The Ball at Sceaux (tran Clara Bell)
by Honore de Balzac
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By
Clara Bell

To Henri de Balzac, his brother Honore.

The Comte de Fontaine, head of one of the oldest families in Poitou,
had served the Bourbon cause with intelligence and bravery during the
war in La Vendee against the Republic. After having escaped all the
dangers which threatened the royalist leaders during this stormy
period of modern history, he was wont to say in jest, "I am one of the
men who gave themselves to be killed on the steps of the throne." And
the pleasantry had some truth in it, as spoken by a man left for dead
at the bloody battle of Les Quatre Chemins. Though ruined by
confiscation, the staunch Vendeen steadily refused the lucrative posts
offered to him by the Emperor Napoleon. Immovable in his aristocratic
faith, he had blindly obeyed its precepts when he thought it fitting
to choose a companion for life. In spite of the blandishments of a
rich but revolutionary parvenu, who valued the alliance at a high
figure, he married Mademoiselle de Kergarouet, without a fortune, but
belonging to one of the oldest families in Brittany.

When the second revolution burst on Monsieur de Fontaine he was
encumbered with a large family. Though it was no part of the noble
gentlemen's views to solicit favors, he yielded to his wife's wish,
left his country estate, of which the income barely sufficed to
maintain his children, and came to Paris. Saddened by seeing the
greediness of his former comrades in the rush for places and dignities
under the new Constitution, he was about to return to his property
when he received a ministerial despatch, in which a well-known magnate
announced to him his nomination as marechal de camp, or brigadier-
general, under a rule which allowed the officers of the Catholic
armies to count the twenty submerged years of Louis XVIII.'s reign as
years of service. Some days later he further received, without any
solicitation, ex officio, the crosses of the Legion of Honor and of
Saint-Louis.

Shaken in his determination by these successive favors, due, as he
supposed, to the monarch's remembrance, he was no longer satisfied
with taking his family, as he had piously done every Sunday, to cry
"Vive le Roi" in the hall of the Tuileries when the royal family
passed through on their way to chapel; he craved the favor of a
private audience. The audience, at once granted, was in no sense
private. The royal drawing-room was full of old adherents, whose
powdered heads, seen from above, suggested a carpet of snow. There the
Count met some old friends, who received him somewhat coldly; but the
princes he thought ADORABLE, an enthusiastic expression which escaped
him when the most gracious of his masters, to whom the Count had
supposed himself to be known only by name, came to shake hands with
him, and spoke of him as the most thorough Vendeen of them all.
Notwithstanding this ovation, none of these august persons thought of
inquiring as to the sum of his losses, or of the money he had poured
so generously into the chests of the Catholic regiments. He
discovered, a little late, that he had made war at his own cost.
Towards the end of the evening he thought he might venture on a witty
allusion to the state of his affairs, similar, as it was, to that of
many other gentlemen. His Majesty laughed heartily enough; any speech
that bore the hall-mark of wit was certain to please him; but he
nevertheless replied with one of those royal pleasantries whose
sweetness is more formidable than the anger of a rebuke. One of the
King's most intimate advisers took an opportunity of going up to the
fortune-seeking Vendeen, and made him understand by a keen and polite
hint that the time had not yet come for settling accounts with the
sovereign; that there were bills of much longer standing than his on
the books, and there, no doubt, they would remain, as part of the
history of the Revolution. The Count prudently withdrew from the
venerable group, which formed a respectful semi-circle before the
august family; then, having extricated his sword, not without some
difficulty, from among the lean legs which had got mixed up with it,
he crossed the courtyard of the Tuileries and got into the hackney cab
he had left on the quay. With the restive spirit, which is peculiar to
the nobility of the old school, in whom still survives the memory of
the League and the day of the Barricades (in 1588), he bewailed
himself in his cab, loudly enough to compromise him, over the change
that had come over the Court. "Formerly," he said to himself, "every
one could speak freely to the King of his own little affairs; the
nobles could ask him a favor, or for money, when it suited them, and
nowadays one cannot recover the money advanced for his service without
raising a scandal! By Heaven! the cross of Saint-Louis and the rank of
brigadier-general will not make good the three hundred thousand livres
I have spent, out and out, on the royal cause. I must speak to the
King, face to face, in his own room."

This scene cooled Monsieur de Fontaine's ardor all the more
effectually because his requests for an interview were never answered.
And, indeed, he saw the upstarts of the Empire obtaining some of the
offices reserved, under the old monarchy, for the highest families.

"All is lost!" he exclaimed one morning. "The King has certainly never
been other than a revolutionary. But for Monsieur, who never
derogates, and is some comfort to his faithful adherents, I do not
know what hands the crown of France might not fall into if things are
to go on like this. Their cursed constitutional system is the worst
possible government, and can never suit France. Louis XVIII. and
Monsieur Beugnot spoiled everything at Saint Ouen."

The Count, in despair, was preparing to retire to his estate,
abandoning, with dignity, all claims to repayment. At this moment the
events of the 20th March (1815) gave warning of a fresh storm,
threatening to overwhelm the legitimate monarch and his defenders.
Monsieur de Fontaine, like one of those generous souls who do not
dismiss a servant in a torrent of rain; borrowed on his lands to
follow the routed monarchy, without knowing whether this complicity in
emigration would prove more propitious to him than his past devotion.
But when he perceived that the companions of the King's exile were in
higher favor than the brave men who had protested, sword in hand,
against the establishment of the republic, he may perhaps have hoped
to derive greater profit from this journey into a foreign land than
from active and dangerous service in the heart of his own country. Nor
was his courtier-like calculation one of these rash speculations which
promise splendid results on paper, and are ruinous in effect. He was--
to quote the wittiest and most successful of our diplomates--one of
the faithful five hundred who shared the exile of the Court at Ghent,
and one of the fifty thousand who returned with it. During the short
banishment of royalty, Monsieur de Fontaine was so happy as to be
employed by Louis XVIII., and found more than one opportunity of
giving him proofs of great political honesty and sincere attachment.
One evening, when the King had nothing better to do, he recalled
Monsieur de Fontaine's witticism at the Tuileries. The old Vendeen did
not let such a happy chance slip; he told his history with so much
vivacity that a king, who never forgot anything, might remember it at
a convenient season. The royal amateur of literature also observed the
elegant style given to some notes which the discreet gentleman had
been invited to recast. This little success stamped Monsieur de
Fontaine on the King's memory as one of the loyal servants of the
Crown.

At the second restoration the Count was one of those special envoys
who were sent throughout the departments charged with absolute
jurisdiction over the leaders of revolt; but he used his terrible
powers with moderation. As soon as the temporary commission was ended,
the High Provost found a seat in the Privy Council, became a deputy,
spoke little, listened much, and changed his opinions very
considerably. Certain circumstances, unknown to historians, brought
him into such intimate relations with the Sovereign, that one day, as
he came in, the shrewd monarch addressed him thus: "My friend
Fontaine, I shall take care never to appoint you to be director-
general, or minister. Neither you nor I, as employes, could keep our
place on account of our opinions. Representative government has this
advantage; it saves Us the trouble We used to have, of dismissing Our
Secretaries of State. Our Council is a perfect inn-parlor, whither
public opinion sometimes sends strange travelers; however, We can
always find a place for Our faithful adherents."

This ironical speech was introductory to a rescript giving Monsieur de
Fontaine an appointment as administrator in the office of Crown lands.
As a consequence of the intelligent attention with which he listened
to his royal Friend's sarcasms, his name always rose to His Majesty's
lips when a commission was to be appointed of which the members were
to receive a handsome salary. He had the good sense to hold his tongue
about the favor with which he was honored, and knew how to entertain
the monarch in those familiar chats in which Louis XVIII. delighted as
much as in a well-written note, by his brilliant manner of repeating
political anecdotes, and the political or parliamentary tittle-tattle
--if the expression may pass--which at that time was rife. It is well
known that he was immensely amused by every detail of his
Gouvernementabilite--a word adopted by his facetious Majesty.

Thanks to the Comte de Fontaine's good sense, wit, and tact, every
member of his numerous family, however young, ended, as he jestingly
told his Sovereign, in attaching himself like a silkworm to the leaves
of the Pay-List. Thus, by the King's intervention, his eldest son
found a high and fixed position as a lawyer. The second, before the
restoration a mere captain, was appointed to the command of a legion
on the return from Ghent; then, thanks to the confusion of 1815, when
the regulations were evaded, he passed into the bodyguard, returned to
a line regiment, and found himself after the affair of the Trocadero a
lieutenant-general with a commission in the Guards. The youngest,
appointed sous-prefet, ere long became a legal official and director
of a municipal board of the city of Paris, where he was safe from
changes in Legislature. These bounties, bestowed without parade, and
as secret as the favor enjoyed by the Count, fell unperceived. Though
the father and his three sons each had sinecures enough to enjoy an
income in salaries almost equal to that of a chief of department,
their political good fortune excited no envy. In those early days of
the constitutional system, few persons had very precise ideas of the
peaceful domain of the civil service, where astute favorites managed
to find an equivalent for the demolished abbeys. Monsieur le Comte de
Fontaine, who till lately boasted that he had not read the Charter,
and displayed such indignation at the greed of courtiers, had, before
long, proved to his august master that he understood, as well as the
King himself, the spirit and resources of the representative system.
At the same time, notwithstanding the established careers open to his
three sons, and the pecuniary advantages derived from four official
appointments, Monsieur de Fontaine was the head of too large a family
to be able to re-establish his fortune easily and rapidly.

