Parisian Points of View Part 10

emile Ollivier, was presented to us; we received him coldly, as the little baroness did not approve, I believe, of liberal reforms, and looked for nothing good from them. We had a long chat on the window-seat with the Marshal Leboeuf. The only topic during that interesting conversation was the execution of Troppmann. It was the great event of the week.

At two o'clock we left--the baroness, I, and the baron. For there was a husband, who for the time being was crowded in the corner of the carriage, and hidden under the ma.s.s of my skirts and of my train, which was thrown back on him all in a heap.

"Confess, Edward," said the little baroness--confess that I was pretty to-night."

"Very."

"And my dress?"

"Oh, charming!"

"You say that indolently, without spirit or enthusiasm. I know you well. You think I've been extravagant. Well, indeed I haven't. Do you know how much this dress cost me? Four hundred francs--not a centime more."

We arrived home, which was a step from the Tuileries, in the Place Vendome. The baron went to his rooms, the baroness to hers; and while Hermance, the maid, cleverly and swiftly untied all my rosettes and took out the pins, the little baroness kept repeating: "How becoming this dress is to me! And I seem to become it, too. I shall wear it on Thursday, Hermance, to go to the Austrian Emba.s.sy. Wait a minute, till I see the effect of the b.u.t.terfly in the back. Bring the lamp nearer; nearer yet. Yes, that's it. Ah, how pretty it is! I am enchanted with this dress, Hermance--really enchanted!"

If the little baroness was enchanted with me, I was equally enchanted with the baroness. We two made the most tender, the most intimate, and the most united of families. We comprehended, understood, and completed each other so well. I had not to do with one of those mechanical dolls--stupidly and brutally laced into a padded corset. Between the little baroness and myself there was absolutely nothing but lace and fine linen. We could confidentially and surely depend on one another.

The beauty of the little baroness was a real beauty, without garniture, conjuring, or trickery.

So the following Thursday I went to the Austrian Emba.s.sy, and a week later to the Princess Mathilde's. But, alas! the next morning the little baroness said to her maid: "Hermance, take that dress to the reserve. I love it, and I'd wear it every evening; but it has been seen sufficiently for this winter. Yesterday several people said to me, 'Ah, that's your dress of the Tuileries; it's your dress of the Austrian Emba.s.sy.' It must be given up till next year. Good-bye, dear little dress."

And, having said that, she placed her charming lips at hap-hazard among my laces and kissed me in the dearest way in the world. Ah, how pleased and proud I was of that childish and sweet fellows.h.i.+p! I remembered that the evening before, on our return, the little baroness had kissed her husband; but the kiss she had given him was a quick, dry kiss--one of those hurried kisses with which one wishes to get through; whereas my kiss had been prolonged and pa.s.sionate. She had cordiality for the baron, and love for me. The little baroness wasn't twenty, and she was a coquette to the core. I say this, in the first place, to excuse her, and, in the second place, to give an exact impression of her character.

So at noon, in the arms of Hermance, I made my entry to the reserve. It was a dormitory of dresses, an immense room on the third story, very large, and lined with wardrobes of white oak, carefully locked. In the middle of the room was an ottoman, on which Hermance deposited me; after which she slid back ten or twelve wardrobe doors, one after the other.

Dresses upon dresses! I should never be able to tell how many. All were hung in the air by silk tape on big triangles. Hermance, however, seemed much embarra.s.sed.

"In the reserve," she murmured, "in the reserve; that is easy to say.

But where is there any room? And this one needs a lot." At last Hermance, after having given a number of little taps to the right and left, succeeded in making a sort of slit, into which I had great difficulty in sliding. Hermance gave me and my neighbors some more little taps to lump us together, and then shut the door. Darkness reigned. I was placed between a blue velvet dress and a mauve satin one.

Towards the end of April we received a visit from the little baroness, and in consequence of that visit there was great disturbance. Winter dresses were hung up; spring dresses were got down. At the beginning of July another visit, another disturbance--entry of the costumes from the races; departure of others for the watering-places. I lost my neighbor to the right, the mauve dress, and kept my neighbor on the left, the blue dress, a cross and crabbed person who was forever groaning, complaining, and saying to me, "Oh, my dear, you do take up so much room; do get out of the way a little." I must admit that the poor blue velvet dress was much to be pitied. It was three years old, having been a part of the little baroness's trousseau, and had never been worn. "A high-neck blue velvet dress, at my age, with my shoulders and arms!" had exclaimed the little baroness; "I should look like a grandmother!" Thus it was decreed, and the unfortunate blue dress had gone from the trousseau straight to the reserve.

A week or ten days after the departure of the dresses for Baden-Baden we heard a noise, the voices of women, and all the doors were opened. It was the little baroness, who had brought her friend the Countess N----.

"Sit there, my dear, on that ottoman," said the little baroness. "I have come to look over my dresses. I am very hurried; I arrived but just now from Baden, and I start again to-night for Anjou. We can chatter while Hermance shows me the dresses. Oh, those Prussians, my dear, the monsters! We had to run away, Blanche and myself, like thieves. (Very simple dresses, Hermance, every-day dresses, and walking and boating dresses.) Yes, my dear, like thieves! They threw stones at us, real stones, in the Avenue of Lichtental, and called us 'Rascally Frenchwomen! French rabble!' The Emperor did well to declare war against such people. (Dresses for horseback, Hermance--my brown riding-habit.) At any rate, there's no need to worry. My husband dined yesterday with Guy; you know, the tall Guy, who is an aide of Leboeuf. Well, we are ready, admirably ready, and the Prussians not at all. (Very simple, I said, Hermance. You are showing me ball-dresses. I don't intend to dance during the war.) And then, my dear, it seems that this war was absolutely necessary from a dynastic point of view. I don't quite know why, but I tell it to you as I heard it. (These dozen dresses, Hermance, will be sufficient. But there are thirteen. I never could have thirteen.

