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"Je suis son bonne amie," thus she translated the explanation of her unconcealed happiness, "I'm a good friend of his," nodding at the old man with the full sweetness of her dimples; blushing a little, too, with the pride of addressing him directly in French.
"You are no doubt aware, excellente amie," he said, jauntily and coquettishly drawling his words, "what is meant by a Russian administrator, speaking generally, and what is meant by a new Russian administrator, that is the newly-baked, newly-established... ces interminables mots Russes!
I was at first unable to identify the writer of a whole series of letters in French, very affectionate and intimate letters, usually unsigned, occasionally signed 'B. She calls herself votre petite amie; or she ends with a half-smiling, half-reproachful 'goodnight, and sleep better than I' In one letter, sent from Paris in 1759, she writes: 'Never believe me, but when I tell you that I love you, and that I shall love you always: In another letter, ill-spelt, as her letters often are, she writes: 'Be assured that evil tongues, vapours, calumny, nothing can change my heart, which is yours entirely, and has no will to change its master. Now, it seems to me that these letters must be from Manon Baletti, and that they are the letters referred to in the sixth volume of the Memoirs.
How could he then bring himself to understand, as nothing less than truth, the grim and cruel insult his father had flung at him in that brutally bitter phrase "A Pauper and a Guardsman"? If he had ever been near a comprehension of it, which he never was, he must have ceased to realize it when pressed to dine with Lord Guenevere, near whose house the last fox had been killed, while a groom dashed over to Royallieu for his change of clothes he caught a glimpse, as they passed through the hall, of the ladies taking their preprandial cups of tea in the library, an enchanting group of lace and silks, of delicate hue and scented hair, of blond cheeks and brunette tresses, of dark velvets and gossamer tissue; and when he had changed the scarlet for dinner-dress, went down among them to be the darling of that charmed circle, to be smiled on and coquetted with by those soft, languid aristocrats, to be challenged by the lustrous eyes of his chatelaine and chere amie, to be spoiled as women will spoil the privileged pet of their drawing rooms whom they had made "free of the guild," and endowed with a flirting commission, and acquitted of anything "serious."
"And if that thought of parting, sad to me as thee, suffice not, belle amie, to dim the revel," answered the earl, "weetest thou not how ill the grave and solemn thoughts of one who sees before him the emprise that would change the dynasty of a realm can suit with the careless dance and the wanton music? But not at that moment did I think of those mightier cares; my thoughts were nearer home.
"Exactly, Céline are you going to put my hair so high?" "Very high, miladi." "Oh, well; will it be becoming?" "Oui; La mode la Francaise," relapsing into ecstacy and French. "Le coiffeur comme il faut! Chere amie, le-chef-a-oeuvre!" Miss Arthur collapsed, and Céline continued to build up an atrociously unbecoming pile of puffs and curls in triumphant silence.
She handed me the instrument, and I said "Hello." It was Coralie! She spoke very distinctly, and Alathea, who was near, must have been able to hear most of the words in the silence. "Nicholas, I am going to be by myself this evening, you will have a dinner for me? Just us alone, hein?" I permitted my face to express pleasure and amusement. My wife watched me agitatedly. "Non, chère Amie Alas!
"Mademoiselle must not shrink from me; she is too beautiful to be unkind. Ah ma petite Amie, those adorable lips of yours are made to kiss and kiss, not to pout and cry a lover nay. Through this wide land there is many a maid who would glory in the love, my beautiful girl, that I offer you." He advanced towards the maid, trembling with his passion, and dropped upon his knee.
The pastry cook and his chere amie, the coiffeur and his grisette can spoon by the lake-side as long as the moonlight lasts, and longer if they list, with never a gendarme to say them nay, or a rude voice out of the depths hoarsely to declaim, "allez!"
It may, however, have been a pet name for little Marie de Viry, Procter's niece, and the chere amie of his verse, whom Eothen must have met often at his friend's house. The St. Simonians of p. 83 were the disciples of Comte de St. Simon, a Parisian reformer in the latter part of the eighteenth century, who endeavoured to establish a social republic based on capacity and labour.
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