a happy beginning of
hers. It would surely be strange if, among those who returned to
Alencon or its neighborhood, no brave, honorable, and, above all,
sound and healthy officer of suitable age could be found, whose
character would be a passport among Bonaparte opinions; or some
ci-devant noble who, to regain his lost position, would join the ranks
of the royalists. This hope kept Mademoiselle Cormon in heart during
the early months of that year. But, alas! all the soldiers who thus
returned were either too old or too young; too aggressively
Bonapartist, or too dissipated; in short, their several situations
were out of keeping with the rank, fortune, and morals of Mademoiselle
Cormon, who now grew daily more and more desperate. The poor woman in
vain prayed to God to send her a husband with whom she could be
piously happy: it was doubtless written above that she should die both
virgin and martyr; no man suitable for a husband presented himself.
The conversations in her salon every evening kept her informed of the
arrival of all strangers in Alencon, and of the facts of their
fortunes, rank, and habits. But Alencon is not a town which attracts
visitors; it is not on the road to any capital; even sailors,
travelling from Brest to Paris, never stop there. The poor woman ended
by admitting to herself that she was reduced to the aborigines. Her
eye now began to assume a certain savage expression, to which the
malicious chevalier responded by a shrewd look as he drew out his
snuff-box and gazed at the Princess Goritza. Monsieur de Valois was
well aware that in the feminine ethics of love fidelity to a first
attachment is considered a pledge for the future.

But Mademoiselle Cormon--we must admit it--was wanting in intellect,
and did not understand the snuff-box performance. She redoubled her
vigilance against "the evil spirit"; her rigid devotion and fixed
principles kept her cruel sufferings hidden among the mysteries of
private life. Every evening, after the company had left her, she
thought of her lost youth, her faded bloom, the hopes of thwarted
nature; and, all the while immolating her passions at the feet of the
Cross (like poems condemned to stay in a desk), she resolved firmly
that if, by chance, any suitor presented himself, to subject him to no
tests, but to accept him at once for whatever he might be. She even
went so far as to think of marrying a sub-lieutenant, a man who smoked
tobacco, whom she proposed to ren