An Historical Mystery - Honoré de Balzac (ebook reader for surface pro txt) 📗

forty years of age very early, but had, so she said, caught up with herself by keeping at that age for twenty years. She revered the nobility; and knew well how to preserve her own dignity by giving to persons of noble birth the respect and deference that were due to them.

This little company was a god-send to Madame d'Hauteserre, who had not, like her husband, rural occupations, nor, like Laurence, the tonic of hatred, to enable her to bear the dulness of a retired life. Many things had happened to ameliorate that life within the last six years. The restoration of Catholic worship allowed the faithful to fulfil their religious duties, which play more of a part in country life than elsewhere. Protected by the conservative edicts of the First Consul, Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre had been able to correspond with their sons, and no longer in dread of what might happen to them could even hope for the erasure of their names from the lists of the proscribed and their consequent return to France. The Treasury had lately made up the arrearages and now paid its dividends promptly; so that the d'Hauteserres received, over and above their annuity, about eight thousand francs a year. The old man congratulated himself on the sagacity of his foresight in having put all his savings, amounting to twenty thousand francs, together with those of his ward, in the public Funds before the 18th Brumaire, which, as we all know, sent those stocks up from twelve to eighteen francs.

The chateau of Cinq-Cygne had long been empty and denuded of furniture. The prudent guardian was careful not to alter its aspect during the revolutionary troubles; but after the peace of Amiens he made a journey to Troyes and brought back various relics of the pillaged mansions which he obtained from the dealers in second-hand furniture. The salon was furnished for the first time since their occupation of the house. Handsome curtains of white brocade with green flowers, from the hotel de Simeuse, draped the six windows of the salon, in which the family were now assembled. The walls of this vast room were entirely of wood, with panels encased in beaded mouldings with masks at the angles; the whole painted in two shades of gray. The spaces over the four doors were filled with those designs, painted in cameo of two colors, which were so much in vogue under Louis XV. Monsieur d'Hauteserre had picked up at Troyes certain gilded pier-tables, a sofa in green damask, a crystal chandelier, a card-table of marquetry, among other things that served him to restore the chateau. In 1792 all the furniture of the house had been taken or destroyed, for the pillage of the mansions in town was imitated in the valley. Each time that the old man went to Troyes he returned with some relic of the former splendor, sometimes a fine carpet for the floor of the salon, at other times part of a dinner service, or a bit of rare old porcelain of either Sevres or Dresden. During the last six months he had ventured to dig up the family silver, which the cook had buried in the cellar of a little house belonging to him at the end of one of the long faubourgs in Troyes.

That faithful servant, named Durieu, and his wife had followed the fortunes of their young mistress. Durieu was the factotum of the chateau, and his wife was the housekeeper. He was helped in the cooking by the sister of Catherine, Laurence's maid, to whom he was teaching his art and who gave promise of becoming an excellent cook. An old gardener, his wife, a son paid by the day, and a daughter who served as a dairy-woman, made up the household. Madame Durieu had lately and secretly had the Cinq-Cygne liveries made for the gardener's son and for Gothard. Though blamed for this imprudence by Monsieur d'Hauteserre, the housekeeper took great pleasure in seeing the dinner served on the festival of Saint-Laurence, the countess's fete-day, with almost as much style as in former times.

This slow and difficult restoration of departed things was the delight of Monsieur and Madame d'Hauteserre and the Durieus. Laurence smiled at what she thought nonsense. But the worthy old d'Hauteserre did not forget the more solid matters; he repaired the buildings, put up the walls, planted trees wherever there was a chance to make them grow, and did not leave an inch of unproductive land. The whole valley regarded him as an oracle in the matter of agriculture. He had managed to recover a hundred acres of contested land, not sold as national property, being in some way confounded with that of the township. This land he had turned into fields which afforded good pasturage for his horses and cattle, and he planted them round with poplars, which now, at the end of six years, were making a fine growth. He intended to buy back some of the lost estate, and to utilize all the out-buildings of the chateau by making a second farm and managing it himself.

