The last child was a boy, now three years old, named
Jean-Balthazar. The maternal sentiment in Madame Claes was almost
equal to her love for her husband; and there rose in her soul,
especially during the last days of her life, a terrible struggle
between those nearly balanced feelings, of which the one became, as it
were, an enemy of the other. The tears and the terror that marked her
face at the moment when this tale of a domestic drama then lowering
over the quiet house begins, were caused by the fear of having
sacrificed her children to her husband.
In 1805, Madame Claes's brother died without children. The Spanish law
does not allow a sister to succeed to territorial possessions, which
follow the title; but the duke had left her in his will about sixty
thousand ducats, and this sum the heirs of the collateral branch did
not seek to retain. Though the feeling which united her to Balthazar
Claes was such that no thought of personal interest could ever sully
it, Josephine felt a certain pleasure in possessing a fortune equal to
that of her husband, and was happy in giving something to one who had
so nobly given everything to her. Thus, a mere chance turned a
marriage which worldly minds had declared foolish, into an excellent
alliance, seen from the standpoint of material interests. The use to
which this sum of money should be put became, however, somewhat
difficult to determine.
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