rance, a man of the world with a liking for cards, had not dared to
indulge this taste in so liberal a district as Sancerre; he, therefore,
was delighted at Madame de la Baudraye's coming, and they got on
together to admiration. The _sous-prefet_, one Vicomte de Chargeboeuf,
was delighted to find in Madame de la Baudraye's drawing-room a sort
of oasis where there was a truce to provincial life. As to Monsieur de
Clagny, the Public Prosecutor, his admiration for the fair Dinah kept
him bound to Sancerre. The enthusiastic lawyer refused all promotion,
and became a quite pious adorer of this angel of grace and beauty. He
was a tall, lean man, with a minatory countenance set off by terrible
eyes in deep black circles, under enormous eyebrows; and his eloquence,
very unlike his love-making, could be incisive.

Monsieur Gravier was a little, round man, who in the days of the Empire
had been a charming ballad-singer; it was this accomplishment that had
won him the high position of Paymaster-General of the forces. Having
mixed himself up in certain important matters in Spain with generals at
that time in opposition, he had made the most of these connections to
the Minister, who, in consideration of the place he had lost, promised
him the Receivership at Sancerre, and then allowed him to pay for the
appointment. The frivolous spirit and light tone of the Empire had
become ponderous in Monsieur Gravier; he did not, or would not,
understand the wide difference between manners under the Restoration
and under the Empire. Still, he conceived of himself as far superior
to Monsieur de Clagny; his style was in better taste; he followed the
fashion, was to be seen in a buff waistcoat, gray trousers, and neat,
tightly-fitting coats; he wore a fashionable silk tie slipped through
a diamond ring, while the lawyer never dressed in anything but
black--coat, trousers, and waistcoat alike, and those often shabby.

These four men were the first to go into ecstasies over Dinah's
cultivation, good taste, and refinement, and pronounced her a woman of
most superior mind. Then the women said to each other, "Madame de la
Baudraye must laugh at us behind our back."

This view, which was more or less correct, kept them from visiting at La
Baudraye. Dinah, attainted and convicted of pedantry, because she
spoke grammatically, was nicknamed the Sappho of Saint-Satur. At last
everybody made insolent game of the great qualities of the woman who
had thus ro