The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan

by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Theophile Gautier

THE SECRETS OF THE PRINCESSE DE CADIGNAN
CHAPTER I

THE LAST WORD OF TWO GREAT COQUETTES
After the disasters of the revolution of July, which destroyed so many

aristocratic fortunes dependent on the court, Madame la Princesse de
Cadignan was clever enough to attribute to political events the total

ruin she had caused by her own extravagance. The prince left France
with the royal family, and never returned to it, leaving the princess

in Paris, protected by the fact of his absence; for their debts, which
the sale of all their salable property had not been able to

extinguish, could only be recovered through him. The revenues of the
entailed estates had been seized. In short, the affairs of this great

family were in as bad a state as those of the elder branch of the
Bourbons.

This woman, so celebrated under her first name of Duchesse de
Maufrigneuse, very wiselydecided to live in retirement, and to make

herself, if possible, forgotten. Paris was then so carried away by the
whirling current of events that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, buried

in the Princesse de Cadignan, a change of name unknown to most of the
new actors brought upon the stage of society by the revolution of

July, did really become a stranger in her own city.
In Paris the title of duke ranks all others, even that of prince;

though, in heraldic theory, free of all sophism, titles signify
nothing; there is absoluteequality among gentlemen. This fine

equality was formerly maintained by the House of France itself; and in
our day it is so still, at least, nominally; witness the care with

which the kings of France give to their sons the simple title of
count. It was in virtue of this system that Francois I. crushed the

splendid titles assumed by the pompous Charles the Fifth, by signing
his answer: "Francois, seigneur de Vanves." Louis XI. did better still

by marrying his daughter to an untitled gentleman, Pierre de Beaujeu.
The feudalsystem was so thoroughly broken up by Louis XIV. that the

title of duke became, during his reign, the supreme honor of the
aristocracy, and the most coveted.

Nevertheless there are two or three families in France in which the
principality, richly endowed in former times, takes precedence of the

duchy. The house of Cadignan, which possesses the title of Duc de
Maufrigneuse for its eldest sons, is one of these exceptional

families. Like the princes of the house of Rohan in earlier days, the
princes of Cadignan had the right to a throne in their own domain;

they could have pages and gentlemen in their service. This explanation
is necessary, as much to escape foolish critics who know nothing, as

to record the customs of a world which, we are told, is about to
disappear, and which, evidently, so many persons are assisting to push

away without knowing what it is.
The Cadignans bear: or, five lozenges sable appointed, placed fess-

wise, with the word "Memini" for motto, a crown with a cap of
maintenance, no supporters or mantle. In these days the great crowd of

strangers flocking to Paris, and the almost universalignorance of the
science of heraldry, are beginning to bring the title of prince into

fashion. There are no real princes but those possessed of
principalities, to whom belongs the title of highness. The disdain

shown by the French nobility for the title of prince, and the reasons
which caused Louis XIV. to give supremacy to the title of duke, have

prevented Frenchmen from claiming the appellation of "highness" for
the few princes who exist in France, those of Napoleon excepted. This

is why the princes of Cadignan hold an inferior position, nominally,
to the princes of the continent.

The members of the society called the faubourg Saint-Germain protected
the princess by a respectful silence due to her name, which is one of

those that all men honor, to her misfortunes, which they ceased to
discuss, and to her beauty, the only thing she saved of her departed

opulence. Society, of which she had once been the ornament, was
thankful to her for having, as it were, taken the veil, and cloistered

herself in her own home. This act of good taste was for her, more than
for any other woman, an immense sacrifice. Great deeds are always so

keenly felt in France that the princess gained, by her retreat, as
much as she had lost in public opinion in the days of her splendor.

She now saw only one of her old friends, the Marquise d'Espard, and
even to her she never went on festive occasions or to parties. The

princess and the marquise visited each other in the forenoons, with a
certain amount of secrecy. When the princess went to dine with her

friend, the marquise closed her doors. Madame d'Espard treated the
princess charmingly; she changed her box at the opera, leaving the

first tier for a baignoire on the ground-floor, so that Madame de
Cadignan could come to the theatre unseen, and depart incognito. Few

women would have been capable of a delicacy which deprived them of the
pleasure of bearing in their train a fallen rival, and of publicly

being her benefactress. Thus relieved of the necessity for costly
toilets, the princess could enjoy the theatre, whither she went in

Madame d'Espard's carriage, which she would never have accepted openly
in the daytime. No one has ever known Madame d'Espard's reasons for

behaving thus to the Princesse de Cadignan; but her conduct was
admirable, and for a long time included a number of little acts which,

viewed single, seem mere trifles, but taken in the mass become
gigantic.

In 1832, three years had thrown a mantle of snow over the follies and
adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and had whitened them so

thoroughly that it now required a serious effort of memory to recall
them. Of the queen once adored by so many courtiers, and whose follies

might have given a theme to a variety of novels, there remained a
woman still adorably beautiful, thirty-six years of age, but quite

justified in calling herself thirty, although she was the mother of
Duc Georges de Maufrigneuse, a young man of eighteen, handsome as

Antinous, poor as Job, who was expected to obtain great successes, and
for whom his mother desired, above all things, to find a rich wife.

Perhaps this hope was the secret of the intimacy she still kept up
with the marquise, in whose salon, which was one of the first in

Paris, she might eventually be able to choose among many heiresses for
Georges' wife. The princess saw five years between the present moment

and her son's marriage,--five solitary and desolate years; for, in
order to obtain such a marriage for her son, she knew that her own

conduct must be marked in the corner with discretion.
The princess lived in the rue de Miromesnil, in a small house, of

which she occupied the ground-floor at a moderate rent. There she made
the most of the relics of her past magnificence. The elegance of the

great lady was still redolent about her. She was still surrounded by
beautiful things which recalled her former existence. On her chimney-

piece was a fine miniatureportrait of Charles X., by Madame Mirbel,
beneath which were engraved the words, "Given by the King"; and, as a

pendant, the portrait of "Madame", who was always her kind friend. On
a table lay an album of costliest price, such as none of the

bourgeoises who now lord it in our industrial and fault-finding
society would have dared to exhibit. This album contained portraits,

about thirty in number, of her intimate friends, whom the world, first
and last, had given her as lovers. The number was a calumny; but had

rumor said ten, it might have been, as her friend Madame d'Espard
remarked, good, sound gossip. The portraits of Maxime de Trailles, de

Marsay, Rastignac, the Marquis d'Esgrignon, General Montriveau, the
Marquis de Ronquerolles and d'Ajuda-Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the

young Ducs de Grandlieu and de Rhetore, the Vicomte de Serizy, and the
handsome Lucien de Rubempre, had all been treated with the utmost

coquetry of brush and pencil by celebrated artists. As the princess
now received only two or three of these personages, she called the

book, jokingly, the collection of her errors.
Misfortune had made this woman a good mother. During the fifteen years

of the Restoration she had amused herself far too much to think of her
son; but on takingrefuge in obscurity, this illustrious egoist

bethought her that the maternalsentiment, developed to its extreme,
might be an absolution for her past follies in the eyes of sensible

persons, who pardon everything to a good mother. She loved her son all
the more because she had nothing else to love. Georges de Maufrigneuse

was, moreover, one of those children who flatter the vanities of a
mother; and the princess had, accordingly, made all sorts of