“Society, my son, is bound to draw those distinctions which I have pointed out for your benefit. The one great point is this--you must be a match for society. Napoleon, Richelieu, and the Medicis were a match for their generations. And as for you, you value yourself at twelve thousand francs! You of this generation in France worship the golden calf; what else is the religion of your Charter that will not recognize a man politically unless he owns property? What is this but the command, ‘Strive to be rich?’ Some day, when you shall have made a fortune without breaking the law, you will be rich; you will be the Marquis de Rubempré, and you can indulge in the luxury of honor. You will be so extremely sensitive on the point of honor that no one will dare to accuse you of past shortcomings if in the process of making your way you should happen to smirch it now and again, which I myself should never advise,” he added, patting Lucien’s hand. “So what must you put in that comely head of yours? Simply this and nothing more--propose to yourself a brilliant and conspicuous goal, and go towards it secretly; let no one see your methods or your progress. You have behaved like a child; be a man, be a hunter, lie in wait for your quarry in the world of Paris, wait for your chance and your game; you need not be particular nor mindful of your dignity, as it is called; we are all of us slaves to something, to some failing of our own or to necessity; but keep that law of laws--secrecy.” “Father, you frighten me,” said Lucien; “this seems to me to be a highwayman’s theory.” “And you are right,” said the canon, “but it is no invention of mine. All _parvenus_ reason in this way--the house of Austria and the house of France alike. You have nothing, you say? The Medicis, Richelieu, and Napoleon started from precisely your standpoint; but _they_, my child, considered that their prospects were worth ingratitude, treachery, and the most glaring inconsistencies. You must dare all things to gain all things. Let us discuss it. Suppose that you sit down to a game of _bouillotte_, do you begin to argue over the rules of the game? There they are, you accept them.” “Come, now,” thought Lucien, “he can play _bouillotte_.” “And what do you do?” continued the priest; “do you practise openness, that fairest of virtues? Not merely do you hide your tactics, but you do your best to make others believe that you are on the brink of ruin as soon as you are sure of winning the game. In short, you dissemble, do you not? You lie to win four or five louis d’or. What would you think of a player so generous as to proclaim that he held a hand full of trumps? Very well; the ambitious man who carries virtue’s precepts into the arena when his antagonists have left them behind is behaving like a child. Old men of the world might say to him, as card-players would say to the man who declines to take advantage of his trumps, ‘Monsieur, you ought not to play at _bouillotte_.’