The Parisians โ Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best novels ever txt) ๐
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Lucien Duplessis, bending over the table, glancing first with curiosity at the Marquis de Rochebriant, who leans his cheek on his hand and seems not to notice him, then concentrating his attention on Frederic Lemercier, who sits square with his hands clasped,โLucien Duplessis is somewhere between forty and fifty, rather below the middle height, slender, but not slight,โwhat in English phrase is called โwiry.โ He is dressed with extreme simplicity: black frockcoat buttoned up; black cravat worn higher than men who follow the fashions wear their neckcloths nowadays; a hawkโs eye and a hawkโs beak; hair of a dull brown, very short, and wholly without curl; his cheeks thin and smoothly shaven, but he wears a mustache and imperial, plagiarized from those of his sovereign, and, like all plagiarisms, carrying the borrowed beauty to extremes, so that the points of mustache and imperial, stiffened and sharpened by cosmetics which must have been composed of iron, looked like three long stings guarding lip and jaw from invasion; a pale olive-brown complexion, eyes small, deep-sunk, calm, piercing; his expression of face at first glance not striking, except for quiet immovability. Observed more heedfully, the expression was keenly intellectual,โdetermined about the lips, calculating about the brows: altogether the face of no ordinary man, and one not, perhaps, without fine and high qualities, concealed from the general gaze by habitual reserve, but justifying the confidence of those whom he admitted into his intimacy.
โAh, mon cher,โ said Lemercier, โyou promised to call on me yesterday at two oโclock. I waited in for you half an hour; you never came.โ
โNo; I went first to the Bourse. The shares in that Company we spoke of have fallen; they will fall much lower: foolish to buy in yet; so the object of my calling on you was over. I took it for granted you would not wait if I failed my appointment. Do you go to the opera to-night?โ
โI think not; nothing worth going for: besides, I have found an old friend, to whom I consecrate this evening. Let me introduce you to the Marquis de Rochebriant. Alain, M. Duplessis.โ
The two gentlemen bowed.
โI had the honour to be known to Monsieur your father,โ said Duplessis.
โIndeed,โ returned Rochebriant. โHe had not visited Paris for many years before he died.โ
โIt was in London I met him, at the house of the Russian Princess C____.โ
The Marquis coloured high, inclined his head gravely, and made no reply. Here the waiter brought the oysters and the chablis, and Duplessis retired to his own table.
โThat is the most extraordinary man,โ said Frederic, as he squeezed the lemon over his oysters, โand very much to be admired.โ
โHow so? I see nothing at least to admire in his face,โ said the Marquis, with the bluntness of a provincial.
โHis face. Ah! you are a Legitimist,โparty prejudice. He dresses his face after the Emperor; in itself a very clever face, surely.โ
โPerhaps, but not an amiable one. He looks like a bird of prey.โ
โAll clever men are birds of prey. The eagles are the heroes, and the owls the sages. Duplessis is not an eagle nor an owl. I should rather call him a falcon, except that I would not attempt to hoodwink him.โ
โCall him what you will,โ said the Marquis, indifferently; โM. Duplessis can be nothing to me.โ
โI am not so sure of that,โ answered Frederic, somewhat nettled by the phlegm with which the Provincial regarded the pretensions of the Parisian. โDuplessis, I repeat it, is an extraordinary man. Though untitled, he descends from your old aristocracy; in fact, I believe, as his name shows, from the same stem as the Richelieus. His father was a great scholar, and I believe he has read much himself. Might have distinguished himself in literature or at the bar, but his parents died fearfully poor; and some distant relations in commerce took charge of him, and devoted his talents to the โBourse.โ Seven years ago he lived in a single chamber, โau quatrieme,โ near the Luxembourg. He has now a hotel, not large but charming, in the Champs Elysees, worth at least six hundred thousand francs. Nor has he made his own fortune alone, but that of many others; some of birth as high as your own. He has the genius of riches, and knocks off a million as a poet does an ode, by the force of inspiration. He is hand-in-glove with the Ministers, and has been invited to Compiegne by the Emperor. You will find him very useful.โ
Alain made a slight movement of incredulous dissent, and changed the conversation to reminiscences of old school-boy days.
The dinner at length came to a close. Frederic rang for the bill,โglanced over it. โFifty-nine francs,โ said he, carelessly flinging down his napoleon and a half. The Marquis silently drew forth his purse and extracted the same sum. When they were out of the restaurant, Frederic proposed adjourning to his own rooms. โI can promise you an excellent cigar, one of a box given to me by an invaluable young Spaniard attached to the Embassy here. Such cigars are not to be had at Paris for money, nor even for love; seeing that women, however devoted and generous, never offer you anything better than a cigarette. Such cigars are only to be had for friendship. Friendship is a jewel.โ
โI never smoke,โ answered the Marquis, โbut I shall be charmed to come to your rooms; only donโt let me encroach on your good-nature. Doubtless you have engagements for the evening.โ
โNone till eleven oโclock, when I have promised to go to a soiree to which I do not offer to take you; for it is one of those Bohemian entertainments at which it would do you harm in the Faubourg to assist,โat least until you have made good your position. Let me see, is not the Duchesse de Tarascon a relation of yours?โ
โYes; my poor motherโs first cousin.โ
โI congratulate you. โTres grande dame.โ She will launch you in โpuro cielo,โ as Juno might have launched one of her young peacocks.โ
โThere has been no acquaintance between our houses,โ returned the Marquis, dryly, โsince the mesalliance of her second nuptials.โ
โMesalliance! second nuptials! Her second husband was the Duc de Tarascon.โ
โA duke of the First Empire, the grandson of a butcher.โ
โDiable! you are a severe genealogist, Monsieur le Marquis. How can you consent to walk arm-in-arm with me, whose great-grandfather supplied bread to the same army to which the Due de Tarasconโs grandfather furnished the meat?โ
โMy dear Frederic, we two have an equal pedigree, for our friendship dates from the same hour. I do not blame the Duchesse de Tarascon for marrying the grandson of a butcher, but for marrying the son of a man made duke by a usurper. She abandoned the faith of her house and the cause of her sovereign. Therefore her marriage is a blot on our scutcheon.โ
Frederic raised his eyebrows, but had the tact to pursue the subject no further. He who interferes in the quarrels of relations must pass through life without a friend.
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