ustice to the lady, it must be said that she
appeared in low-necked gowns of an evening (so high an opinion of her
ruins had she), wore long gloves, and raddled her cheeks with Martin's
classic rouge. An appalling amiability in her wrinkles, a prodigious
brightness in the old lady's eyes, a profound dignity in her whole
person, together with the triple barbed wit of her tongue, and an
infallible memory in her head, made of her a real power in the land. The
whole Cabinet des Chartes was entered in duplicate on the parchment
of her brain. She knew all the genealogies of every noble house in
Europe--princes, dukes, and counts--and could put her hand on the last
descendants of Charlemagne in the direct line. No usurpation of title
could escape the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry.

Young men who wished to stand well at Court, ambitious men, and young
married women paid her assiduous homage. Her salon set the tone of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain. The words of this Talleyrand in petticoats
were taken as final decrees. People came to consult her on questions of
etiquette or usages, or to take lessons in good taste. And, in truth,
no other old woman could put back her snuff-box in her pocket as the
Princess could; while there was a precision and a grace about the
movements of her skirts, when she sat down or crossed her feet, which
drove the finest ladies of the young generation to despair. Her voice
had remained in her head during one-third of her lifetime; but she could
not prevent a descent into the membranes of the nose, which lent to it a
peculiar expressiveness. She still retained a hundred and fifty thousand
livres of her great fortune, for Napoleon had generously returned her
woods to her; so that personally and in the matter of possessions she
was a woman of no little consequence.

This curious antique, seated in a low chair by the fireside, was
chatting with the Vidame de Pamiers, a contemporary ruin. The Vidame was
a big, tall, and spare man, a seigneur of the old school, and had been
a Commander of the Order of Malta. His neck had always been so tightly
compressed by a strangulation stock, that his cheeks pouched over it a
little, and he held his head high; to many people this would have given
an air of self-sufficiency, but in the Vidame it was justified by a
Voltairean wit. His wide prominent eyes seemed to see everything, and as
a matter of fact there was not much that they had not seen. Altogether,
his person was a p