Toward the close of the audience given by the minister of Public Works to Monsieur Octave de Camps, who was presented by the Comte de l’Estorade, an usher entered the room, and gave the minister the card of the attorney-general, Monsieur Vinet, and that of Monsieur Maxime de Trailles.

“Very good,” said Rastignac; “say to those gentlemen that I will receive them in a few moments.”

Shortly after, Monsieur de l’Estorade and Monsieur de Camps rose to take leave; and it was then that Rastignac very succinctly let the peer know of the danger looming on the horizon of his friend Sallenauve. Monsieur de l’Estorade exclaimed against the word friend.

“I don’t know, my dear minister,” he said, “why you insist on giving that title to a man who is, really and truly, a mere acquaintance, and, I may add, a passing acquaintance, if the rumors you have just mentioned to us take actual shape.”

“I am glad to hear you say that,” said the minister, “because the friendly relations which I supposed you to hold towards him would have embarrassed me a good deal in the hostilities which I foresee must break out between him and the government.”

“Most grateful, I am sure, for that sentiment,” replied the peer of France; “but be kind enough to remember that I give you carte blanche. You are free to handle Monsieur de Sallenauve as your political enemy, without a moment’s fear of troubling me.”

Thereupon they parted, and Messieurs Vinet and de Trailles were introduced.

The attorney-general, Vinet, was the most devoted and the most consulted champion of the government among its various officials. In a possible reconstitution of the ministry he was obviously the candidate for the portfolio of justice. Being thoroughly initiated into all the business of that position, and versed in its secret dealings, nothing was hatched in that department on which he was not consulted, if not actually engaged. The electoral matters of Arcis-sur-Aube had a double claim to his interest, partly on account of his wife, a Chargeboeuf of Brie, and a relative of the Cinq-Cygnes, but chiefly because of the office held by his son in the local administration. So that when, earlier in the morning, Monsieur de Trailles carried to Rastignac a letter from Madame Beauvisage, wife of the defeated governmental candidate, full of statements injurious to the new deputy, the minister had replied, without listening to any explanations,—

“See Vinet about it; and tell him, from me, to come here with you.”

Notified by de Trailles, who offered to fetch him in his carriage, Vinet was ready enough to go to the minister; and now that we find the three together in Rastignac’s study, we shall be likely to obtain some better knowledge of the sort of danger hanging over Sallenauve’s head than we gained from Jacques Bricheteau’s or Monsieur de l’Estorade’s very insufficient information.

“You say, my dear friends,” said the minister, “that we can win a game against that puritan, who seemed to me, when I met him at l’Estorade’s last evening, to be an out-and-out enemy to the government?”

Admitted to this interview without official character, Maxime de Trailles knew life too well to take upon himself to answer this query. The attorney-general, on the contrary, having a most exalted sense of his own political importance, did not miss the opportunity to put himself forward.

“When Monsieur de Trailles communicated to me this morning a letter from Madame Beauvisage,” he hastened to say, “I had just received one from my son, conveying to me very much the same information. I am of Monsieur de Trailles’ opinion, that the affair may become very serious for our adversary, provided, however, that it is well managed.”

“I know, as yet, very little about the affair,” remarked the minister. “As I wished for your opinion in the first place, my dear Vinet, I requested Monsieur de Trailles to postpone his explanation of its details until you could be present at the discussion.”

This time Maxime was plainly authorized and even required to speak, but again Vinet stole the opportunity.

“Here is what my son Olivier writes me, and it is confirmed by the letter of Madame Beauvisage, in whom, be it said in passing, my dear minister, you have lost a most excellent deputy. It appears that on the last market-day Maitre Achille Pigoult, who is left in charge of the affairs of the new deputy, received a visit from a peasant-woman of Romilly, a large village in the neighborhood of Arcis. The mysterious father of the deputy, the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve, declared himself to be the last remaining scion of the family; but it seems that this woman produced papers in due form, which show her to be a Sallenauve in the direct line, and within the degree of parentage required to constitute her an heir.”

