Le Chevalier Pierre Babat de la Bonbonnerie, and his brother Monsieur Louis Babat soon became extremely fashionable in L. Everybody thought it a duty to call on so accomplished a nobleman who, there was no doubt, had much influence at court; and the chevalier’s table soon “groaned,” as the fashionable novelists of the day term it, “under the weight of visiters’ cards.” The papas of all the respectable families in the town called on the new comers, and not a few mammas of unmarried daughters waited with impatience the visit of the fashionable brothers, to whose credit a vast deal of interest with the king was immediately set down.
It was far from being the interest of the colonel to keep himself secluded from society. Retirement would have created mystery, and mystery would have set all the officious mischief-mongers of L. writing voluminous dispatches to the minister of police in Paris; by which means his retreat would have been discovered, and his plans frustrated. He accordingly returned all the visits which were paid at his hotel, sometimes accompanied by his brother, but most frequently alone. In the meanwhile, the younger ladies of L. had, individually and collectively, lost their hearts to the young Monsieur Louis Babat. He was considered “charming, piquant, so delicate a figure, so sweet a voice, so elegant an every thing in fact.” The strangers were duly fêted, and amused in every variety of way which the ingenuity of the inhabitants could invent. The gentlemen became jealous as fast as the young ladies grew enamored of Monsieur L., and the peace and quiet of the town of L. was more disturbed by the arrival of monsieur le chevalier and his brother, than Paris had been by his departure.
Madame la Comtesse de Demibête, in particular, was very desirous to bring about a match between her daughter and Monsieur Louis. This young lady was, to say the truth, much superior to the generality of the lady butterflies who were so much attracted by the new light; but as she was enamored of a young merchant, on whose birth the proud mamma looked down with considerable disdain, and who was then on a voyage to the Indies, she was not likely to fall very readily into the plan of captivation which her mamma designed for the young nouveau venu. Between Mademoiselle Mathilde and Monsieur Louis, however, there appeared to grow up a sort of feeling which no one could understand. It was not love, for it seemed to be entirely divested of every thing like passion; it was not indifference, for there really seemed to exist a sort of affection between the two young people. All therefore that the scandal-mongers of L. could discover, was that they knew nothing about it, and that it was impossible to fathom the nature of the partiality which was so palpably evinced on both sides. Immediately, however, it was ascertained that there was a penchant on the part of Monsieur Louis for one of the young ladies, all the rest broke out into bitter enmity against the offending “boy,” (a great deal was meant to be conveyed by the use of this word) who could dare to choose one particular young lady from among so many who voluntarily offered. “And she, too,” as they one and all remarked, “by no means either pretty or witty, or even tolerably sensible.” It was at a large evening party given by M. Bassecour, a converted Buonapartist, (people were converted most miraculously after the abdication,) who preserved a sort of middle place between the aristocracy and the people, and whose company, consequently, consisted of a strange mêlée of both classes, that the first positive outbreak took place.
The chevalier and his brother had arrived late; and, in spite of all their attempts to appear at ease and cheerful, there was an evident disquiet and an unusual degree of thoughtfulness unwillingly expressed on their countenances. The rooms were filled when they arrived, and several dancers were enjoying their favorite exercise in excellent spirits. Such of the young ladies as were not dancing, immediately separated and repaired to unoccupied sofas, where they might leave spare seats beside them—a manœuvre which is often performed by young ladies when a favorite enters the room—for what reason, of course, they best know.
Monsieur Louis Babat looked rather wearily round the room for his friend Mathilde. She was dancing with the brother of the young merchant, much to the rage and chagrin of her aristocratic mamma. Shunning the too lively clatter of the ladies, Louis seated himself near two dowagers, who were warmly discussing the correct pattern of the new court-sleeve for evening dresses, hoping that they would be too much engrossed by their wordy combat to attend to him. He was doomed to disappointment. Madame Nezrouge no sooner discovered who her neighbor was than she immediately turned to the attack.
“Ah! Monsieur Louis, I am charmed to see you. You are late this evening—but you seem ill. Is any thing the matter?”
“Yes, madame,” answered Louis, “I have not been well to-day.”
“Ah!” returned the old lady, “I see how it is. You young men dissipate too much. You should marry, Monsieur Louis. You should look out to settle yourself in life: all young men should. But I do not wonder, indeed I cannot, at young men remaining single. The young ladies of the present day are not what they were when my lamented husband had the honor of carrying Louis the Sixteenth’s snuff-box. They are too bold, Monsieur Louis—much too bold. I am sure I preach enough to my girls. Many and many’s the time I say to them, ‘continue, my dear children, in your present course. Do not imitate the follies and vanities of your companions. The great aim of a woman’s life should be to make her husband happy.’ Thank Heaven my girls listen to my advice. They are not like the rest. I’m sure, my poor lamented husband, who had the honor of carrying the king’s snuffbox used often to say —”
“Who knows what to-morrow may bring forth!” murmured Louis, between his teeth, carried away from the babble of his neighbor by the intensity of his own feelings.
“Why, yes, Monsieur Louis,” continued the old lady, “he did say that, too, sometimes, though how you ever came to know it, I am sure I can’t tell—but what I was going to say —”