The news of Mademoiselle Cormon’s choice stabbed poor Athanase Granson to the heart; but he showed no outward sign of the terrible agitation¹ within him. When he first heard of the marriage he was at the house of the chief-justice, du Ronceret, where his mother was playing boston. Madame Granson looked at her son in a mirror, and thought him pale; but he had been so all day, for a vague rumor² of the matter had already reached him.  
Mademoiselle Cormon was the card on which Athanase had staked his life; and the cold presentiment³ of a catastrophe⁴ was already upon him. When the soul and the imagination have magnified a misfortune and made it too heavy for the shoulders and the brain to bear; when a hope long cherished, the realization⁵ of which would pacify⁶ the vulture feeding on the heart, is balked⁷, and the man has faith neither in himself, despite his powers, nor in the future, despite of the Divine power,—then that man is lost. Athanase was a fruit of the Imperial system of education. Fatality⁸, the Emperor’s religion, had filtered down from the throne to the lowest ranks of the army and the benches of the lyceums. Athanase sat still, with his eyes fixed⁹ on Madame du Ronceret’s cards, in a stupor¹⁰ that might so well pass for indifference¹¹ that Madame Granson herself was deceived about his feelings. This apparent unconcern explained her son’s refusal to make a sacrifice for this marriage of his liberal opinions,—the term “liberal” having lately been created for the Emperor Alexander by, I think, Madame de Stael, through the lips of Benjamin Constant.
 
After that fatal evening the young man took to rambling¹² among the picturesque¹³ regions of the Sarthe, the banks of which are much frequented by sketchers who come to Alencon for points of view. Windmills are there, and the river is gay in the meadows. The shores of the Sarthe are bordered with beautiful trees, well grouped. Though the landscape is flat, it is not without those modest graces which distinguish France, where the eye is never wearied by the brilliancy of Oriental skies, nor saddened by constant fog. The place is solitary¹⁴. In the provinces no one pays much attention to a fine view, either because provincials¹⁵ are blases on the beauty around them, or because they have no poesy in their souls. If there exists in the provinces a mall, a promenade¹⁷, a vantage-ground from which a fine view can be obtained, that is the point to which no one goes. Athanase was fond of this solitude¹⁹, enlivened by the sparkling water, where the fields were the first to green under the earliest smiling of the springtide sun. Those persons who saw him sitting beneath a poplar, and who noticed the vacant eye which he turned to them, would say to Madame Granson:—
 
“Something is the matter with your son.”
 
“I know what it is,” the mother would reply; hinting that he was meditating²⁰ over some great work.
 
Athanase no longer took part in politics: he ceased to have opinions; but he appeared at times quite gay,—gay with the satire²¹ of those who think to insult a whole world with their own individual scorn. This young man, outside of all the ideas and all the pleasures of the provinces, interested few persons; he was not even an object of curiosity. If persons spoke²² of him to his mother, it was for her sake, not his. There was not a single soul in Alencon that sympathized with his; not a woman, not a friend came near to dry his tears; they dropped into the Sarthe. If the gorgeous Suzanne had happened that way, how many young miseries²³ might have been born of the meeting! for the two would surely have loved each other.
 
She did come, however. Suzanne’s ambition was early excited by the tale of a strange adventure which had happened at the tavern²⁴ of the More,—a tale which had taken possession of her childish brain. A Parisian woman, beautiful as the angels, was sent by Fouche to entangle²⁵ the Marquis de Montauran, otherwise called “The Gars,” in a love-affair (see “The Chouans”). She met him at the tavern of the More on his return from an expedition to Mortagne; she cajoled him, made him love her, and then betrayed him. That fantastic power—the power of beauty over mankind; in fact, the whole story of Marie de Verneuil and the Gars—dazzled Suzanne; she longed to grow up in order to play upon men. Some months after her hasty departure she passed through her native town with an artist on his way to Brittany. She wanted to see Fougeres, where the adventure of the Marquis de Montauran culminated²⁶, and to stand upon the scene of that picturesque war, the tragedies of which, still so little known, had filled her childish mind. Besides this, she had a fancy to pass through Alencon so elegantly equipped that no one could recognize her; to put her mother above the reach of necessity, and also to send to poor Athanase, in a delicate manner, a sum of money,—which in our age is to genius what in the middle ages was the charger and the coat of mail that Rebecca conveyed to Ivanhoe.
 
