The Parisians | Page 5

the
Arabian Nights two weeks ago. And that which strikes me most--I say
it with regret and a pang of conscience--is certainly not the Paris of
former times, but that Paris which M. Buonaparte--I beg pardon, which
the Emperor--has called up around him, and identified forever with his
reign. It is what is new in Paris that strikes and enthrals me. Here I see
the life of France, and I belong to her tombs!"
"I don't quite understand you," said Lemercier. "If you think that
because your father and grandfather were Legitimists, you have not the
fair field of living ambition open to you under the Empire, you never
were more mistaken. 'Moyen age,' and even rococo, are all the rage.
You have no idea how valuable your name would be either at the
Imperial Court or in a Commercial Company. But with your fortune
you are independent of all but fashion and the Jockey Club.
"And 'apropos' of that, pardon me,--what villain made your coat?--let
me know; I will denounce him to the police." Half amused, half amazed,
Alain Marquis de Rochebriant looked at Frederic Lemercier much as a

good- tempered lion may look upon a lively poodle who takes a liberty
with his mane, and after a pause he replied curtly, "The clothes I wear
at Paris were made in Bretagne; and if the name of Rochebriant be of
any value at all in Paris, which I doubt, let me trust that it will make me
acknowledged as 'gentilhomme,' whatever my taste in a coat or
whatever the doctrines of a club composed--of jockeys."
"Ha, ha!" cried Lemercier, freeing himself from the arm of his friend,
and laughing the more irresistibly as he encountered the grave look of
the Marquis. "Pardon me,--I can't help it,--the Jockey Club,--composed
of jockeys!--it is too much!--the best joke. My dear, Alain, there is
some of the best blood of Europe in the Jockey Club; they would
exclude a plain bourgeois like me. But it is all the same: in one respect
you are quite right. Walk in a blouse if you please: you are still
Rochebriant; you would only be called eccentric. Alas! I am obliged to
send to London for my pantaloons: that comes of being a Lemercier.
But here we are in the Palais Royal."

CHAPTER II.
The salons of the Trois Freres were crowded; our friends found a table
with some little difficulty. Lemercier proposed a private cabinet, which,
for some reason known to himself, the Marquis declined.
Lemercier spontaneously and unrequested ordered the dinner and the
wines.
While waiting for their oysters, with which, when in season, French
'bon- vivants' usually commence their dinner, Lemercier looked round
the salon with that air of inimitable, scrutinizing, superb impertinence
which distinguishes the Parisian dandy. Some of the ladies returned his
glance coquettishly, for Lemercier was 'beau garcon;' others turned
aside indignantly, and muttered something to the gentlemen dining with
them. The said gentlemen, when old, shook their heads, and continued
to eat unmoved; when young, turned briskly round, and looked at first
fiercely at M. Lemercier, but, encountering his eye through the glass

which he had screwed into his socket, noticing the hardihood of his
countenance and the squareness of his shoulders, even they turned back
to the tables, shook their heads, and continued to eat unmoved, just like
the old ones.
"Ah!" cried Lemercier, suddenly, "here comes a man you should know,
'mon cher.' He will tell you how to place your money,--a rising man, a
coming man, a future minister. Ah! 'bon jour,' Duplessis, 'bon jour,'"
kissing his hand to a gentleman who had just entered and was looking
about him for a seat. He was evidently well and favourably known at
the Trois Freres. The waiters had flocked round him, and were pointing
to a table by the window, which a saturnine Englishman, who had
dined off a beefsteak and potatoes, was about to vacate.
M. Duplessis, having first assured himself, like a prudent man, that his
table was secure, having ordered his oysters, his chablis, and his 'potage
a la bisque,' now paced calmly and slowly across the salon, and halted
before Lemercier.
Here let me pause for a moment, and give the reader a rapid sketch of
the two Parisians.
Frederic Lemercier is dressed, somewhat too showily, in the extreme of
the prevalent fashion. He wears a superb pin in his cravat,--a pin worth
two thousand francs; he wears rings on his fingers, 'breloques' to his
watch-chain. He has a warm though dark complexion, thick black
eyebrows, full lips, a nose somewhat turned up, but not small, very fine
large dark eyes, a bold, open, somewhat impertinent expression of
countenance; withal decidedly handsome, thanks to colouring, youth,
and vivacity of regard.
Lucien Duplessis, bending over the