[76] - In
his dressing-gown, early in the morning, he receives a crowd of
solicitors, and, with the ways of a "dandified minister," graciously
accepts the petitions handed to him; first, those of ladies,
"distributing gallantries among the prettiest;" he makes promises, and
smiles, and then, returning to his cabinet, throws the papers in the
fire: "There," he says, my correspondence is done." - He sups twice
every decade in his fine house at Clichy, along with three more than
accommodating pretty women; he is gay, awarding flatteries and
attentions quite becoming to an amiable protector: he enters into
their professional rivalries, their spites against the reigning
beauty, their jealousy of another who wears a blonde wig and pretends
"to set the fashion." He sends immediately for the National Agent and
gravely informs him that this head-dress, borrowed from the
guillotined, is a rallying point for anti-revolutionaries, whereupon,
the next day, wigs are denounced at the Commune-council, and
suppressed; "Bar?re roared with laughter on alluding to this piece of
fun." The humor of an undertaker and the dexterity of a commercial
drummer: he plays with Terror.
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