r they had described how they had crossed the Beresina.
Nearly all Contradictors are "chevaliers" of the Legion of honor; they
talk loudly, have retreating foreheads, and play high.

"Madame Firmiani a hundred thousand francs a year? nonsense, you are
crazy! Some people will persist in giving millions with the liberality
of authors, to whom it doesn't cost a penny to dower their heroines.
Madame Firmiani is simply a coquette, who has lately ruined a young man,
and now prevents him from making a fine marriage. If she were not so
handsome she wouldn't have a penny."

Ah, _that one_--of course you recognize him--belongs to the species
Envious. There is no need to sketch him; the species is as well known
as that of the felis domestica. But how explain the perennial vigor of
envy?--a vice that brings nothing in!

Persons in society, literary men, honest folk,--in short, individuals of
all species,--were promulgating in the month of January, 1824, so many
different opinions about Madame Firmiani that it would be tedious to
write them down. We have merely sought to show that a man seeking to
understand her, yet unwilling or unable to go to her house, would (from
the answers to his inquiries) have had equal reason to suppose her a
widow or wife, silly or wise, virtuous or the reverse, rich or pour,
soulless or full of feeling, handsome or plain,--in short, there were
as many Madame Firmianis as there are species in society, or sects in
Catholicism. Frightful reflection! we are all like lithographic
blocks, from which an indefinite number of copies can be drawn by
criticism,--the proofs being more or less like us according to a
distribution of shading which is so nearly imperceptible that our
reputation depends (barring the calumnies of friends and the witticisms
of newspapers) on the balance struck by our criticisers between Truth
that limps and Falsehood to which Parisian wit gives wings.

Madame Firmiani, like other noble and dignified women who make their
hearts a sanctuary and disdain the world, was liable, therefore, to be
totally misjudged by Monsieur de Bourbonne, an old country magnate, who
had reason to think a great deal about her during the winter of this
year. He belonged to the class of provincial Planters, men living on
their estates, accustomed to keep close accounts of everything and to
bargain with the peasantry. Thus employed, a man becomes sagacious in
spite of himself, just as soldiers in the long run acq