“Was she as ignorant of the existence of the Marquis de Sallenauve as the marquis seems to have been of hers?” asked Rastignac.

“That does not clearly appear from what she says,” replied the attorney-general; “but it might so happen among relations so curiously placed.”

“Go on, if you please,” said Rastignac; “before we draw conclusions we must know the facts, which, as you are aware, is not always done in the Chamber of deputies.”

“Fortunately, sometimes, for the ministers,” remarked Maxime, laughing.

“Monsieur is right,” said Vinet; “hail to the man who can muddle questions. But to return to our peasant-woman. Not being satisfied, naturally, with Maitre Pigoult’s reception of her news, she went into the market-square, and there by the help of a legal practitioner from her village, who seems to have accompanied her, she spread about reports which are very damaging to my worthy colleague in the Chamber. She said, for instance, that it was not true that the Marquis de Sallenauve was his father; that it was not even true that the Marquis de Sallenauve was still living; and moreover that the spurious Sallenauve was a man of no heart, who had repudiated his real parents,—adding that she could, by the help of the able man who accompanied her, compel him to disgorge the Sallenauve property and ‘clear out’ of the place.”

“I have no objection to that,” said Rastignac; “but this woman must, of course, have papers to prove her allegations?”

“That is the weak point of the matter,” replied Vinet. “But let me go on with my story. The government has at Arcis a most intelligent and devoted functionary in the commissary of police. Circulating among the groups, as he usually does on market days, he heard these statements of the peasant-woman, and reported them at once, not to the mayor, who might not have heeded them, but to Madame Beauvisage.”

“Ah ca!” said Rastignac, addressing Maxime; “was the candidate you gave us such a dolt as that?”

“Just the man you needed,” replied Maxime,—“silly to the last degree, and capable of being wound round anybody’s finger. I’ll go any lengths to repair that loss.”

“Madame Beauvisage,” continued Vinet, “wished to speak with the woman herself, and she ordered Groslier—that’s the commissary of police—to fetch her with a threatening air to the mayor’s office, so as to give her an idea that the authorities disapproved of her conduct.”

“Did Madame Beauvisage concoct that plan?” asked Rastignac.

“Yes,” replied Maxime, “she is a very clever woman.”

“Questioned closely by the mayoress,” continued Vinet, “who took care to have the mayor present, the peasant-woman was far from categorical. Her grounds for asserting that the new deputy could not be the son of the marquis, and the assurance with which she stated that the latter had long been dead were not, as it appears, very clearly established; vague rumors and the deductions drawn by the village practitioner seem to be all there was to them.”

“Then,” said Rastignac, “what does all this lead to?”

“Absolutely nothing from a legal point of view,” replied the attorney-general; “for supposing the woman were able to establish the fact that this recognition of the said Dorlange was a mere pretence, she has no status on which to proceed farther. By Article 339 of the Civil Code direct heirship alone has the right to attack the recognition of natural children.”

“Your balloon is collapsing fast,” said the minister.

“So that the woman,” continued Vinet, “has no object in proceeding, for she can’t inherit; it belongs to the government to pursue the case of supposition of person; she can do no more than denounce the fact.”

“From which you conclude?” said Rastignac, with that curtness of speech which to a prolix speaker is a warning to be concise.

“From which I conclude, judicially speaking, that the Romilly peasant-woman, so far as she is concerned, will have her trouble for her pains; but, speaking politically, the thing takes quite another aspect.”

“Let us see the political side,” said the minister; “up to this point, I see nothing.”

“In the first place,” replied the attorney-general, “you will admit that it is always possible to bring a bad case?”

“Certainly.”

“And I don’t suppose it would signify much to you if the woman did embark in a matter in which she can lose nothing but her costs?”

“No, I assure you I am wholly indifferent.”

“In any case, I should have advised you to let things take their course. The Beauvisage husband and wife have engaged to pay the costs and also the expense of keeping the peasant-woman and her counsel in Paris during the inquiry.”

“Then,” said Rastignac, still pressing for a conclusion, “the case is really begun. What will be the result?”

