Chapter II (4)

"I do not understand much about these things," replied the Prince of Augsbourg, after having glanced at the bundle of proofs, "but all this seems to me very good." He glanced through them again more slowly, stopping at certain passages that he recognized, and, a detail that Alfred was surprised to note, his face grew visibly more sombre. This made his resemblance to his grandfather much more striking. One would have said that to hold in his hand this book, which was, in a measure, his production since he had kept the memorialist at work at his own expense during the past two years, was more than painful to him. At last he returned the sheets to the young man, saying: "Yes, that is very good--but perhaps you will have to add some notes to it. Yes," he continued after a moment's hesitation, "I received a letter this morning informing me that certain documents will be placed at my disposal. I shall have to go to Paris to fetch them. I have come to ask you to accompany me--Thanks," he went on as Alfred Boyer nodded assent, "I did not doubt that you would be willing to come--" He hesitated again, then with an effort he added: "Doubtless you have heard something about the Duchesse d'Ivrea."

"The Duchesse d'Ivrea?" repeated the young man. "I thought that title was one of those belonging to the Princess of Augsbourg."

"It is borne by the widow of my younger brother," interrupted the colonel, who added in a singular tone: "You are right. All the titles of the family should belong to the eldest, but my uncle was formerly called the Duc d'Ivrea, and my brother naturally took the same title. I am surprised at your not knowing this, after having been busy with the marshal, as you have, for almost twenty months. It is true," and a bitter smile curled his lips, "that, compared with him, we are scarcely interesting. And then my brother and I had not visited each other, and I do not know his wife. That is why I never mentioned her to you. She is very ill, she informs me--given up by her physicians, in fact. She wishes to deliver into my hands some family papers left in her keeping by my brother. I can rely on you, then. The most interesting part of them is a correspondence with Moreau during the latter's sojourn in America. You know that the marshal made a campaign with him in Holland. He foresaw his failure and wished to prevent it. These letters were offered for sale some years ago. They got them away from me because they were wealthier than I, but now they wish to return them to me, and it is right that they should. We should find a place for them in the second volume. That will mean a great deal of revising, but it is worth the trouble. I shall leave you now, as I have many orders to attend to. We shall start this evening." ...

While making his preparations after this interview, Alfred Boyer could not shake off an impression, that, vague as it was and without foundation, seemed to him a certainty. This visit to his sister-in-law was costing the Prince very dear. There was a mystery in their relations, and a very painful one. Whence came this rupture, and what were its causes, so profound that not the slightest mention of a Duchess d'Ivrea had ever been made either by the Prince or by any of his five daughters? Not one of them bore this name; they were called simply the Frédets of Augsbourg. What had happened between the two brothers? Had this rupture preceded the marriage? Or had that event been the cause of it?

All these questions presented themselves to the young man's mind without his having the faintest inkling as to their solution. During the long months of his sojourn he had not established relations with any one among the few country families in the neighborhood of Combes.

Moreover, he would have considered himself unworthy of the confidence that his patron had shown him from the very first, opening his archives to him, letting him live in complete intimacy with his household, if he had made any inquiries about the Frédets. From the moment that there was a question of some family secret, to start a conversation on this subject with the old relative who acted as housekeeper would have been as impossible as to try and make one of the young girls talk about it. He knew no more of the affair when the day after the conversation the Prince and he arrived in Paris than he did on the preceding evening. During the journey he had noted the increasing preoccupation of his companion, who, when they reached the station, said to him: "I do not know as yet where we shall put up. Let us take a cab and we will stop at some lodging-house. I used to know a place in the Rue de Bourgogne, in the neighborhood of the Chamber of Deputies. We will be near the Rue de Grenelle, where our business is. The d'Ivrea house is the same that the marshal lived in under the Empire."

"Next door to the house of the Duc de Feltré?" returned Alfred Boyer. "It was only three days ago that I was transcribing the page on which he relates their meeting on the sidewalk in front of their houses on his return from Waterloo, and his refusal to return the Duc's salutation. How finely the passage concludes: 'Perhaps it was not just,' he writes, 'but at that time every French officer who had not fought at Waterloo filled me with horror. I should add that if the Duc de Feltré deserted us, at least it was not, as in so many other cases, for money. He was my friend, and I attest that I have always known him to be an upright man with clean hands.'

"Upright and with clean hands," repeated the Prince. "Yes, those were his words; I recall them, too. That might have been his own device, do you not think so? My brother repurchased the house," he added after a pause. "I do not know how _they_ have furnished it, but the façade should not be changed. It is of the seventeenth century and has the grand style of that period. You shall judge of it yourself this afternoon, for I do not intend to remain here long. I count upon going to the d'Ivrea house in this same cab as soon as we have engaged our apartment in the Rue Bourgogne. You will not leave me--I am not paying a visit to a relative. I have come here to obtain some papers that belong to me by right as the senior. You have been good enough to engage your services as historian for our family until the end of the publication of the 'Mémoires.' Your place, then, is with me."

