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Updated: April 30, 2025
Butscha did not understand this epigram, whose meaning could only be guessed by Monsieur and Madame Mignon and Dumay. "When it is a question of marriage, all men disguise themselves," remarked Latournelle, "and women set them the example.
Dumay went down to Havre early in the morning, and soon discovered that no architect had been in town the day before. Furious at Butscha's lie, which revealed a conspiracy of which he was resolved to know the meaning, he rushed from the mayor's office to his friend Latournelle. "Where's your Master Butscha?" he demanded of the notary, when he saw that the clerk was not in his place.
He made the journey in company with another prisoner, a poor lieutenant, in whom he recognized his old friend Jean Dumay, brave, neglected, undecorated, unhappy, like a million of other woollen epaulets, rank and file that canvas of men on which Napoleon painted the picture of the Empire.
Ah! if I could but see my daughter!" cried the poor woman. "But whom is it possible for her to love?" asked the notary. "I'll answer for my Exupere." "It can't be Gobenheim," said Dumay, "for since the colonel's departure he has not spent nine hours a week in this house. Besides, he doesn't even notice Modeste that five-franc piece of a man!
At this moment Exupere tore through the garden and the house, plunged into the salon like an avalanche, and said to Dumay in an audible whisper, "The young man is here!" Dumay sprang for his pistols and rushed out. "Good God! suppose he kills him!" cried Madame Dumay, bursting into tears. "What is the matter?" asked Modeste, looking innocently at her friends and not betraying the slightest fear.
The two friends kept up a long conversation all the way from Paris to Havre, which put the colonel in possession of the facts relating to his family during the past four years, and informing Dumay that Desplein, the great surgeon, was coming to Havre at the end of the present month to examine the cataract on Madame Mignon's eyes, and decide if it were possible to restore her sight.
A few short months, and I shall see you all again, and all well, I trust. My dear Dumay, if I write this letter to you it is because I am anxious to keep my fortune a secret for the present. I therefore leave to you the happiness of preparing my dear angels for my return. I have had enough of commerce; and I am resolved to leave Havre.
To this true lover, Modeste was eclipsing all the Modestes he had created as he read her letters and answered them. This visit, the length of which was predetermined by Canalis, careful not to allow his admirers a chance to get surfeited, ended by an invitation to dinner on the following Monday. "We shall not be at the Chalet," said the Comte de La Bastie. "Dumay will have sole possession of it.
"Madame," he cried, "he is a serpent whom we have warmed in our bosoms; there's no place in his contorted little body for a soul!" Modeste put the letter for her father into the pocket of her apron, supposing it to be that for Canalis, and came downstairs with the letter for her lover in her hand, to see Dumay before he started for Paris.
"There is," added the man, "a meeting of the council of state to-day, at which Monsieur le baron is obliged to be present." "Is this really the house of Monsieur Canalis," said Dumay, "a writer of poetry?" "Monsieur le baron de Canalis," replied the valet, "is the great poet of whom you speak; but he is also the president of the court of Claims attached to the ministry of foreign affairs."
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