Dubarry was, in fact, a charming woman who might have been a good woman but for Fate, the Maison Labille, and Louis of France.
The question of her presentation at Court, an act which would place her on the same social footing as her enemies, had been the main topic of conversation for a month past. The women had closed their ranks and united against the common enemy. Not one of them would act as sponsor. The King, who cared little enough about the business, had, still, interested himself in the matter. The Comtesse, her sister Chon, and the Vicomte Jean Dubarry had ransacked the lists of the most venial of the nobility. Bribes, threats, promises, all had been used in vain; not a woman would stir or raise a finger to further the ambition of the “shop girl,” so that the unfortunate Comtesse was on the point of yielding to despair when a brilliant idea occurred to the Vicomte Jean.
Away down in the provinces, mouldering in a castle on the banks of the Meuse, lived a lady named the Comtesse de Béarn. A lady of the old _régime_, a litigant with a suit pending before the courts in Paris, poor as Job, proud as Lucifer, and seemingly created by Providence for the purpose of the presentation.
This lady had been brought to Paris by a trick, installed in the town house of Madame Dubarry, and wheedled into consenting to act as sponsor by pure and rank bribery. One can fancy the consternation of the Choiseul party when this news leaked out.
The presentation was assured; nothing, one might fancy, could possibly happen to prevent it, and yet to-night, standing with the Duchess to receive their guests, the face of Choiseul showed nothing of his threatened defeat.
The Rue de Faubourg St. Honoré was alight with the torches of the running footmen and filled with a crowd watching the carriages turning into the courtyard of the Hôtel de Choiseul from the direction of the Rue St. Honoré, the Rue de la Bonne Morue, the Rue d’Anjou, and the Rue de la Madeleine.
It was a great assemblage, for the Court for the moment was in Paris, the King having changed his residence for three days, returning to Versailles on the morrow, and the people, with that passion for display which helped them at times to forget their misery and hunger, watched the passing liveries of the Duc de Richelieu, M. de Duras, M. de Sartines, the Duc de Grammont, and the host of other notabilities, content if by the torchlight they caught a glimpse of some fair face, the glimmer of a jewel, or the ribbon of an order.