the signature of George Duroy de Cantel, and
caused a great sensation. There was an excitement about it in the
Chamber. Daddy Walter congratulated the author, and entrusted him with
the political editorship of the _Vie Francaise_. The "Echoes" fell again
to Boisrenard.

Then there began in the paper a violent and cleverly conducted campaign
against the Ministry. The attack, now ironical, now serious, now
jesting, and now virulent, but always skillful and based on facts, was
delivered with a certitude and continuity which astonished everyone.
Other papers continually cited the _Vie Francaise_, taking whole
passages from it, and those in office asked themselves whether they
could not gag this unknown and inveterate foe with the gift of a
prefecture.

Du Roy became a political celebrity. He felt his influence increasing by
the pressure of hands and the lifting of hats. His wife, too, filled him
with stupefaction and admiration by the ingenuity of her mind, the value
of her information, and the number of her acquaintances. Continually he
would find in his drawing-room, on returning home, a senator, a deputy,
a magistrate, a general, who treated Madeleine as an old friend, with
serious familiarity. Where had she met all these people? In society, so
she said. But how had she been able to gain their confidence and their
affection? He could not understand it.

"She would make a terrible diplomatist," he thought.

She often came in late at meal times, out of breath, flushed, quivering,
and before even taking off her veil would say: "I have something good
to-day. Fancy, the Minister of Justice has just appointed two
magistrates who formed a part of the mixed commission. We will give him
a dose he will not forget in a hurry."

And they would give the minister a dose, and another the next day, and
a third the day after. The deputy, Laroche-Mathieu, who dined at the Rue
Fontaine every Tuesday, after the Count de Vaudrec, who began the week,
would shake the hands of husband and wife with demonstrations of extreme
joy. He never ceased repeating: "By Jove, what a campaign! If we don't
succeed after all?"

He hoped, indeed, to succeed in getting hold of the portfolio of foreign
affairs, which he had had in view for a long time.

He was one of those many-faced politicians, without strong convictions,
without great abilities, without boldness, and without any depth of
knowledge, a provincial barrister, a local dandy, preserving a