pass the lines
of their fleet. He also talked of David's studio, as it was under the
Consulate, and did us the painter, rating and scolding his pupils with
his mouth all awry and the remains of his dinner in his cheek. After
each extract from the long roll of his experience, the patriarch shakes
his head solemnly, gazes into space, and says in his firm tones, 'That's
a thing that I have seen.' It is his signature, as it were, put at the
bottom of the picture to prove it genuine. I ought to say that, with the
exception of Dalzon, who pretended to be drinking in his words, I was
the only person in the room who attended to the old man's tales. They
seemed to me much more worth hearing than the stories of a certain
Lavaux, a journalist, or librarian, or something--a dreadful retailer
of gossip, whatever else he may be. The moment he came in there was a
general cry, 'Ah, here's Lavaux!' and a circle was formed round him at
once, all laughing and enjoying themselves. Even the frowning 'deities'
revel in his anecdotes. He has a smooth-shaven, quasi-clerical face and
goggle eyes. He prefaces all his tales and witticisms with such remarks
as 'I was saying to De Broglie,' or 'Dumas told me the other day,' or 'I
have it from the Duchess herself,' backing himself up with the biggest
names and drawing his instances from all quarters. He is a pet of the
ladies, whom he posts up in all the intrigues of the Academie and the
Foreign Office, the world of letters and the world of fashion. He
is very intimate with Danjou, and a constant companion of the Prince
d'Athis, with whom he came in. Dalion and the young critic of Shelley
he patronises; and indeed he exercises a power and authority quite
inexplicable to me.

In the medley of stories which he produced from his inexhaustible
chops--most of them were riddles to a simple rustic like myself--one
only struck me as amusing. It was the mishap which occurred to a young
Count Adriani, of the Papal Guard. He was going through Paris, in
attendance upon a reverend personage, to take a cardinal's hat and cap
to some one or other, and the story is that he left the insignia at the
house of some fair lady whom he met with as he left the train, and of
whom he knew neither the name nor the address, being, poor young man!
a stranger in Paris. So he had to write off to the Papal Court for new
specimens of the ecclesiastical headgear to replace the first, which the
lady must find entirely superfluous. Th