shocked by the death of his brother the Abbe d'Hauteserre,
who had been brought down in the middle of the public
square by a musket ball as he was fleeing in the disguise of
a peasant, was in no position to protect the interests of his
ward; he had two sons in the Princes' army, and every
hour of the day, at the least sound, he imagined that the
"municipals" of Arcis were coming to arrest him. Proud
to have sustained a siege and in the possession of the fair-
ness of her ancestresses, Laurence regarded with contempt
the timid egotism of the old man, who bowed his head before
the storm; she thought of nothing but to gain glory for
herself. Sh^ defiantly hung the portrait of Charlotte Cor-
day in her poor salon at Cinq-Cygne, and plaited a wreath
of oak and laurel leaves with which to decorate the picture.
She maintained a correspondence with the twins by means
of express riders, in defiance of the law, which would have
punished her with death. The messenger, who also took
his life in his hands, brought back the answers. Subse-
quent to the disastrous events at Troyes, Laurence lived
only for the royal cause. Her judgment of M. and Mme.
d'Hauteserre was sufficiently accurate; when she had de-
cided that they were well-intentioned but weak people, she
simply dropped them from her sphere. Laurence was too
just, as well as too sensible and kind-hearted, to be angry
with them for innate defects of character which they could
not help; ever courteous, amiable and affectionate toward
them, she intrusted them with none of her secrets. Nothing
tends more to make one secretive, to close up all the ap-



•^6 BALZAC'S WORKS

proaches of the soul, than const-ant dissimulation in the
bosom of the family. Laurence, on attaining her majority,
continued the worthy d'Hauteserre in the management of
her affairs as in the past. Provided the coat of her favorite
mare was sleek and glossy, provided there was nothing to
offend her fastidious taste in the attire of Catherine, her
maid, and Gothard, her little page, all other matters were
indifferent to her. Her mind was occupied with considera-
tions of too great moment to permit of her descending to
occupations which, had circumstances been different, would
doubtless have found favor in her eyes. For dress she
cared next to nothing, and then, too, she needed no finery,
her cousins being absent. She owned a bottle-green habit
for her outings on horseback, a serviceable dress of coarse
material with a close-fitting jacket adorned with brande-
bourgs for walking, and a silk robe-de-chambre for house
wear. Gothard, her young equerry, a bright, courageous
lad of fifteen, served as her escort, for a great part of her
time was spent out of doors, and she hunted where she
would, all over the Gondreville property, with the entire
approval of both Michu and the tenants, fler riding was
the admiration of everybody, and she handled her gun with
a dexterity bordering on the miraculous. She was uni-
versally known to the people of the neighborhood under
the sobriquet of "Mademoiselle," even when the Revolu-
tion was at its height.

Whoever has read that entertaining romance "Rob Roy"
will remember Diana Vernon, one of the few female char-
acters in limning which Sir Walter Scott has laid aside that
frosty propriety which characterizes most of his writings.
This reference will enable you better to understand Lau-
rence, if you will but add to the qualities of the Caledonian
huntress the contained exaltation of Charlotte Corday, and
subtract from them the agreeable vivacity which makes
Lady Di so attractive. The young Comtesse had stood
beside her mother's deathbed, had witnessed the slaughter
of the Abb^ d'Hauteserre, had seen the Marquis and Mar-



A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 57

quise de Simeuse perish on the scaffold; her only brother
had died of his wounds, she might at any moment hear of
the death of her two cousins who were serving in Condi's
army, and, to cap the climax, the fortune of the Cinq-
Cygnes and the Simeuses had been devoured by the Repub-
lic, without advantage to the Republic. So it is not to be
wondered at that she was grave, or that her gravity ap-
proached stupidity.

