In 1832, three years had thrown a mantle of snow over the follies and adventures of the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, and had whitened them so thoroughly that it now required a serious effort of memory to recall them.  Of the queen once adored by so many courtiers, and whose follies might have given a theme to a variety of novels, there remained a woman still adorably beautiful, thirty-six years of age, but quite justified in calling herself thirty, although she was the mother of Duc Georges de Maufrigneuse, a young man of eighteen, handsome as Antinous, poor as Job, who was expected to obtain great successes, and for whom his mother desired, above all things, to find a rich wife.  Perhaps this hope was the secret of the intimacy she still kept up with the marquise, in whose salon, which was one of the first in Paris, she might eventually be able to choose among many heiresses for Georges’ wife.  The princess saw five years between the present moment and her son’s marriage,—­five solitary and desolate years; for, in order to obtain such a marriage for her son, she knew that her own conduct must be marked in the corner with discretion.

The princess lived in the rue de Miromesnil, in a small house, of which she occupied the ground-floor at a moderate rent.  There she made the most of the relics of her past magnificence.  The elegance of the great lady was still redolent about her.  She was still surrounded by beautiful things which recalled her former existence.  On her chimney-piece was a fine miniature portrait of Charles X., by Madame Mirbel, beneath which were engraved the words, “Given by the King”; and, as a pendant, the portrait of “Madame”, who was always her kind friend.  On a table lay an album of costliest price, such as none of the bourgeoises who now lord it in our industrial and fault-finding society would have dared to exhibit.  This album contained portraits, about thirty in number, of her intimate friends, whom the world, first and last, had given her as lovers.  The number was a calumny; but had rumor said ten, it might have been, as her friend Madame d’Espard remarked, good, sound gossip.  The portraits of Maxime de Trailles, de Marsay, Rastignac, the Marquis d’Esgrignon, General Montriveau, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and d’Ajuda-Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the young Ducs de Grandlieu and de Rhetore, the Vicomte de Serizy, and the handsome Lucien de Rubempre, had all been treated with the utmost coquetry of brush and pencil by celebrated artists.  As the princess now received only two or three of these personages, she called the book, jokingly, the collection of her errors.