"We shall see."
"You have already a friendship for me, have you not?"
"More than that."
"Oh! then we are at least half way. And you are a woman that I should adore, if----" He stopped and sighed.
"Well," said she, "if----"
"If you would permit it."
"Perhaps I shall, when I shall be independent of your a.s.sistance, and you can no longer suspect that I encourage you from interested motives."
"Then you forbid me to pay my court now?"
"Not at all; but there are other ways besides kneeling and kissing hands."
"Well, countess, let us hear; what will you permit?"
"All that is compatible with my tastes and duties."
"Oh, that is vague indeed."
"Stop! I was going to add--my caprices."
"I am lost!"
"You draw back?"
"No," said the cardinal, "I do not."
"Well, then, I want a proof."
"Speak."
"I want to go to the ball at the Opera."
"Well, countess, that only concerns yourself. Are you not free as air to go where you wish?"
"Ah, but you have not heard all. I want you to go with me."
"I to the Opera, countess!" said he, with a start of horror.
"See already how much your desire to please me is worth."
"A cardinal cannot go to a ball at the Opera, countess. It is as if I proposed to you to go into a public-house."
"Then a cardinal does not dance, I suppose?"
"Oh no!"
"But I have read that M. le Cardinal de Richelieu danced a saraband."
"Yes, before Anne of Austria."
"Before a queen," repeated Jeanne. "Perhaps you would do as much for a queen?"
The cardinal could not help blushing, dissembler as he was.
"Is it not natural," she continued, "that I should feel hurt when, after all your protestations, you will not do as much for me as you would for a queen?--especially when I only ask you to go concealed in a domino and a mask; besides, a man like you, who may do anything with impunity!"
The cardinal yielded to her flattery and her blandishments. Taking her hand, he said, "For you I will do anything, even the impossible."
"Thanks, monseigneur; you are really amiable. But now you have consented, I will let you off."
"No, no! he who does the work can alone claim the reward. Countess, I will attend you, but in a domino."
"We shall pa.s.s through the Rue St. Denis, close to the Opera," said the countess. "I will go in masked, buy a domino and a mask for you, and you can put them on in the carriage."
"That will do delightfully."
"Oh, monseigneur, you are very good! But, now I think of it, perhaps at the Hotel Rohan you might find a domino more to your taste than the one I should buy."
"Now, countess, that is unpardonable malice. Believe me if I go to the Opera, I shall be as surprised to find myself there as you were to find yourself supping tete-a-tete with a man not your husband."
Jeanne had nothing to reply to this. Soon a carriage without arms drove up; they both got in, and drove off at a rapid pace.
CHAPTER XXII.
SOME WORDS ABOUT THE OPERA.
The Opera, that temple of pleasure at Paris, was burned in the month of June, 1781. Twenty persons had perished in the ruins; and as it was the second time within eighteen years that this had happened, it created a prejudice against the place where it then stood, in the Palais Royal, and the king had ordered its removal to a less central spot. The place chosen was La Porte St. Martin.
The king, vexed to see Paris deprived for so long of its Opera, became as sorrowful as if the arrivals of grain had ceased, or bread had risen to more than seven sous the quartern loaf. It was melancholy to see the n.o.bility, the army, and the citizens without their after-dinner amus.e.m.e.nt; and to see the promenades thronged with the unemployed divinities, from the chorus-singers to the prima donnas.
An architect was then introduced to the king, full of new plans, who promised so perfect a ventilation, that even in case of fire no one could be smothered. He would make eight doors for exit, besides five large windows placed so low that any one could jump out of them. In the place of the beautiful hall of Moreau he was to erect a building with ninety-six feet of frontage towards the boulevard, ornamented with eight caryatides on pillars forming three entrance-doors, a bas-relief above the capitals, and a gallery with three windows. The stage was to be thirty-six feet wide, the theater seventy-two feet deep and eighty across, from one wall to the other. He asked only seventy-five days and nights before he opened it to the public.
This appeared to all a mere gasconade, and was much laughed at. The king, however, concluded the agreement with him. Lenoir set to work, and kept his word. But the public feared that a building so quickly erected could not be safe, and when it opened no one would go.
Even the few courageous ones who did go to the first representation of "Adele de Ponthieu" made their wills first. The architect was in despair. He came to the king to consult him as to what was to be done.
It was just after the birth of the dauphin; all Paris was full of joy.
The king advised him to announce a gratuitous performance in honor of the event, and give a ball after. Doubtless plenty would come, and if the theater stood, its safety was established.
"Thanks, sire," said the architect.