In Paris, where men of thought and study bear a certain likeness to
one another, living as they do in a common centre, you must have met
with several resembling Monsieur Rabourdin, whose acquaintance we are
about to make at a moment when he is head of a bureau in one of our
most important ministries. At this period he was forty years old, with
gray hair of so pleasing a shade that women might at a pinch fall in
love with it for it softened a somewhat melancholy countenance, blue
eyes full of fire, a skin that was still fair, though rather ruddy and
touched here and there with strong red marks; a forehead and nose a la
Louis XV., a serious mouth, a tall figure, thin, or perhaps wasted,
like that of a man just recovering from illness, and finally, a
bearing that was midway between the indolence of a mere idler and the
thoughtfulness of a busy man. If this portrait serves to depict his
character, a sketch of this man's dress will bring it still further
into relief. Rabourdin wore habitually a blue surcoat, a white cravat,
a waistcoat crossed a la Robespierre, black trousers without straps,
gray silk stockings and low shoes. Well-shaved, and with his stomach
warmed by a cup of coffee, he left home at eight in the morning with
the regularity of clock-work, always passing along the same streets on
his way to the ministry: so neat was he, so formal, so starched that
he might have been taken for an Englishman on the road to his embassy.

From these general signs you will readily discern a family man,
harassed by vexations in his own household, worried by annoyances at
the ministry, yet philosopher enough to take life as he found it; an
honest man, loving his country and serving it, not concealing from
himself the obstacles in the way of those who seek to do right;
prudent, because he knew men; exquisitely courteous with women, of
whom he asked nothing,--a man full of acquirements, affable with his
inferiors, holding his equals at great distance, and dignified towards