“Here comes my mother, hide!” cried Dinah
in alarm. And she hurried forward to intercept
Madame Piedefer.
“Mamma,” said she—this word
was to the stern old lady a coaxing expression which
never failed of its effect—“will you
do me a great favor? Take the carriage and go
yourself to my banker, Monsieur Mongenod, with a note
I will give you, and bring back six thousand francs.
Come, come—it is an act of charity; come
into my room.”
And she dragged away her mother, who seemed very anxious
to see who it was that her daughter had been talking
with in the boudoir.
Two days afterwards, Madame Piedefer held a conference
with the cure of the parish. After listening
to the lamentations of the old mother, who was in
despair, the priest said very gravely:
“Any moral regeneration which is not based on
a strong religious sentiment, and carried out in the
bosom of the Church, is built on sand.—The
many means of grace enjoined by the Catholic religion,
small as they are, and not understood, are so many
dams necessary to restrain the violence of evil promptings.
Persuade your daughter to perform all her religious
duties, and we shall save her yet.”
Within ten days of this meeting the Hotel de la Baudraye
was shut up. The Countess, the children, and
her mother, in short, the whole household, including
a tutor, had gone away to Sancerre, where Dinah intended
to spend the summer. She was everything that was
nice to the Count, people said.
And so the Muse of Sancerre had simply come back to
family and married life; but certain evil tongues
declared that she had been compelled to come back,
for that the little peer’s wishes would no doubt
be fulfilled—he hoped for a little girl.
Gatien and Monsieur Gravier lavished every care, every
servile attention on the handsome Countess. Gatien,
who during Madame de la Baudraye’s long absence
had been to Paris to learn the art of lionnerie
or dandyism, was supposed to have a good chance of
finding favor in the eyes of the disenchanted “Superior
Woman.” Others bet on the tutor; Madame
Piedefer urged the claims of religion.
In 1844, about the middle of June, as the Comte de
la Baudraye was taking a walk on the Mall at Sancerre
with the two fine little boys, he met Monsieur Milaud,
the Public Prosecutor, who was at Sancerre on business,
and said to him:
“These are my children, cousin.”
“Ah, ha! so these are our children!” replied
the lawyer, with a mischievous twinkle.
PARIS, June 1843-August 1844.
The following personages appear in other stories of
the Human Comedy.
Beaupre, Fanny
A Start in Life
Modeste Mignon
Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
Berthier, Madame (Felicie Cardot)
Cousin Pons
