"I need a prudent, clever man," he said, "to take charge of my affairs, overlook my stewards' accounts, and correspond with them. Be that man, my dear Ménard. Remember that it is not as an employé, but as a friend that I ask you to come; and if heaven sends me children, you shall be to them what you were to their father." Ménard accepted gratefully, and he was installed under Frédéric's roof, where Constance treated him with much consideration and affection; she loved the former tutor, because he was attached to her husband, and Ménard, deeply touched by the young woman's attentions, often exclaimed, as he kissed her hand respectfully: "Ah! madame, do have children! I will be their tutor, and they'll grow up like their excellent father, who was my pupil and who does me credit." Constance smiled at that; doubtless she would have asked nothing better, but we do not always obtain what we desire. Dubourg had not abandoned his friend. "Come and see me whenever you please," Frédéric had said to him; "your room will always be ready for you." Dubourg made the most of that permission, not to quarter himself on Frédéric in Paris, but to visit him at his country house. He was particularly apt to appear during the latter half of the quarter; for his income was paid quarterly, and he could never succeed in making it last more than six weeks; then he would take his meals at Frédéric's, if he was in Paris, or would visit him in the country. "Thanks to you, my friend," he would say, "with my sixteen hundred francs a year, I live as if I had twice that; I spend my income in six months, and you pay my expenses the other half of the year." Dubourg's merry humor pleased Constance, and Frédéric was always glad to see his friend, for he knew that he would never say a word to his wife that she ought not to hear, and that, despite his easy principles, he would look upon her as a sister. We can overlook some faults in the man who respects friendship. There are so many sincere, virtuous, high-minded friends, who take delight in sowing discord in families! When Dubourg and Ménard met at Frédéric's board, which always happened toward the end of the quarter, the former tutor never failed to sing the praises of the couple who lived under his eyes. "They are like Orpheus and Eurydice, Deucalion and Pyrrha, Philemon and Baucis, Pyramus and Thisbe!" "Morbleu! yes," Dubourg would reply; "Frédéric has a charming wife, who has every estimable quality--a perfect treasure, in short. It would be infernally strange if he were not content." "True enough! But if I had not inculcated in my pupil excellent principles of virtue and morality, perhaps he wouldn't lead so decorous a life as he does, although loving his wife none the less. Peter the Great adored Catherine, but that didn't interfere with his having mistresses; many princes have had concubines; and I have known some excellent husbands who slept with their maid-servants, probably from a sense of ownership."