party, devoted by conviction to the Government of July--in short, one of
those men of whom, in the Rue de Grenelle, the Minister of the Interior
could say, "We have a capital Prefet at Besancon."--The Prefet read the
letter, and, in obedience to its instructions, he burnt it.

Rosalie aimed at preventing Albert's election, so as to keep him five
years longer at Besancon.

At that time an election was a fight between parties, and in order to
win, the Ministry chose its ground by choosing the moment when it would
give battle. The elections were therefore not to take place for three
months yet. When a man's whole life depends on an election, the
period that elapses between the issuing of the writs for convening the
electoral bodies, and the day fixed for their meetings, is an interval
during which ordinary vitality is suspended. Rosalie fully understood
how much latitude Albert's absorbed state would leave her during these
three months. By promising Mariette--as she afterwards confessed--to
take both her and Jerome into her service, she induced the maid to bring
her all the letters Albert might sent to Italy, and those addressed
to him from that country. And all the time she was pondering these
machinations, the extraordinary girl was working slippers for her father
with the most innocent air in the world. She even made a greater display
than ever of candor and simplicity, quite understanding how valuable
that candor and innocence would be to her ends.

"My daughter grows quite charming!" said Madame de Watteville.

Two months before the election a meeting was held at the house of
Monsieur Boucher senior, composed of the contractor who expected to get
the work for the aqueduct for the Arcier waters; of Monsieur Boucher's
father-in-law; of Monsieur Granet, the influential man to whom Savarus
had done a service, and who was to nominate him as a candidate; of
Girardet the lawyer; of the printer of the _Eastern Review_; and of the
President of the Chamber of Commerce. In fact, the assembly consisted
of twenty-seven persons in all, men who in the provinces are regarded as
bigwigs. Each man represented on an average six votes, but in estimating
their values they said ten, for men always begin by exaggerating their
own influence. Among these twenty-seven was one who was wholly devoted
to the Prefet, one false brother who secretly looked for some favor from
the Ministry, either for himself or for some one belonging to him.