignac, Rubempre, ambassadors, ministers, Russian generals,
+heaven knows who! all Europe! They have gossiped about that album which
+I ordered made, believing that those who admired me were my friends. Ah!
+it is frightful! I wonder that I allow a man at my feet! Despise them
+all, THAT should be my religion.”
+
+She rose and went to the window with a gait and bearing magnificent in
+motifs.
+
+D’Arthez remained on the low seat to which he had returned not daring
+to follow the princess; but he looked at her; he heard her blowing her
+nose. Was there ever a princess who blew her nose? but Diane attempted
+the impossible to convey an idea of her sensibility. D’Arthez believed
+his angel was in tears; he rushed to her side, took her round the waist,
+and pressed her to his heart.
+
+“No, no, leave me!” she murmured in a feeble voice. “I have too many
+doubts to be good for anything. To reconcile me with life is a task
+beyond the powers of any man.”
+
+“Diane! I will love you for your whole lost life.”
+
+“No; don’t speak to me thus,” she answered. “At this moment I tremble, I
+am ashamed as though I had committed the greatest sins.”
+
+She was now entirely restored to the innocence of little girls, and
+yet her bearing was august, grand, noble as that of a queen. It is
+impossible to describe the effect of these manoeuvres, so clever that
+they acted like the purest truth on a soul as fresh and honest as that
+of d’Arthez. The great author remained dumb with admiration, passive
+beside her in the recess of that window awaiting a word, while the
+princess awaited a kiss; but she was far too sacred to him for that.
+Feeling cold, the princess returned to her easy-chair; her feet were
+frozen.
+
+“It will take a long time,” she said to herself, looking at Daniel’s
+noble brow and head.
+
+“Is this a woman?” thought that profound observer of human nature. “How
+ought I to treat her?”
+
+Until two o’clock in the morning they spent their time in saying to each
+other the silly things that women of genius, like the princess, know how
+to make adorable. Diane pretended to be too worn, too old, too faded;
+D’Arthez proved to her (facts of which she was well convinced) that her
+skin was the most delicate, the softest to the touch, the whitest to the
+eye, the most fragrant; she was young and in her bloom, how could she
+think otherwise? Thus they disputed, beauty by beauty, detail by detail
+with many: “Oh! do you think so?”--“You are beside yourself!”--“It is
+hope, it is fancy!”--“You will soon see me as I am.--I am almost forty
+years of age. Can a man love so old a woman?”
+
+D’Arthez responded with impetuous and school-boy eloquence, larded with
+exaggerated epithets. When the princess heard this wise and witty writer
+talking the nonsense of an amorous sub-lieutenant she listened with an
+absorbed air and much sensibility; but she laughed in her sleeve.
+
+When d’Arthez was in the street, he asked himself whether he might not
+have been rather less respectful. He went over in memory those strange
+confidences--which have, naturally, been much abridged here, for they
+needed a volume to convey their mellifluous abundance and the graces
+which accompanied them. The retrospective perspicacity of this man, so
+natural, so profound, was baffled by the candor of that tale and its
+poignancy, and by the tones of the princess.
+
+“It is true,” he said to himself, being unable to sleep, “there are such
+dramas as that in society. Society covers great horrors with the flowers
+of its elegance, the embroidery of its gossip, the wit of its lies. We
+writers invent no more than the truth. Poor Diane! Michel had penetrated
+that enigma; he said that beneath her covering of ice there lay
+volcanoes! Bianchon and Rastignac were right; when a man can join the
+grandeurs of the ideal and the enjoyments of human passion in loving
+a woman of perfect manners, of intellect, of delicacy, it must be
+happiness beyond words.”
+
+So thinking, he sounded the love that was in him and found it infinite.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A TRIAL OF FAITH
+
+
+The next day, about two in the afternoon, Madame d’Espard, who had seen
+and heard nothing of the princess for more than a month, went to see her
+under the impulse of extreme curiosity. Nothing was ever more amusing
+of its kind than the conversation of these two crafty adders during the
+first half-hour of this visit.