One month passed away in the strangest uncertainties²⁸ respecting the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon. A party of unbelievers denied the marriage altogether; the believers, on the other hand, affirmed it. At the end of two weeks, the faction²⁹ of unbelief received a vigorous blow in the sale of du Bousquier’s house to the Marquis de Troisville, who only wanted a simple establishment in Alencon, intending to go to Paris after the death of the Princess Scherbellof; he proposed to await that inheritance in retirement³⁰, and then to reconstitute his estates. This seemed positive. The unbelievers, however, were not crushed. They declared that du Bousquier, married or not, had made an excellent sale, for the house had only cost him twenty-seven thousand francs. The believers were depressed³¹ by this practical observation of the incredulous. Choisnel, Mademoiselle Cormon’s notary³², asserted the latter, had heard nothing about the marriage contract; but the believers, still firm in their faith, carried off, on the twentieth day, a signal victory: Monsieur Lepressoir, the notary of the liberals, went to Mademoiselle Cormon’s house, and the contract was signed.
 
This was the first of the numerous sacrifices which Mademoiselle Cormon was destined³³ to make to her husband. Du Bousquier bore the deepest hatred³⁴ to Choisnel; to him he owed the refusal of the hand of Mademoiselle Armande,—a refusal which, as he believed, had influenced that of Mademoiselle Cormon. This circumstance alone made the marriage drag along. Mademoiselle received several anonymous³⁵ letters. She learned, to her great astonishment³⁶, that Suzanne was as truly a virgin³⁷ as herself so far as du Bousquier was concerned, for that seducer³⁸ with the false toupet could never be the hero of any such adventure. Mademoiselle Cormon disdained³⁹ anonymous letters; but she wrote to Suzanne herself, on the ground of enlightening the Maternity⁴⁰ Society. Suzanne, who had no doubt heard of du Bousquier’s proposed marriage, acknowledged her trick, sent a thousand francs to the society, and did all the harm she could to the old purveyor⁴¹. Mademoiselle Cormon convoked⁴² the Maternity Society, which held a special meeting at which it was voted that the association would not in future assist any misfortunes about to happen, but solely⁴³ those that had happened.
 
In spite of all these various events which kept the town in the choicest gossip, the banns were published in the churches and at the mayor’s office. Athanase prepared the deeds. As a matter of propriety⁴⁴ and public decency⁴⁵, the bride retired⁴⁶ to Prebaudet, where du Bousquier, bearing sumptuous⁴⁷ and horrible bouquets⁴⁸, betook himself every morning, returning home for dinner.
 
At last, on a dull and rainy morning in June, the marriage of Mademoiselle Cormon and the Sieur du Bousquier took place at noon in the parish church of Alencon, in sight of the whole town. The bridal pair went from their own house to the mayor’s office, and from the mayor’s office to the church in an open caleche, a magnificent vehicle for Alencon, which du Bousquier had sent for secretly to Paris. The loss of the old carriole was a species of calamity⁴⁹ in the eyes of the community. The harness-maker of the Porte de Seez bemoaned⁵⁰ it, for he lost the fifty francs a year which it cost in repairs. Alencon saw with alarm the possibility of luxury being thus introduced into the town. Every one feared a rise in the price of rents and provisions, and a coming invasion of Parisian furniture. Some persons were sufficiently⁵¹ pricked⁵² by curiosity to give ten sous to Jacquelin to allow them a close inspection⁵³ of the vehicle which threatened to upset the whole economy of the region. A pair of horses, bought in Normandie, were also most alarming.
 
“If we bought our own horses,” said the Ronceret circle, “we couldn’t sell them to those who come to buy.”
 
Stupid as it was, this reasoning seemed sound; for surely such a course would prevent the region from grasping the money of foreigners. In the eyes of the provinces wealth consisted less in the rapid turning over of money than in sterile⁵⁴ accumulation. It may be mentioned here that Penelope succumbed⁵⁵ to a pleurisy which she acquired about six weeks before the marriage; nothing could save her.
 
