Mademoiselle Gamard

“ Send away Birotteau, madame, and you will set things right with Mademoiselle Gamard. Ask the Abbe Troubert, when you meet him at the archbishop's, if he can play whist. He will say yes. Then invite him to your salon, where he wants to be received; he'll be sure to come. You are a woman, and you can certainly win a priest to your interests. When the baron is promoted, his uncle peer of France, and Troubert a bishop, you can make Birotteau a canon if you choose. ”

“ Old maids who have never yielded in their habits of life or in their characters to other lives and other characters, as the fate of woman exacts, have, as a general thing, a mania for making others give way to them. In Mademoiselle Gamard this sentiment had degenerated into despotism, but a despotism that could only exercise itself on little things. For instance (among a hundred other examples) , the basket of counters placed on the card-table for the Abbe Birotteau was to stand exactly where she placed it; and the abbe annoyed her terribly by moving it, which he did nearly every evening. ”

“ This typical figure of the genus Old Maid was well framed by the grotesque designs, representing Turkish landscapes, on a varnished paper which decorated the walls of the dining-room. Mademoiselle Gamard usually sat in this room, which boasted of two pier tables and a barometer. Before the chair of each abbe was a little cushion covered with worsted work, the colors of which were faded. The salon in which she received company was worthy of its mistress. It will be visible to the eye at once when we state that it went by the name of the "yellow salon." ”

“ The vicar had just perceived, somewhat late it is true, the signs of a dumb persecution instituted against him for the last three months by Mademoiselle Gamard, whose evil intentions would doubtless have been fathomed much sooner by a more intelligent man. Old maids have a special talent for accentuating the words and actions which their dislikes suggest to them. They scratch like cats. They not only wound but they take pleasure in wounding, and in making their victim see that he is wounded. A man of the world would never have allowed himself to be scratched twice ”

“ So, with the enthusiasm of one who attains an object long desired, with the candor of a child, and the blundering foolishness of an old man utterly without worldly experience, he fell into the life of Mademoiselle Gamard precisely as a fly is caught in a spider’s web. The first day that he went to dine and sleep at the house he was detained in the salon after dinner, partly to make his landlady’s acquaintance, but chiefly by that inexplicable embarrassment which often assails timid people and makes them fear to seem impolite by breaking off a conversation in order to take leave. ”

“ Mademoiselle very rarely talks irrationally, and if by chance she does, it is in presence of these gentlemen, who confuse and frighten her. She then makes such efforts not to appear mad that she actually becomes so; but as soon as they leave her alone with me or Saint-Jean or Monsieur l'Abbé, who could quite well have told you how things are, if he had wished, she becomes calm again, and sweet and sensible as usual. She says that she could almost die of pain, although to the doctors she pretends that she is scarcely suffering at all. ”

“ Mademoiselle is a charming little Frenchwoman, with a piquant retroussé nose, a full and softly rounded chin, and dark eyes with a veiled fire about them, most attractive. She wears the prettiest little boots in the world, and is always charmingly dressed. ”

“ The same evening Mademoiselle, only half aroused, was severely scolded by Lauzun for her ridiculous dread of the water. This was very sweet to her; it being the first time he had taken such a liberty, and the most passionate women in the early days of love adore the masterful tone. The two saw each other less often than at Saint-Germain, but with more freedom. The chances of travel gave, from time to time, the opportunity for long tête-à-têtes, by which they profited; she, to become more pressing, he, to make himself more keenly desired. ”

“ The pain came again fiercely to my breast and I caught my breath to ease it. The firm fingers of De Brésac closed upon my own as he whispered.
“Courage, mon brave! Courage!”
Ah me! The meaning of the travails through which we are brought to our better understanding are little known of men—nor will be through many generations of time. In a moment or so the pang was past, and in a sudden flash of unreason—Nature’s compensation for her sorrows—I felt again as I had felt before, that Mademoiselle was at that moment somewhere near—not cold in death—but breathing and living. ”

“ She vowed that she felt no weariness, but after all that had befallen her, neither Maheera nor I had the humor to see her pressed. We knew that she would have walked on until she had fallen from utter weariness before she would have spoken a word of plaint. There was no need for haste. In the depths of the woods there was little to fear. If we reached the encampment of Satouriona by sunset I would be well content, for Mademoiselle could not safely be conveyed aboard the Vengeance save under the cover of darkness. ”

“ Since daughters are of no value in France, they should at least be permitted to enjoy spectacles."
Mazarin convoked the ministers to submit this argument. The discussion lasted "three or four hours." Finally, Mademoiselle gained her cause, although the King himself was rather against her. The important question of "trains" gave also some embarrassment to the Cardinal. A duke had offered to bear the train of Mademoiselle in the nuptial cortége. ”

“ She was masked, travelling as "Mme. Dupré," a woman of an inferior order. She dined with her fellow-travellers in public rooms, talked freely with common people, and faced life on an equality with the canaille. For a royal personage such experience had savour. One day in the kitchen of an inn a monk talked to her long and earnestly of the events of the day and of Mademoiselle, the niece of Louis XIII., and her high feats. ”

“ Madelaine loved often, in after-life, to talk of them with that dear brother, always her faithful friend. So time went on—Time, the traveller whose pace is so variously designated by various humours, is always the restless, the unpausing—till Mademoiselle de St Hilaire had attained the perfection of blooming womanhood—the glowing loveliness of her one-and-twentieth summer—and la petite Madelaine began to think people ought to treat her more like a woman—for was she not fifteen complete? ”