“What will be the result?” cried the attorney-general, getting excited; “why, anything you please if, before the case comes for trial, your newspapers comment upon it, and your friends spread reports and insinuations. What will result? why, an immense fall in public estimation for our adversary suspected of stealing a name which does not belong to him! What will result? why, the opportunity for a fierce challenge in the Chamber.”

“Which you will take upon yourself to make?” asked Rastignac.

“Ah! I don’t know about that. The matter would have to be rather more studied, and the turn the case might take more certain, if I had anything to do with it.”

“So, for the present,” remarked the minister, “the whole thing amounts to an application of Basile’s famous theory about calumny: ‘good to set a-going, because some of it will always stick.’”

“Calumny!” exclaimed Vinet, “that remains to be seen. Perhaps a good round of gossip is all that can be made of it. Monsieur de Trailles, here, knows better than I do the state of things down there. He can tell you that the disappearance of the father immediately after the recognition had a bad effect upon people’s minds; and every one in Arcis has a vague impression of secret plotting in this affair of the election. You don’t know, my dear minister, all that can be made in the provinces of a judicial affair when adroitly manipulated,—cooked, as I may say. In my long and laborious career at the bar I saw plenty of that kind of miracle. But a parliamentary debate is another thing. In that there’s no need of proof; one can kill one’s man with probabilities and assertions, if hotly maintained.”

“But, to come to the point,” said Rastignac, “how do you think the affair ought to be managed?”

“In the first place,” replied Vinet, “I should leave the Beauvisage people to pay all costs of whatever kind, inasmuch as they propose to do so.”

“Do I oppose that?” said the minister. “Have I the right or the means to do so?”

“The affair,” continued Vinet, “should be placed in the hands of some capable and wily solicitor, like Desroches, for example, Monsieur de Trailles’ lawyer. He’ll know how to put flesh on the bones of a case you justly consider rather thin.”

“Well, it is certainly not my place to say to Monsieur de Trailles or any other man, ‘I forbid you to employ whom you will as your solicitor.’”

“Then we need some pleader who can talk in a moving way about that sacred thing the Family, and put himself into a state of indignation about these surreptitious and furtive ways of entering its honored enclosure.”

“Desroches can point out some such person to you. The government cannot prevent a man from saying what he pleases.”

“But,” interposed Maxime, who was forced out of his passive role by the minister’s coldness, “is not preventing all the help we are to expect in this affair from the government?”

“You don’t expect us, I hope, to take this matter upon ourselves?”

“No, of course not; but we have certainly supposed that you would take some interest in the matter.”

“But how?—in what way?”

“Well, as Monsieur le procureur said just now, by giving a hint to the subsidized newspapers, by stirring up your friends to spread the news, by using a certain influence which power always exerts on the minds of magistrates.”

“Thank you, no!” replied Rastignac. “When you want the government for an accomplice, my dear Maxime, you must provide a better-laid plot than that. From your manner this morning I supposed there was really something in all this, and so I ventured to disturb our excellent attorney-general, who knows how I value his advice. But really, your scheme seems to me too transparent and also too narrow not to be doomed to inevitable defeat. If I were not married, and could pretend to the hand of Mademoiselle Beauvisage, perhaps I should feel differently; of course you will do as you think best. I do not say that the government will not wish you well in your attempt, but it certainly cannot descend to make it with you.”

“But see,” said Vinet, interposing to cut off Maxime’s reply, which would doubtless have been bitter; “suppose we send the affair to the criminal courts, and the peasant-woman, instigated by the Beauvisage couple, should denounce the man who had sworn before a notary, and offered himself for election falsely, as a Sallenauve: the question is one for the court of assizes.”

“But proofs? I return to that, you must have proof,” said Rastignac. “Have you even a shadow of it?”

“You said yourself, just now,” remarked Maxime, “that it was always possible to bring a bad case.”

“A civil case, yes; but to fail in a criminal case is a far more serious matter. It would be a pretty thing if you were shown not to have a leg to stand on, and the case ended in a decision of non-lieu. You couldn’t find a better way to put our enemy on a pedestal as high as the column of July.”

