Transcript

Section 1 · The Ball at Sceaux

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Section one of The ball at Soux. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by Bruce Pirie, The ball at Soux
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by Onoraid of Balzac, translated by Clara Belle. The Comte de Fontaine,
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head of one of the oldest families in Poiteau, had served the Bourbon cause
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with intelligence and bravery during the war in Lavantday against the Republic. After having
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escaped all the dangers which threatened the Royalist leaders during this stormy period of modern
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history, he was wont to say in jest, I am one of the
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men who gave themselves to be killed on the steps of the throne. And
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the pleasantry had some truth in it, as spoken by a man left for
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dead at the bloody Battle of Le cato Chamins. Though ruined by confiscation,
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the staunch fonde and steadily refused the lucrative posts offered to him by the Emperor
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Napoleon. Immovable in his aristocratic faith, he had blindly obeyed its precepts when
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he thought it fitting to choose a companion for life in spite of the blandishments
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of a rich but revolutionary Parvenu who valued the alliance at a high figure.
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He married Mademoiselle de Caergarouette, without a fortune but belonging to one of the
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oldest families in Brittany. When the Second Revolution burst on Monsieur de Fontaine,
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he was encumbered with a large family. Though it was no part of the
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noble gentleman's views to solicit favors, he yielded to his wife's wish, left
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his country estate, of which the income barely sufficed to maintain his children,
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and came to Paris, saddened by seeing the greediness of his former comrades in
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the rush for places and dignities under the new constitution. He was about to
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return to his property when he received a ministerial dispatch in which a well known
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magnate announced to him his nomination as may challes de comte or brigadier general,
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under a rule which allowed the officers of the Catholic armies to count the twenty
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submerged years of Louis the Eighteenth reign as years of service. Some days later
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he further received, without any solicitation, ex officio, the crosses of the
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Legion of Honor and of Saint Louis. Shaken in his determination by these successive
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favors, due as he supposed to the monarch's remembrance, he was no longer
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satisfied with taking his family, as he had piously done every Sunday, to
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cry vive le rois in the hall of the Tuileries when the royal family passed
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through on their way to Chapel. He craved the favor of a private audience.
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The audience, at once granted, was in no sense private. The
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royal drawing room was full of old adherents, whose powdered heads, seen from
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above, suggested a carpet of snow. There the Count met some old friends
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who received him somewhat coldly. But the princes he thought adorable, an enthusiastic
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expression which escaped him, when the most gracious of his masters, to whom
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the Count had supposed himself to be known only by name, came to shake
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hands with him and spoke of him as the most thorough vandayuan of them all.
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Notwithstanding this ovation, none of these august persons thought of inquiring as to
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the sum of his losses or of the money he had poured so generally into
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the chests of the Catholic regiments. He discovered a little late that he had
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made war at his own cost. Towards the end of the evening, he
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thought he might venture on a witty allusion to the state of his affairs,
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similar as it was to that of many other gentlemen. His Majesty laughed heartily
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enough. Any speech that bore the hallmark of wit was certain to please him,
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But he nevertheless replied with one of those royal pleasantries whose sweetness is more
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formidable than the anger of a rebuke. One of the king's most intimate advisors
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took an opportunity of going up to the fortune seeking Vandy, and made him
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understand by a keen and polite hint that the time had not yet come for
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settling accounts with the sovereign, that there were bills of much longer standing than
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his on the books, and there no doubt they would remain as part of
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the history of the revolution. The count prudently withdrew from the venerable group,
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which formed a respectful semicircle before the Auguste family. Then, having extricated his
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sword, not without some difficulty, from among the lean legs which had got
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mixed up with it. He crossed the courtyard of the Tuileriy and got into
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the hackney cab he had left on the quay with the rest of spirit,
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which is peculiar to the nobility of the old school, in whom still survives
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the memory of the league and the day of the barricades. In fifteen eighty
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eight, he bewailed himself in his cab loudly enough to compromise him over the
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change that had come over the court. Formerly, he said to himself,
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everyone could speak freely to the King of his own little affairs. The nobles
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could ask him a favor or for money when it suited them. And nowadays
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one cannot recover the money advanced for his service without raising a scandal. By
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heaven, the cross of Saint Louis and the rank of brigadier general will not
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make good the three hundred thousand livres I have spent out and out on the
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royal cause. I must speak to the King face to face in his own
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room. This scene cooled Monsieur de Fontaine's ardor all the more effectually because his
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requests for an interview were never answered and indeed, he saw the upstarts of
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the empire obtaining some of the offices reserved under the old monarchy for the highest
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families. All is lost, he exclaimed one morning. The king has certainly
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never been other than a revolutionary. But for Monsieur, who never derogates and
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is some comfort to his faithful adherents. I do not know what hands the
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crown of France might not fall into if things are to go on like this.
