"Dame! it is ten years since _I_ saw the wilds of Bretagne, and I will take good care it shall be a hundred before I see them again. _Hors de Paris, c'est hors du monde._ Come with me to La Dumarsais's _petit souper_ to-night, and you will soon change your mind." "My good Armand, you have not been an exile, as I have; you little know how I long for the very scent of the leaves, the very smell of the earth at Grande Charmille! But bah! I talk in Hebrew to you. You have been lounging away your days in titled beauties, _petits salons_, making butterfly verses, learning their broidery, their lisp, and their perfumes, talking to their parrots, and using their cosmétiques, till you care for no air but what is musk-scented! But what of this Dumarsais of yours--does she equal Lecouvreur?" "Eclipses her!--with Paris as with Maurice de Saxe. Thargélie Dumarsais is superb, mon cher--unequalled, unrivalled! We have had nothing like her for beauty, for grace, for talent, nor, pardieu! for extravagance! She ruined _me_ last year in a couple of months. Richelieu is in favor just now--with what woman is he not? Thargélie is very fond of the Marshals of France! Saxe is fettered to her hand and foot, and the Duchesse de Bouillon hates her as rancorously as she does Adrienne. Come and see her play _Phèdre_ to-night, and you will renounce Lorraine. I will take you to supper with her afterwards; she will permit any friend of mine entry, and then, generous man that I am, I shall have put you _en chemin_ to sun yourself in her smiles and ingratiate yourself in her favor. Don't give me too much credit for the virtue though, for I confess I should like to see Richelieu supplanted." "Does his reign threaten to last long, then?" The Marquis shrugged his shoulders, and gave his badine an expressive whisk. "Dieu sait! we are not prophets in Paris. It would be as easy to say where that weathercock may have veered to-morrow, as to predict where la Dumarsais's love may have lighted ere a month! Where are you going, may I ask?" "To see Lucille de Verdreuil. I knew her at Lunéville; she and Madame de Boufflers were warm friends till Stanislaus, I believe, found Lucille's eyes lovelier than Madame la Marquise deemed fit, and then they quarrelled, as women ever do, with virulence in exact proportion to the ardor of their friendship."