adame Marsy's, fell from power with Pichereau.

"Such a Cabinet!" Sabine had exclaimed in a rage. "A Cabinet of
pasteboard capuchins."

"A Ministry of pasteboard, certainly," Guy had answered.

Madame Marsy was quite beside herself. Granet indeed! Why could he not
have waited a day or two longer before upsetting the whole
administration. It would have been quite as easy to have overthrown
Pichereau a day after her soiree as a few days before. Was Granet then,
in a great hurry to be made minister? Oh! her opinion of him had always
been a correct one! An ambitious schemer. He had triumphed, or at least
he had expected to triumph. And the consequence was that Sabine found
herself without a Minister to introduce to her guests. It was as if
Granet had purposely designed this.

No, she did not know a single member of the new Cabinet. She had spoken
once to the President of the council, Collard, a former advocate of
Nantes, at a reception at the Elysee. Collard had even, in passing by
her, torn off a morsel of the lace of her flounce. How charmingly, too,
he had excused himself! But this acquaintanceship with him would hardly
justify her in asking him brusquely to honor her with his presence at
this soiree upon which her social success depended.

Her intimate friend, pretty Madame Gerson, who assisted her in doing the
honors of her salon until the time when she herself would have a rival
salon and take Sabine's guests away from her, sought in vain to comfort
her by assuring her that Pichereau would be sure to come. He had
promised to do so. He was a sincere man, and his word could be relied
on. He would, moreover, bring his former colleagues from the
Departments of Public Instruction, and Post and Telegraph. He had
promised. Oh! yes, Pichereau! Pichereau, however, mattered very little
to Sabine now! _Ex_-ministers, indeed! she could always have enough of
them. It was not that kind that she wanted. She did not care about her
salon being called the _Invalides_ as that of a rival was called the
_Salon des Refusees_. No, certainly not, that was something she would
never consent to.

Granet's impatience had upset all her plans.

So Madame Marsy, side by side in her box with Madame Gerson, whose dark,
brilliant beauty set off her own fair beauty, had listened with a bored
and sulky manner to the first act of _L'Africaine_, while Monsieur
Gerson conversed timidly, half under his breath, with Guy de Lissac, who
made the fourth