When morning came, he found himself heading straight outdoors, drawn as always to breathe deeply and bask in the sun, pacing the garden paths of his estate.
He began walking down the rue du Bac with a light step, yesterday’s longing still alive within him, taking pleasure in the balmy air. But soon, moved by some obscure inner prompting, he turned towards the grand house he had occupied in his father’s time. Sadness lay in wait for him there.
The doorway had vanished—only a makeshift fence remained. Where ornate carvings had once danced, now stood only a mountain of broken stones. No green thing pushed through the ruins, where man’s sole visible achievement was destruction. The wall, once scrubbed clean daily and now disfigured by a ragpicker’s vulgar graffiti, seemed to stand merely to frustrate burglars. Debris lay everywhere, fine chalky dust turned to paste by the damp, clinging even to the soles of Agénor’s shoes.
He beat a hasty retreat, nerves jangled, drifting aimlessly for twenty minutes or more, taking perverse pleasure in cultivating his hatred for humanity. When the church of Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin loomed up on his left, he hurried to take refuge there, sinking to his knees in self-abasement. His spirit withdrew into itself, ready to bewail his fate with half-obscured imagination, until he realised through the church’s subdued brightness that the hanging lights—one chandelier, then two, then multiple chandeliers suspended in remarkable stillness above him—dated back to Louis XIV’s reign.
The warm season expired, taking the year’s heat with it, whilst the boughs grew naked as autumn winds swept through them.
Agénor was acquiring a fondness for Parisian life, frequenting those of his own station. His guardian had assigned him an elegant little mansion on the rue de Bourbon, whose rear quarters gave access through a tranquil enclosed park to the Hôtel de Montégrier. He kept his own stables, a sizeable domestic establishment, and his own equipage—a cabriolet as well as a britschka(65).
Rising with first light, he would attend Mass, then explore his neighbourhood—the Seine embankments, the old Marais quarter—seeking survivors from his preferred era to immure in his dwelling and marry to his pedantic decorations. Then he would rush to his female cousins, gracious and wisely domesticated, enjoying with them that singular pleasure certain men find in women’s company, understanding by nature how to speak with them and read their hearts.
They were often seen about town together, conducting the formal visits that civilised life demands, those diplomatic approaches that established connections require. They shared the same spiritual director, attended every court ball and salon gathering of their world. Now that Agénor was reaching full maturity—much as had happened at Juvigny, amid decorative luxury of ever-greater sophistication that consequently interested him less—he found himself pondering more carefully matters of love, marriage, and the lady he would wed, well away from headlong fantasies and fitful or calculating yearning.
Naturally, being so immediately present, completely available and close at hand, Thérèse de Montégrier continued to pervade his thoughts. But though brunette, she approached him with such soft, unhurried grace, and being of such prolific beauty, evoked so faintly that fleeting perfection once encountered on a country lane in bygone times, that he remained wary and inert. Though sometimes perturbed, his perturbation, buried in subterranean depths, never once disturbed his outward calm.
Peculiar delights cradled him nonetheless. Within those marvellous realms where the mind’s eye wanders—panoramas of drifting haze, regions of hypnotic slumber, fiery iridescent clouds—he no longer disappeared into purely masculine solitude, not ever again.
One afternoon, the Colonel burst out, half-serious, half-teasing: “Agénor, my lad, you perplex me so! Dear me! Here you are, footloose and fancy-free, yet no wild oats sown, not even a harmless flirtation. Dash it all! A chap bids farewell to the parlour, takes up with his fellows, and has a bit of sport!”
A fierce blush overtook the young Marquis. He nearly snapped back with some impertinence, but rational quietude smoothed his features—his guardian continuing his pleasantries all the while—leaving him motionless, throat dry as dust, heart sinking, as unbidden thoughts coursed through him like wreckage swept away by rushing water: “I cannot hope for Thérèse… Too green am I, too lacking in direction… They think nothing of me…”
Accustomed to mulling over the words of his elders, he gave himself up to extended reflection well into the night, asking himself with measured consideration—though not without rebellious stirrings—whether perhaps the Colonel meant to suggest that a gentleman should know love once, just once, before marriage, as schooling in the heart’s ways.
Burning sensations lashed the Marquis de Cluses about the face. He berated himself for harbouring such base thoughts. Smouldering unrest inflamed his hostility towards this man who sat so serenely, this fomenter of godless designs, his form split down the middle by lamplight. But as this gentleman attended church faithfully, showed himself a model husband and sterling father, Agénor found himself thoroughly bewildered, quite at his wit’s end.
Feeling rather poorly, Thérèse had taken to her bed in her private apartments, with the Comtesse de Montégrier maintaining faithful vigil at her side.
Yet the moment was drawing near when Agénor de Cluses would abandon his abstinence from worldly experience, discern his path more clearly, and no longer sustain himself purely on barren fantasies and gossamer hopes.
