Paris: The Novel

that after much consideration, he has decided to rejoin hisregiment and devote himself to his military duties. I think that means he has decided not to settle down and take a wife just yet. At all events, we shall not be seeing him for a while. His regiment has been posted to eastern France.”
    “I am sorry not to see him, Papa, but I am not hurt,” Marie replied. It was always agreeable, she supposed, to know that such an eligible man might be a suitor; so she could not help feeling that she had lost something. A little status, perhaps.
    “I must confess, I’d rather hoped he might have pursued you,” her father said frankly. “And until I knew whether he might, I didn’t look too hard for other candidates.”
    “We’ll both keep a lookout, Papa,” she said.
    “And he’ll be a lucky man,” he replied, and kissed her.

    “Marie,” her aunt told her the following week, “I have a very important errand. Your brother’s friend Hadley wants to meet Monet. Marc tells me he’s quite set his heart on it.”
    “But they say he never sees anyone nowadays,” Marie objected, “unless he already knows them.”
    It was years since the great painter had retreated to the quiet village of Giverny, some fifty miles out from Paris, on the edge of Normandy. For a time he’d known peace there. But gradually, young artists had started making pilgrimages to Giverny to see him. A regular artists’ colony had developed. Nowadays, in self-preservation, Monet had been forced to close his doors, in order to get any work done.
    “There is someone in Paris who may be able to give me a special dispensation,” her aunt said with a smile. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow.”

    The rue Laffitte was hardly a ten-minute walk from the family apartment: across the columned front of the Madeleine, past the Opéra, and then the rue Laffitte was on the left. It was a straight, narrow street. On its modest journey northward, it encountered other, larger thoroughfares with famous names: the boulevard Haussmann, the rue Rossini, the rue de Provence, rue La Fayette, rue de la Victoire. But humble though it was, the rue Laffitte contained some of the best art galleries in Paris.
    They had just crossed the Boulevard Haussmann when, ahead ofthem, they saw Marc and Hadley waiting. Moments later, they were in the gallery.
    Monsieur Paul Durand-Ruel was already in his sixties, though he looked ten years younger. He was a dapper man with a small mustache and kindly eyes, and as soon as he saw Aunt Éloïse, those eyes lit up with pleasure.
    “My dear Mademoiselle Blanchard. Welcome.”
    Aunt Éloïse quickly made the introductions.
    “My niece Marie has been here before, Marc I think you know, and this is Monsieur Hadley, our American friend who is studying art in Paris for a while.”
    There was no particular show at the gallery at that moment, but a selection of gallery artists hung on the walls. As they went around together, Durand-Ruel chatted amiably.
    “Your family still has the house near Barbizon?”
    “At Fontainebleau, yes.”
    “Back in my father’s day,” the dealer explained to Marie, “your aunt was buying members of the Barbizon school from us. She has two Corots, I think. And then, when I began to promote the Impressionists, as we call them now, your aunt was one of our first supporters.”
    “Tell them how that adventure began,” said Aunt Éloïse.
    “Our first exhibition of Impressionists was not in France at all,” Durand-Ruel explained. “During the German siege of Paris, in the war of 1870, I managed to get out and go to London. Monet, Sisley and others were painting there at that time. I made their acquaintance, and was so excited by their work that I organized a show in London, on New Bond Street. Then in the seventies, we started Impressionist shows here in Paris. And people laughed at us. They said we were mad. But your aunt saw the light. She was one of the few. She bought Manets, Monets, Renoirs, Pissarros, Berthe Morisot, the American Mary Cassatt …”
    “It was you, monsieur, who single-handedly brought the Impressionists to New York,” Hadley interposed.
    “You are very kind,” said Durand-Ruel. “And may I congratulate you on your excellent French. It is true that we opened a New York gallery, and also that the American collectors were wonderfully receptive to the Impressionists, far more so than the French at that time, I must say.” He turned to Aunt Éloïse. “But you must have a