s them out by the dozen costs five hundred. A genuine lustre by
Boulle will sell at a public auction for three thousand francs; the
same thing reproduced by casting may be made for a thousand or twelve
hundred; one is archaeologically what a picture by Raphael is in
painting, the other is a copy. At what would you value a copy of a
Raphael? Thus Crevel's mansion was a splendid example of the luxury of
idiots, while Josepha's was a perfect model of an artist's home.

"War is declared," said Crevel, going up to Madame Marneffe.

She rang the bell.

"Go and find Monsieur Berthier," said she to the man-servant, "and
do not return without him. If you had succeeded," said she, embracing
Crevel, "we would have postponed our happiness, my dear Daddy, and have
given a really splendid entertainment; but when a whole family is set
against a match, my dear, decency requires that the wedding shall be a
quiet one, especially when the lady is a widow."

"On the contrary, I intend to make a display of magnificence _a la_
Louis XIV.," said Crevel, who of late had held the eighteenth century
rather cheap. "I have ordered new carriages; there is one for monsieur
and one for madame, two neat coupes; and a chaise, a handsome traveling
carriage with a splendid hammercloth, on springs that tremble like
Madame Hulot."

"Oh, ho! _You intend?_--Then you have ceased to be my lamb?--No, no,
my friend, you will do what _I_ intend. We will sign the contract
quietly--just ourselves--this afternoon. Then, on Wednesday, we will
be regularly married, really married, in mufti, as my poor mother would
have said. We will walk to church, plainly dressed, and have only a low
mass. Our witnesses are Stidmann, Steinbock, Vignon, and Massol, all
wide-awake men, who will be at the mairie by chance, and who will so far
sacrifice themselves as to attend mass.

"Your colleague will perform the civil marriage, for once in a way,
as early as half-past nine. Mass is at ten; we shall be at home to
breakfast by half-past eleven.

"I have promised our guests that we will sit at table till the evening.
There will be Bixiou, your old official chum du Tillet, Lousteau,
Vernisset, Leon de Lora, Vernou, all the wittiest men in Paris, who will
not know that we are married. We will play them a little trick, we will
get just a little tipsy, and Lisbeth must join us. I want her to
study matrimony; Bixiou shall make love to her, and--and enlighten her
darkness."

For two