she seemed to love him better at that
moment than ever before. She answered that every hour made him dearer
to her. She found in the training of his soul, and in the culture of
his mind, pleasures akin to those she had tasted in feeding him with her
milk. She put all her pride and self-love into making him superior
to herself, and not in ruling him. Hearts without tenderness covet
dominion, but a true love treasures abnegation, that virtue of strength.
When Etienne could not at first comprehend a demonstration, a theme, a
theory, the poor mother, who was present at the lessons, seemed to
long to infuse knowledge, as formerly she had given nourishment at the
child's least cry. And then, what joy suffused her eyes when Etienne's
mind seized the true sense of things and appropriated it. She proved, as
Pierre de Sebonde said, that a mother is a dual being whose sensations
cover two existences.

"Ah, if some woman as loving as I could infuse into him hereafter the
life of love, how happy he might be!" she often thought.

But the fatal interests which consigned Etienne to the priesthood
returned to her mind, and she kissed the hair that the scissors of the
Church were to shear, leaving her tears upon them. Still, in spite of
the unjust compact she had made with the duke, she could not see Etienne
in her visions of the future as priest or cardinal; and the absolute
forgetfulness of the father as to his first-born, enabled her to
postpone the moment of putting him into Holy Orders.

"There is time enough," she said to herself.

The day came when all her cares, inspired by a sentiment which seemed
to enter into the flesh of her son and give it life, had their reward.
Beauvouloir--that blessed man whose teachings had proved so precious to
the child, and whose anxious glance at that frail idol had so often made
the duchess tremble--declared that Etienne was now in a condition
to live long years, provided no violent emotion came to convulse his
delicate body. Etienne was then sixteen.

At that age he was just five feet, a height he never passed. His skin,
as transparent and satiny as that of a little girl, showed a delicate
tracery of blue veins; its whiteness was that of porcelain. His eyes,
which were light blue and ineffably gentle, implored the protection of
men and women; that beseeching look fascinated before the melody of
his voice was heard to complete the charm. True modesty was in every
feature. Long chestnut hair,