ous; they like to have a clear understanding as to
the financial position of the suitors who present themselves, and they
not unfrequently ask for information. Accordingly, before committing
himself, M. de Valorsay understood that it was necessary he should
provide himself with an intelligent and devoted adviser. There must be
some one to hold his creditors in check, to silence them, and obtain
sundry concessions from them--in a word, some one to interest them in
his success. With this object in view, M. de Valorsay applied to his
notary; but the latter utterly refused to mix himself up in any such
affair, and declared that the marquis's suggestion was almost an insult.
Then touched, perhaps, by his client's apparent despair, he said, "But
I can mention a person who might be of service to you. Go to M. Isidore
Fortunat, No. 27 Place de la Bourse. If you succeed in interesting him
in your marriage, it is an accomplished fact."

It was under these circumstances that the marquis became acquainted with
M. Fortunat. M. de Valorsay was a man of no little penetration, and on
his first visit he carefully weighed his new acquaintance. He found
him to be the very counsellor he desired--prudent, and at the same
time courageous; fertile in expedients; a thorough master of the art
of evading the law, and not at all troubled by scruples. With such
an adviser, it would be mere child's play to conceal his financial
embarrassments and deceive the most suspicious father-in-law. So M. de
Valorsay did not hesitate a moment. He frankly disclosed his pecuniary
condition and his matrimonial hopes, and concluded by promising M.
Fortunat a certain percentage on the bride's dowry, to be paid on the
day following the marriage.

After a prolonged conference, the agreement was drawn up and signed,
and that very day M. Fortunat took the nobleman's interests in hand. How
heartily, and with what confidence in his success, is shown by the fact
that he had advanced forty thousand francs for his client's use, out
of his own private purse. After such a proof of confidence the marquis
could hardly have been dissatisfied with his adviser; in point of fact,
he was delighted with him, and all the more so, as this invaluable man
always treated him with extreme deference, verging on servility. And
in M. de Valorsay's eyes this was a great consideration; for he was
becoming more arrogant and more irascible in proportion as his right to
be so diminished. Secretl