His three sons were rich in prospects, in favor, and in talent; but he
had three daughters, and was afraid of wearying the monarch's
benevolence. It occurred to him to mention only one by one, these
virgins eager to light their torches. The King had too much good taste
to leave his work incomplete. The marriage of the eldest with a
Receiver-General, Planat de Baudry, was arranged by one of those royal
speeches which cost nothing and are worth millions. One evening, when
the Sovereign was out of spirits, he smiled on hearing of the
existence of another Demoiselle de Fontaine, for whom he found a
husband in the person of a young magistrate, of inferior birth, no
doubt, but wealthy, and whom he created Baron. When, the year after,
the Vendeen spoke of Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine, the King replied
in his thin sharp tones, "Amicus Plato sed magis amica Natio." Then, a
few days later, he treated his "friend Fontaine" to a quatrain,
harmless enough, which he styled an epigram, in which he made fun of
these three daughters so skilfully introduced, under the form of a
trinity. Nay, if report is to be believed, the monarch had found the
point of the jest in the Unity of the three Divine Persons.

"If your Majesty would only condescend to turn the epigram into an
epithalamium?" said the Count, trying to turn the sally to good
account.

"Though I see the rhyme of it, I fail to see the reason," retorted the
King, who did not relish any pleasantry, however mild, on the subject
of his poetry.

From that day his intercourse with Monsieur de Fontaine showed less
amenity. Kings enjoy contradicting more than people think. Like most
youngest children, Emilie de Fontaine was a Benjamin spoilt by almost
everybody. The King's coolness, therefore, caused the Count all the
more regret, because no marriage was ever so difficult to arrange as
that of this darling daughter. To understand all the obstacles we must
make our way into the fine residence where the official was housed at
the expense of the nation. Emilie had spent her childhood on the
family estate, enjoying the abundance which suffices for the joys of
early youth; her lightest wishes had been law to her sisters, her
brothers, her mother, and even her father. All her relations doted on
her. Having come to years of discretion just when her family was
loaded with the favors of fortune, the enchantment of life continued.
The luxury of Paris seemed to her just as natural as a wealth of
flowers or fruit, or as the rural plenty which had been the joy of her
first years. Just as in her childhood she had never been thwarted in
the satisfaction of her playful desires, so now, at fourteen, she was
still obeyed when she rushed into the whirl of fashion.

Thus, accustomed by degrees to the enjoyment of money, elegance of
dress, of gilded drawing-rooms and fine carriages, became as necessary
to her as the compliments of flattery, sincere or false, and the
festivities and vanities of court life. Like most spoiled children,
she tyrannized over those who loved her, and kept her blandishments
for those who were indifferent. Her faults grew with her growth, and
her parents were to gather the bitter fruits of this disastrous
education. At the age of nineteen Emilie de Fontaine had not yet been
pleased to make a choice from among the many young men whom her
father's politics brought to his entertainments. Though so young, she
asserted in society all the freedom of mind that a married woman can
enjoy. Her beauty was so remarkable that, for her, to appear in a room
was to be its queen; but, like sovereigns, she had no friends, though
she was everywhere the object of attentions to which a finer nature
than hers might perhaps have succumbed. Not a man, not even an old
man, had it in him to contradict the opinions of a young girl whose
lightest look could rekindle love in the coldest heart.

She had been educated with a care which her sisters had not enjoyed;
painted pretty well, spoke Italian and English, and played the piano
brilliantly; her voice, trained by the best masters, had a ring in it
which made her singing irresistibly charming. Clever, and intimate
with every branch of literature, she might have made folks believe
that, as Mascarille says, people of quality come into the world
knowing everything. She could argue fluently on Italian or Flemish
painting, on the Middle Ages or the Renaissance; pronounced at
haphazard on books new or old, and could expose the defects of a work
with a cruelly graceful wit. The simplest thing she said was accepted
by an admiring crowd as a fetfah of the Sultan by the Turks. She thus
dazzled shallow persons; as to deeper minds, her natural tact enabled
her to discern them, and for them she put forth so much fascination
that, under cover of her charms, she escaped their scrutiny. This
enchanting veneer covered a careless heart; the opinion--common to
many young girls--that no one else dwelt in a sphere so lofty as to be
able to understand the merits of her soul; and a pride based no less
on her birth than on her beauty. In the absence of the overwhelming
sentiment which, sooner or later, works havoc in a woman's heart, she
spent her young ardor in an immoderate love of distinctions, and
expressed the deepest contempt for persons of inferior birth.
Supremely impertinent to all newly-created nobility, she made every
effort to get her parents recognized as equals by the most illustrious
families of the Saint-Germain quarter.

These sentiments had not escaped the observing eye of Monsieur de
Fontaine, who more than once, when his two elder girls were married,
had smarted under Emilie's sarcasm. Logical readers will be surprised
to see the old Royalist bestowing his eldest daughter on a Receiver-
General, possessed, indeed, of some old hereditary estates, but whose
name was not preceded by the little word to which the throne owed so
many partisans, and his second to a magistrate too lately Baronified
to obscure the fact that his father had sold firewood. This noteworthy
change in the ideas of a noble on the verge of his sixtieth year--an
age when men rarely renounce their convictions--was due not merely to
his unfortunate residence in the modern Babylon, where, sooner or
later, country folks all get their corners rubbed down; the Comte de
Fontaine's new political conscience was also a result of the King's
advice and friendship. The philosophical prince had taken pleasure in
converting the Vendeen to the ideas required by the advance of the
nineteenth century, and the new aspect of the Monarchy. Louis XVIII.
aimed at fusing parties as Napoleon had fused things and men. The
legitimate King, who was not less clever perhaps than his rival, acted
in a contrary direction. The last head of the House of Bourbon was
just as eager to satisfy the third estate and the creations of the
Empire, by curbing the clergy, as the first of the Napoleons had been
to attract the grand old nobility, or to endow the Church. The Privy
Councillor, being in the secret of these royal projects, had
insensibly become one of the most prudent and influential leaders of
that moderate party which most desired a fusion of opinion in the
interests of the nation. He preached the expensive doctrines of
constitutional government, and lent all his weight to encourage the
political see-saw which enabled his master to rule France in the midst
of storms. Perhaps Monsieur de Fontaine hoped that one of the sudden
gusts of legislation, whose unexpected efforts then startled the
oldest politicians, might carry him up to the rank of peer. One of his
most rigid principles was to recognize no nobility in France but that
of the peerage--the only families that might enjoy any privileges.

"A nobility bereft of privileges," he would say, "is a tool without a
handle."

As far from Lafayette's party as he was from La Bourdonnaye's, he
ardently engaged in the task of general reconciliation, which was
to result in a new era and splendid fortunes for France. He
strove to convince the families who frequented his drawing-room,
or those whom he visited, how few favorable openings would
henceforth be offered by a civil or military career. He urged
mothers to give their boys a start in independent and industrial
professions, explaining that military posts and high Government
appointments must at last pertain, in a quite constitutional
order, to the younger sons of members of the peerage. According
to him, the people had conquered a sufficiently large share in
practical government by its elective assembly, its appointments
to law-offices, and those of the exchequer, which, said he, would
always, as heretofore, be the natural right of the distinguished
men of the third estate.

These new notions of the head of the Fontaines, and the prudent
matches for his eldest girls to which they had led, met with strong
resistance in the bosom of his family. The Comtesse de Fontaine
remained faithful to the ancient beliefs which no woman could disown,
who, through her mother, belonged to the Rohans. Although she had for
a while opposed the happiness and fortune awaiting her two eldest
girls, she yielded to those private considerations which husband and
wife confide to each other when their heads are resting on the same
pillow. Monsieur de Fontaine calmly pointed out to his wife, by exact
arithmetic that their residence in Paris, the necessity for
entertaining, the magnificence of the house which made up to them now
for the privations so bravely shared in La Vendee, and the expenses of
their sons, swallowed up the chief part of their income from salaries.
They must therefore seize, as a boon from heaven, the opportunities
which offered for settling their girls with such wealth. Would they
not some day enjoy sixty--eighty--a hundred thousand francs a year?
Such advantageous matches were not to be met with every day for girls
without a portion. Again, it was time that they should begin to think
of economizing, to add to the estate of Fontaine, and re-establish the
old territorial fortune of the family. The Countess yielded to such
cogent arguments, as every mother would have done in her place, though
perhaps with a better grace; but she declared that Emilie, at any
rate, should marry in such a way as to satisfy the pride she had
unfortunately contributed to foster in the girl's young soul.