Around the middle of January 1820, he struck up his first friendship of young manhood at a fashionable ball where his lady cousins took turns dancing—one chastely dressed in pale blue crêpe and gauze, the other bedecked with ruby roses, her décolletage revealed in rich garnet(66) satin. A man of five-and-twenty instantly caught Agénor’s discerning eye. Handsomely built if of moderate height, with a face so typical as to be forgettable, he sported a dark cloth coat and silk waistcoat worn daringly open, with a frilled jabot(67), black openwork(68) stockings, gold-buckled shoes, and a gay ribbon châtelaine(69). Yet about his figure played a certain sympathetic charm that made itself felt in the very nerves of a select few. An immediate bond formed—he went by the name de la Jonchères—they talked of this and that with no particular import, and settled upon future meetings. Within three weeks, the pair had grown thoroughly attached, riding together at dawn, visiting establishments where gentlemen properly display themselves by day, and converging each night as worldly companions of matched cultivation, their discourse so spirited that through all the whirl of balls and fashionable chaos, they felt compelled to seek each other out repeatedly.
Here was a fascination both senseless and sightless, as indulgent as romantic passion. From his peer, this deliberately chosen intimate, Agénor grew willing to tolerate nearly every transgression: libertine language, intellectual depravities which, when encountered elsewhere, had until then profoundly disturbed his conscience.
The Comtesse de Montégrier, sweet Thérèse, suffered from his growing inattention. This bred in her a certain irritability, a concealed, inscrutable melancholy born from the unholy union of pointed bitterness and jealousy about to flower into something more dangerous. Fitted by nature for bliss, light-hearted and trusting, touched with just a breath of unaffected coquetry, she had fallen passionately for Agénor, had set him up gloriously in her heart, supposing his feelings mirrored hers perfectly. She dwelt in complete serenity based upon the virtual assurance of their wedding, most likely arranged long since.
Some weeks fled in charming sameness; then suddenly her contentment vanished, succeeded by unremitting unease from dawn to dusk, by diminished hope for what was to come. This coincided with when she stopped seeing her relation daily, at all hours, when she heard him speak of nothing but one man, this scarcely-known gentleman whose most minor deeds and utterances had achieved such remarkable prominence in so brief a time.
On February 13th, 1820, just as the dinner hour struck and all were moving towards the dining room, a brief missive was delivered to the Colonel. Young Agénor was taking his evening meal in the company of his newfound friend de la Jonchères. With mock indignation, M. de Montégrier cried out: “Splendid! My ward is finally learning to misbehave!” A quick flutter passed over Thérèse’s eyes; the Countess could not prevent a knowing smile; whereupon they all filed into the dining room.
It was Jacques-Henri de la Jonchères who decided that Agénor must be stripped of his naivety and initiated into the pleasures of vice. To accomplish this, he had enlisted a companion, a sentimental roué who matched them both in birth and brazen disregard for propriety.
They made a night of it. The Marquis consumed wine in quantity and held forth with abandon. Towards the small hours, whilst Paris remained wakeful under its wintry canopy, the trio alighted at a dwelling whose exterior betrayed nothing unseemly, their opera hats worn at a jaunty English angle, their full-length plush cloaks enveloping their forms.
Agénor followed in blissful unawareness. Light-headed yet comfortable, he did remember that several times during the evening his friend la Jonchères, along with the third man, had discussed a certain aged lady blessed with comely daughters, in whose establishment they intended to sup—yet that was all he could piece together. Not even a flicker of concern entered his thoughts; he perceived nothing out of the ordinary. A crude, reckless jubilation—the ecstasy of breathing in sweet uncertainty, of refusing to fix upon any single thought, the rapture of sensing himself more vigorous and contented than usual—buoyed him up and coursed through every fibre of his frame.
A deep boom from the door’s heavy knocker announced their arrival. A serving woman came running, and seconds later they were ushered into a mauve parlour where Empire-style cabinets, positioned with glacial orderliness, displayed an array of commonplace bric-à-brac, whilst assorted prints presented the standard repertoire of mythological flesh.
Flanked by an elderly lady of cheerful expression and rather fluid proportions, three delightful creatures made their entrance. Introductions were made between Agénor and the women. The first took charge of him, another made Henri de la Jonchères her particular concern, whilst the third applied herself to the voluptuary, whose gestures at once became gentle and voice acquired a dulcet quality. They were each fair, generously displayed in low-cut cream gowns trimmed with white ruffles, each adorned with gilt necklaces and artificial stock-flowers woven through their tresses.
A quiet settled upon them as the matched companions began murmuring together. Then their hostess proclaimed:
“You shall savour the choicest delights tonight, my loves. Our cordon bleu has worked absolute wonders.”
Finding that the Marquis’s tie had slipped awry, his companion set it right with expert dexterity.
“And what do they call you?” he enquired.
