"It was you that sighed!"

"Well, I am very sorry for it. It was wrong of _me_, and very wrong of _you_ to tell me of it. But dear me! is it so late? can it really be three o'clock?"

"I am a quarter past; but I think we must both be fast. You are going out?"

"A mere drive in the Champs Elysees, where I shall pay a few visits and be back to dinner. Will you dine with us?"

"I pray you to excuse me--don't forget I am a sick man."

"Well, then, we shall see you at the Opera?"

"I fear not. If I might ask a favour, it would be to take the volume of Balzac away with me."

"Oh, to be sure! But we have some others, much newer. You know 'Le Recherche de l'Absolu', already?"

"Yes; but I like 'Eugenie' still better. It was an old taste of mine, and as you quoted a proverb a few moments ago, let me give you another as trite and as true,--

'On revient toujours.'"

"'A ses premieres amours,'"

said she, finishing; while with a smile, half playful, half sad, she turned toward the window, and I retired noiselessly, and without an adieu.

Heigho! how nervous and irritable I feel! The very sight of that handsome barouche that has driven from the hotel, with its beautiful occupant lying listlessly back among the cushions, has set my heart a-beating far far too hurriedly. How is it that the laws that govern material nature are so inoperative in ours, and that a heart that never felt can make another feel? Heaven knows! It is not love; even my first pa.s.sion, perhaps, little merited the name: but now, reading her as worldliness as taught roe to do-seeing how little relation exists between attractions and fascinations of the very highest order and any real sentiment, any true feeling--knowing how "Life" is her idol, how in that one idea is comprised all that vanity, self-love, false pride, and pa.s.sion can form,--how is it that she, whom I recognise thus, that _she_ can move me? There is nothing so like a battle as a sham fight in a review.

CHAPTER II.

I must leave Paris at once. The weather is intolerably hot; the leaves that were green ten days ago already are shewing symptoms of the sear and yellow. Is it in compliment to the august inhabitant of the palace that the garden is so _empresse_ to turn its coat? Shame on my ingrat.i.tude to say so! for I find that his Majesty has sent me a card of invitation to dine on Friday next. Another reason for a hurried departure! Of all moderate endurances, I know of none to compare with a dinner at the Tuileries. "Stay!--halt!" cries Memory; "I'll tell you of one worse again--a dinner at Neuilly!"

The former is sure to include a certain number of distinguished and remarkable men, who, even under the chill and restraint of a royal entertainment, venture now and then on some few words that supply the void where conversation should be. At Neuilly it is strictly a family party, where, whatever ease may be felt by the ill.u.s.trious hosts, the guests have none of it. Juvenal quaintly asks, If that can be a battle where you strike and I am beaten? so one is tempted to inquire, If that can be called society where a royal personage talks rapidly for hours, and the listener must not even look dissent? The King of the French is unquestionably a great man, but not greater in any thing than in the complete mystification in which he has succeeded in enveloping his real character, mingling up together elements so strange, so incongruous, and seemingly inconsistent, that the actual direction or object of any political move he has ever made, will always bear a double appreciation.

The haughty monarch is the citizen king; the wily and secret politician, the most free-spoken and candid of men: the most cautious in an intrigue, the very rashest in action. How is it possible to divine the meaning, or guess the wishes, of one whose nature seems so Protean?

His foreign policy is, however, the master-stroke of his genius,--the cunning game by which he has conciliated the party of popular inst.i.tutions and beguiled the friends of absolutism, delighting Tom Buncombe and winning praise from Nicholas. Like all clever men who are vain of their cleverness, he has always been fond of employing agents of inferior capacity, but of unquestionable devotion to his interests. What small intelligences--to use a phrase more French than English--were the greater number of the French ministers and secretaries I have met accredited to foreign courts! I remember Talleyrand's observation, on the remark being made, was, "His Majesty always keeps the trumps in his own hand." Though, to be sure, he himself was an evidence to the contrary--a "trump" led boldly out, the first card played!

So well did that subtle politician comprehend the future turn events must take, that on hearing, at two o'clock in the morning, that his Royal Highness the Duc d'Orleans had consented to a.s.sume the crown, he exclaimed, "And I am now amba.s.sador at St. James's!" It must have been what the Londoners call "good fun" to have lived in the days of the Empire, when all manner of rapid elevations occurred on every hand. The _commis_ of yesterday, the special envoy to-day; a week ago a corporal, and now gazetted an officer, with the cross of the Legion--on the _grande route_, to become a general. A General, why not a Marshal of France--ay, or a King?

