God alone is in the secret of the energy we expend upon
our occult triumphs over man, over things, over ourselves. Though we
know not always whither we are going we know well what the journey
costs us. If it be permissible for the historian to turn aside for a
moment from the drama he is narrating and ask his readers to cast a
glance upon the lives of these old maids and abbes, and seek the cause
of the evil which vitiates them at their source, we may find it
demonstrated that man must experience certain passions before he can
develop within him those virtues which give grandeur to life by
widening his sphere and checking the selfishness which is inherent in
every created being.
Madame de Listomere returned to town without being aware that for the
previous week her friends had felt obliged to refute a rumour (at
which she would have laughed had she known if it) that her affection
for her nephew had an almost criminal motive. She took Birotteau to
her lawyer, who did not regard the case as an easy one. The vicar's
friends, inspired by the belief that justice was certain in so good a
cause, or inclined to procrastinate in a matter which did not concern
them personally, had put off bringing the suit until they returned to
Tours. Consequently the friends of Mademoiselle Gamard had taken the
initiative, and told the affair wherever they could to the injury of
Birotteau. The lawyer, whose practice was exclusively among the most
devout church people, amazed Madame de Listomere by advising her not
to embark on such a suit; he ended the consultation by saying that "he
himself would not be able to undertake it, for, according to the terms
of the deed, Mademoiselle Gamard had the law on her side, and in
equity, that is to say outside of strict legal justice, the Abbe
Birotteau would undoubtedly seem to the judges as well as to all
respectable laymen to have derogated from the peaceable, conciliatory,
and mild character hitherto attributed to him; that Mademoiselle
Gamard, known to be a kindly woman and easy to live with, had put
Birotteau under obligations to her by lending him the money he needed
to pay the legacy duties on Chapeloud's bequest without taking from
him a receipt; that Birotteau was not of an age or character to sign a
deed without knowing what it contained or understanding the importance
of it; that in leaving Mademoiselle Gamard's house at the end of two
years, when his friend Chapeloud had lived there twelve and Troubert
fifteen, he must have had some purpose known to himself only; and that
the lawsuit, if undertaken, would strike the public as an act of
ingratitude;" and so forth.
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