A band of musicians sat up in a gallery at the end of the
hall, and filled the pauses of the riotous feast with the ravishing
strains of Lulli and Destouches.
At the head of the table, first in place as in rank, sat Francois
Bigot, Intendant of New France. His low, well-set figure, dark
hair, small, keen black eyes, and swarthy features full of fire and
animation, bespoke his Gascon blood. His countenance was far from
comely,--nay, when in repose, even ugly and repulsive,--but his eyes
were magnets that drew men's looks towards him, for in them lay the
force of a powerful will and a depth and subtlety of intellect that
made men fear, if they could not love him. Yet when he chose--and
it was his usual mood--to exercise his blandishments on men, he
rarely failed to captivate them, while his pleasant wit, courtly
ways, and natural gallantry towards women, exercised with the
polished seductiveness he had learned in the Court of Louis XV.,
made Francois Bigot the most plausible and dangerous man in New
France.
He was fond of wine and music, passionately addicted to gambling,
and devoted to the pleasant vices that were rampant in the Court of
France, finely educated, able in the conduct of affairs, and fertile
in expedients to accomplish his ends.
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