the Quartier Latin was distracted
by Liberalism, such conduct was sure to rouse in opposition a host of
petty passions, of feelings whose folly is only to be measured by their
meanness, the outcome of porters' gossip and malevolent tattle from door
to door, all unknown to M. d'Espard and his retainers. His man-servant
was stigmatized as a Jesuit, his cook as a sly fox; the nurse was in
collusion with Madame Jeanrenaud to rob the madman. The madman was
the Marquis. By degrees the other tenants came to regard as proofs of
madness a number of things they had noticed in M. d'Espard, and passed
through the sieve of their judgment without discerning any reasonable
motive for them.

Having no belief in the success of the History of China, they had
managed to convince the landlord of the house that M. d'Espard had no
money just at a time when, with the forgetfulness which often befalls
busy men, he had allowed the tax-collector to send him a summons for
non-payment of arrears. The landlord forthwith claimed his quarter's
rent from January 1st by sending in a receipt, which the porter's wife
had amused herself by detaining. On the 15th a summons to pay was served
on M. d'Espard, the portress had delivered it at her leisure, and
he supposed it to be some misunderstanding, not conceiving of any
incivility from a man in whose house he had been living for twelve
years. The Marquis was actually seized by a bailiff at the time when his
man-servant had gone to carry the money for the rent to the landlord.

This arrest, assiduously reported to the persons with whom he was in
treaty for his undertaking, had alarmed some of them who were already
doubtful of M. d'Espard's solvency in consequence of the enormous sums
which Baron Jeanrenaud and his mother were said to be receiving from
him. And, indeed, these suspicions on the part of the tenants, the
creditors, and the landlord had some excuse in the Marquis' extreme
economy in housekeeping. He conducted it as a ruined man might. His
servants always paid in ready money for the most trifling necessaries
of life, and acted as not choosing to take credit; if now they had asked
for anything on credit, it would probably have been refused, calumnious
gossip had been so widely believed in the neighborhood. There are
tradesmen who like those of their customers who pay badly when they
see them often, while they hate others, and very good ones, who hold
themselves on too high a level to allow of an