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Updated: May 3, 2025
'Mademoiselle, he continued, with a serious melancholy smile, 'I shall startle you when I say that I am appointed to act as your guardian by the last request of your mother. 'Of Madame Surville? 'Madame Surville adopted you, but was not your mother. We cannot talk at ease here. Allow me to request that you will accompany me to Monsieur , the avoue.
Madame Surville was charmed with its prettiness and prattle, charmed still more when I rebuked the poor infant for calling me 'Maman, and said, 'Thy real mother is here. Freed from my trouble, I returned to the kind German roof I had quitted, and shortly after became the wife of Ludovico Cicogna. "My punishment soon began. His was a light, fickle, pleasure-hunting nature.
M. Surville probably became exasperated by useless attempts to vie in his wife's eyes with her much-beloved brother at any rate, in later years he was tyrannical in preventing their intercourse, and we hear of the unfortunate Laure coming in secret to see Balzac, on her birthday in 1836, and holding a watch in her hand, because she did not dare to stay away longer than twenty minutes.
Honore de Balzac says that his father was secretary to the Grand Council under Louis XV, and Laure Surville, his sister, wrote that under Louis XVI he was attorney to the Council. He himself, in an invitation to the marriage of his second daughter, Laurence, described himself as former secretary to the King's Council.
The Frenchman had another shoulder at her service. Unhappily the room was dark the look was lost on Mercy. She was thinking of the helpless men in the inner chamber, and she quietly recalled the surgeon to a sense of his professional duties. "What is to become of the sick and wounded?" she asked. Monsieur Surville shrugged one shoulder the shoulder that was free.
"I was thinking of the English lady," answered the surgeon. "The kitchen is not quite the place for her. She would be more comfortable here; and the English nurse might keep her company." Captain Arnault smiled, not very pleasantly. "They are two fine women," he said, "and Surgeon Surville is a ladies' man. Let them come in, if they are rash enough to trust themselves here with you."
She asked me for no references, made no inquiries. She said cordially that she wished for no knowledge that, through any indiscretion of her own, communicated to the child might lead her to seek the discovery of her real parents. In fine, I left Coblentz on the understanding that I was to bring the infant, and if it pleased Madame Surville, the agreement was concluded. "I then repaired to Aix.
But thou wilt recollect Madeleine, the old bonne who lived with me. Well, she had attended and cherished me since I was so high-lived with my mother. Mother! no; it seems that Madame Surville was not my mother after all. But, of course, I could not let my old Madeleine starve; and therefore, with a heart as heavy as lead, I danced and declaimed. My heart was not so heavy when I recited thy songs."
He evidently had great faith in his brother-in-law's plans for making his fortune, and took the keenest interest in them, even offering to go over to London, to sell an invention for effecting economy in the construction of inclined planes on railways. But M. Surville changed his mind at the last, and Balzac never went to England after all.
"Is there any danger? Have the Germans come back?" Surgeon Surville answered the question. He lifted the canvas screen, and looked into the room as Miss Roseberry spoke. "The Germans are advancing on us," he said. "Their vanguard is in sight." Grace sank on the chair near her, trembling from head to foot. Mercy advanced to the surgeon, and put the decisive question to him.
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