onnected with the
Beauseants, and we go afoot through the streets; we want to be rich,
and we have not a penny; we eat Mme. Vauquer's messes, and we like grand
dinners in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; we sleep on a truckle-bed, and
dream of a mansion! I do not blame you for wanting these things. What
sort of men do the women run after? Men of ambition. Men of ambition
have stronger frames, their blood is richer in iron, their hearts are
warmer than those of ordinary men. Women feel that when their power is
greatest, they look their best, and that those are their happiest hours;
they like power in men, and prefer the strongest even if it is a power
that may be their own destruction. I am going to make an inventory of
your desires in order to put the question at issue before you. Here it
is:--

"We are as hungry as a wolf, and those newly-cut teeth of ours are
sharp; what are we to do to keep the pot boiling? In the first place,
we have the Code to browse upon; it is not amusing, and we are none the
wiser for it, but that cannot be helped. So far so good. We mean to make
an advocate of ourselves with a prospect of one day being made President
of a Court of Assize, when we shall send poor devils, our betters, to
the galleys with a T.F.[*] on their shoulders, so that the rich may be
convinced that they can sleep in peace. There is no fun in that; and you
are a long while coming to it; for, to begin with, there are two years
of nauseous drudgery in Paris, we see all the lollipops that we long for
out of our reach. It is tiresome to want things and never to have them.
If you were a pallid creature of the mollusk order, you would have
nothing to fear, but it is different when you have the hot blood of
a lion and are ready to get into a score of scrapes every day of your
life. This is the ghastliest form of torture known in this inferno of
God's making, and you will give in to it. Or suppose that you are a good
boy, drink nothing stronger than milk, and bemoan your hard lot; you,
with your generous nature, will endure hardships that would drive a dog
mad, and make a start, after long waiting, as deputy to some rascal
or other in a hole of a place where the Government will fling you a
thousand francs a year like the scraps that are thrown to the butcher's
dog. Bark at thieves, plead the cause of the rich, send men of heart
to the guillotine, that is your work! Many thanks! If you have no
influence, you may rot in your provincial t