Thus events, which ought to have brought joy into the family, had
introduced a small leaven of discord. The Receiver-General and the
young lawyer were the objects of a ceremonious formality which the
Countess and Emilie contrived to create. This etiquette soon found
even ampler opportunity for the display of domestic tyranny; for
Lieutenant-General de Fontaine married Mademoiselle Mongenod, the
daughter of a rich banker; the President very sensibly found a wife in
a young lady whose father, twice or thrice a millionaire, had traded
in salt; and the third brother, faithful to his plebeian doctrines,
married Mademoiselle Grossetete, the only daughter of the Receiver-
General at Bourges. The three sisters-in-law and the two brothers-in-
law found the high sphere of political bigwigs, and the drawing-rooms
of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, so full of charm and of personal
advantages, that they united in forming a little court round the
overbearing Emilie. This treaty between interest and pride was not,
however, so firmly cemented but that the young despot was, not
unfrequently, the cause of revolts in her little realm. Scenes, which
the highest circles would not have disowned, kept up a sarcastic
temper among all the members of this powerful family; and this,
without seriously diminishing the regard they professed in public,
degenerated sometimes in private into sentiments far from charitable.
Thus the Lieutenant-General's wife, having become a Baronne, thought
herself quite as noble as a Kergarouet, and imagined that her good
hundred thousand francs a year gave her the right to be as impertinent
as her sister-in-law Emilie, whom she would sometimes wish to see
happily married, as she announced that the daughter of some peer of
France had married Monsieur So-and-So with no title to his name. The
Vicomtesse de Fontaine amused herself by eclipsing Emilie in the taste
and magnificence that were conspicuous in her dress, her furniture,
and her carriages. The satirical spirit in which her brothers and
sisters sometimes received the claims avowed by Mademoiselle de
Fontaine roused her to wrath that a perfect hailstorm of sharp sayings
could hardly mitigate. So when the head of the family felt a slight
chill in the King's tacit and precarious friendship, he trembled all
the more because, as a result of her sisters' defiant mockery, his
favorite daughter had never looked so high.

In the midst of these circumstances, and at a moment when this petty
domestic warfare had become serious, the monarch, whose favor Monsieur
de Fontaine still hoped to regain, was attacked by the malady of which
he was to die. The great political chief, who knew so well how to
steer his bark in the midst of tempests, soon succumbed. Certain then
of favors to come, the Comte de Fontaine made every effort to collect
the elite of marrying men about his youngest daughter. Those who may
have tried to solve the difficult problem of settling a haughty and
capricious girl, will understand the trouble taken by the unlucky
father. Such an affair, carried out to the liking of his beloved
child, would worthily crown the career the Count had followed for
these ten years at Paris. From the way in which his family claimed
salaries under every department, it might be compared with the House
of Austria, which, by intermarriage, threatens to pervade Europe. The
old Vendeen was not to be discouraged in bringing forward suitors, so
much had he his daughter's happiness at heart, but nothing could be
more absurd than the way in which the impertinent young thing
pronounced her verdicts and judged the merits of her adorers. It might
have been supposed that, like a princess in the Arabian Nights, Emilie
was rich enough and beautiful enough to choose from among all the
princes in the world. Her objections were each more preposterous than
the last: one had too thick knees and was bow-legged, another was
short-sighted, this one's name was Durand, that one limped, and almost
all were too fat. Livelier, more attractive, and gayer than ever after
dismissing two or three suitors, she rushed into the festivities of
the winter season, and to balls, where her keen eyes criticised the
celebrities of the day, delighted in encouraging proposals which she
invariably rejected.

Nature had bestowed on her all the advantages needed for playing the
part of Celimene. Tall and slight, Emilie de Fontaine could assume a
dignified or a frolicsome mien at her will. Her neck was rather long,
allowing her to affect beautiful attitudes of scorn and impertinence.
She had cultivated a large variety of those turns of the head and
feminine gestures, which emphasize so cruelly or so happily a hint of
a smile. Fine black hair, thick and strongly-arched eyebrows, lent her
countenance an expression of pride, to which her coquettish instincts
and her mirror had taught her to add terror by a stare, or gentleness
by the softness of her gaze, by the set of the gracious curve of her
lips, by the coldness or the sweetness of her smile. When Emilie meant
to conquer a heart, her pure voice did not lack melody; but she could
also give it a sort of curt clearness when she was minded to paralyze
a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and alabaster brow
were like the limpid surface of a lake, which by turns is rippled by
the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the air is
still. More than one young man, a victim to her scorn, accused her of
acting a part; but she justified herself by inspiring her detractors
with the desire to please her, and then subjecting them to all her
most contemptuous caprice. Among the young girls of fashion, not one
knew better than she how to assume an air of reserve when a man of
talent was introduced to her, or how to display the insulting
politeness which treats an equal as an inferior, and to pour out her
impertinence on all who tried to hold their heads on a level with
hers. Wherever she went she seemed to be accepting homage rather than
compliments, and even in a princess her airs and manner would have
transformed the chair on which she sat into an imperial throne.

Monsieur de Fontaine discovered too late how utterly the education of
the daughter he loved had been ruined by the tender devotion of the
whole family. The admiration which the world is at first ready to
bestow on a young girl, but for which, sooner or later, it takes its
revenge, had added to Emilie's pride, and increased her self-
confidence. Universal subservience had developed in her the
selfishness natural to spoilt children, who, like kings, make a
plaything of everything that comes to hand. As yet the graces of youth
and the charms of talent hid these faults from every eye; faults all
the more odious in a woman, since she can only please by self-
sacrifice and unselfishness; but nothing escapes the eye of a good
father, and Monsieur de Fontaine often tried to explain to his
daughter the more important pages of the mysterious book of life. Vain
effort! He had to lament his daughter's capricious indocility and
ironical shrewdness too often to persevere in a task so difficult as
that of correcting an ill-disposed nature. He contented himself with
giving her from time to time some gentle and kind advice; but he had
the sorrow of seeing his tenderest words slide from his daughter's
heart as if it were of marble. A father's eyes are slow to be
unsealed, and it needed more than one experience before the old
Royalist perceived that his daughter's rare caresses were bestowed on
him with an air of condescension. She was like young children, who
seem to say to their mother, "Make haste to kiss me, that I may go to
play." In short, Emilie vouchsafed to be fond of her parents. But
often, by those sudden whims, which seem inexplicable in young girls,
she kept aloof and scarcely ever appeared; she complained of having to
share her father's and mother's heart with too many people; she was
jealous of every one, even of her brothers and sisters. Then, after
creating a desert about her, the strange girl accused all nature of
her unreal solitude and her wilful griefs. Strong in the experience of
her twenty years, she blamed fate, because, not knowing that the
mainspring of happiness is in ourselves, she demanded it of the
circumstances of life. She would have fled to the ends of the earth to
escape a marriage such as those of her two sisters, and nevertheless
her heart was full of horrible jealousy at seeing them married, rich,
and happy. In short, she sometimes led her mother--who was as much a
victim to her vagaries as Monsieur de Fontaine--to suspect that she
had a touch of madness.

But such aberrations are quite inexplicable; nothing is commoner than
this unconfessed pride developed in the heart of young girls belonging
to families high in the social scale, and gifted by nature with great
beauty. They are almost all convinced that their mothers, now forty or
fifty years of age, can neither sympathize with their young souls, nor
conceive of their imaginings. They fancy that most mothers, jealous of
their girls, want to dress them in their own way with the premeditated
purpose of eclipsing them or robbing them of admiration. Hence, often,
secret tears and dumb revolt against supposed tyranny. In the midst of
these woes, which become very real though built on an imaginary basis,
they have also a mania for composing a scheme of life, while casting
for themselves a brilliant horoscope; their magic consists in taking
their dreams for reality; secretly, in their long meditations, they
resolve to give their heart and hand to none but the man possessing
this or the other qualification; and they paint in fancy a model to
which, whether or no, the future lover must correspond. After some
little experience of life, and the serious reflections that come with
years, by dint of seeing the world and its prosaic round, by dint of
observing unhappy examples, the brilliant hues of their ideal are
extinguished. Then, one fine day, in the course of events, they are
quite astonished to find themselves happy without the nuptial poetry
of their day-dreams. It was on the strength of that poetry that
Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine, in her slender wisdom, had drawn up a
programme to which a suitor must conform to be excepted. Hence her
disdain and sarcasm.

"Though young and of an ancient family, he must be a peer of France,"
said she to herself. "I could not bear not to see my coat-of-arms on
the panels of my carriage among the folds of azure mantling, not to
drive like the princes down the broad walk of the Champs-Elysees on
the days of Longchamps in Holy Week. Besides, my father says that it
will someday be the highest dignity in France. He must be a soldier--
but I reserve the right of making him retire; and he must bear an
Order, that the sentries may present arms to us."