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Their cursed constitutional system is the worst possible government and can never suit France.
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Louis the eighteenth and Monsieur Bonneaux spoiled everything at Saint Lulin. The count
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in despair, was preparing to retire to his estate, abandoning with dignity all
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claims to repayment. At this moment, the events of the twentieth of March
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eighteen fifteen gave warning of a fresh storm threatening to overwhelm the legitimate monarch and
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his defenders. Monsieur de Fontaine, like one of those generous souls who do
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not dismiss a servant in a torrent of rain, borrowed on his lands to
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follow the routed monarchy, without knowing whether this complicity and emigration would prove more
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propitious to him than his past devotion. But when he perceived that the companions
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of the king's exile were in higher favor than the brave men who had protested
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sword in hand against the establishment of the Republic, he may perhaps have hoped
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to derive greater profit from this journey into a foreign land, land from active
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and dangerous service in the heart of his own country. Nor was his courtier
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like calculation one of those rash speculations which promise splendid results on paper and a
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ruinous in effect. He was, to quote the wittiest and most successful of
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our diplomats, one of the faithful five hundred who shared the exile of the
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Quartet Ghent, and one of the fifty thousand who returned with it during the
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short banishment of royalty. Monsieur de Fontaine was so happy as to be employed
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by Louis the eighteenth, and found more than one opportunity of giving him proofs
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of great political honesty and sincere attachment. One evening, when the king had
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nothing better to do, he recalled Monsieur de Fontaine's witticism at the Tuileries.
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The old Fandean did not let such a happy chance slip. He told his
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history with so much vivacity that a king who never forgot anything might remember it
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at a convenient season. The Royal Amateur of literature also observed the elegant style
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given to some notes which the discreet gentleman had been invited to recast. This
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little success stamped Monsieur de Fontaine on the King's memory as one of the loyal
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servants of the crown At the Second Restoration. The Count was one of those
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special envoys who were sent throughout the departments, charged with absolute jurisdiction over the
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leaders of revolt. But he used his terrible powers with moderation. As soon
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as the temporary commission was ended, the High Provost found a seat in the
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Privy Council, became a deputy, spoke little, listened much, and changed
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his opinions very considerably. Certain circumstances, unknown to historians, brought him into
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such intimate relations with the Sovereign that one day, as he came in,
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the shrewd monarch addressed him, thus, my friend Fontaine, I shall take
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care never to appoint you to be Director general or minister. Neither you nor
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I, as employees, could keep our place on account of our opinions.
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Representative government has this advantage. It saves us the sand trouble we used to
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have of dismissing our secretaries of state. Our council is a perfect in parlor.
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With their public opinion sometimes sends strange travelers. However, we can always
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find a place for our faithful adherents. This ironical speech was introductory to a
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rescript giving Monsieur de Fontaine an appointment as administrator in the Office of Crown Lands.
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As a consequence of the intelligent attention with which he listened to his royal
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friends sarcasms, his name always rose to his Majesty's lips when a commission was
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to be appointed, of which the members were to receive a handsome salary.
