When you met him, he always commenced
conversation:--
"Ah, ha! what did I tell you? Am I not an excellent prophet? You
remember the prophecy I made the other day? It has come to pass just as
I predicted it!"
Poor Paulin Limayrac really thought himself a prophet, when in good
truth he was not even a conjurer. Stiffening himself up on his stumpy
legs, he stared as hard as he could through his eye-glass, and from his
giant's height of four feet ten, at everybody who pretended to believe
there was a God in heaven. His occupation just at that time was to toss
the incense-burning censer in honor of Madame, Emile de Girardin under
her aquiline nose. He had become the page, the groom, the dwarf of this
celebrated woman, who had, alas! only a few months more to live. He
opened the fire against me. To gratify Madame Emile de Girardin, he one
day wrote on the corner of her table twenty harsh lines against me, (he
took good care not to sign them,) in which he said of me exactly the
contrary of what he had written to me. As these lines were anonymous, I
did not care to pretend to recognize the author; besides, can you feel
anger towards such a whipper-snapper? I met him a short time afterwards,
and he gave me a more cordial shake-hands than ever.
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