Marie-Aurore, but she also had the impetuousness of Sophie-Victoire,
and undoubtedly, too, something of the free and easy good humour of her
father, the break-neck young officer. It certainly is not surprising to
find a love of adventure in a descendant of Maurice de Saxe.

Beside all these inner contrasts, the observer was particularly struck
by her sudden changes of humour, by the way in which, after a fit of
melancholy sadness, she suddenly gave way to the most exuberant gaiety,
followed by long fits of depression and nervous exhaustion. Personally,
I do not believe much in the influence of the physical over the moral
nature, but I am fully convinced of the action of the moral over
the physical nature. In certain cases and in presence of extremely
accentuated conditions, physiological explanations must be taken into
account. All these fits of melancholy and weeping, this prostration,
these high spirits and the long walks, in order to sober down, denote
the exigencies of an abnormal temperament. When once the crisis was
passed, it must not be supposed that, as with many other people, nothing
remained of it all. This was by no means the case, as in a nature so
extraordinarily organized for storing up sensations nothing was lost,
nothing evaporated, and everything increased. The still water seemed
to be slumbering. Its violence, though held in check, was increasing in
force, and when once let loose, it would carry all before it.

Such was the woman whom Casimir Dudevant was to marry. The fascination
was great; the honour rather to be feared, for all depended on his skill
in guiding this powerful energy.

The question is whether he loved her. It has been said that it was a
marriage of interest, as Aurore's fortune amounted to twenty thousand
pounds, and he was by no means rich. This may have been so, but there is