You saw the Count Auguste de Morny, ex-Member of the Chamber of Commerce,—afterwards to reign as the all-powerful Minister of the Home Department under the Second Empire,—as a sallow, well-bred rake of forty, prematurely bald, erect if hollow-chested, faultlessly dressed in the becoming blue swallow-tailed coat with gold buttons, voluminous starched cambric neckcloth, white vest, full-hipped black velvet pantaloons, and narrow-toed buckled shoes of the latest evening wear. Well-to-do, a familiar figure in Paris during the Monarchy, he held a better reputation than his legitimate brother, the man of straw.
And he walked behind the Prince-Pretender now, through a lane of curtseying ladies and bowing gentlemen, outwardly urbane, inwardly infinitely bored by all that was taking place, yet conscious of its probable result upon the Bourse, and alert for intelligence respecting the rise of certain stocks in which he was secretly a large investor.
His companion, some years his senior, and dressed in uniform fashion, was a personage infinitely more striking than the Count. The pale classic oval of his aquiline-featured face, its high brow streaked with a few silken strands of chestnut, the deep blue eyes lightening from beneath the wide arched brows, the sweet deceptive smile, the round chin with a cleft in it, are indelibly stamped upon the memory of the French people, whatever effigy appears upon the coinage of France. Colonna Walewski, son of the Great Emperor by the Polish Countess who was faithful to Napoleon in exile as in defeat, inherited his mother’s fine quality of loyalty. In foul weather and fair, in disgrace as in triumph, in the heyday of the Second Empire as in its decline and collapse, the Napoleonic Idea remained the religion of Napoleon’s bastard son.
His fellow-bastard, the wit and dandy, the politician and financier, less noble in grain than the brilliant soldier, the keen diplomat and the man of letters,—you will always find upon the winning side.
As for Persigny, the Bonaparte’s parasite and inseparable companion,—who was to succeed de Morny as Minister of the Interior, and subsequently figure as Ambassador and Plenipotentiary at the Court of a neighboring Foreign Power,—he looked like what he was; a dissipated ex-quarter-master-sergeant of cavalry grafted on a rowdy buck-about-town. And Fleury, sensual, hot-headed, lively, bulldog-jowled, bold-eyed and deep-chested, heir of a wealthy tradesman, ruined through women and horses, he no less than Persigny had risen from the bottom sludge....
Elderly bloods, middle-aged dandies like their master, they dressed after him, aped his tone and manner, rouged their dry cheekbones and hollowing temples, set false tufts of curls among their dyed hyacinthine locks. Necessitous and creditor-ridden, even as he, they were sharp-set and keen as ferrets for chances of rapine and plunder. And the day was coming when they were to be glutted with these, and crawl after their leader from the warren, gorged, and leaving on the thirsty sand a wide, dark streak of blood.
“It was terrible crossing in the mail-packet,” said Persigny in answer to the question of a sympathizer. “M. de Fleury and myself suffered abominably—the Prince not at all. There was something the matter with the railway-line. We had to walk to Neufchâtel over the ballast and sleepers in thin boots of patent-leather,—imagine the torture to one’s corns!... But the Prince laughed at our grumblings—only when we missed the Amiens train did he lose his sang-froid and stoicism. And after all, that delay proved to his advantage.... There was an accident to the train we lost—thirty passengers killed,—many more wounded.... The Prince’s lucky star has been once more his friend!”
The parasite’s voice, purposely raised, reached the little ears shadowed by Madame de Roux’s rich black tresses. She murmured as she sank in her deep curtsey, and emerged, radiant and smiling, from a foamy sea of filmy white lace flounces, to meet the gracious handshake that was accorded to special friends: