age of thirty-six I met her in Paris, with a daughter of sixteen. I was
then flush with money, frequenting salons, and playing the part of a fine
gentleman. She did not know me at first; and she sought my acquaintance.
For you must know, my young friend," said Gawtrey, abruptly breaking off
the thread of his narrative, "that I am not altogether the low dog you
might suppose in seeing me here. At Paris--ah! you don't know Paris--
there is a glorious ferment in society in which the dregs are often
uppermost! I came here at the Peace, and here have I resided the greater
part of each year ever since. The vast masses of energy and life, broken
up by the great thaw of the Imperial system, floating along the tide, are
terrible icebergs for the vessel of the state. Some think Napoleonism
over--its effects are only begun. Society is shattered from one end to
the other, and I laugh at the little rivets by which they think to keep
it together.

[This passage was written at a period when the dynasty of Louis
Philippe seemed the most assured, and Napoleonism was indeed
considered extinct.]

"But to return. Paris, I say, is the atmosphere for adventurers--new
faces and new men are so common here that they excite no impertinent
inquiry, it is so usual to see fortunes made in a day and spent in a
month; except in certain circles, there is no walking round a man's
character to spy out where it wants piercing! Some lean Greek poet put
lead in his pockets to prevent being blown away;--put gold in your
pockets, and at Paris you may defy the sharpest wind in the world,--yea,
even the breath of that old AEolus--Scandal! Well, then, I had money--no
matter how I came by it--and health, and gaiety; and I was well received
in the coteries that exist in all capitals, but mostly in France, where
pleasure is the cement that joins many discordant atoms. Here, I say, I