Madame d'Aubemer: A Novella of the 18th Century
Chapter 4, Part 1 of a First Translation
Madame de Boigne (1781-1866), who sat on Louis XVI’s knee as a child and lived to see Napoleon III on the throne, was best known to her contemporaries as the hostess of an intellectual salon in Paris. She published nothing while she was alive, but after her death several manuscripts were found among her effects. One of them was a short novel published in 1867 under the title La Maréchale d’Aubemer, nouvelle du xviiie siècle. As far as I can determine, my translation, appearing here in instalments from the autumn of 2024 into the spring of 2025, is the only translation into English of this work.
Pictured: An 18th century French lady by an unindentified painter, public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Another Ball, Part 1
In which the Comtesse Lionel de Saveuse prepares to make her debut in Paris society under the guidance of her aunt.
The end of Carnival brought the day destined for the English ambassadress’s ball. It was to be the last as well as the most splendid one of the season, and the ladies set to work so as to be able to shine at it.
First thing in the morning, a young woman from Mademoiselle Augustine, the renowned dressmaker, had brought an exquisite ball gown to Mme de Saveuse’s, wishing to be informed at what hour she should come back to dress her. Mademoiselle herself would personally put the finishing touches on Madame la Comtesse’s ensemble. The latter would gladly have declined these services had she not recognized in them her aunt’s solicitude. She thus accepted, indicating an hour that very much surprised Mlle Augustine’s young woman, who was accustomed to seeing ladies wearing such elegant gowns not arrive at a ball until such time as their entrance would create the greatest sensation. Mme de Saveuse, however, intended to go and wait at the hôtel d’Aubemer until Mme de Montford came to take her to the English ambassador’s residence, not thinking of the danger of mussing her dress. The Duchesse had fixed a time that was rather earlier than the Maréchale would have liked, for despite having a great store of good sense, she was too much a woman of the world not to wish for what she called “a brilliant debut” for her niece. She knew that to obtain one it was necessary to display some slight nuance of originality, and, to this end, she desired that with Mlle Augustine’s dress, executed in the purest taste of the fashion of the day and adjusted by that inimitable person herself so as to defy any feminine criticism, the Comtesse Lionel should keep her customary hair style in order to be more beautiful and also to attract attention. This hair style, consisting of loose plaits and large ringlets, which could not be imitated without such magnificent hair as her niece’s, would necessarily be nearly unique to Mme de Saveuse and would assure a lasting impact. The difficulty, which the Maréchale felt keenly, was in getting her niece to enlist in the plan, and she manoeuvred with requisite skill. She had managed to recount in front of her niece several instances of the tardiness of the hairdressers of Paris, and when the latter came in the morning to thank her for her charming gown, Mme d’Aubemer said to her with an air of indifference, “I thought, my child, that since she’s having the goodness to escort you, it wouldn’t be polite to keep Mme de Montford waiting because of some hairdresser’s lateness of the kind we’ve been talking about recently, and in the event that yours doesn’t turn up, there would be no inconvenience in putting up your hair the way you do it every day, only, in order to look sufficiently dressed up, you would replace your tortoise-shell comb with this one; that way, you would look very presentable.” She handed Mme de Saveuse a superb diamond hair-comb and said no more about her hair-do.
Lionel was also much concerned about his wife’s appearance and was very anxious that she should not shame him by looking provincial. He had studied the Princesse Simon’s attire as best he could at a recent ball and would have liked it to be imitated, but his account of it did not satisfy Mme de Saveuse’s pure taste, and he found himself forced to agree that the gown chosen by the Maréchale was very elegant, though he found it a little too simple. The hairdresser did not arrive; nor indeed would he, the Maréchale having notified him that his skills were no longer required. Lionel despaired. Mme de Saveuse remarked calmly how much this famous M Hubert warranted the reputation for unreliability of which he was accused, and, despite Lionel’s supplications to send for another hairdresser, set about accomplishing her aunt’s intentions without ever doubting their motive. The striking impression of the comb somewhat reconciled Lionel to the beauty of her otherwise unadorned tresses, but, sighing, he repeated, “No one wears their hair like that, you’ll look provincial, very provincial!”
“Well, then, my dear, what a great misfortune! Why should I not look like a provincial, having arrived so recently from Limousin, where I was born? I shall certainly not look ridiculous, since my aunt, who knows these things better than we do, authorized me to do it this way if the precious M Hubert didn’t arrive in time. You will agree that if Babet and I, neither of us knowing any more about it than the other, had tried to create all those butterflies and garlands on my head, we would have acquitted ourselves very badly, and then you would find me quite embarrassing.”
The arrival of Mlle Augustine’s young woman, soon followed by Mlle Augustine in person, who pronounced the hair-do delicious, ravishing, adorable, and destined to cause a furore, and who, after having circled around her and repositioned a few pins, pronounced Madame la Comtesse coiffed like an angel and fit to be painted, reassured Lionel. He nonetheless resolved to arrive late at the ball, first because he had noticed that such was the habit of Henri d’Estouteville, and secondly in order not to be there at his wife’s arrival, the effect of which he doubted. Perfectly calm by contrast, and not thinking for a moment that she needed to put on a performance of any kind, Mme de Saveuse went along to the Hôtel d’Aubemer. Raised in a small circle among benevolent people who had watched her charms increase without noticing them more one day than another, and sharing their indifference in this regard, she was accustomed to being loved more than admired, and knew herself to be pretty without thinking about it; it was with real ingenuousness that she was making her debut in society, counting on the general goodwill, but not seeking to make any sort of impression and satisfied to be a face in the crowd. Once only, at a ball given by the Intendant1 of Limoges, had her beauty drawn all eyes; she did not realize it then, but remembered having had a very good time. She thus had no fear of the Parisians, having never imagined in her naivety that she could ever attract any notice among them. She only thought that, not knowing anyone, she would not be asked to dance, which would be painful for Lionel and also a little for herself because she loved to dance. This was her principal concern. It was not shared by any of the Maréchale’s friends when Mme de Saveuse appeared in the salon with a face like Hebe’s2 and the deportment of a nymph, beautiful in her simplicity, and without any appearance of affectation or false modesty.
The Maréchale rejoiced fully in the success of her ruse, and when her niece had gone out in Mme de Montford’s wake, she could not resist extolling her grace and her noble, distinguished air: “I was waiting for this last test before her proclaiming her a woman completely fit for the highest sort of company. In general, it takes extreme knowledge of the ways of the world — which many people never acquire — to carry off full evening dress with such ease and simplicity, but this little girl has divined it all by intuition.”
The example given by the Maréchale was followed heartily by her regulars, and they did not stint in their praise for the charming debutante just sent off to the Hôtel d’Angleterre. There she was to meet the Marquise de Rieux, Mme de Montford’s daughter, who would support her in that unfamiliar world.
Notes:
Under the Old Regime, each province of France had a governor and an intendant. The governor, usually an aristocrat, was in charge of military and ceremonial matters, while the intendant, usually a bourgeois, was in charge of day-to-day administration and the finances.
Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera, is the Goddess of Youth.
Very charming, and well played by Madame.
Those who expect little often reap far more than they thought might arrive for them.
I can’t wait to meet de Rieux…will she really support our ingenue?