maroon coat, and has a place reserved for him in several boxes at the
"Bouffons." He is sometimes confounded with the Parasite; but he has
filled too many real functions to be thought a sponger; moreover he
possesses a small estate in a certain department, the name of which he
has never been known to utter.

"Madame Firmiani? why, my dear fellow, she was Murat's former
mistress." This man belongs to the Contradictors,--persons who note
errata in memoirs, rectify dates, correct facts, bet a hundred to one,
and are certain about everything. You can easily detect them in some
gross blunder in the course of a single evening. They will tell you
they were in Paris at the time of Mallet's conspiracy, forgetting that
half an hour earlier they had described how they had crossed the
Beresina. Nearly all Contradictors are "chevaliers" of the Legion of
honor; they talk loudly, have retreating foreheads, and play high.

"Madame Firmiani a hundred thousand francs a year? nonsense, you are
crazy! Some people will persist in giving millions with the liberality
of authors, to whom it doesn't cost a penny to dower their heroines.
Madame Firmiani is simply a coquette, who has lately ruined a young
man, and now prevents him from making a fine marriage. If she were not
so handsome she wouldn't have a penny."

Ah, _that one_--of course you recognize him--belongs to the species
Envious. There is no need to sketch him; the species is as well known
as that of the felis domestica. But how explain the perennial vigor of
envy?--a vice that brings nothing in!

Persons in society, literary men, honest folk,--in short, individuals
of all species,--were promulgating in the month of January, 1824, so