The Jealousies of a Country Town | Page 3

de
Rothelin. The Valois-Saint-Remy, who descended from Henri II., also
came to an end in the famous Lamothe-Valois implicated in the affair
of the Diamond Necklace.
Each of these many chevaliers, if we may believe reports, was, like the
Chevalier of Alencon, an old gentleman, tall, thin, withered, and
moneyless. He of Bourges had emigrated; he of Touraine hid himself;
he of Alencon fought in La Vendee and "chouanized" somewhat. The
youth of the latter was spend in Paris, where the Revolution overtook
him when thirty years of age in the midst of his conquests and
gallantries.
The Chevalier de Valois of Alencon was accepted by the highest
aristocracy of the province as a genuine Valois; and he distinguished
himself, like the rest of his homonyms, by excellent manners, which
proved him a man of society. He dined out every day, and played cards
every evening. He was thought witty, thanks to his foible for relating a
quantity of anecdotes on the reign of Louis XV. and the beginnings of
the Revolution. When these tales were heard for the first time, they
were held to be well narrated. He had, moreover, the great merit of not
repeating his personal bons mots and of never speaking of his
love-affairs, though his smiles and his airs and graces were delightfully
indiscreet. The worthy gentleman used his privilege as a Voltairean
noble to stay away from mass; and great indulgence was shown to his

irreligion because of his devotion to the royal cause. One of his
particular graces was the air and manner (imitated, no doubt, from
Mole) with which he took snuff from a gold box adorned with the
portrait of the Princess Goritza,--a charming Hungarian, celebrated for
her beauty in the last years of the reign of Louis XV. Having been
attached during his youth to that illustrious stranger, he still mentioned
her with emotion. For her sake he had fought a duel with Monsieur de
Lauzun.
The chevalier, now fifty-eight years of age, owned to only fifty; and he
might well allow himself that innocent deception, for, among the other
advantages granted to fair thin persons, he managed to preserve the still
youthful figure which saves men as well as women from an appearance
of old age. Yes, remember this: all of life, or rather all the elegance that
expresses life, is in the figure. Among the chevalier's other possessions
must be counted an enormous nose with which nature had endowed
him. This nose vigorously divided a pale face into two sections which
seemed to have no knowledge of each other, for one side would redden
under the process of digestion, while the other continued white. This
fact is worthy of remark at a period when physiology is so busy with
the human heart. The incandescence, so to call it, was on the left side.
Though his long slim legs, supporting a lank body, and his pallid skin,
were not indicative of health, Monsieur de Valois ate like an ogre and
declared he had a malady called in the provinces "hot liver," perhaps to
excuse his monstrous appetite. The circumstance of his singular flush
confirmed this declaration; but in a region where repasts are developed
on the line of thirty or forty dishes and last four hours, the chevalier's
stomach would seem to have been a blessing bestowed by Providence
on the good town of Alencon. According to certain doctors, heat on the
left side denotes a prodigal heart. The chevalier's gallantries confirmed
this scientific assertion, the responsibility for which does not rest,
fortunately, on the historian.
In spite of these symptoms, Monsieur de Valois' constitution was
vigorous, consequently long-lived. If his liver "heated," to use an
old-fashioned word, his heart was not less inflammable. His face was
wrinkled and his hair silvered; but an intelligent observer would have

recognized at once the stigmata of passion and the furrows of pleasure
which appeared in the crow's-feet and the marches-du-palais, so prized
at the court of Cythera. Everything about this dainty chevalier bespoke
the "ladies' man." He was so minute in his ablutions that his cheeks
were a pleasure to look upon; they seemed to have been laved in some
miraculous water. The part of his skull which his hair refused to cover
shone like ivory. His eyebrows, like his hair, affected youth by the care
and regularity with which they were combed. His skin, already white,
seemed to have been extra-whitened by some secret compound.
Without using perfumes, the chevalier exhaled a certain fragrance of
youth, that refreshed the atmosphere. His hands, which were those of a
gentleman, and were cared for like the hands of a pretty woman,
attracted the eye to their rosy, well-shaped nails. In short, had it not
been for his magisterial and stupendous nose, the chevalier might