Then although Fauchery did not take the trouble to question him, he told him all he knew about the Muffats.  Amid the conversation of the ladies, which still continued in front of the hearth, they both spoke in subdued tones, and, seeing them there with their white cravats and gloves, one might have supposed them to be discussing in chosen phraseology some really serious topic.  Old Mme Muffat then, whom La Faloise had been well acquainted with, was an insufferable old lady, always hand in glove with the priests.  She had the grand manner, besides, and an authoritative way of comporting herself, which bent everybody to her will.  As to Muffat, he was an old man’s child; his father, a general, had been created count by Napoleon I, and naturally he had found himself in favor after the second of December.  He hadn’t much gaiety of manner either, but he passed for a very honest man of straightforward intentions and understanding.  Add to these a code of old aristocratic ideas and such a lofty conception of his duties at court, of his dignities and of his virtues, that he behaved like a god on wheels.  It was the Mamma Muffat who had given him this precious education with its daily visits to the confessional, its complete absence of escapades and of all that is meant by youth.  He was a practicing Christian and had attacks of faith of such fiery violence that they might be likened to accesses of burning fever.  Finally, in order to add a last touch to the picture, La Faloise whispered something in his cousin’s ear.

“You don’t say so!” said the latter.

“On my word of honor, they swore it was true!  He was still like that when he married.”

Fauchery chuckled as he looked at the count, whose face, with its fringe of whiskers and absence of mustaches, seemed to have grown squarer and harder now that he was busy quoting figures to the writhing, struggling Steiner.

“My word, he’s got a phiz for it!” murmured Fauchery.  “A pretty present he made his wife!  Poor little thing, how he must have bored her!  She knows nothing about anything, I’ll wager!”

Just then the Countess Sabine was saying something to him.  But he did not hear her, so amusing and extraordinary did he esteem the Muffats’ case.  She repeated the question.

“Monsieur Fauchery, have you not published a sketch of Monsieur de Bismarck?  You spoke with him once?”

He got up briskly and approached the circle of ladies, endeavoring to collect himself and soon with perfect ease of manner finding an answer: 

“Dear me, madame, I assure you I wrote that ‘portrait’ with the help of biographies which had been published in Germany.  I have never seen Monsieur de Bismarck.”