In Paris there are almost as many royal heads as there are different arts or special sciences, faculties, or professions; the best of those who exercise each has a royal dignity proper to himself; he is revered and respected by his peers, who know the difficulties of his work, and admire unreservedly the man who can defy them. In the eyes of the corps de ballet and courtesans Maxime was an extremely powerful and capable man, for he had succeeded in being immensely loved. He was admired by everybody who knew how hard it is to live in Paris on decent terms with your creditors; and he had never had any rival in elegance, demeanor, and wit but the famous de Marsay, who had employed him on political missions. This is enough to account for his interview with the Duchess, his influence over Madame Schontz, and the authority of his tone in a conference he intended to hold on the Boulevard des Italiens with a young man, who was already famous though recently introduced to the bohemia of Paris.
As he rose next morning, Maxime de Trailles heard Finot announced, to whom he had sent the night before; he begged him to arrange a fortuitous meeting at breakfast at the Café Anglais between Couture, Lousteau, and himself, where they would chat in his hearing. Finot, who was to Maxime de Trailles as a lieutenant in the presence of a Marshal of France, could refuse him nothing; it was indeed too dangerous to provoke this lion. So when Maxime came in to breakfast, he found Finot and his two friends at a table; the conversation had already been directed towards the subject of Madame Schontz. Couture, cleverly steered by Finot and Lousteau, who, unknown to himself, was Finot’s abettor, let out everything that the Comte de Trailles wanted to know about Madame Schontz.
By one o’clock, Maxime, chewing his toothpick, was talking to du Tillet on the steps of Tortoni’s, where speculators form a little Bourse preliminary to real dealings on ’Change. He seemed to be absorbed in business, but he was waiting to see the young Comte de la Palférine, who must pass that way sooner or later. The Boulevard des Italiens is now what the Pont Neuf was in 1650; everybody who is anybody crosses it at least once a day.
In fact, within ten minutes, Maxime took his hand from du Tillet’s arm, and nodding to the young Prince of bohemia, said with a smile, “Two words with you, Count!”
The rivals, one a setting star, the other a rising sun, took their seat on four chairs outside the Café de Paris. Maxime was careful to place himself at a sufficient distance from certain old fogies who, from sheer habit, plant themselves in a row against the wall after one in the afternoon, to dry out their rheumatic pains. He had ample reasons for distrusting these old men. (See “A Man of Business.”)
“Have you any debts?” asked Maxime of the young man.
“If I had not, should I be worthy to succeed you?” replied la Palférine.
“When I ask you such a question, it is not to cast any doubt on the matter,” said de Trailles. “I only want to know if they amount to a respectable sum-total, running into five or six.”
“Five or six what?” said la Palférine.
“Six figures! Do you owe 50,000, 100,000?—My debts ran up to 600,000 francs.”
La Palférine took off his hat with an air of mocking respect.
“If I had credit enough to borrow a hundred thousand francs,” replied he, “I would cut my creditors and go to live at Venice in the midst of its masterpieces of painting, spending the evening at the theatre, the night with pretty women, and—”
“And at my age where would you be?”
“I should not last so long,” replied the young Count.
Maxime returned his rival’s civility by just raising his hat with an expression of comical gravity.
“That is another view of life,” he replied, as a connoisseur answering a connoisseur. “Then you owe?”
“Oh, a mere trifle, not worth confessing to an uncle, if I had one. He would disinherit me for such a contemptible sum; six thousand francs.”
“Six thousand give one more trouble than a hundred thousand,” said Maxime sententiously. “La Palférine, you have a bold wit, you have even more wit than boldness; you may go far and become a political personage. Look here—of all the men who have rushed into the career which I have run, and who have been pitted against me, you are the only one I ever liked.”
La Palférine colored, so greatly was he flattered by this confession, made with gracious bluntness, by the greatest of Parisian adventurers. This instinct of vanity was a confession of inferiority which annoyed him; but Maxime understood the reaction easy to foresee in so clever a man, and did his best to correct it at once by placing himself at the young man’s discretion.
“Will you do something for me now that I am retiring from the Olympian course by marrying, and marrying well?—I would do a great deal for you,” he added.
“You make me very proud,” said la Palférine; “this is to put the fable of the lion and the mouse into practice.”
“In the first place, I will lend you twenty thousand francs,” Maxime went on.
“Twenty thousand francs?—I knew that if I walked this Boulevard long enough—!” said la Palférine in a parenthesis.
“My dear boy, you must set yourself up in some sort of style,” said Maxime, smiling. “Do not trot about on your two feet; set up six. Do as I have done; I never get lower than a tilbury—”
“But then you must want me to do something quite beyond my powers.”
“No. Only to make a woman fall in love with you within a fortnight.”
“A woman of the town?”
“Why?”
“That would be out of the question; but if she is a lady, quite a lady, and very clever—”
“She is
