"Nowhere but in the streets, or the prisons," was his reply in a whisper. "Since the Austrian left it, the whole hotel has been furnished anew at the most profuse expense, which I had the honour of supplying. Roland is a great personage, an honest nobody, a mill-horse at the wheel of office. He is probably drudging over his desk at this moment; but Madame is of another mould. "La voilà!" He turned suddenly, and made a profound bow to a very showy female, who had advanced from a group for the purpose of receiving the Jew and the stranger. I had now, for the first time, the honour of seeing this remarkable personage. Her figure was certainly striking, and her physiognomy conveyed a great deal of her character for intelligence and decision. She had evidently dressed herself on the model of the classique; and though not handsome enough for a Venus, nor light enough for a nymph, she might have made a tolerable Minerva. She had probably some thoughts of the kind; for before we had time to make our bows, she threw herself into an attitude of the Galerie des Antiques, and, with her eyes fixed profoundly on the ground, awaited our incense. But when this part was played, the idol condescended to become human, and she spoke with that torrent of language which her clever countrywomen have at unrivaled command. She was "delighted, charmed, enchanted, to make my acquaintance. She had owed many marks of friendship to M. Elnathan; but this surpassed them all—she admired the English—they were always the friends of liberty—France was now beginning a race in the arena of freedom. The rivalry was brilliant, the prize was inestimable." I could only bow. Again, "she was enraptured to see an Englishman; the countryman of Milton and Wilkes, of Charles Fox and William Tell—she had been lately studying English history, and had wept floods of tears over the execution of William III.—Enfin, she hoped that Shakspeare, 'ce beau, ce superbe Shakspeare,' was in good health, and meant to give the world many, many more charming tragedies."
She had now discharged her first volley, and she wheeled back upon a group of members of the Convention, grim and sullen-looking sages, with wild hair hanging over their shoulders, and the genuine Carmagnole physiognomy. With those men she was evidently plunged in vehement discussion, and her whole volume of politics was flung at their heads with as little mercy as her literary stores had been poured upon me.
But the crowd pressed towards another object of curiosity, and I followed it, under the guidance of my Asmodeus, to a music room, splendidly fitted up, and filled with the most select orchestra of the capital. But it was an amateur that was there to attract all eyes and ears. "Madame de Fontenai," whispered the Jew, as he glanced towards a woman of a remarkably expressive countenance and statue-like form, half sitting, half reposing, on a sofa—surrounded by a group soliciting her for a "few notes, a suspiration, a soupçon"—of, as Elnathan observed, "one of the most delicious voices which had ever crossed the Pyrenees," and the Jew had all the habitual connoisseurship of his nation. At last the siren consented, and a harp was brought and placed before her, with the same homage which might have attended an offering to the Queen of Cyprus, in her own island, three thousand years ago; and rather letting her hand drop among the strings, than striking them, and rather breathing out her feelings, than performing any music of mortal composition, she sang one of the fantastic, but deep, reveries of passion of "the sweet south."
Sarabanda.
""Las dudas de un amante
"No han de saberse,
"Que al decirlas se sabe.
"Que desmerecen.
"No—en el silencio
"No son pensamientos
D'el mas aprecio."[14]
The song closed in a burst of plaudits, as general and marked as if they had been given to a prima donna in a theater, and she received them as if she was in a theatre.
"You should be presented to Madame de Fontenai," was my guide's suggestion. "She is our reigning célébrité at present, as Madame Roland is our publicité. You see we are nice in our distinctions.—I shall probably to-night show you another, a very handsome creature indeed, without half the talents of either, but with more admirers than both; who has obtained the title of our felicité."
"I shall be delighted to be made known to her, but give me the carte du pays. Who or what is she?"
"The daughter of Cabarus, the Spanish ambassador here some years ago. She is now a widow, rich, giving the most recherché suppers, followed by all the world, and, as she declares, persecuted by M. Tallien; who, as perseverance is nine-tenths of success in every thing, will probably succeed in making her Madame Tallien."