d'aiglemont's

Updated: May 14, 2025

The very perfections of her character forbade her to venture to swerve from her duties, or to attempt to inquire into the cause of her sufferings, for to put an end to them would have been to venture on delicate ground, and Julie's girlish modesty shrank from the thought. A word as to M. d'Aiglemont's destinies under the Restoration.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

"Oh! he only says exactly as much as he means to say," thought these excellent people. So d'Aiglemont's defects and good qualities stood him alike in good stead. He did nothing to forfeit a high military reputation gained by his dashing courage, for he had never been a commander-in-chief.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

If I use this language to you, it is because I am in a manner justified in using it, for I am quite certain that I can save Mme. d'Aiglemont's life and restore her to health and happiness. It is odd, no doubt, that a man of my rank should be a physician, yet nevertheless chance determined that I should study medicine.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

Laughter followed on the friendly epigram; but Arthur, who made one of the group, maintained a frigid imperturbability in his quality of an English gentleman who takes gravity for the very basis of his being. D'Aiglemont's eccentric confidence, no doubt, had kindled some kind of hope in Arthur, for he stood patiently awaiting an opportunity of a word with the Marquis. He had not to wait long.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

Moina, beautiful and fascinating from childhood, was Mme. d'Aiglemont's favorite; loved beyond all the others with an instinctive or involuntary love, a fatal drawing of the heart, which sometimes seems inexplicable, sometimes, and to a close observer, only too easy to explain.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

After the Hundred Days he received the appointment of Lieutenant-General, and for the second time became a marquis; but it was M. d'Aiglemont's ambition to be a peer of France.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

For young women of the Marquise d'Aiglemont's age, this first, this most poignant pain of all, is always referable to the same cause. A woman, especially if she is a young woman, greatly beautiful, and by nature great, never fails to stake her whole life as instinct and sentiment and society all unite to bid her.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

For a moment Charles stood motionless, leaning lightly against the frame of the doorway, wholly absorbed in his scrutiny of a woman who had become famous, no one exactly knew how or why. Such curious anomalies are frequent enough in the world. Mme. d'Aiglemont's reputation was certainly no more extraordinary than plenty of other great reputations.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

Among a thousand pictures in a gallery, you are strongly impressed by the sublime anguish on the face of some Madonna of Murillo's; by some Beatrice Cenci in which Guido's art portrays the most touching innocence against a background of horror and crime; by the awe and majesty that should encircle a king, caught once and for ever by Velasquez in the sombre face of a Philip II., and so is it with some living human faces; they are tyrannous pictures which speak to you, submit you to searching scrutiny, and give response to your inmost thoughts, nay, there are faces that set forth a whole drama, and Mme. d'Aiglemont's stony face was one of these awful tragedies, one of such faces as Dante Alighieri saw by thousands in his vision.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty

Charles de Vandenesse saw and admired the beautiful picture before him, as a kind of artistic success beyond an ordinary woman's powers of attainment. And yet the Marquise d'Aiglemont's life was above reproach, and for any observer the mystery about her was the more interesting on this account.

Honoré de Balzac - A Woman of Thirty