But the shock
he had lately given her was too severe; she sank into a state of
languor and debility which steadily increased. Balthazar was now so
completely absorbed in science that neither the reverses which had
overtaken France, nor the first fall of Napoleon, nor the return of
the Bourbons, drew him from his laboratory; he was neither husband,
father, nor citizen,--solely chemist.
Towards the close of 1814 Madame Claes declined so rapidly that she
was no longer able to leave her bed. Unwilling to vegetate in her own
chamber, the scene of so much happiness, where the memory of vanished
joys forced involuntary comparisons with the present and depressed
her, she moved into the parlor. The doctors encouraged this wish by
declaring the room more airy, more cheerful, and therefore better
suited to her condition. The bed in which the unfortunate woman ended
her life was placed between the fireplace and a window looking on the
garden. There she passed her last days, sacredly occupied in training
the souls of her young daughters, striving to leave within them the
fire of her own. Conjugal love, deprived of its manifestations,
allowed maternal love to have its way. The mother now seemed the more
delightful because her motherhood had blossomed late. Like all
generous persons, she passed through sensitive phases of feeling that
she mistook for remorse. Believing that she had defrauded her children
of the tenderness that should have been theirs, she sought to redeem
those imaginary wrongs; bestowing attentions and tender cares which
made her precious to them; she longed to make her children live, as it
were, within her heart; to shelter them beneath her feeble wings; to
cherish them enough in the few remaining days to redeem the time
during which she had neglected them.
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