Жюльетта Бенцони - Marianne and the Privateer

It was the evening of the first of July and an unending line of carriages stretched all down the rue Mont Blanc and overflowed into the adjoining streets, invading even the courtyard of the big private houses whose double gates had been thrown open to provide more room and to relieve the pressure a little. It was clear, early as it was, that the ball being given by the Austrian ambassador, Prince Schwarzenburg, was a success. The Emperor himself was to be present and, what was more to the point, so was the Empress, in whose honour the party was being held, so that the twelve hundred guests felt themselves highly privileged persons while a good two or three thousand of the uninvited sat at home brooding on this unfeeling neglect.

One after another, at foot-pace, the carriages turned into the short avenue of poplars leading to the colonnaded entrance to the embassy, lit up for the occasion by great cressets of antique design flaring cheerfully in the darkness. The house, which had once belonged to Madame de Montesson, the morganatic wife of the Duc d'Orléans, was not over large and could not compare for splendour with its opulent neighbour, the Russian embassy, housed by Napoleon in the luxurious Hôtel Thélusson which he had purchased from Murat at the cost of a million francs and the Elysée Palace, but it was exquisitely decorated and possessed extensive grounds in which there was even a miniature farm, as well as a Temple of Apollo.

It was these grounds which had given the ambassador an idea how to provide for the entertainment of all those whom he desired to invite in spite of the comparative limitations of his drawing-rooms. He had commissioned the erection in them of an enormous temporary ballroom made of oilcloth stretched over a light wooden frame, linked to the main reception rooms of the house by a further temporary arcade. This ballroom and its delightful decorations had been the talk of Paris for a week past.

Like everyone else, Marianne had been obliged to sit for an hour or more, wedged in the jam between the house of the banker Perregaux and the embassy, before she could set foot on the acres of red carpet that covered the steps. The carriage in which she rode belonged to Talleyrand who had insisted on escorting her to the ball since, in a way, it marked her official entry into Parisian society.

'The important thing is to be there before the Emperor, eh?' the Prince of Benevento remarked. He was, as ever, a model of restrained elegance, his dark coat relieved only by the ribbons and medals of his Austrian decorations, the grandest of which, the Golden Fleece, nestled unobtrusively in the snowy folds of his cravat. 'Besides, one should always be fairly early if one wants to be noticed, and tonight I trust no one will have eyes for anyone but you.'

Indeed, that night Marianne was breathtakingly beautiful. The pale gold stuff of her dress had been chosen by Leroy, after long thought, to blend perfectly with the warm colour of her skin and the setting of her jewels, the huge, fabulous emeralds which had belonged to the sorceress Lucinda and which Nitot the jeweller had miraculously succeeded in transforming into a parure just in time for this evening. They flashed with green fire as Marianne stepped from the darkness of the carriage into the glittering fairyland of the salons, rousing an answering flash of envy in the eyes of every woman present, and of their male escorts too, although the men's desires were bent as much on the wearer as on her magnificent jewels. She looked like some fantastic, gilded statue and no man watching her as she moved forward slowly to the rustle of her long train could have said whether his admiration was given most to the perfection of her smooth features, the purity of the breast on which the scintillating green tear-drops lay quivering lightly, or to the brilliance of her eyes or the tender, irresistibly touching curve of her smiling lips. Yet not one would have dared give open expression to the feelings she aroused and this not only because she was known to be the Emperor's, but because of something at once remote and detached in the attitude of the dazzling creature herself.

Any daughter of Eve would have burst with pride to wear those fabulous gems. Probably only Madame de Metternich, newly elevated to the rank of princess, boasted stones of such fine cut. Yet Marianne wore them with an indifference that was almost melancholy and her eyes, below the tiara which so wonderfully matched their deep, uncommon colouring, were strangely absent.

A subdued murmur followed the passage of this oddly-assorted yet impressive pair. The age and austerity of the Limping Devil served as a foil to the Princess Sant'Anna's brilliant beauty. Well aware of the effect they made, Talleyrand smiled to himself behind his bland diplomatic façade. Among those present he could see the most fashionable and admired women of the Empire, women like the Duchess of Ragusa, wearing the diamonds given her by her father, the banker Perregaux, or like Marshal Ney's wife, decked in the sapphires some of which, rumour had it, had belonged to the late queen, Marie-Antoinette. And besides these, there were the great Austrian and Hungarian ladies: Countess Zichy with her famous rubies and Princess Esterhazy whose collection of jewels was accounted the richest in all the Habsburg Empire. Yet not one of them could outshine the young woman leaning so gracefully on his arm who was, he could not help feeling, to some extent his own personal creation. Not even old Prince Kurakin, though he seemed to be dripping with diamonds, or those noble Russian ladies whose massive, barbaric ornaments might have come straight from the legendary realm of Golconda, were more brilliant or more exquisitely regal than the girl at his side. He revelled with an artist's delight in Marianne's unspoken triumph.

Marianne herself neither saw nor heard. Her smile was mechanical, pinned to her face like a mask. She had the curious feeling that the only part of her which was truly alive was her gloved hand resting lightly on the Prince of Benevento's arm. Everything else was blank and dead, an icy façade lit by no inner warmth.

She could not understand what she was doing here in this foreign embassy among all these strangers whom she could feel devouring her with their eager curiosity. What had she come for, beyond a pitiful social triumph over people who had already talked over her strange story to their hearts' content and were now agog to discover more of her secret, of how the daughter of a noble house had descended to treading the boards for love of an emperor, only to rise to yet greater heights by virtue of a marriage that was stranger and more mysterious than anything else in her life?

How they would sneer, she thought bitterly, if they could but know how miserable and lonely was the woman they envied, and how heavy the heart which lay in her breast as silent and dead as a lump of lava. Life, love, passion were all gone. All her charm, her femininity, her perfect beauty, everything in her which asked only to live and nourish in the warmth of love, had been frozen into this effigy of solitary pride. Her eyes dwelt sadly on a little scene being enacted not far away from her: a girl had entered the room, following in the wake of her plumed and impressively bejewelled mama, and a young lieutenant of hussars stepped quickly forward to meet her with an exclamation of delight. The girl was very young and not particularly pretty: she was rather plump with a dull complexion and a shocking air of timidity, besides being dressed in a gown of stiff pink gauze which made her look exactly like a shuttlecock, but the eyes of the young hussar shone like stars at the sight of her, whereas they had scarcely rested on Marianne or any other of the lovely women present. To him, that awkward, insignificant girl was the most beautiful of women because he loved her and with all her heart Marianne envied the child who possessed not a fraction of what she herself had and who was yet so infinitely richer.