She was said to be an active
helpmate of old Count de Navarede, the president of a society of Catholic
propaganda. Gaston, her son, having left Saint-Cyr three months
previously, was now at the Cavalry School of Saumur, so fired with
passion for a military career that he already spoke of remaining a
bachelor, since a soldier's sword should be his only love, his only
spouse. Then Lucie, now nineteen years old, and full of mystical
exaltation, had already entered an Ursuline convent for her novitiate.
And in the big empty home, whence father, mother, brother and sister
fled, there remained but the gentle and adorable Andree, exposed to all
the blasts of insanity which even now swept through the household, and so
distressed by loneliness, that her uncle, Du Hordel, full of
compassionate affection, conceived the idea of giving her a husband in
the person of young Ambroise, the future conqueror.
This plan was helped on by the renewed presence of Celeste the maid.
Eight years had elapsed since Valentine had been obliged to dismiss this
woman for immorality; and during those eight years Celeste, weary of
service, had tried a number of equivocal callings of which she did not
speak.
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