Lousteau smile by showing him this sentence on the first
page:

"What makes the populace dangerous is that it has in its pocket an
absolution for every crime.

"J. B. DE CLAGNY."

"We will second the man who is brave enough to plead in favor of the
Monarchy," Desplein's great pupil whispered to Lousteau, and he wrote
below:

"The distinction between Napoleon and a water-carrier is evident
only to Society; Nature takes no account of it. Thus Democracy,
which resists inequality, constantly appeals to Nature.

H. BIANCHON."

"Ah!" cried Dinah, amazed, "you rich men take a gold piece out of your
purse as poor men bring out a farthing.... I do not know," she went
on, turning to Lousteau, "whether it is taking an unfair advantage of a
guest to hope for a few lines--"

"Nay, madame, you flatter me. Bianchon is a great man, but I am too
insignificant!--Twenty years hence my name will be more difficult to
identify than that of the Public Prosecutor whose axiom, written in your
album, will designate him as an obscurer Montesquieu. And I should
want at least twenty-four hours to improvise some sufficiently bitter
reflections, for I could only describe what I feel."

"I wish you needed a fortnight," said Madame de la Baudraye graciously,
as she handed him the book. "I should keep you here all the longer."

At five next morning all the party in the Chateau d'Anzy were astir,
little La Baudraye having arranged a day's sport for the Parisians--less
for their pleasure than to gratify his own conceit. He was delighted to
make them walk over the twelve hundred acres of waste land that he
was intending to reclaim, an undertaking that would cost some hundred
thousand francs, but which might yield an increase of thirty to sixty
thousand francs a year in the returns of the estate of Anzy.

"Do you know why the Public Prosecutor has not come out with us?" asked
Gatien Boirouge of Monsieur Gravier.

"Why he told us that he was obliged to sit to-day; the minor cases are
before the Court," replied the other.

"And did you believe that?" cried Gatien. "Well, my papa said to me,
'Monsieur Lebas will not join you early, for Monsieur de Clagny has
begged him as his deputy to sit for him!'"

"Indeed!" said Gravier, changing countenance. "And Monsieur de la
Baudraye is gone to La Charite!"

"But why do you meddle in such matters?" said Bianchon to Gatien.

"Horace is right," said Lousteau. "I cannot imagine w