"We learn that the deliverance of our territory will be feted with
enthusiasm throughout France. In Paris the members of the
municipal body feel that the time has come to restore the capital
to that accustomed splendor which under a becoming sense of
propriety was laid aside during the foreign occupation. The mayors
and deputy-mayors each propose to give a ball; this national
movement will no doubt be followed, and the winter promises to be
a brilliant one. Among the fetes now preparing, the one most
talked of is the ball of Monsieur Birotteau, lately named
chevalier of the Legion of honor and well-known for his devotion
to the royal cause. Monsieur Birotteau, wounded in the affair of
Saint-Roch, judges in the department of commerce, and therefore
has doubly merited this honor."

"How well they write nowadays," cried Cesar. "They are talking about us
in the papers," he said to Pillerault.

"Well, what of it?" answered his uncle, who had a special antipathy to
the "Journal des Debats."

"That article may help to sell the Paste of Sultans and the Carminative
Balm," whispered Madame Cesar to Madame Ragon, not sharing the
intoxication of her husband.

Madame Ragon, a tall woman, dry and wrinkled, with a pinched nose and
thin lips, bore a spurious resemblance to a marquise of the old court.
The circles round her eyes had spread to a wide circumference, like
those of elderly women who have known sorrow. The severe and dignified,
although affable, expression of her countenance inspired respect. She
had, withal, a certain oddity about her, which excited notice, but
never ridicule; and this was exhibited in her dress and habits. She wore
mittens, and carried in all weathers a cane sunshade, like that used
by Queen Marie-Antoinette at Trianon; her gown (the favorite color
was pale-brown, the shade of dead leaves) fell from her hips in those
inimitable folds the secret of which the dowagers of the olden time have
carried away with them. She retained the black mantilla trimmed with
black lace woven in large square meshes; her caps, old-fashioned in
shape, had the quaint charm which we see in silhouettes relieved against
a white background. She took snuff with exquisite nicety and with
the gestures which young people of the present day who have had the
happiness of seeing their grandmothers and great-aunts replacing their
gold snuff-boxes solemnly on the tables beside them, and shaking off the
grain