It would not seem surprising at first sight that Seraphine de Sainte Amaranthe, incontestably the most beautiful girl of the Paris season, and one of the richest of heiresses, should have been married to the Marquis Célestin de Laval, the last representative of one of the most ancient families in France, and that being married ‘they lived happily ever afterwards.’ The incident appears entirely commonplace, and rather more fit for The Morning Post than anywhere else. But to those who were more intimate with either party, it was an occasion of great surprise.

The title of De Sainte Amaranthe was not of very ancient date. Indeed, ill-natured persons assert his name was originally Joseph Levi; and there certainly was a Hebraic strain about him. But then had he not vast wealth? and was he not married to a ‘mondaine’ of the first water? And Seraphine herself had received the usual education of the Parisian mondaine. At the time I am speaking of (I wish to narrate the actual facts of this case), she was being dragged about to balls and parties, after having first of all been spoilt as a child, and then shut up in a convent.

She was certainly a very beautiful girl, with dark hair, and liquid, spiritual eyes. But somehow she did not take to balls and parties, but hankered after her convent, where she determined to become a nun, of which of course her parents would not hear. She was not morose, and did not mind going to the theatre, and things of that kind. But then she would say, ‘Yes, this is all great fun, but it is not my life.’ The one thing she loathed and detested was a ball.

She had one of those graceful figures which would look well even if clothed in a sack; and she was far from being awanting in the feminine love of dress, and managed to clothe herself very well. She was also a graceful dancer. But the inane compliments and conversation, and the lasciviously amorous looks of her many admirers, filled her with unutterable loathing. The celebrated ‘sport’ and ‘’ighlif’ man, the Duc de Morlaix, whom her parents desired to thrust upon her, was her special abhorrence. Then how pleased were her parents when she seemed to be taking a fancy to the Marquis de Laval!

Célestin de Laval in many respects resembled her, though of course he had seen much more of the world. He was a dilettante in literature, art, and music; and somewhat luxurious in his tastes. He had determined for some years to become a monk; always the courage failed him to take the final step. He would say: ‘All these things I can get on without; they are not necessary to me. I can easily give them up.’ His friends would say, ‘Oh yes! we believe that.’ But anyhow, although in touch with every latest form of modern thought, he did not lose his religion. Indeed it was in connection with that he first met Mademoiselle de Ste. Amaranthe. He was a good-looking man, with an intellectual type of face, of about thirty. It happened one day when he was in a church at Salut; he happened to be seated next to a lady, who dropped her prayer-book, which he handed to her. He was rather struck with her beauty, as he was with all beautiful things, though none of his friends ever remembered his having loved a woman.

In France, almost the Oriental system of the Harem is kept up. A man may be even intimately acquainted with another man in restaurants and cafés, and such like places, and yet never have been introduced into his family; and Célestin had frequently met here and there the Baron de Ste. Amaranthe. One day, meeting him at some cercle, Ste. Amaranthe begged him to honour him with his presence at a large ball that he was giving in celebration of his daughter's birthday. Now, if there was one thing that Célestin hated more than another, it was a ball. Not having an excuse handy, he was obliged to accept. So he went. Great was his surprise to find there the girl whom he had met a few days before in church. He was obliged out of common politeness to engage her for one dance. She said to him, with a singularly candid expression—

‘I'm sure you don't like dancing any more than I do.’

He answered, ‘No, I do not. Let us rather go and sit out there in the cool, if you do not mind. I think we have seen one another before.’

‘Oh yes,’ she answered; ‘it was at the Madeleine; you picked up my prayer-book. You at least go to church. Oh, I am so utterly tired of this eternal round of balls and parties. Cannot they leave me in peace? I wonder that you should like this sort of thing.’

‘But,’ answered the Marquis, ‘I don't like this sort of thing at all. I was obliged to accept this invitation;’ then blushing and stammering, ‘Of course, mademoiselle, I did not mean—.’ Just at this moment the Duc de Morlaix came to claim his partner, and so saved him from the difficulty ‘of things one would rather have left unsaid.’

