his face, covered with lines like that of an old coquette, looked a
dozen years older than the registers made him. There remained to him
of all his successes in gallantry, a habit of looking at himself in
mirrors, of buttoning his coat to define his waist, and of posing in
various dancing attitudes; all of which prolonged, beyond the period
of enjoying his advantages, the sort of lease that he held on his
cognomen, "that handsome Thuillier."

The truth of 1806 has, however, become a fable, in 1826. He retains a
few vestiges of the former costume of the beaux of the Empire, which
are not unbecoming to the dignity of a former sub-director. He still
wears the white cravat with innumerable folds, wherein his chin is
buried, and the coquettish bow, formerly tied by the hands of beauty,
the two ends of which threaten danger to the passers to right and
left. He follows the fashions of former days, adapting them to his
present needs; he tips his hat on the back of his head, and wears
shoes and thread stockings in summer; his long-tailed coats remind one
of the well-known "surtouts" of the Empire; he has not yet abandoned
his frilled shirts and his white waistcoats; he still plays with his
Empire switch, and holds himself so erect that his back bends in. No
one, seeing Thuillier promenading on the boulevards, would take him
for the son of a man who cooked the breakfasts of the clerks at a
ministry and wore the livery of Louis XVI.; he resembles an imperial
diplomatist or a sub-prefect. Now, not only did Mademoiselle Thuillier
very innocently work upon her brother's weak spot by encouraging in
him an excessive care of his person, which, in her, was simply a
continuation of her worship, but she also provided him with family
joys, by transplanting to their midst a household which had hitherto
been quasi-collateral to them.