The late Marquis de Cinq-Cygne had used his savings, as well as those of his father and mother, in the purchase of a fine house in the rue de Faubourg-du-Roule, entailing it on heirs male for the support of the title.  The sordid economy of the marquis and his parents, which had often troubled Laurence, was then explained.  After this purchase the marquise, who lived at Cinq-Cygne and economized on her own account for her children, spent her winters in Paris,—­all the more willingly because her daughter Berthe and her son Paul were now of an age when their education required the resources of Paris.

Madame de Cinq-Cygne went but little into society.  Her husband could not be ignorant of the regrets which lay in her tender heart; but he showed her always the most exquisite delicacy, and died having loved no other woman.  This noble soul, not fully understood for a period of time but to which the generous daughter of the Cinq-Cygnes returned in his last years as true a love as that he gave to her, was completely happy in his married life.  Laurence lived for the joys of home.  No woman has ever been more cherished by her friends or more respected.  To be received in her house is an honor.  Gentle, indulgent, intellectual, above all things simple and natural, she pleases choice souls and draws them to her in spite of her saddened aspect; each longs to protect this woman, inwardly so strong, and that sentiment of secret protection counts for much in the wondrous charm of her friendship.  Her life, so painful during her youth, is beautiful and serene towards evening.  Her sufferings are known, and no one asks who was the original of that portrait by Lefebvre which is the chief and sacred ornament of her salon.  Her face has the maturity of fruits that have ripened slowly; a hallowed pride dignifies that long-tried brow.

At the period when the marquise came to Paris to open the new house, her fortune, increased by the law of indemnities, gave her some two hundred thousand francs a year, not counting her husband’s salary; besides this, Laurence had inherited the money guarded by Michu for his young masters.  From that time forth she made a practice of spending half her income and of laying by the rest for her daughter Berthe.

Berthe is the living image of her mother, but without her warrior nerve; she is her mother in delicacy, in intellect,—­“more a woman,” Laurence says, sadly.  The marquise was not willing to marry her daughter until she was twenty years of age.  Her savings, judiciously invested in the Funds by old Monsieur d’Hauteserre at the moment when consols fell in 1830, gave Berthe a dowry of eighty thousand francs a year in 1833, when she was twenty.