It was only occasionally that the real character of Fourier, the French philosopher, showed itself. "It is strange," said, one day, a certain very influential person belonging to the court of Charles X., whom the servant, Joseph, would not allow to get further than Fourier's ante-chamber—"it is really strange that your master should be more difficult of access than a minister." Fourier, overhearing this remark, jumped out of bed, to which he had been confined by indisposition, opened the room door, and facing the courtier, exclaimed, "Joseph, tell the gentleman, that if I were a minister, I should receive everybody, because such would be my duty: as a private individual, I receive whom I think fit, and when I think fit." The grandee, disconcerted by the liveliness of the sally, did not answer a word. We must even suppose that from that instant he determined to visit nobody but ministers, for the simple savant heard no more of him.