applied to Daae, when
Carlotta was taken ill? Did they know of her hidden genius? And, if
they knew of it, why had they kept it hidden? And why had she kept it
hidden? Oddly enough, she was not known to have a professor of singing
at that moment. She had often said she meant to practise alone for the
future. The whole thing was a mystery.

The Comte de Chagny, standing up in his box, listened to all this
frenzy and took part in it by loudly applauding. Philippe Georges
Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age. He was a great
aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle height and with
attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold
eyes. He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to
the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.
He had an excellent heart and an irreproachable conscience. On the
death of old Count Philibert, he became the head of one of the oldest
and most distinguished families in France, whose arms dated back to the
fourteenth century. The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and,
when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for
Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate. His two
sisters and his brother, Raoul, would not hear of a division and waived
their claim to their shares, leaving themselves entirely in Philippe's
hands, as though the right of primogeniture had never ceased to exist.
When the two sisters married, on the same day, they received their
portion from their brother, not as a thing rightfully belonging to
them, but as a dowry for which they thanked him.

The Comtesse de Chagny, nee de Moerogis de La Martyniere, had died in
giving birth to Raoul, who was born twenty years after his elder
brother. At the time of the old count's death, Raoul was twelve years
of age. Philippe busied himself actively with the youngster's
education. He was admirably assisted in this work first by his sisters
and afterward by an old aunt, the widow of a naval officer, who lived
at Brest and gave young Raoul a taste for the sea. The lad entered the
Borda training-ship, finished his course with honors and quietly made
his trip round the world. Thanks to powerful influence, he had just
been appointed a member of the official expedition on board the Requin,
which was to be sent to the Arctic Circle in search of the survivors of
the D'Artoi's expedition, of whom nothing had been hear