Canalis, taken young by the handsome duchess, vindicated his affectations to his own mind by telling himself that they pleased that "grande dame," whose taste was law.

Such shades of character may be excessively faint, but it is improper for the historian not to point them out.

For instance, Melchior possessed a talent for reading which was greatly admired, and much injudicious praise had given him a habit of exaggeration, which neither poets nor actors are willing to check, and which made people say of him (always through De Marsay) that he no longer declaimed, he bellowed his verses; lengthening the sounds that he might listen to himself.

In the slang of the green-room, Canalis "dragged the time." He was fond of exchanging glances with his hearers, throwing himself into postures of self-complacency and practising those tricks of demeanor which actors call "balancoires,"-- the picturesque phrase of an artistic people.
Canalis had his imitators, and was in fact the head of a school of his kind.

This habit of declamatory chanting slightly affected his conversation, as we have seen in his interview with Dumay.