The Project Gutenberg EBook of Paz, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Paz
(La Fausse Maitresse)

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Katharine Prescott Wormeley

Release Date: July, 1998 [Etext #1369]
Posting Date: February 23, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PAZ ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

PAZ

(La Fausse Maitresse)

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Katharine Prescott Wormeley

DEDICATION

Dedicated to the Comtesse Clara Maffei.

PAZ

(LA FAUSSE MAITRESSE)

I

In September, 1835, one of the richest heiresses of the faubourg
Saint-Germain, Mademoiselle du Rouvre, the only daughter of the Marquis
du Rouvre, married Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, a young Polish exile.

We ask permission to write these Polish names as they are pronounced,
to spare our readers the aspect of the fortifications of consonants
by which the Slave language protects its vowels,--probably not to lose
them, considering how few there are.

The Marquis du Rouvre had squandered nearly the whole of a princely
fortune, which he obtained originally through his marriage with a
Demoiselle de Ronquerolles. Therefore, on her mother's side Clementine
du Rouvre had the Marquis de Ronquerolles for uncle, and Madame de
Serizy for aunt. On her father's side she had another uncle in the
eccentric person of the Chevalier du Rouvre, a younger son of the house,
an old bachelor who had become very rich by speculating in lands and
houses. The Marquis de Ronquerolles had the misfortune to lose both
his children at the time of the cholera, and the only son of Madame
de Serizy, a young soldier of great promise, perished in Africa in
the affair of the Makta. In these days rich families stand between the
danger of impoverishing their children if they have too many, or of
extinguishing their names if they have too few,--a singular result of
the Code which Napoleon never thought of. By a curious turn of fortune
Clementine became, in spite of her father having squandered his
substance on Florine (one of the most charming actresses in P