This combination of disreputable signs was guarded by a pair of eyes with yellow circles round the pupils, like those of a goat, both lascivious and cowardly.

No one in Nemours was more feared nor, in a way, more deferred to than Goupil.

Strong in the claims made for him by his very ugliness, he had the odious style of wit peculiar to men who allow themselves all license, and he used it to gratify the bitterness of his life-long envy.

He wrote the satirical couplets sung during the carnival, organized charivaris, and was himself a "little journal" of the gossip of the town.

Dionis, who was clever and insincere, and for that reason timid, kept Goupil as much through fear as for his keen mind and thorough knowledge of all the interests of the town.