l et Virginie. Mme. Blondet did what she could to teach
her son to look to the Troisvilles, to found a lasting attachment on
a children's game of "make-believe" love, which was bound to end as
boy-and-girl romances usually do. When Mlle. de Troisville's marriage
with General Montcornet was announced, Mme. Blondet, a dying woman, went
to the bride and solemnly implored her never to abandon Emile, and to
use her influence for him in society in Paris, whither the General's
fortune summoned her to shine.

Luckily for Emile, he was able to make his own way. He made his
appearance, at the age of twenty, as one of the masters of modern
literature; and met with no less success in the society into which he
was launched by the father who at first could afford to bear the expense
of the young man's extravagance. Perhaps Emile's precocious celebrity
and the good figure that he made strengthened the bonds of his
friendship with the Countess. Perhaps Mme. de Montcornet, with the
Russian blood in her veins (her mother was the daughter of the Princess
Scherbelloff), might have cast off the friend of her childhood if he
had been a poor man struggling with all his might among the difficulties
which beset a man of letters in Paris; but by the time that the
real strain of Emile's adventurous life began, their attachment was
unalterable on either side. He was looked upon as one of the leading
lights of journalism when young d'Esgrignon met him at his first supper
party in Paris; his acknowledged position in the world of letters was
very high, and he towered above his reputation. Goodman Blondet had not
the faintest conception of the power which the Constitutional Government
had given to the press; nobody ventured to talk in his presence of the
son of whom he refused to hear. And so it came to pass that he knew
nothing of Emile whom he had cursed and Emile's greatness.

Old Blondet's integrity was as deeply rooted in him as his passion for
flowers; he knew nothing but law and botany. He would have interviews
with litigants, listen to them, chat with them, and show them his
flowers; he would accept rare seeds from them; but once on the bench, no
judge on earth was more impartial. Indeed, his manner of proceeding was
so well known, that litigants never went near him except to hand over
some document which might enlighten him in the performance of his duty,
and nobody tried to throw dust in his eyes. With his learning, his
lights, and his way