They had taken their places in the carriage while the ex-colonel was thus formulating the program of a proceeding made the more mysterious by these words, and by the irrevocable determination that they indicated.

During the three-quarters of an hour that it took them to reach the Rue de Bourgogne, where the lodging-house stood, and then the Rue de Grenelle, they were silent, the Prince absorbed in his thoughts, and the young man out of respect for a sadness of which he divined the cause, without being able to determine its precise nature. The sadness was changed into an actual contraction of pain when the carriage stopped in front of a high _porte-cochère_, above which could be read this inscription, recently restored, as the brilliancy of the lettering indicated: "Hôtel d'Ivrea." Alfred alighted first and waited before the open door, ready to assist the Prince out of the carriage. The latter did not move. This last effort was almost intolerable to him.

"I thought at first I should send you in my place, my dear Boyer," he said, finally deciding to alight, "but she would not receive you. It is me that she wishes to see. She has adopted the only way, my veneration for the marshal. Let us go in--but it is so hard!"

Never in all those weeks that they had lived almost constantly together had he uttered such intimate sentiments to his companion. His irritation, which he scarcely gave himself the trouble to conceal, increased still more as they crossed the court at the back of which rose the beautiful gray façade he had spoken of, with its high windows and its ample mansard roof pierced with bull's-eyes. Though Alfred Boyer was much moved by the family tragedy, of which the Prince's attitude was an index, he could not but admire the noble aspect of the structure in which the heroic Frédet had thought to find rest. But if the exterior of the ancient house harmonized with the legend of the hero, the interior offered a no less striking contrast to it. The extraordinary excess of gaudy upholstery, the multiplicity of trifling ornaments, and the total absence of real works of art, the petty coquetry of the curtains, everything from the very entrance stairs and the vestibule gave an impression of false luxury and cheap imitation. The walls and ceiling of the salon into which the two men were shown were draped with blue satin, the assorted portières were held up by silver-fringed curtain rings; double curtains of heavy silk and lace veiled the windows. The sumptuous upholstering of the furniture utterly lacking in taste, the overladen garnishment of the mantel capped the climax, and made of this sumptuous apartment an almost questionable place. It fairly reeked with orders from the fashionable draper, of bank bills, and nothing showed personal taste. The abundance of coronets scattered everywhere proclaimed the parvenu. That the woman who ordered such furnishings for the austere mansion should be the Duchesse d'Ivrea was one of those paradoxes of fate that amuse only the unthinking. When one has such a passionate adoration for a hero as the compiler of the "Mémoires" had for the Duc d'Ivrea, such antitheses seemed to be a profanation.

Alfred was not surprised, then, at the visible repugnance shown in the face of the actual bearer of the name and arms of the Frédets during the few moments passed in the salon while they were waiting to be presented. The Prince had sent word by the servant that he was there with the gentleman who had charge of the publication of the marshal's papers.

As if turning his back on this cheap luxury, he had gone and leaned against the window, from which his rude hand had roughly pushed aside the flimsy curtains. He looked out on a narrow garden to which the first shoots of spring were already giving a touch of green, and which was vulgarized by a Japanese kiosk with colored windows. When the servant returned to the room, Alfred could see that the eyes of the sturdy hunter were suffused with tears.

"Well?" he demanded almost imperiously. "Madame la Duchesse is awaiting Monsieur le Prince," was the reply, "but alone; she is too ill this morning to receive two visitors."--"What did I tell you, Boyer!" exclaimed the Prince, not caring whether or not he was heard by the footman. "She wants me to come to pay her a visit, but I have not come with any such intention, and I will not have it so. I came with you to obtain the papers. Let her receive you or not in her bedroom, that is of no importance. You are none the less here in the house, and officially. Wait for me here then. It will not be long." Ten minutes later the irascible nobleman appeared again, holding in his hand a large sealed envelope, which he displayed, saying: "It is the first restitution, and the most important for us: the correspondence with Moreau."

And when they were again in the carriage, rolling toward the Rue Bourgogne: "I must do her this justice," he continued, without giving his sister-in-law her title, "she was quite correct. I found her in bed. I had never seen her, as I have already told you. She has the reputation of having been very beautiful, and she must have been. Though she is worn by sickness, she still has fine features and astonishing eyes. She is dying of cancer of the liver. She knows it; she told me of it. She returned these papers to me very simply, saying that on my next visit she would give me other documents, which she says she must arrange. I am not her dupe; they are all arranged. She wants to prove--though I have not the slightest idea to whom--that the Frédet family recognizes her since the Prince of Augsbourg goes to her house. But the matter is done with. I have the packet necessary for our work. We can start back again for Combes with our booty this evening or to-morrow, and though it is to be regretted that some parts of it are lacking, still they are mere trifles. But let us assure ourselves that we have not been cheated.

