"Pray be cautious. De Finisterre is not a man I should implicitly trust in such matters."
"Why? Do you know anything against him? He is in the best society,--perfect gentilhomme,--and, as his name may tell you, a fellow-Breton. You yourself allow, and so does Enguerrand, that the purchases he made for me--in this apartment, my horses, etc.--are singularly advantageous."
"Quite true; the Chevalier is reputed sharp and clever, is said to be very amusing, and a first-rate piquet-player. I don"t know him personally,--I am not in his set. I have no valid reason to disparage his character, nor do I conjecture any motive he could have to injure or mislead you. Still, I say, be cautious how far you trust to his advice or recommendation."
"Again I ask why?"
"He is unlucky to his friends. He attaches himself much to men younger than himself; and somehow or other I have observed that most of them have come to grief. Besides, a person in whose sagacity I have great confidence warned me against making the Chevalier"s acquaintance, and said to me, in his blunt way, "De Finisterre came to Paris with nothing; he has succeeded to nothing; he belongs to no ostensible profession by which anything can be made. But evidently now he has picked up a good deal; and in proportion as any young a.s.sociate of his becomes poorer, De Finisterre seems mysteriously to become richer. Shun that sort of acquaintance.""
"Who is your sagacious adviser!"
"Duplessis."
"Ah, I thought so. That bird of prey fancies every other bird looking out for pigeons. I fancy that Duplessis is, like all those money-getters, a seeker after fashion, and De Finisterre has not returned his bow."
"My dear Alain, I am to blame; nothing is so irritating as a dispute about the worth of the men we like. I began it, now let it be dropped; only make me one promise,--that if you should be in arrear, or if need presses, you will come at once to me. It was very well to be absurdly proud in an attic, but that pride will be out of place in your appartement au premier."
"You are the best fellow in the world, Frederic, and I make you the promise you ask," said Alain, cheerfully, but yet with a secret emotion of tenderness and grat.i.tude. "And now, mon cher, what day will you dine with me to meet Raoul and Enguerrand, and some others whom you would like to know?"
"Thanks, and hearty ones, but we move now in different spheres, and I shall not trespa.s.s on yours. Je suis trop bourgeois to incur the ridicule of le bourgeois gentilhomme."
"Frederic, how dare you speak thus? My dear fellow, my friends shall honour you as I do."
"But that will be on your account, not mine. No; honestly that kind of society neither tempts nor suits me. I am a sort of king in my own walk; and I prefer my Bohemian royalty to va.s.salage in higher regions. Say no more of it. It will flatter my vanity enough if you will now and then descend to my coteries, and allow me to parade a Rochebriant as my familiar crony, slap him on the shoulder, and call him Alain."
"Fie! you who stopped me and the English aristocrat in the Champs Elysees, to humble us with your boast of having fascinated une grande dame,--I think you said a d.u.c.h.esse."
"Oh," said Lemercier, conceitedly, and pa.s.sing his hand through his scented locks, "women are different; love levels all ranks. I don"t blame Ruy Blas for accepting the love of a queen, but I do blame him for pa.s.sing himself off as a n.o.ble,--a plagiarism, by the by, from an English play. I do not love the English enough to copy them. A propos, what has become of ce beau Grarm Varn? I have not seen him of late."
"Neither have I."
"Nor the belle Italienne?"
"Nor her," said Alain, slightly blushing.
At this moment Enguerrand lounged into the room. Alain stopped Lemercier to introduce him to his kinsman. "Enguerrand, I present to you M.
Lemercier, my earliest and one of my dearest friends."
The young n.o.ble held out his hand with the bright and joyous grace which accompanied all his movements, and expressed in cordial words his delight to make M. Lemercier"s acquaintance. Bold and a.s.sured as Frederic was in his own circles, he was more discomposed than set at ease by the gracious accost of a lion, whom he felt at once to be of a breed superior to his own. He muttered some confused phrases, in which ravi and flatte were alone audible, and evanished.
