Le Gardeur and Cadet did not rise like the rest, but kept their
seats. Cadet swore that De Pean had spoiled a jolly evening by
inviting the women to the Palace.
These women had been invited by De Pean to give zest to the wild
orgie that was intended to prepare Le Gardeur for their plot of to-
morrow, which was to compass the fall of the Bourgeois. They sat
down with the gentlemen, listening with peals of laughter to their
coarse jests, and tempting them to wilder follies. They drank, they
sang, they danced and conducted, or misconducted, themselves in such
a thoroughly shameless fashion that Bigot, Varin, and other experts
of the Court swore that the petits appartements of Versailles, or
even the royal fetes of the Parc aux cerfs, could not surpass the
high life and jollity of the Palace of the Intendant.
In that wild fashion Bigot had passed the night previous to his
present visit to Angelique. The Chevalier de Pean rode the length
of the Grande Allee and returned. The valet and horse of the
Intendant were still waiting at the door, and De Pean saw Bigot
and Angelique still seated at the window engaged in a lively
conversation, and not apparently noticing his presence in the street
as he sat pulling hairs out of the mane of his horse, "with the air
of a man in love," as Angelique laughingly remarked to Bigot.
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