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He had the good sense to hold his tongue about the favor with which he
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was honored, and knew how to entertain the monarch in those familiar chats in
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which Louis the eighteenth delighted as much as in a well written note, by
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his brilliant manner of repeating political anecdotes and the political or parliamentary tittle tattle,
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if the expression may pass, which at that time was rife. It is
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well known that he was immensely amused by every detail of his gouvernmentabillitay, a
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word adopted by his facetious majesty. Thanks to the Comte de Fontaine's good sense,
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wit and tact, every member of his numerous family, however young,
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ended as he jestingly told his sovereign, in attaching himself like a silkworm to
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the leaves of the pay list. Thus, by the King's intervention, his
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eldest son found a high and fixed position as a lawyer. The second before
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the restoration, a mere captain was appointed to the command and of a legion
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on the return from Ghent. Then, thanks to the confusion of eighteen fifteen,
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when the regulations were evaded, he passed into the bodyguard, returned to
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a line regiment, and found himself, after the affair of the Tocadero,
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a lieutenant general with a commission in the guards. The youngest appointed sous prefet
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ere long became a legal official and director of the Municipal Board of the City
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of Paris, where he was safe from changes in legislature. These bounties bestowed
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without parade and as secret as the favor enjoyed by the count fell unperceived.
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Though the father and his three sons each had sinecures enough to enjoy an income
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in salaries almost equal to that of a chief of department, their political good
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fortune excited no envy. In those early days of the constitutional system, few
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persons had very precise ideas of the peaceful domain of the civil service, where
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astute favorites managed to find an equivalent for the demolished abbeys. Monsieur le Comte
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de Fontaine, who till lately boasted that he had not read the charter,
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and displayed such indignation that the greed of courtiers had before long proved to his
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august master, that he understood, as well as the King himself, the
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spirit and resources of the representative system. At the same time, notwithstanding the
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established careers open to his three sons and the pecuniary advantages derived from four official
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appointments, Monsieur de Fontaine was the head of too large a family to be
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able to re establish his fortune easily and rapidly. His three sons were rich
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in prospects, in favor, and in talent, but he had three daughters
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and was afraid of wearying the monarch's benevolence, it occurred to him to mention
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only one by one these virgins eager to light their torches. The king had
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too much good taste to leave his work incomplete. The marriage of the eldest
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with a receiver, General Planard de Baudris, was arranged by one of these
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royal speeches, which cost nothing and are worth millions. One evening, when
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the sovereign was out of spirits, he smiled on hearing of the existence of
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another Demoiselle de Fontaine, for whom he found a husband in the person of
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a young magistrate of inferior birth, no doubt, but wealthy, and whom
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he created Baron. When the year after the Vondeen spoke of Mademoiselle Emilie de
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Fontaine, the king replied, in his thin, sharp tones, amicus Platau,
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said, maggis amica natio. Then a few days later he treated his
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friend Fontaine to a quatrain harmless enough, which he styled an epigram in which
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he made fun of these three daughters so skillfully introduced under the form of a
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trinity. Nay, if report is to be believed, the monarch had found
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the point of the jest in the unity of the three divine persons, If
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your Majesty would only condescend to turn the epigram into an epithalamium, said the
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Count, trying to turn the sally to good account. Though I see the
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rhyme of it, I fail to see the reason, retorted the King,
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who did not relish any pleasantry, however, mild on the subject of his
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poetry. From that day, his intercourse with the Monsieur de Fontaine showed less
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amenity kings enjoy, contradicting more than people think. Like most youngest children,
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Amyle de Fontaine was a Benjamin, spoiled by almost everybody. The King's coolness
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therefore caused the Count all the more regret, because no marriage was ever so
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difficult to arrange as that of this darling daughter. To understand all the obstacles,
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we must make our way into the fine residence where the official was housed
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at the expense of the nation. Emily had spent her childhood on the family
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estate, enjoying the abundance which suffices for the joys of early youth. Her
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lightest wishes had been law to her sisters, her brothers, her mother,
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and even her father. All her relations doated on her having come to years
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of discretion. Just when her family was loaded with the favors of fortune,
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the enchantment of life continued. The luxury of Paris seemed to her just as
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natural as a wealth of flowers or fruit, or as the rural plenty which
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had been the joy of her first years. Just as in her childhood she
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had never been thwarted in the satisfaction of her playful desires, so now,
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at fourteen, she was still obeyed when she rushed into the whirl of fashion.
