” He had had two wives, as we have already mentioned; by the first he had had a daughter, who had remained unmarried, and by the second another daughter, who had died at about the age of thirty, who had wedded, through love, or chance, or otherwise, a soldier of fortune who had served in the armies of the Republic and of the Empire, who had won the cross at Austerlitz and had been made colonel at Waterloo. “He is the disgrace of my family,” said the old bourgeois. He took an immense amount of snuff, and had a particularly graceful manner of plucking at his lace ruffle with the back of one hand. He believed very little in God.

Rule: Receive No One Except in the Evening

Such was M. Luc-Esprit Gillenormand, who had not lost his hair⁠—which was gray rather than white⁠—and which was always dressed in “dog’s ears.” To sum up, he was venerable in spite of all this.

He had something of the eighteenth century about him; frivolous and great.