s banker du Tillet,
a crony of Nucingen, and both of them allies of the Kellers. The
administration is on the best of terms with those lynxes of the bank.
There is no reason why Tiphaine should not be judge, through his wife,
of a Royal court. Marry Rogron; we'll have him elected deputy from
Provins as soon as I gain another precinct in the Seine-et-Marne. You
can then get him a place as receiver-general, where he'll have nothing
to do but sign his name. We shall belong to the opposition _if_ the
Liberals triumph, but if the Bourbons remain--ah! then we shall lean
gently, gently towards the centre. Besides, you must remember Rogron
can't live forever, and then you can marry a titled man. In short, put
yourself in a good position, and the Chargeboeufs will be ready enough
to serve us. Your poverty has no doubt taught you, as mine did me,
to know what men are worth. We must make use of them as we do of
post-horses. A man, or a woman, will take us along to such or such a
distance."

Vinet ended by making Bathilde a small edition of Catherine de Medicis.
He left his wife at home, rejoiced to be alone with her two children,
while he went every night to the Rogrons' with Madame and Mademoiselle
de Chargeboeuf. He arrived there in all the glory of better
circumstances. His spectacles were of gold, his waistcoat silk; a white
cravat, black trousers, thin boots, a black coat made in Paris, and a
gold watch and chain, made up his apparel. In place of the former Vinet,
pale and thin, snarling and gloomy, the present Vinet bore himself with
the air and manner of a man of importance; he marched boldly forward,
certain of success, with that peculiar show of security which belongs to
lawyers who know the hidden places of the law. His sly little head was
well-brushed, his chin well-shaved, which gave him a mincing though
frigid look, that made him seem agreeable in the style of Robespierre.
Certainly he would make a fine attorney-general, endowed with elastic,
mischievous, and even murderous eloquence, or an orator of the shrewd
type of Benjamin Constant. The bitterness and the hatred which formerly
actuated him had now turned into soft-spoken perfidy; the poison was
transformed into anodyne.

"Good-evening, my dear; how are you?" said Madame de Chargeboeuf,
greeting Sylvie.

Bathilde went straight to the fireplace, took off her bonnet, looked
at herself in the glass, and placed her pretty foot on the fender that
Rogron might admir