he replied. "He wants
to suppress fifteen thousand offices and do the work with five or six
thousand. You never heard of such nonsense; I will let you read the
whole document when copied; it is written in perfect good faith.
His analysis of the officials was prompted only by his honesty and
rectitude,--poor dear man!"

Des Lupeaulx was all the more reassured by the genuine laugh which
accompanied these jesting and contemptuous words, because he was a judge
of lying and knew that Celestine spoke in good faith.

"But still, what is at the bottom of it all?" he asked.

"Well, he wants to do away with the land-tax and substitute taxes on
consumption."

"Why it is over a year since Francois Keller and Nucingen proposed some
such plan, and the minister himself is thinking of a reduction of the
land-tax."

"There!" exclaimed Celestine, "I told him there was nothing new in his
scheme."

"No; but he is on the same ground with the best financier of the
epoch,--the Napoleon of finance. Something may come of it. Your husband
must surely have some special ideas in his method of putting the scheme
into practice."

"No, it is all commonplace," she said, with a disdainful curl of her
lip. "Just think of governing France with five or six thousand offices,
when what is really needed is that everybody in France should be
personally enlisted in the support of the government."

Des Lupeaulx seemed satisfied that Rabourdin, to whom in his own mind he
had granted remarkable talents, was really a man of mediocrity.

"Are you quite sure of the appointment? You don't want a bit of feminine
advice?" she said.

"You women are greater adepts than we in refined treachery," he said,
nodding.

"Well, then, say /Baudoyer/ to the court and clergy, to divert suspicion
and put them to sleep, and then, at the last moment, write /Rabourdin/."

"There are some women who say /yes/ as long as they need a man, and /no/
when he has played his part," returned des Lupeaulx, significantly.

"I know they do," she answered, laughing; "but they are very foolish,
for in politics everything recommences. Such proceedings may do with
fools, but you are a man of sense. In my opinion the greatest folly any
one can commit is to quarrel with a clever man."

"You are mistaken," said des Lupeaulx, "for such a man pardons. The real
danger is with the petty spiteful natures who have nothing to do but
study revenge,--I spend my life among them."

When all the g