Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847

"'It was not done on purpose,' said a bystander, with great naiveté.

"'We will plant another,' cried a voice from the crowd.

"'In the same place?' asked the baron.

"'Yes, in the same place,' replied the voice.

"'Then I beg to be invited to the ceremony,' said M. de Vaudrey, with imperturbable phlegm; 'some of you seem to have very confused notions with regard to other people's property, and I undertake to complete your education.'

"At that moment the poplar, into whose heart the flames had eaten, gave a loud crack, quivered above the heads of the startled crowd, and broke in the middle. The lower half remained erect, whilst the upper portion fell blazing upon the ruins of the triumphal arch, as, in a duel, a desperately wounded combatant falls expiring upon the body of his slain foe.

"Toussaint Gilles, Gautherot, and Laverdun had all risen from their recumbent attitude, but none of them showed a disposition to recommence the engagement. The butcher wiped his bleeding muzzle with a cotton handkerchief, and seemed to count, with the end of his tongue, how many teeth he had left; the grocer, pale as his own tallow candles, examined his throat with a trembling hand, to make sure that the fangs of the terrible Sultan had not penetrated beyond the cravat; finally, the Captain gnawed his mustache, but dared not manifest his fury otherwise."

This energetic interference of the baron and his two aid-de-camps, biped and quadruped, and the fall of the tree of liberty, which the rioters, superstitious in spite of their republicanism, look upon as a bad omen, put an end to the disturbance. The disaffected disperse, and M. de Vaudrey enters his nephew's house, where an amusing scene occurs between him and Madame de Bonvalot. Then come a robbery and a fire, and abundance of incidents—some tolerably new in conception, all very pleasant in narration. The good sense, perspicacity and straightforward dealing of the baron, subjugate every one. He unmasks the fictitious viscount, cures his nephew of his electioneering ambition, and the painted dowager of her longing for an invite to the Tuileries; and adopts Froidevaux—whose father had saved his life at Leipsic, and who has himself picked the baron out of a burning house—as his son and heir, thus rendering him a suitable husband for the pretty Victorine. The story ends, as all proper-behaved novels should end, with the discomfiture of the wicked, and a prospect of many years of happiness for the virtuous. In this agreeable perspective, Madame de Bonvalot is a sharer. Having, by the adoption of Froidevaux, alienated the greater part of his fortune from his nephew's children, the baron is resolved to secure them the reversion of their grandmother's ample jointure. But Madame de Bonvalot, whose wrinkles are hidden by her rouge, forgets the half century that has passed over her head, and hankers after matrimony. To preserve her from it, M. de Vaudrey commences a course of delicate attentions, sufficiently marked to prevent her favouring other admirers, but duly regulated by thermometer, and warranted never to rise to marrying point. And the fall of the curtain leaves the humorous old soldier of fifty-five and the vain coquette of fifty, fairly embarked upon the tepid and rose-coloured stream of flirtation; he quizzing her, she admiring him—she thinking of her wedding, he only of her will. A new and ingenious idea, worthy of a French novelist, and which, we apprehend, could by no possibility have occurred to any other.

We shall close this paper with a tale, appended, as make-weight, to the final volume of the "Gentilhomme Campagnard", and whose brevity recommends it for extraction. It is too short and slight to be a fair specimen of M. de Bernard's powers, but, as far as it goes, it is as witty and amusing as any thing he has written. It is entitled—

A CONSULTATION

Towards the beginning of last autumn, amongst a number of persons assembled in Doctor Magnian's waiting room, sat a man of about forty years of age, fair complexioned, thin, pale, with a slight stoop in his shoulders, and altogether of a weak and sickly aspect, that would have convinced any one he was in the house of a physician. On his entrance, this person had established himself in a corner with an uneasy air, and there waited until all the other patients had had their consultations. When the last had departed, the master of the house approached him with a friendly smile.

"Good morning, Bouchereau," said the doctor; "excuse me for making you wait; but my time belongs in the first instance to the sick, and I trust you have no such claim on an early audience."

"The sufferings of the mind are worse than those of the body," said the pale man, with a stifled sigh.

