youth was interesting; the longer he wandered, the more curiosity he
excited. Everything about him proclaimed the habits of refined life.
In obedience to a fatal law of the time we live in, there is not much
difference, physical or moral, between the most elegant and best bred
son of a duke and peer and this attractive youth, whom poverty had not
long since held in its iron grip in the heart of Paris. Beauty and
youth might cover him in deep gulfs, as in many a young man who longs
to play a part in Paris without having the capital to support his
pretensions, and who, day after day, risks all to win all, by
sacrificing to the god who has most votaries in this royal city,
namely, Chance. At the same time, his dress and manners were above
reproach; he trod the classic floor of the opera house as one
accustomed there. Who can have failed to observe that there, as in
every zone in Paris, there is a manner of being which shows who you
are, what you are doing, whence you come, and what you want?

"What a handsome young fellow; and here we may turn round to look at
him," said a mask, in whom accustomed eyes recognized a lady of
position.

"Do you not remember him?" replied the man on whose arm she was
leaning. "Madame du Chatelet introduced him to you----"

"What, is that the apothecary's son she fancied herself in love with,
who became a journalist, Mademoiselle Coralie's lover?"

"I fancied he had fallen too low ever to pull himself up again, and I
cannot understand how he can show himself again in the world of
Paris," said the Comte Sixte du Chatelet.