richest families in France, he had considerably increased the revenues
of his great estates by marrying seven months before the night on which
this history begins, Jeanne de Saint-Savin, a young lady who, by a not
uncommon chance in days when people were killed off like flies, had
suddenly become the representative of both branches of the Saint-Savin
family. Necessity and terror were the causes which led to this union.
At a banquet given, two months after the marriage, to the Comte and
Comtesse d'Herouville, a discussion arose on a topic which in those days
of ignorance was thought amusing: namely, the legitimacy of children
coming into the world ten months after the death of their fathers, or
seven months after the wedding day.

"Madame," said the count brutally, turning to his wife, "if you give me
a child ten months after my death, I cannot help it; but be careful that
you are not brought to bed in seven months!"

"What would you do then, old bear?" asked the young Marquis de Verneuil,
thinking that the count was joking.

"I should wring the necks of mother and child!"

An answer so peremptory closed the discussion, imprudently started by
a seigneur from Lower Normandy. The guests were silent, looking with a
sort of terror at the pretty Comtesse d'Herouville. All were convinced
that if such an event occurred, her savage lord would execute his
threat.

The words of the count echoed in the bosom of the young wife, then
pregnant; one of those presentiments which furrow a track like lightning
through the soul, told her that her child would be born at seven months.
An inward heat overflowed her from head to foot, sending the life's
blood to her heart with such violence that the surface of her body felt
bathed in ice. From that hour not a day had passed that the sense of
secret terror did not check every impulse of her innocent gaiety. The
memory of the look, of the inflections of voice with which the
count accompanied his words, still froze her blood, and silenced her
sufferings, as she leaned over that sleeping head, and strove to see
some sign of a pity she had vainly sought there when awake.

The child, threatened with death before its life began, made so vigorous
a movement that she cried aloud, in a voice that seemed like a sigh,
"Poor babe!"

She said no more; there are ideas that a mother cannot bear. Incapable
of reasoning at this moment, the countess was almost choked with the
intensity of a suffering as