“Towards 1803,” resumed Alain after a pause, “Monsieur de Boisfrelon, uncle of Madame de la Chanterie, came to Paris, his name having been erased from the list of emigres, and brought Madame the sum of two hundred thousand francs which her father-in-law, the old purveyor, had formerly entrusted to him for the benefit of his son’s children. He persuaded the widow to return to Normandy; where she completed the education of her daughter and purchased on excellent terms and still by the advice of her uncle, a patrimonial estate.”
“Ah!” cried Godefroid.
“All that is still nothing,” said Monsieur Alain; “we have not yet reached the period of storms and darkness. I resume:
“In 1807, after four years of rest and peace, Madame de la Chanterie married her daughter to a gentleman of rank, whose piety, antecedents, and fortune offered every guarantee that could be given,—a man who, to use a popular saying, ‘was after every one’s own heart,’ in the best society of the provincial city where Madame and her daughter passed their winters. I should tell you that this society was composed of seven or eight families belonging to the highest nobility in France: d’Esgrignon, Troisville, Casteran, Nouatre, etc. At the end of eighteen months the baron deserted his wife, and disappeared in Paris, where he changed his name.
“Madame de la Chanterie never knew the causes of this desertion until the lightning of a dreadful storm revealed them. Her daughter, brought up with anxious care and trained in the purest religious sentiments, kept total silence as to her troubles. This lack of confidence in her mother was a painful blow to Madame de la Chanterie. Already she had several times noticed in her daughter indications of the reckless disposition of the father, increased in the daughter by an almost virile strength of will.
“The husband, however, abandoned his home of his own free will, leaving his affairs in a pitiable condition. Madame de la Chanterie is, even to this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have prevented. The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had assured her that the suitor’s fortune was clear and sound, and that no mortgages were on his estate. Nevertheless it appeared, after the husband’s departure, that for ten years his debts had exceeded the entire value of his property. Everything was therefore sold, and the poor young wife, now reduced to her own means, came back to her mother. Madame de la Chanterie knew later that the most honorable persons of the province had vouched for her son-in-law in their own interests; for he owed them all large sums of money, and they looked upon his marriage with Mademoiselle de la Chanterie as a means to recover them.
“There were, however, other reasons for this catastrophe, which you will find later in a confidential paper written for the eyes of the Emperor. Moreover, this man had long courted the good-will of the royalist families by his devotion to the royal cause during the Revolution. He was one of Louis XVIII.‘s most active emissaries, and had taken part after 1793 in all conspiracies,—escaping their penalties, however, with such singular adroitness that he came, in the end, to be distrusted. Thanked for his services by Louis XVIII., but completely set aside in the royalist affairs, he had returned to live on his property, now much encumbered with debt.
“These antecedents were then obscure (the persons initiated into the secrets of the royal closet kept silence about so dangerous a coadjutor), and he was therefore received with a species of reverence in a city devoted to the Bourbons, where the cruellest deeds of the Chouannerie were accepted as legitimate warfare. The d’Esgrignons, Casterans, the Chevalier de Valois, in short, the whole aristocracy and the Church opened their arms to this royalist diplomat and drew him into their circle. Their protection was encouraged by the desire of his creditors for the payment of his debts. For three years this man, who was a villain at heart, a pendant to the late Baron de la Chanterie, contrived to restrain his vices and assume the appearance of morality and religion.
“During the first months of his marriage he exerted a sort of spell over his wife; he tried to corrupt her mind by his doctrines (if it can be said that atheism is a doctrine) and by the jesting tone in which he spoke of sacred principles. From the time of his return to the provinces this political manoeuvrer had an intimacy with a young man, overwhelmed with debt like himself, but whose natural character was as frank and courageous as the baron’s was hypocritical and base. This frequent guest, whose accomplishments, strong character, and adventurous life were calculated to influence a young girl’s mind, was an instrument in the hands of the husband to bring the wife to adopt his theories. Never did she let her mother know the abyss into which her fate had cast her.
“We may well distrust all human prudence when we think of the infinite precautions taken by Madame de la Chanterie in marrying her only daughter. The blow, when it came to a life so devoted, so pure, so truly religious as that of a woman already tested by many trials, gave Madame de la Chanterie a distrust of herself which served to isolate her from her daughter; and all the more because her daughter, in compensation for her misfortunes, exacted complete liberty, ruled her mother, and was even, at times, unkind to her.