the sibyl
as she had told the young general, madame de beauharnais found madame tallien waiting for her.
madame tallien (thérèse cabarus) was, as everybody knows, the daughter of a spanish banker. she was married to m. davis de fontenay, a councillor of the parliament of bordeaux, but was soon divorced from him. this was at the beginning of '94, when the terror was at its height.
thérèse cabarus wished to rejoin her father, who was in spain, in order to escape the evils of which proscription was the least. arrested at the gates of the city, she was brought before tallien, who fell passionately in love with her at first sight. she made use of this passion to save a great number of victims. at this time love was the most powerful opponent of its rival, death.
tallien was recalled, and thérèse cabarus followed him to paris, where she was arrested; from the depths of her prison she brought about the 9th thermidor, after which she was free.
it will be remembered that her first care had been to secure the liberty of her companion in prison, josephine de beauharnais.
from that time the two women had been inseparable.[pg 355] one woman only in paris disputed the palm of beauty with them; and that woman was madame récamier.
this evening, as we know, they had decided to go to the fashionable sibyl, mademoiselle lenormand, disguised as maids, and under assumed names. in a twinkling the two great ladies were transformed into two charming grisettes.
their lace caps fell over their eyes, and the hood of a little silk mantle hid the head; clad in short dresses of india muslin, and bravely shod with shoes with paste buckles and stockings embroidered with pink and green, which their skirts did not hide, they jumped into a hired carriage, which they had ordered to stop at the great gate of the house no. 11, rue neuve-des-mathurins. then, in a trembling voice, like that of all women who are doing something out of the ordinary, madame de beauharnais said to the driver: "rue du tournon, no. 7."
the carriage stopped at the place indicated, the driver got down from his seat, opened the door, received his fare, and knocked at the house-door, which was opened at once.
the two women hesitated an instant, as if their hearts failed them at the critical moment. but madame tallien urged her friend on. josephine, light as a bird, alighted upon the pavement without touching the step; madame tallien followed her. they crossed the formidable threshold, and the door closed behind them.
they found themselves under a sort of porte-cochère, the arch of which extended into the court. at the further end, by the light of a reflector, they saw these words written on an outside shutter: "mademoiselle lenormand, bookseller."
they advanced toward this light, which revealed a short flight of four steps. they went up the four steps and came to a porter's lodge.
"citizeness lenormand?" inquired madame tallien, who, although the younger of the two, seemed on this occasion to take the initiative.
"ground floor, left-hand door," replied the porter.
[pg 356]
madame tallien went up the steps first, holding up her already short skirt, which discovered a leg that might vie with a greek statue in shape, which had, nevertheless, condescended this evening to the grisette's garter tied below the knee. madame de beauharnais followed, admiring her friend's free and easy manner, but unable to emulate it. she was still only half-way up the steps when madame tallien rang the bell. an old servant opened the door.
the new arrivals, whose faces were more of a recommendation than their attire, were examined with the most scrupulous minuteness by the lackey, who bade them sit down in a corner of the first room. the second, which was a salon, and through which the lackey had to pass to reach his mistress, was occupied by two or three women whose rank it would have been difficult to determine, all ranks at that time being practically merged into that of the bourgeois. but to their great astonishment, the door of the second salon opened after a few moments, and mademoiselle lenormand herself came and spoke to them, saying:
"ladies, be good enough to enter the salon."
the two pretended grisettes looked at each other in astonishment. mademoiselle lenormand was supposed to make her predictions in a state of somnambulism. was this true, and had she, by reason of her second-sight, recognized, even without seeing them, two ladies of rank in the supposed grisettes whom the lackey had announced?
at the same time, mademoiselle lenormand signed to the ladies in the first salon to pass into the second room, where she told fortunes.
madame tallien and madame de beauharnais began to examine the room in which they had been left. its principal ornaments were two portraits, one of louis xvi. and the other of marie-antoinette. notwithstanding the terrible days that had passed, and the fact that the heads of the originals had fallen upon the scaffold, the portraits had not left their places, and had not for an instant ceased to be[pg 357] treated with the respect which mademoiselle lenormand entertained for the originals.
after the portraits, the most remarkable thing in the room was a long table covered with a cloth, upon which sparkled necklaces, rings, and pieces of silverware elegantly wrought; most of the last dating from the eighteenth century. all of these trinkets had been given to the sibyl by persons to whom she had doubtless made agreeable predictions which had been fulfilled.
the door of the cabinet opened shortly, and the last person who had arrived before the two ladies was called. the friends remained alone.
a quarter of an hour passed, during which they conversed in subdued tones, then the door opened again, and mademoiselle lenormand came out.
