secret effort of a noble soul.

About this period of her life, Madame Felix de Vandenesse had attained
to a degree of worldly knowledge which enabled her to quit
the insignificant role of a timid, listening, and observing
supernumerary,--a part played, they say, for some time, by Giulia Grisi
in the chorus at La Scala. The young countess now felt herself capable
of attempting the part of prima-donna, and she did so on several
occasions. To the great satisfaction of her husband, she began to mingle
in conversations. Intelligent ideas and delicate observations put into
her mind by her intercourse with her husband, made her remarked upon,
and success emboldened her. Vandenesse, to whom the world admitted that
his wife was beautiful, was delighted when the same assurance was given
that she was clever and witty. On their return from a ball, concert, or
rout where Marie had shone brilliantly, she would turn to her husband,
as she took off her ornaments, and say, with a joyous, self-assured
air,--

"Were you pleased with me this evening?"

The countess excited jealousies; among others that of her husband's
sister, Madame de Listomere, who until now had patronized her, thinking
that she protected a foil to her own merits. A countess, beautiful,
witty and virtuous!--what a prey for the tongues of the world! Felix had
broken with too many women, and too many women had broken with him,
to leave them indifferent to his marriage. When these women beheld in
Madame de Vandenesse a small woman with red hands, and rather awkward
manner, saying little, and apparently not thinking much, they
thought themselves sufficiently avenged. The disasters of July, 1830,
supervened; society was dissolved for two years; the rich evaded the
turmoil and left Paris either for foreign travel or for their estates in
the country, and none of the salons reopened until 1833. When that time
came, the faubourg Saint-Germain still sulked, but it held intercourse
with a few houses, regarding them as neutral ground,--among others that
of the Austrian ambassador, where the legitimist society and the new
social world met together in the persons of their best representatives.

Attached by many ties of the heart and by gratitude to the exiled
family, and strong in his personal convictions, Vandenesse did not
consider himself obliged to imitate the silly behavior of his party.
In times of danger, he had done his duty at the risk of his life; his
fidelity had neve