An Old Maid | Page 8

the whole of the ground floor.
The little courtyard was used to hang out on wire cords embroidered
handkerchiefs, collarets, capes, cuffs, frilled shirts, cravats, laces,
embroidered dresses,--in short, all the fine linen of the best families of
the town. The chevalier assumed to know from the number of her capes
in the wash how the love-affairs of the wife of the prefect were going
on. Though he guessed much from observations of this kind, the
chevalier was discretion itself; he was never betrayed into an epigram
(he had plenty of wit) which might have closed to him an agreeable
salon. You are therefore to consider Monsieur de Valois as a man of
superior manners, whose talents, like those of many others, were lost in
a narrow sphere. Only--for, after all, he was a man--he permitted
himself certain penetrating glances which could make some women
tremble; although they all loved him heartily as soon as they discovered
the depth of his discretion and the sympathy that he felt for their little
weaknesses.
The head woman, Madame Lardot's factotum, an old maid of forty-six,
hideous to behold, lived on the opposite side of the passage to the
chevalier. Above them were the attics where the linen was dried in
winter. Each apartment had two rooms,--one lighted from the street, the
other from the courtyard. Beneath the chevalier's room there lived a
paralytic, Madame Lardot's grandfather, an old buccaneer named
Grevin, who had served under Admiral Simeuse in India, and was now
stone-deaf. As for Madame Lardot, who occupied the other lodging on
the first floor, she had so great a weakness for persons of condition that
she may well have been thought blind to the ways of the chevalier. To
her, Monsieur de Valois was a despotic monarch who did right in all
things. Had any of her workwomen been guilty of a happiness
attributed to the chevalier she would have said, "He is so lovable!"
Thus, though the house was of glass, like all provincial houses, it was
discreet as a robber's cave.
A born confidant to all the little intrigues of the work-rooms, the

chevalier never passed the door, which usually stood open, without
giving something to his little ducks,--chocolate, bonbons, ribbons, laces,
gilt crosses, and such like trifles adored by grisettes; consequently, the
kind old gentleman was adored in return. Women have an instinct
which enables them to divine the men who love them, who like to be
near them, and exact no payment for gallantries. In this respect women
have the instinct of dogs, who in a mixed company will go straight to
the man to whom animals are sacred.
The poor Chevalier de Valois retained from his former life the need of
bestowing gallant protection, a quality of the seigneurs of other days.
Faithful to the system of the "petite maison," he liked to enrich
women,--the only beings who know how to receive, because they can
always return. But the poor chevalier could no longer ruin himself for a
mistress. Instead of the choicest bonbons wrapped in bank-bills, he
gallantly presented paper-bags full of toffee. Let us say to the glory of
Alencon that the toffee was accepted with more joy than la Duthe ever
showed at a gilt service or a fine equipage offered by the Comte
d'Artois. All these grisettes fully understood the fallen majesty of the
Chevalier de Valois, and they kept their private familiarities with him a
profound secret for his sake. If they were questioned about him in
certain houses when they carried home the linen, they always spoke
respectfully of the chevalier, and made him out older than he really was;
they talked of him as a most respectable monsieur, whose life was a
flower of sanctity; but once in their own regions they perched on his
shoulders like so many parrots. He liked to be told the secrets which
washerwomen discover in the bosom of households, and day after day
these girls would tell him the cancans which were going the round of
Alencon. He called them his "petticoat gazettes," his "talking
feuilletons." Never did Monsieur de Sartines have spies more
intelligent and less expensive, or minions who showed more honor
while displaying their rascality of mind. So it may be said that in the
mornings, while breakfasting, the chevalier usually amused himself as
much as the saints in heaven.
Suzanne was one of his favorites, a clever, ambitious girl, made of the
stuff of a Sophie Arnold, and handsome withal, as the handsomest

courtesan invited by Titian to pose on black velvet for a model of
Venus; although her face, fine about the eyes and forehead,
degenerated, lower down, into commonness of outline. Hers was a
Norman beauty, fresh, high-colored, redundant, the flesh of Rubens
covering the muscles of the