The Ball at Sceaux | Page 7

his father had sold firewood. This noteworthy
change in the ideas of a noble on the verge of his sixtieth year--an age
when men rarely renounce their convictions--was due not merely to his
unfortunate residence in the modern Babylon, where, sooner or later,
country folks all get their corners rubbed down; the Comte de
Fontaine's new political conscience was also a result of the King's
advice and friendship. The philosophical prince had taken pleasure in
converting the Vendeen to the ideas required by the advance of the
nineteenth century, and the new aspect of the Monarchy. Louis XVIII.
aimed at fusing parties as Napoleon had fused things and men. The
legitimate King, who was not less clever perhaps than his rival, acted in
a contrary direction. The last head of the House of Bourbon was just as
eager to satisfy the third estate and the creations of the Empire, by
curbing the clergy, as the first of the Napoleons had been to attract the
grand old nobility, or to endow the Church. The Privy Councillor,
being in the secret of these royal projects, had insensibly become one of
the most prudent and influential leaders of that moderate party which
most desired a fusion of opinion in the interests of the nation. He
preached the expensive doctrines of constitutional government, and lent
all his weight to encourage the political see-saw which enabled his
master to rule France in the midst of storms. Perhaps Monsieur de
Fontaine hoped that one of the sudden gusts of legislation, whose
unexpected efforts then startled the oldest politicians, might carry him
up to the rank of peer. One of his most rigid principles was to recognize
no nobility in France but that of the peerage--the only families that
might enjoy any privileges.
"A nobility bereft of privileges," he would say, "is a tool without a
handle."
As far from Lafayette's party as he was from La Bourdonnaye's, he
ardently engaged in the task of general reconciliation, which was to
result in a new era and splendid fortunes for France. He strove to
convince the families who frequented his drawing-room, or those
whom he visited, how few favorable openings would henceforth be
offered by a civil or military career. He urged mothers to give their
boys a start in independent and industrial professions, explaining that
military posts and high Government appointments must at last pertain,
in a quite constitutional order, to the younger sons of members of the

peerage. According to him, the people had conquered a sufficiently
large share in practical government by its elective assembly, its
appointments to law-offices, and those of the exchequer, which, said he,
would always, as heretofore, be the natural right of the distinguished
men of the third estate.
These new notions of the head of the Fontaines, and the prudent
matches for his eldest girls to which they had led, met with strong
resistance in the bosom of his family. The Comtesse de Fontaine
remained faithful to the ancient beliefs which no woman could disown,
who, through her mother, belonged to the Rohans. Although she had
for a while opposed the happiness and fortune awaiting her two eldest
girls, she yielded to those private considerations which husband and
wife confide to each other when their heads are resting on the same
pillow. Monsieur de Fontaine calmly pointed out to his wife, by exact
arithmetic that their residence in Paris, the necessity for entertaining,
the magnificence of the house which made up to them now for the
privations so bravely shared in La Vendee, and the expenses of their
sons, swallowed up the chief part of their income from salaries. They
must therefore seize, as a boon from heaven, the opportunities which
offered for settling their girls with such wealth. Would they not some
day enjoy sixty--eighty--a hundred thousand francs a year? Such
advantageous matches were not to be met with every day for girls
without a portion. Again, it was time that they should begin to think of
economizing, to add to the estate of Fontaine, and re-establish the old
territorial fortune of the family. The Countess yielded to such cogent
arguments, as every mother would have done in her place, though
perhaps with a better grace; but she declared that Emilie, at any rate,
should marry in such a way as to satisfy the pride she had unfortunately
contributed to foster in the girl's young soul.
Thus events, which ought to have brought joy into the family, had
introduced a small leaven of discord. The Receiver-General and the
young lawyer were the objects of a ceremonious formality which the
Countess and Emilie contrived to create. This etiquette soon found
even ampler opportunity for the display of domestic tyranny; for
Lieutenant-General de Fontaine married Mademoiselle Mongenod, the
daughter of a rich