The proprietor himself lost all sense of social distinctions: “M. le Prince de Foix lost his way three times coming from the Porte Saint-Martin,” he was not afraid to say with a laugh, actually pointing out, as though introducing one to the other, the illustrious nobleman to a Jewish barrister who on any evening but this would have been separated from him by a barrier far harder to surmount than the ledge of greenery. “Three times—fancy that!” said the barrister, touching his hat. This note of friendly interest was not at all to the Prince’s liking. He belonged to an aristocratic group for whom the practice of rudeness, even at the expense of their fellow-nobles when these were not of the very highest rank, seemed to be the sole occupation. Not to acknowledge a greeting; if the polite stranger repeated the offence, to laugh with sneering contempt or fling back one’s head with a look of fury; to pretend not to recognise some elderly man who had done them a service; to reserve their handshakes for dukes and the really intimate friends of dukes whom the latter introduced to them: such was the attitude of these young men, and especially of the Prince de Foix. Such an attitude was encouraged by the thoughtlessness of youth (a period in which, even in the middle class, one appears ungrateful and behaves boorishly because, having forgotten for months to write to a benefactor who has just lost his wife, one then ceases to greet him in the street so as to simplify matters), but it was inspired above all by an acute caste snobbery. It is true that, after the fashion of certain nervous disorders the symptoms of which grow less pronounced in later life, this snobbishness would generally cease to express itself in so offensive a form in these men who had been so intolerable when young. Once youth is outgrown, it is rare for a man to remain confined in insolence. He had supposed it to be the only thing in the world; suddenly he discovers, prince though he is, that there are also such things as music, literature, even standing for parliament. The scale of human values is correspondingly altered and he engages in conversation with people whom at one time he would have dismissed with a withering glance. Good luck to those of the latter who have had the patience to wait, and who are of such a good disposition—if “good” is the right word—that they accept with pleasure in their forties the civility and welcome that had been coldly withheld from them at twenty.
Since we are on the subject of the Prince de Foix, it may be mentioned here that he belonged to a set of a dozen or fifteen young men and to an inner group of four. The dozen or fifteen shared the characteristic (from which the Prince, I fancy, was exempt) that each of them presented a dual aspect to the world. Up to their eyes in debt, they were regarded as bounders by their tradesmen, notwithstanding the pleasure these took in addressing them as “Monsieur le Comte,” “Monsieur le Marquis,” “Monsieur le Duc.” They hoped to retrieve their fortunes by means of the famous rich marriage (“moneybags” as the expression still was) and, as the fat dowries which they coveted numbered at the most four or five, several of them were secretly setting their sights on the same damsel. And the secret would be so well kept that when one of them, on arriving at the café, announced: “My dear fellows, I’m too fond of you all not to tell you of my engagement to Mlle d’Ambresac,” there would be a general outburst, more than one of the others imagining that the marriage was as good as settled already between Mlle d’Ambresac and himself, and not having the self-control to stifle a spontaneous cry of stupefaction and rage. “So you like the idea of marriage, do you, Bibi?” the Prince de Châtellerault could not help exclaiming, dropping his fork in surprise and despair, for he had been fully expecting the engagement of this identical Mlle d’Ambresac to be announced, but with himself, Châtellerault, as her bridegroom. And heaven only knew all that his father had cunningly hinted to the Ambresacs about Bibi’s mother.