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Updated: June 21, 2025
The last words were spoken with a disdainful pride that made the novice in love feel like a worthless bale flung into the deep, while the Duchess was an angel soaring back to her particular heaven. "Confound it!" thought Armand de Montriveau, "how am I to tell this wild thing that I love her?"
M. de Montriveau's name once more appeared in the army list with the rank of colonel; he received his arrears of pay and passed into the Guards. All these favours, one after another, came to seek the Marquis de Montriveau; he had asked for nothing however small. Friends had taken the steps for him which he would have refused to take for himself.
So it seemed at least to Montriveau, who had taken part in that incredible exploit, while the nuns in his eyes were much more redoubtable than Sir Hudson Lowe. To raise a hubbub over carrying off the Duchess would cover them with confusion. They might as well set siege to the town and convent, like pirates, and leave not a single soul to tell of their victory.
The lover apart, Montriveau was not wanting in tact; so a few glances exchanged with the bishop-designate told him that here was the real forger of the Duchess's armory of scruples. That an ambitious abbe should control the happiness of a man of Montriveau's temper, and by underhand ways!
And so in those who live by feeling, rather than by self-interest, the doers rather than the reasoners, the sanguine rather than the lymphatic temperaments, love works a complete revolution. In a flash, with one single reflection, Armand de Montriveau wiped out his whole past life.
There, leave us to arrange your affairs, and say that Montriveau made your servants drunk to gratify his vanity and to compromise you " The Duchess rose to her feet with a spring. "In Heaven's name, aunt, do not slander him!" The old Princess's eyes flashed. "Dear child," she said, "I should have liked to spare such of your illusions as were not fatal.
A conception of life as feeling occurred to him for the first time; hitherto he had lived by action, the most strenuous exertion of human energies, the physical devotion, as it may be called, of the soldier. Next day M. de Montriveau went early in the direction of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
He admired Mme de Langeais herself in the objects of her choosing; they revealed her life before he could grasp her personality and ideas. About an hour later the Duchess came noiselessly out of her chamber. Montriveau turned, saw her flit like a shadow across the room, and trembled. She came up to him, not with a bourgeoise's enquiry, "How do I look?"
The smile was like a stab to the distinguished provincial. Felix de Vandenesse assumed a charitable air. Montriveau looked Lucien through and through. "Madame," M. de Canalis answered with a bow, "I will obey you, in spite of the selfish instinct which prompts us to show a rival no favor; but you have accustomed us to miracles."
"If all you want is to preserve appearances," he began in his simplicity, "I am willing to " "Simply to preserve appearances!" the lady broke in; "why, what idea can you have of me? Have I given you the slightest reason to suppose that I can be yours?" "Why, what else are we talking about?" demanded Montriveau. "Monsieur, you frighten me!... No, pardon me.
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