had, about half an hour since, finished his
deep meditations, and was armed for the fray. Nothing is more perfectly
characteristic of this type of the mob in rebellion against the law than
the few words he had written on the greasy scraps of paper.

The sense of the first--for it was written in the language, the very
slang of slang, agreed upon by Asie and himself, a cipher of words--was
as follows:--

"Go to the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse or Madame de Serizy: one of
them must see Lucien before he is examined, and give him the
enclosed paper to read. Then find Europe and Paccard; those two
thieves must be at my orders, and ready to play any part I may
set them.

"Go to Rastignac; tell him, from the man he met at the opera-ball,
to come and swear that the Abbe Carlos Herrera has no resemblance
to Jacques Collin who was apprehended at Vauquer's. Do the same
with Dr. Bianchon, and get Lucien's two women to work to the same
end."

On the enclosed fragment were these words in good French:

"Lucien, confess nothing about me. I am the Abbe Carlos Herrera.
Not only will this be your exculpation; but, if you do not lose
your head, you will have seven millions and your honor cleared."

These two bits of paper, gummed on the side of the writing so as to look
like one piece, were then rolled tightly, with a dexterity peculiar to
men who have dreamed of getting free from the hulks. The whole thing
assumed the shape and consistency of a ball of dirty rubbish, about as
big as the sealing-wax heads which thrifty women stick on the head of a
large needle when the eye is broken.

"If I am examined first, we are saved; if it is the boy, all is lost,"
said he to himself while he waited.

His plight was so sore that the strong man's face was wet with white
sweat. Indeed, this wonderful man saw as clearly in his sphere of crime
as Moliere did in his sphere of dramatic poetry, or Cuvier in that of
extinct organisms. Genius of whatever kind is intuition. Below this
highest manifestation other remarkable achievements may be due to
talent. This is what divides men of the first rank from those of the
second.

Crime has its men of genius. Jacques Collin, driven to bay, had hit
on the same notion as Madame Camusot's ambition and Madame de Serizy's
passion, suddenly revived by the shock of the dreadful disaster which
was overwhelming Lucien. This was the supreme effort of human intellect
directed against the steel