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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.
Caught between two fires, he had beaten a heroic retreat towards
a little dancer, a young girl named Nahenry, who was sixteen like
himself, obscure as a cat, and with whom he was in love.
He abounded in memories.
He was accustomed to exclaim: "How pretty she was--that
Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette, the last time I saw her at Longchamps,
her hair curled in sustained sentiments, with her come-and-see
of turquoises, her gown of the color of persons newly arrived,
and her little agitation muff!" He had worn in his young
manhood a waistcoat of Nain-Londrin, which he was fond of talking
about effusively.
"I was dressed like a Turk of the Levant Levantin,"
said he.
Madame de Boufflers, having seen him by chance when he was
twenty, had described him as "a charming fool."
He was horrified by all the names which he saw in politics
and in power, regarding them as vulgar and bourgeois. He read
the journals, the newspapers, the gazettes as he said, stifling
outbursts of laughter the while.
"Oh!" he said, "what people these are!
Corbiere!
Humann!
Casimir Perier! There's a minister for you!
I can imagine this in a journal: `M. Gillenorman, minister!'
that would be a farce.
Well!
They are so stupid that it would pass"; he merrily called
everything by its name, whether decent or indecent, and did not
restrain himself in the least before ladies.
He uttered coarse speeches, obscenities, and filth with a
certain tranquillity and lack of astonishment which was elegant.
It was in keeping with the unceremoniousness of his century. It
is to be noted that the age of periphrase in verse was the age
of crudities in prose.
His god-father had predicted that he would turn out a man
of genius, and had bestowed on him these two significant names:
Luc-Esprit.
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