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Domestic Peace By: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) |
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By Honore De Balzac Translated By Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell Dedicated to my dear niece Valentine Surville. DOMESTIC PEACE
The incident recorded in this sketch took place towards the end of the
month of November, 1809, the moment when Napoleon's fugitive empire
attained the apogee of its splendor. The trumpet blasts of Wagram were
still sounding an echo in the heart of the Austrian monarchy. Peace was
being signed between France and the Coalition. Kings and princes came to
perform their orbits, like stars, round Napoleon, who gave himself the
pleasure of dragging all Europe in his train a magnificent
experiment in the power he afterwards displayed at Dresden. Never, as
contemporaries tell us, did Paris see entertainments more superb than
those which preceded and followed the sovereign's marriage with an
Austrian archduchess. Never, in the most splendid days of the Monarchy,
had so many crowned heads thronged the shores of the Seine, never
had the French aristocracy been so rich or so splendid. The diamonds
lavishly scattered over the women's dresses, and the gold and silver
embroidery on the uniforms contrasted so strongly with the penury of the
Republic, that the wealth of the globe seemed to be rolling through the
drawing rooms of Paris. Intoxication seemed to have turned the brains
of this Empire of a day. All the military, not excepting their chief,
reveled like parvenus in the treasure conquered for them by a million
men with worsted epaulettes, whose demands were satisfied by a few yards
of red ribbon. At this time most women affected that lightness of conduct and facility
of morals which distinguished the reign of Louis XV. Whether it were in
imitation of the tone of the fallen monarchy, or because certain members
of the Imperial family had set the example as certain malcontents of
the Faubourg Saint Germain chose to say it is certain that men and
women alike flung themselves into a life of pleasure with an intrepidity
which seemed to forbode the end of the world. But there was at that
time another cause for such license. The infatuation of women for the
military became a frenzy, and was too consonant to the Emperor's views
for him to try to check it. The frequent calls to arms, which gave every
treaty concluded between Napoleon and the rest of Europe the character
of an armistice, left every passion open to a termination as sudden as
the decisions of the Commander in chief of all these busbys, pelisses,
and aiguillettes, which so fascinated the fair sex. Hearts were as
nomadic as the regiments. Between the first and fifth bulletins from the
Grand Armee a woman might be in succession mistress, wife, mother, and
widow. Was it the prospect of early widowhood, the hope of a jointure, or
that of bearing a name promised to history, which made the soldiers so
attractive? Were women drawn to them by the certainty that the secret
of their passions would be buried on the field of battle? or may we find
the reason of this gentle fanaticism in the noble charm that courage has
for a woman? Perhaps all these reasons, which the future historian
of the manners of the Empire will no doubt amuse himself by weighing,
counted for something in their facile readiness to abandon themselves
to love intrigues. Be that as it may, it must here be confessed that at
that time laurels hid many errors, women showed an ardent preference for
the brave adventurers, whom they regarded as the true fount of honor,
wealth, or pleasure; and in the eyes of young girls, an epaulette the
hieroglyphic of a future signified happiness and liberty. One feature, and a characteristic one, of this unique period in our
history was an unbridled mania for everything glittering. Never were
fireworks so much in vogue, never were diamonds so highly prized. The
men, as greedy as the women of these translucent pebbles, displayed them
no less lavishly. Possibly the necessity for carrying plunder in the
most portable form made gems the fashion in the army... Continue reading book >>
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