de
Gondreville, and to insure forever the independence of Arcis in the
matter of elections. The news of the death of poor Charles Keller was
regarded as a judgment from heaven, intended to silence all rivalries.

Antonin Goulard, Frederic Marest, Olivier Vinet, and Monsieur Martener,
the authorities who, until then, had frequented this salon (the
prevailing opinions of which did not seem to them contrary to the
government created by the popular will in July, 1830), came as usual,
possessed by curiosity to see what attitude the Beauvisage family would
take under the circumstances.

The salon, restored to its usual condition, showed no signs of the
meeting which appeared to have settled the destiny of Simon Giguet. By
eight o'clock four card-tables, each with four players, were under way.
The smaller salon and the dining-room were full of people. Never, except
on grand occasions, such as balls and fete-days, had Madame Marion seen
such an influx at the door of her salon, forming as it were the tail of
a comet.

"It is the dawn of power," said Olivier Vinet to the mistress of the
house, showing her this spectacle, so gratifying to the heart of a
person who delighted in receiving company.

"No one knows what there is in Simon," replied the mother. "We live in
times when young men who persevere and are moral and upright can aspire
to everything."

This answer was made, not so much to Vinet as to Madame Beauvisage, who
had entered the room with her daughter and was now beginning to offer
her congratulations on the event. In order to escape indirect appeals
and pointed interpretations of careless words, Madame Beauvisage took a
vacant place at a whist-table and devoted her mind to the winning of one
hundred fishes. One hundred fishes, or counters, made fifty sous! When a
player had lost that sum it was talked of in Arcis for a couple of days.

Cecile went to talk with Mademoiselle Mollot, one of her good friends,
appearing to be seized with redoubled affection for her. Mademoiselle
Mollot was the beauty of Arcis, just as Cecile was the heiress. Monsieur
Mollot, clerk of the court, lived on the Grande-Place in a house
constructed in the same manner as that of Beauvisage on the Place du
Pont. Madame Mollot, forever seated at the window of her salon on the
ground-floor, was attacked (as the result of that situation) by intense,
acute, insatiable curiosity, now become a chronic and inveterate
disease. The moment a peasant