Madame Granson, Mariette, Madame du Coudrai, Madame du Ronceret, and through them the whole town, remarked that Madame du Bousquier entered the church with her left foot,—an omen¹⁸ all the more dreadful because the term Left was beginning to acquire a political meaning. The priest whose duty it was to read the opening formula opened his book by chance at the De Profundis. Thus the marriage was accompanied by circumstances so fateful, so alarming, so annihilating⁵⁶ that no one dared to augur⁵⁷ well of it. Matters, in fact, went from bad to worse. There was no wedding party; the married pair departed immediately for Prebaudet. Parisian customs, said the community, were about to triumph over time-honored provincial¹⁶ ways.
 
The marriage of Jacquelin and Josette now took place: it was gay; and they were the only two persons in Alencon who refuted the sinister⁵⁸ prophecies relating to the marriage of their mistress.
 
Du Bousquier determined⁵⁹ to use the proceeds of the sale of his late residence in restoring and modernizing⁶⁰ the hotel Cormon. He decided⁶¹ to remain through two seasons at Prebaudet, and took the Abbe de Sponde with them. This news spread terror through the town, where every individual felt that du Bousquier was about to drag the community into the fatal path of “comfort.” This fear increased when the inhabitants of Alencon saw the bridegroom driving in from Prebaudet one morning to inspect his works, in a fine tilbury drawn⁶³ by a new horse, having Rene at his side in livery. The first act of his administration had been to place his wife’s savings⁶⁴ on the Grand-Livre, which was then quoted at 67 fr. 50 cent. In the space of one year, during which he played constantly for a rise, he made himself a personal fortune almost as considerable as that of his wife.
 
But all these foreboding prophecies, these perturbing⁶⁵ innovations, were superseded⁶⁶ and surpassed by an event connected with this marriage which gave a still more fatal aspect to it.
 
On the very evening of the ceremony, Athanase and his mother were sitting, after their dinner, over a little fire of fagots, which the servant lighted usually at dessert.
 
“Well, we will go this evening to the du Roncerets’, inasmuch as we have lost Mademoiselle Cormon,” said Madame Granson. “Heavens! how shall I ever accustom⁶⁷ myself to call her Madame du Bousquier! that name burns my lips.”
 
Athanase looked at his mother with a constrained⁶⁸ and melancholy⁶⁹ air; he could not smile; but he seemed to wish to welcome that naive⁷⁰ sentiment which soothed⁷¹ his wound, though it could not cure his anguish⁷².
 
“Mamma,” he said, in the voice of his childhood, so tender was it, and using the name he had abandoned for several years,—“my dear mamma, do not let us go out just yet; it is so pleasant here before the fire.”
 
The mother heard, without comprehending, that supreme⁷³ prayer of a mortal sorrow.
 
“Yes, let us stay, my child,” she said. “I like much better to talk with you and listen to your projects than to play at boston and lose my money.”
 
“You are so handsome to-night I love to look at you. Besides, I am in a current of ideas which harmonize with this poor little salon⁷⁴ where we have suffered so much.”
 
“And where we shall still suffer, my poor Athanase, until your works succeed. For myself, I am trained to poverty; but you, my treasure! to see your youth go by without a joy! nothing but toil⁷⁵ for my poor boy in life! That thought is like an illness to a mother; it tortures me at night; it wakes me in the morning. O God! what have I done? for what crime dost thou punish me thus?”
 
She left her sofa, took a little chair, and sat close to Athanase, so as to lay her head on the bosom⁷⁶ of her child. There is always the grace of love in true motherhood. Athanase kissed her on the eyes, on her gray hair, on her forehead, with the sacred desire of laying his soul wherever he applied⁷⁸ his lips.
 
“I shall never succeed,” he said, trying to deceive his mother as to the fatal resolution he was revolving⁷⁹ in his mind.
 
“Pooh! don’t get discouraged. As you often say, thought can do all things. With ten bottles of ink, ten reams of paper, and his powerful will, Luther upset all Europe. Well, you’ll make yourself famous; you will do good things by the same means which he used to do evil things. Haven’t you said so yourself? For my part, I listen to you; I understand you a great deal more than you think I do,—for I still bear you in my bosom, and your every thought still stirs me as your slightest motion did in other days.”
 
