The Parisians — Complete

It has now become due to Graham Vane, and to his place in the estimation of my readers, to explain somewhat more distinctly the nature of the quest in prosecution of which he ha...

I can never express to you, my beloved Eulalie, the strange charm which a letter from you throws over my poor little lonely world for days after it is received. There is always...

“Is it not! and my youngster has already begun to do with it as I meant and expected. He has taken a fine apartment; he has bought a coupe and horses; he has placed himself in t...

In a somewhat spacious apartment on the ground-floor in the quiet locality of the Rue d’Anjou, a man was seated, very still and evidently absorbed in deep thought, before a writ...

On the 8th of May the vote of the plebiscite was recorded,--between seven and eight millions of Frenchmen in support of the Imperial programme--in plain words, of the Emperor hi...

Alain reached the house in which he lodged. Externally a fine house, it had been the hotel of a great family in the old regime. On the first floor were still superb apartments,...

M. Mauleon was somewhat surprised by Raoul’s visit the next morning. He had no great liking for a kinsman whose politely distant reserve towards him, in contrast to poor Euguerr...

The last book closed with the success of the Parisian sortie on the 30th of November, to be followed by the terrible engagements no less honourable to French valour, on the 2nd...

Unprescient of the perils that awaited him, absorbed in the sense of existing discomfort, cold, and hunger, Fox lifted his mournful visage from his master’s dressing-gown, in wh...

When the news of the disastrous day at Sedan reached Paris, the first effect was that of timid consternation. There were a few cries of Decheance! fewer still of Vive la Republi...

Yes, the “Sens Commun” was a success: it had made a sensation at starting; the sensation was on the increase. It is difficult for an Englishman to comprehend the full influence...

The next night Graham in vain looked round for Alain in M. Louvier’s salons, and missed his high-bred mien and melancholy countenance. M. Louvier had been for some four years a...

Isaura’s apartment, on the following Thursday evening, was more filled than usual. Besides her habitual devotees in the artistic or literary world, there were diplomatists and d...

The salons of the Trois Freres were crowded; our friends found a table with some little difficulty. Lemercier proposed a private cabinet, which, for some reason known to himself...

That evening Graham found himself in the coupe of the express train to Strasbourg. He had sent to engage the whole coupe to himself, but that was impossible. One place was bespo...

He received his visitor with more than the cordiality with which every English politician receives an American citizen. Graham liked the Colonel too well for what he was in hims...

MEANWHILE the young Marquis pursued his way thoughtfully through the streets, and entered the Champs Elysees. Since we first, nay, since we last saw him, he is strikingly improv...

We left Graham Vane slowly recovering from the attack of fever which had arrested his journey to Berlin in quest of the Count von Rudesheimn. He was, however, saved the prosecut...

His was an intellect peculiarly French in its lightness and grace. Neither England nor Germany nor America has produced any resemblance to it. Ireland has, in Thomas Moore; but...

The Marquis de Rochebriant is no longer domiciled in an attic in the gloomy Faubourg. See him now in a charming appartement de garcon an premier in the Rue du Helder, close by t...

Some weeks have passed since Graham’s talk with Isaura in the garden; he has not visited the villa since. His cousins the D’Altons have passed through Paris on their way to Ital...

It was late in the evening that day when a man who had the appearance of a decent bourgeois, in the lower grades of that comprehensive class, entered one of the streets in the F...

The next morning the party broke up. Letters had been delivered both to Savarin and to Graham, which, even had the day for departure not been fixed, would have summoned them awa...

On leaving Lemercier and De Breze, Savarin regained the Boulevard, and pausing every now and then to exchange a few words with acquaintances--the acquaintances of the genial aut...

Isaura had, as we have seen, been hitherto saved by the siege and its consequences from the fulfilment of her engagement to Gustave Rameau; and since he had quitted his father’s...

The room was in complete darkness, save where a ray from a gas-lamp at the mouth of the court came aslant through the window, when citizen Le Roux re-entered, closed the window,...

No man perhaps had more earnestly sought and more passionately striven for the fall of the Empire than Victor de Mauleon; and perhaps no man was more dissatisfied and disappoint...

“Ha!” cried Savarin, “we were just discussing a matter which nearly concerns you, cher poete. I have not seen you since the announcement that Pierre Firmin is no other than Vict...

It is the first week in the month of May, 1870. Celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Gustave Rameau has gained the position for which he sighed. The journal h...

It was one of those lovely noons towards the end of May in which a rural suburb has the mellow charm of summer to him who escapes awhile from the streets of a crowded capital. T...

