became intellectual and beautiful to her husband. During the first
years of their married life, Balthazar endeavored to give her at least
the knowledge that she needed to appear to advantage in good society:
but he was doubtless too late, she had no memory but that of the
heart. Josephine never forgot anything that Claes told her relating
to themselves; she remembered the most trifling circumstances of their
happy life; but of her evening studies nothing remained to her on the
morrow.

This ignorance might have caused much discord between husband and wife,
but Madame Claes's understanding of the passion of love was so simple
and ingenuous, she loved her husband so religiously, so sacredly, and
the thought of preserving her happiness made her so adroit, that she
managed always to seem to understand him, and it was seldom indeed that
her ignorance was evident. Moreover, when two persons love one another
so well that each day seems for them the beginning of their passion,
phenomena arise out of this teeming happiness which change all the
conditions of life. It resembles childhood, careless of all that is not
laughter, joy, and merriment. Then, when life is in full activity, when
its hearths glow, man lets the fire burn without thought or discussion,
without considering either the means or the end.

No daughter of Eve ever more truly understood the calling of a wife than
Madame Claes. She had all the submission of a Flemish woman, but her
Spanish pride gave it a higher flavor. Her bearing was imposing; she
knew how to command respect by a look which expressed her sense of birth
and dignity: but she trembled before Claes; she held him so high, so
near to God, carrying to him every act of her life, every thought of
her heart, that her love was not without a certain respectful fear
which made it keener. She proudly assumed all the habits of a Flemish
bourgeoisie, and put her self-love into making the home life liberally
happy,--preserving every detail of the house in scrupulous cleanliness,
possessing nothing that did not serve the purposes of true comfort,
supplying her table with the choicest food, and putting everything
within those walls into harmony with the life of her heart.

The pair had two sons and two daughters. The eldest, Marguerite, was
born in 1796. The last child was a boy, now three years old, named
Jean-Balthazar. The maternal sentiment in Madame Claes was almost equal
to her love for her husband; and ther