Part 15 (1/2)

Rumor ascribed to her descent from one of the oldest and most respectable families of France; and domestic trials, among which was a matrimonial misadventure, no less than the arrest of an Italian Prince whom she was about to wed, on the bridal night, as an escaped galley slave, were a.s.signed as the cause which had given her splendid powers to the stage.

At an earlier hour than usual--for Parisian fas.h.i.+on never fills the opera-house until the curtain falls on the second act--the Rue Lepelletier was crowded with carriages, La Pinon with fiacres, and the Grande Bateliere and the pa.s.sages to the Boulevard des Italiens with persons on foot, all hastening toward that magnificent edifice, constructed within the s.p.a.ce of a single year by Debret, to replace the building in the Rue de Richelieu ordered to be razed by the Government because of the a.s.sa.s.sination at its door of the Duke of Berri, in 1820--that magnificent structure which accommodates two thousand spectators with seats.

Among the first in the orchestra stalls were Beauchamp and Debray, whose attention was divided between the stage and the arrivals of splendidly attired elegantes in the different loges, during the overture. All the elite of Paris seemed on the qui vive.

”It will be a splendid house,” observed Debray.

”The debutante, be she whom she may, should feel flattered by such an unexampled a.s.semblage of all the ton of Paris.”

Orchestra, balcony, galleries, amphitheatres, lobbies and parterre were packed; every portion of the vast edifice, in short, was thronged except a few of the loges and baignoires, into which every moment brilliant companies were entering.

”Who is that tall, dark military man, with the heavy moustache, now making his way into the Minister's box?” asked Beauchamp, after a pause.

”That man is no less a personage than the Governor of Algeria, Eugene Cavaignac, Marshal of Camp,” said Debray. ”He reported himself at the War Office this morning, and is the lion of the house.”

”Ah!” cried the journalist; ”and that is the hero of Constantine! What a frank, open countenance, and what a distingue bearing and manner!”

”You would not suppose all that man's life pa.s.sed in a camp, would you?”

”His career has, I understand, been remarkable,” said Beauchamp.

”Very. His father was a Conventionist of '92, a famous old fellow, who, among other terrible things laid at his door, is said to have p.a.w.ned an old man's life, old Labodere, for his daughter's honor; somewhat, you remember, as Francis I. spared St. Valliar's life for the favor of the lovely Diana of Poitiers, his only child. His aged mother is yet living, a woman of strong mind, though seventy, and he does nothing without her advice. His brother G.o.defroi's name was notorious as that of a powerful Republican leader for years before his decease. At eighteen Eugene entered the Polytechnic School. At twenty-two he was a sub-lieutenant in the engineer corps of the second regiment. In '28 he was first lieutenant in France; in '29 he was captain; in '34 he was in Algeria; and, in '39, his cool, bold, decided but discreet conduct had made him chef de bataillon, despite the fact that he had incurred the Royal displeasure some years before by a disloyal toast at a banquet. In '40 he was lieutenant-colonel; in '41 marshal of camp, and first commander of division of Tlemeen; in '43, he was conqueror of Constantine, at the first siege of which I so nearly lost my own valuable head, and he is now Governor of Algeria, after service there of fourteen years.”

”And the tall and sinewy man beside him, presenting such a contrast to Cavaignac, with his light complexion, gray hair, and sullen and not very intelligent expression?”

”Oh! that is General Bugeaud, by some deemed the real conqueror of Algeria. But he's not at all popular with the army. His manners are simple and excessively blunt. He is a perfect despot with his staff, 'tis said; yet he is quite a wag when in good-humor, and, at Ministerial dinners, can unbend and make himself as agreeable as need be wished. His voice is as harsh as a Cossack's, and in perfect contrast to that of Cavaignac, which is the richest and most musical you ever heard, yet distinct, emphatic and impressive.”

”Bugeaud incurred intense odium with the opposition for his unwarranted severity as jailor of the d.u.c.h.ess of Berri, in '34, and his killing Dulong in a duel, because of a deserved taunt on the subject.”

”Bugeaud did his duty,” said the Secretary, ”though a man of his nature could hardly perform such a duty with gentleness. Bugeaud is not a gentleman; he knows it, and don't try to seem one. He is only a soldier.

But there comes his very particular foe; General Lamoriciere. That magnificent woman on his arm is his wife and the sister of the lady who follows, with her husband, the ex-Minister, Adolphe Thiers.”

”What a contrast!” cried Beauchamp. ”The tall and elegant figure of Lamoriciere, in his brilliant uniform of the Spahis, half oriental, half French, with his lovely wife, and the low, swarthy little ex-Minister in complete black, with his huge round spectacles on his nose nearly twice the size of his eyes, and a wife on his arm nearly double his stature.

Why, Thiers reminds me of a Ghoul gallanting a Peri.”

”And yet that same dark little ex-Minister has perhaps, in many respects the most powerful mind--at all events, the most available mind--impelled as it is by his restless ambition, in all France. Do you observe how incessantly his keen black eye flashes around the house, beneath his huge gla.s.ses?”

”He seems perfectly aware that every eye in the house is directed toward his loge. But is it true that his brother-in-law owes his rapid rise to his influence at Court?”

”By no means,” replied Debray. ”If there is a man in the French army who has achieved his own fortunes, that man is Lamoriciere. He went to Algeria a lieutenant, and bravely and gallantly has he attained his present brilliant position. It was he who proposed the creation of a corps of native Arab troops, like the Sepoys of British India; and he was appointed colonel of the first regiment of Spahis. Our quondam friend, Maximilian Morrel, has a command in this regiment, and is a protege of his ill.u.s.trious exemplar.”

”The hostility between Lamoriciere and Bugeaud arises, I suppose, from the latter's detestable disposition, his overbearing and dictatorial temper. Lamoriciere is not a man, I take it, to be the slave of any one.”

”Rivalry in Africa is thought to have originated the feud,” remarked Debray, ”and political differences in Paris to have inflamed it.

Bugeaud is a Legitimist, and Lamoriciere a Republican.”

”Silence!” cried the musical connoisseurs in the orchestra. ”The curtain rises.”

As the curtain rose a hush of expectation reigned over the audience. The hum and bustle ceased, and silence most profound succeeded. The appearance of the fair cantatrice was the signal for such a reception as only a Parisian audience can give, and the first strains that issued from her lips a.s.sured them that their applause was not misplaced.