After a revulsion of feeling such as had taken place in Mme. de Bargeton and Lucien, strange things come to pass in a brief space of time, and any revolution within us is controlled by laws that work with great swiftness.  Chatelet’s sage and politic words as to Lucien, spoken on the way home from the Vaudeville, were fresh in Louise’s memory.  Every phrase was a prophecy, it seemed as if Lucien had set himself to fulfil the predictions one by one.  When Lucien and Mme. de Bargeton had parted with their illusions concerning each other, the luckless youth, with a destiny not unlike Rousseau’s, went so far in his predecessor’s footsteps that he was captivated by the great lady and smitten with Mme. d’Espard at first sight.  Young men and men who remember their young emotions can see that this was only what might have been looked for.  Mme. d’Espard with her dainty ways, her delicate enunciation, and the refined tones of her voice; the fragile woman so envied, of such high place and high degree, appeared before the poet as Mme. de Bargeton had appeared to him in Angouleme.  His fickle nature prompted him to desire influence in that lofty sphere at once, and the surest way to secure such influence was to possess the woman who exerted it, and then everything would be his.  He had succeeded at Angouleme, why should he not succeed in Paris?

Involuntarily, and despite the novel counter fascination of the stage, his eyes turned to the Celimene in her splendor; he glanced furtively at her every moment; the longer he looked, the more he desired to look at her.  Mme. de Bargeton caught the gleam in Lucien’s eyes, and saw that he found the Marquise more interesting than the opera.  If Lucien had forsaken her for the fifty daughters of Danaus, she could have borne his desertion with equanimity; but another glance—­bolder, more ardent and unmistakable than any before—­revealed the state of Lucien’s feelings.  She grew jealous, but not so much for the future as for the past.

“He never gave me such a look,” she thought.  “Dear me!  Chatelet was right!”

Then she saw that she had made a mistake; and when a woman once begins to repent of her weaknesses, she sponges out the whole past.  Every one of Lucien’s glances roused her indignation, but to all outward appearance she was calm.  De Marsay came back in the interval, bringing M. de Listomere with him; and that serious person and the young coxcomb soon informed the Marquise that the wedding guest in his holiday suit, whom she had the bad luck to have in her box, had as much right to the appellation of Rubempre as a Jew to a baptismal name.  Lucien’s father was an apothecary named Chardon.  M. de Rastignac, who knew all about Angouleme, had set several boxes laughing already at the mummy whom the Marquise styled her cousin, and at the Marquise’s forethought in having an apothecary at hand to sustain an artificial life with drugs.  In short, de Marsay brought a selection from the thousand-and-one jokes made by Parisians on the spur of the moment, and no sooner uttered than forgotten.  Chatelet was at the back of it all, and the real author of this Punic faith.