erfect model of aristocratic outline, slim and
slender, supple and agreeable. He seemed as if he could be pliant or
rigid at will, and twist and bend, or rear his head like a snake.

The Duc de Navarreins was pacing up and down the room with the Duc de
Grandlieu. Both were men of fifty-six or thereabouts, and still hale;
both were short, corpulent, flourishing, somewhat florid-complexioned
men with jaded eyes, and lower lips that had begun to hang already. But
for an exquisite refinement of accent, an urbane courtesy, and an ease
of manner that could change in a moment to insolence, a superficial
observer might have taken them for a couple of bankers. Any such mistake
would have been impossible, however, if the listener could have heard
them converse, and seen them on their guard with men whom they feared,
vapid and commonplace with their equals, slippery with the inferiors
whom courtiers and statesmen know how to tame by a tactful word, or to
humiliate with an unexpected phrase.

Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that determined to
perish rather than submit to any change. It was a noblesse that deserved
praise and blame in equal measure; a noblesse that will never be judged
impartially until some poet shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles
obeyed the King though their heads fell under a Richelieu's axe, and how
deeply they scorned the guillotine of '89 as a foul revenge.

Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that agreed
peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among themselves, at any
rate, they were on terms of perfect equality. None of them betrayed
any sign of annoyance over the Duchess's escapade, but all of them had
learned at Court to hide their feelings.

And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the opening of
the forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind the reader that
Locke, once happening to be in the company of several great lords,
renowned no less for their wit than for their breeding and political
consistency, wickedly amused himself by taking down their conversation
by some shorthand process of his own; and afterwards, when he read
it over to them to see what they could make of it, they all burst out
laughing. And, in truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the
upper ranks in every country yields mighty little gold to the crucible
when washed in the ashes of literature or philosophy. In every rank of
society (some few Pari