After all, notwithstanding its wit and power, and fund of worldly wisdom, one turns almost with a sense of relief from this disheartening Middlemarch world to the world as seen in Fleurange. Considered merely as a story, for unity of plot and rapidity of action, Fleurange is, to our thinking, far more interesting than Middlemarch. A young girl who has been educated in an Italian convent finds herself soon after leaving it thrown almost entirely upon the world by the death of her father, an artist, to fight the battle of life single-handed. “Young, beautiful, poor, and alone in Paris, what will become of her?” With this question the book opens, and, indeed, the whole story is plainly evolved from this idea. Instead of wasting her efforts on an impossible S. Teresa, Mme. Craven takes up the practical case of a young and religious girl, whose training and education, whatever they may have amounted to in the point of accomplishments, were built upon religion, not a vague unreality, but a religion which in the plainest words taught her to kneel down and pray, not to “the perfect Right,” as did Dorothea, but to God, to Jesus Christ—a being, it may here be mentioned, who is carefully excluded from Middlemarch. The reader need not infer that this inner life of the heroine is insisted upon severely, and that he always finds Fleurange upon her knees. Nothing of the sort. You only feel unconsciously, by little touches here and there, by the tone of the whole story, that the girl lives up to the practical accomplishment of what she was taught in the convent by Madre Maddalena; that she carries her religion out with her into the world as her only guide amidst its manifold dangers; that she has not flung it aside with her leading-strings; and that it is this and this alone which sustains her in the midst of terrible suffering, and saves her from sinking under the pressure of trial.
Fleurange goes first to her uncle’s family in Germany. Their loss of fortune drives her out again from them into the service of a Russian princess, where she is surrounded and flattered by all that the world considers witty, brave, brilliant, and captivating. Her singular beauty and innate nobility enable her to grace the lofty station to which the Princess Catherine assigns her. Here, in Florence, in the very household of his mother, she encounters for the second time Count George de Walden, a handsome and highly accomplished young gentleman, the adoration of his mother and possibly of himself, who is just loitering around Europe, “seeing life.” He met Fleurange before in her father’s studio as she sat for a picture of “Cordelia.” Of course, he fell in love with her, as such young gentlemen will do whose time is heavy on their hands. Father and daughter disappeared. He retained the picture, but what he wanted was the original; and here, after feeding on the memory of his unknown love for a year or so, he finds her actually domesticated in his mother’s household. This is what a playwright would consider “an excellent situation,” particularly as the princess suspects nothing of what is passing under her eyes. As a matter of course, they fall in love, and, equally as a matter of course, they contrive to make their love known. And this is the trying time for Fleurange.
It is not that she is dazzled with the prince, but with what she considers the perfect man. And indeed, in the eyes of the world, Count George is a perfect man, whilst, in the eyes of his mother, he is something still more; and therefore a mésalliance would to her, whose heart was entirely her son’s—all the rest of her being divided between the modiste, the physician, and the salon—seem a greater crime than many of those which bring men to the scaffold. Fleurange knows this, and therefore—though, when the confession is forced from her, she does not even to himself deny her love for George and her desire to be his wife—she is convinced that their union is impossible. She does the best thing under the circumstances: she determines to leave the household of the princess; and thus, not for the first time, do the promptings of duty, of what one ought to do, of what God would have us do, correspond with those of common sense. George has avowed his love for Fleurange to his mother, and the confession has such an effect upon her that she is cured for the time from an attack of one of those incurable maladies not uncommon with ladies who are blessed with everything that this world can offer. There is caste even in illnesses, and fashion in a complaint as in a bonnet. Thus, when some years back the eye-glass became a fashionable ornament, all young England, fashionable and would-be fashionable, suddenly grew weak in one eye, whilst the “sons of industry” remained in their normal condition.
The princess rises to the gravity of the situation, and extracts a promise from her son that he will never marry Fleurange without her consent. But all her difficulties are smoothed away by Fleurange herself, who, even though the count has asked her to be his wife, determines to sacrifice herself for his sake, and go.
“‘Fleurange,’ said the count, with a grave accent of sincerity far more dangerous than that of passion, ‘you shall be my wife if you will consent to be—if you will accept this hand I offer you.’
“‘With your mother’s consent?’ said Fleurange slowly, and in a low tone. ‘Can you assure me of that?’
“After a moment’s hesitation, George replied: ‘No, not to-day; but she will yield her consent, I assure you.’
“Fleurange hesitated in her turn. She knew only too well to what a degree this hope was illusory, but this was her last opportunity of conversing with him. The next day would commence their lifelong separation, which time, distance, and prolonged absence would continually widen. There was no longer any danger in telling the truth—the truth, alas! so devoid of importance now, but which would, perhaps, second the duty she had to accomplish quite as well as contradiction.
“‘Ah! well,’ she at last replied, with simplicity. ‘Yes, why should I deny it? Should life prove more favorable to us; if by some unforeseen circumstance, impossible to conceive, your mother should cheerfully consent to receive me as a daughter, oh! then what an answer I would make you know without my telling you. You are likewise perfectly aware that until that day I will never listen to you.’