The Ball at Sceaux | Page 3

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Etext prepared by Dagny, [email protected]

THE BALL AT SCEAUX
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC

Translated By Clara Bell

To Henri de Balzac, his brother Honore.

The Comte de Fontaine, head of one of the oldest families in Poitou,
had served the Bourbon cause with intelligence and bravery during the
war in La Vendee against the Republic. After having escaped all the
dangers which threatened the royalist leaders during this stormy period
of modern history, he was wont to say in jest, "I am one of the men
who gave themselves to be killed on the steps of the throne." And the
pleasantry had some truth in it, as spoken by a man left for dead at the
bloody battle of Les Quatre Chemins. Though ruined by confiscation,
the staunch Vendeen steadily refused the lucrative posts offered to him
by the Emperor Napoleon. Immovable in his aristocratic faith, he had
blindly obeyed its precepts when he thought it fitting to choose a
companion for life. In spite of the blandishments of a rich but
revolutionary parvenu, who valued the alliance at a high figure, he
married Mademoiselle de Kergarouet, without a fortune, but belonging
to one of the oldest families in Brittany.
When the second revolution burst on Monsieur de Fontaine he was
encumbered with a large family. Though it was no part of the noble
gentlemen's views to solicit favors, he yielded to his wife's wish, left
his country estate, of which the income barely sufficed to maintain his
children, and came to Paris. Saddened by seeing the greediness of his
former comrades in the rush for places and dignities under the new
Constitution, he was about to return to his property when he received a
ministerial despatch, in which a well-known magnate announced to him
his nomination as marechal de camp, or brigadier- general, under a rule
which allowed the officers of the Catholic armies to count the twenty
submerged years of Louis XVIII.'s reign as years of service. Some days
later he further received, without any solicitation, ex officio, the crosses
of the Legion of Honor and of Saint-Louis.
Shaken in his determination by these successive favors, due, as he
supposed, to the monarch's remembrance, he was no longer satisfied
with taking his family, as he had piously done every Sunday, to cry
"Vive le Roi" in the hall of the Tuileries when the royal family passed
through on their way to chapel; he craved the favor of a private
audience. The audience, at once granted, was in no sense private. The
royal drawing-room was full of old adherents, whose powdered heads,
seen from above, suggested a carpet of snow. There the Count met

some old friends, who received him somewhat coldly; but the princes
he thought ADORABLE, an enthusiastic expression which escaped
him when the most gracious of his masters, to whom the Count had
supposed himself to be known only by name, came to shake hands with
him, and spoke of him as the most thorough Vendeen of them all.
Notwithstanding this ovation, none of these august persons thought of
inquiring as to the sum of his losses, or of the money he had poured so
generously into the chests of the Catholic regiments. He discovered, a
little late, that he had made war at his own cost. Towards the end of the
evening he thought he might venture on a witty allusion to the state of
his affairs, similar, as it was, to that of many other gentlemen. His
Majesty laughed heartily enough; any speech that bore the hall-mark of
wit was certain to please him; but he nevertheless replied with one of
those royal pleasantries whose sweetness is more formidable than