The Jealousies of a Country Town

into two camps, and, moreover, du Bousquier was mixed up in both affairs in some mysterious way. The first of these debates concerned the curé. He had taken the oath of allegiance in the time of the Revolution, and now was living down orthodox prejudices by setting an example of the loftiest goodness. He was a Cheverus on a smaller scale, and so much was he appreciated, that when he died the whole town wept for him. Mlle. Cormon and the Abbé de Sponde belonged, however, to the minority, to the Church sublime in its orthodoxy, a section which was to the Court of Rome as the Ultras were shortly to be to the Court of Louis XVIII. The Abbé, in particular, declined to recognize the Church that had submitted to force and made terms with the Constitutionnels. So the curé was never seen in the salon of the Maison Cormon, and the sympathies of its frequenters were with the officiating priest of St. Leonard’s, the aristocratic church in Alençon. Du Bousquier, that rabid Liberal under a Royalist’s skin, knew how necessary it is to find standards to rally the discontented, who form, as it were, the back-shop of every opposition, and therefore he had already enlisted the sympathies of the trading classes for the curé.

Now for the second affair. The same blunt diplomatist was the secret instigator of a scheme for building a theatre, an idea which had only lately sprouted in Alençon. Du Bousquier’s zealots knew not their Muhammad, but they were more ardent in their defence of what they believed to be their own plan. Athanase was one of the very hottest of the partisans in favor of the theatre; in the mayor’s office for several days past he had been pleading for the cause which all the younger men had taken up.

To return to the Chevalier. He offered his arm to Mlle. Cormon, who thanked him with a radiant glance for this attention. For all answer, the Chevalier indicated Athanase by a meaning look.

“Mademoiselle,” he began, “as you have such well-balanced judgment in matters of social convention, and as that young man is related to you in some way⁠—”

“Very distantly,” she broke in.

“Ought you not to use the influence which you possess with him and his mother to prevent him from going utterly to the bad? He is not very religious as it is; he defends that perjured priest; but that is nothing. It is a much more serious matter; is he not plunging thoughtlessly into opposition without realizing how his conduct may affect his prospects? He is scheming to build this theatre; he is the dupe of that Republican in disguise, du Bousquier⁠—”

“Dear me, M. de Valois, his mother tells me that he is so clever, and he has not a word to say for himself; he always stands planted before you like a statute⁠—”

“Of limitations,” cried the registrar. “I caught that flying.⁠—I present my devoars to the Chevalier de Valois,” he added, saluting the latter with the exaggeration of Henri Monnier as “Joseph Prudhomme,” an admirable type of the class to which M. du Coudrai belonged.

M. de Valois, in return, gave him the abbreviated patronizing nod of a noble standing on his dignity; then he drew Mlle. Cormon further along the terrace by the distance of several flowerpots, to make the registrar understand that he did not wish to be overheard.

Then, lowering his voice, he bent to say in Mlle. Cormon’s ear: “How can you expect that lads educated in these detestable Imperial Lyceums should have any ideas? Great ideas and a lofty love can only come of right courses and nobleness of life. It is not difficult to foresee, from the look of the poor fellow, that he will be weak in his intellect and come to a miserable end. See how pale and haggard he looks!”

“His mother says that he works far too hard,” she replied innocently. “He spends his nights, think of it! in reading books and writing. What good can it possibly do a young man’s prospects to sit up writing at night?”

“Why, it exhausts him,” said the Chevalier, trying to bring the lady’s thoughts back to the point, which was to disgust her with Athanase. “The things that went on in those Imperial Lyceums were something really shocking.”

“Oh yes,” said the simple lady. “Did they not make them walk out with drums in front? The masters had no more religion than heathens; and they put them in uniform, poor boys, exactly as if they had been soldiers. What notions!”

“And see what comes of it,” continued the Chevalier, indicating Athanase. “In my time, where was the young man that could not look a pretty woman in the face? Now, he lowers his eyes as soon as he sees you. That young man alarms me, because I am interested in him. Tell him not to intrigue with Bonapartists, as he is doing, to build this theatre; if these little youngsters do not raise an insurrection and demand it (for insurrection and constitution, to my mind, are two words for the same thing), the authorities will build it. And tell his mother to look after him.”

“Oh, she will not allow him to see these half-pay people or to keep low company, I am sure. I will speak to him about it,” said Mlle. Cormon; “he might lose his situation at the mayor’s office. And then what would they do, he and his mother? It makes you shudder.”

As M. de Talleyrand said of his wife, so said the Chevalier within himself at that moment, as he looked at the lady:

“If there is a stupider woman, I should like to see her. On the honor of a gentleman, if virtue makes a woman so stupid as this, is it not a vice? And yet, what an adorable wife she would make for a man of my age! What principle! What ignorance of life!”

Please to bear in mind that these remarks were