His legs were swathed in rags and bandages, and his feet shuffled along in miserable overshoes of woven mat-weed, inside of which he had fastened excellent cork soles.

He washed his face with certain compounds, which gave it an appearance of forms of illness, and he played the senility of a centenarian to the life.

He reckoned himself a hundred years old in 1830, at which time his actual age was eighty; he was the head of the paupers of Saint-Sulpice, the master of the place, and all those who came to beg under the arcades of the church, safe from the persecutions of the police and beneath the protection of the beadle and the giver of holy water, were forced to pay him a sort of tithe.
When a new heir, a bridegroom, or some godfather left the church, saying, "Here, this is for all of you; don't torment any of my party," Toupillier, appointed by the beadle to receive these alms, pocketed three-fourths, and distributed only the remaining quarter among his henchmen, whose tribute amounted to a sou a day.

Money and wine were his last two passions; but he regulated the latter and gave himself up to the former, with neglecting his personal comfort.

He drank at night only, after his dinner, and for twenty years he slept in the arms of drunkenness, his last mistress.
In the early morning he was at his post with all his faculties.