ll
unconsciously determined to get on, though he does not go quite to the
length of the _quocunque modo_, and has, as far as men are concerned,
some scruples. But in relation to the other sex he has few if any,
though he is never brutal. He is, as we may say, first "perverted,"
though not as yet _parvenu_,[327] in the house of a Parisian, himself a
_nouveau riche_ and _novus homo_, on whose property in Champagne his own
father is a wine-farmer. He is early selected for the beginnings of
Lady-Booby-like attentions by "Madame," while he, as far as he is
capable of the proceeding, falls in love with one of Madame's maids,
Genevieve. It does not appear that, if the lady's part of the matter had
gone further, Jacob (that is his name) would have been at all like
Joseph. But when he finds that the maid is also the object of
"Monsieur's" attentions, and when he is asked to take the profits of
this affair (the attitude[328] of the girl herself is very skilfully
delineated) and marry her, his own _point d'honneur_ is reached.[329]
Everything is, however, cut short by the sudden death, in hopelessly
embarrassed circumstances, of Monsieur, and the consequent cessation of
Madame's attraction for a young man who wishes to better himself. He
leaves both her and Genevieve with perfect nonchalance; though he has
good reason for believing that the girl really loves him, however she
may have made a peculiar sort of hay when the sun shone, and that both
she and his lady are penniless, or almost so.

He has, however, the luck which makes the _parvenu_, if in this instance
he can hardly be said to deserve it. On the Pont Neuf he sees an elderly
lady, apparently about to swoon. He supports her home, and finds that
she is the younger and more attractive of two old-maid and _devote_
sisters. The irresistibleness to this class of the feminine sex (and
indeed by no means to this class only) of a strapping and handsome
footman is a commonplace of satire with eighteenth-century writers, both
French and English. It is exercised possibly on both sisters, though the
elder is a shrew; certainly on the younger, and also on their elderly
_bonne_, Catherine. But it necessarily leads to trouble. The younger,
Mlle. Habert (the curious hiding of Christian names reappears here),
wants to retain Jacob in the joint service, and Catherine at least makes
no objection, for obvious reasons. But the elder sister recalcitrates
violently, summoning to her aid her "dir