Эдвард Бульвер-Литтон - The Parisians — Complete

Here Gandrin returned with the cigars; but Alain at that time never smoked, and Louvier excused himself, with a laugh and a sly wink, on the plea that he was going to pay his respects—as doubtless that joli garcon was going to do likewise—to a belle dame who did not reckon the smell of tobacco among the perfumes of Houbigant or Arabia.

“Meanwhile,” added Louvier, turning to Gandrin, “I have something to say to you on business about the contract for that new street of mine. No hurry,—after our young friend has gone to his ‘assignation.’”

Alain could not misinterpret the hint; and in a few moments took leave of his host, more surprised than disappointed that the financier had not invited him, as Graham had assumed he would, to his soiree the following evening.

When Alain was gone, Louvier’s jovial manner disappeared also, and became bluffly rude rather than bluntly cordial. “Gandrin, what did you mean by saying that that young man was no muscadin! Muscadin, aristocrate, offensive from top to toe.”

“You amaze me; you seemed to take to him so cordially.”

“And pray, were you too blind to remark with what cold reserve he responded to my condescensions; how he winced when I called him Rochebriant; how he coloured when I called him ‘dear boy’? These aristocrats think we ought to thank them on our knees when they take our money, and” here Louvier’s face darkened—“seduce our women.” “Monsieur Louvier, in all France I do not know a greater aristocrat than yourself.”

I don’t know whether M. Gandrin meant that speech as a compliment, but M. Louvier took it as such,—laughed complacently and rubbed his hands. “Ay, ay, millionnaires are the real aristocrats, for they have power, as my beau Marquis will soon find. I must bid you good night. Of course I shall see Madame Gandrin and yourself to-morrow. Prepare for a motley gathering,—lots of democrats and foreigners, with artists and authors, and such creatures.”

“Is that the reason why you did not invite the Marquis?”

“To be sure; I would not shock so pure a Legitimist by contact with the sons of the people, and make him still colder to myself. No; when he comes to my house he shall meet lions and viveurs of the haut ton, who will play into my hands by teaching him how to ruin himself in the quickest manner and in the genre Regence. Bon soir, mon vieux.”

The next night Graham in vain looked round for Alain in M. Louvier’s salons, and missed his high-bred mien and melancholy countenance. M. Louvier had been for some four years a childless widower, but his receptions were not the less numerously attended, nor his establishment less magnificently monde for the absence of a presiding lady: very much the contrary; it was noticeable how much he had increased his status and prestige as a social personage since the death of his unlamented spouse.

To say truth, she had been rather a heavy drag on his triumphal car. She had been the heiress of a man who had amassed a great deal of money,—not in the higher walks of commerce, but in a retail trade.

Louvier himself was the son of a rich money-lender; he had entered life with an ample fortune and an intense desire to be admitted into those more brilliant circles in which fortune can be dissipated with eclat. He might not have attained this object but for the friendly countenance of a young noble who was then—

“The glass of fashion and the mould of form;”

but this young noble, of whom later we shall hear more, came suddenly to grief, and when the money-lender’s son lost that potent protector, the dandies, previously so civil, showed him a very cold shoulder.

Louvier then became an ardent democrat, and recruited the fortune he had impaired by the aforesaid marriage, launched into colossal speculations, and became enormously rich. His aspirations for social rank now revived, but his wife sadly interfered with them. She was thrifty by nature; sympathized little with her husband’s genius for accumulation; always said he would end in a hospital; hated Republicans; despised authors and artists, and by the ladies of the beau monde was pronounced common and vulgar.

So long as she lived, it was impossible for Louvier to realize his ambition of having one of the salons which at Paris establish celebrity and position. He could not then command those advantages of wealth which he especially coveted. He was eminently successful in doing this now. As soon as she was safe in Pere la Chaise, he enlarged his hotel by the purchase and annexation of an adjoining house; redecorated and refurnished it, and in this task displayed, it must be said to his credit, or to that of the administrators he selected for the purpose, a nobleness of taste rarely exhibited nowadays. His collection of pictures was not large, and consisted exclusively of the French school, ancient and modern, for in all things Louvier affected the patriot. But each of those pictures was a gem; such Watteaus, such Greuzes, such landscapes by Patel, and, above all, such masterpieces by Ingres, Horace Vernet, and Delaroche were worth all the doubtful originals of Flemish and Italian art which make the ordinary boast of private collectors.

These pictures occupied two rooms of moderate size, built for their reception, and lighted from above. The great salon to which they led contained treasures scarcely less precious; the walls were covered with the richest silks which the looms of Lyons could produce. Every piece of furniture here was a work of art in its way: console-tables of Florentine mosaic, inlaid with pearl and lapis-lazuli; cabinets in which the exquisite designs of the Renaissance were carved in ebony; colossal vases of Russian malachite, but wrought by French artists. The very knick-knacks scattered carelessly about the room might have been admired in the cabinets of the Palazzo Pitti. Beyond this room lay the salle de danse, its ceiling painted by ———, supported by white marble columns, the glazed balcony and the angles of the room filled with tiers of exotics. In the dining-room, on the same floor, on the other side of the landing-place, were stored in glazed buffets not only vessels and salvers of plate, silver and gold, but, more costly still, matchless specimens of Sevres and Limoges, and mediaeval varieties of Venetian glass. On the ground-floor, which opened on the lawn of a large garden, Louvier had his suite of private apartments, furnished, as he said, “simply, according to English notions of comfort;”—Englishmen would have said, “according to French notions of luxury.” Enough of these details, which a writer cannot give without feeling himself somewhat vulgarized in doing so, but without a loose general idea of which a reader would not have an accurate conception of something not vulgar,—of something grave, historical, possibly tragical,—the existence of a Parisian millionaire at the date of this narrative.

The evidence of wealth was everywhere manifest at M. Louvier’s, but it was everywhere refined by an equal evidence of taste. The apartments devoted to hospitality ministered to the delighted study of artists, to whom free access was given, and of whom two or three might be seen daily in the “show-rooms,” copying pictures or taking sketches of rare articles of furniture or effects for palatian interiors.

Among the things which rich English visitors of Paris most coveted to see was M. Louvier’s hotel, and few among the richest left it without a sigh of envy and despair. Only in such London houses as belong to a Sutherland or a Holford could our metropolis exhibit a splendour as opulent and a taste as refined.

M. Louvier had his set evenings for popular assemblies. At these were entertained the Liberals of every shade, from tricolor to rouge, with the artists and writers most in vogue, pele-mele with decorated diplomatists, ex-ministers, Orleanists, and Republicans, distinguished foreigners, plutocrats of the Bourse, and lions male and female from the arid nurse of that race, the Chaussee d’Antin. Of his more select reunions something will be said later.