“Rosita.”
Acting on pure instinct, he claimed her mouth in a kiss.
“Splendid!” exclaimed la Jonchères. “The chap’s well beyond needing guidance! He played me for a complete fool!”
“Well done!” called out the libertine.
“What nonsense had you filled my head with? What yarns were you spinning?” the elderly lady intoned with theatrical dismay.
Agénor remained entirely unperturbed, his gaze victorious, his complexion glowing with passion.
For all his remarkable naivety, he had upon crossing the threshold suspected the nature of the venue and the ladies therein established. However, with fascination beginning to bubble up inside him, and the wine’s vapours growing thick in the warmth of the well-fed fire, he had not allowed himself to become unduly troubled.
Now, despite every principle he held dear, distraction clouded his mind as he grew steadily more dazzled, more lustful, more frightened—at one moment caressing the notion of escape, ready to feign illness or protest the indecent hour, at the next burning to see things through to the end, driven by social obligation and the molten heat of his temperament, unwilling to forfeit this opportunity to taste what the Count de Montégrier had seemed to suggest with such timely wisdom, well away from the lightning bolts of parish judgement.
Each moment melted into the next. Sweet-scented, her laughter like silver bells, her décolletage eloquently inviting, Rosita had begun to weave her spell of beguiling attentions—and the Marquis de Cluses did not return home that night, waking only when the sun was high, blanched, restless, and filled with dread as the great city rumbled awake around him.
A soft drizzle fogged the air; the streets gleamed dangerously wet. Bearing witness to his night’s transgression, a gentle fragrance suffused Agénor, dogging his steps, wafting up from where his shirt gaped open. He seemed a stranger to himself, persuaded that the throng was subjecting him to scornful scrutiny.
He threw himself into a cab for hire and rushed back to his quarters on the rue de Bourbon.
When he arrived, Count de Montégrier was already there, awaiting his return.
“Ah! You’ve shown yourself,” he observed, his features rigid with displeasure.
“One must admit you picked an ill-timed occasion for… carousing.”
Agénor jerked his head upward, at once hurt and enraged. The Colonel carried on:
“You don’t know, I suppose? No, quite right, you wouldn’t know… The Duke of Berry(70) is dead—struck down by an assassin last night.”
“Killed? Killed? O-o-h!” stammered the young Marquis de Cluses.
And he cast his gaze downward, struck senseless: “Great God! Great God!”
“The perpetrator is a republican named Louvel(71),” the Count continued shortly, his manner now more subdued. “He worked in the King’s saddlery.”
With his fancy running riot, Agénor mused: “I am to blame! God has exacted His price. Justice was not long in coming.” He let his mind ramble on this theme, his features growing whiter by the moment, as his interlocutor chronicled the prince’s excruciating final ordeal at the Opera, his touching farewells to his wife, to Louis XVIII, to the Duke of Angoulême, his godly death upon a bed where, as fate would have it, he had once lain in Cherbourg when he returned to France—together with the royal family’s declarations.
“May the duchess not come to grief with her pregnancy now!” exclaimed the Colonel.
“That would put the cap on everything! Merciful heavens!” The young man broke down in tears. His moral lapse—all moral lapses, all iniquities—held within itself its own chastisement, as the Church had always maintained! He saw the throne imperilled, and sombre anguish cut into his flesh, destined perhaps, in physical reality, to reduce those delights which hope’s common yardstick did not hold fast with equivalent fetters.
Once alone, he wept profusely, sobbing endlessly, utterly bereft of comfort for what seemed an eternity, bitter and reproachful, reviling his guardian for having led him so astray. He submerged himself in the bathwater, trying to purge himself of that intrusive fragrance continuing to breathe from his very pores. As he did so, his thoughts turned to Thérèse. She appeared nearer to his heart’s longing, more completely his ideal. For an instant—spurred by no more than a temporary fit of nerves that gave voice to long-buried dreams—he condemned himself for betraying her trust, suffered agonies of guilt and dread, and embraced her in his heart with all the strength of sentiment and pity.
Round noon, following a woeful luncheon where Thérèse, the Countess, and Count de Montégrier had not uttered a word, where he, Agénor, had eaten like an ogre from desperate need to recover, he visited his confessor, obtained permission to approach the tribunal of penance at once, and there, head bowed, confessed his escapade and the despotic desires, the voluptuous assaults that woman, solitude, and meditation had occasioned in him for some time.
Impassive, a serious head with rough grey hair listened to him. When he came to ask gravely, at the height of superstitious, selfish emotion, whether he might not be the cause of the previous night’s murder, the head sketched a smile from the corner of the eye at the idea that a son of France would have been struck solely to punish this whippersnapper momentarily led astray by a daughter of pleasure.
