Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/110

28, 1860.] spoil his figure by a struggle with his waist—a universal struggle with French officers of all ages; but he is fond of good things, which in this house he probably has for nothing, and in a few years the waist will have the best of it, and he will require a new cuirass.

Where are your brains, Alfred Duchêne? With your face and figure, skyblue tunic, and jack boots; gold epaulettes and white horse-hair plume from the crest of your helmet to your waist? to be eight-and-twenty, and still a sous-lieutenant—where are your brains? Have you no ambition?

Alfred Duchêne begs to inform me that he cannot pass his examination. After dinner some of our neighbours drop in. There is a good coal fire for Madame’s feet, and this is a great attraction, where fuel is sold by the kilogramme. The first that appears is a Mademoiselle Marguerite—I have not arrived at her surname—a very handsome girl of about twenty, whose mother keeps the small lace shop round the corner. I could not guess for a long time where Marguerite got her regular features, large blue eyes, and good womanly expression, until she told me that she came from Strasbourg, which town, though within the French boundary, is essentially German in population and language—so much so, that when she came to Paris two years ago, she did not speak a word of French. It would not be prudent to ask too many questions about antecedents, for the answers might destroy the sentiment; but I did ask how it was that she was still a demoiselle. She sighed, and said something about being too poor to marry. This is a great fiction among the spinsters of the middling and lower orders. Poverty in France, like the young man’s promise in England, is made the excuse not only for being unmarried, but for all the liberties of single life.

But they really are very poor in the lace shop round the corner.

I know beforehand when the lieutenant is coming by the appearance of a diamond ring on Madame’s finger, and of some Valenciennes lace, which sees light on these occasions only; not that I think she is any attraction to him now—that is over—but between the revolution and the general amnesty, when the “chéri” was fly-fishing in the west of Scotland, Alfred must have been an exceedingly handsome lad of twenty, and she a smart ambitious woman of thirty; two periods of life between which there are often very strong affinities. She is naturally proud of him, and therefore glad to see him. He comes for the cupboard, and a very good cupboard it is too. Alfred talks in a careless unguarded manner on most subjects, even the Emperor, and particularly the Empress, which is not very wise, for he is one of the Body Guard. He has also some dreadful sentiments about female virtue which appear to shock Madame, and others about religion which really do startle Marguerite, whose confidence in Sainte Monica, the guardian saint of her native village, is something quite beautiful.

But Alfred is a good fellow for a Frenchman, and liberal. If he had ten cigars in his case he would divide them with me en frère. I like him vastly—he is such a thorough vagabond.

After dinner we play rampse, a curious game like five-card loo, but at which nobody wins, and the loser puts two or three sous into the pool. A partie takes up as much time as a short rubber at whist, and it will be seen that it requires a great deal of attention to enable any one of us to lose half a franc in an evening.

At the end of a week, if the pool has accumulated to ten francs, which it sometimes does when we have been hard at it, we invest the amount in a supper, consisting of a galantine of fowl, a salad, roasted chesnuts, and the dinner wine. Sometimes, in a weak moment, I stand a bowl of rum punch, which is brewed strong for Blot and me, and very sweet to please Madame.

And here my French begins to thaw, and comes down in an avalanche of irregular and reflected verbs. Monsieur Blot also softens and relates an anecdote of himself and an English countess; but as he mentions no names or dates, except that it occurred when he was “in English,” as he calls it, nobody can contradict him. The lieutenant sings a song of which I do not catch the exact meaning, but the words jour and amour are heard jingling at the end of the burden. The ladies are delighted, and I applaud when they do. This brings us to about twelve o’clock. The men salute each lady on both sides of the cheek, and we part for the night.