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The sixty year old Brummell, wandering in his mind sick, lonely and penniless, was living in France.

One evening he had his rooms set out as though he were about to receive a great many guests – armchairs, whist-tables, wax candles (a luxury, since they were usually tallow), he put on a splendid but moth-eaten blue tail-coat with gilt buttons. A white cravat and primrose-coloured gloves, and gave his valet a list of guests to be ushered in every five minutes from seven o’clock onwards. The valet took up hi station at the door, holding a link [light?], and began to announce the ghosts with splendid names, while Brummell welcomed them ceremoniously. All at once he collapsed in his chair, weeping. Then he stood up and said to his valet, “Call the carriages, you may go to bed when everyone has left.”