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Thus, accustomed by degrees to the enjoyment of money, elegance of dress,
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of gilded drawing rooms, and fine carriages became as necessary to her as
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the complements of flattery since or false, and the festivities and vanities of court
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life. Like most spoiled children, she tyrannized over those who loved her,
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and kept her blandishments for those who were indifferent. Her faults grew with her
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growth, and her parents were to gather the bitter fruits of this disastrous education.
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At the age of nineteen, Emilie de Fontaine had not yet been pleased
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to make a choice from among the many young men whom her father's politics brought
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to his entertainments. Though so young, she asserted in society all the freedom
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of mind that a married woman can enjoy. Her beauty was so remarkable that
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for her to appear in a room was to be its queen. But like
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sovereigns, she had no friends, though she was everywhere the object of attentions
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to which a finer nature than hers might perhaps have succumbed. Not a man,
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not even an old man, had it in him to contradict the opinions
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of a young girl whose lightest look could rekindle love in the coldest heart.
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She had been educated with a care which her sisters had not enjoyed, painted
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pretty well, spoke Italian and English, and played the piano brilliantly. Her
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voice, trained by the best masters, had a ring in it, which
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made her singing irresistibly charming, clever, and intimate. With every branch of
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literature, she might have made folks believe that, as Mascaria says, people
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of quality come into the world knowing everything. She could argue fluently on Italian
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or Flemish painting, on the Middle Ages, or the Renaissance, pronounced at
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haphazard on books new or old, and could expose the defects of a work
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with a cruelly graceful wit. The simplest thing she said was accepted by an
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admiring crowd as a fetfah of the Sultan. By the Turks. She thus
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dazzled shallow persons as to deeper minds. Her natural tact enabled her to discern
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them, and for them she put forth so much fascination that, under cover
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of her charms she escaped their scrutiny. This enchanting veneer covered a careless heart.
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The opinion common to many young girls that no one else dwelt in a
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sphere so lofty as to be able to understand the merits of her soul,
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and the pride based no less on her birth than on her beauty. In
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the absence of the overwhelming sentiment which sooner or later works havoc in a woman's
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heart, she spent her young ardor in an immoderate love of distinctions, and
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expressed the deepest contempt for persons of inferior birth. Supremely impertinent to all newly
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created nobility, she made every effort to get her parents recognized as equals by
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the most illustrious families of the Saint Germain quarter. These sentiments had not escaped
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the observing eye of Monsieur de Fontaine, who, more than once, when
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his two elder girls were married, had smarted under Emili's sarcasm. Logical readers
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will be surprised to see the old royalist bestowing his eldest daughter on a receiver
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general possessed indeed of some old hereditary estates, but whose name was not preceded
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by the little word to which the throne owed so many partisans, and his
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second to a magistrate too lately baronified to obscure the fact that his father had
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sold firewood. This noteworthy change in the ideas of a noble on the verge
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of his sixtieth year, an age when men rarely renounced their convictions, was
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due not merely to his unfortunate residence in the modern Babylon, where sooner or
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later country folks all get their corners rubbed down. The Comte de Fontaine's new
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political conscience was also a result of the King's advice and friendship. The philosophical
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prince had taken pleasure in converting the Vandayan to the ideas required by the advance
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of the nineteenth century and the new aspect of the monarchy. Louis the eighteenth
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aimed at fusing parties as Napoleon had fused things and men. The legitimate king,
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who was not less clever perhaps than his rival, acted in a contrary
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direction. The last head of the House of Bourbon was just as eager to
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satisfy the third estate and the creations of the Empire by curbing the clergy,
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as the first of the Napoleons had been to attract the grand old nobility,
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or to endow the church, the Privy councilor being in the secret of these
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royal projects, had insensibly become one of the most prudent and influential leaders of
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that moderate party which most desired a fusion of opinion in the interests of the
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nation. He preached the expensive doctrines of constitutional government and lent all his weight
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to encourage the political seesaw which enabled his master to rule France in the midst
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of storms. Perhaps Monsieur de Fontaine hoped that one of the sudden gusts of
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legislation, whose unexpected efforts then startled the oldest politicians, might carry him up
