第87章

At any rate, while making the tour of his town according to his laudable official habit, Beauvisage from the top of the bridge chanced to catch sight of the fair Parisian who with outstretched arms and gracefully bent body was pursuing her favorite pastime.A slight movement, the charming impatience with which the pretty fisher twitched her line from the water when the fish had not bitten, was perhaps the electric shock which struck upon the heart of the magistrate, hitherto irreproachable.No one can say, perhaps, how the thing really came about.But I ought to remark that during the interregnum that occurred between the making of socks and night-caps and the assumption of municipal duties, Beauvisage himself had practised the art of fishing with a line with distinguished success.

Probably it occurred to him that the poor young lady, having more ardor than science, was not going the right way to work, and the thought of improving her method may have been the real cause of his apparent degeneracy.However that may be, it is certain that, crossing the bridge in company with her mother, Mademoiselle Beauvisage suddenly cried out, like a true enfant terrible,--"Goodness! there's papa talking with that Parisian woman!"To assure herself at a glance of the monstrous fact, to rush down the bank and reach her husband (whom she found with laughing lips and the happy air of a browsing sheep), to blast him with a stern "What are you doing here?" to order his retreat to Arcis with the air of a queen, while Mademoiselle Chocardelle, first astonished and then enlightened as to what it all meant, went off into fits of laughter, took scarcely the time I have taken to tell it.Such, madame, was the proceeding by which Madame Beauvisage, nee Grevin, rescued her husband; and though that proceeding may be called justifiable, it was certainly injudicious, for before night the whole town had heard of the catastrophe, and Beauvisage, arraigned and convicted by common consent of deplorable immorality, saw fresh desertions taking place in the already winnowed phalanx of his partisans.

However, the Gondreville and Grevin side still held firm, and--would you believe it, madame?--it was again Mademoiselle Antonia to whom we owe the overthrow of their last rampart.

Here is the tale of that phenomenon: Mother Marie-des-Anges wanted an interview with the Comte de Gondreville; but how to get it she did not know, because to ask for it was not, as she thought, proper.Having, it appears, unpleasant things to say to him, she did not wish to bring the old man to the convent expressly to hear them; such a proceeding seemed to her uncharitable.Besides, things comminatory delivered point-blank will often provoke their recipient instead of alarming him; whereas the same things slipped in sweetly never fail of their effect.Still, time was passing; the election, as you know, takes place to-morrow, Sunday, and the preparatory meeting of all the candidates and the electors, to-night.The poor dear saintly woman did not know what course to take, when a little matter occurred, most flattering to her vanity, which solved her doubts.A pretty sinner, she was told, who had come to Arcis to "do" Monsieur Keller the financier, then at Gondreville, out of some money, had heard of the virtues and the inexhaustible kindness of Mother Marie-des-Anges--in short, she regarded her, after Danton, as the most interesting object of the place, and deeply regretted that she dared not ask to be admitted to her presence.

An hour later the following note was left at the Hotel de la Poste:--Mademoiselle,--I am told that you desire to see me, but that you do not know how to accomplish it.Nothing is easier.Ring the door-bell of my quiet house, ask to see me, and do not be alarmed at my black robe and aged face.I am not one of those who force their advice upon pretty young women who do not ask for it, and who may become in time greater saints than I.That is the whole mystery of obtaining an interview with Mother Marie-des-Anges, who salutes you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.[Picture of small cross.]