left the maternal purgatory, she rose at once into
the conjugal paradise prepared for her by Felix, rue du Rocher, in
a house where all things were redolent of aristocracy, but where the
varnish of society did not impede the ease and "laisser-aller" which
young and loving hearts desire so much. From the start, Marie-Angelique
tasted all the sweets of material life to the very utmost. For two years
her husband made himself, as it were, her purveyor. He explained to her,
by degrees, and with great art, the things of life; he initiated her
slowly into the mysteries of the highest society; he taught her the
genealogies of noble families; he showed her the world; he guided her
taste in dress; he trained her to converse; he took her from theatre
to theatre, and made her study literature and current history. This
education he accomplished with all the care of a lover, father, master,
and husband; but he did it soberly and discreetly; he managed both
enjoyments and instructions in such a manner as not to destroy the value
of her religious ideas. In short, he carried out his enterprise with the
wisdom of a great master. At the end of four years, he had the happiness
of having formed in the Comtesse de Vandenesse one of the most lovable
and remarkable young women of our day.

Marie-Angelique felt for Felix precisely the feelings with which Felix
desired to inspire her,--true friendship, sincere gratitude, and a
fraternal love, in which was mingled, at certain times, a noble and
dignified tenderness, such as tenderness between husband and wife ought
to be. She was a mother, and a good mother. Felix had therefore attached
himself to his young wife by every bond without any appearance of
garroting her,--relying for his happiness on the charms of habit.

None but men trained in the school of life--men who have gone round
the circle of disillusionment, political and amorous--are capable of
following out a course like this. Felix, however, found in his work
the same pleasure that painters, writers, architects take in their
creations. He doubly enjoyed both the work and its fruition as he
admired his wife, so artless, yet so well-informed, witty, but natural,
lovable and chaste, a girl, and yet a mother, perfectly free, though
bound by the chains of righteousness. The history of all good homes is
that of prosperous peoples; it can be written in two lines, and has in
it nothing for literature. So, as happiness is only explicable to and