Life at the chateau had thus become during the last two years prosperous and almost happy. Monsieur d'Hauteserre was off at daybreaks to overlook his laborers, for he employed them in all weathers. He came home to breakfast, mounted his farm pony as soon as the meal was over, and made his rounds of the estate like a bailiff,--getting home in time for dinner, and finishing the day with a game of boston. All the inhabitants of the chateau had their stated occupations; life was as closely regulated there as in a convent. Laurence alone disturbed its even tenor by her sudden journeys, her uncertain returns, and by what Madame d'Hauteserre called her pranks. But with all this peacefulness there existed at Cinq-Cygne conflicting interests and certain causes of dissension. In the first place Durieu and his wife were jealous of Catherine and Gothard, who lived in greater intimacy with their young mistress, the idol of the household, than they did. Then the two d'Hauteserres, encouraged by Mademoiselle Goujet and the abbe, wanted their sons as well as the Simeuse brothers to take the oath and return to this quiet life, instead of living miserably in foreign countries. Laurence scouted the odious compromise and stood firmly for the monarchy, militant and implacable. The four old people, anxious that their present peaceful existence should not be risked, nor their spot of refuge, saved from the furious waters of the revolutionary torrent, lost, did their best to convert Laurence to their cautious views, believing that her influence counted for much in the unwillingness of their sons and the Simeuse twins to return to France. The superb disdain with which she met the project frightened these poor people, who were not mistaken in their fears that she was meditating what they called knight-errantry. This jarring of opinion came to the surface after the explosion of the infernal machine in the rue Saint-Nicaise, the first royalist attempt against the conqueror of Marengo after his refusal to treat with the house of Bourbon. The d'Hauteserres considered it fortunate that Bonaparte escaped that danger, believing that the republicans had instigated it. But Laurence wept with rage when she heard he was safe. Her despair overcame her usual reticence, and she vehemently complained that God had deserted the sons of Saint-Louis.

"I," she exclaimed, "I could have succeeded! Have we no right," she added, seeing the stupefaction her words produced on the faces about her, and addressing the abbe, "no right to attack the usurper by every means in our power?"

"My child," replied the abbe, "the Church has been greatly blamed by philosophers for declaring in former times that the same weapons might be employed against usurpers which the usurpers themselves had employed to succeed; but in these days the Church owes far too much to the First Consul not to protect him against that maxim,--which, by the by, was due to the Jesuits."

"So the Church abandons us!" she answered, gloomily.

From that day forth whenever the four old people talked of submitting to the decrees of Providence, Laurence left the room. Of late, the abbe, shrewder than Monsieur d'Hauteserre, instead of discussing principles, drew pictures of the material advantages of the consular rule, less to convert the countess than to detect in her eyes some expression which might enlighten him as to her projects. Gothard's frequent disappearances, the long rides of his mistress, and her evident preoccupation, which, for the last few days, had appeared in her face, together with other little signs not to be hidden in the silence and tranquillity of such a life, had roused the fears of these submissive royalists. Still, as no event happened, and perfect quiet appeared to reign in the political atmosphere, the minds of the little household were soothed into peace, and the countess's long rides were one more attributed to her passion for hunting.

It is easy to imagine the deep silence which reigned at nine o'clock in the evening in the park, courtyards, and gardens of Cinq-Cygne, where at that particular moment the persons we have described were harmoniously grouped, where perfect peace pervaded all things, where comfort and abundance were again enjoyed, and where the worthy and judicious old gentleman was still hoping to convert his late ward to his system of obedience to the ruling powers by the argument of what we may call the continuity of prosperous results.

These royalists continued to play their boston, a game which spread ideas of independence under a frivolous form over the whole of France; for it was first invented in honor of the American insurgents, its very terms applying to the struggle which Louis XVI. encouraged. While making their "independences" and "poverties," the players kept an eye on the countess, who had fallen asleep, overcome by fatigue, with a singular smile on her lips, her last waking thought having been of the terror two words could inspire in the minds of the peaceful company by informing the d'Hauteserres that their sons had passed the preceding night under that roof. What young girl of twenty-three would not have been, as Laurence was, proud to play the part of Destiny? and who would not have felt, as she did, a sense of compassion for those whom she felt to be so far below her in loyalty?

"She sleeps," said the abbe. "I have never seen her so wearied."

"Durieu tells me her mare is almost foundered," remarked Madame d'Hauteserre. "Her gun has not been fired; the breech is clean; she has evidently not hunted."

"Oh! that's neither here nor there," said the abbe.

"Bah?" cried Mademoiselle Goujet; "when I was twenty-three and saw I should be an old maid all my life, I rushed about and fatigued myself in a dozen ways. I understand how the countess can scour the country for hours without thinking of the game. It is nearly twelve years now since she has seen her cousins, and you know she loves them. Well, if I were she, if I were as young and pretty, I'd make a straight line for Germany! Poor darling, perhaps she is thinking of the frontier, and that may be the reason why she rides so far towards it."

"You are rather giddy, Mademoiselle Goujet," said the abbe, smiling.

"Not at all," she replied. "I see you all uneasy about the goings on of a young girl, and I am explaining them to you."

"Her cousins will submit and return soon; they will all be rich, and she will end by calming down," said old d'Hauteserre.

"God grant it!" said his wife, taking out a gold snuff-box which had again seen the light under the Consulate.

"There is something stirring