Vendome, the rue de
Rivoli. In all other places and countries material works and
labors, marches and counter-marches, and sweatings of the brow are
necessary to the building up of fortune; but in Paris _thought_
suffices. Here, every man even mentally mediocre, can see a mine
of wealth as he puts on his slippers, or picks his teeth after
dinner, in his down-sitting and his up-rising. Find me another
place on the globe where a good round stupid idea brings in more
money, or is sooner understood than it is here.

If I reach the top of the ladder, as I shall, am I the man to
refuse you a helping hand, an influence, a signature? We shall
want, we young roues, a faithful friend on whom to count, if only
to compromise him and make him a scape-goat, or send him to die
like a common soldier to save his general. Government is
impossible without a man of honor at one's side, in whom to
confide and with whom we can do and say everything.

Here is what I propose. Let the "Belle-Amelie" sail without you;
come back here like a thunderbolt; I'll arrange a duel for you
with Vandenesse in which you shall have the first shot, and you
can wing him like a pigeon. In France the husband who shoots his
rival becomes at once respectable and respected. No one ever
cavils at him again. Fear, my dear fellow, is a valuable social
element, a means of success for those who lower their eyes before
the gaze of no man living. I who care as little to live as to
drink a glass of milk, and who have never felt the emotion of
fear, I have remarked the strange effects produced by that
sentiment upon our modern manners. Some men tremble to lose the
enjoyments to which they are attached, others dread to leave a
woman. The old adventurous habits of other days when life was
flung away like a garment exist no longer. The bravery of a great
many men is nothing more than a clever calculation on the fear of
their adversary. The Poles are the only men in Europe who fight
for the pleasure of fighting; they cultivate the art for the art's
sake, and not for speculation.

Now hear me: kill Vandenesse, and your wife trembles, your
mother-in-law trembles, the public trembles, and you recover your
position, you prove your grand passion for your wife, you subdue
society, you subdue your wife, you become a hero. Such is France.
As for your embarrassments, I hold a hundred thousand francs for
y