And these rare qualifications would count for nothing if this creature
of fancy had not the most amiable temper, a fine figure, intelligence,
and, above all, if he were not slender. To be lean, a personal grace
which is but fugitive, especially under a representative government,
was an indispensable condition. Mademoiselle de Fontaine had an ideal
standard which was to be the model. A young man who at the first
glance did not fulfil the requisite conditions did not even get a
second look.

"Good Heavens! see how fat he is!" was with her the utmost expression
of contempt.

To hear her, people of respectable corpulence were incapable of
sentiment, bad husbands, and unfit for civilized society. Though it is
esteemed a beauty in the East, to be fat seemed to her a misfortune
for a woman; but in a man it was a crime. These paradoxical views were
amusing, thanks to a certain liveliness of rhetoric. The Count felt
nevertheless that by-and-by his daughter's affections, of which the
absurdity would be evident to some women who were not less clear-
sighted than merciless, would inevitably become a subject of constant
ridicule. He feared lest her eccentric notions should deviate into bad
style. He trembled to think that the pitiless world might already be
laughing at a young woman who remained so long on the stage without
arriving at any conclusion of the drama she was playing. More than one
actor in it, disgusted by a refusal, seemed to be waiting for the
slightest turn of ill-luck to take his revenge. The indifferent, the
lookers-on were beginning to weary of it; admiration is always
exhausting to human beings. The old Vendeen knew better than any one
that if there is an art in choosing the right moment for coming
forward on the boards of the world, on those of the Court, in a
drawing-room or on the stage, it is still more difficult to quit them
in the nick of time. So during the first winter after the accession of
Charles X., he redoubled his efforts, seconded by his three sons and
his sons-in-law, to assemble in the rooms of his official residence
the best matches which Paris and the various deputations from
departments could offer. The splendor of his entertainments, the
luxury of his dining-room, and his dinners, fragrant with truffles,
rivaled the famous banquets by which the ministers of that time
secured the vote of their parliamentary recruits.

The Honorable Deputy was consequently pointed at as a most influential
corrupter of the legislative honesty of the illustrious Chamber that
was dying as it would seem of indigestion. A whimsical result! his
efforts to get his daughter married secured him a splendid popularity.
He perhaps found some covert advantage in selling his truffles twice
over. This accusation, started by certain mocking Liberals, who made
up by their flow of words for their small following in the Chamber,
was not a success. The Poitevin gentleman had always been so noble and
so honorable, that he was not once the object of those epigrams which
the malicious journalism of the day hurled at the three hundred votes
of the centre, at the Ministers, the cooks, the Directors-General, the
princely Amphitryons, and the official supporters of the Villele
Ministry.

At the close of this campaign, during which Monsieur de Fontaine had
on several occasions brought out all his forces, he believed that this
time the procession of suitors would not be a mere dissolving view in
his daughter's eyes; that it was time she should make up her mind. He
felt a certain inward satisfaction at having well fulfilled his duty
as a father. And having left no stone unturned, he hoped that, among
so many hearts laid at Emilie's feet, there might be one to which her
caprice might give a preference. Incapable of repeating such an
effort, and tired, too, of his daughter's conduct, one morning,
towards the end of Lent, when the business at the Chamber did not
demand his vote, he determined to ask what her views were. While his
valet was artistically decorating his bald yellow head with the delta
of powder which, with the hanging "ailes de pigeon," completed his
venerable style of hairdressing, Emilie's father, not without some
secret misgivings, told his old servant to go and desire the haughty
damsel to appear in the presence of the head of the family.

"Joseph," he added, when his hair was dressed, "take away that towel,
draw back the curtains, put those chairs square, shake the rug, and
lay it quite straight. Dust everything.--Now, air the room a little by
opening the window."

The Count multiplied his orders, putting Joseph out of breath, and the
old servant, understanding his master's intentions, aired and tidied
the room, of course the least cared for of any in the house, and
succeeded in giving a look of harmony to the files of bills, the
letter-boxes, the books and furniture of this sanctum, where the
interests of the royal demesnes were debated over. When Joseph had
reduced this chaos to some sort of order, and brought to the front
such things as might be most pleasing to the eye, as if it were a shop
front, or such as by their color might give the effect of a kind of
official poetry, he stood for a minute in the midst of the labyrinth
of papers piled in some places even on the floor, admired his
handiwork, jerked his head, and went.

The anxious sinecure-holder did not share his retainer's favorable
opinion. Before seating himself in his deep chair, whose rounded back
screened him from draughts, he looked round him doubtfully, examined
his dressing-gown with a hostile expression, shook off a few grains of
snuff, carefully wiped his nose, arranged the tongs and shovel, made
the fire, pulled up the heels of his slippers, pulled out his little
queue of hair which had lodged horizontally between the collar of his
waistcoat and that of his dressing-gown restoring it to its
perpendicular position; then he swept up the ashes of the hearth,
which bore witness to a persistent catarrh. Finally, the old man did
not settle himself till he had once more looked all over the room,
hoping that nothing could give occasion to the saucy and impertinent
remarks with which his daughter was apt to answer his good advice. On
this occasion he was anxious not to compromise his dignity as a
father. He daintily took a pinch of snuff, cleared his throat two or
three times, as if he were about to demand a count out of the House;
then he heard his daughter's light step, and she came in humming an
air from Il Barbiere.

"Good-morning, papa. What do you want with me so early?" Having sung
these words, as though they were the refrain of the melody, she kissed
the Count, not with the familiar tenderness which makes a daughter's
love so sweet a thing, but with the light carelessness of a mistress
confident of pleasing, whatever she may do.

"My dear child," said Monsieur de Fontaine, gravely, "I sent for you
to talk to you very seriously about your future prospects. You are at
this moment under the necessity of making such a choice of a husband
as may secure your durable happiness----"

"My good father," replied Emilie, assuming her most coaxing tone of
voice to interrupt him, "it strikes me that the armistice on which we
agreed as to my suitors is not yet expired."

"Emilie, we must to-day forbear from jesting on so important a matter.
For some time past the efforts of those who most truly love you, my
dear child, have been concentrated on the endeavor to settle you
suitably; and you would be guilty of ingratitude in meeting with
levity those proofs of kindness which I am not alone in lavishing on
you."

As she heard these words, after flashing a mischievously inquisitive
look at the furniture of her father's study, the young girl brought
forward the armchair which looked as if it had been least used by
petitioners, set it at the side of the fireplace so as to sit facing
her father, and settled herself in so solemn an attitude that it was
impossible not to read in it a mocking intention, crossing her arms
over the dainty trimmings of a pelerine a la neige, and ruthlessly
crushing its endless frills of white tulle. After a laughing side
glance at her old father's troubled face, she broke silence.

"I never heard you say, my dear father, that the Government issued its
instructions in its dressing-gown. However," and she smiled, "that
does not matter; the mob are probably not particular. Now, what are
your proposals for legislation, and your official introductions?"

"I shall not always be able to make them, headstrong girl!--Listen,
Emilie. It is my intention no longer to compromise my reputation,
which is part of my children's fortune, by recruiting the regiment of
dancers which, spring after spring, you put to rout. You have already
been the cause of many dangerous misunderstandings with certain
families. I hope to make you perceive more truly the difficulties of
your position and of ours. You are two-and-twenty, my dear child, and
you ought to have been married nearly three years since. Your brothers
and your two sisters are richly and happily provided for. But, my
dear, the expenses occasioned by these marriages, and the style of
housekeeping you require of your mother, have made such inroads on our
income that I can hardly promise you a hundred thousand francs as a
marriage portion. From this day forth I shall think only of providing
for your mother, who must not be sacrificed to her children. Emilie,
if I were to be taken from my family Madame de Fontaine could not be
left at anybody's mercy, and ought to enjoy the affluence which I have
given her too late as the reward of her devotion in my misfortunes.
You see, my child, that the amount of your fortune bears no relation
to your notions of grandeur. Even that would be such a sacrifice as I
have not hitherto made for either of my children; but they have
generously agreed not to expect in the future any compensation for the
advantage thus given to a too favored child."

"In their position!" said Emilie, with an ironical toss of her head.

"My dear, do not so depreciate those who love you. Only the poor are
generous as a rule; the rich have always excellent reasons for not
handing over twenty thousand francs to a relation. Come, my child, do
not pout, let us talk rationally.--Among the young marrying men have
you noticed Monsieur de Manerville?"

"Oh, he minces his words--he says Zules instead of Jules; he is always
looking at his feet, because he thinks them small, and he gazes at
himself in the glass! Besides, he is fair. I don't like fair men."

"Well, then, Monsieur de Beaudenord?"

"He is not noble! he is ill made and stout. He is dark, it is true.--
If the two gentlemen could agree to combine their fortunes, and the
first would give his name and his figure to the second, who should
keep his dark hair, then--perhaps----"

"What can you say against Monsieur de Rastignac?"

"Madame de Nucingen has made a banker of him," she said with meaning.

"And our cousin, the Vicomte de Portenduere?"