"There were thirty-seven letters, according to the catalog of the sale at which they bought them. Good, here we are! we can go upstairs and make sure that the number is correct. Will you take charge of the matter and count them carefully? Thirty-seven--"

When they were both in the apartment, consisting of two little communicating bedrooms, that had been reserved for them, Alfred Boyer's first action was to open the envelope, which was fastened with a seal bearing the escutcheon and device of the Frédets. His historian's heart beat high as he saw that it was not merely a matter of simple notes, but of long letters, some of which covered ten or a dozen pages. He began to count them, drawing them out of the envelope one by one.

He was unfolding the fifteenth when he noticed a smaller envelope, that had been slipped into it. He took it out and read the direction: "For the Prince of Augsbourg." The envelope had not been sealed. He opened it mechanically, thinking that it had some connection with the correspondence. In it was a sheet of paper, again with the crest of the Frédets, on which he read with that swift look that takes in ten lines at a glance:

_"This is my will, which annuls all preceding ones. I constitute as my sole legatee Monsieur Jules Frédet, Prince d'Augsbourg, under the express condition that he shall personally conduct my funeral, that he shall have my body as well as that of my husband deposited in the tomb of the Frédet family, and that I appear as donor of the letters to General Moreau in the forthcoming 'Mémoires' of the marshal. If Monsieur Jules Frédet does not accept this legacy, my will deposited at my notary's shall be valid in place of this. Given under my hand"_--here followed a date and beneath it the signature: "_Duchesse d'Ivrea_."

"Is the count correct?" This question, snapped out by the Prince through the open door from the end of the other room where he had gone to dress, startled the young man. Surely he was quite innocent of all design, and he had no sooner discovered the confidential nature of the paper than he replaced it in its envelope. Nevertheless he had discovered its contents, and it was with cheeks flaming like those of a guilty man that he replied: "I do not know yet, but I have just found this in the correspondence." He had on the tip of his tongue the avowal of his involuntary indiscretion, but false shame restrained him.

"An envelope?" said the Prince. "Addressed to me? It must be some trick she has devised to get a letter to me. If it is a letter I shall tear it up without reading it. Let me see"--he had advanced to the door of the room and began reading aloud: "_This is my_--"

He stopped short. He had turned terribly pale. Alfred saw that his hand clenched over the sheet as if to crush and tear it. Then, folding the paper, he returned it to its envelope and placed it on the mantel under a book, as if it were of no importance. He came back to the door and looked at Alfred, who was already bent over his work, prudently avoiding this look. He seemed to have a question on his lips that he did not put into words. He had stopped while shaving to call out his question. Without saying anything more he finished shaving while Boyer continued to arrange the letters with hands trembling with emotion, and the same emotion shook his voice as he said, finally breaking the silence, when the work was done:

"The thirty-seven letters are here."

"They are all here, eh?" replied the Prince. He was so upset that he did not notice the young man's embarrassment. "You need not begin to examine them until to-morrow morning," he continued. "I give you leave of absence for this afternoon. You have not been in Paris for a long time, and you may have some friends that you wish to look up here. You are at liberty for the rest of the day, but come back at about six o'clock to see if I need you."

He had scarcely reached the sidewalk of the Rue de Bourgogne, when the young man felt so strongly the pangs of remorse at not having confessed his indiscretion that he stood still for several minutes, asking himself whether he should not at once go upstairs and tell the Prince that he had read the will. At the same time he saw that, once in the Prince's presence, it would again be impossible for him to confess.

Not that he feared reproaches for the act itself; he had only done as he had been directed in ascertaining the contents of the envelope, which, moreover, was open. His silence afterward was easily explained by timidity. What now made the avowal so painful was the knowledge that he had surprised the grandson of his hero in a moment of mental anguish. The manner in which the Prince had spoken of his sister-in-law, his attitude at the d'Ivrea house, his gesture when he had taken up the envelope, his first words, then the contraction of his hand over the paper--all these indications combined to reveal an aversion which could not arise from a mere family disagreement, such as is ordinarily dissolved by death, but from a most intense, a most violent contempt. The silence concerning her maintained by the family proved that the aversion was not personal. Why? For what reason had all the elder branch taken such a stand against the marriage of the head of the younger branch? Alfred could no longer doubt that the Duchesse d'Ivrea knew the disposition of her relatives toward her. The method she had adopted to send her will to her brother-in-law sufficiently proved that.

Then why did she make this will? Why should she leave this fortune unreservedly to relatives for whom she ought to have a hatred equal to their own?

Suddenly the terms of this will that he had scarcely looked at--but how could he ever forget its smallest detail?--recurred to the young man's mind. The funeral, conducted officially by the Prince, the place in the family tomb at Père-Lachaise, the name in the "Mémoires" of the marshal--it would be to acknowledge the relationship and the marriage with the Duc d'Ivrea, giving a formal revocation to an ostracism that, doubtless, had lasted many years and exasperated her womanly pride. The Duchess had placed the bargain entirely in the Prince's hands. The figure of the latter actually holding in his hands the paper that formulated this bargain arose before Alfred's mind with the clearness of a perfect image, and again he saw the conflict of the three emotions which his face had expressed: astonishment, anger, hesitation.

