Honoré de Balzac

“ If you are handsome, you are well ogled. What is the good of being as pretty as you are if you are not admired by the men? Ha! when I heard one of them say for the first time, ‘What a fine sprig of a girl!’ all my blood was on fire. It was at Socquard’s, in the middle of a dance; my grandfather, Fourchon, who was playing the clarionet, heard it and laughed. Tivoli seemed to me as grand and fine as heaven itself. It’s lighted up, my dear, with glass lamps, and you’ll think you are in paradise. All the gentlemen of Soulanges and Auxerre and Ville-aux-Fayes will be there. ”

“ Yellows abound; the shady places are lighter for lack of leafage, but darker in tone; the sun, already oblique, slides its furtive orange rays athwart them, leaving long luminous traces which rapidly disappear, like the train of a woman’s gown as she bids adieu.
On the morning of the second day after his arrival, Emile was at a window of his bedroom, which opened upon a terrace with a balustrade from which a noble view could be seen. This balcony ran the whole length of the apartments of the countess, on the side of the chateau towards the forests and the Blangy landscape. ”

“ If you follow in the steps of that poor singer’s selfishness, which caused the evils that now terrify us, you will bring back the scaffolds on which your fathers died for the faults of their fathers. To do good humbly, in obscurity, in country solitudes, as Rigou now does evil,—ah! that indeed is prayer in action and dear to God. If in every district three souls only would work for good, France, our country, might be saved from the abyss that yawns; into which we are rushing headlong, through spiritual indifference to all that is not our own self-interest. ”

“ Every revolt, open or concealed, has its banner. The banner of the marauders, the drunkards, the idlers, the sluggards of the valley des Aigues was the terrible tavern of the Grand-I-Vert. Its frequenters found amusement there,—as rare and much-desired a thing in the country as in a city. Moreover, there was no other inn along the country-road for over twelve miles, a distance which conveyances (even when laden) could easily do in three hours; so that those who went from Conches to Ville-aux-Fayes always stopped at the Grand-I-Vert, if only to refresh themselves. ”

“ I keep myself warm with the belief that we can save this valley and bring it back to God. No matter for ourselves, madame; think of the future! If it is our duty to say to the poor, ‘Learn how to be poor; that is, how to work, to endure, to strive,’ it is equally our duty to say to the rich, ‘Learn your duty as prosperous men,’—that is to say, ‘Be wise, be intelligent in your benevolence; pious and virtuous in the place to which God has called you.’ Ah! madame, you are only the steward of Him who grants you wealth ”

“ In 1815, there died at Les Aigues one of the famous wantons of the last century,—a singer, forgotten of the guillotine and the nobility, after preying upon exchequers, upon literature, upon aristocracy, and all but reaching the scaffold; forgotten, like so many fascinating old women who expiate their golden youth in country solitudes, and replace their lost loves by another,—man by Nature. Such women live with the flowers, with the woodland scents, with the sky, with the sunshine, with all that sings and skips and shines and sprouts,—the birds, the squirrels, the flowers, the grass ”

“ Such, at forty years of age on the breaking out of the Revolution, was this man, strong as iron, pure as gold. Advocate of the people, he believed in a republic through the very roll of that name, more formidable in sound perhaps than in reality. He believed in the republic of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in the brotherhood of man, in the exchange of noble sentiments, in the proclamation of virtue, in the choice of merit without intrigue,—in short, in all that the narrow limits of one arrondissement like Sparta made possible, and which the vast proportions of an empire make chimerical. ”

“ Pshaw! haven’t you discovered in the last thirty years that old Rigou has been sucking the marrow out of your bones that the middle-class folks are worse than the lords? Mark my words, when that affair happens, my children, the Soudrys, the Gaubertins, the Rigous, will make you kick your heels in the air. ‘I’ve the good tobacco, it never shall be thine,’ that’s the national air of the rich man, hey? The peasant will always be the peasant. Don’t you see (but you never did understand anything of politics!) that government puts such heavy taxes on wine only to hinder our profits and keep us poor? ”

