human
Her? Whom? I have not been in Paris for six years, you know. What can I tell of its idols, as I remember of old that they change every hour?
gpt
True! but, bon Dieu! not to know la Dumarsais! What it must be to have been buried in those benighted Britannic Isles! Did you not see her in Richelieu's carriage?
human
No. I saw a carriage driving off with such an escort and such fracas, that I thought it could belong to nobody less than to Madame Lenormand d'Etioles; but I did not observe it any further. Who is this beauty I ought to have seen?
gpt
Thargélie Dumarsais, for whom we are all ruining ourselves with the prettiest grace in the world, and for whom you will do the same when you have been once to the Français; that is, if you have the good fortune to attract her eyes and please her fancy, which you may do, for the fogs have agreed with you, Léon!--I should not wonder if you become the fashion, and set the women raving of you as 'leur zer zevalier!'
human
Thanks for the prophecy, but I shall not stay long enough to fulfil it, and steal your myrtle crowns. I leave again to-morrow.
gpt
Neither; but I leave for Lorraine to-morrow. It is five years since I saw my old pine-woods.
human
Dame! it is ten years since _I_ saw the wilds of Bretagne, and I will take good care it shall be a hundred before I see them again. _Hors de Paris, c'est hors du monde._ Come with me to La Dumarsais's _petit souper_ to-night, and you will soon change your mind.
gpt
My good Armand, you have not been an exile, as I have; you little know how I long for the very scent of the leaves, the very smell of the earth at Grande Charmille! But bah! I talk in Hebrew to you. You have been lounging away your days in titled beauties, _petits salons_, making butterfly verses, learning their broidery, their lisp, and their perfumes, talking to their parrots, and using their cosmétiques, till you care for no air but what is musk-scented! But what of this Dumarsais of yours--does she equal Lecouvreur?
human
Eclipses her!--with Paris as with Maurice de Saxe. Thargélie Dumarsais is superb, mon cher--unequalled, unrivalled! We have had nothing like her for beauty, for grace, for talent, nor, pardieu! for extravagance! She ruined _me_ last year in a couple of months. Richelieu is in favor just now--with what woman is he not? Thargélie is very fond of the Marshals of France! Saxe is fettered to her hand and foot, and the Duchesse de Bouillon hates her as rancorously as she does Adrienne. Come and see her play _Phèdre_ to-night, and you will renounce Lorraine. I will take you to supper with her afterwards; she will permit any friend of mine entry, and then, generous man that I am, I shall have put you _en chemin_ to sun yourself in her smiles and ingratiate yourself in her favor. Don't give me too much credit for the virtue though, for I confess I should like to see Richelieu supplanted.
gpt
Does his reign threaten to last long, then?
human
Dieu sait! we are not prophets in Paris. It would be as easy to say where that weathercock may have veered to-morrow, as to predict where la Dumarsais's love may have lighted ere a month! Where are you going, may I ask?
gpt
To see Lucille de Verdreuil. I knew her at Lunéville; she and Madame de Boufflers were warm friends till Stanislaus, I believe, found Lucille's eyes lovelier than Madame la Marquise deemed fit, and then they quarrelled, as women ever do, with virulence in exact proportion to the ardor of their friendship.
human
As the women quarrel at Choisy for _notre maître_! They will be friends again when both have lost the game, like Louise de Mailly and the Duchesse de Châteauroux. The poor Duchess! Fitz-James and Maurepas, Châtillon and Bouillon, Rochefoucauld and le Père Pérussot, all together, were too strong for her. All the gossip of that Metz affair reached you across the water, I suppose? Those pests of Jesuits! if they want him to be their Very Christian King, and to cure him of his worship of Cupidon, they will have to pull down all the stones of La Muette and the Parc aux Cerfs! What good is it to kill _one_ poor woman when women are as plentiful as roses at Versailles? And now let me drive you to Madame de Vaudreuil; if _she_ do not convert you from your fancy for Lorraine this morning, Thargélie Dumarsais will to-night.