Previously to 1789, although the Government had become bankrupt through mismanagement, and the poor in the cities were forced to toil for little more than a starvation wage, France had been by far the richest country in the world. This wealth lay not so much in the hands of the nobility as—apart from a few hundred extremely rich farnilies, their refusal to demean themselves by engaging in any form of commerce had kept them poor—but in the coffers of enormous numbers of prosperous bourgeoisie. It was mainly the nobility that had emigrated and sent its sons to fight in the army of de Conde; while the bulk of the professional and merchant classes had remained, simply lying low.
Now, although the Government was still bankrupt and the masses starving, thousands of property-owners were digging up large and small hoards of coin from their gardens, or recovering them from under floor boards and other hiding-places. The revolutionary paper money was at a huge discount, but purses full of louis d'or and cartwheel silver ecus were once more changing hands in Paris with the utmost freedom.
With the disappearance of the fear that ostentation would result in imprisonment and perhaps death, a new era of luxury had set in. It was apparent not only in the exclusive salons, but everywhere. No sooner had the actors and actresses of the Comedie Francaise been released from prison than the theatre had nightly become packed with well-dressed people applauding anti-revolutionary quips. The boxes at the Feydeau were now always occupied by bevies of lovely women and elegantly attired men. In the streets, handsome equipages with coachmen vin livery were again to be seen by the score. Shops long closed were once more open for the sale of jewellery, lace, furs, brocades, perfumes, wines, delicacies of all sorts and clothes in the new fashion.
Previously to the Revolution, apart from the aristocratic oligarchies of Venice and Genoa, there had been no Republics in Europe; so the new France had modelled herself largely on the ancient ones of Greece and Rome. The smart women were termed merveilleuses. They had adopted the high-waisted tunic of Corinth and wore their hair piled high in a cone bound with ribbon, leaving the neck bare. Arms and legs were also left bare and the dresses were made of the thinnest obtainable materials; while beneath them so little was worn as to be barely decent. In fact they vied with one another quite shamelessly in exposing their limbs, and often wore tunics slit down the sides which were caught together only by cameos at the shoulder, waist and knee.
The fashion for men had also changed out of all recognition. The incroyables, as the exquisites among the Jeunesse doree were called, wore their hair turned up behind but with long tresses nicknamed "dog's-ears in front. Their high-collared, square-cut frock-coats were buttoned tightly over the stomach and had tails coming down to the calf of the legs, which were encased in silk stockings striped with red, yellow or blue. For evening wear waistcoats were of white dimity with broad facings, and small-clothes of pearl-grey or apple-green satin, over which hung double gold watch chains. But the most outstanding feature of this costume was a huge muslin cravat worn so high that it dipped from ear to ear concealing the chin and almost hiding the mourn.
As a final mark of their antithesis from the sans-culottes both merveilleuses and incroyables, as they called themselves, spoke in drawling affected voices and dropped their ‘r's’ which reminded Roger somewhat of the Creole French used in the West Indies. From mixing with them he derived only one satisfaction: it showed him that he no longer had the least reason to fear being charged by some noble that he had known in the past as a renegade.
Madame de Stael’s implication, that few people knew what their friends had been up to, or the true motives behind their actions during the past few years, was unquestionably correct. And, apparently, they could not have cared less. Scores of men who had, in part at least, been responsible for wholesale murder and plunder, but could point to a few acts of mercy, now dressed as incroyables and were freely admitted to the salons. Many of them were even accepted as friends by the emigre nobles, considerable numbers of whom, although still technically liable to the death penalty, had returned to Paris in the hope of getting their names removed from the lists of outlaws; and there were actually cases in which ex-terrorists had been taken as lovers by young demoiselles of the nobility whose fathers they had sent to the guillotine.
Such was the cynical, worthless and abnormal society, bred by a mating of upheaval and terror, in which Roger moved during October 1795. Yet he knew that side by side with it there existed plenty of families which, without being in the least puritanical, lived respectable lives; and Buonaparte, whom he saw almost daily at his office, one evening spontaneously suggested taking him to meet some old friends of his, who proved to be just such a family.
They consisted of a widow named Pennon, her son Albert, who was about twenty-five, and a high-spirited little daughter of eleven called Laurette, who promised soon to become a most attractive young woman. Madame Permon was a Corsican, a great friend of Buonaparte's mother, and, as she had known him from his birth, she addressed him as Napolione.
In this setting the young General seemed to Roger a different person. The contemptuous twist he could give to his mouth, and the acid rebukes, which could make much older men break out in a sweat of apprehension, were evidently reserved for his hours of duty. Here he laughed freely, treated Madame Permon with an affectionate gallantry and allowed the quick-witted little Laura to tease him to her heart's content
Moreover, he made no secret of the fact that during the past few months, had it not been for Madame Permon and Junot who was also present, he would positively have starved. The one had provided him with many a supper, which had been his only meal of the day, and the other had forced him to accept the major part of the remittances occasionally received from his family.
Junot, a fair, curly-haired young man of twenty-four, with a pleasing and open countenance, was a native of tile Cote d'Or and the son of an official. He had been destined for the law, but the Revolution had swept him into the army. His fellow privates had elected him sergeant for his gallantry on the field of battle, and later, at the siege of Toulon, further acts of bravery had led Buonaparte to single him out for a commission and make him his first A.D.C. His devotion to his General was religious in its intensity; and he had hitched his wagon to no small star, for in course of time it was to make him the husband of the delightful little Laura Pennon, the Military Governor of Paris, a Duke, and the only man who had the right to walk in on his future Emperor at any hour of the day or night
They laughed now over the way in which Junot, who was lucky as a gambler, had more than once ventured his last twenty francs at vingt-et-un in order that he might pay the bills of his Brigadier and himself at the modest Hotel of the Rights of Man, where they shared a room; and how Madame Pennon had often reprimanded Buonaparte for coming in with muddy boots and making a horrid smell by drying them at the fire.
But those days were past The cantankerous, out-at-elbows young officer who had been contemptuously nicknamed by one of Barras's beautiful mistresses 'the little ragamuffin' had disappeared never to return. Buonaparte had bought himself a handsome carriage and a fine house in the Rue des Capucines. His uniform was new and heavy with gold lace, and he had not forgotten those who had befriended him in the dark days of adversity. Junot had been promoted from Lieutenant to Colonel; Madame Permon, who had recently lost her husband and, although it had been kept from her, been left very badly off, was being secretly assisted through her son; and in addition the young General was supporting a hundred other families in the neighbourhood who had fallen on evil times.