Clares, the Mother Superior of which was Mademoiselle de Saint-Savin,
the countess's aunt. Having been called to treat Gertrude for an
illness, he, Beauvouloir, had fallen in love with her, and if Madame
la comtesse, he said, would undertake the affair, she should not only
more than repay him for what she thought he had done for her, but she
would make him grateful to her for life. The count might, sooner or
later, be brought to take an interest in so beautiful a daughter, and
might protect her indirectly by making him his physician.

The countess, compassionate to all true love, promised to do her best,
and pursued the affair so warmly that at the birth of her second son
she did obtain from her husband a "dot" for the young girl, who was
married soon after to Beauvouloir. The "dot" and his savings enabled
the bonesetter to buy a charming estate called Forcalier near the
castle of Herouville, and to give his life the dignity of a student
and man of learning.

Comforted by the kind physician, the countess felt that to her were
given joys unknown to other mothers. Mother and child, two feeble
beings, seemed united in one thought, they understood each other long
before language could interpret between them. From the moment when
Etienne first turned his eyes on things about him with the stupid
eagerness of a little child, his glance had rested on the sombre
hangings of the castle walls. When his young ear strove to listen and
to distinguish sounds, he heard the monotonous ebb and flow of the sea
upon the rocks, as regular as the swinging of a pendulum. Thus places,
sounds, and things, all that strikes the senses and forms the
character, inclined him to melancholy. His mother, too, was doomed to
live and die in the clouds of melancholy; and to him, from his birth
up, she was the only being that existed on the earth, and filled for