CHAPTER III
A COUNCIL OF WAR
THE Vicomte led the way along a corridor with painted walls and a ceiling wherefrom impossibly fat cupids pelted one in gesture with painted roses.
He opened a door, and with a courtly bow, ushered Rochefort into a small room exquisitely furnished, and lit by a swinging crystal lamp of seven points burning perfumed oil. This house of the Dubarrys had once belonged to Jean de Ségur, a forbear of General Philippe de Ségur, that ardent Royalist who, at the sight of Murat’s dragoons galloping through the gate of the Pont Tournant, forgot his grief at the destruction of the old régime, and became a soldier of Napoleon’s.
It was furnished regardless of expense. Boucher had supervised the paintings that adorned the ceilings, the Maison Grandier had produced the chairs and couches, Versailles had contributed porcelain idols, bonbonnières, and a hundred other knicknacks. Ispahan and Bussorah had contributed the carpets, at a price, through the great Oriental house of Habib, Gobelins the tapestry, Sèvres the china, and the glass manufactory of the Marquis de Louviers the glass. It was for this house, perhaps, rather than for Luciennes, that the Comtesse had refused Fragonard’s exquisite panels, “The Romance of Love and Youth,” a crime against taste which, strangely enough, found no place in the procès-verbal.
Dubarry, excusing himself for a moment, closed the door, and Rochefort glanced round the room wherein he found himself.
Everything was in white or rose; the floor was of parquet, covered here and there with white fur rugs; on the rose-coloured silk of one of the settees lay a fan, as if cast there but a moment ago; and a volume of the poems of Marot, bound in white vellum and stamped with the Dubarry arms and their motto, “Boutez en avant” lay upon a chair, as if just put down in haste.
A white-enamelled door, half-hidden by rose-coloured silk curtains, faced the door by which he had entered, and from the room beyond, Rochefort, as he paced the floor and examined the objects of art around him, could hear a faint murmur of voices. Five minutes passed, and Rochefort, having glanced at the fan, peeped into the volume of poems, set the huge Chinese mandarin that adorned one of the alcoves wagging his head, and wound up and broken a costly musical-box, turned suddenly upon his heel.
The door leading into the next room had opened, and a woman stood before him, young, plump, fair-haired and very pretty, exquisitely dressed.
It was the Comtesse Dubarry.