The priest chided the Marquis de Cluses, enjoined him to seek better friendships and prompt marriage, and imposed upon him to read the litanies of the Virgin forty times. The Marquis then left, his conscience unburdened. According to his confessor’s wish, he resolved to no longer frequent la Jonchères.
Played for a fool the previous night, like a good loser to whom the game is not entirely displeasing, Agénor had dropped his guard instantly. But ever resilient in charting his return to grace, he adapted quickly to emerge from these disappointing and cruel agitations. Devotional resentment had arisen in him. Skin-deep affections often cost no more to discard than to take up.
Thus in singular unity of mind, he savoured the other bit of priestly wisdom: prompt marriage. The bloody death of the Duke of Berry was already fading into shadow; the tumult of past hours was now only vague noise. For the second time that day, his cousin Thérèse appeared to him most accomplished, desirable, presenting herself in his mind’s eye as his bride-to-be.
Dressed in black, he paced the Quai d’Orsay, strolled down to the port of Saints-Pères where boatmen were mooring, then returned to the house, finally rushing to ask if Madame de Montégrier would receive him. She was preparing to go out with Thérèse, mother and daughter alike in mourning, both steadfast in their royal devotion.
“We’re positioning ourselves near the house where that individual, the assassin, you know, was lodging! They’re supposed to take him there around three o’clock. Will you accompany us?”
“Of course,” replied Agénor, prompting a telltale flush on Thérèse’s face as they climbed into a landau. Soon they drew up alongside a cancerous building on the rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre, where shabby cloths hanging from sparse windows mimicked the movements of life as they billowed in the steady wind.
They had not been waiting more than twenty minutes when two carriages arrived, opening and disgorging six men, including Louvel, whom policemen gripped by the elbows.
“There he is, look!” said the Countess, her eyes alight with interest, made tiny by the magnifying lenses of her lorgnette(72). “He is horrible!”
Agénor did not find him ugly. Small, neat, barely forty years old, with blond hair and a proper face, Louvel cast a blue gaze at the armorial equipage, shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and disappeared into a vile corridor, never to return, as far as the three beings massed there were concerned.
“What an expression! What nerve!” declared the Countess de Montégrier. “Did you see?”
Agénor and Thérèse did not respond, young, emotionally affected without understanding the fate awaiting the wretch. Then Madame de Montégrier took pleasure in recounting what she had gleaned about him from his various interrogations:
“He displays not a shred of remorse, convinced he has sounded the clarion call for revolution. When a door slammed shut, he jumped up: ‘Hear that? The cannons are firing already, I’m sure of it!’ He claims that killing a man is not a crime when done in service to one’s political convictions…”
Meanwhile, furtively, Agénor studied Thérèse in detail. Mourning suited her hydrangea complexion; she had magnificent eyelashes, curved and long, a medium nose slightly arched, fine ears with velvety lobes, cherry lips. He appreciated her more with each breath, for her charms, for the affability of her temperament, and because he perceived that her soul might tremble with the same deep emotions that stirred his own.
The body of His Royal Highness Charles-Ferdinand d’Artois, Duke of Berry, was displayed for a week at the Louvre in a chapelle ardente(73). Agénor came to mourn him, mingled with fellow mourners, and for several nights remained disturbed by that pale, embalmed, funereal figure, whose painful expression a skilled hand had rendered serene.
Once again playing attentive cavalier to his cousins, performing the smallest services, at Saint-Denis where the prince’s funeral took place, he fulfilled his duties as nobleman and Christian. Then, like so many others after life’s tempests, he returned to his habits, but with a fixed occupation now: to love. His fondness for Thérèse had finally blossomed. When the twenty-one days of Court mourning had passed, his throat parched with nervous anticipation, his bearing awkward, he informed M. de Montégrier one evening that he wished to speak with him the next day on a matter of importance.
Nervous, assailed by anxieties and hopes, Agénor de Cluses slept little after making such a personal statement. A kind of light kept vigil within him like a lighthouse. When day finally broke—greyish, cloudy, dingy—he had himself dressed and, burning with impatience and energy, filled with sudden collector’s frenzy that had lacked outlet for a century, began a feverish tour of his antique dealers on horseback at a good pace, knowing full well that Count de Montégrier spent his mornings at the barracks.
By chance, in the depths of a dismal passage at an upholsterer’s, he found a sedan chair(74) of wood covered in ground gold with maritime scenes, its upper trim embellished with ornamental rivets and golden urns, lined with moss-coloured sheepskin and pink foliage dusted with silver. He made his way back in seventh heaven, walking taller than before, and asked if the Colonel had returned. The latter was pacing in his study, wearing the look of one privy to a private joke:
“Well, my dear fellow,” he asked, “what have you to tell me? I’m listening.”
A shiver ran through Agénor, his heart pounding out a desperate tattoo. But as clocks suddenly chimed eleven with the faintest metallic whisper, he hastened to stammer:
“I love Thérèse. Will you give her to me, sir?”
