leans, and Orleans with Pairs;
and which was about to bring into the last named city where she was to
produce so great a revolution, the poor little La Valliere, who was far
from suspecting, as she returned joyfully, leaning on the arm of her
mother, for what a strange future she was reserved. As to the good
man, Malicorne--we speak of the syndic of Orleans--he did not see more
clearly into the present than others did into the future; and had no
suspicion as he walked, every day, between three and five o'clock, after
his dinner, upon the Place Sainte-Catherine, in his gray coat, cut
after the fashion of Louis XIII. and his cloth shoes with great knots of
ribbon, that it was he who was paying for all those bursts of laughter,
all those stolen kisses, all those whisperings, all those little
keepsakes, and all those bubble projects which formed a chain of
forty-five leagues in length, from the palais of Blois to the Palais
Royal.

Chapter V: Manicamp and Malicorne.

Malicorne, then, left Blois, as we have said, and went to find his
friend, Manicamp, then in temporary retreat in the city of Orleans. It
was just at the moment when that young nobleman was employed in selling
the last decent clothing he had left. He had, a fortnight before,
extorted from the Comte de Guiche a hundred pistoles, all he had, to
assist in equipping him properly to go and meet Madame, on her arrival
at Le Havre. He had drawn from Malicorne, three days before, fifty
pistoles, the price of the _brevet_ obtained for Montalais. He had then
no expectation of anything else, having exhausted all his resources,
with the exception of selling a handsome suit of cloth and satin,
embroidered and laced with gold, which had been the admiration of the
court. But to be able to sell this suit, the last he had left,--as we
have been forced to confess to the reader--Manicamp had been obliged
to take to his bed. No more fire, no more pocket-money, no more
walking-money, nothing but sleep to take the place of repasts, companies
and balls. It has been said--"He who sleeps, dines;" but it has never
been affirmed--He who sleeps, plays--or, He who sleeps, dances.
Manicamp, reduced to this extremity of neither playing nor dancing, for
a week at least, was, consequently, very sad; he was expecting a usurer,
and saw Malicorne enter. A cry of distress escaped him.

"Eh! what!" said he, in a tone which nothing can describe, "is that you
again, dear friend?"

"Humph! yo