eles, courted him,
and gave him back with usury the flatteries he bestowed in the higher
sphere. As difficult to decipher as a hieroglyphic inscription to the
clerks, the vocation of the secretary and his usefulness were as plain
as the rule of three to the self-interested. This lesser Prince de
Wagram of the administration, to whom the duty of gathering opinions
and ideas and making verbal reports thereon was entrusted, knew all the
secrets of parliamentary politics; dragged in the lukewarm, fetched,
carried, and buried propositions, said the Yes and the No that the
ministers dared not say for themselves. Compelled to receive the first
fire and the first blows of despair and wrath, he laughed or bemoaned
himself with the minister, as the case might be. Mysterious link by
which many interests were in some way connected with the Tuileries, and
safe as a confessor, he sometimes knew everything and sometimes nothing;
and, in addition to all these functions came that of saying for the
minister those things that a minister cannot say for himself. In short,
with his political Hephaestion the minister might dare to be himself; to
take off his wig and his false teeth, lay aside his scruples, put on
his slippers, unbutton his conscience, and give way to his trickery.
However, it was not all a bed of roses for des Lupeaulx; he flattered
and advised his master, forced to flatter in order to advise, to advise
while flattering, and disguise the advice under the flattery. All
politicians who follow this trade have bilious faces; and their constant
habit of giving affirmative nods acquiescing in what is said to them,
or seeming to do so, gives a certain peculiar turn to their heads. They
agree indifferently with whatever is said before them. Their talk is
full of "buts," "notwithstandings," "for myself I should," "were I in
your place" (they often say "in your place"),--phrases, however, which
pave the way to opposition.

In person, Clement des Lupeaulx had the remains of a handsome man; five
feet six inches tall, tolerably stout, complexion flushed with good
living, powdered head, delicate spectacles, and a worn-out air; the
natural skin blond, as shown by the hand, puffy like that of an old
woman, rather too square, and with short nails--the hand of a satrap.
His foot was elegant. After five o'clock in the afternoon des Lupeaulx
was always to be seen in open-worked silk stockings, low shoes, black
trousers, cashmere waistcoat, cambr