VII

The Sunday so impatiently looked for arrived, and Rosalie dressed with

such carefulness as made Mariette, the ladies'-maid, smile.

"It is the first time I ever knew mademoiselle to be so fidgety," said

Mariette.

"It strikes me," said Rosalie, with a glance at Mariette, which

brought poppies to her cheeks, "that you too are more particular on

some days than on others."

As she went down the steps, across the courtyard, and through the

gates, Rosalie's heart beat, as everybody's does in anticipation of a

great event. Hitherto, she had never known what it was to walk in the

streets; for a moment she had felt as though her mother must read her

schemes on her brow, and forbid her going to confession, and she now

felt new blood in her feet, she lifted them as though she trod on

fire. She had, of course, arranged to be with her confessor at a

quarter-past eight, telling her mother eight, so as to have about a

quarter of an hour near Albert. She got to church before Mass, and

after a short prayer, went to see if the Abbe Giroud were in his

confessional, simply to pass the time; and she thus placed herself in

such a way as to see Albert as he came into church.

The man must have been atrociously ugly who did not seem handsome to

Mademoiselle de Watteville in the frame of mind produced by her

curiosity. And Albert Savaron, who was really very striking, made all

the more impression on Rosalie because his mien, his walk, his

carriage, everything down to his clothing, had the indescribable stamp

which can only be expressed by the word Mystery.

He came in. The church, till now gloomy, seemed to Rosalie to be

illuminated. The girl was fascinated by his slow and solemn demeanor,

as of a man who bears a world on his shoulders and whose deep gaze,

whose very gestures, combine to express a devastating or absorbing

thought. Rosalie now understood the Vicar-General's words in their

fullest extent. Yes, those eyes of tawny brown, shot with golden

lights, covered ardor which revealed itself in sudden flashes.

Rosalie, with a recklessness which Mariette noted, stood in the

lawyer's way, so as to exchange glances with him; and this glance

turned her blood, for it seethed and boiled as though its warmth were

doubled.

As soon as Albert had taken a seat, Mademoiselle de Watteville quickly

found a place whence she could see him perfectly during all the time

the Abbe might leave her. When Mariette said, "Here is Monsieur

Giroud," it seemed to Rosalie that the interview had lasted no more

than a few minutes. By the time she came out from the confessional,

Mass was over. Albert had left the church.

"The Vicar-General was right," thought she. "/He/ is unhappy. Why

should this eagle--for he has the eyes of an eagle--swoop down on

Besancon? Oh, I must know everything! But how?"

Under the smart of this new desire Rosalie set the stitches of her

worsted-work with exquisite precision, and hid her meditations under a

little innocent air, which shammed simplicity to deceive Madame de

Watteville.

From that Sunday, when Mademoiselle de Watteville had met that look,

or, if you please, received this baptism of fire--a fine expression of

Napoleon's which may be well applied to love--she eagerly promoted the

plan for the Belvedere.

"Mamma," said she one day when two columns were turned, "my father has

taken a singular idea into his head; he is turning columns for a

Belvedere he intends to erect on the heap of stones in the middle of

the garden. Do you approve of it? It seems to me--"

"I approve of everything your father does," said Madame de Watteville

drily, "and it is a wife's duty to submit to her husband even if she

does not approve of his ideas. Why should I object to a thing which is

of no importance in itself, if only it amuses Monsieur de Watteville?"

"Well, because from thence we shall see into Monsieur de Soulas'

rooms, and Monsieur de Soulas will see us when we are there. Perhaps

remarks may be made--"

"Do you presume, Rosalie, to guide your parents, and think you know

more than they do of life and the proprieties?"

"I say no more, mamma. Besides, my father said that there would be a

room in the grotto, where it would be cool, and where we can take

coffee."

"Your father has had an excellent idea," said Madame de Watteville,

who forthwith went to look at the columns.

She gave her entire approbation to the Baron de Watteville's design,

while choosing for the erection of this monument a spot at the bottom

of the garden, which could not be seen from Monsieur de Soulas'

windows, but whence they could perfectly see into Albert Savaron's

rooms. A builder was sent for, who undertook to construct a grotto, of

which the top should be reached by a path three feet wide through the

rock-work, where periwinkles would grow, iris, clematis, ivy,

honeysuckle, and Virginia creeper. The Baroness desired that the

inside should be lined with rustic wood-work, such as was then the

fashion for flower-stands, with a looking-glass against the wall, an

ottoman forming a box, and a table of inlaid bark. Monsieur de Soulas

proposed that the floor should be of asphalt. Rosalie suggested a

hanging chandelier of rustic wood.

