We were privileged to witness the fading light of those brilliant days when it shone on the box of Mademoiselle Mars.
All came to these assemblies in full dress. There were scarcely any who had not their own footstools, chairs and lounges. These were very formal occasions and, indeed, to be called a "dame de la Comédie-Française" meant a great deal; people still remember the occasion of the first attack upon this crusted etiquette.
It was Mademoiselle Bourgoin who broke through it, by asking for some cakes and a glass of Alicante. The old members of the company raised their hands to Heaven in that day and cried out at such an abomination of desolation. And their dismay was quite logical: a breach, if not repaired, is ever apt to grow larger, especially in a theatre. And that very infraction is responsible for the beer and fried eggs of to-day.
Well, as Georgine was eating her lentils, Prince Zappia was announced to her. What did Prince Zappia want at such an hour? He came to offer the key of a suite of rooms in the rue des Colonnes, which he had furnished since the previous evening at a cost of over fifty thousand francs. He assured the fair Georgine, as he handed her this key, that it was the one and only key that existed.
An oath was needed to induce the débutante to leave the hôtel du Pérou. This oath Prince Zappia took. On what did he swear? We don't know. We inquired of Mademoiselle Georges herself; but she replied to us, with the magnificent naïvete of a Lucrezia Borgia—
"Why do you wish to know that, my dear fellow? Many people have sworn oaths to me which they have not kept."
Lucien was not at all pleased at this change of residence. Lucien was not a prince at that time; Lucien was not wealthy; Lucien made love to her as a scholar; Lucien laid claim to the position of lover, which is always a rather difficult matter when one's apartments are dingy and cupboards bare: he was present one evening, I repeat, when Hermione's chambermaid came into her apartment, thoroughly scared, and told her that the First Consul's valet de chambre had come.
The First Consul's valet de chambre? he who had dressed him on the morning of 18 Brumaire? No! quite another person than Prince Zappia! They showed the First Consul's valet de chambre in with as much deference as they would have shown in 1750 to M. Lebel when he visited Madame Dumesnil.
The First Consul awaited Hermione at Saint-Cloud. Hermione was to come as she was: she could change her clothes there. The invitation was curt, but quite characteristic of the First Consul's manners.