The Jealousies of a Country Town | Page 2

window" and other things having had a bad
effect on them; and most of those who survived had, by the time he was
old enough to take much notice, gone through metamorphoses of
Bonapartism, Constitutional Liberalism, and what not. But still du

Bousquier is alive, as well as all the minor assistants and spectators in
the battle for the old maid's hand. Suzanne, that tactful and graceless
Suzanne to whom we are introduced first of all, is very much alive; and
for all her gracelessness, not at all disagreeable. I am only sorry that she
sold the counterfeit presentment of the Princess Goritza after all.
Le Cabinet des Antiques, in its Alencon scenes, is a worthy pendant to
La Vieille Fille. The old-world honor of the Marquis d'Esgrignon, the
thankless sacrifices of Armande, the prisca fides of Maitre Chesnel,
present pictures for which, out of Balzac, we can look only in Jules
Sandeau, and which in Sandeau, though they are presented with a more
poetical touch, have less masterly outline than here. One takes --or, at
least, I take--less interest in the ignoble intrigues of the other side,
except in so far as they menace the fortunes of a worthy house
unworthily represented. Victurnien d'Esgrignon, like his companion
Savinien de Portenduere (who, however, is, in every respect, a very
much better fellow), does not argue in Balzac any high opinion of the
fils de famille. He is, in fact, an extremely feeble youth, who does not
seem to have got much real satisfaction out of the escapades, for which
he risked not merely his family's fortune, but his own honor, and who
would seem to have been a rake, not from natural taste and spirit and
relish, but because it seemed to him to be the proper thing to be. But
the beginnings of the fortune of the aspiring and intriguing Camusots
are admirably painted; and Madame de Maufrigneuse, that rather
doubtful divinity, who appears so frequently in Balzac, here acts the
dea ex machina with considerable effect. And we end well (as we
generally do when Blondet, whom Balzac seems more than once to
adopt as mask, is the narrator), in the last glimpse of Mlle. Armande
left alone with the remains of her beauty, the ruins of everything dear to
her--and God.
These two stories were written at no long interval, yet, for some reason
or other, Balzac did not at once unite them. La Vieille Fille first
appeared in November and December 1836 in the Presse, and was
inserted next year in the Scenes de la Vie de Province. It had three
chapter divisions. The second part did not appear all at once. Its first
installment, under the general title, came out in the Chronique de Paris

even before the Vieille Fille appeared in March 1836; the completion
was not published (under the title of _Les Rivalites en Province_) till
the autumn of 1838, when the Constitutionnel served as its vehicle.
There were eight chapter divisions in this latter. The whole of the
Cabinet was published in book form (with Gambara to follow it) in
1839. There were some changes here; and the divisions were abolished
when the whole book in 1844 entered the Comedie. One of the greatest
mistakes which, in my humble judgment, the organizers of the edition
definitive have made, is their adoption of Balzac's never executed
separation of the pair and deletion of the excellent joint-title Les
Rivalites.
George Saintsbury

I

AN OLD MAID
By HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION
To Monsieur Eugene-Auguste-Georges-Louis Midy de la Greneraye
Surville, Royal Engineer of the Ponts at Chausses.
As a testimony to the affection of his brother-in-law,
DE BALZAC.

AN OLD MAID


CHAPTER I
ONE OF MANY CHEVALIERS DE VALOIS
Most persons have encountered, in certain provinces in France, a

number of Chevaliers de Valois. One lived in Normandy, another at
Bourges, a third (with whom we have here to do) flourished in Alencon,
and doubtless the South possesses others. The number of the Valesian
tribe is, however, of no consequence to the present tale. All these
chevaliers, among whom were doubtless some who were Valois as
Louis XIV. was Bourbon, knew so little of one another that it was not
advisable to speak to one about the others. They were all willing to
leave the Bourbons in tranquil possession of the throne of France; for it
was too plainly established that Henri IV. became king for want of a
male heir in the first Orleans branch called the Valois. If there are any
Valois, they descend from Charles de Valois, Duc d'Angouleme, son of
Charles IX. and Marie Touchet, the male line from whom ended, until
proof to the contrary be produced, in the person of the Abbe