sily as the pillage was managed. When read before
the council it obtained a very great success, and Thuillier returned
home radiant and much elated by the congratulations he had received.
From that moment--a moment that was marked in his life, for even to
advanced old age he still talked of the "report he had had the honor
of making to the Council-general of the Seine"--la Peyrade went down
considerably in his estimation; he felt then that he could do very well
without the barrister, and this thought of emancipation was strengthened
by another happiness which came to him at almost the same time.

A parliamentary crisis was imminent,--a fact that caused the ministry
to think about depriving its adversaries of a theme of opposition which
always has great influence on public opinion. It resolved therefore
to relax its rigor, which of late had been much increased against the
press. Being included in this species of hypocritical amnesty, Thuillier
received one morning a letter from the barrister whom he had chosen in
place of la Peyrade. This letter announced that the Council of State had
dismissed the complaint, and ordered the release of the pamphlet.

Then Dutocq's prediction was realized. That weight the less within his
bosom, Thuillier took a swing toward insolence; he chorused Brigitte,
and came at last to speak of la Peyrade as a sort of adventurer whom he
had fed and clothed, a tricky fellow who had _extracted_ much money from
him, and had finally behaved with such ingratitude that he was thankful
not to count him any longer among his friends. Orgon, in short, was in
full revolt, and like Dorine, he was ready to cry out: "A beggar! who,
when he came, had neither shoes nor coat worth a brass farthing."

Cerizet, to whom these indignities were reported by Dutocq, would gladly
have served them up hot to la Peyrade; but the interview in which the
copying clerk was to furnish information about Madame de Godollo did
not take place at the time fixed. La Peyrade made his own discoveries in
this wise:

Pursued by the thought of the beautiful Hungarian, and awaiting, or
rather not awaiting the result of Cerizet's inquiry, he scoured Paris in
every direction, and might have been seen, like the idlest of loungers,
in the most frequented places, his heart telling him that sooner or
later he must meet the object of his ardent search.

One evening--it was towards the middle of October--the autumn, as
frequently happens in Paris