The Recruit | Page 2

in
love with her, and yet be restrained by a sort of respectful fear, inspired
by her courtly and polished manners. Her soul, naturally noble, but
strengthened by cruel trials, was far indeed from the common run, and
men did justice to it. Such a soul necessarily required a lofty passion;
and the affections of Madame de Dey were concentrated on a single
sentiment,--that of motherhood. The happiness and pleasure of which
her married life was deprived, she found in the passionate love she bore
her son. She loved him not only with the pure and deep devotion of a
mother, but with the coquetry of a mistress, and the jealousy of a wife.
She was miserable away from him, uneasy at his absence, could never
see him enough, and loved only through him and for him. To make
men understand the strength of this feeling, it suffices to add that the
son was not only the sole child of Madame de Dey, but also her last
relation, the only being in the world to whom the fears and hopes and
joys of her life could be naturally attached.
The late Comte de Dey was the last surviving scion of his family, and
she herself was the sole heiress of her own. Human interests and
projects combined, therefore, with the noblest deeds of the soul to exalt
in this mother's heart a sentiment that is always so strong in the hearts
of women. She had brought up this son with the utmost difficulty, and
with infinite pains, which rendered the youth still dearer to her; a score
of times the doctors had predicted his death, but, confident in her own
presentiments, her own unfailing hope, she had the happiness of seeing
him come safely through the perils of childhood, with a constitution
that was ever improving, in spite of the warnings of the Faculty.
Thanks to her constant care, this son had grown and developed so much,
and so gracefully, that at twenty years of age, he was thought a most
elegant cavalier at Versailles. Madame de Dey possessed a happiness
which does not always crown the efforts and struggles of a mother. Her
son adored her; their souls understood each other with fraternal
sympathy. If they had not been bound by nature's ties, they would
instinctively have felt for each other that friendship of man to man,

which is so rarely to be met in this life. Appointed sub-lieutenant of
dragoons, at the age of eighteen, the young Comte de Dey had obeyed
the point of honor of the period by following the princes of the blood in
their emigration.
Thus Madame de Dey, noble, rich, and the mother of an emigre, could
not be unaware of the dangers of her cruel situation. Having no other
desire than to preserve a fortune for her son, she renounced the
happiness of emigrating with him; and when she read the vigorous laws
by virtue of which the Republic daily confiscated the property of
emigres, she congratulated herself on that act of courage; was she not
guarding the property of her son at the peril of her life? And when she
heard of the terrible executions ordered by the Convention, she slept in
peace, knowing that her sole treasure was in safety, far from danger, far
from scaffolds. She took pleasure in believing that they had each
chosen the wisest course, a course which would save to him both life
and fortune.
With this secret comfort in her mind, she was ready to make all the
concessions required by those evil days, and without sacrificing either
her dignity as a woman, or her aristocratic beliefs, she conciliated the
good-will of those about her. Madame de Dey had fully understood the
difficulties that awaited her on coming to Carentan. To seek to occupy
a leading position would be daily defiance to the scaffold; yet she
pursued her even way. Sustained by her motherly courage, she won the
affections of the poor by comforting indiscriminately all miseries, and
she made herself necessary to the rich by assisting their pleasures. She
received the procureur of the commune, the mayor, the judge of the
district court, the public prosecutor, and even the judges of the
revolutionary tribunal.
The first four of these personages, being bachelors, courted her with the
hope of marriage, furthering their cause by either letting her see the
evils they could do her, or those from which they could protect her. The
public prosecutor, previously an attorney at Caen, and the manager of
the countess's affairs, tried to inspire her with love by an appearance of
generosity and devotion; a dangerous attempt for her. He was the most

to be feared among her suitors. He alone knew the exact condition of
the property of his