oeuvres
at the Bourse, and he struck du Bousquier's name from the list of the
government contractors.

Out of all his past opulence du Bousquier saved only twelve hundred
francs a year from an investment in the Grand Livre, which he had
happened to place there by pure caprice, and which saved him from
penury. A man ruined by the First Consul interested the town of Alencon,
to which he now returned, where royalism was secretly dominant. Du
Bousquier, furious against Bonaparte, relating stories against him of
his meanness, of Josephine's improprieties, and all the other scandalous
anecdotes of the last ten years, was well received.

About this time, when he was somewhere between forty and fifty, du
Bousquier's appearance was that of a bachelor of thirty-six, of medium
height, plump as a purveyor, proud of his vigorous calves, with a
strongly marked countenance, a flattened nose, the nostrils garnished
with hair, black eyes with thick lashes, from which darted shrewd
glances like those of Monsieur de Talleyrand, though somewhat dulled.
He still wore republican whiskers and his hair very long; his hands,
adorned with bunches of hair on each knuckle, showed the power of his
muscular system in their prominent blue veins. He had the chest of the
Farnese Hercules, and shoulders fit to carry the stocks. Such shoulders
are seen nowadays only at Tortoni's. This wealth of masculine vigor
counted for much in du Bousquier's relations with others. And yet in
him, as in the chevalier, symptoms appeared which contrasted oddly with
the general aspect of their persons. The late purveyor had not the voice
of his muscles. We do not mean that his voice was a mere thread, such
as we sometimes hear issuing from the mouth of these walruses; on the
contrary, it was a strong voice, but stifled, an idea of which can be
given only by comparing it with the noise of a saw cutting into soft and
moistened wood,--the voice of a worn-out speculator.

In spite of the claims which the enmity of the First Consul gave
Monsieur du Bousquier to enter the royalist society of the province,
he was not received in the seven or eight families who composed the
faubourg Saint-Germain of Alencon, among whom the Chevalier de Valois
was welcome. He had offered himself in marriage, through her notary,
to Mademoiselle Armande, sister of the most distinguished noble in the
town; to which offer he received a refusal. He consoled himself as best
he could in the society of