A CONVERSATION BETWEEN ELEVEN O'CLOCK AND MIDNIGHTAs a result of the elections which had just taken place, the ministry, contrary to expectation, maintained a majority in the Chamber,--a doubtful and provisional majority which would give it an uncertain and struggling existence.But, at any rate, it had obtained that merely numerical success which parties seek at any price to prolong their power.The Te Deum was sung in all its camps,--a paean which serves as well to celebrate victorious defeats as honest victories.
On the evening of the day when Colonel Franchessini received the visit from Maxime de Trailles, the general result of the elections was made known.The ministers of the left bank, whose wives received on that day, found their salons crowded, particularly the Comte de Rastignac, the minister of Public Works.
Madame de l'Estorade, too much absorbed in her children to be very exact in the fulfilment of her social duties, had owed a visit to Madame de Rastignac ever since the evening when the minister's wife had interrupted her conversation with the sculptor apropos of the famous statue.Monsieur de l'Estorade, zealous conservative as we know already, had insisted that politics and politeness now combined to oblige them both to pay this social debt.Arriving early, in order to be rid the sooner of such a bore, Madame de l'Estorade found herself seated at the upper end of a circle of women, while the men stood about them conversing.Her chair was side by side with that of Madame de Rastignac.
In hoping to make her visit short, Madame de l'Estorade had not counted on the allurements of conversation which, under the circumstances of this so-called political victory, laid hold of her husband.A man of more influence by his judgment than by his oratory in the Chamber of Peers, Monsieur de l'Estorade, as he circulated through the salons, was stopped at every turn by the various notabilities of politics, finance, and diplomacy, and requested to give his opinion on the future of the session now about to begin.To all such questions he replied with more or less extended observations, and sometimes he had the pleasure of finding himself the centre of a group respectfully receptive of his opinions.This success rendered him very inattentive to the telegraphy of his wife, who, watching his various evolutions, made him signs whenever she could catch his eye that she wished to go away.
The years that had elapsed since Monsieur de l'Estorade had obtained the hand of the beautiful Renee de Maucombe, while they had scarcely dimmed the splendor of her beauty, had considerably aged her husband.
The twenty years' difference in their ages--he being now fifty-two, she thirty-two--was growing all the more apparent because even at the time of the marriage he was turning gray and his health was failing.
An affection of the liver, latent for several years, was now developing, and at the same time the wilful disposition which is noticeable in statesmen and men of ambition made his mouth less sensitive to the conjugal bit.Monsieur de l'Estorade talked so long and so well that after a time the salons thinned, leaving a group of the intimates of the house around his wife and their hostess.At this moment the minister himself slipped an arm through his, and, leading him up to the group surrounding their two wives, Rastignac said to Madame de l'Estorade,--"I bring you back your husband; I have just found him in criminal conversation with a member of the Zollverin, who would probably have clung to him all night if it had not been for me.""I was myself on the point of asking Madame de Rastignac for a bed, that I might release her from the burden of my company, which Monsieur de l'Estorade's interminable conversations have put upon her."Madame de Rastignac protested that, on the contrary, she desired to enjoy as long as possible Madame de l'Estorade's company, only regretting that she had been so often obliged to interrupt their conversation to receive those strange objects, the newly fledged deputies, who had come in relays to make their bow to her.
"Oh! my dear," cried Rastignac, "here's the session about to open, and we really must not take these disdainful airs toward the elect of the nation.Besides which, you will get into difficulties with madame, who, I am told, is the protectress of one of these sovereigns of late date.""I?" said Madame de l'Estorade, rather surprised, and blushing a little.She had one of those complexions, still fresh and dazzling, which are predisposed to these flushes of color.
"Ah! true," said Madame de Rastignac; "I had forgotten that artist who cut out the pretty figures for your children the last time I had the pleasure of paying you a visit.I own I was far from thinking then that he would be one of our masters.""And yet, ever since then," replied Madame de l'Estorade, "his election has been talked about; though it must be owned that until now no one thought seriously of it.""I did," said Monsieur de l'Estorade, rather eagerly, seizing the occasion to put another star to his reputation for prophecy; "from the first political conversation that I had with him I said--and Monsieur de Ronquerolles is here to bear me out--that I was surprised at the ability and the breadth of aim he manifested.""Certainly," said the personage thus interpellated, "he is not an ordinary fellow; but I do not believe in his future.He is a man who goes by the first impulsion, and, as Monsieur de Talleyrand has wisely remarked, the first impulse is the good impulse.""Well, monsieur?" inquired Madame de l'Estorade, ingenuously.