A Daughter of Eve | Page 4

in Paris, is enough to explain the
luxury of the whole house, of which this boudoir is but a sample.
Though without either rank or station, having pushed himself forward,
heaven knows how, du Tillet had married, in 1831, the daughter of the
Comte de Granville, one of the greatest names in the French
magistracy,--a man who became peer of France after the revolution of
July. This marriage of ambition on du Tillet's part was brought about
by his agreeing to sign an acknowledgment in the marriage contract of
a dowry not received, equal to that of her elder sister, who was married
to Comte Felix de Vandenesse. On the other hand, the Granvilles
obtained the alliance with de Vandenesse by the largeness of the "dot."
Thus the bank repaired the breach made in the pocket of the magistracy
by rank. Could the Comte de Vandenesse have seen himself, three
years later, the brother-in-law of a Sieur Ferdinand DU Tillet, so-called,
he might not have married his wife; but what man of rank in 1828

foresaw the strange upheavals which the year 1830 was destined to
produce in the political condition, the fortunes, and the customs of
France? Had any one predicted to Comte Felix de Vandenesse that his
head would lose the coronet of a peer, and that of his father-in-law
acquire one, he would have thought his informant a lunatic.
Bending forward on one of those low chairs then called "chaffeuses," in
the attitude of a listener, Madame du Tillet was pressing to her bosom
with maternal tenderness, and occasionally kissing, the hand of her
sister, Madame Felix de Vandenesse. Society added the baptismal
name to the surname, in order to distinguish the countess from her
sister-in-law, the Marquise Charles de Vandenesse, wife of the former
ambassador, who had married the widow of the Comte de Kergarouet,
Mademoiselle Emilie de Fontaine.
Half lying on a sofa, her handkerchief in the other hand, her breathing
choked by repressed sobs, and with tearful eyes, the countess had been
making confidences such as are made only from sister to sister when
two sisters love each other; and these two sisters did love each other
tenderly. We live in days when sisters married into such antagonist
spheres can very well not love each other, and therefore the historian is
bound to relate the reasons of this tender affection, preserved without
spot or jar in spite of their husbands' contempt for each other and their
own social disunion. A rapid glance at their childhood will explain the
situation.
Brought up in a gloomy house in the Marais, by a woman of narrow
mind, a "devote" who, being sustained by a sense of duty (sacred
phrase!), had fulfilled her tasks as a mother religiously,
Marie-Angelique and Marie Eugenie de Granville reached the period of
their marriage--the first at eighteen, the second at twenty years of
age--without ever leaving the domestic zone where the rigid maternal
eye controlled them. Up to that time they had never been to a play; the
churches of Paris were their theatre. Their education in their mother's
house had been as rigorous as it would have been in a convent. From
infancy they had slept in a room adjoining that of the Comtesse de
Granville, the door of which stood always open. The time not occupied

by the care of their persons, their religious duties and the studies
considered necessary for well-bred young ladies, was spent in
needlework done for the poor, or in walks like those an Englishwoman
allows herself on Sunday, saying, apparently, "Not so fast, or we shall
seem to be amusing ourselves."
Their education did not go beyond the limits imposed by confessors,
who were chosen by their mother from the strictest and least tolerant of
the Jansenist priests. Never were girls delivered over to their husbands
more absolutely pure and virgin than they; their mother seemed to
consider that point, essential as indeed it is, the accomplishment of all
her duties toward earth and heaven. These two poor creatures had never,
before their marriage, read a tale, or heard of a romance; their very
drawings were of figures whose anatomy would have been
masterpieces of the impossible to Cuvier, designed to feminize the
Farnese Hercules himself. An old maid taught them drawing. A worthy
priest instructed them in grammar, the French language, history,
geography, and the very little arithmetic it was thought necessary in
their rank for women to know. Their reading, selected from authorized
books, such as the "Lettres Edifiantes," and Noel's "Lecons de
Litterature," was done aloud in the evening; but always in presence of
their mother's confessor, for even in those books there did sometimes
occur passages which, without wise comments, might have roused their
imagination. Fenelon's "Telemaque" was thought dangerous.
The Comtesse de