Into this giddy stream the Abbé de Périgord gladly plunged. He was in his twenty-fourth year, still pale of face, but with the familiar Talleyrand features fully developed: the quiet blue-grey eyes, so very observant, under bushy eye-brows, the nose pointed and slightly turned up, the lower lip protruding a little, a faint smile hovering about the mouth, and a fine crop of long, wavy hair framing the attractive face. He had taken a small house in the district of Bellechasse (near the Invalides), collected an excellent library of good books in good bindings, and at once renewed his acquaintance with Choiseul, Count Louis de Narbonne, and the Abbé de Périgord. They were collective owners of a stable of racers, and were the nucleus of a group of diners and talkers that nearly every ambitious woman must entertain. Talleyrand soon completed his education. He became a famous whist-player (his chief amusement through life), and added a good deal to his income at the tables. He had in the Rue Saint-Dominique an interesting and useful neighbour in the Countess de Genlis. After a very romantic career she was then in charge of the children of the Duc de Chartres. In 1779 she had retired from the gaiety (and orgies) of the Palais Royal to train, on the best moral and philosophical principles, the twin daughters of the Duchess. The Convent of the Sisters of the Holy Sepulchre at Bellechasse was a favourite spot for “retreats” amongst the wealthy Parisians, and a house was built in its grounds in which the retired countess could carry out her work. Over its street door—a grilled, very religious-looking door—was written, in gold characters, Addison’s excellent saying: “True happiness is of a retired nature and an enemy to pomp and noise.” Two of the nuns guarded the door, which was firmly closed at ten every night, and the key was taken into the convent. Inside, beyond the simple furniture (she had left her seven hundred pounds’ worth of mirrors in her salon at the Palais), all was calmly educative. Busts of great and good men, maps, historical tablets, &c., abounded. So Mme. de Genlis in her memoirs. She was just such a neighbour as Talleyrand would appreciate at that time. With the same ever-flowing pen she would write a most edifying book on moral education, a Jacobin speech for the Duke, and an erotic novel. Her moral writings testified, as E. de Goncourt says, to “the ease with which her imagination could find a substitute for experience.” All Paris descended on the model teacher’s dwelling in the Rue Saint-Dominique. There being a royal princess (the infant) in the house men could enter the enclosure; and, says Talleyrand, in one of his caustic moments, she “always yielded at once so as to avoid the scandal of coquetry.” Heavy gambling went on under the Addisonian maxim. One youth lost 13,000 louis there. Talleyrand was a very frequent visitor, and an assiduous observer. “When you see much of men,” said his cynical