“I shall never succeed here, mamma; and I don’t want you to witness the sight of my struggles, my misery⁸⁰, my anguish. Oh, mother, let me leave Alencon! I want to suffer away from you.”
 
“And I wish to be at your side,” replied his mother, proudly. “Suffer without your mother!—that poor mother who would be your servant if necessary; who will efface⁸¹ herself rather than injure you; your mother, who will never shame you. No, no, Athanase; we must not part.”
 
Athanase clung to his mother with the ardor⁸² of a dying man who clings to life.
 
“But I wish it, nevertheless. If not, you will lose me; this double grief, yours and mine, is killing⁸³ me. You would rather I lived than died?”
 
Madame Granson looked at her son with a haggard eye.
 
“So this is what you have been brooding?” she said. “They told me right. Do you really mean to go?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“You will not go without telling me; without warning me? You must have an outfit⁸⁴ and money. I have some louis sewn into my petticoat; I shall give them to you.”
 
Athanase wept.
 
“That’s all I wanted to tell you,” he said. “Now I’ll take you to the du Roncerets’. Come.”
 
The mother and the son went out. Athanase left his mother at the door of the house where she intended to pass the evening. He looked long at the light which came through the shutters⁸⁵; he clung closely to the wall, and a frenzied⁸⁶ joy came over him when he presently heard his mother say, “He has great independence of heart.”
 
“Poor mother! I have deceived her,” he cried, as he made his way to the Sarthe.
 
He reached the noble poplar beneath which he had meditated⁸⁷ so much for the last forty days, and where he had placed two heavy stones on which he now sat down. He contemplated⁸⁸ that beautiful nature lighted by the moon; he reviewed once more the glorious future he had longed for; he passed through towns that were stirred by his name; he heard the applauding crowds; he breathed the incense⁸⁹ of his fame; he adored that life long dreamed of; radiant, he sprang to radiant triumphs; he raised his stature⁹⁰; he evoked⁹¹ his illusions to bid them farewell in a last Olympic feast. The magic had been potent⁹² for a moment; but now it vanished forever. In that awful hour he clung to the beautiful tree to which, as to a friend, he had attached himself; then he put the two stones into the pockets of his overcoat, which he buttoned across his breast. He had come intentionally⁹³ without a hat. He now went to the deep pool he had long selected, and glided⁹⁴ into it resolutely⁹⁵, trying to make as little noise as possible, and, in fact, making scarcely any.
 
When, at half-past nine o’clock, Madame Granson returned home, her servant said nothing of Athanase, but gave her a letter. She opened it and read these few words,—
 
“My good mother, I have departed; don’t be angry with me.”
 
“A pretty trick he has played me!” she thought. “And his linen⁹⁶! and the money! Well, he will write to me, and then I’ll follow him. These poor children think they are so much cleverer than their fathers and mothers.”
 
And she went to bed in peace.
 
During the preceding morning the Sarthe had risen to a height foreseen by the fisherman. These sudden rises of muddy water brought eels⁹⁷ from their various runlets. It so happened that a fisherman had spread his net at the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believing that no one would ever find him. About six o’clock in the morning the man drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends of the poor mother took every precaution in preparing her to receive the dreadful remains⁹⁸. The news of this suicide made, as may well be supposed, a great excitement in Alencon. The poor young man of genius had no protector the night before, but on the morrow of his death a thousand voices cried aloud, “I would have helped him.” It is so easy and convenient to be charitable gratis⁹⁹!
 
The suicide was explained by the Chevalier de Valois. He revealed, in a spirit of revenge, the artless, sincere, and genuine love of Athanase for Mademoiselle Cormon. Madame Granson, enlightened by the chevalier, remembered a thousand little circumstances which confirmed the chevalier’s statement. The story then became touching¹⁰⁰, and many women wept over it. Madame Granson’s grief was silent, concentrated, and little understood. There are two forms of mourning for mothers. Often the world can enter fully¹⁰¹ into the nature of their loss: their son, admired, appreciated, young, perhaps handsome, with a noble path before him, leading to fortune, possibly to fame, excites universal regret; society joins in the grief, and alleviates¹⁰² while it magnifies it. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what their child was really; who alone have received his smiles and observed the treasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe¹⁰³, the blackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot be described; happily there are but few women whose heart-strings are thus severed¹⁰⁴.
 
