In consequence, as his duties with Barras entailed little more than appearing on public occasions in a fine uniform as a member of that ostentatious potentate's staff, he shaved off his whiskers and moustache, and spent most of his time cultivating the society of the day. Many doors were already open to him, and through them he passed to others; so that within ten days he had become an accepted frequenter of the leading salons in Paris.
Tallien had been known to Roger ever since the desperate night upon which the legally elected members of the Municipality of Paris had been violently deposed to make way for the Commune, and during die even more desperate days of Thermidor they had risked their lives together to bring about the fall of Robespierre. As an opener of doors, no one could now have served better; for, not only had he just been made the head of a Committee charged with governing until the new Constitution came into force, but as Fouchg had informed Roger, his wife had become the most influential woman in Paris.
Theresa Tallien was the daughter of the Spanish banker Francois Cabarrus, and the divorced wife of the Comte de Fontenay. Talhen, while deluging Bordeaux in blood as a Representant en Mission, had seen her, fallen in love with her on sight, saved her from the guillotine and, after the fall of Robespierre, married her. In the meantime, by her influence over him she had saved many other people; and such was her beauty, compassion and grace that she had become known as 'Our Lady Thermidor'.
Recently she had taken a large house called the Chaumiere right out in the market garden area between the Rond-point and the Seine, and had had it done up to look like a stage farm. In spite of its being so far from central Paris all the smart world now flocked to it; so in her salon there Roger met numerous old friends and made several new ones. Among the latter was a ci-devant Marquise of great intelligence and charm named Madame de Chateau-Renault, and it was in her salon a few nights later that he was first presented to Madame de Beauhamais, the ravishing brunette whom he had seen leave Barras's house on the night of the 12th-13th Vendemiaire. She was known as La belle Creole and was certainly a very handsome woman, although her nose was slightly retrousse and her ready smile was robbed of much of its attraction by her bad teeth.
Another salon, which now rivalled and was soon to surpass Madame Tallien's, was that of Madame de Stael. She was the daughter of M. Necker, the Swiss banker whose pompous ineptitude and popularity-seeking at the expense of his soveriegn, while acting as Louis XVI's last Minister at Versailles, had done much to precipitate the Revolution. In '86 she had married the Swedish Ambassador to France and after Thermidor had returned with him to their Embassy, an imposing mansion fronted with pillars in the Rue du Bac. No one would have called her a beauty, and she was of a most restless disposition; but she had good eyes, a fine brow and a great gift for intelligent conversation.
In allowing Garat, the handsome singer who was at that time the idol of Paris, to take him to Madame de Stael's, Roger knew that he was running a certain risk. He had been slightly acquainted with her
in the old days, and might at her house run into someone who had known him well before he had transformed himself from the Chevalier de Breuc into a Revolutionary Commissar. In that event an unpleasant incident might occur and land him with a duel. On the other hand, there was a much brighter possibility, for Madame de Stael had been the devoted friend of Louis de Narbonne, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand,
Mathieu de Montmorency and many other Liberal nobles who had sided with the Third Estate in the early days of the Revolution. It was therefore possible that her salon might prove the very bridge he needed unostentatiously to link up his two identities; and it was that which decided him to risk a visit to her.
When Garat had presented him, she gave him a searching look and said: "Both the name Breuc and your features are vaguely familiar to me, Citizen Colonel. Can we have met before?'''
Roger took the plunge. "Yes, Madame la Baronne. It was at the house of M. le Talleyrand-Perigord, out at Passy." Then with a twinkle, he added: "And about that I will tell you a secret, if you will promise to keep it"
"Certainly I promise," she smiled. "I adore secrets."
She waved away the people nearest to them, and, stepping up to her, Roger whispered in her ear: "I have looked after the house for him all through the Revolution, and when he returns he will find it just as he left it"
"You intriguing man." She tapped his arm lightly with her fan. "You are then another of those whom we now discover to have disguised themselves as destroyers in order that they might act as preservers. It is quite a revelation these days to learn how many of our friends succeeded in making fools of that horrid little Robespierre and his brutal associates. How delighted our dear Bishop will be. I am so glad for him."
Turning, she beckoned over a good-looking young man whose fair curly hair fell in ringlets to his shoulders, and introduced him. "This is Mr. Benjamin Constant He has recently arrived from America, and can give you news of our mutual friend."
From Constant, Roger learned that de Talleyrand, while living in very straitened circumstances in Boston, had been employing his fine brain in evolving numerous vast commercial ventures; but none of these attempts to repair his fallen fortunes had yet come to anything. Moreover, the amorous ci-devant Bishop had given great offence to the ladies of Boston society by appearing openly in the street with a lovely young mulatto girl on his arm; but the less strait-laced among the men continued to seek his company on account of his charm and wit
Garat then introduced Roger to his mistress, a beautiful blonde cendree named Madame de Krudner. She was a Courlander and at the age of fourteen had been married to a Russian ambassador. It was said that she possessed mediumistic powers, and occasionally she fell into trances, which were probably mild epileptic fits, in the middle of parties.
She was certainly an angelic-looking creature, but Roger found her vapid and distrait He was much more intrigued by an equally lovely and much more vivacious chestnut-haired beauty of eighteen. Her name was Madame Recamier, and she had already been married for two years to a man twenty-six years older than herself. He was an immensely rich hat manufacturer of Lyons, and during the Terror had not missed watching the guillotine at work for a single day; the excuse for this macabre pastime that he gave his friends being that; as he must sooner or later die by that instrument, he wished to familiarize himself with it.
Yet he had not parted with his head under its blade, and Roger now found remarkable the number of titled and wealthy people who had succeeded in escaping a similar fate although they had remained in Paris all through the Revolution. Nearly all of them had been in prison for a few months during the height of the Terror, and had resigned themselves to death; but Robespierre's fall had saved them, and by bribing the venal revolutionary officials most of them had managed to retain a good part of their fortunes.