Their names I knew afterwards, and may as well mention now; they were Eulalie, Hortense, Caroline.
Hortense regarded me boldly, and giggled at the same time, while she said, with an air of impudent freedom--
They crimped and curled her hair, they polished her neck and arms with some fragrant powder, touched her lips with coralline salve to make them redder, and Hortense would have added `a soupcon of rouge', if Meg had not rebelled.
"Mademoiselle is chatmante, tres jolie, is she not?" cried Hortense, clasping her hands in an affected rapture.
She, Hortense, been in my Lady's service since five years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, caressed--absolutely caressed--by my Lady on the moment of her arriving at the house!
In short, it is such an admirable thing that Mademoiselle Hortense can't forget it; but at meals for days afterwards, even among her countrywomen and others attached in like capacity to the troop of visitors, relapses into silent enjoyment of the joke--an enjoyment expressed, in her own convivial manner, by an additional tightness of face, thin elongation of compressed lips, and sidewise look, which intense appreciation of humour is frequently reflected in my Lady's mirrors when my Lady is not among them.
"Be so good as to attend," says my Lady then, addressing the reflection of Hortense, "to your business.
I myself will tie your tie for you, and introduce you to
Hortense. And when we have spent your money you shall return here, and break the bank again.
Hortense Laborie (Catherine Frot), a renowned chef from Perigord, is astonished when the President of the Republic (Jean d'Ormesson) appoints her his personal cook, responsible for creating all his meals at the Elysee Palace.
Hortense yearns for a new life away from rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots.
Synopsis: Since the deaths of their parents,
Hortense and her sisters have been on their own.