The long and short of it was that the Marquis de Laval soon became an intimate of the house. The Baron was constantly inviting him to dinner, and the Baron took every opportunity of leaving them alone together, under the impression that he had taken a fancy to her, and she to him, and that she might thus make a brilliant match.

In a way, certainly they had taken a fancy to one another. They had many tastes in common: it was a relief to her, after the many smirking admirers, to find a man who treated her as an intellectual sympathetic being. And he had perhaps very much the same feeling with regard to her. After a time they became confidential. One day she said to him, ‘You know my resolution is the same as yours. You have freedom and I have not. I intend to enter a religious order, and what am I to do? Certainly my parents keep me as closely confined as I should be in the most enclosed order, and they go on insisting on my being married to one of these wretched creatures with stick-up collars, and an inane face, whom I loathe the sight of. You know you are the only man who has ever been at least a friend to me: and my mother does not like me to have girl friends, and indeed if I had any I do not think I should like them. Their ideal of life appears to be that which is my repulsion. So what am I to do? It is really to you only, who might understand me, that I can appeal for advice.’

‘Well,’ he answered slowly, ‘there is only one possible escape from the difficulty. You will be somewhat surprised to hear what I propose. But if you think about it, you will find it is not so startling after all. Namely, that you and I should go through a nominal form of marriage, and live together as brother and sister for a little while; then you would be free to do as you liked. And we would then part and go to our separate convents.’

She trembled a little, and said, ‘But supposing you should come to love some other woman, and I were to go into a convent, I should be an everlasting drag upon you.’

He answered, ‘I thought you knew me well enough not to suppose that. Besides, I think, according to the laws of our Church, if I may speak plainly, a marriage without consummation is considered null and void. But there's no need to trouble about that. You seem to doubt my vocation.’

She took his hand, and said, ‘I was only afraid for your sake; if you really mean what you say—well, 'tis the will of God.’

The delight of the Baron, on hearing his daughter was engaged, was immense: and when the Marquis de Laval came to him to make arrangements, he was amiably prepared to behave very generously towards his only child. Great was his surprise when De Laval refused to accept any dowry whatsoever. After a great deal of pressing he said—

‘Well, if you insist upon it, you can provide her with her trousseau. And though both of us would rather be married as privately as possible, if you wish to have a train of bridesmaids and a High Mass with full orchestra, you are at liberty to pay for it. But after she is my wife I will not touch a penny of her money. I have, Dieu merci!, quite enough to support us both.’

So they were married in grand state, and this was of course reported as fashionable intelligence in all the papers. They first of all went to his château near Nantes in Brittany, where Laval's mother was rather astonished at their occupying separate rooms. Indeed, the only occasion he entered his wife's room was when they said the breviary together, in preparation for their monastic life. Then they went travelling about Italy. In a quiet way they amused themselves very much, and found they had still more points in common than they had thought before. And making no acquaintances, they found themselves mutually a necessity to one another. They became literally brother and sister, except, as is unprecedented in brothers and sisters, they never quarrelled once.

One day, a year after their marriage, they came back to his house in Paris. They decided to take the final step. He suggested, half in jest, half in earnest, that she should put on the habit of the Franciscan tertiaries, to see what she would look like as a nun; which she did. He looked at her, tears gathering in his eyes.

‘O Seraphine!’ he said, ‘I shall miss you very much.’

Suddenly she threw her arms round him and kissed him, for the first time, passionately.

‘No, dear,’ she cried; ‘I cannot leave you. I cannot live without you!’

Just then there was a loud knock and ring at the door. She went down to the door in her nun's dress. A wretched girl was running along the street; then she stumbled over something on the doorstep. It cried piteously; she took it up: it was a child of about one year old, wrapt up in squalid rags: it put out its arms towards her: when she took it in her arms it ceased to cry. She took it up, and without a word laid it upon her husband's lap. The child stretched out its soft clinging arms towards Célestin, and turned his forget-me-not-like eyes upon him; it remained quite quiet. She went out of the room noiselessly. After a time she came back, arrayed in her bridal dress. She sat down beside him, and put the child between them. Then they sat there for a long time, hand in hand, in utter silence.