Philippe Georges Marie Comte de Chagny was just forty-one years of age.

He was a great aristocrat and a good-looking man, above middle height and with attractive features, in spite of his hard forehead and his rather cold eyes.

He was exquisitely polite to the women and a little haughty to the men, who did not always forgive him for his successes in society.
He had an excellent heart and an irreproachable conscience.

On the death of old Count Philibert, he became the head of one of the oldest and most distinguished families in France, whose arms dated back to the fourteenth century.

The Chagnys owned a great deal of property; and, when the old count, who was a widower, died, it was no easy task for Philippe to accept the management of so large an estate.