The Parisians | Page 6

table, glancing first with curiosity
at the Marquis de Rochebriant, who leans his cheek on his hand and
seems not to notice him, then concentrating his attention on Frederic
Lemercier, who sits square with his hands clasped,--Lucien Duplessis
is somewhere between forty and fifty, rather below the middle height,
slender, but not slight,--what in English phrase is called "wiry." He is
dressed with extreme simplicity: black frockcoat buttoned up; black

cravat worn higher than men who follow the fashions wear their
neckcloths nowadays; a hawk's eye and a hawk's beak; hair of a dull
brown, very short, and wholly without curl; his cheeks thin and
smoothly shaven, but he wears a mustache and imperial, plagiarized
from those of his sovereign, and, like all plagiarisms, carrying the
borrowed beauty to extremes, so that the points of mustache and
imperial, stiffened and sharpened by cosmetics which must have been
composed of iron, looked like three long stings guarding lip and jaw
from invasion; a pale olive-brown complexion, eyes small, deep-sunk,
calm, piercing; his expression of face at first glance not striking, except
for quiet immovability. Observed more heedfully, the expression was
keenly intellectual,--determined about the lips, calculating about the
brows: altogether the face of no ordinary man, and one not, perhaps,
without fine and high qualities, concealed from the general gaze by
habitual reserve, but justifying the confidence of those whom he
admitted into his intimacy.
"Ah, mon cher," said Lemercier, "you promised to call on me yesterday
at two o'clock. I waited in for you half an hour; you never came."
"No; I went first to the Bourse. The shares in that Company we spoke
of have fallen; they will fall much lower: foolish to buy in yet; so the
object of my calling on you was over. I took it for granted you would
not wait if I failed my appointment. Do you go to the opera to-night?"
"I think not; nothing worth going for: besides, I have found an old
friend, to whom I consecrate this evening. Let me introduce you to the
Marquis de Rochebriant. Alain, M. Duplessis."
The two gentlemen bowed.
"I had the honour to be known to Monsieur your father," said
Duplessis.
"Indeed," returned Rochebriant. "He had not visited Paris for many
years before he died."
"It was in London I met him, at the house of the Russian Princess

C____."
The Marquis coloured high, inclined his head gravely, and made no
reply. Here the waiter brought the oysters and the chablis, and
Duplessis retired to his own table.
"That is the most extraordinary man," said Frederic, as he squeezed the
lemon over his oysters, "and very much to be admired."
"How so? I see nothing at least to admire in his face," said the Marquis,
with the bluntness of a provincial.
"His face. Ah! you are a Legitimist,--party prejudice. He dresses his
face after the Emperor; in itself a very clever face, surely."
"Perhaps, but not an amiable one. He looks like a bird of prey."
"All clever men are birds of prey. The eagles are the heroes, and the
owls the sages. Duplessis is not an eagle nor an owl. I should rather call
him a falcon, except that I would not attempt to hoodwink him."
"Call him what you will," said the Marquis, indifferently; "M.
Duplessis can be nothing to me."
"I am not so sure of that," answered Frederic, somewhat nettled by the
phlegm with which the Provincial regarded the pretensions of the
Parisian. "Duplessis, I repeat it, is an extraordinary man. Though
untitled, he descends from your old aristocracy; in fact, I believe, as his
name shows, from the same stem as the Richelieus. His father was a
great scholar, and I believe be has read much himself. Might have
distinguished himself in literature or at the bar, but his parents died
fearfully poor; and some distant relations in commerce took charge of
him, and devoted his talents to the 'Bourse.' Seven years ago he lived in
a single chamber, 'au quatrieme,' near the Luxembourg. He has now a
hotel, not large but charming, in the Champs Elysees, worth at least six
hundred thousand francs. Nor has he made his own fortune alone, but
that of many others; some of birth as high as your own. He has the
genius of riches, and knocks off a million as a poet does an ode, by the

force of inspiration. He is hand-in-glove with the Ministers, and has
been invited to Compiegne by the Emperor. You will find him very
useful."
Alain made a slight movement of incredulous dissent, and changed the
conversation to reminiscences of old school-boy days.
The dinner at length came to a close. Frederic rang for the bill,--
glanced over it. "Fifty-nine francs," said he, carelessly flinging down
his napoleon and