Zebiline, vol 1 | Page 5

drawn your characters from life. That is a question which was

frequently put to me recently, after I had published 'L'Americaine.' The
public longs to possess keys to our books. It is not sufficient for them
that a romance is interesting; it must possess also a spice of scandal.
Portraits? You have not drawn any--neither in the drawing-rooms
where Zibeline scintillates, nor in the foyer of the Comedie Francaise,
where for so long a time you have felt yourself at home. Your women
are visions and not studies from life--and I do not believe that you will
object to my saying this.
You should not dislike the "romantic romance," which every one in
these days advises us to write--as if that style did not begin as far back
as the birth of romance itself: as if the Princess of Cleves had not
written, and as if Balzac himself, the great realist, had not invented, the
finest "romantic romances" that can be found--for example, the
amorous adventure of General de Montriveau and the Duchesse de
Langlais!
Apropos, in your charming story there is a General who pleases me
very much. How was it that you did not take, after the fashion of Paul
de Molenes, a dashing cavalry officer for your hero?--you, for whom
the literary cavalier has all the attractions of a gentleman and a soldier?
Nothing could be more piquant, alert, chivalrous--in short, worthy of a
Frenchman--than the departure of your hero for the war after that
dramatic card-party, which was also a battle--and what a battle!--where,
at the end of the conflict, he left his all upon the green cloth. That is an
attractive sketch of the amiable comedienne, who wishes for fair
weather and a smooth sea for the soldier lover who is going so far away.
It seems to me that I have actually known that pretty girl at some time
or another! That chapter is full of the perfume of pearl powder and iris!
It is only a story, of course, but it is a magnificent story, which will
please many readers.
The public will ask you to write others, be sure of that; and you will do
well, my dear friend, for your own sake and for ours, to follow the
precept of Denis Diderot: "My friends, write stories; while one writes
them he amuses himself, and the story of life goes on, and that is less
gay than the stories we can tell."
I do not know precisely whether these last words, which are slightly
pessimistic, are those of the good Diderot himself. But they are those of
a Parisian of 1892, who has been able to forget his cares and

annoyances in reading the story that you have told so charmingly.
With much affection to you, and wishing good luck to Zibeline, I am
Your friend, JULES CLARETIE de l'Academie Francaise.
APRIL 26, 1892.

ZIBELINE
BOOK 1
CHAPTER I
LES FRERES-PROVENCAUX
In the days of the Second Empire, the Restaurant des
Freres-Provencaux still enjoyed a wide renown to which its fifty years
of existence had contributed more than a little to heighten its fame.
This celebrated establishment was situated near the Beaujolais Gallery
of the Palais-Royal, close to the narrow street leading to the Rue
Vivienne, and it had been the rendezvous of epicures, either residents
of Paris or birds of passage, since the day it was opened.
On the ground floor was the general dining-room, the gathering-place
for honest folk from the provinces or from other lands; the next floor
had been divided into a succession of private rooms, comfortably
furnished, where, screened behind thick curtains, dined somewhat
"irregular" patrons: lovers who were in either the dawn, the zenith, or
the decline of their often ephemeral fancies. On the top floor, spacious
salons, richly decorated, were used for large and elaborate receptions of
various kinds.
At times the members of certain social clubs gave in these rooms
subscription balls of anacreontic tendencies, the feminine element of
which was recruited among the popular gay favorites of the period.
Occasionally, also, young fellows about town, of different social rank,
but brought together by a pursuit of amusement in common, met here
on neutral ground, where, after a certain hour, the supper-table was
turned into a gaming-table, enlivened by the clinking of glasses and the
rattle of the croupier's rake, and where to the excitement of good cheer

was added that of high play, with its alternations of unexpected gains
and disastrous losses.
It was at a reunion of this kind, on the last evening in the month of May,
1862, that the salons on the top floor were brilliantly illuminated. A
table had been laid for twenty persons, who were to join in a banquet in
honor of the winner of the great military steeplechase