François was courageous, and mocked a little at the jade Fortune. "What could happen?" And yet this shrinking little man, fat, doleful, and full of fears, sat heavily upon him; and there, too, was this child whom he had never seen. Peste! The children he had known at the asylum were senseless, greedy little cattle, all of one make. Perhaps this girl at Sèvres was no better.
IX
In which François tells the fortune of the Marquis de Ste. Luce and of Robespierre, and has his own fortune told, and of how Despard saw a man of whom he was afraid.
François was soon to be further amazed by Pierre Despard. To the last of his life, François remembered that day. A cool October had stripped the king's chestnut-trees of their glory as clean as the king himself was soon to be shorn. The leaves were rustling at evening across the Place Louis XV, and covering the water of the canals. Here, of late, the tent-booth had been set up for the benefit of the better society, which still wore the white cockade of the Bourbons. A merry group of the actors of the Comédie was waiting to see François, the maker of faces. There were Chenard of the Opéra Comique; Fleury and Saint-Prix, whose gaiety no prison in after days could lessen, and no fear of death abate. "Behold, there is the great Talma," said Pierre, peeping out; "and the aristos are many to-day. Art ready, François?"
François was delighted. The great Talma here, and actually to see him—François! He had of late been acquiring stage ambitions, and taking great pains to improve the natural advantages of a face quite matchless in Paris.
Despard peeped in again. "Yes, François; they talk of thee, and there are many in the crowd. They gather to see Talma. There are Jacobins, and thy friends the aristocrats. Make thou haste. Art ready?"
"Yes, yes," said François. He felt it to be a great, an unusual occasion. He had a bright idea. He struck with a stick three times on the floor of the booth, the traditional signal at the Théâtre Français for the curtain to rise. A roar of applause outside rewarded his shrewd sense of what was due to this audience.
"Tiens! That is good," said La Rive.
The slit in the curtain opened, and, framed in the black drapery, appeared a face which seemed to have come out of the canvas of Holbein. It was solemn, and yet grotesque, strong of feature, the face, beard, and hair white with powder; the eyes were shut.
"Mon Dieu," said Talma, "what a mask! 'T is stern as fate." The crowd stayed motionless and silent.