The
carriage was drawn by four horses, ridden by postilions dressed with
an elegance specially commanded by the grand equerry, who was often
better served than the king himself. As Modeste, dazzled by the
magnificence of the great lords, entered and beheld this lesser
Versailles, she suddenly remembered her approaching interview with the
celebrated duchesses, and began to fear that she might seem awkward,
or provincial, or parvenue; in fact, she lost her self-possession, and
heartily repented having wished for a hunt.
Fortunately, however, as the carriage drew up, Modeste saw an old man,
in a blond wig frizzed into little curls, whose calm, plump, smooth
face wore a fatherly smile and an expression of monastic cheerfulness
which the half-veiled glance of the eye rendered almost noble. This
was the Duc de Verneuil, master of Rosembray. The duchess, a woman of
extreme piety, the only daughter of a rich and deceased chief-justice,
spare and erect, and the mother of four children, resembled Madame
Latournelle,--if the imagination can go so far as to adorn the
notary's wife with the graces of a bearing that was truly abbatial.
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