Rochefide--came out of that dressing-closet in
a furious rage, and never went back again. She discovered nothing
'improper' in it. Godefroid used to keep a little cupboard full of----"

"Waistcoats?" suggested Finot.

"Come, now, just like you, great Turcaret that you are. (I shall never
form that fellow.) Why, no. Full of cakes, and fruit, and dainty little
flasks of Malaga and Lunel; an en cas de nuit in Louis Quatorze's style;
anything that can tickle the delicate and well-bred appetite of
sixteen quarterings. A knowing old man-servant, very strong in matters
veterinary, waited on the horses and groomed Godefroid. He had been with
the late M. de Beaudenord, Godefroid's father, and bore Godefroid
an inveterate affection, a kind of heart complaint which has
almost disappeared among domestic servants since savings banks were
established.

"All material well-being is based upon arithmetic. You to whom Paris is
known down to its very excrescences, will see that Beaudenord must have
acquired about seventeen thousand livres per annum; for he paid some
seventeen francs of taxes and spent a thousand crowns on his own whims.
Well, dear boys, when Godefroid came of age, the Marquis d'Aiglemont
submitted to him such an account of his trust as none of us would be
likely to give a nephew; Godefroid's name was inscribed as the owner of
eighteen thousand livres of _rentes_, a remnant of his father's wealth
spared by the harrow of the great reduction under the Republic and the
hailstorms of Imperial arrears. D'Aiglemont, that upright guardian, also
put his ward in possession of some thirty thousand francs of savings
invested with the firm of Nucingen; saying with all the charm of a
_grand seigneur_ and the indulgence of a soldier of the Empire, that he
had contrived to put it aside for his ward's young man's follies. 'If
you will take my advice, Godefroid,' added he, 'instead of squandering
the money like a fool, as so many young men do, let it go in follies
that will be useful to you afterwards. Take an attache's post at Turin,
and then go to Naples, and from Naples to London, and you will be
amused and learn something for your money. Afterwards, if you think of a
career, the time and the money will not have been thrown away.' The late
lamented d'Aiglemont had more sense than people credited him with, which
is more than can be said of some of us."

"A young fellow that starts with an assured income of eighteen thousand
livres at