ement, taken on the wing and highly
spiced. While purifying after a fashion his judicial life, he still
continued the legal adviser of artists, men of letters, actresses,
courtesans, and elegant bohemians like Maxime de Trailles, because he
liked to live their life; they were sympathetic to him as he to them.
Their witty _argot_, their easy morals, their rather loose adventures,
their expedients, their brave and honorable toil, in a word, their
greatness and their weakness,--he understood it all marvellously well;
and, like an ever-indulgent providence, he lent them his aid whenever
they asked for it. But in order to conceal from his dignified and more
valuable clients whatever might be compromising in the _clientele_ he
really preferred, Desroches had his days of domesticity when he was
husband and father, especially on Sundays. He appeared in the Bois de
Boulogne in a modest caleche beside his wife (whose ugliness revealed
the size of her _dot_), with three children on the front seat, who were
luckless enough to resemble their mother. This family picture, these
virtuous Dominical habits, recalled so little the week-day Desroches,
dining in cafes with all the male and female _viveurs_ of renown,
that one of them, Malaga, a circus-rider, famous for her wit and vim,
remarked that lawyers ought not to be allowed to masquerade in that way
and deceive the public with fictitious family joys.

It was to this relative integrity that de Trailles now went for counsel,
as he never failed to do in all the many difficulties he encountered in
life. Following a good habit, Desroches listened, without interrupting,
to the long explanation of the case submitted to him. As Maxime hid
nothing from this species of confessor, he gave his reasons for wishing
to injure Sallenauve, representing him, in all good faith, as having
usurped the name under which he was elected to the Chamber,--his hatred
making him take the possibility for positive evidence.

In his heart, Desroches did not want to take charge of an affair in
which he saw not the slightest chance of success; but he showed his lax
integrity by talking over the affair with his client as if it were an
ordinary case of legal practice, instead of telling him frankly his
opinion that this pretended "case" was a mere intrigue. The number
of things done in the domain of evil by connivance in speech, without
proceeding to the actual collusion of action, are incalculable.

"In the first pl