rse to those who depend upon
him--is the living, frightful incarnation of the worst pardon of
the moneyed and commercial aristocracy--one of the rich and cynical
speculators, without heart, faith or conscience, who would speculate for
a rise or fall on the death of his mother, if the death of his mother
could influence the price of stocks.

"'Such persons have all the odious vices of men suddenly elevated, not
like those whom honest and patient labor has nobly enriched, but like
those who owe their wealth to some blind caprice of fortune, or some
lucky cast of the net in the miry waters of stock-jobbing.

"'Once up in the world, they hate the people--because the people remind
them of a mushroom origin of which they are ashamed. Without pity for
the dreadful misery of the masses, they ascribe it wholly to idleness
or debauchery because this calumny forms an excuse for their barbarous
selfishness.

"'And this is not all. On the strength of his well-filled safe, mounted
on his right of the candidate, Baron Tripeaud insults the poverty and
political disfranchisement--of the officer, who, after forty years of
wars and hard service, is just able to live on a scanty pension--Of the
magistrate, who has consumed his strength in the discharge of stern and
sad duties, and who is not better remunerated in his litter days--Of the
learned man who has made his country illustrious by useful labors;
or the professor who has initiated entire generations in the various
branches of human knowledge--Of the modest and virtuous country curate,
the pure representative of the gospel, in its charitable, fraternal, and
democratic tendencies, etc.

"'In such a state of things, how should our shoddy baron of in-dust-ry
not feel the most sovereign contempt for all that stupid mob of honest
folk, who, having given to their country their youth, their mature age,
their blood, their intelligence, their learning, see themselves deprived
of the rights which he enjoys, because he has gained a million by unfair
and illegal transactions?

"'It is true, that your optimists say to these pariahs of civilization,
whose proud and noble poverty cannot be too much revered and honored:
"Buy an estate and you too may be electors and candidates!"'

"'But to come to the biography of our worthy baron--Andrew Tripeaud, the
son of an ostler, at a roadside inn.'"

At this instant the folding-doors were thrown open, and the valet
announced: "The Baron Tripeaud!"