rd's comrades, in spite of
the virtues which our imaginations attribute to soldiers, never forgave
the former quartermaster of the 6th of the line for becoming suddenly so
rich and for attempting to cut a figure in Paris. Now in Paris, from
the last house in the faubourg Saint-Germain to the last in the rue
Saint-Lazare, between the heights of the Luxembourg and the heights of
Montmartre, all that clothes itself and gabbles, clothes itself to
go out and goes out to gabble. All that world of great and small
pretensions, that world of insolence and humble desires, of envy and
cringing, all that is gilded or tarnished, young or old, noble of
yesterday or noble from the fourth century, all that sneers at a
parvenu, all that fears to commit itself, all that wants to demolish
power and worships power if it resists,--_all_ those ears hear, _all_
those tongues say, _all_ those minds know, in a single evening, where
the new-comer who aspires to honor among them was born and brought up,
and what that interloper has done, or has not done, in the course of his
life. There may be no court of assizes for the upper classes of society;
but at any rate they have the most cruel of public prosecutors, an
intangible moral being, both judge and executioner, who accuses and
brands. Do not hope to hide anything from him; tell him all yourself;
he wants to know all and he will know all. Do not ask what mysterious
telegraph it was which conveyed to him in the twinkling of an eye, at
any hour, in any place, that story, that bit of news, that scandal;
do not ask what prompts him. That telegraph is a social mystery;
no observer can report its effects. Of many extraordinary instances
thereof, one may suffice: The assassination of the Duc de Berry, which
occurred at the Opera-house, was related within ten minutes in the
Ile-Saint-Louis. Thus the opinion of the 6th of the line as to its
quartermaster filtered through society the night on which he gave his
first ball.

Diard was therefore debarred from succeeding in society. Henceforth his
wife alone had the power to make anything of him. Miracle of our strange
civilization! In Paris, if a man is incapable of being anything himself,
his wife, when she is young and clever, may give him other chances
for elevation. We sometimes meet with invalid women, feeble beings
apparently, who, without rising from sofas or leaving their chambers,
have ruled society, moved a thousand springs, and placed their husban