Array The griffin classics - The Collected Works of Honore de Balzac

“Ah, my dear Ernest,” said Truth, “you never would have read that lesson to a rich heiress. No, my boy; you would have gone in hot haste to Havre to find out if the girl were handsome, and you would have been very unhappy indeed at her preference for genius; and if you could have tripped up your friend and supplanted him in her affections, Mademoiselle d’Este would have been a divinity.”

“What?” cried Justice, “are you not always bemoaning yourselves, you penniless men of wit and capacity, that rich girls marry beings whom you wouldn’t take as your servants? You rail against the materialism of the century which hastens to join wealth to wealth, and never marries some fine young man with brains and no money to a rich girl. What an outcry you make about it; and yet here is a young woman who revolts against that very spirit of the age, and behold! the poet replies with a blow at her heart!”

“Rich or poor, young or old, ugly or handsome, the girl is right; she has sense and judgment, she has tripped you over into the slough of self-interest and lets you know it,” cried Honor. “She deserves an answer, a sincere and loyal and frank answer, and, above all, the honest expression of your thought. Examine yourself! sound your heart and purge it of its meannesses. What would Moliere’s Alceste say?”

And La Briere, having started from the boulevard Poissoniere, walked so slowly, absorbed in these reflections, that he was more than an hour in reaching the boulevard des Capucines. Then he followed the quays, which led him to the Cour des Comptes, situated in that time close to the Saint-Chapelle. Instead of beginning on the accounts as he should have done, he remained at the mercy of his perplexities.

“One thing is evident,” he said to himself; “she hasn’t six millions; but that’s not the point — ”

Six days later, Modeste received the following letter:

Mademoiselle, — You are not a D’Este. The name is a feigned one to

conceal your own. Do I owe the revelations which you solicit to a

person who is untruthful about herself? Question for question: Are

you of an illustrious family? or a noble family? or a middle-class

family? Undoubtedly ethics and morality cannot change; they are

one: but obligations vary in the different states of life. Just as

the sun lights up a scene diversely and produces differences which

we admire, so morality conforms social duty to rank, to position.

The peccadillo of a soldier is a crime in a general, and

vice-versa. Observances are not alike in all cases. They are not

the same for the gleaner in the field, for the girl who sews at

fifteen sous a day, for the daughter of a petty shopkeeper, for

the young bourgoise, for the child of a rich merchant, for the

heiress of a noble family, for a daughter of the house of Este. A

king must not stoop to pick up a piece of gold, but a laborer

ought to retrace his steps to find ten sous; though both are

equally bound to obey the laws of economy. A daughter of Este, who

is worth six millions, has the right to wear a broad-brimmed hat

and plume, to flourish her whip, press the flanks of her barb, and

ride like an amazon decked in gold lace, with a lackey behind her,

into the presence of a poet and say: “I love poetry; and I would

fain expiate Leonora’s cruelty to Tasso!” but a daughter of the

people would cover herself with ridicule by imitating her. To what

class do you belong? Answer sincerely, and I will answer the

question you have put to me.

As I have not the honor of knowing you personally, and yet am

bound to you, in a measure, by the ties of poetic communion, I am

unwilling to offer any commonplace compliments. Perhaps you have

already won a malicious victory by thus embarrassing a maker of

books.

The young man was certainly not wanting in the sort of shrewdness which is permissible to a man of honor. By return courier he received an answer: —

To Monsieur de Canalis, — You grow more and more sensible, my dear

poet. My father is a count. The chief glory of our house was a

cardinal, in the days when cardinals walked the earth by the side

of kings. I am the last of our family, which ends in me; but I

have the necessary quarterings to make my entry into any court or

chapter-house in Europe. We are quite the equals of the Canalis.

You will be so kind as to excuse me from sending you our arms.

Endeavor to answer me as truthfully as I have now answered you. I

await your response to know if I can then sign myself as I do now,

Your servant, O. d’Este M.

“The little mischief! how she abuses her privileges,” cried La Briere; “but isn’t she frank!”

No young man can be four years private secretary to a cabinet minister, and live in Paris and observe the carrying on of many intrigues, with perfect impunity; in fact, the purest soul is more or less intoxicated by the heady atmosphere of the imperial city. Happy in the thought that he was not Canalis, our young secretary engaged a place in the mail-coach for Havre, after writing a letter in which he announced that the promised answer would be sent a few days later, — excusing the delay on the ground of the importance of the confession and the pressure of his duties at the ministry.

He took care to get from the director-general of the post-office a note to the postmaster at Havre, requesting secrecy and attention to his wishes. Ernest was thus enabled to see Francoise Cochet when she came for the letters, and to follow her without exciting observation. Guided by her, he reached Ingouville and saw Modeste Mignon at the window of the Chalet.

“Well, Francoise?” he heard the young girl say, to which the maid responded, —

“Yes, mademoiselle, I have one.”

Struck by the girl’s great beauty, Ernest retraced his steps and asked a man on the street the name of the owner of that magnificent estate.

“That?” said the man, nodding to the villa.

“Yes, my friend.”

“Oh, that belongs to Monsieur Vilquin, the richest shipping merchant in Havre, so rich he doesn’t know what he is worth.”

“There is no Cardinal Vilquin that I know of in history,” thought Ernest, as he walked back to Havre for the night mail to Paris. Naturally he questioned the postmaster about the Vilquin family, and learned that it possessed an enormous fortune. Monsieur Vilquin had a son and two daughters, one of whom was married to Monsieur Althor, junior. Prudence kept La Briere from seeming anxious about the Vilquins; the postmaster was already looking at him slyly.

“Is there there any one staying with them at the present moment,” he asked, “besides the family?”

“The d’Herouville family is there just now. They do talk of a marriage between the young duke and the remaining Mademoiselle Vilquin.”

“Ha!” thought Ernest; “there was a celebrated Cardinal d’Herouville under the Valois, and a terrible marshal whom they made a duke in the time of Henri IV.”

Ernest returned to Paris having seen enough of Modeste to dream of her, and to think that, whether she were rich or whether she were poor, if she had a noble soul he would like to make her Madame de La Briere; and so thinking, he resolved to continue the correspondence.

Ah! you poor women of France, try to remain hidden if you can; try to weave the least little romance about your lives in the midst of a civilization which posts in the public streets the hours when the coaches arrive and depart; which counts all letters and stamps them twice over, first with the hour when they are thrown into the boxes, and next with that of their delivery; which numbers the houses, prints the tax of every tenant on a metal register at the doors (after verifying its particulars), and will soon possess one vast register of every inch of its territory down to the smallest parcel of land, and the most insignificant features of it, — a giant work ordained by a giant. Try, imprudent young ladies, to escape not only the eye of the police, but the incessant chatter which takes place in a country town about the veriest trifles, — how many dishes the prefect has at his dessert, how many slices of melon are left at the door of some small householder, — which strains its ear to catch the chink of the gold a thrifty man lays by, and spends its evenings in calculating the incomes of the village and the town and the department. It was mere chance that enabled Modeste to escape discovery through Ernest’s reconnoitring expedition, — a step which he already regretted; but what Parisian can allow himself to be the dupe of a little country girl? Incapable of being duped! that horrid maxim is the dissolvent of all noble sentiments in man.