M. d'Hauteserre, moreover, showed himself the shrewd-
est and most upright of guardians. Under his rule Cinq-
Cygne resembled an extensive farm. The good man, who
reminded one more of a close-fisted landlord than of a gay
knight out of the books qf chivalry, had turned to account
the park and gardens, some two hundred acres in extent,
which he made to yield provender for the cattle, food for
the men and women, and wood for firing. By dint of the
strictest economy, and as a result of judicious investments
in the debt of the State, when the Comtesse attained her
majority she had quite a respectable fortune. In 1798 the
heiress's income consisted of twenty thousand francs of rente
on the grand-livre — payment of which, it is true, was irreg-
ular and sadly in arrear — and twelve thousand francs de-
rived from the Cinq-Cygne property, the rents of which
had been notably advanced as the leases fell in. M. and
Mme. d'Hauteserre had retired to the country, where they
supported themselves on an annuity of three thousand
francs in the tontines Lafarge — the impairment of their
fortune would not permit of their living anywhere but at
Cinq-Cygne — and Laurence's first act of authority had been
to assign to them the use for life of the paviliori which they
occupied in the chateau. The d'Hauteserres, whose penuri-
ousness extended to the affairs of their ward no less than to
their own, and who put by regularly, year by year, their
thousand" crowns as a nest-egg for their two sons, skimped
the heiress's table in every way they could think of. The
total expenditure at Cinq-Cygne was less than five thousand
francs a year. But Laurence, who did not trouble herself



58 BALZAC'S WORKS

with details, found everything as it should be. The guar-
dian and his wife, unconsciously dominated by the imper-
ceptible influence of that character which predominated in
all matters, small and great, had in the end come to respect
and admire her whom they had known as a child — -which is
not the case in every instance. But in Laurence's manners,
in her guttural, masculine voice, in the imperious look of
her eye, was that inexplicable power, that indescribable
something which always imposes, even when it is more
apparent than real, for among the unreflecting emptiness
often passes for profoundity. Depth is to the vulgar in-
comprehensible. And that probably is the reason why the
people admire what they do not understand.

M. and Mme. d'Hauteserre, impressed by the young
Comtesse's habitual silence and the anconventionality of
her ways, were constantly on the lookout for something
great, something wonderful. By means of an occasional
favor judiciously conferred, and by taking care never to
allow herself to be overreached, Laurence, despite the fact
that she was an aristocrat, had won from the peasantry a
large measure of respect. Her sex, her name, her misfor-
tunes, her unusual mode of life, all contributed to increase
her authority over the denizens of the valley of Cinq-Cygne.
She would go away, accompanied by Gothard, and some-
times be gone a day or two, and never, on her return, would
M, or Mme. d'Hauteserre think of inquiring into the
motives of her absence. There was nothing abnormal, be
it remarked, in Laurence's appearance. The virago in her
was concealed under the most feminine form, and apparently
the weakest and most helpless. Her heart was tender to
excess, but her head was freighted with virile resolution
and stoic firmness. Her keen, perspicacious eyes were un-
acquainted with tears. No one, seeing that delicate white
wrist with its tracery of blue veins, would have supposed
that the sinews underneath were as capable of managing a
restive horse as a practiced driver's. Her hand, so soft and
flexible, could load and fire a gun or pistol with the car-



A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 59

tainty and rapidity of an old sportsman's. Out of doors her
headgear was that with which women usually equip them-
selves for riding, a fetching little beaver hat and a green
veil; and thanks to these devices, and to a black silk hand-
kerchief that she commonly wore loosely knotted about her
alabaster neck, she had managed to preserve the freshness
of her complexion during the various long expeditions that
she was continually making in the open air.

During the Directorate and the early days of the Con-
sulate, Laurence had been able to lead this manner of life
without attracting attention or making herself subject of
remark; but now that the government was assuming form
and shape, the new-fledged authorities, the Prefect of the
Aube, Malin's friends, and Malin himself, began to talk of
her and inquire into her actions. Laurence's single and
only thought was of the overthrow of Bonaparte, whose
ambition and triumph had aroused in her a sort of fury, a
cold and calculating fury, however. She, the unknown, ob-
scure enemy of the great man, in her secluded forest home
in the valley, kept her mind fixed on her object with terrible
tenacity of purpose; she had half a mind sometimes to seek
him in the green alleys of Malmaison or Saint-Cloud and
take his life. The execution of this project would alone
have served to account for the habits and exercises of her
daily life. Admitted, however, after the rupture of the
Peace of Amiens, to the conspiracy inaugurated by those
whose object was to hoist the First Consul with the petard
of the 18th Brumaire, she had thenceforth subordinated her
energies and her hate to the extensive and extremely well-
organized plan that was to attack Bonaparte abroad, by the
gigantic coalition of Russia, Prussia and Austria, which he,
then Emperor, crushed at Austerlitz; and, at home, by a
combination of men of the most diametrically opposite
views and ways of thinking, but united by community
of hatred, many of whom, like Laurence, desired the great
man's death and did not recoil at the word assassination.
This young gjirl, then, so fragile and helpless to look upon,



