Such little things decide the fortunes of men, as they do of empires.  Kellerman’s charge at Marengo, Blucher’s arrival at Waterloo, Louis XIV.’s disdain for Prince Eugene, the rector of Denain,—­all these great causes of fortune or catastrophe history has recorded; but no one ever profits by them to avoid the small neglects of their own life.  Consequently, observe what happens:  the Duchesse de Langeais (see “History of the Thirteen”) makes herself a nun for the lack of ten minutes’ patience; Judge Popinot (see “Commission in Lunacy”) puts off till the morrow the duty of examining the Marquis d’Espard; Charles Grandet (see “Eugenie Grandet”) goes to Paris from Bordeaux instead of returning by Nantes; and such events are called chance or fatality!  A touch of rouge carefully applied destroyed the hopes of the Chevalier de Valois; could that nobleman perish in any other way?  He had lived by the Graces, and he was doomed to die by their hand.  While the chevalier was giving this last touch to his toilet the rough du Bousquier was entering the salon of the desolate old maid.  This entrance produced a thought in Mademoiselle Cormon’s mind which was favorable to the republican, although in all other respects the Chevalier de Valois held the advantages.

“God wills it!” she said piously, on seeing du Bousquier.

“Mademoiselle, you will not, I trust, think my eagerness importunate.  I could not trust to my stupid Rene to bring news of your condition, and therefore I have come myself.”

“I am perfectly recovered,” she replied, in a tone of emotion.  “I thank you, Monsieur du Bousquier,” she added, after a slight pause, and in a significant tone of voice, “for the trouble you have taken, and for that which I gave you yesterday—­”

She remembered having been in his arms, and that again seemed to her an order from heaven.  She had been seen for the first time by a man with her laces cut, her treasures violently bursting from their casket.

“I carried you with such joy that you seemed to me light.”

Here Mademoiselle Cormon looked at du Bousquier as she had never yet looked at any man in the world.  Thus encouraged, the purveyor cast upon the old maid a glance which reached her heart.

“I would,” he said, “that that moment had given me the right to keep you as mine forever” [she listened with a delighted air]; “as you lay fainting upon that bed, you were enchanting.  I have never in my life seen a more beautiful person,—­and I have seen many handsome women.  Plump ladies have this advantage:  they are superb to look upon; they have only to show themselves and they triumph.”

“I fear you are making fun of me,” said the old maid, “and that is not kind when all the town will probably misinterpret what happened to me yesterday.”

“As true as my name is du Bousquier, mademoiselle, I have never changed in my feelings toward you; and your first refusal has not discouraged me.”