Every hour came fresh arrivals from Blois and from Onzain, Mousseaux lying half way between the two stations. The landau, the victoria, and two great breaks set down at the steps in the great court, amid the incessant ringing of the bell, many illustrious members of the Duchess’s set, academicians and diplomatists, the Count and Countess Foder, the Comte de Brétigny and his son the Vicomte, who was a Secretary of Legation, M. and Madame Desminières, Laniboire the philosopher, who had come to the castle to draw up his report on the award of the Prix de vertu, the young critic of Shelley, who was ‘run’ by the Padovani set, and Danjou, handsome Danjou, all by himself, though his wife had been asked. Life at Mousseaux was exactly what it had been the year before. The day passed in calls, or work in the separate rooms, meals, general conversation, afternoon naps; then, when the great heat was passed, came long drives through the woods, or sails on the river in the little fleet of boats anchored at the bottom of the park. Parties would be made to picnic on an island, and some of the guests would repair to the fish preserves, which were always well stocked with lively fish, as the keeper took care to replenish them from his nets before each expedition. Then every one came back to the ceremonious dinner, after which the gentlemen, when they had smoked in the billiard room or on the gallery, joined the ladies in a splendid apartment, which had been the council-chamber of Catherine de Médicis.
All round the huge room were depicted in tapestry the loves of Dido and her despair at the departure of the Trojan ships. The irony of this strange coincidence was not remarked by any one, so little do people in society regard their surroundings, less for want of observation than because they are always and fully occupied with their personal behaviour and the effect they are to produce. But there was a striking contrast between the tragic despair of the abandoned queen, gazing with arms uplifted and streaming eyes as the little black speck disappeared, and the smiling serenity of the Duchess, as she presided in the drawing-room, maintaining her supremacy over the other ladies, whose dress and whose reading were guided by her taste, or joining in the discussions between Laniboire and the young critic, and in the disputes waged over the candidates for Loisillon’s seat by Desminières and Danjou. Indeed, if the Prince d’Athis, the faithless Sammy, whose name was in every one’s thoughts, though on no one’s lips, could have seen her, he would have been mortified to find how small was the gap left in a woman’s life by his-absence, and how busy was the turmoil throughout the royal castle of Mousseaux, where in all the long front there were but three windows shut up, those belonging to what were called ‘the Prince’s rooms.’
‘She takes it well,’ said Danjou the first evening. And neither little Countess Foder, from whose massy lace protruded a very sharp inquisitive little nose, nor sentimental Madame Desminières, who had looked forward to lamentations and confidences, could get over such amazing courage. In truth they were as much amazed at her as if going to a long-expected play they had found the house ‘closed for the day’; while the men took Ariadne’s equanimity as an encouragement to would-be successors. The real change in the Duchess’s life lay in the attitude observed towards her by all or nearly all the men; they were less reserved, more sedulous, more eager to please her, and fluttered round her chair with an obvious desire, not merely to merit her patronage, but to attract her regard.
Never indeed had Maria Antonia been more beautiful. When she entered the dining-room the tempered brilliancy of her complexion and her shoulders in their light summer robe made a bright place at the table, even when the Marquise de Roca Nera had come over from her neighbouring country seat on the other side of the Loire. The Marquise was younger, but no one would have thought so to look at them. Laniboire, the philosopher, was strongly attracted to the Duchess. He was a widower, well on in years, with heavy features and apoplectic complexion, but he did his best to captivate his hostess by the display of a manly and sportsmanlike activity which led him into occasional mishaps. One day, in a boat, as he tried to make a great display of biceps over his rowing, he fell into the river; another time, as he was prancing on horseback at the side of the carriage, his mount squeezed his leg so hard against the wheel that he had to keep his room and be bandaged for several days. But the finest spectacle was to see him in the drawing-room, ‘dancing,’ as Danjou said, ‘before the Ark.’ He stretched and bent his unwieldy person in all directions. He would challenge to a philosophic duel the young critic, a confirmed pessimist of three-and-twenty, and overwhelm him with his own imperturbable optimism. Laniboire the philosopher had one particular reason for this good opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother; and each time that he repeated his dithyramb in praise of existence, the philosopher concluded his statement with a sort of practical demonstration, a bow to the Duchess, which seemed to say, ‘How can a man think ill of life in the presence of such beauty as yours?’
The young critic paid his court in a less conspicuous and sufficiently cunning fashion. He was an immense admirer of the Prince d’Athis, and being at the age when admiration shows itself by imitation, he no sooner made his entry into society than he copied Sammy’s attitudes, his walk, even the carriage of his head, his bent back, and vague mysterious smile of contemptuous reserve. Now he increased the resemblance by details of dress, which he had observed and collected with the sharpness of a child, from the way of pinning his tie just at the opening of the collar to the fawn-coloured check of his English trousers. Unfortunately he had too much hair and not a scrap of beard, so that his efforts were quite thrown away, and revived no uncomfortable memories in the Duchess, who was as indifferent to his English checks as she was to the languishing glances of Brétigny fils, or the significant pressure of Brétigny père, as he gave her his arm to dinner. But all this helped to surround her with that atmosphere of gallantry to which she had long been accustomed by D’Athis, who played the humble servant to the verge of servility, and to save her woman’s pride from the conscious humiliation of abandonment.
Amidst all these aspirants Danjou kept somewhat aloof, amusing the Duchess with his green-room stories and making her laugh, a way of self-recommendation in certain cases not unsuccessful. But the time came when he thought matters sufficiently advanced: and one morning when she was starting for her rapid solitary walk with her dogs through the park, in the hope of leaving her wrath behind in the thickets with the waking birds, or of cooling and tempering it among the dewy lawns and dripping branches—suddenly, at a turn in the path, appeared Danjou, ready for the attack. Dressed from head to foot in white flannels, his trousers tucked into his boots, with a picturesque cap and a well-trimmed beard, he was trying to find a dénouement for a three-act drama, to be ready for the Français that winter. The name was ‘Appearances,’ and the subject a satire on society. Everything was written but the final scene.
‘Well, let us try what we can do together,’ said the Duchess brightly, as she cracked the long lash of the short-handled whip with silver whistle, which she used to call in her dogs. But the moment they turned to walk together, he began to talk of his love, and how sad it would be for her to live alone; and ended by offering himself, after his own fashion, straight out and with no circumlocutions. The Duchess, with a quick movement of pride, threw up her head, grasping her whip handle tightly, as if to strike the insolent fellow who dared to talk to her as he might to a super at the opera. But the insult was also a compliment, and there was pleasure as well as anger in her blush. Danjou steadily urged his point, and tried to dazzle her with his polished wit, pretending to treat the matter less as a love affair than as an intellectual partnership. A man like himself and a woman like her might command the world.
‘Many thanks, my dear Danjou; such specious reasoning is not new to me. I am suffering from it still.’ Then with a haughty wave of her hand, which allowed no reply, she pointed out the shady path which the dramatist was to follow, and said, ‘Look for your dénouement; I am going in.’ He stood where he was, completely disconcerted, and gazed at her beautiful carriage as she walked away.