hing in his
appearance would have suggested the unique position in Paris which is
his. Nothing of majesty in his deportment, a waistcoat buttoned up to
the collar, a mean-looking and insolent manner, and a way of speaking
without moving the lips which is very impolite to those who are
listening to you.

He greeted the assembly with a slight nod of the head, extended a finger
to M. Noel, and we were sitting there looking at each other, frozen by
his grand manners, when a door opened at the farther end of the room and
we beheld the supper laid out with all kinds of cold meats, pyramids
of fruit, and bottles of all shapes beneath the light falling from two
candelabra.

"Come, gentlemen, give the ladies your hands." In a minute we were at
table, the ladies seated next the eldest or the most important among
us all, the rest on their feet, serving, chattering, drinking from
everybody's glass, picking a morsel from any plate. I had M. Francis
for my neighbour and I had to listen to his grudges against M. Louis, of
whose place he was envious, so brilliant was it in comparison with that
which he occupied under the noble but worn-out old gambler who was his
master.

"He is a _parvenu_," he muttered to me in a low voice. "He owes his
fortune to his wife, to Mme. Paul."

It appears that this Mme. Paul is a housekeeper, who has been in the
duke's establishment for twenty years, and who excels beyond all others
in the preparation for him of a certain ointment for an affection to
which he is subject. She is indispensable to Mora. Recognising this, M.
Louis made love to the old lady, married her though much younger than
she, and in order not to lose his sick-nurse and her ointments, his
excellency engaged the husband as _valet de chambre_. At bottom, in
spite of what I said to M. Francis, for my own part I thought the
proceeding quite praiseworthy and conformable to the loftiest morality,
since the mayor and the priest had a finger in it. Moreover, that
excellent meal, composed of delicate and very expensive foods with
which I was unacquainted even by name, had strongly disposed my mind to
indulgence and good-humour. But every one was not similarly inclined,
for from the other side of the table I could hear the bass voice of M.
Barreau, complaining:

"Why can he not mind his own business? Do I go pushing my nose into
his department? To begin with, the thing concerns Bompain, not him. And
then, after all, what is it that I am cha