Zibelline | Page 3

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 at La Marche,
which had taken place a few days before. The victorious
gentleman-rider was, strange to say, an officer of infantry--an
unprecedented thing in the annals of this sport.
Heir to a seigneurial estate, which had been elevated to a marquisate in
the reign of Louis XII, son of a father who had the strictest notions as
to the preservation of pure blood, Henri de Prerolles, early initiated into
the practice of the breaking and training of horses, was at eighteen as
bold and dashing a rider as he was accomplished in other physical

exercises; and although, three years later, at his debut at St. Cyr, he
expressed no preference for entering the cavalry service, for which his
early training and rare aptitude fitted him, it was because, in the long
line of his ancestors--which included a marshal of France and a goodly
number of lieutenants-general--all, without exception, from Ravenna to
Fontenoy, had won renown as commanders of infantry.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Henri's grandfather, who had
distinguished himself in the American War for Independence, left his
native land only when he was in the last extremity. As soon as
circumstances permitted, he reentered France with his son, upon whom
Napoleon conferred a brevet rank, which the recipient accepted of his
free will. He began his military experience in Spain, returned safe and
well from the retreat from Russia, and fought valiantly at Bautzen and
at Dresden. The Restoration--by which time he had become chief of his
battalion--could not fail to advance his career; and the line was about to
have another lieutenant-general added to its roll, when the events of
1830 decided Field-Marshal the Marquis de Prerolles to sheathe his
sword forever, and to withdraw to his own estate, near the forest of
l'Ile-d'Adam, where hunting and efforts toward the improvement of the
equine race occupied his latter years.
He died in 1860, a widower, leaving two children: Jeanne, recently
married to the Duc de Montgeron, and his son Henri, then a pupil in a
military school, who found himself, on reaching his majority, in
possession of the chateau and domains of Prerolles, the value of which
was from fifteen to eighteen hundred thousand francs.
Having been made sub-lieutenant by promotion on the first day of
October, 1861, the young Marquis, already the head of his house and a
military leader, asked and obtained the favor of being incorporated with
a battalion of chasseurs garrisoned at Vincennes.
Exact in the performance of his military duties, and at the same time
ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, he was able, thanks to his robust
health, to conciliate the exigencies of the one with the fatigues of the
other.

Unfortunately, Henri was fond of gaming, and his natural impetuosity,
which showed itself by an emulation of high standards in his military
duties, degenerated into recklessness before the baccarat-table. At the
end of eighteen months, play, and an expensive liaison with an actress,
had absorbed half his fortune, and his paternal inheritance had been
mortgaged as well. The actress was a favorite in certain circles and had
been very much courted; and this other form of rivalry, springing from
the glitter of the footlights, added so much the more fuel to the
prodigalities of the inflammable young officer.
Affairs were in this situation when, immediately after Henri's triumph
at the race-track, a bettor on the opposite side paid one of his wagers by
offering to the victor a grand dinner at the Freres-Provencaux.
CHAPTER II
BIRDS OF PREY
The hero of the night was seated at the middle of one side of the table,
in the place of honor. For his 'vis-a-vis' he had his lively friend Fanny
Dorville, star of the Palais Royal, while at his right sat Heloise Virot,
the "first old woman," or duenna, of the same theatre, whose well
known jests and eccentricities added their own piquancy to gay life in
Paris. The two artists, being compelled to appear in the after-piece at
their theatre that evening, had come to the dinner made up and in full
stage costume, ready to appear behind the footlights at the summons of
the call-boy.
The other guests were young men accustomed to the surroundings of
the weighing-stand and the betting-room, at a