Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/208

 of his orders. Raised for this feat to the rank of commodore at the first promotion, he received the red ribbon. Sure then of the first vacancy, he married his wife, who had two hundred thousand francs. But the Revolution prevented promotion, and Monsieur de Portenduère emigrated.

“Where is my mother?” said Savinien to Tiennette.

“She is waiting for you in your father’s room,” replied the old Breton servant.

Savinien could not suppress a thrill. He knew the rigidity of his mother’s principles, her creed of honor, her loyalty, her faith in the nobility, and he foresaw a scene. And so he went as if to an assault, his heart beating, his face almost pale. In the half-light filtering through the blinds, he saw his mother, dressed in black, wearing a solemn air befitting this chamber of the dead.

“Monsieur le Vicomte,” she said, when she saw him, rising and seizing his hand to lead him beside the paternal bed, “there your father expired, a man of honor, dying without a single self-reproach. His spirit is there. He must indeed have lamented up there at seeing his son sullied by an imprisonment for debt. Under the ancient monarchy, you might have been spared this mud-stain through a lettre de cachet and by being shut up for a few days in one of the State prisons. But, at length, here you are before your father, who hears you. You who know all that you did before going into this ignoble prison, can you swear to me before this shadow and before