We must pass rapidly over this earlier portion of the book, which is not altogether essential to the principal plot, but is in some degree complete in itself, and has a dénouement so far as the viscount is concerned. That worthy duly makes his appearance at La Trélade, and, as duly, starts, trembles, and is violently agitated on beholding and hearing Miss Levrault, between whom and his lost love, the very noble and eternally regretted Mademoiselle de Chanteplure, a most extraordinary resemblance exists. He succeeds in ingratiating himself with both father and daughter; undertakes to do the honours of the province, and to introduce them to its most illustrious inhabitants. Notwithstanding this assurance, after three months' residence the visitors at La Trélade are limited to a gouty old count, a creditor of Montflanquin's—on whose marriage he, like Jolibois, reckons for reimbursement, and who, in the meantime, condescends to take the air in M. Levrault's carriage—and to a greedy chevalier and self-styled descendant from Godfrey of Bouillon, who would give his entire genealogical tree for a good dinner, and whose gratitude for the succulent repasts to which the viscount is the means of his admission, precludes his own speaking of that adventurous individual, otherwise than in terms of the very highest eulogium. As to Gaspard himself, he lives at La Trélade, leaving it only at night for his ruinous chateau, where the faithful Galaor keeps watch—that youthful and depraved Balderstone being compelled, owing to the extreme penury of his noble master's exchequer, to subsist himself on the plunder of the neighbouring hen-roosts and rabbit-warrens. All things progress favourably for the Viscount's schemes. The ex-clothier, convinced of his unbounded influence at court, is impatient at his not proposing, and ready to throw his daughter into his arms. Laura herself, although but moderately fascinated by the very ordinary frontispiece of the last Montflanquin, and somewhat surprised that Brittany can produce no better specimen of its hereditary nobility, yet, seeing no choice, and burning with impatience to abdicate her plebeian patronymic, has made up her mind to accept the viscount, when one morning, in the course of a long and solitary ride, she stumbles upon the castle of La Rochelandier, from which Gaspard has hitherto carefully kept her by the interposition of imaginary morasses, and other dangers equally unreal. Her suspicions already roused by finding that an easy canter along a pleasant valley leads her to the dilapidated but still stately edifice which had been depicted to her as of such perilous approach, a single interview with the adroit dowager opens her eyes to the viscount's manœuvres, and when she again reaches home, escorted by the handsome Marquis de la Rochelandier, it is with the full determination to discard the aspirant, whom a few hours previously she had been resolute to accept. Discarded the unlucky Montflanquin accordingly is, the downfall of his hopes being accelerated by the treacherous Jolibois, who, finding his debtor's chance gone, gives him the last kick by arresting him, and the viscount is trotted off to Nantes in a taxed cart, in charge of a leash of bailiffs, whilst the devoted and disconsolate Galaor remains on the threshold of the ruined tower, wringing his hands and mourning for his wages.
From the incarceration of Gaspard de Montflanquin dates a new epoch in the chronicle of the Levrault family. The gouty count and the gourmand chevalier having shared his disgrace, La Trélade is for a while desolate, and the man of millions moodily paces its solitary halls. Jolibois, whilst declaring himself the dupe of the Viscount, whom he now loudly proclaims an adventurer, has thought proper, for purposes of his own, to speak disparagingly of the Rochelandiers. He has a notion that by persuading M. Levrault that France is on the eve of a republic, he may still obtain the hand of Laura. In this he is totally mistaken. He certainly succeeds in making the man of cloth miserably uneasy and undecided, but not in persuading him of the approaching downfall of that privileged order of which he so ardently desired to become a member. Nevertheless, M. Levrault's recent experience has considerably lessened his admiration of the Breton nobility. On all hands he beholds traps for his millions, baited with coronets by pauper aristocrats. Furious at the intriguing viscount, he yet deplores the downfall of the edifice of which that individual was the keystone.
"In M. Levrault's eyes, Brittany was now no better than a vast den of thieves. He especially mistrusted the castle of La Rochelandier, which he persisted in considering as the haunt of chouans, a focus of conspiracy—of Legitimist intrigues and stratagems. It will be remembered that, when Gaspard, dismissed and discomfited, was crossing the court-yard of La Trélade, Levrault called out in a voice of thunder to get the carriage ready—that he was going to the castle of La Rochelandier. This was merely an ingenious mode of giving the death-blow to Gaspard. Right or wrong, he could not tell why, M. Levrault detested the Rochelandiers. It is hard to say by what peculiar process of reasoning this clever citizen had come to look upon them as the cause of all his misfortunes. All his deceptions dated from the hour that his daughter had crossed their threshold; the departure of peace and happiness from La Trélade coincided with the first visit of the young Marquis. M. Levrault almost brought himself to believe that, without the Rochelandiers, the Viscount would have really been all he wished to appear—a model and mirror of chivalry. If Gaspard was a scamp, it was the fault of La Rochelandier."
Miss Levrault, however, was of a very different way of thinking from her father. The Marchioness, too, had her designs on the plebeian's millions; and, by a sort of instinct, without concerted plan, the two women played into each other's hands. No wonder, then, that in less than six weeks from the Viscount's disgrace, the La Rochelandiers were welcome and frequent guests at La Trélade, and that the skilful attentions of the Marchioness had again put M. Levrault on the best possible terms with himself.
