y air; on it his foraging cap was jauntily tilted to one
side. Compared to the peasants, who were mostly in rags, like Mouche
and Fourchon, he seemed gorgeous in his linen trousers, boots, and short
waistcoat. These articles, bought at the time of his liberation, were,
it is true, somewhat the worse for a life in the fields; but this
village cock-of-the-walk had others in reserve for balls and holidays.
He lived, it must be said, on the gifts of his female friends,
which, liberal as they were, hardly sufficed for the libations, the
dissipations, and the squanderings of all kinds which resulted from his
intimacy with the Cafe de la Paix.

Cowardice is like courage; of both there are various kinds. Bonnebault
would have fought like a brave soldier, but he was weak in presence of
his vices and his desires. Lazy as a lizard, that is to say, active only
when it suited him, without the slightest decency, arrogant and base,
able for much but neglectful of all, the sole pleasure of this "breaker
of hearts and plates," to use a barrack term, was to do evil or inflict
damage. Such a nature does as much harm in rural communities as it does
in a regiment. Bonnebault, like Tonsard and like Fourchon, desired to
live well and do nothing; and he had his plans laid. Making the most of
his gallant appearance with increasing success, and of his talents for
billiards with alternate loss and gain, he flattered himself that the
day would come when he could marry Mademoiselle Aglae Socquard, only
daughter of the proprietor of the Cafe de la Paix, a resort which was
to Soulanges what, relatively speaking, Ranelagh is to the Bois de
Boulogne. To get into the business of tavern-keeping, to manage
the public balls, what a fine career for the marshal's baton of a
ne'er-do-well! These morals, this life, this nature, were so plainly
stamped upon the face of the low-lived profligate that the countess was
betrayed into an exclamation when she beheld the pair, for they gave her
the sensation of beholding snakes.

Marie, desperately in love with Bonnebault, would have robbed for
his benefit. Those moustachios, the swaggering gait of a trooper, the
fellow's smart clothes, all went to her heart as the manners and charms
of a de Marsay touch that of a pretty Parisian. Each social sphere
has its own standard of distinction. The jealous Marie rebuffed Amaury
Lupin, the other dandy of the little town, her mind being made up to
become Madame Bonnebault.

"H