As he spoke but rarely, and said little at the time, he said fewer foolish things than most people, and thus obtained the reputation of being clever and well-informed, of which he was very proud and very careful.  He lived freely, almost profusely, and thus put aside every year but little more than about half his income.  He had all his clothes made in Paris, was proud of his foot, and always wore gloves.

His house was kept handsomely; and his gardens cost him a good deal of money.  He kept a pack of hounds, and six hunters.  Finally, he kept half a dozen lazy servants in the house, whose gorgeous liveries, with the family coat-of-arms, were a source of perpetual wonder at Saint Mathurin.

He would have been perfect, but for his passion for hunting.

As soon as the season opened, he was sure to be found, on foot or on horseback, crossing the stubblefields, jumping over hedges, or floundering in the swamps.  This he carried so far, that the ladies of the neighborhood, who had daughters, blamed him to his face for his imprudence, and scolded him for risking his precious health so recklessly.

This nobleman, forty years old, and enjoying all that heart could desire, was unmarried.  And yet he had not lacked opportunities to remedy the evil.  There was not a good mother for twenty miles around who did not covet this prize for her daughter,—­thirty thousand dollars a year, and a great man.

He had only to appear at a ball in the provincial towns, and he was the hero.  Mothers and daughters kept their sweetest smiles for him; and kind welcomes were offered on all sides.  But all these manoeuvres had been fruitless; he had escaped from all snares, and resisted the most cunning devices.

Why was he so much opposed to marriage?  His friends found the explanation in a certain person, half housekeeper, half companion, who lived in the castle, and was very pretty and very designing.  But there are malicious tongues everywhere.

The next year, however, an event occurred which was calculated to give some ground to these idle, gossiping tales.  One fine morning in the month of July, 1847, the lady died suddenly of apoplexy.  Six weeks later, a report began to spread that Count Ville-Handry was going to be married.

The report was well founded.  The count did marry.  The fact could not be doubted any longer, when the banns were read, and the announcement appeared in the official journal.  And whom do you think he married?  The daughter of a poor widow, the Baroness Rupert, who lived in great poverty at a place called Rosiers, having nothing but a small pension derived from her husband, who had been a colonel of artillery.

If she had, at least, been of good and ancient family; if she had been, at least, a native of the province!

But no.  No one knew exactly who she was, or where she came from.  Some people said the colonel had married her in Austria; others, in Sweden.  Her husband, they added, had been made a baron after the fashion of others, who dubbed themselves such during the first empire, and had no right to call himself noble.