The Last Duchess of Belgarde

by Molly Elliot Seawell

THIS rosy vision of Boury with her duke lasted Trimousette just twenty-four hours. The duke, on reflection, concluded that Boury was too far away from Paris, where all was tumult and uncertainty. It was not too far away from Madame de Valençay, of whom the duke was now almost weary, but for him to go to Brittany might look as if he were running away from their Majesties, who were in very great danger. So, the next evening, the duke again came into Trimousette’s little room and told her it was not Boury to which they would go, but Belgarde, near to Versailles. He even condescended to give his reasons. Trimousette listened with a mute, unmoved face. She was so used to disappointments that she took them without protest. Of course, she thought the real reason was Madame de Valençay, and when the duke left the room, she went and looked at herself in the mirror.

“No, Trimousette,” she said to herself, “you are not pretty; your eyes are dark, and you have long, soft, black hair, and little feet. But that is not beauty. Nor is the love of the most splendid duke in France for you, although you may be his wife.”

The duke invited a great party to spend the week at the château, and the little duchess went soberly through her duties as hostess. Everybody said she was much too quiet, which was true. Others said she had no feeling, which was ridiculously false.

The party was very gay. The world was rapidly turning upside down. Nobody had any money, the black clouds and red lightnings and earthquake shocks were bewildering men’s minds, so the only thing to do was to laugh, to dance, to sing.

That is what the company at the Château de Belgarde did, the duke leading all the wild spirits in the party.

The one comfort the little duchess had was that her brother Victor was among the roysterers. He was ever kind to her, but like her husband, a trifle careless. Victor was working night and day at a little play, to be produced in the private theatre at Belgarde. It was meant to shadow forth the final triumph of the aristocracy over the people, who were making themselves to be seen and heard and felt at every turn. The play was to be produced on the night before the party broke up.

Now, it was the fixed and grim determination of the duke that Madame de Valençay should not track him to Belgarde, to worry him. But the lady was too clever for him. He could not prevent her from visiting a neighboring château, and coming over with a large party to spend the day at Belgarde, as country neighbors do everywhere.

Never had Madame de Valençay looked more deliciously seductive than on that day. She might have sat for one of Botticelli’s nymphs in her soft wine draperies without a hoop, being in the country, her long fair hair in curls about her shoulders, and wearing a hat crowned with roses.

In contrast to this dazzling creature was the pale little duchess sombrely dressed, her silence, which verged on awkwardness, placing her at the greatest disadvantage beside the brilliant, rippling talk of Madame de Valençay and her laughter like the music of a fountain.

In one thing only did the duchess carry off the palm. Madame de Valençay, like a peacock, was all beauty except her feet, which were large and ill-shaped. The duchess’s small, arched feet looked smaller than ever in the dainty black shoes with black silk stockings which she wore.