In the Café de la Coupe d’Or, so conspicuous in the Place des Terreaux, where I usually resorted to pass my evenings, and indulge in the cheap luxuries of my coffee and cheroot, I happened to make a bowing acquaintance with a venerable elderly gentleman, who each night resorted there to read the papers, and amuse himself by looking over the chess- players, with which the room was crowded. Some accidental interchange of newspapers led to a recognition, and that again advanced to a few words each time we met--till one evening, chance placed us at the same table, and we chatted away several hours, and parted in the hope, mutually expressed, of renewing our acquaintance at an early period. I had no difficulty in interrogating the _dame du café_ about my new acquaintance. He was a striking and remarkable-looking personage, tall and military-looking, with an air of _grand seigneur_, which in a Frenchman is never deceptive; certainly I never saw it successfully assumed by any who had no right to it. He wore his hair _en queue_, and in his dress evinced, in several trifling matters, an adherence to the habitudes of the old régime--so, at least, I interpreted his lace ruffles and silk stockings, with his broad buckles of brilliants in his shoes. The ribbon of St. Louis, which he wore unostentatiously on his waistcoat, was his only decoration. ‘This is the Vicomte de Berlemont, _ancien colonel-en-chef_,’ said she, with an accent of pride at the mention of so distinguished a frequenter of the café; ‘he has not missed an evening here for years past.’ A few more words of inquiry elicited from her the information that the vicomte had served in all the wars of the Empire up to the time of the abdication; that on the restoration of the Bourbons he had received his rank in the service from them, and, faithful to their fortunes, had followed Louis XVIII. in exile to Ghent. ‘He has seen a deal of the world, then, madame, it would appear?’ ‘That he has, and loves to speak about it too; time was when they reckoned the vicomte among the pleasantest persons in Lyons; but they say he has grown old now, and contracted a habit of repeating his stories. I can’t tell how that may be, but I think him always amiable.’ A delightful word that same ‘amiable’ is! and so thinking, I wished madame good-night, and departed. The next evening I lay in wait for the old colonel, and was flattered to see that he was taking equal pains to discover me. We retired to a little table, ordered our coffee, and chatted away till midnight. Such was the commencement, such the course, of one of the pleasantest intimacies I ever formed.