Chapter 17

A DEATH: A MARRIAGE

Felicite's tender love was preparing for Calyste a prosperous future.
Being allied to the family of Grandlieu, the ducal branch of which was
ending in five daughters for lack of a male heir, she had written to
the Duchesse de Grandlieu, describing Calyste and giving his history,
and also stating certain intentions of her own, which were as follows:
She had lately sold her house in the rue du Mont-Blanc, for which a
party of speculators had given her two millions five hundred thousand
francs. Her man of business had since purchased for her a charming new
house in the rue de Bourbon for seven hundred thousand francs; one
million she intended to devote to the recovery of the du Guenic
estates, and the rest of her fortune she desired to settle upon Sabine
de Grandlieu. Felicite had long known the plans of the duke and
duchess as to the settlement of their five daughters: the youngest was
to marry the Vicomte de Grandlieu, the heir to their ducal title;
Clotilde-Frederique, the second daughter, desired to remain unmarried,
in memory of a man she had deeply loved, Lucien de Rubempre, while, at
the same time, she did not wish to become a nun like her eldest
sister; two of the remaining sisters were already married, and the
youngest but one, the pretty Sabine, just twenty years old, was the
only disposable daughter left. It was Sabine on whom Felicite resolved
to lay the burden of curing Calyste's passion for Beatrix.

During the journey to Paris Mademoiselle des Touches revealed to the
baroness these arrangements. The new house in the rue de Bourbon was
being decorated, and she intended it for the home of Sabine and
Calyste if her plans succeeded.

The party had been invited to stay at the hotel de Grandlieu, where
the baroness was received with all the distinction due to her rank as
the wife of a du Guenic and the daughter of a British peer.
Mademoiselle des Touches urged Calyste to see Paris, while she herself
made the necessary inquiries about Beatrix (who had disappeared from
the world, and was travelling abroad), and she took care to throw him
into the midst of diversions and amusements of all kinds. The season
for balls and fetes was just beginning, and the duchess and her
daughters did the honors of Paris to the young Breton, who was
insensibly diverted from his own thoughts by the movement and life of
the great city. He found some resemblance of mind between Madame de
Rochefide and Sabine de Grandlieu, who was certainly one of the
handsomest and most charming girls in Parisian society, and this
fancied likeness made him give to her coquetries a willing attention
which no other woman could possibly have obtained from him. Sabine
herself was greatly pleased with Calyste,