IV

She habitually wore simple checked cotton dresses; but on Sundays and

in the evening her mother allowed her silk. The cut of her frocks,

made at Besancon, almost made her ugly, while her mother tried to

borrow grace, beauty, and elegance from Paris fashions; for through

Monsieur de Soulas she procured the smallest trifles of her dress from

thence. Rosalie had never worn a pair of silk stockings or thin boots,

but always cotton stockings and leather shoes. On high days she was

dressed in a muslin frock, her hair plainly dressed, and had bronze

kid shoes.

This education, and her own modest demeanor, hid in Rosalie a spirit

of iron. Physiologists and profound observers will tell you, perhaps

to your astonishment, that tempers, characteristics, wit, or genius

reappear in families at long intervals, precisely like what are known

as hereditary diseases. Thus talent, like the gout, sometimes skips

over two generations. We have an illustrious example of this

phenomenon in George Sand, in whom are resuscitated the force, the

power, and the imaginative faculty of the Marechal de Saxe, whose

natural granddaughter she is.

The decisive character and romantic daring of the famous Watteville

had reappeared in the soul of his grand-niece, reinforced by the

tenacity and pride of blood of the Rupts. But these qualities--or

faults, if you will have it so--were as deeply buried in this young

girlish soul, apparently so weak and yielding, as the seething lavas

within a hill before it becomes a volcano. Madame de Watteville alone,

perhaps, suspected this inheritance from two strains. She was so

severe to her Rosalie, that she replied one day to the Archbishop, who

blamed her for being too hard on the child, "Leave me to manage her,

monseigneur. I know her! She has more than one Beelzebub in her skin!"

The Baroness kept all the keener watch over her daughter, because she

considered her honor as a mother to be at stake. After all, she had

nothing else to do. Clotilde de Rupt, at this time five-and-thirty,

and as good as widowed, with a husband who turned egg-cups in every

variety of wood, who set his mind on making wheels with six spokes out

of iron-wood, and manufactured snuff-boxes for everyone of his

acquaintance, flirted in strict propriety with Amedee de Soulas. When

this young man was in the house, she alternately dismissed and

recalled her daughter, and tried to detect symptoms of jealousy in

that youthful soul, so as to have occasion to repress them. She

imitated the police in its dealings with the republicans; but she

labored in vain. Rosalie showed no symptoms of rebellion. Then the

arid bigot accused her daughter of perfect insensibility. Rosalie knew

her mother well enough to be sure that if she had thought young

Monsieur de Soulas /nice/, she would have drawn down on herself a

smart reproof. Thus, to all her mother's incitement she replied merely

by such phrases as are wrongly called Jesuitical--wrongly, because the

Jesuits were strong, and such reservations are the /chevaux de frise/

behind which weakness takes refuge. Then the mother regarded the girl

as a dissembler. If by mischance a spark of the true nature of the

Wattevilles and the Rupts blazed out, the mother armed herself with

the respect due from children to their parents to reduce Rosalie to

passive obedience.

This covert battle was carried on in the most secret seclusion of

domestic life, with closed doors. The Vicar-General, the dear Abbe

Grancey, the friend of the late Archbishop, clever as he was in his

capacity of the chief Father Confessor of the diocese, could not

discover whether the struggle had stirred up some hatred between the

mother and daughter, whether the mother were jealous in anticipation,

or whether the court Amedee was paying to the girl through her mother

had not overstepped its due limits. Being a friend of the family,

neither mother nor daughter, confessed to him. Rosalie, a little too

much harried, morally, about young de Soulas, could not abide him, to

use a homely phrase, and when he spoke to her, trying to take her

heart by surprise, she received him but coldly. This aversion,

discerned only by her mother's eyes, was a constant subject of

admonition.

"Rosalie, I cannot imagine why you affect such coldness towards

Amedee. Is it because he is a friend of the family, and because we

like him--your father and I?"

"Well, mamma," replied the poor child one day, "if I made him welcome,

should I not be still more in the wrong?"

"What do you mean by that?" cried Madame de Watteville. "What is the

meaning of such words? Your mother is unjust, no doubt, and according

to you, would be so in any case! Never let such an answer pass your

lips again to your mother--" and so forth.

This quarrel lasted three hours and three-quarters. Rosalie noted the

time. Her mother, pale with fury, sent her to her room, where Rosalie

pondered on the meaning of this scene without discovering it, so

guileless was she. Thus young Monsieur de Soulas, who was supposed by

every one to be very near the end he was aiming at, all neckcloths

set, and by dint of pots of patent blacking--an end which required so

much waxing of his moustaches, so many smart waistcoats, wore out so

many horseshoes and stays--for he wore a leather vest, the stays of

the /lion/--Amedee, I say, was further away than any chance comer,

although he had on his side the worthy and noble Abbe de Grancey.

"Madame," said Monsieur de Soulas, addressing the Baroness, while

waiting till his soup was cool enough to swallow, and affecting to

give a romantic turn to his narrative, "one fine morning the mail-

coach dropped at the Hotel National a gentleman from Paris, who, after

seeking apartments, made up his mind in favor of the first floor in

Mademoiselle Galard's house, Rue du Perron. Then the stranger went

straight to the Mairie, and had himself registered as a resident with

all political qualifications. Finally, he had his name entered on the

list of the barristers to the Court, showing his title in due form,

and he left his card on all his new colleagues, the Ministerial

officials, the Councillors of the Court, and the members of the bench,

with the name, 'ALBERT SAVARON.' "

"The name of Savaron is famous," said Mademoiselle de Watteville, who

was strong in heraldic information. "The Savarons of Savarus are one

of the oldest, noblest, and richest families in Belgium."

"He is a Frenchman, and no man's son," replied Amedee de Soulas. "If

he wishes to bear the arms of the Savarons of Savarus, he must add a

bar-sinister. There is no one left of the Brabant family but a

Mademoiselle de Savarus, a rich heiress, and unmarried."

"The bar-sinister is, of course, the badge of a bastard; but the

bastard of a Comte de Savarus is noble," answered Rosalie.

"Enough, that will do, mademoiselle!" said the Baroness.

"You insisted on her learning heraldry," said Monsieur de Watteville,

"and she knows it very well."

"Go on, I beg, Monsieur de Soulas."

"You may suppose that in a town where everything is classified, known,

pigeon-holed, ticketed, and numbered, as in Besancon, Albert Savaron

was received without hesitation by the lawyers of the town. They were

satisfied to say, 'Here is a man who does not know his Besancon. Who

the devil can have sent him here? What can he hope to do? Sending his

card to the Judges instead of calling in person! What a blunder!' And

so, three days after, Savaron had ceased to exist. He took as his

servant old Monsieur Galard's man--Galard being dead--Jerome, who can

cook a little. Albert Savaron was all the more completely forgotten,

because no one had seen him or met him anywhere."