and she had just read with the greatest pleasure his Poems from Nature.
She thanked M. Papillon--who bows his head and lets his monocle fall--for
having brought M. Violette. She was charmed to make his acquaintance.

Amedee was very much embarrassed to know what to reply to this
commonplace compliment which was paid so gracefully. Fortunately he was
spared this duty by the arrival of a very much dressed, tall, bony woman,
toward whom the Countess darted off with astonishing vivacity,
exclaiming, joyfully: "Madame la Marechale!" and Amedee, still following
in the wake of his comrade, sailed along toward the corner of the
drawing-room, and then cast anchor before a whole flotilla of black
coats. Amedee's spirits began to revive, and he examined the place, so
entirely new to him, where his growing reputation had admitted him.

It was a vast drawing-room after the First Empire style, hung and
furnished in yellow satin, whose high white panels were decorated with
trophies of antique weapons carved in wood and gilded. A dauber from the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts would have branded with the epithet "sham" the
armchairs and sofas ornamented with sphinx heads in bronze, as well as
the massive green marble clock upon which stood, all in gold, a favorite
court personage, clothed in a cap, sword, and fig-leaf, who seemed to be
making love to a young person in a floating tunic, with her hair dressed
exactly like that of the Empress Josephine. But the dauber would have
been wrong, for this massive splendor was wanting neither in grandeur nor
character. Two pictures only lighted up the cold walls; one, signed by
Gros, was an equestrian portrait of the Marshal, Madame Fontaine's
father, the old drummer of Pont de Lodi, one of the bravest of Napoleon's
lieutenants. He was represented in full-dress uniform, with an enormous
black-plumed hat, brandishing his blue velvet baton, sprinkled with
golden bees, and under the rearing horse's legs one could see in the dim