“ Like other generals to whom military common-sense, the natural boldness of those who spend their lives in danger, and the habit of command gives an appearance of superiority, Montcornet has an imposing effect when you first meet him; he seems a Titan, but he contains a dwarf, like the pasteboard giant who saluted Queen Elizabeth at the gates of Kenilworth. Choleric though kind, and full of imperial hauteur, he has the caustic tongue of a soldier, and is quick at repartee, but quicker still with a blow. He may have been superb on a battle-field; in a household he is simply intolerable. ”

“ I tell him: ‘Mouche! fear the prison, and keep out of it,—for that’s the way to the scaffold. Don’t steal anything, make people give it to you. Theft leads to murder, and murder brings down the justice of men. The razor of justice,—that’s what you’ve got to fear; it lets the rich sleep easy and keeps the poor awake. Learn to read. Education will teach you ways to grab money under cover of the law, like that fine Monsieur Gaubertin; why, you can even be a land-steward like Monsieur Sibilet here, who gets his rations out of Monsieur le comte. ”

“ Think what lots of people there will be. All the bourgeois will be looking at us! Ah! it is one of those days that make up for all our misery. See it and die,—for it’s enough to satisfy any one.”
“If Monsieur and Madame Michaud would only take me!” cried La Pechina, her eyes blazing.
“Ask your grandfather Niseron; you have not given him up, poor dear man, and he’d be pleased to see you admired like a little queen. Why do you like those Arminacs the Michauds better than your grandfather and the Burgundians. It’s bad to neglect your own people. ”

“ If one really had, like the owners of estates, to live in the country, it would be well to supply one’s self with a geological, mineralogical, entomological, or botanical hobby; but a sensible man doesn’t give himself a vice merely to kill time for a fortnight. The noblest estate, and the finest chateaux soon pall on those who possess nothing but the sight of them. The beauties of nature seem rather squalid compared to the representation of them at the opera. Paris, by retrospection, shines from all its facets. ”

“ Seeing these lovely preparations of Nature, the fancy had seized Olympe Michaud to accompany her husband, who had to give an order to a keeper whose house was not far off. The Soulanges doctor advised her to walk as long as she could do so without fatigue; she was afraid of the midday heat and went out only in the early morning or evening. Michaud now took her with him, and they were followed by the dog he loved best,—a handsome greyhound, mouse-colored with white spots, greedy, like all greyhounds, and as full of vices as most animals who know they are loved and petted. ”

“ He hated the leading society, but he had measured its power. He alone knew the middle-class coalition organized by Gaubertin to its depths; and he continued to sneer at the rich men of Soulanges and Ville-aux-Fayes, as if he alone represented the opposition. Without money and not respected, he did not seem a person to be feared professionally, and so Brunet, glad to have a despised competitor, protected him and helped him along, to prevent him selling his business to some eager young man, like Bonnac for instance, who might force him, Brunet, to divide the patronage of the canton between them. ”

“ Marie was crying. To be struck before a rival by the man she loves is one of those humiliations that no woman can endure, no matter what her place on the social ladder may be; and the lower that place is, the more violent is the expression of her wrath. The Tonsard girl took no notice of Rigou or of Socquard; she flung herself on a bench, in gloomy and sullen silence, which the ex-monk carefully watched. ”

“ Like all really strong men, his temper was even; his wife, therefore, loved him utterly. From the time they took up their abode in the pavilion, this happy home was the scene of a long honey-moon in harmony with Nature and with the art whose creations surrounded them,—a circumstance rare indeed! The things about us are seldom in keeping with the condition of our souls!
The picture was so pretty that the countess stopped short and pointed it out to Blondet and the abbe; for they could see Madame Michaud from where they stood, without her seeing them. ”

“ It’s worthy giving your eternity to hear such words said of you by a man you love.”
“Yes, perhaps,” replied La Pechina, thoughtfully.
“Then come, and get the praise of men; you’re sure of it!” cried Catherine. “Ha! you’ll have a fine chance, handsome as you are, to pick up good luck. There’s the son of Monsieur Lupin, Amaury, he might marry you. But that’s not all; if you only knew what comforts you can find there against vexation and worry. Why, Socquard’s boiled wine will make you forget every trouble you ever had. Fancy! it can make you dream, and feel as light as a bird. ”