We have seen something of this kind in Belgium within a few years back--on a small scale, it is true. What strange ingredients did the Revolution throw up to the surface! what a ma.s.s of noisy, turbulent, self-opinionated incapables, who, because they had led a rabble at the Porte de Flandre, thought they could conduct the march of an army!

And the statesmen!--good lack! the miserable penny-a-liners of the "Independant" and the "Lion Beige," that admirable symbol of the land, who carries his tail between his legs. The really able, and, I believe, honest men, were soon overwhelmed by the influence of the priest party--the vultures who watched the fight from afar, and at last descended to take all the spoils of the victory.

Wandeweyer and Nothomb are both men of ability, the latter a kind of Brummagen Thiers, with the same taste for intrigue, the same subtle subserviency to the head of the state, and, in his heart, the same cordial antipathy to England. But why dwell on these people? they will scarce occupy a foot-note in the old "Almanach."

The diplomatic history of our day, if it ever be written, will present no very striking displays of high-reaching intellect or devoted patriotism; the men who were even greatest before the world were really smallest behind "the fact." We deemed that Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston, and Messrs. Guizot and Thiers, and a few more, were either hurrying us on to war or maintaining an admirable peace. But the whole thing resolves itself into the work of one man and one mind; neither very conspicuous, but so intently occupied, so devotedly persevering, that persistance has actually elevated itself to genius; and falling happily upon times when mediocrity is sublime, he has contrived to make his influence felt in every state of Europe. I speak not of Louis Philippe, but of his son-in-law, King Leopold.

"Let me make the ballads of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws," said the great statesman; and in something of the same spirit his Majesty of Belgium may have said, "Let me make the royal marriages of Europe, and any one who pleases may choose the ministry."

_Apropos_ of the Roi Leopold, is it not difficult to understand a Princess Charlotte falling in love with his good looks? There is no disputing on this point. The most eminently successful man I ever knew in ladies' society was Jack Beauclerc--"Caucasian Jack" we used to call him at Brookes's. Everybody knows Jack was no beauty. Heavy beetling brows, a dark, saturnine, ill-omened expression, was ever on his features. Nor did his face light up at times, as one occasionally sees with such men; he was always the same sail misanthropic-looking fellow.

Neither could one call him agreeable--at least I, meeting him very often, never found him so. But he was of a determined, resolute nature; one of those men that appear never to turn from any object on which they have set a strong will. This may have gone very far with ladies, who very often conceive a kind of esteem for whatever they fear. He said himself that his secret was, "always using them ill;" and certainly, if facts could bear out such a theory, one might believe him. Probably no man ever cultivated these tastes with such a.s.siduity--these, I say, for play and duelling were also pa.s.sions with him.

He was _attache_ to our mission at Naples before he was sixteen, and had the honour of wounding the old Marquis d'Espagna with the small sword at the same precocious era. The duel originated after a truly Italian manner; and as there are at Naples many incorrect reports of it, I will take the trouble to give the real one. The Marquis was an old man, married to one of the most beautiful women in Italy. She was a Venetian, and if my memory serves me right, a Guillardini by birth. She married him at eighteen to escape a convent, he being the richest n.o.ble under the rank of the blood royal at Naples. Very unlike the majority of Italian husbands, the Marquis was excessively jealous, would not permit the most innocent freedoms of his young and lovely wife, and eventually secluded himself and--worse still--her from all society, and never appeared except at a court ball, or some such festivity that there were no means of avoiding. It was at one of these festivities that the King, who liked to see his ball-room put forth its fairest aspect, bantered the Marquis on the rumour that had even reached the ears of royalty, as to his inordinate jealousy. The Marquis, whose old spirit of courtiership predominated even as strongly as his jealousy, a.s.sured his Majesty that the worthy people of Naples did him great injustice, and that, although conscious of the Marquesa's great beauty and attractiveness, he had yet too high a sense of the distinguished place he and his family had always held in the esteem of his sovereign to feel jealous of any man's pretension; adding, "If I have not admitted the conventional addition of a _cavaliere servente_ to my household, I would beg your Majesty to believe it is simply because I have seen no one as yet worthy to hand la Mar-quesa to her carriage or fold her shawl."

"Admirably spoken, Marquis!" said the King; "the sentiment is quite worthy of one who has the best blood of Sicily in his veins. But remember what an artificial state of society we live in; think of our conventional usages, and what a shock it gives to public opinion when one, placed in so exalted a position as you are, so palpably affronts universal and admitted custom; recollect that your reserve involves a censure on others, less suspicious, and, we would hope, not less rigidly honourable men, than yourself."