+
+Diane d’Uxelles cautiously avoided, as she would the wearing of a yellow
+gown, all mention of d’Arthez. The marquise circled round and round that
+topic like a Bedouin round a caravan. Diane amused herself; the marquise
+fumed. Diane waited; she intended to utilize her friend and use her in
+the chase. Of these two women, both so celebrated in the social world,
+one was far stronger than the other. The princess rose by a head
+above the marquise, and the marquise was inwardly conscious of that
+superiority. In this, perhaps, lay the secret of their intimacy. The
+weaker of the two crouched low in her false attachment, watching for the
+hour, long awaited by feeble beings, of springing at the throat of the
+stronger and leaving the mark of a joyful bite. Diane saw clear; but the
+world was the dupe of the wile caresses of the two friends.
+
+The instant that the princess perceived a direct question on the lips of
+her friend, she said:--
+
+“Ah! dearest, I owe you a most complete, immense, infinite, celestial
+happiness.”
+
+“What can you mean?”
+
+“Have you forgotten what we ruminated three months ago in the little
+garden, sitting on a bench in the sun, under the jasmine? Ah! there are
+none but men of genius who know how to love! I apply to my grand Daniel
+d’Arthez the Duke of Alba’s saying to Catherine de’ Medici: ‘The head of
+a single salmon is worth all the frogs in the world.’”
+
+“I am not surprised that I no longer see you,” said Madame d’Espard.
+
+“Promise me, if you meet him, not to say to him one word about me, my
+angel,” said the princess, taking her friend’s hand. “I am happy, oh!
+happy beyond all expression; but you know that in society a word, a mere
+jest can do much harm. One speech can kill, for they put such venom into
+a single sentence! Ah! if you knew how I long that you might meet with
+a love like this! Yes, it is a sweet, a precious triumph for women like
+ourselves to end our woman’s life in this way; to rest in an ardent,
+pure, devoted, complete and absolute love; above all, when we have
+sought it long.”
+
+“Why do you ask me to be faithful to my dearest friend?” said Madame
+d’Espard. “Do you think me capable of playing you some villainous
+trick?”
+
+“When a woman possesses such a treasure the fear of losing it is so
+strong that it naturally inspires a feeling of terror. I am absurd, I
+know; forgive me, dear.”
+
+A few moments later the marquise departed; as she watched her go the
+princess said to herself:--
+
+“How she will pluck me! But to save her the trouble of trying to get
+Daniel away from here I’ll send him to her.”
+
+At three o’clock, or a few moments after, d’Arthez arrived. In the midst
+of some interesting topic on which he was discoursing eloquently, the
+princess suddenly cut him short by laying her hand on his arm.
+
+“Pardon me, my dear friend,” she said, interrupting him, “but I fear
+I may forget a thing which seems a mere trifle but may be of great
+importance. You have not set foot in Madame d’Espard’s salon since the
+ever-blessed day when I met you there. Pray go at once; not for your
+sake, nor by way of politeness, but for me. You may already have made
+her an enemy of mine, if by chance she has discovered that since her
+dinner you have scarcely left my house. Besides, my friend, I don’t like
+to see you dropping your connection with society, and neglecting your
+occupations and your work. I should again be strangely calumniated. What
+would the world say? That I held you in leading-strings, absorbed you,
+feared comparisons, and clung to my conquest knowing it to be my last!
+Who will know that you are my friend, my only friend? If you love me
+indeed, as you say you love me, you will make the world believe that
+we are purely and simply brother and sister--Go on with what you were
+saying.”
+
+In his armor of tenderness, riveted by the knowledge of so many splendid
+virtues, d’Arthez obeyed this behest on the following day and went
+to see Madame d’Espard, who received him with charming coquetry. The
+marquise took very good care not to say a single word to him about the
+princess, but she asked him to dinner on a coming day.
