Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/175

 and had flattered herself that she would be able to keep her son beside her until her death. She sensibly wished to marry him to a Demoiselle d’Aiglemont, worth twelve thousand francs a year, to whose hand the name of De Portenduère and the farm of the Bordières made it possible to aspire. This restricted but prudent scheme, which might restore the family to the second generation, was to be defeated by events. The D’Aiglemonts then became ruined, and one of their daughters, the eldest, Hélène, disappeared without the family giving any explanation of this mystery. The tedium of a life without freedom, outlet or action, with no other food than filial love, so wearied Savinien, that he burst his bonds, however gentle they might be, and swore never to live in a province, understanding, somewhat late, that his future was not limited to the Rue des Bourgeois. And so at twenty-one he had left his mother to make the acquaintance of his relations and try his luck in Paris. To a young man of twenty-one, free, unopposed, necessarily eager for pleasure and to whose name of De Portenduère and rich kindred all fashionable circles were open, the life of Nemours and the life of Paris were bound to form a fatal contrast. Certain that his mother was keeping the savings of twenty years hoarded in some hiding-place, Savinien soon spent the six thousand francs she had given him with which to see Paris. This sum did not defray the expenses of his first six months, and then he owed double that amount to his hotel, his