never bring it out but we sell it. We keep always a shawl worth five
or six hundred francs in a cedar-wood box, perfectly plain outside,
but lined with satin. It is one of the shawls that Selim sent to the
Emperor Napoleon. It is our Imperial Guard; it is brought to the front
whenever the day is almost lost; _il se vend et ne meurt pas_--it sells
its life dearly time after time."

As he spoke, an Englishwoman stepped from her jobbed carriage and
appeared in all the glory of that phlegmatic humor peculiar to Britain
and to all its products which make believe they are alive. The
apparition put you in mind of the Commandant's statue in Don Juan, it
walked along, jerkily by fits and starts, in an awkward fashion
invented in London, and cultivated in every family with patriotic
care.

"An Englishwoman!" he continued for Bixiou's ear. "An Englishwoman is
our Waterloo. There are women who slip through our fingers like eels;
we catch them on the staircase. There are lorettes who chaff us, we
join in the laugh, we have a hold on them because we give credit.
There are sphinx-like foreign ladies; we take a quantity of shawls to
their houses, and arrive at an understanding by flattery; but an
Englishwoman!--you might as well attack the bronze statue of Louis
Quatorze! That sort of woman turns shopping into an occupation, an
amusement. She quizzes us, forsooth!"

The romantic assistant came to the front.

"Does madame wish for real Indian shawls or French, something
expensive or----"