And, while Claude colored with displeasure, Victorine turned her head to hide an irrepressible smile.
By this time the candles in the great gallery were all lighted, and the mirrors reflected the brilliant colors of a richly costumed and continually increasing throng that passed and repassed in endless procession before them. No woman here was untitled; few of the men had less than five, and many had twenty, generations of unsmirched aristocracy behind them. Many were there who did not own the clothes upon their backs; and many others whose debts would have impoverished a half-dozen of the wealthiest of the bourgeoisie. Yet few ever went abroad with an empty pocket; and money was generally their last source of worry. Here passed the Marquis de Sauvré, a member of the King's intimate circle, a page of the Court, whose estates were mortgaged, and whose Paris hôtel was almost dismantled of furniture, in an unpaid-for dress of cherry-and-white satin, with pearls worth fifty thousand livres on him, arm in arm with M. de la Poplinière, a farmer-general, worth forty millions, but not attired with half the extravagance of his companion. In a corner, taking snuff, and commenting on the degeneracy of the grand manner since the last reign, were the old Duc de Charost, who had attached himself to the Queen and the religious party; the Duc de Duras, who lived on the influence of his wife's implacable etiquette; and M. de Pont-de-Vesle, a successful diplomatist in a small way, and the most disagreeably ubiquitous man at Court. Opposite them the Marquis d'Entragues, a man whose scutcheon had come into existence two hundred years before, beginning with a bar sinister to the discredit of a certain King of France, and M. Marchais, at whose hôtel could be found the best vin d'Ai in the kingdom, and who was a favorite with Louis on that account, were discussing, with the Comtesse d'Estrades, the pompous intrigues of Mme. de Grammont. Every one waited, more or less eagerly, first, for the appearance of the favorite; secondly, for the arrival of the King.
"It is half-past eight," remarked de Coigny to Charost, whose group he had just joined. "I am unable to discover madame, my wife. She must be with Mme. de Châteauroux, who, by-the-way, is late."
"The Duchess is actually more haughty than la Montespan was," returned the old Duke. "The Fourteenth Louis showed less indulgence than his present Majesty."
"Possibly. But where is the favorite of the old Court with the presence, the magnificence, the carriage of the present Duchess?" cried Duras, popularly.
"Quite so," murmured Pont-de-Vesle, rubbing his chin.
"Well—yes. She has, perhaps, the manner," admitted Charost, unwillingly.
"And she is here!" cried de Coigny.
"Ah! What a carriage! What a glance! What a toilet!" cried Duras, rapturously.
"It is not difficult to perceive that she means, at all events, to wreck her cousin as she did the little d'Agenois."