the restoration of the _Rey netto_. Carlos Herrera had thrown
himself body and soul into the _Camarilla_ at the moment when the Cortes
seemed likely to stand and hold their own. To the world this conduct
seemed to proclaim a superior soul. The Duc d'Angouleme's expedition had
been carried out, King Ferdinand was on the throne, and Carlos Herrera
did not go to claim the reward of his services at Madrid. Fortified
against curiosity by his diplomatic taciturnity, he assigned as his
reason for remaining in Paris his strong affection for Lucien de
Rubempre, to which the young man already owed the King's patent relating
to his change of name.

Herrera lived very obscurely, as priests employed on secret missions
traditionally live. He fulfilled his religious duties at Saint-Sulpice,
never went out but on business, and then after dark, and in a hackney
cab. His day was filled up with a siesta in the Spanish fashion, which
arranges for sleep between the two chief meals, and so occupies the
hours when Paris is in a busy turmoil. The Spanish cigar also played
its part, and consumed time as well as tobacco. Laziness is a mask as
gravity is, and that again is laziness.

Herrera lived on the second floor in one wing of the house, and Lucien
occupied the other wing. The two apartments were separated and joined by
a large reception room of antique magnificence, suitable equally to the
grave priest and to the young poet. The courtyard was gloomy; large,
thick trees shaded the garden. Silence and reserve are always found in
the dwellings chosen by priests. Herrera's lodging may be described in
one word--a cell. Lucien's, splendid with luxury, and furnished with
every refinement of comfort, combined everything that the elegant life
of a dandy demands--a poet, a writer, ambitious and dissipated, at once
vain and vainglorious, utterly heedless, and yet wishing for order,
one of those incomplete geniuses who have some power to wish, to
conceive--which is perhaps the same thing--but no power at all to
execute.

These two, Lucien and Herrera, formed a body politic. This, no doubt,
was the secret of their union. Old men in whom the activities of life
have been uprooted and transplanted to the sphere of interest, often
feel the need of a pleasing instrument, a young and impassioned actor,
to carry out their schemes. Richelieu, too late, found a handsome pale
face with a young moustache to cast in the way of women whom he wanted
to amuse. Misu