Louis de Berniers was the incarnation of aristocratic _niaiserie_. He was young, titled, not ill-looking, and had vast wealth at his command. But for this latter possession he might possibly have distinguished himself otherwise than by his follies; for he was not without one or two good qualities,--for example, generosity. But with him generosity took the form of a reckless prodigality, which caused him to be surrounded by a swarm of flatterers and parasites, male and female, who so fed and pampered his raging vanity that he believed himself a Crichton at eighteen. His ambition soared only to the height of emulating the boudoir exploits of M. de Richelieu, and he fancied himself a master of all the social ceremonies of the capital. So far as his languid nature would allow him, he sought notoriety in every quarter. "No man's pie was free from his ambitious finger." He had acted with Madame de Pompadour's company of amateurs at Versailles, and, though surrounded by clever gentlemen like D'Entragues and De Maillebois, firmly believed himself the only worthy supporter of Madame d'Etioles. On the strength of his supposed supremacy, he had from time to time graciously volunteered his aid to Lekain and Mlle. Clairon in the preparation of their most difficult _rôles_. He had supplied the poet Beauverset with now and then a topic, and imagined himself to be the true source whence that incendiary rhymer drew his choicest inspirations. After the success of Rousseau's _Devin du Village_, he had driven the composer wild by his offers to assist him in the purification of his melodies. Nothing in the way of notoriety was too high or too low for him. He had laid out a plan for the replanting of the Trianon gardens, and was disgusted because Richard, the king's gardener, politely declined to adopt it; and he had been heard to say that in the composition of sauces and _ragoûts_ he could easily rival his Majesty himself, and would prove his superiority, but for the fear of losing favor at court.