out which, dear friend, I am rather
surprised that you have not already lectured me. It is one of those
agreeable calumnies put in circulation in the salon Montcornet by the
honored and honorable Monsieur Bixiou. The scandal concerns a handsome
Italian woman whom I brought back from Italy and with whom I am said to
be living in a manner not canonical. Come, tell me, what hindered you
from asking me to explain this important matter? Did you think the
charge so shameful that you feared to offend me by alluding to it? Or
have you such confidence in my morality that you felt no need of being
strengthened therein? I did not have time to enter upon the necessary
explanations to Monsieur de l'Estorade, neither have I the leisure to
write them to you now. If I speak of the incident it is for the purpose
of telling you of an observation I think I have made, into the truth of
which I want you to examine after you get here. It is this:--

I have an idea that it would not be agreeable to Monsieur de l'Estorade
to see me successful in my electoral campaign. He never gave much
approbation to the plan; in fact he tried to dissuade me, but always
from the point of view of my own interests. But to-day, when he
finds that the plan has taken shape, and is actually discussed in the
ministerial salon, my gentleman turns bitter, and he seems to feel
a malignant pleasure in prophesying my defeat and in producing this
charming little infamy under which he expects to bury our friendship.

Why so! I will tell you: while feeling some gratitude for the service I
did him, the worthy man also felt from the height of his social position
a superiority over me of which my entrance to the Chamber will now
dispossess him; and it is not agreeable to him to renounce that sense of
superiority. After all, what is an artist, even though he may be a man
of genius, compared to a peer of France, a personage who puts his hand
to the tiller and steers the great political and social system; a man
who has access to kings and ministers, and who would have the right
if, by impossibility, such audacity should seize upon his mind, of
depositing a black ball against the budget. Well, this privileged being
does not like that I, and others like me, should assume the importance
and authority of that insolent elective Chamber.

But that is not all. Hereditary statesmen have a foolish pretension:
that of being initiated by long study into a certain science represented
as ar