Arriving from Ville d’Avray late in the afternoon, Sallenauve had brought Madame de l’Estorade ill news of Marie-Gaston.  Under an appearance of resignation, he was gloomy, and, singular to say, he had not visited the grave of his wife,—­as if he feared an emotion he might not have the power to master.  It seemed to Sallenauve that his friend had come to the end of his strength, and that a mental prostration of the worst character was succeeding the over-excitement he had shown at his election.  One thing reassured the new deputy, and enabled him to come to Paris for, at any rate, a few hours.  A friend of Marie-Gaston, an English nobleman with whom he had been intimate in Florence, came out to see him, and the sad man greeted the new-comer with apparent joy.

In order to distract Sallenauve’s thoughts from this anxiety, Madame de l’Estorade introduced him to Monsieur Octave de Camps, the latter having expressed a great desire to know him.  The deputy had not talked ten minutes with the iron-master before he reached his heart by the magnitude of the metallurgical knowledge his conversation indicated.

During the year in which he had been preparing for a parliamentary life, Sallenauve had busied himself by acquiring the practical knowledge which enables an orator of the Chamber to take part in all discussions and have reasons to give for his general views.  He had turned his attention more especially to matters connected with the great question of the revenue and taxation; such, for instance, as the custom-house, laws of exchange, stamp duties, and taxation, direct and indirect.  Approaching in this manner that problematical science—­which is, nevertheless, so sure of itself!—­called political economy, Sallenauve had also studied the sources which contribute to form the great current of national prosperity; and in this connection the subject of mines, the topic at this moment most interesting to Monsieur de Camps, had not been neglected by him.  We can imagine the admiration of the iron-master, who had studied too exclusively the subject of iron ore to know much about the other branches of metallurgy, when the young deputy told him, apropos of the wealth of our soil, a sort of Arabian Nights tale, which, if science would only take hold of it, might become a reality.

“But, monsieur, do you really believe,” cried Monsieur de Camps, “that, besides our coal and iron mines, we possess mines of copper, lead, and, possibly, silver?”

“If you will take the trouble to consult certain specialists,” replied Sallenauve, “you will find that neither the boasted strata of Bohemia and Saxony nor even those of Russia and Hungary can be compared to those hidden in the Pyrenees, in the Alps from Briancon to the Isere, in the Cevennes on the Lozere side, in the Puy-de-Dome, Bretagne, and the Vosges.  In the Vosges, more especially about the town of Saint-Die, I can point out to you a single vein of the mineral of silver which lies to the depth of fifty to eighty metres with a length of thirteen kilometres.”