The Prince had hesitated. He hesitated still. Alfred, who had gone a few steps in the direction of the Bourbon Palace, stopped a second time to turn back to his lodgings. For a long time his eyes were fastened on the windows of the second floor, behind which a drama of conscience was being enacted of which he would soon know all the details. As yet he could only see facts that were of too doubtful a significance to enable him to form an opinion. "After all," said he, shrugging his shoulders, "it is none of my business. It is for the Prince to decide whether the motives of his antipathy toward his sister-in-law are stronger than his desire to become rich. The episode is worth my little trip to Paris; let us profit by it."

Ever since the now distant time when he had exiled himself in Auvergne until his work should have been finished, in order not to draw upon his savings, he had let slip the bonds of friendship that had united him to many of his comrades in the École de Chartres. Having no parents to visit, he began to think of them, moved thereto, perhaps, by a last remark of his patron. All at once a face and a name stood out in his memory with singular distinctness. Was it not in this very quarter where he now was, in the Rue de l'Université, that one of his most charming classmates lived, Raymond de Contay? He was a young man of high birth, grandson to the famous Duchesse de Contay, who was so well known for her unbounded charity. After making an excellent record as student in the same college with Alfred, and having no desire to be an idler, he had enrolled himself in the École de Chartres. His intention had been to devote himself to historical work.

If Alfred had probed his own motives he would have recognized the fact that the sympathy he had formerly felt for this clever and pleasing youth was not the real cause of the temptation that led him irresistibly to go to his house this very morning in spite of the unusual hour. It was nearly noon. "I hope I will find him." A thought that was not inspired merely by a friendly feeling. The real cause was that Raymond belonged to the most select class. To Alfred, who had no idea of the air-tight partitions that divide the different circles of the various nobilities, this meant that his comrade certainly knew the Duchesse d'Ivrea, or had heard her spoken of by people who knew her. If any one could give him exact information about her it was Contay, and Alfred Boyer felt that he must have this information.

He hungered and thirsted for it, as much as if, instead of being the simple posthumous secretary to the marshal Prince of Augsbourg, the blood of this hero coursed in his own veins, and he had a right to know who bore this title of d'Ivrea, won at the cannon's mouth on the battlefield. Besides, the will stipulated that the Duchess should figure in the "Mémoires" as the donor of the letters to Moreau, and was not his own honor involved in these "Mémoires"? Had he not devoted two precious years of his youth to them? Was he not ready to devote a third, with this recompense as his supreme ambition, that his name as a poor scribbler should one day be linked forever with that of the mighty warrior of the "Grande Armée"? What if this woman, however, who bought a place in the book with the gift of her fortune, had made herself unworthy of the honor by some infamous action? Was such a thing possible? No. The master of Combes professed such a passionate reverence for his grandfather!

That her name should be cited in the "Mémoires," that the Prince should conduct the funeral, that she should be given a place in the tomb of the Frédets--never would he admit it, even for a moment, and even at the price of millions, that these three things could be granted to a person unworthy.

But the Prince had not destroyed the will--then he must have seen some possibility of conforming to it! Yet his sadness and disgust, the tone of voice in which he had spoken of _her_, as he put it, his first movement, his subsequent silence--how were all these contradictory indications to be reconciled? Alfred hastened his steps toward the sole chance of learning the whole truth with a feverish impatience that amounted almost to pain....

Raymond de Contay was at home getting ready to go out to lunch. This was a relief to Boyer, who in his embarrassment suddenly feared that it would look as if he had come, thus early, in order to be asked to stay for luncheon. But his classmate's welcome was so cordial that he had no scruples about suggesting that he should walk with him. As he ascended Raymond's stairs he felt an almost painful apprehension over the means he should employ in his quest. The pretext was furnished to him by his friend, who, not content with asking him about his work, wished to know how he had got along at Combes. Boyer took occasion to sketch in a few words the characters of the Prince, his five daughters, and the maiden aunt. With a lump in his throat at the thought of what he might be about to learn he continued: "This is all I have seen of the family. But there is another branch, the younger, now represented by the Duchesse d'Ivrea"--he looked for a sign of intelligence in his friend's face. "Who is she?"--"The Duchesse d'Ivrea," replied Raymond. "I do not know her."

"But she belongs to your world," said Alfred naively; then giving way to the morbid curiosity that had been goading him on ever since he had read the will, he added: "You surely must know some people who know her. I can not explain the matter to you, but I have a strong interest in knowing why she is at odds with her relatives. The matter concerns the entire future of my work, perhaps. In fact, I ask you as a great service--understand me, a very great service indeed--to try to find out about her for me."

He spoke in so serious a tone, his face expressed so much anxiety, that Raymond was deeply impressed. He thought that probably these "Mémoires of Frédet" had started one of those disagreements between relatives that sometimes prevent for many years the publication of books of this sort.

