The Queens Necklace | Page 4

cried the marshal, "you are my first arrival, and, mon
Dieu! you look as young and charming as ever."
"Duke, I am frozen."

"Come into the boudoir, then."
"Oh! tête-à-tête, marshal?"
"Not so," replied a somewhat broken voice.
"Ah! Taverney!" said the marshal; and then whispering to the countess,
"Plague take him for disturbing us!"
Madame Dubarry laughed, and they all entered the adjoining room.
* * * * *

II.--M. DE LA PEROUSE.
At the same moment, the noise of carriages in the street warned the
marshal that his guests were arriving; and soon after, thanks to the
punctuality of his maître-d'hôtel, nine persons were seated round the
oval table in the dining-room. Nine lackeys, silent as shadows, quick
without bustle, and attentive without importunity, glided over the
carpet, and passed among the guests, without ever touching their chairs,
which were surrounded with furs, which were wrapped round the legs
of the sitters. These furs, with the heat from the stoves, and the odors
from the wine and the dinner, diffused a degree of comfort, which
manifested itself in the gaiety of the guests, who had just finished their
soup.
No sound was heard from without, and none within, save that made by
the guests themselves; for the plates were changed, and the dishes
moved round, with the most perfect quiet. Nor from the maître d'hôtel
could a whisper be heard; he seemed to give his orders with his eyes.
The guests, therefore, began to feel as though they were alone. It
seemed to them that servants so silent must also be deaf.
M. de Richelieu was the first who broke the silence, by saying to the
guest on his right hand, "But, count, you drink nothing."

This was addressed to a man about thirty-eight years of age, short,
fair-haired, and with high shoulders; his eye a clear blue, now bright,
but oftener with a pensive expression, and with nobility stamped
unmistakably on his open and manly forehead.
"I only drink water, marshal," he replied.
"Excepting with Louis XV.," returned the marshal; "I had the honor of
dining at his table with you, and you deigned that day to drink wine."
"Ah! you recall a pleasing remembrance, marshal; that was in 1771. It
was tokay, from the imperial cellar."
"It was like that with which my maître-d'hôtel will now have the honor
to fill your glass," replied Richelieu, bowing.
Count Haga raised his glass, and looked through it. The wine sparkled
in the light like liquid rubies. "It is true," said he; "marshal, I thank
you."
These words were uttered in a manner so noble, that the guests, as if by
a common impulse, rose, and cried,--
"Long live the king!"
"Yes," said Count Haga, "long live his majesty the King of France.
What say you, M. de la Pérouse?"
"My lord," replied the captain, with that tone, at once flattering and
respectful, common to those accustomed to address crowned heads, "I
have just left the king, and his majesty has shown me so much kindness,
that no one will more willingly cry 'Long live the king' than I. Only, as
in another hour I must leave you to join the two ships which his
majesty has put at my disposal, once out of this house, I shall take the
liberty of saying, 'Long life to another king, whom I should be proud to
serve, had I not already so good a master.'"
"This health that you propose," said Madame Dubarry, who sat on the

marshal's left hand, "we are all ready to drink, but the oldest of us
should take the lead."
"Is it you, that that concerns, or me, Taverney?" said the marshal,
laughing.
"I do not believe," said another on the opposite side, "that M. de
Richelieu is the senior of our party."
"Then it is you, Taverney," said the duke.
"No, I am eight years younger than you! I was born in 1704," returned
he.
"How rude," said the marshal, "to expose my eighty-eight years."
"Impossible, duke! that you are eighty-eight," said M. de Condorcet.
"It is, however, but too true; it is a calculation easy to make, and
therefore unworthy of an algebraist like you, marquis. I am of the last
century--the great century, as we call it. My date is 1696."
"Impossible!" cried De Launay.
"Oh, if your father were here, he would not say impossible, he, who,
when governor of the Bastile, had me for a lodger in 1714."
"The senior in age, here, however," said M. de Favras, "is the wine
Count Haga is now drinking."
"You are right, M. de Favras; this wine is a hundred and twenty years
old; to the wine, then, belongs the honor----"
"One moment, gentlemen," said Cagliostro, raising his eyes, beaming
with intelligence and vivacity; "I claim