harried as we are with myths.  Myths are pressing us from every point; they serve all theories, they explain all questions.  They are, according to human ideas, the torches of history; they would save empires from revolution if only the professors of history would force the explanations they give into the mind of the provincial masses.  If Mademoiselle Cormon had been a reader or a student, and if there had existed in the department of the Orne a professor of anthropology, or even had she read Ariosto, the frightful disasters of her conjugal life would never have occurred.  She would probably have known why the Italian poet makes Angelica prefer Medoro, who was a blond Chevalier de Valois, to Orlando, whose mare was dead, and who knew no better than to fly into a passion.  Is not Medoro the mythic form for all courtiers of feminine royalty, and Orlando the myth of disorderly, furious, and impotent revolutions, which destroy but cannot produce?  We publish, but without assuming any responsibility for it, this opinion of a pupil of Monsieur Ballanche.

No information has reached us as to the fate of the negroes’ heads in diamonds.  You may see Madame du Val-Noble every evening at the Opera.  Thanks to the education given her by the Chevalier de Valois, she has almost the air of a well-bred woman.

Madame du Bousquier still lives; is not that as much as to say she still suffers?  After reaching the age of sixty—­the period at which women allow themselves to make confessions—­she said confidentially to Madame du Coudrai, that she had never been able to endure the idea of dying an old maid.

ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

(Note:  The Collection of Antiquities is a companion piece to The Old Maid.  In other Addendum appearances they are combined under the title of The Jealousies of a Country Town.)

Bordin
  The Gondreville Mystery
  The Seamy Side of History
  The Commission in Lunacy

Bousquier, Du (or Du Croisier or Du Bourguier)
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)
  The Middle Classes

Bousquier, Madame du (du Croisier) (Mlle. Cormon)
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Casteran, De
  The Chouans
  The Seamy Side of History
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)
  Beatrix
  The Peasantry

Chesnel (or Choisnel)
  The Seamy Side of History
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Coudrai, Du
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d’ (or Des Grignons)
  The Chouans
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Esgrignon, Marie-Armande-Claire d’
  The Collection of Antiquities (companion piece)

Gaillard, Madame Theodore (Suzanne)
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  A Bachelor’s Establishment
  Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life
  Beatrix
  The Unconscious Humorists