V
Three months after the visit he had received, d'Aubier learned from the public rumor that Mrs. de Séry had become a widow. This long-planned death could not surprise anyone. We only talk about it to have the opportunity to tell of the beautiful Diane who, after his death, would become one of the best parties in the department. She was expected to live in Nantes, and several families who had kept her at bay when she was a young and poor girl, were already preparing their most graceful smiles for the rich widow. Everyone knew her taste for luxury, her elegance, her Parisian spirit, and they plotted to keep her in the country, through kindness.
At first sight, these hopes and calculations were thwarted: the day after her husband's funeral, M.me de Séry, accompanied by a chambermaid, left
