“I understand! a little touch to make my Favori leap the barrier,” said Natalie, making the gesture of striking a horse with her whip.

“My darling!  I ask nothing that resembles seduction.  You and I have sentiments of the old Castilian honor which will never permit us to pass certain limits.  Count Paul shall know our situation.”

“What situation?”

“You would not understand it.  But I tell you now that if after seeing you in all your glory his look betrays the slightest hesitation,—­and I shall watch him,—­on that instant I shall break off the marriage; I will liquidate my property, leave Bordeaux, and go to Douai, to be near the Claes.  Madame Claes is our relation through the Temnincks.  Then I’ll marry you to a peer of France, and take refuge in a convent myself, that I may give up to you my whole fortune.”

“Mother, what am I to do to prevent such misfortunes?” cried Natalie.

“I have never seen you so beautiful as you are now,” replied her mother.  “Be a little coquettish, and all is well.”

Madame Evangelista left Natalie to her thoughts, and went to arrange her own toilet in such a way that would bear comparison with that of her daughter.  If Natalie ought to make herself attractive to Paul she ought, none the less, to inflame the ardor of her champion Solonet.  The mother and daughter were therefore under arms when Paul arrived, bearing the bouquet which for the last few months he had daily offered to his love.  All three conversed pleasantly while awaiting the arrival of the notaries.

This day brought to Paul the first skirmish of that long and wearisome warfare called marriage.  It is therefore necessary to state the forces on both sides, the position of the belligerent bodies, and the ground on which they are about to manoeuvre.

To maintain a struggle, the importance of which had wholly escaped him, Paul’s only auxiliary was the old notary, Mathias.  Both were about to be confronted, unaware and defenceless, by a most unexpected circumstance; to be pressed by an enemy whose strategy was planned, and driven to decide on a course without having time to reflect upon it.  Where is the man who would not have succumbed, even though assisted by Cujas and Barthole?  How should he look for deceit and treachery where all seemed compliant and natural?  What could old Mathias do alone against Madame Evangelista, against Solonet, against Natalie, especially when a client in love goes over to the enemy as soon as the rising conflict threatens his happiness?  Already Paul was damaging his cause by making the customary lover’s speeches, to which his passion gave excessive value in the ears of Madame Evangelista, whose object it was to drive him to commit himself.

The matrimonial condottieri now about to fight for their clients, whose personal powers were to be so vitally important in this solemn encounter, the two notaries, on short, represent individually the old and the new systems,—­old fashioned notarial usage, and the new-fangled modern procedure.