The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan

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Honoré de Balzac. The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan

CHAPTER I. THE LAST WORD OF TWO GREAT COQUETTES

CHAPTER II. DANIEL D’ARTHEZ

CHAPTER III. THE PRINCESS GOES TO WORK

CHAPTER IV. THE CONFESSION OF A PRETTY WOMAN

CHAPTER V. A TRIAL OF FAITH

ADDENDUM

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After the disasters of the revolution of July, which destroyed so many aristocratic fortunes dependent on the court, Madame la Princesse de Cadignan was clever enough to attribute to political events the total ruin she had caused by her own extravagance. The prince left France with the royal family, and never returned to it, leaving the princess in Paris, protected by the fact of his absence; for their debts, which the sale of all their salable property had not been able to extinguish, could only be recovered through him. The revenues of the entailed estates had been seized. In short, the affairs of this great family were in as bad a state as those of the elder branch of the Bourbons.

This woman, so celebrated under her first name of Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, very wisely decided to live in retirement, and to make herself, if possible, forgotten. Paris was then so carried away by the whirling current of events that the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, buried in the Princesse de Cadignan, a change of name unknown to most of the new actors brought upon the stage of society by the revolution of July, did really become a stranger in her own city.

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“Ah! my dear,” replied the princess, “such secrets we can tell to ourselves, you and I, but nobody in Paris would believe us.”

“And,” said the marquise, “if we were not both over thirty-six years of age, perhaps we would not tell them to each other.”

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