LOUISE DE LA VALLIEEE. 33 their youths and for those who are young the old age of their ancestors. Planchet^ notwithstanding the sort of internal shiver, which he checked immediately he experi- enced it, received Porthos, therefore, with a respect mingled with the most tender cordiality. Perthes, who was a little cold and stiff in his manners at first, on account of the social difference which existed at that period between a baron and a grocer, soon began to get a little softened when he perceived so much good feeling and so many kind atten- tions in Planchet. He was particularly touched by the liberty which was permitted him to plunge his large hands into the boxes of dried fruits and preserves, into the sacks of nuts and almonds, and into the drawers full of sweet- meats. So that, notwithstanding Planchet's pressing invi- tations to go upstairs to the entresol, he chose as his favorite seat, during the evening which he had to spend at Plan- chet's house, the shop itself, where his fingers could always find whatever his nose had first detected for him. The delicious figs from Provence, filberts from the forest. Tours plums, were subjects of hiS interrupted attention for five consecutive hours. His teeth, like millstones, cracked heaps of nuts, the shells of which were scattered all over the floor, where they were trampled by every one who went in and out of the shop; Perthes pulled from the stalk with his lips, at one mouthful, bunches of the rich Muscatel raisins with their beautiful bloom, and a half pound of which passed at one gulp from his mouth to his stomach. In one of the corners of the shop, Planchet's assistants, crouching down in a fright, looked at each other without venturing to open their lips. They did not know who Per- thes was, for they had never seen him before. The race of those Titans who had worn the cuirasses of Hugues Capet, Philip Augustus, and Francis I. had already begun to disappear. They could not help thinking he might pos- sibly be the ogre of the fairy tale, who was going to turn the whole contents of Planchet's shop into his insatiable stomach, and that, too, without in the slightest degree dis- placing the barrels and chests that were in it. Cracking, munching, chewing, nibbling, sucking, and swallowing, Porthos occasionally said to the grocer:
- 'You do a very good business here, friend Planchet."
- 'He will very soon have none at all to do if this con-
tinues," grumbled the foreman, who had Planchet's word that he should be his successor. And in his despair, he ap- proached Porthos, who blocked up the whole of the passage
