enaud to call on
me in my private office at four o'clock, to make her explain the facts
which concern her, for she is compromised."

"I should very much like to know what the end will be."

"Why, bless me, do not you see that the Marquise is the tool of that
tall lean man who never uttered a word? There is a strain of Cain in
him, but of the Cain who goes to the Law Courts for his bludgeon, and
there, unluckily for him, we keep more than one Damocles' sword."

"Oh, Rastignac! what brought you into that boat, I wonder?" exclaimed
Bianchon.

"Ah, we are used to seeing these little family conspiracies,"
said Popinot. "Not a year passes without a number of verdicts of
'insufficient evidence' against applications of this kind. In our state
of society such an attempt brings no dishonor, while we send a poor
devil to the galleys who breaks a pane of glass dividing him from a bowl
full of gold. Our Code is not faultless."

"But these are the facts?"

"My boy, do you not know all the judicial romances with which clients
impose on their attorneys? If the attorneys condemned themselves to
state nothing but the truth, they would not earn enough to keep their
office open."

Next day, at four in the afternoon, a very stout dame, looking a good
deal like a cask dressed up in a gown and belt, mounted Judge Popinot's
stairs, perspiring and panting. She had, with great difficulty, got out
of a green landau, which suited her to a miracle; you could not think of
the woman without the landau, or the landau without the woman.

"It is I, my dear sir," said she, appearing in the doorway of the
judge's room. "Madame Jeanrenaud, whom you summoned exactly as if I were
a thief, neither more nor less."

The common words were spoken in a common voice, broken by the wheezing
of asthma, and ending in a cough.

"When I go through a damp place, I can't tell you what I suffer, sir. I
shall never make old bones, saving your presence. However, here I am."

The lawyer was quite amazed at the appearance of this supposed Marechale
d'Ancre. Madame Jeanrenaud's face was pitted with an infinite number of
little holes, was very red, with a pug nose and a low forehead, and was
as round as a ball; for everything about the good woman was round. She
had the bright eyes of a country woman, an honest gaze, a cheerful tone,
and chestnut hair held in place by a bonnet cap under a green bonnet
decked with a shabby bunch of auriculas. Her stupendous bust w