Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau [59]
"Charmed with the honor you deign to pay me," said Lourdois (a liberal). "But you are a deep one, Papa Birotteau; you want to make sure that I shall not break my word,--that's the reason you invite me. Well, I'll employ my best workmen; we'll build the fires of hell and dry the paint. I must find some desiccating process; it would never do to dance in a fog from the wet plaster. We will varnish it to hide the smell."
Three days later the commercial circles of the quarter were in a flutter at the announcement of Birotteau's ball. Everybody could see for themselves the props and scaffoldings necessitated by the change of the staircase, the square wooden funnels down which the rubbish was thrown into the carts stationed in the street. The sight of men working by torchlight--for there were day workmen and night workmen-- arrested all the idlers and busybodies in the street; gossip, based on these preparations, proclaimed a sumptuous forthcoming event.
On Sunday, the day Cesar had appointed to conclude the affair of the lands about the Madeleine, Monsieur and Madame Ragon, and uncle Pillerault arrived about four o'clock, just after vespers. In view of the demolition that was going on, so Cesar said, he could only invite Charles Claparon, Crottat, and Roguin. The notary brought with him the "Journal des Debats" in which Monsieur de la Billardiere had inserted the following article:--
"We learn that the deliverance of our territory will be feted with enthusiasm throughout France. In Paris the members of the municipal body feel that the time has come to restore the capital to that accustomed splendor which under a becoming sense of propriety was laid aside during the foreign occupation. The mayors and deputy-mayors each propose to give a ball; this national movement will no doubt be followed, and the winter promises to be a brilliant one. Among the fetes now preparing, the one most talked of is the ball of Monsieur Birotteau, lately named chevalier of the Legion of honor and well-known for his devotion to the royal cause. Monsieur Birotteau, wounded in the affair of Saint-Roch, judges in the department of commerce, and therefore has doubly merited this honor."
"How well they write nowadays," cried Cesar. "They are talking about us in the papers," he said to Pillerault.
"Well, what of it?" answered his uncle, who had a special antipathy to the "Journal des Debats."
"That article may help to sell the Paste of Sultans and the Carminative Balm," whispered Madame Cesar to Madame Ragon, not sharing the intoxication of her husband.
Madame Ragon, a tall woman, dry and wrinkled, with a pinched nose and thin lips, bore a spurious resemblance to a marquise of the old court. The circles round her eyes had spread to a wide circumference, like those of elderly women who have known sorrow. The severe and dignified, although affable, expression of her countenance inspired respect. She had, withal, a certain oddity about her, which excited notice, but never ridicule; and this was exhibited in her dress and habits. She wore mittens, and carried in all weathers a cane sunshade, like that used by Queen Marie-Antoinette at Trianon; her gown (the favorite color was pale-brown, the shade of dead leaves) fell from her hips in those inimitable folds the secret of which the dowagers of the olden time have carried away with them. She retained the black mantilla trimmed with black lace woven in large square meshes; her caps, old-fashioned in shape, had the quaint charm which we see in silhouettes relieved against a white background. She took snuff with exquisite nicety and with the gestures which young people of the present day who have had the happiness of seeing their grandmothers and great-aunts replacing their gold snuff-boxes solemnly on the tables beside them, and shaking off the grains which strayed upon their kerchiefs, will doubtless remember.
The Sieur Ragon was a little man, not over five feet high, with a face like a nut-cracker, in which could be seen only two eyes, two sharp cheek-bones, a