Bureaucracy | Page 4

a widower said to be extremely rich, and father of an only
daughter. Xavier Rabourdin fell desperately in love with Mademoiselle
Celestine Leprince, then seventeen years of age, who had all the
matrimonial claims of a dowry of two hundred thousand francs.
Carefully educated by an artistic mother, who transmitted her own
talents to her daughter, this young lady was fitted to attract
distinguished men. Tall, handsome, and finely-formed, she was a good
musician, drew and painted, spoke several languages, and even knew
something of science,--a dangerous advantage, which requires a woman
to avoid carefully all appearance of pedantry. Blinded by mistaken
tenderness, the mother gave the daughter false ideas as to her probable
future; to the maternal eyes a duke or an ambassador, a marshal of
France or a minister of State, could alone give her Celestine her due
place in society. The young lady had, moreover, the manners, language,

and habits of the great world. Her dress was richer and more elegant
than was suitable for an unmarried girl; a husband could give her
nothing more than she now had, except happiness. Besides all such
indulgences, the foolish spoiling of the mother, who died a year after
the girl's marriage, made a husband's task all the more difficult. What
coolness and composure of mind were needed to rule such a woman!
Commonplace suitors held back in fear. Xavier Rabourdin, without
parents and without fortune other than his situation under government,
was proposed to Celestine by her father. She resisted for a long time;
not that she had any personal objection to her suitor, who was young,
handsome, and much in love, but she shrank from the plain name of
Madame Rabourdin. Monsieur Leprince assured his daughter that
Xavier was of the stock that statesmen came of. Celestine answered
that a man named Rabourdin would never be anything under the
government of the Bourbons, etc. Forced back to his intrenchments, the
father made the serious mistake of telling his daughter that her future
husband was certain of becoming Rabourdin "de something or other"
before he reached the age of admission to the Chamber. Xavier was
soon to be appointed Master of petitions, and general-secretary at his
ministry. From these lower steps of the ladder the young man would
certainly rise to the higher ranks of the administration, possessed of a
fortune and a name bequeathed to him in a certain will of which he,
Monsieur Leprince, was cognizant. On this the marriage took place.
Rabourdin and his wife believed in the mysterious protector to whom
the auctioneer alluded. Led away by such hopes and by the natural
extravagance of happy love, Monsieur and Madame Rabourdin spent
nearly one hundred thousand francs of their capital in the first five
years of married life. By the end of this time Celestine, alarmed at the
non-advancement of her husband, insisted on investing the remaining
hundred thousand francs of her dowry in landed property, which
returned only a slender income; but her future inheritance from her
father would amply repay all present privations with perfect comfort
and ease of life. When the worthy auctioneer saw his son-in-law
disappointed of the hopes they had placed on the nameless protector, he
tried, for the sake of his daughter, to repair the secret loss by risking
part of his fortune in a speculation which had favourable chances of

success. But the poor man became involved in one of the liquidations
of the house of Nucingen, and died of grief, leaving nothing behind him
but a dozen fine pictures which adorned his daughter's salon, and a few
old-fashioned pieces of furniture, which she put in the garret.
Eight years of fruitless expectation made Madame Rabourdin at last
understand that the paternal protector of her husband must have died,
and that his will, if it ever existed, was lost or destroyed. Two years
before her father's death the place of chief of division, which became
vacant, was given, over her husband's head, to a certain Monsieur de la
Billardiere, related to a deputy of the Right who was made minister in
1823. It was enough to drive Rabourdin out of the service; but how
could he give up his salary of eight thousand francs and perquisites,
when they constituted three fourths of his income and his household
was accustomed to spend them? Besides, if he had patience for a few
more years he would then be entitled to a pension. What a fall was this
for a woman whose high expectations at the opening of her life were
more or less warranted, and one who was admitted on all sides to be a
superior woman.
Madame Rabourdin had justified the expectations formed of
Mademoiselle Leprince; she possessed the elements of that apparent
superiority which pleases the world; her liberal education