(2)
Madame de Vigerie, since her astonishing reception of him at the New Year, had been many times called by Armand de la Roche-Guyon his good angel and his guiding star. And, in a political sense at least, she was not unworthy of these appellations. Horatia never knew to whom she owed it that her husband was not implicated in the conspiracy of the Rue des Prouvaires to gain access to the Tuileries and assassinate the Royal Family, the discovery of which, at the beginning of February, shook Paris. The enterprise was not chivalrous enough for Laurence de Vigerie's taste. There were more stirring plans afoot, for a rising on which all was to be staked was now much more imminent than it had been in the summer, and she was in even closer communication than before with the Regent's little court at Massa, that combination of the Coblentz of the emigration and the Paris of the Fronde. There was much to keep them occupied, for there was division not only among Madame's immediate counsellors, but also in the Royalist committees in France. That in Paris wished the rising adjourned; those in the provinces desired it immediately. These problems demanded daily intercourse, and, indeed, now that his wife had disavowed all interest in his doings, Armand considered himself free to visit the Rue de la Chaussée d'Antin as often as he liked. To many a moth the light of a guiding star may well be attractive above all others.
February slipped away, with the discovery of the plot, the trials of the implicated. The salons of the Faubourg were divided between those who, denying the conspiracy, ridiculed Louis-Philippe's baseless fears, and those who mourned its ill-success. Tristram Hungerford came and left, March entered, and Lent; Maurice was producing his first tooth, and George Sand her first novel. In England the Reform Bill passed the Commons; and in France Horatia was combatting the influence of Morning Prayer.
But to Armand himself the most important event of the month was a little conversation which occurred during its second week. He had sent Madame de Vigerie flowers, as he constantly did, and came in one afternoon to find her bending over some lilies of the valley.
"I wonder who gave me these," she said.
"Cannot you guess?" asked Armand. He took out a spray and held it towards her. "They were meant for a better place than that vase."
The Vicomtesse smiled and shook her head. "I never wear flowers, save those that I pick myself."
"I have noticed that you never wear mine," said Armand.
"Nor anybody else's."
"Why not?"