Montfanon is collecting documents in order to write the history of the French nobility and of the Church.

His mistresses of the time when he was the rival of the Gramont-Caderousses and the Demidoffs would surely not recognize him any more than he would them.

But are they as happy as he seems to have remained through his life of sacrifice?
There is laughter in his blue eyes, which attest his pure Germanic origin, and which light up his face, one of those feudal faces such as one sees in the portraits hung upon the walls of the priories of Malta, where plainness has race.

A thick, white moustache, in which glimmers a vague reflection of gold, partly hides a scar which would give to that red face a terrible look were it not for the expression of those eyes, in which there is fervor mingled with merriment.

For Montfanon is as fanatical on certain subjects as he is genial and jovial on others.