in the upper and more decent regions of gallantry. At an epoch when,

as Monsieur de Valois said, Woman no longer existed, she was simply
"Madame du Val-Noble"; in other days she would have rivalled the

Rhodopes, the Imperias, the Ninons of the past. One of the most
distinguished writers of the Restoration has taken her under his

protection; perhaps he may marry her. He is a journalist, and
consequently above public opinion, inasmuch as he manufactures it

afresh every year or two.
CHAPTER III

MADEMOISELLE CORMON
In nearly all the second-class prefectures of France there exists one

salon which is the meeting-ground of those considerable and well-
considered persons of the community who are, nevertheless, NOT the

cream of the best society. The master and mistress of such an
establishment are counted among the leading persons of the town; they

are received wherever it may please them to visit; no fete is given,
no formal or diplomatic dinner takes place, to which they are not

invited. But the chateau people, heads of families possessing great
estates, in short, the highest personages in the department, do not go

to their houses; social intercourse between them is carried on by
cards from one to the other, and a dinner or soiree accepted and

returned.
This salon, in which the lessernobility, the clergy, and the

magistracy meet together, exerts a great influence. The judgment and
mind of the region reside in that solid, unostentatious society, where

each man knows the resources of his neighbor, where complete
indifference is shown to luxury and dress,--pleasures which are

thought childish in comparison to that of obtaining ten or twelve
acres of pasture land,--a purchase coveted for years, which has

probably given rise to endless diplomatic combinations. Immovable in
its prejudices, good or evil, this social circle follows a beaten

track, looking neither before it nor behind it. It accepts nothing
from Paris without long examination and trial; it rejects cashmeres as

it does investments on the Grand-Livre; it scoffs at fashions and
novelties; reads nothing, prefers ignorance, whether of science,

literature, or industrial inventions. It insists on the removal of a
prefect when that official does not suit it; and if the administration

resists, it isolates him, after the manner of bees who wall up a snail
in wax when it gets into their hive.

In this society gossip is often turned into solemn verdicts. Young
women are seldom seen there; when they come it is to seek approbation

of their conduct,--a consecration of their self-importance. This
supremacy granted to one house is apt to wound the sensibilities of

other natives of the region, who console themselves by adding up the
cost it involves, and by which they profit. If it so happens that

there is no fortune large enough to keep open house in this way, the
big-wigs of the place choose a place of meeting, as they did at

Alencon, in the house of some inoffensive person, whose settled life
and character and position offers no umbrage to the vanities or the

interests of any one.
For some years the upper classes of Alencon had met in this way at the

house of an old maid, whose fortune was, unknown to herself, the aim
and object of Madame Granson, her second cousin, and of the two old

bachelors whose secret hopes in that direction we have just unveiled.
This lady lived with her maternal uncle, a former grand-vicar of the

bishopric of Seez, once her guardian, and whose heir she was. The
family of which Rose-Marie-Victoire Cormon was the present

representative had been in earlier days among the most considerable in
the province. Though belonging to the middle classes, she consorted

with the nobility, among whom she was more or less allied, her family
having furnished, in past years, stewards to the Duc d'Alencon, many

magistrates to the long robe, and various bishops to the clergy.
Monsieur de Sponde, the maternalgrandfather of Mademoiselle Cormon,

was elected by the Nobility to the States-General, and Monsieur
Cormon, her father, by the Tiers-Etat, though neither accepted the

mission. For the last hundred years the daughters of the family had
married nobles belonging to the provinces; consequently, this family

had thrown out so many suckers throughout the duchy as to appear on
nearly all the genealogical trees. No bourgeois family had ever seemed

so like nobility.
The house in which Mademoiselle Cormon lived, build in Henri IV.'s

time, by Pierre Cormon, the steward of the last Duc d'Alencon, had
always belonged to the family; and among the old maid's visible

possessions this one was particularly stimulating to the covetous
desires of the two old lovers. Yet, far from producing revenue, the

house was a cause of expense. But it is so rare to find in the very
centre of a provincial town a private dwelling without unpleasant

surroundings, handsome in outwardstructure and convenient within,
that Alencon shared the envy of the lovers.

This old mansion stands exactly in the middle of the rue du Val-Noble.
It is remarkable for the strength of its construction,--a style of

building introduced by Marie de' Medici. Though built of granite,--a
stone which is hard to work,--its angles, and the casings of the doors

and windows, are decorated with corner blocks cut into diamond facets.
It has only one clear story above the ground-floor; but the roof,

rising steeply, has several projecting windows, with carved spandrels
rather elegantly enclosed in oaken frames, and externally adorned with

balustrades. Between each of these windows is a gargoyle presenting
the fantastic jaws of an animal without a body, vomiting the rain-

water upon large stones pierced with five holes. The two gables are
surmounted by leaden bouquets,--a symbol of the bourgeoisie; for

nobles alone had the privilege in former days of having weather-vanes.
To right of the courtyard are the stables and coach-house; to left,

the kitchen, wood-house, and laundry.
One side of the porte-cochere, being left open, allowed the passers in

the street to see in the midst of the vast courtyard a flower-bed, the
raised earth of which was held in place by a low privet hedge. A few

monthly roses, pinkes, lilies, and Spanish broom filled this bed,
around which in the summer season boxes of paurestinus, pomegranates,

and myrtle were placed. Struck by the scrupulous cleanliness of the
courtyard and its dependencies, a stranger would at once have divined

that the place belonged to an old maid. The eye which presided there
must have been an unoccupied, ferreting eye; minutely careful, less

from nature than for want of something to do. An old maid, forced to
employ her vacant days, could alone see to the grass being hoed from

between the paving stones, the tops of the walls kept clean, the broom
continually going, and the leather curtains of the coach-house always

closed. She alone would have introduced, out of busy idleness, a sort
of Dutch cleanliness into a house on the confines of Bretagne and

Normandie,--a region where they take pride in professing an utter
indifference to comfort.

Never did the Chevalier de Valois, or du Bousquier, mount the steps of
the double stairway leading to the portico of this house without

saying to himself, one, that it was fit for a peer of France, the
other, that the mayor of the town ought to live there.

A glass door gave entrance from this portico into an antechamber, a
species of gallery paved in red tiles and wainscoted, which served as

a hospital for the family portraits,--some having an eye put out,
others suffering from a dislocated shoulder; this one held his hat in

a hand that no longer existed; that one was a case of amputation at
the knee. Here were deposited the cloaks, clogs, overshoes, umbrellas,

hoods, and pelisses of the guests. It was an arsenal where each
arrival left his baggage on arriving, and took it up when departing.

Along each wall was a bench for the servants who arrived with
lanterns, and a large stove, to counteract the north wind, which blew

through this hall from the garden to the courtyard.
The house was divided in two equal parts. On one side, toward the

courtyard, was the well of the staircase, a large dining-room looking
to the garden, and an office or pantry which communicated with the

kitchen. On the other side was the salon, with four windows, beyond
which were two smaller rooms,--one looking on the garden, and used as

a boudoir, the other lighted from the courtyard, and used as a sort of
office.

The upper floor contained a complete apartment for a family household,
and a suite of rooms where the venerable Abbe de Sponde had his abode.

The garrets offered fine quarters to the rats and mice, whose
nocturnal performances were related by Mademoiselle Cormon to the