The Chevalier and Mlle. d'Esgrignon thought these words perfectly
simple and natural, absurd as they would have sounded to any other
listener. So far from seeing anything ridiculous in the speech, they
were both very much touched by a look of something like anguish in the
old noble's face. Some dark premonition seemed to weigh upon M.
d'Esgrignon at that moment, some glimmering of an insight into the
changed times. He went to the settee by the fireside and sat down,
forgetting that Chesnel would be there before long; that Chesnel, of
whom he could not bring himself to ask anything.

Just then the Marquis d'Esgrignon looked exactly as any imagination
with a touch of romance could wish. He was almost bald, but a fringe
of silken, white locks, curled at the tips, covered the back of his
head. All the pride of race might be seen in a noble forehead, such as
you may admire in a Louis XV., a Beaumarchais, a Marechal de
Richelieu, it was not the square, broad brow of the portraits of the
Marechal de Saxe; nor yet the small hard circle of Voltaire, compact
to overfulness; it was graciously rounded and finely moulded, the
temples were ivory tinted and soft; and mettle and spirit, unquenched
by age, flashed from the brilliant eyes. The Marquis had the Conde
nose and the lovable Bourbon mouth, from which, as they used to say of
the Comte d'Artois, only witty and urbane words proceed. His cheeks,
sloping rather than foolishly rounded to the chin, were in keeping
with his spare frame, thin legs, and plump hands. The strangulation
cravat at his throat was of the kind which every marquis wears in all
the portraits which adorn eighteenth century literature; it is common
alike to Saint-Preux and to Lovelace, to the elegant Montesquieu's
heroes and to Diderot's homespun characters (see the first editions of
those writers' works).