"If you are so bent upon it," replied his comrade, "I shall try to find out. I am lunching to-day with one of my cousins, who belongs to all the clubs and has Paris at his fingers' ends. If your Duchesse d'Ivrea broke with her family for any reasons that have been talked about, my cousin will know them. I will drop you a line about it this evening, but I do not promise you success. In any event, give me your address."

Although this chance of seeing a little more clearly into the relations that existed between the celebrated marshal's heirs was very dubious, it was a chance, and for the time being the prospect calmed the agitation into which the morning's episode had thrown Boyer. He had a few errands to do relative to his work. He attended to them all carefully, and about six o'clock he found himself at the door of his lodgings in the Rue de Bourgogne. He asked if his patron were in. On the concièrge's reply that the Prince had not gone out during the afternoon, Alfred was again seized with the feverish curiosity of the morning.

Raymond had left no letter for him, from which he concluded that the inquiry of the cousin had been useless, and he ascended the stairs a prey to an uneasiness that reached a climax when he found himself face to face with the Prince. Evidently the unhappy man was at the end of his mental resources. He paced to and fro from one extremity to the other of the two narrow chambers like a wild beast in a cage. The luncheon that he had ordered had not been touched and was still on the table, and at the first glance Alfred could see that the envelope that contained the will had not been moved from its place. It still rested under the book on the marble mantel. It had been beyond the Prince's strength even to touch it. Alas, the temptation had begun to work in him. Alfred had proof of it immediately in the words that were addressed to him as soon as he appeared.

"I have had news from the Rue de Grenelle," said the Prince. "It seems that she has had a severe attack since we left her, and almost succumbed to it. The doctor is not sure that she will live through the day. You see, we did well to come when we did for the letters to Moreau. Apropos of these letters, perhaps it would be well to publish them separately. We will talk it over. What I have been having a day-dream about is a library made up of works concerning the men of the First Empire who had relations with the Prince, all his papers well classified, and all his memoirs, and all of this installed in the d'Ivrea house where we were this morning. I can see the house now, stripped of the tawdry gewgaws that spoil it, and restored to the exact condition in which it was in the marshal's time. It would be very easy--we have the inventories at Combes. I would like to make it a museum to the glory of the "Grande Armée," with rooms consecrated to all the companions in arms whom he loved--a Ney room, a Masséna room, a Davoust room, a Macdonald room--what do you say to this project, my dear Boyer, with you as perpetual curator at some small emolument? Do not say no to it; you deserve the place. Do you imagine that I do not know the difference between purely mercenary work and that which you have devoted to the "Mémoires"? But your devotion shall not be lost. It is a pity that you could not be in Paris with your time your own, all your time, to devote to some great historical work. You shall have it. It is also a pity--do you not think so?--that so many objects of interest in the history of the Empire should be hidden away at Combes and that no one should know them? The portraits, for instance; they must be brought here; they must be--and it is the same with my daughters. I wish them to be here; I wish them to be married--well and happily married." For a long time he continued in this vein without any response from the young man. The Prince busied himself with the future employment of the fortune that had suddenly fallen into his possession, putting almost a kind of fever into his projects. He reveled in anticipatory visions of the noble end to which he would devote his wealth--always provided he accepted it, for his ardor in justifying the acceptance in advance clearly proved that he had not yet decided, as did also the painful hesitation in his voice, in his gestures, in the sound of his footsteps on the floor, and still more in his obstinacy in not returning to the house of his dying sister-in-law. Against what idea was he struggling so violently? Against what apprehension of remorse? Why did this flood of imaginative confidences--since there was no question yet but of possibilities--roll forth while the real confidence, that which concerned the will, never appeared?

Alfred saw the whiteness of the envelope standing out against the gray on the marble mantel, and as he listened his heart became more oppressed with each new phrase, for each was a fresh sign that the Prince considered the acceptance of the conditions contained in that envelope as an indelicacy, worse than that, as a crime. A crime? Against whom? Against whom, if not against this ancestor? What image obsessed him, passing and repassing in all these words? that of the marshal. It was as if by making promises to that great figure he wished to disarm the anger of its shade, to expiate in advance an outrage on its memory that he was about to commit, that he had already committed in not at once spurning a certain offer.

How long might this strange monologue have continued, in which the grandson of the illustrious soldier concealed the fever of a terrible indecision by thinking aloud before a witness whose cognizance of the facts he did not suspect? Would Alfred Boyer have given way to the passionate longing he felt to interrupt this half confession with his own complete confession by crying out to the Prince: "I have read the will!" Would he, on the other hand, have continued to listen to this discourse, seeking to solve an enigma of which the answer had not yet been given?

An incident he had not hoped for suddenly extricated him from his uncertainty, all at once giving frightful distinctness to what had until then been only a vague guess. The servant came to tell him that Monsieur de Contay was waiting to see him.

