ng a
policy often attempted by other debtors, rarely paid its dividends; and
Charles was rather alarmed at this investment, having less faith than
his father-in-law in the imperial eagle. The phenomenon of belief, or of
admiration which is ephemeral belief, is not so easily maintained when
in close quarters with the idol. The mechanic distrusts the machine
which the traveller admires; and the officers of the army might be
called the stokers of the Napoleonic engine,--if, indeed, they were not
its fuel.

However, the Baron Wallenrod-Tustall-Bartenstild promised to come if
necessary to the help of the household. Charles loved Bettina Wallenrod
as much as she loved him, and that is saying a good deal; but when a
Provencal is moved to enthusiasm all his feelings and attachments are
genuine and natural. And how could he fail to adore that blonde beauty,
escaping, as it were, from the canvas of Durer, gifted with an angelic
nature and endowed with Frankfort wealth? The pair had four children, of
whom only two daughters survived at the time when he poured his griefs
into the Breton's heart. Dumay loved these little ones without having
seen them, solely through the sympathy so well described by Charlet,
which makes a soldier the father of every child. The eldest, named
Bettina Caroline, was born in 1805; the other, Marie Modeste, in 1808.
The unfortunate lieutenant-colonel, long without tidings of these
cherished darlings, was sent, at the peace of 1814, across Russia
and Prussia on foot, accompanied by the lieutenant. No difference of
epaulets could count between the two friends, who reached Frankfort just
as Napoleon was disembarking at Cannes.

Charles found his wife in Frankfort, in mourning for her father, who had
always idolized her and tried to keep a smile upon her lips, even by
his dying bed. Old Wallenrod was unable to survive the disasters of the
Empire. At seventy years of age he speculated in cottons, relying on the
genius of Napoleon without comprehending that genius is quite as often
beyond as at the bottom of current events. The old man had purchased
nearly as many bales of cotton as the Emperor had lost men during his
magnificent campaign in France. "I tie in goddon," said the father to
the daughter, a father of the Goriot type, striving to quiet a grief
which distressed him. "I owe no mann anything--" and he died, still
trying to speak to his daughter in the language that she loved.

Thankful to have saved