One night when he was supping at the Cafe de Paris, he threw all the plates out the window. It cost him twenty thousand francs. Bravo! One morning gossiping Paris learned with stupefaction that he had eloped to Italy with the wife of X—-, the banker, a lady nineteen years married. He fought a duel, and killed his man. The week after, he was wounded in another. He was a hero! On one occasion he went to Baden, where he broke the bank. Another time, after playing sixty hours, he managed to lose one hundred and twenty thousand francs—won by a Russian prince.
He was one of those men whom success intoxicates, who long for applause, but who care not for what they are applauded. Count Hector was more than ravished by the noise he made in the world. It seemed to him the acme of honor and glory to have his name or initials constantly in the columns of the Parisian World. He did not betray this, however, but said, with charming modesty, after each new adventure:
"When will they stop talking about me?"
On great occasions, he borrowed from Louis XIV the epigram:
"After me the deluge."
The deluge came in his lifetime.
One April morning, his valet, a villainous fellow, drilled and dressed up by the count—woke him at nine o'clock with this speech:
"Monsieur, a bailiff is downstairs in the ante-chamber, and has come to seize your furniture."
Hector turned on his pillow, yawned, stretched, and replied:
"Well, tell him to begin operations with the stables and carriage-house; and then come up and dress me."