On the next Sunday after the thought Grandemont rode, horseback, down to Charleroi.  The big, square house with its two long ells looked blank and cheerless with its closed shutters and doors.

The shrubbery in the yard was ragged and riotous.  Fallen leaves from the grove littered the walks and porches.  Turning down the lane at the side of the house, Grandemont rode on to the quarters of the plantation hands.  He found the workers just streaming back from church, careless, happy, and bedecked in gay yellows, reds, and blues.

Yes, Andre was still there; his wool a little grayer; his mouth as wide; his laughter as ready as ever.  Grandemont told him of his plan, and the old chef swayed with pride and delight.  With a sigh of relief, knowing that he need have no further concern until the serving of that dinner was announced, he placed in Andre’s hands a liberal sum for the cost of it, giving carte blanche for its creation.

Among the blacks were also a number of the old house servants.  Absalom, the former major domo, and a half-dozen of the younger men, once waiters and attaches of the kitchen, pantry, and other domestic departments crowded around to greet “M’shi Grande.”  Absalom guaranteed to marshal, of these, a corps of assistants that would perform with credit the serving of the dinner.

After distributing a liberal largesse among the faithful, Grandemont rode back to town well pleased.  There were many other smaller details to think of and provide for, but eventually the scheme was complete, and now there remained only the issuance of the invitations to his guests.

Along the river within the scope of a score of miles dwelt some half-dozen families with whose princely hospitality that of the Charleses had been contemporaneous.  They were the proudest and most august of the old regime.  Their small circle had been a brilliant one; their social relations close and warm; their houses full of rare welcome and discriminating bounty.  Those friends, said Grandemont, should once more, if never again, sit at Charleroi on a nineteenth of January to celebrate the festal day of his house.

Grandemont had his cards of invitation engraved.  They were expensive, but beautiful.  In one particular their good taste might have been disputed; but the Creole allowed himself that one feather in the cap of his fugacious splendour.  Might he not be allowed, for the one day of the renaissance, to be “Grandemont du Puy Charles, of Charleroi”?  He sent the invitations out early in January so that the guests might not fail to receive due notice.

At eight o’clock in the morning of the nineteenth, the lower coast steamboat River Belle gingerly approached the long unused landing at Charleroi.  The bridge was lowered, and a swarm of the plantation hands streamed along the rotting pier, bearing ashore a strange assortment of freight.  Great shapeless bundles and bales and packets swathed in cloth and bound with ropes; tubs and urns of palms, evergreens, and tropical flowers; tables, mirrors, chairs, couches, carpets, and pictures—­all carefully bound and padded against the dangers of transit.