The Nabob [90]
livery in winter, nankeen livery in summer. These people are seen everywhere at the small Mondays, at the races, at first-nights, at embassy balls, and their name always in the newspapers with a remark upon the handsome toilettes of Madame, and Monsieur's remarkable chic. Well! all that is nothing at all but pretence, plated goods, show, and when the marquis wants five francs nobody would lend them to him upon his possessions. The furniture is hired by the fortnight from Fitily, the upholsterer of the demi-monde. The curiosities, the pictures, belong to old Schwalbach, who sends his clients round there and makes them pay doubly dear, since people don't bargain when they think they are dealing with a marquis, an amateur. As for the toilettes of the marquise, the milliner and the dressmaker provide her with them each season gratis, get her to wear the new fashions, a little ridiculous sometimes but which society subsequently adopts because Madame is still a very handsome woman and reputed for her elegance; she is what is called a /launcher/. Finally, the servants! Makeshifts like the rest, changed each week at the pleasure of the registry office which sends them there to do a period of probation by way of preliminary to a serious engagement. If you have neither sureties nor certificates, if you have just come out of prison or anything of that kind, Glanand, the famous agent of the Rue de la Paix, sends you off to the Boulevard Haussmann. You remain in service there for a week or two, just the time necessary to buy a good reference from the marquis, who, of course, it is understood, pays you nothing and barely boards you; for in that house the kitchen-ranges are cold most of the time, Monsieur and Madame dining out nearly every evening or going to balls, where a supper is included in the entertainment. It is positive fact that there are people in Paris who take the sideboard seriously and make the first meal of their day after midnight. The Bois l'Herys, in consequence, are well-informed with regard to the houses that provide refreshments. They will tell you that you get a very good supper at the Austrian Embassy, that the Spanish Embassy rather neglects the wines, and that it is at the Foreign Office again that you find the best /chaud-froid de volailles/. And that is the life of this curious household. Nothing that they possess is really theirs; everything is tacked on, loosely fastened with pins. A gust of wind and the whole thing blows away. But at least they are certain of losing nothing. It is this assurance which gives to the marquis that air of raillery worthy of a Father Tranquille which he has when he looks at you with both hands in his pockets, as much as to say: "Ah, well, and what then? What can they do to me?"
And the little groom, in the attitude which I have just mentioned, with his head like that of a prematurely old and vicious child, imitated his master so well that I could fancy I saw himself as he looks at our board meetings, standing in front of the governor and overwhelming him with his cynical pleasantries. All the same, one must admit that Paris is a tremendously great city, for a man to be able to live thus, through fifteen, twenty years of tricks, artifice, dust thrown in people's eyes, without everybody finding him out, and for him still to be able to make a triumphal entry into a drawing-room in the rear of his name announced loudly and repeatedly, "Monsieur le Marquis de Bois l'Hery."
No, look you, the things that are to be learned at a servants' party, what a curious spectacle is presented by the fashionable world of Paris, seen thus from below, from the basements, you need to go to one before you can realize. Here, for instance, is a little fragment of conversation which, happening to find myself between M. Francis and M. Louis, I overheard about the worthy sire de Monpavon.
"You are making a mistake, Francis. You are in funds just now. You ought to take advantage of the occasion to restore that money to the Treasury."
"What will you have?" replied M. Francis with a despondent air.
And the little groom, in the attitude which I have just mentioned, with his head like that of a prematurely old and vicious child, imitated his master so well that I could fancy I saw himself as he looks at our board meetings, standing in front of the governor and overwhelming him with his cynical pleasantries. All the same, one must admit that Paris is a tremendously great city, for a man to be able to live thus, through fifteen, twenty years of tricks, artifice, dust thrown in people's eyes, without everybody finding him out, and for him still to be able to make a triumphal entry into a drawing-room in the rear of his name announced loudly and repeatedly, "Monsieur le Marquis de Bois l'Hery."
No, look you, the things that are to be learned at a servants' party, what a curious spectacle is presented by the fashionable world of Paris, seen thus from below, from the basements, you need to go to one before you can realize. Here, for instance, is a little fragment of conversation which, happening to find myself between M. Francis and M. Louis, I overheard about the worthy sire de Monpavon.
"You are making a mistake, Francis. You are in funds just now. You ought to take advantage of the occasion to restore that money to the Treasury."
"What will you have?" replied M. Francis with a despondent air.