A countess,
beautiful, witty and virtuous!--what a prey for the tongues of the
world! Felix had broken with too many women, and too many women had
broken with him, to leave them indifferent to his marriage. When these
women beheld in Madame de Vandenesse a small woman with red hands, and
rather awkward manner, saying little, and apparently not thinking
much, they thought themselves sufficiently avenged. The disasters of
July, 1830, supervened; society was dissolved for two years; the rich
evaded the turmoil and left Paris either for foreign travel or for
their estates in the country, and none of the salons reopened until
1833. When that time came, the faubourg Saint-Germain still sulked,
but it held intercourse with a few houses, regarding them as neutral
ground,--among others that of the Austrian ambassador, where the
legitimist society and the new social world met together in the
persons of their best representatives.
Attached by many ties of the heart and by gratitude to the exiled
family, and strong in his personal convictions, Vandenesse did not
consider himself obliged to imitate the silly behavior of his party.
In times of danger, he had done his duty at the risk of his life; his
fidelity had never been compromised, and he determined to take his
wife into general society without fear of its becoming so. His former
mistresses could scarcely recognize the bride they had thought so
childish in the elegant, witty, and gentle countess, who now appeared
in society with the exquisite manners of the highest female
aristocracy.
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