“But I bury my life in the deepest mystery, and so hide my aims.  I have adopted habits which prevent my accepting any invitations.  I am only to be consulted between six and eight in the morning; I go to bed after my dinner, and work at night.  The Vicar-General, a man of parts, and very influential, who placed the Chapter’s case in my hands after they had lost it in the lower Court, of course professed their gratitude.  ‘Monsieur,’ said I, ’I will win your suit, but I want no fee; I want more’ (start of alarm on the Abbe’s part).  ’You must know that I am a great loser by putting myself forward in antagonism to the town.  I came here only to leave the place as deputy.  I mean to engage only in commercial cases, because commercial men return the members; they will distrust me if I defend “the priests”—­for to them you are simply priests.  If I undertake your defence, it is because I was, in 1828, private secretary to such a Minister’ (again a start of surprise on the part of my Abbe), ’and Master of Appeals, under the name of Albert de Savarus’ (another start).  ’I have remained faithful to monarchical opinions; but, as you have not the majority of votes in Besancon, I must gain votes among the citizens.  So the fee I ask of you is the votes you may be able secretly to secure for me at the opportune moment.  Let us each keep our own counsel, and I will defend, for nothing, every case to which a priest of this diocese may be a party.  Not a word about my previous life, and we will be true to each other.’

“When he came to thank me afterwards, he gave me a note for five hundred francs, and said in my ear, ’The votes are a bargain all the same.’—­I have in the course of five interviews made a friend, I think, of this Vicar-General.

“Now I am overwhelmed with business, and I undertake no cases but those brought to me by merchants, saying that commercial questions are my specialty.  This line of conduct attaches business men to me, and allows me to make friends with influential persons.  So all goes well.  Within a few months I shall have found a house to purchase in Besancon, so as to secure a qualification.  I count on your lending me the necessary capital for this investment.  If I should die, if I should fail, the loss would be too small to be any consideration between you and me.  You will get the interest out of the rental, and I shall take good care to look out for something cheap, so that you may lose nothing by this mortgage, which is indispensable.

“Oh! my dear Leopold, no gambler with the last remains of his fortune in his pocket, bent on staking it at the Cercle des Etrangers for the last time one night, when he must come away rich or ruined, ever felt such a perpetual ringing in his ears, such a nervous moisture on his palms, such a fevered tumult in his brain, such inward qualms in his body as I go through every day now that I am playing my last card in the game of ambition.