nment contractors.

Out of all his past opulence du Bousquier saved only twelve hundred
francs a year from an investment in the Grand Livre, which he had
happened to place there by pure caprice, and which saved him from
penury. A man ruined by the First Consul interested the town of
Alencon, to which he now returned, where royalism was secretly
dominant. Du Bousquier, furious against Bonaparte, relating stories
against him of his meanness, of Josephine's improprieties, and all the
other scandalous anecdotes of the last ten years, was well received.

About this time, when he was somewhere between forty and fifty, du
Bousquier's appearance was that of a bachelor of thirty-six, of medium
height, plump as a purveyor, proud of his vigorous calves, with a
strongly marked countenance, a flattened nose, the nostrils garnished
with hair, black eyes with thick lashes, from which darted shrewd
glances like those of Monsieur de Talleyrand, though somewhat dulled.
He still wore republican whiskers and his hair very long; his hands,
adorned with bunches of hair on each knuckle, showed the power of his
muscular system in their prominent blue veins. He had the chest of the
Farnese Hercules, and shoulders fit to carry the stocks. Such
shoulders are seen nowadays only at Tortoni's. This wealth of
masculine vigor counted for much in du Bousquier's relations with
others. And yet in him, as in the chevalier, symptoms appeared which
contrasted oddly with the general aspect of their persons. The late
purveyor had not the voice of his muscles. We do not mean that his
voice was a mere thread, such as we sometimes hear issuing from the
mouth of these walruses; on the contrary, it was a strong voice, but
stifled, an idea of which can be given only by comparing it with the
noise of a saw cutting into soft and moistened wood,--the voice of a
worn-out speculator.

In spite of the claims which the enmity of the First Consul gave
Monsieur du Bousquier to enter the royalist society of the province,
he was not received in the seven or eight families who composed the
faubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon, among whom the Chevalier de Valois
was welcome. He had offered himself in marriage, through her notary,
to Mademoiselle Armande, sister of the most distinguished noble in the
town; to which offer he received a refusal. He consoled himself as
best he could in the society of a dozen rich families, former
manufacturers of the old point d'Alencon, owners of