“A fine street, but ‘triste’. If you have no longer your family hotel, you have no excuse to linger in that museum of mummies, the Faubourg St. Germain; you must go into one of the new quarters by the Champs Elysees. Leave it to me; I’ll find you a charming apartment. I know one to be had a bargain,--a bagatelle,--five hundred naps a-year. Cost you about two or three thousand more to furnish tolerably, not showily. Leave all to me. In three days you shall be settled. Apropos! horses! You must have English ones. How many?--three for the saddle, two for your ‘coupe’? I’ll find them for you. I will write to London to-morrow: Reese [Rice] is your man.” “Spare yourself that trouble, my dear Frederic. I keep no horses and no coupe. I shall not change my apartment.” As he said this, Rochebriant drew himself up somewhat haughtily. “Faith,” thought Lemercier, “is it possible that the Marquis is poor? No. I have always heard that the Rochebriants were among the greatest proprietors in Bretagne. Most likely, with all his innocence of the Faubourg St. Germain, he knows enough of it to be aware that I, Frederic Lemercier, am not the man to patronize one of its greatest nobles. ‘Sacre bleu!’ if I thought that; if he meant to give himself airs to me, his old college friend,--I would--I would call him out.” Just as M. Lemercier had come to that bellicose resolution, the Marquis said, with a smile which, though frank, was not without a certain grave melancholy in its expression, “My dear Frederic, pardon me if I seem to receive your friendly offers ungraciously. But I believe that I have reasons you will approve for leading at Paris a life which you certainly will not envy;” then, evidently desirous to change the subject, he said in a livelier tone, “But what a marvellous city this Paris of ours is! Remember I had never seen it before: it burst on me like a city in the Arabian Nights two weeks ago. And that which strikes me most--I say it with regret and a pang of conscience--is certainly not the Paris of former times, but that Paris which M. Buonaparte--I beg pardon, which the Emperor--has called up around him, and identified forever with his reign. It is what is new in Paris that strikes and enthrals me. Here I see the life of France, and I belong to her tombs!” “I don’t quite understand you,” said Lemercier. “If you think that because your father and grandfather were Legitimists, you have not the fair field of living ambition open to you under the Empire, you never were more mistaken. ‘Moyen age,’ and even rococo, are all the rage. You have no idea how valuable your name would be either at the Imperial Court or in a Commercial Company. But with your fortune you are independent of all but fashion and the Jockey Club.