"I got some information, as I thought I would, from my cousin," said Raymond after the other had flown downstairs four steps at a time in his haste to know. "I was not able to bring it to you before, and I have only a minute." He pointed to the carriage which was waiting for him in the street. "Here it is. The present Duchesse d'Ivrea has never been received, either by the family or by any one else. She was a fast woman, who had formerly been on the stage. She was then called Leona d'Asti. After living a very gay life, she married an old swindler on his deathbed, a confessed thief named Audry, who left her a very large fortune. Once a widow, she married d'Ivrea, a poor devil, who, it seems, had eaten and drunk up everything he had--a most shameful union for one of his name. Now you know as much as I do."...

Next morning, when the Prince of Augsbourg awoke from a sleep broken by all the nightmares by which intense moral anguish pursues us even in our rest, his first glance was toward the ill-fated envelope that his fingers had not touched since he had placed it under the book. Had he been dreaming? Had all the internal tempest of which he had been the victim been a hallucination, a stroke of madness? The envelope was not there. He jumped out of bed and went to the mantel; he lifted up the book. Nothing! Immediately the whole series of events came back to him. No; he had not been mad. The scenes of the preceding day arose in his mind with a certainty that left no room for doubt; his visit to his sister-in-law, his return to his lodgings, Alfred Boyer handing to him the envelope and what had followed, his afternoon spent in struggling against temptation, Alfred's return, then his going out again, the note that the young man had afterward sent him and in which he said that he would dine out with a friend. The Prince had spent the evening alone, eating his heart out over the evil action that had such a horrible attraction for him. He had gone to bed early, without having been able to eat anything, in order to try to forget this ill-fated will, to forget himself. He had heard his neighbor come in about midnight--then all was a blank. He had fallen asleep, and now this mystery, this envelope missing. But how? Stolen--by whom?

He began to dress, a prey to the superstitious fear that sometimes lays hold of the most energetic men in face of an absolutely incomprehensible fact, and little by little his ideas began to coordinate in his mind. Of the two doors of his chamber, one, that which opened upon the stairs, was fastened with a bolt; he had neglected to turn the key on that which led to Alfred Boyer's room. The thief, then, must have come in by that door during his sleep. But he had remained awake until the young man had come in. Suddenly the Prince recalled the latter's face at the time of the discovery of the will; how he had flushed and avoided his eyes. He remembered also the expression on that transparent face while, late in the afternoon, he had been developing those projects, all of which presupposed a change in the condition of his fortune. As in a flash of lightning the whole thing was clear to him. He sank half dressed upon a chair. He sat there motionless, a prey to a tumult of so many contradictory and violent emotions that his whole body trembled; disillusionment as to this fortune, suddenly snatched away, if the young man had actually destroyed the will; shame at having been seen by him, tempted and giving way to the temptation, anger at Alfred's audacity in having interfered, and by what right? Through his veneration for the marshal's memory, remorse that this veneration had been stronger in an outsider than in himself, and, in spite of all, a sort of sorrowful joy at this deliverance, if the will no longer really existed, with its shameful conditions, which were, indeed, less shameful than the origin of ignoble money. Again the d'Ivrea house rose before his mind's eye; he saw the great door hung with black draperies, with his coat-of-arms, the bier upon which that miserable creature, that public woman enriched by a swindler, who had dishonored his brother, should lie, himself behind her conducting this sinister mourning; and the tomb, the tomb! Wildly, as the prisoner who escapes from his cell through broken bars stained with his blood, but sustained, intoxicated by the freedom of liberty, he burst into the room where Alfred sat at his table. His bed had not been disturbed. He had not slept, and his pale face, his burning eyes, betrayed in what agony he had spent the sleepless hours. Ever since he had glided into the Prince's bedroom to take the will and burn it he had been awaiting the terrible moment when his patron should awake, determined this time not to make any denial and to suffer the consequences of his act, whatever they might be.

"Boyer," said the Prince, "when you gave me that envelope yesterday, had you read the paper that it contained?"

"Yes," replied the young man.

"Did you know who the person was that wrote that paper?"

"I have learned since."

"And it was you who destroyed the will?"

"It was I."

"It was you!" cried the Prince; "you!" Then, bursting into sobs: "Let me embrace you and thank you in his name!" and he pointed with his hand to the thin sheets on the table in which was to be recognized the proud, delicate writing of "Catinat of the Grande Armée," of "the Black Lion," as the old soldiers of the First Empire had called him to distinguish him from his brother in arms, Ney, "the Red Lion." Tears streamed down his face, so like that of his glorious ancestor, while he pressed Alfred to his breast, and both of them, the old man and the young, felt that exquisite emotion that floods our souls with melancholy and an almost supernatural serenity when we have paid a sacred debt to the dead.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] "Demi-hipnose," writes Paul Bourget

WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY

BY HENRI LÉON ÉMILE LAVEDAN

_Henri Lavedan stands for the bright side of Parisian life of
to-day--for the witty dialogue and the delicate sentiment. He
has created a language of his own, sound, racy, with all the
abruptness and unexpected drollery of the boulevards._

_He was born at Orléans in 1859, and began his literary career
by contributing to the journals satiric pictures of the manners
and customs of the Paris world. Those written between 1885 and
1892 form a series of chronicles, which he has gathered into
several volumes. Most of his works, however, are written for
the theatre. In 1899 he was elected a member of the Academy._

WHEN HE WAS A LITTLE BOY

BY HENRI LAVEDAN

Translated by Katharine Vincent. Copyright, 1902, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

Madame de Précy said to her husband: "You wish to know what is the matter? Oh! I will tell you, if for a few moments you will condescend to lend me your attention."

