everything to advantage, ready to serve as mayor of Cinq-
Cygne if called on, M. d'Hauteserre was an admirable
exemplar of those honorable gentlemen on whose forehead
God has written the word 7nites, who allowed the whirlwind
of the Revolution to sweep over their heads and homes,
who ventured to raise their heads again during the Restora-
tion, enriched by their economies, boasting of their discreet
attachment, and who were reinstated in their fields and
manors after 1830. His costume depicted the man and the
time, for dress is always a faithful exponent of character.
M. d'Hauteserre generally wore one of those ample, pale-
brown frockcoats with a narrow collar which the last Due
d'Orldans introduced on his return from England, and
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 67
which, in the days of the Revolution, were a sort of happy
medium between the hideous costume of the populace and
the elegant redingotes affected by the aristocracy. His gayly
striped and flowered velvet waistcoat, the fashion of which
reminded one of the corresponding garments worn by
Robespierre and Saint-Just, afforded a glimpse of the ruffle
of sheerest lawn that edged a narrow-plaited shirt-front.
He had not abandoned small-clothes in favor of the more
modern pantalon^ but in his case that indispensable garment
was of thick blue cloth and furnished with knee-buckles of
burnished steel. His stockings of finest cotton-thread were
drawn tight over a pair of well-molded calves and legs
straight and sinewy as a deer's. His pedal extremities
were incased in heavy shoes, surmounted by gaiters of
black cloth. He still adhered to the old-fashioned cambric
cravat, wrapped many times around the neck and fastened
behind by a gold buckle. In adopting this costume, which
partook at the same time somewhat of the nature of the
peasant's, the aristocrat's and the revolutionary's, the old
gentleman had not intended to practice political eclecticism,
he had simply and very innocently yielded to the force of
circumstances.
Mme. d'Hauteserre, forty years old and aged by her
emotions, had a pale worn face that seemed to be constantly
posing for a portrait, and her lace cap, decorated with white
satin bows, assisted materially in giving her that solemn
and imposing air. She continued to use powder, notwith-
standing her white neckerchief and the dove-colored gown
with flowing sleeves and ample skirt, the last costume of
poor Queen Marie Antoinette. Her face was almost a tri-
angle; she had a sharp chin and a tliin, pinched nose; her
eyes had known what it was to weep, but she still applied
to her cheeks a "suspicion" of the rouge which lent a little
brilliancy to those gray orbs. She took snuff, too, and
every time she did so gave an exhibition of the pretty little
airs and graces in which the female dandies of bygone days
were so proficient; the operation as conducted became a
68 BALZAC'S WORKS
ceremonial, to explain which only a word or two is neces-
sary : she had small and very pretty hands.
Two years previously the former tutor of the Simeuse
twins, a Minorite priest and friend of the Abb6 d'Haute-
serre, named Goujet, had accepted the incumbency of Cinq-
Cygne out of regard for the d'Hauteserres and the young
Comtesse. Mile. Goujet, his sister, rejoicing in an income
of seven hundred francs a year, appropriated her money
to eking out her brother's diminutive salary and kept his
house for him. The church and parsonage had been left
unsold by the nation, for the reason that they were not
worth the trouble. Abb^ Goujet and the people at the
chateau were near neighbors, for the curb's garden and the
park were contiguous in places. Twice a week, therefore,
Abbd Goujet and his sister dined at Cinq-Cygne, whither
they resorted every evening of their lives to make up the
d'Hauteserres' game of whist or boston. As for Laurence,
she did not know one card from another.
Abb^ Goujet, an old white-haired man with a face as
colorless as an old woman's, gifted by nature with an attrac-
tive smile and a pleasant, insinuating voice, had a rather
insipid, inane countenance, the effect of which was mitigated
by a forehead indicative of great intelligence and a pair of
very shrewd, bright eyes. Of medium height and endowed
with a good figure, he retained the black frockcoat a la
frangaise, wore silver buckles at the knee of his small-
clothes and on his shoes, black silk stockings, and a black
waistcoat, over the front of which floated the ends of his
white band; all which gave him something of a grand
seigneur air without at all detracting from his dignity. The
Abb^, who became Bishop of Troyes at the Eesto ration, and
whom his previous occupation had taught to judge young
people pretty accurately, had divined Laurence's grand
character; he appreciated her at her full worth, and had
from the very first testified for the young girl a respectful
deference which contributed in no small degree to the sub-
sequent condition of affairs at Cinq-Cygne, where we have
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 69
seen her lording it over the austere matron and good-natured
gentleman to whom, in accordance with every precept and
custom of the time, she should have rendered dutiful obe-
dience. For six months Abbe Goujet had been observing
Laurence with the attentiveness peculiar to priests; who are
endowed with greater perspicacity than most folk; and
although he had no idea that the girl of twenty-three whom
he saw idly twisting a loose button of her habit between her
feeble fingers was planning the downfall of Bonaparte, he
nevertheless suspected that some scheme of more than usual
magnitude was working in that busy brain.
