ies of the days
when we worked in the same office, old pleasant memories for our
hearts, to ask you to do me the one service that I have ever asked
of you in the course of our long lives, crossed as they have been
by political catastrophes, to which, perhaps, I owe it that I have
the honor to be your colleague. And now I ask this service of you,
my friend, and my white hairs will be brought with sorrow to the
grave if you should refuse my entreaty. It is no question of
myself or of mine, Sorbier, for I lost poor Mme. Chesnel, and I
have no child of my own. Something more to me than my own family
(if I had one) is involved--it is the Marquis d'Esgrignon's only
son. I have had the honor to be the Marquis' land steward ever
since I left the office to which his father sent me at his own
expense, with the idea of providing for me. The house which
nurtured me has passed through all the troubles of the Revolution.
I have managed to save some of their property; but what is it,
after all, in comparison with the wealth that they have lost? I
cannot tell you, Sorbier, how deeply I am attached to the great
house, which has been all but swallowed up under my eyes by the
abyss of time. M. le Marquis was proscribed, and his lands
confiscated, he was getting on in years, he had no child.
Misfortunes upon misfortunes! Then M. le Marquis married, and his
wife died when the young Count was born, and to-day this noble,
dear, and precious child is all the life of the d'Esgrignon
family; the fate of the house hangs upon him. He has got into debt
here with amusing himself. What else should he do in the provinces
with an allowance of a miserable hundred louis? Yes, my friend, a
hundred louis, the great house has come to this.

"In this extremity his father thinks it necessary to send the
Count to Paris to ask for the King's favor at court. Paris is a
very dangerous place for a lad; if he is to keep steady there, he
must have the grain of sense which makes notaries of us. Besides,
I should be heartbroken to think of the poor boy living amid such
hardships as we have known.--Do you remember the pleasure with
which we spent a day and a night there waiting to see The Marriage
of Figaro? Oh, blind that we were!--We were happy and poor, but a
noble cannot be happy in poverty. A noble in want--it is a thing
against nature! Ah! Sorbier, when one has known the satisfaction
of