aristocracy. Mesdames d'Espard, de Manerville, and Lady Dudley, with
others less known, felt the serpent waking up in the depths of their
hearts; they heard the low hissings of angry pride; they were jealous
of Felix's happiness, and would gladly have given their prettiest
jewel to do him some harm; but instead of being hostile to the
countess, these kind, ill-natured women surrounded her, showed her the
utmost friendship, and praised her to me. Sufficiently aware of their
intentions, Felix watched their relations with Marie, and warned her
to distrust them. They all suspected the uneasiness of the count at
their intimacy with his wife, and they redoubled their attentions and
flatteries, so that they gave her an enormous vogue in society, to the
great displeasure of her sister-in-law, the Marquise de Listomere, who
could not understand it. The Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse was cited as
the most charming and the cleverest woman in Paris. Marie's other
sister-in-law, the Marquise Charles de Vandenesse, was consumed with
vexation at the confusion of names and the comparisons it sometimes
brought about. Though the marquise was a handsome and clever woman,
her rivals took delight in comparing her with her sister-in-law, with
all the more point because the countess was a dozen years younger.
These women knew very well what bitterness Marie's social vogue would
bring into her intercourse with both of her sisters-in-law, who, in
fact, became cold and disobliging in proportion to her triumph in
society. She was thus surrounded by dangerous relations and intimate
enemies.

Every one knows that French literature at that particular period was
endeavoring to defend itself against an apathetic indifference (the
result of the political drama) by producing works more or less
Byronian, in which the only topics really discussed were conjugal
delinquencies. Infringements of the marriage tie formed the staple of