60 BALZAC'S WORKS

SO strong to those who knew her well, was the trustworthy
and faithful guide of the gentlemen who crossed the fron-
tier from Germany to take part in this great and, to them,
glorious undertaking. Fouch^ entertained hopes that the
Due d'Bnghien, allured by this co-operation of emigres
from beyond the Rhine, might become involved in the
conspiracy. The presence of that prince in the territory
of Baden, only a short distance from Strasburg, lent color
subsequently to those suppositions. Be that as it may, the
great question as to whether the Prince was really cognizant
of the enterprise, whether he was to cross over into French
territory in the event of its terminating successfully, is one
of those secrets as to which the Princes of the House of
Bourbon have always seen fit to maintain the profoundest
silence. As history clarifies with the course of years, im-
partial historians will admit that, to state the case mildly,
it was imprudent in the Prince to be so near the frontier at
the very moment appointed for the outbreak of an immense
conspiracy, of the existence of which no one will venture
to claim that the royal family was ignorant.

We have seen how cautious a man Malin showed himself
to be lately in holding his conference with Gr^vin in the
open air. No less was the caution infused by this young
woman at this period into all her words and actions. She
received emissaries and conferred with them, either at vari-
ous appointed spots on the edge of the forest of Nodesme,
or outside the valley of Cinq-Cygne, between Sezanne and
Brienne. Accompanied by Gothard, she often covered fif-
teen leagues without once getting off her horse, and returned
to Cinq-Cygne without her fresh face showing the slightest
trace of fatigue or preoccupation. She had in the beginning
detected in the eyes of the small cowherd, then nine years
old, that artless admiration which children manifest for any-
thing beyond the common; she made him her "tiger," and
taught him to groom a horse with the care and thoroughness
that are employed in an Englishman's stable. She recog-
nized in him intelligence, a desire to better his condition,



A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 61

and entire freedom from mercenary motives; she tested his
faithfulness, and found that he possessed not only a good
share of sound common-sense, but a generous disposition;
he was not actuated by self-seeking motives; she cultivated
that young, undeveloped nature; she was kind to him,
though not unduly familiar; she attached him to her by
attaching herself to him, by polishing with her own hand
that half-formed, semi-savage character without depriving
it of any portion of its simplicity and strength. And when
she had made sufficient trial of the, so to speak, canine
fidelity that she had fostered, Gothard was promoted to be
her ingenious and ingenuous adjutant. The little peasant
lad, whom nobody ever thought of suspecting, would some-
times make the trip from Cinq-Cygne to Nancy and back
and no one be the wiser. All the dodges and stratagems
employed by spies he practiced. The extreme caution that
his mistress had inculcated in him had in no way changed
his nature. Gothard, endowed with a woman's cunning, a
child's candor, and the sleepless vigilance of the conspirator,
concealed those admirable qualities under the dumbness and
dense ignorance of the denizens of the fields. The little
man appeared to be silly, unapt, and clumsy, but once his
work was cut out for him he was as agile as a fish, elusive
as an eel. Like a dog, he read his master's purpose in his
eyes, divined his thoughts intuitively. His red, good-
natured, apple-cheeked face, his slumberous brown eyes,
his hair cropped peasant fashion, his attire, his stunted
growth, gave him the appearance of a ten-year-old boy.

Under the protection of their cousin, who provided for
their safety from Strasburg to Bar-siir-Aube, MM. d'Haute-
serre and de Simeuse entered France through Alsace and
Lorraine in company with several other Emigres, while
another detachment of conspirators, equally courageous,
effected their entrance by way of the cliffs of Normandy.
Dressed as workingmen, the d'Hauteserres and Simeuses
had cautiously felt their way from forest to forest, under
the guidance of trusty men selected by Laurence in each