Before Madame du Bousquier returned to town, Madame du Ronceret, one of her good friends, had driven out to Prebaudet to fling this corpse¹⁰⁵ upon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, and sweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridal month. As Madame du Bousquier drove back to Alencon, she chanced to meet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue⁷⁷ Val-Noble. The glance of the mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman. A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in that look: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted and called down evil upon her head.
 
The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the persons most opposed to the rector of the town, and who had hitherto supported the minister of Saint-Leonard, began to tremble as she thought of the inflexible¹⁰⁶ Catholic doctrines¹⁰⁷ professed¹⁰⁸ by her own party. After placing her son’s body in its shroud¹⁰⁹ with her own hands, thinking of the mother of the Saviour¹¹⁰, she went, with a soul convulsed by anguish, to the house of the hated rector. There she found the modest priest in an outer room, engaged in putting away the flax and yarns¹¹¹ with which he supplied poor women, in order that they might never be wholly out of work,—a form of charity which saved many who were incapable¹¹² of begging from actual penury¹¹³. The rector left his yarns and hastened to take Madame Granson into his dining-room, where the wretched mother noticed, as she looked at his supper, the frugal¹¹⁴ method of his own living.
 
“Monsieur l’abbe,” she said, “I have come to implore¹¹⁵ you—” She burst into tears, unable to continue.
 
“I know what brings you,” replied the saintly man. “I must trust to you, madame, and to your relation, Madame du Bousquier, to pacify Monseigneur the Bishop¹¹⁶ at Seez. Yes, I will pray for your unhappy child; yes, I will say the masses. But we must avoid all scandal, and give no opportunity for evil-judging persons to assemble in the church. I alone, without other clergy¹¹⁷, at night—”
 
“Yes, yes, as you think best; if only he may lie in consecrated¹¹⁸ ground,” said the poor mother, taking the priest’s hand and kissing it.
 
Toward midnight a coffin¹¹⁹ was clandestinely¹²⁰ borne to the parish church by four young men, comrades whom Athanase had liked the best. A few friends of Madame Granson, women dressed in black, and veiled, were present; and half a dozen other young men who had been somewhat intimate with this lost genius. Four torches flickered¹²¹ on the coffin, which was covered with crape. The rector, assisted by one discreet¹²² choirboy, said the mortuary mass. Then the body of the suicide was noiselessly carried to a corner of the cemetery¹²³, where a black wooden cross, without inscription¹²⁴, was all that indicated its place hereafter to the mother. Athanase lived and died in shadow. No voice was raised to blame the rector; the bishop kept silence. The piety¹²⁵ of the mother redeemed¹²⁶ the impiety¹²⁷ of the son’s last act.
 
Some months later, the poor woman, half beside herself with grief, and moved by one of those inexplicable¹²⁸ thirsts which misery feels to steep its lips in the bitter chalice¹²⁹, determined to see the spot where her son was drowned. Her instinct may have told her that thoughts of his could be recovered beneath that poplar; perhaps, too, she desired to see what his eyes had seen for the last time. Some mothers would die of the sight; others give themselves up to it in saintly adoration¹³⁰. Patient anatomists of human nature cannot too often enunciate¹³² the truths before which all educations, laws, and philosophical¹³³ systems must give way. Let us repeat continually: it is absurd to force sentiments into one formula: appearing as they do, in each individual man, they combine with the elements that form his nature and take his own physiognomy.
 
Madame Granson, as she stood on that fatal spot, saw a woman approach it, who exclaimed,—
 
“Was it here?”
 
That woman wept as the mother wept. It was Suzanne. Arriving that morning at the hotel du More, she had been told of the catastrophe. If poor Athanase had been living, she meant to do as many noble souls, who are moneyless, dream of doing, and as the rich never think of doing,—she meant to have sent him several thousand francs, writing up the envelope the words: “Money due to your father from a comrade who makes restitution¹³⁴ to you.” This tender scheme had been arranged by Suzanne during her journey.
 
