the work of Nature--Pons was a slave to that one
of the Seven Deadly Sins with which God surely will deal least hardly;
Pons was a glutton. A narrow income, combined with a passion for
bric-a-brac, condemned him to a regimen so abhorrent to a discriminating
palate, that, bachelor as he was, he had cut the knot of the problem by
dining out every day.

Now, in the time of the Empire, celebrities were more sought after than
at present, perhaps because there were so few of them, perhaps because
they made little or no political pretension. In those days, besides,
you could set up for a poet, a musician, or a painter, with so little
expense. Pons, being regarded as the probable rival of Nicolo, Paer, and
Berton, used to receive so many invitations, that he was forced to keep
a list of engagements, much as barristers note down the cases for which
they are retained. And Pons behaved like an artist. He presented his
amphitryons with copies of his songs, he "obliged" at the pianoforte,
he brought them orders for boxes at the Feydeau, his own theatre, he
organized concerts, he was not above taking the fiddle himself sometimes
in a relation's house, and getting up a little impromptu dance. In those
days, all the handsome men in France were away at the wars exchanging
sabre-cuts with the handsome men of the Coalition. Pons was said to
be, not ugly, but "peculiar-looking," after the grand rule laid down by
Moliere in Eliante's famous couplets; but if he sometimes heard himself
described as a "charming man" (after he had done some fair lady a
service), his good fortune went no further than words.

It was between the years 1810 and 1816 that Pons contracted the unlucky
habit of dining out; he grew accustomed to see his hosts taking pains
over the dinner, procuring the first and best of everything, bringing
out their choicest vintages, seeing carefully to the dessert, the
coffee, the liqueurs, giving him of their best, in short; the best,
moreover, of those times of the Empire when Paris was glutted with
kings and queens and princes, and many a private house emulated royal
splendours.

People used to play at Royalty then as they play nowadays at parliament,
creating a whole host of societies with presidents, vice-presidents,
secretaries and what not--agricultural societies, industrial societies,
societies for the promotion of sericulture, viticulture, the growth of
flax, and so forth. Some have even gone so far as to look about them f