I am very much afraid that the Misses Simaise will never marry. They had, however, a golden and unique opportunity during the Commune. The family had taken refuge in Normandy, in a small and very litigious town, full of lawyers, attorneys, and business men. No sooner had the father arrived, than he looked out for orders. His fame as a sculptor was of service to him, and as in the public square of the town there happened to be a statue of Cujas done by him, all the notabilities of the place wanted to have their busts done.
The mother at once fastened up the hammock in a corner of the studio, and the young ladies organized a few parties. They at once met with great success. Here at least, poverty seemed but an accident due to exile; the disorder of the establishment was accounted for. The handsome girls laughed loudly themselves at their destitution.
They had started off without anything; and nothing could be had now Paris was closed. It lent to them an extra charm. It called to mind travelling gipsies, combing their beautiful hair in barns, and quenching their thirst in streams. The least poetical compared them in their minds to the exiles of Coblentz, those ladies of Marie-Antoinette's court who, obliged to fly in haste, without powder or hoops, or bedchamber women, were driven to all sorts of makeshifts, learning to wait upon themselves, and keeping up the frivolity of the French court, the piquant smile of the lost patches.
Every evening a throng of dazzled lawyers crowded Simaise's studio. To the sounds of a hired piano, all this little world danced the polka, waltzed, schottisched,—they still schottische in Normandy. "I shall end by marrying off one," thought old Simaise; and the fact is if one had gone off, all the others would have followed suit. Unluckily the first never went off, but it was a near touch. Amongst the numerous partners of these young ladies, in that corps de ballet of lawyers, attorneys and solicitors, the most rabid dancer was a widowed lawyer, who was extremely attentive to the eldest daughter. He was called by them "the first dancing attorney," in memory of Moliere's ballets, and certainly, considering the rate at which the fellow whirled round, Papa Simaise might well build the greatest hopes on him. But then business men do not dance like everybody else. This fellow, all the time he was waltzing, reflected silently: "The Simaise family is charming. Tra, la la, la la la, but it's useless their trying to hurry me on, la la la, la la la. I shall not propose till the gates of Paris are reopened. Tra la la, and I shall be able to make all necessary inquiries, la la la!" Thus thought the first dancing attorney, and in fact, directly the blockade of Paris was raised, he got his information about the family, and the marriage did not come off.