names in the _Comedie Humaine_.
Young La Palferine, in spite of his title of Count and his great
descent, which, alas! means a great descent in fortune likewise, had
honored the notary's little establishment with his presence.

At dinner, in such a house, one does not expect to meet the patriarchal
beef, the skinny fowl and salad of domestic and family life, nor is
there any attempt at the hypocritical conversation of drawing-rooms
furnished with highly respectable matrons. When, alas! will
respectability be charming? When will the women in good society
vouchsafe to show rather less of their shoulders and rather more wit or
geniality? Marguerite Turquet, the Aspasia of the Cirque-Olympique, is
one of those frank, very living personalities to whom all is forgiven,
such unconscious sinners are they, such intelligent penitents; of such
as Malaga one might ask, like Cardot--a witty man enough, albeit a
notary--to be well "deceived." And yet you must not think that any
enormities were committed. Desroches and Cardot were good fellows grown
too gray in the profession not to feel at ease with Bixiou, Lousteau,
Nathan, and young La Palferine. And they on their side had too often had
recourse to their legal advisers, and knew them too well to try to "draw
them out," in lorette language.

Conversation, perfumed with seven cigars, at first was as fantastic as
a kid let loose, but finally it settled down upon the strategy of the
constant war waged in Paris between creditors and debtors.

Now, if you will be so good as to recall the history and antecedents of
the guests, you will know that in all Paris, you could scarcely find a
group of men with more experience in this matter; the professional
men on one hand, and the artists on the other, were something in the
position of magistrates and criminals hobnobbing together. A set of
Bixiou's drawings to illustrate life in the debtors' prison, led the
conversation to take this particular turn; and from debtors' prisons
they went to debts.

It was midnight. They had broken up into little knots round the table
and before the fire, and gave themselves up to the burlesque fun which
is only possible or comprehensible in Paris and in that particular
region which is bounded by the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Chaussee
d'Antin, the upper end of the Rue de Navarin and the line of the
boulevards.

In ten minutes' time they had come to an end of all the deep
reflections, all the moralizings,