oyal. I am he
whom you may see any afternoon sitting by himself and musing in
D'Argenson's seat. I keep up talk with myself about politics, love,
taste, or philosophy; I leave my mind to play the libertine
unchecked; and it is welcome to run after the first idea that
offers, sage or gay, just as you see our young beaux in the Foy
passage following the steps of some gay nymph, with her saucy mien,
face all smiles, eyes all fire, and nose a trifle turned up; then
quitting her for another, attacking them all, but attaching
themselves to none. My thoughts,--these are the wantons for me. If
the weather be too cold or too wet, I take shelter in the Regency
coffee-house. There I amuse myself by looking on while they play
chess. Nowhere in the world do they play chess so skilfully as in
Paris, and nowhere in Paris as they do at this coffee-house; 'tis
here you see Legal the profound, Philidor the subtle, Mayot the
solid; here you see the most astounding moves, and listen to the
sorriest talk, for if a man may be at once a wit and a great
chess-player, like Legal, you may also be a great chess-player and
a sad simpleton, like Joubert and Mayot.

One day I was there after dinner, watching intently, saying little,
and hearing the very least possible, when there approached me one
of the most eccentric figures in the country, where God has not
made them lacking. He is a mixture of elevation and lowness, of
good sense and madness; the notions of good and bad must be mixed
up together in strange confusion in his head, for he shows the good
qualities that nature has bestowed on him without any ostentation,
and the bad ones without the smallest shame. For the rest, he is
endowed with a vigorous frame, a particular warmth of imagination,
and an astonishing strength of lungs. If you ever meet him, and if
you are not arrested by his originality, you will either stuff your
fingers into your ears, or else take to your heels. Heavens, what a
monstrous pipe! Nothing is so little like him as himself. One time
he is lean and wan, like a patient in the last stage of
consumption; you could count his teeth through his cheeks; you
would say he must have passed several days without tasting a
morsel, or that he is fresh from La Trappe. A month after, he is
stout and sleek, a