vogue
during the Empire.

"Ha! you are after my wife," said Colleville, laughing. "Take care;
she'll leave you in the lurch, like all the rest."

A rather clever speech, by which Colleville saved his marital dignity.
From 1820 to 1821, Thuillier, in virtue of his title as friend of the
family, helped Colleville, who had formerly helped him; so much so,
that in eighteen months he had lent nearly ten thousand francs to the
Colleville establishment, with no intention of ever claiming them. In
the spring of 1821, Madame Colleville gave birth to a charming
little girl, to whom Monsieur and Madame Thuillier were godfather and
godmother. The child was baptized Celeste-Louise-Caroline-Brigitte;
Mademoiselle Thuillier wishing that her name should be given among
others to the little angel. The name of Caroline was a graceful
attention paid to Colleville. Old mother Lemprun assumed the care of
putting the baby to nurse under her own eyes at Auteuil, where Celeste
and her sister-in-law Brigitte, paid it regularly a semi-weekly visit.

As soon as Madame Colleville recovered she said to Thuillier, frankly,
in a very serious tone:--

"My dear friend, if we are all to remain good friends, you must be our
friend only. Colleville is attached to you; well, that's enough for you
in this household."

"Explain to me," said the handsome Thuillier to Tullia after this
remark, "why women are never attached to me. I am not the Apollo
Belvidere, but for all that I'm not a Vulcan; I am passably
good-looking, I have sense, I am faithful--"

"Do you want me to tell you the truth?" replied Tullia.

"Yes," said Thuillier.

"Well, though we can, sometimes, love a stupid fellow, we never love a
silly one."

Those words killed Thuillier; he never got over them; henceforth he was
a prey to melancholy and accused all women of caprice.

The secretary-general of the ministry, des Lupeaulx, whose influence
Madame Colleville thought greater than it was, and of whom she said,
later, "That was one of my mistakes," became for a time the great man
of the Colleville salon; but as Flavie found he had no power to promote
Colleville into the upper division, she had the good sense to resent des
Lupeaulx's attentions to Madame Rabourdin (whom she called a minx),
to whose house she had never been invited, and who had twice had the
impertinence not to come to the Colleville concerts.

Madame Colleville was deeply affected by the death of young Gondreville;