o speak
with Mme. de Pimentel, who came to the boudoir. The news of old
Negrepelisse's elevation to a marquisate had greatly impressed the
Marquise; she judged it expedient to be amiable to a woman so clever
as to rise the higher for an apparent fall.

"Do tell me, dear, why you took the trouble to put your father in the
House of Peers?" said the Marquise, in the course of a little
confidential conversation, in which she bent the knee before the
superiority of "her dear Louise."

"They were all the more ready to grant the favor because my father has
no son to succeed him, dear, and his vote will always be at the
disposal of the Crown; but if we should have sons, I quite expect that
my oldest will succeed to his grandfather's name, title, and peerage."

Mme. de Pimentel saw, to her annoyance, that it was idle to expect a
mother ambitious for children not yet in existence to further her own
private designs of raising M. de Pimentel to a peerage.

"I have the Countess," Petit-Claud told Cointet when they came away.
"I can promise you your partnership. I shall be deputy prosecutor
before the month is out, and Sechard will be in your power. Try to
find a buyer for my connection; it has come to be the first in
Angouleme in my hands during the last five months----"

"Once put _you_ on the horse, and there is no need to do more," said
Cointet, half jealous of his own work.

The causes of Lucien's triumphant reception in his native town must
now be plain to everybody. Louise du Chatelet followed the example of
that King of France who left the Duke of Orleans unavenged; she chose
to forget the insults received in Paris by Mme. de Bargeton. She would
patronize Lucien, and overwhelming him with her patronage, would
completely crush him and get rid of him by fair means. Petit-Claud
knew the whole tale of the cabals in Paris through town gossip, and
shrewdly guessed how a woman must hate the man who would not love when
she was fain of his love.

The ovation justified the past of Louise de Negrepelisse. The next day
Petit-Claud appeared at Mme. Sechard's house, heading a deputation of
six young men of the town, all of them Lucien's schoolfellows. He
meant to finish his work, to intoxicate Lucien completely, and to have
him in his power. Lucien's old schoolfellows at the Angouleme
grammar-school wished to invite the author of the _Marguerites_ and
_The Archer of Charles IX._ to a banquet given in honor of the great
man arisen