"A mere boy, who dances badly; besides, he has no fortune. And, after
all, papa, none of these people have titles. I want, at least, to be a
countess like my mother."

"Have you seen no one, then, this winter----"

"No, papa."

"What then do you want?"

"The son of a peer of France.

"My dear girl, you are mad!" said Monsieur de Fontaine, rising.

But he suddenly lifted his eyes to heaven, and seemed to find a fresh
fount of resignation in some religious thought; then, with a look of
fatherly pity at his daughter, who herself was moved, he took her
hand, pressed it, and said with deep feeling: "God is my witness, poor
mistaken child, I have conscientiously discharged my duty to you as a
father--conscientiously, do I say? Most lovingly, my Emilie. Yes, God
knows! This winter I have brought before you more than one good man,
whose character, whose habits, and whose temper were known to me, and
all seemed worthy of you. My child, my task is done. From this day
forth you are the arbiter of your fate, and I consider myself both
happy and unhappy at finding myself relieved of the heaviest of
paternal functions. I know not whether you will for any long time,
now, hear a voice which, to you, has never been stern; but remember
that conjugal happiness does not rest so much on brilliant qualities
and ample fortune as on reciprocal esteem. This happiness is, in its
nature, modest, and devoid of show. So now, my dear, my consent is
given beforehand, whoever the son-in-law may be whom you introduce to
me; but if you should be unhappy, remember you will have no right to
accuse your father. I shall not refuse to take proper steps and help
you, only your choice must be serious and final. I will never twice
compromise the respect due to my white hairs."

The affection thus expressed by her father, the solemn tones of his
urgent address, deeply touched Mademoiselle de Fontaine; but she
concealed her emotion, seated herself on her father's knees--for he
had dropped all tremulous into his chair again--caressed him fondly,
and coaxed him so engagingly that the old man's brow cleared. As soon
as Emilie thought that her father had got over his painful agitation,
she said in a gentle voice: "I have to thank you for your graceful
attention, my dear father. You have had your room set in order to
receive your beloved daughter. You did not perhaps know that you would
find her so foolish and so headstrong. But, papa, is it so difficult
to get married to a peer of France? You declared that they were
manufactured by dozens. At least, you will not refuse to advise me."

"No, my poor child, no;--and more than once I may have occasion to
cry, 'Beware!' Remember that the making of peers is so recent a force
in our government machinery that they have no great fortunes. Those
who are rich look to becoming richer. The wealthiest member of our
peerage has not half the income of the least rich lord in the English
Upper Chamber. Thus all the French peers are on the lookout for great
heiresses for their sons, wherever they may meet with them. The
necessity in which they find themselves of marrying for money will
certainly exist for at least two centuries.

"Pending such a fortunate accident as you long for--and this
fastidiousness may cost you the best years of your life--your
attractions might work a miracle, for men often marry for love in
these days. When experience lurks behind so sweet a face as yours it
may achieve wonders. In the first place, have you not the gift of
recognizing virtue in the greater or smaller dimensions of a man's
body? This is no small matter! To so wise a young person as you are, I
need not enlarge on all the difficulties of the enterprise. I am sure
that you would never attribute good sense to a stranger because he had
a handsome face, or all the virtues because he had a fine figure. And
I am quite of your mind in thinking that the sons of peers ought to
have an air peculiar to themselves, and perfectly distinctive manners.
Though nowadays no external sign stamps a man of rank, those young men
will have, perhaps, to you the indefinable something that will reveal
it. Then, again, you have your heart well in hand, like a good
horseman who is sure his steed cannot bolt. Luck be with you, my
dear!"

"You are making game of me, papa. Well, I assure you that I would
rather die in Mademoiselle de Conde's convent than not be the wife of
a peer of France."

She slipped out of her father's arms, and proud of being her own
mistress, went off singing the air of Cara non dubitare, in the
"Matrimonio Segreto."

As it happened, the family were that day keeping the anniversary of a
family fete. At dessert Madame Planat, the Receiver-General's wife,
spoke with some enthusiasm of a young American owning an immense
fortune, who had fallen passionately in love with her sister, and made
through her the most splendid proposals.

"A banker, I rather think," observed Emilie carelessly. "I do not like
money dealers."

"But, Emilie," replied the Baron de Villaine, the husband of the
Count's second daughter, "you do not like lawyers either; so that if
you refuse men of wealth who have not titles, I do not quite see in
what class you are to choose a husband."

"Especially, Emilie, with your standard of slimness," added the
Lieutenant-General.

"I know what I want," replied the young lady.

"My sister wants a fine name, a fine young man, fine prospects, and a
hundred thousand francs a year," said the Baronne de Fontaine.
"Monsieur de Marsay, for instance."

"I know, my dear," retorted Emilie, "that I do not mean to make such a
foolish marriage as some I have seen. Moreover, to put an end to these
matrimonial discussions, I hereby declare that I shall look on anyone
who talks to me of marriage as a foe to my peace of mind."

An uncle of Emilie's, a vice-admiral, whose fortune had just been
increased by twenty thousand francs a year in consequence of the Act
of Indemnity, and a man of seventy, feeling himself privileged to say
hard things to his grand-niece, on whom he doted, in order to mollify
the bitter tone of the discussion now exclaimed:

"Do not tease my poor little Emilie; don't you see she is waiting till
the Duc de Bordeaux comes of age!"

The old man's pleasantry was received with general laughter.

"Take care I don't marry you, old fool!" replied the young girl, whose
last words were happily drowned in the noise.

"My dear children," said Madame de Fontaine, to soften this saucy
retort, "Emilie, like you, will take no advice but her mother's."

"Bless me! I shall take no advice but my own in a matter which
concerns no one but myself," said Mademoiselle de Fontaine very
distinctly.

At this all eyes were turned to the head of the family. Every one
seemed anxious as to what he would do to assert his dignity. The
venerable gentleman enjoyed much consideration, not only in the world;
happier than many fathers, he was also appreciated by his family, all
its members having a just esteem for the solid qualities by which he
had been able to make their fortunes. Hence he was treated with the
deep respect which is shown by English families, and some aristocratic
houses on the continent, to the living representatives of an ancient
pedigree. Deep silence had fallen; and the guests looked alternately
from the spoilt girl's proud and sulky pout to the severe faces of
Monsieur and Madame de Fontaine.

"I have made my daughter Emilie mistress of her own fate," was the
reply spoken by the Count in a deep voice.

Relations and guests gazed at Mademoiselle de Fontaine with mingled
curiosity and pity. The words seemed to declare that fatherly
affection was weary of the contest with a character that the whole
family knew to be incorrigible. The sons-in-law muttered, and the
brothers glanced at their wives with mocking smiles. From that moment
every one ceased to take any interest in the haughty girl's prospects
of marriage. Her old uncle was the only person who, as an old sailor,
ventured to stand on her tack, and take her broadsides, without ever
troubling himself to return her fire.

When the fine weather was settled, and after the budget was voted, the
whole family--a perfect example of the parliamentary families on the
northern side of the Channel who have a footing in every government
department, and ten votes in the House of Commons--flew away like a
brood of young birds to the charming neighborhoods of Aulnay, Antony,
and Chatenay. The wealthy Receiver-General had lately purchased in
this part of the world a country-house for his wife, who remained in
Paris only during the session. Though the fair Emilie despised the
commonalty, her feeling was not carried so far as to scorn the
advantages of a fortune acquired in a profession; so she accompanied
her sister to the sumptuous villa, less out of affection for the
members of her family who were visiting there, than because fashion
has ordained that every woman who has any self-respect must leave
Paris in the summer. The green seclusion of Sceaux answered to
perfection the requirements of good style and of the duties of an
official position.

As it is extremely doubtful that the fame of the "Bal de Sceaux"
should ever have extended beyond the borders of the Department of the
Seine, it will be necessary to give some account of this weekly
festivity, which at that time was important enough to threaten to
become an institution. The environs of the little town of Sceaux enjoy
a reputation due to the scenery, which is considered enchanting.
Perhaps it is quite ordinary, and owes its fame only to the stupidity
of the Paris townsfolk, who, emerging from the stony abyss in which
they are buried, would find something to admire in the flats of La
Beauce. However, as the poetic shades of Aulnay, the hillsides of
Antony, and the valley of the Bieve are peopled with artists who have
traveled far, by foreigners who are very hard to please, and by a
great many pretty women not devoid of taste, it is to be supposed that
the Parisians are right. But Sceaux possesses another attraction not
less powerful to the Parisian. In the midst of a garden whence there
are delightful views, stands a large rotunda open on all sides, with a
light, spreading roof supported on elegant pillars. This rural
baldachino shelters a dancing-floor. The most stuck-up landowners of
the neighborhood rarely fail to make an excursion thither once or
twice during the season, arriving at this rustic palace of Terpsichore
either in dashing parties on horseback, or in the light and elegant
carriages which powder the philosophical pedestrian with dust. The
hope of meeting some women of fashion, and of being seen by them--and
the hope, less often disappointed, of seeing young peasant girls, as
wily as judges--crowds the ballroom at Sceaux with numerous swarms of
lawyers' clerks, of the disciples of Aesculapius, and other youths
whose complexions are kept pale and moist by the damp atmosphere of
Paris back-shops. And a good many bourgeois marriages have had their
beginning to the sound of the band occupying the centre of this
circular ballroom. If that roof could speak, what love-stories could
it not tell!

