Nor was he less esteemed in the Corps Legislatif, where he assumed the curious role of a working member until committees fought for him. It surprised his colleagues to see this elegant young man, with such fine abilities, so modest and so laborious--to see him ready on the dryest subjects and with the most tedious reports. Ponderous laws of local interest neither frightened nor mystified him. He seldom spoke in the public debates, except as a reporter; but in the committee he spoke often, and there his manner was noted for its grave precision, tinged with irony. No one doubted that he was one of the statesmen of the future; but it could be seen he was biding his time.
The exact shade of his politics was entirely unknown. He sat in the “centre left;” polite to every one, but reserved with all. Persuaded, like his father, that the rising generation was preparing, after a time, to pass from theories to revolution--and calculating with pleasure that the development of this periodical catastrophe would probably coincide with his fortieth year, and open to his blase maturity a source of new emotions--he determined to wait and mold his political opinions according to circumstances.
His life, nevertheless, had sufficient of the agreeable to permit him to wait the hour of ambition. Men respected, feared, and envied him. Women adored him.
His presence, of which he was not prodigal, adorned an entertainment: his intrigues could not be gossiped about, being at the same time choice, numerous, and most discreetly conducted.
Passions purely animal never endure long, and his were most ephemeral; but he thought it due to himself to pay the last honors to his victims, and to inter them delicately under the flowers of his friendship. He had in this way made many friends among the Parisian women--a few only of whom detested him. As for the husbands--they were universally fond of him.
To these elegant pleasures he sometimes added a furious debauch, when his imagination was for the moment maddened by champagne. But low company disgusted him, and he shunned it; he was not a man for frequent orgies, and economized his health, his energies, and his strength. His tastes were as thoroughly elevated as could be those of a being who strove to repress his soul. Refined intrigues, luxury in music, paintings, books, and horses--these constituted all the joy of his soul, of his sense, and of his pride. He hovered over the flowers of Parisian elegance; as a bee in the bosom of a rose, he drank in its essence and revelled in its beauty.