"What's the matter?" cried the doctor. "You look haggard and anxious. Surely Madame Bouchereau is not ill?"

"My wife is in robust health," replied Bouchereau, smiling bitterly.

"Then what is the cause of your agitation? The mind, say you? If you do not speak, how am I to tell what passes in yours? Come, how can I serve you?"

"My dear doctor," said the other, sitting down with a most dejected countenance, "we have known each other for twenty years. I look upon you as my best friend, and in you I have unlimited confidence."

"Well, well!" said the doctor—"enough of compliments."

"They are not compliments; I speak from my heart. And the strange confession I have resolved to make to you will be sufficient proof of my esteem for your character."

"To the point!" cried Magnian impatiently.

"The fact is melancholy for me, and may even appear ridiculous. That is why I hesitate. Promise me, in the first place, never to reveal what I am about to tell you."

"The secret of the confessional is as sacred for the physician as for the priest," said Doctor Magnian gravely.

Bouchereau again sighed, bit his lips, and gazed up at the ceiling. "You know Pelletier?" he at last said, looking piteously at his friend.

"The captain on the staff? Of course I do. Sanguine habit, short neck, more shoulders than brains, organisation of a bull! I have always predicted he would die of apoplexy."

"Heaven fulfil your prophecy!"

"You astonish me! I thought you friends."

"Friends!" repeated Bouchereau, with mingled irony, and indignation.

"Que diantre! Speak out, or hold your tongue. I am no Œdipus to guess your riddle."

The impatience that sparkled in the doctor's eyes brought his doleful friend to the substance of his intended confession.

"Well, my dear Magnian," said he, in an agitated voice, "in two words, here is the case: Pelletier makes love to my wife."

To conceal a smile, the doctor protruded his under-lip, and nodded his head several times with affected gravity.

"Who would have thought it?" he at last exclaimed. "I never suspected the great dragoon of such good taste. But are you quite sure? Husbands are usually the last persons to discover those things."

"I am only too sure; and you shall hear how. My wife is at Fontainbleau, passing a few days with her mother. The day before yesterday I happened to remark that the key of my desk fitted her drawers. Mechanically, I opened one of them, and in a sort of mysterious pigeon-hole I found several letters from Pelletier."

"The deuce you did! But why open drawers belonging to your wife?"

"It is my right. Besides, do not judge hastily. From the tenor of the correspondence, I am convinced Virginia's only fault is to have received the letters and concealed the fact from me. I am pretty sure she has given the writer no encouragement, and I am therefore much less angry with her than with Pelletier. Him I will never pardon. A man to whom I have thrown open my house! an old comrade at Sainte Barbe! A friend, in short; at least I thought him so!"

"You forget that one is never betrayed but by one's friends."

"I called upon him yesterday."

"Ah!"

"I reproached him with his shameful conduct. Can you guess his answer?"

"He denied the fact."

"At first. But when I showed him his letters he saw it was useless to lie. 'My dear Bouchereau,' he said, in his impertinent manner, 'since you know all about it, I will not take the trouble to contradict you. It is perfectly true that I am in love with your wife; I have told her so already, and I cannot promise you that I will not tell her so again, for very likely I should not keep my promise. I perfectly understand my conduct may be disagreeable to you, but you know I am too much the gentleman not to accept the responsibility of my acts and deeds. And if you feel offended, I am at your orders, ready to give you satisfaction, when, where, and how you like.'"

"Very cool indeed!" said the physician, struggling violently to keep his countenance. "What! he had the effrontery to tell you that?"

"Word for word."

"And what was your answer?"

"That he should hear from me shortly. Then I left him, deeming further discussion unbecoming. And so the matter stands."

The Doctor looked grave. After walking once up and down the room, his eyes on the ground, his hands behind his back, he returned to his visitor.

"What shall you do?" he said, looking him steadily in the face.

"What do you advise?"

"Such behaviour is very hard to put up with, but on the other hand, I should be sorry to see you engaged in a duel with that bully Pelletier."

"A professed duellist," cried Bouchereau, his eyes opening wider and wider; "a man who passes his mornings in the shooting gallery and fencing room, and has a duel regularly once a quarter!"