To receive on a large scale is not as easy as people think. It by no means suffices to be rich and to issue invitations broadcast. The principal thing is to know how to receive one’s guests, an accomplishment attainable only on the two following conditions: Aristocratic extraction and love of humanity. At least three or four generations of well-born and wealthy people accustomed to social surroundings are needed for the production of a good host. Everyone who has been in the house of a _nouveau riche_ knows that he felt, on that occasion, as though he were in a restaurant. The hosts did not know how to greet their visitors, nor how to introduce or unite them, so the latter ate and drank, and having witnessed what entertainment was provided for them, left, sometimes even forgetting to say good-bye to the hosts. A love of humanity is as indispensable to a good host as blue blood, and Count Primoli may be said to have been richly endowed with both these qualifications. He was a true “Grand Seigneur,” and knew how to make his guests feel at home. He sincerely loved them all, and wished to give them pleasure. There were some vulgar people who made fun of his charming cordiality. Had he forgotten to invite them, or had he treated them with lofty disdain, they would immediately have begun to respect him. Nice people, however, valued his kind heart, and took no notice of the silly anecdotes that rumour spread about him. Like all ideal hosts, Count Primoli loved his beautiful villa, and never tired of improving it. “Je veux que ma maison ne ressemble à nulle autre,” he said to his friends. This was not easy to attain, since, in our day, it is hardly possible to invent anything really new or original. Thanks to railways, steamships, newspapers, and journals, life grows every day more level and commonplace. Almost all the world lives, eats, and dresses alike. The women of Greenland know the latest fashions as well as their Parisian sisters. The cannibals of Central Asia, imitating English lords, put on smoking-suits when they sit down to eat their roasted neighbours. The aristocratic drawing-rooms of Pekin are furnished like those of Madrid. Dinners, balls, receptions, are alike everywhere, and people travel from one end of the earth to the other noticing hardly any difference. Count Primoli, however, managed to attain his object, and his receptions, once witnessed, were not easily forgotten. Already, on driving up to the entrance of his villa, one felt a sense of gaiety and pleasure. The small covered courtyard was carpeted for the occasion and was decorated with flowers and the Bonaparte arms. A majestic outdoor servant, theatrically attired, received the carriages as they drove up. In the square hall, on each side of the door, stood rows of footmen, in long gold-embroidered satin tail-coats, knee breeches, white silk stockings, and buckled shoes, an original, old, and now extinct French fashion of dressing house-servants.