And here, behold a strange thing!  Three lives, that of the old man from whom I have obtained these facts, that of the Comte de Saint-Germain, and that of Cosmo Ruggiero, suffice to cover the whole of European history from Francois I. to Napoleon!  Only fifty such lives are needed to reach back to the first known period of the world.  “What are fifty generations for the study of the mysteries of life?” said the Comte de Saint-Germain.

PART III

I

TWO DREAMS

In 1786 Bodard de Saint-James, treasurer of the navy, excited more attention and gossip as to his luxury than any other financier in Paris.  At this period he was building his famous “Folie” at Neuilly, and his wife had just bought a set of feathers to crown the tester of her bed, the price of which had been too great for even the queen to pay.

Bodard owned the magnificent mansion in the place Vendome, which the fermier-general, Dange, had lately been forced to leave.  That celebrated epicurean was now dead, and on the day of his interment his intimate friend, Monsieur de Bievre, raised a laugh by saying that he “could now pass through the place Vendome without danger.”  This allusion to the hellish gambling which went on in the dead man’s house, was his only funeral oration.  The house is opposite to the Chancellerie.

To end in a few words the history of Bodard,—­he became a poor man, having failed for fourteen millions after the bankruptcy of the Prince de Guemenee.  The stupidity he showed in not anticipating that “serenissime disaster,” to use the expression of Lebrun Pindare, was the reason why no notice was taken of his misfortunes.  He died, like Bourvalais, Bouret, and so many others, in a garret.

Madame Bodard de Saint-James was ambitious, and professed to receive none but persons of quality at her house,—­an old absurdity which is ever new.  To her thinking, even the parliamentary judges were of small account; she wished for titled persons in her salons, or at all events, those who had the right of entrance at court.  To say that many cordons bleus were seen at her house would be false; but it is quite certain that she managed to obtain the good-will and civilities of several members of the house of Rohan, as was proved later in the affair of the too celebrated diamond necklace.

One evening—­it was, I think, in August, 1786—­I was much surprised to meet in the salons of this lady, so exacting in the matter of gentility, two new faces which struck me as belonging to men of inferior social position.  She came to me presently in the embrasure of a window where I had ensconced myself.

“Tell me,” I said to her, with a glance toward one of the new-comers, “who and what is that queer species?  Why do you have that kind of thing here?”

“He is charming.”

“Do you see him through a prism of love, or am I blind?”