“So far so good, but just get to his fortune,” said Finot.

“Bixiou will lash that off at a stroke,” replied Blondet.  “Rastignac’s fortune was Delphine de Nucingen, a remarkable woman; she combines boldness with foresight.”

“Did she ever lend you money?” inquired Bixiou.  Everybody burst out laughing.

“You are mistaken in her,” said Couture, speaking to Blondet; “her cleverness simply consists in making more or less piquant remarks, in loving Rastignac with tedious fidelity, and obeying him blindly.  She is a regular Italian.”

“Money apart,” Andoche Finot put in sourly.

“Oh, come, come,” said Bixiou coaxingly; “after what we have just been saying, will you venture to blame poor Rastignac for living at the expense of the firm of Nucingen, for being installed in furnished rooms precisely as La Torpille was once installed by our friend des Lupeaulx?  You would sink to the vulgarity of the Rue Saint-Denis!  First of all, ‘in the abstract,’ as Royer-Collard says, the question may abide the Kritik of Pure Reason; as for the impure reason——­”

“There he goes!” said Finot, turning to Blondet.

“But there is reason in what he says,” exclaimed Blondet.  “The problem is a very old one; it was the grand secret of the famous duel between La Chataigneraie and Jarnac.  It was cast up to Jarnac that he was on good terms with his mother-in-law, who, loving him only too well, equipped him sumptuously.  When a thing is so true, it ought not to be said.  Out of devotion to Henry II., who permitted himself this slander, La Chataigneraie took it upon himself, and there followed the duel which enriched the French language with the expression coup de Jarnac.”

“Oh! does it go so far back?  Then it is noble?” said Finot.

“As a proprietor of newspapers and reviews of old standing, you are not bound to know that,” said Blondet.

“There are women,” Bixiou gravely resumed, “and for that matter, men too, who can cut their lives in two and give away but one-half.  (Remark how I word my phrase for you in humanitarian language.) For these, all material interests lie without the range of sentiment.  They give their time, their life, their honor to a woman, and hold that between themselves it is not the thing to meddle with bits of tissue paper bearing the legend, ‘Forgery is punishable with death.’  And equally they will take nothing from a woman.  Yes, the whole thing is debased if fusion of interests follows on fusion of souls.  This is a doctrine much preached, and very seldom practised.”

“Oh, what rubbish!” cried Blondet.  “The Marechal de Richelieu understood something of gallantry, and he settled an allowance of a thousand louis d’or on Mme. de la Popeliniere after that affair of the hiding-place behind the hearth.  Agnes Sorel, in all simplicity, took her fortune to Charles VII., and the King accepted it.  Jacques Coeur kept the crown for France; he was allowed to do it, and woman-like, France was ungrateful.”