Photoplay (Jul-Dec 1922)

She had changed, over night, into a heartless coquette The knowledge that her husband had made her purity the subject of a tavern bet seemed to the Duchess the crowning insult and indignity that any wife should be called upon to endure. Her marriage had never been a happy one — court marriages are often affairs of convention and convenience — but she had never suffered during it, as she did now from the Due's unjust accusation. When her husband had stormed .out of her presence and had left Paris, she sought her great aunt, an old princess of the realm, for advice. "You take life too seriously, dear child," the Princess said, after hearing the tragic story. "Life is a carnival — you cannot come to it dressed as a nun!" And so the Duchess promised, rather cynically, to change her mode of life. Nothing seemed to matter, very much, anyway! THE Court of Louis XVIII — always abuzz with gossip — wondered, with the passing of the season, what had happened to so change the Duchess de Langeais. From a pure, high-minded woman with a beauty as far from the painted throng as some snowy mountain peak, she had changed — seemingly overnight — into a heartless coquette. Favors she conferred with a lavish hand, homage she accepted as her just due — but of herself she gave nothing. A smile, a whisper, a slim hand to be kissed lightly . . . and that was all! And then a new sensation came to the Court — and to Paris. The General Armand de Montriveau, an erstwhile intimate of Napoleon, became the fashion. His popularity must have been governed by the strange law of contraries, for he was a man of battles and grim realities — a stern man utterly unversed in the ways of women and of love. Of course, all of the ladies of the Court were anxious to annex this new hero. And the Duchess de Langeais won. She was the loveliest of all — and th« most curiously elusive. She contrived to have the hero of all Paris at her feet, hanging upon her every The Eternal Flame NARRATED, by permission, from the First National Photoplay, adapted by Frances Marion from the novel by Honore Balzac. Directed by Frank Lloyd, with the following cast: Duchess de Langeais Norma Talmadge Dae de Langeais Adolphe Jean Menjou Marquis de Ronquerolles Wedgwood Nowell General de Montriveau Conway Tearle Madame de Serizy Rosemary Theby Princess de Vlamonl-Chauvray Kate Lester Vidame de Pamier. Thomas Ricketts Count de Marsay . Irving Cummings Abbe Conrand Otis Harlan word. And, much to the discomfort of the other ladies — especially Madam de Serizy, a jealous rival of hers — she kept him there. But, unlike the easily pushed aside, beruffled dandies of the Court, it was not long before the General's ungovernable passion began to make an impression upon the Duchess. It was not long before she reached the conclusion that he could not lightly be tossed into the discard. He was a red-blooded man — and she was the only woman that he had ever cared for! Yes, the General de Montriveau loved the Duchess. But there were false, scandalmonging folk who tried to weaken his faith in her. It was the Marquis de Ronquerolles — he who has started all of the trouble because of an ill-advised toast at the Silver Crescent — who made the most blasting insinuations against the woman's spotless character. It was due to his suggestion that De Montriveau burst into her dressing chamber one evening, where he found her preparing to retire. Passionately folding her in his arms, with her heart throbbing against his own, he demanded that she tell him whether she really loved him or was only trifling with him. "Yes, I love you," she replied steadily, with her eyes gazing trustfully into his, "but only as a pure and religious woman should love!" And then, at his burning whisper: "No, no! To love you the way you wish would mean sacrificing my position, my honor — and above all — my church!" IT was enough. Abashed and ashamed the General left her apartment. And, the next evening, at a great Court Ball, he knelt abjectly before her and publicly begged forgiveness for his lack of confidence. It was then that the Duchess made her one — and fatal — mistake. For she remembered, as the General knelt, a remark that the jealous Madam de Serizy had made during the early stages of his subjugation. 65