The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon. Alexandre Dumas

      THE BALL FOR WHICH Mademoiselle Hortense de Beauharnais’s young friend had requested an invitation was the social event of the season for all of fashionable Paris. Madame de Permon would have needed a mansion four times the size of her own to welcome all those eager to attend, and she had refused to issue further invitations to more than one hundred men and more than fifty women despite their ardent requests. But, because she had been born in Corsica and linked from childhood to the Bonaparte family, she agreed immediately when Eugene Beauharnais made his request, and Mademoiselle de Sourdis and her mother both received their admission cards.

      Madame de Permon, whose invitations were in such demand even though her name sounded a bit like the name of a commoner, was one of the grandest women of the times. Indeed, she was a descendant of the Comnène family, which had given six emperors to Constantinople, one to Heraclea, and ten to Trebizond. Her ancestor Constantin Comnène, fleeing the Muslims, had found refuge first in the Taygetus mountains and later on the island of Corsica. Along with three thousand of his compatriots who followed him as their chief, he settled there after buying from the Genoa senate the lands of Paomia, Salogna, and Revinda.

      In spite of her imperial origins, Mademoiselle de Comnène fell in love with and married a handsome commoner whom people called Monsieur de Permon. Monsieur de Permon had died two years earlier, leaving his widow with a son of twenty-eight, a daughter of fourteen, and an annuity of twenty-five thousand pounds.

      Madame de Permon’s high birth and her common marriage were reflected in her salon, which she opened to prominent figures in both the old aristocracy and the young democracy. Among officers in the new military and notables in the arts and sciences were names that would soon rival the most illustrious of those in the old monarchy. So it was that in her salon you could meet Monsieur de Mouchy and Monsieur de Montcalm, the Prince de Chalais, the two De Laigle brothers, Charles and Just de Noailles, the Montaigus, the three Rastignacs, the Count of Coulaincourt and his two sons Armand and August, the Albert d’Orsay family, the Montbretons. Sainte-Aulaire and the Talleyrands mingled with the Hoches, the Rapps, the Durocs, the Trénis, the Laffittes, the Dupaty family, the Junots, the Anissons, and the Labordes.

      Madame de Permon’s high birth and her common marriage were reflected in her salon, which she opened to prominent figures in both the old aristocracy and the young democracy. Among officers in the new military and notables in the arts and sciences were names that would soon rival the most illustrious of those in the old monarchy. So it was that in her salon you could meet Monsieur de Mouchy and Monsieur de Montcalm, the Prince de Chalais, the two De Laigle brothers, Charles and Just de Noailles, the Montaigus, the three Rastignacs, the Count of Coulaincourt and his two sons Armand and August, the Albert d’Orsay family, the Montbretons. Sainte-Aulaire and the Talleyrands mingled with the Hoches, the Rapps, the Durocs, the Trénis, the Laffittes, the Dupaty family, the Junots, the Anissons, and the Labordes.

      With her twenty-five-thousand-pound annuity Madame de Permon maintained one of Paris’s most elegant and best appointed mansions. She especially enjoyed the splendor of her flowers and plants, and her home had become a veritable greenhouse. The vestibule was so filled with potted trees and flowers that you could no longer see the walls, yet it was so skillfully illuminated with colored glass that you would have thought you were entering a fairy palace.

      In those days, balls began early. By nine o’clock, Madame de Permon’s rooms were open and brightly lit, and she, her daughter Laura, and her son Albert were awaiting their guests in the salon.

      Madame de Permon, still a beautiful woman, was wearing a white crepe dress, decorated with bunches of double daffodils and cut in the Greek style, with cloth draped over her breasts and held at her shoulders with two diamond clips. She had commissioned Leroy on the Rue des Petits-Champs, who was all the rage for his dresses and hats, to make her a puffy hat with white crepe and large bunches of daffodils like the ones on her dress. She wore daffodils in her jet black hair as well as in the folds of the hat, and she was holding an enormous bouquet of daffodils and violets from Madame Roux, the best florist in Paris. In each ear sparkled a diamond worth fifteen thousand francs, her only jewelry.

      Mademoiselle Laura de Permon’s dress was quite simple. Her mother thought that since she was only sixteen, she should glow with her own natural beauty and not try to outshine anyone with her clothes. She was wearing a pink taffeta dress of a style similar to her mother’s, with white narcissus in a crown on her head and at the hem of her dress, along with pearl clips and earrings.

      But the woman whose beauty was supposed to reign over the ball, which was being given in honor of the Bonaparte family and which the First Consul had promised to attend, was Madame Leclerc, the favorite of Madame Laetitia and her brother Bonaparte as well, so people said. To ensure her triumph, she had asked that Madame Permon allow her to dress at the mansion. She had had Madame Germon make her dress and she had arranged for Charbonnier to do her hair (he had done Madame de Permon’s as well). She woud make her entrance at the precise moment when the rooms were filling up but not yet full. That was the best moment if you wished to create a sensation and make sure you’d be seen by everyone there.

      Some of the most beautiful women—Madame Méchin, Madame de Périgord, Madame Récamier—were already there when at nine thirty Madame Bonaparte, her daughter, and her son were announced. Madame de Permon rose and walked to the center of the dining room, a courtesy she had offered nobody else.

      Josephine was wearing a crown of poppies and golden wheat, which also embellished her white crepe dress. Hortense too was dressed in white, her only accent being fresh violets.

      At about the same time, the Comtesse de Sourdis arrived with her daughter. The countess was wearing a buttercup-yellow tunic adorned with pansies. Her daughter, whose hair was arranged in the Greek style, wore a white taffeta tunic embroidered with gold and purple. She was ravishing. Bands of gold and purple perfectly highlighted her dark hair, while a gold and purple cord accented her tiny waist.

      At a signal from his sister, Eugene de Beauharnais hurried over to the new arrivals. Taking the countess’s hand, he escorted her to Madame de Permon.

      Madame de Permon rose to greet the countess, then had her sit to her left; Josephine was seated on the hostess’s right. Hortense offered her arm to Claire, and they seated themselves nearby.

      “Well?” Hortense asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.

      “He is here,” said Claire, all atremble.

      “Where?” asked Hortense eagerly.

      “Well,” said Claire, “do you see where I am looking? In that group there, the man wearing the garnet-colored velvet suit, tight suede pants, and shoes with small diamond buckles. And there’s a much larger diamond buckle around the braid on his hat.”

      Hortense’s eyes followed Claire’s. “Ah, you were right,” she said. “He is as handsome as Antinous. But he doesn’t look so melancholic at all. Your dark, mysterious hero is smiling at us very pleasantly.”

      And indeed, the face of the Comte de Sainte-Hermine, who had not taken his eyes off Mademoiselle de Sourdis since she had entered the room, radiated inner peace and joy. When he saw Claire and her friend looking at him, he walked timidly but gracefully over to them.

      “Would you be so kind, mademoiselle,” he said to Claire, “as to grant me the first quadrille or the first waltz you will be dancing?”

      “The first quadrille, yes, monsieur,” Claire stammered. She had turned deathly pale when she saw the count walking toward her, and now she could feel blood rushing to her cheeks.

      “As for Mademoiselle de Beauharnais,” the count, Hector, continued, bowing to Hortense, “I await the order from her lips to confirm my rank among her numerous admirers.”

      “The