"Mlle. Virginie Sambucco has the honor to announce to you the marriage of Mlle. Clementine Sambucco, her niece, to M. Leon Renault, civil engineer.
"M. and Mme. Renault have the honor to announce to you the marriage of M. Leon Renault, their son, to Mlle. Clementine Sambucco;
"And invite you to be present at the nuptial benediction which will be given them on the 11th of September, 1859, in the church of Saint Maxcence, in their parish, at eleven o'clock precisely."
Fougas absolutely insisted that his name should figure on the cards. They had all the trouble in the world to cure him of this whim. Mme. Renault lectured him two full hours. She told him that in the eyes of society, as well as in the eyes of the law, Clementine was the granddaughter of M. Langevin; that, moreover, M. Langevin had acted very liberally in legitimizing by marriage, a daughter that was not his own; finally, that the publication of such a family secret would be an outrage against the sanctity of the grave and would tarnish the memory of poor Clementine Pichon. The Colonel answered with the warmth of a young man, and the obstinacy of an old one:
"Nature has her rights; they are anterior to the conventions of society, and a thousand times more exalted. The honor of her I called my Ægle, is dearer to me than all the treasures of the world, and I would cleave the soul of any rash being who should attempt to tarnish it. In yielding to the ardor of my vows, she but conformed to the custom of a great epoch when the uncertainty of life and the constant existence of war simplified all formalities. And in conclusion, I do not wish that my grandchildren, yet to be born, should be ignorant that the source of their blood is in the veins of Fougas. Your Langevin is but an intruder who covertly slipped into my family. A commissary! It's almost a sutler! I spurn under foot the ashes of Langevin!"
His obstinacy would not yield to the arguments of Mme. Renault, but it succumbed to the entreaties of Clementine. The young creole twisted him around her finger with irresistible grace.
"My good Grandpa this, my pretty little Grandpa that; my old baby of a Grandpa, we'll send you off to college if you're not reasonable!"
She used to seat herself familiarly on Fougas' knee, and give him little love pats on the cheeks. The Colonel would assume the gruffest possible voice, and then his heart would overflow with tenderness, and he would cry like a child.
These familiarities added nothing to the happiness of Leon Renault; I even think that they slightly tempered his joy. Yet he certainly did not doubt either the love of his betrothed or the honor of Fougas. He was forced to admit that between a grandfather and his granddaughter such little liberties are natural and proper and could justly offend no one. But the situation was so new and so unusual that he needed a little time to adapt his feelings to it, and forget his chagrin. This grandfather, for whom he had paid five-hundred francs, whose ear he had broken, for whom he had bought a burial-place in the Fontainebleau cemetery: this ancestor younger than himself, whom he had seen drunk, whom he had found agreeable, then dangerous, then insupportable: this venerable head of the family who had begun by demanding Clementine's hand and ended by pitching his future grandson into the heliotropes, could not all at once obtain unmingled respect and unreserved affection.
M. and Mme. Renault exhorted their son to submission and deference. They represented M. Fougas to him as a relative who ought to be treated with consideration.
"A few days of patience!" said the good mother. "He will not stay with us long; he is a soldier and can't live out of the army any better than a fish out of water."
But Leon's parents, in the bottom of their hearts, held a bitter remembrance of so many pangs and mortifications. Fougas had been the scourge of the family; the wounds which he had made could not heal over in a day. Even Gothon bore him ill will without confessing it. She heaved great sighs while preparing for the wedding festivities at Mlle. Sambucco's.