And taking his father's arm he went up the Boulevard with him. It was one of those clear, frosty nights when it is so agreeable to walk on the hard ground, in the icy atmosphere. Saccard remarked that Larsonneau was wrong, that it was preferable to be simply the d'Aurigny's comrade. He started from this point to declare that the love of these women was really pernicious. He showed himself moral, and hit upon sentences and advice of astonishing wisdom. "You see," said he to his son, "all that only lasts for a time, my good fellow. A man loses his health at it, and doesn't taste real happiness. You know that I'm not a puritan. All the same, I've had quite enough of it; I'm going to settle down." Maxime chuckled; he stopped his father and gazed at him by the moonlight, declaring that he had a fine head. But Saccard became still more grave. "Joke as much as you like. I repeat to you that there is nothing like married life to preserve a man and make him happy." Thereupon he spoke of Louise. And he began walking more slowly so as to settle that matter, he said, since they were talking of it. Everything was fully arranged. He even informed Maxime that he and Monsieur de Mareuil had fixed the signing of the contract for the Sunday following the Mid-Lent Thursday. On that Thursday there was to be a grand party at the mansion in the Parc Monceaux, and he could profit by the occasion to make a public announcement of the marriage. Maxime considered all this to be very satisfactory. He had rid himself of Renée, he saw no more obstacles, and he surrendered himself to his father, as he had surrendered himself to his stepmother. "Well, it's understood," said he. "Only don't talk about it to Renée. Her friends would twit and tease me, and I prefer that they should know the news at the same time as everyone else." Saccard promised him to keep silent. Then, as they approached the top of the Boulevard Malesherbes he again gave him a quantity of excellent advice. He told him how he ought to act to make his home a paradise. "Above everything never break off with your wife. It's folly. A wife with whom you no longer have connection costs you a fortune. In the first place a man has to pay some harlot, hasn't he? Then the expenditure is much greater at home: there are dresses, madame's private pleasures, her dear friends, the devil and all his train." He was in a moment of extraordinary virtue. The success of his Charonne affair had set idyllic tenderness in his heart.