While De Breze and his friends were feasting at the cafe Anglais, and faring better than the host had promised--for the bill of fare comprised such luxuries as ass, mule, peas,...

The weeks glided on. Isaura’s manuscript bad passed into print; it came out in the French fashion of feuilletons,--a small detachment at a time. A previous flourish of trumpets...

It is now the middle of November-a Sunday. The day has been mild, and is drawing towards its close. The Parisians have been enjoying the sunshine. Under the leafless trees in th...

The Duchesse de Tarascon occupied a vast apartment in the Rue Royale, close to the Tuileries. She held a high post among the ladies who graced the brilliant court of the Empress...

It is many days since I wrote to you, and but for your delightful note just received, reproaching me for silence, I should still be under the spell of that awe which certain wor...

A few weeks after the date of the preceding chapter, a gay party of men were assembled at supper in one of the private salons of the Maison Doree. The supper was given by Freder...

Victor dressed and went out. The streets were crowded. Workmen were everywhere employed in the childish operation of removing all insignia, and obliterating all names that showe...

Graham Vane has been for some days in the apartment rented of M. Georges. He takes it in the name of Mr. Lamb,--a name wisely chosen, less common than Thompson and Smith, less l...

A LITTLE later Graham found himself alone amongst the crowd. Attracted by the sound of music, he had strayed into one of the rooms whence it came, and in which, though his range...

“Piccola, piccola! com e cortese! another invitation from M. Louvier for next Saturday,--conversazione.” This was said in Italian by an elderly lady bursting noisily into the ro...

There is generally a brisk exhilaration of spirits in the return to any special amusement or light accomplishment associated with the pleasant memories of earlier youth; and rem...

Among things indescribable is that which is called “Agitation” in Paris--“Agitation” without riot or violence--showing itself by no disorderly act, no turbulent outburst. Perhap...

The streets swarmed with the populace troops as they passed to their destination. Among those of the Mobiles who especially caught the eye were two companies in which Enguerrand...

Somehow or other, conversation at first languished. Graham was reserved and distant, Isaura shy and embarrassed. The Venosta had the frais of making talk to herself. Probably at...

“Monsieur le Marquis,” said Duplessis, when the salon was cleared of all but himself and the two friends, “Lemercier has confided to me the state of your affairs in connection w...

In proportion to the nearer roar of the besiegers’ cannon, and the sharper gripe of famine within the walls, the Parisians seemed to increase their scorn for the skill of the en...

The time now came when all provision of food or of fuel failed the modest household of Isaura; and there was not only herself and the Venosta to feed and warm--there were the se...

When the door had closed on the Chevalier, Frederic’s countenance became very grave. Drawing his chair near to Alain, he said: “We have not seen much of each other lately,--nay,...

Raul and Enguerrand called on Alain at the hour fixed. “In the first place,” said Raoul, “I must beg you to accept my mother’s regrets that she cannot receive you to-day. She an...

The day after I posted my last, Mr. Vane called on us. I was in our little garden at the time. Our conversation was brief, and soon interrupted by visitors,--the Savarins and M....

“MONSIEUR,--I am happy to inform you that I have at last obtained one piece of information which may lead to a more important discovery. When we parted after our fruitless resea...

“‘Br-r! mon cher;’ what superb exercise for the health--how it must strengthen the muscles and expand the chest! After this who should shrink from scaling Mont Blanc? Well, well...

On leaving his cousin’s house Graham walked on, he scarce knew or cared whither, the image of the beloved dead so forcibly recalled the solemnity of the mission with which he ha...

These two men had naturally seen much of each other since Duplessis had returned from Bretagne and delivered Alain from the gripe of Louvier. Scarcely a day had passed but what...

“Ah, indeed! what a difference! what a difference!” said Gustave to himself when he entered Julie’s apartment. In her palmier days, when he had first made her acquaintance, the...

“I have ascertained the relations, on the mother’s side, of Louise Duval, and the only question is how to get at them.” Here Graham related what he had heard, and ended by sayin...

Madame Savarin wrote a very kind and very apologetic letter to Isaura, but no answer was returned to it. Madame Savarin did not venture to communicate to her husband the substan...

The sun was sinking slowly as Isaura sat at her window, gazing dreamily on the rose-hued clouds that made the western borderland between earth and heaven. On the table before he...

Graham had left a note with Rochebriant’s concierge requesting an interview on the Marquis’s return to Paris, and on the evening after the day just commemorated he received a li...

The bal champetre was gay and brilliant, as such festal scenes are at Paris. A lovely night in the midst of May, lamps below and stars above; the society mixed, of course. Evide...

