s
will be our last dying agony, I know that; but we know what we were when
we formed ourselves, a stop-gap ministry and that was all. But you can
distinguish yourself in the electoral battle that is soon to be fought.
If you can bring one vote to the Chamber, a deputy faithful to the
dynastic cause, you will find your wishes gratified. I will speak
of your good services, and I will keep my eye on the reports of our
confidential agents; I may find you some difficult task in which you can
distinguish yourself. If you succeed, I can insist upon your talents,
your devotion, and claim your reward. Your marriage, my dear fellow,
can be made only in some ambitious provincial family of tradespeople or
manufacturers. In Paris you are too well known. We must therefore look
out for a millionaire parvenu, endowed with a daughter, and possessed
with a desire to parade himself and his family at the Chateau des
Tuileries."

"Make your father-in-law lend me twenty-five thousand francs to enable
me to wait as long as that; he will then have an interest in seeing
that I am not paid in holy-water if I succeed; he will further a rich
marriage for his own sake."

"You are wily, Maxime, and you distrust me. But I like able men, and I
will attend to your affair."

They reached the Austrian embassy. The Comte de Rastignac saw the
minister of the interior in one of the salons and went to talk with
him in a corner. Comte Maxime de Trailles, meantime, was apparently
engrossed by the old Comtesse de Listomere, but he was, in reality,
following the course of the conversation between the two peers of
France; he watched their gestures, interpreted their looks, and ended by
catching a favorable glance cast upon him by the minister.

Maxime and Rastignac left the embassy together about one in the morning,
and before getting into their respective carriages, Rastignac said to
Maxime on the steps of the portico: "Come and see me just before the
elections. Between now and then I shall know in what locality the
chances of the ministry are worst, and what resources two heads like
yours and mine can find there."

"But my twenty-five thousand francs are needed," replied de Trailles.

"Well, you must hide yourself, that's all."

Fifty days later, one morning before dawn, the Comte de Trailles went
to the rue de Varennes, mysteriously in a hired cab. At the gate of the
ministry of Public Works, he sent the cab away, looked about him to see
that he was n