Take away the green one; or, no, add another--that blue one; that's all.) Now let's go down, my dear."

Whereupon she departed. So war was declared, and with Prussia. I was much moved. I was a French dress and a Bonapartist dress. I was afraid for France and afraid for the dynasty, but the words of the tall Guy were so perfectly rea.s.suring.

For two months there was no news; but about the 10th of September the little baroness arrived with Hermance. She was very pale, poor little baroness--very pale and agitated.

"Dark dresses, Hermance," she said, "black dresses. I know! What remains of Aunt Pauline's mourning? There must remain quite a lot of things. You see, I am too sad--"

"But if madame expects to remain long in England?"

"Ah! as long as the Republic lasts."

"Then it may be a long time."

"What do you mean--a long time? What _do_ you mean, Hermance? Who can tell you such things?"

"It seems to me that if I were madame I'd take for precaution's sake a few winter dresses, a few evening-dresses--"

"Evening-dresses! Why, what are you thinking of? I shall go nowhere, Hermance, alone in England, without my husband, who stays in Paris in the National Guard."

"But if madame should go to see their Majesties in England?"

"Yes, of course I shall, Hermance."

"Well, it's because I know madame's feelings and views that--"

"You are right; put in some evening-dresses."

"Will madame take her last white satin dress?"

"Oh no, not that one; it would be too sad a memory for the Empress, who noticed it at the last ball at the Tuileries. And then the dress wouldn't stand the voyage. My poor white satin dress! Shall I ever wear it again?"

That is why I did not emigrate, and how I found myself blockaded in Paris during the siege. From the few words that we had heard of the conversation of the little baroness and Hermance we had a pretty clear idea of the situation. The Empire was overthrown and the Republic proclaimed. The Republic! There were among us several old family laces who had seen the first Republic--that of '93. The Reign of Terror! Ah, what tales they told us! The fall of the Empire, however, did not displease these old laces, who were all Legitimists or Orleanists. In my neighborhood, on a gooseberry satin skirt, there were four flounces of lace who had had the honor of attending the coronation of Charles X., and who were delighted, and kept saying to us: "The Bonapartes brought about invasion; invasion brings back the Bourbons. Long live Henry V.!"

We all had, however, a common preoccupation. Should we remain in style?

We were nearly all startling, risky, and loud--so much so that we were quite anxious, except three or four quiet dresses, velvet and dark cloth dresses, who joined in the chorus with the old laces, and said to us: "Ah, here's an end to the carnival, to this masquerade of an empire!

Republic or monarchy, little we care; we are sensible and in good taste." We felt they were somewhat in the right in talking thus. From September to February we remained shut up in the wardrobes, wrangling with each other, listening to the cannon, and knowing nothing of what was going on.

Towards the middle of February all the doors were opened. It was the little baroness--the little baroness!

"Ah!" she exclaimed, "my dresses, my beloved dresses, there they are; how happy I am to see them!"

We could say nothing; but we, too, were very happy to see the little baroness.

"Now, then, Hermance," continued the little baroness, "let us hunt around a little. What can I take to Bordeaux? After such disasters I must have quiet and sombre dresses."

"Madame hasn't very many."

"I beg your pardon, Hermance, I have dark dresses--this one and that one. The blue velvet dress! The blue velvet dress is just the thing, and I've never worn it."

And so my neighbor the blue dress was taken down, and was at last going to make her first appearance in the world. However, the little baroness herself, with great activity, rummaged round in the wardrobes.

"Nothing, nothing," she said; "four or five dresses only. All the rest are impossible, and would not accord with the Government we shall have in Bordeaux. Well, I shall be obliged to have some republican dresses made--very moderate republican, but still republican."

The little baroness went away, to come back a month later, always with Hermance, who was an excellent maid, and much thought of by her mistress. New deliberation.

"Hermance," said the little baroness, "what can I take to Versailles? I think we shall be able to have a little more freedom. There will be receptions and dinners with M. Thiers; then the princes are coming. I might risk transition dresses. Do you know what I mean by that, Hermance--transition dresses?"

"Perfectly, madame--pearl grays, mauves, violets, lilacs."

"Yes, that's it, Hermance; light but quiet colors. You are an invaluable maid. You understand me perfectly."

The little baroness started for Versailles with a collection of transition dresses. There must have been twenty. It was a good beginning, and filled us with hope. She had begun at Bordeaux with sombre colors, and continued on at Versailles with light ones, Versailles was evidently only a stepping-stone between Bordeaux and Paris. The little baroness was soon coming back to Paris, and once the little baroness was in Paris we could feel a.s.sured that we should not stay long in the wardrobes.

But it happened that a few days after the departure of the little baroness for Versailles we heard loud firing beneath the windows of the house (we lived in the Place Vendome). Was it another revolt, another revolution? For a week nothing more was heard; there was silence. Then at the end of that week the cannonade began around Paris worse than ever. Was the war recommencing with the Prussians? Was it a new siege?