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Next evening, at Madame de Girardin's, he reproduced, with his native fire and power of description, the narration he had heard the night before reproduced it as his own persuaded it was his own. Every one was enthusiastic, and complimented him. But the matter was bruited abroad.
Then he wore a magnificent white waistcoat, and a blue coat with gold buttons; carried the famous cane, with a knob studded with turquoises, celebrated in Madame de Girardin's story, "La Canne de Monsieur de Balzac"; and drove in a tilbury, behind a high-stepping horse, with a tiny tiger, whom he christened Anchise, perched on the back seat.
One notorious example was the white horse he asserted, in presence of a number of guests assembled in Madame de Girardin's drawing-room, had been given by him to Jules Sandeau. The animal in question, he said, he had bought from a well-known dealer; the celebrated trainer Baucher had tested it and declared it to be the most perfect animal ever ridden.
He was so handsome that night, with his broad forehead, which seemed to retain the light, his thick, silvery fleece of hair, and his laughing luminous eyes. Not daring to fling myself in Victor Hugo's arms, I fell into Girardin's, the sure friend of my first steps, and I burst into tears. He took me aside in my dressing-room.
CXXXVII. TO GUSTAVE FLAUBERT Thursday, two o'clock in the morning, December 9, 1869 My comrade, it is finished, the article shall go tomorrow. I address it to whom? Answer by telegram. I have a mind to send it to Girardin. But perhaps you have a better idea, I really don't know the importance and the credit of the various papers. Send me a suitable name and ADDRESS by telegram; I have Girardin's.
Girardin's courage communicated itself to the workmen, and by dint of skill and daring, under the very eyes of the gendarmes, they succeeded in printing Girardin's proclamations with the hand-press, and ours with the brush. They carried them away wet, in small packages, under their waistcoats. Luckily the soldiers were drunk.
I squeeze again with my mother, my aunt and my brother into the stuffy baignoire, and I take to my memory in especial Madame de Girardin's Une Femme qui Déteste son Mari; the thrilling story, as I judged it, of an admirable lady who, to save her loyalist husband, during the Revolution, feigns the most Jacobin opinions, represents herself a citoyenne of citoyennes, in order to keep him the more safely concealed in her house.
One might go further and couple Delacroix the painter's name with that of Joseph Bridau in A Bachelor's Household, Frederick Lemaitre, the actor's, with Medal's in Cousin Pons, Emile de Girardin's with du Tillet's in Cesar Birotteau.
Afterwards, during the same evening, I saw, in a transport of delight, Mme. de Girardin's charming little piece, La Joie fait Peur. A certain family believe that their son, who is a young naval officer, fallen in the far East, has been cruelly put to death. He comes back, unannounced, to his broken-hearted mother, his despairing bride, his sister, and an old man- servant.
In the evening, in spite of my fatigue after travelling all night, I went to the Theatre Francais for the first time, and there, lost in admiration of the masterly ensemble and the natural yet passionate acting, with which I had hitherto seen nothing to compare, I saw Girardin's Le supplice d'une femme, and Beaumarchais' Le mariage de Figaro, in one evening making the acquaintance of such stars as Regnier, Madame Favart, Coquelin and the Sisters Brohan.
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