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He had once had such a room in Paris, with a lofty, white, lacquered bed which is one stimulant the more, a source of depravity to old roues, leering at the false chastity and hypocritical modesty of Greuze's tender virgins, at the deceptive candor of a bed evocative of babes and chaste maidens.
He hunts in Leicestershire, where great men mount him; he is a prodigious favorite behind the scenes at the theatres; you may get glimpses of him at Richmond, with all sorts of pink bonnets; and he is the sworn friend of half the most famous roues about town, such as Old Methuselah, Lord Billygoat, Lord Tarquin, and the rest: a respectable race.
To these suppers none were asked but the Prince's chums, or /roues/,* as he was pleased to call them. As, /entre nous/, these chums were for the most part the most good-for-nothing people in the kingdom, I could not but feel highly flattered at being deemed, by so deep a judge of character as the Regent, worthy to join them.
Moreover, the aspect of a young married couple much taken with each other always rejoices the heart of those among the celibates who are known as roues; they take good care not to disturb the excitement by which society is to be profited; they also know that heavy showers to not last long.
Once more he is at the old place in Cheshire, whither he has gone like any other young dandy, an agreeable addition to a country shooting-party because of his chestnut locks, his blue eyes, his handsome person, and general recklessness of character; agreeable, he reflects, to elderly roués and established married women, but a scarecrow to mothers, and a stumbling-block to daughters, as being utterly penniless and rather good-for-nothing.
You are a proud man where honour is concerned, and the past life of her whom you marry should be without spot or blemish. It is not so with me. If I have not sinned as other women have sinned, I have stooped to be the companion of gamblers and roues; I have allowed my house to become the haunt of reckless and dissipated men. Society revenges itself cruelly upon those who break its laws.
A moment after La Vrilliere came and relieved me of the company of Grancey and Broglio, two roues, whom I had found in the grand cabinet, in the cool, familiarly, without wigs.
A woman from any profession, from any stratum of society, by her charm and intelligence, her original discoveries and inventions of debauch and licentiousness, could easily become the heroine of the day, the goddess of society, the goal and aspiration of the used-up roués of the aristocracy.
In the midst of the many new things by which they were surrounded, some of which they unfortunately found it impossible to ignore, it was their sweetest relaxation to give themselves up entirely to the remembrance of the old régime, and when they spoke of this era, they forgot their age and debility, and were once more the young roués of the oeil de boeuf.
During the supper, Rastignac and Blondet advised their provisional enemy not to neglect such a capital chance of advancement as the one now offered to him. The two "roues" gave him, in fine satirical style, the history of Madame Felix de Vandenesse; they drove the scalpel of epigram and the sharp points of much good wit into that innocent girlhood and happy marriage.
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