+
+On this occasion d’Arthez found a numerous company. The marquise
+had invited Rastignac, Blondet, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto, Maxime de
+Trailles, the Marquis d’Esgrignon, the two brothers Vandenesse, du
+Tillet, one of the richest bankers in Paris, the Baron de Nucingen,
+Raoul Nathan, Lady Dudley, two very treacherous secretaries of embassies
+and the Chevalier d’Espard, the wiliest person in this assemblage and
+the chief instigator of his sister-in-law’s policy.
+
+When dinner was well under way, Maxime de Trailles turned to d’Arthez
+and said smiling:--
+
+“You see a great deal, don’t you, of the Princesse de Cadignan?”
+
+To this question d’Arthez responded by curtly nodding his head. Maxime
+de Trailles was a “bravo” of the social order, without faith or law,
+capable of everything, ruining the women who trusted him, compelling
+them to pawn their diamonds to give him money, but covering this conduct
+with a brilliant varnish; a man of charming manners and satanic mind.
+He inspired all who knew him with equal contempt and fear; but as no
+one was bold enough to show him any sentiments but those of the utmost
+courtesy he saw nothing of this public opinion, or else he accepted and
+shared the general dissimulation. He owed to the Comte de Marsay the
+greatest degree of elevation to which he could attain. De Marsay,
+whose knowledge of Maxime was of long-standing, judged him capable of
+fulfilling certain secret and diplomatic functions which he confided to
+him and of which de Trailles acquitted himself admirably. D’Arthez had
+for some time past mingled sufficiently in political matters to know the
+man for what he was, and he alone had sufficient strength and height of
+character to express aloud what others thought or said in a whisper.
+
+“Is it for her that you neglect the Chamber?” asked Baron de Nucingen in
+his German accent.
+
+“Ah! the princess is one of the most dangerous women a man can have
+anything to do with. I owe to her the miseries of my marriage,”
+ exclaimed the Marquis d’Esgrignon.
+
+“Dangerous?” said Madame d’Espard. “Don’t speak so of my nearest friend.
+I have never seen or known anything in the princess that did not seem to
+come from the noblest sentiments.”
+
+“Let the marquis say what he thinks,” cried Rastignac. “When a man has
+been thrown by a fine horse he thinks it has vices and he sells it.”
+
+Piqued by these words, the Marquis d’Esgrignon looked at d’Arthez and
+said:--
+
+“Monsieur is not, I trust, on such terms with the princess that we
+cannot speak freely of her?”
+
+D’Arthez kept silence. D’Esgrignon, who was not wanting in cleverness,
+replied to Rastignac’s speech with an apologetic portrait of the
+princess, which put the whole table in good humor. As the jest was
+extremely obscure to d’Arthez he leaned towards his neighbor, Madame de
+Montcornet, and asked her, in a whisper, what it meant.
+
+“Excepting yourself--judging by the excellent opinion you seem to have
+of the princess--all the other guests are said to have been in her good
+graces.”
+
+“I can assure you that such an accusation is absolutely false,” said
+Daniel.
+
+“And yet, here is Monsieur d’Esgrignon of an old family of Alencon, who
+completely ruined himself for her some twelve years ago, and, if all is
+true, came very near going to the scaffold.”
+
+“I know the particulars of that affair,” said d’Arthez. “Madame de
+Cadignan went to Alencon to save Monsieur d’Esgrignon from a trial
+before the court of assizes; and this is how he rewards her to-day!”
+
+Madame de Montcornet looked at d’Arthez with a surprise and curiosity
+that were almost stupid, then she turned her eyes on Madame d’Espard
+with a look which seemed to say: “He is bewitched!”
+
+During this short conversation Madame de Cadignan was protected by
+Madame d’Espard, whose protection was like that of the lightning-rod
+which draws the flash. When d’Arthez returned to the general
+conversation Maxime de Trailles was saying:--
+
+“With Diane, depravity is not an effect but a cause; perhaps she owes
+that cause to her exquisite nature; she doesn’t invent, she makes no
+effort, she offers you the choicest refinements as the inspiration of
+a spontaneous and naive love; and it is absolutely impossible not to
+believe her.”
