In Paris, when a woman to make a business, a trade, of her beauty, it not that she will make a fortune. Lovely may be there, and full of wit, who are in circumstances, in a life in pleasure. And this is why. It is not to accept the life of a with a view to earning its profits, and at the same time to the of a middle-class wife. Vice not so easily; it in so that they need a of to the of and gifts. Eliminate the of the Revolution, and the Emperor would have existed; he would have been no more than a second of Fabert. Venal beauty, if it no amateurs, no celebrity, no of by men's fortunes, is Correggio in a hay-loft, is in a garret. Lais, in Paris, must and a rich man to pay her price. She must keep up a very style, for this is her shop-sign; she must be well to the of her lovers; she must have the of a Sophie Arnould, which the of rich men; finally, she must the of by appearing to be to one man only who is by the rest.
These conditions, which a woman of that class calls being in luck, are difficult to in Paris, although it is a city of millionaires, of idlers, of used-up and men.
Providence has, no doubt, protection to and middle-class citizens, for of this are at least in the in which they move. At the same time, there are Madame Marneffes in Paris to allow of our taking Valerie to as a type in this picture of manners. Some of these to the pressure of a and of hard necessity, like Madame Colleville, who was for long to one of the famous of the left, Keller the banker. Others are by vanity, like Madame de la Baudraye, who almost in of her with Lousteau. Some, again, are by the love of clothes, and some by the of a house going on too narrow means. The of the State—or of Parliament—leads to many and to much corruption.
At the present moment the are the object of compassion; they are being murdered—it is said—by the capitalist; but the Government is a hundred times than the tradesman, it its economy in the article of salaries to folly. If you work harder, the merchant will pay you more in proportion; but what the State do for its of and toilers?
In a married woman it is an when she from the path of honor; still, there are in such a case. Some women, from being depraved, their and to all respectable, like those two just to, while others add to their fault the of speculation. Thus Madame Marneffe is, as it were, the type of those married who from the accept with all its consequences, and to make a while taking their pleasure, perfectly as to the means. But almost always a woman like Madame Marneffe has a husband who is her and accomplice. These Machiavellis in are the most of the sisterhood; of every class of Parisian woman, they are the worst.
A courtesan—a Josepha, a Malaga, a Madame Schontz, a Jenny Cadine—carries in her a as as the red lamp of a house of ill-fame or the lights of a hell. A man that they light him to his ruin.
But mealy-mouthed propriety, the of virtue, the of a married woman who anything to be but the needs of the household, and to every of extravagance, leads to ruin, disaster, which is all the more because, though condoned, it for. It is the bill of daily and not that the largest fortune. The father of a family himself ingloriously, and the great of is wanting in his misery.
This little will go like a to the of many a home. Madame Marneffes are to be in every of social life, at Court; for Valerie is a fact, modeled from the life in the smallest details. And, alas! the portrait will not any man of the of these sweetly-smiling angels, with looks and faces, is a cash-box.
About three years after Hortense's marriage, in 1841, Baron Hulot d'Ervy was to have his wild oats, to have "put up his horses," to the used by Louis XV.‘s surgeon, and yet Madame Marneffe was him twice as much as Josepha had cost him. Still, Valerie, though always dressed, the of a official's wife; she her luxury for her dressing-gowns, her home wear. She thus her Parisian to her dear Hector. At the theatre, however, she always appeared in a and a dress of elegance; and the Baron took her in a to a private box.
Her rooms, the whole of the second of a modern house in the Rue Vanneau, a fore-court and a garden, was of respectability. All its luxury was in good and furniture.
Her bedroom, indeed, was the exception, and rich with such as Jenny Cadine or Madame Schontz might have displayed. There were curtains, hangings, portieres, a set of modeled by Stidmann, a cabinet with nicknacks. Hulot not to see his Valerie in a of to the of gold and pearls owned by a Josepha. The drawing-room was with red damask, and the dining-room had panels. But the Baron, away by his wish to have in keeping, had at the end of six months, added solid luxury to fashion, and had her portable property, as, for instance, a service of plate that was to cost more than twenty-four thousand francs.