“ If the prefect and the general, who are friends, send a squadron of cavalry the peasants can’t fight. They might at a pinch get the better of the gendarmes, but as for resisting a charge of cavalry!—”
“Sibilet heard him say something much more dangerous than that,” said Rigou; “and that’s what brings me here.”
“Oh, my poor Sophie!” cried Madame Soudry, sentimentally, alluding to her friend, Mademoiselle Laguerre, “into what hands Les Aigues has fallen! This is what we have gained by the Revolution!—a parcel of swaggering epaulets! ”

“ Genevieve is gloomy when Justin is out of the house; if I ask her what she is thinking of she replies that she is afraid of Monsieur Rigou, or some such nonsense. She thinks people envy her, though she is as black as the inside of a chimney. When Justin is patrolling the woods at night the child is as anxious as I am. If I open my window to listen for the trot of his horse, I see a light in her room, which shows me that La Pechina (as they call here) is watching and waiting too. ”

“ Arcadia is at Les Aigues and nowhere else. A river, made by scores of brooklets, crosses the park at its lower level with a serpentine movement; giving a dewy freshness and tranquillity to the scene,—an air of solitude, which reminds one of a convent of Carthusians, and all the more because, on an artificial island in the river, is a hermitage in ruins, the interior elegance of which is worthy of the luxurious financier who constructed it. Les Aigues, my dear Nathan, once belonged to that Bouret who spent two millions to receive Louis XV. on a single occasion under his roof. ”

“ No matter where you are in the country, however solitary you may think yourself, you are certain to be the focus of the two eyes of a country bumpkin; a laborer rests on his hoe, a vine-dresser straightens his bent back, a little goat-girl, or shepherdess, or milkmaid climbs a willow to stare at you.
Presently the avenue merges into an alley of acacias, which leads to an iron railing made in the days when iron-workers fashioned those slender filagrees which are not unlike the copies set us by a writing-master. ”

“ The man of science is forced to clear away the avalanche under which whole villages lie buried, to show you the pebbles brought down from the summit which alone can determine the formation of the mountain. If the historian of human life were simply telling you of a suicide, five hundred of which occur yearly in Paris, the melodrama is so commonplace that brief reasons and explanations are all that need be given; but how shall he make you see that the self-destruction of an estate could happen in these days when property is reckoned of more value than life? ”

“ When the countess and her guests reached the end of one of the winding paths which led to the pavilion, they saw Madame Michaud, sitting in the open air before the door, employed in making a baby’s garment. The young woman thus placed, thus employed, added the human charm that was needed to complete the scene,—a charm so touching in its actuality that painters have committed the error of endeavoring to convey it in their pictures. Such artists forget that the SOUL of a landscape, if they represent it truly, is so grand that the human element is crushed by it ”

“ The countess had placed Genevieve Niseron, La Pechina, in a convent at Auxerre, under pretext of having her taught to sew that she might employ her in her own house, but really to save her from the shameful attempts of Nicolas Tonsard, whom Rigou had managed to save from the conscription. The countess also believed that a religious education, the cloister, and monastic supervision, would subdue the ardent passions of the precocious little girl, whose Montenegrin blood seemed to her like a threatening flame which might one day set fire to the domestic happiness of her faithful Olympe. ”

“ All things bespoke a shameful want of care,—the seal set by mere life-possessors on the ancient glories that they possess. Two windows on the first floor were stuffed with hay. Through another, on the ground-floor, was seen a room filled with tools and logs of wood; while a cow pushed her muzzle through a fourth, proving that Courtecuisse, to avoid having to walk from the pavilion to the pheasantry, had turned the large hall of the central building into a stable,—a hall with panelled ceiling, and in the centre of each panel the arms of all the various possessors of Les Aigues! ”