art. "Oh! in love," said he, lightly,
"that would perhaps be saying too much. Let me say that she has taken my
fancy; that will be sufficient."

The duke regarded his son with a bantering air.

"Really, you delight me!" he exclaimed. "I feared that this love-affair
might derange, at least for the moment, certain plans that I have
formed--for I have formed certain plans for you."

"The devil!"

"Yes, I have my plans, and I will communicate them to you later in
detail. I will content myself today by recommending you to examine
Mademoiselle Blanche de Courtornieu."

Martial made no reply. This recommendation was entirely unnecessary. If
Mlle. Lacheneur had made him forget Mlle. de Courtornieu that morning
for some moments, the remembrance of Marie-Anne was now effaced by the
radiant image of Blanche.

"Before discussing the daughter," resumed the duke, "let us speak of the
father. He is one of my strongest friends; and I know him thoroughly.
You have heard men reproach me for what they style my prejudices, have
you not? Well, in comparison with the Marquis de Courtornieu, I am only
a Jacobin."

"Oh! my father!"

"Really, nothing could be more true. If I am behind the age in which
I live, he belongs to the reign of Louis XIV. Only--for there is an
only--the principles which I openly avow, he keeps locked up in his
snuff-box--and trust him for not forgetting to open it at the opportune
moment. He has suffered cruelly for his opinions, in the sense of having
so often been obliged to conceal them. He concealed them, first, under
the consulate, when he returned from exile. He dissimulated them even
more courageously under the Empire--for he played the part of a kind of
chamberlain to Bonaparte, this dear marquis. But, chut! do not remind
him of that proof of heroism; he has deplored it bitterly since the
battle of Lutzen."

This was the tone in which M. de Sairmeuse was accustomed to speak of
his best friends.

"The history of his fortune," he continued, "is the history of his
marriages--I say _marriages_, because he has married a number of times,
and always advantageously. Yes, in a period of fifteen years he has had
the misfortune of losing three wives, each richer than the other. His
daughter is the child of his third and last wife, a Cisse Blossac--she
died in 1809. He comforted himself after each bereavement by purchasing
a quantity of lands or bonds. So that now he is as rich as you are,
Marquis, and his inf