he Marquise d'Espard was
delighted to procure the young poet that pleasure.

"Then she loves me! my fears were all nonsense!" said Lucien to himself.
"She is going to present me to her cousin this very evening."

He jumped for joy. He would spend the day that separated him from the
happy evening as joyously as might be. He dashed out in the direction
of the Tuileries, dreaming of walking there until it was time to dine
at Very's. And now, behold Lucien frisking and skipping, light of foot
because light of heart, on his way to the Terrasse des Feuillants to
take a look at the people of quality on promenade there. Pretty women
walk arm-in-arm with men of fashion, their adorers, couples greet each
other with a glance as they pass; how different it is from the terrace
at Beaulieu! How far finer the birds on this perch than the Angouleme
species! It is as if you beheld all the colors that glow in the plumage
of the feathered tribes of India and America, instead of the sober
European families.

Those were two wretched hours that Lucien spent in the Garden of the
Tuileries. A violent revulsion swept through him, and he sat in judgment
upon himself.

In the first place, not a single one of these gilded youths wore a
swallow-tail coat. The few exceptions, one or two poor wretches, a clerk
here and there, an annuitant from the Marais, could be ruled out on
the score of age; and hard upon the discovery of a distinction between
morning and evening dress, the poet's quick sensibility and keen eyes
saw likewise that his shabby old clothes were not fit to be seen; the
defects in his coat branded that garment as ridiculous; the cut was
old-fashioned, the color was the wrong shade of blue, the collar
outrageously ungainly, the coat tails, by dint of long wear, overlapped
each other, the buttons were reddened, and there were fatal white lines
along the seams. Then his waistcoat was too short, and so grotesquely
provincial, that he hastily buttoned his coat over it; and, finally, no
man of any pretension to fashion wore nankeen trousers. Well-dressed
men wore charming fancy materials or immaculate white, and every one
had straps to his trousers, while the shrunken hems of Lucien's nether
garments manifested a violent antipathy for the heels of boots which
they wedded with obvious reluctance. Lucien wore a white cravat with
embroidered ends; his sister had seen that M. du Hautoy and M. de
Chandour wore such things, and hastened to make