drawing for books, which twenty years later went by the name of
"illustration." The influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and de
Rhetore, whom he knew in the society of actresses, procured him his
employment under government in 1819. On good terms with des Lupeaulx,
with whom in society he stood on an equality, and intimate with du
Bruel, he was a living proof of Rabourdin's theory as to the steady
deterioration of the administrative hierarchy in Paris through the
personal importance which a government official may acquire outside of
a government office. Short in stature but well-formed, with a delicate
face remarkable for its vague likeness to Napoleon's, thin lips,
a straight chin, chestnut whiskers, twenty-seven years old,
fair-skinned, with a piercing voice and sparkling eye,--such was Bixiou;
a man, all sense and all wit, who abandoned himself to a mad pursuit of
pleasure of every description, which threw him into a constant round
of dissipation. Hunter of grisettes, smoker, jester, diner-out and
frequenter of supper-parties, always tuned to the highest pitch,
shining equally in the greenroom and at the balls given among the
grisettes of the Allee des Veuves, he was just as surprisingly
entertaining at table as at a picnic, as gay and lively at midnight on
the streets as in the morning when he jumped out of bed, and yet at
heart gloomy and melancholy, like most of the great comic players.

Launched into the world of actors and actresses, writers, artists, and
certain women of uncertain means, he lived well, went to the theatre
without paying, gambled at Frascati, and often won. Artist by nature
and really profound, though by flashes only, he swayed to and fro in
life like a swing, without thinking or caring of a time when the cord
would break. The liveliness of his wit and the prodigal flow of his
ideas made him acceptable to all persons who took pleasure in the
lights of intellect; but none of his friends liked him. Incapable of