Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 12, 2025
When, at five o'clock in the afternoon, Rabourdin came home to dress for dinner, his wife presided at his toilet and presently laid before him the fatal memorandum which, like the slipper in the Arabian Nights, the luckless man was fated to meet at every turn. "Who gave you that?" he asked, thunderstruck. "Monsieur des Lupeaulx."
By midnight Madame Rabourdin's salon was deserted; only two or three guests remained with des Lupeaulx and the master and mistress of the house. When Schinner and Monsieur and Madame de Camps had likewise departed, des Lupeaulx rose with a mysterious air, stood with his back to the fireplace and looked alternately at the husband and wife.
"Yes, monseigneur," said du Bruel, "Ah! beg pardon." "No harm done," answered des Lupeaulx, laughing. "Madame Rabourdin looked delightfully handsome," added du Bruel. "There are not two women like her in Paris. Some are as clever as she, but there's not one so gracefully witty. Many women may even be handsomer, but it would be hard to find one with such variety of beauty.
Des Lupeaulx had counted on the minister's preoccupation and his desire to get away; seeing him for the moment occupied with his wife, the general-secretary went forward to meet Rabourdin; whom he petrified with his first words, said in a low tone of voice:
He is above a common spy, for he is able to understand a plan; he could skilfully carry through a dark piece of work and cover his retreat safely." Des Lupeaulx was succinctly analyzed in five or six such paragraphs, the essence, in fact, of the biographical portrait which we gave at the beginning of this history.
"Wait a moment," said his Excellency, leaving the private secretary and taking des Lupeaulx by the arm into the recess of a window. "My dear friend, let me have that arrondissement, if you will, you shall be made count and I will pay your debts. Later, if I remain in the ministry after the new Chamber is elected, I will find a way to send in your name in a batch for the peerage."
"My dear fellow," said des Lupeaulx, "how can you imagine that the Marquise d'Espard, or Chatelet, or Mme. de Bargeton who has procured the Baron's nomination to the prefecture and the title of Count, so as to return in triumph to Angouleme how can you suppose that any of them will forgive Lucien for his attacks on them? They dropped him down in the Royalist ranks to crush him out of existence.
At this moment a scene was taking place between the minister and des Lupeaulx which decided Rabourdin's fate. The general-secretary had gone to see the minister in his private study before the breakfast-hour, to make sure that La Briere was not within hearing. "Your Excellency is not treating me frankly "
Belonging to that fraternity in spirit, though not admitted to its rites, Dutocq went from bureau to bureau, sounded consciences by recounting immoral jests, and then reported and paraphrased results to des Lupeaulx; the latter thus learned all the trivial events of the ministry, and often surprised the minister by his consummate knowledge of what was going on.
"I have come to tell you that all your notes and debts have been brought up by Gobseck and Gigonnet, under the name of a certain Samanon." "Men whom I helped to make their millions!" "Listen," whispered the lawyer. Don't you think I have done right to come and tell you?" "Thank you," said des Lupeaulx, nodding to the lawyer with a shrewd look.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking