ou; you can pay your principal debts, and sell what property you
have left with a power of redemption, for you will soon obtain an
office which will enable you by degrees to pay off your creditors.
Then, as for your wife, once enlightened as to her character you
can rule her. When you loved her you had no power to manage her;
not loving her, you will have an unconquerable force. I will
undertake, myself, to make your mother-in-law as supple as a
glove; for you must recover the use of the hundred and fifty
thousand francs a year those two women have squeezed out of you.

Therefore, I say, renounce this expatriation which seems to me no
better than a pan of charcoal or a pistol to your head. To go away
is to justify all calumnies. The gambler who leaves the table to
get his money loses it when he returns; we must have our gold in
our pockets. Let us now, you and I, be two gamblers on the green
baize of politics; between us loans are in order. Therefore take
post-horses, come back instantly, and renew the game. You'll win
it with Henri de Marsay for your partner, for Henri de Marsay
knows how to will, and how to strike.

See how we stand politically. My father is in the British
ministry; we shall have close relations with Spain through the
Evangelistas, for, as soon as your mother-in-law and I have
measured claws she will find there is nothing to gain by fighting
the devil. Montriveau is our lieutenant-general; he will certainly
be minister of war before long, and his eloquence will give him
great ascendancy in the Chamber. Ronquerolles will be minister of
State and privy-councillor; Martial de la Roche-Hugon is minister
to Germany and peer of France; Serisy leads the Council of State,
to which he is indispensable; Granville holds the magistracy, to
which his sons belong; the Grandlieus stand well at court; Ferraud
is the soul of the Gondreville coterie,--low intriguers who are
always on the surface of things, I'm sure I don't know why. Thus
supported, what have we to fear? The money question is a mere
nothing when this great wheel of fortune rolls for us. What is a
woman?--you are not a schoolboy. What is life, my dear fellow, if
you let a woman be the whole of it? A boat you can't command,
without a rudder, but not without a magnet, and tossed by every
wind that blows. Pah!

The great secret of social alchemy, my dear Paul, is to get the
most