“So,” said Maxime, “you see absolutely nothing that can be done?”

“For us, no. For you, my dear Maxime, who have no official character, and who, if need be, can support the attack on Monsieur de Sallenauve pistol in hand, as it were, nothing hinders you from proceeding in the matter.”

“Oh, yes!” said Maxime, bitterly, “I’m a sort of free lance.”

“Not at all; you are a man intuitively convinced of facts impossible to prove legally, and you do not give way before the judgment of God or man.”

Monsieur de Trailles rose angrily. Vinet rose also, and, shaking hands with Rastignac as he took leave of him, he said,—

“I don’t deny that your course is a prudent one, and I don’t say that in your place I should not do the same thing.”

“Adieu, Maxime; without bitterness, I hope,” said Rastignac to Monsieur de Trailles, who bowed coldly and with dignity.

When the two conspirators were alone in the antechamber, Maxime turned to his companion.

“Do you understand such squeamishness?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” replied Vinet, “and I wonder to see a clever man like you so duped.”

“Yes, duped to make you lose your time and I mine by coming here to listen to a lecture on virtue!”

“That’s not it; but I do think you guileless to be taken in by that refusal to co-operate.”

“What! do you think—”

“I think that this affair is risky; if it succeeds, the government, arms folded, will reap the benefit. But if on the contrary we fail, it will not take a share in the defeat. But you may be sure of this, for I know Rastignac well: without seeming to know anything, and without compromising himself in any way, he will help us, and perhaps more usefully than by open connivance. Think! did he say a single word on the morality of the affair? Didn’t he say, again and again, ‘I don’t oppose—I have no right to prevent’? And as to the venom of the case, the only fault he found was that it wasn’t sure to kill. But in truth, my dear monsieur, this is going to be a hard pull, and we shall want all the cleverness of that fellow Desroches to get us through.”

“Then you think I had better see him?”

“Better see him! why, my good friend, you ought to go to him at once.”

“Wouldn’t it be better if he talked with you?”

“Oh! no, no!” exclaimed Vinet. “I may be the man to put the question in the Chamber; and if Desroches were seen with me, I should lose my virginity.”

So saying, he took leave of Maxime with some haste, on the ground that he ought then to be at the Chamber.

“But I,” said Maxime, running after him,—“suppose I want to consult you in the matter?”

“I leave to-night for my district, to get things into order before the opening of the new session.”

“But about bringing up the question which you say may devolve on you?”

“I or another. I will hasten back as soon as I can; but you understand, I must put my department in order for a six months’ absence.”

“A good journey to you, then, Monsieur le procureur-general,” replied Maxime, sarcastically.

Left to himself, Monsieur de Trailles had a period of discouragement, resulting from the discovery that these two political Bertrands meant that his paw should pull the chestnuts from the fire. Rastignac’s behavior particularly galled him. His mind went back to their first interview at Madame Restaud’s, twenty years earlier, when he himself held the sceptre of fashion, and Rastignac, a poor student, neither knew how to come into a room nor how to leave it. [See “Pere Goriot.”] And now Rastignac was peer of France and minister, while he, Maxime, become his agent, was obliged with folded arms to hear himself told that his plot was weak and he must carry it out alone, if at all.

But this discouragement did not last.

“Yes!” he cried to himself, “I will carry it out; my instinct tells me there is something in it. What nonsense!—a Dorlange, a nobody, to attempt to checkmate Maxime de Trailles and make a stepping-stone of my defeat! To my solicitor’s,” he said to the coachman, opening the door of the carriage himself.

Desroches was at home; and Monsieur de Trailles was immediately admitted into his study.