"But what would your Majesty counsel?"

"Select a _cavaliere_ yourself, as little likely to excite your jealousy as you please; as little agreeable as possible, if you prefer it: but, comply at least so far with the world's prescription, and do not shock our worthy Neapolitans by appearing to reflect upon them. There, what say you to that boy yonder? he is only a boy--he has just joined the English mission here. I'm sure he has formed no tender engagements to prevent you adopting him, and you will at least seem to conform with the usages of your neighbours."

"If your Majesty commands----"

"Nay, Marquis, I but advise."

"Your Majesty's wish is always a command. I feel proud to obey."

"Then, I am very happy to say I wish it," said the King, who turned away, dying to tell the court-party how miserable he had made the old Marquis.

Such are _debauche_ Kings; the glorious prerogative of power becomes the mere agent of perverted ingenuity to work mischief and do wrong!

The poor Marquis lost no time to follow out the royal commands, and at once made acquaintance with Beauclerc--only too happy to be noticed in such a quarter. I know not whether the lady was much gratified by the result of this kingly interposition in her favour: some said, Yes, and that the youth was really gifted and _spirituel_, with a vein of quiet, caustic humour, most amusing; others--and I half incline to this notion--p.r.o.nounced him dull and uninteresting. At all events, the Marquesa enjoyed the liberty of appearing often in public, and seeing more of the world than heretofore. She usually visited the San Carlos, too, twice a week; a great improvement in her daily life, as previously the Opera was denied her.

Immediately over the Marquesa's box was the large box, or rather _salon_, belonging to the club of the Italian _n.o.bili_, who frequented the theatre far less for the pleasures of the opera and the ballet than for the more exciting delights of _faro_ and _ecarte_; and here, nightly, were a.s.sembled all the most dissipated and spendthrift youth of a capital, whose very gravest and most exemplary citizens would be reckoned "light company" any where else.

High play, with all its consequences of pa.s.sionate outbreaks, ruin, and duelling, were the pastimes of this ill-fated _loge_; and, notwithstanding the attractions the box underneath contained, Jack Beauclerc was far oftener in the second tier than the first. He was, indeed, a most inveterate gambler; and the few moments which he devoted to attending the Marquesa to her box, or her carriage, were so many instants of pregnant impatience till he was back at the play-table.

It was on one evening, when, having lost a very heavy sum, that his turn came to deal; and, with the superst.i.tious feeling that only a play-man can understand, he resolved to stake a very large amount upon the game. The attention of the bystanders--never very deeply engaged by the _scene_--was now entirely engrossed by the play-table, where Beauclerc and his adversary were seated at _ecarte_. It was that critical moment when the cards were dealt, but the trump not yet turned, and Beauclerc sat enjoying, with a gambler's "malign" delight, the eager anxiety in the other player's countenance, when suddenly a voice said,--

"Ha, Beauclerc! the Marquesa is rising--she is about to leave the theatre."

"Impossible!" said he; "it is only the second act."

"It is quite true, though," rejoined another; "she is putting on her mantle."

"Never mind our party, then," cried Beauclerc's antagonist; "I will hold myself ready to play the match out whenever you please."

"I please it now, then!" said he, with a degree of energy that heavy losses had, in spite of him, rendered uncontrollable.

"Il Signor Beauclerc!" said a servant, approaching, "the Marquis d'Espagna desires to see you."

"Tell him I am engaged--I can't come," said Beauclerc, turning up the trump-card, which he held out triumphantly before his adversary, saying, "The king!"

At the same instant the old Marquis entered, and, approaching the table, whispered a few words in his ear. If an adder had pierced him with its sting, Beauclerc could not have started with a more agonised expression; and he sprang from the chair and rushed out of the theatre, not by the door, however, where the Marquesa's carriage was yet standing, but by a private pa.s.sage, which led more easily towards his lodgings.

"What is this piece of news, that all are so amused by?" said the King, the next morning, as he was rising.

"Your majesty alludes to the Marquis d'Es-pagna, no doubt," said Count Villafranca. "He challenged the young English _attache_ last night, at the theatre, and they have been out this morning; and, strange to say, that the Marquis, the very best swordsman we have ever had here, was disarmed and run through the side by his antagonist."

"Is the wound dangerous?" said the King, coolly.