esnel makes very free. This is what comes
of these accursed troubles. M. Chesnel protects my son. And now I must
ask him.... No, sister, you must undertake this business. Chesnel shall
secure himself for the whole amount by a mortgage on our lands. And
just give this harebrained boy a good scolding; he will end by ruining
himself if he goes on like this."

The Chevalier and Mlle. d'Esgrignon thought these words perfectly simple
and natural, absurd as they would have sounded to any other listener. So
far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they were both very
much touched by a look of something like anguish in the old noble's
face. Some dark premonition seemed to weigh upon M. d'Esgrignon at that
moment, some glimmering of an insight into the changed times. He went to
the settee by the fireside and sat down, forgetting that Chesnel would
be there before long; that Chesnel, of whom he could not bring himself
to ask anything.

Just then the Marquis d'Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination
with a touch of romance could wish. He was almost bald, but a fringe of
silken, white locks, curled at the tips, covered the back of his head.
All the pride of race might be seen in a noble forehead, such as you may
admire in a Louis XV., a Beaumarchais, a Marechal de Richelieu, it was
not the square, broad brow of the portraits of the Marechal de Saxe; nor
yet the small hard circle of Voltaire, compact to overfulness; it was
graciously rounded and finely moulded, the temples were ivory tinted
and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched by age, flashed from the
brilliant eyes. The Marquis had the Conde nose and the lovable Bourbon
mouth, from which, as they used to say of the Comte d'Artois, only witty
and urbane words proceed. His cheeks, sloping rather than foolishly
rounded to the chin, were in keeping with his spare frame, thin legs,
and plump hands. The strangulation cravat at his throat was of the kind
which every marquis wears in all the portraits which adorn eighteenth
century literature; it is common alike to Saint-Preux and to Lovelace,
to the elegant Montesquieu's heroes and to Diderot's homespun characters
(see the first editions of those writers' works).

The Marquis always wore a white, gold-embroidered, high waistcoat, with
the red ribbon of a commander of the Order of St. Louis blazing upon his
breast; and a blue coat with wide skirts, and fleur-de-lys on the flaps,
which were turned back--an odd costume