The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon. Alexandre Dumas
man had piqued her interest.
Monsieur de Sainte-Hermine was proving to be no less talented on the ballroom floor than he was in other areas. He had studied with the second Vestris, the son of France’s own god of dance, and he did his teacher great honor.
During the Consulate years, a young man of fashion considered it requisite to perfect the art of dancing. I can still remember having seen, when I was a child, in 1812 or 1813, the two Monbreton brothers—the very same who were dancing at Madame de Permon’s ball this evening a dozen years earlier—in Villers-Cotterêts, where a grand ball brought together the entire beautiful new aristocracy. The Montbretons came from their castle in Corcy, three leagues away, and guess how they came. In their cabriolets. Yes, but their domestics rode inside the cabriolet, while they themselves, wearing their fine pump dancing shoes, held on to straps in the back, on the springboard where normally their valets stood, so that on the road they could continue to practice their intricate steps. Arriving at the ballroom door just in time to join the first quadrille, they had their domestics brush the dust off their clothes and threw themselves into the lively reel.
However brilliantly the Montbretons may have danced at Madame de Permon’s, it was Sainte-Hermine who impressed Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, and Mademoiselle de Sourdis was proud to see that the count, who had never before deigned to dance, with skill and grace could hold his own with the best dancers at the ball. Although Mademoiselle de Beauharnais was reassured on that point, there was still another that worried the curious Hortense: Had the young man spoken to Claire? Had he told her the cause of his long sadness, of his past silence, of his present joy?
Hortense ran to her friend and, pulling her into a bay window, asked: “Well, what did he say?”
“Something very important concerning what I told you.”
“Can you tell me?” Spurred by curiosity, Mademoiselle was using the informal tu form with her friend Claire, though normally in conversation they used formal address.
Claire lowered her voice. “He said he wanted to tell me a family secret.”
“You?”
“Me alone. Consequently, he begged me to get my mother to agree that he might be able to speak to me for an hour, with my mother watching but far enough away that she’d not be able to hear what he’d say. His life’s happiness, he said, depended on it.”
“Will your mother permit it?”
“I hope so, for she loves me dearly. I have promised to ask my mother this evening and to give him my answer at the end of the ball.”
“And now,” said Mademoiselle de Beauharnais, “do you realize how handsome your Comte de Sainte-Hermine is, and that he dances as well as Gardel?”
The music, signaling the second quadrille, called the girls back to their places. The two young friends had been, as we have seen, quite satisfied with how well Monsieur de Sainte-Hermine had danced the quadrille. But then, it was only a quadrille. There were yet two tests to which every unproven dancer was put: the gavotte and the minuet.
The young count had promised the gavotte to Mademoiselle de Beauharnais. It’s a dance we know today only by tradition, and though we may think it quite ridiculous, it was de rigeur during the Directory, the Consulate, and even the Empire. Like a snake that keeps twisting even after it has been cut into pieces, the gavotte could never quite die. It was, in fact, more a theatrical performance than a ballroom dance, for it had very complicated figures that were quite difficult to execute. The gavotte required a great deal of space, and even a large ballroom could accommodate no more than four couples at the same time.
Among the four couples dancing the gavotte in Madame de Permon’s grand ballroom, the two dancers whom everyone loudly applauded were the Comte de Sainte-Hermine and Mademoiselle de Beauharnais. They were applauded so enthusiastically, in fact, that they drew Bonaparte both out of his conversation with Monsieur de Talleyrand and out of the boudoir to which they’d withdrawn. Bonaparte appeared in the doorway just as his stepdaughter and her partner were completing the final figures, so he was able to witness their triumph.
When the gavotte ended, Bonaparte beckoned the girl over. She leaned forward so he could kiss her forehead. “I congratulate you, mademoiselle,” he said. “It is clear that you have had a graceful dancing master and that you have benefited from his lessons. But who is the handsome man with whom you were dancing?”
“I do not know him, General,” said Hortense. “We met for the first time this evening, and he invited me to dance when I was speaking with Mademoiselle de Sourdis. Or rather, he didn’t invite me; he put himself at my orders. I am the one who told him that I wanted to dance the gavotte and when I wanted to dance it.”
“But you surely know his name!”
“He calls himself the Comte de Sainte-Hermine.”
“Well,” said Bonaparte with an expression of ill humor, “another person from the Faubourg Saint-Germain. This dear Madame de Permon insists on filling her house with my enemies. When I came in, I chased off Madame de Contades, a crazy woman who thinks I am worth no more than the last second lieutenant in my army. When she talks about my victories in Italy and Egypt, she says that ‘I could do as much with my eyes as he can with his sword.’ That is unfortunate,” Bonaparte continued, looking at Hortense’s partner, “for he would make a handsome hussar officer.” Then, waving the girl back to her mother, he said: “Monsieur de Talleyrand, you who know so much, do you know anything about the Sainte-Hermine family?”
“Let me see,” said Monsieur de Talleyrand, putting his hand on his chin and leaning his head back, his customary way of reflecting. “In the Juras, near Besançon, we do have a Sainte-Hermine family. Yes, I met the father, a distinguished man who was guillotined in 1793. He left three sons. As to what has become of them, I have no idea. This man perhaps is one of those sons, or a nephew, though I was not aware the man I met had a brother. Would you like me to find out?”
“Oh, don’t bother.”
“It will be easy. I have seen him talking to Mademoiselle de Sourdis—look, he is speaking to her at this very moment. Nothing easier than asking her mother.…”
“No, that is not necessary, thanks. And how about the Sourdis family? Who are they?”
“Of excellent nobility.”
“That’s not what I am asking. What are their political leanings?”
“I believe there are only the two women, and they have joined us, or at least they would like nothing more than to be so counted. Two or three days ago Cabanis was speaking about them; he knows them well. The girl is marriageable, and has, I believe, a dowry of a million. It would be a good match for one of your aides-de-camp.”
“So it is your opinion that it would be appropriate for Madame Bonaparte to see them?”
“Perfectly appropriate.”
“Thank you. That’s what Bourrienne already told me.” Then, turning to his hostess, Bonaparte asked, “But what is wrong with Loulou? It looks to me as if she is near tears. Dear Madame de Permon, how can you make your daughter so sad on a day like this?”
“I want her to dance the queen’s minuet, and she won’t.”
At the mention of the queen’s minuet, Bonaparte smiled.
“And why won’t she?”
“How should I know? A caprice. Truly, Loulou, you aren’t being good. Your refusal to dance is not worth the cost of having Gardel and Saint-Amand as your instructors.”
“But, Mother,” Mademoiselle Permon answered, “I would be happy to dance your minuet, much though I hate it, only I don’t dare dance it with anyone but Monsieur de Trénis. I have promised the dance to him.”
“Well, then,” Madame de Permon asked. “Why isn’t he here? It is already half past twelve.”
“He said that he had two other balls to attend