benefit performances, tickets of all colors, "platform, front row,
reserved sections." The Nabob's orders were that no one should be
refused, and it was a decided gain that he no longer attended to such
matters in person. For a long time he had deluged all this hypocritical
scheming with gold, with lordly indifference, paying five hundred
francs for a ticket to a concert by some Wurtemberg zither-player, or
Languedocian flutist, which would have been quoted at ten francs at the
Tuileries or the Due de Mora's. On some days young de Gery went out
from these sessions actually nauseated. All his youthful honesty rose
in revolt; he attempted to induce the Nabob to institute some reforms;
but he, at the first word, assumed the bored expression characteristic
of weak natures when called upon to give an opinion, or else replied
with a shrug of his great shoulders: "Why this is Paris, my dear child.
Don't you be alarmed, but just let me alone. I know where I'm going and
what I want."

He wanted two things at that time,--a seat in the Chamber of Deputies
and the cross of the Legion of Honor. In his view those were the first
two stages of the long ascent which his ambition impelled him to
undertake. He certainly would be chosen a deputy through the _Caisse
Territoriale_, at the head of which he was. Paganetti from
Porto-Vecchio often said to him:

"When the day comes, the island will rise as one man and vote for you."

But electors were not the only thing it was necessary to have; there
must be a vacant seat in the Chamber, and the delegation from Corsica
was full. One member, however, old Popolasca, being infirm and in no
condition to perform his duties, might be willing to resign on certain
conditions. It was a delicate matter to negotiate, but quite
practicable, for the good man had a large family, estates which
produced almost nothing, a ruined palace at Bastia, where his children
lived on _polenta_, and an apartment at Paris, in a furnished
lodging-house of the eighteenth order. By not haggling over one or two
hundred thousand francs, they might come to terms with that famished
legislator who, when sounded by Paganetti, did not say yes or no, being
allured by the magnitude of the sum but held back by the vainglory of
his office. The affair was in that condition and might be decided any
day.

With regard to the Cross, the prospect was even brighter. The Work of
Bethlehem had certainly created a great sensation at the Tuile