"The Wattevilles are having something charming done in their garden,"

was rumored in Besancon.

"They are rich, and can afford a thousand crowns for a whim--"

"A thousand crowns!" exclaimed Madame de Chavoncourt.

"Yes, a thousand crowns," cried young Monsieur de Soulas. "A man has

been sent for from Paris to rusticate the interior but it will be very

pretty. Monsieur de Watteville himself is making the chandelier, and

has begun to carve the wood."

"Berquet is to make a cellar under it," said an Abbe.

"No," replied young Monsieur de Soulas, "he is raising the kiosk on a

concrete foundation, that it may not be damp."

"You know the very least things that are done in that house," said

Madame de Chavoncourt sourly, as she looked at one of her great girls

waiting to be married for a year past.

Mademoiselle de Watteville, with a little flush of pride in thinking

of the success of her Belvedere, discerned in herself a vast

superiority over every one about her. No one guessed that a little

girl, supposed to be a witless goose, had simply made up her mind to

get a closer view of the lawyer Savaron's private study.

Albert Savaron's brilliant defence of the Cathedral Chapter was all

the sooner forgotten because the envy of the other lawyers was

aroused. Also, Savaron, faithful to his seclusion, went nowhere.

Having no friends to cry him up, and seeing no one, he increased the

chances of being forgotten which are common to strangers in Besancon.

Nevertheless, he pleaded three times at the Commercial Tribunal in

three knotty cases which had to be carried to the superior Court. He

thus gained as clients four of the chief merchants of the place, who

discerned in him so much good sense and sound legal purview that they

placed their claims in his hands.

On the day when the Watteville family inaugurated the Belvedere,

Savaron also was founding a monument. Thanks to the connections he had

obscurely formed among the upper class of merchants in Besancon, he

was starting a fortnightly paper, called the /Eastern Review/, with

the help of forty shares of five hundred francs each, taken up by his

first ten clients, on whom he had impressed the necessity for

promoting the interests of Besancon, the town where the traffic should

meet between Mulhouse and Lyons, and the chief centre between Mulhouse

and Rhone.

To compete with Strasbourg, was it not needful that Besancon should

become a focus of enlightenment as well as of trade? The leading

questions relating to the interests of Eastern France could only be

dealt with in a review. What a glorious task to rob Strasbourg and

Dijon of their literary importance, to bring light to the East of

France, and compete with the centralizing influence of Paris! These

reflections, put forward by Albert, were repeated by the ten

merchants, who believed them to be their own.

Monsieur Savaron did not commit the blunder of putting his name in

front; he left the finance of the concern to his chief client,

Monsieur Boucher, connected by marriage with one of the great

publishers of important ecclesiastical works; but he kept the

editorship, with a share of the profits as founder. The commercial

interest appealed to Dole, to Dijon, to Salins, to Neufchatel, to the

Jura, Bourg, Nantua, Lous-le-Saulnier. The concurrence was invited of

the learning and energy of every scientific student in the districts

of le Bugey, la Bresse, and Franche Comte. By the influence of

commercial interests and common feeling, five hundred subscribers were

booked in consideration of the low price; the /Review/ cost eight

francs a quarter.

To avoid hurting the conceit of the provincials by refusing their

articles, the lawyer hit on the good idea of suggesting a desire for

the literary management of this /Review/ to Monsieur Boucher's eldest

son, a young man of two-and-twenty, very eager for fame, to whom the

snares and woes of literary responsibilities were utterly unknown.

Albert quietly kept the upper hand and made Alfred Boucher his devoted

adherent. Alfred was the only man in Besancon with whom the king of

the bar was on familiar terms. Alfred came in the morning to discuss

the articles for the next number with Albert in the garden. It is

needless to say that the trial number contained a "Meditation" by

Alfred, which Savaron approved. In his conversations with Alfred,

Albert would let drop some great ideas, subjects for articles of which

Alfred availed himself. And thus the merchant's son fancied he was

making capital out of the great man. To Alfred, Albert was a man of

genius, of profound politics. The commercial world, enchanted at the

success of the /Review/, had to pay up only three-tenths of their

shares. Two hundred more subscribers, and the periodical would pay a

dividend to the share-holders of five per cent, the editor remaining

unpaid. This editing, indeed, was beyond price.

After the third number the /Review/ was recognized for exchange by all

the papers published in France, which Albert henceforth read at home.

This third number included a tale signed "A. S.," and attributed to

the famous lawyer. In spite of the small attention paid by the higher

circle of Besancon to the /Review/ which was accused of Liberal views,

this, the first novel produced in the county, came under discussion

that mid-winter at Madame de Chavoncourt's.