"Nevertheless, the great manufacturer was not happy. Something was wanting to his felicity: it was a son-in-law in perspective. Gaston did not replace Gaspard. M. Levrault well knew that an alliance with a Legitimist could lead to nothing for himself. In vain did Laura tell him of the approaching return of Henry V.—of the honour of being received, in the meanwhile, by the Duchesses of the faubourg St Germain: M. Levrault was deaf in that ear. He cared nothing for the drawing-rooms of the noble faubourg, and felt that his only chance of expanding into blossom was by favour of the vivifying rays of the sun of the bourgeoisie. Besides that, the attitude of the young Marquis was not encouraging. If Gaston coveted the manufacturer's millions, he still seemed little disposed to stoop to pick them up. Too proud himself to mount to the assault, he left the conduct of the siege to his mother, quite determined, however, to enter the fortress so soon as the gates were opened. At heart loyal and honourable, he was not one of those poetical and purely intellectual beings who are utterly careless of the good things of this world. Still young, he had already tasted of the realities of life. The whole of his youth had not passed under his ancestor's roof. Without making any great display, he had lived at Paris in an elegant, frivolous, and dissipated, but honourable circle, where his name, wit, and good looks had been made much of. After a few years, perceiving that the remnant of his patrimony was insufficient to enable him to maintain his rank in those golden regions, condemned to idleness by the traditions of his family, and too honest to accept the existence of a Montflanquin, he heroically retired to his ruined castle, where he and his mother were literally dying of ennui, when the Levraults arrived at La Trélade, and the whole province resounded with reports of the father's wealth and folly. For some time past Madame de la Rochelandier—whose pride, weary of wrestling with poverty, had consented to bow its head, well resolved to rear it again at a future period—had meditated for her son a lucrative mis-alliance, which might mend the fortune of their house, and enable them to await, with tolerable patience, the return of their legitimate sovereign. Miss Levrault appeared to her like the dove announcing the end of the deluge. What followed may easily be guessed. When his mother proposed to him to marry the heiress, Gaston, shocked at first, hesitated afterwards, and finally consented. His visits to La Trélade sharpened his appetite for riches. He was not in love with Laura; but he easily persuaded himself that love was not an essential condition of marriage with a young and pretty person afflicted with a dowry of a million. He did not deceive himself as to Miss Levrault's sentiments, and said to himself, that as she sought only his title, he, on his part, was fully justified in seeking only her wealth."
We do not often meet with a novel to which it is less easy to do justice within the limits of an article, than to the clever and amusing one now under examination. Without a complete analysis of the plot—rendered difficult by its complication, and by the numerous minor incidents and scenes, of which some mention is essential to its clear intelligence—it is difficult to select extracts that shall have interest when detached, and at the same time give a fair idea of the really very considerable merit of the book, which abounds in sly touches of satire, often defying both extraction and translation. In the early portion of the work, where Montflanquin is a prominent character, the pencilling is sometimes so broad as to border on caricature; but when the bailiffs remove him from the scene, Jolibois at the same time falling temporarily into the background, and the Marchioness, attaching herself to their intended victim, in her turn spreads her web for the millions, M. Sandeau comes out in his very best style, depicting, with great skill, the cautious and tortuous approaches by which the attenuated dowager-spider proceeds to the appropriation of the bulky, well-conditioned fly. For a time, her machinations are fruitless. In vain does she coax, caress, and insidiously flatter; the millions hold out. But she knows how to turn the delay to profit, by using it to acquire a thorough knowledge of the weak points of the fortress. With her astuteness, she is not long in penetrating the inmost recesses of the cloth-merchant's little soul. This done, she distributes her snares accordingly. And soon a day comes when, at the close of a long and interesting tête-à-tête, in the cool shrubberies of La Trélade, the spider and the fly go upon their several ways rejoicing. M. Levrault has agreed to give his daughter to the Marquis, whose mother undertakes that after the marriage his father-in-law shall have the satisfaction of seeing him pay his homage, for the first time, at the footstool of the Citizen-King. The rich plebeian cannot, for an instant, doubt of the high reward reserved for the man who is thus the means of rallying to the dynasty of July the head of an ancient and illustrious house.
An hour after this interview, the Marchioness was on the road back to her manor; and M. Levrault, beaming with triumph, entered his daughter's apartment.
"'Madame la Marquise!' he exclaimed, 'embrace your father!'
"'My son!' said the Marchioness, on reaching home, 'embrace your mother; you are master of millions!'"
The wedding over, a move is made to Paris. The clever dowager, who has not married her son to an heiress with the intention of herself vegetating in Brittany, has the address to make M. Levrault solicit her company. In his mind's eye, the absurd old citizen already beholds himself occupying a prominent place in the Chamber of Peers: he has heard say that all eminent statesmen have their Egeria, and in that capacity he desires to retain the invaluable services of Madame de la Rochelandier, who, after a due show of reluctance, makes one of the party to Paris. Poor Levrault soon has reason to repent his invitation. Before departing, the Marchioness insists upon making him a present of her feudal residence of La Rochelandier. Accordingly, its name is changed to Castle Levrault; and to it are transferred the handsome furniture, sumptuous hangings, dogs, horses, and equipages that had rendered La Trélade so luxurious a habitation. But, on reaching Paris, the Marchioness shows herself determined to recompense her own generosity. A magnificent hotel is taken in the Faubourg St Germain, where she reigns paramount, ingeniously making it appear that her life is a succession of sacrifices, and that she has regretfully quitted her rural seclusion, to assist her dear friend Levrault in climbing to the pinnacle to which his talents cannot fail to raise him.