d honorable
persons in all France. Such community of interests, based on the mutual
knowledge of the secret spots on the white garment of conscience, is one
of the ties least recognized and hardest to untie in this low world. You
who read this social drama, have you never felt a conviction as to two
persons which has led you to say to yourself, in order to explain the
continuance of a faithful devotion which made your own egotism blush,
"They must surely have committed some crime together"?

After an administration of twenty-five years, Gaubertin, the
land-steward, found himself in possession of six hundred thousand
francs in money, and Cochet had accumulated nearly two hundred and fifty
thousand. The rapid and constant turning over and over of their funds in
the hands of Leclercq and Company (on the quai Bethume, Ile Saint Louis,
rivals of the famous house of Grandet) was a great assistance to the
fortunes of all parties. On the death of Mademoiselle Laguerre, Jenny,
the steward's eldest daughter was asked in marriage by Leclercq.
Gaubertin expected at that time to become owner of Les Aigues by means
of a plot laid in the private office of Lupin, the notary, whom the
steward had set up and maintained in business within the last twelve
years.

Lupin, a son of the former steward of the estate of Soulanges, had lent
himself to various slight peculations,--investments at fifty per
cent below par, notices published surreptitiously, and all the other
manoeuvres, unhappily common in the provinces, to wrap a mantle, as
the saying is, over the clandestine manipulations of property. Lately
a company has been formed in Paris, so they say, to levy contributions
upon such plotters under a threat of outbidding them. But in 1816 France
was not, as it is now, lighted by a flaming publicity; the accomplices
might safely count on dividing Les Aigues among them, that is, between
Cochet, the notary, and Gaubertin, the latter of whom reserved to
himself, "in petto," the intention of buying the others out for a sum
down, as soon as the property fairly stood in his own name. The lawyer
employed by the notary to manage the sale of the estate was under
personal obligations to Gaubertin, so that he favored the spoliation of
the heirs, unless any of the eleven farmers of Picardy should take it
into their heads to think they were cheated, and inquire into the real
value of the property.

Just as those interested expected to find their fortunes