londet. Emile Blondet, the young Count's fellow-townsman, was a man
of letters on the outskirts of society to which he had been introduced
by a charming woman from the same province. This was one of the Vicomte
de Troisville's daughters, now married to the Comte de Montcornet,
one of those of Napoleon's generals who went over to the Bourbons. The
Vidame held that a dinner-party of more than six persons was beneath
contempt. In that case, according to him, there was an end alike of
cookery and conversation, and a man could not sip his wine in a proper
frame of mind.

"I have not yet told you, my dear boy, where I mean to take you
to-night," he said, taking Victurnien's hands and tapping on them.
"You are going to see Mlle. des Touches; all the pretty women with any
pretensions to wit will be at her house en petit comite. Literature,
art, poetry, any sort of genius, in short, is held in great esteem
there. It is one of our old-world bureaux d'esprit, with a veneer of
monarchical doctrine, the livery of this present age."

"It is sometimes as tiresome and tedious there as a pair of new boots,
but there are women with whom you cannot meet anywhere else," said de
Marsay.

"If all the poets who went there to rub up their muse were like
our friend here," said Rastignac, tapping Blondet familiarly on the
shoulder, "we should have some fun. But a plague of odes, and ballads,
and driveling meditations, and novels with wide margins, pervades the
sofas and the atmosphere."

"I don't dislike them," said de Marsay, "so long as they corrupt girls'
minds, and don't spoil women."

"Gentlemen," smiled Blondet, "you are encroaching on my field of
literature."

"You need not talk. You have robbed us of the most charming woman in the
world, you lucky rogue; we may be allowed to steal your less brilliant
ideas," cried Rastignac.

"Yes, he is a lucky rascal," said the Vidame, and he twitched
Blondet's ear. "But perhaps Victurnien here will be luckier still this
evening----"

"_Already_!" exclaimed de Marsay. "Why, he only came here a month ago;
he has scarcely had time to shake the dust of his old manor house off
his feet, to wipe off the brine in which his aunt kept him preserved;
he has only just set up a decent horse, a tilbury in the latest style, a
groom----"

"No, no, not a groom," interrupted Rastignac; "he has some sort of an
agricultural laborer that he brought with him 'from his place.' Buisson,
who understands a livery