a coquette, and above all things a Parisienne, loving a brilliant

life and gaiety, reflecting never, or too late; imprudent to the
verge of poetry, and humble in the depths of her heart, in spite

of her charminginsolence. Like some straight-growing reed, she
made a show of independence; yet, like the reed, she was ready to

bend to a strong hand. She talked much of religion, and had it
not at heart, though she was prepared to find in it a solution of

her life. How explain a creature so complex? Capable of
heroism, yet sinking consciously" target="_blank" title="ad.无意识地；不觉察地">unconsciously from heroic heights to utter a

spiteful word; young and sweet-natured, not so much old at heart
as aged by the maxims of those about her; versed in a selfish

philosophy in which she was all unpractised, she had all the
vices of a courtier, all the nobleness of developing womanhood.

She trusted nothing and no one, yet there were times when she
quitted her sceptical attitude for a submissive credulity.

How should any portrait be anything but incomplete of her, in
whom the play of swiftly-changing colour made discord only to

produce a poeticconfusion? For in her there shone a divine
brightness, a radiance of youth that blended all her bewildering

characteristics in a certain completeness and unity informed by
her charm. Nothing was feigned. The passion or semi-passion,

the ineffectual high aspirations, the actual pettiness, the
coolness of sentiment and warmth of impulse, were all spontaneous

and unaffected, and as much the outcome of her own position as of
the position of the aristocracy to which she belonged. She was

wholly self-contained; she put herself proudly above the world
and beneath the shelter of her name. There was something of the

egoism of Medea in her life, as in the life of the aristocracy
that lay a-dying, and would not so much as raise itself or

stretch out a hand to any political physician; so well aware of
its feebleness, or so conscious that it was already dust, that it

refused to touch or be touched.
The Duchesse de Langeais (for that was her name) had been married

for about four years when the Restoration was finally
consummated, which is to say, in 1816. By that time the

revolution of the Hundred Days had let in the light on the mind
of Louis XVIII. In spite of his surroundings, he comprehended

the situation and the age in which he was living; and it was only
later, when this Louis XI, without the axe, lay stricken down by

disease, that those about him got the upper hand. The Duchesse
de Langeais, a Navarreins by birth, came of a ducal house which

had made a point of never marrying below its rank since the reign
of Louis XIV. Every daughter of the house must sooner or later

take a tabouret at Court. So, Antoinette de Navarreins, at the
age of eighteen, came out of the profoundsolitude in which her

girlhood had been spent to marry the Duc de Langeais's eldest
son. The two families at that time were living quite out of the

world; but after the invasion of France, the return of the
Bourbons seemed to every Royalist mind the only possible way of

putting an end to the miseries of the war.
The Ducs de Navarreins and de Langeais had been faithful

throughout to the exiled Princes, nobly resisting all the
temptations of glory under the Empire. Under the circumstances

they naturally followed out the old family policy; and Mlle
Antoinette, a beautiful and portionless girl, was married to M.

le Marquis de Langeais only a few months before the death of the
Duke his father.

After the return of the Bourbons, the families resumed their
rank, offices, and dignity at Court; once more they entered

public life, from which hitherto they held aloof, and took their
place high on the sunlit summits of the new political world. In

that time of general baseness and sham political conversions, the
public conscience was glad to recognise the unstained loyalty of

the two houses, and a consistency in political and private life
for which all parties involuntarily respected them. But,

unfortunately, as so often happens in a time of transition, the
most disinterested persons, the men whose loftiness of view and

wise principles would have gained the confidence of the French
nation and led them to believe in the generosity of a novel and

spirited policy--these men, to repeat, were taken out of affairs,
and public business was allowed to fall into the hands of others,

who found it to their interest to push principles to their
extreme consequences by way of proving their devotion.

The families of Langeais and Navarreins remained about the Court,
condemned to perform the duties required by Court ceremonial amid

the reproaches and sneers of the Liberal party. They were
accused of gorging themselves with riches and honours, and all

the while their family estates were no larger than before, and
liberal allowances from the civil list were wholly expended in

keeping up the state necessary for any European government, even
if it be a Republic.

In 1818, M. le Duc de Langeais commanded a division of the army,
and the Duchess held a post about one of the Princesses, in

virtue of which she was free to live in Paris and apart from her
husband without scandal. The Duke, moreover, besides his

military duties, had a place at Court, to which he came during
his term of waiting, leaving his major-general in command. The

Duke and Duchess were leading lives entirely apart, the world
none the wiser. Their marriage of convention shared the fate of

nearly all family arrangements of the kind. Two more
antipathetic dispositions could not well have been found; they

were brought together; they jarred upon each other; there was
soreness on either side; then they were divided once for all.

Then they went their separate ways, with a due regard for
appearances. The Duc de Langeais, by nature as methodical as the

Chevalier de Folard himself, gave himself up methodically to his
own tastes and amusements, and left his wife at liberty to do as

she pleased so soon as he felt sure of her character. He
recognised in her a spirit pre-eminently proud, a cold heart, a

profound submissiveness to the usages of the world, and a
youthful loyalty. Under the eyes of great relations, with the

light of a prudish and bigoted Court turned full upon the
Duchess, his honour was safe.

So the Duke calmly did as the grands seigneurs of the eighteenth
century did before him, and left a young wife of two-and-twenty

to her own devices. He had deeply offended that wife, and in her
nature there was one appallingcharacteristic--she would never

forgive an offence when woman's vanity and self-love, with all
that was best in her nature perhaps, had been slighted, wounded

in secret. Insult and injury in the face of the world a woman
loves to forget; there is a way open to her of showing herself

great; she is a woman in her forgiveness; but a secret offence
women never pardon; for secret baseness, as for hiddenvirtues

and hidden love, they have no kindness
This was Mme la Duchesse de Langeais's real position, unknown to

the world. She herself did not reflect upon it. It was the time
of the rejoicings over the Duc de Berri's marriage. The Court

and the Faubourg roused itself from its listlessness and reserve.
This was the real beginning of that unheard-of splendour which

the Government of the Restoration carried too far. At that time
the Duchess, whether for reasons of her own, or from vanity,

never appeared in public without a following of women equally
distinguished by name and fortune. As queen of fashion she had

her dames d'atours, her ladies, who modelled their manner and
their wit on hers. They had been cleverly chosen. None of her

satellites belonged to the inmost Court circle, nor to the
highest level of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but they had set

their minds upon admission to those inner sanctuaries. Being as
yet simple dominations, they wished to rise to the neighbourhood

of the throne, and mingle with the seraphic powers in the high
sphere known as le petit chateau. Thus surrounded, the Duchess's

position was stronger and more commanding and secure. Her
"ladies" defended her character and helped her to play her

detestable part of a woman of fashion. She could laugh at men at
her ease, play with fire, receive the homage on which the