This interesting medley gave the Sceaux balls at that time a spice of
more amusement than those of two or three places of the same kind near
Paris; and it had incontestable advantages in its rotunda, and the
beauty of its situation and its gardens. Emilie was the first to
express a wish to play at being COMMON FOLK at this gleeful suburban
entertainment, and promised herself immense pleasure in mingling with
the crowd. Everybody wondered at her desire to wander through such a
mob; but is there not a keen pleasure to grand people in an incognito?
Mademoiselle de Fontaine amused herself with imagining all these town-
bred figures; she fancied herself leaving the memory of a bewitching
glance and smile stamped on more than one shopkeeper's heart, laughed
beforehand at the damsels' airs, and sharpened her pencils for the
scenes she proposed to sketch in her satirical album. Sunday could not
come soon enough to satisfy her impatience.

The party from the Villa Planat set out on foot, so as not to betray
the rank of the personages who were about to honor the ball with their
presence. They dined early. And the month of May humored this
aristocratic escapade by one of its finest evenings. Mademoiselle de
Fontaine was quite surprised to find in the rotunda some quadrilles
made up of persons who seemed to belong to the upper classes. Here and
there, indeed, were some young men who look as though they must have
saved for a month to shine for a day; and she perceived several
couples whose too hearty glee suggested nothing conjugal; still, she
could only glean instead of gathering a harvest. She was amused to see
that pleasure in a cotton dress was so very like pleasure robed in
satin, and that the girls of the middle class danced quite as well as
ladies--nay, sometimes better. Most of the women were simply and
suitably dressed. Those who in this assembly represented the ruling
power, that is to say, the country-folk, kept apart with wonderful
politeness. In fact, Mademoiselle Emilie had to study the various
elements that composed the mixture before she could find any subject
for pleasantry. But she had not time to give herself up to malicious
criticism, or opportunity for hearing many of the startling speeches
which caricaturists so gladly pick up. The haughty young lady suddenly
found a flower in this wide field--the metaphor is reasonable--whose
splendor and coloring worked on her imagination with all the
fascination of novelty. It often happens that we look at a dress, a
hanging, a blank sheet of paper, with so little heed that we do not at
first detect a stain or a bright spot which afterwards strikes the eye
as though it had come there at the very instant when we see it; and by
a sort of moral phenomenon somewhat resembling this, Mademoiselle de
Fontaine discovered in a young man the external perfection of which
she had so long dreamed.

Seated on one of the clumsy chairs which marked the boundary line of
the circular floor, she had placed herself at the end of the row
formed by the family party, so as to be able to stand up or push
forward as her fancy moved her, treating the living pictures and
groups in the hall as if she were in a picture gallery; impertinently
turning her eye-glass on persons not two yards away, and making her
remarks as though she were criticising or praising a study of a head,
a painting of genre. Her eyes, after wandering over the vast moving
picture, were suddenly caught by this figure, which seemed to have
been placed on purpose in one corner of the canvas, and in the best
light, like a person out of all proportion with the rest.

The stranger, alone and absorbed in thought, leaned lightly against
one of the columns that supported the roof; his arms were folded, and
he leaned slightly on one side as though he had placed himself there
to have his portrait taken by a painter. His attitude, though full of
elegance and dignity, was devoid of affectation. Nothing suggested
that he had half turned his head, and bent it a little to the right
like Alexander, or Lord Byron, and some other great men, for the sole
purpose of attracting attention. His fixed gaze followed a girl who
was dancing, and betrayed some strong feeling. His slender, easy frame
recalled the noble proportions of the Apollo. Fine black hair curled
naturally over a high forehead. At a glance Mademoiselle de Fontaine
observed that his linen was fine, his gloves fresh, and evidently
bought of a good maker, and his feet were small and well shod in boots
of Irish kid. He had none of the vulgar trinkets displayed by the
dandies of the National Guard or the Lovelaces of the counting-house.
A black ribbon, to which an eye-glass was attached, hung over a
waistcoat of the most fashionable cut. Never had the fastidious Emilie
seen a man's eyes shaded by such long, curled lashes. Melancholy and
passion were expressed in this face, and the complexion was of a manly
olive hue. His mouth seemed ready to smile, unbending the corners of
eloquent lips; but this, far from hinting at gaiety, revealed on the
contrary a sort of pathetic grace. There was too much promise in that
head, too much distinction in his whole person, to allow of one's
saying, "What a handsome man!" or "What a fine man!" One wanted to
know him. The most clear-sighted observer, on seeing this stranger,
could not have helped taking him for a clever man attracted to this
rural festivity by some powerful motive.

All these observations cost Emilie only a minute's attention, during
which the privileged gentleman under her severe scrutiny became the
object of her secret admiration. She did not say to herself, "He must
be a peer of France!" but "Oh, if only he is noble, and he surely must
be----" Without finishing her thought, she suddenly rose, and followed
by her brother the General, she made her way towards the column,
affecting to watch the merry quadrille; but by a stratagem of the eye,
familiar to women, she lost not a gesture of the young man as she went
towards him. The stranger politely moved to make way for the
newcomers, and went to lean against another pillar. Emilie, as much
nettled by his politeness as she might have been by an impertinence,
began talking to her brother in a louder voice than good taste
enjoined; she turned and tossed her head, gesticulated eagerly, and
laughed for no particular reason, less to amuse her brother than to
attract the attention of the imperturbable stranger. None of her
little arts succeeded. Mademoiselle de Fontaine then followed the
direction in which his eyes were fixed, and discovered the cause of
his indifference.

In the midst of the quadrille, close in front of them, a pale girl was
dancing; her face was like one of the divinities which Girodet has
introduced into his immense composition of French Warriors received by
Ossian. Emilie fancied that she recognized her as a distinguished
milady who for some months had been living on a neighboring estate.
Her partner was a lad of about fifteen, with red hands, and dressed in
nankeen trousers, a blue coat, and white shoes, which showed that the
damsel's love of dancing made her easy to please in the matter of
partners. Her movements did not betray her apparent delicacy, but a
faint flush already tinged her white cheeks, and her complexion was
gaining color. Mademoiselle de Fontaine went nearer, to be able to
examine the young lady at the moment when she returned to her place,
while the side couples in their turn danced the figure. But the
stranger went up to the pretty dancer, and leaning over, said in a
gentle but commanding tone:

"Clara, my child, do not dance any more."

Clara made a little pouting face, bent her head, and finally smiled.
When the dance was over, the young man wrapped her in a cashmere shawl
with a lover's care, and seated her in a place sheltered from the
wind. Very soon Mademoiselle de Fontaine, seeing them rise and walk
round the place as if preparing to leave, found means to follow them
under pretence of admiring the views from the garden. Her brother lent
himself with malicious good-humor to the divagations of her rather
eccentric wanderings. Emilie then saw the attractive couple get into
an elegant tilbury, by which stood a mounted groom in livery. At the
moment when, from his high seat, the young man was drawing the reins
even, she caught a glance from his eye such as a man casts aimlessly
at the crowd; and then she enjoyed the feeble satisfaction of seeing
him turn his head to look at her. The young lady did the same. Was it
from jealousy?

"I imagine you have now seen enough of the garden," said her brother.
"We may go back to the dancing."

"I am ready," said she. "Do you think the girl can be a relation of
Lady Dudley's?"

"Lady Dudley may have some male relation staying with her," said the
Baron de Fontaine; "but a young girl!--No!"

Next day Mademoiselle de Fontaine expressed a wish to take a ride.
Then she gradually accustomed her old uncle and her brothers to
escorting her in very early rides, excellent, she declared for her
health. She had a particular fancy for the environs of the hamlet
where Lady Dudley was living. Notwithstanding her cavalry manoeuvres,
she did not meet the stranger so soon as the eager search she pursued
might have allowed her to hope. She went several times to the "Bal de
Sceaux" without seeing the young Englishman who had dropped from the
skies to pervade and beautify her dreams. Though nothing spurs on a
young girl's infant passion so effectually as an obstacle, there was a
time when Mademoiselle de Fontaine was on the point of giving up her
strange and secret search, almost despairing of the success of an
enterprise whose singularity may give some idea of the boldness of her
temper. In point of fact, she might have wandered long about the
village of Chatenay without meeting her Unknown. The fair Clara--since
that was the name Emilie had overheard--was not English, and the
stranger who escorted her did not dwell among the flowery and fragrant
bowers of Chatenay.

