Insatiable in his wants, and backed by the mistresses of influential men, Philippe now solicited the honor of being one of the Dauphin’s aides-de-camp.  He had the audacity to say to the Dauphin that “an old soldier, wounded on many a battle-field and who knew real warfare, might, on occasion, be serviceable to Monseigneur.”  Philippe, who could take the tone of all varieties of sycophancy, became in the regions of the highest social life exactly what the position required him to be; just as at Issoudun, he had copied the respectability of Mignonnet.  He had, moreover, a fine establishment and gave fetes and dinners; admitting none of his old friends to his house if he thought their position in life likely to compromise his future.  He was pitiless to the companions of his former debauches, and curtly refused Bixiou when that lively satirist asked him to say a word in favor of Giroudeau, who wanted to re-enter the army after the desertion of Florentine.

“The man has neither manners nor morals,” said Philippe.

“Ha! did he say that of me?” cried Giroudeau, “of me, who helped him to get rid of his uncle!”

“We’ll pay him off yet,” said Bixiou.

Philippe intended to marry Mademoiselle Amelie de Soulanges, and become a general, in command of a regiment of the Royal Guard.  He asked so many favors that, to keep him quiet, they made him a Commander of the Legion of honor, and also Commander of the order of Saint Louis.  One rainy evening, as Agathe and Joseph were returning home along the muddy streets, they met Philippe in full uniform, bedizened with orders, leaning back in a corner of a handsome coupe lined with yellow silk, whose armorial bearings were surmounted with a count’s coronet.  He was on his way to a fete at the Elysee-Bourbon; the wheels splashed his mother and brother as he waved them a patronizing greeting.

“He’s going it, that fellow!” said Joseph to his mother.  “Nevertheless, he might send us something better than mud in our faces.”

“He has such a fine position, in such high society, that we ought not to blame him for forgetting us,” said Madame Bridau.  “When a man rises to so great a height, he has many obligations to repay, many sacrifices to make; it is natural he should not come to see us, though he may think of us all the same.”

“My dear fellow,” said the Duc de Maufrigneuse one evening, to the new Comte de Brambourg, “I am sure that your addresses will be favorably received; but in order to marry Amelie de Soulanges, you must be free to do so.  What have you done with your wife?”

“My wife?” said Philippe, with a gesture, look, and accent which Frederick Lemaitre was inspired to use in one of his most terrible parts.  “Alas!  I have the melancholy certainty of losing her.  She has not a week to live.  My dear duke, you don’t know what it is to marry beneath you.  A woman who was a cook, and has the tastes of a cook! who dishonors me—­ah!  I am much to