Notwithstanding the number of persons assembled in the room, one might
have heard the movements of the wings of a fly. The only interruption to
the silence was the sound of pens rapidly gliding over paper, and a
shrill voice dictating, stopping every now and then to cough. This voice
proceeded from a great armchair placed beside the fire, which was
blazing, notwithstanding the heat of the season and of the country.
It was one of those armchairs that you still see in old castles, and
which seem made to read one's self to sleep in, so easy is every part of
it. The sitter sinks into a circular cushion of down; if the head leans
back, the cheeks rest upon pillows covered with silk, and the seat juts
out so far beyond the elbows that one may believe the provident
upholsterers of our forefathers sought to provide that the book should
make no noise in falling so as to awaken the sleeper.

But we will quit this digression, and speak of the man who occupied the
chair, and who was very far from sleeping. He had a broad forehead,
bordered with thin white hair, large, mild eyes, a wan face, to which a
small, pointed, white beard gave that air of subtlety and finesse
noticeable in all the portraits of the period of Louis XIII. His mouth
was almost without lips, which Lavater deems an indubitable sign of an
evil mind, and it was framed in a pair of slight gray moustaches and a
'royale'--an ornament then in fashion, which somewhat resembled a comma
in form. The old man wore a close red cap, a large 'robe-dechambre',
and purple silk stockings; he was no less a personage than Armand
Duplessis, Cardinal de Richelieu.

Near him, around the small table, sat four youths from fifteen to twenty
years of age; these were pages, or domestics, according to the term then
in use, which signified familiars, friends of the house. This custom was
a relic of feudal patronage, which still existed in our manners.