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If this kind of folk did not alter their behavior, there would be another Revolution of '89. As for himself, if he continued to go to the house, it was because he had found Mme. de Bargeton to his taste; she was the only woman worth troubling about in Angouleme; he had been paying court to her for want of anything better to do, and now he was desperately in love with her.
To take a walk alone with Lucien out of Angouleme would have been a decided measure, indeed; it would have been less dangerous to shut herself up with him in the house. There would have been comments the next day if Lucien had stayed on till midnight after the rooms were emptied. Within as without her house, Mme. de Bargeton lived in public.
So potent was this last credential, that Mme. de Bargeton saw from the manner of the group that they accepted Chatelet as one of themselves without demur. Chatelet's sultan's airs in Angouleme were suddenly explained. At length the Baron saw Lucien, and favored him with a cool, disparaging little nod, indicative to men of the world of the recipient's inferior station.
David gave his brother infinite credit for forsaking Mme. de Bargeton and grand dinners for these days in the country, and the whole party made much of the great man of Angouleme.
Here was a novel order of precedence for snubbed authority; such a thing it had never entered their minds to conceive. Those who by dint of mental effort can understand a kind of pettiness which, for that matter, can be found on any and every social level, will realize the awe with which the bourgeoisie of Angouleme regarded the Hotel de Bargeton.
The rooms were almost as full as on that memorable evening of Lucien's readings from Chenier. Some faces were missing: M. de Chandour and Amelie, M. de Pimental and the Rastignacs and M. de Bargeton was no longer there; but the Bishop came, as before, with his vicars-general in his train. Petit-Claud was much impressed by the sight of the great world of Angouleme.
"Forasmuch," ran the will, "that for weighty reasons, important to the welfare of our State, we found ourselves compelled to deprive the Sieur de Châteauneuf of the post of Keeper of the Seals of France, and have him sent to the Castle of Angoulême, in which he has remained by our command up to the present time, we will and intend that the said Sieur de Châteauneuf remain in the same state in which he is at present, in the said Castle of Angoulême, until after the peace be concluded and executed; under charge, nevertheless, that he shall not then be set at liberty save by the order of the Queen-Regent, under the advice of her Council, which shall appoint a place to which he shall retire, within the realm or without the realm, as may be judged best.
The next day, the day of the banquet, the following paragraph appeared under the heading "Angouleme" in the Paris newspapers:
First came the death of the good Queen Anne of Brittany, who was greatly lamented by her husband and mourned by all her people. The next notable event was the marriage of the Princess Claude, her daughter, to the young Duke of Angoulème, who was to succeed to the throne under the name of Francis I.
Then it was that the jealous du Chatelet discovered that Madame Charlotte, the monthly nurse, was no other than Mme. Chardon, "the mother of the Chateaubriand of L'Houmeau," as he put it. The remark passed muster as a joke. Mme. de Chandour was the first to hurry to Mme. de Bargeton. "Nais, dear," she said, "do you know what everybody is talking about in Angouleme?
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