her lakes, woods, and lands sufficiently
vast. Bluebeard, who had never had any leaning toward ambition, trembled
at the haughty humour of his spouse. Unaware, in his straightforward
simplicity, whether the mistake lay in thinking magnificently like his
wife, or modestly as he himself did, he accused himself of a mediocrity
of mind which was thwarting the noble desires of his consort, and, full
of uncertainty, he would sometimes exhort her to taste with moderation
the good things of this world, while at others he roused himself to
pursue fortune along the verge of precipitous heights. He was prudent,
but conjugal affection bore him beyond the reach of prudence. Gigonne
thought of nothing but cutting a figure in the world, being received at
Court, and becoming the King's mistress. Unable to gain her point, she
pined away with vexation, contracting a jaundice, of which she died.
Bluebeard, full of lamentation, built her a magnificent tomb.

This worthy _seigneur_ overwhelmed by constant domestic adversity, would
not perhaps have chosen another wife: but he was himself chosen for a
husband by Mademoiselle Blanche de Gibeaumex, the daughter of a cavalry
officer, who had but one ear; he used to relate that he had lost the
other in the King's service. She was full of intelligence, which she
employed in deceiving her husband. She betrayed him with every man of
quality in the neighbourhood. She was so dexterous that she deceived him
in his own castle, almost under his very eyes, without his perceiving
it. Poor Bluebeard assuredly suspected something, but he could not say
what. Unfortunately for her, while she gave her whole mind to tricking
her husband, she was not sufficiently careful in deceiving her lovers;
by which I mean that she betrayed them, one for another. One day she was
surprised in the Cabinet of the Unfortunate Princesses, in the company
of a gentleman whom she loved, by a gentleman whom she had loved, and
the latter, in a transport of jealousy, ran her through with his sword.
A few hours later the unfortunate lady was there found dead by one of
the castle servants, and the fear inspired by the room increased.

Poor Bluebeard, learning at one blow of his ample dishonour, and
the tragic death of his wife, did not console himself for the latter
misfortune by any consideration of the former. He had loved Blanche de
Gibeaumez with a strange ardour, more dearly than he had loved Jeanne de
La Cloche, Gigonne Traignel, o