+
+This speech, which seemed to have been prepared for a man of d’Arthez’s
+stamp, was so tremendous an arraignment that the company appeared to
+accept it as a conclusion. No one said more; the princess was crushed.
+D’Arthez looked straight at de Trailles and then at d’Esgrignon with a
+sarcastic air, and said:--
+
+“The greatest fault of that woman is that she has followed in the wake
+of men. She squanders patrimonies as they do; she drives her lovers to
+usurers; she pockets ‘dots’; she ruins orphans; she inspires, possibly
+she commits, crimes, but--”
+
+Never had the two men, whom d’Arthez was chiefly addressing, listened
+to such plain talk. At that BUT the whole table was startled, every one
+paused, fork in air, their eyes fixed alternately on the brave author
+and on the assailants of the princess, awaiting the conclusion of that
+horrible silence.
+
+“_But_,” said d’Arthez, with sarcastic airiness, “Madame la Princesse
+de Cadignan has one advantage over men: when they have put themselves in
+danger for her sake, she saves them, and says no harm of any one. Among
+the multitude, why shouldn’t there be one woman who amuses herself with
+men as men amuse themselves with women? Why not allow the fair sex to
+take, from time to time, its revenge?”
+
+“Genius is stronger than wit,” said Blondet to Nathan.
+
+This broadside of sarcasms was in fact the discharge of a battery of
+cannons against a platoon of musketry. When coffee was served, Blondet
+and Nathan went up to d’Arthez with an eagerness no one else dared to
+imitate, so unable were the rest of the company to show the admiration
+his conduct inspired from the fear of making two powerful enemies.
+
+“This is not the first time we have seen that your character equals your
+talent in grandeur,” said Blondet. “You behaved just now more like a
+demi-god than a man. Not to have been carried away by your heart or
+your imagination, not to have taken up the defence of a beloved woman--a
+fault they were enticing you to commit, because it would have given
+those men of society eaten up with jealousy of your literary fame a
+triumph over you--ah! give me leave to say you have attained the height
+of private statesmanship.”
+
+“Yes, you are a statesman,” said Nathan. “It is as clever as it is
+difficult to avenge a woman without defending her.”
+
+“The princess is one of those heroines of the legitimist party, and
+it is the duty of all men of honor to protect her quand meme,” replied
+d’Arthez, coldly. “What she has done for the cause of her masters would
+excuse all follies.”
+
+“He keeps his own counsel!” said Nathan to Blondet.
+
+“Precisely as if the princess were worth it,” said Rastignac, joining
+the other two.
+
+D’Arthez went to the princess, who was awaiting him with the keenest
+anxiety. The result of this experiment, which Diane had herself brought
+about, might be fatal to her. For the first time in her life this woman
+suffered in her heart. She knew not what she should do in case d’Arthez
+believed the world which spoke the truth, instead of believing her who
+lied; for never had so noble a nature, so complete a man, a soul so
+pure, a conscience so ingenuous come beneath her hand. Though she had
+told him cruel lies she was driven to do so by the desire of knowing a
+true love. That love--she felt it dawning in her heart; yes, she loved
+d’Arthez; and now she was condemned forever to deceive him! She must
+henceforth remain to him the actress who had played that comedy to blind
+his eyes.
+
+When she heard Daniel’s step in the dining-room a violent commotion, a
+shudder which reached to her very vitals came over her. That convulsion,
+never felt during all the years of her adventurous existence, told her
+that she had staked her happiness on this issue. Her eyes, gazing
+into space, took in the whole of d’Arthez’s person; their light poured
+through his flesh, she read his soul; suspicion had not so much as
+touched him with its bat’s-wing. The terrible emotion of that fear then
+came to its reaction; joy almost stifled her; for there is no human
+being who is not more able to endure grief than to bear extreme
+felicity.
+
+“Daniel, they have calumniated me, and you have avenged me!” she cried,
+rising, and opening her arms to him.
+
+In the profound amazement caused by these words, the roots of which were
+utterly unknown to him, Daniel allowed his hand to be taken between her
+beautiful hands, as the princess kissed him sacredly on the forehead.