Mile. Goujet's portrait may be drawn in a very few
words that will produce her before the mental vision of the
least imaginative reader. She belonged to the genus gawk.
She knew that she was not handsome, and was the first one
to laugh at her homeliness, exposing in the process her long
tusks yellow as her complexion or her bony hands. She
was inherently of a cheerful and kindly disposition. She
wore the famous but now antiquated casaquin, a voluminous
skirt with capacious pockets always full of jingling keys, a
cap bedecked with many ribbons, and false hair. She had
been forty years old at a very early period, but had made
up for it, she asserted, by remaining stationary for the last
twenty years. She venerated the nobility, but knew how
to preserve her own dignity while according to the great all
the respect and homage that was their due.
The arrival of these persons at Cinq-Cygne had been
most opportune for Mnie. d'Hauteserre, who had not, like
her husband, rural occupations to divert her, or, like Lau-
rence, the distraction of an overmastering hatred to help
her endure the tedium of a solitary life. But during the
last six years things had improved considerably. The
re-establishment of the Catholic religion, for one thing,
allowed of her attending once more to her spiritual duties,
which are taken more seriously in the country than else-
where. M. and Mme. d'Hauteserre, reassured by the con-
servative policy adopted by the First Consul, had been
70 BALZAO'S WORKS
enabled to correspond with their sons, to hear how they
were and what they were doing; the old people's fears had
been in a measure laid at rest, and they had written implor-
ing the boys to petition that their names might be stricken^
oS. the lists and that they might be permitted to return to
France, The Treasury had paid up the arrears oE interest
that was owing, and payments were now made regularly
at the end of every quarter. The d'Hauteserres had an
income, in addition to their annuity, of eight thousand
francs. The old gentleman took not a little credit to him-
self for his foresight. He had invested all his savings —
some twenty thousand francs — together with his ward's,
previous to the 18th Brumaire, which, as everybody knows,
sent the Funds jumping from twelve to eighteen francs.
Cinq-Cygne had long lain naked, waste and empty.
The prudent guardian had purposely refrained from making
any changes during the troublous times of the Revolution,
but on the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens he had made
a journey to Troyes, and finding in the shops of the second-
hand dealers some of the debris of the two plundered hotels
had brought it back with him. It was in this manner,
thanks to his kindness, that the salon came to be refur-
nished. Handsome curtains of white damask, embroidered
with green flowers, that had originally done duty in the
Hotel Simeuse now draped the six windows of the salon
in which were seated some of our dramatis personce. The
walls of the spacious apartment were covered with oak
wainscoting divided off in panels set in a framework of
beaded molding, with grotesque masks as decorations at the
corners, and painted in two shades of gray. The spaces
over the four doors were occupied by figure pieces in
grisaille, in the style of those which found such favor in
the time of Louis XV. In the course of his rummaging in
Troyes the old gentleman had come across gilded consoles,
a sofa and some chairs in green damask, a crystal chandelier,
a marquetry card -table — ever so many things that would
help to restore the glories of Cinq-Cygne. In 1792 all the
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 71
furniture of the chateau had been taken and carted away,
for the plunderers of the town mansions had their imitators
in the valley. Every time the old man's business called
him to Troyes he returned with some relic of former splen-
dor, it might be a handsome carpet like that which was laid
on the floor of the salon, it might be a bit of plate or some
pieces of old porcelain of Saxe and Sevres. Six months
previously he had mustered up courage to disinter the
family silver, which the cook had buried in the cellar of a
small house that he owned in a distant faubourg of Troyes.