Madame Marneffe's house had in a of years a for being a very one. Gambling on there. Valerie herself was soon spoken of as an and woman. To account for her of style, a was set going of an to her by her "natural father," Marshal Montcornet, and left in trust.
With an to the future, Valerie had added religious to social hypocrisy. Punctual at the Sunday services, she all the to the pious. She the for the offertory, she was a of a association, presented for the sacrament, and did some good among the poor, all at Hector's expense. Thus about the house was seemly. And a great many that her with the Baron was innocent, supporting the view by the gentleman's age, and to him a Platonic for Madame Marneffe's wit, manners, and conversation—such a as that of the late Louis XVIII. for a well-turned note.
The Baron always with the other company at about midnight, and came a of an hour later.
The of this was as follows. The lodge-keepers of the house were a Monsieur and Madame Olivier, who, under the Baron's patronage, had been promoted from their and not very post in the Rue du Doyenne to the highly-paid and one in the Rue Vanneau. Now, Madame Olivier, a in the of Charles X., who had in the world with the branch, had three children. The eldest, an under-clerk in a notary's office, was object of his parents' adoration. This Benjamin, for six years in of being for the army, was on the point of being in his legal career, when Madame Marneffe to have him for one of those little which the Examining Board can always when in a by some power in the ministry. So Olivier, a to the King, and his wife would have the Lord again for the Baron or for Madame Marneffe.
What the world have to say? It nothing of the of the Brazilian, Monsieur Montes de Montejanos—it say nothing. Besides, the world is very to the of a house where is to be found.
And then to all her Valerie added the highly-prized of being an power. Claude Vignon, now to Marshal the Prince de Wissembourg, and of promotion to the Council of State as a Master of Appeals, was in her rooms, to which came also some Deputies—good and gamblers. Madame Marneffe had got her circle together with deliberation; only men opinions and there, men it was to together and to the many of the lady of the house. Scandal is the true Holy Alliance in Paris. Take that as an axiom. Interests in the end; natures can always agree.
Within three months of settling in the Rue Vanneau, Madame Marneffe had Monsieur Crevel, who by that time was Mayor of his and Officer of the Legion of Honor. Crevel had hesitated; he would have to give up the famous of the National Guard in which he at the Tuileries, himself as much a soldier as the Emperor himself; but ambition, by Madame Marneffe, had proved than vanity. Then Monsieur le Maire had his with Mademoiselle Heloise Brisetout as with his political position.
Indeed, long his to the chair of the Mayoralty, his had been in the mystery. But, as the reader may have guessed, Crevel had soon purchased the right of taking his revenge, as often as allowed, for having been of Josepha, at the cost of a six thousand of in the name of Valerie Fortin, wife of Sieur Marneffe, for her and use. Valerie, from her mother the special of the woman, read the of her at a glance. The phrase "I had a lady for a mistress," spoken by Crevel to Lisbeth, and by Lisbeth to her dear Valerie, had been discounted in the by which she got her six thousand a year in five cents. And since then she had allowed her to less in the of Cesar Birotteau's bagman.
Crevel himself had married for money the of a of la Brie, an only child indeed, three-quarters of his fortune; for when retail-dealers rich, it is not so much by as through some the shop and thrift. A large of the farmers, corn-factors, dairy-keepers, and market-gardeners in the neighborhood of Paris, of the of the for their daughters, and look upon a shopkeeper, a jeweler, or a money-changer as a son-in-law after their own heart, in to a or an attorney, social position is a ground of suspicion; they are of being in the by these citizen bigwigs.
Madame Crevel, ugly, vulgar, and silly, had her husband no but those of paternity; she died young. Her husband, at the of his career by the for working, and in by want of money, had the life of Tantalus. Thrown in—as he phrased it—with the most in Paris, he let them out of the shop with homage, while their grace, their way of the fashions, and all the of what is called breeding. To to the level of one of these of the drawing-room was a in his youth, but in the of his heart. Thus to win the of Madame Marneffe was to him not the of his chimera, but, as has been shown, a point of pride, of vanity, of self-satisfaction. His with success; his brain was with elation; and when the mind is captivated, the more keenly, every is doubled.
