n dress, in the distinction of his manners, the elegance of his witty
speech, the grace of his easy carriage,--in short, what was called in
those days "the grand air." In his capacity of page to the Emperor,
trained from the age of twelve in the art of riding, he was held to be
the skilfulest of horsemen. Having always fine horses in his stable, he
raised some, and ruled the fashion in equestrianism. No man could
stand a supper of young bloods better than he; he drank more than the
best-trained toper, but he came out fresh and cool, and ready to begin
again as if orgy were his element. Maxime, one of those despised men who
know how to repress the contempt they inspire by the insolence of their
attitude and the fear they cause, never deceived himself as to his
actual position. Hence his real strength. Strong men are always their
own critics.

Under the Restoration he had made the most of his former condition of
page to the Emperor. He attributed to his pretended Bonapartist opinions
the rebuffs he met with from the different ministers when he asked for
an office under the Bourbons; for, in spite of his connections, his
birth, and his dangerous aptitudes, he never obtained anything. After
the failure of these attempts he entered the secret cabal which led in
time to the fall of the Elder branch.

When the Younger branch, preceded by the Parisian populace, had trodden
down the Elder branch and was seated on the throne, Maxime reproduced
his attachment to Napoleon, for whom he cared as much as for his first
love. He then did great services to the newcomers, who soon found the
payment for them onerous; for Maxime too often demanded payment of men
who knew how to reckon those services. At the first refusal, Maxime
assumed at once an attitude of hostility, threatening to reveal
unpleasant details; for budding dynasties, like infants, have much
soiled linen. De Marsay, during his ministry, repaired the mistake of
his predecessors, who had ignored the utility of this man. He gave him
those secret missions which require a conscience made malleable by the
hammer of necessity, an adroitness which recoils before no methods,
impudence, and, above all, the self-possession, the coolness, the
embracing glance which constitute the hired _bravi_ of thought and
statesmanship. Such instruments are both rare and necessary.

As a matter of calculation, de Marsay maintained Comte Maxime de
Trailles in the highest society; he described him as