This faithful servitor and his wife, named Durieu, had
long followed the fortunes of their young mistress. Durieu
was factotum in the chateau, as his wife was housekeeper.
Durieu had as his assistant Catherine's sister, whom he was
instructing in his art and who subsequently developed into
an excellent cook. An aged gardener, his wife, their son
who worked for a daily wage, and their daughter who
tended the cows, completed the personnel of the chateau.
A few months previously Durieu's wife had secretly had
two suits of livery made in the Cinq-Cygne colors, one for
Gothard and one for the gardener's son. Although soundly
rated by the old gentleman for this piece of foolhardiness,
when Saint-Laurent's day came round, the day of Laurence's
f^te, she could not deny herself the pleasure of serving
dinner with something approaching old-time splendor. To
M. and Mme. d'Hauteserre and the Durieus this slow and
laborious progression toward the old order of things was
a source of unmixed pleasure. Laurence, however, smiled
disdainfully and declared that it was all childishness. But
in these lighter occupations the worthy d'Hauteserre was
not oblivious of more important matters; he repaired build-
ings, rebuilt walls, planted wherever there was soil for a
tree to take root, and made every inch of ground produc-
tive. For which reason the valley of Cinq-Cygne soon
came to look on him as an oracle in matters agricultural.
He reclaimed a hundred acres of land that was in litigation
but had not been sold, and which the commune had taken
72 BALZAC'S WORKS
possession of and added to its common lands; he converted
the tract into artificial meadows on which he pastured the
cattle of the chateau, and set out along the boundaries a
fringe of poplars which, in the course of six years, had
grown to be goodly trees. He was thinking of purchasing
or leasing additional land and establishing still another
farm, to be operated by himself, which would enable him
to utilize all the buildings of the chateau.
For a couple of years past, therefore, life at Cinq-Cygne
had been quite endurable. M. d'Hauteserre turned out at
sunrise and was off to the fields to superintend operations,
for he kept his men occupied in all weathers. He returned
to breakfast, after which he got on one of the farm horses
and made his rounds like an ordinary overseer; then, re-
turning in time for dinner, he completed his day with a
few games of boston. All the inhabitants of the chateau
had their duly allotted occupations; the day was parcelled
out with the mathematical precision of a convent. Lau-
rence alone brought an element of disorder into this peace-
ful and systematic life, by her sudden journeys, her ab-
sences, her wild-goose chases, as Madame d'Hauteserre
called them. None the less, there were two divergent
policies in existence at Cinq-Cygne and causes of dis-
sension. First, Durieu and his wife were jealous of
Gothard and Catherine, because of the greater intimacy
with which the latter were treated by their young mis-
tress, the idol of the household. In the next place, the
d'Hauteserres, with the concurrence and support of Mile.
Goujet and the cur€, insisted that their sons, no less than
the Simeuse twins, instead of leading a life of danger and
privation in foreign parts, should be permitted to return
and enjoy the peace and plenty of those halcyon days.
Laurence, representing as she did Royalism, Royalism pure,
militant and uncompromising, scouted this unworthy prop-
osition. The four old people, who had no desire to see a
happy existence imperilled, or that little strip of solid
ground which had been regained from the seething waters
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 73
of the revolutionary flood washed from under their feet,
endeavored to convert Laurence to their more moderate
ways of thinking, for they saw that it was she who was
chiefly responsible for the flat refusal which the young
d'Hauteserres and de Simeuses returned to all overtures from
horne looking to a return to France. Their ward's superb
disdain scared those poor folk almost out of their wits, and
they were not far out of the way in apprehending what they
called "some foolish, hare-brained action." This dissension
had broken out about the time of the explosion of the infer-
nal machine in the Rue Saint-Nicaise, the first Royalist at-
tempt against the victor of Marengo after his refusal to treat
with the House of Bourbon. The d'Hauteserres, believing
tliat the Republicans were the instigators of the attempt, were
inclined to rejoice over Bonapj,rte's escape, but Laurence
wept tears of rage. In her despair she lost sight of her
habitual dissimulation; she heaped reproaches on God for
abandoning the son of St. Louis.
"Had it been I," she cried, "I should not have allowed
it to be a failure I Is it not true," said she to Abbe Goujet,
observing the utter stupefaction depicted on everybody's
face, "that we are justified in combating usurpation with
every weapon within our reach?"
