In 1786 Bodard de Saint-James, treasurer to the Navy, was of all the financiers of Paris the one whose luxury gave rise to most remark and gossip. At that time he was building his famous _Folly_ at Neuilly, and his wife bought, to crown the tester of her bed, a plume of feathers of which the price had dismayed the Queen. It was far easier then than now to make oneself the fashion and be talked of by all Paris; a witticism was often quite enough, or the caprice of a woman. Bodard lived in the fine house in the Place Vendôme which the farmer-general Dangé had not long since been compelled to quit. This notorious Epicurean was lately dead; and on the day when he was buried, Monsieur de Bièvre, his intimate friend, had found matter for a jest, saying that now one could cross the Place Vendôme without danger (or Dangé). This allusion to the terrific gambling that went on in the deceased man's house was his funeral oration. The house is that opposite to the Chancellerie. To complete Bodard's history as briefly as possible, he was a poor creature, he failed for fourteen millions of francs after the Prince de Guéménée. His clumsiness in not anticipating that Serene bankruptcy--to use an expression of Lebrun-Pindare's--led to his never even being mentioned. He died in a garret, like Bourvalais, Bouret, and many others. Madame de Saint-James indulged an ambition of never receiving any but people of quality--a stale absurdity that is ever new. To her the cap of a lawyer in the Parlement was but a small affair; she wanted to see her rooms filled with persons of title who had at least the minor privileges of _entrée_ at Versailles. To say that many blue ribbons were to be seen in the lady's house would be untrue; but it is quite certain that she had succeeded in winning the civility and attention of some members of the Rohan family, as was proved subsequently in the too famous case of the Queen's necklace. One evening--it was, I believe, in August 1786--I was greatly surprised to see in this millionaire's room, precise as she was in the matter of proofs of rank, two new faces, which struck me as being of decidedly inferior birth. She came up to me as I stood in a window recess, where I had intentionally ensconced myself. "Do tell me," said I, with a questioning glance at one of these strangers, "who is that specimen? How did he get into your house?" "He is a charming man." "Do you see him through the prism of love, or am I mistaken in him?" "You are not mistaken," she replied, laughing; "he is as ugly as a toad; but he has done me the greatest service a woman can accept from a man." As I looked at her with mischievous meaning, she hastened to add: "He has entirely cured me of the ugly red patches which spoiled my complexion and made me look like a peasant woman." I shrugged my shoulders with disgust. "A quack!" I exclaimed.