Paris press, they were much flattered and courted; at the period I speak of" (about 1817-1825) "their position was far from brilliant, and Mme. Gay was far from popular. Every word that fell from her mouth, uttered in a sharp tone, and full of bitterness and envy, went to speak ill of others and prodigiously well of herself. She had a mania for titles and tuft-hunting, and could speak of no one under a marquis, a count, or a baron. Her daughter's beauty and talents caused her afterwards to be more generally admitted into society; but at this period she was avoided by most people."
Her daughter's beauty was certainly marvellous, and when, under the reign of Louis Philippe, American society had in Paris more than one brilliant representative and more than one splendid centre of hospitality, where all that was illustrious in the society of France perpetually flocked, we make no doubt many of our countrymen noticed, whether at theatre or concert or ball, the really queenlike air of Mme. de Girardin, and the exquisitely classic profile, which, enframed, as it were, by the capricious spirals of the lightest, fairest flaxen hair, resembled the outline of some antique statue of a Muse.
Delphine Gay and her mother were more the ornaments of the _salon_ of the Duchesse d'Abrantès, perhaps, than of that of Gérard; and as the former continued open long after the latter was closed by death, not only the young girl, whose verses were so immensely in fashion during the Restoration, was one of the constant guests of Junot's widow, but she continued to be so as the wife of Émile de Girardin, the intelligent and enterprising founder of the newspaper "La Presse."
The _salon_ of the Duchesse d'Abrantès was one of the first of a species which has since then found imitators by scores and hundreds throughout France. It was the _salon_ of a person not in herself sufficiently superior or even celebrated to attract the genuine superiorities of the country without the accessory attractions of luxury, and not sufficiently wealthy to draw around her by her splendid style of receiving, and to disdain the bait held out to those she invited by the presence of great "lions." Gérard gave to his guests, at twelve o'clock at night, a cup of tea and "eternally the same cakes" all the year round; but Gérard was the type of the great honors rendered, as we have observed, to Art under the Empire, and to his house men went as equals, whose daily occupations made them the associates of kings. This was not the case with the Duchesse d'Abrantès. She had notoriety, not fame. Her "Mémoires" had been read all through Europe, but it is to be questioned whether anything beyond curiosity was satisfied by the book, and it certainly brought to its author little or none of that which in France stands in lieu even of fortune, but which is not easy to obtain, namely,--_consideration_.
The Duchesse d'Abrantès was rather popular than otherwise; she was even beloved by a certain number of persons; but she never was what is termed _considérée_,--and this gave to her _salon_ a different aspect from that of the others we have spoken of. A dozen names could be mentioned, whose wearers, without any means of "entertaining" their friends, or giving them more than a glass of _eau sucrée_, were yet surrounded by everything highest and best in the land, simply because they were _gens considérables_, as the phrase went; but Mme. d'Abrantès, who more or less received all that mixed population known by the name of _tout Paris_, never was, we repeat, _considérée_.
The way in which Mme. Ancelot introduces her "friend," the poor Duchesse d'Abrantès, on the scene, is exceedingly amusing and natural; and we have here at once the opportunity of applying the remark we made in commencing these pages, upon Mme. Ancelot's truthfulness. She is the _habituée_ of the house of Mme. d'Abrantès; she professes herself attached to the Duchess; yet she does not s
