Fleurette

Chapter I

On a beautiful morning in October, 1858, the inhabitants of Paris who loved air and sunshine had come to seek them at the Tuilleries and the Champs Elysee. These were the only possible promenades for them. They had not then, as now, forests, meadows and fountains in the very heart of the city. The Hois de Boulogne had not, as yet, been transformed, as if by magic, into a Parisian park, a popular pleasure ground which equals in splendor and elegance the domains of kings.

The principal avenue of the Champs Ely see was occupied by carriages and equestrians ; the walks were crowded with pedestrians, male and female, and all along the sides of the avenue several rows of chairs, exposed to the glare and dust, were ready to receive those who desired to rest. At intervals numerous groups had formed, a thousand different conversations crossed one another. The Champs - Elysee had become a vast salon , shaded by trees, where Parisian babble replaced the chatterings of absent birds.

Two young men descended from their horses, gave them to their grooms, and looked around for chairs in which to seat themselves. They advanced with heads erect, cigars in their mouths, satisfied with the fine weather, with the sun,

FLEURETTE.

above all with themselves and the effect they produced. It was not their conversation, for they had not said a word ; they spoke not, neither did they think! — they smoked: but there was something in their figures, their attitudes, their least gestures that implied such good opinions of themselves that the clouds of smoke in the centre of which they advanced seemed less puffs of tobacco than of incense which they sent up to themselves.

They stopped at length near the rond-point , at a place where a group of ladies with their backs to the new arrivals already occupied a dozen chairs, leaving however several vacant.

“ Ludovic ! ” cried one of the young men, “ I pitch my camp here.”

“ Take care, Yicomte ! ” replied the other, in a low tone, at the same time casting a rapid glance over the group of ladies from among whom several dowagers arose ; “ you mistake ; these are ladies. Let us not stop.”

“And why not, if you please, my son?” said, turning around, a lady of apparently fifty years, richly and elegantly dressed in irreproachable taste.

“ My mother ! ” exclaimed Ludovic, little pleased at this unexpected encounter.

“Madame Durussel,” said respectfully the vicomte, throwing away his cigar and saluting his friend’s mother and the ladies who surrounded her.

Ludovic took in the situation at a glance. It was desperate, and retreat impossible, so he decided to make the best of it, and advanced resolutely towards the feminine battalion, the chairs of which were formed in a half-moon, a circular line difficult to break through. He marched straight to the centre. Two chairs there remained vacant. He established himself under the very fire of the enemy, to use military parlance. The vicomte, appreciating the danger of his friend, came generously to his assistance.

Madame Durussel, who occupied the extreme right of the line of battle, was a woman who had been very beautiful and very rich. She was still v ery rich. Her husband, an old jeweller, had gained by his trade an immense fortune, which he had left to his widow and to his only son Ludovic.

FLEURETTE.

which he had left to his widow and to his only son Ludovic.

The latter, brought up very strictly by his mother, had contracted the habit of obeying and fearing her, a habit which he had instinctively preserved. His first movement was one of submission, his second revolt. We have seen him influenced by the former.

Madame Durussel, after the death of her husband, had continued his business, ennobling it. She would only sell to the Court, of which she was made jeweller. She passed her life in the great world. She had seen the carriages of sovereigns stationed at her door, and princesses seated in her salons. Since she had been called upon for wedding jewels by the courts of England and Russia she treated as between equals with the other crowned heads, and made cheap of the little princes of the German Confederation, or simple Italian Grand Dukes.

One does not frequent such splendors with impunity, or mingle during thirty years, even indirectly, with the glories and vanities of this lower world without there being some traces of it. Madame Durussel had so often seen Highnesses and great ladies in private, she had conversed with them so familiarly, that it was difficult for her to persuade herself that she was not of the same society, the same world, almost the same rank. She did not consider herself a jeweller, but a speculator in the diamond courts. She had not shops, but salons.