In an icy tone he answered: "I will not lend, I will give it to you."

"Well, then, the matter is"--and a trembling voice betrayed her excitement--"that life with you has become unbearable and that I have resolved no longer to try to endure it. You are, I admit, an honorable man, and have, I believe, been a faithful husband. I, on my side, have never forgotten my marriage vows. Here we stand on the same ground. The trouble is that we are uncongenial. Everything I do annoys you, and to me all your ways are insufferable. What I say always vexes you, and your laugh drives me crazy. Even when silent, we provoke each other. About the merest trifles we have frightful scenes--about a hat, a dress, whether it will be best to carry a cane or an umbrella, or whether the meat is overdone or not--in short, everything--and everything makes us quarrel! Then, at home, either you talk so much that I can not put in a word or else you do not open your lips, and you look about as cheerful as a mortuary chapel. I must be happy when you are happy, sad when you are sad. Your temper is changeable, odd, quick; you do not allow the slightest contradiction; if I begin to speak of something which does not interest you, I am not allowed to finish my sentence. For me to express an opinion suffices to make you take an opposite view. You insist that you understand music, and that I know nothing about politics, while, in point of fact, the contrary is the truth. You scold my maid until she cries, and your disgusting valet drinks all the wine in my cellar. You forbid me to smoke, and insist that my dresses shall not be cut too low. And when we quarrel, even about some very ordinary matter, instead of its being over in five minutes, it lasts for hours, and we try to outdo each other in saying bitter things which neither of us forgets. In short, everything about me is disagreeable to you. I feel it, and I know it; you hate the tone of my voice, the sound of my step, my gestures, even my clothes; do not deny it, at this very moment I can read in your face that you would like to pitch me out of the window.

"Therefore?" said Monsieur de Précy.

"Therefore I conclude that it is wiser for us not to prolong our experience of married life. Its having proved a failure is neither your fault nor mine, or rather it is the fault of both; at any rate it is a fact. We were not made to live together; until we cease to do so, neither of us will be happy. After all, there is nothing to prevent us from amicably parting. Fortunately there is no child to quarrel about, we have each an ample fortune, so I really can not see why we should any longer remain on the same perch, pulling out each other's feathers. As for me, I have had enough of it, and you have had too much. I am quite sure you will be happy; sometimes in the morning, while you are shaving, you will think of me; and for my part I shall always remember you as a perfectly honorable, thoroughly disagreeable man. But for that I bear you no ill-will, because it is in your blood, all the Précys are so, and your own father and mother, as you have often told me, could never contrive, for more than ten days at a time, to remain together. However, I will waste no more breath in talking about the matter, but will now, Monsieur, retire to my own rooms, where until to-morrow I shall pass my time in thinking over the most practical way in which to arrange our separation."

Monsieur de Précy had in silence received this avalanche of reproaches, but his lips twitched, once or twice he sighed, deeply sighed, and toward the middle of the discourse he had begun to pace the floor. When his wife ceased speaking he stopped before her, and, looking at her with an expression which he strove to render as dignified as possible, said in a sad, somewhat victimized, tone of voice: "Have you finished?"--"I have finished, and it is finished."--"So be it, my dear; the book is closed, and I, like you, think it best not again to open it. As you wish it, we will to-morrow separate and each try solitude."--"Oh, I permit you to enliven it!"--"Thanks, and I forbid you to do so."--"Gracious! I do not dream of such a thing. When I leave you, it is to become my own mistress, not to change masters. You can be quite easy; to marry again would be a folly I shall never commit. Have you anything more to say?"--"No, except that if we take this step without knowing to what it may lead...."--"Oh! I know. First to peace, then to old age, finally to Père Lachaise."--"Do not joke, but please allow me to finish. We will do as we wish, but it is not necessary that the world should be at once enlightened as to our disagreements. That is my opinion, and I think you will agree with me."--"I do not know, because, of course, people can not long remain ignorant...."--"Yes, but for a time. Later the same objections will not exist. In short, this is what I ask: before taking any measures to obtain a divorce, let us by all means separate, but under special conditions which will save appearances, and excite no suspicions in the minds of our friends."--"What, then, is your idea?"--"As you wish to leave to-morrow, do so; but instead of taking refuge with some friend in the country or abroad, as is probably your intention, go to Meneaux, my château in Brittany, and as long as you can endure it--two months, if you have the courage--remain there. Madame Bénard, my parents' old housekeeper, who brought me up, is in charge. She will receive you, and in every way look after your comfort. You can tell her that I will soon join you."--"That, I imagine, will not be the truth."--"No, but you had better say so. The house is well furnished, pretty, and not more than four miles from Guérande. Under the pretext that Brittany is too far away from Paris, you have always avoided setting foot upon this family estate where my childhood was passed. This, before we each go our own way in life, is a good opportunity to look at it. If you let this chance escape, you will never have another. Now can I count upon you? Do you consent?"--"You have made your request with civility, and I consent. I will go to Meneaux, and will remain there for two months. You may send a telegram to Madame Bénard."

