Why did you not take this opportunity of seeing Paris?  I might have enjoyed your company for four months.  Louis told me yesterday that you were coming to fetch him, and would have your third confinement in Paris—­you terrible mother Gigogne!  After bombarding Louis with queries, exclamations, and regrets, I at last defeated his strategy so far as to discover that his grand-uncle, the godfather of Athenais, is very ill.  Now I believe that you, like a careful mother, would be quite equal to angling with the member’s speeches and fame for a fat legacy from your husband’s last remaining relative on the mother’s side.  Keep your mind easy, my Renee—­we are all at work for Louis, Lenoncourts, Chaulieus, and the whole band of Mme. de Macumer’s followers.  Martignac will probably put him into the audit department.  But if you won’t tell me why you bury yourself in the country, I shall be cross.

Tell me, are you afraid that the political wisdom of the house of l’Estorade should seem to centre in you?  Or is it the uncle’s legacy?  Perhaps you were afraid you would be less to your children in Paris?  Ah! what I would give to know whether, after all, you were not simply too vain to show yourself in Paris for the first time in your present condition!  Vain thing!  Farewell.

XLV

RENEE TO LOUISE

You complain of my silence; have you forgotten, then, those two little brown heads, at once my subjects and my tyrants?  And as to staying at home, you have yourself hit upon several of my reasons.  Apart from the condition of our dear uncle, I didn’t want to drag with me to Paris a boy of four and a little girl who will soon be three, when I am again expecting my confinement.  I had no intention of troubling you and upsetting your husband with such a party.  I did not care to appear, looking my worst, in the brilliant circle over which you preside, and I detest life in hotels and lodgings.

When I come to spend the session in Paris, it will be in my own house.  Louis’ uncle, when he heard of the rank his grand-nephew had received, made me a present of two hundred thousand francs (the half of his savings) with which to buy a house in Paris, and I have charged Louis to find one in your neighborhood.  My mother has given me thirty thousand francs for the furnishing, and I shall do my best not to disgrace the dear sister of my election—­no pun intended.

I am grateful to you for having already done so much at Court for Louis.  But though M. de Bourmont and M. de Polignac have paid him the compliment of asking him to join their ministry, I do not wish so conspicuous a place for him.  It would commit him too much; and I prefer the Audit Office because it is permanent.  Our affairs here are in very good hands; so you need not fear; as soon as the steward has mastered the details, I will come and support Louis.