But it was the women who manifested the most passionate
enthusiasm. There were some terribly strange underplots,
some complicated intrigues among them, whose full scope
was never known. Madame Correur began to call pretty
Madame Bouchard ' her little pet,' and took her, she said, on
a visit to the country ; so that for a week M. Bouchard was
left to lead a bachelor's life, ajid M.d'EscoraiUes had to spend
his evenings at the minor theatres. Du Poizat, however, met
the two ladies one day in the company of some gentlemen
who wore decorations, but he said nothing about having done
so. Madame Correur now rented two fiats : one in the Bue
Blanche, and the other in the Bue Mazarine. The latter was
very elegantly furnished, and Madame Bouchard would go
there of an afternoon, taking the key from the doorkeeper of
the house. It was said that the young woman had made an
effectual conquest of a very high functionary.
Then, too, the minor members of the band bestirred them-
selves, doing all they could. Colonel Jobelin betook himself
regularly to a cafe on the boulevards to catch his old
army friends, whom he catechised between their games of
piquet ; and when he had enlisted the sympathies of half a
dozen, he rubbed his hands gleefully in the evening and
declared that the whole army had joined the good cause.
