My brother, the Duc de Rhetore, deigns to recognize me as a person of mark.  As for my younger brother, The Comte de Chaulieu, this buckram warrior owes me everlasting gratitude.  Before my father left, he spent my fortune in acquiring for the Count an estate of forty thousand francs a year, entailed on the title, and his marriage with Mlle. de Mortsauf, an heiress from Touraine, is definitely arranged.  The King, in order to preserve the name and titles of the de Lenoncourt and de Givry families from extinction, is to confer these, together with the armorial bearings, by patent on my brother.  Certainly it would never have done to allow these two fine names and their splendid motto, Faciem semper monstramus, to perish.  Mlle. de Mortsauf, who is granddaughter and sole heiress of the Duc de Lenoncourt-Givry, will, it is said, inherit altogether more than one hundred thousand livres a year.  The only stipulation my father has made is that the de Chaulieu arms should appear in the centre of the de Lenoncourt escutcheon.  Thus my brother will be Duc de Lenoncourt.  The young de Mortsauf, to whom everything would otherwise go, is in the last stage of consumption; his death is looked for every day.  The marriage will take place next winter when the family are out of mourning.  I am told that I shall have a charming sister-in-law in Mlle. de Mortsauf.

So you see that my father’s reasoning is justified.  The outcome of it all has won me many compliments, and my marriage is explained to everybody’s satisfaction.  To complete our success, the Prince de Talleyrand, out of affection for my grandmother, is showing himself a warm friend to Macumer.  Society, which began by criticising me, has now passed to cordial admiration.

In short, I now reign a queen where, barely two years ago, I was an insignificant item.  Macumer finds himself the object of universal envy, as the husband of “the most charming woman in Paris.”  At least a score of women, as you know, are always in that proud position.  Men murmur sweet things in my ear, or content themselves with greedy glances.  This chorus of longing and admiration is so soothing to one’s vanity, that I confess I begin to understand the unconscionable price women are ready to pay for such frail and precarious privileges.  A triumph of this kind is like strong wine to vanity, self-love, and all the self-regarding feelings.  To pose perpetually as a divinity is a draught so potent in its intoxicating effects, that I am no longer surprised to see women grow selfish, callous, and frivolous in the heart of this adoration.  The fumes of society mount to the head.  You lavish the wealth of your soul and spirit, the treasures of your time, the noblest efforts of your will, upon a crowd of people who repay you in smiles and jealousy.  The false coin of their pretty speeches, compliments, and flattery is the only return they give for the solid gold of your courage and sacrifices, and all the thought that must go to keep up without flagging the standard of beauty, dress, sparkling talk, and general affability.  You are perfectly aware how much it costs, and that the whole thing is a fraud, but you cannot keep out of the vortex.