success, and one may even follow the example
of the comte de Falloux, the eloquent Academician, in emblazoning with
one's arms a pen of fat pigs at a competitive show, without in the
least derogating from one's dignity. One may also sell the wine from
one's vineyards and the iron from one's furnaces--for the iron industry
is in France looked upon as a sort of heritage of the nobility--but to
get money by any other means than those I have indicated would be
considered in the worst possible taste. On the other hand, it is
permitted to any member of the club to lose as much money as he pleases
without loss of the respect of his fellows, and the surest way to
arrive at this result is to undertake the breeding and running of
horses.

As to the external appearance and bearing of the perfect clubman, it is
very much that of Disraeli's hero, "who could hardly be called a dandy
or a beau. There was nothing in his dress, though some mysterious
arrangement in his costume--some rare simplicity, some curious
happiness--always made him distinguished: there was nothing, however,
in his dress, which could account for the influence that he exercised
over the manners of his contemporaries;" and it is probably a fact that
a member of the club is never noticed by passers on the street on
account of anything in his dress or appearance. In short, the club
seems to have adopted for its motto _Sancta simplicitas_, and the
descendants of the old nobility of France, excluded as they practically
are to-day from all public employment save that of the army, seem
determined to live amongst themselves, in tranquillity and retirement,
in such a way as to attract the least possible notice from the press or
from the crowd. Their portraits never find their way into the
illustrated papers, and no penny-a-liner ventures to make them the
subject of a biographical sketch: indeed, any one rash enough to seek
to tread upon this forbidden ground would find himself met at the
threshold by a dignified but very decided refusal of all information
and material necessary to his undertaking.

As an illustration of the care taken by the ruling spirits of the club
to preserve the attitude which they have assumed toward the public, it
may be worth mentioning that Isabelle, who for a long time enjoyed the
distinction of serving the club as its accredited flower-girl, and who
in that capacity used to hold herself in readiness every evening in her
velvet tub at the foot o