After a year, their happiness was interrupted for a moment by the general's death. Monsieur de Valmont was beloved by all who knew him; he was very dear to his niece, to whom he had been as an affectionate and indulgent father. Her husband's love alone could comfort Constance in her profound grief for her uncle's death. Monsieur de Montreville mingled his regrets with her tears; he had lost a true friend; but in old age we often show more courage than in the springtime of life, in bearing the death of those who are dear to us. Is it because age makes us selfish? Is it because the heart, having become insensible to the flames of love, closes its doors to the transports of friendship; or is it rather because of the reflection that the separation cannot be for long, and that we shall soon join those whom we have lost?
Constance was her uncle's sole heir; the general was very rich, and owned a number of farms and estates in the provinces, with which Frédéric wished to make himself familiar. So he had formed a plan of visiting their new possessions, and Constance was to remain at Paris, in order not to leave Monsieur de Montreville alone with his grief for the loss of his friend. But how could he make up his mind to leave his wife before her grief had begun to subside? As the visit of inspection was not urgent, Frédéric postponed it from month to month; and Constance, who had not as yet been separated from her husband for a single day, could not decide to let him go.
Some time after the general's death, Frédéric learned that Monsieur Ménard, being frequently incapacitated by the gout, had lost all his pupils and was in very reduced circumstances. So he went to see his former tutor, and asked him to come to live with him.
"I need a prudent, clever man," he said, "to take charge of my affairs, overlook my stewards' accounts, and correspond with them. Be that man, my dear Ménard. Remember that it is not as an employé, but as a friend that I ask you to come; and if heaven sends me children, you shall be to them what you were to their father."
Ménard accepted gratefully, and he was installed under Frédéric's roof, where Constance treated him with much consideration and affection; she loved the former tutor, because he was attached to her husband, and Ménard, deeply touched by the young woman's attentions, often exclaimed, as he kissed her hand respectfully:
"Ah! madame, do have children! I will be their tutor, and they'll grow up like their excellent father, who was my pupil and who does me credit."
Constance smiled at that; doubtless she would have asked nothing better, but we do not always obtain what we desire.
Dubourg had not abandoned his friend.
"Come and see me whenever you please," Frédéric had said to him; "your room will always be ready for you."
Dubourg made the most of that permission, not to quarter himself on Frédéric in Paris, but to visit him at his country house. He was particularly apt to appear during the latter half of the quarter; for his income was paid quarterly, and he could never succeed in making it last more than six weeks; then he would take his meals at Frédéric's, if he was in Paris, or would visit him in the country.