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to the rank of peer One of his most rigid principles was to recognize no
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nobility in France but that of the peerage, the only families that might enjoy
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any privileges. A nobility bereft of privileges, he would say, is a
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tool without to handle. As far from Lafayette's party as he was from La
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Baudonnais, he ardently engaged in the task of general reconciliation, which was to
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result in a new era and splendid fortunes for France. He strove to convince
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the families who frequented his drawing room or those whom he visited, how few
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favorable openings would henceforth be offered by a civil or military career. He urged
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mothers to give their boys a start in independent and industrial professions, explaining that
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military posts and high government appointments must at last pertain in a quite constitutional order
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to the younger sons of members of the peerage. According to him, the
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people had conquered a sufficiently large share in practical government by its elective assembly,
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its appointments to law offices, and those of the exchequer, which, said
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he would always, as heretofore, be the natural right of the distinguished men
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of the third estate. These new notions of the head of the Fontaines,
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and the prudent matches for his eldest girls to which they had led, met
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with strong resistance in the bosom of his family. The Comtesse of Fontaine remained
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faithful to the ancient beliefs which no woman could disown, who, through her
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mother, belonged to the rolls. Although she had for a while opposed the
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happiness and fortune awaiting her two eldest girls, she yielded to those private considerations
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which husband and wife confide to each other when their heads are resting on the
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same pillow. Monsieur de Fontaine calmly pointed out to his wife, by exact
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arithmetic, that their residence in Paris, the necessity of entertaining the magnificence of
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the house which made up to them now for the privations so bravely shared in
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Lavontay, and the expense of their sons swallowed up the chief part of their
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income from salaries. They must therefore seise as a boon from heaven the opportunities
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which offered for settling their girls with such wealth. Would they not some day
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enjoy sixty eighty one hundred thousand francs a year. Such advantageous matches were not
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to be met with every day for girls without a portion. Again, it
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was time that they should begin to think of economizing, to add to the
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estate of fontene and re establish the old territorial fortune of the family. The
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Countess yielded to such cogent arguments as every mother would have done in her place,
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though perhaps with a better grace. But she declared that amily, at
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any rate, should marry in such a way as to satisfy the pride she
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had unfortunately contributed to foster in the girl's young soul. Thus, events which
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ought to have brought joy into the family had introduced a small leven of discord.
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The receiver General and the young lawyer were the objects of a ceremonious formality
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which the Countess and Emily contrived to create. This etiquette soon found even ampler
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opportunity for the display of domestic tyranny, For Lieutenant General de Fontaine married Mademoiselle
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Monngeneau, the daughter of a rich banker. The president very sensibly found a
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wife in a young lady whose father twice or thrice a millionaire, had traded
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in sault, and the third brother, faithful to his Plebeian doctrines, married
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Mademoiselle gross Tet, the only daughter of the Receiver General. At Bourges,
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the three sisters in law and the two brothers in law found the high sc
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fear of political big wigs, and the drawing rooms of the Faubeau Saint Germain
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so full of charm and of personal advantages, that they united in forming a
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little court round the overbearing emily. This treaty between interest and pride was not,
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however, so firmly cemented, but that the young despot was not unfrequently
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the cause of revolts in her little realm, scenes which the highest circles would
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not have disowned, kept up a sarcastic temper among all the members of this
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powerful family, and this without seriously diminishing the regard they professed in public,
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degenerated sometimes in private into sentiments far from charitable. Thus the Lieutenant General's wife,
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having become a balon, thought herself quite as noble as an caergarouette,
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and imagined that her good hundred thousand francs a year gave her the right to
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be as impertinent as her sister in law Emily, whom she would sometimes wish
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to see happily married. As she announced that the daughter of some peer of
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France had married Monsieur So and so with no title to his name, the
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Vicomtesse de Fontaine amused herself by eclipsing Emily in the taste and magnificence that were
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conspicuous in her dress, her furniture, and her carriages. The satirical spirit
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in which her brothers and sisters sometimes received the claims avowed by Mademoiselle de Fontaine
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roused her to wrath that a perfect hailstorm of sharp sayings could hardly mitigate.
