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Then find Europe and Paccard; those two thieves must be at my orders, and ready to play any part I may set them. "Go to Rastignac; tell him, from the man he met at the opera-ball, to come and swear that the Abbe Carlos Herrera has no resemblance to Jacques Collin who was apprehended at Vauquer's. Do the same with Dr. Bianchon, and get Lucien's two women to work to the same end."
Yet the breach between James and his little Court, on one side, and Prince Charles on the other, was then so absolute that the Prince was dining with the spy, chatting with him at the opera-ball, and presenting him with a gold snuff-box, at about the very time when Pickle's treachery was known in Rome. Afterwards, the knowledge of his infamy came too late, if it came at all.
But to-morrow night we must go to the Opera-ball; there is no other way to get those letters without compromising you; besides, by giving them up, Florine will prove to you her power." "And must I see that?" said the countess, frightened. "To-morrow night."
The multitude moved to the Place Vendome; shops and booths were thrown up; there was a share-fair; this ditty was everywhere sung in the streets: "On On Monday I bought share on share; On Tuesday I was a millionaire; On Wednesday took a grand abode; On Thursday in my carriage rode; On Friday drove to the Opera-ball; On Saturday came to the paupers' hall."
How long since this tall, grave figure, with its proud and yet affable countenance, had lost all similarity to the charming Queen Marie Antoinette, around whom had fluttered the genii of beauty, of youth, of love, of happiness; who once in Trianon had represented the idyl of a pastoral queen; who, in the exuberance of joy, had visited in disguise the public opera-ball; who imagined herself so secure amid the French people as to believe she could dispense with the protection of "Madame Etiquette;" who then was applauded by all France with jubilant acclamations, and who now was persecuted with mad anger!
I write as if I were talking to you, and I like to talk cheerfully. I have always had a horror of a dressmaker pitying herself. You know I knew how to die decently once before, on my return from that fatal opera-ball where the men said I had been a prostitute. "No, no, my dear love, never give this portrait to any one!
You have too lightly broken down the barriers which etiquette, hundreds of years ago, had built around the Queens of France." "This from YOU, Joseph, you who despise all etiquette!" "Nay, Antoinette, I am a man, and that justifies me in many an indiscretion. I have a right to attend an opera-ball unmasked, but you have not."
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