great goodness of heart."]

It is easy to understand that a woman thus endowed could not, in a court
where gallantry was more pursued than in any other spot in the world,
escape the calumnies of rivals; such calumnies, however, never produced
any result, so correctly, even in the absence of her husband, did the
marquise contrive to conduct herself; her cold and serious conversation,
rather concise than lively, rather solid than brilliant, contrasted,
indeed, with the light turn, the capricious and fanciful expressions
employed by the wits of that time; the consequence was that those who had
failed to succeed with her, tried to spread a report that the marquise
was merely a beautiful idol, virtuous with the virtue of a statue. But
though such things might be said and repeated in the absence of the
marquise, from the moment that she appeared in a drawing-room, from the
moment that her beautiful eyes and sweet smile added their indefinable
expression to those brief, hurried, and sensible words that fell from her
lips, the most prejudiced came back to her and were forced to own that
God had never before created anything that so nearly touched perfection.

She was thus in the enjoyment of a triumph that backbiters failed to
shake, and that scandal vainly sought to tarnish, when news came of the
wreck of the French galleys in Sicilian waters, and of the death of the
Marquis de Castellane, who was in command. The marquise on this
occasion, as usual, displayed the greatest piety and propriety: although
she had no very violent passion for her husband, with whom she had spent
scarcely one of the seven years during which their marriage had lasted,
on receipt of the news she went at once into retreat, going to live with
Madame d'Ampus, her mother-in-law, and ceasing not only to receive
visitors but also to go out.