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The Baronne de Bonmont had invited all the titled landowners and the big manufacturers and financiers of the district to a charity fête which she was giving on the 29th of the month, in the famous Château de Montil which Bernard de Paves, Grand Master of Artillery in the reign of Louis XII, had built in 1508 for Nicolette de Vaucelles, his fourth wife, and which had been bought by Baron Jules after the French loan of 1871. She had been tactful enough to send no invitations to the Jewish landowners, although she had friends and relations among them. After the death of her husband she was baptized, and had now been five years naturalized. She was wholly devoted to her religion and country. Like her brother Wallstein, of Vienna, she was careful to distinguish herself from her former co-religionists by a sincere anti-Semitism. She was quite unambitious, however, and her natural inclination was for the pleasures of domestic life.
She would have been satisfied with a modest position among the Christian aristocracy of France, if her son had not urged her to "make a splash." It was the little Baron Ernest who had induced her to get in with the Brécés; it was he who had inscribed the entire aristocracy of the province on the list of the guests invited to the projected fête. It was he who brought the little Duchesse de Mausac to Montil to take part in the play. As she was given to remarking, she was of good enough birth to sup with circus-riders and drink with grooms.