The Project Gutenberg EBook of Albert Savarus, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Albert Savarus

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Ellen Marriage

Release Date: September, 1999 [Etext #1898]
Posting Date: March 5, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALBERT SAVARUS ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

ALBERT SAVARUS

By Honore de Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION

To Madame Emile Girardin

ALBERT SAVARUS

One of the few drawing-rooms where, under the Restoration, the
Archbishop of Besancon was sometimes to be seen, was that of the Baronne
de Watteville, to whom he was particularly attached on account of her
religious sentiments.

A word as to this lady, the most important lady of Besancon.

Monsieur de Watteville, a descendant of the famous Watteville, the most
successful and illustrious of murderers and renegades--his extraordinary
adventures are too much a part of history to be related here--this
nineteenth century Monsieur de Watteville was as gentle and peaceable
as his ancestor of the _Grand Siecle_ had been passionate and turbulent.
After living in the _Comte_ (La Franche Comte) like a wood-louse in the
crack of a wainscot, he had married the heiress of the celebrated house
of Rupt. Mademoiselle de Rupt brought twenty thousand francs a year in
the funds to add to the ten thousand francs a year in real estate of the
Baron de Watteville. The Swiss gentleman's coat-of-arms (the Wattevilles
are Swiss) was then borne as an escutcheon of pretence on the old shield
of the Rupts. The marriage, arranged in 1802, was solemnized in 1815
after the second Restoration. Within three years of the birth of a
daughter all Madame de Watteville's grandparents were dead, and their
estates wound up. Monsieur de Watteville's house was then sold, and
they settled in the Rue de la Prefecture in the fine old mansion of the
Rupts, with an immense garden stretching to the Rue du Perron. Madame
de Watteville, devout as a girl, became even more so after her marriage.
She is one of the queens of the saintly brot