The courtesan caught sight of Madame Granson and moved rapidly away, whispering as she passed her, “I loved him!”
 
Suzanne, faithful to her nature, did not leave Alencon on this occasion without changing the orange-blossoms of the bride to rue. She was the first to declare that Madame du Bousquier would never be anything but Mademoiselle Cormon. With one stab of her tongue she revenged poor Athanase and her dear chevalier.
 
Alencon now witnessed a suicide that was slower and quite differently pitiful from that of poor Athanase, who was quickly forgotten by society, which always makes haste to forget its dead. The poor Chevalier de Valois died in life; his suicide was a daily occurrence for fourteen years. Three months after the du Bousquier marriage society remarked, not without astonishment, that the linen of the chevalier was frayed¹³⁵ and rusty¹³⁶, that his hair was irregularly combed and brushed. With a frowsy head the Chevalier de Valois could no longer be said to exist! A few of his ivory teeth deserted¹³⁷, though the keenest observers of human life were unable to discover to what body they had hitherto belonged, whether to a foreign legion or whether they were indigenous¹³⁸, vegetable or animal; whether age had pulled them from the chevalier’s mouth, or whether they were left forgotten in the drawer of his dressing-table. The cravat¹³⁹ was crooked¹⁴⁰, indifferent to elegance¹⁴¹. The negroes’ heads grew pale with dust and grease. The wrinkles of the face were blackened and puckered¹⁴²; the skin became parchment. The nails, neglected, were often seen, alas¹⁴³! with a black velvet¹⁴⁴ edging. The waistcoat was tracked and stained with droppings which spread upon its surface like autumn leaves. The cotton in the ears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned¹⁴⁵ upon that brow, and slipped its yellowing tints¹⁴⁶ into the depths of each furrow¹⁴⁷. In short, the ruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the cracks and crevices¹⁴⁸ of that fine edifice¹⁴⁹, and proved the power of the soul over the body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young blood, died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier was ever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch¹⁵⁰, nor an amber¹⁵¹ drop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared¹⁵² with tobacco around the nostrils¹⁵³, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the natural gutter¹⁵⁴ placed between itself and the upper lip,—that nose, which no longer cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which the chevalier had formerly¹⁵⁵ taken with his person, and made observers comprehend, by the extent of its degradation¹⁵⁶, the greatness and persistence¹⁵⁷ of the man’s designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon.
 
Alas, too, the anecdotes¹⁵⁸ went the way of the teeth; the clever sayings grew rare. The appetite, however, remained; the old nobleman saved nothing but his stomach from the wreck¹⁵⁹ of his hopes; though he languidly prepared his pinches of snuff, he ate alarming dinners. Perhaps you will more fully understand the disaster that this marriage was to the mind and heart of the chevalier when you learn that his intercourse¹⁶⁰ with the Princess Goritza became less frequent.
 
One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande’s salon with the calf¹⁶¹ of his leg on the shin-bone. This bankruptcy¹⁶² of the graces was, I do assure you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The late young man had become an old one; this human being, who, by the breaking-down of his spirit, had passed at once from fifty to ninety years of age, frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; he had waited and watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patient hunter, adjusted his aim for ten whole years, and finally had missed the game! In short, the impotent Republic had won the day from Valiant¹⁶³ Chivalry¹⁶⁴, and that, too, under the Restoration! Form triumphed; mind was vanquished¹⁶⁵ by matter, diplomacy¹⁶⁶ by insurrection. And, O final blow! a mortified¹⁶⁷ grisette revealed the secret of the chevalier’s mornings, and he now passed for a libertine¹⁶⁸. The liberals cast at his door all the foundlings hitherto attributed to du Bousquier. But the faubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon accepted them proudly: it even said, “That poor chevalier, what else could he do?” The faubourg pitied him, gathered him closer to their circle, and brought back a few rare smiles to his face; but frightful¹⁶⁹ enmity was piled upon the head of du Bousquier. Eleven persons deserted the Cormon salon, and passed to that of the d’Esgrignons.
 
The old maid’s marriage had a signal effect in def............