"I am not at all easy in my mind," he said two days later to Madame d'Estrelle, who had just been to visit her father-in-law, who was ill; "I am afraid monsieur le marquis may die unexpectedly before he has settled up your affairs."
"I place no reliance on his good-will toward me," replied Julie; "but I cannot believe that he will leave me at the mercy of the count's creditors, when only a few last steps are needed to settle with them. Of course we must expect the childish fear of robbing himself which always haunts selfish old men; but after him——"
"After him?" echoed Marcel. "The devil is after him, I mean at his heels. His wife is a good-for-nothing; I am afraid of her; she doesn't love you, and she is nothing to you, since your husband was not her son."
"Mon Dieu! you look at the dark side of everything, my dear solicitor! The marquis is neither very old nor very ill. He must have made his will. The marchioness is very pious, and what she would not do from affection, she will do as a matter of duty. Do not you discourage me, who have always encouraged me."
"I should not be discouraged myself if I could put my hand on my singular old uncle! Let him buy the pavilion and pay for it, and that gives us two or three months' respite. We shall have time to sell the little farm in the Beauvoisis or make it over to the creditors at an agreed price, otherwise we shall be brutally sold out and lose a hundred per cent. of these poor scraps, which are of some value to-day!"
Julie, who, at other times, had been much distressed concerning her situation, had reached that stage of lassitude which takes the place of courage. Her philosophy surprised and irritated Marcel.
"Deuce take me!" he whispered to Julien's mother, "one would say that she asks nothing better now than to be turned into the street!"
Was that, in truth, Madame d'Estrelle's secret thought? Did she say to herself that, being poor, and abandoned by her husband's family, she no longer owed so much consideration to the name she bore, and that she could disappear from the world's stage to live as she chose and marry according to her inclination?
Yes and no. At times she dreamed again that dream of a happiness hitherto unknown, which had come to her like a fascinating vision in Julien's studio. At other times she became the Comtesse d'Estrelle once more, and asked herself in dismay how she could break with all her surroundings and her habits, and whether she could endure blame and contempt, after having been so loudly praised and so respected up to that day by a limited but select circle of persons highly considered in society.
It is well known that period was marked by a violent and determined reaction in certain aristocratic circles against the invasion of the democracy. Perhaps no other period in history presents such strange contrasts. On the one hand public opinion, queen of the new world, proclaimed the doctrines of equality, contempt for social distinctions, the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot; on the other, the ruling powers, terrified by a progress which they dared not oppose, attempted a tardy resistance which was destined to hurl them into the abyss; but to one whose horizon was narrow, to whom the morrow was not revealed, that resistance assumed formidable proportions, and a weak and gentle woman like Madame d'Estrelle was certain to be alarmed by it. Like all of her caste she fancied that she could read the destiny of France in the conduct of the court; and there were times when the king, in dire dismay, tried to resuscitate the monarchy of Louis XIV.; distressing and vain efforts, which, however, when looked at from a certain point of view, seemed serious enough to irritate the people and to increase the arrogance of the privileged classes. The court and city had acclaimed Voltaire's triumph; on the morrow of that triumph the clergy refused him a tomb. Mirabeau had written a masterpiece against the arbitrary use of lettres de cachet. The king had said of Beaumarchais: "If his play—the Marriage of Figaro—is acted, we may as well destroy the Bastille!" The third estate grew in enlightenment, in ambition, in real worth; the court reëstablished privileges in the army as well as among the clergy, and decided—which Cardinal de Richelieu would not have dared to do—that, in order to be a military officer or a prelate, an applicant must prove four generations of noble blood. The American Constitution had just proclaimed the principles of Jean-Jacques's Social Contract; Washington and Lafayette were dreaming of the enfranchisement of the slaves; the French ministry granted additional facilities to the slave trade; the lower clergy became more democratic from day to day; the Sorbonne tried to pick a quarrel with Buffon, and the upper clergy demanded a new law to repress the art of writing; public opinion was aroused against capital punishment, the preliminary torture was still in use. The queen had protected Beaumarchais; Raynal was forced to go into exile.