The King took notice of her yesterday at the Tuileries, and we are all jealous of the attention which Monsieur pays her.If you could have seen the spite of a certain stupid Miladi Bareacres (whose eagle-beak and toque and feat,hers may be seen peering over the heads of all assemblies) when Madame, the Duchess of Angouleme, the august daughter and companion of kings, desired especially to be presented to Mrs.Crawley, as your dear daughter and protegee, and thanked her in the name of France, for all your benevolence towards our unfortunates during their exile! She is of all the societies, of all the balls--of the balls--yes--of the dances, no;and yet how interesting and pretty this fair creature looks surrounded by the homage of the men, and so soon to be a mother! To hear her speak of you, her protectress, her mother, would bring tears to the eyes of ogres.How she loves you! how we all love our admirable, our respectable Miss Crawley!"It is to be feared that this letter of the Parisian great lady did not by any means advance Mrs.Becky's interest with her admirable, her respectable, relative.On the contrary, the fury of the old spinster was beyond bounds, when she found what was Rebecca's situation, and how audaciously she had made use of Miss Crawley's name, to get an entree into Parisian society.Too much shaken in mind and body to compose a letter in the French language in reply to that of her correspondent, she dictated to Briggs a furious answer in her own native tongue, repudiating Mrs.Rawdon Crawley altogether, and warning the public to beware of her as a most artful and dangerous person.But as Madame the Duchess of X--had only been twenty years in England, she did not understand a single word of the language, and contented herself by informing Mrs.Rawdon Crawley at their next meeting, that she had received a charming letter from that chere Mees, and that it was full of benevolent things for Mrs.Crawley, who began seriously to have hopes that the spinster would relent.
Meanwhile, she was the gayest and most admired of Englishwomen: and had a little European congress on her reception-night.Prussians and Cossacks, Spanish and English--all the world was at Paris during this famous winter: to have seen the stars and cordons in Rebecca's humble saloon would have made all Baker Street pale with envy.Famous warriors rode by her carriage in the Bois, or crowded her modest little box at the Opera.
Rawdon was in the highest spirits.There were no duns in Paris as yet: there were parties every day at Very's or Beauvilliers'; play was plentiful and his luck good.
Tufto perhaps was sulky.Mrs.Tufto had come over to Paris at her own invitation, and besides this contretemps, there were a score of generals now round Becky's chair, and she might take her choice of a dozen bouquets when she went to the play.Lady Bareacres and the chiefs of the English society, stupid and irreproachable females, writhed with anguish at the success of the little upstart Becky, whose poisoned jokes quivered and rankled in their chaste breasts.But she had all the men on her side.She fought the women with indomitable courage, and they could not talk scandal in any tongue but their own.
So in fetes, pleasures, and prosperity, the winter of 1815-16 passed away with Mrs.Rawdon Crawley, who accommodated herself to polite life as if her ancestors had been people of fashion for centuries past--and who from her wit, talent, and energy, indeed merited a place of honour in Vanity Fair.In the early spring of 1816, Galignani's Journal contained the following announcement in an interesting corner of the paper: "On the 26th of March--the Lady of Lieutenant-Colonel Crawley, of the Life Guards Green--of a son and heir."This event was copied into the London papers, out of which Miss Briggs read the statement to Miss Crawley, at breakfast, at Brighton.The intelligence, expected as it might have been, caused a crisis in the affairs of the Crawley family.The spinster's rage rose to its height, and sending instantly for Pitt, her nephew, and for the Lady Southdown, from Brunswick Square, she requested an immediate celebration of the marriage which had been so long pending between the two families.And she announced that it was her intention to allow the young couple a thousand a year during her lifetime, at the expiration of which the bulk of her property would be settled upon her nephew and her dear niece, Lady Jane Crawley.Waxy came down to ratify the deeds--Lord Southdown gave away his sister--she was married by a Bishop, and not by the Rev.Bartholomew Irons--to the disappointment of the irregular prelate.
When they were married, Pitt would have liked to take a hymeneal tour with his bride, as became people of their condition.But the affection of the old lady towards Lady Jane had grown so strong, that she fairly owned she could not part with her favourite.Pitt and his wife came therefore and lived with Miss Crawley:
and (greatly to the annoyance of poor Pitt, who conceived himself a most injured character--being subject to the humours of his aunt on one side, and of his mother-in-law on the other) Lady Southdown, from her neighbouring house, reigned over the whole family--Pitt, Lady Jane, Miss Crawley, Briggs, Bowls, Firkin, and all.She pitilessly dosed them with her tracts and her medicine, she dismissed Creamer, she installed Rodgers, and soon stripped Miss Crawley of even the semblance of authority.The poor soul grew so timid that she actually left off bullying Briggs any more, and clung to her niece, more fond and terrified every day.Peace to thee, kind and selfish, vain and generous old heathen!--We shall see thee no more.Let us hope that Lady Jane supported her kindly, and led her with gentle hand out of the busy struggle of Vanity Fair.