But the men and women of those times, my heart, were quite as remarkable as at any other period of the Monarchy.Not one of your Werthers, none of your notabilities, as they are called, never a one of your men in yellow kid gloves and trousers that disguise the poverty of their legs, would cross Europe in the dress of a travelling hawker to brave the daggers of a Duke of Modena, and to shut himself up in the dressing-room of the Regent's daughter at the risk of his life.Not one of your little consumptive patients with their tortoiseshell eyeglasses would hide himself in a closet for six weeks, like Lauzun, to keep up his mistress's courage while she was lying in of her child.There was more passion in M.de Jaucourt's little finger than in your whole race of higglers that leave a woman to better themselves elsewhere! Just tell me where to find the page that would be cut in pieces and buried under the floorboards for one kiss on the Konigsmark's gloved finger!
"Really, it would seem today that the roles are exchanged, and women are expected to show their devotion for men.These modern gentlemen are worth less, and think more of themselves.Believe me, my dear, all these adventures that have been made public, and now are turned against our good Louis XV, were kept quite secret at first.If it had not been for a pack of poetasters, scribblers, and moralists, who hung about our waiting-women, and took down their slanders, our epoch would have appeared in literature as a well-conducted age.I am justifying the century and not its fringe.Perhaps a hundred women of quality were lost; but for every one, the rogues set down ten, like the gazettes after a battle when they count up the losses of the beaten side.And in any case I do not know that the Revolution and the Empire can reproach us; they were coarse, dull, licentious times.Faugh! it is revolting.Those are the brothels of French history.
"This preamble, my dear child," she continued after a pause, "brings me to the thing that I have to say.If you care for Montriveau, you are quite at liberty to love him at your ease, and as much as you can.I know by experience that, unless you are locked up (but locking people up is out of fashion now), you will do as you please; I should have done the same at your age.
Only, sweetheart, I should not have given up my right to be the mother of future Ducs de Langeais.So mind appearances.The Vidame is right.No man is worth a single one of the sacrifices which we are foolish enough to make for their love.Put yourself in such a position that you may still be M.de Langeais's wife, in case you should have the misfortune to repent.When you are an old woman, you will be very glad to hear mass said at Court, and not in some provincial convent.Therein lies the whole question.A single imprudence means an allowance and a wandering life; it means that you are at the mercy of your lover; it means that you must put up with insolence from women that are not so honest, precisely because they have been very vulgarly sharp-witted.It would be a hundred times better to go to Montriveau's at night in a cab, and disguised, instead of sending your carriage in broad daylight.You are a little fool, my dear child! Your carriage flattered his vanity; your person would have ensnared his heart.All this that I have said is just and true; but, for my own part, I do not blame you.You are two centuries behind the times with your false ideas of greatness.
There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say that Montriveau made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to compromise you----"The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring."In Heaven's name, aunt, do not slander him!"The old Princess's eyes flashed.
"Dear child," she said, "I should have liked to spare such of your illusions as were not fatal.But there must be an end of all illusions now.You would soften me if I were not so old.
Come, now, do not vex him, or us, or anyone else.I will undertake to satisfy everybody; but promise me not to permit yourself a single step henceforth until you have consulted me.
Tell me all, and perhaps I may bring it all right again.""Aunt, I promise----"
"To tell me everything?"
"Yes, everything.Everything that can be told.""But, my sweetheart, it is precisely what cannot be told that Iwant to know.Let us understand each other thoroughly.Come, let me put my withered old lips on your beautiful forehead.No;let me do as I wish.I forbid you to kiss my bones.Old people have a courtesy of their own....There, take me down to my carriage," she added, when she had kissed her niece.
"Then may I go to him in disguise, dear aunt?""Why--yes.The story can always be denied," said the old Princess.
This was the one idea which the Duchess had clearly grasped in the sermon.When Mme de Chauvry was seated in the corner of her carriage, Mme de Langeais bade her a graceful adieu and went up to her room.She was quite happy again.
"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man cannot surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to offer herself."That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M.de Pamiers, M.de Marsay, M.de Grandlieu, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse triumphantly refuted the scandals that were circulating with regard to the Duchesse de Langeais.So many officers and other persons had seen Montriveau walking in the Tuileries that morning, that the silly story was set down to chance, which takes all that is offered.And so, in spite of the fact that the Duchess's carriage had waited before Montriveau's door, her character became as clear and as spotless as Mambrino's sword after Sancho had polished it up.
But, at two o'clock, M.de Ronquerolles passed Montriveau in a deserted alley, and said with a smile, "She is coming on, is your Duchess.Go on, keep it up!" he added, and gave a significant cut of the riding whip to his mare, who sped off like a bullet down the avenue.
Two days after the fruitless scandal, Mme de Langeais wrote to M.