第56章

THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE TO MADAME OCTAVE DE CAMPSParis, March, 1839.

My dear friend,--Monsieur Dorlange dined with us yesterday.My intention was to invite him alone to a formal family dinner, so as to have him more completely under my eye, and put him to the question at my ease.But Monsieur de l'Estorade, to whom I had not explained my charitable motives, showed me that such an invitation might wound the sensibilities of our guest; it might seem to him that the Comte de l'Estorade thought the sculptor Dorlange unfitted for the society of his friends.

"We can't," said my husband gaily, "treat him like the sons of our farmers who come here with the epaulet of a lieutenant on their shoulder, and whom we invite with closed doors because we can't send them to the servants' hall."We therefore invited to meet him Monsieur Joseph Bridau, the painter, the Chevalier d'Espard, Monsieur and Madame de la Bastie (formerly, you remember, Mademoiselle Modeste Mignon) and the Marquis de Ronquerolles.When my husband invited the latter, he asked him if he had any objection to meeting the adversary of the Duc de Rhetore.

"So far from objecting," replied Monsieur de Ronquerolles, "I am glad of the opportunity to meet a man of talent, who in the affair you speak of behaved admirably." And he added, after my husband had told him of our great obligation to Monsieur Dorlange, "Then he is a true hero, your sculptor! if he goes on this way, we can't hold a candle to him."In his studio, with a bare throat leaving his head, which is rather too large for his body, free, and dressed in a sort of Oriental costume, Monsieur Dorlange looked to me a great deal better than he does in regular evening dress.Though I must say that when he grows animated in speaking his face lights up, a sort of a magnetic essence flows from his eyes which I had already noticed in our preceding encounters.Madame de la Bastie was as much struck as I was by this peculiarity.

I don't know if I told you that the ambition of Monsieur Dorlange is to be returned to the Chamber at the coming elections.This was the reason he gave for declining Monsieur Gaston's commission.What Monsieur de l'Estorade and I thought, at first, to be a mere excuse was an actual reason.At table when Monsieur Joseph Bridau asked him point-blank what belief was to be given to the report of his parliamentary intentions, Monsieur Dorlange formally announced them;from that moment, throughout the dinner, the talk was exclusively on politics.

When it comes to topics foreign to his studies, I expected to find our artist, if not a novice, at least very slightly informed.Not at all.

On men, on things, on the past as on the future of parties, he had very clear and really novel views, which were evidently not borrowed from the newspapers; and he put them forth in lively, easy, and elegant language; so that after his departure Monsieur de Ronquerolles and Monsieur de l'Estorade declared themselves positively surprised at the strong and powerful political attitude he had taken.This admission was all the more remarkable because, as you know, the two gentlemen are zealous conservatives, whereas Monsieur Dorlange inclines in a marked degree to democratic principles.

This unexpected superiority in my problematical follower reassured me not a little; still, I was resolved to get to the bottom of the situation, and therefore, after dinner I drew him into one of those tete-a-tetes which the mistress of a house can always bring about.

After talking awhile about Monsieur Marie-Gaston, our mutual friend, the enthusiasms of my dear Louise and my efforts to moderate them, Iasked him how soon he intended to send his Saint-Ursula to her destination.