Desroches was a lawyer who had had, like Raffaelle, several manners. First, possessor of a practice without clients, he had made fish of every case that came into his net; and he felt himself, in consequence, little respected by the court. But he was a hard worker, well versed in all the ins and outs of chicanery, a keen observer, and an intelligent reader of the movements of the human heart. Consequently he had made for himself, in course of time, a very good practice; he had married a rich woman, and the moment that he thought himself able to do without crooked ways he had seriously renounced them. In 1839 Desroches had become an honest and skilful solicitor: that is to say, he assumed the interests of his clients with warmth and ability; he never counselled an openly dishonorable proceeding, still less would he have lent a hand to it. As to that fine flower of delicacy to be met with in Derville and some others like him, besides the sad fact that it is difficult to keep its fragrance from evaporating in this business world of which Monsieur de Talleyrand says, “Business means getting the property of others,” it is certain that it can never be added to any second state of existence. The loss of that bloom of the soul, like that of other virginities, is irreparable. Desroches had not aspired to restore it to himself. He no longer risked anything ignoble or dishonest, but the good tricks admitted the code of procedure, the good traps, the good treacheries which could be legitimately played off upon an adversary, he was very ready to undertake.

Desroches was moreover a man of parts and witty; loving the pleasures of the table, and like all men perpetually the slaves of imperious toil, he felt the need of vigorous amusement, taken on the wing and highly spiced. While purifying after a fashion his judicial life, he still continued the legal adviser of artists, men of letters, actresses, courtesans, and elegant bohemians like Maxime de Trailles, because he liked to live their life; they were sympathetic to him as he to them. Their witty argot, their easy morals, their rather loose adventures, their expedients, their brave and honorable toil, in a word, their greatness and their weakness,—he understood it all marvellously well; and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent them his aid whenever they asked for it. But in order to conceal from his dignified and more valuable clients whatever might be compromising in the clientele he really preferred, Desroches had his days of domesticity when he was husband and father, especially on Sundays. He appeared in the Bois de Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife (whose ugliness revealed the size of her dot), with three children on the front seat, who were luckless enough to resemble their mother. This family picture, these virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so little the week-day Desroches, dining in cafes with all the male and female viveurs of renown, that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider, famous for her wit and vim, remarked that lawyers ought not to be allowed to masquerade in that way and deceive the public with fictitious family joys.

It was to this relative integrity that de Trailles now went for counsel, as he never failed to do in all the many difficulties he encountered in life. Following a good habit, Desroches listened, without interrupting, to the long explanation of the case submitted to him. As Maxime hid nothing from this species of confessor, he gave his reasons for wishing to injure Sallenauve, representing him, in all good faith, as having usurped the name under which he was elected to the Chamber,—his hatred making him take the possibility for positive evidence.

In his heart, Desroches did not want to take charge of an affair in which he saw not the slightest chance of success; but he showed his lax integrity by talking over the affair with his client as if it were an ordinary case of legal practice, instead of telling him frankly his opinion that this pretended “case” was a mere intrigue. The number of things done in the domain of evil by connivance in speech, without proceeding to the actual collusion of action, are incalculable.

“In the first place,” said Desroches, when the matter was all explained, “a civil suit is not to be thought of. Your Romilly peasant-woman might have her hands full of proofs, but she has no ground herself to stand upon; she has no legal interest in contesting the rights of this recognized natural son.”

“Yes, that is what Vinet said just now.”

“As for the criminal case, you could, no doubt, compel it by giving information to the police authorities of this alleged imposture—”

“Vinet,” interrupted Maxime, “inclined to the criminal proceeding.”

“Yes, but there are a great many objections to it. In the first place, in order that the complaint be received at all, you must produce a certain amount of proof; then, supposing it is received, and the authorities are determined to pursue the case, you must have more evidence of criminality than you have now; and, moreover, supposing that you can show that the so-called Marquis de Sallenauve committed a fraud, how will you prove that the so-called son was privy to it? He might have been the dupe of some political schemer.”

“But what interest could such a schemer have in giving Dorlange the many advantages he has derived from the recognition?”

“Ah! my dear fellow, in political manners all queer proceedings are possible; there is no such fertile source for compilers of causes celebres and novelists. In the eyes of the law, you must remember, the counterfeiting of a person is not always a crime.”

“How so?” asked Maxime.

“Here,” said Desroches, taking up the Five Codes; “do me the favor to read Article 5 of the Penal Code, the only one which gives an opening to the case you have in mind.”

