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The Marriage Contract By: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) |
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By Honore De Balzac Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley DEDICATION To Rossini.
THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT
CHAPTER I. PRO AND CON
Monsieur de Manerville, the father, was a worthy Norman gentleman,
well known to the Marechael de Richelieu, who married him to one of the
richest heiresses of Bordeaux in the days when the old duke reigned in
Guienne as governor. The Norman then sold the estate he owned in Bessin,
and became a Gascon, allured by the beauty of the chateau de Lanstrac,
a delightful residence owned by his wife. During the last days of the
reign of Louis XV., he bought the post of major of the Gate Guards, and
lived till 1813, having by great good luck escaped the dangers of the
Revolution in the following manner. Toward the close of the year, 1790, he went to Martinque, where his wife
had interests, leaving the management of his property in Gascogne to an
honest man, a notary's clerk, named Mathias, who was inclined to or
at any rate did give into the new ideas. On his return the Comte de
Manerville found his possessions intact and well managed. This sound
result was the fruit produced by grafting the Gascon on the Norman. Madame de Manerville died in 1810. Having learned the importance of
worldly goods through the dissipations of his youth, and, giving them,
like many another old man, a higher place than they really hold in life,
Monsieur de Manerville became increasingly economical, miserly, and
sordid. Without reflecting that the avarice of parents prepares the way
for the prodigalities of children, he allowed almost nothing to his son,
although that son was an only child. Paul de Manerville, coming home from the college of Vendome in 1810,
lived under close paternal discipline for three years. The tyranny by
which the old man of seventy oppressed his heir influenced, necessarily,
a heart and a character which were not yet formed. Paul, the son,
without lacking the physical courage which is vital in the air of
Gascony, dared not struggle against his father, and consequently lost
that faculty of resistance which begets moral courage. His thwarted
feelings were driven to the depths of his heart, where they remained
without expression; later, when he felt them to be out of harmony with
the maxims of the world, he could only think rightly and act mistakenly.
He was capable of fighting for a mere word or look, yet he trembled at
the thought of dismissing a servant, his timidity showing itself in
those contests only which required a persistent will. Capable of doing
great things to fly from persecution, he would never have prevented it
by systematic opposition, nor have faced it with the steady employment
of force of will. Timid in thought, bold in actions, he long preserved
that inward simplicity which makes a man the dupe and the voluntary
victim of things against which certain souls hesitate to revolt,
preferring to endure them rather than complain. He was, in point of
fact, imprisoned by his father's old mansion, for he had not enough
money to consort with young men; he envied their pleasures while unable
to share them. The old gentleman took him every evening, in an old carriage drawn
by ill harnessed old horses, attended by ill dressed old servants, to
royalist houses, where he met a society composed of the relics of the
parliamentary nobility and the martial nobility. These two nobilities
coalescing after the Revolution, had now transformed themselves into
a landed aristocracy. Crushed by the vast and swelling fortunes of the
maritime cities, this Faubourg Saint Germain of Bordeaux responded
by lofty disdain to the sumptuous displays of commerce, government
administrations, and the military. Too young to understand social
distinctions and the necessities underlying the apparent assumption
which they create, Paul was bored to death among these ancients, unaware
that the connections of his youth would eventually secure to him that
aristocratic pre eminence which Frenchmen will forever desire... Continue reading book >>
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