“Thank you, no!” replied Rastignac.  “When you want the government for an accomplice, my dear Maxime, you must provide a better-laid plot than that.  From your manner this morning I supposed there was really something in all this, and so I ventured to disturb our excellent attorney-general, who knows how I value his advice.  But really, your scheme seems to me too transparent and also too narrow not to be doomed to inevitable defeat.  If I were not married, and could pretend to the hand of Mademoiselle Beauvisage, perhaps I should feel differently; of course you will do as you think best.  I do not say that the government will not wish you well in your attempt, but it certainly cannot descend to make it with you.”

“But see,” said Vinet, interposing to cut off Maxime’s reply, which would doubtless have been bitter; “suppose we send the affair to the criminal courts, and the peasant-woman, instigated by the Beauvisage couple, should denounce the man who had sworn before a notary, and offered himself for election falsely, as a Sallenauve:  the question is one for the court of assizes.”

“But proofs?  I return to that, you must have proof,” said Rastignac.  “Have you even a shadow of it?”

“You said yourself, just now,” remarked Maxime, “that it was always possible to bring a bad case.”

“A civil case, yes; but to fail in a criminal case is a far more serious matter.  It would be a pretty thing if you were shown not to have a leg to stand on, and the case ended in a decision of non-lieu.  You couldn’t find a better way to put our enemy on a pedestal as high as the column of July.”

“So,” said Maxime, “you see absolutely nothing that can be done?”

“For us, no.  For you, my dear Maxime, who have no official character, and who, if need be, can support the attack on Monsieur de Sallenauve pistol in hand, as it were, nothing hinders you from proceeding in the matter.”

“Oh, yes!” said Maxime, bitterly, “I’m a sort of free lance.”

“Not at all; you are a man intuitively convinced of facts impossible to prove legally, and you do not give way before the judgment of God or man.”

Monsieur de Trailles rose angrily.  Vinet rose also, and, shaking hands with Rastignac as he took leave of him, he said,—­

“I don’t deny that your course is a prudent one, and I don’t say that in your place I should not do the same thing.”

“Adieu, Maxime; without bitterness, I hope,” said Rastignac to Monsieur de Trailles, who bowed coldly and with dignity.

When the two conspirators were alone in the antechamber, Maxime turned to his companion.

“Do you understand such squeamishness?” he asked.

“Perfectly,” replied Vinet, “and I wonder to see a clever man like you so duped.”

“Yes, duped to make you lose your time and I mine by coming here to listen to a lecture on virtue!”

“That’s not it; but I do think you guileless to be taken in by that refusal to co-operate.”