oreigners, provincials, and persons in high society may not be aware
that barristers are to attorneys what generals are to marshals. There
exists a line of demarcation, strictly maintained, between the order of
barristers and the guild of attorneys and solicitors in Paris. However
venerable an attorney may be, however capable and strong in his
profession, he must go to the barrister. The attorney is the
administrator, who maps out the plan of the campaign, collects the
munitions of war, and puts the force in motion; the barrister gives
battle. It is not known why the law gives a man two men to defend him
any more than it is known why an author is forced to have both printer
and publisher. The rules of the bar forbid its members to do any act
belonging to the guild of attorneys. It is very rare that a barrister
puts his foot in an attorney's office; the two classes meet in the
law-courts. In society, there is no barrier between them, and some
barristers, those in la Peyrade's situation particularly, demean
themselves by calling occasionally on attorneys, though even these cases
are rare, and are usually excused by some special urgency.

"I have come on important business," replied la Peyrade; "it concerns,
especially, a question of delicacy which you and I ought to solve
together. Thuillier is below, in a carriage, and I have come up to see
you, not as a barrister, but as his friend. You are in a position to do
him an immense service; and I have told him that you have too noble a
soul (as a worthy successor of our great Derville must have) not to put
your utmost capacity at his orders. Here's the affair."

After explaining, wholly to his own advantage, the swindling trick which
must, he said, be met with caution and ability, the barrister developed
his plan of campaign.

"You ought, my dear maitre, to go this very evening to Desroches,
explain the whole plot and persuade him to send to-morrow for his
client, this Sauvaignou. We'll confess the fellow between us, and if
he wants a note for a thousand francs over and above the amount of his
claim, we'll let him have it; not counting the five hundred for you
and as much more for Desroches, provided Thuillier receives the
relinquishment of his claim by ten o'clock to-morrow morning. What does
this Sauvaignou want? Nothing but money. Well, a haggler like that won't
resist the attraction of an extra thousand francs, especially if he is
only the instrument of a cupidity behind