The Count of Monte Cristo

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the dandy strove for preeminence. There were collected and piled up all
Albert's successive caprices, hunting-horns, bass-viols, flutes--a whole
orchestra, for Albert had had not a taste but a fancy for music; easels,
palettes, brushes, pencils--for music had been succeeded by painting;
foils, boxing-gloves, broadswords, and single-sticks--for, following
the example of the fashionable young men of the time, Albert de Morcerf
cultivated, with far more perseverance than music and drawing, the
three arts that complete a dandy's education, i.e., fencing, boxing,
and single-stick; and it was here that he received Grisier, Cook,
and Charles Leboucher. The rest of the furniture of this privileged
apartment consisted of old cabinets, filled with Chinese porcelain and
Japanese vases, Lucca della Robbia faience, and Palissy platters; of old
arm-chairs, in which perhaps had sat Henry IV. or Sully, Louis XIII. or
Richelieu--for two of these arm-chairs, adorned with a carved shield,
on which were engraved the fleur-de-lis of France on an azure field
evidently came from the Louvre, or, at least, some royal residence. Over
these dark and sombre chairs were thrown splendid stuffs, dyed beneath