Petit-Claud looked toward the door of the boudoir, and saw Cointet standing there. “Madame,” he said, “Lucien is here, in Angoulême.”
“Well, sir?” asked the Countess, in tones that would have put an end to all power of speech in an ordinary man.
“Mme. la Comtesse does not understand,” returned Petit-Claud, bringing out that most respectful formula again. “How does Mme. la Comtesse wish that the great man of her making should be received in Angoulême? There is no middle course; he must be received or despised here.”
This was a dilemma to which Louise de Nègrepelisse had never given a thought; it touched her closely, yet rather for the sake of the past than of the future. And as for Petit-Claud, his plan for arresting David Séchard depended upon the lady’s actual feelings towards Lucien. He waited.
“M. Petit-Claud,” said the Countess, with haughty dignity, “you mean to be on the side of the Government. Learn that the first principle of government is this—never to have been in the wrong, and that the instinct of power and the sense of dignity is even stronger in women than in governments.”
“That is just what I thought, madame,” he answered quickly, observing the Countess meanwhile with attention the more profound because it was scarcely visible. “Lucien came here in the depths of misery. But if he must receive an ovation, I can compel him to leave Angoulême by the means of the ovation itself. His sister and brother-in-law, David Séchard, are hard pressed for debts.”
In the Countess’ haughty face there was a swift, barely perceptible change; it was not satisfaction, but the repression of satisfaction. Surprised that Petit-Claud should have guessed her wishes, she gave him a glance as she opened her fan, and Françoise de la Haye’s entrance at that moment gave her time to find an answer.
“It will not be long before you are public prosecutor, monsieur,” she said, with a significant smile. That speech did not commit her in any way, but it was explicit enough. Françoise had come in to thank the Countess.
“Oh! madame, then I shall owe the happiness of my life to you,” she exclaimed, bending girlishly to add in the Countess’ ear, “To marry a petty provincial attorney would be like being burned by slow fires.”
It was Francis, with his knowledge of officialdom, who had prompted Zéphirine to make this set upon Louise.
“In the very earliest days after promotion,” so the ex-consul-general told his fair friend, “everybody, prefect, or monarch, or man of business, is burning to exert his influence for his friends; but a patron soon finds out the inconveniences of patronage, and then turns from fire to ice. Louise will do more now for Petit-Claud than she would do for her husband in three months’ time.”
“Madame la Comtesse is thinking of all that our poet’s triumph entails?” continued Petit-Claud. “She should receive Lucien before there is an end of the nine-days’ wonder.”
The Countess terminated the audience with a bow, and rose to speak with Mme. de Pimentel, who came to the boudoir. The news of old Nègrepelisse’s elevation to a marquisate had greatly impressed the Marquise; she judged it expedient to be amiable to a woman so clever as to rise the higher for an apparent fall.
“Do tell me, dear, why you took the trouble to put your father in the House of Peers?” said the Marquise, in the course of a little confidential conversation, in which she bent the knee before the superiority of “her dear Louise.”
“They were all the more ready to grant the favor because my father has no son to succeed him, dear, and his vote will always be at the disposal of the Crown; but if we should have sons, I quite expect that my oldest will succeed to his grandfather’s name, title, and peerage.”
Mme. de Pimentel saw, to her annoyance, that it was idle to expect a mother ambitious for children not yet in existence to further her own private designs of raising M. de Pimentel to a peerage.
“I have the Countess,” Petit-Claud told Cointet when they came away. “I can promise you your partnership. I shall be deputy prosecutor before the month is out, and Séchard will be in your power. Try to find a buyer for my connection; it has come to be the first in Angoulême in my hands during the last five months—”
“Once put you on the horse, and there is no need to do more,” said Cointet, half jealous of his own work.
The causes of Lucien’s triumphant reception in his native town must now be plain to everybody. Louise du Châtelet followed the example of that King of France who left the Duke of Orléans unavenged; she chose to forget the insults received in Paris by Mme. de Bargeton. She would patronize Lucien, and overwhelming him with her patronage, would completely crush him and get rid of him by fair means. Petit-Claud knew the whole tale of the cabals in Paris through town gossip, and shrewdly guessed how a woman must hate the man who would not love when she was fain of his love.
The ovation justified the past of Louise de Nègrepelisse. The next day Petit-Claud appeared at Mme. Séchard’s house, heading a deputation of six young men of the town, all of them Lucien’s schoolfellows. He meant to finish his work, to intoxicate Lucien completely, and to have him in his power. Lucien’s old schoolfellows at the Angoulême grammar-school wished to invite the author of the Marguerites and The Archer of Charles IX to a banquet given in honor of the great man arisen from their ranks.
“Come, this is your doing, Petit-Claud!” exclaimed Lucien.
“Your return has stirred our conceit,” said Petit-Claud; “we made it a point of honor to get up a subscription, and we will have a tremendous affair for you.
