I told him it was, and he said:

"You must not think me very curious and impertinent; but Paris is about
the most dangerous capital a high-spirited and generous young gentleman
could visit without a Mentor. If you have not an experienced friend as a
companion during your visit--." He paused. I told him I was not so provided, but that I had my wits about me; that
I had seen a good deal of life in England, and that I fancied human
nature was pretty much the same in all parts of the world. The Marquis
shook his head, smiling. "You will find very marked differences, notwithstanding," he said. "Peculiarities of intellect and peculiarities of character, undoubtedly,
do pervade different nations; and this results, among the criminal
classes, in a style of villainy no less peculiar. In Paris the class who
live by their wits is three or four times as great as in London; and
they live much better; some of them even splendidly. They are more
ingenious than the London rogues; they have more animation and
invention, and the dramatic faculty, in which your countrymen are
deficient, is everywhere. These invaluable attributes place them upon a
totally different level. They can affect the manners and enjoy the
luxuries of people of distinction. They live, many of them, by play." "So do many of our London rogues." "Yes, but in a totally different way. They are the _habitués_ of
certain gaming-tables, billiard-rooms, and other places, including your
races, where high play goes on; and by superior knowledge of chances, by
masking their play, by means of confederates, by means of bribery, and
other artifices, varying with the subject of their imposture, they rob
the unwary. But here it is more elaborately done, and with a really
exquisite _finesse_. There are people whose manners, style,
conversation, are unexceptionable, living in handsome houses in the best
situations, with everything about them in the most refined taste, and
exquisitely luxurious, who impose even upon the Parisian bourgeois, who
believe them to be, in good faith, people of rank and fashion, because
their habits are expensive and refined, and their houses are frequented
by foreigners of distinction, and, to a degree, by foolish young
Frenchmen of rank. At all these houses play goes on. The ostensible host
and hostess seldom join in it; they provide it simply to plunder their
guests, by means of their accomplices, and thus wealthy strangers are
inveigled and robbed." "But I have heard of a young Englishman, a son of Lord Rooksbury, who
broke two Parisian gaming tables only last year." "I see," he said, laughing, "you are come here to do likewise. I,
myself, at about your age, undertook the same spirited enterprise. I
raised no less a sum than five hundred thousand francs to begin with; I
expected to carry all before me by the simple expedient of going on
doubling my stakes. I had heard of it, and I fancied that the sharpers,
who kept the table, knew nothing of the matter. I found, however, that
they not only knew all about it, but had provided against the
possibility of any such experiments; and I was pulled up before I had
well begun by a rule which forbids the doubling of an original stake
more than four times consecutively." "And is that rule in force still?" I inquired, chapfallen. He laughed and shrugged, "Of course it is, my young friend. People who
live by an art always understand it better than an amateur. I see you
had formed the same plan, and no doubt came provided." I confessed I had prepared for conquest upon a still grander scale. I had arrived with a purse of thirty thousand pounds sterling. "Any acquaintance of my very dear friend, Lord R----, interests me; and,
besides my regard for him, I am charmed with you; so you will pardon
all my, perhaps, too officious questions and advice." I thanked him most earnestly for his valuable counsel, and begged that
he would have the goodness to give me all the advice in his power. "Then if you take my advice," said he, "you will leave your money in the
bank where it lies. Never risk a Napoleon in a gaming house. The night I
went to break the bank I lost between seven and eight thousand pounds
sterling of your English money; and my next adventure, I had obtained an
introduction to one of those elegant gaming-houses which affect to be
the private mansions of persons of distinction, and was saved from ruin
by a gentleman whom, ever since, I have regarded with increasing respect
and friendship. It oddly happens he is in this house at this moment. I
recognized his servant, and made him a visit in his apartments here, and
found him the same brave, kind, honorable man I always knew him. But
that he is living so entirely out of the world, now, I should have made
a point of introducing you. Fifteen years ago he would have been the man
of all others to consult. The gentleman I speak of is the Comte de St.
Alyre. He represents a very old family. He is the very soul of honor,
and the most sensible man in the world, except in one particular." "And that particular?" I hesitated. I was now deeply interested. "Is that he has married a charming creature, at least five-and-forty
years younger than himself, and is, of course, although I believe
absolutely without cause, horribly jealous." "And the lady?" "The Countess is, I believe, in every way worthy of so good a man," he
answered, a little dryly. "I think I heard her sing this evening." "Yes, I daresay; she is very accomplished." After a few moments' silence
he continued. "I must not lose sight of you, for I should be sorry, when next you meet
my friend Lord R----, that you had to tell him you had been pigeoned in
Paris. A rich Englishman as you are, with so large a sum at his Paris
bankers, young, gay, generous, a thousand ghouls and harpies will be
contending who shall be the first to seize and devour you." At this moment I received something like a jerk from the elbow of the
gentleman at my right. It was an accidental jog, as he turned in his
seat. "On the honor of a soldier, there is no man's flesh in this company
heals so fast as mine." The tone in which this was spoken was harsh and stentorian, and almost
made me bounce. I looked round and recognized the officer whose large
white face had half scared me in the inn-yard, wiping his mouth
furiously, and then with a gulp of Magon, he went on:

"No one! It's not blood; it is ichor! it's miracle! Set aside stature,
thew, bone, and muscle--set aside courage, and by all the angels of
death, I'd fight a lion naked, and dash his teeth down his jaws with my
fist, and flog him to death with his own tail! Set aside, I say, all
those attributes, which I am allowed to possess, and I am worth six men
in any campaign, for that one quality of healing as I do--rip me up,
punch me through, tear me to tatters with bomb-shells, and nature has me
whole again, while your tailor would fine--draw an old coat. _Parbleu_! gentlemen, if you saw me naked, you would laugh!