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 Sallé. 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! Corbière! Humann! Casimir Périer! 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.