they build, hunt and have their clients and guests, a lever, an antechamber, ushers, officers, a free table, a complete household, equipages, and, oftener still, debts, the finishing touch of a grand seignior.  In the almost regal palace which the Rohans, hereditary bishops of Strasbourg and cardinals from uncle to nephew, erected for themselves at Saverne,[78] there are 700 beds, 180 horses, 14 butlers, and 25 valets.  “The whole province assembles there;” the cardinal lodges as many as two hundred guests at a time, without counting the valets; at all times there are found under his roof “from twenty to thirty ladies the most agreeable of the province, and this number is often increased by those of the court and from Paris. . . .  The entire company sup together at nine o’clock in the evening, which always looks like a fête,” and the cardinal himself is its chief ornament.  Splendidly dressed, fine-looking, gallant, exquisitely polite, the slightest smile is a grace.  “His face, always beaming, inspired confidence; he had the true physiognomy of a man expressly designed for pompous display.”

Such likewise is the attitude and occupation of the principal lay seigniors, at home, in summer, when a love of the charms of fine weather brings them back to their estates.  For example, Harcourt in Normandy and Brienne in Champagne are two chateaux the best frequented.  “Persons of distinction resort to it from Paris, eminent men of letters, while the nobility of the canton pay there an assiduous court."[79] There is no residence where flocks of fashionable people do not light down permanently to dine, to dance, to hunt, to gossip, to unravel,[80] (parfiler) to play comedy.  We can trace these birds from cage to cage; they remain a week, a month, three months, displaying their plumage and their prattle.  From Paris to Ile-Adam, to Villers-Cotterets, to Frétoy, to Planchette, to Soissons, to Rheims, to Grisolles, to Sillery, to Braine, to Balincourt, to Vaudreuil, the Comte and Comtesse de Genlis thus bear about their leisure, their wit, their gaiety, at the domiciles of friends whom, in their turn, they entertain at Genlis.  A glance at the exteriors of these mansions suffices to show that it was the chief duty in these days to be hospitable, as it was a prime necessity to be in society.[81] Their luxury, indeed, differs from ours.  With the exception of a few princely establishments it is not great in the matter of country furniture; a display of this description is left to the financiers.  “But it is prodigious in all things which can minister to the enjoyment of others, in horses, carriages, and in an open table, in accommodations given even to people not belonging to the house, in boxes at the play which are lent to friends, and lastly, in servants, much more numerous than nowadays.”  Through this mutual and constant attention the most rustic nobles lose the rust still encrusting their brethren in Germany or in England.  We find in France few Squire Western