“I should not have presumed so far,” continued Mrs. Morley, unheeding the interruption, “if I had not been altogether in error as to the nature of your sentiments in a certain q...

It was a bright day in the early spring of 1869. All Paris seemed to have turned out to enjoy itself. The Tuileries, the Champs Elysees, the Bois de Boulogne, swarmed with idler...

The Marquis de Rochebriant was seated in his pleasant apartment, glancing carelessly at the envelopes of many notes and letters lying yet unopened on his breakfast-table. He had...

Three days elapsed before Graham again saw M. Lebeau. The letter-writer did not show himself at the cafe, and was not to be found at his office, the ordinary business of which w...

In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a complacent self-satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that success may conduce to--nay, however much...

For some days the principal thoroughfares were ominously lined with military convois. The loungers on the Boulevards stopped to gaze on the long defiles of troops and cannons, c...

When, a little before noon, Gustave was admitted by the servant into Isaura’s salon, its desolate condition, stripped of all its pretty feminine elegancies, struck him with a se...

The Englishman halted at the threshold. His eye, passing rapidly over the figure of Savarin reading in the window-niche, rested upon Rameau and Isaura seated on the same divan,...

At night, after this final interview with Lebeau, Graham took leave for good of his lodgings in Montmartre, and returned to his apartment in the Rue d’Anjou. He spent several ho...

A few days after the date of the last chapter, Colonel Morley returned to Paris. He had dined with Graham at Greenwich, had met him afterwards in society, and paid him a farewel...

On quitting the sorry apartment of the false M. Lamb, Lebeau walked on with slow steps and bended head, like a man absorbed in thought. He threaded a labyrinth of obscure street...

Nothing could be simpler than the apartment of the Vicomte de Mauleon, in the second story of a quiet old-fashioned street. It had been furnished at small cost out of his saving...

Left alone with Gustave Rameau, the President of the Secret Council remained silently musing for some moments; but his countenance was no longer moody and overcast,--his nostril...

The next day the guests at the Morleys’ had assembled when Vane entered. His apology for unpunctuality was cut short by the lively hostess. “Your pardon is granted without the h...

On the same day in which Graham dined with the Savarins, M. Louvier assembled round his table the elite of the young Parisians who constituted the oligarchy of fashion, to meet...

Punctually at eight o’clock Graham Vane had taken his seat at a corner table at the remote end of the cafe Jean Jacques, called for his cup of coffee and his evening journal, an...

CONFORMABLY with his engagement to meet M. Louvier, Alain found himself on the day and at the hour named in M. Gandrin’s salon. On this occasion Madame Gandrin did not appear. H...

AT about the same hour on the same day in which the Englishman held the conference with the Parisian detective just related, the Marquis de Rochebriant found himself by appointm...

Three days after the evening thus spent by Gustave Rameau, Isaura was startled by a visit from M. de Mauleon. She had not seen him since the commencement of the siege, and she d...

There are certain “beauty-women” as there are certain “beauty-men,” in whose features one detects no fault, who are the show figures of any assembly in which they appear, but wh...

That evening the Morleys looked in at Isaura’s on their way to a crowded assembly at the house of one of those rich Americans, who were then outvying the English residents at Pa...

There is somewhere in Lord Lytton’s writings--writings so numerous that I may be pardoned if I cannot remember where-a critical definition of the difference between dramatic and...

The Contessa di Rimini received her visitors in a boudoir furnished with much apparent simplicity, but a simplicity by no means inexpensive. The draperies were but of chintz, an...

The letter from Lady Janet, which the Duchess took from the desk and placed in Graham’s hand, was in strange coincidence with the subject that for the last twenty-four hours had...

Gustave recovered, but slowly. The physician pronounced him out of all immediate danger, but said frankly to him, and somewhat more guardedly to his parents, “There is ample cau...

Since the evening spent at the Savarins’, Graham had seen no more of Isaura. He had avoided all chance of seeing her; in fact, the jealousy with which he had viewed her manner t...

“DEAR M. LE MARQUIS,--I thank you for your kind little note informing me of the pains you have taken, as yet with no result, to ascertain what has become of my unfortunate uncle...

The Americans and the Savarins clustered round Isaura when they quitted the refreshment-room. The party was breaking up. Vane would have offered his arm again to Isaura, but M....

Obtaining from her husband Gustave’s address, Madame Rameau hastened to her son’s apartment alone through the darkling streets. The house in which he lodged was in a different q...

Scarcely had De Mauleon quitted Lemercier before the latter was joined by two loungers scarcely less famished than himself--Savarin and De Breze. Like himself, too, both had bee...

