now the Duchesse
Georges de Maufrigneuse.

But now we come to the most opposing and resisting side,--that of
the conservatives, which must not be confounded with the party of the
administration. Here we find as its leader the Comte de Gondreville,
your husband's colleague in the Chamber of peers. Closely allied to the
count is a very influential man, his old friend Grevin, formerly mayor
and notary of Arcis, who, in turn, draws after him another elector of
considerable influence, Maitre Achille Pigoult, to whom, on retiring
from active life, he sold his practice as notary.

But Mother Marie-des-Anges has a powerful means of access to the Comte
de Gondreville through his daughter, the Marechale de Carigliano. That
great lady, who, as you know, has taken to devotion, goes into retreat
every year at the Ursuline convent. More than that, the good Mother,
without giving any explanation, intimates that she has a lever of some
kind on the Comte de Gondreville known to herself only; in fact, the
life of that old regicide--turned senator, then count of the Empire,
then peer of France under two dynasties--has wormed itself through too
many tortuous underground ways not to allow us to suppose the existence
of secrets he might not care to have unmasked.

Now Gondreville is Grevin,--his confidant, and, as they say, his tool,
his catspaw for the last fifty years. But even supposing that by
an utter impossibility their close union should, under present
circumstances, be sundered, we are certainly sure of Achille Pigoult,
Grevin's successor, on whom, when the purchase of the chateau d'Arcis
was made in his office by the Marquis de Sallenauve, a fee was bestowed
of such an unusual amount that to accept it was virtually to pledge
himself.

As for the ruck of the electors, our friend cannot fail to make recruits
there, by the work he is about to give in repairing the chateau, which,
fortunately for him, is falling into ruin in several places. We must
also count on the manifesto which Charles de Sallenauve has just issued,
in which he openly declares that he will accept neither favors
nor employment from the government. So that, really, taking into
consideration his own oratorical talent, the support of the Opposition
journals both here and in Paris, the insults and calumnies which the
ministerial journals are already beginning to fire upon him, I feel
great hopes of his success.

Forgive me for presenting to you in glowing colors t