“My good fellow,” said he, “Ursule is a sensitive plant; a hard word might kill her. For her sake you should moderate the expression of your love. Ah! if you had loved her for fifteen years, you would have taken her word,” he added, in revenge for the last words of Savinien’s letter.
Two days later Savinien left. In spite of the letters he wrote regularly to Ursule, she was a victim to a malady that had no evident cause. Like a fine fruit attacked by a maggot, one thought was eating her heart out. She lost her appetite and her bright color. When her godfather first asked her what she was feeling:
“I want to see the sea,” she said.
“It is difficult to take you to a seaport in the month of December!” said the old man.
“Then shall I go?” said she.
If the wind was high, Ursule was in agonies, believing, in spite of the learned observations of her godfather, the curé, and the Justice, that Savinien was warring with a hurricane. The Justice made her happy for a few days with a print representing a naval cadet in his uniform. She read the newspapers, believing that they would give her news of the cruise in which Savinien was engaged. She devoured the seafaring novels of Cooper, and learned the meaning of sea words. Those proofs of a fixed idea, so often affected by other women, were so perfectly natural in Ursule that she foresaw in a dream every letter from Savinien, and never failed to predict their arrival by relating the premonitory dream.
“Now,” said she to the doctor, on the fourth occasion when this had happened without the doctor and the curé being at all surprised; “now, I am easy; however far away Savinien may be, if he were wounded, I should feel it at the same moment.”
The old physician sat plunged in deep meditation, which, to judge from the expression of his face, the Justice and the curé thought must be sorrowful.
“What is wrong?” they asked him, when Ursule had left them together.
“Will she live?” replied the old doctor. “Can so frail and tender a flower withstand the anguish of her heart?”
Meanwhile the “little dreamer,” as the curé called her, worked indefatigably; she understood the importance to a woman of the world of extensive information; and when she was not studying singing, harmony, or composition, she spent her time in reading the books chosen for her in her godfather’s extensive library.
While leading this busy life she suffered much, but she did not complain. Sometimes she would sit for hours gazing at Savinien’s window opposite. On Sunday, as she came from church, she followed Madame de Portenduère, watching her tenderly, for in spite of her sternness she loved her as being Savinien’s mother. Her piety was doubled; she went to mass every morning, for she firmly believed that her dreams were a special grace from God.
Alarmed by the ravages of this nostalgia of love, on Ursule’s birthday her godfather promised to take her to Toulon to see the departure of the fleet for Algiers without announcing their purpose to Savinien, who was sailing with it. The Justice and the curé kept the secret of the doctor’s intentions with regard to this journey, which seemed to be undertaken for the benefit of Ursule’s health, and which puzzled the heirs very greatly.
After having seen Savinien once more in his uniform, and after going on board the fine flagship of the admiral, to whom the minister had especially recommended young Portenduère, Ursule, at her friend’s desire, went to inhale the soft air of Nice, and traveled along the Mediterranean coast as far as Genoa, where she had news of the arrival of the fleet before Algiers and a good report of the landing. The doctor would gladly have continued the journey across Italy, as much to divert Ursule’s mind as to complete her education and enlarge her ideas by comparing manners and scenery, and by the delights of a land where the greatest works of art are to be seen, and where so many civilizations have left glorious traces; but the news of the opposition to the throne shown by the electors of the famous Chamber of 1830 called him back to France, whither he brought his ward home in a blooming state of health, and happy in the possession of a small model of the ship on which Savinien was serving.
The elections of 1830 gave cohesion to the Minoret heirs; for, by the advice of Goupil and of Désiré Minoret, they formed a committee at Nemours, by whose efforts the Liberal candidate was returned for Fontainebleau. Massin exerted immense influence over the country voters. Five of the postmaster’s farmers also had votes. Dionis represented more than eleven votes. By meeting at the notary’s, Crémière, Massin, the postmaster, and their adherents got into a habit of assembling there. On the doctor’s return, Dionis’ room had thus become their camping ground.
The Justice and the Mayor, who then combined to resist the Liberals of Nemours, were beaten by the Opposition in spite of the efforts of the gentry in the neighborhood, and their defeat bound them very closely together. When Bongrand and the Abbé Chaperon told the doctor of the result of this antagonism, which had divided Nemours, for the first time, into two parties, and had given importance to his next-of-kin, Charles X was actually leaving Rambouillet for Cherbourg. Désiré Minoret, whose opinions were those of the Paris bar, had invited fifteen of his friends, with Goupil at their head, to come from Nemours; the postmaster gave them horses to hurry to Paris, where they joined Désiré on the night of the
