tendre (and pate tendre is not porcelain) – a complete dinner service of Sevres pate tendre for twelve persons is not merely worth a hundred thousand francs, but that is the price charged on the invoice. Such a dinner-service cost fifteen thousand francs at Sevres in 1750; I have seen the original invoices.”
“But let us go back to this fan,” said Cecile. Evidently in her opinion the trinket was an old-fashioned thing.
“You can understand that as soon as your dear mamma did me the honor of asking for a fan, I went round of all the curiosity shops in Paris, but I found nothing fine enough. I wanted nothing less than a masterpiece for the dear Presidente, and thought of giving her one that once belonged to Marie Antoinette, the most beautiful of all celebrated fans. But yesterday I was dazzled by this divine chef-d’oeuvre, which certainly must have been ordered by Louis XV. himself. Do you ask how I came to look for fans in the Rue de Lappe, among an Auvergnat’s stock of brass and iron and ormolu furniture? Well, I myself believe that there is an intelligence in works of art; they know art-lovers, they call to them – ‘Cht-tt!’”
Mme. de Marville shrugged her shoulders and looked at her daughter; Pons did not notice the rapid pantomime.
“I know all those sharpers,” continued Pons, “so I asked him, ‘Anything fresh to-day, Daddy Monistrol?’ – (for he always lets me look over his lots before the big buyers come) – and at that he began to tell me how Lienard, that did such beautiful work for the Government in the Chapelle de Dreux, had been at the Aulnay sale and rescued the carved panels out of the clutches of the Paris dealers, while their heads were running on china and inlaid furniture. – ‘I did not do much myself,’ he went on, ‘but I may make my traveling expenses out of this,’ and he showed me a what-not; a marvel! Boucher’s designs executed in marquetry, and with such art! – One could have gone down on one’s knees before it. – ‘Look, sir,’ he said, ‘I have just found this fan in a little drawer; it was locked, I had to force it open. You might tell me where I can sell it’ – and with that he brings out this little carved cherry-wood box. – ‘See,’ says he, ‘it is the kind of Pompadour that looks like decorated Gothic.’ – ‘Yes,’ I told him, ‘the box is pretty; the box might suit me; but as for the fan, Monistrol, I have no Mme. Pons to give the old trinket to, and they make very pretty new ones nowadays; you can buy miracles of painting on vellum cheaply enough. There are two thousand painters in Paris, you know.’ – And I opened out the fan carelessly, keeping down my admiration, looked indifferently at those two exquisite little pictures, touched off with an ease fit to send you into raptures. I held Mme. de Pompadour’s fan in my hand! Watteau had done his utmost for this. – ‘What do you want for the what-not?’ – ‘Oh! a thousand francs; I have had a bid already.’ – I offered him a price for the fan corresponding with the probable expenses of the journey. We looked each other in the eyes, and I saw that I had my man. I put the fan back into the box lest my Auvergnat should begin to look at it, and went into ecstasies over the box; indeed, it is a jewel. – ‘If I take it,’ said I, ‘it is for the sake of the box; the box tempts me. As for the what-not, you will get more than a thousand francs for that. Just see how the brass is wrought; it is a model. There is business in it… It has never been copied; it is a unique specimen, made solely for Mme. de Pompadour’ – and so on, till my man, all on fire for his what-not, forgets the fan, and lets me have it for a mere trifle, because I have pointed out the beauties of his piece of Riesener’s furniture. So here it is; but it needs a great deal of experience to make such a bargain as that. It is a duel, eye to eye; and who has such eyes as a Jew or an Auvergnat?”
The old artist’s wonderful pantomime, his vivid, eager way of telling the story of the triumph of his shrewdness over the dealer’s ignorance, would have made a subject for a Dutch painter; but it was all thrown away upon the audience. Mother and daughter exchanged cold, contemptuous glances. – “What an oddity!” they seemed to say.
“So it amuses you?” remarked Mme. de Marville. The question sent a cold chill through Pons; he felt a strong desire to slap the Presidente.
“Why, my dear cousin, that is the way to hunt down a work of art. You are face to face with antagonists that dispute the game with you. It is craft against craft! A work of art in the hands of a Norman, an Auvergnat, or a Jew, is like a princess guarded by magicians in a fairy tale.”
“And how can you tell that this is by Wat – what do you call him?”
“Watteau, cousin. One of the greatest eighteenth century painters in France. Look! do you not see that it is his work?” (pointing to a pastoral scene, court-shepherd swains and shepherdesses dancing in a ring). “The movement! the life in it! the coloring! There it is – see! – painted with a stroke of the brush, as a writing-master makes a flourish with a pen. Not a trace of effort here! And, turn it over, look! – a ball in a drawing-room. Summer and Winter! And what ornaments! and how well preserved it is! The hinge-pin is gold, you see, and on cleaning it, I found a tiny ruby at either side.”
“If it is so, cousin, I could not think of accepting such a valuable present from you. It would be better to lay up the money for yourself,” said Mme. de Marville; but all the same, she asked no better than to keep the splendid fan.
“It is time that it should pass from the service of Vice into the hands of Virtue,” said the good soul, recovering his assurance. “It has taken a century to work the miracle. No princess at Court, you may be sure, will have anything to compare with it; for, unfortunately, men will do more for a Pompadour than for a virtuous queen, such is human nature.”
“Very well,” Mme. de Marville said, laughing, “I will accept your present. – Cecile, my angel, go to Madeleine and see that dinner is worthy of your cousin.”
Mme. de Marville wished to make matters even. Her request, made aloud, in defiance of all rules of good taste, sounded so much like an attempt to repay at once the balance due to the poor cousin, that Pons flushed red, like a girl found out in fault. The grain of sand was a little too large; for some moments he could only let it work in his heart. Cecile, a red-haired young woman, with a touch of pedantic affectation, combined her father’s ponderous manner with a trace of her mother’s hardness. She went and left poor Pons face to face with the terrible Presidente.
“How nice she is, my little Lili!” said the mother. She still called her Cecile by this baby name.
“Charming!” said Pons, twirling his thumbs.
“I cannot understand these times in which we live,” broke out the Presidente. “What is the good of having a President of the Court of Appeal in Paris and a Commander of the Legion of Honor for your father, and for a grandfather the richest wholesale silk merchant in Paris, a deputy, and a millionaire that will be a peer of France some of these days?”
The President’s zeal for the new Government had, in fact, recently been rewarded with a commander’s ribbon – thanks to his friendship with Popinot, said the envious. Popinot himself, modest though he was, had, as has been seen, accepted the title of count, “for his son’s sake,” he told his numerous friends.
“Men look for nothing but money nowadays,” said Cousin Pons. “No one thinks anything of you unless you are rich, and – ”
“What would it have been if Heaven had spared my poor little Charles! – ” cried the lady.
“Oh, with two children you would be poor,” returned the cousin. “It practically means the division of the property. But you need not trouble yourself, cousin; Cecile is sure to marry sooner or later. She is the most accomplished girl I know.”
To such depths had Pons fallen by adapting himself to the company of his entertainers! In their houses he echoed their ideas, and said the obvious thing, after the manner of a
