the door stood two magnificent bay horses, with a gilded coach, lined with white satin. Not a trace of driver or footmen. A man in the street had run up to get the job of holding the horses and those who brought them had left him in charge. A hasty hand had blotted out the coat of arms on the panels and painted a rose.
All this counter-action to the misadventures had taken place in an hour.
Jean had the horses brought into the yard, locking the gates and pocketing the key. Then he returned to the room where the hairdresser was about to give the lady the first proofs of his skill.
"Miracle!" said Chon, "the robe fits perfectly, except an inch out in front, too long; but we can take it up in a minute."
"Will the coach pass muster?" inquired the countess.
"It is in the finest taste. I got into it to try the springs," answered Jean. "It is lined with white satin, and scented with attar of roses."
"Then everything is going on swimmingly," said the countess clapping her hands. "Go on, Master Leonard; if you succeed your fortune is made."
With the first stroke of the comb, Leonard showed that he was an experienced hand. In three-quarters of an hour, Lady Dubarry came forth from his hands more seductive than Aphrodite; for she had more clothes on her, and she was quite as handsome.
"You shall be my own hairdresser," said the lady, eyeing herself in a hand glass, "and every time you do my hair up for a court occasion, you shall have fifty gold pieces. Chon, count out a hundred to the artist, for I want him to consider fifty as a retaining fee. But you must work for none but me."
"Then take your money back, my lady. I want to be free. Liberty is the primary boon of mankind."
"God bless us! It is a philosophic hairdresser!" groaned Jean, lifting his hands. "What are we coming to? Well, Master Leonard, take the hundred, and do as you deused well please. Come to your coach, countess."
These words were addressed to Countess Bearn, who limped out of the inner room.
"Four of you footmen take the lady between you," ordered Jean, "and carry her gently down the stairs. If she utters a single groan, I will have you flogged."
Leonard disappeared during this delicate task.
"Where can he have slipped away?" the young countess wanted to know.
"Where? By some rat hole or bang through the wall!" said the viscount. "As the spirits cut away. Have a care, my dear, lest your headdress becomes a wasp nest, your dress a cobweb, and your carriage a pumpkin drawn by a pair of mice, on arriving at Versailles."
Enunciating this dreadful threat, Viscount Jean got into the carriage, in which was already placed Countess Bearn and the happy woman to whom she was to stand sponsor.
Chapter XXIII.
The Presentation.
Versailles is still fine to look upon; but it was splendid to view in the period of its glory.
Particularly was it resplendent when a great ceremony was performed, when the wardrobes and warehouses were ransacked to display their sumptuous treasures, and the dazzling illuminations doubled the magic of its wealth.
It had degenerated, but it still was glowing when it opened all its doors and lit up all its flambeaux to hail the court reception of Countess Dubarry. The curious populace forgot its misery and its rags before so much bewildering show, and crammed the squares and Paris road.
All the palace windows spouted flame, and the skyrockets resembled stars floating and shooting in a golden dust.
The king came out of his private rooms at ten precisely, dressed with more care than usual, his lace being richer and the jewels in his garter and shoe buckles being worth a fortune. Informed by Satines that the court ladies were plotting against his favorite, he was careworn and trembled with fury when he saw none but men in the ante-chamber. But he took heart when, in the queen's drawing-room, set aside for the reception, he saw in a cloud of powder and diamond luster, his three daughters, and all the ladies who had vowed the night before to stay away. The Duke of Richelieu ran from one to another, playfully reproaching them for giving in and complimenting them on thinking better of it.
"But what has made you come, duke?" they naturally challenged him.
"Oh, I am not here really—I am but the proxy for my daughter, Countess Egmont. If you will look around you will not see her; she alone, with Lady Grammont and Lady Guemenee has kept the pledge to keep aloof. I am sure what will happen to me for practically staying away. I shall be sent into exile for the fifth time, or to the Bastille for the fourth. That will end my plotting, and I vow to conspire never again."
The king remarked the absentees, and he went up to the Duke of Choiseul who affected the utmost calm and demanded:
"I do not see the Duchess of Grammont."
"Sire, my sister is not well, and she begs me to offer her most humble respects," said Choiseul, only succeeding in flimsy indifference.
"That is bad for her!" ominously said the sovereign, turning his back on the duke and thus facing Prince Guemenee.
"Have you brought your wife?" he questioned.
"Impossible, your majesty: when I went to bring her, she was sick abed."
"Nothing could be worse," said the king. "Good-evening, marshal," he said to Richelieu, who bowed with the suppleness of a young courtier. "You do not seem to have a touch of the complaint?"
"Sire, I am always in good health when I have the pleasure of beholding your majesty."
"But I do not see your daughter the Countess of Egmont. What is the reason of her absence?"
"Alas! sire," responded the old duke, assuming the most sorrowful mien, "my poor child is the more indisposed from the mishap depriving her of the happiness of this occasion, but——"
"Lady Egmont unwell, whose health was the most robust in the realm! this is sad for her!" and the king turned his back on the old courtier as he had on the others whom he snubbed.
Gloomy, anxious and irritated, the king went over to the window, and seizing the carved handle of the sash with one hand, he cooled his fevered brow against the pane. The courtiers could be heard chattering, like leaves rustling before the tempest, while all eyes stared at the clock; it struck the half-hour, when a great uproar of vehicles rumbling on the yard cobblestones resounded under the carriage-way vault. Suddenly the royal brow brightened and a flash shot from his eyes.
"The Right Honorable Lady the Countess of Dubarry!" roared the usher to the grand master of ceremonies. "The Right Honorable the Countess of Bearn!"
Different sensations were making all hearts leap. Invincibly drawn by curiosity, a flood of courtiers moved toward the monarch.
The wife of the Marshal of Mirepoix was carried close up to the king, and though she had been in the front of the anti-Dubarryists, she clasped her hands ready for adoration, and exclaimed:
"Oh,
