he
customs of foreigners without losing too much of our own character,--as
did Alcibiades, that model of a gentleman. True grace is elastic; it
lends itself to circumstances; it is in harmony with all social centres;
it wears a robe of simple material in the streets, noticeable only by
its cut, in preference to the feathers and flounces of middle-class
vulgarity. Now Canalis, instigated by a woman who loved herself much
more than she loved him, wished to lay down the law and be, everywhere,
such as he himself might see fit to be. He believed he carried his own
public with him wherever he went,--an error shared by several of the
great men of Paris.

While the poet made a studied and effective entrance into the salon of
the Chalet, La Briere slipped in behind him like a person of no account.

"Ha! do I see my soldier?" said Canalis, perceiving Dumay, after
addressing a compliment to Madame Mignon, and bowing to the other women.
"Your anxieties are relieved, are they not?" he said, offering his hand
effusively; "I comprehend them to their fullest extent after seeing
mademoiselle. I spoke to you of terrestrial creatures, not of angels."

All present seemed by their attitudes to ask the meaning of this speech.

"I shall always consider it a triumph," resumed the poet, observing that
everybody wished for an explanation, "to have stirred to mention on
of those men of iron whom Napoleon had the eye to find and make the
supporting piles on which he tried to build an empire, too colossal
to be lasting: for such structures time alone is the cement. But this
triumph--why should I be proud of it?--I count for nothing. It was the
triumph of ideas over facts. Your battles, my dear Monsieur Dumay, your
heroic charges, Monsieur le comte, nay, war itself was the form in which
Napoleon's idea clothed itself. Of all of these things, what remains?
The sod that covers them knows nothing; harvests come and go without
revealing their resting-place; were it not for the historian, the
writer, futurity would have no knowledge of those heroic days. Therefore
your fifteen years of war are now ideas and nothing more; that which
preserves the Empire forever is the poem that the poets make of them. A
nation that can win such battles must know how to sing them."

Canalis paused, to gather by a glance that ran round the circle the
tribute of amazement which he expected of provincials.

"You must be aware, monsieur, of the regret I feel at not seein