"He is coming here; I recognize him; it is Monsieur Berlingue, a most agreeable man, with an extraordinary memory; he has already told me all the scandal of the town; he is a delightful person! He goes everywhere, even where he is not invited."
Monsieur Berlingue’s horse advanced at a very slow trot, but still he did advance. Robineau went down from the tower with his friends to welcome the newcomer, and François and the scullions, seeing the horseman approach, took aim at him, thinking that the time had come to fire; but Monsieur Férulus checked them in time, and Monsieur Berlingue dismounted and entered the château, glancing all about with malicious curiosity.
The newcomer was a short man of fifty years, who was not very stylishly dressed, but whose sneering face seemed to be constantly seeking something to make fun of. He walked toward Robineau and held out his hand, staring at the two young men who were in the salon; and even before he had asked the master of the house how he was, he had taken an inventory of everything in the room.
"Monsieur Berlingue," said Robineau, "you are very amiable, for you have come at last! But the other gentlemen and ladies—no one comes and it is nearly one o’clock! And yet I asked them to come early. I had arranged some little surprises for the ladies."
"Monsieur de la Roche-Noire," replied Monsieur Berlingue in a shrill voice, shouting as if he never spoke to any except deaf people, "it is a principle of mine to be prompt, to keep my word.—Are these gentlemen your friends from Paris? Very happy to make their acquaintance.—But, Monsieur de la Roche-Noire, if you want to have company at noon, you must invite them for nine o’clock, for here—You have had this part of the château repaired, I see—here, Monsieur de la Roche-Noire, we go beyond the fashion: in Paris, people keep you waiting one hour; in the provinces they keep you waiting four.—Is this your livery? It is a new style.—And then the ladies, married or single! do you suppose that they can finish their toilet at noon?—You still have some furniture that’s rather old-fashioned; you must change it.—In the first place, the women in the provinces are greater flirts than those in Paris!—Your coat fits you perfectly.—You expect Mesdames de Moulinet, Mesdemoiselles Bretonneau, the La Pincerie family, Gérard the manufacturer’s wife, and the notary’s wife—Parbleu! If those ladies are all here within two hours, you will be very lucky.—Ah! greased poles in your courtyard! That is charming! It is an entirely new idea!"
Despite Monsieur Berlingue’s prediction, the guests soon arrived; little wicker carriages and covered chaises brought divers persons of great distinction, for there were no cabs or omnibuses at Saint-Amand, and everybody could not afford a handsome turnout. However, there were a few chars-à-bancs and a few pretty cabriolets to be seen in that crowd of carriages; and the persons who alighted from them cast patronizing glances upon those who arrived in chaises; vanity is present at all festivities, but in the provinces above all it makes us poor weak mortals giddy.
The La Pincerie family arrived in a carriage half-way between a city and a country vehicle: it was a huge cabriolet, not unlike that generally called a coucou, the lower part being of wicker, and the top of oilcloth; it might in a crowd have passed for the carriage of a merchant of Poissy; but Monsieur de la Pincerie declared that he would not exchange it for the most modern landau, because it descended to him from his ancestors; and from the leanness of the one horse which drew it, one might have been tempted to believe that the poor beast also had served the marquis’s ancestors.
Monsieur de la Pincerie was a man of about sixty, almost six feet tall, and exceedingly thin; he wore a queue and his hair was powdered; his yellow, wrinkled face almost always wore an expression of arrogance and disdain; he rarely passed two minutes without coughing and expectorating, but he did it all with a gravity which caused the people about him to believe that not everybody in the world could spit as he could.
A little man with squinting eyes, red hair, a blue nose, and red ears, was the second person to alight from the carriage; he had not put his foot to the ground before he began to smile and show teeth which would have put those of a horse to shame. This gentleman, with whom they had not as yet succeeded in doing anything, and for whom they were still trying to find a place, although he was nearly fifty-five, was the marquis’s brother; he was called Mignon, a pet name which had been given to him when he was a child, and which it seemed to be his destiny to bear all his life. After smiling like a wild boar, while his brother expectorated upon one of the greased poles, Mignon stepped forward and offered his hand to a young lady, who leaped from the carriage, saying to her uncle:
"It isn’t worth while, I prefer to get out alone."