I had sent my card with the letters of our mutual friend to M. de Cernay. Two days after he came to see me, but I was out; a few days later I called on him one morning. He lived alone in a very pretty house, which seemed to be the very triumph of all that was comfortable, joined to an elegant simplicity. His _valet de chambre_ begged me to wait an instant in a salon, where I noticed some beautiful hunting scenes by Géricault. Five minutes after my arrival, M. de Cernay entered. He was tall, slender, and graceful, with a most agreeable face, and manners which were those of the most polished society. The count received me charmingly, spoke to me of our mutual friend, and offered me his services in the most obliging way. I perceived that he was watching me closely. I had just arrived from the provinces, but I had travelled a great deal and had lived a long time in England; thus he was hesitating, I thought, to find out if he should treat me as a provincial, or as a man already in society. I believe what decided him to treat me as the latter was the vexation which I thought he felt at not seeing me more overpowered with his great elegance. Envied, imitated, flattered, he perhaps found me too much at my ease, too polite, and not sufficiently astonished. Now I admit that this slight shade of vexation on M. de Cernay's face caused me to smile. He asked me to have a cup of tea with two of his friends, and an Italian renegade who had taken service with Méhémet-Ali. This Italian, he said, was a man of great bravery, who had gone through the most extraordinary scenes and romantic adventures, been obliged, in fact, to assassinate two or three women and as many men, to save himself and escape from a delicate situation. I was very little astonished at hearing about this peculiar person, for I had already been told that M. de Cernay had a perfect mania for celebrities of every kind; and that no sooner did an Arab, a Persian, an Indian, or any foreigner of distinction arrive in Paris, than M. de Cernay would fly to be presented to him. Was it by way of attracting attention to himself, that he liked to be surrounded with extraordinary acolytes, or had his reputation as a fashionable man reached beyond the shores of the Ganges and Nile? I can't say why, but the fact was so. "Will you stay and take tea with me?" said, therefore, M. de Cernay. "Leaving aside my renegade, you will meet one of the most eccentric and clever men that I know of, and one of the silliest and most ridiculous: the first one is Lord Falmouth, the other is M. du Pluvier." "I have frequently heard Lord Falmouth spoken of," said I, "and I shall consider myself very fortunate in being able to meet him; but I thought he was in India?"