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Updated: May 29, 2025
At the hour when La Briere was inquiring about the father of his beloved from the head of the house of Mongenod, and getting information that might be useful to him in his strange position, a scene was taking place in Canalis's study which the ex-lieutenant's hasty departure from Havre may have led the reader to foresee.
"Modeste is saved," said Madame Mignon to her husband; "she wants to revenge herself on the false Canalis by trying to love the real one." Such in truth was Modeste's plan. It was so utterly commonplace that her mother, to whom she confided her griefs, advised her on the contrary to treat Monsieur de La Briere with extreme politeness.
I have kept him, but at what a price! Six millions, that's the cost of it; we can't have many friends if we pay all that for them." La Briere entered the room as Canalis reached this point in his meditations. He was gloom personified. "Well, what's the matter?" said Canalis. "The father exacts that his daughter shall choose between the two Canalis "
"I thought Rabourdin was a man above all ordinary petty manoeuvres," began the minister; "and yet here, not ten minutes after La Billardiere's death, he sends me this note by La Briere, it is like a stage missive. Look," said his Excellency, giving des Lupeaulx a paper which he was twirling in his fingers.
The colonel invited the three lovers to breakfast on the morning of the start. Canalis then began to put into execution a plan that he had been maturing in his own mind for the last few days; namely, to quietly reconquer Modeste, and throw over the duchess, La Briere, and the duke. A graduate of diplomacy could hardly remain stuck in the position in which he found himself.
The two young men who had tried to palm off their retranslation from Goethe as Diderot's own text, at once had the effrontery to accuse Brière and Diderot's daughter of repeating their own fraud. A vivacious dispute followed between the indignant publisher and his impudent detractors. At length Brière appealed to the great Jove of Weimar.
No one but me really knows what nobility, what pride, what devotion, what mysterious grace, what unwearying kindness, what true religion, gaiety, wit, delicacy, knowledge, and courtesy there are in the soul and in the heart of that adorable creature!" Butscha drew out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, and La Briere pressed his hand for a long time.
The circumstances leading to the unmasking of Canalis' selfish character and to Modeste's marriage with La Briere are handled in a less Balzacian way than the introductory chapters, which, however, are more than usually tortuous.
At this moment, Modeste, followed by Canalis, who had lost the rubber, came out with her father and Madame Dumay to breathe the fresh air of the starry night. While his daughter walked about with the poet, Charles Mignon left her and came up to La Briere. "Your friend, monsieur, ought to have been a lawyer," he said, smiling and looking attentively at the young man.
"Who do you know about all this?" said La Briere, interrupting Butscha. "In the first place, I am clerk to a notary," answered Butscha. "But haven't you seen my hump? It is full of resources, monsieur. I have made myself cousin to Mademoiselle Philoxene Jacmin, born at Honfleur, where my mother was born, a Jacmin, there are eight branches of the Jacmins at Honfleur.
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