Maxime read aloud the article, which was as follows:—

“‘Any functionary or public officer who, in the exercise of his function, shall commit forgery—either by false signatures, by alterations of deeds, writings, or signatures, or by counterfeiting persons—’ There, you see,” said Maxime, interrupting himself,—“‘by counterfeiting persons—‘”

“Go on,” insisted Desroches.

“‘—by counterfeiting persons,’” resumed de Trailles, “‘either by writings made or intercalated in the public records or other documents, shall be punished by imprisonment at hard labor for life.’”

Maxime lingered lovingly over the last words, which gave his revenge a foretaste of the fate that awaited Sallenauve.

“My dear count,” said Desroches, “you do as the barristers do; they read to the jury only so much of a legal document as suits their point of view. You pay no attention to the fact that the only persons affected by this article are functionaries or public officers.”

Maxime re-read the article, and convinced himself of the truth of that remark.

“But,” he objected, “there must be something elsewhere about such a crime when committed by private individuals.”

“No, there is not; you can trust my knowledge of jurisprudence,—the Code is absolutely silent in that direction.”

“Then the crime we wish to denounce can be committed with impunity?”

“Its repression is always doubtful,” replied Desroches. “Judges do sometimes make up for the deficiency of the Code in this respect. Here,” he added, turning over the leaves of a book of reference,—“here are two decisions of the court of assizes, reported in Carnot’s Commentary on the Penal Code: one of July 7, 1814, the other April 24, 1818,—both confirmed by the court of appeals, which condemn for forgery, by ‘counterfeiting persons,’ individuals who were neither functionaries nor public officers: but these decisions, unique in law, rest on the authority of an article in which the crime they punish is not even mentioned; and it is only by elaborate reasoning that they contrived to make this irregular application of it. You can understand, therefore, how very doubtful the issue of such a case would be, because in the absence of a positive rule you can never tell how the magistrates might decide.”

“Consequently, your opinion, like Rastignac’s, is that we had better send our peasant-woman back to Romilly and drop the whole matter?”

“There is always something to be done if one knows how to set about it,” replied Desroches. “There is a point that neither you nor Rastignac nor Vinet seems to have thought of; and that is, to proceed in a criminal case against a member of the national representation, except for flagrant crime, requires the consent and authority of the Chamber.”

“True,” said Maxime, “but I don’t see how a new difficulty is going to help us.”

“You wouldn’t be sorry to send your adversary with the galleys,” said Desroches, laughing.

“A villain,” added Maxime, “who may make me lose a rich marriage; a fellow who poses for stern virtue, and then proceeds to trickery of this kind!”

“Well, you must resign yourself to a less glorious result; but you can make a pretty scandal, and destroy the reputation of your man; and that ought, it seems to me, to serve your ends.”

“Of course,—better that than nothing.”

“Well, then, here’s what I advise. Don’t let your peasant-woman lodge her complaint before the criminal court, but make her place in the hands of the president of the Chamber of deputies a simple request for permission to proceed. Probably the permission will not be granted, and the affair will have to stop at that stage; but the matter being once made known will circulate through the Chambers, the newspapers will get hold of it and make a stir, and the ministry, sub rosa, can envenom the vague accusation through its friends.”

“Parbleu! my dear fellow,” cried Maxime, delighted to find a way open to his hatred, “you’ve a strong head,—stronger than that of these so-called statesmen. But this request for permission addressed to the president of the Chamber, who is to draw it up?”

“Oh! not I,” said Desroches, who did not wish to mix himself up any farther in this low intrigue. “It isn’t legal assistance that you want; this is simply firing your first gun, and I don’t undertake that business. But you can find plenty of briefless barristers always ready to put their finger in the political pie. Massol, for instance, can draw it up admirably. But you must not tell him that the idea came from me.”

“Oh! as for that,” said Maxime, “I’ll take it all on my own shoulders. Perhaps in this form Rastignac may come round to the project.”

“Yes, but take care you don’t make an enemy of Vinet, who will think you very impertinent to have an idea which ought, naturally, to have come into the head of so great a parliamentary tactician as himself.”