Highly satisfied, the Count at first appeared to examine one and then the other of his boots—he snickered into his beard, proud of having anticipated his ward’s intentions, nursing a wickedly French desire to jog his memory about that night spent away from the hotel not long ago—then raised his head, forcing himself to seriousness:
“Does Thérèse love you?”
“I… I don’t know… It seemed to me…”
“Go on! Play the modest one,” thought M. de Montégrier. “Ah! It seemed to you… Ah! You know nothing, you sly fox…”
Agénor continued:
“My God, I have no illusions. Many suitors would be far more flattering than myself. Thérèse deserves them. However… with my name, my fortune, if you wished it, perhaps the peerage…”
“Obviously, the peerage! How could it be otherwise!” declared the Count. “You have every right to aspire to it. My good friend Robert de Cluses would be a peer of France. But… you’ve barely reached the age of manhood! I was about thirty when I married.”
“About thirty… Yes… Indeed, I feared…”
That was all the artless Agénor could find to say. Such disappointment petrified him on the spot, his legs and arms going limp, that the Count nearly laughed a second time. For he had no intention of postponing indefinitely, or even delaying a son-in-law of such value. He simply wished to observe the proprieties.
“Then, sir, you say no?” the young Marquis nevertheless dared to articulate in a stifled voice.
“It would be no, for anyone,” replied the Colonel. “But you are my relative, my ward, a very fine young man for whom I have affection. I will speak to the Countess.”
They parted the best of friends. Then one afternoon—as Agénor was already growing concerned at Thérèse’s sudden guardedness—their engagement was accomplished in the sole presence of the Count and Countess. The Montégrier de Brettevilles granted their daughter a dowry of one million.
When May brought forth its more vibrant sunshine, as garden tulips unfurled their globes before fading, the marriage took place beneath the vaulted ceiling of Saint-Thomas-d’Aquin.
Thérèse wore an English veil with orange blossoms curved like a crescent moon above her brow, and a tender sprig of tuberose adorning her hair. Her gown of finest lace lay over her silk underskirt, pressing transparent sheens into its surface—whiteness layered upon whiteness—in an elaborate dance of a thousand intertwining arabesques.
The ceremony played out its age-old script, as such affairs always do, with songs, flowers, mass, exhortation, and finery. Throughout the proceedings, a throng of guests whispered. Among the most talkative, three courtiers, elderly gentlemen from great families, detailed to each other how in London, King George IV wished to bring a case against his wife, Caroline of Brunswick, to publicly accuse her of adultery—a course of action they judged most unwise and lacking in dignity, given the recent preservation laws(75), the spirit of the age, and the secret societies: the Carbonari(76) and others, which swarmed throughout the army, the bar, the schools, in hatred of royalism.
After a week, the newlyweds took the road to Juvigny, yearning for fresher air, freedom, and solitude.
At first, when the move had been decided, happy with steady intoxication, well-suited to this flesh, to the electricity of this virgin soul which he could enjoy devoutly without the slightest scruple, Agénor had resolved not to empty his pavilion. But at the moment of leaving it, on a fleeting impulse—thanks to Thérèse who, to better please him, now also prided herself on cherishing the beings and things of the sublime era—they had packed and dispatched everything: furniture, paintings, fabrics, trinkets, everything, including the bracket clock, the mystical clock of the Montégriers, that silent matchmaker of their union, the seed and talisman from which, by chance, a love had been pleased to spring forth.
The couple travelled in short stages, Thérèse in chattering bliss, Agénor wild with elation, eager to rediscover Juvigny, its treasures, its lawns, its fresh-leafed groves.
However, having no steward—the Colonel had pledged to hand-pick a proper manager of good character—he feared the château might hardly be in condition to receive them, despite numerous servants, people from his bachelor days and those he had sent ahead from Paris.
They arrived with the estate ablaze in the setting sun. Through the open gate, as servants hurried towards their masters in yellow and silver livery, the women dressed in light colours, the new Marquise de Cluses let her gaze fall upon flowered balusters(77), a lordly perron(78) handsomely draped with garlands. Delighted by all she saw and not in the least fatigued, anxious to acquaint herself with her new domain without delay, she drew her husband on a tour of discovery. He obligingly began to lead her from room to room.
He glowed with joy to find himself doubled amidst so many estimable relics showing so little sign of age. Proud to possess them, his being overflowing with affection, his voice choked with pleasure, he talked endlessly, stopping now and then with watchful eye to kiss his companion’s lips.