62 BALZAC'S WORKS

department three months before, from among those whose
devotion to the Bourbon cause was vouched for and who
were least liable to be suspected. The emigres slept by day
and travelled during the night. Each of them was attended
by two trustworthy soldiers, of whom one scouted in ad-
vance and the other remained behind to guard the rear in
the event of an attack. Thanks to these precautions, the
little band, object of so many hopes and fears, had reached
in safety the forest of Nodesme, the appointed place of ren-
dezvous. Twenty-seven other gentlemen likewise crossed
the frontier at the same time from Switzerland, made their
way through Burgundy, and were directed with similar pre-
cautions on Paris. M. de Riviere was reckoning on five
hundred men, of whom one hundred youths of good family
were to officer the battalion. MM. de Polignac and de
Riviere, whose conduct as leaders was most remarkable,
maintained to the end an impenetrable silence as to the
names of these accomplices, whose identity was never fully
established. Wherefore it may be said to-day, from what
information leaked out during the Restoration, that Bona-
parte was no more aware of the extent of the danger that
threatened him in those days than England comprehended
the magnitude of the peril in which she was placed by the
camp of Boulogne; and yet there was never a time when
police affairs were managed with more intelligence and ad-
dress. At the time of the beginning of this narrative, one
of those traitors who will invariably be found in conspira-
cies of which the membership is not confined to a small
body of tried and resolute men, an accomplice brought
face to face with death, gave information, of no great
value, fortunately, as to the extent, but sufficiently pre-
cise as to the object of the enterprise. As Malin informed
Grevin, the police, desiring to get at all the ramifications
of the plot, while keeping the conspirators under surveil-
lance, had not restricted their liberty of action. Neverthe-
less, the hand of Government was in a manner forced by
Georges Cadoudal, a masterful man who, taking counsel



A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 68

with no one but himself, had thrown himself into Paris
with twenty-five Chouaus and was awaiting an opportunity
to fall on and despatch the First Consul. Hate and love
contended for mastery in Laurence's mind. To put Bona-
parte out of the way and restore the Bourbons — would not
that mean Gondreville regained and a fortune for her cous-
ins? Those two sentiments, of which one is the antithesis
of the other, suffice, and particularly at the age of twenty-
three, to set in motion all the energies of the soul, all the
activities of life. For this reason Laurence, for the last two
months, had appeared to the inhabitants of Cinq-Cygne more
beautiful than at any previous moment of her life. An un-
wonted rosy hue dyed her pale cheek, her brow was radiant
at times with fond anticipation; but when the "Gazette"
was read aloud at evening, setting forth the conciliatory
words and actions of the First Consul, she lowered her eyes
that no one might read in them the conviction, so pleasing
to her soul, that the enemy of the Bourbons was rushing to
his doom. ]So one at the chateau, then, suspected that the
young Comtesse had seen her cousins the night before. M.
and Mme. d'Hauteserre's two sons had passed the night in
the Comtesse's own chamber, under the same roof as their
father and mother; for Laurence, to disarm suspicion, after
she had dismissed the two d'Hauteserres to bed, between one
and two in the morning, went and joined her cousins at
the designated place of meeting and conducted them to the
middle of the forest, where she had assigned to them as a
dwelling place the deserted cabin of a wood-merchant's fac-
totum. Confident that she was to see them again, she mani-
fested no appearance of joy, she betrayed none of the emo-
tions of expectation; in a word, she managed to efface all
vestiges of pleasure at sight of them; she was impassive.
Pretty Catherine, daughter of the woman who had nursed
her, and Gothard, both of whom were in the secret, imitated
their mistress in their behavior. Catherine was nineteen
years old. A girl of that age, like a boy of Gothard's, is a
fanatic in her devotion, and rather than betray a secret will



64 BALZAC'S WORKS

allow herself to be cut in pieces. And as for Gothard, one
whiff of the perfume that the Comtesse was accustomed to
put on her clothes would have given him strength to endure
the "question extraordinary" without a murmur.