“Well, before long,” said Maxime, rising, “I hope to bring the Vinets and Rastignacs, and others like them, to heel. Where do you dine this evening?” he added.

“In a cave,” replied Desroches, “with a band.”

“Where’s that?”

“I suppose, in the course of your erotic existence, you have had recourse to the good offices of a certain Madame de Saint-Esteve?”

“No,” replied Maxime, “I have always done my own business in that line.”

“True,” said Desroches, “you conquer in the upper ranks, where, as a general thing, they don’t use go-betweens. But, at any rate, you have heard of Madame de Saint-Esteve?”

“Of course; her establishment is in the rue Neuve-Saint-Marc, and it was she who got that pot of money out of Nucingen for La Torpille. Isn’t she some relation to the chief of detective police, who bears the same name, and used to be one of the same kind as herself?”

“I don’t know about that,” said Desroches, “but what I can tell you is that in her business as procuress—as it was called in days less decorous than our own—the worthy woman has made a fortune, and now, without any serious change of occupation, she lives magnificently in the rue de Provence, where she carries on the business of a matrimonial agency.”

“Is that where you are going to dine?” asked Maxime.

“Yes, with the director of the London opera-house, Emile Blondet, Finot, Lousteau, Felicien Vernon, Theodore Gaillard, Hector Merlin, and Bixiou, who was commissioned to invite me, as it seems they are in want of my experience and capacity for business!”

“Ah ca! then there’s some financial object in this dinner?”

“No; it merely concerns a theatrical venture,—the engagement of a prima donna; and they want to submit the terms of the contract to my judgment. You understand that the rest of the guests are invited to trumpet the affair as soon as the papers are signed.”

“Who is the object of all this preparation?”

“Oh! a star,—destined, they say, to European success; an Italian, discovered by a Swedish nobleman, Comte Halphertius, through the medium of Madame de Saint-Esteve. The illustrious manager of the London opera-house is negotiating this treaty in order that she shall make her first appearance at his theatre.”

“Well, adieu, my dear fellow; a pleasant dinner,” said Maxime, preparing to depart. “If your star shines in London, it will probably appear in our firmament next winter. As for me, I must go and attend to the sunrise in Arcis. By the bye, where does Massol live?”

“Faith! I couldn’t tell you that. I never myself trust him with a case, for I will not employ barristers who dabble in politics. But you can get his address from the ‘Gazette des Tribuneaux’; he is one of their reporters.”

Maxime went to the office of that newspaper; but, probably on account of creditors, the office servant had express orders not to give the barrister’s address, so that, in spite of his arrogant, imperious manner, Monsieur de Trailles obtained no information. Happily, he bethought him that he frequently saw Massol at the Opera, and he resolved to seek him there that evening. Before going to dinner, he went to the lodgings in the rue Montmartre, where he had installed the Romilly peasant-woman and her counsel, whom Madame Beauvisage had already sent to Paris. He found them at dinner, making the most of the Beauvisage funds, and he gave them an order to come to his apartment the next day at half-past eleven without breakfasting.

In the evening he found Massol, as he expected, at the opera-house. Going up to the lawyer with the slightly insolent manner which was natural to him, he said,—

“Monsieur, I have an affair, half legal, half political, which I desire to talk over with you. If it did not demand a certain amount of secrecy, I would go to your office, but I think we could talk with more safety in my own apartment; where, moreover, I shall be able to put you in communication with other persons concerned in the affair. May I hope that to-morrow morning, at eleven o’clock, you will do me the favor to take a cup of tea with me?”

If Massol had had an office, he might possibly not have consented, for the sake of his legal dignity, to reverse the usual order of things; but as he perched rather than lodged in any particular place, he was glad of an arrangement which left his abode, if he had any, incognito.

“I shall have the honor to be with you at the hour named,” he replied ceremoniously.

“Rue Pigalle,” said Maxime, “No. 6.”

“Yes, I know,” returned Massol,—“a few steps from the corner of the rue de la Rochefoucauld.”