first, she objected strongly to the slovenly costume of a great many of the "honorable gentlemen"; and she was also amazed at the number of bald heads she looked down upon from the gallery.Monsieur de l'Estorade took pains to point out to her all the notabilities present: first, the great men whom we need not mention, because their names are in everybody's memory; next, the poet Canalis, whose air she thought Olympian; d'Arthez, who pleased her by his modesty and absence of assumption; Vinet, of whom she remarked that he was like a viper in spectacles; Victorin Hulot, a noted orator of the Left Centre.It was some time before she could accustom herself to the hum of the various conversations, which seemed to her like the buzzing of bees around their hive; but the thing that most amazed her was the general aspect of this assemblage of legislators, where a singular laisser-allerand a total absence of dignity would never have led her to suppose she was in the hall of the representatives of a great people.
It was written that on this day no pain or unpleasantness should be spared to Madame de l'Estorade.Just before the sitting began, the Marquise d'Espard, accompanied by Monsieur de Ronquerolles, entered the peers' gallery and took her seat beside the countess.Though meeting constantly in society, the two women could not endure each other.Madame de l'Estorade despised the spirit of intrigue, the total lack of principle, and the sour, malevolent nature which the marquise covered with an elegant exterior; and the marquise despised, to a still greater degree, what she called the pot-au-feu virtues of Madame de l'Estorade.It must also be mentioned that Madame de l'Estorade was thirty-two years old and her beauty was still undimmed, whereas Madame d'Espard was forty-four, and, in spite of the careful dissimulations of the toilet, her beauty was fairly at an end.
"You do not often come here, I think," said Madame d'Espard, after the usual conventional phrases about the pleasure of their meeting had passed.
"I never come," replied Madame de l'Estorade.
"And I am most assiduous," said Madame d'Espard.
Then, pretending to a sudden recollection, she added,--"Ah! I forgot; you have a special interest, I think, on this occasion.
A friend of yours is to be judged, is he not?""Yes; Monsieur de Sallenauve has been to our house several times.""How sad it is," said the marquise, "to see a man who, Monsieur de Ronquerolles tells me, had the making of a hero in many ways, come down to the level of the correctional police.""His crime so far," said Madame de l'Estorade, dryly, "consists solely in his absence.""At any rate," continued the marquise, "he seems to be a man eaten up by ambition.Before his parliamentary attempt, he made, as you doubtless know, a matrimonial attempt upon the Lantys, which ended in the beautiful heiress of that family, into whose good graces he had insinuated himself, being sent to a convent."Madame de l'Estorade was not much surprised at finding that this history, which Sallenauve had told her as very secret, had reached the knowledge of Madame d'Espard.The marquise was one of the best informed women in Paris; her salon, as an old academician had said mythologically, was the Temple of Fame.
"I think the sitting is about to begin," said Madame de l'Estorade;fearing some blow from the claws of the marquise, she was eager to put an end to the conversation.
The president had rung his bell, the deputies were taking their seats, the curtain was about to rise.As a faithful narrator of the session we desire our readers to attend, we think it safer and better in every way to copy verbatim the report of the debate as given in one of the morning papers of the following day.
Chamber of Deputies.
In the chair, M.Cointet (vice-president).
(Sitting of May 28.)
At two o'clock the president takes his seat.
M.the Keeper of the Seals, M.the minister of the Interior, M.the minister of Public Works, are on the ministerial bench.
The minutes of the last session are read, approved, and accepted.
The order of the day is the verification of the powers and the admission of the deputy elected by the arrondissement of Arcis-sur-Aube.
The President.--M.the reporter, from the Committee on the elections of the department of the Aube, has the floor.
The Reporter.--Gentlemen, the singular and regrettable situation in which Monsieur de Sallenauve has placed himself has not terminated in the manner that was hoped and expected last week.