his
behavior and character, were all pondered, analyzed, and tested by a
few adroit persons in du Croisier's interests. These folk supported
each other in the effort to make the people believe that Liberal
slanders were revelations, and that the Ministerial policy at bottom
meant a return to the old order of things.

What a bit of luck to find something by way of proof of their
assertions! President du Ronceret, and the public prosecutor likewise,
lent themselves admirably, so far as was compatible with their duty as
magistrates, to the design of letting off the offender as easily as
possible; indeed, they went deliberately out of their way to do this,
well pleased to raise a Liberal clamor against their overlarge
concessions. And so, while seeming to serve the interests of the
d'Esgrignons, they stirred up feeling against them. The treacherous de
Ronceret had it in his mind to pose as incorruptible at the right
moment over some serious charge, with public opinion to back him up.
The young Count's worst tendencies, moreover, were insidiously
encouraged by two or three young men who followed in his train, paid
court to him, won his favor, and flattered and obeyed him, with a view
to confirming his belief in a noble's supremacy; and all this at a
time when a noble's one chance of preserving his power lay in using it
with the utmost discretion for half a century to come.

Du Croisier hoped to reduce the d'Esgrignons to the last extremity of
poverty; he hoped to see their castle demolished, and their lands sold
piecemeal by auction, through the follies which this harebrained boy
was pretty certain to commit. This was as far as he went; he did not
think, with President du Ronceret, that Victurnien was likely to give
justice another kind of hold upon him. Both men found an ally for
their schemes of revenge in Victurnien's overweening vanity and love
of pleasure. President du Ronceret's son, a lad of seventeen, was
admirably fitted for the part of instigator. He was one of the Count's
companions, a new kind of spy in du Croisier's pay; du Croisier taught
him his lesson, set him to track down the noble and beautiful boy
through his better qualities, and sardonically prompted him to
encourage his victim in his worst faults. Fabien du Ronceret was a
sophisticated youth, to whom such a mystification was attractive; he
had precisely the keen brain and envious nature which finds in such a
pursuit as this the absorbing amusement wh