But my word, the luxury on the Place Vendome!  A felt carpet on the floor, the bed hidden away in an alcove, Algerian curtains with red stripes, an ornamental clock in green marble on the chimneypiece, the whole lighted by lamps of which the flames can be regulated at will.  Our oldest member, M. Chalmette, is not better lodged at Dijon.  I arrived about nine o’clock with Monpavon’s old Francis, and I must confess that my entry made a sensation, preceded as I was by my academical past, my reputation for politeness, and great knowledge of the world.  My fine presence did the rest, for it must be said that I know how to go into a room.  M. Noel, in a dress-coat, very dark skinned and with mutton-chop whiskers, came forward to meet us.

“You are welcome, M. Passajon,” said he, and taking my cap with silver galloons which, according to the fashion, I had kept in my right hand while making my entry, he gave it to a gigantic negro in red and gold livery.

“Here, Lakdar, hang that up—­and that,” he added by way of a joke, giving him a kick in a certain region of the back.

There was much laughter at this sally, and we began to chat together in very friendly fashion.  An excellent fellow, this M. Noel, with his accent of the Midi, his pronounced style of dress, the smoothness and the simplicity of his manners.  He reminded me of the Nabob, without his distinction, however.  I noticed, moreover, that evening, that these resemblances are frequently to be observed in valets de chambre who, living in the intimacy of their masters, by whom they are always a little dazzled, end by acquiring their manners and habits.  Thus, M. Francis has a certain way of straightening his body when displaying his linen-front, a mania for raising his arms in order to pull his cuffs down—­it is Monpavon to a T. Now one, for instance, who bears no resemblance to his master is Joey, the coachman of Dr. Jenkins.  I call him Joey, but at the party every one called him Jenkins; for, in that world, the stable folk among themselves give to each other the names of their masters, call each other Bois l’Hery, Monpavon, and Jenkins, without ceremony.  Is it in order to degrade their superiors, to raise the status of menials?  Every country has its customs; it is only a fool who will be surprised by them.  To return to Joey Jenkins, how can the doctor, affable as he is, so polished in every particular, keep in his service that brute, bloated with porter and gin, who will remain silent for hours at a time, then, at the first mounting of liquor to his head, begins to howl and to wish to fight everybody, as witness the scandalous scene which had just occurred when we entered?

The marquis’s little groom, Tom Bois l’Hery, as they call him here, had desired to have a jest with this uncouth creature of an Irishman, who had replied to a bit of Parisian urchin’s banter with a terrible Belfast blow of his fist right in the lad’s face.