Having become almost too rich, she retired from business, selling her stock to her chief clerk, who, less vain, sold indiscriminately to the city and the court and marched, by a double road, to fortune. Madame Durussel, having no longer anything to do but dream, had at first formed ambitious plans for herself. A widow, she had desired to re-marry and become a great lady.

But the name of Madame Durussel, court jeweller, was already too famous for a marriage with her to pass unnoticed, or for a marquis or a duke to espouse her incognito. Her renown itself interfered with her ambition. Love only could excuse such a folly, but at Madame Durussel’s age love is not kindled even at the fire of diamonds.

Abandoning these ideas of nobility, the ambitious widow transferred them all to her son. She could not, indeed,

FLEUR ETTE.

make him a nobleman, but she could, with her fortune5 secure his entrance into a great family.

Ludovic, now of age, had no suspicion of the anxiety his mother gave herself on his account. In the first place, he had no thought of marriage. He found far too many charms in the life of a bachelor. He was neither very good nor very bad, neither a fool nor a genius, neither generous nor avaricious. He was a representative young man of the day : for him the club took the place of society, the cigar of conversation, and the fashionable or sporting journal which he glanced over in the morning supplied him with ideas for the day.

He had studied ten years, and knew nothing — unless it was that he was rich, and that was sufficient for him. Already convinced by experience that wealth would secure him both consideration and friends, he took no pains to acquire them, they came of themselves. As to lofty sentiments, and generous ideas — those iders, formerly met with in youth ; as to enthusiasm or exaltation of feeling, it was useless to ask them of him. Neither he nor his companions found any use for such things. They were not comprehended in the catalogue of the club.

Madame Durussel had met at the springs of Vichy, where she had spent the last season, the Marquise de Keroualle, a name celebrated in Brittany. The Keroualles were of the oldest and most illustrious nobility of that country. They reckoned among their ancestors the famous duchess of Portsmouth, Mademoiselle de Keroualle, mistress of Charles II., King of England, and it was not she, of all their ancestors, of whom the Keroualles were least proud. They only saw, in her, an incontestable historical tact, an alliance with the Stuarts, a royal branch to add to their genealogical tree.

Besides her nobility the dowager marquise de Keroualle had a handsome fortune, amounting to nearly a million. With that one is rich in Brittany, though not in Paris. First of all, this million was invested in land, which yielded, at most, an income of thirty six thousand francs, and then the marquise had three daughters — three daughters to marry and endow !

Madame Durussell had said to herself :

FLEURETTE.

“ It will go hard if I don’t find a wife there for my son Ludovic.” J

e Foiled in her matrimonial enterprises undertaken against princely domains and ducal mansions, she descended to marchionesses, and hoped to succeed. Here, indeed, there were chances for her. She found no difficulty in forming the acquaintance of this noble family.

_ At Vichy, as at all such resorts, acquaintances are quickly formed. The habit of meeting every day at the baths, or on the promenade — idleness, inaction, ennui , readily bring about connections which are as readily forgotten, but which at first sight seem sometimes so cordial that one might take them for real friendships. It is all very simple ; during the twenty days which the season generally lasts everyone shows his best side. People have no time to develop any but their good qualities, there is no opportunity to expose their defects.

The Marquise de Keroualle and Madame Durussel had, therefore, come away mutually enchanted, promising, without fail, to see each other at Paris; and, an exception to the general rule, they had kept their word.

The marquise, though as noble as it was possible to be — that is to say thoroughly despising the common herd, and above all things trade — since the death of her husband was confronted with the prospect of three daughters to marry, and had somewhat modified the strictness of her principles. The age, in her eyes, had sunk so low that despairing, for the future, of being able to elevate it to her own level, she had finally decided to descend a little to meet it.

She saw so many mesallianett about her that to contract one with trade or finance did not shock her as it might have done formerly. Her heraldic conscience was ready to come to terms with Madame Durussels millions. There was in the veins of the Keroualles such an ocean of noble blood that a few waves from the Pactolus could not corrupt it.

It should be mentioned that the three daughters, whose future awakened the maternal solicitude, were not goods of ready sale, and that their charms of face and character failed to supplement the eight or ten thousand livres of income which was all they could bring by way of dowry.