"I know M. Lemercier by sight very well," said Enguerrand, seating himself. "One sees him very often in the Bois; and I have met him in the Coulisses and the Bal Mabille. I think, too, that he plays at the Bourse, and is lie with M. Duplessis, who bids fair to rival Louvier one of these days. Is Duplessis also one of your dearest friends?"
"No, indeed. I once met him, and was not prepossessed in his favour."
"Nevertheless, he is a man much to be admired and respected."
"Why so?"
"Because he understands so well the art of making what we all covet,--money. I will introduce you to him."
"I have been already introduced."
"Then I will re-introduce you. He is much courted in a society which I have recently been permitted by my father to frequent,--the society, of the Imperial Court."
"You frequent that society, and the Count permits it?"
"Yes; better the Imperialists than the Republicans; and my father begins to own that truth, though he is too old or too indolent to act on it."
"And Raoul?"
"Oh, Raoul, the melancholy and philosophical Raoul, has no ambition of any kind, so long as--thanks somewhat to me--his purse is always replenished for the wants of his stately existence, among the foremost of which wants are the means to supply the wants of others. That is the true reason why he consents to our glove-shop. Raoul belongs, with some other young men of the Faubourg, to a society enrolled under the name of Saint Francois de Sales, for the relief of the poor. He visits their houses, and is at home by their sickbeds as at their stinted boards.
Nor does he confine his visitations to the limits of our Faubourg; he extends his travels to Montmartre and Belleville. As to our upper world, he does not concern himself much with its changes. He says that we have destroyed too much ever to rebuild solidly; and that whatever we do build could be upset any day by a Paris mob, which he declares to be the only inst.i.tution we have left. A wonderful fellow is Raoul,--full of mind, though he does little with it; full of heart, which he devotes to suffering humanity, and to a poetic, knightly reverence (not to be confounded with earthly love, and not to be degraded into that sickly sentiment called Platonic affection) for the Comtesse di Rimini, who is six years older than himself, and who is very faithfully attached to her husband, Raoul"s intimate friend, whose honour he would guard as his own. It is an episode in the drama of Parisian life, and one not so uncommon as the malignant may suppose. Di Rimini knows and approves of his veneration; my mother, the best of women, sanctions it, and deems truly that it preserves Raoul safe from all the temptations to which ign.o.bler youth is exposed. I mention this lest you should imagine there was anything in Raoul"s worship of his star less pure than it is.
For the rest, Raoul, to the grief and amazement of that disciple of Voltaire, my respected father, is one of the very few men I know in our circles who is sincerely religious,--an orthodox Catholic,--and the only man I know who practises the religion he professes; charitable, chaste, benevolent; and no bigot, no intolerant ascetic. His only weakness is his entire submission to the worldly common-sense of his good-for-nothing, covetous, ambitious brother Enguerrand. I cannot say how I love him for that. If he had not such a weakness, his excellence would gall me, and I believe I should hate him."
Alain bowed his head at this eulogium. Such had been the character that a few months ago he would have sought as example and model. He seemed to gaze upon a flattered portrait of himself as he had been.
"But," said Enguerrand, "I have not come here to indulge in the overflow of brotherly affection. I come to take you to your relation, the d.u.c.h.esse of Tarascon. I have pledged myself to her to bring you, and she is at home on purpose to receive you."
"In that case I cannot be such a churl as to refuse. And, indeed, I no longer feel quite the same prejudices against her and the Imperialists as I brought from Bretagne. Shall I order my carriage?"
"No; mine is at the door. Yours can meet you where you will, later.
Allons."
CHAPTER III.
The d.u.c.h.esse de Tarascon occupied a vast apartment in the Rue Royale, close to the Tuileries. She held a high post among the ladies who graced the brilliant court of the Empress. She had survived her second husband the duke, who left no issue, and the t.i.tle died with him.
Alain and Enguerrand were ushered up the grand staircase, lined with tiers of costly exotics as if for a fete; but in that and in all kinds of female luxury, the d.u.c.h.esse lived in a state of fete perpetuelle.
