XXXVI. In which M. de Florac is promoted

However much Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry was disposed to admire and praise
her own conduct in the affair which ended so unfortunately for poor
Lord Kew, between whom and the Gascon her grace vowed that she had done
everything in her power to prevent a battle, the old Duke, her lord,
was, it appeared, by no means delighted with his wife's behaviour,
nay, visited her with his very sternest displeasure. Miss O'Grady, the
Duchesse's companion, and her little girl's instructress, at this time
resigned her functions in the Ivry family; it is possible that in the
recriminations consequent upon the governess's dismissal, the Miss
Irlandaise, in whom the family had put so much confidence, divulged
stories unfavourable to her patroness, and caused the indignation of the
Duke, her husband. Between Florac and the Duchesse there was also open
war and rupture. He had been one of Kew's seconds in the latter's affair
with the Vicomte's countryman. He had even cried out for fresh pistols,
and proposed to engage Castillonnes, when his gallant principal fell;
and though a second duel was luckily averted as murderous and needless,
M. de Florac never hesitated afterwards, and in all companies, to
denounce with the utmost virulence the instigator and the champion of
the odious original quarrel. He vowed that the Duchesse had shot le
petit Kiou as effectually as if she had herself fired the pistol at his
breast. Murderer, poisoner, Brinvilliers, a hundred more such epithets
he used against his kinswoman, regretting that the good old times were
past--that there was no Chambre Ardente to try her, and no rack and
wheel to give her her due.

The biographer of the Newcomes has no need (although he possesses the
fullest information) to touch upon the Duchesse's doings, further than
as they relate to that most respectable English family. When the Duke
took his wife into the country, Florac never hesitated to say that
to live with her was dangerous for the old man, and to cry out to his
friends of the Boulevards or the Jockey Club, "Ma parole d'honneur,
cette femme le tuera!"

Do you know, O gentle and unsuspicious readers, or have you ever
reckoned as you have made your calculation of society, how many most
respectable husbands help to kill their wives--how many respectable
wives aid in sending their husbands to Hades? The wife of a
chimney-sweep or a journeyman butcher comes shuddering before a police
m