第46章

THE COMTE DE L'ESTORADE TO MONSIEUR MARIE-GASTONParis, February, 1839.

Perhaps, my dear Monsieur Gaston, the public journals will have told you before this letter can arrive of the duel fought yesterday between your friend Monsieur Dorlange and the Duc de Rhetore.But the papers, while announcing the fact as a piece of news, are debarred by custom and propriety from inferring the motives of a quarrel, and therefore they will only excite your curiosity without satisfying it.

I have, fortunately, heard from a very good source, all the details of the affair, and I hasten to transmit them to you; they are, I think, of a nature to interest you to the highest degree.

Three days ago, that is to say on the very evening of the day when Ipaid my visit to Monsieur Dorlange, the Duc de Rhetore occupied a stall at the Opera-house.Next to him sat Monsieur de Ronquerolles, who has recently returned from a diplomatic mission which kept him out of France for several years.During the entr'acte these gentlemen did not leave their seats to walk about the foyer; but, as is often done, they stood up, with their backs to the stage, facing the audience and consequently Monsieur Dorlange, who was seated directly behind them, seeming to be absorbed in an evening newspaper.There had been that day a very scandalous, or what is called a very interesting, session of the Chamber of deputies.

The conversation between the duke and the marquis having naturally turned on the events of Parisian society which had taken place during Monsieur de Ronquerolles' absence, the latter made the following remark which was of a nature to rouse the attention of Monsieur Dorlange.

"Your poor sister Madame de Macumer! what a sad end, after her singular marriage!""Ah! you know," replied Monsieur de Rhetore, in that high-pitched tone of his, "my sister had too much imagination not to be romantic and visionary.She loved her first husband, Monsieur de Macumer, passionately, but after a time one gets tired of everything, even widowhood.This Marie-Gaston crossed her path.He is agreeable in person; my sister was rich; he was deeply in debt and behaved with corresponding eagerness and devotion.The result was that the scoundrel not only succeeded Monsieur de Macumer and killed his wife with jealousy, but he got out of her every penny the law allowed the poor foolish woman to dispose of.My sister's property amounted to at least twelve hundred thousand francs, not counting a delightful villa splendidly furnished which she built at Ville d'Avray.Half of this that man obtained, the other half went to the Duc and Duchesse de Chaulieu, my father and mother, who were entitled to it by law as heirs ascendant.As for my brother Lenoncourt and myself, we were simply disinherited."As soon as your name, my dear Monsieur Gaston, was uttered, Monsieur Dorlange laid aside his newspaper, and then, as Monsieur de Rhetore ended his remarks, he rose and said:--"Pardon me, Monsieur le duc, if I venture to correct your statement;but, as a matter of conscience, I ought to inform you that you are totally misinformed.""What is that you say?" returned the duke, blinking his eyes and speaking in that contemptuous tone we can all imagine.

"I say, Monsieur le duc, that Marie-Gaston is my friend from childhood; he has never been thought a scoundrel; on the contrary, the world knows him as a man of honor and talent.So far from killing his wife with jealousy, he made her perfectly happy during the three years their marriage lasted.As for the property--""Have you considered, monsieur," said the Duc de Rhetore, interrupting him, "the result of such language?""Thoroughly, monsieur; and I repeat that the property left to Marie-Gaston by the will of his wife is so little desired by him that, to my knowledge, he is about to spend a sum of two or three hundred thousand francs in building a mausoleum for a wife whom he has never ceased to mourn.""After all, monsieur, who are you?" said the Duc de Rhetore, again interrupting him with ill-restrained impatience.

"Presently," replied Monsieur Dorlange, "I shall have the honor to tell you; you must now permit me to add that the property of which you say you have been disinherited Madame Marie-Gaston had the right to dispose of without any remorse of conscience.It came from her first husband, the Baron de Macumer; and she had, previously to that marriage, given up her own property in order to constitute a fortune for your brother, the Duc de Lenoncourt-Givry, who, as younger son, had not, like you, Monsieur le Duc, the advantages of an entail."So saying, Monsieur Dorlange felt in his pocket for his card-case.

"I have no cards with me," he said at last, "but my name is Dorlange, a theatrical name, easy to remember, and I live at No.42 rue de l'Ouest.""Not a very central quarter," remarked Monsieur de Rhetore, ironically.Then turning to Monsieur de Ronquerolles, whom he thus constituted one of his seconds, "I beg your pardon, my dear fellow,"he said, "for the voyage of discovery you will have to undertake for me to-morrow morning." And then almost immediately he added: "Come to the foyer; we can talk there with greater safety."By his manner of accenting the last word it was impossible to mistake the insulting meaning he intended to attach to it.

The two gentlemen having left their seats, without this scene attracting any notice, in consequence of the stalls being empty for the most part during the entr'acte, Monsieur Dorlange saw at some distance the celebrated sculptor Stidmann, and went up to him.

"Have you a note-book of any kind in your pocket?" he said.

"Yes, I always carry one."