Madame de Bonmont’s salon had been unusually lively and brilliant since the victory of the Nationalists in Paris and the election of Joseph Lacrisse for the ward of the Grandes-Écuries. The widow of the great Baron received at her house the flower of the new party. An old Rabbi of the Faubourg St. Antoine believed that the gentle Elisabeth attracted to herself the enemies of the chosen people by a special decree of the God of Israel. The hand, he thought, that placed Esther in the bed of Ahasuerus had been pleased to gather together the chiefs of the anti-Semites and the princes of the Trublions in the house of a Jewess. It is true that the Baronne had renounced the faith of her fathers, but who can fathom the designs of Jehovah! In the eyes of the artists, who, like Frémont, bethought themselves of the mythological figures in the palaces of Germany, her sumptuous beauty, the beauty of a Viennese Erigone, seemed symbolical of the Nationalist vintage.
Her dinners diffused an atmosphere of delight and power, and the smallest luncheon party at her house had a truly national significance. Thus, this morning she had gathered together at her table the most famous defenders of the Church and Army. There was Henri Léon, Vice-President of the Royalist Committees of the South-West, who had come to congratulate the Nationalists elected in Paris; Captain de Chalmot, the son of General Cartier de Chalmot, with his young American wife, who twittered to such an extent as she expressed her Nationalist propensities that one would have thought the very birds in their cages were taking part in our human disputes; Monsieur Tonnellier, the suspended professor of the fifth form at the Lycée Sully, who, as every one knows, had been convicted of defending, to his young pupils, an assault committed upon the person of the President of the Republic, had been condemned to pay a fine and was forthwith received in the best society, where he behaved very well, except that he was rather given to playing upon words; Frémont, an old Communard and an Inspector of the Fine Arts, who as he grew older became wonderfully reconciled to bourgeois and capitalist society, assiduously frequenting the houses of wealthy Jews, the guardians of the treasures of Christian art, and would gladly have lived under the dictatorship of a horse so long as he could spend the day caressing, with his delicate hands, finely wrought bibelots of precious material; and the old Comte Davant, dyed, waxed and varnished, handsome still, a trifle morose, who remembered the golden age of the Jews when he supplied the great financiers with furniture by Riesener and bronzes by Thomyres. When acting as the Baron’s collector he had gathered together fifteen millions’ worth of old furniture and objects of art. To-day, ruined by unfortunate speculation, he lived among the sons, regretting the fathers, a sad, bitter old man, one of the most insolent of parasites, insolence, as he well knew, being a parasite’s main passport to favour. She had also invited Jacques de Cadde, one of the promoters of the Henry subscription list; Philippe Dellion, Astolphe de Courtrai, Hugues Chassons des Aigues, President of the Nationalist Committee of Celle-Saint-Cloud, and Jambe-d’Argent in breeches and waistcoat of homespun, the white armlet with the golden lilies on his arm, and a wild shock of hair under his round hat, which, like his chaplet of olive-stones, he never removed. He was a Montmartre singer, by name Dupont, who having become a Chouan was received in the best society. He was taking a snack, with an old flint-gun between his legs, drinking copiously. Since the Affair a new classification had occurred in aristocratic French society.
Young Baron Ernest sat facing his mother in the chair set for the master of the house. The conversation turned on politics.
“You are wrong,” said Jacques de Cadde to Philippe Dellion. “Believe me, you are wrong not to employ Father François’ move. No one knows what may happen after the Exhibition and as soon as we begin to hold public meetings.”
“One thing is certain,” said Astolphe de Courtrai, “and that is if we want to do well in the elections in twenty months’ time we must prepare to begin a campaign. I can promise you that I shall be ready, I’m working hard every day at boxing and single-stick.”
“Who’s your trainer?” asked Dellion.
“Gaudibert. He has brought French boxing to perfection. It’s astonishing. He has some exquisite foot-work, some coups de savate, quite of his own. He’s a first-class teacher, and understands the tremendous importance of training.”
“Training is everything,” said Jacques de Cadde.
“Of course,” continued Courtrai. “And Gaudibert has superior methods of training, a whole system, based on experience. Massage, friction and dieting followed by plenty of nourishment. His motto is: ‘Keep down fat, build up muscle.’ And in six months, my friends, he makes you a first-rate boxer, and gives your punch an elasticity and your kick a suppleness——”