Vandenesse,glad of this adorable reserve,kept his wife,by deliberate calculations,in the temperate regions of conjugal affection.He never condescended to seek a reward or even an acknowledgment of the infinite pains which he gave himself;his wife thought his luxury and good taste her natural right,and she felt no gratitude for the fact that her pride and self-love had never suffered.It was thus in everything.Kindness has its mishaps;often it is attributed to temperament;people are seldom willing to recognize it as the 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.
