over-refinements; she queened it with her foibles, after the usual
fashion of those who allow their courtiers to adore them.

This was Mme. de Bargeton's past life, a dreary chronicle which must
be given if Lucien's position with regard to the lady is to be
comprehensible. Lucien's introduction came about oddly enough. In
the previous winter a newcomer had brought some interest into Mme.
de Bargeton's monotonous life. The place of controller of excise fell
vacant, and M. de Barante appointed a man whose adventurous life was a
sufficient passport to the house of the sovereign lady who had her share
of feminine curiosity.

M. de Chatelet--he began life as plain Sixte Chatelet, but since
1806 had the wit to adopt the particle--M. du Chatelet was one of the
agreeable young men who escaped conscription after conscription by
keeping very close to the Imperial sun. He had begun his career as
private secretary to an Imperial Highness, a post for which he
possessed every qualification. Personable and of a good figure, a clever
billiard-player, a passable amateur actor, he danced well, and excelled
in most physical exercises; he could, moreover, sing a ballad and
applaud a witticism. Supple, envious, never at a loss, there was nothing
that he did not know--nothing that he really knew. He knew nothing, for
instance, of music, but he could sit down to the piano and accompany,
after a fashion, a woman who consented after much pressing to sing a
ballad learned by heart in a month of hard practice. Incapable though he
was of any feeling for poetry, he would boldly ask permission to retire
for ten minutes to compose an impromptu, and return with a quatrain,
flat as a pancake, wherein rhyme did duty for reason. M. du Chatelet had
besides a very pretty talent for filling in the ground of the Princess'
worsted work after the flowers had been begun; he held her skeins of
silk with infinite grace, entertained her with dubious nothings more
or less transparently veiled. He was ignorant of painting, but he could
copy a landscape, sketch a head in profile, or design a costume and
color it. He had, in short, all the little talents that a man could turn
to such useful account in times when women exercised more influence in
public life than most people imagine. Diplomacy he claimed to be his
strong point; it usually is with those who have no knowledge, and are
profound by reason of their emptiness; and, indeed, this kind of skill
possesses one