His room was decorated with
pictures of several beauties of former times, with whom he professed to
have been on favorable terms: among them was a favorite opera-dancer, who
had been the admiration of Paris at the breaking out of the revolution. She
had been a protegee of my friend, and one of the few of his youthful
favorites who had survived the lapse of time and its various vicissitudes.
They had renewed their acquaintance, and she now and then visited him; but
the beautiful Psyche, once the fashion of the day and the idol of the
_parterre_, was now a shriveled, little old woman, warped in the back
and with a hooked nose.
The old gentleman was a devout attendant upon levees; he was most zealous
in his loyalty, and could not speak of the royal family without a burst of
enthusiasm, for he still felt toward them as his companions in exile. As to
his poverty he made light of it, and indeed had a good-humored way of
consoling himself for every cross and privation. If he had lost his chateau
in the country, he had half a dozen royal palaces, as it were, at his
command.
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