It is useless to relate the activity with which Josette, Jacquelin, Mariette, Moreau, and his agents went about their functions.It was like the busyness of ants about their eggs.All that daily care had already rendered neat and clean was again gone over and brushed and rubbed and scrubbed.The china of ceremony saw the light; the damask linen marked "A, B, C" was drawn from depths where it lay under a triple guard of wrappings, still further defended by formidable lines of pins.Above all, Mademoiselle Cormon sacrificed on the altar of her hopes three bottles of the famous liqueurs of Madame Amphoux, the most illustrious of all the distillers of the tropics,--a name very dear to gourmets.Thanks to the devotion of her lieutenants, mademoiselle was soon ready for the conflict.The different weapons--furniture, cookery, provisions, in short, all the various munitions of war, together with a body of reserve forces--were ready along the whole line.Jacquelin, Mariette, and Josette received orders to appear in full dress.The garden was raked.The old maid regretted that she couldn't come to an understanding with the nightingales nesting in the trees, in order to obtain their finest trilling.
At last, about four o'clock, at the very moment when the Abbe de Sponde returned home, and just as mademoiselle began to think she had set the table with the best plate and linen and prepared the choicest dishes to no purpose, the click-clack of a postilion was heard in the Val-Noble.
"'Tis he!" she said to herself, the snap of the whip echoing in her heart.
True enough; heralded by all this gossip, a post-chaise, in which was a single gentleman, made so great a sensation coming down the rue Saint-Blaise and turning into the rue du Cours that several little gamains and some grown persons followed it, and stood in groups about the gate of the hotel Cormon to see it enter.Jacquelin, who foresaw his own marriage in that of his mistress, had also heard the click-clack in the rue Saint-Blaise, and had opened wide the gates into the courtyard.The postilion, a friend of his, took pride in making a fine turn-in, and drew up sharply before the portico.The abbe came forward to greet his guest, whose carriage was emptied with a speed that highwaymen might put into the operation; the chaise itself was rolled into the coach-house, the gates closed, and in a few moments all signs of Monsieur de Troisville's arrival had disappeared.Never did two chemicals blend into each other with greater rapidity than the hotel Cormon displayed in absorbing the Vicomte de Troisville.