show of uttering thoughts.

The Abbe Duret, Cure of Sancerre, an old man of a lost type of clergy
in France, a man of the world with a liking for cards, had not dared
to indulge this taste in so liberal a district as Sancerre; he,
therefore, was delighted at Madame de la Baudraye's coming, and they
got on together to admiration. The _sous-prefet_, one Vicomte de
Chargeboeuf, was delighted to find in Madame de la Baudraye's
drawing-room a sort of oasis where there was a truce to provincial
life. As to Monsieur de Clagny, the Public Prosecutor, his admiration
for the fair Dinah kept him bound to Sancerre. The enthusiastic lawyer
refused all promotion, and became a quite pious adorer of this angel
of grace and beauty. He was a tall, lean man, with a minatory
countenance set off by terrible eyes in deep black circles, under
enormous eyebrows; and his eloquence, very unlike his love-making,
could be incisive.

Monsieur Gravier was a little, round man, who in the days of the
Empire had been a charming ballad-singer; it was this accomplishment
that had won him the high position of Paymaster-General of the forces.
Having mixed himself up in certain important matters in Spain with
generals at that time in opposition, he had made the most of these
connections to the Minister, who, in consideration of the place he had
lost, promised him the Receivership at Sancerre, and then allowed him
to pay for the appointment. The frivolous spirit and light tone of the
Empire had become ponderous in Monsieur Gravier; he did not, or would
not, understand the wide difference between manners under the
Restoration and under the Empire. Still, he conceived of himself as
far superior to Monsieur de Clagny; his style was in better taste; he
followed the fashion, was to be seen in a buff waistcoat, gray