er he
gave a fete as a matter of social pride in return for the civilities he
received. At such times Juana once more caught a glimpse of the world of
balls, festivities, luxury, and lights; but for her it was a sort of
tax imposed upon the comfort of her solitude. She, the queen of these
solemnities, appeared like a being fallen from some other planet. Her
simplicity, which nothing had corrupted, her beautiful virginity of
soul, which her peaceful life restored to her, her beauty and her
true modesty, won her sincere homage. But observing how few women ever
entered her salons, she came to understand that though her husband
was following, without communicating its nature to her, a new line of
conduct, he had gained nothing actually in the world's esteem.

Diard was not always lucky; far from it. In three years he had
dissipated three fourths of his fortune, but his passion for play gave
him the energy to continue it. He was intimate with a number of men,
more particularly with the roues of the Bourse, men who, since the
revolution, have set up the principle that robbery done on a large scale
is only a _smirch_ to the reputation,--transferring thus to financial
matters the loose principles of love in the eighteenth century. Diard
now became a sort of business man, and concerned himself in several of
those affairs which are called _shady_ in the slang of the law-courts.
He practised the decent thievery by which so many men, cleverly
masked, or hidden in the recesses of the political world, make their
fortunes,--thievery which, if done in the streets by the light of an oil
lamp, would see a poor devil to the galleys, but, under gilded ceilings
and by the light of candelabra, is sanctioned. Diard brought up,
monopolized, and sold sugars; he sold offices; he had the glory of
inventing the "man of straw" for lucrative posts which it was necessary
to keep in his own hands for a short time; he bought votes, receiving,
on one occasion, so much per cent on the purchase of fifteen
parliamentary votes which all passed on one division from the benches of
the Left to the benches of the Right. Such actions are no longer crimes
or thefts,--they are called governing, developing industry, becoming
a financial power. Diard was placed by public opinion on the bench of
infamy where many an able man was already seated. On that bench is the
aristocracy of evil. It is the upper Chamber of scoundrels of high life.
Diard was, therefore, not a me