"Yes; that's what those sort of people call themselves," grumbled Joubert. "Good name, too, for her."
"So," I finished, "order a carriage to the door as quick as it can be got, and come with me to Etiolles, for I want to get the Pavilion in order."
"Monsieur's orders as to the carriage shall be attended to," said the old man with fine sarcasm, considering that he had turned "Monsieur" over his knee and spanked him with a slipper often enough in the past. "But as for me, I will not go; no, I will not go!"
He vanished into the bathroom to prepare my bath.
When I was dressed I ordered Potirin, the concierge, to send a man to the Closerie de Lilas, and, if the place was still standing after the riots of last night, to obtain Franzius' address. Then, when the front door was opened for me, I found the carriage waiting, and on the box, beside the coachman—Joubert!
I smiled as I got in, and we started.
It was an open carriage; and in the superb May morning Paris lay white and almost silent; the Rue St. Honoré was deserted, and a weak wind, warm and lilac perfumed, blew from the west under a sky of palest sapphire. We passed Bercy, we passed through Charenton and Villeneuve St. George's, the poplars whitening to the west wind, the villages wakening, the cocks crowing, and the sun flooding all the holiday-world of May with tender tints. The white houses, the vineyards, the greenswards embanking the sparkling Seine: how beautiful they were, and how good life was! How good life was that morning in May, effaced now by so many weary years, effaced from time but not from my recollection where it lies vivid as then, with the Seine sparkling, and the wind blowing the poplar-trees that have never lost a leaf!
The road took us by the skirt of the forest ringing with the laughter and the chatter of the birds.
Old Fauchard's married daughter was in charge of the Pavilion. I had not seen the place for a long time; it had been redecorated by order of my guardian, and the old gentleman used it occasionally for luncheon-parties; a charming rural retreat where the Amy Férauds and Francine Volnays of the Théâtre Montparnasse enjoyed themselves, plucking bulrushes from the ponds in the forest, and chasing with shrill laughter the echoes of the Pompadour-haunted groves.