Chapter 1
The Floressas Des Esseintes, to judge by the various portraitspreserved in the Château de Lourps, had originally been a family ofstalwart troopers and stern cavalry men. Closely arrayed, side byside, in the old frames which their broad shoulders filled, theystartled one with the fixed gaze of their eyes, their fiercemoustaches and the chests whose deep curves filled the enormous shellsof their cuirasses.
These were the ancestors. There were no portraits of their descendantsand a wide breach existed in the series of the faces of this race.Only one painting served as a link to connect the past and present—acrafty, mysterious head with haggard and gaunt features, cheekbonespunctuated with a comma of paint, the hair overspread with pearls, apainted neck rising stiffly from the fluted ruff.
In this representation of one of the most intimate friends of the Ducd'Epernon and the Marquis d'O, the ravages of a sluggish andimpoverished constitution were already noticeable.
It was obvious that the decadence of this family had followed anunvarying course. The effemination of the males had continued withquickened tempo. As if to conclude the work of long years, the DesEsseintes had intermarried for two centuries, using up, in suchconsanguineous unions, such strength as remained.
There was only one living scion of this family which had once been sonumerous that it had occupied all the territories of the Ile-de-Franceand La Brie. The Duc Jean was a slender, nervous young man of thirty,with hollow cheeks, cold, steel-blue eyes, a straight, thin nose anddelicate hands.
By a singular, atavistic reversion, the last descendant resembled theold grandsire, from whom he had inherited the pointed, remarkably fairbeard and an ambiguous expression, at once weary and cunning.
His childhood had been an unhappy one. Menaced with scrofula andafflicted with relentless fevers, he yet succeeded in crossing thebreakers of adolescence, thanks to fresh air and careful attention. Hegrew stronger, overcame the languors of chlorosis and reached hi