The Jealousies of a Country Town Part 15

This history would be strangely incomplete if no mention were made of the coincidence of the Chevalier de Valois's death occurring at the same time as that of Suzanne's mother. The chevalier died with the monarchy, in August, 1830. He had joined the cortege of Charles X. at Nonancourt, and piously escorted it to Cherbourg with the Troisvilles, Casterans, d'Esgrignons, Verneuils, etc. The old gentleman had taken with him fifty thousand francs,--the sum to which his savings then amounted. He offered them to one of the faithful friends of the king for transmission to his master, speaking of his approaching death, and declaring that the money came originally from the goodness of the king, and, moreover, that the property of the last of the Valois belonged of right to the crown. It is not known whether the fervor of his zeal conquered the reluctance of the Bourbon, who abandoned his fine kingdom of France without carrying away with him a farthing, and who ought to have been touched by the devotion of the chevalier. It is certain, however, that Cesarine, the residuary legate of the old man, received from his estate only six hundred francs a year. The chevalier returned to Alencon, cruelly weakened by grief and by fatigue; he died on the very day when Charles X. arrived on a foreign sh.o.r.e.

Madame du Val-n.o.ble and her protector, who was just then afraid of the vengeance of the liberal party, were glad of a pretext to remain incognito in the village where Suzanne's mother died. At the sale of the chevalier's effects, which took place at that time, Suzanne, anxious to obtain a souvenir of her first and last friend, pushed up the price of the famous snuff-box, which was finally knocked down to her for a thousand francs. The portrait of the Princess Goritza was alone worth that sum. Two years later, a young dandy, who was making a collection of the fine snuff-boxes of the last century, obtained from Madame du Val-n.o.ble the chevalier's treasure. The charming confidant of many a love and the pleasure of an old age is now on exhibition in a species of private museum. If the dead could know what happens after them, the chevalier's head would surely blush upon its left cheek.

If this history has no other effect than to inspire the possessors of precious relics with holy fear, and induce them to make codicils to secure these touching souvenirs of joys that are no more by bequeathing them to loving hands, it will have done an immense service to the chivalrous and romantic portion of the community; but it does, in truth, contain a far higher moral. Does it not show the necessity for a new species of education? Does it not invoke, from the enlightened solicitude of the ministers of Public Instruction, the creation of chairs of anthropology,--a science in which Germany outstrips us? Modern myths are even less understood than ancient ones, harried as we are with myths. Myths are pressing us from every point; they serve all theories, they explain all questions. They are, according to human ideas, the torches of history; they would save empires from revolution if only the professors of history would force the explanations they give into the mind of the provincial ma.s.ses. If Mademoiselle Cormon had been a reader or a student, and if there had existed in the department of the Orne a professor of anthropology, or even had she read Ariosto, the frightful disasters of her conjugal life would never have occurred. She would probably have known why the Italian poet makes Angelica prefer Medoro, who was a blond Chevalier de Valois, to Orlando, whose mare was dead, and who knew no better than to fly into a pa.s.sion. Is not Medoro the mythic form for all courtiers of feminine royalty, and Orlando the myth of disorderly, furious, and impotent revolutions, which destroy but cannot produce?

We publish, but without a.s.suming any responsibility for it, this opinion of a pupil of Monsieur Ballanche.

No information has reached us as to the fate of the negroes' heads in diamonds. You may see Madame du Val-n.o.ble every evening at the Opera.

Thanks to the education given her by the Chevalier de Valois, she has almost the air of a well-bred woman.

Madame du Bousquier still lives; is not that as much as to say she still suffers? After reaching the age of sixty--the period at which women allow themselves to make confessions--she said confidentially to Madame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea of dying an old maid.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

(Note: The Collection of Antiquities is a companion piece to The Old Maid. In other Addendum appearances they are combined under the t.i.tle of The Jealousies of a Country Town.)

Bordin The Gondreville Mystery The Seamy Side of History The Commission in Lunacy

Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier) The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The Middle Cla.s.ses

Bousquier, Madame du (du Croisier) (Mlle. Cormon) The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Casteran, De The Chouans The Seamy Side of History The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) Beatrix The Peasantry

Chesnel (or Choisnel) The Seamy Side of History The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Coudrai, Du The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d' (or Des Grignons) The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, Marie-Armande-Claire d'

The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Gaillard, Madame Theodore (Suzanne) A Distinguished Provincial at Paris A Bachelor's Establishment Scenes from a Courtesan's Life Beatrix The Unconscious Humorists

Granson, Athanase The Government Clerks (mentioned only)

Lenoncourt, Duc de The Lily of the Valley Cesar Birotteau The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The Gondreville Mystery Beatrix

Navarreins, Duc de Colonel Chabert The Muse of the Department The Thirteen The Peasantry Scenes from a Courtesan's Life The Country Parson The Magic Skin The Gondreville Mystery The Secrets of a Princess Cousin Betty

Pombreton, Marquis de Lost Illusions A Distinguished Provincial at Paris

Ronceret, Du The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) Beatrix

Ronceret, Madame Du The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Simeuse, Admiral de Beatrix The Gondreville Mystery

Troisville, Guibelin, Vicomte de The Seamy Side of History The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece) The Peasantry

Valois, Chevalier de The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Verneuil, Duc de The Chouans The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

II

THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION

To Baron Von Hammer-Purgstall, Member of the Aulic Council, Author of the History of the Ottoman Empire.

Dear Baron,--You have taken so warm an interest in my long, vast "History of French Manners in the Nineteenth Century," you have given me so much encouragement to persevere with my work, that you have given me a right to a.s.sociate your name with some portion of it. Are you not one of the most important representatives of conscientious, studious Germany? Will not your approval win for me the approval of others, and protect this attempt of mine? So proud am I to have gained your good opinion, that I have striven to deserve it by continuing my labors with the unflagging courage characteristic of your methods of study, and of that exhaustive research among doc.u.ments without which you could never have given your monumental work to the world of letters. Your sympathy with such labor as you yourself have bestowed upon the most brilliant civilization of the East, has often sustained my ardor through nights of toil given to the details of our modern civilization.

And will not you, whose naive kindliness can only be compared with that of our own La Fontaine, be glad to know of this?

May this token of my respect for you and your work find you at Dobling, dear Baron, and put you and yours in mind of one of your most sincere admirers and friends.

DE BALZAC.

THE COLLECTION OF ANTIQUITIES

There stands a house at a corner of a street, in the middle of a town, in one of the least important prefectures in France, but the name of the street and the name of the town must be suppressed here. Every one will appreciate the motives of this sage reticence demanded by convention; for if a writer takes upon himself the office of annalist of his own time, he is bound to touch on many sore subjects. The house was called the Hotel d'Esgrignon; but let d'Esgrignon be considered a mere fancy name, neither more nor less connected with real people than the conventional Belval, Floricour, or Derville of the stage, or the Adalberts and Mombreuses of romance. After all, the names of the princ.i.p.al characters will be quite as much disguised; for though in this history the chronicler would prefer to conceal the facts under a ma.s.s of contradictions, anachronisms, improbabilities, and absurdities, the truth will out in spite of him. You uproot a vine-stock, as you imagine, and the stem will send up l.u.s.ty shoots after you have ploughed your vineyard over.