"My daughter," the Abbe replied, "the Church has fre-
quently been assailed and severely censured by the philoso-
phers for having in the past asserted that it was lawful to use
against the usurper the weapons employed by the usurper
to accomplish indefensible and unchristian ends; but, as
things are to-day, the Cliurch owes too much to the First
Consul not to protect him and do all she can to shield him
from the consequences of that dictum which, it must not be
forgotten, moreover, was the utterance of Jesuits. ' '
"Then the Church forsakes us!" she gloomily rejoined.
After this little tilt, whenever the four elders broached
the subject of submitting to the decrees of Providence, the
young Comtesse would leave the salon. For some time
past the cure, wiser in his generation than the guardian,
(D)— Vol. 17
74 BALZAC'S WORKS
had given up discussing abstract principles and taken in-
stead to expatiating on the material advantages of the con-
sular government, not so much with the idea of converting
the Comtesse as to see if he might not gather from the ex-
pression of her face and eyes some clew that would enlighten
him as to her projects. Gothard's absences, Laurence's fre-
quent excursions and her preoccupation, which in these lat-
ter days was apparent to every one, a multitude of little things
that it was impossible should escape notice in the silence and
tranquillity of the life led at Cinq-Cygne, especially to eyes
as anxiously observant as those of the d'Hauteserres, the
Durieus and Abbe Goujet — all had contributed to arouse
the apprehensions of those faint-hearted Royalists. But as
day after day went by and nothing unusual happened, as the
political firmament seemed to afford no presage of foul
weather, life at the chateau had settled down once more
into its accustomed placid routine. Everybody attributed
the Comtesse's outings to her passion for the chase.
The reader can imagine the profound silence which, at
nine o'clock, filled the park, the woods, the courts and all
the country round about Cinq-Cygne, where at that hour
persons and things were so harmoniously blended in the
mellow moonlight, where reigned the deepest peace, whither
plenty had returned, where the kindly and well-meaning
gentleman was relying on a continuance of prosperity to
convert his ward to his system of obedience. Our Royalist
friends were greatly addicted to the game of boston, which,
under a guise of innocent levity, disseminated throughout
France notions of liberty; it was invented in commemora-
tion of the rebellious Americans, and all its terms serve to
remind one of the struggle that had the encouragement and
assistance of Louis XVI. The players, while making their
"mis^res" and "independances," were observing Laurence,
who, overcome by slumber, presently dropped off asleep
with a smile of irony on her lips: her last waking thought
had been of the tranquil picture presented by the table
and its four occupants, into whose midst two little words,
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 76
informing the d'Htiuteserres that their sons had slept be-
neath their roof the previous night, would have fallen
like a bombshell, scattering terror and consternation. What
young girl of twenty-three would not, like Laurence, have
felt elated by the consciousness that she was playing the
role of Destiny, and would not, like her, have been moved
by a feeling of compassion for those whom she saw strug-
gling at such an immeasurable distance beneath her?
"She is asleep," said the abb^. "I never saw her so
overcome by fatigue."
"Durieu told me that her mare came in about done up,"
remarked Mme. d'Hauteserre. "She had not used her fowl-
ing-piece, the lock was as clean as a whistle; that shows that
she was not shooting to-day."
"Ah, sac-d-papier / that doesn't count for anything,"
replied the cur^.
"Bah!" Mile. Goujet exclaimed, "didn't I do the very
same thing when I was twenty-three and saw myself con-
demned to a life of single blessedness, go chasing about the
country, trying to tire myself out ? 1 can understand why
it is that the Comtesse scours the fields and woods the way
she does, and never thinks of knocking over a partridge or
a rabbit. It's going on a dozen years since she has seen
the cousins she loves. Well, now, I'll tell you what it
is; if I were in her place, if I were young, rich and pretty,
I'd be in Germany before you could say Jack Kobinson!
Poor dear, I've no doubt she feels something drawing her
toward the frontier."
"You allow your imagination to run away with you,
Mademoiselle Goujet, " said the cure with a smile.
"I saw you greatly exercised by the sayings and doings
of a twenty -three-year-old girl," she rejoined, "and I thought
I would try to explain matters to you; that's all."
"Her cousins will return, she will be rich; she will settle
down when she has had her fling," M. d'Hauteserre ob-
served.
