Read it through once

“He had been secretary to the Comte de Moustiers, one of the last Ambassadors, if not the very last, from Louis Seize to the Court of St. James’s. Of course he knew many emigrants of the highest rank, and, indeed, of all ranks; and being a lively, kind-hearted man, with a liberal hand and a social temper, it was his delight to assemble as many as he could of his poor countrymen and countrywomen around his hospitable supper-table. Something wonderful and admirable it was to see how these Dukes and Duchesses, Marshals and Marquises, Chevaliers and Bishops, bore up under their unparalleled reverses! How they laughed and talked, and squabbled, and flirted,—constant to their high heels, their rouge, and their furbelows, to their old liaisons, their polished sarcasms, their cherished rivalries! For the most part, these noble exiles had a trifling pecuniary dependency; some had brought with them jewels enough to sustain them in their simple lodgings in Knightsbridge or Pentonville; to some a faithful steward contrived to forward the produce of some estate, too small to have been seized by the early plunderers; to others a rich English friend would claim the privilege of returning the kindness and hospitality of by-gone years.”