nvested with
all the fascination which beauty of face, simplicity of mind, purity
of soul, sweetness of disposition and joyousness of spirit can impart.
Yet she is, and feels herself to be, entirely _bourgeoise,_ longing
for no ideal heights, worldly or spiritual, ready for all ordinary
duties, content with simple and innocent pleasures, rinding in the
life, the thoughts, the occupations and enjoyments of her class all
that is needed to make the current of her life run smoothly and to
satisfy the cravings of her bright but gentle nature. It is in simple
obedience to the will of her parents that she marries Count Roger
d'Ornis, and is carried from her happy home at Mon-Plaisir to a
dilapidated castle in the Jura, where there are no smiling faces or
loving hearts to make her welcome--where, on the contrary, she meets
only with haughty, spiteful or morose looks and a chilling and gloomy
atmosphere. It is from sheer necessity that she accepts the aid
of Joseph Noirel, her father's head-workman, whose ardent spirit,
quickened by the consciousness of talent, but rendered morbid by the
slights which his birth and position have entailed, has been plunged
into blackest night by the loss of the single star that had illumined
its firmament. Count Roger is not wholly devoid of honor and
generosity; but he has no true appreciation of his wife, and will
sacrifice her without remorse to save his own reputation. Joseph, on
the other hand, is ready to dare all things to protect her from
harm; but he cannot forego the reward which entails upon her a deeper
misery. It is Marguerite alone who, in the terrible struggle of fate
and of clashing interests and desires, rises to the height of absolute
self-abnegation; and this not through any sudden development of
qualities or intuitions foreign to her previous modes of thought,
but by the simple application of these to the hard and complicated
problems which have suddenly confronted her. Herein lies the novelty
of the conception and the lesson which the author has apparently
intended to convey. See, he seems to say, how the bourgeois nature,
equally scorned by the classes above and below it as the embodiment of
vulgar ease and selfishness, contains precisely the elements of true
heroism which are wanting alike in those who set conventional rules
above moral laws and in those who revolt against all restrictions. The
book is thus an apology for a class which is no favorite with poets
or romancers