Then a few words more were exchanged with a coldness too intense to be quite genuine.--"Thanks--good night--good-by!--yes, good-by!"--Their voices did not tremble, oh no; but their hearts, their poor hearts, ached! Each one privately thought: "What? Can it be true we are to part--and forever? That is what we shall see, my wife! I'm not quite sure about that, my husband!"

But, nevertheless, Madame de Précy the next day departed.

* * * * *

On a clear, fresh May morning the young woman arrived at Meneaux. It is at the seaside, a delightful moment when spring, like a tiny child on its uncertain legs, hesitatingly treads there. The sparse, backward vegetation is more rugged than elsewhere; the blue of the sky has a deeper tint, and in the salt air there is something bracing and healthful which brings red to the cheek and peace to the soul.

For Madame de Précy's occupation, Madame Bénard had prepared, on the second floor, a large bedchamber, wainscoted in oak and hung with old sulphur-colored damask, which on one side overlooked a wide expanse of flat country, broken only here and there by a rock or a thin cluster of reeds; and on the other a pine wood ceaselessly murmuring in the breeze.

After she had emptied her trunks and made herself at home in her room, Madame de Précy found plenty of time for reflection. Nature offers to those who at a moral crisis fly to her, many consolations. By a sort of reflex action, she deadens pain, soothes and cheers. Her immutability, her apparent egotism, are good advisers. Before her who does not pass away one learns to see that everything else will do so, our little happinesses as well as our great sorrows; and the order which in everything she observes incites us to order also our hearts and minds. Madame de Précy began to think, and more seriously than for many and many a long day before. She reviewed her entire past life, beginning with the first white pages of cradle, dolls, first communion, long skirts and balls, next turning to the chapter of marriage. Her life had not been a romance, scarcely even a story, but very ordinary, without great joys, great catastrophes, or anything striking. Every night she had gone to bed with the secret hope that the next day something might happen. During the nine years of her married life, the sun had risen many times, but never had anything happened. Little by little she and her husband had become embittered, and perhaps he also, without being willing to admit it, had suffered from that monotony to some beings so irritating--monotony of things, hours, events, crimes, heroisms, vices, seasons, rain, sun, admirations, and anticipations. Her husband was not a man to be despised: cultivated, distinguished, honorable, sometimes (only sometimes) tender-hearted--in fact, admirable--yet impossible to live with. So, while deploring her fate, in the bloom of youth finding herself thus alone and in a false position, she did not, however, regret the impulse to which she had yielded. She would not know happiness, but she could have peace. One can not expect everything at once. Without feeling that her dignity was compromised, she gladly accepted the society of Madame Bénard, the old housekeeper in charge of the château, and yet, as a rule, she was haughty. But Madame Bénard had brought up Monsieur de Précy, and then the country equalizes; its solitude brings together human beings, raising a little those who are below, and lowering a little those who are above, so that Madame de Précy and the good old lady--for a lady she really was--soon became friends.

On the day Madame Bénard took Madame de Précy through the château, she went first to a large room on the third story, and, as she pushed open the door, said: "I want to begin by showing you everything connected with Monsieur's childhood. This is the room where Monsieur played and amused himself when he was a little boy." Then she opened closets where lay balls, drums, trumpets, boxes of tin soldiers, games of patience, checkers, and dominoes, saying as one after another she fingered them: "These were Monsieur's playthings when he was a little boy." And suddenly she pulled from a heap a doll with a broken nose. "See, Madame! he even had a doll, that boy; he called her Pochette, and when he kissed her he used to say: 'She shall be my wife!' Was it not ludicrous? Well, he would not say that now. He has something better." Madame de Précy did not reply. The housekeeper questioned: "It must agitate you to see all these things?"--"Yes, Madame Bénard."

Then the old lady took her to see the room where Monsieur used to sleep; sometimes forgetting herself, instead of Monsieur, she said Louis; and Madame de Précy was strangely moved at hearing pronounced by another that name she had so often called, but might never say again. The room where her husband used to study was next exhibited, with its shelves still filled by his old school-books and copy-books. One of the latter was seized by Madame Bénard, who, tendering it to Madame de Précy, cried: "See how well Monsieur wrote when he was a little boy." And traced in large, uncertain letters she read: "Let us love one another." Then she exclaimed: "I should like to go out into the air; I do not feel quite well."

They went out of doors, and for some moments silently walked about. When a large pond, on which floated two beautiful white swans, was presently approached, Madame Bénard announced: "Here is the pond where Monsieur kept his boat when he was a little boy. One evening he came near drowning himself. I shall never forget that."