e position required
him to be; just as at Issoudun, he had copied the respectability of
Mignonnet. He had, moreover, a fine establishment and gave fetes and
dinners; admitting none of his old friends to his house if he thought
their position in life likely to compromise his future. He was
pitiless to the companions of his former debauches, and curtly refused
Bixiou when that lively satirist asked him to say a word in favor of
Giroudeau, who wanted to re-enter the army after the desertion of
Florentine.

"The man has neither manners nor morals," said Philippe.

"Ha! did he say that of me?" cried Giroudeau, "of me, who helped him
to get rid of his uncle!"

"We'll pay him off yet," said Bixiou.

Philippe intended to marry Mademoiselle Amelie de Soulanges, and
become a general, in command of a regiment of the Royal Guard. He
asked so many favors that, to keep him quiet, they made him a
Commander of the Legion of honor, and also Commander of the order of
Saint Louis. One rainy evening, as Agathe and Joseph were returning
home along the muddy streets, they met Philippe in full uniform,
bedizened with orders, leaning back in a corner of a handsome coupe
lined with yellow silk, whose armorial bearings were surmounted with a
count's coronet. He was on his way to a fete at the Elysee-Bourbon;
the wheels splashed his mother and brother as he waved them a
patronizing greeting.

"He's going it, that fellow!" said Joseph to his mother.
"Nevertheless, he might send us something better than mud in our
faces."

"He has such a fine position, in such high society, that we ought not
to blame him for forgetting us," said Madame Bridau. "When a man rises
to so great a height, he has many obligations to repay, many
sacrifices to make; it is natural he should not come to see us, though
he may think of us all the same."

"My dear fellow," said the Duc de Maufrigneuse one evening, to the new
Comte de Brambourg, "I am sure that your addresses will be favorably
received; but in order to marry Amelie de Soulanges, you must be free
to do so. What have you done with your wife?"

"My wife?" said Philippe, with a gesture, look, and accent which
Frederick Lemaitre was inspired to use in one of his most terrible
parts. "Alas! I have the melancholy certainty of losing her. She has
not a week to live. My dear duke, you don't know what it is to marry
beneath you. A woman who was a cook, and has the tastes of a cook! who
dishonors me--ah! I am mu