Agénor and Thérèse crossed the ballroom, now decorated with several Gobelins tapestries: Glory, Sleep, Music, a dance of nymphs and satyrs. Surrounding them stood patiently crafted furniture highlighted with gold, displaying majestic curves dotted with gleams of light, whilst underfoot they trod a masterpiece from the Savonnerie. They lingered a few minutes in a second salon hung with Indian silk, flame-red, embroidered with a thousand parakeets, against which were mounted engraved, damascened armour between collections of weapons, adorned with portraits in vast wigs, blonde or black, and also delicate feminine faces, coiffed boyishly, cropped, tousled, with tapabors(79) perched atop their heads, in frames carved with roses. Then throughout the spacious dwelling—library, dining rooms, bedrooms—Thérèse admired other hangings, other canvases, a theorbo(80) shimmering with emeralds, a Madonna all embroidery and satin, splendid panels, the most astonishing jars, wonders of the Orient, Bohemian crystal, bronzes, incense burners, bowls, a multitude of small figurines in marble, ivory, lapis lazuli, more furniture, Chinese guéridons(81), marquetry tables of amaranth and lemon wood, commodes in vernis Martin(82), chiffoniers, secretary desks, consoles, desks of mottled wood, cabinets with panels of tortoiseshell trimmed with copper and enamel, andirons(83) and polished iron grates, chairs, sofas, armchairs of iridescent velvet, of brocades aglow with captured sunshine—the whole ensemble redolent with the same fragrance of the period. The bathroom had walls and ceiling gilded, strewn with flowers and pastorals.
They entered the park, but Agénor’s steps faltered as they drew near the spot where Abbé Robiquet had seized his arm in his last moments. He was keen to turn around.
“Well?” asked Thérèse. “We’re not going any further? Why?”
He told the truth.
“It’s here! What, it’s here!” exclaimed the young woman, quickly intimidated in turn, her shoulders quivering with a chill that wouldn’t pass, all whilst the sky turned an ominous black.
Not a sound.
“Poor man!” she continued, thinking she might calm the late priest’s soul, should he be haunting the place where he died. “Show me the spot, I beg you, the exact spot where he fell.”
The Marquis de Cluses extended his hand:
“A little higher than that tuft of grass.”
Then, partly to test her husband’s reaction, partly to address her own nameless dread, and possibly enjoying the little drama she was about to create:
“Oh! What if I were to die like that!” she cooed.
Agénor looked at her with absolute horror.
The next day, torrential rains streaked the atmosphere, lashed Juvigny’s lawns, assailed the château, filling its gutters with watery drumbeats, its vast chimneys with continuous lament. Agénor savoured the melancholy of it. Life slows to contented torpor when safely sheltered: a door suddenly slams; the crunch of boots on soggy gravel breaks the silence; the magnificence of warmest colours drains away; all metallic brilliance slumbers. Caught up in the sounds outside, mind travelling far and wide, the book slipping from distracted fingers whilst windows look out like blind eyes, one’s attention turns to the contortions of a tree, a plant, whipped by chilly gusts, to the veil of plumbeous, thick, noiseless water streaming earthward with unvarying persistence.
Thérèse, with her innate industriousness, applied herself to learning the countless small tasks that fell to her charge. Unable to remain idle for long, occasionally coming to stand in her husband’s shadow, taking pride in her position, delighting in recounting her smallest actions, with the capable help of her lady’s maid, she completed the inventory of her house.
When azure sky reappeared, they filled their days with horseback rides, carriage outings, occasional visits—as few as possible—the unpacking and arranging of furniture brought from Paris, readings, intimate walks, long hours devoted to love, to its fleeting, alike yet ever-new, pleasant caresses.
Then the Marquise de Cluses became pregnant, and certain discomforts began to trouble her, which moved Agénor and compelled him to write to Madame de Montégrier. She hastened to them, promising not to leave her daughter until after the delivery, and the young couple eased into a quieter, less feverish way of living.
Meanwhile, Paris buzzed with gossip about the trial of the Queen of England, her liaison with Bartolomeo Bergami, a simple courier, former valet. Country folk were just as vocal, taking sides based on personal biases and temperaments, and the numerous, debatable ways of interpreting the bill of pains(84).
Agénor implored his wife to read no newspapers—too much filth being peddled in them. Conscientious, he practised what he preached, skipping the columns where, before a mocking Europe, a man, a father, a king was shoring up evidence of his dishonour.
When Thérèse suddenly began to feel better, Juvigny regained its aspect. Mother and daughter traced criss-crossing routes across the grounds, each wearing white straw hats topped with striped ostrich plumes, clothed in light percale(85) and graceful percaline(86), waists cinched by Scottish sashes. The estate flourished around them—trees, statues, and golden paths basking in the sun, flowerbeds and parterres displaying their shimmering abundance of blooms. Among all this, Agénor moved with perfect contentment in his coats with broad velvet collars, shawl-waistcoats, purplish trousers, and unbleached gaiters. Positioned between his wife and the beauties of his seventeenth-century château, he became the very embodiment of well-being.
