“I plied her with all those arguments,” replied la Peyrade; “but I couldn’t move her resolution. Don’t you see, my dear democrats, you stirred up the revolution of ‘89; you thought to make a fine speculation in dethroning the noble by the bourgeois, and the end of it is you are shoved out yourselves. This looks like paradox; but you’ve found out now that the peasant and clodhopper isn’t malleable; he can’t be forced down and kept under like the noble. The aristocracy, on behalf of its dignity, would not condescend to common cares, and was therefore dependent on a crowd of plebeian servitors to whom it had to trust for three-fourths of the actions of its own life. That was the reign of stewards and bailiffs, wily fellows, into whose hands the interests of the great families passed, and who fed and grew fat on the parings of the great fortunes they managed. But now-a-days, utilitarian theories, as they call them, have come to the fore,--‘We are never so well served as by ourselves,’ ‘There’s no shame in attending to one’s own business,’ and many other bourgeois maxims which have suppressed the role of intermediaries. Why shouldn’t Mademoiselle Brigitte Thuillier manage her own house when dukes and peers go in person to the Bourse, where such men sign their own leases and read the deeds before they sign them, and go themselves to the notary, whom, in former days, they considered a servant.” During this time Cerizet had time to recover from the blow he had just received squarely in the face, and to think of the transition he had to make from one set of interests to the other, of which he was now the agent. “What you are declaiming there is all very clever,” he said, carelessly, “but the thing that proves to me our defeat is the fact that you are not on the terms with Mademoiselle Thuillier you would have us believe you are. She is slipping through your fingers; and I don’t think that marriage is anything like as certain as Dutocq and I have been fancying it was.” “Well, no doubt,” said la Peyrade, “there are still some touches to be given to our sketch, but I believe it is well under way.” “And I think, on the contrary, that you have lost ground; and the reason is simple: you have done those people an immense service; and that’s a thing never forgiven.” “Well, we shall see,” said la Peyrade. “I have more than one hold upon them.” “No, you are mistaken. You thought you did a brilliant thing in putting them on a pinnacle, but the fact is you emancipated them; they’ll keep you now at heel. The human heart, particularly the bourgeois heart, is made that way. If I were in your place I shouldn’t feel so sure of being on solid ground, and if something else turned up that offered me a good chance--” “What! just because I couldn’t get you the lease of that house do you want to knock everything to pieces?”