irmament,
like extinguished stars, and then, as he grew old, was captured by Jenny
Cadine and Josepha.

Madame Marneffe had placed her batteries after due study of the Baron's
past life, which her husband had narrated in much detail, after picking
up some information in the offices. The comedy of modern sentiment might
have the charm of novelty to the Baron; Valerie had made up her mind as
to her scheme; and we may say the trial of her power that she made this
morning answered her highest expectations. Thanks to her manoeuvres,
sentimental, high-flown, and romantic, Valerie, without committing
herself to any promises, obtained for her husband the appointment as
deputy head of the office and the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

The campaign was not carried out without little dinners at the _Rocher
de Cancale_, parties to the play, and gifts in the form of lace,
scarves, gowns, and jewelry. The apartment in the Rue du Doyenne was not
satisfactory; the Baron proposed to furnish another magnificently in a
charming new house in the Rue Vanneau.

Monsieur Marneffe got a fortnight's leave, to be taken a month hence
for urgent private affairs in the country, and a present in money;
he promised himself that he would spend both in a little town in
Switzerland, studying the fair sex.

While Monsieur Hulot thus devoted himself to the lady he was
"protecting," he did not forget the young artist. Comte Popinot,
Minister of Commerce, was a patron of Art; he paid two thousand francs
for a copy of the _Samson_ on condition that the mould should be broken,
and that there should be no _Samson_ but his and Mademoiselle Hulot's.
The group was admired by a Prince, to whom the model sketch for the
clock was also shown, and who ordered it; but that again was to be
unique, and he offered thirty thousand francs for it.

Artists who were consulted, and among them Stidmann, were of opinion
that the man who had sketched those two models was capable of achieving
a statue. The Marshal Prince de Wissembourg, Minister of War, and
President of the Committee for the subscriptions to the monument of
Marshal Montcornet, called a meeting, at which it was decided that the
execution of the work should be placed in Steinbock's hands. The Comte
de Rastignac, at that time Under-secretary of State, wished to possess a
work by the artist, whose glory was waxing amid the acclamations of
his rivals. Steinbock sold to him the charming group of two little boys
cro