The very greatest men have had more difficult beginnings, as in the case of Mirabeau.d Besides, our separation will not be so long. I will make that pickpocket of a father of mine pay up. It is time for me to be going back. Farewell! Have you got a hundred sous to pay for my dinner?”

Frédéric gave him ten francs, what was left of those he had gotten that morning from Isidore.

Meanwhile, some forty yards away from the bridges, a light shone from the garret-window of a low-built house.

Deslauriers noticed it. Then he said emphatically, as he took off his hat:

“Your pardon, Venus, Queen of Heaven, but Poverty is the mother of Wisdom. We have been slandered enough for that—so have mercy.”

This allusion to an adventure in which they had both taken part, put them into a jovial mood. They laughed loudly as they passed through the streets.

Then, having settled his bill at the inn, Deslauriers walked back with Frédéric as far as the crossroads near the Hôtel-Dieu, and after a long embrace, the two friends parted.

CHAPTER III

Two months later, Frédéric, having gotten off a coach one morning on the Rue Coq-Heron, immediately thought of paying his important visit.

Luck was on his side. Père Roque had brought him a roll of papers and requested him to deliver them himself to M. Dambreuse; and the good gentleman included with the package an open letter of introduction on behalf of his young fellow-countryman.

Madame Moreau appeared surprised at this proceeding. Frederic concealed the delight that it gave him.

M. Dambreuse’s real name was the Count d‘Ambreuse; but since 1825, gradually abandoning his title of nobility and his party, he had turned his attention to business; and with his ears open in every office, his hand in every enterprise, on the lookout for every opportunity, as subtle as a Greek and as laborious as a native of Auvergne, he had amassed a fortune which might be called considerable. Furthermore, he was an officer of the Legion d’honneur, a member of the General Council of the Aube,e a representative, and one of these days would be a peer of France. However, affable as he was in other respects, he wearied the Minister with his continual applications for subsidies, for decorations, and licences for tobacconists’ shops; and in his complaints against the establishment he was inclined to join the Left Centre. His wife, the pretty Madame Dambreuse, of whom mention was made in the fashion journals, presided at charitable functions. By flattering the duchesses, she appeased the rancour of the aristocratic faubourg,f and led the residents to believe that M. Dambreuse might yet repent and render them some services.

The young man was nervous when he called on them.

“I should have taken my dress-coat with me. No doubt they will give me an invitation to next week’s ball. What will they say to me?”

His self-confidence returned when he reflected that M. Dambreuse was only a person of the middle class, and he sprang out of the cab briskly on the pavement of the Rue dAnjou.

When he had pushed open one of the two gates, he crossed the courtyard, mounted the steps in front of the house, and entered a vestibule paved with coloured marble.

A straight double staircase, with red carpet, fastened with brass rods, rested against the high walls of shining stucco. At the end of the stairs there was a banana-tree, whose wide leaves fell down over the velvet banister. Two bronze candelabra, with porcelain globes, hung from little chains; the large radiator vents exhaled warm, heavy air; and all that could be heard was the ticking of a big clock standing at the other end of the vestibule, under a suit of armour.

A bell rang; a valet made his appearance, and led Frédéric into a small room, where one could observe two safes, as well as cabinets filled with folders. In the centre of it, M. Dambreuse was writing at a roll-top desk.

He ran his eye over Père Roque’s letter, tore open the canvas in which the papers had been wrapped, and examined them.

From a distance, he had an appearance of youth, because of his slim build. But his thin white hair, his feeble limbs, and, above all, the extraordinary pallor of his face, betrayed a decrepit constitution. There was a merciless expression in his sea-green eyes, colder than eyes of glass. His cheek-bones were prominent, and his knuckles were knotted.


Finally, he arose and asked the young man a few questions about common acquaintances in Nogent and also with regard to his studies, and then dismissed him with a bow. Frédéric went out through another lobby, and found himself at the lower end of the courtyard near the coach-house.

A blue brougham, to which a black horse was yoked, stood in front of the steps before the house. The carriage door was opened, a lady stepped in, and the vehicle, with a rumbling noise, went rolling along the gravel.

Frédéric reached the main gate from the other side at the same moment as the brougham. As there was not enough room to allow him to pass, he was forced to wait. The young lady, with her head thrust forward past the carriage blind, talked to the concierge in a very low voice.