At that time, in a population of thirty-five millions, there were but a quarter of a million of French voters, and as in France all places (from that of a railroad guard to a seat on the bench) were disposed of by the government, it was very easy for ministers to control the legislature. A reform, really needed in the franchise, was the object proposed to themselves by the original heads of the Revolution of 1848, though when they had set their ball in motion they could neither control it nor keep up with it as it rolled downward.
The prevalent idea in Mrs. Leare's salon was that the banquet of the Rue Chaillot would go off quietly, that the prefect of police would protest, and that the affair would then pass into the law-courts, where it would remain until all interest in the subject had passed away. One was sensible, however, that there was a general feeling of excitement in the atmosphere. Paris swarmed with troops, evidently under stricter discipline than usual. People looked into each other's faces interrogatively and read the daily papers with an anxious air.
Though I did not at the time fully appreciate what I saw, I was struck by the business-like character of the men about me. The guests, I thought, took very little notice of the lady of the house. I did not then suspect that they were using her hospitality for their own purposes, and that they felt secure in her total incapacity to understand what they were doing. She, meantime, intent on filling her reception-rooms with celebrities and titled persons, was charmed to have collected so many distinguished men around her.
Hermione appeared bewildered, uncomfortable and restless, like a spectator on the edge of a great crowd. "There are too many strangers here to-night," she said: "mamma and I do not know one half of them. They have been brought here by their friends. To have a salon is mamma's ambition, but this is not my idea of it. I feel as if we were out of place among these men, who talk to each other and hardly notice us at all."
We sat together and exchanged our thoughts in whispers. It was one of those crowds that create a solitude for lovers. Not that we talked sentiment or that we were lovers. We conversed about the excitements of the day--of the Leste affair, in which the king and the king's ministry were accused of protecting dishonesty; of the Beauvallon and D'Equivilley duel and the Praslin murder, in connection with both of which the royal family and the ministry were popularly accused of protecting criminals--and at last the conversation strayed away from France to Hermione's own girlhood. She told me of her happy country home in Maryland with her grandmother, and sighed. I asked her if she was going to the English ball to be given on Wednesday night at the beautiful Jardin d'Hiver in the Champs Élysées.