that a fisherman had spread his
net at the very place where poor Athanase had flung himself, believing
that no one would ever find him. About six o'clock in the morning the
man drew in his net, and with it the young body. The few friends of
the poor mother took every precaution in preparing her to receive the
dreadful remains. The news of this suicide made, as may well be
supposed, a great excitement in Alencon. The poor young man of genius
had no protector the night before, but on the morrow of his death a
thousand voices cried aloud, "I would have helped him." It is so easy
and convenient to be charitable gratis!

The suicide was explained by the Chevalier de Valois. He revealed, in
a spirit of revenge, the artless, sincere, and genuine love of
Athanase for Mademoiselle Cormon. Madame Granson, enlightened by the
chevalier, remembered a thousand little circumstances which confirmed
the chevalier's statement. The story then became touching, and many
women wept over it. Madame Granson's grief was silent, concentrated,
and little understood. There are two forms of mourning for mothers.
Often the world can enter fully into the nature of their loss: their
son, admired, appreciated, young, perhaps handsome, with a noble path
before him, leading to fortune, possibly to fame, excites universal
regret; society joins in the grief, and alleviates while it magnifies
it. But there is another sorrow of mothers who alone know what their
child was really; who alone have received his smiles and observed the
treasures of a life too soon cut short. That sorrow hides its woe, the
blackness of which surpasses all other mourning; it cannot be
described; happily there are but few women whose heart-strings are
thus severed.

Before Madame du Bousquier returned to town, Madame du Ronceret, one
of her good friends, had driven out to Prebaudet to fling this corpse
upon the roses of her joy, to show her the love she had ignored, and
sweetly shed a thousand drops of wormwood into the honey of her bridal
month. As Madame du Bousquier drove back to Alencon, she chanced to
meet Madame Granson at the corner of the rue Val-Noble. The glance of
the mother, dying of her grief, struck to the heart of the poor woman.
A thousand maledictions, a thousand flaming reproaches, were in that
look: Madame du Bousquier was horror-struck; that glance predicted and
called down evil upon her head.

The evening after the catastrophe, Madame Granson, one of the pers