Dante's reef was that of Vandenesse; all honor to such courage! Felix's wife began to find monotony in an Eden so well arranged; the perfect happiness which the first woman found in her terrestrial paradise gave her at length a sort of nausea of sweet things, and made the countess wish, like Rivarol reading Florian, for a wolf in the fold.
Such, judging by the history of ages, appears to be the meaning of that emblematic serpent to which Eve listened, in all probability, out of ennui.

This deduction may seem a little venturesome to Protestants, who take the book of Genesis more seriously than the Jews themselves.
The situation of Madame de Vandenesse can, however, be explained without recourse to Biblical images.

She felt in her soul an enormous power that was unemployed.

Her happiness gave her no suffering; it rolled along without care or uneasiness; she was not afraid of losing it; each morning it shone upon her, with the same blue sky, the same smile, the same sweet words.

That clear, still lake was unruffled by any breeze, even a zephyr; she would fain have seen a ripple on its glassy surface.
Her desire had something so infantine about it that it ought to be excused; but society is not more indulgent than the God of Genesis.
Madame de Vandenesse, having now become intelligently clever, was aware that such sentiments were not permissible, and she refrained from confiding them to her "dear little husband." Her genuine simplicity had not invented any other name for him; for one can't call up in cold blood that delightfully exaggerated language which love imparts to its victims in the midst of flames.
Vandenesse, glad of this adorable reserve, kept his wife, by deliberate calculations, in the temperate regions of conjugal affection.