Elodie, the eldest, was nineteen, with clear blue eyes,

FLEURETTE.

pale lips and complexion, and hair of the lightest blonde imaginable. Her looks promised insipidity, and her conversation fulfilled the promise.

Geraldine, the second, was unmistakably red-headed, but made up for this slight defect by the most pliant and conciliating temper. She always agreed with the last speaker. “ Very true” “ very just” “ certainly” were the only words ever heard from her mouth, and when she was silent she supplied her part of the conversation with an approbative pantomime. For the rest, she was a good girl, and the best of the family,

Corentine, the third, much younger than her sisters, already gave promise of a spiteful and haughty disposition ; in other respects she was the gayest child one could possibly see. She was always laughing without knowing why.

Finally, there was another inconvenience in connection with the Mesdemoiselles de Keroualle which every day threatened to increase, and already interfered somewhat with the plans of the marquise.

A cousin of hers, of another branch of the Keroualles, had been left an orphan at the age of four, and moreover, in consequence of revolutionary misfortunes, was without patrimony.

The Marquise de Keroualle, with the warm approval of all his connections, who found themselves relieved thereby, was moved to bring home the young cousin and rear her as his own child. But Clotilde, who for a long time had been only an insignificant little girl, was now fifteen, and already her beautiful black hair, her large dark eyes, so gentle and expressive, the elegance of her form, the charm of her whole person, formed a striking and dangerous contrast to the appearance of her cousins. She already presented a type of beauty so perfect and regular, that, wherever she appeared there were eyes but for her.

The marquise could not always however, leave her little cousin alone at the hotel with the domestics. It was necessary to take her out, which she did from time to time, but as seldom as possible.

Clotilde, for instance, was excluded from all soirees and state ceremonials under the pretext that the family carriage, large as it was, would not hold five ladies in ball costume.

FLEURETTE.

As to morning promenades it was different. At the risk of rumpling their dresses, people may crowd themselves a little ; and the marquise, with her two oldest daughters, installed herself at the back, while Corentine and Clotilde were seated gaily in front.

And thus it happened that on this day, invited by a beautiful autumn sun, the Keroualle family found themselves in the Champs JElysee . Their ancient coach, with armorial panels, had met the elegant coupe of Madame Durussel. The ladies, after half an hours promenade, had quitted their carriages to seat themselves near the rond-point , along the avenue, into which ambuscade Ludovic and his friend, the Vicomte de Grancey, had just fallen, and from which there was now no decent retreat.

“ Parbleu ! ” cried the vicomte, accepting boldly the situation and commencing the attack — “ a fine day ladies.”

“ Very fine,” said Madame Durussel.

“ Very fine,” said the Marquise.

u Very fine,” repeated Elodie, with a melancholy air.

“Very true,” echoed Geraldine, who had never contradicted anyone in her life.

As to Corentine, she answered with a shout of laughter. Why ? — we have just said she never gave a reason to anyone else, any more than to herself, for her attacks of gaiety.

I know not if the conversation, which began under such difficulty, would have been sustained in a manner equally piquante and interesting, had it not been all at once interrupted by a new arrival — a young girl, in a tattered linen dress, approached and stood near the vicomte’s chair. A Madras handkerchief, from which the colors had long since faded, enveloped in picturesque fashion, a mass of blonde hair, part of "which fell in curls upon the child’s half-naked shoulders. Her pale, gaunt face bore traces of misery and suffering, but the coverings to her feet constituted the most original portion of her toilet. One of her feet was shod in a lady’s boot, the other with a shoe fastened by a double string. This young girl had a mournful but resigned air, and, in her eyes, the color of which it was difficult to determine, shone resolution and intelligence.

“ Go away ! ” said the vicomte, annoyed at seeing her near his chair.

FLEURETTE.

“ Yes,” cried Ludovic, “ they should pot allow beggars in the centre allees .”

“ I am no beggar ! ” said the young girl, raising her head proudly.