One evening Emilie, out riding with her uncle, who, during the fine
weather, had gained a fairly long truce from the gout, met Lady
Dudley. The distinguished foreigner had with her in her open carriage
Monsieur Vandenesse. Emilie recognized the handsome couple, and her
suppositions were at once dissipated like a dream. Annoyed, as any
woman must be whose expectations are frustrated, she touched up her
horse so suddenly that her uncle had the greatest difficulty in
following her, she had set off at such a pace.

"I am too old, it would seem, to understand these youthful spirits,"
said the old sailor to himself as he put his horse to a canter; "or
perhaps young people are not what they used to be. But what ails my
niece? Now she is walking at a foot-pace like a gendarme on patrol in
the Paris streets. One might fancy she wanted to outflank that worthy
man, who looks to me like an author dreaming over his poetry, for he
has, I think, a notebook in his hand. My word, I am a great simpleton!
Is not that the very young man we are in search of!"

At this idea the old admiral moderated his horse's pace so as to
follow his niece without making any noise. He had played too many
pranks in the years 1771 and soon after, a time of our history when
gallantry was held in honor, not to guess at once that by the merest
chance Emilie had met the Unknown of the Sceaux gardens. In spite of
the film which age had drawn over his gray eyes, the Comte de
Kergarouet could recognize the signs of extreme agitation in his
niece, under the unmoved expression she tried to give to her features.
The girl's piercing eyes were fixed in a sort of dull amazement on the
stranger, who quietly walked on in front of her.

"Ay, that's it," thought the sailor. "She is following him as a pirate
follows a merchantman. Then, when she has lost sight of him, she will
be in despair at not knowing who it is she is in love with, and
whether he is a marquis or a shopkeeper. Really these young heads need
an old fogy like me always by their side . . ."

He unexpectedly spurred his horse in such a way as to make his niece's
bolt, and rode so hastily between her and the young man on foot that
he obliged him to fall back on to the grassy bank which rose from the
roadside. Then, abruptly drawing up, the Count exclaimed:

"Couldn't you get out of the way?"

"I beg your pardon, monsieur. But I did not know that it lay with me
to apologize to you because you almost rode me down."

"There, enough of that, my good fellow!" replied the sailor harshly,
in a sneering tone that was nothing less than insulting. At the same
time the Count raised his hunting-crop as if to strike his horse, and
touched the young fellow's shoulder, saying, "A liberal citizen is a
reasoner; every reasoner should be prudent."

The young man went up the bankside as he heard the sarcasm; then he
crossed his arms, and said in an excited tone of voice, "I cannot
suppose, monsieur, as I look at your white hairs, that you still amuse
yourself by provoking duels----"

"White hairs!" cried the sailor, interrupting him. "You lie in your
throat. They are only gray."

A quarrel thus begun had in a few seconds become so fierce that the
younger man forgot the moderation he had tried to preserve. Just as
the Comte de Kergarouet saw his niece coming back to them with every
sign of the greatest uneasiness, he told his antagonist his name,
bidding him keep silence before the young lady entrusted to his care.
The stranger could not help smiling as he gave a visiting card to the
old man, desiring him to observe that he was living at a country-house
at Chevreuse; and, after pointing this out to him, he hurried away.

"You very nearly damaged that poor young counter-jumper, my dear,"
said the Count, advancing hastily to meet Emilie. "Do you not know how
to hold your horse in?--And there you leave me to compromise my
dignity in order to screen your folly; whereas if you had but stopped,
one of your looks, or one of your pretty speeches--one of those you
can make so prettily when you are not pert--would have set everything
right, even if you had broken his arm."

"But, my dear uncle, it was your horse, not mine, that caused the
accident. I really think you can no longer ride; you are not so good a
horseman as you were last year.--But instead of talking nonsense----"

"Nonsense, by Gad! Is it nothing to be so impertinent to your uncle?"

"Ought we not to go on and inquire if the young man is hurt? He is
limping, uncle, only look!"

"No, he is running; I rated him soundly."

"Oh, yes, uncle; I know you there!"

"Stop," said the Count, pulling Emilie's horse by the bridle, "I do
not see the necessity of making advances to some shopkeeper who is
only too lucky to have been thrown down by a charming young lady, or
the commander of La Belle-Poule."

"Why do you think he is anything so common, my dear uncle? He seems to
me to have very fine manners."

"Every one has manners nowadays, my dear."

"No, uncle, not every one has the air and style which come of the
habit of frequenting drawing-rooms, and I am ready to lay a bet with
you that the young man is of noble birth."

"You had not long to study him."

"No, but it is not the first time I have seen him."

"Nor is it the first time you have looked for him," replied the
admiral with a laugh.

Emilie colored. Her uncle amused himself for some time with her
embarrassment; then he said: "Emilie, you know that I love you as my
own child, precisely because you are the only member of the family who
has the legitimate pride of high birth. Devil take it, child, who
could have believed that sound principles would become so rare? Well,
I will be your confidant. My dear child, I see that his young
gentleman is not indifferent to you. Hush! All the family would laugh
at us if we sailed under the wrong flag. You know what that means. We
two will keep our secret, and I promise to bring him straight into the
drawing-room."

"When, uncle?"

"To-morrow."

"But, my dear uncle, I am not committed to anything?"

"Nothing whatever, and you may bombard him, set fire to him, and leave
him to founder like an old hulk if you choose. He won't be the first,
I fancy?"

"You ARE kind, uncle!"

As soon as the Count got home he put on his glasses, quietly took the
card out of his pocket, and read, "Maximilien Longueville, Rue de
Sentier."

"Make yourself happy, my dear niece," he said to Emilie, "you may hook
him with any easy conscience; he belongs to one of our historical
families, and if he is not a peer of France, he infallibly will be."

"How do you know so much?"

"That is my secret."

"Then do you know his name?"

The old man bowed his gray head, which was not unlike a gnarled oak-
stump, with a few leaves fluttering about it, withered by autumnal
frosts; and his niece immediately began to try the ever-new power of
her coquettish arts. Long familiar with the secret of cajoling the old
man, she lavished on him the most childlike caresses, the tenderest
names; she even went so far as to kiss him to induce him to divulge so
important a secret. The old man, who spent his life in playing off
these scenes on his niece, often paying for them with a present of
jewelry, or by giving her his box at the opera, this time amused
himself with her entreaties, and, above all, her caresses. But as he
spun out this pleasure too long, Emilie grew angry, passed from
coaxing to sarcasm and sulks; then, urged by curiosity, she recovered
herself. The diplomatic admiral extracted a solemn promise from his
niece that she would for the future be gentler, less noisy, and less
wilful, that she would spend less, and, above all, tell him
everything. The treaty being concluded, and signed by a kiss impressed
on Emilie's white brow, he led her into a corner of the room, drew her
on to his knee, held the card under the thumbs so as to hide it, and
then uncovered the letters one by one, spelling the name of
Longueville; but he firmly refused to show her anything more.

This incident added to the intensity of Mademoiselle de Fontaine's
secret sentiment, and during chief part of the night she evolved the
most brilliant pictures from the dreams with which she had fed her
hopes. At last, thanks to chance, to which she had so often appealed,
Emilie could now see something very unlike a chimera at the fountain-
head of the imaginary wealth with which she gilded her married life.
Ignorant, as all young girls are, of the perils of love and marriage,
she was passionately captivated by the externals of marriage and love.
Is not this as much as to say that her feeling had birth like all the
feelings of extreme youth--sweet but cruel mistakes, which exert a
fatal influence on the lives of young girls so inexperienced as to
trust their own judgment to take care of their future happiness?

Next morning, before Emilie was awake, her uncle had hastened to
Chevreuse. On recognizing, in the courtyard of an elegant little
villa, the young man he had so determinedly insulted the day before,
he went up to him with the pressing politeness of men of the old
court.

"Why, my dear sir, who could have guessed that I should have a brush,
at the age of seventy-three, with the son, or the grandson, of one of
my best friends. I am a vice-admiral, monsieur; is not that as much as
to say that I think no more of fighting a duel than of smoking a
cigar? Why, in my time, no two young men could be intimate till they
had seen the color of their blood! But 'sdeath, sir, last evening,
sailor-like, I had taken a drop too much grog on board, and I ran you
down. Shake hands; I would rather take a hundred rebuffs from a
Longueville than cause his family the smallest regret."

However coldly the young man tried to behave to the Comte de
Kergarouet, he could not resist the frank cordiality of his manner,
and presently gave him his hand.

"You were going out riding," said the Count. "Do not let me detain
you. But, unless you have other plans, I beg you will come to dinner
to-day at the Villa Planat. My nephew, the Comte de Fontaine, is a man
it is essential that you should know. Ah, ha! And I propose to make up
to you for my clumsiness by introducing you to five of the prettiest
women in Paris. So, so, young man, your brow is clearing! I am fond of
young people, and I like to see them happy. Their happiness reminds me
of the good times of my youth, when adventures were not lacking, any
more than duels. We were gay dogs then! Nowadays you think and worry
over everything, as though there had never been a fifteenth and a
sixteenth century."

