Louis departed with his fair companion, and though Château-Renard was ostentatiously cheerful, the end of the supper-party was not at all a festive business.
At ten o'clock the same morning I arrived at the rooms of M. Louis de Franchi. The seconds of Château-Renard had already called, and I passed them on the stairs.
Louis had written me a note; with another friend, Baron Giordano Martelli, the affair was to be arranged with Baron de Châteaugrand, and M. de Boissy, the gentleman I had met on the stairs.
I looked at the cards of these two men, and asked Louis if the matter was of any great seriousness.
Louis replied by telling the story of the quarrel. A friend of his, a sea captain, had married a beautiful woman, so beautiful and so young that Louis could not help falling in love with her. As an honourable man he had kept away from the house, and then on being reproached by his friend, had frankly told him the reason.
In return, his friend, who was just setting off for Mexico, commended his wife, Emilie, whom he adored and trusted absolutely, to his care, and asked his wife to consider Louis de Franchi as her brother. For six months the captain had been away, and Emilie had been living at her mother's. To this house, among other visitors, had come M. de Château-Renard, and from the first, this typical man of the world had been an object of dislike to Louis. Emilie's flirtations with Château-Renard at last provoked a remonstrance from Louis, and in return the lady told him that he was in love with her himself, and that he was absurd in his notions. After that Louis had left off calling on Emilie, but gossip was soon busy with the lady's name.
An anonymous letter had made an appointment for Louis with the lady of the violets at the masked ball, and from this person he was informed again not only of Emilie's infidelity, but further, that M. de Château-Renard had wagered he would bring her to supper at D----'s.
The rest I knew, and I could only assent mournfully that things must go on, and that the proposals of Château-Renard's seconds could not be declined.
But M. Louis de Franchi had never touched sword or pistol in his life! However, there was nothing for it but to return M. de Châteaugrand's call.
Martelli and I found that Château-Renard's two supporters were both polite men of the world. They were as indifferent as Louis was to the choice of weapons, and by a spin of a coin it was decided that pistols were to be used.