Adeline would be found sitting in an immense bedroom with beautiful furniture by Jacob Desmalters, of mahogany finished in the Empire style with ormolu, which looks even less inviting than the brass-work of Louis XVI.! It gave one a shiver to see this lonely woman sitting on a Roman chair, a work-table with sphinxes before her, colorless, affecting false cheerfulness, but preserving her imperial air, as she had preserved the blue velvet gown she always wore in the house. Her proud spirit sustained her strength and preserved her beauty.
The Baroness, by the end of her first year of banishment to this apartment, had gauged every depth of misfortune.
“Still, even here my Hector has made my life much handsomer than it should be for a mere peasant,” said she to herself. “He chooses that it should be so; his will be done! I am Baroness Hulot, the sister-in-law of a Marshal of France. I have done nothing wrong; my two children are settled in life; I can wait for death, wrapped in the spotless veil of an immaculate wife and the crape of departed happiness.”
A portrait of Hulot, in the uniform of a Commissary General of the Imperial Guard, painted in 1810 by Robert Lefebvre, hung above the work-table, and when visitors were announced, Adeline threw into a drawer an _Imitation of Jesus Christ_, her habitual study. This blameless Magdalen thus heard the Voice of the Spirit in her desert.
“Mariette, my child,” said Lisbeth to the woman who opened the door, “how is my dear Adeline to-day?”
“Oh, she looks pretty well, mademoiselle; but between you and me, if she goes on in this way, she will kill herself,” said Mariette in a whisper. “You really ought to persuade her to live better. Now, yesterday madame told me to give her two sous’ worth of milk and a roll for one sou; to get her a herring for dinner and a bit of cold veal; she had a pound cooked to last her the week--of course, for the days when she dines at home and alone. She will not spend more than ten sous a day for her food. It is unreasonable. If I were to say anything about it to Monsieur le Marechal, he might quarrel with Monsieur le Baron and leave him nothing, whereas you, who are so kind and clever, can manage things----”