“My father-in-law owned the nucleus of the collection,” said the young Vicomtess; “he loved the arts and beautiful work, but most of his treasures came to him through me.”
“Through you, madame?—So young! and yet have you such vices as this?” asked a Russian prince.
Russians are by nature imitative; imitative indeed to such an extent that the diseases of civilization break out among them in epidemics. The bric-a-brac mania had appeared in an acute form in St. Petersburg, and the Russians caused such a rise of prices in the “art line,” as Remonencq would say, that collection became impossible. The prince who spoke had come to Paris solely to buy bric-a-brac.
“The treasures came to me, prince, on the death of a cousin. He was very fond of me,” added the Vicomtesse Popinot, “and he had spent some forty odd years since 1805 in picking up these masterpieces everywhere, but more especially in Italy—”
“And what was his name?” inquired the English lord.
“Pons,” said President Camusot.
“A charming man he was,” piped the Presidente in her thin, flute tones, “very clever, very eccentric, and yet very good-hearted. This fan that you admire once belonged to Mme. de Pompadour; he gave it to me one morning with a pretty speech which you must permit me not to repeat,” and she glanced at her daughter.
“Mme. la Vicomtesse, tell us the pretty speech,” begged the Russian prince.
“The speech was as pretty as the fan,” returned the Vicomtesse, who brought out the stereotyped remark on all occasions. “He told my mother that it was quite time that it should pass from the hands of vice into those of virtue.”
The English lord looked at Mme. Camusot de Marville with an air of doubt not a little gratifying to so withered a woman.