rd. Beneath the chevalier's room there lived a
paralytic, Madame Lardot's grandfather, an old buccaneer named Grevin,
who had served under Admiral Simeuse in India, and was now stone-deaf.
As for Madame Lardot, who occupied the other lodging on the first floor,
she had so great a weakness for persons of condition that she may well
have been thought blind to the ways of the chevalier. To her, Monsieur
de Valois was a despotic monarch who did right in all things. Had any of
her workwomen been guilty of a happiness attributed to the chevalier
she would have said, "He is so lovable!" Thus, though the house was of
glass, like all provincial houses, it was discreet as a robber's cave.

A born confidant to all the little intrigues of the work-rooms, the
chevalier never passed the door, which usually stood open, without
giving something to his little ducks,--chocolate, bonbons, ribbons,
laces, gilt crosses, and such like trifles adored by grisettes;
consequently, the kind old gentleman was adored in return. Women have an
instinct which enables them to divine the men who love them, who like
to be near them, and exact no payment for gallantries. In this respect
women have the instinct of dogs, who in a mixed company will go straight
to the man to whom animals are sacred.

The poor Chevalier de Valois retained from his former life the need of
bestowing gallant protection, a quality of the seigneurs of other
days. Faithful to the system of the "petite maison," he liked to enrich
women,--the only beings who know how to receive, because they can
always return. But the poor chevalier could no longer ruin himself for
a mistress. Instead of the choicest bonbons wrapped in bank-bills, he
gallantly presented paper-bags full of toffee. Let us say to the glory
of Alencon that the toffee was accepted with more joy than la Duthe
ever showed at a gilt service or a fine equipage offered by the Comte
d'Artois. All these grisettes fully understood the fallen majesty of the
Chevalier de Valois, and they kept their private familiarities with him
a profound secret for his sake. If they were questioned about him in
certain houses when they carried home the linen, they always spoke
respectfully of the chevalier, and made him out older than he really
was; they talked of him as a most respectable monsieur, whose life was
a flower of sanctity; but once in their own regions they perched on his
shoulders like so many parrots. He liked to be told the secret