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In accordance with the advice of the Abbe Brossette the Duchesse de Grandlieu asked the Marquis d'Ajuda to bring her that king of political cut-throats, the celebrated Comte Maxime de Trailles, archduke of Bohemia, the youngest of young men, though he was now fully fifty years of age.
"Are you quite sure, madame, of the existence of the letters you say were written by Mademoiselle Clotilde de Grandlieu to this young man?" said the Duc de Grandlieu. And he cast a look at Madame Camusot as a sailor casts a sounding line. "I have not seen them, but there is reason to fear it," replied Madame Camusot, quaking.
That morning, at eleven o'clock, the Duc de Grandlieu, as he went into the little room where the family all breakfasted together, said to Clotilde after kissing her, "Until further orders, my child, think no more of the Sieur de Rubempre."
Only one person could effect this bargain without damage to Lucien's honor, and that was the supposed Spaniard. Were they not bound to be equally secret, each for the other? Such a compact, in which each is in turn master and slave, is not to be found twice in any one life. Lucien drove away the clouds that darkened his brow, and walked into the Grandlieu drawing-room gay and beaming.
Some personages of high estate discussed their marriage as a probable event. The Duc de Chaulieu, formerly Ambassador to Spain, and now for a short while Minister for Foreign Affairs, had promised the Duchesse de Grandlieu that he would ask for the title of Marquis for Lucien.
"And presently they will ask you where you got the money," said Carlos, when Lucien reported this last word in the bargain. "My brother-in-law will have made his fortune," remarked Lucien; "we can make him the responsible backer." "Then only the million is needed," said Carlos. "I will think it over." To be exact as to Lucien's position in the Hotel Grandlieu, he had never dined there.
The four postilions dressed in their finest uniforms, for each carriage was drawn by four horses, appeared with bouquets on their breasts and ribbons on their hats, which the Duc de Grandlieu had the utmost difficulty in making them relinquish, even by bribing them with money. The French postilion is eminently intelligent, but he likes his fun.
Three days later, the Duchesse de Grandlieu, who had not seen her daughter Sabine since the morning when this conference took place, went to the hotel du Guenic early in the day and found Calyste in his bath, with Sabine beside him working at some adornment for the future layette. "What has happened to you, my children?" asked the excellent duchess.
"My person would have snared his heart; my aunt is right; a man cannot surely refuse a pretty woman when she understands how to offer herself." That evening, at the Elysee-Bourbon, the Duc de Navarreins, M. de Pamiers, M. de Marsay, M. de Grandlieu, and the Duc de Maufrigneuse triumphantly refuted the scandals that were circulating with regard to the Duchesse de Langeais.
"Will you speak, Ferdinand?" said the Duke de Chaulieu to his friend. "That wretch is an object of fear," said the Duc de Grandlieu, "for he has possessed himself, so as to be able to levy blackmail, of the letters written by Madame de Serizy and Madame de Maufrigneuse to Lucien Chardon, that man's tool.
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