Among the first in the orchestra stalls were Beauchamp and Debray, whose attention was divided between the stage and the arrivals of splendidly attired elégantes in the different loges, during the overture. All the élite of Paris seemed on the qui vive.
"It will be a splendid house," observed Debray.
"The débutante, be she whom she may, should feel flattered by such an unexampled assemblage of all the ton of Paris."
Orchestra, balcony, galleries, amphitheatres, lobbies and parterre were packed; every portion of the vast edifice, in short, was thronged except a few of the loges and baignoires, into which every moment brilliant companies were entering.
"Who is that tall, dark military man, with the heavy moustache, now making his way into the Minister's box?" asked Beauchamp, after a pause.
"That man is no less a personage than the Governor of Algeria, Eugène Cavaignac, Marshal of Camp," said Debray. "He reported himself at the War Office this morning, and is the lion of the house."
"Ah!" cried the journalist; "and that is the hero of Constantine! What a frank, open countenance, and what a distingué bearing and manner!"
"You would not suppose all that man's life passed in a camp, would you?"
"His career has, I understand, been remarkable," said Beauchamp.
"Very. His father was a Conventionist of '92, a famous old fellow, who, among other terrible things laid at his door, is said to have pawned an old man's life, old Labodère, for his daughter's honor; somewhat, you remember, as Francis I. spared St. Valliar's life for the favor of the lovely Diana of Poitiers, his only child. His aged mother is yet living, a woman of strong mind, though seventy, and he does nothing without her advice. His brother Godefroi's name was notorious as that of a powerful Republican leader for years before his decease. At eighteen Eugène entered the Polytechnic School. At twenty-two he was a sub-lieutenant in the engineer corps of the second regiment. In '28 he was first lieutenant in France; in '29 he was captain; in '34 he was in Algeria; and, in '39, his cool, bold, decided but discreet conduct had made him chef de bataillon, despite the fact that he had incurred the Royal displeasure some years before by a disloyal toast at a banquet. In '40 he was lieutenant-colonel; in '41 marshal of camp, and first commander of division of Tlemeen; in '43, he was conqueror of Constantine, at the first siege of which I so nearly lost my own valuable head, and he is now Governor of Algeria, after service there of fourteen years."