est amount of pleasure. Fully convinced that a
thorough knowledge of the world, delicacy of taste and elegance,
refinement and the point of honor constituted a sort of moral whole which
formed the true gentleman, he strove to adorn his person with the graver
as well as the lighter graces. He was like a conscientious artist, who
would leave no smallest detail incomplete. The result of his labor was so
satisfactory, that M. de Camors, at the moment we rejoin him, was not
perhaps one of the best men in the world, but he was beyond doubt one of
the happiest and most amiable. Like all men who have determined to
cultivate ability rather than scrupulousness, he saw all things
developing to his satisfaction. Confident of his future, he discounted it
boldly, and lived as if very opulent. His rapid elevation was explained
by his unfailing audacity, by his cool judgment and neat finesse, by his
great connection and by his moral independence. He had a hard theory,
which he continually expounded with all imaginable grace: "Humanity," he
would say, "is composed of speculators!"

Thoroughly imbued with this axiom, he had taken his degree in the grand
lodge of financiers. There he at once made himself an authority by his
manner and address; and he knew well how to use his name, his political
influence, and his reputation for integrity. Employing all these, yet
never compromising one of them, he influenced men by their virtues, or
their vices, with equal indifference. He was incapable of meanness; he
never wilfully entrapped a friend, or even an enemy, into a disastrous
speculation; only, if the venture proved unsuccessful, he happened to get
out and leave the others in it. But in financial speculations, as in
battles, there must be what is called "food for powder;" and if one be
too solicitous about this worthless pabulum, nothing great can be
accomplished. So Camors passed as one of the most scrupulous of this
goodly company; and his word was as potential in the region of "the
rings," as it was in the more elevated sphere of the clubs and of the
turf.

Nor was he less esteemed in the Corps Legislatif, where he assumed the
curious role of a working member until committees fought for him. It
surprised his colleagues to see this elegant young man, with such fine
abilities, so modest and so laborious--to see him ready on the dryest
subjects and with the most tedious reports. Ponderous laws of local
interest neither frightened nor mystifi