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Updated: June 22, 2025
I was dressed as a respectable commissionnaire, and I carried a letter and a small parcel addressed to M. de Marsan. "First floor," said the concierge curtly, as soon as he had glanced at the superscription on the letter. "Door faces top of the service stairs." I mounted and took my stand some ten steps below the landing, keeping the door of M. de Marsan's room well in sight.
That was your second mistake, my good M. Ratichon; not a very grave one, perhaps, but I have been in the police, and somehow, the moment I caught sight of that blouse and cap in your office, I could not help connecting it with the commissionnaire who had brought a bogus parcel and letter to my future brother-in-law a few minutes before that mysterious and unexplained altercation took place in the corridor."
So when I returned I crossed the ante-chamber and walked past him with my accustomed dignity; nor did he offer any comment on my get-up. I often affected a disguise in those days, even when I was not engaged in business, and the dress and get-up of a respectable commissionnaire was a favourite one with me.
"Yes; hasten, I implore you," returned Laura, wondering at his disinterestedness. Scarcely had the commissionnaire taken his leave, when the door of the antechamber was opened, and a lackey announced: "Madame, her royal highness the Duchess of Orleans!" Laura hastily thrust the paper in her bosom, and, coming forward, kissed the hand of her friend.
We are told, if we wish to see an action, to go to "the front" to-morrow. Accordingly we decide to be there. The following day, our faithful commissionnaire, Antonio, places us in a carriage drawn by a powerful pair of horses, and headed for the Garibaldian camp.
So I was forced to content myself with tipping the head-waiter and the vestiaire, the chausseur who opened the door, and the tall commissionnaire who welcomed us upon the pavement and whistled for a petite voiture. "Where to, messieurs?" the man asked, as the carriage drew up. Even then Louis hesitated.
While Laura was pouring out her childish half-confidences, her disinterested friend, the commissionnaire, was similarly engaged in the anteroom with Master George. This latter worthy, after a few whispered words from the former, excused himself to the lackeys of her royal highness, who were in waiting there, and retreated to the corridor with the clerk.
On the mantelpiece there was a huge clock, and some iron sconces were fixed on the panelled walls. Lebeau flung himself, with a wearied air, into the fauteuil. The porter looked at him with a kindly expression. He had a liking to Lebeau, whom he had served in his proper profession of messenger or commissionnaire before being placed by that courteous employer in the easy post he now held.
I was feeling drowsy and stupid, partly from my dinner and also from the effects of a long day's work. A cup of coffee would clear my brain. A commissionnaire remains all night in a little lodge at the foot of the stairs, and is in the habit of making coffee at his spirit-lamp for any of the officials who may be working over time. I rang the bell, therefore, to summon him.
Even the estaminets and brasseries, which are but second-rate cafés, and the ordinary wine-shops, still lower in the scale, in which the coachman and commissionnaire regale themselves, taking a canon across the counter in the morning and playing a game of cards in the back shop at night, are by no means the hideous gulping-down places in which our land abounds.
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