Oratory. He was a clever and an
ambitious man, but, as often happens to the greatest geniuses, he had
never had an opportunity of making himself known.

Some time before the period of which we are writing, he met the Marquis
de Pompadour, who was seeking a man of spirit and enterprise as the
secretary of Madame de Maine. He told him to what the situation would
expose him at the present time. Brigaud weighed for an instant the good
and evil chances, and, as the former appeared to predominate, he
accepted it.

Of these four men, D'Harmental only knew the Marquis de Pompadour, whom
he had often met at the house of Monsieur de Courcillon, his son-in-law,
a distant relation of the D'Harmentals.

When D'Harmental entered the room, Monsieur de Polignac, Monsieur de
Malezieux, and Monsieur de Pompadour were standing talking at the
fireplace, and the Abbe Brigaud was seated at a table classifying some
papers.

"Gentlemen," said the Duchesse de Maine, "here is the brave champion of
whom the Baron de Valef has spoken to us, and who has been brought here
by your dear De Launay, Monsieur de Malezieux. If his name and
antecedents are not sufficient to stand sponsor for him, I will answer
for him personally."

"Presented thus by your highness," said Malezieux, "we shall see in him
not only a companion, but a chief, whom we are ready to follow wherever
he may lead."

"My dear D'Harmental," said the Marquis de Pompadour, extending his hand
to him, "we were already relations, we are now almost brothers."

"Welcome, monsieur!" said the Cardinal de Polignac, in the unctuous tone
habitual to him, and which contrasted so strangely with the coldness of
his countenance.

The Abbe Brigaud raised his head with a movement resembling that of a
serpent, and fixed on D'Harmental two little eyes, brilliant as those of
the lynx.

"Gentlemen," said D'Harmental, after having answered each of them by a
bow, "I am new and strange among you, and, above all, ignorant of what
is passing, or in what manner I can serve you; but though my word has
only been engaged to you for a few minutes, my devotion to your cause is
of many years' standing. I beg you, therefore, to grant me the
confidence so graciously claimed for me by her highness. All that I
shall ask after that will be a speedy occasion to prove myself worthy of
it."

"Well said!" cried the Duchesse de Maine; "commend me to a soldier for
going straight to the point! No, Monsieur d'Harmental