"My wife, for instance, wanted to have her portrait painted by Ingres. You've seen it—it isn't like her—but it's by Ingres. Well, do you know what he asked me for it? Four hundred pounds. I paid it him, but I consider that taking advantage; it's the war against capital. Do you mean to say that because a man's name is known he should make me pay just what he likes? because he's an artist, he has no price, no fixed rate, he has a right to fleece me? Why, according to that he might ask me a million for it. It's like the doctors who make you pay according to your fortune. To begin with, how does any one know what I have? I call it an iniquity. Yes, four hundred pounds; what do you think of that?"

M. Bourjot was standing by the chimney-piece talking to Denoisel. He put the other foot, on which he had been standing, to the fire as he spoke.

"Upon my word," said Denoisel, very seriously, "you are quite right: all these folks take advantage of their reputation. You see there's only one way to prevent it, and that would be to decree a legal maximum for talent, a maximum for master-pieces. Why, yes! It would be very easy."

"That's it; that would be the very thing!" exclaimed M. Bourjot, "and it would be quite just, for you see——"

The Bourjots had dined that evening alone with the Mauperins. The two families had been talking of the wedding, and were only waiting to fix the day, until the expiration of a year from the date of the first insertion of the name of Villacourt in the Monitor. It was M. Bourjot who had insisted on this delay. The ladies were talking about the trousseau, jewellery, laces, and wedding-presents, and Mme. Mauperin, who was seated by Mme. Bourjot, was contemplating her as though she were a person who had performed a miracle.

M. Mauperin's face beamed with joy. He had in the end yielded to the fascination of money. This great, upright man, genuine, severe, rigid, and incorruptible as he was, had gradually allowed the vast wealth of the Bourjots to come into his thoughts and into his dreams, to appeal to him and to his instincts as a practical man, as an old man, the father of a family and a manufacturer. He had been won over and disarmed. Ever since his son's success with regard to this marriage, he had felt that respect for Henri which ability or the prospect of a large fortune inspires in people, and, without being aware of it himself, he scarcely blamed him now for having changed his name. Fathers are but men, after all.

RenÉe, who for some time past had been worried, thoughtful, and low-spirited, was almost cheerful this evening. She was amusing herself with blowing about the fluffy feathers which NoÉmi was wearing in her hair. The latter, languid and absent-minded, with a dreamy look in her eyes, was replying in monosyllables to Mme. Davarande's ceaseless chatter.

"Nowadays, everything is against money," began M. Bourjot again, sententiously. "There's a league—now, for instance, I made a road for the people at Sannois. Well, do you imagine that they even touch their hats to us? Oh dear no, never. In 1848 we gave them bushels of corn; and what do you think they said? Excuse me, ladies, if I repeat their words. They said: 'That old beast must be afraid of us!' That was all the gratitude I had. I started a model farm, and I applied to the Government for a man to manage it; a red-hot radical was sent to me, a rascal who had spent his life running down the rich. At present I have to do with a Municipal Council with the most detestable opinions. I find work for every one, don't I? Thanks to us, the country round is prosperous. Well, if there were to be a revolution, now, I am convinced that they would set fire to our place. They'd have no compunction about that. You've no idea what enemies you get if you pay as much as three hundred and sixty pounds for taxes. They'd simply burn us out of house and home—they'd have no scruple about it. You see what happened in February. Oh, my ideas with regard to the people have quite changed; and they are preparing a nice future for us, you can count on that. We shall be simply ruined by a lot of penniless wretches. I can see that beforehand. I often think of all these things. If only it were not for one's children—money, as far as I am concerned——"

"What's that you are saying, neighbour?" asked M. Mauperin, approaching.

"I'm saying that I'm afraid the day will come when our children will be short of bread, M. Mauperin; that's what I'm saying."

"You'll make them hesitate about this wedding if you talk like that," said M. Mauperin.

"Oh, if my husband begins with his gloomy ideas, if he's going to talk about the end of the world—" put in Mme. Bourjot.

"I congratulate you that you don't feel the anxiety I do," remarked M. Bourjot, bowing to his wife; "but I can assure you that, without being weak-minded, there is every reason for feeling very uneasy."

"Certainly, certainly," said Denoisel. "I think that money is in danger, in great danger, in very great danger indeed. In the first place, it is threatened by that envy which is at the bottom of nearly all revolutions; and then by progress, which baptizes the revolutions."

"But, sir, such progress would be infamous. Take me, for instance: no one could doubt me. I used to be a Liberal—I am now, in fact. I am a soldier of Liberty, a born Republican; I am for progress of every kind. But a revolution against wealth—why, it would be barbarous! We should be going back to savage times. What we want is justice and common sense. Can you imagine now a society without wealth?"

"No, not any more than a greasy pole without a silver cup."

"What," continued M. Bourjot, who in his excitement had not caught Denoisel's words, "the money that I have earned with hard work, honestly and with the greatest difficulty—the money that is mine, that I have made, and which is for my children—why, there is nothing more sacred! I even look upon the income-tax as a violation of property."

"Why, yes," said Denoisel in the most perfectly good-natured tone, "I am quite of your opinion. And I should be very sorry," he added wickedly, "to make things seem blacker to you than they already do. But you see we have had a revolution against the nobility; we shall have one against wealth. Great names have been abolished by the guillotine, and great fortunes will be done away with next. A man was considered guilty if his name happened to be M. de Montmorency; it will be criminal to be M. Two Thousand Pounds a Year. Things are certainly getting on. I can speak all the more freely as I am absolutely disinterested, myself. I should not have had anything to be guillotined for in the old days, and I haven't enough to be ruined for nowadays. So, you see——"

"Excuse me," put in M. Bourjot, solemnly, "but your comparison—no one could deplore excesses more than I do, and the event of 1793 was a great crime, sir. The nobility were treated abominably, and all honest people must be of the same opinion as I am."

