Suppose that conjugal misfortune has fallen upon an epicure. He naturally demands the consolations which suit his taste. His sense of pleasure takes refuge in other gratifications, and forms other habits. You shape your life in accordance with the enjoyment of other sensations. One day, returning from your government office, after lingering for a long time before the rich and tasteful book shop of Chevet, hovering in suspense between the hundred francs of expense, and the joys of a Strasbourg _pate de fois gras_, you are struck dumb on finding this _pate_ proudly installed on the sideboard of your dining-room. Is this the vision offered by some gastronomic mirage? In this doubting mood you approach with firm step, for a _pate_ is a living creature, and seem to neigh as you scent afar off the truffles whose perfumes escape through the gilded enclosure. You stoop over it two distinct times; all the nerve centres of your palate have a soul; you taste the delights of a genuine feast, etc.; and during this ecstasy a feeling of remorse seizes upon you, and you go to your wife's room. "Really, my dear girl, we have not means which warrant our buying _pates_." "But it costs us nothing!" "Oh! ho!" "Yes, it is M. Achille's brother who sent it to him." You catch sight of M. Achille in a corner. The celibate greets you, he is radiant on seeing that you have accepted the _pate_. You look at your wife, who blushes; you stroke your beard a few times; and, as you express no thanks, the two lovers divine your acceptance of the compensation. A sudden change in the ministry takes place. A husband, who is Councillor of State, trembles for fear of being wiped from the roll, when the night before he had been made director-general; all the ministers are opposed to him and he has turned Constitutionalist. Foreseeing his disgrace he has betaken himself to Auteuil, in search of consolation from an old friend who quotes Horace and Tibullus to him. On returning home he sees the table laid as if to receive the most influential men of the assembly. "In truth, madame," he says with acrimony as he enters his wife's room, where she is finishing her toilette, "you seem to have lost your habitual tact. This is a nice time to be giving dinner parties! Twenty persons will soon learn--" "That you are director-general!" she cries, showing him a royal despatch. He is thunderstruck. He takes the letter, he turns it now one way, now another; he opens it. He sits down and spreads it out. "I well know," he says, "that justice would be rendered me under whatever ministers I served." "Yes, my dear! But M. Villeplaine has answered for you with his life, and his eminence the Cardinal de ----- of whom he is the--" "M. de Villeplaine?" This is such a munificent recompense, that the husband adds with the smile of a director-general: "Why, deuce take it, my dear, this is your doing!" "Ah! don't thank me for it; Adolphe did it from personal attachment to you."