Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 17, 2025
It will be recollected that Louvier had invested her whole fortune in the houses to be built in the street called after his name. No houses, even when built, paid any rent now. Louvier had quitted Paris; and Isaura could only be subsisting upon such small sum as she might have had in hand before the siege commenced. All career in such literature and art as Isaura adorned was at a dead stop.
Louvier, seated between a duke and a Russian prince, said little except to recommend a wine or an entree, but kept his eye constantly on the Vandemars and Alain. Immediately after coffee the guests departed. Before they did so, however, Raoul introduced his cousin to those of the party most distinguished by hereditary rank or social position.
In his heart he exults that the dandies now throng to his soirees. "Bref, the millionaire is especially civil to me, the more so as I know intimately two or three eminent journalists; and Louvier takes pains to plant garrisons in the press. I trust I have explained the grounds on which I may be a better diplomatist to employ than your avoue; and with your leave I will go to Louvier at once."
Besides her habitual devotees in the artistic or literary world, there were diplomatists and deputies commixed with many fair chiefs of la jeunesse doree; amongst the latter the brilliant Enguerrand de Vandemar, who, deeming the acquaintance of every celebrity essential to his own celebrity in either Carthage, the beau monde, or the demi-monde, had, two Thursdays before, made Louvier attend her soiree and present him.
You have been too lenient to Collot, who must owe you more than that. Send agent to him. Desole to trouble you, and am au desespoir to think that my own pressing necessities compel me to urge you to take so much trouble. Mais que faire? The Rue de Louvier stops the way, and I must leave it to my agent to clear it. "Accept all my excuses, with the assurance of my sentiments the most cordial.
I received no letter from her; and my own affairs so seriously pre-occupied me, that poor Louise might have passed altogether out of my thoughts, had it not been for the suitor she had left in despair behind. Louvier besought me to ascertain her address; but I could give him no, other clue to it than that she said she was going to Brussels, but should soon remove to some quiet village.
"Encounter at arms does Louvier fight?" asked Alain, innocently. "In his own way he is always fighting; but I speak metaphorically. You see this small house of mine so pinched in by the houses next to it that I can neither get space for a ball-room for Valerie, nor a dining-room for more than a friendly party like that which has honoured me to-day. Eh bien!
Here Gandrin returned with the cigars; but Alain at that time never smoked, and Louvier excused himself, with a laugh and a sly wink, on the plea that he was going to pay his respects as doubtless that joli garcon was going to do likewise to a belle dame who did not reckon the smell of tobacco among the perfumes of Houbigant or Arabia.
"Which M. Louvier appears to appreciate," said Alain, with a somewhat melancholy smile, extending to Duplessis the menacing notice. Duplessis glanced at it, and said drily: "M. Louvier knows what he is about. But I think we had better put an immediate stop to formalities which must be painful to a creditor so benevolent.
Duplessis made no pretensions to vie with the magnificent existence of Louvier. His house, though agreeably situated and flatteringly styled the Hotel Duplessis, was of moderate size, very unostentatiously furnished; nor was it accustomed to receive the brilliant motley crowds which assembled in the salons of the elder financier.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking