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Updated: June 2, 2025
"My dear sir, I shall shock you, perhaps; but if I had to choose, I should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one." A young man, tall, thin, dark, with a long moustache, entered, and bowed with brusque suppleness. "Monsieur Vence, I think that you know Monsieur Le Menil." They had met before at Madame Martin's, and saw each other often at the Fencing Club.
And, what is still more marvellous, people imagine they have other chiefs of state and other ministers than their miseries, their desires, and their imbecility. He was a wise man who said: 'Let us give to men irony and pity as witnesses and judges." "But, Monsieur Vence," said Madame Martin, laughingly, "you are the man who wrote that. I read it."
But since Choulette interests you, listen to his latest adventure. Paul Vence related it to me. I understand it better in this street, where there are shirts and flowerpots at the windows.
"At least, Madame," said Paul Vence, "you will go to the balls at the Elysees, and we shall admire the art with which you retain your mysterious charm." "Changes in cabinets," said Madame Martin, "inspire you, Monsieur Vence, with very frivolous reflections."
He persisted in trying to flatter her vanity, unable to realize that her mind was not worldly. She replied, negligently, that it might be a pleasant trip. Then he praised the mountains, the ancient cities, the bazaars, the costumes, the armor. He added: "We shall take some friends with us Princess Seniavine, General Lariviere, perhaps Vence or Le Menil."
He is full of ideas." "Oh, I do not ask for so much," Madame Martin said. "People that are natural and show themselves as they are rarely bore me, and sometimes they amuse me." When Paul Vence had gone, Le Menil listened until the noise of footsteps had vanished; then, coming nearer: "To-morrow, at three o'clock? Do you still love me?" He asked her to reply while they were alone.
The towers, as in other maritime Cathedrals of Provence, recall the perils and dangers of their days; and these towers of Fréjus, although none the less practically defensive, have a more churchly appearance than those of Antibes, Grasse, and Vence. Over the vestibuled entrance rises the western tower.
Paul Vence could only say that he was a senator. He had seen him one day by chance in the Luxembourg, in the gallery that served as a library. "I went there to look at the cupola, where Delacroix has painted, in a wood of bluish myrtles, heroes and sages of antiquity. That gentleman was there, with the same wretched and pitiful air. His coat was damp and he was warming himself.
Either because she liked Madame Martin, or because she knew how to give discreet marks of preference in every house she went, she warmed herself contentedly, like a relative, in a corner of the Louis XVI chimney, which suited her beauty. She lacked only her dog. "How is Toby?" asked Madame Martin. "Monsieur Vence, do you know Toby? He has long silky hair and a lovely little black nose."
Vence replied that she must not try to learn. He confessed that he was the idealist historian of the poet, and that the adventures which he related of him were not to be taken in the literal and Judaic sense. He affirmed that at least Choulette was publishing Les Blandices, and desired to visit the cell and the grave of St. Francis.
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