ception of chilling silence; the respect paid to them was full of
jealousy, especially as everybody saw that Mme. de Bargeton paid marked
attention to the guests. The two families belonged to the very small
minority who hold themselves aloof from provincial gossip, belong to no
clique, live quietly in retirement, and maintain a dignified reserve. M.
de Pimentel and M. de Rastignac, for instance, were addressed by their
names in full, and no length of acquaintance had brought their wives and
daughters into the select coterie of Angouleme; both families were
too nearly connected with the Court to compromise themselves through
provincial follies.

The Prefect and the General in command of the garrison were the last
comers, and with them came the country gentleman who had brought the
treatise on silkworms to David that very morning. Evidently he was the
mayor of some canton or other, and a fine estate was his sufficient
title to gentility; but from his appearance, it was plain that he was
quite unused to polite society. He looked uneasy in his clothes, he was
at a loss to know what to do with his hands, he shifted about from
one foot to another as he spoke, and half rose and sat down again when
anybody spoke to him. He seemed ready to do some menial service; he was
obsequious, nervous, and grave by turns, laughing eagerly at every joke,
listening with servility; and occasionally, imagining that people were
laughing at him, he assumed a knowing air. His treatise weighed upon his
mind; again and again he tried to talk about silkworms; but the luckless
wight happened first upon M. de Bartas, who talked music in reply,
and next on M. de Saintot, who quoted Cicero to him; and not until the
evening was half over did the mayor meet with sympathetic listeners in
Mme. and Mlle. du Brossard, a widowed gentlewoman and her daughter.

Mme. and Mlle. du Brossard were not the least interesting persons in
the clique, but their story may be told in a single phrase--they were
as poor as they were noble. In their dress there was just that tinge of
pretension which betrayed carefully hidden penury. The daughter, a
big, heavy young woman of seven-and-twenty, was supposed to be a good
performer on the piano, and her mother praised her in season and out of
season in the clumsiest way. No eligible man had any taste which Camille
did not share on her mother's authoritative statement. Mme. du Brossard,
in her anxiety to establish her child, was capa