But mealy-mouthed propriety, the semblance of virtue, the hypocritical
ways of a married woman who never allows anything to be seen but the
vulgar needs of the household, and affects to refuse every kind of
extravagance, leads to silent ruin, dumb disaster, which is all the
more startling because, though condoned, it remains unaccounted for.
It is the ignoble bill of daily expenses and not gay dissipation that
devours the largest fortune. The father of a family ruins himself
ingloriously, and the great consolation of gratified vanity is wanting
in his misery.
This little sermon will go like a javelin to the heart of many a home.
Madame Marneffes are to be seen in every sphere of social life, even
at Court; for Valerie is a melancholy fact, modeled from the life in
the smallest details. And, alas! the portrait will not cure any man of
the folly of loving these sweetly-smiling angels, with pensive looks
and candid faces, whose heart is a cash-box.
About three years after Hortense's marriage, in 1841, Baron Hulot
d'Ervy was supposed to have sown his wild oats, to have "put up his
horses," to quote the expression used by Louis XV.'s head surgeon, and
yet Madame Marneffe was costing him twice as much as Josepha had ever
cost him.
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