M. Mauperin smiled as he thought of the Bourjot of 1822.

"But then," continued M. Bourjot, "the situation is not the same at all. Social conditions are entirely changed, the basis of society has been restored. Everything is different. There were reasons—or pretexts, if you prefer that—for this hatred of the nobility. The Revolution of '89 was against privileges, which I am not criticising, but which existed. That is quite different. The fact was people wanted equality. It was more or less legitimate that they should have it, but at least there was some reason in it. At present all that is altered; and where are the privileges? One man is as good as another. Hasn't every man a vote? You may say, 'What about money?' Well, every one can earn money; all trades and professions are open to every one."

"Except those that are not," put in Denoisel.

"In short, all men can now arrive at anything and everything. The only things necessary are hard work, intelligence——"

"And circumstances," put in Denoisel, once more.

"Circumstances must be made, sir, by each man himself. Just look at what society is. We are all parvenus. My father was a cloth merchant—in a wholesale way, certainly—and yet you see—now this is equality, sir, the real and the right kind of equality. There is no such thing as caste now. The upper class springs from the people, and the people rise to the upper class. I could have found a count for my daughter, if I had wanted to. But it is just simply a case of evil instincts, evil passions, and these communist ideas—it is all this which is against wealth. We hear a lot of rant about poverty and misery. Well, I can tell you this, there has never been so much done for the people as at present. There is great progress with regard to comfort and well-being in France. People who never used to eat meat, now eat it twice a week. These are facts; and I am sure that on that subject our young social economist, M. Henri, could tell us——"

"Yes, yes," said Henri, "that has been proved. In twenty-five years the increase of cattle has been twelve per cent. By dividing the population of France into twelve millions inhabiting the towns, and twenty-four to twenty-five millions inhabiting the country districts, it is reckoned that the former consume about sixty-five kilogrammes a head each year, and the latter twenty kilogrammes twenty-six centigrammes. I can guarantee the figures. What is quite sure is that the most conscientious estimates prove that since 1789 there has been an increase in the average length of life, and this progress is the surest sign of prosperity for a nation. Statistics——"

"Ah, statistics, the chief of the inexact sciences!" interrupted Denoisel, who delighted in muddling M. Bourjot's brain with paradoxes. "But I grant that," he went on. "I grant that the lives of the people have been prolonged, and that they eat more meat than they have ever eaten. Do you, on that account, believe in the immortality of the present social constitution? There has been a revolution which has brought about the reign of the middle class—that is to say, the reign of money; and now you say: 'Everything is finished; there must be no other; there can be no legitimate revolution now.' That is quite natural; but, between ourselves, I don't know up to what point the supremacy of the middle class can be considered as final. As far as you are concerned, when once political equality is given to all, social equality is complete: that is perhaps quite just; but the thing is to convince people of it, whose interest it is not to believe it. One man is as good as another. Certainly he may be in the eyes of God. Every one in this century of ours has a right to wear a black coat—provided he can pay for it. Modern equality—shall I explain briefly what it is? It is the same equality as our conscription; every man draws his number, but if you can pay one hundred and twenty pounds, you have the right of sending another man to be killed instead of you. You spoke of privileges; there are no such things now, that's true. The Bastille was destroyed; but it gave birth to others first. Let us take, for instance, Justice, and I do acknowledge that a man's position, his name, and his money weigh less and are made less of in courts of justice than anywhere else. Well, commit a crime, and be, let us say, a peer of France; you would be allowed poison instead of the scaffold. Take notice that I think it should be so; I am only mentioning it to show you how inequalities spring up again, and, indeed, when I see the ground that they cover now I wonder where the others could have been. Hereditary rights—something else that the Revolution thought it had buried. All that was an abuse of the former Government, about which enough has been said. Well, I should just like to know whether, at present, the son of a politician does not inherit his father's name and all the privileges connected with that name, his father's electors, his connection, his place everywhere, and his chair at the Academy? We are simply overrun with these sons. We come across them everywhere; they take all the good berths and, thanks to these reversions, everything is barred for other people. The fact is that old customs are terrible things for unmaking laws. You are wealthy, and you say money is sacred. But why? Well, you say 'We are not a caste.' No, but you are already an aristocracy, and quite a new aristocracy, the insolence of which has already surpassed all the impertinences of the oldest aristocracies on the globe. There is no court now, you say. There never has been one, I should imagine, in the whole history of the world where people have had to put up with such contempt as in the private office of certain great bankers. You talk of evil instincts and evil passions. Well, the power of the wealthy middle class is not calculated to elevate the mind. When the higher ranks of society are engaged in digesting and placing out money there are no longer any ideas, nothing in fact but appetites, in the class below. Formerly, when by the side of money there was something above it and beyond it, during a revolution instead of asking bluntly for money—clumsy rough coins with which to buy their happiness—the people contented themselves with asking for the change of colours on a flag, or with having a few words written over a guard-house, or even with glorious victories that were quite hollow. But in our times—oh, we all know where the heart of Paris is now. The bank would be besieged instead of the HÔtel de ville. Ah, the bourgeoisie has made a great mistake!"

"And what is the mistake, pray?" asked M. Bourjot, astounded by Denoisel's tirade.

"That of not leaving Paradise in heaven—which was certainly its place. The day when the poor could no longer comfort themselves with the thought that the next life would make up to them for this, the day when the people gave up counting on the happiness of the other world—oh, I can tell you, Voltaire did a lot of harm to the wealthy classes——"

"Ah, you are right there!" exclaimed M. Bourjot, impulsively. "That is quite evident. All these wretches ought to go to church regularly——"