The Duty | Marie, Lesbologie

Chapter Two : The Consequences

             Since what happened with the first son of the de Montigny, things have only gotten worse for this family. The Countess had guessed it right ; everyone is now believing that Antoine was the one wanting the kiss, not that it was false, but the mother could not believe such things. And since she told every single ones of their neighbors that David is the one who wanted the kiss, they now have the reputation of being liars. Who could believe it? Everyone used to love this family, they have never gotten in such big scandals as this one. They used to be considered trustable, but now, they became unapproachable. Everyone now hates them, how weird should it feel to be loved a day, then hated the second one. No one in this family knows what to do now, Léon has been wanting to run away, but now, the tragedy is known in the whole aristocracy, and not even just in France, but people have been knowing as far as England! Nor running away nor changing their last name would change anything. The family has been arguing for the past two weeks to find a solution but, they can't seem to find anything. The situation is becoming worse as the time passes, and if they don't find something quickly, they will be ruined and will have to give up on their family house, as well as everything that they own.

Garance has been very distant with her family since the death of her beloved brother, she's thinking over and over again of the last words that she has told him ; what if this was what caused his death? Garance has never been mean to him before this, but before knowing about the scandal, she was already stressed out. Her mother has been pressuring her to go to the pretenders ball since a week now. In fact, every year, there was a ball made for young women and men to meet each other, dance with each other and hopefully for them, marry because of their common agreement about politics or the amount of children that they want or in the best cases, fall in love. Garance has never wanted to marry even though she has always been prepared for a potential wedding, for her, there was something very odd about it. Since the beginning of her life, she belonged to her father through her last name, then, after a big ceremony, she would belong to a complete stranger by getting his last name instead. Actually, marrying is her worse fear. But her mother didn't seem to see all of this the way that she does. For her, mariage is the 'most wonderful moment for a girl, it's the day she becomes a woman' to quote her, but Garance was twenty-one and knew for sure that even if she never marries and turns sixty one day, no one will ever consider her a little girl, even though she never got married.

Now that she is thinking about it, maybe her brother turned the way he did because he was scared of marrying, too. "Oh Antoine, what have you done?" she says out loud, as if he would hear her. She thinks that, perhaps, he wanted to get in a relationship with a man because that way, there would be no way for him to get married. Very smart, she thinks to herself, but it would bring other problems, such as the current scandal around the family. From now, she can only see bad outcomes from marrying ; being a man's property, being like, caged on a house and being forced to have kids but, Garance never thought of a reason why women would be inflicting this to themselves, but there is actually good reasons for it. First of, the title. When you marry a man that has a more powerful title than yours, you earn it, this would be a good way to bring back the respect that this family has lost, like marrying a Prince could be a good idea for example. But also, the thing that is the most important for them right now is the money.

Because lately, earning money is becoming hard, they are loosing all of their land, properties and no one wants to work for them anymore, everyone is so scared of the Devil that they are willing to give up on anything to not be associated with Him. And money is everyone's goal in life, being the richest, or even just having enough money to decently live is what everyone is hoping for. They used to be one of the richest family in all Paris, but that won't last long. The more the time goes, the more money they are loosing, in a few months, or weeks, they will have lost the great majority of what they have. Marrying a wealthy man could be a good way to earn easy money, men need a wife for babies and women need a husband for money. It's just how it works, unfortunately for Garance. There is no other choice left, if Garance wants her family to live a good, peaceful life again, she has to get married, even if she has to give up on her own peace for it. She, after a long sight, stands up, and goes to see her family to tell them about her idea. When she arrives in the room, they are still arguing, Léon is still being agressive with his words, Sarah is trying to make the family not completely fall apart but the only thing she achieves to do is crying and yelling at her brother, their mom, her, is too exhausted mentally to say anything. The Countess is trying so hard to find a solution, but it's almost like she doesn't believe that a solution even exist. She is slowly losing hope, but still wants the best for her children, so she still tries and think, no matter what.