Vendetta | Page 7

though cutting slights which
another group belonging to the aristocracy put upon them. The latter
were led by the daughter of one of the King's ushers, a little creature, as
silly as she was vain, proud of being the daughter of a man with "an
office at court." She was a girl who always pretended to understand the
remarks of the master at the first word, and seemed to do her work as a
favor to him. She used an eyeglass, came very much dressed, and
always late, and entreated her companions to speak low.
In this second group were several girls with exquisite figures and
distinguished features, but there was little in their glance or expression
that was simple and candid. Though their attitudes were elegant and
their movements graceful, their faces lacked frankness; it was easy to
see that they belonged to a world where polite manners form the
character from early youth, and the abuse of social pleasures destroys
sentiment and develops egotism.
But when the whole class was here assembled, childlike heads were
seen among this bevy of young girls, ravishingly pure and virgin, faces
with lips half-opened, through which shone spotless teeth, and on
which a virgin smile was flickering. The studio then resembled not a
studio, but a group of angels seated on a cloud in ether.
By mid-day, on this occasion, Servin had not appeared. For some days
past he had spent most of his time in a studio which he kept elsewhere,
where he was giving the last touches to a picture for the Exposition. All
of a sudden Mademoiselle Amelie Thirion, the leader of the aristocrats,
began to speak in a low voice, and very earnestly, to her neighbor. A
great silence fell on the group of patricians, and the commercial party,
surprised, were equally silent, trying to discover the subject of this
earnest conference. The secret of the young ULTRAS was soon
revealed.
Amelie rose, took an easel which stood near hers, carried it to a
distance from the noble group, and placed it close to a board partition
which separated the studio from the extreme end of the attic, where all

broken casts, defaced canvases and the winter supply of wood were
kept. Amelie's action caused a murmur of surprise, which did not
prevent her from accomplishing the change by rolling hastily to the
side of the easel the stool, the box of colors, and even the picture by
Prudhon, which the absent pupil was copying. After this coup d'etat the
Right began to work in silence, but the Left discoursed at length.
"What will Mademoiselle Piombo say to that?" asked a young girl of
Mademoiselle Matilde Roguin, the lively oracle of the banking group.
"She's not a girl to say anything," was the reply; "but fifty years hence
she'll remember the insult as if it were done to her the night before, and
revenge it cruelly. She is a person that I, for one, don't want to be at
war with."
"The slight these young ladies mean to put upon her is all the more
unkind," said another young girl, "because yesterday, Mademoiselle
Ginevra was very sad. Her father, they say, has just resigned. They
ought not to add to her trouble, for she was very considerate of them
during the Hundred Days. Never did she say a word to wound them. On
the contrary, she avoided politics. But I think our ULTRAS are acting
more from jealousy than from party spite."
"I have a great mind to go and get Mademoiselle Piombo's easel and
place it next to mine," said Matilde Roguin. She rose, but second
thoughts made her sit down again.
"With a character like hers," she said, "one can't tell how she would
take a civility; better wait events."
"Ecco la," said the young girl with the black eyes, languidly.
The steps of a person coming up the narrow stairway sounded through
the studio. The words: "Here she comes!" passed from mouth to mouth,
and then the most absolute silence reigned.
To understand the importance of the ostracism imposed by the act of
Amelie Thirion, it is necessary to add that this scene took place toward

the end of the month of July, 1815. The second return of the Bourbons
had shaken many friendships which had held firm under the first
Restoration. At this moment families, almost all divided in opinion,
were renewing many of the deplorable scenes which stain the history of
all countries in times of civil or religious wars. Children, young girls,
old men shared the monarchial fever to which the country was then a
victim. Discord glided beneath all roofs; distrust dyed with its gloomy
colors the words and the actions of the most intimate friends.
Ginevra Piombo loved Napoleon to idolatry; how,