amused, a Frenchman finding no pleasure equal to it.[3] Lively and sinuous, conversation to him is like the flying of a bird; he wings his way from idea to idea, alert, excited by the inspiration of others, darting forward, wheeling round and unexpectedly returning, now up, now down, now skimming the ground, now aloft on the peaks, without sinking into quagmires, or getting entangled in the briers, and claiming nothing of the thousands of objects he slightly grazes but the diversity and the gaiety of their aspects.

Thus endowed, and thus disposed, he is made for a régime which, for ten hours a day, brings men together; natural feeling in accord with the social order of things renders the drawing room perfect.  The king, at the head of all, sets the example.  Louis XIV had every qualification for the master of a household:  a taste for pomp and hospitality, condescension accompanied with dignity, the art of playing on the self-esteem of others and of maintaining his own position, chivalrous gallantry, tact, and even charms of intellectual expression.  “His address was perfect;[4] whether it was necessary to jest, or he was in a playful humor, or deigned to tell a story, it was ever with infinite grace, and a noble refined air which I have found only in him.”  “Never was man so naturally polite,[5] nor of such circumspect politeness, so powerful by degrees, nor who better discriminated age, worth, and rank, both in his replies and in his deportment. . . .  His salutations, more or less marked, but always slight, were of incomparable grace and majesty. . . .  He was admirable in the different acknowledgments of salutes at the head of the army and at reviews. . . .  But especially toward women , there was nothing like it. . . .  Never did he pass the most insignificant woman without taking off his hat to her; and I mean chambermaids whom he knew to be such. . .  Never did he chance to say anything disobliging to anybody. . . .  Never before company anything mistimed or venturesome, but even to the smallest gesture, his walk, his bearing, his features, all were proper, respectful, noble, grand, majestic, and thoroughly natural.”

Such is the model, and, nearly or remotely, it is imitated up to the end of the ancient régime.  If it undergoes any change, it is only to become more sociable.  In the eighteenth century, except on great ceremonial occasions, it is seen descending step by step from its pedestal.  It no longer imposes “that stillness around it which lets one hear a fly walk.”  “Sire,” said the Marshal de Richelieu, who had seen three reigns, addressing Louis XVI, “under Louis XIV no one dared utter a word; under Louis XV people whispered; under your Majesty they talk aloud.”  If authority is a loser, society is the gainer; etiquette, insensibly relaxed, allows the introduction of ease and cheerfulness.  Henceforth the great, less concerned in overawing than in pleasing, cast off stateliness like an uncomfortable and ridiculous garment,