Albert Savarus quotes

The Swiss gentleman’s coat-of-arms (the Wattevilles are Swiss) was then borne as an escutcheon of pretence on the old shield of the Rupts. The marriage, arranged in 1802, was solemnized in 1815 after the second Restoration.

Within three years of the birth of a daughter all Madame de Watteville’s grandparents were dead, and their estates wound up.

Monsieur de Watteville’s house was then sold, and they settled in the Rue de la Préfecture in the fine old mansion of the Rupts, with an immense garden stretching to the Rue du Perron.

The Baron de Watteville treasured shells and geological fragments of the neighborhood of Besançon. Some contradictory folk, especially women, would say of Monsieur de Watteville,

“He has a noble soul! He perceived from the first days of his married life that he would never be his wife’s master, so he threw himself into a mechanical occupation and good living.”

The house of the Rupts was not devoid of a certain magnificence worthy of Louis XIV, and bore traces of the nobility of the two families who had mingled in 1815.

Madame de Watteville alone, perhaps, suspected this inheritance from two strains. She was so severe to her Rosalie, that she replied one day to the Archbishop, who blamed her for being too hard on the child,

“Leave me to manage her, monseigneur. I know her! She has more than one Beelzebub in her skin!”

The Baroness kept all the keener watch over her daughter, because she considered her honor as a mother to be at stake. After all, she had nothing else to do.

From the chimney above the roof rose a thick column of smoke.

“While all the world is sleeping, he is awake⁠—like God!” thought she.

The education of girls brings with it such serious problems—for the future of a nation is in the mother—that the University of France long since set itself the task of having nothing to do with it. Here is one of these problems:

She got to church before Mass, and after a short prayer, went to see if the Abbé Giroud were in his confessional, simply to pass the time; and she thus placed herself in such a way as to see Albert as he came into church.

The man must have been atrociously ugly who did not seem handsome to Mademoiselle de Watteville in the frame of mind produced by her curiosity.

And Albert Savaron, who was really very striking, made all the more impression on Rosalie because his mien, his walk, his carriage, everything down to his clothing, had the indescribable stamp which can only be expressed by the word Mystery.

For a hundred francs a month Rodolphe was relieved of all thought for the necessaries of life. But, in consideration of the outlay the Stopfer couple expected to make, they bargained for three months’ residence and a month’s payment in advance.

Rub a Swiss ever so little, and you find the usurer.

After breakfast, Rodolphe at once made himself at home by depositing in his room such property as he had brought with him for the journey to the Saint-Gothard, and he watched Léopold as he set out, moved by the spirit of routine, to carry out …

“Let us drop the subject,” said she, with incomparable dignity of gesture, expression, and attitude. “Make a splendid fortune, be one of the remarkable men of your country; that is my desire.

Fame is a drawbridge which may serve to cross a deep gulf.

Be ambitious if you must. I believe you have great and powerful talents, but use them rather for the happiness of mankind than to deserve me; you will be all the greater in my eyes.”

“I do not know, mademoiselle.”

“Do not play the innocent with me,” said Mademoiselle de Watteville drily.

“You let him kiss you last night under the kiosk; I no longer wonder that you so warmly approved of my mother’s ideas for the improvements she planned.”

With such a family, fifteen thousand francs a year are a mere nothing. Now when, under these circumstances, the father of the family is above bribery, it would be hard if the electors did not esteem him.

Electors wax enthusiastic over a beau ideal of parliamentary virtue, just as the audience in the pit do at the representation of the generous sentiments they so little practise.

Madame de Chavoncourt, at this time a woman of forty, was one of the beauties of Besançon. While the Chamber was sitting, she lived meagrely in one of their country places to recoup herself by economy for Monsieur de Chavoncourt’s expenses in Paris.

This whirlwind carried away the electors. Never had any man had such a triumph. But, unfortunately, speech, a weapon only for close warfare, has only an immediate effect.

Reflection kills the word when the word ceases to overpower reflection.

If the votes had then been taken, Albert’s name would undoubtedly have come out of the ballot-box. At the moment, he was conqueror. But he must conquer every day for two months.

It is a decent hustings, without the mob, but formidable; agitation, though it is not allowed any physical display, as it is in England, is not the less profound.

The English fight these battles with their fists, the French with hard words.

Our neighbors have a scrimmage, the French try their fate by cold combinations calmly worked out. This particular political business is carried out in opposition to the character of the two nations.

A hundred and sixty votes were not recorded: those of Monsieur de Grancey’s following and the Legitimists.

The show of hands at an election, like a dress rehearsal at a theatre, is the most deceptive thing in the world.

Albert Savarus came home, putting a brave face on the matter, but half dead.

Next day Monsieur de Chavoncourt was carried to the top by a majority of a hundred and forty votes.

“Jack is gone by the way he came,” said an elector on hearing of Albert Savaron’s flight.

This event lent weight to the prevailing prejudice at Besançon against strangers; indeed, two years previously they had received confirmation from the affair of the Republican newspaper. Ten days later Albert de Savarus was never spoken of again.

Francesca, stabbed to the heart by a girl who wanted to kill love in her rival, had answered the last in these four words: “You are free. Farewell.”

“Purely moral crimes, which give no hold to human justice, are the most atrocious and detestable,” said the Abbé severely.

“God often punishes them on earth; herein lies the reason of the terrible catastrophes which to us seem inexplicable.

She will be sure to have children; she will give Monsieur de Soulas forty thousand francs a year; she will benefit him in other ways, and reduce your share of her fortune as much as possible.

You will be poor as long as she lives, and she is but eight-and-thirty!

Your whole estate will be the land of les Rouxey, and the small share left to you after your father’s legal debts are settled, if, indeed, your mother should consent to forego her claims on les Rouxey.

“Alas, monsieur, it is in nobody’s power to restore Albert to the life of the world; he has renounced it. He is a novice in the monastery of the Grand Chartreuse near Grenoble.

You know, better than I who have but just learned it, that on the threshold of that cloister everything dies.

Albert, foreseeing that I should go to him, placed the General of the Order between my utmost efforts and himself. I know his noble soul well enough to be sure that he is the victim of some odious plot unknown to us;

If he had known what his crime was, he might have found means to justify himself; but being falsely accused of being married!—what could he do?

Albert is dead, quite dead to the world.

He longed for rest; let us hope that the deep silence and prayer into which he has thrown himself may give him happiness in another guise. You, monsieur, who have known him, must greatly pity him; and pity his friends also.