"But, monsieur, are we not in the right? The sixteenth century only
gave religious liberty to Europe, and the nineteenth will give it
political lib----"

"Oh, we will not talk politics. I am a perfect old woman--ultra you
see. But I do not hinder young men from being revolutionary, so long
as they leave the King at liberty to disperse their assemblies."

When they had gone a little way, and the Count and his companion were
in the heart of the woods, the old sailor pointed out a slender young
birch sapling, pulled up his horse, took out one of his pistols, and
the bullet was lodged in the heart of the tree, fifteen paces away.

"You see, my dear fellow, that I am not afraid of a duel," he said
with comical gravity, as he looked at Monsieur Longueville.

"Nor am I," replied the young man, promptly cocking his pistol; he
aimed at the hole made by the Comte's bullet, and sent his own close
to it.

"That is what I call a well-educated man," cried the admiral with
enthusiasm.

During this ride with the youth, whom he already regarded as his
nephew, he found endless opportunities of catechizing him on all the
trifles of which a perfect knowledge constituted, according to his
private code, an accomplished gentleman.

"Have you any debts?" he at last asked of his companion, after many
other inquiries.

"No, monsieur."

"What, you pay for all you have?"

"Punctually; otherwise we should lose our credit, and every sort of
respect."

"But at least you have more than one mistress? Ah, you blush, comrade!
Well, manners have changed. All these notions of lawful order,
Kantism, and liberty have spoilt the young men. You have no Guimard
now, no Duthe, no creditors--and you know nothing of heraldry; why, my
dear young friend, you are not fully fledged. The man who does not sow
his wild oats in the spring sows them in the winter. If I have but
eighty thousand francs a year at the age of seventy, it is because I
ran through the capital at thirty. Oh! with my wife--in decency and
honor. However, your imperfections will not interfere with my
introducing you at the Pavillon Planat. Remember, you have promised to
come, and I shall expect you."

"What an odd little old man!" said Longueville to himself. "He is so
jolly and hale; but though he wishes to seem a good fellow, I will not
trust him too far."

Next day, at about four o'clock, when the house party were dispersed
in the drawing-rooms and billiard-room, a servant announced to the
inhabitants of the Villa Planat, "Monsieur DE Longueville." On hearing
the name of the old admiral's protege, every one, down to the player
who was about to miss his stroke, rushed in, as much to study
Mademoiselle de Fontaine's countenance as to judge of this phoenix of
men, who had earned honorable mention to the detriment of so many
rivals. A simple but elegant style of dress, an air of perfect ease,
polite manners, a pleasant voice with a ring in it which found a
response in the hearer's heart-strings, won the good-will of the
family for Monsieur Longueville. He did not seem unaccustomed to the
luxury of the Receiver-General's ostentatious mansion. Though his
conversation was that of a man of the world, it was easy to discern
that he had had a brilliant education, and that his knowledge was as
thorough as it was extensive. He knew so well the right thing to say
in a discussion on naval architecture, trivial, it is true, started by
the old admiral, that one of the ladies remarked that he must have
passed through the Ecole Polytechnique.

"And I think, madame," he replied, "that I may regard it as an honor
to have got in."

In spite of urgent pressing, he refused politely but firmly to be kept
to dinner, and put an end to the persistency of the ladies by saying
that he was the Hippocrates of his young sister, whose delicate health
required great care.

"Monsieur is perhaps a medical man?" asked one of Emilie's sisters-in-
law with ironical meaning.

"Monsieur has left the Ecole Polytechnique," Mademoiselle de Fontaine
kindly put in; her face had flushed with richer color, as she learned
that the young lady of the ball was Monsieur Longueville's sister.

"But, my dear, he may be a doctor and yet have been to the Ecole
Polytechnique--is it not so, monsieur?"

"There is nothing to prevent it, madame," replied the young man.

Every eye was on Emilie, who was gazing with uneasy curiosity at the
fascinating stranger. She breathed more freely when he added, not
without a smile, "I have not the honor of belonging to the medical
profession; and I even gave up going into the Engineers in order to
preserve my independence."

"And you did well," said the Count. "But how can you regard it as an
honor to be a doctor?" added the Breton nobleman. "Ah, my young
friend, such a man as you----"

"Monsieur le Comte, I respect every profession that has a useful
purpose."

"Well, in that we agree. You respect those professions, I imagine, as
a young man respects a dowager."

Monsieur Longueville made his visit neither too long nor too short. He
left at the moment when he saw that he had pleased everybody, and that
each one's curiosity about him had been roused.

"He is a cunning rascal!" said the Count, coming into the drawing-room
after seeing him to the door.

Mademoiselle de Fontaine, who had been in the secret of this call, had
dressed with some care to attract the young man's eye; but she had the
little disappointment of finding that he did not bestow on her so much
attention as she thought she deserved. The family were a good deal
surprised at the silence into which she had retired. Emilie generally
displayed all her arts for the benefit of newcomers, her witty
prattle, and the inexhaustible eloquence of her eyes and attitudes.
Whether it was that the young man's pleasing voice and attractive
manners had charmed her, that she was seriously in love, and that this
feeling had worked a change in her, her demeanor had lost all its
affectations. Being simple and natural, she must, no doubt, have
seemed more beautiful. Some of her sisters, and an old lady, a friend
of the family, saw in this behavior a refinement of art. They supposed
that Emilie, judging the man worthy of her, intended to delay
revealing her merits, so as to dazzle him suddenly when she found that
she pleased him. Every member of the family was curious to know what
this capricious creature thought of the stranger; but when, during
dinner, every one chose to endow Monsieur Longueville with some fresh
quality which no one else had discovered, Mademoiselle de Fontaine sat
for some time in silence. A sarcastic remark of her uncle's suddenly
roused her from her apathy; she said, somewhat epigrammatically, that
such heavenly perfection must cover some great defect, and that she
would take good care how she judged so gifted a man at first sight.

"Those who please everybody, please nobody," she added; "and the worst
of all faults is to have none."

Like all girls who are in love, Emilie cherished the hope of being
able to hide her feelings at the bottom of her heart by putting the
Argus-eyes that watched on the wrong tack; but by the end of a
fortnight there was not a member of the large family party who was not
in this little domestic secret. When Monsieur Longueville called for
the third time, Emilie believed it was chiefly for her sake. This
discovery gave her such intoxicating pleasure that she was startled as
she reflected on it. There was something in it very painful to her
pride. Accustomed as she was to be the centre of her world, she was
obliged to recognize a force that attracted her outside herself; she
tried to resist, but she could not chase from her heart the
fascinating image of the young man.

Then came some anxiety. Two of Monsieur Longueville's qualities, very
adverse to general curiosity, and especially to Mademoiselle de
Fontaine's, were unexpected modesty and discretion. He never spoke of
himself, of his pursuits, or of his family. The hints Emilie threw out
in conversation, and the traps she laid to extract from the young
fellow some facts concerning himself, he could evade with the
adroitness of a diplomatist concealing a secret. If she talked of
painting, he responded as a connoisseur; if she sat down to play, he
showed without conceit that he was a very good pianist; one evening he
delighted all the party by joining his delightful voice to Emilie's in
one of Cimarosa's charming duets. But when they tried to find out
whether he were a professional singer, he baffled them so pleasantly
that he did not afford these women, practised as they were in the art
of reading feelings, the least chance of discovering to what social
sphere he belonged. However boldly the old uncle cast the boarding-
hooks over the vessel, Longueville slipped away cleverly, so as to
preserve the charm of mystery; and it was easy to him to remain the
"handsome Stranger" at the Villa, because curiosity never overstepped
the bounds of good breeding.

Emilie, distracted by this reserve, hoped to get more out of the
sister than the brother, in the form of confidences. Aided by her
uncle, who was as skilful in such manoeuvres as in handling a ship,
she endeavored to bring upon the scene the hitherto unseen figure of
Mademoiselle Clara Longueville. The family party at the Villa Planat
soon expressed the greatest desire to make the acquaintance of so
amiable a young lady, and to give her some amusement. An informal
dance was proposed and accepted. The ladies did not despair of making
a young girl of sixteen talk.

Notwithstanding the little clouds piled up by suspicion and created by
curiosity, a light of joy shone in Emilie's soul, for she found life
delicious when thus intimately connected with another than herself.
She began to understand the relations of life. Whether it is that
happiness makes us better, or that she was too fully occupied to
torment other people, she became less caustic, more gentle, and
indulgent. This change in her temper enchanted and amazed her family.
Perhaps, at last, her selfishness was being transformed to love. It
was a deep delight to her to look for the arrival of her bashful and
unconfessed adorer. Though they had not uttered a word of passion, she
knew that she was loved, and with what art did she not lead the
stranger to unlock the stores of his information, which proved to be
varied! She perceived that she, too, was being studied, and that made
her endeavor to remedy the defects her education had encouraged. Was
not this her first homage to love, and a bitter reproach to herself?
She desired to please, and she was enchanting; she loved, and she was
idolized. Her family, knowing that her pride would sufficiently
protect her, gave her enough