The Presidente had no idea of the value of the gift.  She was puzzled by her cousin’s sudden access of audacity.

“Then, where did you find this?” inquired Cecile, as she looked closely at the trinket.

“In the Rue de Lappe.  A dealer in second-hand furniture there had just brought it back with him from a chateau that is being pulled down near Dreux, Aulnay.  Mme. de Pompadour used to spend part of her time there before she built Menars.  Some of the most splendid wood-carving ever known has been saved from destruction; Lienard (our most famous living wood-carver) had kept a couple of oval frames for models, as the ne plus ultra of the art, so fine it is.—­There were treasures in that place.  My man found the fan in the drawer of an inlaid what-not, which I should certainly have bought if I were collecting things of the kind, but it is quite out of the question—­a single piece of Riesener’s furniture is worth three or four thousand francs!  People here in Paris are just beginning to find out that the famous French and German marquetry workers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries composed perfect pictures in wood.  It is a collector’s business to be ahead of the fashion.  Why, in five years’ time, the Frankenthal ware, which I have been collecting these twenty years, will fetch twice the price of Sevres pata tendre.”

“What is Frankenthal ware?” asked Cecile.

“That is the name of the porcelain made by the Elector of the Palatinate; it dates further back than our manufactory at Sevres; just as the famous gardens at Heidelberg, laid waste by Turenne, had the bad luck to exist before the garden of Versailles.  Sevres copied Frankenthal to a large extent.—­In justice to the Germans, it must be said that they have done admirable work in Saxony and in the Palatinate.”

Mother and daughter looked at one another as if Pons were speaking Chinese.  No one can imagine how ignorant and exclusive Parisians are; they only learn what they are taught, and that only when they choose.

“And how do you know the Frankenthal ware when you see it?”

“Eh! by the mark!” cried Pons with enthusiasm.  “There is a mark on every one of those exquisite masterpieces.  Frankenthal ware is marked with a C and T (for Charles Theodore) interlaced and crowned.  On old Dresden china there are two crossed swords and the number of the order in gilt figures.  Vincennes bears a hunting-horn; Vienna, a V closed and barred.  You can tell Berlin by the two bars, Mayence by the wheel, and Sevres by the two crossed L’s.  The queen’s porcelain is marked A for Antoinette, with a royal crown above it.  In the eighteenth century, all the crowned heads of Europe had rival porcelain factories, and workmen were kidnaped.  Watteau designed services for the Dresden factory; they fetch frantic prices at the present day.  One has to know what one is about with them too, for they are turning out imitations now at Dresden.  Wonderful things they used to make; they will never make the like again—­”