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

“We expiate the happiness of ten years in ten minutes,” she heard the duchess say.

“A letter from Havre, madame.”

Eleonore read the poet’s prose without noticing the presence of Philoxene, whose amazement became still greater when she saw the dawn of fresh serenity on the duchess’s face as she read further and further into the letter. Hold out a pole no thicker than a walking-stick to a drowning man, and he will think it a high-road of safety. The happy Eleonore believed in Canalis’s good faith when she had read through the four pages in which love and business, falsehood and truth, jostled each other. She who, a few moments earlier, had sent for her husband to prevent Melchior’s appointment while there was still time, was now seized with a spirit of generosity that amounted almost to the sublime.

“Poor fellow!” she thought; “he has not had one faithless thought; he loves me as he did on the first day; he tells me all — Philoxene!” she cried, noticing her maid, who was standing near and pretending to arrange the toilet-table.

“Madame la duchesse?”

“A mirror, child!”

Eleonore looked at herself, saw the fine razor-like lines traced on her brow, which disappeared at a little distance; she sighed, and in that sigh she felt she bade adieu to love. A brave thought came into her mind, a manly thought, outside of all the pettiness of women, — a thought which intoxicates for a moment, and which explains, perhaps, the clemency of the Semiramis of Russia when she married her young and beautiful rival to Momonoff.

“Since he has not been faithless, he shall have the girl and her millions,” she thought, — ”provided Mademoiselle Mignon is as ugly as he says she is.”

Three raps, circumspectly given, announced the duke, and his wife went herself to the door to let him in.

“Ah! I see you are better, my dear,” he cried, with the counterfeit joy that courtiers assume so readily, and by which fools are so readily taken in.

“My dear Henri,” she answered, “why is it you have not yet obtained that appointment for Melchior, — you who sacrificed so much to the king in taking a ministry which you knew could only last one year.”

The duke glanced at Philoxene, who showed him by an almost imperceptible sign the letter from Havre on the dressing-table.

“You would be terribly bored at Baden and come back at daggers drawn with Melchior,” said the duke.

“Pray why?”

“Why, you would always be together,” said the former diplomat, with comic good-humor.

“Oh, no,” she said; “I am going to marry him.”

“If we can believe d’Herouville, our dear Canalis stands in no need of your help in that direction,” said the duke, smiling. “Yesterday Grandlieu read me some passages from a letter the grand equerry had written him. No doubt they were dictated by the aunt for the express purpose of their reaching you, for Mademoiselle d’Herouville, always on the scent of a ‘dot,’ knows that Grandlieu and I play whist nearly every evening. That good little d’Herouville wants the Prince de Cadignan to go down and give a royal hunt in Normandy, and endeavor to persuade the king to be present, so as to turn the head of the damozel when she sees herself the object of such a grand affair. In short, two words from Charles X. would settle the matter. D’Herouville says the girl has incomparable beauty — ”

“Henri, let us go to Havre!” cried the duchess, interrupting him.

“Under what pretext?” said her husband, gravely; he was one of the confidants of Louis XVIII.

“I never saw a hunt.”

“It would be all very well if the king went; but it is a terrible bore to go so far, and he will not do it; I have just been speaking with him about it.”

“Perhaps Madame would go?”

“That would be better,” returned the duke, “I dare say the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse would help you to persuade her from Rosny. If she goes the king will not be displeased at the use of his hunting equipage. Don’t go to Havre, my dear,” added the duke, paternally, “that would be giving yourself away. Come, here’s a better plan, I think. Gaspard’s chateau of Rosembray is on the other side of the forest of Brotonne; why not give him a hint to invite the whole party?”

“He invite them?” said Eleonore.

“I mean, of course, the duchess; she is always engaged in pious works with Mademoiselle d’Herouville; give that old maid a hint, and get her to speak to Gaspard.”

“You are a love of a man,” cried Eleonore; “I’ll write to the old maid and to Diane at once, for we must get hunting things made, — a riding hat is so becoming. Did you win last night at the English embassy?”

“Yes,” said the duke; “I cleared myself.”

“Henri, above all things, stop proceedings about Melchior’s two appointments.”

After writing half a dozen lines to the beautiful Diane de Maufrigneuse, and a short hint to Mademoiselle d’Herouville, Eleonore sent the following answer like the lash of a whip through the poet’s lies.

To Monsieur le Baron de Canalis: —

My dear poet, — Mademoiselle de La Bastie is very beautiful;

Mongenod has proved to me that her father has millions. I did

think of marrying you to her; I am therefore much displeased at

your want of confidence. If you had any intention of marrying La

Briere when you went to Havre it is surprising that you said

nothing to me about it before you started. And why have you

omitted writing to a friend who is so easily made anxious as I?

Your letter arrived a trifle late; I had already seen the banker.

You are a child, Melchior, and you are playing tricks with us. It

is not right. The duke himself is quite indignant at your

proceedings; he thinks you less than a gentleman, which casts some

reflections on your mother’s honor.

Now, I intend to see things for myself. I shall, I believe, have

the honor of accompanying Madame to the hunt which the Duc

d’Herouville proposes to give for Mademoiselle de La Bastie. I

will manage to have you invited to Rosembray, for the meet will

probably take place in Duc de Verneuil’s park.

Pray believe, my dear poet, that I am none the less, for life,

Your friend, Eleonore de M.

“There, Ernest, just look at that!” cried Canalis, tossing the letter at Ernest’s nose across the breakfast-table; “that’s the two thousandth love-letter I have had from that woman, and there isn’t even a ‘thou’ in it. The illustrious Eleonore has never compromised herself more than she does there. Marry, and try your luck! The worst marriage in the world is better than this sort of halter. Ah, I am the greatest Nicodemus that ever tumbled out of the moon! Modeste has millions, and I’ve lost her; for we can’t get back from the poles, where we are to-day, to the tropics, where we were three days ago! Well, I am all the more anxious for your triumph over the grand equerry, because I told the duchess I came here only for your sake; and so I shall do my best for you.”

“Alas, Melchior, Modeste must needs have so noble, so grand, so well-balanced a nature to resist the glories of the Court, and all these splendors cleverly displayed for her honor and glory by the duke, that I cannot believe in the existence of such perfection, — and yet, if she is still the Modeste of her letters, there might be hope!”

“Well, well, you are a happy fellow, you young Boniface, to see the world and your mistress through green spectacles!” cried Canalis, marching off to pace up and down the garden.

Caught between two lies, the poet was at a loss what to do.

“Play by rule, and you lose!” he cried presently, sitting down in the kiosk. “Every man of sense would have acted as I did four days ago, and got himself out of the net in which I saw myself. At such times people don’t disentangle nets, they break through them! Come, let us be calm, cold, dignified, affronted. Honor requires it; English stiffness is the only way to win her back. After all, if I have to retire finally, I can always fall back on my old happiness; a fidelity of ten years can’t go unrewarded. Eleonore will arrange me some good marriage.”