In 1829 the old noblesse had recovered as to manners and customs something of the prestige it had irrevocably lost in politics.
Moreover, the sentiment which governs parents and grandparents in all that relates to matrimonial conventions is an imperishable sentiment, closely allied to the very existence of civilized societies and springing from the spirit of family. It rules in Geneva as in Vienna and in Nemours, where, as we have seen, Zelie Minoret refused her consent to a possible marriage of her son with the daughter of a bastard. Still, all social laws have their exceptions. Savinien thought he might bend his mother's pride before the inborn nobility of Ursula. The struggle began at once. As soon as they were seated at table his mother told him of the horrible letters, as she called them, which the Kergarouets and the Portendueres had written her.
"There is no such thing as family in these days, mother," replied Savinien, "nothing but individuals! The nobles are no longer a compact body. No one asks or cares whether I am a Portenduere, or brave, or a statesmen; all they ask now-a-days is, 'What taxes does he pay?'"
"But the king?" asked the old lady.
"The king is caught between the two Chambers like a man between his wife and his mistress. So I shall have to marry some rich girl without regard to family,--the daughter of a peasant if she has a million and is sufficiently well brought-up--that is to say, if she has been taught in school."
"Oh! there's no need to talk of that," said the old lady.
Savinien frowned as he heard the words. He knew the granite will, called Breton obstinacy, that distinguished his mother, and he resolved to know at once her opinion on this delicate matter.
"So," he went on, "if I loved a young girl,--take for instance your neighbour's godchild, little Ursula,--would you oppose my marriage?"
"Yes, as long as I live," she replied; "and after my death you would be responsible for the honor and the blood of the Kergarouets and the Portendueres."
"Would you let me die of hunger and despair for the chimera of nobility, which has no reality to-day unless it has the lustre of great wealth?"
"You could serve France and put faith in God."
"Would you postpone my happiness till after your death?"
"It would be horrible if you took it then,--that is all I have to say."
"Louis XIV. came very near marrying the niece of Mazarin, a parvenu."
"Mazarin himself opposed it."
"Remember the widow Scarron."
"She was a d'Aubigne. Besides, the marriage was in secret. But I am very old, my son," she said, shaking her head. "When I am no more you can, as you say, marry whom you please."
Savinien both loved and respected his mother; but he instantly, though silently, set himself in opposition to her with an obstinacy equal to her own, resolving to have no other wife than Ursula, to whom this opposition gave, as often happens in similar circumstances, the value of a forbidden thing.
When, after vespers, the doctor, with Ursula, who was dressed in pink and white, entered the cold, stiff salon, the girl was seized with nervous trembling, as though she had entered the presence of the queen of France and had a favor to beg of her. Since her confession to the doctor this little house had assumed the proportions of a palace in her eyes, and the old lady herself the social value which a duchess of the Middle Ages might have had to the daughter of a serf. Never had Ursula measured as she did at that moment the distance which separated Vicomte de Portenduere from the daughter of a regimental musician, a former opera-singer and the natural son of an organist.
"What is the matter, my dear?" said the old lady, making the girl sit down beside her.
"Madame, I am confused by the honor you have done me--"
"My little girl," said Madame de Portenduere, in her sharpest tone. "I know how fond your uncle is of you, and I wished to be agreeable to him, for he has brought back my prodigal son."
"But, my dear mother," said Savinien cut to the heart by seeing the color fly into Ursula's face as she struggled to keep back her tears, "even if we were under no obligations to Monsieur le Chevalier Minoret, I think we should always be most grateful for the pleasure Mademoiselle has given us by accepting your invitation."
The young man pressed the doctor's hand in a significant manner, adding: "I see you wear, monsieur, the order of Saint-Michel, the oldest order in France, and one which confers nobility."
Ursula's extreme beauty, to which her almost hopeless love gave a depth which great painters have sometimes conveyed in pictures where the soul is brought into strong relief, had struck Madame de Portenduere suddenly, and made her suspect that the doctor's apparent generosity masked an ambitious scheme. She had made the speech to which Savinien replied with the intention of wounding the doctor in that which was dearest to him; and she succeeded, though the old man could hardly restrain a smile as he heard himself styled a "chevalier," amused to observe how the eagerness of a lover did not shrink from absurdity.
"The order of Saint-Michel which in former days men committed follies to obtain," he said, "has now, Monsieur le vicomte, gone the way of other privileges! It is given only to doctors and poor artists. The kings have done well to join it to that of Saint-Lazare who was, I believe, a poor devil recalled to life by a miracle. From this point of view the order of Saint-Michel and Saint-Lazare may be, for many of us, symbolic."
After this reply, at once sarcastic and dignified, silence reigned, which, as no one seemed inclined to break it, was becoming awkward, when there was a rap at the door.
"There is our dear abbe," said the old lady, who rose, leaving Ursula alone, and advancing to meet the Abbe Chaperon,--an honor she had not paid to the doctor and his niece.