+
+“But,” he said, “how could you know--”
+
+“Oh! illustrious ninny! do you not see that I love you fondly?”
+
+Since that day nothing has been said of the Princess de Cadignan, nor
+of d’Arthez. The princess has inherited some fortune from her mother and
+she spends all her summers in a villa on the lake of Geneva, where the
+great writer joins her. She returns to Paris for a few months in winter.
+D’Arthez is never seen except in the Chamber. His writings are becoming
+exceedingly rare. Is this a conclusion? Yes, for people of sense; no,
+for persons who want to know everything.
+
+
+
+
+ADDENDUM
+
+The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.
+
+     Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d’
+       Father Goriot
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Beatrix
+
+     Arthez, Daniel d’
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Bianchon, Horace
+       Father Goriot
+       The Atheist’s Mass
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       The Government Clerks
+       Pierrette
+       A Study of Woman
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Honorine
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Second Home
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Imaginary Mistress
+       The Middle Classes
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Country Parson
+     In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
+       Another Study of Woman
+       La Grande Breteche
+
+     Blondet, Emile
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Modeste Mignon
+       Another Study of Woman
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Peasantry
+
+     Blondet, Virginie
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       The Peasantry
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Member for Arcis
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Cadignan, Prince de
+       Modeste Mignon
+
+     Chrestien, Michel
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+
+     Cinq-Cygne, Laurence, Comtesse (afterwards Marquise de)
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Dudley, Lady Arabella
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       The Magic Skin
+        A Daughter of Eve
+       Letters of Two Brides
+
+     Esgrignon, Victurnien, Comte (then Marquis d’)
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Espard, Chevalier d’
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Espard, Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d’
+       The Commission in Lunacy
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Beatrix
+
+     Galathionne, Prince and Princess (both not in each story)
+       The Middle Classes
+       Father Goriot
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Beatrix
+
+     Giraud, Leon
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Marsay, Henri de
+       The Thirteen
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Father Goriot
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Marriage Settlement
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       Modest Mignon
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+     Maufrigneuse, Duc de
+       A Start in Life
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+      Maufrigneuse, Duchesse de
+       Modeste Mignon
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       The Muse of the Department
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Maufrigneuse, Georges de
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       Beatrix
+       The Member for Arcis
+
+     Mirbel, Madame de
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+
+     Nathan, Raoul
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       The Seamy Side of History
+       The Muse of the Department
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+       A Man of Business
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Navarreins, Duc de
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Colonel Chabert
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Thirteen
+       Jealousies of a Country Town
+       The Peasantry
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Country Parson
+       The Magic Skin
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       Cousin Betty
+
+     Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       Father Goriot
+       Pierrette
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       Another Study of Woman
+       A Man of Business
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Muse of the Department
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Rastignac, Eugene de
+       Father Goriot
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
+       The Ball at Sceaux
+       The Interdiction
+       A Study of Woman
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Magic Skin
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Member for Arcis
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Rochefide, Marquise de
+       Beatrix
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       Sarrasine
+       A Prince of Bohemia
+
+     Tillet, Ferdinand du
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+       The Middle Classes
+       A Bachelor’s Establishment
+       Pierrette
+       Melmoth Reconciled
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       A Daughter of Eve
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Toby (Joby, Paddy)
+       The Firm of Nucingen
+
+     Trailles, Comte Maxime de
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Father Goriot
+       Gobseck
+       Ursule Mirouet
+       A Man of Business
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Cousin Betty
+       The Member for Arcis
+       Beatrix
+       The Unconscious Humorists
+
+     Vandenesse, Comte Felix de
+       The Lily of the Valley
+       Lost Illusions
+       A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
+       Cesar Birotteau
+       Letters of Two Brides
+       A Start in Life
+       The Marriage Settlement
+       Another Study of Woman
+       The Gondreville Mystery
+       A Daughter of Eve
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Secrets of the Princesse de
+Cadignan, by Honore de Balzac
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1344 ***