If the old man still retained some forms of decency in his manners to the duchess, Maximilien, unrestrained by his father, caused his mother many a grief.
Consequently, Bertrand was incessantly on the watch to prevent Maximilien from seeing Etienne, whose existence was carefully concealed.
All the attendants of the castle cordially hated the Marquis de Saint-Sever (the name and title borne by the younger brother), and those who knew of the existence of the elder looked upon him as an avenger whom God was holding in reserve.
Etienne's future was therefore doubtful; he might even be persecuted by his own brother! The poor duchess had no relations to whom she could confide the life and interests of her cherished child.

Would he not blame her when in his violet robes he longed to be a father as she had been a mother?
These thoughts, and her melancholy life so full of secret sorrows were like a mortal illness kept at bay for a time by remedies.
Her heart needed the wisest management, and those about her were cruelly inexpert in gentleness.

What mother's heart would not have been torn at the sight of her eldest son, a man of mind and soul in whom a noble genius made itself felt, deprived of his rights, while the younger, hard and brutal, without talent, even military talent, was chosen to wear the ducal coronet and perpetuate the family?
The house of Herouville was discarding its own glory.

Incapable of anger the gentle Jeanne de Saint-Savin could only bless and weep, but often she raised her eyes to heaven, asking it to account for this singular doom.

Those eyes filled with tears when she thought that at her death her cherished child would be wholly orphaned and left exposed to the brutalities of a brother without faith or conscience.
Such emotions repressed, a first love unforgotten, so many sorrows ignored and hidden within her,--for she kept her keenest sufferings from her cherished child,--her joys embittered, her griefs unrelieved, all these shocks had weakened the springs of life and were developing in her system a slow consumption which day by day was gathering greater force.
A last blow hastened it.