(for it is impossible not to compare her to a flower), the princess
had wisely chosen a ground-floor apartment; there she enjoyed a pretty
little garden which belonged to it,--a garden full of shrubs, and an
always verdant turf, which brightened her peaceful retreat. She had
about twelve thousand francs a year; but that modest income was partly
made up of an annual stipend sent her by the old Duchesse de
Navarreins, paternal aunt of the young duke, and another stipend given
by her mother, the Duchesse d'Uxelles, who was living on her estate in
the country, where she economized as old duchesses alone know how to
economize; for Harpagon is a mere novice compared to them. The
princess still retained some of her past relations with the exiled
royal family; and it was in her house that the marshal to whom we owe
the conquest of Africa had conferences, at the time of "Madame's"
attempt in La Vendee, with the principal leaders of legitimist
opinion,--so great was the obscurity in which the princess lived, and
so little distrust did the government feel for her in her present
distress.

Beholding the approach of that terrible fortieth year, the bankruptcy
of love, beyond which there is so little for a woman as woman, the
princess had flung herself into the kingdom of philosophy. She took to
reading, she who for sixteen years had felt a cordial horror for
serious things. Literature and politics are to-day what piety and
devotion once were to her sex,--the last refuge of their feminine
pretensions. In her late social circle it was said that Diane was
writing a book. Since her transformation from a queen and beauty to a
woman of intellect, the princess had contrived to make a reception in
her little house a great honor which distinguished the favored person.
Sheltered by her supposed occupation, she was able to deceive one of
her former adorers, de Marsay, the most influential personage of the