, his covers, under the reign of
a son of St. Louis! People were too much afraid of the possible
consequences to tell him about such trifles, Chesnel said.

The young Count indulged in other escapades in the town. These the
Chevalier regarded as "amourettes," but they cost Chesnel something
considerable in portions for forsaken damsels seduced under imprudent
promises of marriage: yet other cases there were which came under an
article of the Code as to the abduction of minors; and but for Chesnel's
timely intervention, the new law would have been allowed to take its
brutal course, and it is hard to say where the Count might have ended.
Victurnien grew the bolder for these victories over bourgeois justice.
He was so accustomed to be pulled out of scrapes, that he never thought
twice before any prank. Courts of law, in his opinion, were bugbears
to frighten people who had no hold on him. Things which he would have
blamed in common people were for him only pardonable amusements. His
disposition to treat the new laws cavalierly while obeying the maxims of
a Code for aristocrats, his behavior and character, were all pondered,
analyzed, and tested by a few adroit persons in du Croisier's interests.
These folk supported each other in the effort to make the people believe
that Liberal slanders were revelations, and that the Ministerial policy
at bottom meant a return to the old order of things.

What a bit of luck to find something by way of proof of their
assertions! President du Ronceret, and the public prosecutor likewise,
lent themselves admirably, so far as was compatible with their duty
as magistrates, to the design of letting off the offender as easily as
possible; indeed, they went deliberately out of their way to do
this, well pleased to raise a Liberal clamor against their overlarge
concessions. And so, while seeming to serve the interests of the
d'Esgrignons, they stirred up feeling against them. The treacherous de
Ronceret had it in his mind to pose as incorruptible at the right moment
over some serious charge, with public opinion to back him up. The young
Count's worst tendencies, moreover, were insidiously encouraged by two
or three young men who followed in his train, paid court to him, won
his favor, and flattered and obeyed him, with a view to confirming his
belief in a noble's supremacy; and all this at a time when a noble's
one chance of preserving his power lay in using it with the utmost
discretion for hal