bourgeoisie of Angoulême. For the inhabitants of L’Houmeau, the majesty of this small-scale Louvre, the glory which radiated from this provincial Hôtel de Rambouillet were as remote from them as the sun itself. All the people who gathered there had the most pitiable mental qualities, the meanest intelligence, and were the sorriest specimens of humanity within a radius of fifty miles. Political discussions consisted of verbose but impassioned commonplaces: the
Quotidienne
was regarded as lukewarm in its royalism; Louis XVIII himself was considered to be a Jacobin. The women were mostly stupid, devoid of grace and badly dressed; every one of them was marred by some imperfection; everythingfell short of the mark, conversation, clothes, mind and body alike. Châtelet would not have put up with it if he had not had designs on Madame de Bargeton. Nevertheless, comportment and class consciousness, gentlemanly airs, the arrogance of the lesser nobility, acquaintance with the rules of decorum, all served to cloak the void within them. Royalist feeling was much more real there than in the upper reaches of Parisian life: a noteworthy attachment to the Bourbons, whatever their shortcomings, was much in evidence. A social group like this one might be compared, if such a simile is permissible, to a service of silver plate, antiquated in design, tarnished, and yet solid. The very rigidity of its political opinions was a kind of loyalty. The distance kept between it and the bourgeoisie and its relative unapproachability, placed it as it were on a pinnacle and gave it museum-piece value. The inhabitants of Angoulême set a certain price on each of these noblemen, in much the same way as cowrie shells take the place of silver currency among the negroes of Bambarra. Several women to whom du Châtelet paid flattering attention and who discerned in him a superiority of parts which the men of their own circle lacked, appeased the insurrection provoked by wounded self-respect: they all hoped to be next in succession to her Imperial Highness. The social sticklers opined that one would meet the intruder in Madame de Bargeton’s salon, but that he would be received in no other house. He met with some impertinent treatment, but kept his end up by cultivating the clergy. Also he was indulgent to the defects which the social queen of Angoulême owed to her rural upbringing; he brought her all the latest books and read the newly-published poetry to her. They went into raptures together over the works of the young poets. Her raptures were genuine, but he was bored: he tolerated the Romantic poets, though, as a supporter of the Imperial school, he was incapable of understanding them. Madame de Bargeton, fired with enthusiasm for the literary renaissance due to Royalist influence, adored Monsieur de Chateaubriand for having hailed Victor Hugo as an
enfant sublime.
Saddened because she was only in remote touch with genius, she yearnedfor Paris, where all the great men resided. Monsieur du Châtelet then imagined it would be a marvellous thing to inform her that there existed in Angoulême yet another
enfant sublime,
a young poet whose brilliance, though he was not yet aware of the fact, outshone that of the new constellations that were rising in Paris. A budding genius had been born in l’Houmeau! The headmaster of the college had shown the Baron some admirable lines from Lucien’s pen. This poor and modest boy was positively a Chatterton, yet he had the right sort of political ideas and none of that ferocious hatred for social eminence which had prompted the English poet to lampoon his benefactors. Around Madame de Bargeton five or six persons clustered who shared her taste for art and letters, one of them because he could scrape the fiddle, another because his sepia drawings spoilt a good deal of blank paper, another in his capacity as president of the local Agricultural Society, and yet another because he had a bass voice which enabled him to sing
Se
Quotidienne
was regarded as lukewarm in its royalism; Louis XVIII himself was considered to be a Jacobin. The women were mostly stupid, devoid of grace and badly dressed; every one of them was marred by some imperfection; everythingfell short of the mark, conversation, clothes, mind and body alike. Châtelet would not have put up with it if he had not had designs on Madame de Bargeton. Nevertheless, comportment and class consciousness, gentlemanly airs, the arrogance of the lesser nobility, acquaintance with the rules of decorum, all served to cloak the void within them. Royalist feeling was much more real there than in the upper reaches of Parisian life: a noteworthy attachment to the Bourbons, whatever their shortcomings, was much in evidence. A social group like this one might be compared, if such a simile is permissible, to a service of silver plate, antiquated in design, tarnished, and yet solid. The very rigidity of its political opinions was a kind of loyalty. The distance kept between it and the bourgeoisie and its relative unapproachability, placed it as it were on a pinnacle and gave it museum-piece value. The inhabitants of Angoulême set a certain price on each of these noblemen, in much the same way as cowrie shells take the place of silver currency among the negroes of Bambarra. Several women to whom du Châtelet paid flattering attention and who discerned in him a superiority of parts which the men of their own circle lacked, appeased the insurrection provoked by wounded self-respect: they all hoped to be next in succession to her Imperial Highness. The social sticklers opined that one would meet the intruder in Madame de Bargeton’s salon, but that he would be received in no other house. He met with some impertinent treatment, but kept his end up by cultivating the clergy. Also he was indulgent to the defects which the social queen of Angoulême owed to her rural upbringing; he brought her all the latest books and read the newly-published poetry to her. They went into raptures together over the works of the young poets. Her raptures were genuine, but he was bored: he tolerated the Romantic poets, though, as a supporter of the Imperial school, he was incapable of understanding them. Madame de Bargeton, fired with enthusiasm for the literary renaissance due to Royalist influence, adored Monsieur de Chateaubriand for having hailed Victor Hugo as an
enfant sublime.
Saddened because she was only in remote touch with genius, she yearnedfor Paris, where all the great men resided. Monsieur du Châtelet then imagined it would be a marvellous thing to inform her that there existed in Angoulême yet another
enfant sublime,
a young poet whose brilliance, though he was not yet aware of the fact, outshone that of the new constellations that were rising in Paris. A budding genius had been born in l’Houmeau! The headmaster of the college had shown the Baron some admirable lines from Lucien’s pen. This poor and modest boy was positively a Chatterton, yet he had the right sort of political ideas and none of that ferocious hatred for social eminence which had prompted the English poet to lampoon his benefactors. Around Madame de Bargeton five or six persons clustered who shared her taste for art and letters, one of them because he could scrape the fiddle, another because his sepia drawings spoilt a good deal of blank paper, another in his capacity as president of the local Agricultural Society, and yet another because he had a bass voice which enabled him to sing
Se
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