M.Gillenormand，who was as much alive as possible in 1831，was one of those men who had become curiosities to be viewed，simply because they have lived a long time，and who are strange because they formerly resembled everybody，and now resemble nobody.He was a peculiar old man，and in very truth，a man of another age，the real，complete and rather haughty bourgeois of the eighteenth century，who wore his good，old bourgeoisie with the air with which marquises wear their marquisates.
He was over ninety years of age，his walk was erect，he talked loudly，saw clearly，drank neat，ate，slept，and snored.
He had all thirty-two of his teeth.He only wore spectacles when he read.
He was of an amorous disposition，but declared that，for the last ten years，he had wholly and decidedly renounced women.
He could no longer please，he said；he did not add：
'I am too old，'but：
'I am too poor.'
He said：'If I were not ruined——Heee！'
All he had left，in fact，was an income of about fifteen thousand francs.
His dream was to come into an inheritance and to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses.
He did not belong，as the reader will perceive，to that puny variety of octogenaries who，like M.de Voltaire，have been dying all their life；his was no longevity of a cracked pot；this jovial old man had always had good health.
He was superficial，rapid，easily angered.
He flew into a passion at everything，generally quite contrary to all reason.
When contradicted，he raised his cane；he beat people as he had done in the great century.He had a daughter over fifty years of age，and unmarried，whom he chastised severely with his tongue，when in a rage，and whom he would have liked to whip.
She seemed to him to be eight years old.He boxed his servants'ears soundly，and said：
'Ah！carogne！'One of his oaths was：
'By the pantoufloche of the pantouflochade！'He had singular freaks of tranquillity；he had himself shaved every day by a barber who had been mad and who detested him，being jealous of M.Gillenormand on account of his wife，a pretty and coquettish barberess.
M.Gillenormand admired his own discernment in all things，and declared that he was extremely sagacious；here is one of his sayings：
'I have，in truth，some penetration；I am able to say when a flea bites me，from what woman it came.'
The words which he uttered the most frequently were：
the sensible man，and nature.
He did not give to this last word the grand acceptation which our epoch has accorded to it，but he made it enter，after his own fashion，into his little chimney-corner satires：'Nature，'he said，'in order that civilization may have a little of everything，gives it even specimens of its amusing barbarism.Europe possesses specimens of Asia and Africa on a small scale.The cat is a drawing-room tiger，the lizard is a pocket crocodile.The dancers at the opera are pink female savages.
They do not eat men，they crunch them；or，magicians that they are，they transform them into oysters and swallow them.
The Caribbeans leave only the bones，they leave only the shell.
Such are our morals.
We do not devour，we gnaw；we do not exterminate，we claw.'
BOOK SECOND.——THE GREAT BOURGEOIS
Ⅱ LIKE MASTER，LIKE HOUSE
He lived in the Marais，Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire，No.6.He owned the house.
This house has since been demolished and rebuilt，and the number has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the streets of Paris undergo.
He occupied an ancient and vast apartment on the first floor，between street and gardens，furnished to the very ceilings with great Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries representing pastoral scenes；the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were repeated in miniature on the arm-chairs.He enveloped his bed in a vast，nine-leaved screen of Coromandel lacquer.
Long，full curtains hung from the windows，and formed great，broken folds that were very magnificent.The garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that one of them which formed the angle，by means of a staircase twelve or fifteen steps long，which the old gentleman ascended and descended with great agility.
In addition to a library adjoining his chamber，he had a boudoir of which he thought a great deal，a gallant and elegant retreat，with magnificent hangings of straw，with a pattern of flowers and fleurs-de-lys made on the galleys of Louis XIV.
and ordered of his convicts by M.de Vivonne for his mistress.
M.Gillenormand had inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt，who had died a centenarian.
He had had two wives.His manners were something between those of the courtier，which he had never been，and the lawyer，which he might have been.He was gay，and caressing when he had a mind.
In his youth he had been one of those men who are always deceived by their wives and never by their mistresses，because they are，at the same time，the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of lovers in existence.
He was a connoisseur of painting.
He had in his chamber a marvellous portrait of no one knows whom，painted by Jordaens，executed with great dashes of the brush，with millions of details，in a confused and hap-hazard manner.
M.Gillenormand's attire was not the habit of Louis XIV.
nor yet that of Louis XVI.；it was that of the Incroyables of the Directory.
He had thought himself young up to that period and had followed the fashions.His coat was of light-weight cloth with voluminous revers，a long swallow-tail and large steel buttons.
With this he wore knee-breeches and buckle shoes.
He always thrust his hands into his fobs.He said authoritatively：
'The French Revolution is a heap of blackguards.'
BOOK SECOND.——THE GREAT BOURGEOIS
Ⅲ LUC-ESPRIT
At the age of sixteen，one evening at the opera，he had had the honor to be stared at through opera-glasses by two beauties at the same time——ripe and celebrated beauties then，and sung by Voltaire，the Camargo and the Salle.
