“I should regret to think so,” said Alain, yet more haughtily, “since the De Mauleons acknowledge the head of their house in the representative of the Rochebriants.” “At all events,” said Duplessis, “M. de Mauleon appears to be a philosopher of rare stamp. A Parisian who has known riches and is contented to be poor is a phenomenon I should like to study.” “You have that chance to-morrow evening, Monsieur Duplessis,” said Enguerrand. “What! at M. Louvier’s dinner? Nay, I have no other acquaintance with M. Louvier than that of the Bourse, and the acquaintance is not cordial.” “I did not mean at M. Louvier’s dinner, but at the Duchesse de Tarascon’s ball. You, as one of her special favourites, will doubtless honour her reunion.” “Yes; I have promised my daughter to go to the ball. But the Duchesse is Imperialist. M. de Mauleon seems to be either a Legitimist, according to Monsieur le Marquis, or an Orleanist, according to our friend De Breze.” “What of that? Can there be a more loyal Bourbonite than De Rochebriant?--and he goes to the ball. It is given out of the season, in celebration of a family marriage. And the Duchesse de Tarascon is connected with Alain, and therefore with De Mauleon, though but distantly.” “Ah! excuse my ignorance of genealogy.” “As if the genealogy of noble names were not the history of France,” muttered Alain, indignantly. CHAPTER II. Yes, the “Sens Commun” was a success: it had made a sensation at starting; the sensation was on the increase. It is difficult for an Englishman to comprehend the full influence of a successful journal at Paris; the station--political, literary, social--which it confers on the contributors who effect the success. M. Lebeau had shown much more sagacity in selecting Gustave Rameau for the nominal editor than Savarin supposed or my reader might detect. In the first place, Gustave himself, with all his defects of information and solidity of intellect, was not without real genius,--and a sort of genius that when kept in restraint, and its field confined to sentiment or sarcasm, was in unison with the temper of the day; in the second place, it was only through Gustave that Lebeau could have got at Savarin, and the names which that brilliant writer had secured at the outset would have sufficed to draw attention to the earliest numbers of the “Sens Commun,” despite a title which did not seem alluring. But these names alone could not have sufficed to circulate the new journal to the extent it had already reached. This was due to the curiosity excited by leading articles of a style new to the Parisian public, and of which the authorship defied conjecture. They were signed Pierre Firmin,--supposed to be a nom de plume, as, that name was utterly unknown in the world of letters. They affected the tone of an impartial observer; they neither espoused nor attacked any particular party; they laid down no abstract doctrines of government. But somehow