"What, monsieur, you see me crushed under the blow that has just struck me, or, rather, that you have just dealt me, unintentionally, no doubt," she added, with bitter irony, "and then ask me without rhyme or reason what I think of the illustriousness of the house of Haut-Martel." "My question is less extraordinary, as you do not seem to think there can be the slightest ameliorating circumstance in the blow that has just overtaken you. So once more I ask, what do you think of the house of Haut-Martel?" "There is not an older or more illustrious family in France, you most know very well, as you are closely connected with it on your father's side." "I am now the head of that house, madame." "You?" exclaimed Madame de Senneterre. And strange to say the lady's acerbity of manner gave place to a sort of envious deference for the new representative of this powerful family. "But I thought that the Prince Duc de Haut-Martel, who has resided on his estates in Germany since that idiotic revolution of 1830--" "That Prince Duc de Haut-Martel is dead, madame, and as he had neither brothers nor children, and as I am his cousin-germain, I inherit his estates and title." "Then this event must have occurred very recently." "I received the first intimation of it through the Austrian ambassador, and last night I had an official confirmation of the fact." "So you are now the Marquis de Maillefort, Prince Duc de Haut-Martel?" said Madame de Senneterre, with mingled admiration and envy. "Precisely, and without troubling myself very much about it, as you see." "But your position is magnificent," exclaimed this monomaniac, quite forgetting the son whose despair might end in suicide. "Why, you are now one of the greatest noblemen in France." "Good Heavens! yes. My newly acquired dignities enable me to aspire to anything, do they not? And to think that only yesterday I was but a simple marquis! What a change to-day, is there not? Don't you find my hump a little smaller since you have heard that I am so great a nobleman?" "One should no more sneer at rank than at religion, monsieur." "Certainly not. There are plenty of other subjects for ridicule. But I forgot to tell you that the Prince Duc de Haut-Martel left me estates in Hungary which yield a yearly income of about fifty thousand crowns, free of all incumbrances." "One hundred and fifty thousand francs! Why, though no one knows the exact amount of your fortune, you are supposed to be very rich already, monsieur," replied Madame de Senneterre, with a sort of jealous envy.