Meanwhile the countess nursed the idea of wedding Prince Rudolph in a more secure manner. When, in time, he became grand-duke, she was more eager than ever to enjoy what she considered her own. Though he had married, she hoped; and, the second wife having died childless, the Countess M'Gregor followed Rudolph into Prance, where he traveled _incognito_ as Count Duren. As a last resort to force the grand-duke into her ambitious aims, she sought for a girl of the age that her own would have been, to pass it off as their child. By chance, the woman to whom she applied was La Chouette, and hardly had she spoken of the likeness which the counterfeit would have to bear to the supposed _suppressed_ child, than the woman recognized the very girl whom she had kept for years by her, or in view.
Yes, the offspring of Prince Rudolph and the countess was a common girl of the town, known as Fleur-de-Marie (the Virgin's Flower), for her touching religious beauty, as La Goualeuse (the Songstress), for her vocal ability, and La Pegriotte (Little Thief), out of La Chouette's anger that she would not be what she styled her.
She had long shunned her sad sisters in shame, and, indeed, in all her life had known but one friend. This was a sewing-girl known as Rigolette, or Miss Dimpleton, from her continual smiles; a maid with no strong ideas of virtue, but preserved from the miry path which poor Fleur-de-Marie had been forced to use, merely by being too hard-worked to have leisure to be bad.
Prince Rudolph entertained the most profound aversion for the mother of his child, yet for the latter he mourned still, fifteen or eighteen years after her reported decease. Weary of life, save for doing good, he took a deep liking for playing the part of a minor providence, be it said in all reverence.
Known to society as the grand-duke, otherwise Count Duren, he had humble lodgings in No. 7, Rue du Temple, as a fan-painter, plain M. Rudolph. To mask the large sums which on occasion he dispensed in charity, he was wont to give out that he was the agent of wealthy persons who trusted him in their alms-giving.
Events brought him into immediate contact with Fleur-de-Marie, and Rigolette (who lived in his own house in the Rue du Temple).