Domestic Peace | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Dagny, [email protected] and John Bickers,
[email protected]

DOMESTIC PEACE
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell

Dedicated to my dear niece Valentine Surville.

The incident recorded in this sketch took place towards the end of the
month of November, 1809, the moment when Napoleon's fugitive

empire attained the apogee of its splendor. The trumpet-blasts of
Wagram were still sounding an echo in the heart of the Austrian
monarchy. Peace was being signed between France and the Coalition.
Kings and princes came to perform their orbits, like stars, round
Napoleon, who gave himself the pleasure of dragging all Europe in his
train--a magnificent experiment in the power he afterwards displayed at
Dresden. Never, as contemporaries tell us, did Paris see entertainments
more superb than those which preceded and followed the sovereign's
marriage with an Austrian archduchess. Never, in the most splendid
days of the Monarchy, had so many crowned heads thronged the shores
of the Seine, never had the French aristocracy been so rich or so
splendid. The diamonds lavishly scattered over the women's dresses,
and the gold and silver embroidery on the uniforms contrasted so
strongly with the penury of the Republic, that the wealth of the globe
seemed to be rolling through the drawing-rooms of Paris. Intoxication
seemed to have turned the brains of this Empire of a day. All the
military, not excepting their chief, reveled like parvenus in the treasure
conquered for them by a million men with worsted epaulettes, whose
demands were satisfied by a few yards of red ribbon.
At this time most women affected that lightness of conduct and facility
of morals which distinguished the reign of Louis XV. Whether it were
in imitation of the tone of the fallen monarchy, or because certain
members of the Imperial family had set the example--as certain
malcontents of the Faubourg Saint-Germain chose to say--it is certain
that men and women alike flung themselves into a life of pleasure with
an intrepidity which seemed to forbode the end of the world. But there
was at that time another cause for such license. The infatuation of
women for the military became a frenzy, and was too consonant to the
Emperor's views for him to try to check it. The frequent calls to arms,
which gave every treaty concluded between Napoleon and the rest of
Europe the character of an armistice, left every passion open to a
termination as sudden as the decisions of the Commander-in-chief of
all these busbys, pelisses, and aiguillettes, which so fascinated the fair
sex. Hearts were as nomadic as the regiments. Between the first and
fifth bulletins from the Grand armee a woman might be in succession
mistress, wife, mother, and widow.
Was it the prospect of early widowhood, the hope of a jointure, or that

of bearing a name promised to history, which made the soldiers so
attractive? Were women drawn to them by the certainty that the secret
of their passions would be buried on the field of battle? or may we find
the reason of this gentle fanaticism in the noble charm that courage has
for a woman? Perhaps all these reasons, which the future historian of
the manners of the Empire will no doubt amuse himself by weighing,
counted for something in their facile readiness to abandon themselves
to love intrigues. Be that as it may, it must here be confessed that at
that time laurels hid many errors, women showed an ardent preference
for the brave adventurers, whom they regarded as the true fount of
honor, wealth, or pleasure; and in the eyes of young girls, an
epaulette--the hieroglyphic of a future--signified happiness and liberty.
One feature, and a characteristic one, of this unique period in our
history was an unbridled mania for everything glittering. Never were
fireworks so much in vogue, never were diamonds so highly prized.
The men, as greedy as the women of these translucent pebbles,
displayed