This gentleman was the only brother of Madame St.

Aubert; but the ties of relationship having never been strengthened by

congeniality of character, the intercourse between them had not been

frequent. M. Quesnel had lived altogether in the world; his aim had been

consequence; splendour was the object of his taste; and his address

and knowledge of character had carried him forward to the attainment of

almost all that he had courted. By a man of such a disposition, it is

not surprising that the virtues of St. Aubert should be overlooked; or

that his pure taste, simplicity, and moderated wishes, were considered

as marks of a weak intellect, and of confined views. The marriage of his

sister with St. Aubert had been mortifying to his ambition, for he had

designed that the matrimonial connection she formed should assist him

to attain the consequence which he so much desired; and some offers were

made her by persons whose rank and fortune flattered his warmest hope.

But his sister, who was then addressed also by St. Aubert, perceived, or

thought she perceived, that happiness and splendour were not the same,

and she did not hesitate to forego the last for the attainment of the

former. Whether Monsieur Quesnel thought them the same, or not, he would

readily have sacrificed his sister's peace to the gratification of his

own ambition; and, on her marriage with St. Aubert, expressed in private

his contempt of her spiritless conduct, and of the connection which it

permitted. Madame St. Aubert, though she concealed this insult from her

husband, felt, perhaps, for the first time, resentment lighted in

her heart; and, though a regard for her own dignity, united with

considerations of prudence, restrained her expression of this

resentment, there was ever after a mild reserve in her manner towards M.

Quesnel, which he both understood and felt.

In his own marriage he did not follow his sister's example. His lady was

an Italian, and an heiress by birth; and, by nature and education, was a

vain and frivolous woman.

They now determined to pass the night with St. Aubert; and as the

chateau was not large enough to accommodate their servants, the latter

were dismissed to the neighbouring village. When the first compliments

were over, and the arrangements for the night made M. Quesnel began the

display of his intelligence and his connections; while St. Aubert, who

had been long enough in retirement to find these topics recommended by

their novelty, listened, with a degree of patience and attention,

which his guest mistook for the humility of wonder. The latter, indeed,

described the few festivities which the turbulence of that period

permitted to the court of Henry the Third, with a minuteness, that

somewhat recompensed for his ostentation; but, when he came to speak of

the character of the Duke de Joyeuse, of a secret treaty, which he knew

to be negotiating with the Porte, and of the light in which Henry of

Navarre was received, M. St. Aubert recollected enough of his former

experience to be assured, that his guest could be only of an inferior

class of politicians; and that, from the importance of the subjects

upon which he committed himself, he could not be of the rank to which he

pretended to belong. The opinions delivered by M. Quesnel, were such as

St. Aubert forebore to reply to, for he knew that his guest had neither

humanity to feel, nor discernment to perceive, what is just.




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