As the fiacre bore to Paris Savarin and Graham, the former said, “I cannot conceive what rich simpleton could entertain so high an opinion of Gustave Rameau as to select a man s...

And still the weeks glided on: autumn succeeded to summer, the winter to autumn; the season of Paris was at its height. The wondrous capital seemed to repay its Imperial embelli...

The next day, Wednesday, July 6th, commenced one of those eras in the world’s history in which private life would vainly boast that it overrules Life Public. How many private li...

But in that small assembly there were two who did not attract the notice of Duplessis or of the lady of the Imperial Court. While the Prince ---- and the placid Looker-on were e...

No satisfactory result attended the inquiries made at Munich save indeed this certainty,--the certificates attesting the decease of some person calling herself Louise Duval had...

Amoung the frets and checks to the course that “never did run smooth,” there is one which is sufficiently frequent, for many a reader will remember the irritation it caused him....

Yes, celebrities are of rapid growth in the salons of Paris. Far more solid than that of Rameau, far more brilliant than that of De Mauleon, was the celebrity which Isaura had n...

All the earlier part of that next day, Graham Vane remained in-doors--a lovely day at Paris that 8th of July, and with that summer day all hearts at Paris were in unison. Discon...

In the morning he received the notice “of un commandement tendant a saisie immobiliere,” on the part of his creditor, M. Louvier; in plain English, an announcement that his prop...

On waking some morning, have you ever felt, reader, as if a change for the brighter in the world, without and within you, had suddenly come to pass-some new glory has been given...

It was with an interest languid and listless indeed, compared with that which he would have felt a day before, that Graham mused over the remarkable advances towards the discove...

On leaving De Mauleon and regaining his coupe, Rameau felt at once bewildered and humbled, for he was not prepared for the tone of careless superiority which the Vicomte assumed...

“I cannot think of it yet; I am stunned. It seems to me as if I had been at a ‘Sabbat,’ of which the wizards were ‘agents de change,’ but not less bent upon raising Satan.”

The next day Duplessis was surprised by a visit from M. Louvier--that magnate of millionaires had never before set foot in the house of his younger and less famous rival.

“M. Rameau,” said De Mauleon, when the two men had reseated themselves in the salon, “I will honestly say that my desire is to rid myself as soon as I can of the trust of guardi...

When they were alone, Madame Rameau took Isaura’s hand in both her own, and, gazing wistfully into her face, said, “No wonder you are so loved--yours is the beauty that sinks in...

On quitting the dining-room, the Duchesse de Tarascon said to her host, on whose arm she was leaning, “Of course you and I must go with the stream. But is not all the fine talk...

It needs no length of words to inform thee, my intelligent reader, be thou man or woman--but more especially woman--of the consequences following each other, as wave follows wav...

If Graham Vane had been before caressed and courted for himself, he was more than ever appreciated by polite society, now that he added the positive repute of wealth to that of...

The short grim day was closing when Gustave, quitting Julie’s apartment, again found himself in the streets. His thoughts were troubled and confused. He was the more affected by...

Men and women are much more like each other in certain large elements of character than is generally supposed, but it is that very resemblance which makes their differences the...

The next day, at the hour appointed, Graham entered Alain’s apartment. “I am glad to tell you,” said the Marquis, gaily, “that the box has arrived, and we will very soon examine...

On the Continent generally, as we all know, men do not sit drinking wine together after the ladies retire. So when the signal was given all the guests adjourned to the salon; an...

The next morning Graham sent for M. Renard, and consulted with that experienced functionary as to the details of the plan of action which he had revolved during the hours of a s...

“I knew I should find you in the Madeleine,” said Lemercier, “and I wished much to know when you had news from Duplessis. He and your fair fiancee are with your aunt still stayi...

Isaura was seated beside the Venosta,--to whom, of late, she seemed to cling with greater fondness than ever,--working at some piece of embroidery--a labour from which she had b...

“I believe,” said Lemercier, as the coupe rolled through the lively alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, “that Paris is built on a loadstone, and that every Frenchman with some iron...

DEAR M. LE MARQUIS,--How can I thank you sufficiently for obtaining and remitting to me those certificates? You are too aware of the unhappy episode in my life not to know how i...

Graham continued his journey to Strasbourg. On arriving there he felt very unwell. Strong though his frame was, the anguish and self-struggle through which he had passed since t...

“He told us all that could make us still more respect the Marquis de Rochebriant, and still more eagerly long to know our cousin and the head of our house,” answered Raoul, with...