“ What are you then ? ” demanded the vicomte.

“ A marchande ,” she replied, as, reaching forward her right hand, which she had kept concealed behind her skirt, she showed three or four small bouquets of violets, more or less fresh, which she presented to the vicomte.

He made a gesture of contempt.

The young “ marchande ” then advanced towards Ludovic, presenting her flowers.

“ Leave me ! ” said the young man, repulsing her with the tips of his gloved fingers; “first go and wash your hands, which are not in good condition.”

The child made no answer, and even appeared not to hear, but the faint flush, which instantly suffused her pale cheeks, proved that the insult had reached her heart. She made a step towards the ladies, and offered them her bouquets in silence.

“Ho thanks,” said the marquise, with a severe air.

“ Don’t disturb me,” said Madame Durussel.

The young girl then turned toward the four young ladies, whom she passed in review in a single glance, and stopping before Clotilde she made a little courtesy of confidence, which seemed to say : “ you alone understand me.”

She was not mistaken, Clotilde took a bouquet.

“ Ah ! Clotilde ! ” cried Elodie, with disgust — “ can you think of it ? Those violets are horrid ! ”

“Very true,” said Geraldine.

Corentine laughed.

“ And besides,” said the Marquise, “ look at the girl ; she is scarcely dressed.”

“ An additional reason,” replied Clotilde ; “lam rich — you gave me my month’s allowance this morning. How much? she asked, turning with a pleasant look to the “ marchande .”

“ What you please, mademoiselle.”

“ That is not dear,” laughed Corentine.

“Very true,” said Geraldine.

“ Not at all,' ’ cried the vicomte, “ she is speculating on your generosity.”

FLEURETTE.

“ Two sous,” said the young girl quickly.

Clotilde took from her purse a small piece of silver and gave it to her.

“ I have no change,” said the marchancle ,” with an embarrassed look.

“ Keep the whole,” answered Clotilde, then regarding her with interest, “ Plow old are you ? ”

“Thirteen or fourteen, I believe, mademoiselle — I do not know exactly.”

44 What is your father’s occupation ? ”

44 I have lost him — my mother also.”

44 What did they do ? ”

“ I do not know, they came from Switzerland.”

“ Then, of course, you’re called 4 Lisbeth,’ ” said Ludovic, laughing.

“No, sir, my name is Marie.”

“ Ah ! how common ! ” said the vicomte ; “ everybody bears that name. If I were you, in order to make a fortune, I would change my name.”

“ I ask nothing better, if anyone will give me another.” While thus speaking the large eyes of the young girl were turned on Clotilde.

“Since you sell flowers,” said the latter, smiling, “ call yourself Fleur ette”

“ Thanks, god-mother,” replied the child with an expressive look.

“ She’s no fool,” said the marquise.

“ There is often intelligence among these children of the common people,” remarked Madame Durussel, with a patronising air. “ Have you no other occupation than this ? ”

“No, madame.”

“ And how does it suffice to procure your subsistence ? ”

“ It doesn’t,” replied the child quietly ; “ the days I gain nothing I eat nothing.”

At this moment the sun began to set, the air became very fresh, and the ladies hurriedly put on their wraps.

“ And you,” said Corentine, laughing, to the flower-girl, with your torn linen gown — how do you feel?”

“ I am cold, mademoiselle,” replied the girl with an indifferent air.

44 Where do you live ? ” inquired Clotilde in a whisper.

FLEURETTE .

“ I don’t know — where I can. When the day is fine, like this , godmother,” and she passed the coin which Clotildc had given her through her fingers, “I lodge with Madame Beaurin.”

“ Who is Madame Beaurin ? ” cried Ludovic.

“ A portress who gives me soup in the evening, and a bed at night ; provided I bring her ten sous a day, but when I cannot — the door is closed.”

Clotilde uttered an exclamation.

“ And you sleep in the open air — without supper ? ”

“In the spring that does very well, but autumn and winter come on — . If I had ouly something ahead — to establish myself with.”