“ A letter, dated January 21, 1671, addressed to Bussy-Rabutin by Mme. de Scudéry, sister-in-law of the illustrious Madeleine, contains this paragraph:
I will say nothing of the affair of Mademoiselle. You are no doubt acquainted with all that has passed. I will only add that, if you realise what a great passion can be, in the heart of a pure woman like the Princess, you will not wonder, but will have sympathy. For myself, who know nothing of love through experience, I comprehend that Mademoiselle is much to be pitied; for she has become sleepless. ”

“ The sun coming in the after-port lit up the scarlet streaks upon his face and head-gear and penetrated the ferocious disguise, reducing him after all to his proper dimension—a fine, brave lad of five and [299] twenty, who if born an Englishman would have served his queen with honor and profit.
So I took a mind that this Olotoraca should be the one with whom I would speak of Mademoiselle. Not until the planning and discussion of the attack upon Fort San Mateo had become general could I get the ear of De Brésac and then I told him what was in my mind. ”

“ The idea of making war upon the King from the bottom of a cellar had amused her, and still more the thinking of herself as the price of peace between her cousin and Condé, and she had not wished to look further.
While the tempest gathered over her head, the great preoccupation of Mademoiselle was the installation of a theatre in her dilapidated château, in which the country workmen had not yet succeeded in arranging a suitable bedroom for her. She could no longer live without the comedy; the theatre must come first. ”

“ By a strange fatality, at that instant Church came in conflict with State. Cardinal Mazarin, representing the Church, inspired Queen Anne to resent her niece's indisposition. The Queen became very angry at Mademoiselle, and impelled by her anger, Monsieur commanded his daughter to set out immediately for Notre Dame; he told her rudely that if she was too sick to walk, she had plenty of people to carry her. "You will either go or be carried!" he cried violently, and Mademoiselle, much the worse for her stratagem, was forced to yield. ”

“ At the present time it is the fashion to die with less ostentation, but revolutions in taste ought not to prevent our doing justice to the victims of the Cinq-Mars Conspiracy. They were heroically brave to the last, and the people could not forget them. Mademoiselle's grief was fostered by the general sympathy for the unfortunate boy who had paid so dearly for his familiarity with the King. ”

“ I am of birth so high that no matter what I might do, I never could be anything but great and noble. And they may call it what they like, I call it following my inclination and taking my own road. I was born to take no other!"
Given such inclinations, and living in the Louvre, where Corneille's plays were constantly enacted by [184] Queen Anne's order, Mademoiselle was accustomed to regard certain actions as the reverse of common and ignoble, and to consider certain other actions "illustrious." ”

“ For the rest of mortals, secret marriages must actually remain concealed, or there would result endless difficulties. On this account, the married pair could only meet through a happy chance, which is not agreeable, while it was also almost impossible to escape suspicious commentaries and the uncomfortable dependence upon the fidelity of servants. Segrais would never believe that Mademoiselle had married Lauzun, and one of the reasons given was "that she sent away Madelon, her chambermaid, and she would not have done this if Madelon had been able to gossip." ”

“ I knew that I had some stormy moments before me with De Gourgues, but felt that could we carry forward our object and bring Mademoiselle aboard the vessel secretly, his displeasure would speedily pass by; and I trusted much to Mademoiselle. Could he resist her, he were less than a man. After a time we heard the footsteps not of one but of two persons, and presently Maheera’s soft voice called out through the darkness from the crossing place where we had been. In a moment we were together. There was De Brésac—my good Brésac,—whom our little guide had found at the camp. ”

“ By the advice of the angry Queen, Monsieur waited one day longer; then word was sent to Mademoiselle that she was free and that she might receive visits, and in an hour all the people of the under-world of Paris were hurrying to the palace, laughing, shouting, crying to each other in broken voices. They surged past the sentinel and entered the courtyard; men wept, women, holding their children above their heads, pointed to the open window [269] where Mademoiselle, emaciated by her ten days' trial, but still haughty and determined, looking down into the upturned faces, smiled a welcome. ”

“ The registers of the Parliament (date, 10th May, 1645) contain letters patent and duly verified, by which the King accorded to "Ursule Matton, the dwarf of Mademoiselle, sole daughter of the Duke of Orleans, the power and [29] the right to establish a little market in a court behind the new meat market of Saint Honoré." [10]
Marie de Médicis completed the house and establishment of her granddaughter by giving her, for governess, a person of much virtue, wit, and merit, Madame de Saint Georges, who knew the Court thoroughly. ”

“ But Mademoiselle made [370] me no reply. With the thought how near she had come to falling into his hands after the capture of Fort Caroline, she shuddered, drew closer to me and would hear of him no more. We had too many present joys to conjure up the miseries that were past. We had been born into a new world of our own and we peopled it with fancies as blithe as ourselves. Under the laughing stars we were creatures of unreality, unconscious of all save the great love which had conquered everything. De Gourgues sat with us sometimes, but not for long ”

“ Still, though his mind is perturbed, his pulses throb, and there is a mingling of expectation and trepidation in his breast, if his real feelings were finely analysed, it would be found that Mademoiselle’s beauty repels even while it attracts him to the point of looking on it closer.
Possibly the daylight may dissipate his delusion, he thinks. And he is conscious of a sort of half-hope, half-regret, that it may be so.
The apartment, into which he is ushered by Mademoiselle’s own smart soubrette, disappoints him at once. ”

“ As Betty crossed the twilit court and entered the deeper gloom of the house, she found Madelaine, a lean shadow in the dusk, fumbling with the latch on the outer door of the widow Snacheur’s apartments.
“Is Mademoiselle the American at home, Madelaine?” she asked the girl.
Madelaine left the door, walked out into the courtyard and looked up.
“Madame, there is a candle burning on the sixth floor,” she called across the court. She came to Betty: “And there is a shadow cast. Mademoiselle the American must be at home,” she added ”