onized well with a self-important manner, a Roman nose, and
the splendors of a crimson complexion. Monsieur Matifat, superb at a
review of the National Guard, where his protuberant paunch could be
distinguished at fifty paces, and upon which glittered a gold chain
and a bunch of trinkets, was under the yoke of this Catherine II. of
commerce. Short and fat, harnessed with spectacles and a shirt-collar
worn above his ears, he was chiefly distinguished for his bass voice
and the richness of his vocabulary. He never said Corneille, but "the
sublime Corneille"; Racine was "the gentle Racine"; Voltaire, "Oh!
Voltaire, second in everything, with more wit than genius, but
nevertheless a man of genius"; Rousseau, "a gloomy mind, a man full of
pride, who hanged himself." He related in his prosy way vulgar anecdotes
of Piron, a poet who passes for a prodigy among the bourgeoisie.
Matifat, a passionate lover of the stage, had a slight leaning to
obscenity. It was even said that, in imitation of Cadot and the rich
Camusot, he kept a mistress. Sometimes Madame Matifat, seeing him about
to relate some questionable anecdote, would hasten to interrupt him by
screaming out: "Take care what you are saying, old man!" She called
him habitually her "old man." This voluminous queen of drugs caused
Mademoiselle de Fontaine to lose her aristocratic countenance, for the
impertinent girl could not help laughing as she overheard her saying
to her husband: "Don't fling yourself upon the ices, old man, it is bad
style."

It is more difficult to explain the nature of the difference between
the great world and the bourgeoisie than it is for the bourgeoisie to
obliterate it. These women, embarrassed by their fine clothes and very
conscious of them, displayed a naive pleasure which proved that a
ball was a rarity in their busy lives; while the three women, who each
represented a sphere in the great world, were then exactly what they
would be on the morrow. They had no appearance of having dressed
purposely for the ball, they paid no heed to the splendor of their
jewels, nor to the effect which they themselves produced; all had been
arranged when they stood before their mirrors and put the last touches
on their toilets. Their faces showed no excitement or excessive
interest, and they danced with the grace and ease which unknown genius
has given to certain statues of antiquity.

The others, on the contrary, stamped with the mark of toil, retained
their