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Madame de Bonmont's _salon_ had been unusually lively and brilliant since the victory of the Nationalists in Paris and the election of Joseph Lacrisse for the ward of the Grandes-Écuries. The widow of the great Baron received at her house the flower of the new party. An old Rabbi of the Faubourg St. Antoine believed that the gentle Elisabeth attracted to herself the enemies of the chosen people by a special decree of the God of Israel. The hand, he thought, that placed Esther in the bed of Ahasuerus had been pleased to gather together the chiefs of the anti-Semites and the princes of the Trublions in the house of a Jewess. It is true that the Baronne had renounced the faith of her fathers, but who can fathom the designs of Jehovah! In the eyes of the artists, who, like Frémont, bethought themselves of the mythological figures in the palaces of Germany, her sumptuous beauty, the beauty of a Viennese Erigone, seemed symbolical of the Nationalist vintage.
Her dinners diffused an atmosphere of delight and power, and the smallest luncheon party at her house had a truly national significance. Thus, this morning she had gathered together at her table the most famous defenders of the Church and Army.