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So when the head of the family felt a slight chill in the King's tacit
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and precarious friendship, he trembled all the more because, as a result of
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her sister's defiant mockery, his favorite daughter had never looked so high in the
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midst of these circumstances, and that a moment when this petty domestic warfare had
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become serious, the monarch, whose favor Monsieur da Fontaine still hoped to regain,
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was attacked by the malady of which he was to die. The great
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political chief who knew so well how to steer his bark in the midst of
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tempests. Soon succumbed certain then of favors to come. The Comte de Fontaine
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made every effort to collect the elite of marrying men around his youngest daughter.
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Those who may have tried to solve the difficult problem of settling a haughty and
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capricious girl will understand the trouble taken by the unlucky father. Such an affair,
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carried out to the liking of his beloved child, would worthily crown the
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career the Count had followed for these ten years at Paris. From the way
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in which his family claimed salaries under every department, it might be compared with
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the House of Austria, which by intermarriage threatens to pervade Europe. The old
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Fandaean was not to be discouraged in bringing forward suitors, so much had he
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his daughter's happiness at heart. But nothing could be more absurd than the way
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in which the impertinent young thing pronounced her verdicts and judged the merits of her
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adorers. It might have been supposed that, like a princess in the Arabian
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nights, amily was rich enough and beautiful enough to choose from among all the
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princes in the world. Her objections were each more preposterous than the last.
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One had two thick knees and was bow legged. Another was short sighted.
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This one's name was Duront, that one limped, and almost all were too
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fat, livelier, more attractive, and gayer than ever. After dismissing two
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or three suitors, she rushed into the festivities of the winter season and to
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balls, where her keen eye criticized the celebrities of the day, delighted in
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encouraging proposals which she invariably rejected. Nature had bestowed on her all the advantages
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needed for playing the part of silly men. Tall and slight, Emily de
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Fontaine could assume a dignified or a frolicsome mien at her will. Her neck
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was rather long, allowing her to affect beautiful lattitudes of scorn and impertinence.
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She had cultivated a large variety of those turned of the head and feminine gestures
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which emphasize so cruelly or so happily a hint of a smile. Fine black
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hair, thick and strongly arched eyebrows lent her countenance an expression of pride to
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which her coquettish instincts and her mirror had taught her to add terror by a
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stare, or gentleness, by the softness of her gaze, by the set
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of the gracious curve of her lips, by the coldness or the sweetness of
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her smile. When Emily meant to conquer a heart, her pure voice did
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not lack melody, but she could also give it a sort of curt clearness
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when she was minded to paralyze a partner's indiscreet tongue. Her colorless face and
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alabaster brow were like the limpid surface of a lake, which, by turns
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is rippled by the impulse of a breeze and recovers its glad serenity when the
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air is still more than One young man, a victim to her scorn,
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accused her of acting a part, but she justified herself by inspiring her detractors
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with the desire to please her, and then subjecting them to all her most
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contemptuous caprice. Among the young girls of fashion, not one knew better than
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she how to assume an air of reserve when a man of talent was introduced
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to her, or how to display the insulting politeness which treats an equal as
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an inferior, and to pour out her impertinence on all who tried to hold
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their heads on a level with hers. Wherever she went she seemed to be
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accepting homage rather than compliments, and even in a princess, her airs and
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manner would have transformed the chair on which she sat into an imperial throne.
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End of Section one.