scandal--I have seen the animal before, and I own that I have
no great liking for him--Langeais is stingy enough, and he does not care
a rap for anyone but himself; he will have a separation; he will stick
to your money, and leave you poor, and consequently you will be a
nobody. The income of a hundred thousand livres that you have just
inherited from your maternal great-aunt will go to pay for his
mistresses' amusements. You will be bound and gagged by the law;
you will have to say _Amen_ to all these arrangements. Suppose M. de
Montriveau leaves you----dear me! do not let us put ourselves in a
passion, my dear niece; a man does not leave a woman while she is young
and pretty; still, we have seen so many pretty women left disconsolate,
even among princesses, that you will permit the supposition, an all but
impossible supposition I quite wish to believe.----Well, suppose that
he goes, what will become of you without a husband? Keep well with your
husband as you take care of your beauty; for beauty, after all, is a
woman's parachute, and a husband also stands between you and worse. I
am supposing that you are happy and loved to the end, and I am leaving
unpleasant or unfortunate events altogether out of the reckoning. This
being so, fortunately or unfortunately, you may have children. What are
they to be? Montriveaus? Very well; they certainly will not succeed to
their father's whole fortune. You will want to give them all that you
have; he will wish to do the same. Nothing more natural, dear me!
And you will find the law against you. How many times have we
seen heirs-at-law bringing a law-suit to recover the property from
illegitimate children? Every court of law rings with such actions all
over the world. You will create a _fidei commissum_ perhaps; and if the
trustee betrays your confidence, your children have no remedy against
him; and they are ruined. So choose carefully. You see the perplexities
of the position. In every possible way your children will be sacrificed
of necessity to the fancies of your heart; they will have no recognised
status. While they are little they will be charming; but, Lord! some day
they will reproach you for thinking of no one but your two selves. We
old gentlemen know all about it. Little boys grow up into men, and men
are ungrateful beings. When I was in Germany, did I not hear young de
Horn say, after supper, 'If my mother had been an honest woman, I should
be prince-regnant!' _If_?' We