ad the audacity to buy his employer's connection
for thirty thousand francs, reckoning upon a rich marriage to clear
off the debt, and looking to his employer, after the usual custom, to
find him a wife, for an attorney always has an interest in marrying
his successor, because he is the sooner paid off. But if Petit-Claud
counted upon his employer, he counted yet more upon himself. He had
more than average ability, and that of a kind not often found in the
provinces, and rancor was the mainspring of his power. A mighty hatred
makes a mighty effort.

There is a great difference between a country attorney and an attorney
in Paris; tall Cointet was too clever not to know this, and to turn
the meaner passions that move a pettifogging lawyer to good account.
An eminent attorney in Paris, and there are many who may be so
qualified, is bound to possess to some extent the diplomate's
qualities; he had so much business to transact, business in which
large interests are involved; questions of such wide interest are
submitted to him that he does not look upon procedure as machinery for
bringing money into his pocket, but as a weapon of attack and defence.
A country attorney, on the other hand, cultivates the science of
costs, _broutille_, as it is called in Paris, a host of small items that
swell lawyers' bills and require stamped paper. These weighty matters
of the law completely fill the country attorney's mind; he has a bill
of costs always before his eyes, whereas his brother of Paris thinks
of nothing but his fees. The fee is a honorarium paid by a client over
and above the bill of costs, for the more or less skilful conduct of
his case. One-half of the bill of costs goes to the Treasury, whereas
the entire fee belongs to the attorney. Let us admit frankly that the
fees received are seldom as large as the fees demanded and deserved by
a clever lawyer. Wherefore, in Paris, attorneys, doctors, and
barristers, like courtesans with a chance-come lover, take very
considerable precautions against the gratitude of clients. The client
before and after the lawsuit would furnish a subject worthy of
Meissonier; there would be brisk bidding among attorneys for the
possession of two such admirable bits of genre.

There is yet another difference between the Parisian and the country
attorney. An attorney in Paris very seldom appears in court, though he
is sometimes called upon to act as arbitrator (_refere_). Barristers,
at the present da