XXV

III

In the month of February 1838 Rosalie, who was eagerly courted by many

young men, achieved the purpose which had brought her to Paris. This

was to meet the Duchesse de Rhetore, to see this wonderful woman, and

to overwhelm her with perennial remorse. Rosalie gave herself up to

the most bewildering elegance and vanities in order to face the

Duchess on an equal footing.

They first met at a ball given annually after 1830 for the benefit of

the pensioners on the old Civil List. A young man, prompted by

Rosalie, pointed her out to the Duchess, saying:

"There is a very remarkable young person, a strong-minded young lady

too! She drove a clever man into a monastery--the Grand Chartreuse--a

man of immense capabilities, Albert de Savarus, whose career she

wrecked. She is Mademoiselle de Watteville, the famous Besancon

heiress----"

The Duchess turned pale. Rosalie's eyes met hers with one of those

flashes which, between woman and woman, are more fatal than the pistol

shots of a duel. Francesca Soderini, who had suspected that Albert

might be innocent, hastily quitted the ballroom, leaving the speaker

at his wits' end to guess what terrible blow he had inflicted on the

beautiful Duchesse de Rhetore.

"If you want to hear more about Albert, come to the Opera ball on

Tuesday with a marigold in your hand."

This anonymous note, sent by Rosalie to the Duchess, brought the

unhappy Italian to the ball, where Mademoiselle de Watteville placed

in her hand all Albert's letters, with that written to Leopold

Hannequin by the Vicar-General, and the notary's reply, and even that

in which she had written her confession to the Abbe de Grancey.

"I do not choose to be the only sufferer," she said to her rival, "for

one has been as ruthless as the other."

After enjoying the dismay stamped on the Duchess' beautiful face,

Rosalie went away; she went out no more, and returned to Besancon with

her mother.

Mademoiselle de Watteville, who lived alone on her estate of les

Rouxey, riding, hunting, refusing two or three offers a year, going to

Besancon four or five times in the course of the winter, and busying

herself with improving her land, was regarded as a very eccentric

personage. She was one of the celebrities of the Eastern provinces.

Madame de Soulas has two children, a boy and a girl, and she has grown

younger; but Monsieur de Soulas has aged a good deal.

"My fortune has cost me dear," said he to young Chavoncourt. "Really

to know a bigot it is unfortunately necessary to marry her!"

Mademoiselle de Watteville behaves in the most extraordinary manner.

"She has vagaries," people say. Every year she goes to gaze at the

walls of the Grande Chartreuse. Perhaps she dreams of imitating her

grand-uncle by forcing the walls of the monastery to find a husband,

as Watteville broke through those of his monastery to recover his

liberty.

She left Besancon in 1841, intending, it was said, to get married; but

the real reason of this expedition is still unknown, for she returned

home in a state which forbids her ever appearing in society again. By

one of those chances of which the Abbe de Grancey had spoken, she

happened to be on the Loire in a steamboat of which the boiler burst.

Mademoiselle de Watteville was so severely injured that she lost her

right arm and her left leg; her face is marked with fearful scars,

which have bereft her of her beauty; her health, cruelly upset, leaves

her few days free from suffering. In short, she now never leaves the

Chartreuse of les Rouxey, where she leads a life wholly devoted to

religious practices.

PARIS, May 1842.