And she continued; saying how the Princess had spoken to her of the Universal Bank, certainly a financial establishment like the rest of them in the eyes of the profane, but endowed in the eyes of the initiated with an irreproachable excuse, an object so meritorious and lofty as to silence the most timorous consciences. She named neither the Pope nor Jerusalem; those were matters not to be spoken of, scarcely to be whispered among the faithful; therein lay the mystery destined to excite enthusiasm; but each of her words, allusions, and hints revealed a hope and faith which imparted a true religious flame to her belief in the success of the new bank. Saccard himself was astonished at her suppressed emotion, at the trembling in her voice. As yet he had only spoken of Jerusalem in the poetical phases of his fever. In his heart he distrusted that mad project, scenting something ridiculous in it, and quite prepared to abandon it and laugh at it if it should be greeted with jests. And the emotional application of this pious woman who brought her daughter with her, the earnest way in which she gave him to understand that she and all her kindred, the entire French nobility, would believe and become infatuated with the scheme, struck him forcibly, gave substance to what had been purely a dream, and infinitely enlarged his field of evolution. Was it true, then, that he had a lever here, the employment of which would permit him to move the world? With his gift of rapid assimilation, he at once entered into the situation, talking in mysterious terms of this final triumph which he would pursue in silence; and his speech was full of fervour, for he had really just acquired faith--faith in the excellence of the instrument placed in his hands by the crisis through which the Papacy was passing. He indeed had the happy faculty of believing, as soon as the success of his plans required it. 'In short, monsieur,' continued the Countess, 'I have decided upon a thing which has hitherto been repugnant to me. Yes, the idea of making money work, of putting it out at interest, had never entered my head. Mine are the old ways of viewing life, scruples that are becoming a little stupid, I know; but what would you have? One cannot easily throw off the ideas acquired in childhood, and I imagined that land alone, extensive estates, ought to support people like ourselves. Unfortunately, large estates----' She blushed slightly, for she was coming to the confession of the ruin which she had so carefully concealed. 'Large estates can now scarcely be found in France; we have been sorely tried, and now we have but one farm left.'