The doors on the landing-place were screened by heavy portieres of Genoa velvet, richly embroidered in gold with the ducal crown and cipher. The two salons through which the visitors pa.s.sed to the private cabinet or boudoir were decorated with Gobelin tapestries, fresh, with a mixture of roseate hues, and depicting incidents in the career of the first emperor; while the effigies of the late duke"s father--the gallant founder of a short-lived race figured modestly in the background. On a table of Russian malachite within the recess of the central window lay, preserved in gla.s.s cases, the baton and the sword, the epaulettes and the decorations of the brave Marshal. On the consoles and the mantelpieces stood clocks and vases of Sevres that could scarcely be eclipsed by those in the Imperial palaces. Entering the cabinet, they found the d.u.c.h.esse seated at her writing-table, with a small Skye terrier, hideous in the beauty of the purest breed, nestled at her feet. This room was an exquisite combination of costliness and comfort,--Luxury at home. The hangings were of geranium-coloured silk, with double curtains of white satin; near to the writing-table a conservatory, with a white marble fountain at play in the centre, and a trellised aviary at the back. The walls were covered with small pictures,--chiefly portraits and miniatures of the members of the imperial family, of the late Duc, of his father the Marshal and Madame la Marechale, of the present d.u.c.h.esse herself, and of some of the princ.i.p.al ladies of the court.
The d.u.c.h.esse was still in the prime of life. She had pa.s.sed her fortieth year, but was so well "conserved" that you might have guessed her to be ten years younger. She was tall; not large, but with rounded figure inclined to en bon point; with dark hair and eyes, but fair complexion, injured in effect rather than improved by pearl-powder, and that atrocious barbarism of a dark stain on the eyelids which has of late years been a baneful fashion; dressed,--I am a man, and cannot describe her dress; all I know is that she had the acknowledged fame of the best-dressed subject of France. As she rose from her seat there was in her look and air the unmistakable evidence of grande dame,--a family likeness in feature to Alain himself, a stronger likeness to the picture of her first cousin (his mother) which was preserved at Rochebriant. Her descent was indeed from ancient and n.o.ble houses. But to the distinction of race she added that of fashion, crowning both with a tranquil consciousness of lofty position and unblemished reputation.
"Unnatural cousin!" she said to Alain, offering her hand to him, with a gracious smile,--"all this age in Paris, and I see you for the first time. But there is joy on earth as in heaven over sinners who truly repent. You repent truly--n"est ce pas?"
It is impossible to describe the caressing charm which the d.u.c.h.esse threw into her words, voice, and look. Alain was fascinated and subdued.
"Ah, Madame la d.u.c.h.esse," said he, bowing over the fait hand he lightly held, "it was not sin, unless modesty be a sin, which made a rustic hesitate long before he dared to offer his homage to the queen of the graces."
"Not badly said for a rustic," cried Enguerrand; "eh, Madame?"
"My cousin, you are pardoned," said the d.u.c.h.esse. "Compliment is the perfume of gentilhommerie; and if you brought enough of that perfume from the flowers of Rochebriant to distribute among the ladies at court, you will be terribly the mode there. Seducer!"--here she gave the Marquis a playful tap on the cheek, not in a coquettish but in a mother-like familiarity, and looking at him attentively, said: "Why, you are even handsomer than your father. I shall be proud to present to their Imperial Majesties so becoming a cousin. But seat yourselves here, Messieurs, close to my arm-chair, caussons."
The d.u.c.h.esse then took up the ball of the conversation. She talked without any apparent artifice, but with admirable tact; put just the questions about Rochebriant most calculated to please Alain, shunning all that might have pained him; asking him for descriptions of the surrounding scenery, the Breton legends; hoping that the old castle would never be spoiled by modernizing restorations; inquiring tenderly after his aunt, whom she had in her childhood once seen, and still remembered with her sweet, grave face; paused little for replies; then turned to Enguerrand with sprightly small-talk on the topics of the day, and every now and then bringing Alain into the pale of the talk, leading on insensibly until she got Enguerrand himself to introduce the subject of the emperor, and the political troubles which were darkening a reign heretofore so prosperous and splendid.
Her countenance then changed; it became serious, and even grave in its expression.