Also, it must be said that Madame Marneffe offered to Crevel a of of which he had no idea; neither Josepha Heloise had loved him; and Madame Marneffe it necessary to him thoroughly, for this man, she saw, would prove an till. The of a are more than the thing. True love is mixed up with squabbles, in which the each other to the quick; but a without is, on the contrary, a piece of to the dupe's conceit.
The to Crevel his at white heat. He was by Valerie's severity; she remorse, and what her father must be of her in the of the brave. Again and again he had to with a of coldness, which the him he had overcome by to to the man's passion; and then, as if ashamed, she herself once more in her of and of virtue, just like an Englishwoman, neither more less; and she always her Crevel under the weight of her dignity—for Crevel had, in the instance, her to virtue.
In short, Valerie had special of which her to Crevel and to the Baron. Before the world she the of and innocence, of propriety, with a by the suppleness, the and of the Creole; but in a tete-a-tete she would any courtesan; she was audacious, amusing, and full of original inventiveness. Such a is to a man of the Crevel type; he is by himself author of the comedy, it is performed for his alone, and he laughs at the while the hypocrite.
Valerie had taken entire of Baron Hulot; she had him to old by one of those touches of which the of like her. In all a moment when the truth comes out, as in a town which puts a good on as long as possible. Valerie, the of the old of the Empire, to it.
"Why give so much bother, my dear old veteran?" said she one day, six months after their union. "Do you want to be flirting? To be to me? I you, I should like you without your make-up. Oblige me by up all your charms. Do you that it is for two sous' of on your that I love you? For your india-rubber belt, your strait-waistcoat, and your false hair? And then, the older you look, the less need I my Hulot off by a rival."
And Hulot, to Madame Marneffe's as much as to her love, intending, too, to end his days with her, had taken this hint, and to his and hair. After this from his Valerie, Hector his one perfectly white. Madame Marneffe him that she had a hundred times the white line of the of the hair.
"And white your to perfection," said she; "it it. You look a thousand times better, charming."
The Baron, once started on this path of reform, gave up his leather and stays; he off all his bracing. His and in size. The a tower, and the of his movements was all the more the Baron older by playing the part of Louis XII. His were still black, and left a of Handsome Hulot, as sometimes on the of some a of to what the was in the days of its glory. This detail his eyes, still and youthful, all the more in his face, it had so long been with the of a Rubens; and now a and the of the the of a at with natural decay. Hulot was now one of those in which itself by of in the ears and and on the fingers, as on the almost of the Roman Empire.
How had Valerie to keep Crevel and Hulot by side, each to an apron-string, when the Mayor only to openly over Hulot? Without an answer to this question, which the of the will supply, it may be said that Lisbeth and Valerie had a powerful piece of which to this result. Marneffe, as he saw his wife in by the setting in which she was enthroned, like the sun at the centre of the system, appeared, in the of the world, to have in love with her again himself; he was about her. Now, though his him of a marplot, it gave value to Valerie's favors. Marneffe meanwhile a in his chief, which into complaisance. The only person he would not was Crevel.
Marneffe, by the of great cities, by Roman authors, though modern has no name for it, was as as an in wax. But this on feet, in good broadcloth, his in trousers. The was with linen, and the of humanity. This of vice, in red heels—for Valerie the man as his income, his cross, and his appointment—horrified Crevel, who not meet the of the Government clerk. Marneffe was an to the Mayor. And the rascal, aware of the power on him by Lisbeth and his wife, was by it; he played on it as on an instrument; and cards being the last of a mind as played out as the body, he Crevel again and again, the Mayor himself to to the official he was cheating.
Seeing Crevel a child in the hands of that and mummy, of the Mayor nothing; and him, yet more, an object of to Valerie, who game of Crevel as of some mountebank, the Baron him so as a that he him to dinner.
Valerie, protected by two lovers on guard, and by a husband, every eye, and every in the circle she upon. And thus, while up appearances, she had, in the of three years, the most difficult of the success a most for and most attains, with the help of and the of an in the light of the sun. Valerie's beauty, in the of the Rue du Doyenne, now, like a well-cut diamond set by Chanor, was more than its value—it hearts. Claude Vignon Valerie in secret.
This explanation, necessary after the of three years, Valerie's balance-sheet. Now for that of her partner, Lisbeth.
