But if he received glad tidings, he would start from his chair and frisk about, making jokes, his bright gray eyes twinkling merrily as lamps through his gold-rimmed spectacles. After dinner there was always a discussion, _coram hospitibus_, between him and Madame Thiers as to whether he might take some black coffee. Permission to excite his nerves being invariably refused, he would wink, laughing, to his friends, to call their attention to the state of uxorious bondage in which he lived, and then retire to a high arm-chair near the fire, where he soon dropped off to sleep. Upon this, Madame Thiers would lay a forefinger on her lips, saying, “Monsieur Thiers sleeps;” and with the help of her sister she would clear the guests into the next room, where they conversed in whispers while the President dozed—a droll little figure with his chin resting on the broad red ribbon of his Legion of Honor, and his short legs dangling about an inch above the floor. It was always very touching to see the care with which M. Thiers’ wife and sister-in-law ministered to him. The story has been often told of how M. Thiers having been forbidden by doctors to eat his favorite Provençal dish of fish cooked with garlic, M. Mignet, the historian, used to smuggle some of this mess enclosed in a tin box into his friend’s study, and what a pretty scene there was one day when Madame Thiers detected these two countrymen enjoying the contraband dainty together. M. Thiers had naturally a great notion of his dignity as president of the republic, and he was anxious to appear impressively on all state occasions; but the arrangements made to hedge him about with majesty were always being disconcerted by his doing whatever it came into his head to do. His servants were dressed in black, and he had a major-domo who wore a silver chain and tried to usher morning visitors into the president’s room in the order of their rank; but every now and then M. Thiers used to pop out of his room, take stock of his visitors for himself, and make his choice of those whom he wished to see first. Then the most astonishing and uncourtly dialogues would ensue: “Monsieur le Président, this is the third time I have come here, and I have waited two hours each time.” “My friend, if you had come to see me about the affairs of France, and not about your own business, we should have had a conversation long ago.”