Florine meantime sent for certain dealers in old furniture,bric-a-brac,pictures,and jewels.These men entered her sanctuary and took an inventory of every article,precisely as if Florine were dead.She declared she would sell everything at public auction if they did not offer her a proper price.She had had the luck to please,she said,an English lord,and she wanted to get rid of all her property and look poor,so that he might give her a fine house and furniture,fit to rival the Rothschilds.But in spite of these persuasions and subterfuges,all the dealers would offer her for a mass of belongings worth a hundred and fifty thousand was seventy thousand.Florine thereupon offered to deliver over everything in eight days for eighty thousand,--"To take or leave,"she said,--and the bargain was concluded.After the men had departed she skipped for joy,like the hills of King David,and performed all manner of follies,not having thought herself so rich.
When Raoul came back she made him a little scene,pretending to be hurt;she declared that he abandoned her;that she had reflected;men did not pass from one party to another,from the stage to the Chamber,without some reason;there was a woman at the bottom;she had a rival!
In short,she made him swear eternal fidelity.Five days later she gave a splendid feast.The new journal was baptized in floods of wine and wit,with oaths of loyalty,fidelity,and good-fellowship.The name,forgotten now like those of the Liberal,Communal,Departmental,Garde National,Federal,Impartial,was something in "al"that was equally imposing and evanescent.At three in the morning Florine could undress and go to bed as if alone,though no one had left the house;these lights of the epoch were sleeping the sleep of brutes.And when,early in the morning,the packers and vans arrived to remove Florine's treasures she laughed to see the porters moving the bodies of the celebrated men like pieces of furniture that lay in their way."Sic transit"all her fine things!all her presents and souvenirs went to the shops of the various dealers,where no one on seeing them would know how those flowers of luxury had been originally paid for.It was agreed that a few little necessary articles should be left,for Florine's personal convenience until evening,--her bed,a table,a few chairs,and china enough to give her guests their breakfast.
Having gone to sleep beneath the draperies of wealth and luxury,these distinguished men awoke to find themselves within bare walls,full of nail-holes,degraded into abject poverty.
"Why,Florine!--The poor girl has been seized for debt!"cried Bixiou,who was one of the guests."Quick!a subion for her!"On this they all roused up.Every pocket was emptied and produced a total of thirty-seven francs,which Raoul carried in jest to Florine's bedside.She burst out laughing and lifted her pillow,beneath which lay a mass of bank-notes to which she pointed.
Raoul called to Blondet.
"Ah!I see!"cried Blondet."The little cheat has sold herself out without a word to us.Well done,you little angel!"Thereupon,the actress was borne in triumph into the dining-room where most of the party still remained.The lawyer and du Tillet had departed.
That evening Florine had an ovation at the theatre;the story of her sacrifice had circulated among the audience.
"I'd rather be applauded for my talent,"said her rival in the green-room.
"A natural desire in an actress who has never been applauded at all,"remarked Florine.
During the evening Florine's maid installed her in Raoul's apartment in the Passage Sandrie.Raoul himself was to encamp in the house where the office of the new journal was established.
Such was the rival of the innocent Madame de Vandenesse.Raoul was the connecting link between the actress and the countess,--a knot severed by a duchess in the days of Louis XV.by the poisoning of Adrienne Lecouvreur;a not inconceivable vengeance,considering the offence.
Florine,however,was not in the way of Raoul's dawning passion.She foresaw the lack of money in the difficult enterprise he had undertaken,and she asked for leave of absence from the theatre.Raoul conducted the negotiation in a way to make himself more than ever valuable to her.With the good sense of the peasant in La Fontaine's fable,who makes sure of a dinner while the patricians talk,the actress went into the provinces to cut faggots for her celebrated man while he was employed in hunting power.