It was less probable still, when one came to consider the frequent festivities and the gaiety at the house before which my modest cab stopped in the course of this monologue. I don’t consider myself more stupidly plebeian than most people, but the sensation of arriving at a 600,000 franc house to take part in a fifty pound dinner in a vehicle fare thirty-five sous will always suffice to disgust me with the smart world without anything else. But other things had a similar effect on me, and the Bonnivets’ house was one of them, for it seemed to me most like a parody of architecture, in which the feat has been achieved of mingling twenty-five styles and building a wooden staircase in the English style in a Renaissance framework; the hang-dog faces of the footmen in livery seemed like a gallery of mute insolence to the visitor. How could I bear this adornment of things and people without perceiving its hideous artificiality? How could I help detesting the impression made by this furniture, which smelt of plunder and curiosity shops, for nothing was in its place: eighteenth century tapestry alternated with sixteenth century pictures, with furniture of the days of Louis XV, with modern sliding curtains, and with bits of ancient stoles furnishing off a reclining chair, the back of a couch, or the cushion of a divan! In short, when I was ushered into the boudoir drawing-room where Madam de Bonnivet held her assizes I was a greater partisan than ever of Camille, the brave little actress, as she had appeared to me in the modest room in the Rue de la Barouillére.