e face were blackened and
puckered; the skin became parchment. The nails, neglected, were often
seen, alas! with a black velvet edging. The waistcoat was tracked and
stained with droppings which spread upon its surface like autumn leaves.
The cotton in the ears was seldom changed. Sadness reigned upon that
brow, and slipped its yellowing tints into the depths of each furrow.
In short, the ruins, hitherto so cleverly hidden, now showed through the
cracks and crevices of that fine edifice, and proved the power of the
soul over the body; for the fair and dainty man, the cavalier, the young
blood, died when hope deserted him. Until then the nose of the chevalier
was ever delicate and nice; never had a damp black blotch, nor an amber
drop fall from it; but now that nose, smeared with tobacco around the
nostrils, degraded by the driblets which took advantage of the natural
gutter placed between itself and the upper lip,--that nose, which no
longer cared to seem agreeable, revealed the infinite pains which
the chevalier had formerly taken with his person, and made observers
comprehend, by the extent of its degradation, the greatness and
persistence of the man's designs upon Mademoiselle Cormon.

Alas, too, the anecdotes went the way of the teeth; the clever sayings
grew rare. The appetite, however, remained; the old nobleman saved
nothing but his stomach from the wreck of his hopes; though he languidly
prepared his pinches of snuff, he ate alarming dinners. Perhaps you will
more fully understand the disaster that this marriage was to the mind
and heart of the chevalier when you learn that his intercourse with the
Princess Goritza became less frequent.

One day he appeared in Mademoiselle Armande's salon with the calf of
his leg on the shin-bone. This bankruptcy of the graces was, I do assure
you, terrible, and struck all Alencon with horror. The late young man
had become an old one; this human being, who, by the breaking-down
of his spirit, had passed at once from fifty to ninety years of age,
frightened society. Besides, his secret was betrayed; he had waited and
watched for Mademoiselle Cormon; he had, like a patient hunter, adjusted
his aim for ten whole years, and finally had missed the game! In short,
the impotent Republic had won the day from Valiant Chivalry, and that,
too, under the Restoration! Form triumphed; mind was vanquished by
matter, diplomacy by insurrection. And, O final blow! a mortified
grisette revealed t