h wit to conceal this truth from
himself; but an estate might be purchased; and Malicorne of some place,
or even De Malicorne itself, for short, would ring more nobly on the
ear.

It was not improbable that a most aristocratic origin might be hunted up
by the heralds for this name of Malicorne; might it not come from some
estate where a bull with mortal horns had caused some great misfortune,
and baptized the soil with the blood it had spilt? Certes, this plan
presented itself bristling with difficulties: but the greatest of all
was Mademoiselle de Montalais herself. Capricious, variable, close,
giddy, free, prudish, a virgin armed with claws, Erigone stained with
grapes, she sometimes overturned, with a single dash of her white
fingers, or with a single puff from her laughing lips, the edifice which
had exhausted Malicorne's patience for a month.

Love apart, Malicorne was happy; but this love, which he could not help
feeling, he had the strength to conceal with care; persuaded that at the
least relaxing of the ties by which he had bound his Protean female,
the demon would overthrow and laugh at him. He humbled his mistress by
disdaining her. Burning with desire, when she advanced to tempt him,
he had the art to appear ice, persuaded that if he opened his arms, she
would run away laughing at him. On her side, Montalais believed she
did not love Malicorne; whilst, on the contrary, in reality she did.
Malicorne repeated to her so often his protestation of indifference,
that she finished, sometimes, by believing him; and then she believed
she detested Malicorne. If she tried to bring him back by coquetry,
Malicorne played the coquette better than she could. But what made
Montalais hold to Malicorne in an indissoluble fashion, was that
Malicorne always came cram full of fresh news from the court and the
city; Malicorne always brought to Blois a fashion, a secret, or a
perfume; that Malicorne never asked for a meeting, but, on the contrary,
required to be supplicated to receive the favors he burned to obtain. On
her side, Montalais was no miser with stories. By her means, Malicorne
learnt all that passed at Blois, in the family of the dowager Madame;
and he related to Manicamp tales that made him ready to die with
laughing, which the latter, out of idleness, took ready-made to M. de
Guiche, who carried them to Monsieur.

Such, in two words, was the woof of petty interests and petty
conspiracies which united Blois with Or