César's wife, who had learned to know her husband's character during the early years of their marriage, led a life of perpetual terror; she represented sound sense and foresight in the partnership; she was doubt, opposition, and fear, while César represented boldness, ambition, activity, the element of chance and undreamed-of good luck. In spite of appearances, the merchant was the weaker vessel, and it was the wife who really had the patience and courage. So it had come to pass that a timid mediocrity, without education, knowledge, or strength of character, a being who could in nowise have succeeded in the world's most slippery places, was taken for a remarkable man, a man of spirit and resolution, thanks to his instinctive uprightness and sense of justice, to the goodness of a truly Christian soul, and love for the one woman who had been his.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] From "The Rise and Fall of César Birotteau," as translated by Ellen Marriàge.
ALFRED DE VIGNY
Born in 1799, died in 1863; entered the army in 1815, becoming a captain in 1823; published a volume of verse in 1822; "Cinq-Mars," his famous historical novel, published in 1826; made translations from Shakespeare and wrote original historical dramas; admitted to the French Academy in 1845.
RICHELIEU'S WAY WITH HIS MASTER[56]
The latter [Cardinal de Richelieu], attired in all the pomp of a cardinal, leaning upon two young pages, and followed by his captain of the guards and more than five hundred gentlemen attached to his house, advanced toward the King slowly and stopping at each step, as if forcibly arrested by his sufferings, but in reality to observe the faces before him. A glance sufficed.