"which of you ladies wishes to come in first?" she asked.
"can we not go in together?" asked madame de beauharnais quickly.
"impossible, madame," replied the sibyl; "i have sworn never to read the cards for one person in the presence of another."
"may we know why?" asked madame tallien, with her customary vivacity, and we may almost say her usual indiscretion.
"because in a portrait which i had the misfortune to draw too near to life one of two ladies whom i was receiving recognized her husband."
"go in, thérèse; go in," said madame de beauharnais, urging her friend.
"so i am always to be the one to sacrifice myself," said the latter. and then, smiling at her friend, she said: "well, so be it; i will risk it." and she entered.
mademoiselle lenormand was at that time a woman of from twenty-four to twenty-nine years of age, short and stout in figure, and vainly endeavoring to disguise the fact that one shoulder was higher than the other; she wore a[pg 358] turban adorned with a bird of paradise. her hair fell in long curls around her face. she wore two skirts, one over the other; one was short, scarcely falling to the knees, and pearl-gray in color; the other was longer, falling in a short train behind her, and was cherry-red.
beside her on a cushion lay her favorite greyhound, named aza.
the table upon which she made her calculations was nothing but a common round table covered with a green baize cloth, with drawers in front, in which the sibyl stowed her various apparatus. the cabinet was as long as the salon, but narrower. an oak bookcase ran along the wall on each side of the door, filled with books. facing her seat was an armchair for the person who was consulting her.
between her and the subject lay a steel rod, which was called the divining-rod. the end, pointing toward the client, was tipped with a little coiled steel serpent; the other end resembled a riding-whip.
this was what madame de beauharnais saw during the brief moment that the door was open to admit her friend.
josephine took up a book, drew near to the lamp, and tried to read; but her attention was soon diverted by the sound of a bell and the entrance of another person.
it was a young man dressed in the height of the fashion adopted by the incroyables. between his hair, which fell to a level with his eyebrows, his dog's-ears falling over his shoulders, and his neckcloth, which reached to his cheekbones, one could scarcely distinguish a straight nose, a firm and resolute mouth, and eyes as brilliant as black diamonds.
he bowed without speaking, twirled his gnarled stick three or four times around his head, hummed three false notes, as if he were just finishing a tune, and sat down in a corner.
but although this griffin's eye, as dante would have said, was hardly visible in the corner, madame de beauharnais was beginning to feel uncomfortable under its stare, al[pg 359]though the incroyable was seated at one end of the salon and she at the other. but just then madame tallien came out.
"ah! my dear," she said, going straight to her friend, without seeing the incroyable, who sat in the shadow—"ah! my dear, go in quickly. mademoiselle lenormand is charming; just guess what she has predicted for me?"
"why, my dear," replied madame beauharnais, "that you will be loved, that you will be beautiful until you are fifty years of age, and that you will have love-affairs all your life—"
and as madame tallien made a movement as if to say, "no, not that," she continued: "and that you will have a tall footman, a fine house, beautiful carriages, and white or bay horses."
"i shall have all that, my dear; and, furthermore, if our sibyl is to be believed, i shall be a princess."
"i congratulate you sincerely, my beautiful princess," said josephine; "but as i do not see that there is anything left for me to ask for, and as i shall probably never be a princess, and my pride already suffers at being less beautiful than you, i will not give it further cause for envy, which might make us quarrel."
"are you in earnest, dear josephine?"
"no; but i will not expose myself to the inferiority which threatens me on all sides. i leave you your principality; let us run away."
she made a movement as if to go away, and to take madame tallien with her; but just then a hand was placed lightly on her arm, and a voice said: "remain, madame, and perhaps when you have heard me, you will find that you have nothing to envy your friend."
josephine greatly desired to know what was in store for her that would exalt her so that she would have no need to envy a princess. she therefore yielded, and entered mademoiselle lenormand's cabinet in her turn.
