Madame Gay had made a literary center of her drawing-room in the rue Gaillon where she had grouped around her twice a week not only many of the literary and artistic celebrities of the epoch, but also her acquaintances who had occupied political situations under the Empire. Madame Gay, who had made her debut under the /Directoire/, had been rather prominent under the Empire, and under the Restoration took delight in condemning the government of the Bourbons. Introduced into this company, though yet unknown to fame, Balzac forcibly impressed all those who met him, and while his physique was far from charming, the intelligence of his eyes reveled his superiority. Familiar and even hilarious, he enjoyed Madame Gay's salon especially, for here he experienced entire liberty, feeling no restraint whatever. At her receptions as in other salons of Paris, his toilet, neglected at times to the point of slovenliness, yet always displayed some distinguishing peculiarity. Having acquired some reputation, the young novelist started to carry about with him the enormous and now celebrated cane, the first of a series of magnificent eccentricities. A quaint carriage, a groom whom he called Anchise, marvelous dinners, thirty-one waistcoats bought in one month, with the intention of bringing this number to three hundred and sixty-five, were only a few of the number of bizarre things, which astonished for a moment his feminine friends, and which he laughingly called /reclame/. Like many writers of this epoch, Balzac was not polished in the art of conversing. His conversation was but little more than an amusing monologue, bright and at times noisy, but uniquely filled with himself, and that which concerned him personally. The good, like the evil, was so grossly exaggerated that both lost all appearance of truth. As time went on, his financial embarrassments continually growing and his hopes of relieving them increasing in the same proportion, his future millions and his present debts were the subject of all his discourses. Madame Gay was by no means universally beloved. In her sharp and disagreeable voice she said much good of herself and much evil of others. She had a mania for titles and was ever ready to mention some count, baron or marquis. In her drawing-room, Balzac found a direct contrast to the Royalist salon of the beautiful Duchesse de Castries which he frequented. In both salons, he met a society entirely unfamiliar to him, and acquainted himself sufficiently with the conventions of these two spheres to make use of them in his novels.