The Duchesse d'Abrantès was rather popular than otherwise; she was even beloved by a certain number of persons; but she never was what is termed _considérée_,--and this gave to her _salon_ a different aspect from that of the others we have spoken of. A dozen names could be mentioned, whose wearers, without any means of "entertaining" their friends, or giving them more than a glass of _eau sucrée_, were yet surrounded by everything highest and best in the land, simply because they were _gens considérables_, as the phrase went; but Mme. d'Abrantès, who more or less received all that mixed population known by the name of _tout Paris_, never was, we repeat, _considérée_.
The way in which Mme. Ancelot introduces her "friend," the poor Duchesse d'Abrantès, on the scene, is exceedingly amusing and natural; and we have here at once the opportunity of applying the remark we made in commencing these pages, upon Mme. Ancelot's truthfulness. She is the _habituée_ of the house of Mme. d'Abrantès; she professes herself attached to the Duchess; yet she does not scruple to tell everything as it really is, nor, out of any of the usual little weaknesses of friendship, does she omit any one single detail that proves the strange and indeed somewhat "Bohemian" manner of life of her patroness. We, the readers of her book, are obviously obliged to her for her indiscretions; with those who object to them from other motives we have nothing to do.
Here, then, is the fashion in which we are introduced to Mme. la Duchesse d'Abrantès, widow of Marshal Junot, and a born descendant of the Comneni, Emperors of Byzantium.
Mme. Ancelot is sitting quietly by her fireside, one evening in October, (some short time after the establishment of the monarchy of July,) waiting to hear the result of a representation at the Théâtre Français, where a piece of her own is for the first time being performed. All at once, she hears several carriages stop at her door, a number of persons rush up the stairs, and she finds herself in the arms of the Duchesse d'Abrantès, who was resolved, as she says, to be the first to congratulate her on her success. The hour is a late one; supper is served, and conversation is prolonged into the "small hours." All at once Mme. d'Abrantès exclaims, with an explosion of delight,--"Ah! what a charming time is the night! one is so deliciously off for talking! so safe! so secure! safe from bores and from duns!" (_on ne craint ni les ennuyeux ni les créanciers_.')