At eight o'clock the next morning, my fat cousin arrived; he had already done five or six errands: "Well, chevalier, we are going to breakfast; we shall dine with Pommereul, and this evening I shall take you to Madame de Chastenay's." This seemed to me a fate, and I resigned myself. Everything happened as my cousin had proposed. After breakfast he pretended to show me Paris, and dragged me through the dirtiest streets in the neighbourhood of the Palais Royal, telling me of the dangers to which a young man was exposed. We were punctual in keeping our appointment for dinner, at an eating-house. Everything put before us seemed bad to me. The conversation and the dinner-guests revealed a new world to me. The talk turned upon the Court, the financial projects, the Academy sittings, the women and intrigues of the day, the latest piece, the success of the actors, actresses and authors. Several Bretons were among the guests, including the Chevalier de Guer[189] and Pommereul[190]. The latter was a good talker, who has since described some of Bonaparte's campaigns, and who, when I met him again, was at the head of the Publishing Department. Under the Empire, Pommereul achieved a sort of renown by his hatred for the nobility[191]. And nevertheless Pommereul claimed, and with just cause, to be of gentle birth himself. He signed his name "Pommereux," and spoke of his descent from the Pommereux family mentioned in the letters of Madame de Sévigné[192]. [Sidenote: Madame de Chastenay.] After dinner my brother wanted to take me to the play, but my cousin claimed me for Madame de Chastenay, and I went with him to meet my destiny. I saw a handsome woman, no longer in her first youth, but still capable of inspiring an attachment. She received me kindly, tried to put me at my ease, asked me about my part of the country and my regiment. I was awkward and embarrassed; I made signs to my cousin to cut short the visit. But he, without looking at me, was inexhaustible on the subject of my merits, declaring that I had written verses at my mother's breast, and calling upon me to sing Madame de Chastenay. She relieved me from this painful situation, begged me to forgive her for being obliged to go out, and invited me to come back and see her the next morning, in so gentle a voice that I involuntarily promised to obey. The next day I returned alone: I found her in bed in an elegantly fitted room. She told me that she was not very well, and that she had the bad habit of rising late. For the first time I found myself by the bedside of a woman who was neither my mother nor my sister. She had observed my shyness on the evening before, and so far conquered it that I ventured to express myself with some sort of ease. She stretched towards me a half-bared arm and the most beautiful hand in the world, and said with a smile: "We shall become friends."