obliged him to see his man of business (who
held the annuity papers) quarterly. In truth, one of the Alencon bankers
paid him every three months one hundred and fifty francs, sent down
by Monsieur Bordin of Paris, the last of the _procureurs du Chatelet_.
Every one knew these details because the chevalier exacted the utmost
secrecy from the persons to whom he first confided them.

Monsieur de Valois gathered the fruit of his misfortunes. His place at
table was laid in all the most distinguished houses in Alencon, and he
was bidden to all soirees. His talents as a card-player, a narrator, an
amiable man of the highest breeding, were so well known and appreciated
that parties would have seemed a failure if the dainty connoisseur was
absent. Masters of houses and their wives felt the need of his approving
grimace. When a young woman heard the chevalier say at a ball, "You are
delightfully well-dressed!" she was more pleased at such praise than she
would have been at mortifying a rival. Monsieur de Valois was the only
man who could perfectly pronounce certain phrases of the olden time.
The words, "my heart," "my jewel," "my little pet," "my queen," and the
amorous diminutives of 1770, had a grace that was quite irresistible
when they came from his lips. In short, the chevalier had the privilege
of superlatives. His compliments, of which he was stingy, won the good
graces of all the old women; he made himself agreeable to every one,
even to the officials of the government, from whom he wanted nothing.
His behavior at cards had a lofty distinction which everybody noticed:
he never complained; he praised his adversaries when they lost; he did
not rebuke or teach his partners by showing them how they ought to have
played. When, in the course of a deal, those sickening dissertations
on the game would take place, the chevalier invariably drew out his
snuff-box with a gesture that was worthy of Mole, looked at the Princess
Goritza, raised the cover with dignity, shook, sifted, massed the snuff,
and gathered his pinch, so that by the time the cards were dealt he
had decorated both nostrils and replaced the princess in his waistcoat
pocket,--always on his left side. A gentleman of the "good" century (in
distinction from the "grand" century) could alone have invented that
compromise between contemptuous silence and a sarcasm which might not
have been understood. He accepted poor players and knew how to make
the best of them. His delig