e had been prodigiously
increased, partly by rumor, partly by Josephin, that Chesnel in
livery.

Victurnien had not been in town a month before he was obliged to
repair to his man of business for ten thousand francs; he had only
been playing whist with the Ducs de Navarreins, de Chaulieu, and de
Lenoncourt, and now and again at his club. He had begun by winning
some thousands of francs but pretty soon lost five or six thousand,
which brought home to him the necessity of a purse for play.
Victurnien had the spirit that gains goodwill everywhere, and puts a
young man of a great family on a level with the very highest. He was
not merely admitted at once into the band of patrician youth, but was
even envied by the rest. It was intoxicating to him to feel that he
was envied, nor was he in this mood very likely to think of reform.
Indeed, he had completely lost his head. He would not think of the
means; he dipped into his money-bags as if they could be refilled
indefinitely; he deliberately shut his eyes to the inevitable results
of the system. In that dissipated set, in the continual whirl of
gaiety, people take the actors in their brilliant costumes as they
find them, no one inquires whether a man can afford to make the figure
he does, there is nothing in worse taste than inquiries as to ways and
means. A man ought to renew his wealth perpetually, and as Nature does
--below the surface and out of sight. People talk if somebody comes to
grief; they joke about a newcomer's fortune till their minds are set
at rest, and at this they draw the line. Victurnien d'Esgrignon, with
all the Faubourg Saint-Germain to back him, with all his protectors
exaggerating the amount of his fortune (were it only to rid themselves
of responsibility), and magnifying his possessions in the most refined
and well-bred way, with a hint or a word; with all these advantages
--to repeat--Victurnien was, in fact, an eligible Count. He was
handsome, witty, sound in politics; his father still possessed the
ancestral castle and the lands of the marquisate. Such a young fellow
is sure of an admirable reception in houses where there are
marriageable daughters, fair but portionless partners at dances, and
young married women who find that time hangs heavy on their hands. So
the world, smiling, beckoned him to the foremost benches in its booth;
the seats reserved for marquises are still in the same place in Paris;
and if the names are changed, the things are th