Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/174

 famous Admiral de Portenduère, the rival of the Suffrens, the Kergarouëts, the Guichens and the Simeuses? On the paneling, opposite the fireplace, could be seen the Vicomte de Portenduère, and the old lady’s mother, a Kergarouët-Ploëgat. And so Savinien’s great-uncle was the Vice-admiral Kergarouët, and his cousin the Comte de Portenduère, the admiral’s grandson, both of them very rich. The Vice-admiral de Kergarouët lived in Paris, and the Comte de Portenduère at the castle of that name in the Dauphiné. His cousin the count represented the elder branch, and Savinien was the only offspring of the younger De Portenduère. The count, past forty years of age, and married to a rich woman, had three children. His fortune, accruing from several legacies, amounted—so it was said—to sixty thousand francs income. Deputy of L’Isère, he passed his winters in Paris, where he had bought back the De Portenduère mansion with the indemnities brought him by the Villèle law. The Vice-admiral de Kergarouët had recently married his niece, Mademoiselle de Fontaine, solely in order to secure her his fortune. And so the viscount’s shortcomings were to lose him two powerful protectors. If Savinien, a young and handsome fellow, had entered the navy, with his name and backed by an admiral and a deputy, he might perhaps at twenty-three have already been a lieutenant; but his mother, objecting to her only son being destined for a military career, had had him educated at Nemours by one of the Abbé Chaperon’s curates,