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At half-past seven that evening, in the handsomest room of the
restaurant where all Europe has dined, a splendid silver service was
spread, made on purpose for entertainments where vanity pays the bill
in bank-notes. A flood of light fell in ripples on the chased rims;
waiters, whom a provincial might have taken for diplomatists but for
their age, stood solemnly, as knowing themselves to be overpaid.
Five guests had arrived, and were waiting for nine more. These were
first and foremost Bixiou, still flourishing in 1843, the salt of
every intellectual dish, always supplied with fresh wit--a phenomenon
as rare in Paris as virtue is; Leon de Lora, the greatest living
painter of landscape and the sea who has this great advantage over all
his rivals, that he has never fallen below his first successes. The
courtesans could never dispense with these two kings of ready wit. No
supper, no dinner, was possible without them.
Seraphine Sinet, _dite_ Carabine, as the mistress _en titre_ of the
Amphitryon, was one of the first to arrive; and the brilliant lighting
showed off her shoulders, unrivaled in Paris, her throat, as round as
if turned in a lathe, without a crease, her saucy face, and dress of
satin brocade in two shades of blue, trimmed with Honiton lace enough
to have fed a whole village for a month.
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