lf, and a thorough experience of the things of
life, together with a profound contempt for social convention, lay
hidden beneath the apparent indifference of a soldier. Colonel Gouraud
wore the cross of an officer of the Legion of honor, and his emoluments
from that, together with his salary as a retired officer, gave him in
all about three thousand francs a year.

The lawyer, tall and thin, had liberal opinions in place of talent,
and his only revenue was the meagre profits of his office. In Provins
lawyers plead their own cases. The court was unfavorable to Vinet
on account of his opinions; consequently, even the farmers who were
Liberals, when it came to lawsuits preferred to employ some lawyer who
was more congenial to the judges. Vinet was regarded with disfavor in
other ways. He was said to have seduced a rich girl in the neighborhood
of Coulommiers, and thus have forced her parents to marry her to him.
Madame Vinet was a Chargeboeuf, an old and noble family of La Brie,
whose name comes from the exploit of a squire during the expedition of
Saint Louis to Egypt. She incurred the displeasure of her father and
mother, who arranged, unknown to Vinet, to leave their entire fortune to
their son, doubtless charging him privately, to pay over a portion of it
to his sister's children.

Thus the first bold effort of the ambitious man was a failure. Pursued
by poverty, and ashamed not to give his wife the means of making a
suitable appearance, he had made desperate efforts to enter public life,
but the Chargeboeuf family refused him their influence. These Royalists
disapproved, on moral grounds, of his forced marriage; besides, he was
named Vinet, and how could they be expected to protect a plebian? Thus
he was driven from branch to branch when he tried to get some good
out of his marriage. Repulsed by every one, filled with hatred for the
family of his wife, for the government which denied him a place, for the
social world of Provins, which refused to admit him, Vinet submitted to
his fate; but his gall increased. He became a Liberal in the belief that
his fortune might yet be made by the triumph of the opposition, and he
lived in a miserable little house in the Upper town from which his wife
seldom issued. Madame Vinet had found no one to defend her since her
marriage except an old Madame de Chargeboeuf, a widow with one daughter,
who lived at Troyes. The unfortunate young woman, destined for better
things, was absolutely