“ To buy stock with ? ” said Ludovic, with a laugh.

“ Yes, sir, to buy and pay down for beautiful flowers, like these, but, living with difficulty from day to day, I can lay by nothing.”

“And how much is needed to establish you?” asked Clotilde.

“ A considerable sum, ten or a dozen francs, at least.”

“ Here are twenty,” cried Clotilde, who had kept her purse in her hand — “ my month’s allowance.”

“What are you doing there, mademoiselle?” exclaimed the marquise, in a severe tone.

“ I wish it to be said, cousin, that I, who have never had a chance to establish myself, have once in my life contributed to establish some one else”

“ Do you not see that, to play on your feelings, you have been told the same story that is told to everybody ? ”

“ And of which you are the dupe,” added the vicomte.

“ And be sure not to boast of it, mademoiselle,” said Ludovic ; “ you would be laughed at.”

Pending this discussion the little “ marchande ” had approached Clotilde, and blushing, but without speaking a word, returned the gold pieces, which Clotilde pushed back vigorously.

Elodie raised her eyes, Corentine broke into a laugh, and the marquise, with a frown at her daughters, said in an icy tone :

“ Let us go, mesdemoiselles, the weather is uncertain, and it begins to grow cold.”

FLEURETTE.

Ludovic, carrying his gallantry to the extreme, offered the marquise his arm, the vicomte did the same to Madame Durussell, the four young ladies walked, arm in arm, behind ; and thus the squadron took up the line of march for the carriages. Clotilde, who got into their coach last, turned for an instant and saw behind her Fleurette, who had followed. She carried to her lips the gold-piece which she owed to the generosity of her godmother.

CHAPTER H.

“ Say what they will,” murmured Clotilde, seating herself in the front of the carriage — “ Say what they will, the gold piece I gave the flower-girl is money well placed.”

“ Close the window,” said the marquise ; “we shall take cold.”

In hastening to obey her cousin Clotilde again saw Fleurette, who had approached the carriage and was endeavoring to catch sight of the crest on the panel.

The coachman plied his whip and the horses started, Clotilde uttered a cry.

Fleurette had barely missed being run over.

Our heroine had drawn back just in time ; she had only escaped, by a few inches, being thrown down and run over by the wheels.

Without reflecting on the danger she had run, Fleurette, who was not to be frightened at such a trifle, rushed after the carriage, which she followed for more than ten minutes. She hoped to overtake it, and know by the arms upon it, the name and family of her godmother.

But her strength disappointed her courage ; panting, out of breath, with the energetic will that formed the basis of her character, with hair dishevelled, she continued her pursuit, when fortune declared decisively against her and compelled her to halt. The strings which secured her shoe all at once broke, and it was impossible for her to continue barefooted, over the short pebbles, a race which had already

FLEURETTE .

exhausted her. So she was forced to give up the attempt to discover who her young benefactress was, but she did not give up thinking of, and blessing her.

From that day she invoked no other guardian angel, and to none other addressed — not her prayers — for Fleurette did not pray, but her souvenirs, her dreams, and her plans. A veritable bohemian ; no relative, no friend upon earth had ever yet extended her a hand ; and, without direction in her wandering life, she advanced at hazard, as likely to take the right as the wrong course.

She walked along, singing, with a light and joyous step, contemplating her golden piece, which she could not cease admiring. She had never before possessed such a treasure ; surely it must be inexhaustible ; and, like Perette in the fable of the milk-pail , she built on her gold piece a series of castles in the air, each more splendid than the rest.

First of all, she would buy at a bargain a suitable dress and bonnet, and especially shoes, with which she might present herself in good society, that is to say before the entrance to the Opera or the Theatre Italien from which the police had always hitherto sent her away. She would purchase in the morning, of a flower-gardener in a distant faubourg, beautiful bouquets suitable to the season, for which she would pay cash and therefore get much cheaper, and which she would sell again in the evening for the best price she could get.

