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"A marcheuse is a rat of great beauty whom her mother, real or fictitious, has sold as soon as it was clear she would become neither first, second, nor third danseuse, but who prefers the occupation of coryphee to any other, for the main reason that having spent her youth in that employment she is unfitted for any other.
When they reached the asphalt Bixiou frightened Gazonal by the laugh of a Parisian hoaxer, that cold, mute laugh, a sort of labial north wind. "The assignment of the contract for that railway is adjourned, positively, by the Chamber; I heard this yesterday from that marcheuse whom we smiled at just now.
Thus a rat who becomes a marcheuse, that is to say, an ordinary figurante in a ballet, must have some solid attachment which keeps her in Paris: either a rich man she does not love or a poor man she loves too well.
Two years from now that creature may be worth sixty thousand francs; she will be all or nothing, a great danseuse or a marcheuse, a celebrated person or a vulgar courtesan. She has worked hard since she was eight years old.
"That is Carabine," said Bixiou, who gave her, as did Leon, a slight nod to which she responded by a smile. "There's another who may possibly get your prefect turned out." "A marcheuse! but what is that?"
"See, cousin, here comes what is called a marcheuse." Leon pointed to one of those handsome creatures who at twenty-five years of age have lived sixty, and whose beauty is so real and so sure of being cultivated that they make no display of it. She was tall, and walked well, with the arrogant look of a dandy; her toilet was remarkable for its ruinous simplicity.
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