United States or Nicaragua ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It will leak out from the d'Esgrignon salon, and go straight to the bishop at Seez, and so get round through the grand vicars to the curate of Saint-Leonard's, who will be certain to tell it to the Abbe Couturier; and Mademoiselle Cormon will get the shot in her upper works.
"Then you do not know the Duchess' position?" queried de Marsay, as he sprang into the saddle. "No," said d'Esgrignon, his curiosity aroused. "Well, dear fellow, it is like this," returned de Marsay "thirty thousand francs to Victorine, eighteen thousand francs to Houbigaut, lesser amounts to Herbault, Nattier, Nourtier, and those Latour people, altogether a hundred thousand francs."
She was an angel who asked him for the love that lives by self-abnegation and heroism and self-sacrifice; an angel who would have her lover live like an English lord, with an income of a million francs. D'Esgrignon once exchanged a horse because the animal's coat did not satisfy her notions.
"Young d'Esgrignon is getting out of his depth. He is not up to Paris. He will blow his brains out. A little fool!" and so on and so on. D'Esgrignon, however, promptly took comfort. His servant brought him two letters. The first was from Chesnel. A letter from Chesnel smacked of the stale grumbling faithfulness of honesty and its consecrated formulas.
Together they began to relate to d'Arthez the adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse: her first affair with de Marsay; her second with d'Ajuda, whom she had, they said, distracted from his wife, thus avenging Madame de Beausant; also her later connection with young d'Esgrignon, who had travelled with her in Italy, and had horribly compromised himself on her account; after that they told him how unhappy she had been with a certain celebrated ambassador, how happy with a Russian general, besides becoming the Egeria of two ministers of Foreign affairs, and various other anecdotes.
"Let the marquis say what he thinks," cried Rastignac. "When a man has been thrown by a fine horse he thinks it has vices and he sells it." Piqued by these words, the Marquis d'Esgrignon looked at d'Arthez and said: "Monsieur is not, I trust, on such terms with the princess that we cannot speak freely of her?" D'Arthez kept silence.
Mlle. d'Esgrignon, his half-sister, saved some portions of the fief, thanks to the young steward of the family, who claimed on her behalf the partage de presuccession, which is to say, the right of a relative to a portion of the emigre's lands. To Mlle. d'Esgrignon, therefore, the Republic made over the castle itself and a few farms.
Old Chesnel was walking up the Grand Rue, as if by accident, telling all who cared to hear him that du Croisier had set the most shameful of snares for the d'Esgrignons' honor, and that it was entirely owing to the forbearance and magnanimity of the family that he was not prosecuted for slander. On the evening of that famous day, after the Marquis d'Esgrignon had gone to bed, the Count, Mlle.
To please her husband, Madame du Bousquier had broken off relations with the d'Esgrignon household, where she went no longer, except that sometimes when her husband left her during his trips to Paris, she would pay a brief visit to Mademoiselle Armande.
Du Croisier took occasion to say during the ceremony that the d'Esgrignon family was the most honorable of all the ancient houses in France. Some day the present Marquis d'Esgrignon will have an income of more than a hundred thousand crowns.
Word Of The Day