Maitre Mathias was a worthy old gentleman sixty-nine years of age, who took great pride in his forty years’ exercise of the profession.  His huge gouty feet were encased in shoes with silver buckles, making a ridiculous termination to legs so spindling, with knees so bony, that when he crossed them they made you think of the emblems on a tombstone.  His puny little thighs, lost in a pair of wide black breeches fastened with buckles, seemed to bend beneath the weight of a round stomach and a torso developed, like that of most sedentary persons, into a stout barrel, always buttoned into a green coat with square tails, which no man could remember to have ever seen new.  His hair, well brushed and powdered, was tied in a rat’s tail that lay between the collar of his coat and that of his waistcoat, which was white, with a pattern of flowers.  With his round head, his face the color of a vine-leaf, his blue eyes, a trumpet nose, a thick-lipped mouth, and a double-chin, the dear old fellow excited, whenever he appeared among strangers who did not know him, that satirical laugh which Frenchmen so generously bestow on the ludicrous creations Dame Nature occasionally allows herself, which Art delights in exaggerating under the name of caricatures.

But in Maitre Mathias, mind had triumphed over form; the qualities of his soul had vanquished the oddities of his body.  The inhabitants of Bordeaux, as a rule, testified a friendly respect and a deference that was full of esteem for him.  The old man’s voice went to their hearts and sounded there with the eloquence of uprightness.  His craft consisted in going straight to the fact, overturning all subterfuge and evil devices by plain questionings.  His quick perception, his long training in his profession gave him that divining sense which goes to the depths of conscience and reads its secret thoughts.  Though grave and deliberate in business, the patriarch could be gay with the gaiety of our ancestors.  He could risk a song after dinner, enjoy all family festivities, celebrate the birthdays of grandmothers and children, and bury with due solemnity the Christmas log.  He loved to send presents at New Year, and eggs at Easter; he believed in the duties of a godfather, and never deserted the customs which colored the life of the olden time.  Maitre Mathias was a noble and venerable relic of the notaries, obscure great men, who gave no receipt for the millions entrusted to them, but returned those millions in the sacks they were delivered in, tied with the same twine; men who fulfilled their trusts to the letter, drew honest inventories, took fatherly interest in their clients, often barring the way to extravagance and dissipation, —­men to whom families confided their secrets, and who felt so responsible for any error in their deeds that they meditated long and carefully over them.  Never during his whole notarial life, had any client found reason to complain of a bad investment or an ill-placed mortgage.  His own fortune, slowly