Sins with which God surely will deal least
hardly; Pons was a glutton. A narrow income, combined with a passion
for bric-a-brac, condemned him to a regimen so abhorrent to a
discriminating palate, that, bachelor as he was, he had cut the knot
of the problem by dining out every day.

Now, in the time of the Empire, celebrities were more sought after
than at present, perhaps because there were so few of them, perhaps
because they made little or no political pretension. In those days,
besides, you could set up for a poet, a musician, or a painter, with
so little expense. Pons, being regarded as the probable rival of
Nicolo, Paer, and Berton, used to receive so many invitations, that he
was forced to keep a list of engagements, much as barristers note down
the cases for which they are retained. And Pons behaved like an
artist. He presented his amphitryons with copies of his songs, he
"obliged" at the pianoforte, he brought them orders for boxes at the
Feydeau, his own theatre, he organized concerts, he was not above
taking the fiddle himself sometimes in a relation's house, and getting
up a little impromptu dance. In those days, all the handsome men in
France were away at the wars exchanging sabre-cuts with the handsome
men of the Coalition. Pons was said to be, not ugly, but
"peculiar-looking," after the grand rule laid down by Moliere in
Eliante's famous couplets; but if he sometimes heard himself described
as a "charming man" (after he had done some fair lady a service), his
good fortune went no further than words.

It was between the years 1810 and 1816 that Pons contracted the
unlucky habit of dining out; he grew accustomed to see his hosts
taking pains over the dinner, procuring the first and best of
everything, bringing out their choicest vintages, seeing carefully to
the dessert, the coffee, the liqueurs, giving him of their best, in
short; the best, moreover, of those times of the Empire when Paris was
glutted with kings and queens and princes, and many a private house
emulated royal splendours.

People used to play at Royalty then as they play nowadays at
parliament, creating a whole host of societies with presidents,
vice-presidents, secretaries and what not--agricultural societies,
industrial societies, societies for the promotion of sericulture,
viticulture, the growth of flax, and so forth. Some have even gone so
far as to look about them for social evils in order to start a society
to cure them.

But t