"God grant she may!" the old lady fervently ejaculated,
76 BALZAC'S WORKS
producing her gold snuff-box, which had begun to revisit the
daylight in those recent days.
"I have some news for you," said the old gentleman to
the cure. "Malin came down from Paris last night and is
at Gondreville. "
"Malin?" Laurence exclaimed, aroused, notwithstanding
the soundness of her slumber, by the name.
"Yes," replied the cure, "but he leaves again this even-
ing, and everybody in wondering what may be the meaning
of his hurried visit."
"That man," said Laurence, "is the evil genius of both
our houses,"
The young Comtesse had been dreaming of her cousins
and the d'Hauteserre youths; danger had seemed to be im-
pending over them. Her handsome eyes lost their sparkle
and became fixed and dull as she thought of the perils that
were awaiting them at Paris. She rose abruptly and, with-
out saying more, ascended to her room. She occupied the
chamber of honor, opening out of which and situated in
the turret which faced the forest were a study and an
oratory. After she had left the drawing-room the dogs
barked loudly, the bell of the postern gate was heard to
ring, and Durieu appeared at the door of the salon with
a frightened face.
"The mayor is here!" said he. "Something new has
happened."
The mayor, at one time a piqueur in the service of the
Simeuse family, sometimes visited the chateau, where, from
motives of policy, the d'Hauteserres received him with a
politeness which pleased the official mightily. This man,
Goulard by name, had married a wealthy woman in busi-
ness at Troyes; her property was situated in the commune
of Cinq-Oygne, and he had added to it the broad lands of a
rich abbey, to the purchase of which he devoted all his sav-
ings. The spacious abbey of Val-des-Preux, a quarter of a
league distant from the chateau, was a residence scarcely in-
ferior in magnificence to Gondreville, in which the mayor
A MOST MYSTERIOUS CASE 77
and his wife cut much the same figure as would two old
rats in a cathedral.
"Goulard, you are goulu (gluttonous)!" was Laurence's
jocular salutation the first time she saw him at Cinq-Cygne.
Although he was a red-hot revolutionist and not regarded
with much favor by the Comtesse, the mayor had never been
able entirely to divest himself of the respect which he had
so long entertained for the CinqCygnes and the Simeuses.
Accordingly he "shut his eyes" to all that happened at the
chateau. He called it shutting his eyes when he failed to
see the portraits of Louis XVL, Marie-Antoinette, the royal
children. Monsieur, the Comte d'Artois, Cazalds and Char-
lotte Corday that occupied the panels of the salon; when he
sat by unmoved and uttered no word of protest when his en-
tertainers, under his very nose, proposed and drank the toast
"Perdition to the Republic!" or spoke in irreverent, unseemly
terms of the five Directors and other political bigwigs of the
time. The position of this man, who, like many another par-
venu, once he had made his fortune was less antagonistic
than he had been to the great families and quite willing to
be connected with them, had been utilized by the two indi-
viduals whose calling Michu had divined so promptly, and
who, before taking themselves off to Gondreville, had thor-
oughly reconnoitred the country.
The man who "represented the best traditions of the old
police" and Oorentin, phenix of detectives, had a secret
mission. Malin had not erred when he assigned a double
role to those two consummate artists in tragic farce; but
perhaps it will be best, before giving the reader an oppor-
tunity to see them at work, to depict for him the head to
which they served as arms. Bonaparte, when he became
First Consul, found Fouch^ at the head of the general
police. The Revolution, for good and sufficient reasons,
had frankly erected the police into a special ministry. On
his return from Marengo, however, Bonaparte created the
office of Prefect of Police, installed Dubois in it, and called
Fouche to the Council of State, appointing as his successor
78 BALZAC'S WORKS
in the ministry of police the conventionnel Cochon, subse-
quently better known as Comte Lapparent. Fouche, who
regarded the police as the most important of all the depart-
ments in a government of broad views and settled policy,
saw in this change a disgrace, or at all events an intimation
that his master did not trust him. Subsequently to the
incidents of the infernal machine and the conspiracy re-
ferred to in this history, Napoleon, recognizing the incon-
testable superiority of this great statesman, replaced him in
oflfice as head of the police. At a later day, however, the
Emperor, taking alarm at the aptitude which Fouche dis-
played during his absence at the time of the Walcheren
affair, conferred this position on the Due de Rovigo, and