“Ah! I forgot; you have a special interest, I think, on this occasion. A friend of yours is to be judged, is he not?”
“Yes; Monsieur de Sallenauve has been to our house several times.”
“How sad it is,” said the marquise, “to see a man who, Monsieur de Ronquerolles tells me, had the making of a hero in many ways, come down to the level of the correctional police.”
“His crime so far,” said Madame de l’Estorade, dryly, “consists solely in his absence.”
“At any rate,” continued the marquise, “he seems to be a man eaten up by ambition. Before his parliamentary attempt, he made, as you doubtless know, a matrimonial attempt upon the Lantys, which ended in the beautiful heiress of that family, into whose good graces he had insinuated himself, being sent to a convent.”
Madame de l’Estorade was not much surprised at finding that this history, which Sallenauve had told her as very secret, had reached the knowledge of Madame d’Espard. The marquise was one of the best informed women in Paris; her salon, as an old academician had said mythologically, was the Temple of Fame.
“I think the sitting is about to begin,” said Madame de l’Estorade; fearing some blow from the claws of the marquise, she was eager to put an end to the conversation.
The president had rung his bell, the deputies were taking their seats, the curtain was about to rise. As a faithful narrator of the session we desire our readers to attend, we think it safer and better in every way to copy verbatim the report of the debate as given in one of the morning papers of the following day.
Chamber of Deputies.
In the chair, M. Cointet (vice-president).