Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan | Page 8

"But in this case," said the princess, "fools wouldn't have enough
credulity in their nature."
"You are right," said the marquise. "But what we ought to look for is
neither a fool nor even a man of talent. To solve our problem we need a
man of genius. Genius alone has the faith of childhood, the religion of
love, and willingly allows us to band its eyes. Look at Canalis and the
Duchesse de Chaulieu! Though we have both encountered men of
genius, they were either too far removed from us or too busy, and we
too absorbed, too frivolous."
"Ah! how I wish I might not leave this world without knowing the
happiness of true love," exclaimed the princess.
"It is nothing to inspire it," said Madame d'Espard; "the thing is to feel
it. I see many women who are only the pretext for a passion without

being both its cause and its effect."
"The last love I inspired was a beautiful and sacred thing," said the
princess. "It had a future in it. Chance had brought me, for once in a
way, the man of genius who is due to us, and yet so difficult to obtain;
there are more pretty women than men of genius. But the devil
interfered with the affair."
"Tell me about it, my dear; this is all news to me."
"I first noticed this beautiful passion about the middle of the winter of
1829. Every Friday, at the opera, I observed a young man, about thirty
years of age, in the orchestra stalls, who evidently came there for me.
He was always in the same stall, gazing at me with eyes of fire, but,
seemingly, saddened by the distance between us, perhaps by the
hopelessness of reaching me."
"Poor fellow! When a man loves he becomes eminently stupid," said
the marquise.
"Between every act he would slip into the corridor," continued the
princess, smiling at her friend's epigrammatic remark. "Once or twice,
either to see me or to make me see him, he looked through the glass
sash of the box exactly opposite to mine. If I received a visit, I was
certain to see him in the corridor close to my door, casting a furtive
glance upon me. He had apparently learned to know the persons
belonging to my circle; and he followed them when he saw them
turning in the direction of my box, in order to obtain the benefit of the
opening door. I also found my mysterious adorer at the Italian opera-
house; there he had a stall directly opposite to my box, where he could
gaze at me in naive ecstasy--oh! it was pretty! On leaving either house I
always found him planted in the lobby, motionless; he was elbowed
and jostled, but he never moved. His eyes grew less brilliant if he saw
me on the arm of some favorite. But not a word, not a letter, no
demonstration. You must acknowledge that was in good taste.
Sometimes, on getting home late at night, I found him sitting upon one
of the stone posts of the porte-cochere. This lover of mine had very
handsome eyes, a long, thick, fan-shaped beard, with a moustache and

side-whiskers; nothing could be seen of his skin but his white
cheek-bones, and a noble forehead; it was truly an antique head. The
prince, as you know, defended the Tuileries on the riverside, during the
July days. He returned to Saint-Cloud that night, when all was lost, and
said to me: 'I came near being killed at four o'clock. I was aimed at by
one of the insurgents, when a young man, with a long beard, whom I
have often seen at the opera, and who was leading the attack, threw up
the man's gun, and saved me.' So my adorer was evidently a republican!
In 1831, after I came to lodge in this house, I found him, one day,
leaning with his back against the wall of it; he seemed pleased with my
disasters; possibly he may have thought they drew us nearer together.
But after the affair of Saint-Merri I saw him no more; he was killed
there. The evening before the funeral of General Lamarque, I had gone
out on foot with my son, and my republican accompanied us,
sometimes behind, sometimes in front, from the Madeleine to the
Passage des Panoramas, where I was going."
"Is that all?" asked the marquise.
"Yes, all," replied the princess. "Except that on the morning Saint-
Merri was taken, a gamin came here and insisted on seeing me. He
gave me a letter, written on common paper, signed by my republican."
"Show it to me," said the marquise.
"No, my dear. Love was too great and too sacred in the heart of that
man to