At the moment when Marthe, advised ot the imminence
of the approaching danger, was gliding, swiftly and noise-
lessly as a spectre, toward the gap in the fence to which
Michu had directed her, the spectacle afforded by the salon
of the chateau of Cinq-Cygne was one of security and perfect
peace. Its occupants were so far from suspecting the approach
of the storm then making ready to burst over them that their
attitude must have aroused the pity of any one acquainted with
their circumstances. In the wide, deep chimney blazed one
of those roaring fires that are seen only in old hospitable
chateaux situated on the margin of a wood; over the hand-
somely carved mantelpiece was an old-fashioned bevelled
mirror, and above this again, in a framed panel, a band of
jocund shepherdesses in paniers were footing it to the music
of the pipes. At the corner of the fireplace, in a great
square bergere of gilded wood upholstered in magnificent
green silk damask, reclined — or rather lay, so complete was
her exhaustion — the young Comtesse. Returning only at six
o'clock from the confines of la Brie, after riding forward in ad-
vance of the band in order to bring the four gentlemen safely
into port at their night's resting place, their last before
making their entrance into Paris, she had found M. and
Mme. d'Hauteserre just finishing dinner. Listening to the
urgent demands of appetite, she had sat down to table with-
out taking off her riding-boots and bedraggled habit. After
dinner she had felt so tired and done-up from the fatigue
and agitation of the day that, instead of going to her room
and changing her raiment, she had dropped into the lux-
urious bergere that stood there so invitingly, cradling her
pretty head, with its myriad little golden curls, in its soft
depths and stretching out her feet before her to the fire.
The grateful warmth would dry the mud stains on her boots
and habit. Her various belongings, buckskin gloves, little



A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 65

beaver hat, green veil and crop lay on the console where
she had negligently thrown them. Now she glanced up at
the old gilt-bronze clock that occupied a position on the
mantel-shelf between a pair of highly ornate candelabra, as
if mentally speculating whether her four conspirators were
in bed yet; anon she looked over at the whist table that
stood before the fire and at which were seated M. d'Haute-
serre and his wife and the cure of Cinq-Cygne and his sister.

Even though these persons may not have leading roles
to play in the present drama, their portraits will yet possess
the merit of depicting one of the aspects presented by the
aristocracy after its scourging of 1793. Viewed in this light,
a description of the salon of Cinq-Cygne will have the savor
of history seen en deshabille.

The gentilhomme, at that time fifty-two years old and in
robust health, a tall, lean, sanguine man, would have pre-
sented an appearance of more manliness had it not been for
a pair of big, protuberant, pale-blue eyes, the expression
of which indicated extreme simplicity. In his face, which
tapered down into a long, sharp, perked-up chin, there was,
viewed from an artist's standpoint, a disproportionate inter-
val between the nose and mouth which gave him an appear-
ance of feebleness and indecision that was in entire harmony
with his character, and with which all the other details of
his countenance were in perfect consonance. Thus his gray
hair, plastered down upon his cranium by the pressure of
his hat, which he wore at all times and seasons, formed a
sort of skull-cap on his head and served to accentuate its
ungainly contours. His forehead, seamed and wrinkled by
exposure to the weather and continual fretting over trifles,
was void of all expression. His aquiline nose did something
to redeem his face, but the only indication of forcefulness
lay in the thick bushy eyebrows, which had retained their
jetty blackness, and in his high color. And this indication
did not belie his character; the gentleman, with all his
mildness and simplicity, was a life-long believer in Catholic
and monarchical principles, and no earthly consideration



66 BALZAC'S WORKS

could have induced him to forsake his party. The worthy
man would have submitted to arrest without the least in-
clination to harm a hair on the head of the municipals, and
would have marched to the scaffold as peaceably as a lamb.
His only resource, tlie life-annuity of three thousand livres,
had been an obstacle to his emigrating. He therefore
yielded obedience to the existing government, without
wavering in his attachment to the royal family or ceasing
to pray for their reintegration, but if asked to take part in
a rising in favor of the Bourbons he would have given a
fiat refusal; he could not afford to endanger his temporal
interests. He was one of those Royalists who could never
forget that they had been plundered and beaten, and who
ever after maintained an attitude of sulky silence, brooding
over their wrongs, amassing wealth, devoid of energy, but
incapable alike of either abjuring their principles or mak-
ing any sacrifice; ready to throw up their caps and cheer
triumphant Royalty, friends of religion and of the priests,
but unchangeable in their resolve to endure to the end all
the ills of adversity. That is not holding to an opinion, it
is simply mulish obstinacy. Action is the essence of party.
Destitute of common-sense, but loyal, avaricious as a French
peasant, and noble withal in speech and manners, daring in
his aspirations, but timid in words and actions, turning