mingle in conversations. Intelligent ideas and delicate observations

put into her mind by her intercourse with her husband, made her
remarked upon, and success emboldened her. Vandenesse, to whom the

world admitted that his wife was beautiful, was delighted when the
same assurance was given that she was clever and witty. On their

return from a ball, concert, or rout where Marie had shone
brilliantly, she would turn to her husband, as she took off her

ornaments, and say, with a joyous, self-assured air,--
"Were you pleased with me this evening?"

The countess excited jealousies; among others that of her husband's
sister, Madame de Listomere, who until now had patronized her,

thinking that she protected a foil to her own merits. A countess,
beautiful, witty and virtuous!--what a prey for the tongues of the

world! Felix had broken with too many women, and too many women had
broken with him, to leave them indifferent to his marriage. When these

women beheld in Madame de Vandenesse a small woman with red hands, and
rather awkward manner, saying little, and apparently not thinking

much, they thought themselves sufficiently avenged. The disasters of
July, 1830, supervened; society was dissolved for two years; the rich

evaded the turmoil and left Paris either for foreign travel or for
their estates in the country, and none of the salons reopened until

1833. When that time came, the faubourg Saint-Germain still sulked,
but it held intercourse with a few houses, regarding them as neutral

ground,--among others that of the Austrian ambassador, where the
legitimist society and the new social world met together in the

persons of their best representatives.
Attached by many ties of the heart and by gratitude to the exiled

family, and strong in his personal convictions, Vandenesse did not
consider himself obliged to imitate the silly behavior of his party.

In times of danger, he had done his duty at the risk of his life; his
fidelity had never been compromised, and he determined to take his

wife into general society without fear of its becoming so. His former
mistresses could scarcely recognize the bride they had thought so

childish in the elegant, witty, and gentle countess, who now appeared
in society with the exquisite manners of the highest female

aristocracy. Mesdames d'Espard, de Manerville, and Lady Dudley, with
others less known, felt the serpent waking up in the depths of their

hearts; they heard the low hissings of angry pride; they were jealous
of Felix's happiness, and would gladly have given their prettiest

jewel to do him some harm; but instead of being hostile to the
countess, these kind, ill-natured women surrounded her, showed her the

utmost friendship, and praised her to me. Sufficiently aware of their
intentions, Felix watched their relations with Marie, and warned her

to distrust them. They all suspected the uneasiness of the count at
their intimacy with his wife, and they redoubled their attentions and

flatteries, so that they gave her an enormous vogue in society, to the
great displeasure of her sister-in-law, the Marquise de Listomere, who

could not understand it. The Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse was cited as
the most charming and the cleverest woman in Paris. Marie's other

sister-in-law, the Marquise Charles de Vandenesse, was consumed with
vexation at the confusion of names and the comparisons it sometimes

brought about. Though the marquise was a handsome and clever woman,
her rivals took delight in comparing her with her sister-in-law, with

all the more point because the countess was a dozen years younger.
These women knew very well what bitterness Marie's social vogue would

bring into her intercourse with both of her sisters-in-law, who, in
fact, became cold and disobliging in proportion to her triumph in

society. She was thus surrounded by dangerous relations and intimate
enemies.

Every one knows that French literature at that particular period was
endeavoring to defend itself against an apathetic indifference (the

result of the political drama) by producing works more or less
Byronian, in which the only topics really discussed were conjugal

delinquencies. Infringements of the marriage tie formed the staple of
reviews, books, and dramas. This eternal subject grew more and more

the fashion. The lover, that nightmare of husbands, was everywhere,
except perhaps in homes, where, in point of fact, under the bourgeois

regime, he was less seen than formerly. It is not when every one
rushes to their window and cries "Thief!" and lights the streets, that

robbers abound. It is true that during those years so fruitful of
turmoil--urban, political, and moral--a few matrimonial catastrophes

took place; but these were exceptional, and less observed than they
would have been under the Restoration. Nevertheless, women talked a

great deal together about books and the stage, then the two chief
forms of poesy. The lover thus became one of their leading topics,--a

being rare in point of act and much desired. The few affairs which
were known gave rise to discussions, and these discussions were, as

usually happens, carried on by immaculate women.
A fact worthy of remark is the aversion shown to such conversations by

women who are enjoying some illicit happiness; they maintain before
the eyes of the world a reserved, prudish, and even timid countenance;

they seem to ask silence on the subject, or some condonation of their
pleasure from society. When, on the contrary, a woman talks freely of

such catastrophes, and seems to take pleasure in doing so, allowing
herself to explain the emotions that justify the guilty parties, we

may be sure that she herself is at the crossways of indecision, and
does not know what road she might take.

During this winter, the Comtesse de Vandenesse heard the great voice
of the social world roaring in her ears, and the wind of its stormy

gusts blew round her. Her pretended friends, who maintained their
reputations at the height of their rank and their positions, often

produced in her presence the seductive idea of the lover; they cast
into her soul certain ardent talk of love, the "mot d'enigme" which

life propounds to woman, the grand passion, as Madame de Stael called
it,--preaching by example. When the countess asked naively, in a small

and select circle of these friends, what difference there was between
a lover and a husband, all those who wished evil to Felix took care to

reply in a way to pique her curiosity, or fire her imagination, or
touch her heart, or interest her mind.

"Oh! my dear, we vegetate with a husband, but we live with a lover,"
said her sister-in-law, the marquise.

"Marriage, my dear, is our purgatory; love is paradise," said Lady
Dudley.

"Don't believe her," cried Mademoiselle des Touches; "it is hell."
"But a hell we like," remarked Madame de Rochefide. "There is often

more pleasure in suffering than in happiness; look at the martyrs!"
"With a husband, my dear innocent, we live, as it were, in our own

life; but to love, is to live in the life of another," said the
Marquise d'Espard.

"A lover is forbidden fruit, and that to me, says all!" cried the
pretty Moina de Saint-Heren, laughing.

When she was not at some diplomatic rout, or at a ball given by rich
foreigners, like Lady Dudley or the Princesse Galathionne, the

Comtesse de Vandenesse might be seen, after the Opera, at the houses
of Madame d'Espard, the Marquise de Listomere, Mademoiselle des

Touches, the Comtesse de Montcornet, or the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu,
the only aristocratic" target="_blank" title="a.贵族政治的；贵族的">aristocratic houses then open; and never did she leave any

one of them without some evil seed of the world being sown in her
heart. She heard talk of completing her life,--a saying much in

fashion in those days; of being comprehended,--another word to which
women gave strange meanings. She often returned home uneasy, excited,

curious, and thoughtful. She began to find something less, she hardly
knew what, in her life; but she did not yet go so far as to think it

lonely.
CHAPTER IV

A CELEBRATED MAN
The most amusing society, but also the most mixed, which Madame Felix

de Vandenesse frequented, was that of the Comtesse de Montcornet, a
charming little woman, who received illustrious artists, leading

financial personages, distinguished writers; but only after subjecting
them to so rigid an examination that the most exclusivearistocrat had

nothing to fear in coming in contact with this second-class society.
The loftiest pretensions were there respected.

During the winter of 1833, when society rallied after the revolution
of July, some salons, notably those of Mesdames d'Espard and de

Listomere, Mademoiselle des Touches, and the Duchesse de Grandlieu,
had selected certain of the celebrities in art, science, literature,

and politics, and received them. Society can lose nothing of its
rights, and it must be amused. At a concert given by Madame de

Montcornet toward the close of the winter of 1833, a man of rising
fame in literature and politics appeared in her salon, brought there