She would speculate on a small quantity at first ; then, by degrees, she would extend her trade, and build up a custom. Then, after some years of economy, she would take a small shop on the boulevard. A secret instinct told her that she would one day be handsome, that she would have business tact, and would make a pretty and clever flower-merchant, whose shop would be much frequented by great ladies, and especially by young gentlemen.

While thus dreaming, she had gone down the avenue of the Champs Elysees, turned to the left, traversed theme du Faubourg , Saint Honor e, and entered the rue de la Pepiniere , which she followed throughout its length. Having reached its junction with the rue du Pocher , the rue Saint Lazar e, and the rue de V Arcade, she saw a crowd of people.

FLEUR ETTE .

A boy sixteen or seventeen years old, whom one would hardly have taken for more than twelve, so thin and puny did he appear, going along with his nose in the air, or staring at the passers-by, had stepped in a hole left by a missing flag-stone and fallen down. His fall had been more noisy than dangerous. By his box, in which had been several panes of glass, it was easy to be seen that he was a glaziers apprentice. The crash of the breaking glass had attracted the attention of those passing, and the jingle of the scattered fragments which surrounded the poor fellow, at first excited apprehensions that he might be injured. So they hastened to help him up. No people are naturally more obliging than the Parisians.

But when it was discovered that he had not received even a scratch, and that it was only a matter of some broken glass, every one went his way, thinking only of his own affairs ; and several of those Parisian youngsters who seem, at every accident, to spring up as if from the ground, and who, in every catastrophe, see only a subject for jest, went away laughing and saluting the young glazier as a member of the Court of Cassation .*

Fleurette arrived just as the poor bov had gotten upon his feet. Standing alone, in the midst of the ruin, he contemplated his misfortune, but not with dry eyes, for he had begun to weep. Fleurette ran to him.

“ What is the matter ? — are you hurt? ”

“ I do not know ; I believe I am.”

“ Pshaw ! — that is nothing to cry for.”

“ But I was carrying some goods, and on returning to the shop I am sure to be beaten.”

“What does it signify!” replied Fleurette in a hardy tone ; “ people are beaten without crying.”

The boy wiped his eyes, and, looking at her with a timid glance, as if ashamed of his weakness in the presence of one of such masculine courage, and seeking to excuse himself, he stammered :

“ My master, who is strong, and big, and brutal, will require me to pay, and, as I am not able, he will first beat me and then turn me out of doors, and then I don’t know what will become of me.”

* A play on the word “ ca»sor,” to break.”

FLEURETTE .

« You have never, then, slept under a gate? ”

“Nor in the open street ? ”

“ Never.”

“ I imagine, then, that the idea frightens you.”

“ I well believe it — without considering that I came out without my dinner, and that he will send me away without supper — I may count on that.”

And the boy again began to weep.

“ Be silent,” said Fleurette, in a tone of authority — “ it makes me sick to see a man cry. How much do you earn a day?”

“ Nothing, as yet. I was finishing my apprenticeship. It is only at the end of the month that I am to begin to earn wages.”

“And what was the value of the goods you had there?”

“ They were large window-panes, though they don’t look it now,” he said, casting a despairing look at the fragments scattered around him ; “ there were six or seven francs* worth of them.”

“ As much as that ! ” cried Fleurette, handling her goldpiece.

Her first impulse, one generous and charitable, which had prompted her to ask this question, was suddenly checked by the magnitude of the sum, which disarranged all her plans and combinations. However, remembering how very happy the unexpected generosity of her godmother had recently made her, she took the gold-piece from her pocket, impressed by I know not what secret presentiment that the pleasure which she had just experienced, in receiving, might oe surpassed by one still sweeter, that of giving.

“ Let us understand one another,” she said, for Fleurette was a girl who had a good head as well as a good heart, and who to mother-wit added a capacity for business ; “ if one lent you six francs, would you repay them ? ”

“ Lend six francs to me ! — who would venture to do that ? ”

“ But if there are bold people who are not afraid, would you repay them ? ”

“ There are few chances of it,” he answered artlessly ; “but”—