help themselves to money under pressure of want,
and take it by force. These people are called criminals; and, perforce,
they square accounts with Justice. A poor man of genius discovers
some secret, some invention as good as a treasure; you lend him three
thousand francs (for that, practically, the Cointets have done; they
hold your bills, and they are about to rob your brother-in-law); you
torment him until he reveals or partly reveals his secret; you settle
your accounts with your own conscience, and your conscience does not
drag you into the assize court.

"The enemies of social order, beholding this contrast, take occasion
to yap at justice, and wax wroth in the name of the people, because,
forsooth, burglars and fowl-stealers are sent to the hulks, while a man
who brings whole families to ruin by a fraudulent bankruptcy is let off
with a few months' imprisonment. But these hypocrites know quite well
that the judge who passes sentence on the thief is maintaining the
barrier set between the poor and the rich, and that if that barrier
were overturned, social chaos would ensue; while, in the case of the
bankrupt, the man who steals an inheritance cleverly, and the banker who
slaughters a business for his own benefit, money merely changes hands,
that is all.

"Society, my son, is bound to draw those distinctions which I have
pointed out for your benefit. The one great point is this--you must be a
match for society. Napoleon, Richelieu, and the Medicis were a match for
their generations. And as for you, you value yourself at twelve thousand
francs! You of this generation in France worship the golden calf; what
else is the religion of your Charter that will not recognize a man
politically unless he owns property? What is this but the command,
'Strive to be rich?' Some day, when you shall have made a fortune
without breaking the law, you will be rich; you will be the Marquis de
Rubempre, and you can indulge in the luxury of honor. You will be so
extremely sensitive on the point of honor that no one will dare to
accuse you of past shortcomings if in the process of making your way you
should happen to smirch it now and again, which I myself should never
advise," he added, patting Lucien's hand.

"So what must you put in that comely head of yours? Simply this and
nothing more--propose to yourself a brilliant and conspicuous goal, and
go towards it secretly; let no one see your methods or your progress.
You have behaved li