‘These are no family parchments,’ he said, ‘or emblazoned scutcheons, but patents of nobility calculated to blanch the cheeks of the world’s aristocracies, and patents of nobility which shall never derogate. There are neither misalliances nor hereditary stains of gold in that book. Gold, from the day it was first purified by fire, is the only pure genealogy, the only one retaining its pride, the only one whose brightness cannot be dimmed. Find me an aristocracy capable of vying in multiplicity of quarterings and services rendered with that one, and I’ll kneel down and worship.’ And he stroked the bills of exchange, and waved the flimsy bits of paper in the air, to prove to me the enormous total of those patents of nobility of his imagination. ‘With all this,’ he went on, ‘the world is an immense Garden of Eden, where no fruit is forbidden. Whatever the moralists of the school of Seneca may pretend, here you behold the motive of all virtue, and also the motive of all pleasure. I hold the whole of it in this hand without trouble, without confusion, without remorse--the whole of it, from the most sumptuous palace, the most exquisitely appointed carriages, the most exquisitely prepared banquets, to the most divinely beautiful woman.’ Saying which, he strained his ‘bill case’ to his heart with more fervour than the old man hugs his purse in the ‘Scène du Déluge’ of Girodet. ‘I think I have heard enough, M. Ank----,’ I said; ‘you not only make an end of all virtue, but you would justify crime. Why should not a brigand adopt your plea after killing you, by saying that he also wishes to judge whether the reality your gold would procure could not weigh up against all your illusions?’ As may be imagined, I had had enough, and more than enough, of the man, of his breakfast, of his code of morals, and of his bill-book, and I bade him good-bye with the firm intention of never seeing him again. Another Englishman who at that time contended with Mr. Foneron for the honour of entertaining both strangers and his countrymen was Mr. Raily. Thanks to his enormous expenditure, he was, according to some, soon enabled to beat the exquisite comfort of the family dinners of his rival. Not feeling particularly anxious to swell the number of Mr. Raily’s guests, I had persistently neglected every opportunity of procuring for myself invitations, of which Mr. Raily was not sparing. ‘I wish you to make his acquaintance,’ Griffiths said to me one day: ‘an observer must see everything and study everything. Mr. Raily, as well as several other “characters,” will figure very well in your recollections; at any rate, there will be the merit of variety.’ I let Griffiths have his way, only asking him a few questions on the personage we were going to visit.