The Nabob [85]
to the Bey of Tunis? I repeat, fifteen millions. It was a trick he played on the Hemerlingues, who wished to embroil him with that monarch and cut the grass under his feet in those fine regions of the Orient where it grows golden, high, and thick. It was an old Turk whom I know, Colonel Brahim, one of our directors at the Territorial, who arranged the affair. Naturally, the Bey, who happened to be, it appears, short of pocket-money, was very much touched by the alacrity of the Nabob to oblige him, and he has just sent him through Brahim a letter of thanks in which he announces that upon the occasion of his next visit to Vichy, he will stay a couple of days with him at that fine Chateau de Saint-Romans, which the former Bey, the brother of this one, honoured with a visit once before. You may fancy, what an honour! To receive a reigning prince as a guest! The Hemerlingues are in a rage. They who had manoeuvred so carefully--the son at Tunis, the father in Paris--to get the Nabob into disfavour. And then it is true that fifteen millions is a big sum. And do not say, "Passajon is telling us some fine tales." The person who acquainted me with the story has held in his hands the paper sent by the Bey in an envelope of green silk stamped with the royal seal. If he did not read it, it was because this paper was written in Arabic, otherwise he would have made himself familiar with its contents as in the case of all the rest of the Nabob's correspondence. This person is his /valet de chambre/, M. Noel, to whom I had the honour of being introduced last Friday at a small evening-party of persons in service which he gave to all his friends. I record an account of this function in my memoirs as one of the most curious things which I have seen in the course of my four years of sojourn in Paris.
I had thought at first when M. Francis, Monpavon's /valet de chambre/, spoke to me of the thing, that it was a question of one of those little clandestine junketings such as are held sometimes in the garrets of our boulevards with the fragments of food brought up by Mlle. Seraphine and the other cooks in the building, at which you drink stolen wine, and gorge yourself, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light of a couple of candles which are extinguished at the least noise in the corridors. These secret practices are repugnant to my character. But when I received, as for the regular servants' ball, an invitation written in a very beautiful hand upon pink paper:
"M. Noel rekwests M---- to be present at his evenin-party on the 25th instent. Super will be provided"
I saw clearly, not withstanding the defective spelling, that it was a question of something serious and authorized. I dressed myself therefore in my newest frock-coat, my finest linen, and arrived at the Place Vendome at the address indicated by the invitation.
For the giving of his party, M. Noel had taken advantage of a first- night at the opera, to which all fashionable society was thronging, thus giving the servants a free rein, and putting the entire place at our disposal until midnight. Notwithstanding this, the host had preferred to receive us upstairs in his own bed-chamber, and this I approved highly, being in that matter of the opinion of the old fellow in the rhyme:
Fie on the pleasure That fear may corrupt!
But my word, the luxury on the Place Vendome! A felt carpet on the floor, the bed hidden away in an alcove, Algerian curtains with red stripes, an ornamental clock in green marble on the chimneypiece, the whole lighted by lamps of which the flames can be regulated at will. Our oldest member, M. Chalmette, is not better lodged at Dijon. I arrived about nine o'clock with Monpavon's old Francis, and I must confess that my entry made a sensation, preceded as I was by my academical past, my reputation for politeness, and great knowledge of the world. My fine presence did the rest, for it must be said that I know how to go into a room. M. Noel, in a dress-coat, very dark skinned and with mutton-chop whiskers, came forward to meet us.
"You are
I had thought at first when M. Francis, Monpavon's /valet de chambre/, spoke to me of the thing, that it was a question of one of those little clandestine junketings such as are held sometimes in the garrets of our boulevards with the fragments of food brought up by Mlle. Seraphine and the other cooks in the building, at which you drink stolen wine, and gorge yourself, sitting on trunks, trembling with fear, by the light of a couple of candles which are extinguished at the least noise in the corridors. These secret practices are repugnant to my character. But when I received, as for the regular servants' ball, an invitation written in a very beautiful hand upon pink paper:
"M. Noel rekwests M---- to be present at his evenin-party on the 25th instent. Super will be provided"
I saw clearly, not withstanding the defective spelling, that it was a question of something serious and authorized. I dressed myself therefore in my newest frock-coat, my finest linen, and arrived at the Place Vendome at the address indicated by the invitation.
For the giving of his party, M. Noel had taken advantage of a first- night at the opera, to which all fashionable society was thronging, thus giving the servants a free rein, and putting the entire place at our disposal until midnight. Notwithstanding this, the host had preferred to receive us upstairs in his own bed-chamber, and this I approved highly, being in that matter of the opinion of the old fellow in the rhyme:
Fie on the pleasure That fear may corrupt!
But my word, the luxury on the Place Vendome! A felt carpet on the floor, the bed hidden away in an alcove, Algerian curtains with red stripes, an ornamental clock in green marble on the chimneypiece, the whole lighted by lamps of which the flames can be regulated at will. Our oldest member, M. Chalmette, is not better lodged at Dijon. I arrived about nine o'clock with Monpavon's old Francis, and I must confess that my entry made a sensation, preceded as I was by my academical past, my reputation for politeness, and great knowledge of the world. My fine presence did the rest, for it must be said that I know how to go into a room. M. Noel, in a dress-coat, very dark skinned and with mutton-chop whiskers, came forward to meet us.
"You are