One evening in August, around ten o’clock, as they congregated in the salon with all windows thrown open, not far from the screen of nacarat(87) velvet(88) trimmed with faded silk, mauve and black, whilst Madame de Montégrier chattered away, bombarding her son-in-law with anecdotes, long-winded theories, and ancient stories, a servant appeared who, leaning towards Thérèse, whispered to her for a few seconds.
The women left. Agénor listened as they withdrew—he would have dearly liked to slip away himself, to discover what they had said—and their footsteps, the rustle of their dresses, the secret of their whispers seemed to be heading towards the bedrooms.
There was nothing unusual about such brief absences, and the Marquis de Cluses usually took no notice. But the Countess was exhausting him, so excessively chatty that his curiosity was inevitably piqued, and Thérèse’s face had retained an indecipherable smile. “What the devil were they plotting? A joke? Some surprise?” Agénor simmered at the distant sounds he thought he perceived. Gentle and cultured though he was, he disliked being impolite.
As Madame de Montégrier gradually exhausted her topics, he could bear it no longer and rose, his eyes rounded with feigned concern:
“Forgive me… I fear Thérèse may be unwell…”
The Countess dared not follow him. “Bah! My daughter must have closed her door!” was her only hope. She began to daydream, light-headed, her short-sightedness enveloping her in twilight, whilst Agénor made his escape.
Thérèse was in her bedroom—he had supposed quite correctly. A thin line of light at the tips of his shoes proved it. But when he had announced his presence with a jovial look, without receiving any answer, then tried in vain to proceed further, his initial confidence gave way to unease: “What’s this? I’m locked out!”
A cracking sound broke through the silence.
“Thérèse! Thérèse!”
Once again the door remained deaf to him. The devil if he understood anything about it!
He did not admit defeat, however. Shortly thereafter, feeling a rush of glee at the idea of piercing, despite everything, the clandestine female business, the affectionate intrigue they were taking such pains to hide from him, he bent down towards the lock and, with his index finger, taking a thousand precautions, pressed on the protruding keyhole, which gave him just enough access. His finger turned, light appeared. The Marquis de Cluses saw his wife—dishevelled, seated, her profile sharp against a background of even light. Behind her, one arm was holding fabrics against an apron; another arm hung down, clutching several bunches of cherry, silver, and turquoise-blue ribbons. Not a word, not a gesture; they were listening.
Agénor examined Thérèse’s bodice and realised in an instant which one it was: a superb pointed bodice that he had often handled, whose weave and Valenciennes lace(89) he had admired only the day before. He realised they were dressing her up in this manner to please him, chided himself for being so inquisitive, and slipped away, whistling softly, as if he believed himself alone, as if it were natural to find a closed door. But with his back turned, a mischievous plan came to him.
“It’s me, my child… Quick! Open up…” whispered Madame de Montégrier after half an hour, tired of waiting for Agénor, keen to learn what had occupied him for so long.
Coiffed à la Montgobert, with a set of large pearls at her neck, her gracefully slender waistline, her young bosom rising like foam among the lace of her bust, Thérèse, whitened, rouged, with coquetry playing on her lips, was perfectly made for this cream-and-gold chamber where everything evoked the splendours of Versailles in the heyday of Louis the Great.
“You know, Mother! My poor husband came by. I didn’t open the door to him.”
“Miss de Thianges(90) and the Duchess of Sully(91) must have been less charming than my daughter!” replied the Countess.
“Well! Did he rejoin you? Does he suspect anything?”
The servant went in search of the Marquis de Cluses.
“My lord and husband,” said Thérèse, when the sound of footsteps stopped at the door, which inched open bit by bit, “I bid you good evening.”
“Upon my honour! Madame, I am delighted to see you looking so beautiful and so sprightly,” replied Agénor.
They burst out laughing.
With an in-folio wig(92) about his shoulders, freshly shaven, a shadow of a moustache at the corners of his mouth, of noble bearing with his incarnadine(93) justaucorps(94), his azure waistcoat embroidered with precious metal, shimmering with goldsmith’s spangles, with his rhinegrave(95) breeches, his lilac silk stockings, his satin sash, his airy cavalier hat(96), his ornate velvet shoes with fashionable windmill-wing flaps(97), his baldric(98), his fleecy aiguillettes(99), his martial gloves, he had arrayed himself, just as Thérèse had done, in the magnificent finery of the Sun King’s era. Together they made a dazzling pair, merry and matching in their exquisite attire, enveloped in the revived perfumes of ambergris and benzoin; she in sea-green and pink.
This was their last night of love, the extreme point where they vibrated in unison, at the height of moral happiness, of dreams, the ultimate carnal joy that merciless and perspicacious destiny allowed them on earth.
Soon overtaken again by ailments, troubles brought on by her expectant state, Thérèse had barely enough strength to combat her discomforts. She remained better seated than standing, rather lying down than seated, awaiting the laborious hour. The fateful day drew closer through a sickly summer, an autumn continually scoured by restless winds, along a winter where Agénor’s only pleasure—his frame notably diminished, gnawed by intuitive fear—was to hunt crows with bait on snowy days, sometimes across the buried plains.
The king’s various actions to curtail the liberals pleased him greatly; he approved the double vote(100) given to the highest taxpayers of each department; a semblance of real pleasure surrounded him when the Duke of Bordeaux was born. Yet heartfelt zeal was nowhere to be found! The best part of himself seemed to sleep.
Each week brought correspondence from Colonel de Montégrier, never failing to include his eternally postponed plans to visit.
He had finally unearthed a model estate manager, a former soldier in the Corps of Condé, a fairly good gentleman whose existence had been a relentless struggle against calamity since boyhood. It was a weeping March afternoon at Juvigny when he presented himself, the luncheon dishes still being cleared, coinciding exactly with the onset of Thérèse’s first labour pains.
Fifty years old, broad-chested, clutching an uncommonly large bell-shaped hat, his frame enclosed in a floral-patterned vest beneath an old brown coat, very clean, a scar in the middle of his left cheek, an honest gaze, nostrils bristling with thick tobacco-russet hair, the Chevalier de Caristy would certainly have interested Agénor, had it not been for the worries that the Marquise de Cluses was causing.
“I have had a fortunate hand,” the Colonel had written. “Monsieur de Caristy is a gentleman worthy of your highest esteem: he is the counterpart of the good Robiquet.” True to form, he set about his duties with impressive promptness, during which time Thérèse’s suffering deepened considerably.
When the birth showed no signs of advancement, screams began to pierce the air. They ran across the numbed lawns, went to die in the branches of the park, rose out of the château towards the clouds, leaving the servants visibly troubled and muttering amongst themselves. Thérèse had lost all sense of her own being.
She gave birth to a daughter after twenty-four hours of agony; the château fell silent. But when a haemorrhage began—which they could not manage to stem—telltale symptoms: dazzling lights, fainting spells, pain in the lower back, besieged the unfortunate woman. Her heart nearly stopped beating, her feverish blushes gradually faded, and a sort of paralysis bound her ever more tightly with each passing minute for the final moment, whilst Agénor watched in helpless anguish.
The unstoppable bleeding that defeated every attempt to contain it, that soaked the bedding and pooled on the floor in a gleaming puddle, filled Agénor with immense desolation. The miseries of this flesh—so sweet, so chaste, until now so uniquely his possession—handled by unfamiliar hands, defiled by their scrutiny, and today violated amidst the filth of a deed as ignoble as murder, rendered him jealous and stupefied.
Thérèse tried to speak, her mouth opening in a feeble attempt at words—immediately the whispers died away, the coming and going froze in place within the soft brilliance of the magnificent cream and gold chamber—then the Marquise de Cluses breathed her last.
“It’s over,” pronounced the doctor, a corpulent man, once he had confirmed the death, his foolish face turned toward the master of the house.
Blood drained from Agénor’s face as profound ache crept through his heart. “His mother, his father, the abbé… the duke… all dead! And now his wife! Did he bring misfortune to everyone?” Gripped by a brutal desire to inflict greater torment upon himself, he longed to go to Thérèse’s side, to share with her alone, in silent confidence, the all-powerful grief, the devastated affection, the mad remorse that clutched at every fibre of his being. But whatever vigour remained in him suddenly vanished. An abrupt wail pierced him like a sword. Through a sort of chalky vapour, speckled with sparks, he glimpsed Madame de Montégrier kneeling, her lips pressed to her daughter’s forehead, then a black robe—that of the parish priest of Juvigny no doubt, who had rushed in from the adjoining room—and he collapsed onto the floor.
For three weeks, Agénor fell prey to nervous delirium. He barely slept, irritable, beset by compulsive twitches and gestures: either delighting in the dance of dust motes in the air, or with futile gestures attempting to pluck at the down of his bed covers. He would start, red-eyed, with bewildered countenance, his hair damp with sweat, spitting out a torrent of short, deranged mutterings, breaking sardonically into laughter. He would fling himself out of bed with savage impulse to strike, tear, break, kill himself. His regular attendant, either M. de Caristy or Colonel de Montégrier—who had taken leave following the burial—would eventually subdue him. But trading places as they needed to, they seldom walked away from these violent episodes unmarked.
In his delirium, Agénor had entirely forgotten his daughter, Berthe. So she was named by her grandmother, whose devotion and care never failed her.
The estate’s newest inhabitant was a beautiful wet nurse from Picardy, robust and well-endowed. One could hear her singing, chattering, cooing, pulsing with life’s rhythms as she nursed the newborn, busying herself with bringing it joy. Within these walls where sickness had wreaked havoc and death had waged its relentless battle, she stood as hope incarnate—a boisterous, chubby-cheeked hope, attainable for all who lived and breathed.
Léon Hennique Novel 