第80章

MARIE-GASTON TO MADAME LA COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADEArcis-sur-Aube, May 6, 1839.

Madame,--In any case I should gladly have profited by the request you were so good as to make that I should write to you during my stay in this town; but in granting me this favor you could not really know the full extent of your charity.Without you, madame, and the consolation of writing to you sometimes, what would become of me under the habitual weight of my sad thoughts in a town which has neither society, nor commerce, nor curiosities, nor environs; and where all intellectual activity spends itself on the making of pickled pork, soap-grease, stockings, and cotton night-caps.Dorlange, whom I shall not long call by that name (you shall presently know why) is so absorbed in steering his electoral frigate that I scarcely see him.

I told you, madame, that I resolved to come down here and join our mutual friend in consequence of a certain trouble of mind apparent in one of his letters, which informed me of a great revolution taking place in his life.I am able to-day to be more explicit.Dorlange at last knows his father.He is the natural son of the Marquis de Sallenauve, the last living scion of one of the best families in Champagne.Without explaining the reasons which have hitherto induced him to keep his son's birth secret, the marquis has now recognized him legally.He has also bought and presented to him an estate formerly belonging to the Sallenauve family.This estate is situated in Arcis itself, and its possession will assist the project of our friend's election.That project dates much farther back than we thought; and it did not take its rise in the fancy of Dorlange.

A year ago, the marquis began to prepare for it by sending his son a sum of money for the purchase of real estate in conformity with electoral laws; and it is also for the furtherance of this purpose that he has now made him doubly a landowner.The real object of all these sacrifices not seeming plain to Charles de Sallenauve, doubts have arisen in his mind, and it was to assist in dispelling them that my friendship for the poor fellow brought me here.

The marquis appears to be as odd and whimsical as he is opulent; for, instead of remaining in Arcis, where his presence and his name would contribute to the success of the election he desires, the very day after legal formalities attending the recognition of his son had been complied with, he departed furtively for foreign countries, where he says he has important interests, without so much as taking leave of his son.This coldness has poisoned the happiness Charles would otherwise feel in these events; but one must take fathers as they are, for Dorlange and I are living proofs that all cannot have them as they want them.

Another eccentricity of the marquis is the choice he has made, as chief assistant in his son's election, of an old Ursuline nun, with whom he seems to have made a bargain, in which, strange to say, you have unconsciously played a part.Yes, madame, the Saint-Ursula for which, unknown to yourself, you were posing, will have, to all appearances, a considerable influence on the election of our friend.

The case is this:

For many years Mother Marie-des-Anges, superior of the Ursuline convent at Arcis-sur-Aube, has desired to install in the chapel of her convent an image of its patron saint.But this abbess, who is a woman of taste and intelligence, would not listen to the idea of one of those stock figures which can be bought ready-made from the venders of church decorations.On the other hand, she thought it was robbing her poor to spend on this purpose the large sum necessary to procure a work of art.The nephew of this excellent woman is an organist in Paris to whom the Marquis de Sallenauve, then in emigration, had confided the care of his son.When it became a question of making Charles a deputy, the marquis naturally thought of Arcis, a place where his family had left so many memories.The organist also recollected his aunt's desire; he knew how influential she was in that region because of her saintliness, and having in his nature a touch of that intrigue which likes to undertake things difficult and arduous, he went to see her, with the approval of the Marquis de Sallenauve, and let her know that one of the most skilful sculptors in Paris was ready to make her the statue of Saint-Ursula if she, on her side, would promise to secure the artist's election as deputy from the arrondissement of Arcis.

The old nun did not think the undertaking beyond her powers.She now possesses the object of her pious longings; the statue arrived some days ago, and is already in the chapel of the convent, where she proposes to give it, before long, a solemn inauguration.It now remains to be seen whether the good nun will perform her part of the contract.

Well, madame, strange to say, after hearing and inquiring into the whole matter I shall not be surprised if this remarkable woman should carry the day.From the description our friend gives of her, Mother Marie-des-Anges is a small woman, short and thick-set, whose face is prepossessing and agreeable beneath its wrinkles and the mask of saffron-tinted pallor which time and the austerities of a cloister have placed upon it.Carrying very lightly the weight of her corpulence and also that of her seventy-six years, she is lively, alert, and frisky to a degree that shames the youngest of us.For fifty years she has governed in a masterly manner her community, which has always been the most regular, the best organized, and also the richest society in the diocese of Troyes.Admirably fitted for the training of youth, she has long conducted a school for girls, which is famous throughout the department of the Aube and adjacent regions.