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Updated: June 10, 2025
Mme. de Senonches is sure to give the wedding clothes, and some plate and furniture to her goddaughter. Now, I can put you in the way of marrying the girl, my lad," said Cointet, slapping Petit-Claud on the knee; "and when you marry Francoise de la Haye, you will have a large number of the aristocracy of Angouleme as your clients.
"Well and good, your secret will be your plank of safety," said Petit-Claud; his first loyal intention of avoiding a lawsuit by a compromise was frustrated. "I do not wish to know it; but mind this that I tell you. Work in the bowels of the earth if you can, so that no one may watch you and gain a hint from your ways of working, or your plank will be stolen from under your feet.
Going from doubt to doubt, David began to see his real position more clearly; and to himself he said, as the Cointets had said to old Sechard, as Petit-Claud had just said to Eve, "Suppose that all should go well, what does it amount to in practice?
"Your father is still above ground," suggested Petit-Claud; "he is in no hurry to leave his vines." "Do you think that I am counting on my father's death?" returned David. "I am on the track of a trade secret, the secret of making a sheet of paper as strong as Dutch paper, without a thread of cotton in it, and at a cost of fifty per cent less than cotton pulp."
Then Petit-Claud called upon all Lucien's schoolfellows there present. "To the pride of the grammar-school of Angouleme! to the venerable headmaster so dear to us all, to whom the acknowledgment for some part of our triumph is due!" The old headmaster dried his eyes; he had not expected this toast. Lucien rose to his feet, the whole room was suddenly silent, and the poet's face grew white.
One of the clauses so drafted that David Sechard forfeited all his rights if he failed to fulfil his engagements within the year; the tall Cointet was particularly careful to insert that clause, and David Sechard allowed it to pass. When Petit-Claud appeared with a copy of the agreement next morning at half-past seven o'clock, he brought news for David and his wife.
"There is a fortune in that!" exclaimed Petit-Claud. He knew now what the tall Cointet meant. "A large fortune, my friend, for in ten years' time the demand for paper will be ten times larger than it is to-day. Journalism will be the craze of our day." "Nobody knows your secret?" "Nobody except my wife." "You have not told any one what you mean to do the Cointets, for example?"
They will try to corrupt you, my good Kolb; they will offer you thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of francs, to tell " "Dey may offer me millions," cried Kolb, "but not ein vort from me shall dey traw. Haf I not peen in der army, and know my orders?" "Well, you are warned. March, and ask M. Petit-Claud to go with you as witness." "Yes," said the Alsacien.
"Madame," he said, "Lucien is here, in Angouleme." "Well, sir?" asked the Countess, in tones that would have put an end to all power of speech in an ordinary man. "Mme. la Comtesse does not understand," returned Petit-Claud, bringing out that most respectful formula again. "How does Mme. la Comtesse wish that the great man of her making should be received in Angouleme?
"Listen, Eve," he continued, seeming to bethink himself; "you have no faith in me now; you do not trust me, so it is not likely you will trust Petit-Claud; but in ten or twelve days you will change your mind," he added, with a touch of fatuity. And he went to his room, and indited the following epistle to Lousteau: Lucien to Lousteau.
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