alities of sorrow, the saintliness of one who has never soiled her
soul by contact with the world; but she has also the rigid bearing of
an old maid and the petty habits inseparable from the narrow round of
provincial life. In spite of her vast wealth, she lives as the poor
Eugenie Grandet once lived. The fire is never lighted on her hearth
until the day when her father allowed it to be lighted in the hall, and
it is put out in conformity with the rules which governed her youthful
years. She dresses as her mother dressed. The house in Saumur, without
sun, without warmth, always in shadow, melancholy, is an image of her
life. She carefully accumulates her income, and might seem parsimonious
did she not disarm criticism by a noble employment of her wealth. Pious
and charitable institutions, a hospital for old age, Christian schools
for children, a public library richly endowed, bear testimony against
the charge of avarice which some persons lay at her door. The churches
of Saumur owe much of their embellishment to her. Madame de Bonfons
(sometimes ironically spoken of as mademoiselle) inspires for the most
part reverential respect: and yet that noble heart, beating only with
tenderest emotions, has been, from first to last, subjected to the
calculations of human selfishness; money has cast its frigid influence
upon that hallowed life and taught distrust of feelings to a woman who
is all feeling.

"I have none but you to love me," she says to Nanon.

The hand of this woman stanches the secret wounds in many families.
She goes on her way to heaven attended by a train of benefactions. The
grandeur of her soul redeems the narrowness of her education and the
petty habits of her early life.

Such is the history of Eugenie Grandet, who is in the world but not of
it; who, created to be supremely a wife and mother, has neither husband
nor children nor family. Lately there has been some question of her
marrying again. The Saumur people talk of her and of the Marquis de
Froidfond, whose family are beginning to beset the rich widow just as,
in former days, the Cruchots laid siege to the rich heiress. Nanon and
Cornoiller are, it is said, in the interests of the marquis. Nothing
could be more false. Neither la Grande Nanon nor Cornoiller has
sufficient mind to understand the corruptions of the world.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Chaulieu, Eleonore, Duchesse de