"Madame de la Chanterie never knew the causes of this desertion until the lightning of a dreadful storm revealed them.Her daughter, brought up with anxious care and trained in the purest religious sentiments, kept total silence as to her troubles.This lack of confidence in her mother was a painful blow to Madame de la Chanterie.Already she had several times noticed in her daughter indications of the reckless disposition of the father, increased in the daughter by an almost virile strength of will.
"The husband, however, abandoned his home of his own free will, leaving his affairs in a pitiable condition.Madame de la Chanterie is, even to this day, amazed at the catastrophe, which no human foresight could have prevented.The persons she prudently consulted before the marriage had assured her that the suitor's fortune was clear and sound, and that no mortgages were on his estate.
Nevertheless it appeared, after the husband's departure, that for ten years his debts had exceeded the entire value of his property.
Everything was therefore sold, and the poor young wife, now reduced to her own means, came back to her mother.Madame de la Chanterie knew later that the most honorable persons of the province had vouched for her son-in-law in their own interests; for he owed them all large sums of money, and they looked upon his marriage with Mademoiselle de la Chanterie as a means to recover them.
"There were, however, other reasons for this catastrophe, which you will find later in a confidential paper written for the eyes of the Emperor.Moreover, this man had long courted the good-will of the royalist families by his devotion to the royal cause during the Revolution.He was one of Louis XVIII.'s most active emissaries, and had taken part after 1793 in all conspiracies,--escaping their penalties, however, with such singular adroitness that he came, in the end, to be distrusted.Thanked for his services by Louis XVIII., but completely set aside in the royalist affairs, he had returned to live on his property, now much encumbered with debt.
"These antecedents were then obscure (the persons initiated into the secrets of the royal closet kept silence about so dangerous a coadjutor), and he was therefore received with a species of reverence in a city devoted to the Bourbons, where the cruellest deeds of the Chouannerie were accepted as legitimate warfare.The d'Esgrignons, Casterans, the Chevalier de Valois, in short, the whole aristocracy and the Church opened their arms to this royalist diplomat and drew him into their circle.Their protection was encouraged by the desire of his creditors for the payment of his debts.For three years this man, who was a villain at heart, a pendant to the late Baron de la Chanterie, contrived to restrain his vices and assume the appearance of morality and religion.
"During the first months of his marriage he exerted a sort of spell over his wife; he tried to corrupt her mind by his doctrines (if it can be said that atheism is a doctrine) and by the jesting tone in which he spoke of sacred principles.From the time of his return to the provinces this political manoeuvrer had an intimacy with a young man, overwhelmed with debt like himself, but whose natural character was as frank and courageous as the baron's was hypocritical and base.
This frequent guest, whose accomplishments, strong character, and adventurous life were calculated to influence a young girl's mind, was an instrument in the hands of the husband to bring the wife to adopt his theories.Never did she let her mother know the abyss into which her fate had cast her.
"We may well distrust all human prudence when we think of the infinite precautions taken by Madame de la Chanterie in marrying her only daughter.The blow, when it came to a life so devoted, so pure, so truly religious as that of a woman already tested by many trials, gave Madame de la Chanterie a distrust of herself which served to isolate her from her daughter; and all the more because her daughter, in compensation for her misfortunes, exacted complete liberty, ruled her mother, and was even, at times, unkind to her.
"Wounded thus in all her affections, mistaken in her devotion and love for her husband, to whom she had sacrificed without a word her happiness, her fortune, and her life; mistaken in the education exclusively religious which she had given to her daughter; mistaken in the confidence she had placed in others in the affair of her daughter's marriage; and obtaining no justice from the heart in which she had sown none but noble sentiments, she united herself still more closely to God as the hand of trouble lay heavy upon her.She was indeed almost a nun; going daily to church, performing cloistral penances, and practising economy that she might have means to help the poor.
"Could there be, up to this point, a saintlier life or one more tried than that of this noble woman, so gentle under misfortune, so brave in danger, and always Christian?" said Monsieur Alain, appealing to Godefroid."You know Madame now,--you know if she is wanting in sense, judgment, reflection; in fact, she has those qualities to the highest degree.Well! the misfortunes I have now told you, which might be said to make her life surpass all others in adversity, are as nothing to those that were still in store for this poor woman.But now let us concern ourselves exclusively with Madame de la Chanterie's daughter,"said the old man, resuming his narrative.