It was with no little interest that I looked about me, for the salon of the Duchess du Maine was one of the most famous in France. My first impression was one of disappointment, for the scene was less striking than I had thought to find it. Groups of people were scattered here and there down the long room, and at the farther end a little court was gathered about a lady whom I did not doubt was the duchess herself. There were few other women present, a circumstance which greatly astonished me, and the men had a singular diversity of dress and manner, betokening that it was no ordinary motive which had drawn them together from so many ranks of life and so many strata of society. It needed but a glance to tell me that these were not wits and beaux, but, in Richelieu’s words, men of action. Nearly every one looked up as we entered with, as it seemed to me, a vague air of fear, but this vanished instantly when they saw that Richelieu was my companion.
“Ah, Mlle. de Launay,” said the duke to a young lady who hastened to us from the nearest group, “I trust fortune is using us as we could wish?”
“Yes, fortune is with us still, M. le Duc,” she answered, smiling brightly. “Indeed, the justice of our cause seems to have inspired an unaccustomed constancy in that fickle dame, and she has decided to stay with us to the end.”
“I hope it may be so.” And then, turning to me, “Permit me to present my friend M. de Brancas, a young man of stout heart who comes from Poitiers to seek adventure in Paris, and who, I see, has already fallen a victim to your bright eyes.”
“In faith, ’twould take a much stouter heart than mine to resist them,” I protested, bowing over the hand she gave me, “and I wager mine is not the first they have made captive.”
“Oh, but the fickleness of men!” exclaimed the girl, smiling at me not unkindly. “To-day their hearts are broken, to-morrow they are quite healed, I know not by what wondrous surgery. I believed that in the Chevalier de Rey I had at last found a constant man, but even he is failing me, for his affection is decreasing regularly in a geometrical ratio.”
“A geometrical ratio, mademoiselle?” cried Richelieu. “And pray how do you show that?”
“’Tis very easily shown,” and her eyes were sparkling with mischief. “You know it has been the custom of M. de Rey to accompany me home from the salon of Madame de Tencin on such occasions as I have been there recently, and in the course of the journey we are compelled to cross the Place des Victoires. In the first stages of his passion M. de Rey would walk me carefully around the sides of this square in order to make the journey longer, but as his affection gradually cooled he took a more direct course, until, last night, he simply traversed it in the middle. Hence I conclude that his love has diminished in the same proportion which exists between the diagonal of a square and its sides.”
“Quod erat demonstrandum!” cried Richelieu. “I have never heard a geometrical proposition explained more clearly. But come, I have a word to say to madame and must introduce my protégé to her. You will excuse us, mademoiselle?”
I should not have been sorry to remain longer where I was, but I promised myself to seek her again before the evening closed. Richelieu was kept busy bowing to right and left as we traversed the length of the room, but he did not pause, though obviously many would have been grateful for a second’s conversation with him. In a moment we reached the group at the farther end, which separated as we approached and opened a way to the duchess.