When he saw that his hair was turning white and falling out, he made the journey to Paris for the sole purpose of ordering a wig from the best artist in wigs. Wigmaking was becoming an art; but the investigators of details have informed us that at least sixty pistoles were required to obtain one with a white silk parting, and the hairs inserted one by one.
Monsieur de Bois-Doré was not deterred by that trifling sum, for he was a rich man, and could well afford to expend twelve to fifteen hundred francs of our money upon a semi-ceremonious costume, and five or six thousand upon a full dress-coat. He hastened to provide himself with a stock of wigs: first he fell in love with a flaxen mane, which was wonderfully becoming to him, according to the wigmaker. Bois-Doré, who had never before seen himself as a blond, was beginning to believe it, when he tried on one of a chestnut hue, which, still according to the dealer, was no less becoming than the other. The two were of the same price: but Bois-Doré tried on a third, which cost ten crowns more, and which caused the dealer's enthusiasm to overflow: that was really the only one, he said, which brought out Monsieur le marquis's fine points.
Bois-Doré thought of the time when the ladies used to say that it was very unusual to see hair as black as his with so white a skin.
"This wigmaker must be right," he thought.
But, standing before the mirror a few moments, he was surprised to see that that dark mane gave him a harsh, savage air.
"It is astonishing how it changes me," he said to himself. "However, this is my natural color. In my youth my appearance was as mild as it is now. My thick black hair never gave me this cutthroat look."
It did not occur to him that all things harmonize in the operations of nature, whether it is putting us together or taking us apart, and that with the gray hair his appearance was as it should be.
But the wigmaker told him so many times that he looked no more than thirty years old with that lovely wig, that he purchased it, and at once ordered another, for economy's sake, as he said, in order to save the first one.
However, he changed his mind the next day. He considered that he looked older than before with that youthful head, and all the friends whom he consulted shared that opinion.
The wigmaker explained to him that the hair, eyebrows and beard must be made to correspond, and he sold him the dye. But thereupon, Bois-Doré found that his face was so deathly pale amid those blotches of ink, that it was necessary to explain to him that he would require rouge.