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Yet she could but remember that Hyacinth had described trains and petticoats so loaded with jewelled embroidery that it was a penance to wear them lace worth hundreds of pounds plumed hats that cost as much as a year's maintenance in the convent. Mother Anastasia expressed considerable displeasure at Madame de Montrond's disposal of her wealth.
Space is wanting to recount the struggles of the different parties which succeeded each other with such frightful rapidity in France to obtain possession of the Count de Montrond's influence. But he remained true to one principle, the one with which he started "to make straight for the cash-box."
He had fought in many battles and had escaped with a few scars; and he was carrying his daughter to Louvain, intending to place her in the charge of her great-aunt, Madame de Montrond's half sister, who was head of a convent in that city, a safe and pious shelter, where the child might be reared in her mother's faith.
From this man, by some good fortune, over which a veil has always been thrown by Montrond's friends, he won a considerable sum, and on finding, after suffering a considerable time to elapse, that no sign of payment was made, he proclaimed his intention of taking steps not according, but in opposition, to the law in order to obtain his due.
"Nay, love, 'tis in Paris I am an insignificant alien, though they are ever so kind and flattering to me. At St Germain I was only Madame de Montrond's grand-daughter the wife of a somewhat morose gentleman who was cleverer at winning battles than at gaining hearts.
Montrond's successor, the Count de Cambis, the man who has represented the premier gentilhomme de France in our day, died lately at as good an old age as the Count de Montrond. Autres tems, autres moeurs: no more cheating at cards, no more beating the watch, as in the case of the Chevalier de Grammont; no more dueling and killing the adversary by surprise, as in that of the Count de Montrond.
She is as dear to her maternal grandmother as this little one here was to my good mother, whose death last year left us a house of mourning. Hyacinth will doubtless inherit a considerable portion of Madame de Montrond's wealth, which is not insignificant. She is being brought up in the precincts of the Court." "A worldly and a dangerous school for one so young," said the nun, with a sigh.
Are we not sisters, and was it not a mere accident that made me the elder, and Madame de Montrond's protegee?" "I have no words to thank you for so much kindness. I will only say I am so happy here that I could never have believed there was such full content on this sinful earth." "Wait till we are in London, Angelique. Here we endure existence. It is only in London that we live."
Then M. de Montrond rose covered with glory and with honor, for in such adventures lay the fame of the gentilhommes of that time. It would be impossible to recount the long catalogue of M. de Montrond's triumphs after this.
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