"Truly!" said Madame Rohan-Soubise, impatiently, "all these stories resemble the tales of Perrault."
"They are much more like fairy tales," replied M. de Lugeac. "And then the description of his bedchamber! they say that his toilet set is entirely of gold chased by Gouttière, and enriched with precious stones." . . .
"And I," said the abbé, "I have heard a thousand times repeated by the Archbishop of Paris that M. de Létorière was almost the serpent of the terrestrial paradise. . . . 'If it were an affair of the government of Paris,' said this good prelate to me this morning, 'I would mask him with a cowl, like a black penitent, to hide his eyes, and choke the sound of his voice; for, in a question of precedence which interested one of my relations, this tempter has turned upside down my whole chapter-house, and fascinated my prebendaries so that they speak of nothing but him.'"
At this moment the door of the boudoir was thrown open, and a valet-de-chambre announced with a loud voice: Monsieur the Marquis de Létorière!
"M. de Létorière in my house! I have never received him! What audacity!" cried Madame de Rohan-Soubise, with as much astonishment as anger.
[1]See for these details, and for other biographical particulars of Létorière, the charming Souvenirs de Madame la Marquise de Créquy.
[CHAPTER IX]
THE DEPARTURE
At the announcement of the Marquis, Madame de Rohan-Soubise had risen; the count and the abbé did the same,—and so also did the princess Julie.
The Marquis found these four persons present: Madame Rohan-Soubise, in full dress, arrogant, irritated, haughty; the abbé, by way of reassuring himself, caressed Puff, who, awaking with a start, whined a little; the count, leaning his elbow on the mantle-piece, played carelessly with his watch-chain; Mlle. de Soissons, calm and resolved, supported herself with one hand on her embroidery frame, and looked at Létorière with an air at once tender and grateful.