No one except his sister was in the secret.  Eve, like the thrifty housekeeper and divine magician that she was, conjured up a few louis d’or from her savings to buy thin shoes for Lucien of the best shoemaker in Angouleme, and an entirely new suit of clothes from the most renowned tailor.  She made a frill for his best shirt, and washed and pleated it with her own hands.  And how pleased she was to see him so dressed!  How proud she felt of her brother, and what quantities of advice she gave him!  Her intuition foresaw countless foolish fears.  Lucien had a habit of resting his elbows on the table when he was in deep thought; he would even go so far as to draw a table nearer to lean upon it; Eve told him that he must not forget himself in those aristocratic precincts.

She went with him as far as St. Peter’s Gate, and when they were almost opposite the cathedral she stopped, and watched him pass down the Rue de Beaulieu to the Promenade, where M. du Chatelet was waiting for him.  And after he was out of sight, she still stood there, poor girl! in a great tremor of emotion, as though some great thing had happened to them.  Lucien in Mme. de Bargeton’s house!—­for Eve it meant the dawn of success.  The innocent creature did not suspect that where ambition begins, ingenuous feeling ends.

Externals in the Rue du Minage gave Lucien no sense of surprise.  This palace, that loomed so large in his imagination, was a house built of the soft stone of the country, mellowed by time.  It looked dismal enough from the street, and inside it was extremely plain; there was the usual provincial courtyard—­chilly, prim, and neat; and the house itself was sober, almost convent-like, but in good repair.

Lucien went up the old staircase with the balustrade of chestnut wood (the stone steps ceased after the second floor), crossed a shabby antechamber, and came into the presence in a little wainscoted drawing-room, beyond a dimly-lit salon.  The carved woodwork, in the taste of the eighteenth century, had been painted gray.  There were monochrome paintings on the frieze panels, and the walls were adorned with crimson damask with a meagre border.  The old-fashioned furniture shrank piteously from sight under covers of a red-and-white check pattern.  On the sofa, covered with thin mattressed cushions, sat Mme. de Bargeton; the poet beheld her by the light of two wax candles on a sconce with a screen fitted to it, that stood before her on a round table with a green cloth.

The queen did not attempt to rise, but she twisted very gracefully on her seat, smiling on the poet, who was not a little fluttered by the serpentine quiverings; her manner was distinguished, he thought.  For Mme. de Bargeton, she was impressed with Lucien’s extreme beauty, with his diffidence, with everything about him; for her the poet already was poetry incarnate.  Lucien scrutinized his hostess with discreet side glances; she disappointed none of his expectations of a great lady.