f flowers and
fleurs-de-lys made on the galleys of Louis XIV. and ordered of his
convicts by M. de Vivonne for his mistress. M. Gillenormand had
inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt, who had died a
centenarian. He had had two wives. His manners were something between
those of the courtier, which he had never been, and the lawyer, which
he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he had a mind. In
his youth he had been one of those men who are always deceived by their
wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same
time, the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of lovers in
existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his chamber a
marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens, executed
with great dashes of the brush, with millions of details, in a confused
and hap-hazard manner. M. Gillenormand's attire was not the habit of
Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI.; it was that of the Incroyables
of the Directory. He had thought himself young up to that period and
had followed the fashions. His coat was of light-weight cloth with
voluminous revers, a long swallow-tail and large steel buttons. With
this he wore knee-breeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands
into his fobs. He said authoritatively: "The French Revolution is a heap
of blackguards."

CHAPTER III--LUC-ESPRIT

At the age of sixteen, one evening at the opera, he had had the honor
to be stared at through opera-glasses by two beauties at the same
time--ripe and celebrated beauties then, and sung by Voltaire, the
Camargo and the Salle. Caught between two fires, he had beaten a heroic
retreat towards a little dancer, a young girl named Nahenry, who was
sixteen like himself, obscure as a cat, and with whom he was in love.
He abounded in memories. He was accustomed to exclaim: "How pretty she
was--that Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette, the last time I saw her
at Longchamps, her hair curled in sustained sentiments, with her
come-and-see of turquoises, her gown of the color of persons newly
arrived, and her little agitation muff!" He had worn in his young
manhood a waistcoat of Nain-Londrin, which he was fond of talking about
effusively. "I was dressed like a Turk of the Levant Levantin," said he.
Madame de Boufflers, having seen him by chance when he was twenty, had
described him as "a charming fool." He was horrified by all the names
which he saw in politics and in power, regarding t