The conversation was presently interrupted by a young man whom nobody seemed to know.
As Mme. Le Brun had not many servants, he had found nobody to announce him, but entered without the least shyness, and walking up to M. de Rivarol, said that he wanted to speak to him about a pamphlet of his, now being printed at the establishment in which he was employed. There was a passage in it which they could not read or did not understand, and M. de Rivarol’s servant having told him where his master was to be found, he had come after him.
There had been a sudden silence when he entered; no one saluted him but Mme. Le Brun, who greeted him with a smile, but all regarded him with curiosity. His dress was not like those of the gentlemen present, nor of their class at all; it had a sort of Bohemian picturesqueness which rather suited his handsome, striking, sarcastic face; he was very young, not more than about twenty, but he spoke and moved with perfect unconcern amongst the uncongenial society into which he had fallen. Mme. Le Brun, tired of the stupid, contradictory remarks of the amateurs who then, as now, were eager to criticise what they knew nothing about, and nearly always said the wrong thing, exclaimed impatiently—
“You are all bad judges—
“Détestables flatteurs, présent le plus funeste,
Que puisse faire aux arts la colère céleste!
“I do not believe one word of your opinions. I am like Molière, I would rather appeal to my servant, but as she is not here I will, if you do not object, ask that young man, who does not look like a flatterer: he will tell us the truth.” And turning to him, she said—
“Monsieur, I have just been hearing so much nonsense about this portrait, that really I don’t know whether I have been working like an artist or a sign-painter.”
“I will tell you, Madame,” replied the young man, with an assurance that surprised every one present. They looked at him with astonishment, and he looked at the portrait, and still more earnestly at the Marquise de Fontenay, upon whom his long, ardent gaze made a strange impression. After a few moments’ silence, Mme. Le Brun said—